"Key" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now, he drew back the heavy bolts, and turned the huge, rusty key in the lock, and threw open one side ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... He had come to his tenement home in Cherry Street, just below Franklin Square, to partake of his noonday meal. He had climbed five flights of tenement-house stairs, equal to about thirty flights of civilized stairs, and procuring the key of his mother's room from Mrs. Maguinness, who lived in the third room beyond, where it was always left when Mrs. Biggs went out to get her papers, he had entered within the four walls that he ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... obligation, which you might have known but for that superfluous cunning which you think an elegance. Oh! never be seduced by such silly pretences," continued he; "if a wench wants a good gown, do not give her a fine smelling-bottle, because that is more delicate: as I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor scribbling dependant, as if she took the woman for an ostrich that could digest iron." He said, indeed, "that women were very difficult to be taught the proper manner of conferring pecuniary favours; that they always gave too much money or too ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... something like terror, by a little incident which occurred on the way:—in one of the galleries, through which they passed, a man was standing at the further end: he was apparently in the act of admitting himself into a bedroom: but something, which embarrassed him about the lock or the key, detained him until they advanced near enough to throw the light of a candle full upon his profile. It was the profile of a face tanned into a gypsey complexion, and for so young a face—weather-beaten, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... few moments, pro-cipitate themselves downwards with amazing violence in a wild zigzag, opening and shutting the long tail-feathers like a pair of shears, and producing loud whirring sounds, as of clocks being wound rapidly up, with a slight pause after each turn of the key. This aerial dance over, they alight in separate couples on the tree tops, each couple joining in a kind of duet ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... the travellers to Emmaus, and many another interrogation from God, it is also put in order to allow of the loaded heart's relieving itself by pouring out all its griefs. God's questions are the assurance of His listening ear and sympathising heart. This one is like a little key which opens a great sluice. Out gushes a full stream. His forty days' solitude have done little for him. A true answer would have been, 'I was afraid of Jezebel.' He takes credit for zeal, and seems to insinuate ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Matt. 16:19. "I will give thee the keys," etc. "Don't lose your key. If you lose your key you can't get home. Not take care [i. e. carelessly] I lost my key for P. O. box. Had to ask for another. Have great trouble for lose your key, but if you do, ask your Father in ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various
... have heard their cries from cotton, corn and rice plantations, saying, how long before thou wilt come to deliver us from this chain?" and the Lord said to them, "Wait, I will send you John Brown who shall be the key to the door of your liberty, and I will harden the heart of Jefferson Davis, your devil, that I may show him and his followers my power; then shall I send you Abraham Lincoln, mine angel, who shall lead you from ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... again, and spoke for some minutes on end, in a key so loud that he might have been heard in every corner of the pavilion, and as far away as the borders of the wood. It was the same voice that had already shouted, "Traditore!" through the shutters of the dining-room; this time it made a complete and clear statement. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... then the key to all morality and all sound practical wisdom is just to conserve at all costs our chance of knowing love—love ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... HOUSEKEEPER, and presides over the housekeeper's room; which has a Brussels carpet and centre table, with one side entirely occupied by the linen presses, of which my maid (my vice-regent, only MUCH greater than me) keeps the key and dispenses every towel, even for the kitchen. She keeps lists of everything and would feel bound to replace anything missing. I shall make you laugh and Mrs. Goodwin stare, by some of my housekeeping ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... a quick jerk, he awaited, impatiently, an answer to his summons, for the space of about a minute, when he pulled the cord again with a stronger hand. Only a few moments more elapsed, when the key was turned in the ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... science, their history, and their philosophy were thus concealed beneath an impenetrable veil from all the profane, and only the few who had passed through the severe ordeal of initiation were put in possession of the key which enabled them to decipher and read with ease those mystic lessons which we still see engraved upon the obelisks, the tombs, and the sarcophagi, which lie scattered, at this day, in endless profusion along ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... imagination. A Virginian king, when the Europeans had fixed a lock on his door, was so delighted to find his subjects admitted or excluded with such facility, that it was from morning to evening his whole employment to turn the key. We, among whom locks and keys have been longer in use, are inclined to laugh at this American amusement; yet I doubt whether this paper will have a single reader that may not apply the story to himself, and recollect some hours of his life in which he has been equally overpowered ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... and plans. Land records have been carefully scrutinized and old existing landmarks studied. Seventeenth-century buildings and objects still surviving in England, America, and elsewhere have been viewed as well as museum collections. A key part of the search has been the systematic excavation of the townsite itself, in order to bring to light the information and objects long buried there. This is the aspect of the broad Jamestown study that ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... down in Washington, somehow or other, someone resurrected an old, large heavy iron key and this, inserted into an ancient rusty lock, had opened some long forgotten door in one of the Government arsenals. There were revealed old dust-covered bundles wrapped up in newspapers, yellow with age, and when these wrappings of the past were removed, ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... wonderfully does the portrait reveal the inner life—the placid amiability of one, the quiet humor of another, the keen, incisive insight of a third. That they are all men of sound judgment we may well believe, and they are plainly men to be trusted. The motto of the guild is a key to their character: "Conform to your vows in all matters clearly within their jurisdiction; live honestly; be not influenced in your judgments by favor, hatred, or personal interest." These principles are at the foundation of the ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... all." Accordingly, when Saturday came I commenced operations; but, after removing the bed and mattress I discovered, to my great concern, that, although the bedstead would stand as I wished, yet I could not turn it thither without first taking it apart; and for this a bed-key was necessary. "Well," thought I, "it is worth the trouble;" so I procured a bed-key; and at length—at length—two of the screws yielded to my efforts. The others, however, would not yield. I tried and tried, but without avail; and, wearied and disappointed, ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... reflecting as much of it as possible. To this end, their work was always calculated for its best effects to be seen at a fairly distant point of view; and to make sure that it would be both visible and coherent, seen from that point, they insisted upon some easily understood pattern which gave the key to the whole at a glance. To make a pattern of this kind is not such an easy matter as it looks. The forms of the background spaces are the complementary parts of the design, and are just as important as those of the solid ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... look like the key to salvation? Does it not open the door to a view of eternal life and blessedness? Our Lord says: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." When any one gives his heart to God in love like this, I think he is in a saved state. And is it not a ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... by the sudden opening of the door. An exclamation of surprise burst from the whole party as they sprang up, for Gascoyne strode into the room, locked the door, and taking out the key handed it to Henry, who stood staring at him in ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... scholars of France at work to publish in massive folios the wonders of that most ancient land. Then was found the Rosetta Stone, with its inscription in two languages,—Greek, which any scholar could read, and the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which no living man could read. But here was the key. The words Ptolemy and Cleopatra were in the Greek text, and it was not hard to find what were the combinations of characters that stood for these words in the Egyptian. The letters p, t, and l were in both names. The hieroglyphic signs found in both names ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... in truth, debated. But in face of them, and remembering how the sculptors and glass-painters of the Middle Age constantly represented the souls of the dead as tiny bodies, one can hardly doubt as to the meaning of these particular details which, repeated on every side, seem to give the key-note of the whole composition.* Those infernal, or celestial, birds, indeed, are not true to what is understood to be the harpy form. Call them sirens, rather. People, and not only old people, as you ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... duly recognized. Colonel French, who retained to the end a warm interest in the Police, was succeeded in the Commissionership by Colonel James Farquharson MacLeod, who had already done such outstanding work during the long trek to the West and in getting to definite police duty at the key-position of the whole work in the foothill country. It was a tribute to MacLeod's work that he was appointed also to aid Governor Laird in the delicate work of making the treaty with the most difficult tribes in the North-West to ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... the Gilmans would scarce trust him with us, I have a malicious knack at cutting of apron strings. The Saints' days you speak of have long since fled to heaven, with Astraea, and the cold piety of the age lacks fervor to recall them—only Peter left his key—the iron one of the two, that shuts amain—and that's the reason I am lockd up. Meanwhile of afternoons we pick up primroses at Dalston, and Mary corrects me when I call 'em cowslips. God bless you all, and pray remember me euphoneously to Mr. Gnwellegan. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... queen's "asylum" by her faithful servant Louis. This "asylum" was in an obscure corner of the Tuileries, and to reach it the emperor was introduced into the palace by a side door. He was led through dark passages and up narrow staircases until they reached a small door that Louis opened with a key which he took from his pocket. He clapped his hand three times, and the signal being answered, he made a profound ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... explication, interpretation; solution, deduction, key. Associated Words: exegetics, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... hour's journey from here, we passed through an Arab village of stone dry-goods boxes (they look like that,) where Noah's tomb lies under lock and key. [Noah built the ark.] Over these old hills and valleys the ark that contained all that was left of a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ascertained customs of living aborigines. But again, like the wood-pecker, that has struck a bark too thick for its bill, these men could not solve the problem they were at. They lacked the information to pick, and they had not, nor were they so situated as to furnish themselves with, the key to open the lock. Morgan furnished ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... and himself nearer common ground. She felt that there was something, after all, that she could teach him. She had been overpowered by his politeness and deference and his unusual language, and, not knowing what they meant, was overcome by a sense of her inferiority. The incident gave him the key to his future conduct. A moment later she looked up covertly, and, meeting his eyes, laughed again. The ice was broken. He began to wonder if she really had noticed him so little at their first meeting as not to recognize ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... thought, squinting at the gun with reflectively narrowed eyes, some eight years after Uncle William's death, the old war souvenir would quietly become a key factor in the solution of a colonial planet's problems. He ran a finger over the dull, roughened frame, bent closer to study the neatly lettered inscription: GUNDERLAND BATTLE TROPHY, ANNO 2172, SGT. WILLIAM ...
— Watch the Sky • James H. Schmitz
... set out with worry, and depression, and bitterness of soul toward fate or man, you are giving the key note to a ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and procuring a stout cord I entered my wife's bedroom finding her, as I expected, in a sound sleep. Before she was awake, I had her bound fast, hand and foot. She was greatly surprised and pained, but heedless of her remonstrances, delivered in a high key, I carried her into the now rifled strong-room, which I had never suffered her to enter, and of whose treasures I had not apprised her. Seating her, still bound, in an angle of the wall, I passed the next two days ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... examined, silver and china looked out. In regard to the silver, Margaret had an experience that showed her that, even after two years, she did not know all the resources of Fernley House. Her uncle called her into his study after breakfast, and handed her a key of curious pattern. "This is the key of the iron cupboard, Margaret," he said. Seeing her look of surprise, he added, "You surely know about the ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... said the latter, "that the hymn-writers do not use the minor key? They write in it, or they sing in ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... Papa's big bedroom, In the chest with the queer old key!" And she said: "You are warm and warmer; But you're ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... of us, as little girls, read "Rosamond." Now, one of Rosamond's early worries suggests a key to half the worries, early and late, of grown men and women. The silver paper won't cover ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... vegetate. The neighbouring mountains, covered with forests, seem to spread humidity over the western extremity of the valley of Caracas. We passed the night before our arrival at Las Ajuntas at a sugar-cane plantation. A square house (the hacienda or farm of Don Fernando Key-Munoz) contained nearly eighty negroes; they were lying on skins of oxen spread upon the ground. In each apartment of the house were four slaves: it looked like a barrack. A dozen fires were burning in the farm-yard, where people were employed in dressing food, and the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... sweet Body: Faith I love thee, thou pretty Creature. Come! let's be better acquainted! you know my Meaning. Hell does, no doubt of (she return'd!) O Monster a Man! I hate the Sight of you. With that she flung from him, and ran into the Bed-chamber, where she thought to have locked herself in; but the Key was conveyed into his Pocket. Thither, therefore, he pursued her, crying, Ah, Madam, this is the proper Field for our Dispute. Perceiving her Error, and animated by Despair, she rushed between him and the Door, into the outward Room again, he still ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... and mist. These two causes, together with accessible quantities of good timber, have induced in the north a general steep pitch of gable, which, when rounded or squared above a tower, becomes a spire or turret; and this feature, worked out with elaborate decoration, is the key-note of the whole system of aspiration, so called, which the German critics have so ingeniously and falsely ascribed to a devotional sentiment pervading the Northern Gothic: I entirely and boldly deny the whole theory; our cathedrals were for the most part built by worldly people, who ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... he came unto an iron door, That fast was locked, but key found not at all, Amongst that bunch to open ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... knew that they were entering a building of some sort, for they heard a key turn in a lock and the humming sound in the distance was cut off. They felt a soft carpet under their feet, and the feet of their guards no longer ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... subject to this preliminary explanation, is the amount of legal tender held by our bankers against their liabilities? The answer is remarkable, and is the key to our whole system. It may be broadly said that no bank in London or out of it holds any considerable sum in hard cash or legal tender (above what is wanted for its daily business) except the Banking Department of the Bank of England. That department ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... treatise is twofold: first, to illustrate the relation subsisting between the "natural laws" and the "constitution of man;" and, secondly, to prove the independent operation of these laws, as a key to the explanation of the Divine government. In illustrating the relation between the "natural laws" and the "constitution of man," he attempts to show that the natural laws require obedience not less than the moral, and that they ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... we have been following gives us a key to all these positions, without stepping aside to justify them on their own ground. It is because we have been disgusted fifty times with physical squalls and fifty times torn between conflicting impulses, that we teach people this indirect and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ends they would hesitate at nothing; he knew they had a poison like sugar to the taste and to the smell, impossible to discover in food—a poison that would kill slowly or quickly as the poisoner willed and would leave no trace behind; he knew the secret of the poisoned key that lay always on the pope's mantelpiece, so that when His Holiness wished to destroy some one of his intimates, he bade him open a certain cupboard: on the handle of the key there was a little spike, and as ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... very interesting and very romantic, gentlemen," he said, "but now let us get at the practical side of it. We have learned Aina's language and have heard her story. Let us next ascertain whether she cannot place in our hands some key which will place Mars at our mercy. Remember what we came here for, and remember that the earth expects every man of us to ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... the sweated shopman, the jaded engineer—how good it would be to say to any of them, 'Here, let us change places awhile. Here is my latch-key, my cheque-book, my joy and my leisure. Use them as long as you will. Quick, let us change clothes, and let me take my share of the world's dreariness ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... been far-reaching, the professor's study was nearly immune. In the first place the door was usually locked and the key discreetly lost; and in the next place the professor had mildly but very obstinately insisted, through all the twenty years, that his desk, which is the sanctum sanctorum of the man with a past, remain untouched. Jane sniffed copiously over this stipulation, and, as she liked to do a ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... air of authority, intentionally exaggerated for the purpose of impressing Parmalee, I closed the drawer, and locked it with the key already in ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... into vacancy; the Scotch butler looks distinctly heavenward, as if he were brooding on the principle of co-ordinate jurisdiction with mutual subordination. It would be impossible for me to deny the key of the wine-cellar to a being so steeped in sanctity, but it has been done, I am told, in certain ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... porch, and ere fitting the heavy key to the lock, felt that strange pressure and emotion of the heart that even if it be sorrow is also an exquisite sensation. If it were mournful that the one last office she could render to Humfrey was over, it was precious to her to be the only ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... raised a great outcry against the Orangemen for provoking such an outrage. The liberal party in parliament and in the press could not afford to do without the Roman Catholic vote, and took up the same key-note of denunciation of the Orangemen. It is astonishing how little indignation the British public showed at this attempt at wholesale assassination by fanatics. A verdict of wilful murder was returned by a coroner's jury against six ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... on the table exactly two minutes before five o'clock, and no guest was admitted after that hour; for he was such a determined observer of punctuality, that when the clock struck five, his porter locked the street-door, and laid the key at the head of the dinner-table. The time kept by the clock in the kitchen, the parlour, and the drawing-room, and the watch of the master, were minutely the same. That the dinner was ready, was not announced to the guests in the usual way; but when the clock struck, this superlative ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... thought of it, and the rest of the talk was London, London, to the exclusion of all smaller topics. He took me up the Hampstead Road almost to the Cobden statue, plunged into some back streets to the left, and came at last to a blistered front door that responded to his latch-key, one of a long series of blistered front doors with fanlights and apartment cards above. We found ourselves in a drab-coloured passage that was not only narrow and dirty but desolatingly empty, and then he opened a door and revealed my aunt sitting ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... the box across, and I took a chair that stood by. I turned the key of the box. A glance showed me Marie's drooped lids half raised and her eyes fixed on ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... have left half a dozen letters locked up in my writing-desk. I shall hand the key of that desk to you as we go out. If I should fall, I hope you will take charge of the desk and see to the delivery of the letters at their proper addresses," said the duke, more gravely ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... and Leonard to give me a home; that would be unfair to you both. I'm so distressed and upset. Write me, if you can, and tell me what you think is best." And there was more in the same distressed key. ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... "If mortals err In their opinion, when the key of sense Unlocks not, surely wonder's weapon keen Ought not to pierce thee; since thou find'st, the wings Of reason to pursue the senses' flight Are short. But what thy own thought ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Henry had made a suggestion that they should all play golf-croquet when Rutley came to clear the table. Lady Douglass gave an instruction aside. "Very well, my lady," said Rutley; "it shall be seen to first thing in the morning. If we could only find the key I'd manage it myself." Henry asked whether anything was missing; his sister-in-law replied that it was nothing of importance—nothing that he need trouble about. Henry had quite enough to occupy his mind, and he must please allow her to take ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... us giving extracts, and we must therefore conclude by saying, that as the author is one of the very best grape-growers of the day, this book may be stated as being the key to his successful practice, and as such, we can with confidence recommend it as indispensable to all who wish to excel in the cultivation of the vine."—The Florist ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... of the camp wandered down to it, and refreshed my forehead with its coolness. So, as I looked under the falling drops, lo! on the opposite bank the old beggar that had given me such fair return for my alms and Kadrab his hump! I heard him call, 'This night is the key to the mystery,' and he was gone. Every incantation I uttered was insufficient to bring him back. Surely, I hurried to the tents and took no sleep, watching zealously by the tent of Ravaloke, crouched in its shadow. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... passed Mina who was coming out to join her with her sewing. Godfrey followed Lina with long slow steps, and looked as much put out as the clergyman who was interrupted in a very long sermon by the beadle placing the church key on the reading desk and saying that he might lock up the church himself when he had done, for he, the beadle, must go home to dinner. Indeed he was in much the same position as that clergyman. Like him he had wished to preach ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Ray took the key and hobbled out to his back door, simply telling Hogan to come with him. He was thunderstruck at the idea of their taking Dandy from him. He never thought of that as a possibility—Dandy, who seemed after that wild night-ride to be ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... before God and man, safe as in my arms! What was I to thee. Thou hast called me thine, my whole being was devoted to thee. What am I now? In vain I stretch out my hand to the toils that environ thee. Thou helpless and I free!—Here is the key that unlocks my chamber door. My going out and my coming in, depend upon my own caprice; yet, alas; to aid thee I am powerless!—Oh, bind me that I may not despair; hurl me into the deepest dungeon, that I may dash my head against the damp walls, groan for freedom, and dream how I would rescue ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Russia, the great truth which all nations need to remember is this: Whatever scotches Japanese aggression in Manchuria scotches Russian aggression at the same time—automatically and simultaneously. To the Open Door in Manchuria Japan carries the key. ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... door of which he locked, hiding the key beneath a loose brick in a corner of the passage. "Go into the street, brother, whilst I fetch the caballerias from the stable." I obeyed him. The sun had not yet risen, and the air was piercingly cold; the gray light, however, of dawn enabled me to distinguish objects with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... demanded of the railway authorities an engine and caboose to bear him over the newly-completed mountain division to Cheyenne, had taken every cent from his private safe, had entered his office at an early hour, satchel and safe key in hand, was confounded by the sight of two clerks there smoking forbidden pipes, and turning, without a word, had fled. One of these was the young man who so recently had written to a confidant in Omaha, telling of Burleigh's ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... had left his chair opposite and taken a seat by the schoolmistress and myself, a little way from the table.—It's true, it's true,—said the old gentleman.—He took hold of a steel watch-chain, which carried a large, square gold key at one end and was supposed to have some kind of timekeeper at the other. With some trouble he dragged up an ancient-looking, thick, silver, bull's-eye watch. He looked at it for a moment,—hesitated,—touched ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... note for him in which the superintendent was obsequiously Father's servant, and humbly informed Father that his services wouldn't be needed after that day. Would he, if it was quite convenient, call for his pay the following Tuesday, and not fail to turn in his locker-key before leaving the establishment? ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... him feel friendly, an' deloodes him into claimin' acquaintance with people he never does know, an' refoosin' to onderstand how they shows symptoms of doubt. So we capers along; Dave warblin' 'The Death of Sam Bass' in the coyote key. ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the inner room, and killed the sleeping child, lest it should give the alarm. Kascambo, utterly helpless to save, fell almost fainting upon the bloody floor, and did not cease to reproach Ivan, who was searching the old man's pockets for the key of the fetters, but it was not there, nor anywhere else in the hut, and the irons were so heavy that escape was impossible in them. Ivan at last knocked off the clog and the chains on the wrist with the axe, but he could not break the ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... having the paper strips and pan of green soap ready just outside the exit door, the formalin is now poured over the permanganate crystals. Fumes will immediately arise and permeate every corner, crack and crevice of the sick room. Now quickly make your exit, close the door and seal up key hole and cracks and space under the door with paper dipped in green soap. Leave the room for six hours. After this with a well-moistened cloth to the nose, rush in and throw the windows open, hurry out and allow the room to air from twelve to twenty-four ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... provision made and mentally gave thanks to our Heavenly Father. Soon after this, "a missionary box" was sent to the Seminary, and my friend was therefrom well supplied with under garments. Frequently afterward did he say to me, in substance, "Prayer is the key to God's treasury. Trust in Him and ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... could not have been found upon the soil, if our ignorant hands had not sown them. Of this I will not now speak, for I have already detained the reader too long at the threshold;—but I have put the master key into his possession; and every chamber which he opens will be found loathsome as the one which he last ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... they give unto those who are deputed to that end a note in writing of all their merchandise and the value thereof, and they thereupon make over to each merchant a storehouse, wherein he layeth up his goods under lock and key. Moreover, the said officers enter in the book of the Customs, to each merchant's credit, all his merchandise, causing themselves after he paid their dues of the merchants, whether for all his said merchandise or for such part thereof as he withdraweth from the customhouse. By this ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the key and the door opened. As soon as they went in, they looked here and there and everywhere but ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... moving suddenly. "Your days were the days of freedom. Yes—I have thought. I have been made to think, for my life—has not been happy. Men are no longer free—no greater, no better than the men of your time. That is not all. This city—is a prison. Every city now is a prison. Mammon grips the key in his hand. Myriads, countless myriads, toil from the cradle to the grave. Is that right? Is that to be—for ever? Yes, far worse than in your time. All about us, beneath us, sorrow and pain. All the shallow delight of such life as you find about ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... or principle in Xenophon's political theory—indeed the key and tone of it: no one has a right to command except by virtue of ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... other by these tribes. "They all desire to appropriate to themselves exclusively whatever advantage may be obtained from the visits of foreigners, and they are distressed at the prospect of their neighbours getting any share." Proof was soon afforded that this explanation is the right key to their behaviour. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... a short time with one egg, which she placed on the porch floor without a word. But as she made no effort to give Aggie the house key, and as Aggie has never learned to swallow a raw egg, although I have heard that they taste rather like oysters, and slip down in much the same way, Aggie was obliged ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... him about psychical research and the modern interest in spiritualism. "I don't think much of that!" he replied. Then, in a lower key, "It was not through animism and necromancy that the Jews came to believe in immortality." How did they reach that belief? "By thinking things out, and asking the question, Shall not the Judge of all ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... its branches over a great mossy circle, seating himself on an old log that had been washed down the river and lay on the ground. For a minute the Veeries were silent; then from the tree over his head one sang a short tune—two sentences in a high key, then two a little lower and softer, ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... I was with Hella again to-day. She passed me a little note asking me to get from her locker the parcel with the blotting-book for her father and the key basket for her mother and bring it to her because the things are not ready ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... resolved that he would examine the fatal chamber—at once he would know the worst. Should he do it now, or wait till daylight?—but the key, where was it? His eyes rested upon an old japanned cabinet in the room: he had never seen his mother open it in his presence: it was the only likely place of concealment that he was aware of. Prompt in all his decisions, he took up the candle, and proceeded to examine it. It was not locked; ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sweeping and trimming weekly the pews and benches, which were formerly swept but once in three years,—in having the surplice darned, washed and laid up in fresh lavender, better than any other parish,—in having discovered a thief with a Bible and key—in his love of ringing,—in his tutoring young men and maidens to tune their voice as it were with a psaltery,—in being invited to the banquets of the Church officers,—in the hints he has given to young clergymen,—in his loyal attachment ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... on the hill-sides and the mountains, and that Dryads lived in them. He knew, too, that in the summer-time, on those days when the moon rose before the sun went down, a Dryad could come out of her tree if any one could find the key which locked her in, and turn it. Old Pipes closely examined the trunk of the tree, which stood in the full moonlight. "If I see that key," he said, "I shall surely turn it." Before long he perceived a piece of bark standing out from the tree, which appeared ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... Caffie drew a key from the pocket of his vest, with which he opened the iron safe placed behind his desk, and turning his back to Saniel and the clerk counted the bills which they heard rustle in his hands. Presently he rose, and closing the door of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable? He resolved not to be pilloried beside her on her pedestal of shame. Unknown to all but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of mankind, and, as regarded his former ties and interest, to vanish out of life as completely as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither rumour ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "D" signified "want (or wants) immediate medical assistance." And so on, by hoists of two, three or four flags representing the consonants, our wants and wishes could be made known, each possessing the key to the code. ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... commanded Paris against the Allies, is explained in the recently published letter of Joseph Bonaparte, wherein we learn his deficiency of muskets. Humboldt accounted for the defects of Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico" by the fact that the historian had never visited that country. Napoleon gave a key to the misfortunes of Italy, when he said, "It is a peninsula too long for its breadth." And the significance of the Seven Years' War is expressed in a single phrase by Milton's last biographer, when he defines it as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... The key to success in modern mountain fighting proved to be the rapidity with which roads could be constructed for ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... no excuse to say that the whole thing is absurd; that people do not carry on the business of life in song, nor expire in recitative. That is true, but even fairy tales have their consistency. Every part is adapted to every other, and, in the key, the whole is harmonious. Hermann, for instance, the basso, who sang Mephistopheles, would have been quite perfect if he had only remembered this. But he forgot that Mephisto is a sly and subtle devil. He caricatured him. He made him a buffoon and repulsive. Such extravagance could not have ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... appearance, wearing a short black beard and moustache, had walked into a branch of the London and Westminster Bank during the dinner-hour, when only the manager and one clerk were there. He had gone straight through to the manager's room at the back of the bank, taken the key from the inside of the door, and before the man could get round his desk had locked him in. The clerk, with a knife to his throat, had then been persuaded to empty all the loose cash in the bank, amounting in gold and notes to nearly ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... tenant for the apartment had been found. The next Saturday David turned the key for the last time on a scene of defeat. He was not sorry to leave. That night he took a train for an over-Sunday visit with Shirley. She had been ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... streamers, in frantic fury, along the boulevards; mischievous gamins were frolicking about in the long scarlet robes worn upon Court occasions, which they had filched from the Royal wardrobe; the escritoire of the King, the key having been found in a tea-cup, was ransacked, and private letters, books and the garments of ladies were strewn about the court and gardens of the Tuileries. The cellars of the palace were soon filled with the insurgents; but they declared the wine ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... altogether incomprehensible and miserable thing—a thing to be forgotten, and a thing to be wept over in tears of blood, and no use for us unless we do as Peter did, apply all the warmth of the heart to this one master key, 'for us,' and then the mystery is only an infinitude of love and mercy. What before we could not understand we now begin to see, and to understand the love of God which passeth all understanding. Oh, my friends, I beseech ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... over to dowager lady Chia's apartments had already been put under key, and there was but one gate, the one on the East, which had not as yet been locked. Chia Jui lent his ear, and listened for ever so long, but he saw no one appear. Suddenly, however, was heard a sound like "lo teng," and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... had the brigantine's crew released and told them that they would find all their weapons in the mate's cabin, whose key he would give them when he ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... seemed to be framing certain words. Frederick understood legno santo, Toilers of the Light, and even what his uncle had said about "up with you in the dismal air." But Peter Schmidt thrust his fist through the glass door, pulled Rasmussen's embroidered cap off his head, took from it a little key, and beckoned Frederick to come away with him. They left the houses behind and stepped out into the open ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... being allowed 50 lbs. weight on the coach, every extra lb. charged ten cents. We ourselves rode up here, arriving about 6 o'clock, and found poor Henry waiting outside, not having been able to get into the cabin, the door-key being carefully in Mr. W——'s pocket; but as everything is always left in order it didn't take us long to make ourselves comfortable; and as at sunset the cold had been piercing, a fire soon ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... Now the other putting of it is commoner. It is helpful talk whichever way it is put. The Gospel of Jesus is to affect all society. It has affected all society, and is to more and more. But the thing to mark keenly is this, the key to the mass is the man. The way to regenerate society is ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... The main building was called "the house," to distinguish it from the cottages. The chattering and whistling birds were still at it. Two young girls, the Farival twins, were playing a duet from "Zampa" upon the piano. Madame Lebrun was bustling in and out, giving orders in a high key to a yard-boy whenever she got inside the house, and directions in an equally high voice to a dining-room servant whenever she got outside. She was a fresh, pretty woman, clad always in white with elbow sleeves. Her starched ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... the head of his cohorts, caught it, and wondered what meaning might lie back of that swift glance. Major Mackenzie and this dark-eyed beauty posed before others as strangers, yet between them lay some freemasonry of understanding to which he had not the key. ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... not a few of the fast fellows excel, is that of imitating upon a key-bugle various animals, in an especial manner the braying of an ass: when the fast fellows drive down to the Trafalgar at Greenwich, the Toy at Hampton Court, or the Swan at Henley upon Thames, the bugle-player mounts aloft, the rest of the fast fellows keeping ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Cardinal Newman, for, while Newman is almost purely intellectual and so much above the reach of most of us, Adams is merely intelligent—but intelligent enough to discern the richness of life, and mystical enough to long for a religious key to its meaning. Newman not only longs, but reasons and acts. It was not the definition of the unity of God that troubled Adams. It was the question of His personality. The existence of pain and wretchedness in the world was a bar to his understanding that a personal ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... only to redouble her exertions. At last she stopped before a narrow door hidden in the wall, and fumbled in her pocket for a key. That moment ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... chest, containing mostly scraps and odds and ends of housekeeping, yet brought on by my family from Burlington, has remained four years unopened, the key being lost. We have felt an irrepressible anxiety to see its contents, for even rubbish is now valuable. I got a locksmith to send a man to pick the lock, last week, but he failed to find the house, and subsequently was sent to the trenches. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... In the left corner stands a large sofa covered with material of an old-fashioned, flowery pattern. Before it stands an extension table of oak. Above the door of the den hangs a glass case containing a group of stuffed partridges. Immediately to the right of this door a key-rack with keys. Not far from this stands a bookcase with glass doors which is filled with books. Upon this bookcase stands a stuffed owl and next to it hangs a cuckoo clock. A great tile oven of dappled blue occupies the right corner of the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... straight at the great fort of St Michel, which is the strongest thing on the frontier, and which is the key to the circle of forts that make up this entrenched camp. One could see little or nothing of its batteries, only its hundreds of feet of steep brushwood above the vineyards, and at the summit a stunted wood purposely planted. Next to it on ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... leading from it. In the darkness Tarzan could not see which one. For ten minutes they groped slowly along a winding passage, until at length they came to a closed door. Here he heard her fumbling with a key, and presently came the sound of a metal bolt grating against metal. The door swung in on scraping ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... which "is formed by an immense Arabian arch, of the horseshoe form, which springs to half the height of the tower. On the keystone of this arch, is engraven a gigantic hand. Within the vestibule, on the keystone of the portal, is sculptured, in like manner, a gigantic key," emblems, say the learned, of ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... leave, and he said good night to the citizen and his companions, and begged they would let him leave by the postern door, that he might the sooner return home. But the citizen replied that he knew not then where to find the key; he thought also that the lock was so rusted that they could not open the door, which they rarely if ever used. He was content therefore to leave by the front gate, and make a long detour to reach his house, and whilst the servants ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... France, having been sent to England where he was appointed to a home unit), Camon, Wiencourt, Le Quesnel. And in March, the approach of spring seemed to bring with it nothing but additional storms of rain and snow, and the names of such points in the line as Key Post and Kuropatkin will bring back memories of buttressing up collapsed trenches ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... relenting, "Well, if there's any cream blanc-mange left I'll bring it up to you in bed. Now that's a promise. Here, Emma, put these sandwiches in the larder. Here's the key! Now mind you lock it ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... embrasure of the door, nor did he move when the two men stopped and whispered together, nor when they advanced again, one behind the other. But he remarked that they held their cloaks to their faces. At last they came to a halt just in front of O'Toole. The leader produced a key. ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... mid-forenoon, Hooley was satisfied that everything was ready to shoot the picture. One of the foremen of Benbow Camp—the best ax wielder of the crew—ran out on the boom to a point near the middle of the frothing stream and began cutting the key-log. It was a ticklish piece of work; but these timbermen were used to ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... find it necessary to trace the code form, in imagination, from the beginning up to each letter whose code form is sought. Subjects of superior intelligence, however, sometimes hit upon the device of remembering the position of the individual key letters e.g. (the first letter of each figure) from which, as a base, any desired letter form ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... I have got a duplicate key—I always insist on a duplicate key of the place where she keeps her account books. I never allow the account-books to be locked up from my inspection: it's a rule of ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Key The state of German civilian morale. Variations in Germany's military position Decree of political unity in Germany. The Food situation In North Germany. Condition of Austria-Hungary. U-Boat sinkings. (Monthly reports of tonnage sunk.) SECRETARY OF WAR'S ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... Thunder Bird, and in the left top corner of the pictograph is seen the face of a young klootsmah or Indian girl. How strangely are her features pictured. With upturned hands she gazes in a blank unvarying stare. She holds the key to this old tale which the great scroll perpetuates. One time this Indian maiden, daughter of a chief of great renown, with her two sisters left their home on Village Island. They went in search of yellow cedar bark which grew in quantity upon the mountain top above the village, of Toquaht. ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael |
