"Theme" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shoul! you'll shell this pretty garter?" Here let me pause;—the Muse, in sad affright, Turns from the dire disasters of that night; Quite panic-struck she drops her trembling plumes, And thus a moralizing theme assumes:— Know, gentle Ladies, once these shapeless walls, O'er whose grey wreck the shading ivy crawls, Compos'd a graceful mansion, whose fair mould Led from the road the trav'ller, to behold. Oft, when the morning ting'd ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... and kissed her. He was in a wonderfully good humor. On his walk he had found a beautiful musical theme, and he felt it frolicking in him like a fish in water. He refused to go to the Palace until he had had something to eat. He was as hungry as an ape. Louisa then supervised his dressing, for he was beginning to tease her again, pretending that he was quite all right as he was with ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... 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 I close ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... open air, on the highways, among the fields, seasoned by all the incidents that happen to occur; and in it everybody takes a part, wedding-guests and outsiders, occupants of the houses and passers-by, for three or four hours in the day, as we shall see. The theme is always the same, but it is treated in an infinite variety of ways, and therein we see the instinct of mimicry, the abundance of grotesque ideas, the fluency, the quickness at repartee, and even the ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... has ever electrified an audience while he was thinking of his style or was conscious of his rhetoric, or trying to apply the conventional rules of oratory. It is when the orator's soul is on fire with his theme, and he forgets his audience, forgets everything but his subject, that he ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... princely criticism—that is to say, criticism of princes—it is refreshing to meet a really good bit of aristocratic literary work, albeit the author is only a prince-in-law.... The theme chosen by the Marquis makes his story attractive ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... address of Father Marquette. Such was ever, in substance, his teaching. Jesus the Christ, and Him crucified, was his constant theme. Two or three days were spent in similar exercises. The Indians crowded around the father constantly. They listened to his teachings with respectful and apparently with even joyful attention. He was pale and emaciate. Even the Indian could perceive, from ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... as soon as we reached the school we put his photograph up on the wall; for our moral lesson we learned by heart his last mention in the despatches; for our writing lesson we wrote his name, and he was the subject for our theme; and finally, we had to draw an airplane. We did not begin to think of him only after he was dead; before he died, in our school, every time he brought down an airplane we were proud and happy. But when we heard that he was ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... by some mysterious influence never experienced by me before in any church. The sermon was ended at last; the Judgment Day was the theme; all the old horror that used haunt me in childhood, when I thought upon this awful period in my soul's future, came back to me as the preacher with a power scarce short of inspiration pictured that day. I could hear Mrs. ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... mortal here, Oh, if Eliza's steps employ thy hand, Blot the sad legend with a mortal tear. Nor when she errs, through passion's wild extreme, Mark then her course, nor heed each trifling wrong; Nor, when her sad attachment is her theme, Note down the transports of her erring tongue. But, when she sighs for sorrows not her own, Let that dear sigh to Mercy's cause be given; And bear that tear to her Creator's throne, Which glistens in the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... superficial aspects of recent English history. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Davitt, and the whole line of witnesses before the Special Commission, tell a different tale. The very name of the Land League is significant. Home Rule was a mere theme for academic discussion in the mouth of Mr. Butt. Repeal itself never touched the strongest passions of Irish nature, though advocated by the most eloquent and popular of Irish orators. Not an independent Parliament, but independent ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... one hundred 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 by Petrarch, ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... assented Eugene, settling himself in his arm-chair. 'I would rather have approached my respected father by candlelight, as a theme requiring a little artificial brilliancy; but we will take him by twilight, enlivened with a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... invisible to mortal eye. Then first he recognized the ethereal guest; Wonder and joy alternate fire his breast; Heroic thoughts, infused, his heart dilate; Revolving much his father's doubtful fate. At length, composed, he join'd the suitor-throng; Hush'd in attention to the warbled song. His tender theme the charming lyrist chose. Minerva's anger, and the dreadful woes Which voyaging from Troy the victors bore, While storms vindictive intercept the store. The shrilling airs the vaulted roof rebounds, Reflecting to the queen the silver sounds. With grief renew'd the weeping fair descends; Their ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... these brief records of military affairs, the more pleasing theme for the historian of the Netherlands in comparison with domestic events, which claim attention but to create sensations of regret and censure. Prince Maurice had enjoyed without restraint the fruits of his ambitious daring. His power was uncontrolled and unopposed, but it was publicly odious; ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... The main theme of the story has occupied a great deal of attention. Its analogy to the Biblical narrative of Joseph and Potiphar's wife comes at once into the reader's mind. But there is just as close a similarity in the Greek tales, where the hero is killed or his life endangered for ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... though fitful in the first instance, soon developed into a steady appetite for work. Much of his former freshness and elasticity returned; ideas and forms of expression recurred to him without trouble. He had seized on a dramatic theme suggested in one of the books which Lettice had been reading, and a few days later admitted to her that he was at work on a poetic drama. She clapped her hands in almost childlike glee at the news, and Alan, without much need for pressing, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and good "you" are thought to be; the joy at "your" coming; what "we" now want to learn of "you;" what "we" wish "you" to do; how "we" desire a longer stay or regret the need of an early departure—all is a variation of the one theme—"we" ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... appointed room of one of America's great hotels that night, he might have wondered at the manner in which five of Chicago's great men hung upon the words of one little Japanese, who, now and then as he spoke, as if to indicate the vastness and grandeur of his theme, spread his hands ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... is, the great civilizations that have been created by the spirit of man—may all reveal the same plot, if we analyse them rightly. Each civilization—for instance, the civilization of Mediaeval and Modern Europe and again that of Ancient Greece—is probably a variant of a single theme. And to study the plot of civilization in a great exposition of it—like the Hellenic exposition or our own Western exposition—is surely the right goal ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the unemployed had been most satisfactorily met and overcome. No one starved in the public ways, and no rags, no costume less sanitary and sufficient than the Labour Company's hygienic but inelegant blue canvas, pained the eye throughout the whole world. It was the constant theme of the phonographic newspapers how much the world had progressed since nineteenth-century days, when the bodies of those killed by the vehicular traffic or dead of starvation, were, they alleged, a common feature ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... London attorneys, Upham and Blackwell, with Graham, the well-known chirographical expert, had seized every opportunity for rendering himself and them as conspicuous as possible, while his boasts of their well-laid plans, the strong points in their case, and their ultimate triumph, formed his theme on all occasions. Mr. Whitney's position at this time was not an enviable one, for Ralph Mainwaring, having of late become dimly conscious of a lack of harmony between himself and his New York attorney, took special delight in frequently flouting his opinions and advice ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... gold, say I, I who must win it, or die. Here goes, I'll sell my Muse. You may buy her for twenty sous. No, I'll write by the ream, Only give me your theme, And a sou more for a light To put in my garret at night. Garret!—ah, I was forgetting, My present's a very cheap letting Under the prison wall, Just where it grows so tall. Why don't I steal, you say? Oh, I wasn't brought up that way. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... spreading settlement, and this launched Mr. Pennypacker upon a favorite theme of his. He liked to predict how the colony would grow, sowing new seed, and already he saw great cities to be. He found a ready listener in Lucy. This too appealed to her imagination at times, and if at other times interest was lacking, she was too fond of the old man ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... over, she remembered that her father had spoken to her of the second "Agnus Dei" as an especially beautiful number. It was for five voices; exquisitely prayerful it seemed to her. With devout insistence the theme is reiterated by the two soprani, then the voices are woven together, and the simile that rose up in her mind was the pious image of fingers ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... The revolutionary party had seized upon the Texas question to effect or hasten its overthrow. Its determination to restore friendly relations with the United States, and to receive our minister to negotiate for the settlement of this question, was violently assailed, and was made the great theme of denunciation against it. The Government of General Herrera, there is good reason to believe, was sincerely desirous to receive our minister; but it yielded to the storm raised by its enemies, and on the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... unschool'd: For what we know must be, and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sense, Why should we, in our peevish opposition, Take it to heart? Fie! 't is a fault to heaven, A fault against the dead, a fault to nature, To reason most absurd; whose common theme Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried, From the first corse, till he that died to-day, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... listening while they talked, and the theme which occupied them was the joint effort that must be made on either side the old feud line for the firm enforcement of the new treaty. They discussed plans for catching in time and throttling by joint action any sporadic insurgencies by which the experimentally minded ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... whom, perhaps, when under the patronage of Major Carbonnell, and the universal rapture from my supposed wealth, I had treated with hauteur, glad to receive the intelligence, and spread it far and wide. My imposition, as they pleased to term it, was the theme of every party, and many were the indignant remarks of the dowagers who had so often indirectly proposed to me their daughters; and if there was anyone more virulent than the rest, I hardly need say that it was Lady Maelstrom, ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... depicted as sexually insatiable, as in a piece written by a man who takes a month's vacation from sex to recoup his strength (pt. 2, p. 12). And the related image of the female with a sexual organ capable of absorbing a man plays a variation on the vagina dentata theme (e.g., pt. 2, pp. 19, 24). A drawing of a man hanging himself for love raises a considerable debate on whether such a thing can indeed occur (pt. 2, pp. 17-18). In a more realistic vein, though equally cynical, is the poem on the woman who complained ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... stanza which, translating your first line—'Where the great green combers break,' etc.—strictly according to East Polynesian ballad-metres, ushers in your great theme. ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... day more fittingly than by a discussion of its highest general problems. It must be regarded, therefore, with satisfaction that the speaker on such an august occasion as this—the seventy-fifth anniversary of your Society—has selected as the subject of his address a theme of the highest general importance. Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more the custom on such occasions, and even at the general meetings of the great "Association of German Naturalists and Physicians," to take the subject of address from a narrow and specialised territory ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... of morning, somewhat like a salt-marsh. It certainly would have at times the purple-distance haze, that atmosphere of the sea which hangs across the marsh. The two might resemble each other as two pictures of the same theme, upon the same scale, one framed and hung, the other not. It is the framing, the setting of the marsh that gives it character, variety, tone, ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... cut off from the body of his troops, and only escaped destruction by the dashing exploit which his admiring subjects seem to have been never weary of commemorating, and which furnished Penta-our, the court poet, with a brilliant theme. A few extracts from the recital shall be given, based upon M. de Rouge's version, from which I venture in a few respects to deviate. The papyrus begins in the middle of a sentence, at the moment when the King had discovered ...
— Egyptian Literature
... that the multifarious scenes are linked together; it is by another idea, a more general, as we may still dare to hope, than the idea of war. Youth and age, the flow and the ebb of the recurrent tide—this is the theme of Tolstoy's book. ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... of formal balance. In the first a lack of sequence impairs the picture's unity. In the second, though the objects are contiguous there is no subjective union, and in David's composition the formality of the decorative structure is inapplicable to the theme. ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... I'll sing my lay, With humble Kelvin for my theme; My song shall be of life to-day, And not ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... himself glad to outline his general policy, and spoke of finding in the Colonies an undeveloped estate, which he was determined to develop. His phrases caught the popular imagination then as always. Colonial enterprise was the theme of all pens and tongues. Then on New Year's Day of 1896 had come the Jameson Raid. But in the stormy chapters of Parliamentary life which followed Sir Charles took little part, beyond commending Mr. Chamberlain's promptitude in condemning the Raid. The speech which he made in the vote of censure ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... world such a delightful place, but that to unity belongs the relating of this variety to the underlying bed-rock principles that support it in nature and in all good art. It will depend on the nature of the artist and on the nature of his theme how far this underlying unity will dominate the expression in his work; and how far it will be overlaid and hidden behind ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... Time: And the last words that he uttered will forgotten be by few: "I have bravely fought them, mother—I have bravely fought for you!" Let his memory be green in the hearts who love the South, And his noble deeds the theme that shall dwell ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... doubtful. There is nothing in the style or diction of Alphonsus which resembles Chapman's undisputed work, and it is hard to believe that he had a hand in it. The Revenge for Honour is on an Oriental theme, entirely different from those handled by Chapman in his other tragedies, and the versification is marked by a greater frequency of feminine endings than is usual with him; but phrases and thoughts ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... wrote for him, and in many ways was his hands and eyes. He in turn talked to her of the things that filled his mind. The betterment of man was an ever-present theme with them. It pleased him to trace for her the world's history from its early beginning when all was misty tradition, down through the uncertain centuries of early civilization to the ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... modify what we have just written. In justice to our own sex, and in all truthfulness, we cannot allow the blame to be removed altogether from women themselves. They alone are responsible for one of the most fruitful causes of their wretchedness. The theme is a threadbare one. We approach it without hardly any hope that we shall do good by repeated warnings utterly monotonous and tiresome. But still less can we feel comfortable in mind to pass it over in silence. We refer to the foolish ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... preceding statement it has been assumed that there can be recognized, in these combinations of inflection, a theme or root, as it is sometimes called, and a formative element. The formative element is used with a great many different words to define or qualify them; that is, to indicate mode, tense, number, person, gender, etc., of verbs, nouns, and other parts ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell
... fitly speak on such a theme? He is a treasure by the world neglected, Because he hath not, with a prescience dim, Like those whose every aim is self-reflected, Pil'd up some fastuous trophy, that of him Might tell, what mighty powers the age rejected, But taught his lips the office ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... began to discuss it, and for better consideration of the theme it became necessary for Cora to "cut" the next dance, promised to another, and to give it to Mr. Wattling. They danced several times together, and Mr. Wattling's expression was serious. The weavers of the tapestry smiled and whispered things the men would ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... performances. He has worked without any secondary political purpose, and has, therefore, produced more harmonious results. The aim is ambitious, but consistent. 'Contarini Fleming' is the record of the development of a poetic nature—a theme, as we are told, 'virgin in the imaginative literature of every country.' The praises of Goethe, of Beckford, and of Heine gave a legitimate satisfaction to its author. 'Henrietta Temple' professes to be a love-story pure and simple. Love and poetry are certainly themes worthy of the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... scandalous scenes. Every means were taken to keep these disputes a profound secret—the revilings which accompanied their private conferences were turned into smooth panegyrics of each other when they ascended the tribune, and their unanimity was a favourite theme in all their ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... of their existence. As for the deacon, he really thought it would be unseemly, and of evil example, for Daggett to converse with Dr. Sage, touching these doubloons, of the Lord's day: while he had felt no scruples himself, a short hour before, to make them the theme of a long and interesting discussion, in his own person. It might not repay us for the trouble, to look for the salve that the worthy man applied to his own conscience, by way of reconciling the apparent contradiction; though it probably was connected with some fancied and especial duty ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... that I was myself the subject; but, after a time, I began to fancy I was mistaken. Judging from the earnest manner of both—but more especially from Holt's gestures and frequent ejaculations—something of still greater interest appeared to be the theme of their dialogue. I saw the squatter's face suddenly brighten up—as if some new and joyous revelation had been made to him; while the features of his visitor bore the satisfied look of one, who was urging an argument ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... them. With this should be compared Augustine, Contra litteras Petiliani Donatistae, II, 38-91, and the treatise De Baptismo contra Donatistas libri septem, which is little more than a working out in a thousand variations of this theme. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... lad nineteen years old, the son of a wealthy Barbadoes planter, wrote in three weeks a tragedy entitled Victorious Love (4to, 1698), which is confessedly a close imitation of Southerne's theme. It was produced at Drury Lane in June, 1698, with the author himself as Dafila, a youth, and young Mrs. Cross as the heroine Zaraida, 'an European Shipwrack'd an Infant at Gualata'. Possibly Verbruggen acted Barnagasso, the captive king ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... if our former discussions had been but yesterday. Then I gave her the right of way, interjecting a query now and then to give emphasis to her theme, while she unfolded the plan which seemed to her so simple and easy; God's own will; the national destiny, first a third term, and then life tenure a la Louis Napoleone for Theodore Roosevelt, the son of Martha Bullock, the nephew ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... a most decided poetic predisposition,—writing, when but ten years old, with surprising facility on every possible subject. No metre had any difficulties for her, and no theme seemed dull to her vivid intelligence,—her fancy being roused to action in a moment, by the barest hint given either by Nature or Art. Her first drama was written at this early age; it was called "Boadicea," and was composed immediately ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... with many compartments sat on a stool beside him, and this held bits of wood that looked like pegs, but were in reality whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes, rests, flats, sharps, and the like. These were cleft in such a way that he could fit them on the wires almost as rapidly as his musical theme came to him, and Lyddy had learned to transcribe with pen and ink the music she found in wood and wire. He could write only simple airs in this way, but when he played them on the violin they were transported into a loftier region, such ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... prettiest fancies of Marvell; that in the second, of Flora scattering her tresses over the spring meadow, and Pomona playing under the orchard boughs, is at least a vivid pictorial presentment of a sufficiently well-worn theme. A more normal specimen of Calpurnius's manner may be instanced in the lines (v. 52-62) where one of the most beautiful passages in the third Georgic, the description of a long summer day among the Italian hill-pastures, is ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... surrendering, and his victorious battles [lit. noble days] advancing his proud destinies beyond the seas, laving his laurels with the blood of Africans! In fine, all that is told of the most distinguished warriors I expect from Rodrigo after this victory, and I make my love for him the theme of my glory. ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... Thought yet further, I shall submit it to your Consideration, whether instead of a Theme or Copy of Verses, which are the usual Exercises, as they are called in the School-phrase, it would not be more proper that a Boy should be tasked once or twice a Week to write down his Opinion of such Persons and Things as ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... is Wright's translation of La Fontaine's famous fable on the day-dreaming theme. Notice how much more complicated its application becomes in contrast with the obvious truth of the proverb in the preceding version. La Fontaine is responsible for the story's popularity in modern times. The most fascinating study on ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Andreyev, he pursues it a long time, presenting it under various aspects, until at last it assumes its final form, rounded and completed, as it were, in some figure or symbol. As such it appears either as the leading theme of an entire story or drama, or as an important subordinate theme. Thus we have seen that the idea of death finds concrete expression in the character of Lazarus. The idea of loneliness, of the isolation of the individual from all other human beings, even though he be physically ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... have been brought to this point without the violent pressure of her sister's supposed interests? This is one of those questions which wise men will not ask, because it is one which the wisest man or woman cannot answer. Upon this theme, an army of ingenious authors have exhausted their ingenuity in entertaining the public, and their works are to be found at every book-stall. They have decided that any woman will, under the right conditions, marry any man at any time, provided her "higher nature" is properly appealed to. Only ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... upon this theme, a bold proposal was made by Basil. It was, that they should "strike camp," and continue their journey. This proposal took the others by surprise, but they were all just in the frame of mind to entertain and discuss it; and a long consultation was held upon the point. Francois chimed ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... forms of his limitless advancement. We have our lessons in all providence, in all beings and things, God teaching us in and through all. No mean vocation, then, is that of the earthly educator; no unimportant theme that now in hand. Yet even of the school in the more technical sense of the term, we cannot speak at large, except as in touching on any one department we more or less affect every other. Our thought may be fitly ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... precipitous allegro a capella, driven headlong to its end by the impetuous semiquaver triplets of the famous finales to the first act of Don Giovanni or the coda to the Leonore overture, with a specifically contrapuntal theme, points d'orgue, and a high C ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... very large, very ancient type of funny story: the tale in which the jest depends wholly on an abnormal degree of stupidity on the part of the hero. Every race which produces stories seems to have found this theme a natural outlet for its childlike laughter. The stupidity of Lazy Jack, of Big Claus, of the Good Man, of Clever Alice, all have their counterparts in the ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... IS E BRATHAIR, If it be not Bran, it is Bran's brother,' was the proverbial reply of Maccombich. [Bran, the well-known dog of Fingal, is often the theme of Highland ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... it the South Sea, a name which it habitually bore till far into the eighteenth century. From this time the exploration and settlement of the western coast, both up and down, went on with little interruption, but this history, somewhat foreign to our theme, ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Emperour takes against the encroaching Turk, And whether his Moony-standards are design'd For Persia or Polonia: and all this The wiser sort of State-Worms seem to know Better than their own affairs: this is discourse Fit for the Council it concerns; we are young, And if that I might give the Theme, 'twere better To talk of ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... shall now become the theme of my book; for I feel that I cannot serve the cause of education better than by trying to describe and interpret the work that is being done in it. The school belongs to a village which I will call Utopia. It is not an imaginary village—a village ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... our poets left untried; Nor small their merit, when with conscious pride They scorn'd to take from Greece the storied theme, But dar'd to sing their ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... an anonymous Christian, who wrote in the fourth century of our era, that Christians and pagans alike were struck by the remarkable coincidence between the death and resurrection of their respective deities, and that the coincidence formed a theme of bitter controversy between the adherents of the rival religions, the pagans contending that the resurrection of Christ was a spurious imitation of the resurrection of Attis, and the Christians asserting with equal warmth that the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... chapter abundant reason for rectifying their ideas. Among the number of such persons we may rank Mr. Macaulay, the eloquent historian, whose opinion, however, has no weight, as regards Lord Byron's character. For it is evident that he made use of this great name by way of choosing a good theme for his eloquence, a sort of mould for fine phrases. Besides, Macaulay did not know Lord Byron personally, nor did he study him impartially; facts which are his fault and ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... had finished copying my share of the story, From the Apennines to the Andes, and was seeking for a theme for the independent composition which the teacher had assigned us to write, when I heard an unusual talking on the stairs, and shortly after two firemen entered the house, and asked permission of my ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... with the becoming indignation of an ill-used man; and as Mr. Bumble felt that it rather tended to convey a reflection on the honour of the parish; the latter gentleman thought it advisable to change the subject. Oliver Twist being uppermost in his mind, he made him his theme. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... intentionally mingles the comic and the terrible in his poem, The Witch of Fife, but his prose-stories reveal his power of creating an atmosphere of diablerie, undisturbed by intrusive mockery. In the poem Kilmeny, he handles an uncanny theme with dreamy beauty. ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... the roads constructed by Mr. Telford through the formerly inaccessible counties of North Wales was the theme of general praise; and their superiority, compared with those of the richer and more level districts in the midland and western English counties, becoming the subject of public comment, he was called upon to execute like improvements upon that part of the post-road which extended between Shrewsbury ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... the once far-famed ATTICUS: the once illustrious RICHARD HEBER, Esq., the self-ejected member of the University of Oxford. Even yet I scarcely know how to handle this subject, or to expatiate upon a theme so extraordinary, and so provocative of the most contradictory feelings. But it were better to be brief; as, in fact, a very long account of Mr. Heber's later life will be found in my Reminiscences, and there is little to add ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Though some Americans talked as if the United States could close its doors and windows against all mankind, the victor in the election, Senator Harding, of Ohio, knew better. The election returns were hardly announced before he began to ask the advice of his countrymen on the pressing theme that would not be downed: "What part shall America—first among the nations of the earth in wealth and power—assume at the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... the early Conventions the resolutions were interminable. It was not thought that full justice was done to the subject, if every point of interest or dissatisfaction in this prolific theme was not condensed into a resolution. Accordingly the Akron Convention presented, discussed, and adopted fifteen resolutions. At Salem, the previous ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Lodges, education always began afresh. Forty years had left little of the Palermo that Garibaldi had shown to the boy of 1860, but Sicily in all ages seems to have taught only catastrophe and violence, running riot on that theme ever since Ulysses began its study on the eye of Cyclops. For a lesson in anarchy, without a shade of sequence, Sicily stands alone and defies evolution. Syracuse teaches more than Rome. Yet even Rome was not mute, and the church of Ara Coeli seemed more and more to draw all the threads of thought ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... rights under the English Constitution by an argument of great power, showing how often and causelessly they had been assailed; and he justified the resolutions by the "cool deliberation" of Parliament in fastening the chains of slavery upon them. Warming with his theme, he advanced to matchless eloquence, and closed his philippic with such a daring burst of patriotism ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... were slain while trying in vain to batter down the gates with heavy timbers, the baffled Indians were obliged to retire discomfited. The siege was chiefly memorable because of an incident which is to this day a staple theme for story-telling in the cabins of the mountaineers. One of the leading men of the neighborhood was Major Samuel McColloch, renowned along the border as the chief in a family famous for its Indian fighters, the dread and terror of the savages, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... his song we deem a little while That Song itself with his great voice hath fled, So grand the toga-sweep of his great style, So vast the theme on which ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... forming that magnificent chord a theme was developed; and some near, others far away, these brilliant, those muffled, one would have said that the waters and the birds, the breezes and the forests, men and angels, earth and heaven, were singing, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... stanza that once ended the poem, finds man at war with himself and with reason; but the cool sequestered path—its goal identical with that of the paths of Glory—finds man at peace with himself and with reason. The theme was not new before Gray made it peculiarly his own, and it has become somewhat hackneyed in the last two hundred years; but the fact that it is seldom unheard in any decade testifies to its permanency of appeal, and the fact that it was "ne'er so well express'd" as ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... "The water-works, Mr. Bruce, is, I hardly need say, a source of pride to us all. To you especially it has had a large significance. You have made it a theme for a continuous agitation in your paper. You have argued and urged that, since the city's new water-works promised to be such a great success, Westville should not halt with this one municipal enterprise, but should refuse the new franchise the street ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... with the Duke, she tried another theme, while still, like a pertinacious cracker, the Great Mel kept banging up and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he is waked early in the morning by the clarion voice of some neighboring cock, he will not repine, provided he went to bed at a reasonably early hour, for he will hear some music that is not wholly to be despised. The rooster in the neighboring barn-yard gives out the theme. His voice is a deep, but broken, bass. It is suggestive of his having roosted during the night in a draft, which has inflamed his vocal chords so that his tones have lost their sweetness. It is as if a coffee-mill had essayed to crow. The theme is taken up by a thin-voiced ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... have made a stirring theme for Sir Walter Scott, is found in the chronicles of Tewkesbury, in the Anglo-Norman chronicles, and in Wace, the old rhyming historian of the twelfth century. Here are a few lines ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... speaking just now of the Libyan grotto, I think I probably suggested the theme of my visit to you this afternoon. I confess, I am a passionate man. Things of the senses appeal to me more than to most; it is, of course, the artist within me. I am like a mountain torrent or the beetling ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... Natural foliage, leaving Artificial foliage to be dealt with at another opportunity. It is not Historical. The History of the Decorative treatment of Natural foliage, showing its evolution in the past, is a large and interesting theme; but, unless this were accompanied by critical remarks based on given principles, the method might be barren of results. Tradition is not to be undervalued; but the student should be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... without an audience. The musician was seated in a garden chair, and around sat, and lay, ten of the twelve old men who dwelt with him beneath John Hiram's roof. Bold sat down on the soft turf to listen, or rather to think how, after such harmony, he might best introduce a theme of so much discord. He felt that he had a somewhat difficult task, and he almost regretted the final leave-taking of the last of the old men, slow as they were in going ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of Nottingham, hearing continually of this pother, fell a-chattering between themselves, and ere a week was out Monceux's reward of a hundred golden pieces for the head of Robin Hood was the one theme of conversation ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... coloured plates of varying merit which enrich the original edition has not been considered desirable. The map shows clearly the route taken by the Author in the journey the description of which is the leading theme ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... written by anyone, and had no beginning in time nor end and were eternal. Their authority was not derived from the authority of any trustworthy person or God. Their words are valid in themselves. Evidently a discussion on these matters has but little value with us, though it was a very favourite theme of debate in the old days of India. It was in fact the most important subject for Mima@msa, for the Mima@msa sutras were written for the purpose of laying down canons for a right interpretation of the Vedas. The slight extent to which it has dealt with its own epistemological ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... to get alongside the next wharf without blocking up more than three parts of the river. He watched it as though the entire operation depended upon his attention, and, the steamer fast, he turned his eyes back again and resumed his theme. ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... knew not that the music was silenced. A softer, sweeter, dearer melody sounded in her ears; she heard the echo of that voice which had spoken scornfully, despairingly, and yet love had been the sweet theme. ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... father and his country, or whether he imagined that his own personal courage and superiority of knowledge would be sufficient to dispossess the conquerors of Ulietea, is uncertain; but, from the beginning of the voyage, this was his constant theme. He would not listen to our remonstrances on so wild a determination, but flew into a passion if more moderate and reasonable counsels were proposed for his advantage. Nay, so infatuated and attached to his favourite scheme was he, that he affected ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... probably no lady in the town that would have received this information with as great composure as did Anastasia Joliffe. Since the death of his grandfather, the new Lord Blandamer had been a constant theme of local gossip and surmise. He was a territorial magnate, he owned the whole of the town, and the whole of the surrounding country. His stately house of Fording could be seen on a clear day from the minster tower. He was reputed to be a ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... enforced during the first month they would have had their hands full far longer than they dreamed. Week after week sped by, summer ripened into fall, and fall faded into winter, but Philemon came not. Little by little Janice's misconduct ceased to be a general theme of village talk, and the life at Greenwood settled back into its accustomed groove. Even the mutter of cannon before Boston was but a matter of newspaper news, and the war, though now fairly inaugurated, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... of Paradise Lost, Milton proposes as theme for a new epic "Paradise Regained." In it he purports to sing of "deeds heroic although in secret done" and to describe how Christ was led into the wilderness to be tempted ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... of each other, but afterwards the most intimate confidence arose between us. General Driesen looked forward with certainty to the return of the Bourbons to France, and in the course of our frequent conversations on his favourite theme he gradually threw off all reserve, and at length disclosed to me that he was maintaining a correspondence ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... good-naturedly, wishing to relieve this embarrassment. "You're getting all fussed up. I guess you'd better cut out this story. I don't believe it's much good anyway. If you think there are any sentimental variations on a Fall River steamboat theme that we are not fully conversant with, why you've got ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... shorter poems accumulated up to this period, various as they are in theme and metrical form, are uniform in the fashioning of their contour and color. As soon as this underlying uniformity of make is recognized it may be seen to be the coloring and relief belonging to any ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... March 1883. After his death appeared The Conquest of England. The Short History may be said to have begun a new epoch in the writing of history, making the social, industrial, and moral progress of the people its main theme. To infinite care in the gathering and sifting of his material G. added a style of wonderful charm, and an historical imagination which has hardly ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... [Subject of thought, ] Topic. — N. subject of thought, material for thought; food for the mind, mental pabulum. subject, subject matter; matter, theme, [Grk], topic, what it is about, thesis, text, business, affair, matter in hand, argument; motion, resolution; head, chapter; case, point; proposition, theorem; field of inquiry; moot point, problem &c. (question) 461. V. float in the mind , pass in the mind &c. 451. Adj. thought ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Lap-dog, I purloin: While you Rob Ladies Bosoms every day, } And filch their pretious Maiden-heads away; } I'll plead good nature for this Brat the Play: } A Play that plagues no more the thread-bare Theme Of powder'd Beaux, or tricks o'th' Godly Dame, But in your humours let's ye all alone, And not so much as Fools themselves runs down. Our Author try'd his best, and Wisemen tell, 'Tis half well doing to endeavour well: What tho' his poor Allay runs not so fine; Yet, let it ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... d'archet announced the overture, and roused her energy, as if Ithuriel's spear had pricked her. She came down dressed, to listen at one of the upper entrances, to fill herself with the musical theme, before taking her part in it, and also to gauge the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... picture wherein that result is depicted with artistic completeness, it is only an imperfect narrative imperfectly rounded off. We feel sure, however, that the healthy-minded reader will be grateful for our reticence and total disregard of proportion. In spite of the disadvantage which such a theme imposes on any writer with a deep sense of responsibility, we have resolved to let in some light on these obscure figures; for we can imagine no more effective way of throwing into high relief the low morals and deep corruption into which all classes of society ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he said. "The critics would say I had forgotten it, and put in instead what I could remember of a variation out of the Handel theme. That next one's, oh, great fun. But I wish you would remember that we all haven't got great orang-outang ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... coldness. But when you gave me your warm hand and claimed something like kindred, I was grateful for that which does not always accompany kindred,—genuine kindness. This feeling was greatly increased when instead of making my diffidence and awkwardness a theme of ridicule, you evinced a delicate sympathy, and with graceful tact suggested a better courtesy to others. Do you think then, that, after this glimpse down such a beautiful vista in your nature, I can associate you with 'total depravity'? It was plain to you, Miss Marsden, that I had seen little ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... was a sympathetic attack, concurrent with Allenby's great Gaza offensive. This campaign is the theme of the second ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... no wonder that the sight should cause surprise to the most indifferent observer, nor that it should have been long a theme of speculation with the curious, and an interesting subject of ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... to themselves, discussed the theme that the captain's words had suggested, and were rather ashamed to see how vague their knowledge of the famous battle was. So, at Alec's suggestion, Norton agreed to read the account of the fight ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... the Land. Nor is it all the Nation has these Spots, There is a Church as well as Kirk of Scots, As in a Picture where the Squinting Paint Shews Fiend on this Side and on that Side Saint; He that Saw Hell in's Melancholy Dream, And in the Twilight of his Fancy's Theme, Scar'd from his Sins, repented in a Fright, Had he view'd Scotland had turn'd Proselyte. A Land where one may pray with curst Intent; Oh, may they never suffer Banishment! Had Cain been Scot, God would have chant'd his ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... is necessary," introducing the burning tincture of iodine several times. Carre feels the sting; and when, passing by his corner an hour later, I listen for a moment, I hear him slowly chanting in a trembling but melodious voice the theme: "He gave me tincture ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... to speculate on this theme, however, for the next instant a piteous cry broke from the girl's lips—a cry in a voice strangely familiar; a cry that sent the blood bounding through his heart like an electric shock—and before he could take ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... human touch other than the pitiful and thwarted affection of two personalities at hopeless odds. "Least said soonest mended" was a favorite aphorism of the experienced quack. But in this tangle it failed him. It was he who first touched on the poisoned theme. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... independently of the sentiment of her being there as a guarantee of Aminta's return. Still he knew his English earth, and the counties and soil for particular wild-flowers, grasses, mosses; and he could instruct her and inspire a receptive pupil on the theme of birds, beasts, fishes, insects, in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... same volume appeared Sardanapalus, written in the previous May, and dedicated to Goethe. In this play, which marks the author's last reversion to the East, we are more arrested by the majesty of the theme— ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... 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 for its unflagging ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... which can reconcile us to it. I remember having heard an incident of war, myself, which affected me much," said Murphy, who caught the infection of military anecdote which circled the table; and indeed there is no more catching theme can be started among men, for it may be remarked that whenever it is broached it flows on until it is rather more than time ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... be difficult to explain why, except on that principle of decimation by which Macaulay accounted for the outcry against Lord Byron, Gibbon's solitary and innocent love passage has been made the theme of a good deal of malicious comment. The parties most interested, and who, we may presume, knew the circumstances better than any one else, seem to have been quite satisfied with each other's conduct. Gibbon and Mdlle. Curchod, afterwards Madame Necker, remained on terms of the most ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... chat about my old friend a good while longer. But perhaps I had better stop, for fear you may get tired of the theme. I must tell you a little about his old age, ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... with enthusiasm of his hero; and he could see that, although Mistress Bradfute said but little, she fully shared his views. It was but natural that Wallace's name should come so often forward, for his deeds, his hairbreadth escapes, his marvellous personal strength and courage, were the theme of talk in every Scotch home; but at Lanark at present it was specially prominent, for with his band he had taken up his abode in a wild and broken country known as Cart Lane Craigs, and more than once ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... was abundance of wall-placards and sarcastic verses full of bitter and telling popular satire against the new monarchy. When a comedian ventured on a republican allusion, he was saluted with the loudest applause. The praise of Cato formed the fashionable theme of oppositional pamphleteers, and their writings found a public all the more grateful because even literature was no longer free. Caesar indeed combated the republicans even now on their own field; he himself and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... footsteps falling'). I now returned with renewed ardour to the theatre, with which, even at this time, my family was in close touch. Den Freischutz in particular appealed very strongly to my imagination, mainly on account of its ghostly theme. The emotions of terror and the dread of ghosts formed quite an important factor in the development of my mind. From my earliest childhood certain mysterious and uncanny things exercised an enormous influence over me. If I were left alone in a room for ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... from this event, and various other causes, the spirit of disturbance, towards the close of the year, began to decline. Perhaps the most effectual cause of this decline was a prospect of the redress of those hardships which had formed the theme of so much complaint. In October government sent down a commission, which was to examine into the operation of the turnpike-laws, and other alleged grievances of the country. From the report of this commission, poverty and the hardness of the times had more to do with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... glowering into Ida's tear-stained face, and noting with polite deprecation the convulsive sobs which the sensitive girl vainly tried to repress before the young fellows. Beauty in distress is a favorite theme of your shallow romancists; but, to the philosophic mind, its pathos is nothing to that of ugliness in distress. At the best of times, poor Ida was heart-breaking; her sunniest smile wrung my soul with commiseration; and when the sympathy naturally accorded to helpless anguish was superimposed ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... came indoors. It came back to the city. And it gave us the new crop of heroes and heroines and the scenes and settings with which the fiction of to-day has replaced the Heroes and Heroines of Yesterday. The Lure of the City is its theme. It pursues its course to the music of the ukalele, in the strident racket of the midnight cabaret. Here move the Harvard graduate in his dinner jacket, drunk at one in the morning. Here is the hard ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock |
