"Discordant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in all its completeness it was hailed with a shout of exultation, and the people of Great Britain, moved far beyond their wont, sat themselves down to give thanks to their God, their Government, and their General. Suddenly, on the chorus of their rejoicing there broke a discordant note. They were confronted with the fact that a 'friendly Power' had, unprovoked, endeavoured to rob them of the fruits of their victories. They now realised that while they had been devoting themselves to great military operations, in broad daylight ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... connected with his dreams and with the soft sweet piping of the magpie crows, which were apparently practising their scales prior to joining in the morning outburst of song, while the great kingfishers—the laughing jackasses of the colonists—sat here and there uttering their discordant sounds, like coarse, harsh laughter, at ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... violent concussion and perturbation of the health of the whole body; but a defect discovers itself even when the body is in perfect health. But a disease of the mind is distinguishable only in thought from a sickness. But a viciousness is a habit or affection discordant and inconsistent with itself through life. Thus it happens that, in the one case, a disease and sickness may arise from a corruption of opinions; in the other case, the consequence may be inconstancy and inconsistency. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... him content with his work. For the ranger Nature plays her profoundest dramas—sometimes with the rush of winds, the crash of thunder; sometimes like this, in silence so deep that the act of breathing seems a harsh, discordant note. ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... sang warlike songs, with a voice rising from a lower to a higher key, which they call barritus,[194] and so encouraged themselves to gallant exertions. But the barbarians, with dissonant clamour, shouted out the praises of their ancestors, and amid their various discordant cries, tried occasional ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... that a factor of greatness in any field is the power to generalize, the ability to discover the principle underlying apparently discordant facts. Bronson Howard's plays are notable for their evidence of this power. He saw causes, tendencies, results. His plays are expositions of this chemistry. 'Shenandoah' dealt broadly with the forces and feelings behind the Civil ...
— The Autobiography of a Play - Papers on Play-Making, II • Bronson Howard
... "Rather discordant music," answered the minister; "but I think we may as well accept your invitation—don't you, wife?" and taking the children with them, they descended to the dining-room. Ranged round the long table were eight savages, and sitting back against the walls a few boarders,—for most of the ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... take in thought reconciles twenty seemingly discordant facts, as expressions of one law. Aristotle and Plato[701] are reckoned the respective heads of two schools. A wise man will see that Aristotle platonizes. By going one step farther back in thought, discordant opinions ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... after-school hour of practice, a small discordant crash broke suddenly in upon "Chaminade's Scarf Dance" and Mrs. Becker's rhythmic rocking above. Lilly had fainted, with her head in her arms and ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... Dunklee was familiarly known as Old Growly, for the reason that his voice was harsh and discordant, and sounded for all the world like the hoarse growling of an ill-natured bear. Abel was not a particularly irritable person, but his slavish devotion to money-getting, his indifference to the amenities of life, his entire neglect of the tender ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... no danger from being fired at by them. When he deemed it prudent, he released his hold upon her, and she, half running and being half carried, flew over the ground at a rate as astonishing to herself as it was to her pursuers. The latter kept up a series of yells and outcries, amid which the discordant screeches of Zeke Hunt, now Simon Girty, the renegade, could be plainly distinguished. Several furtive glances over the shoulder gave him glimpses of some eight or ten savages in pursuit, the renegade ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... straining eyes he watched the hand draw nearer and nearer. A minute more to go—half a minute. Now it pointed to the fateful twelve—and nothing happened. It crept slowly past. The crisis was over. He put down the watch with a deep sigh of relief, and then broke into a peal of laughter—discordant, jubilant, defiant. ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... 'free-will,' as commonly understood, derives its principal force. It is, as already hinted, indefinitely strengthened when extended to the race. Most of you have been forced to listen to the outcries and denunciations which rang discordant through the land for some years after the publication of Mr. Darwin's 'Origin of Species.' Well, the world—even the clerical world—for the most part settled down in the belief that Mr. Darwin's book simply reflects the truth of nature: that we who are now ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... him when, casting his eyes ahead, he perceived Sedgett among the tasteful groups—as discordant a figure as could well be seen, and clumsily aware of it, for he could neither step nor look like a man at ease. Algernon swung round and retraced his way; but ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... held over him, and felt the impact of the crowd of orchard-folk, that was mixed at random with the musicians. The latter, paying more attention to where they stepped than to their instruments, played a rather discordant march. Guns, meanwhile, continued to blaze away. The wild cheering for San Bernardo and his sisters went on; and, framed in a red nimbus of torch-light, greeted at every street-corner by a new fusillade, the image sailed along over that sea ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... good-naturedly, and once, this afternoon, he stood by the break of the poop and chatted with him for fully fifteen minutes. When it was over, and Mugridge was back in the galley, he became greasily radiant, and went about his work, humming coster songs in a nerve-racking and discordant falsetto. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... scraper making a discordant sound with his violin, a friend observed, "If your instrument could speak, it would address you in the words of Hamlet: "Though you can fret me, you cannot ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... couple of hours, and not a sound could be heard but the tread and the clank of the count's heavy spurred boots upon the flags. I remember well that a crow, no doubt driven by a gust of wind, came flapping its wings against the window-panes, uttering a discordant shriek, and how the sheets of snow fell from the windows, and the windows suddenly changed ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... a war between independent nations, there is no authorized organization for us to treat with. No one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin with and mould from disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment, that we, the loyal people, differ amongst ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruction. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... catch the reply of the horseman to the questioners at "Sudstown," but in an instant an Irish wail burst upon the ear, and, just as one coyote will start a whole pack, just as one midnight bray will set in discordant chorus a whole "corral" of mules, so did that one wail of mourning call forth an echoing "keen" from every Hibernian hovel in all the little settlement, and in an instant the ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... self-control was fast leaving him, and having bowed a rather abrupt farewell to the doctor, he was not long in reaching one of his haunts, from which during the evening, and quite late into the night, came repeated peals of laughter, that grew more boisterous and discordant as that synonyme of mental and moral anarchy, the "spirit of wine," ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Cloddagh are an unlettered race. They rarely speak English, and even their Irish they pronounce in a harsh, discordant tone, sometimes not intelligible to the townspeople. They are a contented, happy race, satisfied with their own society, and seldom ambitious of that of others. Strangers (for whom they have an utter aversion) are never suffered to reside among ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... parrots, the hissing of the frilled lizard, and the buzzing of innumerable insects hidden under the dense undergrowth. And then at night, the melancholy wailing of the curlews, the dismal howling of dingoes, the discordant croaking of tree-frogs, might well shake the nerves of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... quietly talking about Yegor, Sashenka appeared, strangely brimming over with good spirits, her cheeks brilliantly red, her eyes beaming happily. She seemed to be filled with some joyous hope. Her animation contrasted sharply with the mournful gloom of the others. The discordant note disturbed them and dazzled them like a fire that suddenly flashes in the darkness. Nikolay thoughtfully struck his fingers on the table and ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... more cynical and dissatisfied than usual, Honor thought. His strong jaw and irregular features hid his thoughts, but not their reflection which showed a mental unrest. He was clearly not a happy man, and was plainly a discordant element in light-hearted company. "A real wet blanket," Tommy whispered in her ear. "If one makes a joke he either doesn't hear it, or thinks it not worth laughing at. Something has turned him sour, so he hates ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... think that the general English feeling on the American question was as follows: "This wide-spread nationality of the United States, with its enormous territorial possessions and increasing population, has fallen asunder, torn to pieces by the weight of its own discordant parts—as a congregation when its size has become unwieldy will separate, and reform itself into two wholesome wholes. It is well that this should be so, for the people are not homogeneous, as a people should be who are called to live together as one nation. They have attempted to combine ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... mingling with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels sounding the alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in defense of the hive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of throbbing activity, like the sound of boiling water, but diverse discordant sounds of disorder. In and out of the hive long black robber bees smeared with honey fly timidly and shiftily. They do not sting, but crawl away from danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew into the hive, and they flew out empty; now they fly ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... much below the cocks and hens; although they flock together, their sympathies do not seem quick; their cries and calls do not number a fifth part of those which we hear from our chickens, and their notes are prevailingly very discordant. Their cry of defiance, answering to the crow of the cock, is one of the rudest and least sympathetic sounds which is heard among the birds. Its only merit is that it can be heard very far. It is readily audible at the distance of a mile when ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... I've found The men you wanted. They will all be there, And at the given signal raise a whirlwind Of such discordant noises, that the dance Must cease for ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... activity in his commentaries, in which one seems to feel his passionate love of the law of God and his lively desire to render the understanding of it easy to his people. Yet it is true that all scholars did not share in the general admiration of Rashi, and discordant notes may be heard in the ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... have, and eight miles of Lee way still to do!" He laughed at his own pun, and pricked up the horse. Just as the weary animal broke into a trot, the rider pulled rein once more and looked up at a signboard which had attracted his notice by giving a discordant creak as the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... reigned in the little clearing, except as it was broken by the discordant notes of brilliantly feathered parrots, or the screeching and twittering of the thousand jungle birds flitting ceaselessly amongst the vivid orchids and flamboyant blossoms which festooned the myriad, moss-covered branches ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... power, to which I would exclusively appropriate the name of Imagination. This power, first put in action by the will and understanding, and retained under their irremissive, though gentle and unnoticed, control, laxis effertur habenis, reveals "itself in the balance or reconcilement of opposite or discordant" qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general with the concrete; the idea with the image; the individual with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness with old and familiar objects; a more than usual state of ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... heard a discordant laugh, and, guided by the sound, looked up to see that it proceeded from a green parrot in a cage ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... impulse, he turned and walked swiftly with long impatient strides through the more populated quarters of Rome towards the Corso, and he had not proceeded very far in this direction before he heard a frenzied and discordant shouting which, though he knew it did not yet bear the truth in its harsh refrain, yet staggered him and made his heart almost stand still with an ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... but burned," muttered he stooping to examine the match, and thrusting a fallen log back into the fire with his boot. But in that very instant upon the intense stillness of the night burst suddenly a discordant clamor, a confusion of horrible and unknown sounds, unlike, in simple Edward Dotey's mind, to anything possible this side of hell. Undaunted even thus, he answered the assault with a yell of quivering defiance, fired his matchlock into the air, and shouted ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... has been unanimous in its condemnation of the cat as part of nature's chorus. Poems have been written in praise of the corncrake as a singer, but never of the cat. All the associations we have with cats have not accustomed us to that discordant howl. It converts love itself into a torment such as can be found only in the pages of a twentieth-century novel. In it we hear the jungle decadent—the beast in dissolution, but not yet civilised. When it rises at night outside the window, we always explain to visitors: ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... with their exuberant Gothic rose the second storey of Greco-Romano and almost modern construction, causing Gabriel the same annoyance as would a discordant trumpet interrupting a symphony. Jesus and the twelve apostles, all life size, seated at the table, each under his own canopied niche, could be seen above the central porch, shut in by the two tower-like buttresses ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... may behold in its simplest form the genius of Commerce at the work of Civilization. Trade is the magic that keeps all at peace, and unites these discordant elements into a well-behaved community. All are traders, and know that peace and order are essential to successful trade, and thus a public opinion is created which puts down all lawlessness. Often in former year, when strolling along the Campong Glam in Singapore, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... we shall perceive new aspects of the divine character. New doors may be opened in our souls, from out of which we may pass to touch parts of His nature, all impalpable and inconceivable to us now. And when all the veils of a discordant moral nature are taken away, and we are pure, then we shall see, then we shall draw nigh to God. The thing that chiefly separates man from God is man's sin. When that is removed, the centrifugal force which kept our tiny orb apart from the great central ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... at their backs The ancient Danish battle-axe. They raised a wild and wondering cry As with his guide rode Marmion by. Loud were their clamouring tongues, as when The clanging sea-fowl leave the fen, And, with their cries discordant mix'd, Grumbled and ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... aroused until ten. When they awoke and saw the time, they would jump out of bed, hurriedly dress and dash off like a shot, cursing the landlady. Then, when the feminine element of the house gave signs of life, every nook would echo with cries, discordant voices, conversations shouted from one bedchamber to another, and out of the rooms, their hands armed with the night-service, would come the landlady, one of Dona Violante's daughters, a tall, obese Biscayan Lady, and another woman ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... were cleverly killed and, prepared in a certain way, made very acceptable water-game. Amongst large-winged birds, carried a long distance from all lands and resting upon the waves from the fatigue of their flight, I saw some magnificent albatrosses, uttering discordant cries like the braying of an ass, and birds belonging to the family of ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... eggs. We found plenty there and collected as many as we required. On returning to the empty nests, the birds would first of all peer round to assure themselves that the eggs were really missing, and then throw their heads back, swaying them from side to side to the accompaniment of loud, discordant cries. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... them over the side. They talked to each other across the theatre, and shared their oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them. Some women were laughing in the pit. Their voices were horribly shrill and discordant. The sound of the popping of corks ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, says, "It was no easy task to reconcile the local interests and discordant prepossessions of different sections of the United States, but it was accomplished by acts of concession." Madison says, "Mutual deference and concession were absolutely necessary," and that the Southern States never would have entered the Union, without concession as to slave property. And ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... native shores. This, being a negative proposition, is not capable of direct proof. Michael Kelly gives an amusing account of the performance of the celebrated hunting song at Vienna, in which the discordant cries of "Tally-ho, Tally-ho," are said to have driven the Emperor in indignation from the theatre, a great part of the audience also following the royal example. "The ladies hid their faces with the hands, and mothers were heard cautioning daughters never ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Gerry, of Massachusetts, at first exclaimed against it with evident horror, but at last, he was chairman of the committee of compromise. Even the slave States themselves, seem to have been a little embarrassed with the discordant element. A curious proof of this is given in the language of the Constitution. The ugly feature is covered as cautiously as the deformed visage of the Veiled Prophet. The words are as follows: "Representatives and direct ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... sent forth such a melody of joyous music that it echoed thrilling through the hot discordant notes of the world beyond the sunset; and for a moment a chord of harmony ran ...
— The Strange Little Girl - A Story for Children • V. M.
... he is too miserable for any comfort to reach him. I am alone, and a widow, and in a foreign land; my health weak, my nerves irritable, and having neither wealth nor rank; forced to receive obligations painful and discordant with my former habits and prejudices, and often meeting with impertinence from those who take advantage of my solitary situation: but I am nevertheless sure that I have more half-hours, I dare not say hours, of true enjoyment, and fewer days of real misery, than half of ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... with a sinking of the heart. She had never been in any room like this before, and its lack of comfort, its vulgarity, struck upon her strained nerves like a loud discordant note in music; but its owner looked round complacently and turned the gas a ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... one discordant note in the full chorus of confidence. It recurred again and again. 'Where is Buller?' 'When is Buller coming?' These merry fellows were not ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... at the Theatre Royal, last night. In order to test 'Blind Tom's' powers of memory, Mr. Joule gave a short impromptu, avoiding any marked rhythm or subject, but which was imitated very cleverly. To test his powers of analyzing chords, Mr. Joule played him the following discordant combinations: the chord of B flat in the left hand, with the chord of A with the flat fifth and sharp sixth in right hand; the chord of E in the left hand, and the chord of D, two sharps, in the right; ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... several decades in the manufacturing sections before the enterprising industrialist discovered that the railroad might not only build up his business but also destroy it. From these discoveries arose all those discordant cries of "extortion," "rebate," "competition," "long haul and short haul," "regulation," and "government ownership," which have given railroad literature a vocabulary all its own and have written new chapters in the science of economics. The storm center of all this agitation ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... are met at every step. There has been, in times past, little or no concert of action among astronomers at different observatories. The astronomers of each nation, perhaps of each observatory, to a large extent, have gone to work in their own way, using discordant data, perhaps not always rigidly consistent, even in the data used in a single establishment. How combine all the astronomical observations, found scattered through hundreds of ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... invasion, but now of Teutonic or German race. The kings and their followers had come from the northwestern portions of Germany. How far they had destroyed the earlier inhabitants, how far they had simply combined with them or enslaved them, has been a matter of much debate, and one on which discordant opinions are held, even by recent students. It seems likely on the whole that the earlier races, weakened by defeat and by the disappearance of the Roman control, were gradually absorbed and merged into the body ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... could not speak, and was trembling. He had not the courage to untie the cloths, for he knew there was nothing underneath but clay, and his manner was so strange that the charwoman was frightened. He stood like one dazed by a dream. He could not believe in reality, it was too mad, too discordant, too much like a nightmare. He had only finished the ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... us, not by the speeches we deliver, nor the sermons we preach, nor the books we write, but by the tones of our voices, and the letters we pen, and the words we use in daily life. Introduce kindness into a discordant family and how Eden-like the home becomes! Why are we not as considerate and polite to those who are all the world to us as we are to strangers and neighbors? Christlike kindness would fill our hearts with thoughtfulness for those about us. It would bid us carry a torch to ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... enthusiastic David with little remarks, each skillfully discordant with the rising sentiment. Was he droll, Talboys did a bit of polite gravity on him; was he warm in praise of some gallant action, chill irony trickled on him ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... many good deeds. But here is the type of man that has wrought havoc among the helpless insane. And the owner represented a type that has too long profited through the misfortunes of others. "Pay the price or put your relative in a public institution!" is the burden of his discordant song before commitment. "Pay or get out!" is his jarring refrain when satisfied that the family's resources are exhausted. I later learned that this grasping owner had bragged of making a profit of $98,000 in a single year. About twenty years later he left an estate of approximately ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... ceased their clamor and settled themselves for the night. The jungle din, too, seemed to diminish, though perhaps this was because the ears of the men had become accustomed to it. At length through the discordant symphony ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... me to be pleased, or whether the chanting was not this day, or at this synagogue, as fine as usual, it certainly did not answer my expectations. However pleasing it might be to other ears, to mine it was discordant; and I was afraid that Mr. Montenero should perceive this. I saw that he observed me from time to time attentively, and I thought he wanted to discover whether there was within me any remains of my old antipathies. Upon this ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... allow a large element of mystery in his character which will never be eliminated, yet as we return time after time to gaze upon the picture of his life, as a whole, and in its details, the seemingly discordant items begin quietly to drop into their places one after another, and to exhibit unnoticed connections; and the idea of his distinctive personality begins to shape itself into a ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... expression, careless of the play, constantly on the alert for the bell to ring him to his duty among the ropes. And amid the close air and the shuffling of feet and the sound of whispering, the voices of the actors on the stage sounded strange, deadened, surprisingly discordant. Farther off again, above the confused noises of the band, a vast breathing sound was audible. It was the breath of the house, which sometimes swelled up till it burst in vague rumors, in laughter, in applause. Though invisible, the presence of the ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... A discordant note, too, was sounded by the South; Alabama, a state that they considered sure, although by a small majority, would go for the other man if the returns continued of the same tone. The only ray of light came from New England, whence it had ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... seventh of these classes, respectively, have a clear significance on the hypothesis of evolution, while they are unintelligible if that hypothesis be denied. And those of the eighth group are not only unintelligible without the assumption of evolution, but can be proved never to be discordant with that hypothesis, while, in some cases, they are exactly such as the hypothesis requires. The demonstration of these assertions would require a volume, but the general nature of the evidence on which they rest ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... illustration of the songs used at this period of the illness, the following is presented, the mnemonic characters being reproduced on Pl. XVI, C. The singing is monotonous and doleful, though at times it becomes animated and discordant. ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... sharp, discordant scream Fills mortal sense with dread; More sorrowful it scarce could seem; It ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... that I know the truth I must decide what is best to do," she thought quite calmly. "As soon as this noise stops I must think it all over and decide what is best to do." But around this one lucid idea the discordant roar of the streets seemed to gather force until it raged with the violence of a storm. It was impossible to think clearly until this noise, which, in some strange way, was both in the street outside and within the secret chambers of her soul, had subsided and given place ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... and other musicians at the Paris Exposition. But, however void of beauty and expression any national music is to us, it is certainly felt to possess these qualities by the people to whom it belongs; and it is very likely that our music would seem to them just as unintelligible and discordant. When the French missionary Amiot played some of Boildieu's and Rossini's melodies to a Chinese mandarin he said, with a polite shake of the head, "They are sadly devoid of meaning and expression, while the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... The discordant minstrelsy of every kind renewed its din; the boys shrieked and howled, and the men laughed and hallooed, and the women giggled and screamed, and the beasts roared, and the dragon wallopped and hissed, and the hobby-horse neighed, pranced, and capered, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... amid all this pomp and play of sun and of summer, what is this dash of blue that makes a strange, though not a discordant, note in our harmony of gold and green? And what is that round, whitish object which is bobbing up and down with such singular energy? Why, the blue is Hildegarde's dress, if you must know; and the whitish ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... Minto puts it, wrote largely for the court circle. His verses were first read in tapestried chambers, and to the gracious ear of stately lords and ladies. It was because he wrote for such an audience that he avoids the introduction of any discordant element in the shape of the deeper and darker social problems of the time. The same reticence occurs in Horace, writing as he did for the ear of Augustus and Maecenas, and of the fashionable circle thronging the great palace of his patron on the Esquiline. ...
— English Satires • Various
... rank, influence, abilities, connections, and character of the ministers of the crown. By means of a discipline, on which I shall say more hereafter, that body was to be habituated to the most opposite interests, and the most discordant politics. All connections and dependencies among subjects were to be entirely dissolved. As, hitherto, business had gone through the hands of leaders of Whigs or Tories, men of talents to conciliate the people, and to engage their confidence; now the method was to be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... golden pavement, no hungry ones there, no hot burning sun, no cold frost or snow. No sickness there, and no death, no funerals in heaven, no graves in the golden city. Perfect love there, no more quarreling or strife, no angry tones or discordant murmurs, no rude, rough voices to disturb the peace. And all this for ever and ever, no dread of it coming to an end, no gloomy fears for the future, no partings there, no good-byes. Once there, safe for ever. At ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... Amsterdam was then the most opulent and influential commercial town in Europe. It contained a population of two hundred thousand sagacious, energetic, thrifty people. As is invariably the case in days of disaster, there were discordant counsels and angry divisions among the bewildered defenders of the imperiled realm. Some were for fiercely pressing the war, others ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... implies, are established, force does not cease to exist: on the contrary, it is enormously increased in efficacy; but it works regularly and is distributed harmoniously and systematically instead of appearing in the chaotic clashing of countless discordant fragments. The argument, which is as clear as Euclid in the case of marriage, is valid universally. Society must be indissoluble; and to be indissoluble must recognise a single ultimate authority in all disputes. Peace and order mean subordination ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... were at the end of a deserted alley, but the roar of voices came from a distance; then the sudden rattle of musketry, the harsh and discordant ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... it was but slowly and with much trouble that it succeeded in freeing itself from feudalism. Nothing could be more strangely troubled than the West at the time of the dissolution of the Empire of the Caesars; nothing more diverse or more discordant than the interests, the institutions, and the state of society, which were delivered to the Germans (Figs. 1 and 2). In fact, it would be impossible in the whole pages of history to find a society formed of more ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... state drum, borne upon an elephant, was then heard like the distant discharge of artillery, followed by a long roll of musketry, and was instantly answered by that of numerous trumpets and tom-toms, (or common drums,) making a discordant, but yet a martial din. The noise increased as the procession traversed the outer courts of the palace in succession, and at length issued from the gates, having at their head the Chobdars, bearing silver sticks and clubs, and shouting, at the pitch ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... Discordant views prevailed amongst the Zurichers. Yet the majority were won over by this true-hearted, patriotic speech. After a short deliberation, the leaders declared themselves ready to halt, and a courier was dispatched ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union: on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent: on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... her hair was so compelling that he started back, shaken; a new discordant tumult rose within him, out of which emerged an aching hunger for Rosemary Roselle; he wanted her with a passion cold and numbing like ether. He wanted her without reason, and in the desire lost his deep caution, his rectitude ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... The whizzing rush and discordant scream of the electric trams, the sun warm upon his face, aroused Emile from a restless, fitful sleep of a few hours. The street cries had begun to swell into a volume of sound, and at the earliest dawn the whole place teemed with stir ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... to express a sentiment which I feel strongly, I find the phrase in Shakespeare—or thee."[253] On another day he compared Burns with Shakspere as excelling all other poets in "the power of exciting the most varied and discordant emotions with such rapid transitions."[254] Again, "The Jolly Beggars, for humorous description and nice discrimination of character, is inferior to no poem of the same length in the whole range of English poetry."[255] ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... pots in various stages of dilapidation, each one emitting a different hollow note, are spread around him, and there he lies the day through till nightfall, eating the meals that are brought him, humming a tune between them to pass away the time; but ceaselessly beating a discordant dominant upon his sounding drums of tin. This is Cailsham in the spring. Cailsham at any time is more the country that surrounds it. All its colours, all its life, all its interests, it takes from those great, wide gardens of fruit as they break ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... no place: That creeping pestilence is driven away; The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart No passion touches a discordant string, But all is harmony and love. Disease Is not: the pure and uncontaminate blood Holds its due course, nor fears the frost ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... in mockery at his words, the long, even reverberations changed to a quick, harsh, discordant clatter ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... intoxicating drinks. But they had been oppressed and exasperated by the impositions of corrupt officers until forbearance, with them, had ceased to be a a virtue. On their side was the spirit of liberty, animating the discordant multitude, but, unfortunately, without trained leaders, or a sufficiency of arms, going forth to make its first essay at battle on American soil. Redress of grievances was sought at first by the Regulators in a quiet way, by resorting to the courts of law. The officers were indicted ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... certain vibration down both sides of the table, a movement unanimous, yet discordant, as if the nerves of this social body that was "Mrs. Downey's" were being played upon every way at once. Each boarder seemed to be preparing for an experience that, whether agreeable or otherwise, would be disturbing to the last degree. The birds ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... foreign air, "but I have never seen anything so picturesque as this boat. Look at the variegated colors and styles of these costumes, at the manifold types of countenance, at the blending of races—black and white and red! Listen to the discordant but altogether charming sounds, the ringing of the great bell, the roar of the whistle, the splash of the paddlewheels, the songs of the negroes, and the clatter of dishes in the cabins! It is a hurly-burly of noise! ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... travellers now within that valley Through the red-litten windows, see Vast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody; While, like a rapid, ghastly river, Through the pale door, A hideous throng rush out forever And laugh—but ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... mill-wheels and bubbling springs, have on the nerves of happy people. But two of us were not happy. I was sure enough of myself, for one. I was worse than sure,—I was wretchedly anxious about Phillis. Ever since that day of the thunderstorm there had been a new, sharp, discordant sound to me in her voice, a sort of jangle in her tone; and her restless eyes had no quietness in them; and her colour came and went without a cause that I could find out. The minister, happy in ignorance of what most concerned him, brought out his books; his learned ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... whispering among the maids, directed at the demure black-eyed Madelon, of the still- room. This may have been a reason why Saint George stumbled so desperately over his rather long speech. His challenge was at last finished, and then was heard a discordant clashing of tambourines and horse-bells, supposed to indicate Saracen music. In cantered a turbaned Turk on another hobby,— black this time—and in another long speech very smoothly delivered defied the saint to mortal combat. There was more tittering, for Tom ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... which much disappointed their expectations, on account of the shallowness of its channel. The river, however, was then at a low ebb; its banks were marshy, and its waters moved slowly and silently between forests of mangrove trees. The air was filled with the discordant croak of innumerable parrots, diversified somewhat by the notes of a few singing birds. As they proceeded, the river, instead of diminishing, seemed to increase in volume. At Embomma, much interest was excited ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... the writer's mind, is a study of singular interest. It is a chaos before the creative epoch; the light has not been divided from the darkness; the firmament has not yet divided the waters from the waters. The forces at work in a human intelligence to bring harmony out of its discordant movements are as mysterious, as miraculous, we might truly say, as those which give shape and order to the confused materials out of which habitable worlds are evolved. It is too late now to be sensitive over this unsuccessful ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... which this continent was first peopled, still however, as many men eminent for learning and piety have devoted much labor and time to the investigation of the subject, it may afford satisfaction to the curious to see some of those speculations recorded. Discordant as they are in many respects, there is nevertheless one fact as to the truth of which they are nearly all agreed; Mr. Jefferson is perhaps the only one, of those who have written on the subject, who seems to discredit the assertion that America ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... selected as being in all respects the diametrical reverse of Mr. Falkland. He was not precisely a lad of vicious propensities, but in an inconceivable degree boorish and uncouth. His complexion was scarcely human; his features were coarse, and strangely discordant and disjointed from each other. His lips were thick, and the tone of his voice broad and unmodulated. His legs were of equal size from one end to the other, and his feet misshapen and clumsy. He had nothing spiteful or ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... connection with this part of the subject, I shall wait to see if the Professor adopts Thomson's theory. You are acquainted with Thomson's theory? No? Let me put it briefly. Mere heterogeneity, together with gravitation, is sufficient to explain all the apparently discordant laws of molecular action. You understand? Very well. If the Professor passes over Thomson, then, I rise in the body of the Hall, and take my stand—follow me again!—on ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... thicket where his machine lay hidden it was a mile to Prezelay. He dragged himself over this distance, sometimes on his hands and knees. Soon after dawn Marie-Jeanne, answering a discordant ringing, found a man lying outside the gate and babbling deliriously, her master's cousin, in a blood-soaked uniform, holding out a bundle of papers, and begging her by the soul of her mother to put them in the ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... was bewitching, while recalling to Des Esseintes the repellant rigidity of the model he had followed and yet transformed. The ceiling, in turn, was hung with white, unbleached cloth, in imitation of plaster, but without its discordant brightness. As for the cold pavement of the cell, he was able to copy it, by means of a bit of rug designed in red squares, with whitish spots in the weave to imitate the wear of sandals ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... thanks till their next meeting, which she believed would not long be delayed. The following Saturday (she had seen nothing of Perigal in the meantime) she called on Mrs. Trivett at Pennington Farm. The farmyard, with its poultry, the old-world garden in which the house was situated, the discordant shrieks which the geese raised at her coming, took the girl's fancy. While waiting for the door to be opened, she was much amused at the inquisitive way in which the geese craned their heads through the palings in order ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... passer-by, presented a pitiful spectacle. It would be impossible to see beings more in harmony with, or better suited to the fissures of that sepulchre in which a city was not only buried but gone to decay. As our travellers approached the town, a discordant peal of bells gave token, with their expressive sound, that that mummy had ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... small band of heroes, to follow him against the hordes of Stamford Street. They only awaited his signal. Paul tasted a joy known but to few of the sons of men-absolute power over, and supreme contempt for, his fellows. He stood for a moment or two, in the grey, miserable street discordant with the wailings of babies and the clamour of futile little girls, who, after the manner of women, had no idea of political crisis, and the shrill objurgations of slattern mothers and the raucous cries of an idealist vendor of hyacinths, and, cocked hat on head and ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... from this same combination of these two apparently discordant emotions in our Lord, the lesson of what it is in men that makes them the true subjects of pity? Ay, these scribes and Pharisees had very little notion that there was anything about them to compassionate. But the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... decisions of the general Chapter of the Trappists assembled in Rome, and ordered the fusion into one sole order, and under the direction of a sole superior, of the three observances of the Trappists, who were in fact ruled by discordant constitutions." ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... the third Republic, is chilling to the spectator. Swept and garnished, it has no warmth of historical or religious associations; it is devoid of human sentiment. The choice of painters to decorate the interior was an amazing act of official insensibility. The most discordant artistic temperaments were let loose on the devoted building. Puvis de Chavannes, the only painter among them who has grasped the limitation of mural art, has painted with restraint and noble simplicity incidents in the story of St. Genevieve. Jean Paul Laurens ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... novelty even to the river people; and each afternoon of her starting, crowds came aboard to bid farewell to friends and roam over the vessel, or collected on the bluffs above to see her swing out to the shrill notes of her "calliope," the best and least discordant on the river. A few evenings before we left, a large party had collected in honor of General Earl Van Dorn. He had recently resigned; and the commission as colonel of the only regiment of regular cavalry in the Confederacy was tendered him. Now, on the eve of departure for his ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... doorway, at the north end of the court, is by Arthur F. Mathews, and is far superior to the other two, though unfortunately placed in a dark spot. It is called by the artist A Victorious Spirit. The central figure, gorgeously suggesting the Spirit of Enlightment, protects Youth from the discordant elements of life from materialism and brute force, as represented by the rearing horse and militant rider. Youth is attended by the peace-bringing elements of life, by Religion, Philosophy or Education, and the ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... used in the work were still on the floor. The walls were bare but smoothly dressed. Altogether the interest here lay in expectation of what was to come; and possibly it was that which made the countenance of the master look so grave and absorbed. He certainly was not listening to the discordant echoes roused as ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... resting-place of many friends of their father, it was full of interest to them. Many of the people who had come—from a distance stayed also, and seated themselves, in small parties, here and there among the grave-stones; but not a loud or discordant voice arose to break the silence ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... wind in the world,—yea, even the breath of that old AEolus—Scandal! Well, then, I had money—no matter how I came by it—and health, and gaiety; and I was well received in the coteries that exist in all capitals, but mostly in France, where pleasure is the cement that joins many discordant atoms. Here, I say, I met Mary and her daughter, by my old friend—the daughter, still innocent, but, sacra! in what an element of vice! We knew each other's secrets, Mary and I, and kept them: she thought ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... famous as the poem which announced that a successor to Chaucer had at last appeared in England. It is an amateurish work in which Spenser tried various meters; and to analyze it is to discover two discordant elements, which we may call fashionable poetry and puritanic preaching. Let us understand these elements clearly, for apart from them the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the sun rose higher, the voices of the arboreal jungle life rose in discordant notes and loud chattering about them. Innumerable monkeys scolded and screamed in the branches overhead, while harsh-voiced birds of brilliant plumage darted hither and thither. She noticed presently ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... doubting not he would perform some crazy trick to offset any good he might endeavor. I could scarce restrain a smile as the two actors faced each other, marking the look of undisguised horror on his leathern face, and how he shrank back as her hand extended to touch him. The wild, discordant cries of the grouped savages ceased in wonderment at this unanticipated scene; even the perpetual incantations of the priests died away, every eye gazing curiously on the strange spectacle. The Puritan had appropriated ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish |
