"Midas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... critics who change everything that comes under their hands to gold, but to this privilege of Midas they join sometimes his ears!—J. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... through Lydia into Phrygia, where he is joined by new forces. The city of Celaenae; the plain of Caystrus, where the soldiers demand their arrears of pay, which Cyrus discharges with money received from the queen of Cilicia. The town of Thymbrium; the fountain of Midas. Cyrus enters Cilicia, and is met at Tarsus by Syennesis, the king of ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... enthusiasm was gone from Merrihew's heart. Since Kitty evinced a desire to avoid him, the world grew charmless; and the fortune of Midas, cast at his feet, would not have warmed him. On the way over to the hotel, however, he whistled bravely and jingled the golden largess in his pockets. He bade good night to Hillard and sought his room. Here he emptied his pockets on the table and built a shelving house ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... developing the vast unpeopled tracts from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and to exploiting the hitherto neglected or unknown natural resources of the country. Every year science furnished new methods of converting nature's products into man's wealth. Chemistry, the doubtful science, Midas-like, turned into gold every thing that it touched. There were not native workers enough, and so a steady stream of foreign immigrants flocked over from abroad. They came at first to better their own fortunes by sharing in the unlimited American harvests. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... days its existence was fully understood. The Greeks enshrined it in the story of Midas, of the 'Golden Touch.' Here was a man who turned everything he laid his hands upon into gold. His life was a progress amidst riches. Out of everything that came in his way he created the precious metal. 'A foolish legend,' said the wiseacres of the Victorian age. ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... as long as those of Midas, Or stand out salient from either side as A close-cropped ARRY's, at right angles set To his flat jowl, we cannot settle, yet; But in one thing, at least, a score they'll chalk— They will not hear ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... 'Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much:' "Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch." All my demurs but double his attacks; At last he whispers, "Do; and we go snacks." Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door, Sir, let me see your works and you no more. 'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring (Midas, a sacred person and a king), His very minister who spied them first (Some say his queen) was forced to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When every coxcomb perks them in my face? A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... He was even more horrified at the arrogance of the guilty Praetorians and at their shameless effrontery in offering the Imperial Purple to the highest bidder and in, practically, selling the Principiate to so bestial a Midas as Didius Julianus, who, of all the senators, seemed most to misbecome the Imperial Dignity and who had nothing to recommend him ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... husband who had already found a cure for his mortal sickness, and who was happy away from home? What would she have given to him who should have revealed the truth? But the rushes round the ownerless island did not chatter like the reeds to which King Midas's barber trusted his secret. Athalie was consumed with envy, while she vainly sought for a key to the riddle. At home and in public, Timar and Timea presented the exemplary picture of a happy marriage. He heaped ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... be concealed by pouring the usual libations, or maintaining a cautious reserve. The whispered opinions of false philosophers will soon be loudly echoed by the popular voice, which is less timid, because it is more honest. Even thus did Midas laboriously conceal the deformity of his head; but his barber, who saw him without disguise, whispered his secret in the earth, and when the winds arose, the voices of a thousand reeds proclaimed to the world, 'King Midas hath ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... and yet never being free from certain financial anxieties, if not financial needs; while his neighbor, who is neither very learned nor able, nor yet in any wise remarkable in his moral development, is living much after the fashion of Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold. But is gold the test ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... by the worker ants, for whom this store of honey serves as a food supply. When the side of the distended abdomen is tapped, the ant passes the 'honey' out of its mouth, and it is then eaten. Three species are known in Australia, Camponotus inflatus, Lubbock; C. cowlei, Froggatt; and C. midas, Froggatt. The aboriginal name of the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... costly decoration! what gold and glass! what Sevres and Dresden! But the more I admired the beautiful works of art, the more I thought of the enthusiasm and devotion of the artist, the more I was touched by the grace and delicacy of color and form around me; and the more I heard Midas talk, the more clearly I saw that he did not see, or feel, or understand anything of the real value and significance of his own entourage. The more beautiful it was, the more plainly it displayed his total want ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... who made head against him, and conquered the Phrygians, at whose chief city Gordium, which is said to be the seat of the ancient Midas, he saw the famous chariot fastened with cords made of the rind of the cornel-tree, about which the inhabitants had a tradition, that for him who should untie it, was reserved the empire of the world. Most authors ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... there could be no doubt. He was probably one of the richest, as he was certainly one of the oldest, baronets in England, and he could afford to travel as if he were an accredited representative of the Queen—almost as if he were an American Midas of the fourth or fifth class. But as to his large leisure people began to say things. It began to be hinted in leading articles that it was scarcely fair that Sir Rupert's constituents should be disfranchised because it pleased a disappointed politician to ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Masque," the stage chronicler or historian of the Four Ages appears as something more of a dramatic poet: his work has more of form and maturity, with no whit less of spontaneity and spirit, simplicity and vivacity. The framework or setting of these five acts, in which Midas and Apuleius play the leading parts, is sustained with lively and homely humor from induction to epilogue: the story of Psyche is thrown into dramatic form with happier skill and more graceful simplicity by Heywood than afterward by Moliere and Corneille; though there is here nothing ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of Africa on the Transvaal frontier, rumoured to be auriferous. Now, whether it was auriferous or not before, the mere fact that Charles had secured some claim on it naturally made it so; for no man had ever the genuine Midas-touch to a greater degree than Charles Vandrift: whatever he handles turns at once to gold, if not to diamonds. Therefore, as soon as my brother-in-law had obtained this option from the native vendor (a most respected chief, by name Montsioa), and promoted a company of his own to develop ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... thy rebuffs; See to thy golden shore promiscuous come Quacks for the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb; Fools are their bankers—a prolific line, And every mortal malady's a mine. Each sly Sangrado, with his poisonous pill, Flies to the printer's devil with his bill, Whose Midas touch can gild his ass's ears, And load a knave with folly's rich arrears. And lo! a second miracle is thine, For sloe-juice water stands transformed to wine. Where Day and Martin's patent blacking roll'd, Burst from the vase Pactolian streams of gold; Laugh ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... 411. Frontal, Fr., a frontlet, or forehead band.—Cotgrave. A frontlet is mentioned as part of a woman's dress in Lyly's "Midas," 1592: "Hoods, frontlets, wires, cauls, curling-irons, periwigs, bodkins, fillets, hair laces, ribbons, rolls, knotstrings, glasses," &c. See also Mr Steevens's note on "King ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... Midas treads a wearier measure: All he touches turns to gold: If there be no taste of pleasure, What's the use of wealth untold? What's the joy his fingers hold, When he's forced to thirst for aye?— Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... one time, proved to be of fictitious value when "the bottom dropped out" of the Nevada boom; and that silver mine, which he was commissioned to sell in New York, was finally sold for three million dollars! It was, as Mark says, the blind lead over again. Mark Twain had the true Midas touch; but the mine of riches he was destined to discover was a mine, not of gold or silver, but the mine of intellect and ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... all the frogs of the river, becoming infected with his spirit, would adopt his style of speech and croak only pasquinades. The contemptibleness of the assailant made him the more dreaded. Did not the very reeds tell the fatal secret about King Midas? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "Hotel Midas," Johnny crisply directed, and jumped into the tonneau, whereupon the chauffeur touched one finger to her bonnet, ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a Midas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was in everything good, from banking to building. He was in Parliament, of course. He was in the City, necessarily. He was Chairman of this, Trustee of that, President of the other. The weightiest of men had said to projectors, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... precisely estimate the misfortune you complain of; but in any case it cannot equal my own in wanting means, or a prince to back me and supply me with the requisites, for prosecuting the science of alchemy; but for which want alone I should now be rolling in gold, and richer than ever was Midas, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... be said of him, as of [v]Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into coin. And when Mr. Gathergold had become so rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he bethought himself of his native ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... bird, then liberate them. Some are certain to fly into the crater and try to scrape the glue off in the sand. Then," I added, triumphantly, "all we have to do is to haul in our birds and detach the wealth of Midas from their ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... wishing that Blasco Ibanez had not learnt the typewriter trick so early. Print so easily spins a web of the commonplace over the fine outlines of life. And Blasco Ibanez need not have been an inverted Midas. His is a superbly Mediterranean type, with something of Arretino, something of Garibaldi, something of Tartarin of Tarascon. Blustering, sensual, enthusiastic, living at bottom in a real world—which can hardly be said of Anglo-Saxon vulgarizers—even ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... he found it necessary to pursue the arduous task of breaking up a powerful league which had been formed against him in the north. The Syro-Cappadocian Hittite states, including Tabal in Asia Minor and Carchemish in north Syria, were combining for the last time against Assyria, supported by Mita (Midas), king of the Muski-Phrygians, and Rusas, son of Sharduris III, ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... among the cities of men, haunt of Persephone, thou who by the banks of Akragas' stream that nourisheth thy flocks, inhabitest a citadel builded pleasantly—O queen, graciously and with goodwill of gods and men welcome this crown that is come forth from Pytho for Midas' fair renown; and him too welcome therewithal who hath overcome all Hellas in the art which once on a time Pallas Athene devised, when she made music of the fierce ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... like the snows of yester-year! They have gone the way of their beautiful chariots with the elaborate armorial bearings and the tasselled hammercloth, the bewigged, cocked-hatted coachman, and the two gorgeous flunkies hanging on behind. Sir Gorgeous Midas has beaten the dukes in mere gorgeousness, flunkies and all—burlesqued the vulgar side of them, and unconsciously shamed it out of existence; made swagger and ostentation unpopular by his own evil example—actually ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... knew anything at all about him. He might be a battered old traveller, or an Anglo-Indian nabob, or a needy haunter of Continental pensions, or a convict just emerged from a term of penal servitude. He might be as rich as Midas, or as poor as a church-mouse. But on one thing Austin was determined—Aunt Charlotte must be saved from herself, if necessary. They wanted no interloper in their peaceful home. And he, Austin, would go forth into the world, wooden leg and all, rather than submit to ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... authoritatively, "and containeth of gold ten pounds to the hundredweight. Moreover—" He sifted down upon the dark wood beside the stones a thimbleful of dull yellow grains. "The sands of Pactolus, gentlemen! Sure 'twas in no Grecian river that King Midas bathed himself!" ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... but you need not resign your asses' ears. You shall wear them in the character of King Midas." ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Midas' Ears began to spring, (Midas, a sacred person and a king) 70 His very Minister who spy'd them first, (Some say his Queen) was forc'd to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... time, there lived a very rich man, and a king besides, whose name was Midas; and he had a little daughter, whom nobody but myself ever heard of, and whose name I either never knew, or have entirely forgotten. So, because I love odd names for little girls, I choose to ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... whom, Gyges, murdered and dethroned the last of the Heraclidae; and with a new dynasty seems to have commenced a new and less Asiatic policy. Gyges, supported by the oracle of Delphi, was the first barbarian, except one of the many Phrygian kings claiming the name of Midas, who made votive offerings to that Grecian shrine. From his time this motley tribe, the link between Hellas and the East, came into frequent collision with the Grecian colonies. Gyges himself made ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of my equals in rank and dignity were running after these shares. I replied that such conduct would be that of a fool, the conduct of impertinence, rather than of conceit; that it was not mine, and that since he pressed me so much I would tell him my reasons. They were, that since the fable of Midas, I had nowhere read, still less seen, that anybody had the faculty of converting into gold all he touched; that I did not believe this virtue was given to Law, but thought that all his knowledge was a learned trick, a new and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... fingers of his'n!" How could Mrs. Saggs speak of them so? They were heroic, effectual fingers. Theirs was something far greater than the Midas touch—they transmuted the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... know the Goldenrod family?—Of course I did.—Well, the Lady, was first cousin to Mrs. Midas Goldenrod. She had been here in her carriage to call upon her,—not very often.—Were her rich relations kind and helpful to her?—Well, yes; at least they made her presents now and then. Three or four years ago they sent her a silver waiter, and every Christmas ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... When the old Puritan saw a man going to the gallows, "There," he said, "but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford". When the rich man, entering his club, sees some wretched tatterdemalion, slouching on the pavement, there, he may say, goes Sir Gorgius Midas, but for—what? I am here and he there, he may say, because I was the son of a successful stock-jobber, and he the son of some deserted mother at the workhouse. That is the cause, but is it a reason? Suppose, as is likely enough, that Lazarus ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... protected under-surface. The same three hundred years that have made over Europe and made English America have, as it were, filled in the rhythmic pauses between their giant heart-beats by ripening Dr. Holmes's wine and touching with Midas caress these ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... popular tales (those, for instance, on which Shakespeare is so often based)—an idea that is profoundly moral even if the tales are immoral. It is what may be called the flaw in the deed: the idea that, if I take my advantage to the full, I shall hear of something to my disadvantage. Thus Midas fell into a fallacy about the currency; and soon had reason to become something more than a Bimetallist. Thus Macbeth had a fallacy about forestry; he could not see the trees for the wood. He forgot that, though a place cannot be moved, the ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... Frances took the cough-drops morning and evening, and still the disagreeable habit remained. Mr. Draper was very little at home; and when he was, his mind was engaged by new projects. Anxiety, however, did not rob him of sleep: he was too successful; he seemed to have the Midas- like art of turning every thing to gold:—his thousands were rapidly accumulating, and half a million was now the point at which he determined to stop. Mrs. Draper's slight cough did not attract his attention; but if her appetite failed, he ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
... my careless verse, And Midas ears relent not at my moan! In some far land will I my griefs rehearse, 'Mongst them that will be moved when I shall groan! England adieu! the soil that brought me forth! Adieu unkind where still is ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... mother, seemingly untrodden by the foot of man, the woman at his side was his. From Holdfast over the spruces to Sawanec in the blue distance he was lord, a domain the wealth of which could not be reckoned in the coin of Midas. He turned to her as they flew down the slope, and she averted her face, perchance perceiving in that look a possession from which a woman shrinks; and her remark, startlingly indicative of the accord between them, lent a no less ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... from nothing else but that men do not know this vision, that it is so hard—so dreadfully hard—to win. And he used to say that this power is infinite, that it depends only upon how much one wants it; and that he who possessed it had the gift of King Midas, and turned all things that he touched to gold. That is real madness to me, Arthur, and will not let me be still; and yet I know that it cannot ever die in me; for whenever there is an instant's weakness there flashes over me again the fearful ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... belle. But—this for encouragement—these qualities can in a measure at least be acquired. All things being more or less equal, the girl who dances best has the most partners. Let a daughter of Venus or the heiress of Midas dance badly, and she ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Comedy," called "Mother Bombie," appeared in 1594, his "Midas" in 1592, and his "Most Excellent Comedie of Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes" in 1584. "Mother Bombie" represents four servants, treated partly as English, partly as Roman slaves, who deceive their respective masters in ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... and well measur'd song First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas' ears, committing short and long; Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look wan; To after age thou shalt be writ the man, That with smooth air could'st humour best our tongue. Thou honour'st Verse, and Verse must lend her wing To honour ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... vices must not be reveal'd) 160 For fear the people have them in the wind, Who long ago were neither dumb nor blind: Nor apt to think from Heaven their title springs, Since Jove and Mars left off begetting kings. This Midas knew; and durst communicate To none but to his wife his ears of state: One must be trusted, and he thought her fit, As passing prudent, and a parlous wit. To this sagacious confessor he went, And told her what a gift the gods had sent: 170 But told it under matrimonial seal, With strict injunction ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... all that can be said, you have gifts greater than you yourself believe; and I have been tempted; but it is no use, there are deeper things than luxuries and the magazines of merchandise— much deeper. No, no, I cannot marry you; if you were as rich as Midas, as powerful as Caesar, I would not marry you—never, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Klondike, and the Bureau of Engraving, all in one. Craig dumped the wealth out on the table - stacks of genuine bills, gold coins of two realms, diamonds, pearls, everything portable and tangible all heaped up and topped off with piles of counterfeits awaiting the magic touch of this Midas to ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... black and white these agonies and secret cravings of which I dare not speak. It is for the same reason, I suppose, that murderers make confession to dogs and cats, that people with something "on their mind" are given to thinking aloud, that the queen of Midas must needs whisper to the sedges the secret of her husband's infirmity. Outwardly I am a man of God, pious and grave and softly spoken. Inwardly—what? The mean, cowardly, weak sinner that this book knows ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... proceeded energetically but without bringing up any rarities. Our dragnet was filled with Midas abalone, harp shells, obelisk snails, and especially the finest hammer shells I had seen to that day. We also gathered in a few sea cucumbers, some pearl oysters, and a dozen small turtles that we saved for the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... considerable number of Diptera, or two-winged flies, that closely resemble wasps and bees, and no doubt derive much benefit from the wholesome dread which those insects excite. The Midas dives, and other species of large Brazilian flies, have dark wings and metallic blue elongate bodies, resembling the large stinging Sphegidae of the same country; and a very large fly of the genus Asilus has black-banded wings and the abdomen ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... Hundred) "comes mixed"; dip in where you will and you bring up all sorts of fish. In England if you go into educated society, you are likely to meet almost exclusively educated people—or at least people with the stamp of educated manners. Sir Gorgius Midas is not of course inexorably barred from the society of duchesses. Her Grace of Pentonville must have met him frequently. But in America the duchesses have to rub shoulders with him every day. And—which is worth noting—their husbands also rub ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... of Danae as signifying that women have been and will be overcome by money. The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. George ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... stand as commonplaces and proverbs of wealth and luxury. The magnificence of Pelops imparts lustre even to the brilliant dreams of the mythologist. The name of Croesus, King of Lydia, whom I have already had occasion to mention, goes as a proverb for his enormous riches. Midas, King of Phrygia, had such abundance of the precious metals, that he was said by the poets to have the power of turning whatever he touched into gold. The tomb of Mausolus, King of Caria, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... Mister Midas, take your millions And the glitter of your gold! Life has treasures where the heart is That have never yet been told! There are sweeter things to cherish, There's song of earth and sky, That are only faintest whispers Of the raptures ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... voice that hourly speaks within us' is never silent. Like Signor Benedick, it 'will still be talking.' We can scarcely let our eyes dwell upon an object—nay, not even upon a gridiron or a toothpick—but it seems to be transmuted as by the touch of Midas into gold. Our facts accordingly adopt upon occasions a very singular shape. We are not nice to a shade. A trifle here or there never stands in our way. We regard a free play of fancy as the privilege of every genuine Briton, and exclaim with Pistol, 'A fico ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... his men continued to fish up plate, bullion, and dollars as plentifully as ever till their provisions grew short. Then, as they could not feed upon gold and silver any more than old King Midas could, they found it necessary to go in search of better sustenance. Phipps resolved to return to England. He arrived there in 1687. and was received with great joy by the Duke of Albemarle and other English lords who had fitted out the vessel. Well they might rejoice, for they ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... to adjudge a musical contest between Pol and Pan. He decides in favor of Pan, whereupon Pol throws off his disguise, appears as the god Apollo, and, being indignant at the decision, gives Midas "the ears of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... full of meat. There was no descriptive reporting; but what could be more expressive than the announcement of a marriage in such terms as these:—"On Tuesday se'n-night, Squire Brown of Bumpkin Hall was married to Miss Matilda Midas of Halifax, a handsome young lady with ten thousand pounds to her dowry"? We are much more florid nowadays, but by no means so precise. The leader-writer did not spread himself abroad a hundred years ago. Indeed, soon after ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... hirn, erhitzet durch ein glas, Vermeinet mehr reichtum zu haben, Dan Midas und Crsus besass; Ja grosser frsten gunst und gaben, 10 Dienst mpter, glck und herrlichkeit Tritt ich zu grund ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... could not be converted into a suitable home for the poor woman and her five children. Would not that be more just and fair than to leave the mother and her five little ones languishing in a garret, while Sir Gorgeous Midas sat at his ease in an empty mansion? Besides, good Sir Gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his own accord; his wife will be delighted to be freed from half her big, unwieldy house when there is no longer a staff of servants to keep ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... he exclaimed, "you have the touch of Midas; g-g-give us a few years more and we will outrank the fabled Croesus. We shall yet be masters of the world. We shall ride upon its neck as if it w-w-were an ass! How about the old farm life now? Do you want to ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... had watered the horses at a little creek that was already skimmed with ice, and unwrapped a package of sandwiches on his knee and offered me one, I broke loose. Silence may be golden, but even old King Midas got too big a dose of gold, once upon a time, if ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... of Juventian youths the flowret fair Not of these only, but of all that were Or shall be, coming in the coming years, Better waste Midas' wealth (to me appears) On him that owns nor slave nor money-chest 5 Than thou shouldst suffer by his love possest. "What! is he vile or not fair?" "Yes!" I attest, "Yet owns this man so comely neither slaves nor chest My words disdain thou or accept at best Yet ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... Hugues Capet, founder of the third dynasty of French kings, and stigmatized as "root of that ill plant," because this poem was composed only a few years after Philip IV's criminal attempt against Pope Boniface at Agnani. The poets also recognize there Pygmalion (brother of Dido), Midas, Achan, Heliodorus, and Crassus, [18] ere they are startled by feeling the whole mountain tremble beneath them and by hearing the spirits exultantly cry "Glory ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... farthing to Canada. Canada contributes not a dime to England. Though a tariff against alien lands and trade concessions to her colonies would bring such prosperity to those colonies as Midas could not dream, England confers no trade favor to her colonial children. There have been times, indeed, when she discriminated against them by embargoes on cattle or boundary concessions to cement peace with foreign powers. Except for a slight trade concession of twenty to twenty-five ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... every line was wet with a surge, and every humorous passion counterchecked with a storm. If you like it, so; and yet I will be yours in duty, if you be mine in favor. But if Momus or any squint-eyed ass, that hath mighty ears to conceive with Midas, and yet little reason to judge; if he come aboard our bark to find fault with the tackling, when he knows not the shrouds, I'll down into the hold, and fetch out a rusty pole-axe, that saw no sun this seven year, and either well baste him, or heave the coxcomb overboard to feed cods. ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... hopping out; but he merely did this as a concession to his master's weakness, and soon returned again to his own grave pursuits: peering into the straw with his bill, and rapidly covering up the place, as if, Midas-like, he were whispering secrets to the earth and burying them; constantly busying himself upon the sly; and affecting, whenever Barnaby came past, to look up in the clouds and have nothing whatever on his mind: in short, conducting himself, in ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... whose gates are gold, Whose turrets, risen in an hour, Dazzle between the sun and shower, Whose sole inhabitants are kings Six cubits high with gryphon's wings And beard and mien more glorious Than Midas or Assaracus; Though priests in many a hill-top fane Lift anguished hands—and lift in vain— Toward the sun's shaft dancing through The bright roof's square of wind-swept blue; Though 'cross the stars nightly arise The silver fumes of sacrifice; ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... The main crux of this passage is "fit quantity of | | syllables." Quantity in such a context suggests syllabic | | length; and one recalls the sonnet to Lawes— | | | | not to scan | | With Midas' ears, committing short and long. | | | | But, on the other hand, Mr. Robert Bridges has made it | | almost if not quite certain that Milton counted syllables, | | and therefore the phrase would mean "ten syllables to a | | line," proper ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... for the Spanish treasure—"hard food for Midas"—that threw its jaundiced glory about the cradle of George the Fourth; what is that to the promise of plenty, augured by the natal day of our present Prince? Comes he not on the ninth of November? Is not his advent glorified by the aromatic clouds of the Lord Mayor's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... teeth or "flukes'' to fasten themselves into the bottom; whence the words odontes and dentes are frequently taken for anchors in the Greek and Latin poets. The invention of the teeth is ascribed by Pliny to the Tuscans; but Pausanias gives the credit to Midas, king of Phrygia. Originally there was only one fluke or tooth, whence anchors were called eterostomoi; but a second was added, according to Pliny, by Eupalamus, or, according to Strabo, by Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... be glad enough, both of them, if I drew out now! But I won't do it! It is mine, all mine, and I am going to find it! They shall have their shares, as I promised them: ten per cent each. And I, Sir Midas, will not be suspected then of falling in love with you as I am doing because you are rich and I ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... There are also in real life little lines between the corner of our Minnie's mouth and her nostril. And again, Minnie is one of those people whose dresses never seem to fit, but this fits like a glove. These retouchers are like Midas, and they turn all that comes to their hands to gold; or, like Spring, the flowers come back at their approach. They reverse the work of Ithuriel, and restore brightness to the fallen. They sit at their little desks, and scratch, scratch, scratch with ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... be trusted to the death; a man without his price, incorruptible, with whom a secret, say, would be as safe as if buried in the grave. He would not give it even to the wind, and no reed on his land would whisper 'Midas has ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... that even his pigs of lead, By crossing with some by Midas bred, Made a perfect mine of his piggery. And as for cattle, one yearling bull Was worth all Smithfield-market full Of the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... the blissful, self-satisfied ignorance of Sir Midas Pyle, or as Lord Fitz-Fulke, with his delightful imitation of the East London accent, called him, Sir "Myde His Pyle," as he leaned back on his divan in the Grand Cairo Hotel. He was the vulgar editor and proprietor of a vulgar ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... brass and lead (the latter very easy to steal, from its softness) have been stripped off from the public buildings. Now Ionos, King of Thessaly, is said to have first discovered lead, and Midas, King of Phrygia, brass. How grievous that we should be handed down to posterity as neglecting two metals which they were immortalised ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... only by physical possession of the premises? During the long winter of their absence, ice had held their treasure inviolate, but with the warming summer the jewel they had fought for so wearily would lie naked and exposed to the first comer. The Midas lay in the valley of the richest creek, where men had schemed and fought and slain for the right to inches. It was the fruit of cheerless, barren years of toil, and if they could not ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... 'Triumph of Riches,' and the 'Triumph of Poverty,' and of his portrait sketches. In the 'Triumph of Riches,' Plutus, an old man bent double, drives in a car, drawn by four white horses; before him, Fortune, blind, scatters money. The car is followed by Croesus, Midas, and other noted misers and spendthrifts—for Cleopatra, the only woman present, is included in the group. In the 'Triumph of Poverty,' Poverty is an old woman in squalor and rags, who is seated in a shattered vehicle, drawn by asses and oxen, and ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... ("Zum Tanze, zum Sprunge, so wack-ack-ack-ackelt das Herz"), nobly representing his own style in Phoebus's aria, and promptly caricaturing it in the second part of Pan's ("Wenn der Ton zu muehsam klingt"). Midas votes for Pan—"denn nach meinen beiden Ohren singt er unvergleichlich schoen." At the word "Ohren" the violins give a pianissimo "hee-haw" which is fully as witty in its musical aptness as Mendelssohn's clown-theme in the Overture to the Midsummer ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... Midas," Robert retorted. "All I touch turns to gold. My love will make her flesh imperial as a pope's niece and her rags as purple as ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... sons of Temenos had passed over it, began to flow with such great volume of water that the horsemen became unable to pass over. So the brothers, having come to another region of Macedonia, took up their dwelling near the so-called gardens of Midas the son of Gordias, where roses grow wild which have each one sixty petals and excel all others in perfume. In these gardens too Silenos was captured, as is reported by the Macedonians: and above the gardens is situated a mountain called Bermion, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... bottle of spirits; and near it lay the golden case in which the queen of Gustavus Adolphus treasured up that hero's heart. Among these relics and heirlooms of kings I must not forget the long, hairy ears of Midas, and a piece of bread which had been changed to gold by the touch of that unlucky monarch. And as Grecian Helen was a queen, it may here be mentioned that I was permitted to take into my hand a lock of her golden hair ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... very conquest for this baser type a man blights his sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for what it will net us in dollars and cents, we are not on the road leading to success. For success does not consist in the ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea: the beautious scarfe Vailing an Indian beautie; In a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To intrap the wisest. Therefore then thou gaudie gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee, Nor none of thee thou pale and common drudge 'Tweene man and man: but thou, thou meager lead Which rather threatnest then dost promise ought, Thy palenesse moues me more then eloquence, And here choose I, ioy be ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... priggish. I have no objection to an innocent game of 'catch-questions' in the ordinary way, and when I get a turn myself. But if I've got to pay every time, and the stakes are to be my earthly happiness plus my future existence—why, I don't play. There was the case of Midas; a nice, shabby trick you fellows played off upon him! making pretence you did not understand him, twisting round the poor old fellow's words, just for all the world as though you were a pack of Old Bailey lawyers, trying to trip up a witness; I'm ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... had slept in hell with Ignorance. Yet, as a punishment, they added this, That he and Poverty should always kiss And to this day is every scholar poor: Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor. Likewise the angry Sisters, thus deluded, To venge themselves on Hermes, have concluded That Midas' brood shall sit in Honour's chair, To which the Muses' sons are only heir; And fruitful wits, that inaspiring are, Shall discontent run into regions far; And few great lords in virtuous deeds shall joy But be surpris'd with every garish toy, And still enrich the ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... green-house in Reggie's artistically ordered room. It was larger too than on the occasion of Geoffrey's visit; for the folding doors which led into a further apartment were thrown open. Two big fires were blazing; and old gold screens, glittering like Midas's treasury, warded off the draught from the windows. The air was heavy with fumes of incense still rising from a huge brass brazier, full of glowing charcoal and grey sand, placed in the middle of the floor. In ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... great Enchanter's art, Whose magic fired your brain and stirred your heart, Whose touch, more potent than King Midas' gold, Wrought Tales of Tanglewood and Tales Twice Told, Whose Marble Faun and Mosses from the Manse Still hold the lasting colors of Romance; Who built 'for you the Hall of Fantasy Through whose bright portals you might pass and see ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... let me live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch; If Heaven more generous gifts deny, I shall not miss them much,— Too grateful for the blessing lent Of simple tastes ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Martin Luther, but a trifle liberal with her idioms. The tongue in her head wagged like a bell-clapper. Whatever was whispered in the Hills got somehow into Aunt Peggy's ears, and once there it went to the world like the secret of Midas. ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... frets at worldly strife Grows sallow, sour, and thin; Give us the lad whose happy life Is one perpetual grin: He, Midas-like, turns all to gold,— He smiles, when others sigh, Enjoys alike the hot and cold, And laughs ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... into his inheritance; he will not slumber and forget himself in the lap of money, or spend his hours in counting idle treasures, but be up and briskly doing; he will have the true alchemic touch, which is not that of Midas, but which transmutes dead money into living delight and satisfaction. Etre et pas avoir—to be, not to possess—that is the problem of life. To be wealthy, a rich nature is the first requisite and money but the second. To be of a quick ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were the days of many of our greatest railway operators, daring, able, enthusiastic men, who had the rare gift of imparting confidence to their followers and the public, and realized the fable of King Midas, whose touch transmuted all things into gold. Their careers were those of conquest and accumulation, like that of Napoleon; and, like him, they underwent, with few exceptions, their retreats from Russia and their Waterloos. Of such were Jacob Little, Daniel Drew, Anthony ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... "I am already like to be very late at my dear friend Cimber's dinner party"—he mentioned the name of the owner of a very large villa not far down the road; "I have with me only Midas, my mute valet. If you detain me any longer I ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... back on the fatal and universal prevalence of Gold-worship recorded in the history of our race, from the period when Midas became its victim, and the boy chased the rainbow to find the pot of treasure at its foot, to the days when the alchemist offered his all a burnt-sacrifice on the altar; until we reach the present time, when, although the manner of its worship has changed, the old idolatry remains in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... in hierogliphicall figures. A briefe of the golden calf (the world's idol). The golden ass well managed, and Midas restored to reason. Written by J. Rod, Glauber, and Jehior, the three principles or originall of all things. Published by W.C., Esquire, 8vo. Lond. Printed for William Cooper, at the Pellican, in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... diamonds, and the gleaming purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit on it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had become so ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... has grown habituated to the flight of time. Years? we have seen so many of them that they make no great impression upon us. What! is it ten years since young Midas first came to the counting-room, asking humbly for an entry-clerk's place—he who is now the head of the firm? Bless us! it seems like yesterday. Is it ten years since we first put on that coat? Why, it must be clean out of the fashion ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... some talk of him. For through the air, and the whole extent of this hemisphere of the heavens, hath his report and fame, even until this present time, remained very memorable and renowned. Then all of you are derived from the Phrygian blood, if I be not deceived. If you have not so many crowns as Midas had, yet have you something, I know not what, of him, which the Persians of old esteemed more of in all their otacusts, and which was more desired by the Emperor Antonine, and gave occasion thereafter to the Basilico at Rohan to be surnamed Goodly Ears. If you have not ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... lived a very rich King whose name was Midas, and he had a little daughter whom he loved very dearly. This King was fonder of gold than of anything else in the whole world: or if he did love anything better, it was the one little daughter who played so merrily beside her ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... new and horrible impetus to the spread of half-baked thought. The labor of graving on stone or of baking tablets of brick or even of scrawling letters on paper with a pen is no longer a curb on the dangerous fluency of the inverted Midas. He now lolls in a Morris chair, sipping iced tea, dictating to four blonde and two dark-haired stenographers; three novels, a couple of books of travel and a short story written at once are nothing to a really enterprising universal genius. Poor Julius Caesar ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... not wise, I know, to preach to boys. And yet, sometimes, a man must speak his heart; even, like Midas' slave, to the reeds by the river side. And I had so often, fishing up and down full many a stream, whispered my story to those same river-reeds; and told them that my Lord the Sovereign Demos had, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... computer-language notion of an iterative loop; compare 'cdr down' (under {cdr}), which is less common among C and Unix programmers. ITS hackers used to say 'IRP over' after an obscure pseudo-op in the MIDAS PDP-10 assembler (the same IRP op can nowadays be ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... of Gordium, an ancient town of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was preserved an old wagon, rudely built, and very primitive in structure. Tradition said that it had originally belonged to the peasant Gordius and his son Midas, rustic chiefs who had been selected by the gods and chosen by the people as the primitive kings of Phrygia. The cord which attached the yoke of this wagon to the pole, composed of fibres from the bark of the cornel tree, was tied into a knot so twisted and entangled that it seemed ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris |
