"Keynote" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a touch of that old Greek fatalism, or belief in destiny or necessity. The Greek tragedies are pervaded and permeated, steeped and dyed with this idea of relentless fate. It is called heredity, in these modern days. Heredity plus environment,—in these we find the keynote of the great productions of the leader of the ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... perfectly bred people accepted the remark in sympathetic silence. There was not even an eyebrow raised, but I fancy that Isobel's words, calmly spoken and with obvious intent, struck the keynote of her future relations with ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... runs introduced in the Amen in order to exhibit the skill of the singer. The voice was no longer a 'cello, deep and resonant, but a lonely flute or silver bugle announcing some joyous reverie in a landscape at the close of day. The song closed on the keynote, and Sister Mary John turned from the instrument and looked at the singer. She could not speak, she seemed overpowered by the music, and like one more dreaming than waking, and sitting half turned round on her seat, she looked ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... nectar," or "the sweet fruit of his soul to men that are winners in the games." "As when from a wealthy hand one lifting a cup, made glad within with the dew of the vine, maketh gift thereof to a youth":—the keynote of Pindar's verse is there! This brilliant living youth of his day, of the actual time, for whom, as he says, he "awakes the clear-toned gale of song"- -epeon hoimon ligyn—that song mingles sometimes with the splendours ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Protestant in doctrine, with gentle leaning toward Catholicism in externals, held still firmly by the "Act of Supremacy" in the controlling hand of the Sovereign. Above all else desiring peace and prosperity for England, the keynote of Elizabeth's policy in Church and in State was conciliation and compromise. So the Church of England was to a great extent a compromise, retaining as much as the people would bear of external form and ritual, for the sake of ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... Boston Pilot in 1874. He is the author of "Songs from the Southern Seas," "Songs, Legends and Ballads," and of other works. He died in 1890. All through life the voice and pen of Boyle O'Reilly were at the service of his Church, his native land, and his adopted country. Kindness was the keynote of his character. In 1896 Boston erected in his ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... Single Sentence.—Of the seven or eight different kinds of lead, a quotation of a single sentence or a single paragraph is happiest if one can be found that will give the keynote of the speech or will harmonize with a declared policy ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... preliminary circumstance, outside the limits of the play, that has to be explained to us. The whole tragedy germinates and culminates within what the prologue calls "the two hours' traffick of the stage." The opening colloquy of the Witches in Macbeth, strikes the eerie keynote, but does nothing more. Then, in the second scene, we learn that there has been a great battle and that a nobleman named Macbeth has won a victory which covers him with laurels. This can in no sense be called an exposition. It is the account of a single event, not of a ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... class nor the anarchy of competition is so outstanding an evil as the poverty of the poor. We aim at making the rich poorer chiefly in order to make the poor richer. Our first tract, "Why are the Many Poor?" struck the keynote. In a century of abounding wealth England still has in its midst a hideous mass of poverty which is too appalling to think of. That poverty, we say, is preventible. That poverty was the background of our thoughts when the Society was founded. Perhaps we have done a little ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... into angels of light. In music they speak again the language of Mendelssohn, of Beethoven, of Chopin, of Schumann, and are worthy interpreters of their great souls. The poetry and the novels of the century are theirs; they, too, have touched the keynote of reform in religion, in politics and in social life. They fill the editors' and the professors' chairs, plead at the bar of justice, walk the wards of the hospital, and speak from the pulpit ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... millions of men and women acquainted with grief and affliction? The early Christians did not exactly live lives of luxury or even security, sheltered from contact with tragedy and horror; yet the keynote of primitive Christianity is the note of joy, while the background of early Christian experience is a radiant conviction of the Divine benevolence. And when we remember that the same holds true of so many eminently spiritual souls in ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... leaves something to be desired, but the evidences of care are everywhere visible, and we may reasonably expect to see it improve from month to month, into one of the leading amateur papers. Credentials form the keynote of the current issue, and a very promising assortment of recruits are here introduced to the members of the United. Miss Sandborn, who is fortunate enough to be one of Mr. Moe's pupils at Appleton, contributes an interesting school anecdote, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... let us not commit the folly of plunging into war at a moment when all Europe would be hostile to our armies—not one Power allied to the English cause.' [Footnote: Vol. I., Chapter XVI., p. 239.] The keynote of his policy was friendship with France. His experience in the Franco-German War had for ever changed the friendly impression which led him first to follow the German ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... myself fit," is a keynote of his life. The puny boy of the long ago was to survive this campaign with flying colors, and to lend his counsel in the Great War of our own time. It was a long life and full of service. In an address to a children's ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... the game. They had called "Rah, Rah Sanderson" till they were hoarse, "Sanderson, Rah! Sander-son! Rah! Rah!" The crackling forest seemed to have gone mad with the echo of his name. It had become the keynote of the wind. Rah! ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... emphasizing their immunity from Fate, to which suffering humanity is subject. But this humanity is represented by Hoelderlin characteristically as helpless, passive—"schwinden," "fallen," "blindlings von einer Stunde zur andern." Whereas the opening lines of Goethe's "Parzen" strike the keynote of conflict between ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... the house and talk to Bland Halliday. He told me the strangest story about Johnny, and—and I wish you'd just talk to him and see if it's true." Mary V was not altogether without consideration for the feelings of another, but candor was the keynote of her nature, and she was very much perturbed, and she did not really feel that a fellow like Bland Halliday had any ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... keynote of inquiry; and no one knew. Old men spoke unctuously of youthful scandals; women dreamed. I suspect even Mrs. Pinckney wondered, about as much as the plowed field may wonder at the silence of the autumn. But Pinckney limped gracefully about the sleepy avenues ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... "story." All that the newspaper usually demands is that the reporter cram the gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the magazine story is more often near the end of the ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... was the keynote of his mood. He felt as if he trod on air—as if he had but to walk boldly forward and every obstacle must give way. The door of No. 13 was open, and a boy who had brought a telegram was turning away from it. Hurrying in with eager eyes and his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... your architecture and furniture. The mantelpiece is the connecting link between the architecture and the furnishing of a room. It is the architect's contribution to the furnishing, and for this reason the keynote ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... This gives the keynote of his writings in the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' He frankly recognises the necessity, and therefore does not discuss the advisability, of a large extension of the franchise. He protests only against the view, which he attributes to Bright, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... in the broad touches of that sketch. You find that in those days the Priest-King, the Ruler of the land and the supreme Teacher of his people, shaped the polity of the nation as he shaped the doctrines taught in the temples of the religion. Both the religion and the polity have the keynote of duty. And always with increasing power there came greater weight of responsibility, heavier burden of duty; and the freest in those civilisations were the poorest. Those who were regarded as the children of the national household were ever cared for with extremest ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... heroism than that of the love-sick knight who joyfully throws away his life for an hour in his lady's chamber, tears up the warrant reprieving him from execution, and accepts death to save Queen Mary's fragile reputation. But although the keynote of Mr. Swinburne's coming poetry is struck in Chastelard—the overpowering enthralment of Love, a joy to live and ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... fever, often ending in death, or, what is still more dreaded, chronic invalidism. Starvation, misery, and vice, trinity of despair, haunt their every step. The Golden Rule,—the foundation of true civilization, the keynote of human happiness,—reaches not their wretched quarters. Placed by society under the ban, life is one long and terrible night. But tragic as is the fate of the present generation, still more appalling is the picture when ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... purple. These with full blue breathed between them at the zenith, and green blue nearer the horizon, form the scales and chords of color possible to the morning and evening sky in pure and fine weather; the keynote of the opposition being vermilion against green blue, both of equal tone, and at such a height and acme of brilliancy that you cannot see the line where their edges ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... should be dignified and in perfect scale with the rest of the house. Marble stairs and tapestry and old carved furniture and beautiful rugs, or the simplest possible furniture, may be used, but the hall should have an impersonally hospitable air, one which gives the keynote of the house, but reserves its full expression until the privacy ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... forms the keynote of his art. Every opera he wrote depicts a soul in bonds. From "The Flying Dutchman" to "Parsifal" we are shown the struggle of a strong man with cruel Fate; a reaching out for liberty and light; the halting ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... of the methods of this remarkable man, the keynote of whose power lay, perhaps, more than anything else, in the knowledge, first, that thought can act at a distance, and, secondly, that thought is dynamic and can accomplish ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Grig, when he was off his chump in the fever, he raved like a poet, and an orator, and he was only an ordinary sportsman when he left home in the spring! Cleopatra, he called her one day, and I fancy that was the keynote—she must have been one of those exceptional women we read of in the ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... "Yes, it is calm," he said; "we are all waiting (nous attendons). We know that the victory will be ours at the finish. But all we can do is to wait. I have two sons at the front." He had struck the keynote. Paris is calmly waiting—waiting for the end of the war, for victory, for the ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... make the most of his opportunity. On his part, the king wanted a general badly. He had been grievously disappointed in Sir William Howe, whose victories seemed never bringing the war any nearer to an end. Burgoyne brought forward his plan at the right moment, shrewdly touched the keynote of the king's discontent by declaring for aggressive war, smoothed every obstacle away with easy assurance, and so impressed the ministers with his capacity, that they believed they had found the very man the king wanted ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... course much in his descriptions, and his suggestions for decoration, that shows that he did not entirely free himself from the false taste of his time. But it is clear that he was one of the first to recognise what is, indeed, the very keynote of aesthetic eclecticism, I mean the true harmony of all really beautiful things irrespective of age or place, of school or manner. He saw that in decorating a room, which is to be, not a room for show, but a room to live in, we should never aim at any archaeological reconstruction ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... caged lion dominated by his tamer, served as keynote for any amount of saddest colouring. He controlled the brute: but he held the contempt of danger, the love of strife, the passion for adventure; he had crossed the desert of human anguish. He of all men required a devoted mate, merited her. Of all men living, he was the hardest to match ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... troubled me: it was the old keynote of suppressed hopeless pain: it somehow recalled to me the image of some helpless innocent bird struggling in a fowler's net. Her eyes looked at me with ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... ten thousand Negroes and two thousand whites. The country is rich, yet the people are poor. The keynote of the Black Belt is debt; not commercial credit, but debt in the sense of continued inability on the part of the mass of the population to make income cover expense. This is the direct heritage of the South from the wasteful economies of the slave regime; but it was emphasized and brought ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... sociability of country life, without substituting an artificial stiffness, is the problem for every thoughtful and refined man and woman in rural circles. How to "be kindly affectioned one to another, in brotherly love, in honor preferring one another"—perhaps that would furnish the keynote of it all, alike for the citizen and ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... optometry. Don't think that he was a Rollo. He wasn't. But he was naturally somewhat shy, and further handicapped by an unusually tall lean frame which he handled awkwardly. If you had a good look at his eyes you forgot his shyness, his leanness, his awkwardness, his height. They were the keynote of his gentle, studious, kindly, humorous nature. But Chicago, Illinois, is too busy looking to see anything. Eyes are something you see with, ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... planets and the countless fixed stars or suns, are but stages of abode for the evolving Spirit, and that beyond the Universe as we know it there are millions of others—in fact, that the number of Universes is infinite. The keynote of this doctrine may be stated as "Eternal Progression" toward the Divine Spirit. The Spirits do not insist upon any particular theory regarding the constitution of the soul—some of them speak merely of "soul and body," while others hold to the seven-fold being—the ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... keynote friendship and sympathy for other people. It is a paradox of life that by hoarding love and happiness we lose them, and that only by giving them away can we keep them for ourselves. The more we share, the more ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... 1890, a sort of calm despair seems to have settled down upon De Maupassant's attitude toward life. Psychologically acute as ever, and as perfect in style and sincerity as before, we miss the note of anger. Fatality is the keynote, and yet, sounding low, we detect a genuine subtone of sorrow. Was it a prescience of 1893? So much work to be done, so much work demanded of him, the world of Paris, in all its brilliant and attractive phases, at his feet, and yet—inevitable, ever advancing death, with the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... his own that he is so slow to recognise the rights of property in others. But above all, his tongue—the weird, corrupt, barbarous Sanscrit 'patter' or 'jib,' known only to himself and to those of his blood—is the keynote of his strange life. In spite of every effort that has been made to fathom it, the Gipsy dialect is still unintelligible to 'Gorgios'—a few experts such as Mr. Borrow alone excepted. But wherever the true Gipsy goes he ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... put on paper on March 16, 1892. It is said to have been his habit, before setting to work on a play, to "crystallise in a poem the mood which then possessed him;" but the following is the only one of these keynote poems which has been published. I give it in the original language, with a ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... Perhaps the keynote to the charm of George Sand's art is given in her preface to her exquisite novel "La Derniere Aldini." Here is none of the accuracy and patience of the scientific enquirer into the "mysterious mixture" man, which we find in George Eliot's preface to "Middlemarch." ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... learned the conditions, discussed them angrily, and the keynote was refusal to sign the document. The financial clauses were stigmatized as masked slavery. The press urged that during the war less than one-tenth of France's territory had been occupied by their countrymen and ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... about the existing evils. During the recurring campaigns for councilmen, Mr. Nelson was at the beck and call of the organization, giving extravagantly of his time and vitality at many rallies, particularly at the opening meeting of campaigns, where he either was the keynote speaker or took such part as expressed the religious convictions that lay behind the movement. "Hearing him," wrote Alfred Segal, a newspaper columnist, "people felt that good government was more than a matter of efficiency and economy. ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... would fly to pieces. With these two analogies in our minds (never forgetting that they are only partial ones) it may seem more comprehensible that one who knows exactly at what rate to start his vibrations—knows, so to speak, the keynote of the class of matter he wishes to affect—should be able by sounding that keynote to call forth an immense number of sympathetic vibrations. When this is done on the physical plane no additional energy is developed; ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... it's Captain Cormorant, but I don't think he's going to stay. He's only brought her up in the motor from town." "By Jove, how good of him!" said Spillikins; and this sentiment in regard to Captain Cormorant, though he didn't know it, was to become a keynote of his existence. ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... which was placid, uneventful, and happy. He made a happy marriage in 1804; and his calm temperament enabled him to bear an amount of abuse which might have broken the health of a more irritable man. Cobbett's epithet, 'parson Malthus,' strikes the keynote. He was pictured as a Christian priest denouncing charity, and proclaiming the necessity of vice and misery. He had the ill luck to be the centre upon which the antipathies of Jacobin and anti-Jacobin converged. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... of any kind, in spite of the greatly increased liberty and relaxation of police regulations. Nor was there any runaway chauvinism noticeable, aside from the occasional singing of patriotic songs and demonstrations like the one I just described. The keynote of popular feeling was quiet dignity, joined to determination, with an undercurrent of ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... in the same city where Abraham Lincoln had first been nominated four years before, struck its keynote in opposition to his Administration. Mr. August Belmont, Chairman of the National Committee, opened the proceedings with a violent speech. "Four years of misrule," he said, "by a sectional, fanatical, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... just come to an end, and the keynote of this polemical pamphlet is, "Beware of the intoxication of success." When the whole of Germany was delirious with joy over her victory, at a time when the unquestioned triumph of her arms tended rather to reflect ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... arose in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Of these, the most important was the Cistercian, founded in 1098 A.D. at Citeaux, not far from Cluny. The keynote of Cistercian life was the return to a literal obedience of St. Benedict's Rule. Hence the members of the order lived in the utmost simplicity, cooking their own meager repasts and wearing coarse woolen garments ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... was the keynote of a bachelor supper which one girl gave for her brother and a few of his friends on ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... Indeed, as soon as they heard of our intention they invited us to walk. "We are so sorry not to bring you in the motor," they wrote, "but the roads are so frightfully dusty that we might get dust on our chauffeur." This little touch of thoughtfulness is the keynote ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... accidentally touched the piano with his elbow, and the sound that came forth was the keynote to Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." Forthwith he began to play it. Loretz looked at him, and seemed to feel suddenly reassured. A wavering light fell around him: he beckoned to the minister. "Do any of the folks ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... the very keynote of romantic art was to him the proper basis of natural life. He saw no other basis. And when they brought him one, taken in the very act of sin and showed him her sentence written in the law, and asked him what was to be done, he wrote with his finger on ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... The keynote of these books is manliness. The stories are wonderfully entertaining, and they are at the same time sound and wholesome. No boy will willingly lay down an unfinished book ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... soulless erudition, but a great supply and command of varied facts, marshalled and turned to account by an intelligence which knows their use. The absence of learning, or the danger to learning, is the keynote of a powerful but acrid survey of the history and prospects of the Anglican Church, for which, in spite of its one-sidedness and unfairness, Churchmen may find not a little which it will be useful to lay to heart. Dissatisfaction ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... simultaneously—Cristofori, an Italian, Marins, a Frenchman, and Schroter, a German. For years attempts to carry out the new mechanism were so clumsy that good harpsichords on the wrong principle were preferred to poor piano-fortes on the right principle. But the keynote of progress had been struck, and the day of the quill and leather jack was swiftly drawing to a close. A small hammer was made to strike the string, producing a marvelously clear, precise, delicate tone, and the "scratch" with a ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... suffer so much that I generally felt for myself when he appealed for sympathy, or provoked some pity: but I was past suffering, and letting kindly recollection divest the speech of its verbiage, I took it to my heart. It was true that he had in his blind way struck the keynote of his position, much as I myself had conceived it before. Harsh trials had made me think of my own fortunes more than of his. This I felt, and I thought there never had been so moving a speech. It seemed to make the world in debt to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 1864. Similar articles and editorials might be quoted from many of the more important papers, but the Times and the Gazette will suffice as furnishing the keynote. I have not examined in detail the files of the metropolitan press beyond determining their general attitude on the Civil War and for occasional special references. Such examination has been sufficient, however, to warrant the conclusion ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... that art and ritual are near relations. To this fact of crucial importance for our argument we shall return later. But from the outset it should be borne in mind that in these two Greek words, dromenon and drama, in their exact meaning, their relation and their distinction, we have the keynote and clue ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... The keynote of her being throughout this last winter was one of unwonted seriousness. A certain startling intensity of thought and feeling showed itself every now and then. It was painfully evident that she was under a severe strain, both physical and mental. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... renominated at the Democratic Convention in St. Louis, and the platform expressed a blanket endorsement of the achievements of his Administration. But the chief incident of that convention was the keynote speech of Martin H. Glynn, which was based on the text, "He kept us out of war." His recital of the long list of past occasions in American history when foreign violations of American rights and injuries to American interests ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... the long winter evenings the listeners often "croon" an accompaniment, droning in low voices over and over again a few simple notes which harmonise with the singer's voice. When the girl began her tune again Hope sang with her, repeating "Ochone, ochone" down four notes from the octave of the keynote through the mediate to the keynote again. When she reached the end of the last line his voice rose suddenly to an unexpected seventh, which struck sharply on the ear. Prolonging the note after the girl's voice died away, he rose to ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... is to exemplify to the world the family idea. "Our Father" is the keynote. One is Our Father, then all we are brethren. But in a family, if anyone is troubled in mind or conscience, there is no difficulty. The daughter goes to her father, or the son to his mother, and pour out their soul's troubles, and ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... published volume. Crude and immature as these productions naturally were, and utterly condemned by the writer's later judgment, they are, nevertheless, highly interesting and characteristic, giving, as they do, the keynote of much that afterwards unfolded itself in her life. One cannot fail to be rather painfully impressed by the profound melancholy pervading the book. The opening poem is "In Memoriam,"—on the death of a school friend and companion; and the two following poems also have death for theme. "On a Lock ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... danger of that just now," interrupted Phil, "for I know where most of them are at just this minute. However, it would be nice if you would take us to your home for a minute, for I think I have the keynote to the whole business right now, and I would like to tell my discoveries to Garry and Dick, and also get some directions from you, if you will sit in our council of war ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... campaign as many as fifty speeches. It is impossible, within my narrow limits, to go into the details of those great debates. In them Lincoln rose above all technicalities and sophistries, and not only planted himself on eternal right, but showed marvellous political wisdom. The keynote of all his utterances was that "a house divided against itself could not stand." Yet he did not pass beyond the constitutional limit in his argument: he admitted the right of the South to a fugitive-slave law, and the right of a Territory to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... weapon (which is recognised as important) in adequate numbers." It seems to be true that efforts were then being made, but not true that these efforts were of long standing. "Altogether 'slowness' was the keynote throughout of the German attitude towards the tank idea." He neither appreciated their true use nor the best means of fighting them; and even when we presented him with derelict tanks, as was soon the case on the Ancre in 1916, he failed to diagnose ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... would result in a Constituent Assembly, and would free them from the responsibility of concluding peace on terms rather than accept which they proudly asserted a few weeks ago they would all die. The keynote of the situation is given by the organs of public opinion, which until now have teemed with articles calling upon the population of the capital to bury itself beneath its ruins, and thus by a heroic sacrifice to serve as an example to the whole of France. To-day they say, "It ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... occupation of mat-weaving could be continued until the children had a thorough knowledge of its principles, how much intelligence might be brought to bear on the actual weaving and how much more pleasure might the worker draw from labor that is often looked upon as so much mechanical drudgery!" The keynote for this is the thorough knowledge which is necessary, whether or not our children are to enter textile schools. Whatever they do, let them do it thoroughly. It should always be a question of ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... basis of that service that leads to greatness. The keynote of that service is found in the words: "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and to give his life for many." The cross is the symbol of a service that is faithful, even ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... friends of this work the assurance that he to whom Mr. Muller left its conduct has also learned the one secret of all success in coworking with God. It sounds, as the significant keynote for the future, the same old keynote of the past, carrying on the melody and harmony, without change, into the new measures. It is the same oratorio, without alteration of theme, time, or even key: the leading performer is indeed no more, but another hand takes up ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... Cide Hamete Benengeli in imitation of the almost invariable practice of the chivalry-romance authors, who were fond of tracing their books to some recondite source. In working out the new ideas, he soon found the value of Sancho Panza. Indeed, the keynote, not only to Sancho's part, but to the whole book, is struck in the first words Sancho utters when he announces his intention of taking his ass with him. "About the ass," we are told, "Don Quixote hesitated a little, trying whether he could ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a word, is the keynote of H. Colin Campbell's "How to Use Cement for Concrete Construction." In case you should never read any more of the book, you ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... magnificent fables of King Arthur and his times which exercised so great an influence on the English mind, and were in fact, although originally Celtic, so thoroughly adopted and naturalised by the Saxon, as to reappear under different forms in every age, and form the keynote of most of our fictions, from Geoffrey of Monmouth and the medieval ballads, up to Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and at last Milton and Blackmore. This series of legends will, I think, as we trace its development, bring us in contact one by one with the corresponding developments ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... trestles a number of glasses, half filled with raw potato-spirit, gave the keynote to the temper of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... thought he had—before he made the break. Since I did not, I've got it to do now, and there isn't much time to throw away. Let me see—" he shut his eyes and went into the inventive trance of the literary craftsman—"the keynote must be originality; I must do that which the other fellow ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... State's position with logic, passion, and eloquence; while Webster replied with an equal logic, a broader and higher ideal of nationality, a vindication of New England which thrilled all hearts, and a patriotism which gave the keynote to the ultimate triumph of the Union. Hitherto, Massachusetts and South Carolina had each stood stiffly at times for her own way, even at peril of the national bond; but in that hour the individuality of South Carolina was merged in the slave-holding States, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... keynote of the letter is joy, as may be seen by a glance over it. He joys and rejoices with them all, but his cup is not quite full. One more precious drop is needed to make it run over. Probably the coldness which he had heard of between Euodias ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Prototype — N. prototype, original, model, pattern, precedent, standard, ideal, reference, scantling, type; archetype, antitype^; protoplast, module, exemplar, example, ensample^, paradigm; lay-figure. text, copy, design; fugleman^, keynote. die, mold; matrix, last, plasm^; proplasm^, protoplasm; mint; seal, punch, intaglio, negative; stamp. V. be an example, be a role model, set an example; set a copy. Phr. a precedent embalms a principle [Lat.Tran] [Disraeli]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... simple," he hastened to explain. "Simplicity is, I think, the keynote of all true inspiration. An idea comes, and we are filled with amazement that we have so long ignored the obvious. Take our case. Here are we two, strongly of one mind and wanting the same thing. A perfectly feasible way of getting that thing occurs to me. Yet when ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... eagle is eclipsed by the quiet unostentatious poetry of the angel of St. Matthew. We see a girl of intense grace and refinement, winged as an angel and looking modestly downwards to the open gospel in her hands. Delicacy is the keynote pervading every detail of the relief: in her hands, arms and throat, in the soft curves of the young frame, and in the drapery itself, which suggests all that is dainty and pure—everywhere, in fact, we find charm and tenderness, ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... position with more consummate dexterity. Indeed, she was almost ready to take the Post's word for it that no shift at all had been made. From beginning to end the paper's unshakable loyalty to the reformatory was everywhere insisted upon; that was the strong keynote; the ruinous qualifications were slipped in, as it were, reluctantly, hard-wrung concessions to indisputable and overwhelming evidence. But there they were, scarcely noticeable to the casual reader, perhaps, but to passionate partisans sticking up like palm-trees on a plain. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... were not only to see great things but we were all to do them! That was the very keynote of the place. Here a fellow could certainly write if only he had it in him. Impatiently I slaved at my French. Five ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... which are fifteen feet thick—there is a room, hidden in some unsuspected quarter, that contains a secret (the keynote to one, at least, of the hauntings) which is known only to the Earl, his heir (on the attainment of his twenty-first birthday), and the ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... the earth are the handiwork of God, here discover it: and perceive the Presence and the Power, and are ashamed and overawed. Thus our land works its marvel in the sensitive soul. I have sometimes thought that in the waste is sounded the great keynote of life—with which true hearts ever seek ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... it would be selfish to leave. Is it not right, though, and of necessity, that we think first of self?" He paused, then boldly sounded the keynote of the universe. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... as far as possible, to unify the collection by arranging the poems so that each should set the keynote to the next, or at least bear some relation to it in mood or theme. While it is impossible, with so varied a mass of material, that such a sequence should be exact, and in one or two instances the arrangement has been disturbed by the late addition or elimination ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... stand it. There is nothing in it you can seize and name. You will not find in it support for any creed or theory. The redemption of Catherine Linton and Hareton is thrown in by the way in sheer opulence of imagination. It is not insisted on. Redemption is not the keynote of Wuthering Heights. The moral problem never entered into Emily Bronte's head. You may call her what you will—Pagan, pantheist, transcendentalist mystic and worshipper of earth, she slips from ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... at a time. Treasures of linen and costly embroidery, silken hangings and velvet banners, gorgeous carpets and mats of finest texture, are displayed to our admiring eyes, but possession rather than enjoyment is the keynote of Eastern character, and the bales and bundles of priceless value, kept in huge cabinets of fragrant cedar-wood, seldom see the light of day. Long counting-houses are crowded with native scribes, their ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... a house and its occupants comes as one enters through the front door into the hall. Thus, nowhere in the entire house is it more important to strike the right keynote in furnishing and decoration. If there is no closet in the hall for wraps and umbrellas, it will be necessary to have in some obscure corner a wooden strip painted the same color as the woodwork, in which are solid brass hooks, placed low enough so that the young ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney
... This is the keynote of the surviving power of the human species. It is not enough that the body should be prepared to do good work under ordinary conditions, but it must be capable, if needs be, of meeting extraordinary ones. It is not enough for the body to be able to take care of itself, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... Lakhamu are put in a class with Anshar and Kishar, in the creation epic they form a separate class, and Delitzsch has justly recognized,[709] in this separation, the intention of the compilers to emphasize an advance in the evolution of chaos to order, which is the keynote of the Babylonian cosmology. Lakhmu and Lakhamu represent the 'monster' world where creatures are produced in strange confusion, whereas Anshar and Kishar indicate a division of the universe into two distinct and sharply defined parts. The ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... statement of his chief public service; (3) the fact by which he is most likely to be remembered by the casual reader. It is a good brief form to use in writing about most men and women. Model II is better if the subject is remarkable for many achievements. Its structure is as follows: (1) A keynote sentence; (2), (3), (4) three illustrations of the fact stated in (1); (5) dates. The same principles apply to notices of living people. In writing use one model or the other; do not deviate from them, unless you ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... throbbing with the desire for progress. If she were a man with money and influence she felt she would so much like to go out into the world and make stupid people do the things for the country that ought to be done. Progress had been the keynote of her upbringing, and she was teeming with energy which she had no hope could ever be used to help along that for which she felt her ambitions rising. She wanted to see the world alive, and busy, the great cities connected with one another. She longed to have ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... any condition, therefore, such as that of perplexity or of an absorbed manic state, the patient may be objectively in the same condition as a typical stupor. The histories of the two psychoses differentiate the two reactions which may be indistinguishable at one interview. The keynote of one reaction is indifference, while that of absorption is distraction, a perversion of attention to an ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... of the world being filled with so many knaves that it was dangerous, and all but destructive of truth, to believe in honesty, we have the keynote to the whole of the Annals; and the last six books are marked by a universal cynical disbelief in human honesty; for from the first character, Asiaticus, who is accused of every kind of corruption and abomination (XI. 2), down to Egnatius, with his perfidy, treachery, avarice, lust, and superficial ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... statement, that he made no attempts in the manner of the old minstrels, early as his admiration for them had been, until the period of his acquaintance with Buerger. Thus with him, as with most others, genius had hazarded many a random effort ere it discovered the true keynote. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... been taken away. It was here that the Lutheran Reformation pointed the way to a return to the simplicity of the Gospel by its Scriptural definition of justification. Sola fide, by faith alone, was the keynote of the Reformation. Be sure that you bring back sola was Luther's admonition to his friends, who went to Augsburg while he himself ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... Old Testament. Even in the psalms, which are perhaps the most spiritual and beautiful section, the psalmist, amid much that is noble, sings of the fearsome things which his God will do to his enemies. "They shall go down alive into hell." There is the keynote of this ancient document—a document which advocates massacre, condones polygamy, accepts slavery, and orders the burning of so-called witches. Its Mosaic provisions have long been laid aside. We do not consider ourselves accursed if we fail to mutilate ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Macchiavelli, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Amerigo Vespucci. For the development of their commerce, the cities of the North had grouped themselves into the great Hanseatic League, with branches in Bruges, London, Bergen, and Novgorod. Commercialism had everywhere become the keynote of the closing Middle Ages, inspiring that maritime enterprise which was soon to outline a new map of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... to believe this statement that I consulted a Russian, who is very much alive, and received the opinion that, if Mr. WALPOLE has not succeeded in drawing the real average Russian, he has given us a type whose faults and virtues sound the keynote of the situation as it is to-day. Such an opinion is worth a thousand times more than any judgment of mine, and I am glad of the opportunity to record it. From a literary point of view it seems to me ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... on this occasion. His subject furnished the keynote and the keystone of his opposition to slavery. Garrison, Phillips, Frederick Douglass and Theodore D. Weld appealed against slavery to a common humanity, to the primary moral instincts of mankind in condemnation of its villanies. The appeal carried them above ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... as one who had been a valuable ally. Never was a position more equivocal occupied by a patriot. Yet never has there beaten in a human breast a heart more patriotic than Jeremiah's. Patriotism, strong as a man's passion and tender as a woman's love, is the keynote of every chapter of his prophecies. This is characteristic of all the prophets. They loved Israel, and especially the city of Jerusalem, with an ardour of affection such as has rarely, if ever, been bestowed ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... formality, consistent with economy, Above all other virtues I particularly prize. I never join in merriment—I don't see joke or jape any— I never tolerate familiarity in shape any— This, joined with an extravagant respect for tuppence-ha'penny, A keynote ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Education is a lawyer; the Minister of Commerce, an author; the War Minister, a doctor; the Minister for the Navy, a journalist. Beaumarchais' epigram "The post required a mathematician—it was given to a dancing master!" strikes the keynote much more of a democracy than of ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... happy anticipation is in vivid contrast to Jeremiah's sorrowful attitude of retrospection. The picture brings out clearly the fact that the keynote of Daniel's prophecy is hope. Looking into his rapt face, we may imagine that this is the message he is writing: "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... the keynote of success in courtship. When the current became balanced in negative and positive qualities, the desirable equilibrium recognized by each pole as the real thrill of mutual romance, jealousy and despair would spark, blow ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... to inculcate the truth upon minds which have already received it; a thankless task. We seek the good of the greatest number, and you must bring your gods to earth if you would raise your worshippers to heaven. After all, simplicity rather than knowledge is the keynote ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... and to revert, as it were, in their experience, to what our own enjoyment might have been had we been born when they were. "No express agents, no delivery carts, no baggage checks," murmured poppa, as our trunks glided up to the hotel steps, "but it gets there all the same." This was the keynote of his admiration—everything got there all the same. The surprise of it was repeated every time anything got there, and was only dashed once when we saw brown-paper parcels being delivered by a boy at the back door of the Palazzo Balbi, who had evidently ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... a few such trifling exceptions, the tone toward the skipper is universally one of earnest respect and sympathy, the keynote of every ballad being the frank, unconscious heroism of this "gude Sir Patrick Spens." In regard to the foundation for the story, Scott maintains that "the king's daughter of Noroway" was Margaret, ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... a sense the whole drama, receive their true significance only when the centre of the whole drama, round which it develops itself, as round its kernel, becomes perfectly clear and lucid in that particular passage. And that passage, the keynote of my whole work, I was compelled to cut ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... twenty years of age, but he looks somewhat older. He is of slight build and has a sad expression, which increased to almost a painful degree when recounting some of his past experiences. He seems singularly devoid of any affectation, while modesty is obviously the keynote of his nature. ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... The keynote of the campaign, however, was not spoken until Seward made his historic speech at Rochester on October 25. The October success in Pennsylvania had thrilled the Republicans; and the New York election promised a victory like that of 1856. Whatever ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... taken from the Corn Ritual, represents a visit to the field later in the season when the harvest time is near at hand. The keynote of this visit is in a line of one of the many stanzas of the original Ritual Song, "I go in readiness of mind." The mind is assured, prepared to find in the place where the "footprints" had been made, where the little kernels had broken the covering of earth ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... over the great city as it had been blown along the mountain slopes of Kiu Shiu. Nor did he wish the thought of gain or of personal ambition to creep into Tatsu's heart. Now he spent most of the day-lit hours secluded in his little study, painting those scenes and motives suggested by the keynote of his mood. Of late he had begun to read, with deep interest, the various essays on art, gathered in Kano's small, choice library. He would sometimes talk with his father about art, and let the eager old man demonstrate to him ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... idea? There is the touchstone of all philosophy! Amid the wreck of creeds, the crash of empires, French revolutions, English reforms, Catholicism in agony, and Protestantism in convulsions, discordant Europe demands the keynote, which none can sound. If Asia be in decay, Europe is in confusion. Your repose may be death, ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... fussier," Bob said. "Nevertheless the rules are pretty strict for all messages. And since accuracy is the keynote of radio and to get it your outfit must be in A1 condition, every care must be taken to have strong, clear, and effective sending and receiving power. That means you must constantly clean your apparatus and tighten it up; ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... intermingled, he influenced the working of Doellinger's mind. But the plausible reading of his life which explains it by his connection with such public men as Montalembert, De Decker, and Mr. Gladstone is profoundly untrue; and those who deem him a liberal in any scientific use of the term, miss the keynote ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... it 'the good ordering of the mind') is the keynote of technical control. Together with the principle of relaxation it provides the player with the most effective means of establishing precise and sensitive cooeperation between mental and physical processes. Muscular relaxation ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... his long and eloquent appeal with a sentence which sounds the true keynote of the regret felt by the Parsis at being merely compared with the natives when they felt themselves to be morally and intellectually their superiors. Why are they not provided with commissions in the army like the Germans ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... with "The Ancient Mariner." The mediaeval feeling is most successfully captured in this poem. It recalls the old "Debate between the Body and Soul," and still more the touches of divine compassion which soften the rigours of Catholic theology in the legends of the saints. It strikes the keynote, too, of that most modern ballad mode which employs the narrative only to emphasize some thought of universal application. There is salvation for all, is the thought, even for the blackest soul of the world, the soul that betrayed its Maker.[22] Such, though after a ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... an immediate desire to name over certain rights with which he was vested as a citizen of the United States, Diane was more than willing to change the subject. Persistence was the keynote of Mr. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... indifferently. "I will grant you that greed is the keynote of this place; yet even that has its interesting side. Where else do you see it so developed? Where else could you see the same emotion actuating a number of very different people in ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he said, "that the one strongest characteristic of all the painting that has emanated from Venice is beauty and strength of color, the keynote of which seems to have been struck in the first mosaic decorations of San Marco, more than eight centuries ago. And how could it be otherwise in a city so flooded with radiance of color ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... them, still holds good, though it has declined in use, like all things chivalrous, in an age deafened by the clamour of industrial strife; an age grown blind to the beauty of service, that, in defiance of "progress," still remains the keynote of an ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... one of Warmoth's staunchest supporters, and when the party in Louisiana was split by the two factions, the Custom House ring and the Warmoth faction, Pinchback was elected permanent chairman of the Warmoth convention and made the keynote speech for the campaign. Subsequently, Warmoth's utter degeneracy alienated him and so they parted company. Warmoth's star descended, and he went down to ignominious defeat. Upon his name and memory were heaped derogations, curses and anathemas. And unfortunately ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... momentary prospect of dead flats; the mellow ring of appositeness being the concordant note of deliveries running linked as they flashed, and a tolerant philosophy of the sage in the world recurrently the keynote. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... otherwise you would not see me here." "My friend fell ill, I attended him; he died, and I dissected him" was the remark of a wit on reading her satirical pen portrait of the Marquise du Chatelet. This cold skepticism, keen analysis, and undisguised heartlessness strike the keynote of the century which was socially so brilliant, intellectually so ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Nominalism Anselm identified Realism with the doctrine of the Church. But Anselm's Realism is not the result of independent thought. In his methods he has been rightly styled the "last of the Fathers." His keynote was Belief in the Christian faith as the road to understanding it. Thus his object was to give to the dogmas accepted by the Church a philosophical demonstration. To him Realism was the orthodox philosophical doctrine because it was the one most in harmony with Christian theology. He ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... his judges that "there is no evil to a good man either in life or after death, nor are his affairs neglected by the gods", he sounded the keynote of Stoicism, with its two main doctrines of virtue as the only good, and the government of the world by Providence. Let us weigh his words, lest we interpret them by the light of a comfortable modern piety. A great many things that are commonly called evil may and do ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... Prussians," was his eternal keynote, "and Prussia is all-sufficient. Our hosts follow the Prussian flag and not the tricolor; under the black and white they joyfully die for their country. The tricolor has been, since the March riots, recognized as ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... situation. Long-postponed issues, involving vital questions of policy and of administration, were awaiting his decision, and he busied himself with frivolities and with impossibilities. These early days gave the keynote of ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... physician should observe the action of the larynx and feel if there are no spasmodic movements and if the flexibility is satisfactory. The action of the larynx can be exercised and improved by singing seconds, thirds, etc. The keynote always may be sung on oo; the second, ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... chalk to the high lights, the pearls, the canary's eyes, and the pathetic tear-drops upon the damsels' faces, the immortal productions were ready for framing. The giraffe or swan-necked angel was the keynote for all ideal work, and even the recognised artists of those days, with one or two brilliant exceptions, ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... trying to sneak down and step into active control again to-morrow through some sly, subtle suggestion which it hopes may get past the vigilance of my sentinel. That word daily becomes, of necessity, my constant keynote—a daily conflict, a daily sleepless vigilance, and, thank God, a ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... the effect likely to be produced in the country by the example set by London; and those who, unlike Pepys, were of a Presbyterian turn of mind freely expressed their hopes that the keynote of the election struck by the City would be taken up by the country at large. "God has overruled the hearts of men and heard the prayers of his people in the city election, though the Episcopals were high and thought to have the day; ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... did she take it into her head to air all sorts of independent notions that quite shocked her mother? and why was she for ever drawing plans to herself of a life that should be solitary, and yet crowded with interests—whose keynote should be sympathy for her fellow-creatures and large-hearted work among them? and, above all, why did she want to persuade herself and Michael that this was the sort of life best fitted for her? ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... see The keynote of it is that stubborn grip on the broken sword. I should think every fighter would love it for that. And it is more than the glory of the good fight. It is the glory of the unconquerable will. Look at the woman's face! The world ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... a new phase through Charles Darwin's epochmaking work: "The Origin of Species." The keynote of Darwin's theory is Natural Selection, by which term the development of all living forms is referred to the working of certain laws which in the reproduction of plants and animals preserved those individuals which were best fitted to survive ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... workmen, and of a good faith that everyone acknowledges and admires in their commercial dealings; in no country that is or was, has the commandment 'Honor thy father and thy mother', been so religiously obeyed, or so fully and without exception given effect to, and it is in fact the keynote of their family, social, official and national life, and because it is so their days are long in the land ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... gentleman, and say, No reward, thank you, sir!'" My sister, who was made quite delicate, at first, by the English climate, and acquired from this temporary check and the position of eldest child a pathetic nobility which struck the keynote of her character, writes from Rockferry: "This morning of the New Year was very pleasant. It was almost as good as any day in winter in America. I went out with Mamma and Sweet Fern [Julian]. The snow is about half a foot deep. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop |
