"Key" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was back. He entered at the front door this time, ringing the bell. He had never had a key. As if he were a child they would not trust him with one. Nettie's women friends were just leaving. In the air you smelled a mingling of perfume, and tea, and cakes, and ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... from the folio manuscript paper book in the file of the treasury office, number 3700, being a black box of tin containing, under lock and key, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... began the declaration moved by Sir John Eliot in the House of Commons on March 2nd, 1629. A royal message ordering the adjournment of the House was disregarded, the Speaker was held down in his chair, and the key of the House of Commons was turned against intrusion, while Eliot's resolutions, declaring that the privileges of the Commons must be ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... to the sparkling brim, The juice of the young Lyaeus; The grape is the key that we owe to him From the gaol of the world to free us. Drink, drink! What need to shrink, When the lambs alone can ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... instructions, closing his covering letter with a sentence especially worthy of the reader's attention: "I consider an active effort against Scindhia and Berar to be the best possible preparation for the renewal of the war with France." There is little doubt of this being the key-note of the policy that led the British to the conquest of Hindustan. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... Mr. Stephens, smiling. "Did you ever forget anything in your life, Theodore? I did not think you had time to turn a key ...
— Three People • Pansy
... feathers. They were all talking, laughing, and shouting at once, and when they at length, after receiving a few farewell presents, bid us good-bye, we felt as if we had passed out of a tempest of noise into a calm, so apparently deep was the silence which reigned round us. In two days, passing the Key Islands, the inhabitants of which are very much like those of Aru, we arrived in sight of a lofty volcano, from the summit of which wreaths of white smoke were even then ascending. On approaching more closely, we saw that there were two other ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... again and set it going. This was a total mystery to the old fellow. He said he had been "doing that" to the watch all night long, talking to it, and telling it not to die. We opined that he had not succeeded in opening the case of the watch, but had sat twiddling the key about ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... know that this in hand is the thing that will open to you the next higher, and this the next and the next; and so realize that each thing thus taken hold of is but the agency that takes you each time a step nearer the realization of your fondest ideals. You then hold the key; and bolts that otherwise would remain immovable, by this mighty force, will be thrown ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget—Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... hue and cry: 'Stop thief! stop thief!' For has not the law thundered from Sinai, 'Thou shalt not steal'? True, plagiarism is nowhere distinctly forbidden by Moses; but have not critics judicially pronounced it author-theft? Has not metaphor been sounded through every note of its key-board, to strike out all that is base whereunto to liken it? Have not old Dr. Johnson's seven-footed words—the tramp of whose heavy brogans has echoed down the staircase of years even unto our day—declared plagiarists ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... of their journeying into this unknown world was in all truth a matter for silence rather than speech; its influence was toward deep and earnest meditation, to which the joyous, awakening world could do no more than chant in a minor key a melancholy accompaniment. Never did a soldier advancing upon a breach in the enemy's breastworks more certainly confront the grinning face of Death, than did this trio in their progress across the singing prairie; but where the plaudits of the world spelled glory for the one, the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... our prose can afford, here and there. The pilgrim, if he is young and his shoes or his belly pinch him not, sings as he goes, the very stones at his heels (so music-steeped is this land) setting him the key. Jog the foot-path way through Tuscany in my company, it's Lombard Street to my hat I charm you out of your lassitude by my open humour. Things I say will have been said before, and better; my tunes may be stale and my phrasing rough: I may be irrelevant, irreverent, what you please. ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... lecture On Memory as a Key to the Phenomena of Heredity delivered by Butler at the Working Men's College, Great Ormond Street, on ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... the door with the key Thorny reluctantly gave up to her, "this is the room and that is the drawer on the right. The lower ones have seldom been opened since we came, and hold only some of papa's old books. Those upper ones you may turn out ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... and sextoness on account of the careless manner in which she had performed the duties of these offices, and she also, in answer to questions asked by the vicar-general, acknowledged that she had frequently hidden a key of the abbey church in a hole so that a certain Richard Johans might find it and enter the church, and might drink in the sacristy wine with which she provided him, though she denied having ever drunk with him or otherwise misconducted herself. Margaret Doumar confessed that she had been guilty of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... HOUSEKEEPER, and presides over the housekeeper's room; which has a Brussels carpet and centre table, with one side entirely occupied by the linen presses, of which my maid (my vice-regent, only MUCH greater than me) keeps the key and dispenses every towel, even for the kitchen. She keeps lists of everything and would feel bound to replace anything missing. I shall make you laugh and Mrs. Goodwin stare, by some of my housekeeping stories, the next evening I pass in your ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... only by sentimentalizing. But Amanda—and yet somehow I love her for it still—could not leave any one alone. So she was always feverishly weaving nets of false relationship. Until her very self was forgotten. So she will go on until the end. With Easton it had been necessary for her to key herself to a simple exalted romanticism that was entirely insincere. She had so accustomed herself to these poses that her innate gestures were forgotten. She could not recover them; she could not even reinvent them. Between ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... attention, he had almost forgotten it. But on this day he had made up his mind to hide it more effectually. Late that night, after the entire mission was still in sleep, he took out the box, placed it on the table, and by the light of a candle, opened it with a small key which he wore, hung by a slender black silk cord, round his neck underneath his Franciscan robe. Inside were five gleaming rows of gold coins-bright new Spanish onzas, every one looking as if just fresh from the mint. There were ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... there was no help for it, and he chose out the key from the big bunch with a heavy heart and many sighs. When the door was opened he walked in first, and thought that by standing in front of the King he might hide the picture from him, but that was no good, the King stood on tiptoe, and looked over his shoulder. ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... The room was empty, the lad who acted as his factotum having gone to bed. Wildeve came back put on his hat, took the bottle, and left the house, turning the key in the door, for there was no guest at the inn tonight. As soon as he was on the road the little bonfire on Mistover Knap ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... her father's arm and pleading for something vital to her happiness. The thought flashed across him, "Here may be the secret of her power to do right—the help she gets from a source above and beyond herself. Here may be the key to both her strength and weakness. Here glimmers light ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... the golden key wherewith to unlock the world of the universe, of the soul, of all nature. He is as convinced of the two absolute facts of God and Soul as Cardinal Newman in writing of "Two and two only, supreme and luminously self-evident beings, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... heart of the wife of Sergeant Thomas Putnam. She was a woman of an excitable temperament, and, by her talents, zeal, and personal qualities, wrought all within her influence into the highest state of exasperation. This must be borne in mind when we reach the details of our story. It is the key to all ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... had a quick glimpse of dark figures rushing up the stairs. He fumbled for the key, jerked it loose, and slammed the door. With his shoulder against it he inserted the key on their side and twisted it just as bodies thumped against the ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... promontory of Carmel. Next to the Bay of St. George, near Beyrout, this is the best natural roadstead on the Syrian coast; and this advantage, combined with its vicinity to the plain of Esdraelon, has given to Accho at various periods of history a high importance, as in some sense "the key of Syria." The Assyrians, in their wars with Palestine and Egypt, took care to conquer and retain it.[484] When the Ptolemies became masters of the tract between Egypt and Mount Taurus, they at once saw its value, occupied it, strengthened its defences, and gave it ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... incurring a charge of bigotry; but fearless of such imputation, I concur with Hume, 'that it is sufficient for his vindication to observe that his errors were the most excusable of all those which prevailed during that zealous period.' A key to the right understanding of those parts of his conduct that brought the most odium upon him in his own time, may be found in the following passage of his speech before the bar of the House of Peers:—'Ever since I came in place, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... out of one of the wagons, before the eyes of Two Arrows and Na-tee-kah, and it was instantly evident that neither had ever seen one, but that both understood its use. He unstrapped it, but it did not open, and he made them try it. Lock and key were mysteries they had no thought of, and they almost started back with surprise when Sile pushed a thin bit of steel into one side of that contrivance and all the upper part of it ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... rubber shell if one is on it, or to damage the threads on Posts such as the Exide or to draw up the vise so tightly as to crush the post. Then saw off all the old plates with a new coarse toothed hacksaw, a sharp key hole saw, or any good saw which has a wide set, close to the post. This separates the entire group of plates from the post in one short operation. This method is much better than the one of sawing the plates off below the ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... of true liberty in Europe be promoted by such altered circumstances as these?—to say nothing of the disastrous imprudence with which those blind rulers and so- called theologians took away the key-stone of the European social edifice, which grew weaker from that day forth, until now we see it tottering ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... him away wher' mebbe the good God'll watch over him, an' help him, an' surely will forgive him. You ken jest help me, boy, to locate the place, an' when we find it we'll sort o' seal it up, an' you ken hide the key away in your heart so no one'll ever find it. Are you goin' ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... awhile, and wind up with a quick chirp on C sharp and D. The distinctness between the semitones was very marked, and easily appreciable to a good ear." Mr. Lockwood gives both songs in musical notation; and adds that though this little mouse "had no ear for time, yet she would keep to the key of B (two flats) and strictly in a major key."..."Her soft clear voice falls an octave with all the precision possible; then at the wind up, it rises again into a very quick trill on ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... their porringers! Having dismounted at a good inn, we discovered that the "Mesonero" (in other words, our host) was the possessor of two pretty daughters, whom he kept in a tower under lock and key, so dangerous a town is Coimbra! But we set our wits to work to catch a sight of the beautiful recluses. By means of a nosegay tied to the end of a long stick we drew two sprightly faces, well worthy their reputation, to the window, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... Hegel, "for the consummate modelling of divine and human forms was pre-eminently at home in Greece. In its poets and orators, its historians and philosophers, Greece cannot be conceived from a central point, unless one brings, as a key to the understanding of it, an insight into the ideal forms of sculpture, and regards the images of statesmen and philosophers, as well as epic and dramatic heroes, from the artistic point of view; for those who act, as well as those who create and ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... erected by the Coast Survey officers to shelter a tide-gauge watcher. The island was now deserted. The coast was indeed desolate, and it was a cheering sight in the middle of the afternoon to catch a glimpse of signs of the past presence of man on Pepperfish Key, an island a little distance from land, rising out of the sparkling sea, and crowned with a rough but picturesque shanty,— another reminder of the untiring efforts ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... stepped onto the sidewalk, closed the door behind him, and clutching his package tightly, hurried down the street. He had entirely gained his composure by the time he reached his hotel, and hastening to his room, placed the package in his trunk and turned the key. He glanced at his watch. It lacked three minutes of one, and remembering his appointment with Orcutt, he ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... the ambassador with relish, "insists that you have to be locked up with the key thrown away. Because you know how to make deathrays. I said it was nonsense, and you were a political refugee in sanctuary. The Minister of State said the Cabinet would consider removing you forcibly from the Embassy if you weren't surrendered. ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... the thing named so utters itself, that, having mastered the name, we have placed ourselves at the central point, from whence best to master everything besides. It is thus with 'Gnostic' and 'Gnosticism'; in the prominence given to gnosis or knowledge, as opposed to faith, lies the key to the whole system. The Greek Church has loved ever to style itself the Holy 'Orthodox' Church, the Latin, the Holy 'Catholic' Church. Follow up the thoughts which these words suggest. What a world of teaching they contain; above ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... what would happen, for I was abandoning myself to fate, and I thought it would be useless to think of the future. The night was therefore spent between joy and sadness, between pleasures and tears. As I bade them adieu, I returned the key which had opened so often for me ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... severely plain but dignified structure, looking like some council-hall of a past era. Its heavy oak doors and windows with diamond panes, and its air of order, cleanliness and serenity, gave it a commanding influence in the picture. It was the key to the history of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... only a school-girl," I said, sententiously. "You had better be thinking of your lessons, and let beaux and diamonds alone. I would be ashamed to keep a key to my exercises and sums, as you do. I would blush in the dark to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... of the key That shuts and opens with a sound so sweet Its turning in the wards is melody, All things we move among are incomplete And vain until we fashion them in Thee! We labor in the fire, Thick smoke is round about us; through the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... is the key to the whole of Christology, that, as subject of the predicate which the church assigns to Christ, we place instead of an individual, an idea; but an idea which has an existence in reality, not in the mind only, like that of Kant. In an individual, a God-man, the properties and functions which ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... organised priesthood, with powers of teaching and of magic implicitly believed in by the folk, possessing the key of the other-world, and dominating the whole field of religion, it is easy to see how much veneration must have been paid them. Connoting this with the influence of the Roman Church in Celtic regions and the power of the Protestant minister in the Highlands ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... destined for the former purpose, the key was delivered to the Duke by a hooded and spectacled old lady, who sat reading a devout book in the outer hall which divided these apartments (usually called the Nunnery) from the rest of the house. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... has told so much can tell us no more. The clue that placed her in mental relations with the danger did not extend to its authorship. We have striven hard to find in every conceivable direction some material key to the plot, some object which, having been in contact with the persons of those we suspect, probably at the time when their plans were arranged, might serve as a link between her thoughts and theirs; but as yet unsuccessfully. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... messengers betray it to the eye. Tone, act, attitude and look, the signals upon the countenance, the electric telegraph of touch,—all these betray the yielding citadel before the word itself is uttered, which, like the key surrendered, opens every avenue and gate of ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... adventure. We are going to carry off the Countess Ceprano: she has fled here from us. We had the Duke's key to get into her place." He holds out the key which the dwarf felt in the darkness and found the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... occasion by the establishment of the Imperial Institute. To this he gladly gave his support; not indeed to the merely social side; but in the opportunity of organising the practical applications of science to industry he saw the key to success in the industrial war of the future. Seconding the resolution proposed by Lord Rothschild at the Mansion House meeting on January 12, he spoke of the relation of industry to science—the two great developments ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... gentleman carries his crush hat, and a lady her fan and a bouquet, hand-shaking may not be perfectly convenient. However, if a lady or gentleman extends a hand, it should be taken cordially. Always respond to the greeting in the key-note of ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... Reason. Hence man had the right and the duty to examine and realise how his own human reason was satisfied by the Law. In a sense the Jew was a quite simple believer. But never a simpleton. 'Know the Lord thy God' was the key-note of this aspect ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... the key and the door opened. They went in and looked here, there, and everywhere, ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... to observe that the opposition of the heart to the intelligence is Comte's key to the whole history of the past, especially in relation to religion. Theology is to him a system growing out of a natural, though partially erroneous, hypothesis, a hypothesis which in its first ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... certain shanties—originally, no doubt, in a mode—were, by the insertion of leading notes, converted into the minor key. There was also the tendency on the part of the modern sailor to turn his minor key into a major one. I sometimes find sailors singing in the major, nowadays, tunes which the very old men of my boyhood used to sing in the minor. A case in ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... to Love in Several Masques, the young dramatist was now, it seems, at war. In the introduction to the Miscellanies, he refers to "a slight Pique" with Wilks; and it is not impossible that the key to the difference may be found in the ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... masters came from Virginia and settled in Louisiana about 1853. Her grandparents belonged to the Green family and her parents, Charity and William Green, belonged to Tolas Parsons. Ellen lives with friends who support her. Her sole belonging is an old trunk and she carries the key on ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... withered the idea with his voice. "Fine in the long run, but of absolutely no value in an emergency." He began to pace back and forth. Too quickly. It was more of a bubbling-over than a relaxation. "Can't you isolate some recent key ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... mantle years ago. I was keeping it for some special occasion. If you buy a really good cashmere, and trim it with my old miniver, Dot will have a grand pelisse," and then Mrs. Broderick hunted in her key-basket for a certain key, and instructed her niece to unlock a drawer ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... but MM. Lezan du Pontet, Paris junior, and Boudon, accompanied by a great number of the militia, entered, demanding that the red flag should be brought out. They tried to open the door of the council hall, and finding it locked, they called upon me for the key. I asked that one of the attendants should be sent for, but they were all out; then I went to the hall-porter to see if he knew where the key was. He said M. Berding had taken it. Meanwhile, just as the volunteers were about ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... going to the front to-night. He wants to take an operator with him. Giddings isn't well enough to go, but he can take your key to-night; you can go with the colonel instead. He will take Dancing and a detail of cavalrymen with Leon Sublette and Bob ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... scarcely left the apartment of the Princess, when I recollected she had forgotten to give me the cipher and the key for the letters. The Princess immediately went to the Queen's apartment, and returned with ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... situation became more and more desperate. We knew that the Third Division was coming from Pola against us, and also the army in Herzegovina. We were prepared to take the battery of the Punta d'Ostro, the most important battery and the key to Bok Kotor, which was in the hands of sailors inimical to us. The news came from Gaa that the Magyars there had got the upper hand. We tried to bring them over to us, but in vain. They said, 'If you don't stop this, we shall join the Third ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... curses, platting many cords of your iniquities, to bind you in everlasting chains. Ye are but digging a pit for your souls, ye that sweat in your sins, and travel in them, and will not embrace this ransom offered. The key and lock of that pit is eternal despair. O consider how quickly your pleasures and gains will end, and spare some of your thoughts from present things, to give them to eternity, that thread spun out for ever and ever;—the very length of the days of the Ancient of days, who ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... called a taxi, pinned on her hat and struggled into her fur coat, and, taking her latch-key, started for Ilse's apartment, feeling need of her in a blind sort of way—desiring to listen to her friendly voice, touch her, hear her clear, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the mysterious English adventurer of whom they had all heard, but whom nobody had seen. And a woman—his wife—to be guarded until the man was safely under lock and key. ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... 'em for fun. Only tourists do that. If you Northern fellers didn't pay us ter git plumes we'd never kill 'em. D'ye remember that key over there?" ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... silent awhile, looking meditatively at Bryce. Then he turned to a locked drawer, produced a key, and took something out of the drawer—a small object, ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... eyes. She who had so long ruled supreme was not inclined to have any desire of hers questioned. 'There must have been gross carelessness that day—carelessness on your part, or that stable door would never have been left open. The key ought to have been in your possession It ought not to have been in the power of the stableman to open that door. As to Mr. Hammond's presence at Fellside, I cannot see any danger—any reason why harm should come of it, more than of Lord Maulevrier's ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... may be ruined by its explanations. My chief aim in this work has been thoroughness; and I make bold to say that there is not a single metaphysical problem that does not find its solution, or at least the key to its solution, here. Pure reason is a perfect unity; and therefore, if the principle presented by it prove to be insufficient for the solution of even a single one of those questions to which the very nature of reason gives birth, we must reject it, as we could not ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... silence, as Gunsaules crossed the deck, and inserted a key in the afterstateroom door. Manuel was grinning in full enjoyment, but the expression on the face of Estada was that of grim cruelty. Evidently he expected a scene, an outburst of resentment, pleading and tears, and was ready enough to exercise his authority. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... have succeeded, after all. The fact is, I took out the gold piece and put a penny in its place, so that you might not know the difference. Now here is the key of that box. Will you ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... soft. She followed lightly, and a moment later she was admitted to a well-lighted room that looked like a man's library; the footman disappeared and shut the door, and the latch made a noise as if the key were being turned; as she supposed such a thing to be out of the question, however, she was ashamed to go ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... Ronald's name the key was inserted in the lock, and by the time the sentence was completed the great gate was swung open, and the visitor found himself, to his ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... to grasp the man and his individual methods, together with his significance for his mother-country, we must know the environment and the relations on which Gorki entered. Thus only shall we understand him, and find the key to his great success in Russia, and the after-math of this success ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... smash it by an appeal to the people. Their sense of justice is yet the salt that will save the Nation. The key to the situation is in the character of the remarkable witnesses whom Holt has produced before this tribunal of assassination. In my judgment they are a gang of hired perjurers. Their leader is a ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... almost in a whisper, for he attuned my communications to his minor key, that we had such a thing as a pony, and I hinted, as gently as I could, that he was confoundedly in the way, too. I was very anxious to have him landed before I began to handle the cargo. Almayer ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... joys of married life with a restraint, a vigour, and a nobility which it would be difficult to match in any literature. Yet a passionate man—or, as he would perhaps prefer to say, therefore a passionate man. But in a major, not in a minor key; of strong, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... to South, from Red to Indian Sea. My double treasure Death has filched from me, Which made me proud and happy midst my kind. Nor may all empires of the world combined, Nor Orient gems, nor gold restore the key. But if this be according to Fate's will, What may I do, but wander heavy-souled, With ever downcast head, eyes weeping still? O life of ours, so lovely to behold, In one brief morn how easily dost thou spill That which we toiled for years ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... get through and Whinnie's work-pants to veneer with a generous new patch, and thirteen missing buttons to restore to the kiddies' different garments. My back ached, my finger-bones were tired, and there was a jumpy little nerve in my left temple going for all the world like a telegraph-key. And then ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... in a monotone, rumbling on a low note in much the same way that Shelley is said to have screamed in a high one. For the women's parts he changed his voice suddenly, climbed up into a key which he could not sustain. In spite of this I was beginning to think how impressive it all was, when I looked up and saw Edy, who was sitting on Henry's knee, looking over his shoulder at young Hallam and laughing, and Henry, instead of reproaching her, on ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... one gay young noble present, who knew better than Cynewulf the key to Edwy's heart. He was one of the boon companions we have been before introduced to; but he had fought, poor young fellow, gallantly all that day, and now he could fight no longer: Edwy saw him reel and fall ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... "knight with the villainous coat," the nickname given by Sir Key (the seneschal of King Arthur) to Sir Brewnor le Noyre, a young knight who wore his father's, coat with all its sword-cuts, to keep him in remembrance of the vengeance due to his father. His first achievement was to kill a lion that "had broken loose from a tower, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... there is Liberty and Fraternity, but seldom Equality, and in music Social Democracy has no voice. Notes have a right to the Aftertone (Nachton), and this right depends upon their role in the key. The Vorhalt (accented passing note) will always have an accent. On this point Riemann must without question be considered right. Likewise the feeling player will mark those notes that introduce the transition ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... him at once, Feodor. I have some secret business with him. Here is the key of a small locked box in your room. Open it and take out ten one-thousand rouble notes and bring them to me after you ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... So, I'll tell you everything, except how I got away. There's somebody else I may want to find." She glanced with infinite cunning at Brencherly, and began her finger signals as if practicing a dumb alphabet of which he alone knew the key. ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... key might be had at the office by those who could prove themselves worthy of the ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... commissions with which your Majesty had charged me—namely, the residencias of Don Juan de Silva and Don Juan de Alvarado—since I had committed no crime for which I should be arrested; and adduced other reasons why I could not deliver the key because of the risk that that property would be running should the key pass through other hands. As he thought that that was insufficient to obtain his will, they immediately added another reason according to which it was advisable to borrow from ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... dropped, for the fresh wine was put on the table. But after they had drunk the most of it—the captain, according to William, drinking less than usual—it was brought up again, he couldn't tell by which of them. And in five minutes after, they were all at my door, demanding the key of the room at the top of the stair. I was just going up to see poor Emily when I heard the noise of their unsteady feet coming along the passage to my door; and I gave the captain the key at once, wishing with all my heart he might get a good fright for his pains. He took ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... spoke about my own life and interests, with an unsparing discernment, of which I should have been incapable a month ago, and in return I gained the key to his own character. It was devotion to the sea, wedded to a fire of pent-up patriotism struggling incessantly for an outlet in strenuous physical expression; a humanity, born of acute sensitiveness to his own ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... the conversation to herself, the continual sound of her voice being only varied by Harriet's notes and comments, given in a pert shrill, high key, and by a few syllables in answer from Lady Merton and Mrs. Woodbourne. The two gentlemen, happily for themselves, had a great quantity of plans and accounts of the church to look over together, which were likely ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... came and carried him! That when Liu Chih-yan was attacking the empire, a melon-spirit appeared and brought him a coat of mail, and that in the same way, where our vixen Feng is, there you are to be found! You are your mistress' general key; and what do you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... like this when the first glow of joy had suffused his life; and then had come that night, that wonderful night, which began, in the lurid fire, and ended foully with Preston's words. Here was the key: she too loved, as he had, and this feeling which had drawn them together from the very moment when he had looked from the helpless form on the hospital chair to her had grown, surging up in her heart as in his—until, until she had taken this last ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... And the great key to this admirable treasure-house is Self, who hath two beautiful children, Self-Love and Self-Pride . . . We have also aided our project much by the following contrivance, namely, that ten of the society, the ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... The key of every science is, beyond cavil, the mark of interrogation; we owe most of our greatest discoveries to a Why? and all the wisdom in the world, perhaps, consists in asking Wherefore? in every connection. But, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... key of his own and Peter was soon inside a hall that smelt of oilcloth and the cooking of beef; the gas was burning, but the only things that really benefited from its light were a long row of mournful black coats that hung against ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... do not know how. The strong have ever pitched the key for such as you. It is they that have taught your kind when and how to die, and led you to die, and ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... longer than he expected and in the laboratory of a great man stumbled on the key of the discovery that in a few years was to make him famous from one end of Europe ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... rose, enamelled by her breath, That bloomed in glory 'tween her breasts, and here The brimming sun-cup that she quaffed at noon, And here the star that cheered her in the night; In this great chest, see curiously wrought, Are purest of Love's gems." A ruby key, Enclasped upon a golden ring, he took, With care, from out some secret hiding-place, And delicately touched the lock, whereat I staggered, blinded by the light of things More luminous than stars, and questioned thus — "What are these treasures, miser Memory?" ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... some of its pristine greatness or glory, although we do not intend to carry on as was the custom in days of yore, when half-a-dozen hogsheads of claret were on tap at once, and anybody who asked for it got the key." ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... laid the key softly on the mantelpiece and listened intently. The clock was now aggressively audible, so that he opened the case again, and putting his finger against the pendulum, stopped it. Then he drew his revolver and cocked it, and, with his set face turned towards the door, ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... Edinburgh (November 1579) their foes, the chiefs of the Hamiltons, were forfeited (they had been driven to seek shelter with Elizabeth), while d'Aubigny got their lands and the key of Scotland, Dumbarton Castle, on the estuary of Clyde. The Kirk, regarding d'Aubigny, now Earl of Lennox, despite his Protestant professions, as a Papist or an atheist, had little joy in Morton, who was denounced in a printed ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... infamy had been humiliating, but those experiences had not overwhelmed my very heart as did this bitter ordeal. I resisted weakly, and, after the muff was adjusted and locked, for the first time since my mental collapse I wept. And I remember distinctly why I wept. The key that locked the muff unlocked in imagination the door of the home in New Haven which I believed I had disgraced—and seemed for a time to unlock my heart. Anguish beat my mind into a momentary sanity, and with a wholly sane emotion I keenly felt my imagined disgrace. My thoughts centred on my ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... has never been satisfactorily explained, some readings giving as its meaning "forever," "hallelujah," etc., while others say that it means repeat, an inflection of the voice, a modulation to another key, an instrumental interlude, a rest, and so on ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... mistake was to allow Trinity College, which was the strategic key to Dublin City, to fall into the hands of a few of the Officers' Training Corps, who must be given the credit of saving the capital from total capture and Grafton ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... you knew," turning upon her a look of surprise. "I thought you knew his guilt. Who, but Frank Lamotte, could gain access to my office, to purloin my handkerchief and my knife? He had a duplicate key, and—I found that key in the old cellar beside the ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... than was necessary to secure his pistols in his belt, wrap his cloak closer around him, and take his small portmanteau under his arm. Thus accoutred, he followed her out of the Keep, or inhabited part of the Castle, by a series of obscure passages leading to a postern gate, which she unlocked with a key, selected from a bundle which she carried at ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... better have a little plug made,' he said, looking round at Tom, after blowing a shrill whistle into the barrel of the key. 'It's the only way of preventing them from getting stopped up. You'll find the lock go the better, too, I dare ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... rent a box. He made the arrangements for the box, and a box was handed to him. In it he deposited some stocks and bonds which he took from his pocket. Then the clerk who had charge of the vaults went to a rack on the wall and took out a key and gave it to the man who had rented the box. The man then put the box into one of the little steel compartments, shut the door and turned the key. He then went away feeling perfectly secure on account of those steel doors and various mechanical and electrical contrivances ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... was gathered together in SolundirSec. and when all things were made ready and he was about to set sail from Nidaros went he to the shrine of King Olaf, and thrusting his hands into the sanctuary cut he off the hair and the nails pertaining to the saint, and thereafter turned he the key once of the shrine and then threw that same key into the Nid; and since that time forsooth hath the shrine of the holy King ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... office of the Adams Express, gave him some jobs, making keys, etc.; and finally brought him a key to the lock of the pouch used by the company, and asked him to make ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... writer and Dorothy the private secretary of a Personage, when they met, in the dreary basement dining-room of a New York boarding-house, and speedily fell in love. Shortly afterward, when Harlan received a letter which contained a key, and announced that Mr. Judson's house, fully furnished, had been bequeathed to his nephew, they had light-heartedly embarked upon matrimony with no fears for ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... answered the young rascal. "Mr. Clayton trusts me in all things, and often gives me his latch-key and the room keys when he wants anything from the apartment. ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... its indispensable allies, the Protestant princes across the Rhine and the confederated cantons of Switzerland. Besides, the war had borne no fruit but disappointment. If Calais had been recovered, St. Quentin and other strongholds, which were the key to Paris, had been lost. The brilliant capture of Thionville (on the twenty-second of June, 1558) had been more than balanced by the disastrous rout of Marshal de Thermes at Gravelines ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... agitated by a variety of emotions. He soon, however, recovered his composure, and an expression of determined malignancy settled upon his countenance, as he gave peremptory orders that a certain chamber should be immediately locked up, and the key placed in his ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... next dance Betty and her partner finished up within a few feet of the camel. With the informal audacity that was the key-note of the evening she reached out and gently rubbed ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... of the Church are laboring under the egregious error of making them an essential doctrine, when they are really a mere external accessory. Reason, and not "our desires" must come to our aid in all examination of them. The key-note to Professor Powell's opposition is contained in the following statement: "From the nature of our antecedent convictions, the probability of some kind of mistake or deception somewhere, though we know not where, is greater than the probability of the ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... of the town, and is surrounded by conventual buildings of modern date. It resembles the Abbaye aux Hommes in point of style, but the carving is more elaborate, and the transepts are much grander in design; the beautiful key-pattern borders, and the grotesque carving on the capitals of some of the pillars, strike the eye at once; but what is most remarkable is the extraordinary care with which the building has been restored, and the whole interior so scraped and chiselled afresh that it has ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... Philipsburg, key of the Rhine in those parts, has had many sieges; nor would this one merit the least history from us; were it not for one circumstance: That our Crown-Prince was of the Opposing Army, and made his first experience of arms there. A Siege of Philipsburg slightly memorable ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... certain Romulus built a wall of mud near the banks of Tiber and slew his brother Remus for leaping over his handiwork. The founding of Rome is enveloped in impenetrable clouds of legend; the building of Cumae is a fact:—here then we obtain a key to Italian history. Rome, whose origin is lost in mists of obscurity, is a flourishing modern capital; Cumae is but a shapeless mass of crumbling ruins, overgrown with ivy and cytizus, and inhabited by lizards ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... this earliest note in the ascending scale of superstitious faith, let us pass to a more alarming key. This first, which we have styled (in equity as well as for distinction) the Ovidian, is too rial, too allegoric, almost to be susceptible of much terror. It is the mere fancy, in a mood half-playful, half-tender, which submits to the belief. It is the feeling, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey |
