"Theme" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... calamity threatens the Silver Fox Patrol when on one of their vacation trips to the wonderland of the great Northwest. How apparent disaster is bravely met and overcome by Thad and his friends, forms the main theme of the story, which abounds in plenty ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... comedy consists in their observations upon the promoters of learning, Reuchlin, Erasmus, and Faber Stapulensis, who afterwards make their appearance, and the discussion becomes general, but no impression can be made upon the stupid and prejudiced monks. The theme is, of course, the inutility of the new learning, Hebrew and Greek and correct Latinity. One short passage seems ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... a whole, it is scarcely possible to deny that this is at once the supreme motive of his art, and the principle on which his moral and religious doctrine rests. He is always strong and convincing when he is dealing with this theme. It was evidently his own deepest conviction, and it gave him the courage to face the evils of the world, and the power as an artist to "contrive his music from its moans." It plays, in his philosophy of life, the part that Reason fills for Hegel, or the Blind Will for Schopenhauer; ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... to win the Scholarship," said Kitty, taking up the theme, "because it means staying on here and being happy and being well educated for three years. It means getting the best lessons in music, and the best lessons in singing, and the best lessons in art, and it means also getting ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... Christ. It unfolds at once to them His glories of Person, His Wonder of Work and Love. It does not elaborately travel up to Him through general considerations. It sets out from Him. It makes Him the base and reason for all it has to say—and it has to say many things. Its first theme is not the community, but the Lord; not Church principles, not that great duty of cohesion about which it will speak, and speak urgently, further on, but the Lord, in His adorable personal greatness, in His unique and all-wonderful personal achievement. ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... him with some whispered promise, and he took his seat, glancing covertly around him. Then the instruments struck up, and immediately fixed his attention. As the musical theme developed his eyes gradually lost their wild look, and a softened expression took its place. He sank lower in his seat, and rested his head upon his hand. His whole soul seemed, at last, to be absorbed in the music. When it was finished Blank was a ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... of its members, and on these points his advice is usually followed, and his decisions are very rarely questioned.... For many generations the deference habitually paid to the occupant of the chair has been the theme of admiring comment by foreign observers."[177] Finally, the fact should be noted that by the Parliament Act of 1911 the Speaker is given sole power, when question arises, to determine whether a given measure is or is not to be considered a money ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... theme of the gloomy orator was the display of his own virtues and his services as a patriot, distinguishing as enemies to their country all whose opinions were contrary to his own. He then reviewed successively the various departments of the government, and loaded them in turn with censure ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... is the sort of solemn relish which they have for talking of their own misfortunes. To be the objects of a calamity of any kind, seems to raise them in their own estimations. With a dreary enjoyment of his miserable theme, the servant expatiated on his position as a man deprived of the best of masters; turned adrift again in the world to seek another service; hopeless of ever again finding himself in such a situation as he had lost. He roused me at last into speaking to him, by sheer dint of ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... constant aim of Cyrus whenever he and his soldiers messed together, that the talk should be lively and full of grace, and at the same time do the listeners good. Thus one day he brought the conversation round to the following theme:— ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... the man and the girl had departed, the trapper and Herbert sat by their campfire discussing the question which their guest had propounded. Their conversation was grave and deliberate, as became the theme; and they united in the opinion that if the deed had been done in anger elicited by a provocation, the man should give himself the favor which the law even ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... written and many errors ignorantly propagated. For months after the outbreak of the war against Turkey the development of this Alliance into a Confederation of the Balkan states, on the model of the American or the German constitution, was a theme of constant discussion in Europe and America. As a matter of fact there existed no juridical ground for this expectation, and the sentiments of the peoples of the four Christian nations, even while they fought together against the Moslem, were saturated with such an infusion of suspicion and ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... This discourse of Isaiah takes the form of a theme (God's arraignment of his people as rebels) treated in four paragraphs: the prophet's remonstrance—repentance by oblations—repentance ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... works at Marly they perceived that the sky was brightening. The cocks began to crow in the poultry-yards. A bird twittered in a park at the left, ceaselessly reiterating a tender little theme. ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... very soon into a rolling succession of dreams. The actual scene, as looked down upon from the box of the mail, was transformed into a dream, as tumultuous and changing as a musical fugue. This troubled Dream is circumstantially reported in Section the Third, entitled, "Dream-Fugue upon the Theme of Sudden Death." What I had beheld from my seat upon the mail,—the scenical strife of action and passion, of anguish and fear, as I had there witnessed them moving in ghostly silence; this duel between life and death narrowing itself to a point of such exquisite evanescence ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... went into another key, and then resumed the theme. A lean little girl came in, who tapped on the counter with a coin. She called out "'A'p'orth o' dips!" taking a tress of her hair from between her teeth to say it, and putting it back to await the result. She had a little brother ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... skies; All Nature feels her renovating sway; The sheep-fed pasture, and the meadow gay; And trees, and shrubs, no longer budding seen, Display the new-grown branch of lighter green; On airy downs the shepherd idling lies, And sees to-morrow in the marbled skies. Here then, my soul, thy darling theme pursue, For every day was Giles ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... poem should be delivered with bold energy, with flashing eye, swelling breast, and free action—as though the speaker's heart was full of the nobility of the theme: ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... always ready at the proper hour. I know I dreamed of taking a draft of cool, sweet water from a full pitcher and then woke up with my mouth and throat as dry as dust. The good home I left behind was a favorite theme about the campfire, and many a one told of the dream pictures, natural as life, that came to him of the happy Eastern home with comfort and happiness surrounding it, even if wealth was lacking. The home of the poorest man on earth was preferable to this place. Wealth ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... bath. The second, a back view, full of the malformations of forty years, of children, of hard work, stands gripping her flanks with both hands. The naked woman has become impossible in modern art; it required Degas' genius to infuse new life into the worn-out theme. Cynicism was the great means of eloquence of the middle ages, and with cynicism Degas has rendered the nude again an artistic possibility. What Mr. Horsley or the British matron would say it is difficult to guess. Perhaps the hideousness depicted by M. Degas ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... him, thrusting his hand through his hair and biting the end of his penholder to a pulp. In his muttering, which was mixed with the curious, stingless profanity of which he was master, I caught the name of Cheyne, and I knew that he was facing the crisis of a fortnightly theme. The subject assigned was a narrative of some personal experience, and it was to be handed in on the morrow. My ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sang, her whole soul thrilled with the joy of glorying in such a theme, and her last thought, as she closed her eyes for the night, was about a plan of work that she meant ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... Violinist sprang up and began pacing the room, pressing his hands to his eyes to drive away the notes, humming to himself to get rid of the sound, the theme, the one haunting, irrepressible motive. He walked up and down, lighting one cigarette after the other, puffing once, twice, and then hurling it ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... then, coming to our theme, when the conquistadors and settlers arrived at these islands and subdued that of Manila, they found three varieties or kinds of people in them. Those who held command of it [i.e., the island of Manila], and inhabited the seashore and river-banks and all the best parts round about, were ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... indifference, lavishing a vast deal more kindness and attention upon a noble wolf-hound that crouched close to her feet, his big clear eye bent ever upon his mistress's face with a degree of intelligence that would have formed a theme for a painter. It was a noble creature, and no wonder the lady evinced so much regard for the hound, who ever and anon walked close ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... artists,—great and small! From now until we go in June I shall hear nothing but this tune:— Whether I like Long's "Vashti," or Like Leslie's "Naughty Kitty" more; With all that critics, right or wrong, Have said of Leslie and of Long.... No. If you value my esteem, I beg you'll take another theme; Paint me some pictures, if you will, But spare me these, for good ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... To return to our theme. There was nothing in the whole range of moral offences against which the jurisprudence of William the Testy was more strenuously directed than the crying sin of poverty. He pronounced it the root of all evil, and determined to cut it up root and branch, and extirpate it from the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... to do at present:—other opportunities may hereafter arrive in which you may find the continuance of my friendship, and a grateful remembrance of the good office you did me; but to engage me to fulfil my obligations without any reluctance on my part, you must speak to me no more on a theme which I cannot hear without emotions, such as I would by no means ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... now time to examine the details of the parable in conformity with the main theme just stated and come to a definite interpretation. Henceforward we may keep ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... I see the spell of thoughtfulness is gone, Or going swiftly. I will not complain; But ere these lads are fastened to their games, And thoughts arise discordant with our theme, Let us with gratitude approach the throne And worship God. I wish once more to lead Your hearts in prayer, and follow with my own The leading of your song of thankfulness. Then will I lease and leave you for the night To such divertisement as suits ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... country; and a letter to the Bishop of Guadalaxara contained a confidential and detailed account of the good Father's spiritual temptation. But in some way the story leaked out; and long after Jose was gathered to his fathers, his mysterious encounter formed the theme of thrilling and whispered narrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Senor Joaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of the mountain; but as the Senora Pedrillo ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... The favorite theme in the writings of Shelley is "Eros," love of the individual, of the race, of nature, and in this he follows Christ, in whose system of Philosophy, Love is ever the pre-dominating idea which permeates ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... as she had made out on the rush to Folkestone; and if in Sir Claude's company on that occasion Mrs. Wix was the constant implication, so in Mrs. Wix's, during these hours, Sir Claude was—and most of all through long pauses—the perpetual, the insurmountable theme. It all took them back to the first flush of his marriage and to the place he held in the schoolroom at that crisis of love and pain; only he had himself blown to a much bigger balloon the large consciousness ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... people swarmed like ants, delighted with the calm perfection of the day, the magnetism of the crowds, the blare of martial music, the novelty of passing strangers, and, above all, by the prospect of the great race which, for weeks, had been the theme of conversation everywhere ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... whom he was very fond, should inherit everything. If we affronted him, for at the age of sixteen as a boy, and fourteen as a girl, worldly prospects were little regarded, he would then declare that we should not be a shilling the better for his money. With him money was everything: it was his daily theme of conversation, his only passion; and he valued and respected people in proportion to what they were supposed to possess. With these feelings he demanded for himself the greatest deference from Cecilia and me, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... If on my theme I rightly think, There are five reasons why men drink,— Good wine, a friend, because I 'm dry, Or lest I should be by and by, Or any other ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... education, the multiplication of learned magazines and the facilities of travel. One of the most interesting chapters in the development of modern thought can be written, as Dr. Merz has shown by example as well as by precept, on the theme of the mutual influence of the great national centres of thought, and in particular of France, England, and Germany. These nations might seem as though designed, whether by nature or by the unconscious hand of political history, to be half-willing, half-reluctant complements to ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... obnoxious impost. Sometimes coarse invective and angry assertion take the place of convincing reason and calm philosophy. At others, there is a true vein of poetry and pathos running through the rather unpoetic theme, which touches us with its Wordsworthian feeling and gentleness. Then he would be found calling down thunders upon the devoted heads of the monopolists, with all a fanatic's hearty zeal, and in his fury he would even pursue them, not merely through the world, but beyond its dim frontiers ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... More, Glanvill, Pepys, Aubrey, and others, wrote eagerly to correspondents in the Highlands, while Sacheverell and Waldron discussed the topic as regarded the Isle of Man. Then came special writers on the theme, as Aubrey, Kirk, Frazer, Martin, De Foe (who compiled a catch-penny treatise on Duncan Campbell, a Highland fortune-teller in London), Theophilus Insulanus (who was urged to his task by Sir Richard Steele), Wodrow, a great ghost-hunter: and so we reach ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... in mind, and on other occasions, you may feel inclined to resort to artificial stimulus. Respecting this many-sided theme I have a few words to offer—of direct bearing on the collector's case. It should be clearly understood, in the first place, that a stimulant confers no strength whatever: it simply calls the powers that be into increased action, at their own expense. Seeking real ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... theme at the cover-side was, of course, the declaration of war; but even that absorbing subject sunk to silence as the first low whimper, taken up more confidently by hound after hound, proclaimed that poor Reynard was ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Never had there been on the throne of England a sovereign more bent upon making England the champion-nation of the world. The deference, the sycophancy, of foreign princes and potentates to him, and the proofs of the same in letters and embassies, and in presents of hawks and horses, had become a theme for jests and caricatures among foreigners themselves. Parliaments might come and go in Westminster; but there sat Cromwell, immoveable through all, the impersonation of the British Islands. His dissolution of the late Parliament, and his easy suppression of the subsequent tumult, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... unfeeling crew, frae yon burn side, Those fairy scenes are no for you, by yon burn side; There fancy smooths her theme, By the sweetly murmuring stream, And the rock-lodged echoes skim, down by ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... pitch become a sodden pulp, a Morass, a sponge, a lake, a running stream, What time a sad repentant Mea culpa Was all my musing's theme. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... was that Lucasta made its first appearance. When the fortunes of the gallant poet were at their lowest and never to revive, Marvell seizes the occasion to deplore the degeneracy of the times, a familiar theme with poets:— ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... the city have increased fifty thousand rupees, and furnished him with a net revenue of two lacs of rupees per annum. The merchant may travel without a guard or protection from one frontier to another, an unheard-of circumstance in the time of the kings. The justice of this chief affords a constant theme of praise to all classes. The peasant rejoices at the absence of tyranny, the citizen at the safety of his home, the merchant at the equity of his decisions and the protection of his property, and the ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... freely copied by other papers, and for several weeks the topic was kept conspicuously before the little world of western Canada. Nowhere was the interest in the subject more keenly manifested than at the Royal Oak, where it furnished the theme of frequent and all-but-interminable discussion. Not a day passed but mine host Lapierre publicly congratulated himself upon his acumen in having all along believed and declared that Savareen was ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... street, in the stores, at the churches—wherever men met—this was the one unfailing theme of conversation. None but those who have seen a Southern community excited over one subject or one man can imagine how much can be said about a little matter. The newspapers of that and the adjoining counties were full of it. Colored men were ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... of a dairy I purpose to sing, But all things in order, first, God save the King! {62} And the Queen, I may say, That every May-day, Has many fair dairy-maids all fine and gay. Assist me, fair damsels, to finish my theme, Inspiring ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... unmerited steak. The return of this asymmetrical Saturday was one of those petty occurrences, intra-mural, localised, almost civic, which, in uneventful lives and stable orders of society, create a kind of national unity, and become the favourite theme for conversation, for pleasantries, for anecdotes which can be embroidered as the narrator pleases; it would have provided a nucleus, ready-made, for a legendary cycle, if any of us had had the epic mind. At daybreak, before we were ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of industrious affectionate women temporarily united to brutal and worthless men in a country where legal marriages are rare. Half of the creole songs which I was able to collect during a residence of nearly two years in the island touch upon the same sad theme. Of these, "Ch Manman Moin," a great favorite still with the older blanchisseuses, has a simple pathos unrivalled, I believe, in the oral literature of this people. Here is an attempt to translate its three rhymeless stanzas into prose; but the childish ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... breath and switching quickly to another theme, "have you heard about the Hairton scandal? It's simply rich! You ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... his listeners long in doubt as to his personal history. He enjoyed talking about himself. He was a Professor of archaeology, and had written various learned books on the subject. But his studies had by no means been confined to the one theme. History had also interested him profoundly. He had published a work on the old houses of England. The Priory figured among them. It was not difficult to discover from the conversation of this singular man, whose subtle and secretive instincts were contradicted, at times, by a strange inconsequent ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... hear of one convert to the gospel of mercy," said Mrs. Brown heartily. "The apathy of our women on this subject is heart-sickening. Men are denouncing us; the newspapers are full of our cruelty; the pulpit makes our heartlessness its theme; and yet we keep on with our barbarous work with an indifference that must ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... ofttimes artificial. It happens also that a story has no plot ("From the Diary of a Tutor in Pozman," "Bartek the Victor"), no action, almost no matter ("Yamyol"), but the reader is rewarded by simplicity, rural theme, humoristic pictures ("Comedy of Errors: A Sketch of American Life"), pity for the little and poor ("Yanko the Musician"), and those qualities make the reader remember his stories well. It is almost impossible to forget—under the general impressions—about ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... and with more festivity. For when he came to Mitylene, he gave the city their freedom upon the intercession of Theophanes, and was present at the contest, there periodically held, of the poets, who took at that time no other theme or subject than the actions of Pompey. He was extremely pleased with the theater itself, and had a model of it taken, intending to erect one in Rome on the same design, but larger and more magnificent. When he came to Rhodes, he attended the lectures of all the philosophers there, and gave ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Flashy," continued the poor victim, unconsciously warming with his theme: "why then, I'd draw my chair up and call for Betty, the gal wot tends to customers. Betty, my dear, says I, you looks charmin' this mornin'; give me a nice rasher of bacon and h'eggs, Betty my love; and I wants a pint of h'ale, and three nice h'ot ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... done, as in the copious notes and explanations which he had gathered together for the purpose of annotating the book. He had made this subject a study of years, though his actual translation of it only took him eighteen months. The theme of The Scented Garden is one which is familiar to every student of Oriental literature. Burton, who was nothing if not thorough in all he undertook, did not ignore this. In fact, one may say that from his early manhood he ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... express the admiration and enthusiasm which your late despatches have excited in the breasts of all ranks of people. You are now the theme of every conversation, the toast of every table, the hero of every woman, and the boast of every Englishman. When Dumaresq waited on Lord St. Vincent, his lordship squeezed his hand in the greatest rapture, exclaiming, "I knew it,—I knew it,—I knew the man,—I knew what he could ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... put forward as the poet's theme. His theme is man, in the two contrasted moods of joyous emotion, or grave reflection. The shifting scenery ministers to the varying mood. Thomson, in the Seasons (1726), sets himself to render natural phenomena as they truly are. He has left us a vivid presentation in gorgeous ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... strangely enough, in both of his carefully prepared arguments, specifically rejects all intention of dealing "metaphysically" with this theme, in spite of the fact that every movement toward a fuller recognition of creative energy is nothing less than metaphysics, ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... suggested trinity as a substitute and started a titter, but the preacher had already got his dramatic momentum, and was sweeping along in a tumultuous tide of oratory. Right at his three victims did he aim his fiery eloquence, and ever and again he came back to his theme, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," even though Ann Pease had turned her back on William, whose head was low bowed, and Nancy was ostentatiously weeping into a ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... which they were destined to become more closely acquainted. "When I was a very young man," said George Brown, denouncing the Fugitive Slave Law before a Toronto audience, "I used to think that if I ever had to speak before such an audience as this, I would choose African Slavery as my theme in preference to any other topic. The subject seemed to afford the widest scope for rhetoric and for fervid appeals to the best of human sympathies. These thoughts arose far from here, while slavery was a thing ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... from his lord withdrew; With head in lowly reverence bent, And filled with thoughts of joy, he went. The royal street he traversed, where Waved flag and pennon to the air, And, as with joy the car he drove, He let his eyes delighted rove. On every side, where'er he came, He heard glad words, their theme the same, As in their joy the gathered folk Of Rama and the throning spoke. Then saw he Rama's palace bright And vast as Mount Kailasa's height, That glorious in its beauty showed As Indra's own supreme abode: With folding doors both high and wide; With hundred porches beautified: Where golden ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... love, powerless for all her enchantments to resist, it is the subtle persuasion of Venus, seemingly invisible—in Titian's realisation of the legend—to the woman she tempts, that constitute the main theme upon which Titian has built his masterpiece. Moritz Thausing[22] had already got half-way towards the unravelling of the true subject when he described the Borghese picture as The Maiden with Venus and Amor at the Well. ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... his brother, the Major, who, on the return of his regiment from India and New South Wales, had sold out and gone upon half-pay, came to pay his biennial visit to Fairoaks. "My brother, Major Pendennis," was a constant theme of the retired Doctor's conversation. All the family delighted in my brother the Major. He was the link which bound them to the great world of London, and the fashion. He always brought down the last news of the nobility, and was in the constant ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "usually write eye in the middle of a line, but when they come to it at the end of one, they are fairly puzzled. In l. 10, the scribe of Hn ('Hengwrt') writes lye, and that of Ln ('Lansdowne') writes yhe; and the variations on this theme are curious. The spelling ye ( ye) is, however, common.... I print it 'ye' to distinguish it from ye, the pl. pronoun." The other differences are accounted for by the varying degrees in which the two editors depend on the Ellesmere MS. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on a new one. The readiness, with me, is nine tenths of the battle. I never, or almost never, write a sermon unless it be upon a. subject that I want to write upon. I never cast about for a subject; I do not find the theme, but the theme finds me. Last week I departed from my way, and did lot make good progress. The text, "What shall it profit t man?" struck upon my heart as I sat down on Monday Horning, and I wrote it at the head of my usual seven sheets of white paper, and went ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... pages alike with pleasure and profit. The writers, each on his own theme, seem steadfastly to keep in view scriptural teaching, sound doctrine, and the trials and temptations which beset the daily life and walk of the ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... and fifty-four of these Sonnets. The last two are different in theme and effect from those which go before, and may perhaps not improperly be considered as mere exercises in poetizing. They have no connection with the others, and I would have no contention with those who regard them as suggested ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... half-humorously upon the education of children at home, but out of this activity emerged the main theme of the days and the work at hand. The building of a house proved a natural setting for that; gardens and woods and shore rambles are a part; the new poetry and all the fine things of the time belong most intensely ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... it, we must first get an idea of Paul's theme. Briefly, he would oppose the vain boasting of false apostles and preachers concerning their possession of the spirit and their peculiar skill and gifts, by praising and glorifying the office of a preacher of the Gospel with ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... fact that one must begin a theme at a given moment and close at a similar arbitrary point affects the teacher's procedure somewhat. He will always have to attack the problem anew at ten o'clock and pull together the loose ends of discussion at ten-thirty, if these happen to be the limits of time assigned him. But who will ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... into the children's mouths. Rosencrantz declared that the children 'so berattle [i.e. assail] the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither [i.e. to the public theaters].' Hamlet in pursuit of the theme pointed out that the writers who encouraged the vogue of the 'child actors' did them a poor service, because when the boys should reach men's estate they would run the risk, if they continued on the stage, of the same insults and neglect ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... of these poems; they form a comedy of manners, shooting as it flies the folly rather than the wickedness of vice: not wounding with a red-hot iron, but "just flicking with uplifted lash," Horace stands to Juvenal as Chaucer stands to Langland, as Dante to Boccaccio. His theme is life and conduct, the true path to happiness and goodness. I write sermons in sport, he says; but sermons by a fellow-sinner, not by a dogmatic pulpiteer, not by a censor or a cynic. "Conversations" we may rather call them; the polished talk ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... casting about for other models. He soon found one, the greatest of all for his purpose. It was Weber—that same Weber for whose obsequies Wagner wrote some funeral music, not forgetting to use a theme from the Euryanthe overture. Weber was to Wagner a veritable Golconda. From this diamond mine he dug out tons of precious stones; and some of them he used for The Flying Dutchman. We all saw then what a parody ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... the instrument and struck a few chords while she thought. Then she began to work with all her soul at the theme in the last movement of the Ninth Symphony which is like the sound of the opening of the ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... War is its theme but not its purpose. War breeds hatred, horror, pestilence and famine, yet from its tears and ashes eventually must rise the clean ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... paragraphs when you expect and want news is tantalising, is it not? Pray agree with me, and then you will allow that I have acted very kindly in not writing till I had something to tell you. Something, of course, means Wilkes, for everything is nothing except the theme of the day. There has appeared a violent North Briton, addressed to, and written against Lord Mansfield, threatening a rebellion if he continued to persecute Mr. Wilkes. This paper, they say, Wilkes owned to the Chevalier ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... not know in what order the chapters of The Parts Men Play were written, but it seems to me that as Mr. Baxter gets to grip with the realities of his theme, he begins to lose a certain looseness of touch which marks his opening pages. If so, he is showing the power of development, and to the artist this power is everything. The writer who is without it is a mere static consciousness weaving words round the creatures of his own imagination. The man ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... difficulties—this change that a few years have wrought. It has not been so very long since she was the universal butt of ridicule, lampooned and caricatured, with all that malice, in its coarsest and most brutal form, could suggest. Her age was the favorite theme of the callow witling, her cause a never-failing subject for reproach and abuse. It is all over and done with, thanks to the new race of men which women themselves are training and educating. There are no words for her nowadays but ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Early one morning, Mr. Barrett had been strolling along the road nearest the edge of the cliff when as if by chance, there had floated down upon his astonished ears, a high girlish voice singing the second theme of his Alan Breck Overture. For a moment, his lips had curled into a complacent little smile; the next minute, he had sucked in his breath sharply between his clenched teeth. In her excitement, Cicely had mistaken her distance; she had ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... the whole Continent was then governed by women who were by no means conspicuous for meekness. Maria Theresa herself had not escaped his scurrilous jests. The Empress Elizabeth of Russia knew that her gallantries afforded him a favorite theme for ribaldry and invective. Madame de Pompadour, who was really the head of the French government, had been even more keenly galled. She had attempted, by the most delicate flattery, to propitiate the King of Prussia; but her messages had drawn from him only dry and sarcastic ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Tom," continued Mrs. Castleton, still intent on the main theme, "that in all probability Miss ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... great stage of the first canoe, which was painted black, was seated Laea, surrounded by her women attendants, who joined in the wild singing whenever the name of their mistress formed the singers' theme. ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... the little allegro in 3/8, of which a whole bar represents one-third, or one beat of that of the minuetto, and the other allegro in 2/4, of which a whole bar represents two-thirds, or two beats, correspond with each other and with the principal theme; while the whole proceeds without the slightest confusion. All that is requisite is to make ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... least," was Reggie's answer, "it is like along Piccadilly after nightfall, looking in at the Empire, and returning via Regent Street; and in Paris, like a visit to the Rat Mort and the Bal Tabarin. It is the local version of an old theme." ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... were passed some glamour seemed to be cast upon familiar objects. To the disenchanted eye all things were as they were on all other dullish days of summer, even to the accustomed bore leaning up against his favorite desk and transfixing his habitual victim with his usual theme. Yet to the gaze of this pleasure-taker all was subtly changed, and he shook hands right and left as he entered, to the marked surprise of the objects of his effusion. He had merely come to get some newspapers to help pass away the long moments on the wharf, and when he had found these, he hurried ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... taken aback by the introduction of so congenial a theme from so unexpected a quarter, "I've not played very much lately. Jill and I had a little punt about yesterday; but we did it quite slowly, you know, and I had my ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... recited, or at least put them into that jingling and quaint rhythm, acquired by habitual intercourse with the phraseology peculiar to these popular descants. On hearing a story he could readily shape it into verse, extempore, too, upon occasion; and many were the jokes that rebounded from his theme, whether in hall or kitchen. It was pleasant to watch his little grey eye, and the twinkling lashes, as they rose and fell, varying the expression of his lips. A slight lisp gave an air of simplicity to his ditties, which never failed to charm his auditors. He could throw the simplest expression ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... THEME no poet gladly sung, Fair to old and foul to young; Scorn not thou the love of parts, And the articles of arts. Grandeur of the perfect sphere Thanks the ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... in silence. Her heart was like lead within her. The recurrence of the butter theme as a sort of leit motif in her companion's conversation was fraying her nerves till she felt she could endure little more. She cast her mind's eye back over the horrid months and had a horrid vision of Geoffrey ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... is ever written, I hazard the guess that its plot will be woven around the theme of American transportation, for that has been the vital factor in the national development of the United States. Every problem in the building of the Republic has been, in the last analysis, a problem in transportation. The ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... the war is over, the victory won! A cheering, exultant crowd beset the White House. Lincoln came out on the balcony, said a word of response, and invited them to come back two days later for a fuller word. When they came again, he talked to them and to the country. His whole theme was, What is our next duty? Here is the next step, the first of the "erring sisters" to return is to be welcomed back. Louisiana has adopted a constitution abolishing slavery, establishing public schools for black and white alike, and ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... the Giant-Killer" is a curious jumble. The second part, as in most chap-books, is a weak and late invention of the enemy, and is not volkstuemlich at all. The first part is compounded of a comic and a serious theme. The first is that of the Valiant Tailor (Grimm, No. 20); to this belong the incidents of the fleabite blows (for variants of which see Koehler in Jahrb. rom. eng. Phil., viii. 252), and that of the slit paunch ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... That imagination should sometimes run riot and the pen be carried beyond the boundary line of the strictly literal is perhaps nothing much to be marvelled at in the case of the supernatural minded Celt with religion for his theme. Did the scribe believe what he wrote when he recounted the multiplied marvels of his holy patron's life? Doubtless he did—and why not! To the unsophisticated monastic and mediaeval mind, as to the mind of primitive man, ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... whom Cleopatra practised speaking the Roman language, had often seen him, and had heard of him still more frequently—for his mode of life was the theme of gossip among all classes of Roman men and women. His house was said to have descended in a direct line from Hercules, and his figure and magnificent black beard recalled his ancestor. You know him, and know that the things reported of him are those ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... said, clear his head. A great deal that he said was above Hugh's comprehension; and much of his repetitions mere words: but there were other matters which fixed Hugh's attention, and proved to him that study might be interesting out of school. When Dale had a theme to write, the two boys often walked up and down the playground for half an hour together, talking the subject over, and telling of anything they had heard or read upon it. Hugh presently learned the names and the meanings of ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... the purchase of an evening paper had made the great over-seas strife the general theme, "can you egsplain me why they don' stop that war, when 'tis calculate' to projuce so ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... cause of all things,—the first creative power by which or whom the world was formed. Thus "God is love" is a sublime doctrine which philosophy revealed to the Greeks, and the emphatic and continuous and assured declaration of which was the central theme of the revelation made by Jesus, the Christ, who resolved all the Law and the Gospel into the element of Love,—fatherly on the part of God, filial and fraternal on the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... CRACK. The fashionable theme, the go. The Crack Lay, of late is used, in the cant language, to signify the art and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... said, half laughing. "In England, at least, people do not know what is meant by IMPROVISING. They think it is to take a little theme and compose variations on it—the mere ABC of the art. But to sit down to the piano and plan a whole sonata or symphony in your head, and play it while planning it, is a thing they do not and will not understand. They come to ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... very glad of such a companion, and such a theme," said the old gentleman, with a smile. "Well, Laurence, if our oaken chair, like the wooden Palladium of Troy, was connected with the country's fate, yet there appears to have been no supernatural obstacle to its removal from the Province House. In 1760, Sir Francis ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a thorn At evening chime. Its sweet refrain fell like the rain Of summer-time. Of summer-time when roses bloomed, And bright above A rainbow spanned my fairy-land Of hope and love! Of hope and love! O linnet, cease Thy mocking theme! I ne'er picked up the golden cup In all my dream! In all my dream I missed the prize Should have been mine; And dreams won't die! though fain would I, And make ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... legends of the olden time are revived as the tourist passes them in review. England, too, has other charms than these. British scenery, though not always equal in sublimity and grandeur to that displayed in many parts of our own country, is exceedingly beautiful, and has always been a fruitful theme of song ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... not to see them; and the whole book was the spiritual story of a young Roman's soul, a priestlike artistic temperament, born in the haunted twilight between the setting sun of pagan religion and philosophy and the dawn of the Christian idea. The theme presented many fascinating analogies to the present time; and in the hero's "sensations and ideas" Henry found many correspondences with his own nature. In him, too, was united that same joy in the sensuous form, that same ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... forms would be resolved into the mist. But it was hard to say if he consoled himself effectually with such reflections, for the return to common sense meant also the return to the sharp pangs of defeat. It recalled him to the bitter theme of his own inefficiency, to the thought that he only desired one thing of life, and that this was denied him. He was willing to endure the austerities of a monk in a severe cloister, to suffer cold, to be hungry, to be lonely and friendless, to forbear all ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... went with tongues of flame In one blest theme delighting, The love of Jesus and His Name God's children all uniting! That love our theme and watchword still; That law of love may we fulfill, And love as we ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... you say, that I've forgotten what it's like? Not quite. Last winter I had to attend an execution: couldn't get out of it, you know. My cousin married a Washington belle, and I had to be there a week, and take it all in. Ah well, this is a threadbare theme; but I could understand how men fifteen hundred years ago fled from Alexandrian ball-rooms to Nitrian deserts. The emptiness of it—the eternal simper, the godless and harrowing routine! If a man has brains or a soul about him, what can he do with them in such a crowd? ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... an irritated monologue upon the theme of certain persons whose ignorance is not blissful, but trouble-inviting. Applehead, it would seem from his speech upon the subject, would be a much surprised ex-sheriff—now a deputy—if they were not all captured ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... little sister of the angels never lived, except in the imagination of the poet. It seems a pure allegory, or, rather, an exercise in arithmetic or a theme of astrology. Dante, who was a good doctor of Bologna and had many moons in his head, under his pointed cap—Dante believed in the virtue of numbers. That inflamed mathematician dreamed of figures, and his Beatrice is the flower ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... cease my lay; and especially was the fat land of Burgundy my theme, for I knew it well. Max would listen in enraptured silence. When he was eighteen, I wrote, with deep-seated purpose, several letters to my friend Lord d'Hymbercourt, who was at the time one of the councillors ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... mine. That's my theme," she says. "I've had a piece of music to myself because every one in this has a piece of music. ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... Memorial came before the House of Commons, Disraeli, as leader of the Opposition, eloquently supported the project. He was rewarded by a copy of the Prince's speeches, bound in white morocco, with an inscription in the royal hand. In his letter of thanks he "ventured to touch upon a sacred theme," and, in a strain which re-echoed with masterly fidelity the sentiments of his correspondent, dwelt at length upon the absolute perfection of Albert. "The Prince," he said, "is the only person whom Mr. Disraeli has ever known who realised the Ideal. None with whom he is acquainted ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... of affectionate warning on this one theme, but (alas!) I am not permitted to improve—I am condemned to narrate. My wealthy relative's cheque—henceforth, the incubus of my existence—warns me that I have not done with this record of violence yet. We must leave Mr. Godfrey to recover in Northumberland Street, and must follow ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... skirts and the constraints of corsets are still properly made the theme of indignant declamation. Yet let us be just. It is impossible to make costume the prime culprit, when we recall what robust generations have been reared beneath the same formidable panoply. For instance, it seems as if no woman ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... philosophic spirit, Livy was honest and candid, and possessed a wonderful command of his native language. His work enjoyed an unbounded popularity, not entirely to be accounted for by the fascinations of his theme, He realized his desire to present a clear and probable narrative, and no history of Rome can now be written without constant ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... organ were rolling out into the summer day, a wonderful theme from an old master, grandly played. Yes, she could play. She had been well taught. And the looks of her! She was wonderful at this distance. Were these then wealthy people perhaps summering in this quiet resort? He glanced about at the simple ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... where the King and Queen were proclaimed. The professional pride both of the clergy and of the army had been deeply wounded. The doctrine of nonresistance had been dear to the Anglican divines. It was their distinguishing badge. It was their favourite theme. If we are to judge by that portion of their oratory which has come down to us, they had preached about the duty of passive obedience at least as often and as zealously as about the Trinity or the Atonement. [4] Their attachment to their political creed had indeed been severely tried, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... less than thee Would I have broke this happy dream; It was a theme For reason, much too strong for fantasy. Therefore thou waked'st me wisely; yet My dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it. Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice To make dreams truths and fables histories; Enter these arms, for since thou ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the fields and woods, the two young people soon exhausted the topic of Hellebergene. He took up another theme. His inventions became the topic of conversation. He had acquired, from his studies with his mother, an unusual facility in explaining his meaning, and in Helene he found a listener such as he had rarely before met with. She was sufficiently ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... amused on this theme,' said Mortimer, restlessly. 'You can make almost any theme amusing to me, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... bright Shiraz, of Persian bards the theme; The vine with bunches laden hangs o'er the crystal stream; The nightingale all day her notes in rosy thicket trills, And the brooding heat-mist faintly lies along the ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... uneasy, lest by any possibility some knowledge of Percy's escapades should have come to Miss Trevor and might by her be incautiously betrayed to Colonel and Mrs. Rush. She turned rather an anxious eye upon the old lady, wishing that she would not pursue the theme of Percy and his valorous deeds, but not seeing very well how she could change the subject. Words did not come ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... faction, prepared for the event, and regardless of the priority of age, exalted Chosroes to the throne of Persia. He filled that throne during a prosperous period of forty-eight years; [42] and the Justice of Nushirvan is celebrated as the theme of immortal praise by the nations ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... of my three years' slumber on the banks of Ocean, unless he has seen them in the spirit, or unless he should read my long Poem descriptive of those acts; for I have in these years composed an immense number of verses on one grand theme, similar to Homer's Iliad or Milton's Paradise Lost; the persons and machinery entirely new to the inhabitants of earth (some of the persons excepted). I have written this Poem from immediate ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... the bold, the rash, adventure cost, In wide eternity I dare be lost. The muse is wont in narrow bounds to sing, To teach the swain, or celebrate the king. I grasp the whole, no more to parts confin'd, I lift my voice, and sing to humankind: I sing to men and angels; angels join, While such the theme, their sacred songs with mine. Again the trumpet's intermitted sound Rolls the wide circuit of creation round, A universal concourse to prepare Of all that ever breath'd the vital air: In some wide field, which active whirlwinds sweep, Drive cities, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... conflict in the field with veterans whose whole life had been a preparation for the day of battle. The instances which it was the fashion to cite of the great achievements of soldiers taken from the threshing floor and the shopboard were fit only for a schoolboy's theme. Somers, who had studied ancient literature like a man,—a rare thing in his time,—said that those instances refuted the doctrine which they were meant to prove. He disposed of much idle declamation about the Lacedaemonians by saying, most concisely, correctly and happily, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the few true novels of the day.... It is powerful, and touched with a delicate insight and strong impressions of life and character.... The author's theme is original, her treatment artistic, and the book is remarkable ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... those who best knew him, that he was of such an icy and death-like constitution, that he neither loved his friends nor hated his enemies. But, be this as it may, I see no reason that a difference between Mr. Washington and me should be made a theme of discord with other people. There are those who may see merit in both, without making themselves partisans of either, and with this reflection ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... and Rustum, the first in order, the largest in bulk, and the most ambitious in scheme of the poems which appeared for the first time in the new volume, was written in direct exemplification of the theories of the Preface. The theme is old, and though not "classical" in place, is thoroughly so in its nature, being the story of a combat between a father and a son, who know not each other till too late, of the generosity of the son, of the final triumph of the father, of the anagnorisis, with the resignation of the vanquished ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... Leffingwell, M.D., is by far the most judicial and unimpassioned contribution to the study of the question that it has been our privilege to read. Dr. Leffingwell has long been known both in this country and Europe, as a writer upon this theme. No one, so far as we know, has brought to it at once so calm and balanced a judgment as he, or a more exact knowledge of the whole field in which biological investigation plays so large a part. This latest publication from his pen is the result of years of study, ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... common in early spring to this latitude. Its form was unique and exaggerated, with flaming eyes, and mouth of huge proportions, with long, pointed teeth, white and sharp. For weeks, this gorgon of my imagination constituted the theme of neighborhood gossip. Several negroes had seen it, and fled its fierce pursuit, barely escaping its voracious mouth and attenuated claws, through the fleetness of fear. The old hardshell Baptist preacher, of the ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... disappointments obliged him to "coin his mind for bread", for a long period, of exclusive attention to portrait painting, although, at rare intervals, he accomplished something more satisfactory. More than thirty years since, on a voyage from Europe, in a conversation with his fellow passengers, the theme of discourse happened to be the electromagnet; and one gentleman present related some experiments he had lately witnessed at Paris, which proved the almost incalculable rapidity of movement with which electricity was disseminated. The idea suggested itself to the active ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... the distinguished Secretary of State [Rutherford B. Hayes and William M. Evarts], are between us. [Laughter.] For here is a special occasion for the application of the policy of peace. [Laughter.] I therefore reserve what few remarks I shall make upon this special theme ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... course been made long before war was contemplated. The completion of Mr. BOURCHIER'S beard in itself points to a comparatively remote date for the play's inception. Certainly there is nothing very apposite in its theme at the present juncture; for HARRY OF ENGLAND, suffering from the gout, blustering into a sixth marriage, and haunted by the ghosts of four dead wives and the wraith of the sole survivor, is not a figure precisely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... kind is essentially of the same nature as that which is derived from pursuits which are commonly regarded as purely intellectual. I mean, that the source of pleasure is exactly the same as in most of my problems in morphology—that you have the theme in one of the old master's works followed out in all its endless variations, always appearing and always reminding you of unity in variety. So in painting; what is called "truth to nature" is the intellectual element ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... draws near, the activity of intrigue and the agitation of the populace increase; the citizens are divided into hostile camps, each of which assumes the name of its favorite candidate; the whole nation glows with feverish excitement; the election is the daily theme of the public papers, the subject of private conversation, the end of every thought and every action, the sole interest of the present. As soon as the choice is determined, this ardor is dispelled; and as ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... limited range of their civil and domestic life, and out of the simple theme of the characters above mentioned, the invention of the Greek comic writers contrived to extract an inexhaustible multitude of variations, and yet, what is deserving of high praise, even in that on which they grounded ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... knew best.) It seemed this exquisite nature only needed the sunshine of his unspoken assurance to respond with delighted tenderness to his refined, his cultured advances. He was already beginning to write imaginary letters to his friends, on the theme of his engagement: semi-humourous academic effusions as to how he, who had so long remained immune, had succumbed at last to feminine charm; how he, the determined celibate—Wentworth always called himself a ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... two comrades, Gabriel and Roche, were hunting in the rolling prairies of the South, on the eastern shores of the Buona Ventura. One evening we were in high spirits, having had good sport. My two friends had entered upon a theme which they could never exhaust; one pleasantly narrating the wonders and sights of Paris, the other describing with his true native eloquence the beauties of his country, and repeating the old local Irish legends, which appeared to ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the tramp printer, who was being seated in the pew behind him. Miss Goodrich was with her father and Dick heard nothing of the opening part of the service, only coming to himself when Cameron was well started in his discourse. The preacher's theme was, "The Sermon on the Mount," and the first words that caught the young man's ear were, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." He glanced around at the congregation. Mrs. Gadsby was inspecting the diamonds in the ears of the lady by her ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... quite unlike Mr. McCutcheon's previous works in the field of romantic fiction and yet possessing the charm inseparable from anything he writes. The scene is laid in Indiana and the theme is best described in the words, "Whom God hath joined, let no man ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... and fight it he would. Also the townsmen and captains within, they had their hopes and their expectations heightened, believing at last the day would be theirs; so they feared them the less. Their subordinate preacher, too, made a sermon about it; and he took that theme for his text, 'Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.' Whence he showed, that though Mansoul should be sorely put to it at the first, yet the victory should most certainly ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... not only of the right of Americans to go and come about their proper business by way of the sea, but also of something much deeper, much more fundamental than that. I am thinking of those rights of humanity without which there is no civilization. My theme is of those great principles of compassion and of protection which mankind has sought to throw about human lives, the lives of noncombatants, the lives of men who are peacefully at work keeping the industrial processes of the world quick and vital, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... repulsive to write, can hardly be excluded from a theme dramatising Celtic views, and treating of a blood, to which the idea of country must shine resplendently if we would have it running at full tide through the arteries. Preserve your worship, if the object fills your optics. Better worship that than nothing, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... allegorical? How, upon a pure invention, upon a simple allegory, could a poem have been composed of about fifty thousand verses, relating with such force and power the events, and giving details with such exactness? On a theme purely allegorical there may easily be composed a short mythical poem, as for example a poem on Proserpine or Psyche: but never an epic so full of traditions and historical memories, so intimately connected with the life of the people, as the Ramayan.(1183) ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... mind for the impressions that are to follow. Several of the leading motives appear in this Vorspiel and must be appreciated to be understood. First we have the "Blaubartmotiv" (Bluebeard Motive). This is a theme whose giant march gives us in rhythmic thunders the terrible ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 'here,' I must needs own; because this is 'a letter' and 'not a letter,' as I may say; but a kind of 'short' and 'pithy discourse,' touching upon 'various' and 'sundry topics,' every one of which might be a 'fit theme' to enlarge upon of volumes; if this 'epistolary discourse' (then let me call it) should be pleasing to you, (as I am inclined to think it will, because of the 'sentiments' and 'aphorisms' of the 'wisest of the antients,' which 'glitter through it' like so many dazzling 'sunbeams,') ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... from the darkness and enjoying the sunshine of Divine favour, he loved social intercourse and communion of saints. It is one of the slanders heaped upon Christianity to call it a gloomy, melancholy theme: though 'it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting,' yet the wisely pious man will endeavour, even at an elegant entertainment or a Lord Mayor's dinner, to drop useful hints. Whenever Bunyan describes a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... usually hug the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishing boats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in the face of her danger. Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... theme to her, this visit to the historic vessel was, however, replete with interest to the others; being full of floating memories of the past, in which the grand figure of the hero of Trafalgar stood out in relief with that wonderfully ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... dog-fish wait Under an Atlantic Isle, For the negro ship, whose freight Is the theme of their debate, Wrinkling their red gills ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... languid, because unsupported by faith, the manual skill and science of the artist were continually on the increase. When these had reached a certain point, they began to be the principal things considered in the picture, and its story or scene to be thought of only as a theme for their manifestation. Observe the difference. In old times, men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith; in later times, they used the objects of faith that they might show their powers of painting. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the Talmud per se, that great work of 2,947 folio leaves. Were we to continue the tradition further, we might show how often this vast legal compilation was the subject of further commentary, discussion and deduction by yet later scholars. But that takes us beyond our theme and is ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... he heard that fine sylvan symphony of the sound of the falling water—the tinkling bell-like tremors of its lighter tones mingling with the sonorous, continuous, deeper theme rising from its weight and volume and movement; with the surging of the wind in the pines; with the occasional cry of a wild bird deep in the new verdure of the forests striking through the whole ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... culminating in an overwhelming necessity of confession—is so powerfully presented to us that we forget all question of originality until our memory of the fascinating pages has cooled down. Then we may recall the resemblance of theme in the recent novel entitled "The Silence of Dean Maitland," while we find the prototype of both these books in "The Scarlet Letter" of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who has handled the problem with a subtlety and haunting weirdness to which neither of the English works can lay any claim. As our first interest ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... presented himself there one morning towards the end of October. D'Ache arrived there the same evening while they were at dinner. They talked rather vaguely of the great project, but much of their old Chouan comrades. In spite of his decided German accent Flierle was inexhaustible on this theme. He and d'Ache slept in the same room, and this intimacy lasted two whole days, at the end of which it was decided that Flierle should be employed as a messenger at a salary of fifty crowns a month. That same night, Lanoe conducted d'Ache ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... Italians have liberty or even food to-day, is one of a few months', or, at most, a few years', concern, while the soul's experience of that one Italian who died more than five hundred years ago will be a fruitful theme forever? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... school reader, if it is to do effective work, must be purposefully organized. Sound organization groups into related units the various selections that center about a common theme. This arrangement enables the pupil to see the larger dominant ideas of the book as a whole, instead of looking upon it as a confused scrapbook of miscellaneous selections. Such arrangement also fosters literary comparison by bringing ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... appearances of rank. All this is credible enough, but, if there existed a society as dull and base as that which we meet in the pages of "Mr. Soapy Sponge," and Surtees's other novels, assuredly it was no theme for the great and generous spirit of Sir Walter. The worst kind of manners always prevail among people whom moderns call "the second-rate smart," and these are drawn in "St. Ronan's Well." But we may believe that, even ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott |
