"Touchstone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by their possessor, and are evoked only under favorable conditions, sometimes comparatively late in the youthful period of life. In a symmetrical course of study calculated to bring into exercise every mental faculty, somewhere, as by a touchstone, the particular aptitude of the pupil may be discovered, the secret springs of power be opened; and the man, having discovered himself, leaps forward to pre-eminence among his fellows. Scores of such ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various
... peopled like Arden's, with an exiled king drawing the sweetest, humanest lessons from misfortune; a melancholy Jacques, stretched by the river bank, moralising on the bleeding deer; a fair Rosalind, chanting her saucy cuckoo-song; fools like Touchstone—not like those of our acquaintance, my friends; and the whole place, from centre to circumference, filled with mighty oak bolls, all carven with lovers' names,—if such a forest waved in wind, I say, I would, be my worldly ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... case; for they are not all courteous or mannerly; some are ill-conditioned scoundrels; nor is it everyone that calls himself a gentleman, that is so in all respects; some are gold, others pinchbeck, and all look like gentlemen, but not all can stand the touchstone of truth. There are men of low rank who strain themselves to bursting to pass for gentlemen, and high gentlemen who, one would fancy, were dying to pass for men of low rank; the former raise themselves by their ambition or by their ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... suspicion utterance? There is a passage in his "Bartholomew Fair" which I feel sure is meant as a skit upon the relations we find in the Sonnets. In Act V, scene iii, there is a puppet-show setting forth "the ancient modern history of Hero and Leander, otherwise called the Touchstone of true Love, with as true a trial of Friendship between Damon and Pythias, two faithful friends o' the Bankside." Hero is a "wench o' the Bankside," and Leander swims across the Thames to her. Damon and Pythias meet at her lodgings, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... is usually melted in the employer's presence, who, to guard against fraud, keeps a small piece of the metal called chasni or maslo, that is a sample, and when the ornament is ready sends it with the sample to an assayer or Chokshi who, by rubbing them on a touchstone, tells whether the gold in the sample and the ornament is of the same quality. Further, the employer either himself sits near the Sunar while the ornament is being made or sends one of his family to ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... rivers, rills, and streamlets; Of her trees and flowers and grasses, Yet the song of peace continued. Peaceful still, yet no more silent; For where man, with human passion, Dwells in all this wide creation, Strife is ever slumb'ring, waiting, Waiting for the magic touchstone, For the trouble he is born to, "Trouble, as the sparks fly upward." So there rose a reign of terror, Of dismay and cruel bloodshed, When the white man came among them, The all-potent, dreaded pale-face, He, another ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... philosophy in thee, Shepherd?"[173] was the question of Touchstone in the Shakespeare play; and that is the question we must always ask ourselves. Long ago Kant said that it is the mission of philosophy, not to discover truth, but to set it in order, to seek out the rhythm of things and their reason for being. Beginning in wonder, it sees ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... And in good time, sir, for a palpable Touchstone of truth and rightful vengeance ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... those fellows during those days of danger, I fancy I see while I write. Indeed, this keen participation in the nature and delights of the young was the secret of his success during the Kafiristan exploration. It was the touchstone of his sympathy with the various barbaric tribes with whom he had to come in contact, and whose nature he did not require to learn, for he had already sounded all that was human in its touching variety. Love and sympathy for man as man, could alone give this knowledge ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... regulation, prescript, prescription, order, ruling; standard, criterion, touchstone, brocard; maxim, law, canon; norm; government, sway, regency, domination, authority, direction, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Money is a touchstone which influences all social relations, especially when on one side there is a somewhat morbid susceptibility, and on the other a lack of good breeding and education. The Sparks, father and daughter, Americans of the lower class, though ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... somewhat lightly over the offenses of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you can not do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon your posterity. Your future connection ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... The constant touchstone and point of reference for every stage of the history of the Church must be the gospel of Jesus. But what was the gospel of Jesus? In what way did the very earliest Christians apprehend that gospel? This question ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... highest gratification of which my mind is susceptible. But the latter being secondary, I cannot make the former yield to it, unless some criterion more infallible than partial (if they are not party) meetings can be discovered as the touchstone of public sentiment. If any person on earth could, or the great Power above would, erect the standard of infallibility in political opinions, no being that inhabits this terrestrial globe would resort to it with more eagerness than myself, so long ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... was through the classics, where, with no long pondering, I opined it merely our modern comradery, poetically aggrandized, masquerading in antique habiliments and phraseology. It never came home to me; it attuned to no tone in the scale of my sympathies; I possessed no touchstone for transmitting the recitals of those ambiguous amours into fiery messages. The relation to my own sex was, intellectually, an occasional friendship devoid of strong affection; physically, a mild antagonism, the naked body of a man was slightly ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... sincerity, all the shapes and sorts of "faux semblants," or "merveilleux semblants," as Rutebeuf said, fill him with inextinguishable hatred. In shams and "faux semblants" he sees the true source of good and evil, the touchstone of right and wrong, the main difference between the worthy and the unworthy. He constantly recurs to the subject by means of his preachings, epigrams, portraits, caricatures; he broadens, he magnifies and multiplies his figures ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... I see of our hockey," said Mr. Britling, "the more wonderful it seems to me as a touchstone of ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... the Forest of Arden. Touchstone. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I. When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content. Rosalind. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old, in solemn talk. As You Like It. Scene IV. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Touchstone's philosophy hath legal warrant: "Is the single man blessed? No: as a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor."—As you like it. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... water. This choicest place of earth filled him with wonder. There was a tree such as he had never seen before; its branches were alike, but it bore flowers and fruit of a thousand kinds. Near it a reservoir had been fashioned of four sorts of stone—touchstone, pure stone, marble, and loadstone. In and out of it flowed water like attar. The prince felt sure this must be the place of the Simurgh; he dismounted, turned his horse loose to graze, ate some of the food Jamila had given ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... they conventional characters, or do they have distinct personalities? Compare Touchstone with Wamba ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... God found in the Scriptures seemed to him the main miracle of the ages, and as, in his contests with Zwickau "Prophets," "Anabaptists," and "Spiritualists," he found himself forced to produce a fixed touchstone of faith and a solid authority to take the place left vacant by the Old Church, he swung naturally toward the dogma of the absolute authority of Scripture, and he laid, without wishing to do so, the foundation for the view of the second generation of Protestantism, that the infallible ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... as that adapted by Chateaubriand to Ma soeur, te souvient-il encore), sung in this little town of the Brie district, must have been to the ears of a Breton maiden the touchstone of imperious memories, so faithfully does it picture the manners and customs, the surroundings and the heartiness of her noble old land, where a sort of melancholy reigns, hardly to be defined; caused, perhaps, by the ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... score of years. He may then regard himself as rubbish and expect to be carted away. A man is nothing now unless he has within him a full appreciation of the new era, an era in which it would seem that neither honesty nor truth is very desirable, but in which success is the only touchstone of merit. We must laugh at everything that is established. Let the joke be ever so bad, ever so untrue to the real principles of joking; nevertheless we must laugh—or else beware the cart. We must talk, think, and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... typical visions, the anticipation of a restless impatience which yearned for the touchstone of sober experience, to-day they are the re-creation of memory, and a rehearsal of all those circumstances that have made sober experience a ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... historical facts, moods, and atmospheres, and he knew the past of New England as few men have ever known it. There is solid historical and psychological stuff as the foundation of his air-castles. His latent radicalism furnished him with a touchstone of criticism as he interpreted the moral standards of ancient communities; no reader of "The Scarlet Letter" can forget Hawthorne's implicit condemnation of the unimaginative harshness of the Puritans. His own judgment upon the deep matters of the human conscience was stern enough, but it was ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... who shed tears when they have gained a victory? "I must learn if it be so, and must judge of that for myself," said the marquise. "Who can tell whether that heart, so coveted, is not common in its impulses, and full of alloy? Who can tell if that mind, when the touchstone is applied to it, will not be found of a mean and vulgar character? Come, come," she said, "this is doubting and hesitating too much—to the proof." She looked at the timepiece. "It is now seven o'clock," she said; "he must have arrived, it ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which would be almost as discreditable to them as the repeal itself. You will observe by the papers that notice has been given for the repeal of almost all—indeed, I may say all—the taxes which bear on agriculture. This therefore must be the touchstone, and upon this they must rest their determination. If I were to speculate on the question of the Postmaster-General, I should think it would not be carried; but such is not the general opinion, and if we are to believe ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... charity. In its best sense, it is the finest word in our language, and from its springs flow all benevolence, material and spiritual: when looked upon scientifically much of the repugnance and prejudice felt toward it is lost, and it becomes the touchstone for the remedy of human ills. In one sense, education is most surely and deeply charitable, whether or not it is held to be but the equipment of the state for its self-preservation. This has long been accepted, and so unanimously have the states undertaken ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... spirituality is marked not by what a man does, but by how he does it; not in the circumstances, but in the attitude of a man towards them, lies the opportunity of growth. "And indeed this symbol of the cross may be to us as a touchstone to distinguish the good from the evil in many of the difficulties of life. 'Only those actions through which shines the light of the cross are worthy of the life of the disciple,' says one of the verses ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... refer them to the first word of my title and remind them that we are primarily out to be amused—not, it is true, without some hope of picking up morsels of knowledge by the way. If the manner is light, I can only say, in the words of Touchstone, that it is "an ill-favoured thing, sir, but my own; a poor humour of ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... whether I have, in the self-conceit common to all men, peculiarly prominent in myself, overrated both the power and the integrity of my mind (for the one is bootless without the other,) neither I nor the world can yet tell. "Time," says one of the fathers, "is the only touchstone which distinguishes the prophet ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in their account of its origin and effects. The same might be said respecting good works. And, again, as to the Holy Scriptures, they received the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the complete revelation of all that is necessary for salvation, and consequently, as the touchstone for testing the Fathers, the councils, and the traditions of the Church. Two points remained for consideration: the sacraments and the government of the Church. "We are agreed, in our opinion," said Beza, "regarding the meaning of the ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... prison is a house of care, A place where none can thrive, A touchstone true to try a friend, A grave for one alive Sometimes a place of right, Sometimes a place of wrong, Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves, And honest ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... or nothing is done for antiquarian decoration or for local colour; while in his criticism of Mrs. Radcliffe he uses the very term—'melodrama'—and the very distinction—melodrama as opposed to tragedy—which is the touchstone of the novelist. Whatever his success might be, there can be no doubt as to his intentions. He meant his novels, with their richer background and their larger measure of detail, to sacrifice nothing of dramatic truth. La Princesse de Cleves, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... he resumed, "I am disposed to say that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I should consider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You appear to me to be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I see you, my dear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole little orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel inclined to say to myself—in fact I do say to myself very ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... strength, if we may so speak, emphasizes these words, detaches them from the context, and renders them easily distinguishable. The person who imposes upon himself the task of making a continuous narrative from the gospel history, possesses, in this respect, an excellent touchstone. The real words of Jesus disclose themselves; as soon as we touch them in this chaos of traditions of varied authenticity, we feel them vibrate; they betray themselves spontaneously, and shine out of the narrative ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... gone so far in order to illustrate the characteristic of Bentham's teaching. It was not the bare appeal to utility, but the attempt to follow the clue of utility systematically and unflinchingly into every part of the subject. This one doctrine gives the touchstone by which every proposed measure is to be tested; and which will give to his system not such unity as arises from the development of an abstract logical principle, but such as is introduced into the physical sciences when we are able ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... after the fashion of Touchstone," said Fleda laughing;—"he thinks that 'in respect of itself it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, he likes it very well; but in ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... in regard to certain political measures, the diplomate affirmed that, according to his experience, the talent, property, and respectability of the country were all against the government. This is the worn-out cant of England; and yet, when reform has been brought to the touchstone, its greatest opponents have been found among the parvenus. On being requested to mention individuals, the diplomatic man in question named three New York merchants, all of whom are foreigners by birth, neither of whom can speak good English, neither of whom could influence a vote—neither ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... wide approbation. Morality must remain largely experimental, individual. Conscience will play a very useful role in spurring us to our recognized duty in the commoner situations, but for all the more delicate decisions we need a more ultimate touchstone. We must grasp the underlying principles of right conduct, and weigh the relative goods attainable by each possible act. A well-balanced and normal conscience will save us the recurrent reasoning out of typical perplexities, but it must be supplemented by an ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... paled in the sky. Suddenly the touchstone of the morning light tinged everything with gold. A cry spread ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... characteristic of men than of women, it is none the less supreme when men exhibit it. In days to come, when women can choose, as they should be able to choose to-day, they may well be counselled to use as a touchstone of their suitor's quality that line of Wordsworth, "Wisdom doth live with children round her knees." A man who thinks that "rot" is rot, or ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... touchstone of the men it has broken this war is judged, and the makers of this war. And more than ruined villages and desecrated churches these soldiers pronounce condemnation. They, who have given so much, are, in a sense, without joy and without enthusiasm; rather they shun recollection. ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... Pritchard were among the women who acted with Garrick. Macklin, by his revival of Shylock as a tragic character, Henderson by his impersonation of Falstaff, and John Palmer in secondary characters, as Iago, Mercutio, Touchstone, and Sir Toby, were his contemporaries most famous ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... capable of measuring the common fate. You have had the touchstone of success, and the world has opened up before you. But what depress me and impress me are the sodden people whom I meet by the hundred; and I can't help reading my fate in the light of theirs. There are such millions of us, obscure and ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... the least inconsistent—for there it says, "God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise."—Therefore, the wonder that children should be able to understand that, which is the foundation of all polemical divinity, vanishes, when we try it by the touchstone of scripture, which is the criterion by which we ought to judge.—When they are thus instructed in the rudiments of virtue, they are seldom known to apostatize; so that for a native to become dissolute and abandoned, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... and Jerry obeyed accordingly. The King was much amused with his visiter, and, says our informant, "his Majesty was delighted at seeing him eat the state dinner, consisting of venison, &c., which had been prepared for him."[2] Thus, Jerry was not in the parlous state described by Touchstone: he was not damned, like the poor shepherd: he had been to court. He had also learnt good and gallant manners. He recognised many of his frequent visiters, and if any female among them was laid hold of, in his presence, he would bristle with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... imagine, that their words were to be doubted on any occasion? Would he have left it to them to think so dishonourably of one another, or of their new vocation, that their words were to be tried by the touchstone of oaths, when his religion was to have a greater effect than any former system of morality ever known, in the production of truth? Is it possible, when oaths sprung out of fraud and falsehood, as he himself witnesses, (for whatever ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... what was fermenting in the great heart of the people, and which perfect oneness with it and his own, enabled him to be the touchstone of the Satan yet disguised, cleared the sky, and all saw the battle, if not the doom, of the black stain on the ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... desireth to finde the certaine goodnesse of a piece of golde, which is newly offered vnto him, he presently bringeth the same to the touchstone, where by comparing the shewe or touch of this new piece with the touch or shew of that which he knoweth of old, he forthwith is able to iudge what the value is of that, which is newly offered vnto him. After the example whereof I haue thought it good to make some ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... powers that seem miraculous. And clearly there are devilish miracles as well as divine. Miracles simply reveal a supernatural power, that is, a power above the ordinary workings of nature. Then one must apply a touchstone, a test, to learn what that ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... be removed if there were an appearance of more equality," wrote the Regent to Dubois on the 24th of January, 1718. "I am quite aware that my personal interest does not suffer from this inequality, and that it is a species of touchstone for discovering my friends as well at home as abroad. But I am Regent of France, and I ought to so behave myself that none may be able to reproach me with having thought of nothing but myself. I also owe some consideration ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... reader, but it must be clearly stated by the writer for his own guidance. It is, however, usually announced at the opening of the essay. Whether announced or not, it is most essential to the success of the essay. It is the touchstone by which the author tries all the material which he has collected. Not everything on the subject of patriotism should be admitted to an essay that has for its theme, "A real partisan cannot be a true ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... Touchstone, with unfailing loyalty, follows his master with quip and quirk, into exile. When all, even his daughters, have forsaken King Lear, the fool bares himself to the storm and covers the shaking old man with his own cloak. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... as well as for his lovers, rare and fitful exceptions to the general nonchalance of Nature towards human affairs. The powers did good, as they did evil, "at play"; intervening with a kind of cynical or ironical detachment (like Jaques plighting Touchstone and Audrey) in an alien affair of hearts. A certain eerie playfulness is indeed a recurring trait in Browning's highly individual feeling about Nature; the uncanny playfulness of a wild creature of boundless might only half intelligible ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... many higher motives in life, more elevated goals toward which struggling humanity should strive. If you examine the average mind, however, you will be pretty sure to find that success is the touchstone by which we judge our fellows and what, in our hearts, we admire the most. That is not to be wondered at, either, for we have done all we can to implant it there. From a child's first opening thought, it is impressed upon him that the great object of existence ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... carried him to Newgate. The confidential correspondent of the States General informed them that, in spite of all the stories which the disaffected party invented and circulated, the general persuasion was that the allies would be successful. The touchstone of sincerity in England, he said, was the betting. The Jacobites were ready enough to prove that William must be defeated, or to assert that he had been defeated; but they would not give the odds, and could hardly be ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... commonplace of the moralist, some copybook maxim, I care not what. 'Contentment breeds Happiness'—That is a proposition with which you can hardly quarrel; sententious, sedate, obviously true; provoking delirious advocacy as little as controversial heat; in short a very fair touchstone. Now hear how the lyric treats it, in these ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... judging persons on their merits, with due allowance for that never wholly negligible possibility that the other man is right. Among those who are united by this spirit, there is one joke that is an unfailing touchstone and bond of union—the institution of lese-majeste. It is a matter for unquenchable laughter, {166} that superiority should require to be protected against inferiority by the enforced signs of respect, or ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... clouded the joy of reunion with her father; for both were adepts in the fine art of loving, the touchstone of every human relation. And in talk with him she could straighten out her tangle of impressions, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... vocation, to indulge in gallantries, and to make love, it is better that this evil disposition should reveal itself in time, and that he should not become a priest. I should not, therefore, see any serious objection to Luisito's remaining with you, for the purpose of being tested by the touchstone and analyzed in the crucible of such a love, making the little widow the agent by whose means might be discovered how great is the quantity of the pure gold of his clerical virtues, and how much alloy is mixed with that ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... rush of mining, was the touchstone of Democracy; where, out of the chaos of blackguardism, through lynchings and vigilance committees, judge and jury were at work evolving ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... pathos—And unexpectedly answers drop into my lap, a small hailstorm of ice and wisdom, of problems solved. Where am I? Bizet makes me productive. Everything that is good makes me productive. I have gratitude for nothing else, nor have I any other touchstone for testing what ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... is the weakest side of a Tartar) a ducat is the touchstone of his fidelity; and it is difficult to imagine the extent of their greediness for profit! The Armenian character is yet a thousand times more vile than theirs; but the Tartars hardly yield to them in corruption ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... mere precise fact is a coil of lead." Our leading journal on the morning after Carlyle's death wrote of him in a tone of well-tempered appreciation: "We have had no such individuality since Johnson. Whether men agreed or not, he was a touchstone to which truth and falsehood were brought to be tried. A preacher of Doric thought, always in his pulpit and audible, he denounced wealth without sympathy, equality without respect, mobs without leaders, and life without aim." To ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... of the weather of course had a very sensible influence on our daily life, and formed the touchstone by which our equipment was tested. Space does not permit me to give in this work the detailed results of the meteorological observations. I shall therefore ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... You have heard of Audrey. Shakespeare has doubtless convinced you of the inevitability of their mating. I have always prided myself of a certain Touchstone element in my nature. There is much that is Audrey-esque in the lady whose disappearance from Clermont-Ferrand may be causing perturbation. As my Shakespearian preincarnation scorned dishonourable designs, so do even I. The marriage of Veuve Elodie Marescaux and Horatio ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... That was indeed the touchstone of the entire civilization which followed upon the heels of these scenes of violence. It was fair play which really animated the great Montana Vigilante movement and which eventually cleaned up the merciless gang ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... intelligently. For this preparation he needs light, which light the real working of things, properly set forth, would surely give. Experience is ever regarded as the best school-master, the proper touchstone to all ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... the mere forms of friendship, are the touchstone of a man. O'Neill was credited in his world with the friendship of Regnault. It had even been to him a matter of some social profit; there were many who deferred willingly to the great man's intimate. O'Neill ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... time, his preaching was emphatic in any direction, it was in the boldness with which he insisted that all pulpit teaching and Christian practice must be subjected to one great test, namely, the touchstone of the word of God. Already an Elijah in spirit, his great aim was to repair the broken-down altar of the Lord, to expose and rebuke all that hindered a thoroughly scriptural worship and service, and, if possible, to restore apostolic simplicity ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... palace is of rock crystal, the second of brass, the third of fine steel, the fourth of another kind of brass more valuable than the former and also than steel, the fifth of touchstone, the sixth of silver, and the seventh of massive gold. He has furnished these palaces most sumptuously, each in a manner corresponding to the materials of the structure. He has embellished the gardens ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... chapter with the words of Schelling: "Thoughtful minds will hold the phenomena of animal instinct to belong to the most important of all phenomena, and to be the true touchstone of a durable philosophy." ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... quiet at Harper's Ferry," say the journals. What is the character of that calm which follows when the law and the slaveholder prevail? I regard this event as a touchstone designed to bring out, with glaring distinctness, the character of this government. We needed to be thus assisted to see it by the light of history. It needed to see itself. When a government puts forth its strength on the side of injustice, as ours to maintain slavery and kill ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... writing as an art, rather than a business? Oh, you silly little man, the touchstone of any artist is the skill with which he adapts his craftsmanship to his art's limitations. He will not attempt to paint a sound or to sculpture a colour, because he knows that painting and sculpture have their limitations, ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... costume of the Empire or the Revolution, but of an anxious woman concerned with the hardship and grime of our own day, "amid the dust and defilement of the city, on the highway, always in quest of lodgings, climbing to the fifth story, wounded on every angle." Only sympathy and a poetic touchstone could bring out the essence and sweetness of a nature so unhappily disguised; but Sainte-Beuve, discarding with a single gesture her penitential mask and hood, finds Madame Desbordes-Valmore "polished, gracious, and even hospitable, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... universally accepted. George Henry Lewes once happily remarked that he would make an appreciation of Boswell's Life of Johnson a test of friendship. Many of us would be almost equally inclined to make such a test of Borrow's Lavengro. Tennyson declared that an enthusiasm for Milton's Lycidas was a touchstone of taste in poetry. May we not say that an enthusiasm for Borrow's Lavengro is now a touchstone of taste in English ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... wonder, therefore, that our bookmen, when they have been minded to write on their hobbies, have sought beauty and stateliness of work where they could most readily find them, and that the labourers in the book-field of our own country are not numerous. Touchstone's remark, 'a poor thing, but mine own,' might, on the worst view of the case, have suggested greater diligence at home; but on a wider view English book-work is by no means a 'poor thing.' Its excellence at certain periods is as striking as its ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... wisest and kindliest men at court. When the master decked a character in cap and bells, it was as though he had given bonds for the man's humanity. Touchstone followed his master into exile; and when all seemed to have forsaken King Lear the fool bared himself to the storm and covered the shaking old man with his own cloak. And if Costard, Trinculo, Touchstone, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... already totally obliterated. There was a similar reformation in the outward man of Davie Gellatley, who met them, every now and then stopping to admire the new suit which graced his person, In the same colours as formerly, but bedizened fine enough to have served Touchstone himself. He danced up with his usual ungainly frolics, first to the Baron, and then to Rose, passing his hands over his clothes, crying, 'BRA', BRA' DAVIE,' and scarce able to sing a bar to an end of his thousand-and-one songs, for the breathless ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... have not yet finished my treatise proving that the touchstone is fallible," he cried eagerly; "but it would give me pleasure to delay the work indefinitely if in the meantime ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... in blue pongee knickerbockers. The straight velveteen jacket reached just below her waist, and with her rumpled curls and weary expression she might easily have been taken for Rosalind, just arrived at the Forest of Arden with Celia and Touchstone. ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... experiment by the aid of hypotheses deduced from the general scheme of things which had been formed independently of observation or experiment. Alchemy was a part of magic; for magic interprets and corrects the knowledge gained by the senses by the touchstone of generalisations which have been supplied, partly by the emotions, and partly by extra-human authority, ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... Jacob Behmen, of Old Seidenburgh, wherein everywhere [are?] Divine Blessed Exhortations to true Repentance and Amendment, as also Plaine Instructions concerning the highly worthy and precious Knowledge of the Divine and Natural Wisdome; together with a Right Touchstone or Triall of these Times, for an Introduction to the Author's other Writings: published in English for the good of the sincere Lovers of true Christianitie, by I. S.[2]" (I have only a MS. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... uncles and aunts, upon their teachers; and their teachers are tactfully ready to effect a compromise with them. But, before very long, our reiterated, "Your teacher knows; do as she says," has its effect. The teacher becomes the child's touchstone in relation to a considerable number of the "array of subjects" taught in a present-day school. School-teachers in America prepare themselves so carefully for their duties, train themselves to such a high order of skill in their performance, it is but just that those of us who are not ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... reign, he invited Voltaire, the greatest of literary heroes, the most adroit and successful assaulter of king-craft and priest-craft that ever lived, to his capital and to his palace; and in a most friendly spirit consulted him on the advancement of art and letters, exhausted him by the touchstone of superior capacity, and even fathomed him by a glance so keen and so covert that it always took, but never gave, and then complimented him home in so masterly a manner that he was lured into the fond belief that he had found a disciple. A mind so capacious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... creed or a clan? Who dares to think Truth frozen—on this phantasmagorical planet, that whirls in beginningless time through endless space! Let us trust, for the honor of God, that the contradictory creeds for which men have died are all true. Perhaps humor—your right Hegelian touchstone to which everything yields up its latent negation, passing on to its own contradiction—gives truer lights and shades than your pedantic Philistinism. Is Truth really in the cold white light, or in the shimmering interplay of the rainbow tints that fuse in it? Bah! Your Philistine critic will ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... less—in more or less desultory fashion—and can all appreciate that prismatic turn of what is real and actual into a position wherein it catches glints of the imagination. The imagination is a universal touchstone. The sense of reality is a special, an individual faculty. When one is poetizing in an amateur, a dilettante way, as most of us poetize, a picture of Courbet, which seems to flaunt and challenge the imagination in virtue of its defiant reality, its insistence on the value and ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... lower than himself, and often pulled this way and that by the selfish desires or aims of her children or other family belongings, becomes a mere domestic drudge or machine, with no higher aims than are contained in the general ordering of household business. Love,—the miraculous touchstone which turns everything to gold,—is driven out of the circle of Life with the result that Life itself grows weary of its present phase, and makes haste to seek another more congenial. Hence proceeds what we call ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... every picture at least some reference to a familiar masterpiece, create, unconsciously enough, a thoroughly unwholesome atmosphere. For they are rich and patronising and liberal. They are the very innocent but natural enemies of originality, for an original work is the touchstone that exposes educated taste masquerading as sensibility. Besides, it is reasonable that those who have been at such pains to sympathise with artists should expect artists to think and feel as they do. Originality, ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... wood and other materials up and down the garden. After seeing these, we were led by the gardener into the summer-house, in the lower part of which, built semicircularly, are the twelve Roman emperors in white marble, and a table of touchstone; the upper part of it is set round with cisterns of lead, into which the water is conveyed through pipes, so that fish may be kept in them, and in summer-time they are very convenient for bathing. In another room for entertainment, very near this, and joined to it by a little ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... read, not the best only, but the poorest, thinking, perhaps, as good a lesson as could come to the careless or the incapable would come from that sure touchstone of the value of any ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... customs of mankind on this matter vary in different countries, making morality an affair of latitude, and what is right and proper in one place wrong and improper in another. It must, however, be understood that, since all civilised nations appear to accept it as an axiom that ceremony is the touchstone of morality, there is, even according to our canons, nothing immoral about this Amahagger custom, seeing that the interchange of the embrace answers to our ceremony of marriage, which, as ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... 3rd S. v. 33, is given the following title-page of one of his books: '[Greek: Pharmako-Basauos]: or the Touchstone of Medicines, etc. By Sir John Floyer of the City of Litchfield, Kt., M.D., of Queen's College, Oxford. London: Printed for Michael Johnson, Bookseller, and are to be sold at his shops at Litchfield and Uttoxiter, in Staffordshire; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... control and enslave it, be entirely broken and disbanded, and every work they have thrown up be levelled with the ground. The disposition of public men to keep this corps together, and to act under it, or to co- operate with it, is a touchstone by which every Administration ought in future to be tried. There has not been one which has not sufficiently experienced the utter incompatibility of that faction with the public peace, and with all the ends of good Government; since, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... managerial ability of a high order. Failure to do this results in inability to maintain and keep in repair the equipment and to pay the ordinary returns to the passive investment, and financial failure follows. There is no touchstone for business talent, no way of selecting it with any certainty in advance of trial. This selection is made hard in cooeperative shops by jealousies and rivalries, and by politics among the workmen. A man selected by his fellows finds it difficult to enforce discipline. ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... accident viewed as an exponent of universal truths; but for the simple sake of seeing his old friend and exchanging greetings. Indeed, where was the use of wasting the good material of friendship by seeking to convert it to a touchstone whereby to measure up one's theological beliefs? Reed was Reed, albeit flattened out upon his long, lean back, and not a culture-pan ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... Elizabethan, the "Touchstone for Goldsmith's Wares," observes, "That goldsmiths in the City and liberties, as to their particular trade, are under the Goldsmiths' Company's control, whether members or not, and ought to be of their own company, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... according to the philosophers, will be, when discovered, an infallible method of establishing the truth of an opinion, a judgment, a theory, or a system, in nearly the same way as gold is recognized by the touchstone, as iron approaches the magnet, or, better still, as we verify a mathematical operation by applying the PROOF. TIME has hitherto served as a sort of criterion for society. Thus, the primitive men—having observed that they ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... didn't calculate right, did I?' There are idiosyncrasies in Yankeedom, there is no doubt of it. We had a long drive to the cars, but there our close companionship, and our acquaintance, too, ended, except that the woman's husband—for she had a husband, some Touchstone, whose 'humor' it was to 'take that no other man would,' came to me, and asked me to put my window down, for his 'wife was sick.' But as I had just observed the good woman munching a bit of mince-pie, I thought that, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the friar, Anastase Douay. Duhaut followed, a man of respectable birth and education; and Liotot, the surgeon of the party. At home, they might, perhaps, have lived and died with a fair repute; but the wilderness is a rude touchstone, which often reveals traits that would have lain buried and unsuspected in civilized life. The German Hiens, the ex-buccaneer, was also of the number. He had probably sailed with an English crew, for he was sometimes known as Gemme Anglais or "English Jem." [Footnote: Tonty ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... present and every past example. It pursued and worried all the transactions of life. The interest of the American debt grew to be the highest in the world, and the capital touched five hundred and sixty millions sterling. Here was provided for the faith and patience of the people a touchstone of extreme severity. In England, at the close of the great French war, the propertied classes, who were supreme in Parliament, at once rebelled against the Tory Government, and refused to prolong the income tax even for a single year. We talked big, both then and now, about the payment ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... atmosphere of the "Midsummernight's Dream," to the tender gloom of "Cymbeline," to the "philosophic poetry" of "As You Like It." Some of his interpretations of isolated passages are hardly to be surpassed. He comments minutely and exquisitely on what he considers to be a touchstone of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... sown on the top of a rock will grope down the bare stone for the earth by which it must be fed. Let the sense of our own weakness ever lead to a buoyant confidence in what we, even we, may become if we will only take the grace we have. To this touchstone let us bring all claims to higher holiness—they who are perfect are most conscious of imperfection, and most eager in their efforts after a further progress in the knowledge, love, and likeness of God ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... desire the beautiful and the good; but seeing is not beautiful nor good; rather is it the touchstone or light by which we see, not only the beautiful and good, but also the evil and bad. Therefore it seems to me that seeing may be equally beautiful or good, as the thing seen may be white or black. If, then, the sight, which is an act, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... be rejected. Morals, it may be urged, is the touchstone of civilisation, not art. Well, take morals. The question is a large one; but, summarily, where do the Japanese fail, as compared with the Western nations? Is patriotism the standard? In this respect what nation can compete ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... either. . . . Pardon me, but a thoroughly virtuous or a thoroughly amiable man is not worth twopence as a touchstone for a creed; he would convert even Mormonism to a thing of beauty. . . . Whereas the real test of any religion is—as I saw it excellently well put the other day—'not what form it takes in a virtuous mind, but what effects it produces ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it, I say: and by what divination? By a test more searching than any mere peculiarity of manners, dress, or speech; by a touchstone able to divide the gold of essential character from the alloy of superficial characteristics; by a standard which disregarded alike Franklin's fur cap and Putnam's old felt hat, Morgan's leather leggings and Witherspoon's black silk ...
— The Americanism of Washington • Henry Van Dyke
... centuries. But those of Charlemagne fell as soon as his hand was cold, while the works of many ordinary legislators have attained to a perpetuity denied to the statutes of Solon or Lycurgus. Durability is not the test of merit in human institutions. Tried by the only touchstone applicable to governments, their capacity to insure the highest welfare of the governed, we shall not find his polity deserving of much admiration. It is not merely that he was a despot by birth and inclination, nor that he naturally substituted as far as ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... if, in the first place, it were always practicable to apply it, and if, in the second, it always yielded results susceptible of a definite interpretation. Unfortunately, in the great majority of cases, this touchstone ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... principles of synthesis a priori, with which alone we have to do. This investigation, which we cannot properly call a doctrine, but only a transcendental critique, because it aims not at the enlargement, but at the correction and guidance, of our knowledge, and is to serve as a touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all knowledge a priori, is the sole object of our present essay. Such a critique is consequently, as far as possible, a preparation for an organon; and if this new organon should be found to fail, at least for a canon of pure reason, according to which ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... amount to the amazing sum of six hundred millions of maravedies, or more than 4,500,000 livres. It is true that the proof or essay of this gold was made hurriedly, and only by means of the touchstone, as they had no aqua fortis to conduct the process in a more exact manner. It afterwards appeared that this gold had been estimated two or three carats below its real value; so that the whole amount ought to have been reckoned at seven millions of maravedies, or 5,250,000 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... for As You Like It in Thomas Lodge's contemporary novel Rosalynde, but Touchstone and ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... is rarely conclusive; and we will not attempt to anticipate that of posterity. It may be said, however, that the best applicable touchstone of permanency is that of seeming continuously fresh to cultivated tastes after many readings; and that Mr. Barrie's four best books ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of a captivating vista. And yet he needs must pause a while to think of the dear comrade he had lost—of that loved boy, his pattern in the time of their common youthfulness which gleamed in memory as bright and misty as a legend, and of the perfect chevalier who had been like a touchstone to Robert Calverley a bare half-hour ago. He knelt, touched lightly the fallen jaw, and lightly kissed the cheek of this poor wreckage; and was aware that the caress was given with more tenderness than Robert Calverley had shown in the same ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... nation is blind to supreme and unspotted goodness; teachers steeped in 'law and prophets' cannot see Him of and for whom law and prophets witnessed and were, when He stands before them. The sin of sins is the failure to recognise Jesus for what He is. His person and claims are the touchstone which tries every beholder of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... romantic, observers. That is to say, with all his faults, Herndon has the inner something that will enable the diverse impressions of Lincoln, always threatening to become irreconcilable, to hang together and out of their very incongruity to invoke a person that is not incongruous. And herein, in this touchstone so to speak ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... Zeyn Alasnam, the enchanted mirror was able to reflect character, and was called the Touchstone of Virtue. Here again we have Hamlet's idea of holding the mirror up to Nature. The young King, Zeyn Alasnam, had eight beautiful statues of priceless value, and he wanted a ninth to make up his set. The difficulty was to find one beautiful enough; but the Prince ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... when they came to the dun, the King had his son into his treasury. "Here," said he, "is the touchstone which shows truth; for there is no truth but plain truth; and if you will look in this, you will see ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... through to the end. I'll do it in front of the fire, with my feet up and with three Ontario Northern Spy apples on a plate beside me, to be munched as Audrey herself might have munched them, oblivious of any Touchstone and his ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... friends of the constitution. Where arms were expected and not found, a very new mode of trial was instituted. The suspected or accused person was suspended by the neck until the process of strangulation was nearly completed. He was then let down, and if he was still pertinacious, the touchstone was again tried, until he either confessed or accused others. In other cases, it was ascertained what quantity of arms should be brought in by a certain village or district—if the full quantity could not be produced by the inhabitants, their habitations were reduced to ashes to detect ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... not ease and facility that try men and bring out the good that is in them, so much as trial and difficulty. Adversity is the touchstone of character. As some herbs need to be crushed to give forth their sweetest odor, so some natures need to be tried by suffering to evoke the excellence that is in them. Hence trials often unmask virtues and bring to ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... 'The Beggars,' may be taken, we fancy, as a touchstone of Mr Wordsworth's merit. There is something about it that convinces us it is a favourite of the author's; though to us, we will confess, it appears to be a very paragon of silliness and affectation. Our readers shall have the greater part of it. It ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... they would fence it up at each end, and turn it into a hog-lot." Here Brigadier Downright betrayed unequivocal signs of alarm. Drawing us aside, he vehemently demanded of the captain if he were mad, to berate in this unheard-of manner the touchstone of Bivouac sentiment, nationality, taste, and elegance! This street was never spoken of except by the use of superlatives; a usage, by the way, that Noah himself had by no means neglected. It was commonly thought to be the longest and the shortest, the widest and the narrowest, the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... poverty and expence, title and buffoonery, innocence as to purpose, and wickedness as to practice; neither incurring hatred by bad principle, or contempt by Cowardice, yet involved in circumstances productive of imputation in both; a butt and a wit, a humourist and a man of humour, a touchstone and a laughing stock, a jester and a jest, has Sir John Falstaff, taken at that period of his life in which we see him, become the most perfect Comic character ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the height of five feet, and under them I saw newly fallen leaves; so I knew that the horse had brushed some of the branches, and was therefore five feet high. As to his bit, it must have been made of twenty-three carat gold, for he had rubbed it against a stone, which turned out to be a touchstone, with the properties of which I am familiar by experiment. Lastly, by the marks which his shoes left upon pebbles of another kind, I was led to think that his shoes were ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... word, weighing in the critical scales the nonsense of the poet. Parody sometimes became a refined instructor for the public, whose discernment is often blinded by party or prejudice. But it was, too, a severe touchstone for genius: Racine, some say, smiled, others say he did not, when he witnessed Harlequin, in the language of Titus to Berenice, declaiming on some ludicrous affair to Columbine; La Motte was very sore, and Voltaire, and others, shrunk ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... firmly adhere to them, yet are they bad laws notwithstanding, what penalties then do they deserve to undergo who do not observe their own laws, which they esteem so far superior to them? Whereas, therefore, length of time is esteemed to be the truest touchstone in all cases, I would make that a testimonial of the excellency of our laws, and of that belief thereby delivered to us concerning God. For as there hath been a very long time for this comparison, if any one will ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... unconscious of the influences that would bring to pass the decisive events in the future. She was like multitudes of others who are controlled by circumstances of their lot until the time comes when a deep personal experience applies the touchstone to character. ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... from the board Looked up at Aymon's son; but who this while Well marked him, as he eyed Montalban's lord, Had deemed him more disposed to weep than smile. "So oft reminded, to maintain my word, 'Tis time meseems (said he, that owned the pile) To shew the touchstone for a woman's love, Which needs to wedded man must ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... a station distant by forty years) will often appear to have erred; nay, he will be detected and nailed in error. But this is the necessity of us all. Keen are the refutations of time. And absolute results to posterity are the fatal touchstone of opinions in the past. It is undeniable, besides, that Coleridge had strong personal antipathies, for instance, to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas. Yet why, we never could understand. We once heard him tell a story upon Windermere, to the late Mr. Curwen, then ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... here no name written. The memorandum may refer to some-one else. But that cannot be. Himself is meant. Why should he carry about with him a note of this kind respecting another? This betrayer of treachery, this touchstone of truth, shall off forthwith to Winthrop, and be the antidote to ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... regions. When the Understanding, withdrawn into the mind, succeeds in absorbing itself into contemplation that is free from attributes, it attains to a knowledge of Brahma like the touch of gold on a touchstone. The mind is the apprehender of the objects of the senses. It must first be extinguished (before Brahma can be attained). Dependent upon the attributes of objects that are before it, the mind can never show that which is without attributes. Shutting up all the doors ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... worthy only of a courtier. There may be much virtue in an if, as Touchstone says, for the taking up of a quarrel; but that if is bad enough to breed one,' said Falconer, laughing. 'Be at the Paddington Station at noon to-morrow. To tell the whole truth, I want you to help me with ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... same bravery, endurance, self-sacrifice, resource, and grim determination as the men. In every war, it may be argued, women have displayed the same spirit and the same qualities, proving that they needed but the touchstone of opportunity to reveal the splendor of their endowment, but treated by man, as soon as peace was restored, as the ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... surest touchstone by which to test the capacity and the achievements of the world-legislators is their attitude toward Russia in the political domain and toward the labor problem in the economic sphere. And in neither case does their action or inaction appear to have been the outcome of statesman-like ideas, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... dialogues such as these should survive because of their own excellence, not because of modern imitations and parallels such as Harpagon and Parolles, the misadventures of the brothers Antipholus and Juliet's difficulties with her nurse, the remarks of Petruchio to the tailor, of Touchstone to William. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... testified by human nature itself, which, educated by Christianity, recognizes freely and personally the truth of the gospel. The natural faculty that performs this high office is reason, not feeling. Scripture is the touchstone of the Christianity of a conviction, but not of its truth. The Reformers very properly distinguished between a first and secondary authority, and allowed themselves complete liberty in their search after the origin of the books of Scripture. This was not ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... havoc among the revenues of sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil from attractive superstitions, are working as actively in literature as in society. The credulity of one writer, or the partiality of another, finds as powerful a touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticism of a temperate class of antagonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church. History and tradition, whether of ancient or comparatively recent times, are subjected ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... saint can never be afraid to let God teach him one lesson more, or unteach him one more error. Then I rejoiced to feel how right and sound had been our principle, that no creed can possibly be used as the touchstone of spirituality: for man morally excels man, as far as creeds are concerned, not by assenting to true propositions, but by loving them because they are discerned to be true, and by possessing a faculty of discernment sharpened by the love of truth. Such are God's true apostles, ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... sponged her face and pinned on her hat, he said, in response to her beseeching eyes, which, as so often before, made the granting of this one request, a touchstone of his love for her: "Look here, Lulu, if I possibly can, I'll drop in at the end of the first act. Look out for me then, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson |
