"Midas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enough, both of them, if I drew out now! But I won't do it! It is mine, all mine, and I am going to find it! They shall have their shares, as I promised them: ten per cent each. And I, Sir Midas, will not be suspected then of falling in love with you as I am doing because you are rich and ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... briefly and in a disorderly way of the riches which are here gratuitously offered—not the riches of Midas and Pymalion, because mother Nature does not refuse food to her children even if they are profaners of that wonderful temple of her fecundity—it is right that I should now draw your attention to two great friends of travellers in the forest. One is the bamboo and the other ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... grown habituated to the flight of time. Years? we have seen so many of them that they make no great impression upon us. What! is it ten years since young Midas first came to the counting-room, asking humbly for an entry-clerk's place—he who is now the head of the firm? Bless us! it seems like yesterday. Is it ten years since we first put on that coat? Why, it must be clean out of ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... me, God, although I curse my birth, And ban the air wherein I breathe a wretch! For misery hath daunted all my mirth— Without redress complains my careless verse, And Midas' ears relent not at my moan! In some far land will I my griefs rehearse, 'Mongst them that will be moved when I shall groan! England, adieu! the soil that brought me forth! Adieu, unkinde! ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... change everything that comes under their hands to gold, but to this privilege of Midas they join sometimes his ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... in the Old World, people who wish to attain competence or wealth must toil hard for it. In Canada, with all its capabilities and advantages, there is no royal road to riches—no Midas touch to turn everything into gold. The primal curse still holds good, "though softened into mercy;" and those who emigrate, expecting to work less hard for 5s. a day than at home for 1s. 6d., will be miserably disappointed, for, where high wages are given, hard work is required; ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... authoritatively, "and containeth of gold ten pounds to the hundredweight. Moreover—" He sifted down upon the dark wood beside the stones a thimbleful of dull yellow grains. "The sands of Pactolus, gentlemen! Sure 'twas in no Grecian river that King Midas bathed himself!" ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... altitude; your ornaments are equally chaste and beautiful, with more variety and invention, more airiness and light. But why, among the Loves and Graces, does Apollo flay Marsyas?—and why may not the tiara still cover the ears of Midas? Cannot you, who detest kings and courtiers, keep away from them? If I must be with them, let me be in good humour and good spirits. If I will tread upon a Persian carpet, let it at least be ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... dumped the wealth out on the table - stacks of genuine bills, gold coins of two realms, diamonds, pearls, everything portable and tangible all heaped up and topped off with piles of counterfeits awaiting the magic touch of this Midas to ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... where he is joined by new forces. The city of Celaenae; the plain of Caystrus, where the soldiers demand their arrears of pay, which Cyrus discharges with money received from the queen of Cilicia. The town of Thymbrium; the fountain of Midas. Cyrus enters Cilicia, and is met at Tarsus by Syennesis, the ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... of this house we were informed was an old miser whose passion for accumulating wealth reduced him into almost as unfortunate a state as Midas, who, according to the fable, having obtained the long-desired power of turning every thing he touched to gold, was starved by the immediate transmutation of all food into that metal the instant it touched his lips. The late possessor of the house I ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... neighbourhood of Gordium in Phrygia. Here he was rejoined by Parmenio and by the new levies from Greece. Gordium had been the capital of the early Phrygian kings, and in it was preserved with superstitious veneration the chariot or waggon in which the celebrated Midas, the son of Gordius, together with his parents, had entered the town, and in conformity with an oracle had been elevated to the monarchy. An ancient prophecy promised the sovereignty of Asia to him who should untie the knot of bark which fastened the yoke of the waggon to the pole. Alexander ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... the sordid fate To that melodious lyre assign'd, Beneath a tutor who so late With Midas and his rout combined By spiteful clamour to confound That very lyre's enchanting sound, Though listening realms ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... the true line of beauty still winds in and out. It argues, my Lord! of fine thoughts such a brood in us 45 To split and divide into heads multitudinous, While charms that surprise (it can ne'er be denied us) Sprout forth from each head, like the ears from King Midas. Were a genius of rank, like a commonplace dunce, Compell'd to drive on to the main point at once, 50 What a plentiful vintage of initiations[342:3] Would Noble Lords lose in your Lordship's orations. My fancy transports me! As mute as a mouse, And as fleet as a pigeon, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Domitian was not pious or admirable, but possessed with the disease of building, and turned everything into bricks and mortar, just as it is said Midas turned things into gold. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... be said of him, as of [v]Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into coin. And when Mr. Gathergold had become so rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he bethought himself of his native ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... empty rooms could not be converted into a suitable home for the poor woman and her five children. Would not that be more just and fair than to leave the mother and her five little ones languishing in a garret, while Sir Gorgeous Midas sat at his ease in an empty mansion? Besides, good Sir Gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his own accord; his wife will be delighted to be freed from half her big, unwieldy house when there is no longer a staff of servants to keep it ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... man who frets at worldly strife Grows sallow, sour, and thin; Give us the lad whose happy life Is one perpetual grin: He, Midas-like, turns all to gold,— He smiles, when others sigh, Enjoys alike the hot and cold, And ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... a man of the name of Lityerses, a bastard son of Midas, the King of Celaenae, in Phrygia, a man of a savage and fierce aspect, and an enormous glutton. He is mentioned by Sositheus, the tragic poet, in his play called 'Daphnis' or 'Lityersa'; where ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... announced on the 23d of May] to write within six weeks or two months next ensuing, a book of stories made up of classical myths. The subjects are: The Story of Midas, with his Golden Touch; Pandora's Box; The Adventure of Hercules in Quest of the Golden Apples; Bellerophon and the Chimera; Baucis and Philemon; ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... have known me twenty-five years, and you know that I am a man of my word. If ever a malevolent word from you regarding my wife should come to my ears, I shall elongate yours to such a degree that those of King Midas will be entirely eclipsed! ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... well measur'd song First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas' ears, committing short and long; Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look wan; To after age thou shalt be writ the man, That with smooth air could'st humour best our tongue. Thou honour'st ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... baser type a man blights his sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for what it will net us in dollars and cents, we are not on the road leading to success. For success does not consist in ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... plaints heard; the shepherd tended his sheep, and did no jobs or chores the while; the idyl had a chance to grow up, and modulate his oaten pipe. But now the poet must be at the whole expense of the poetry in describing one of these positions; the worker is a true Midas to the gold he makes. The poet must describe, as the painter sketches Irish peasant-girls and Danish fishwives, adding the beauty, and ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... thy life—for dear repose of conscience, may all the gods forbid it should ever prove to have been an accident!—the family were seized and summarily disposed of, and their property confiscated. And inasmuch, O my Midas! as the action had the approval of our Caesar, who was as just as he was wise—be there flowers upon his altars forever!—there should be no shame in referring to the sums which were realized to us respectively from that source, for which ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... days its existence was fully understood. The Greeks enshrined it in the story of Midas, of the 'Golden Touch.' Here was a man who turned everything he laid his hands upon into gold. His life was a progress amidst riches. Out of everything that came in his way he created the precious metal. 'A foolish legend,' said the wiseacres ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... luxury. The magnificence of Pelops imparts lustre even to the brilliant dreams of the mythologist. The name of Croesus, King of Lydia, whom I have already had occasion to mention, goes as a proverb for his enormous riches. Midas, King of Phrygia, had such abundance of the precious metals, that he was said by the poets to have the power of turning whatever he touched into gold. The tomb of Mausolus, King of Caria, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... large pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit on it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into piles of coin. And, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... relates how the god Dionysus decreed that everything touched by Midas, the Phrygian king, should turn into gold, but the effect was so disastrous that Midas begged for a reversal of the decree. The prayer was granted, conditionally upon the afflicted king ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... fishes' mouths, or in three fishes' mouths. Artists have hurried down to the harbour, and have set up their easels on every spot that is not already occupied by a fish barrel or an auctioneer or a man with a knife in his teeth preparing to gut a dogfish. The town has lost its head. It has become Midas for the day. Every time it opens its mouth a herring comes out. A doom of herrings has come upon us. The smell rises to heaven. It is as though we were breathing fish-scales. Even the pretty blue overalls of the children have become spotted. Everywhere barrels ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... the sunset peaks, And cities on the sea behold Whose walls are glass, whose gates are gold, Whose turrets, risen in an hour, Dazzle between the sun and shower, Whose sole inhabitants are kings Six cubits high with gryphon's wings And beard and mien more glorious Than Midas or Assaracus; Though priests in many a hill-top fane Lift anguished hands—and lift in vain— Toward the sun's shaft dancing through The bright roof's square of wind-swept blue; Though 'cross the stars nightly arise The silver fumes of sacrifice; Though ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... shore promiscuous come Quacks for the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb; Fools are their bankers—a prolific line, And every mortal malady's a mine. Each sly Sangrado, with his poisonous pill, Flies to the printer's devil with his bill, Whose Midas touch can gild his ass's ears, And load a knave with folly's rich arrears. And lo! a second miracle is thine, For sloe-juice water stands transformed to wine. Where Day and Martin's patent blacking roll'd, Burst from the vase Pactolian streams of gold; Laugh the sly ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... went down. The second Pyramid seemed also made of gold. Drowsily splendid it and its greater brother looked set on the golden sands beneath the golden sky. And now the gold came traveling down from the desert to the water, turning it surely to a wine like the wine of gold that flowed down Midas's throat; then, as the magic grew, to a Pactolus, and at last to a great surface that resembled golden ice, hard, glittering, unbroken by any ruffling wave. The islands rising from this golden ice were jet black, the houses black, the ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... be trusted to the death; a man without his price, incorruptible, with whom a secret, say, would be as safe as if buried in the grave. He would not give it even to the wind, and no reed on his land would whisper 'Midas ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... look back on the fatal and universal prevalence of Gold-worship recorded in the history of our race, from the period when Midas became its victim, and the boy chased the rainbow to find the pot of treasure at its foot, to the days when the alchemist offered his all a burnt-sacrifice on the altar; until we reach the present time, when, although the manner of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... which it consisted were full of meat. There was no descriptive reporting; but what could be more expressive than the announcement of a marriage in such terms as these:—"On Tuesday se'n-night, Squire Brown of Bumpkin Hall was married to Miss Matilda Midas of Halifax, a handsome young lady with ten thousand pounds to her dowry"? We are much more florid nowadays, but by no means so precise. The leader-writer did not spread himself abroad a hundred years ago. Indeed, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... number of Diptera, or two-winged flies, that closely resemble wasps and bees, and no doubt derive much benefit from the wholesome dread which those insects excite. The Midas dives, and other species of large Brazilian flies, have dark wings and metallic blue elongate bodies, resembling the large stinging Sphegidae of the same country; and a very large fly of the genus Asilus has black-banded wings and the abdomen ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... I do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of AEsop's cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem; or of Midas, that being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the Muses, and Pan, god of the flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for beauty and love against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... is also a story told of Silenus, who, when taken prisoner by Midas, is said to have made him this present for his ransom; namely, that he informed him(74) that never to have been born, was by far the greatest blessing that could happen to man; and that the next best thing was, to die very soon; which ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... adorns the house of the Honourable Midas Bond, and every year adds a new treasure to his collection. He knows how much they cost him, and he keeps the run of the quotations at the auction sales, congratulating himself as the price of the works of his well-chosen artists rises in the scale, and the value of his art treasures is enhanced. ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... sitting in Sam's "den" at Clere. He is engaged in receiving the "afterdavy" of a man who got his head broke by a tinker at the cricket-match in the park (for Sam is in the commission, and sits on the bench once a month "a perfect Midas," as Mrs. Wattlegum would say). I am busy rigging up one of these wonderful new Yankee spoons with a view to killing a villanous pike, who has got into the troutwater. I have just tied on the thirty-ninth hook, and ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... glancing through the mists of national superstition, would prove little inferior in poetical interest and association to the fanciful creations of the Greek mythology. The truth is, they are of one family, and we often discover allusions to the beautiful fable of Psyche or the story of Midas; sometimes with the addition, that the latter was obliged to admit his barber into his uncomfortable secret. Odin and Jupiter are brothers, if not the same person; and the northern Hercules is often represented as ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... lived a very rich man, and a king besides, whose name was Midas; and he had a little daughter, whom nobody but myself ever heard of, and whose name I either never knew, or have entirely forgotten. So, because I love odd names for little girls, I choose ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... dire on judges bold, Who meddle with music's sacred strains! Judge Midas tried the same of old And was punisht like Henley ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... turn'dst To me for comment, is the general theme Of all our prayers: but when it darkens, then A different strain we utter, then record Pygmalion, whom his gluttonous thirst of gold Made traitor, robber, parricide: the woes Of Midas, which his greedy wish ensued, Mark'd for derision to all future times: And the fond Achan, how he stole the prey, That yet he seems by Joshua's ire pursued. Sapphira with her husband next, we blame; And praise the forefeet, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... crowned with blessings, in the far-off days, Like Midas, Mynwy's monarch touched the earth, Wrought golden plenty where once reigned a dearth, And raised an ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... an entirely different mental condition from that with which they came in contact now. What is that subtle, mocking change that comes over even the inanimate things that we have not seen since we were happy, and now meet again in grief? It is like a horrible inversion of the golden touch given to Midas. To Gore, during those days, the darkness fell upon every fresh thing to which he went back. The impression was so strong on him as he turned over the manuscript, that he shuddered. What was the use ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... centuries later than our date they, or some part of them, were settled in Cappadocia, apparently rather in the centre and north of that country than in the south: second, that at that same epoch and later they had kings of the name Mita, which is thought to be identical with the name Midas, known to early Greek historians as borne ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... know, to preach to boys. And yet, sometimes, a man must speak his heart; even, like Midas's slave, to the reeds by the river side. And I had so often, fishing up and down full many a stream, whispered my story to those same river-reeds; and told them that my Lord the Sovereign Demos had, like old Midas, asses' ears in spite of all his gold, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... women have been and will be overcome by money. The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. George in ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... difference between the eastern and western apes has been so faithfully inherited that it is very instructive for us. It is true that there seems to be an exception in the case of a small family of South American apes. The small silky apes (Arctopitheca or Hapalidae), which include the tamarin (Midas) and the brush-monkey (Jacchus), have only five molars in each half of the jaw (instead of six), and so seem to be nearer to the eastern apes. But it is found, on closer examination, that they have three premolars, like all the western apes, and that only the last molar has been ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... that is profoundly moral even if the tales are immoral. It is what may be called the flaw in the deed: the idea that, if I take my advantage to the full, I shall hear of something to my disadvantage. Thus Midas fell into a fallacy about the currency; and soon had reason to become something more than a Bimetallist. Thus Macbeth had a fallacy about forestry; he could not see the trees for the wood. He forgot that, though a place cannot be moved, the trees that grow on it can. Thus Shylock had a fallacy of ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... hirn, erhitzet durch ein glas, Vermeinet mehr reichtum zu haben, Dan Midas und Crsus besass; Ja grosser frsten gunst und gaben, 10 Dienst mpter, glck und herrlichkeit Tritt ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... her large brown eyes to mark her horror, and Allen, made a gesture of exaggerated sympathy, which his sister took for more earnest than it was, and she said, scornfully, "I should like to see him literally rolling in gold. It must be like Midas. Do you mean that he sleeps on it, Jessie? ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Midas treads a wearier measure: All he touches turns to gold: If there be no taste of pleasure, What's the use of wealth untold? What's the joy his fingers hold, When he's forced to thirst for aye?— Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... their sovereign. The acquisition of new proselytes [49] gratified the ruling passions of his soul, superstition and vanity; and he was heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he could render each individual richer than Midas, and every city greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor of mankind, unless, at the same time, he could reclaim his subjects from their impious revolt against the immortal gods. [50] A prince who ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... that Midas touched, Who failed to touch us all, Was that confiding prodigal, The ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... what gold and glass! what Sevres and Dresden! But the more I admired the beautiful works of art, the more I thought of the enthusiasm and devotion of the artist, the more I was touched by the grace and delicacy of color and form around me; and the more I heard Midas talk, the more clearly I saw that he did not see, or feel, or understand anything of the real value and significance of his own entourage. The more beautiful it was, the more plainly it displayed his total ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... horror at such a crime. He was even more horrified at the arrogance of the guilty Praetorians and at their shameless effrontery in offering the Imperial Purple to the highest bidder and in, practically, selling the Principiate to so bestial a Midas as Didius Julianus, who, of all the senators, seemed most to misbecome the Imperial Dignity and who had nothing to ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Phoebus-Apollo, standing in his quadriga, had gilded to saffron the summits of fertile Mount Tmolus with his rays, the good people of Sardes were all astir, going and coming, mounting or descending the marble stairways leading from the city to the waters of the Pactolus, that opulent river whose sands Midas filled with tiny sparks of gold when he bathed in its stream. One would have supposed that each one of these good citizens was himself about to marry, so solemn and important ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... have known the great Enchanter's art, Whose magic fired your brain and stirred your heart, Whose touch, more potent than King Midas' gold, Wrought Tales of Tanglewood and Tales Twice Told, Whose Marble Faun and Mosses from the Manse Still hold the lasting colors of Romance; Who built 'for you the Hall of Fantasy Through whose bright portals you might pass and see Hester and Miriam and Goodman Brown And Pyncheron, who dwelt in ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... I think, to be an enchanted place, where every newly-arrived person became magically changed into a sort of Midas on a small scale; transforming everything he touched, if not into gold—the days of California were now over—at all events into Washington "eagles," or Mexican silver dollars, or even greenbacks, which were better than nothing, although greasy and not ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... trousers. And now, for a certain time, he was to be away from home. That respect for a New England education which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents. Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas's School near Boston—Hades was too small to hold their darling and ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in that wonderful Australasia where our colonists now have the shaping of their destinies in their own hands, amid the yet unexplored amplitude of a land where "in the softest and sweetest air, and in an unexhausted soil, the fable of Midas is reversed; food does not turn to gold, but the gold with which the land is teeming converts itself into farms and vineyards, into flocks and herds, into crops of wild luxuriance, into cities whose recent origin is concealed and compensated by ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... second head, The skull that bred them in the sepulcher. Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee; Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge 'Tween man and man: but thou, though meager lead, Which rather threatenest than dost promise aught, Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence; And here choose I: ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... continued to fish up plate, bullion, and dollars, as plentifully as ever, till their provisions grew short. Then, as they could not feed upon gold and silver any more than old King Midas could, they found it necessary to go in search of food. Phips returned to England, arriving there in 1687, and was received with great joy by the Albemarles and other English lords who had fitted out the vessel. Well they might rejoice; ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... store I beheld the complacent winner in his cabin. Through the open door I saw that every inch of the walls was covered with stacked boxes of matches, yellow fronts exposed. On his mat in the middle of this golden treasury O Lalala reclined, smoking at his leisure, and smiling the happy smile of Midas. Outside a cold wind swept down from Calvary Peak, and a gray ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... such a custom is the idea it gives that poor man of his own worth. Like King Midas he sees all things turn to gold at his touch, but he does not see the ass' ears growing. Let us keep Emile's hands from money lest he should become an ass, let him take the work but not the wages. Never let his work be judged by any standard ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... it is an honest article. I admit that the man who produces it satisfies a vulgar and unprofitable taste; so does the very upright tradesman who forces insipid asparagus for the Christmas market. Sir Georgius Midas will never care for art, but he will always want a background; and, unless things are going to change with surprising suddenness, it will be some time before he is unable to get what he wants, at a price. However splendid and vital the new movement may be, it ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... deaths. Some, says he, relate, "that having wrapped his cloak about his neck, he ordered his servant to fix his knees against his buttocks, and not to leave twisting till he had strangled him." Others say, that, in imitation of Themistocles and Midas, he drank bull's blood. Livy tells us, that Hannibal drank a poison which he always carried about him; and taking the cup into his hands, cried, "Let us free," ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... marked out his duty, aided his faith, and determined his action. The sign which I seek is somewhat similar. Money is not everything. It is not by any means the main thing. Midas, with all his millions, could no more do the work than he could win the battle of Waterloo, or hold the Pass of Thermopylae. But the millions of Midas are capable of accomplishing great and mighty things, if they be sent about doing good under the direction ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... you revise it, and retouch." All my demurs but double his attacks; At last he whispers, "Do; and we go snacks." Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door, Sir, let me see your works and you no more. 'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring (Midas, a sacred person and a king), His very minister who spied them first (Some say his queen) was forced to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When every coxcomb perks ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... flexible bindings and note the chalky white of the parchment's protected under-surface. The same three hundred years that have made over Europe and made English America have, as it were, filled in the rhythmic pauses between their giant heart-beats by ripening Dr. Holmes's wine and touching with Midas caress ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... enter poor into his inheritance; he will not slumber and forget himself in the lap of money, or spend his hours in counting idle treasures, but be up and briskly doing; he will have the true alchemic touch, which is not that of Midas, but which transmutes dead money into living delight and satisfaction. Etre et pas avoir—to be, not to possess—that is the problem of life. To be wealthy, a rich nature is the first requisite and money ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from the computer-language notion of an iterative loop; compare 'cdr down' (under {cdr}), which is less common among C and Unix programmers. ITS hackers used to say 'IRP over' after an obscure pseudo-op in the MIDAS PDP-10 assembler (the same IRP op can nowadays ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... Grenvilles are outrageous; the Duke of Newcastle disclaims his ambassador, and every body laughs. Sir George came hither yesterday, to expectorate with me, as he called it. Think how I pricked up my ears, as high as King Midas, to hear a Lyttelton vent his grievances against a Pitt and Grenvilles! Lord Temple has named Sir George the apostolic nuncio; and George Selwyn says, "that he will certainly be invited by Miss Ashe among the foreign ministers." These are greater storms than perhaps you expected yet; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... miracle it was, he mused! She was his now before all the world, thanks to Willie's skilful pilotage. Where was the little old man—that dreamer of dreams, who with Midas-like touch left upon everything with which he came in contact the golden impress of his heart? He must seek him out and ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... marched two stages—ten parasangs—to Thymbrium, a populous city. Here, by the side of the road, is the spring of Midas, the king of Phrygia, as it is called, where Midas, as the story goes, caught the satyr by drugging the spring with wine. From this place he marched two stages—ten parasangs—to Tyriaeum, a populous city. ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... knew anything at all about him. He might be a battered old traveller, or an Anglo-Indian nabob, or a needy haunter of Continental pensions, or a convict just emerged from a term of penal servitude. He might be as rich as Midas, or as poor as a church-mouse. But on one thing Austin was determined—Aunt Charlotte must be saved from herself, if necessary. They wanted no interloper in their peaceful home. And he, Austin, would go forth into the world, wooden leg and all, ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... Hope, Unknown, mystic Felicity Sangrael of childish quest much sought, aethereal "Real Tea" Thy faintest tint of yellow on the milk and water pale Like Midas' stain on Pactolus, gives ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... entire week's earnings is obvious, and to assist him in doing so seems to be the only visible means of support of half the people of the town. The dance-house and the gambling-saloon, flaunting their gaudy attractions, own him for the hour their king. His Midas touch is all-powerful. I must confess, with all my admiration for his character, that his tastes are low. I know that the civilization of the East would bore him immeasurably, and that he considers Colt, with his revolvers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... founder of whom, Gyges, murdered and dethroned the last of the Heraclidae; and with a new dynasty seems to have commenced a new and less Asiatic policy. Gyges, supported by the oracle of Delphi, was the first barbarian, except one of the many Phrygian kings claiming the name of Midas, who made votive offerings to that Grecian shrine. From his time this motley tribe, the link between Hellas and the East, came into frequent collision with the Grecian colonies. Gyges himself made war with Miletus and Smyrna, and even captured Colophon. With Miletus, indeed, the hostility ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... We have heard of Midas, whose touch made gold, and of the virgin under whose feet sprang roses; but Zero's heels and toes were armed with more precious influences. They left a diamond way, where they slid,—a hundred and fifty miles of diamond, half a mile ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Frontal, Fr., a frontlet, or forehead band.—Cotgrave. A frontlet is mentioned as part of a woman's dress in Lyly's "Midas," 1592: "Hoods, frontlets, wires, cauls, curling-irons, periwigs, bodkins, fillets, hair laces, ribbons, rolls, knotstrings, glasses," &c. See also Mr Steevens's note on "King Lear," A. 1, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... embassies in prospect, laugh at instructions; representatives think they have made a good bargain when they exchange the barren approval of constituencies for the smile of one whom a lucky death, perhaps, has converted into the Presidential Midas of the moment; and in a nation of adventurers, success is too easily allowed to sanctify a speculation by which a man sells his pitiful self for a better price than even a Jew could get for the Saviour of the world. It cannot be too often repeated, that the only responsibility which is of saving ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... asterisks let him remain. Whoever this person may be, he deserves, for such a judgment of Midas, that "the nail" which Mr. Bowles has "hit in the head," should he driven through his own ears; I am sure that they are ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... that men do not know this vision, that it is so hard—so dreadfully hard—to win. And he used to say that this power is infinite, that it depends only upon how much one wants it; and that he who possessed it had the gift of King Midas, and turned all things that he touched to gold. That is real madness to me, Arthur, and will not let me be still; and yet I know that it cannot ever die in me; for whenever there is an instant's weakness there flashes over me again the fearful thought of David, that he is gone back ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... of gold and silver destined for the treasure house of the King of Spain. He had now accomplished his purpose and sailed in the Pacific. He had beneath his hatches a treasure that would have gladdened the heart of Midas—a harvest of the yellowest gold and whitest silver—of sparkling gems, rich silks and spices, and many costly curios that he had gathered in his voyage. He believed, however, that the Spaniards would be watching the Strait ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... advantageous option in a part of Africa on the Transvaal frontier, rumoured to be auriferous. Now, whether it was auriferous or not before, the mere fact that Charles had secured some claim on it naturally made it so; for no man had ever the genuine Midas-touch to a greater degree than Charles Vandrift: whatever he handles turns at once to gold, if not to diamonds. Therefore, as soon as my brother-in-law had obtained this option from the native vendor (a most respected chief, by name Montsioa), ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... Queen's Masque," the stage chronicler or historian of the Four Ages appears as something more of a dramatic poet: his work has more of form and maturity, with no whit less of spontaneity and spirit, simplicity and vivacity. The framework or setting of these five acts, in which Midas and Apuleius play the leading parts, is sustained with lively and homely humor from induction to epilogue: the story of Psyche is thrown into dramatic form with happier skill and more graceful simplicity by Heywood than afterward by Moliere and Corneille; ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... little puss—she is a pretty creature—and to save that simple soul from mischief I thought I would take the business on my own shoulders which are broader and stronger than his. I went boldly to work and offered the girl—more shame for me, I must say—the treasures of Midas; however, offering is one thing and accepting is another, and the child snapped me up and sent me to the right about—by Castor and Pollux! packed me off with my tail between my legs! My only comfort was that Constantine had just quitted the pretty little hussy. By the side of the god of war, thought ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... added this, That he and Poverty should always kiss. And to this day is every scholar poor; Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor. Likewise the angry Sisters thus deluded, To venge themselves on Hermes, have concluded That Midas' brood shall sit in honour's chair, To which the Muses' sons are only heir; And fruitful wits, that in aspiring are, Shall discontent run into regions far; And few great lords in virtuous deeds shall joy But be surprised with every garish toy, And still enrich the lofty servile ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... shares. I replied that such conduct would be that of a fool, the conduct of impertinence, rather than of conceit; that it was not mine, and that since he pressed me so much I would tell him my reasons. They were, that since the fable of Midas, I had nowhere read, still less seen, that anybody had the faculty of converting into gold all he touched; that I did not believe this virtue was given to Law, but thought that all his knowledge was a learned trick, a new and skilful juggle, which put the wealth of Peter ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the scribbler, laughing, "I may have Midas' longing for gold, but I also have his ears. And the ears predominate. I am such an ass I have even returned a fair petitioner's perfumed note! Such a dainty little hand! How good the paper smelt! How devilish it read! The world's idea about the devil always smelling ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... To Midas given of old To touch a flower And leave the petals gold I then might touch thy face, Delightful boy, And leave a metal grace, ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... bestowed beauty and fortune and accomplishments on her, and sent dashing cavaliers to seek her hand when she came to the romance-reading age. Friends and social pleasures were hers at will when the lonely desert life grew irksome. Whatever was dull the Midas touch of her imagination made golden, so now it was easy to close her eyes and conjure up a make-believe chum that for the time was as ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... almost fall from the petals; the air is full of warm fragrance from the wild-grape clusters; the grass is burning hot beneath the naked feet in sunshine, and cool as water in the shade. Diving from this overhanging beam,—for Ovid evidently meant that Midas ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... all the frogs of the river, becoming infected with his spirit, would adopt his style of speech and croak only pasquinades. The contemptibleness of the assailant made him the more dreaded. Did not the very reeds tell the fatal secret about King Midas? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... poetic voice that hourly speaks within us' is never silent. Like Signor Benedick, it 'will still be talking.' We can scarcely let our eyes dwell upon an object—nay, not even upon a gridiron or a toothpick—but it seems to be transmuted as by the touch of Midas into gold. Our facts accordingly adopt upon occasions a very singular shape. We are not nice to a shade. A trifle here or there never stands in our way. We regard a free play of fancy as the privilege of every genuine Briton, and ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... they have but a rusty nail, wherewith to etch their story, on their dungeon wall; though they dig in the earth and bury their secret, as one buried his of old—that same secret still; for it is still those EARS—those 'ears' that 'Midas hath' ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... of the sea there is gold—about 400 tons in a cubic mile—in very much of the soil, some in all Philadelphia clay, in the Pactolian sands of every river where Midas has bathed, and in many rocks of the earth. But it is so fine and so mixed with other substances that in many cases it cannot be seen. Look at the ore from a mine that is giving its owners millions of dollars. Not a speck of gold can be seen. How can it be ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... suppose he must represent the reeds. You know the story of King Midas's barber, who found out that his royal master had the ears of an ass beneath his hyacinthine curls. So the barber, in default of a Mr. Wynne, went to the reeds that grew on the shores of a neighbouring lake, and whispered to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not my science. If you should claim to descend in a direct line from King Midas I would not ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... as 'twere, his private mind, Unhindered by repression, To make his motley life a kind, Of Midas' ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... brass and lead (the latter very easy to steal, from its softness) have been stripped off from the public buildings. Now Ionos, King of Thessaly, is said to have first discovered lead, and Midas, King of Phrygia, brass. How grievous that we should be handed down to posterity as neglecting two metals which they were ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... unpeopled tracts from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and to exploiting the hitherto neglected or unknown natural resources of the country. Every year science furnished new methods of converting nature's products into man's wealth. Chemistry, the doubtful science, Midas-like, turned into gold every thing that it touched. There were not native workers enough, and so a steady stream of foreign immigrants flocked over from abroad. They came at first to better their own fortunes by sharing in the unlimited American harvests. Later, our Captains of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... wise men, not now but long ago, have deplored the condition of human nature, esteeming life a punishment, and to be born a man the highest pitch of calamity; this, Aristotle tells us, Silenus declared when he was brought captive to Midas. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... will know him on the wing by the bright yellow spot on the rump, and if he perches near by perhaps you will also see the crown of gold on the head and a spot of yellow on each side of the breast. They say there was once a great king named Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold, he was such an avaricious old miser. If that be true he must have put his finger on the Myrtlebird in four different places. Unlike most of his family the Yellow-rump is fond of seeds and berries; and so he is able to live ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... record of the existence of large double Roses in Asia by Herodotus, who tells us, that in a part of Macedonia were the so-called gardens of Midas, in which grew native Roses, each one having sixty petals, and of a scent surpassing all ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... ancestors would have called them, culled from club-rooms and orchestras—chorus singers—first and second violoncellos—double basses—and clarionets—who ate his cold mutton, and drank his punch, and praised his ear. He sate like Lord Midas among them. But at the desk Tipp was quite another sort of creature. Thence all ideas, that were purely ornamental, were banished. You could not speak of any thing romantic without rebuke. Politics were excluded. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... then he came hopping out; but he merely did this as a concession to his master's weakness, and soon returned again to his own grave pursuits: peering into the straw with his bill, and rapidly covering up the place, as if, Midas-like, he were whispering secrets to the earth and burying them; constantly busying himself upon the sly; and affecting, whenever Barnaby came past, to look up in the clouds and have nothing whatever on his mind: in ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... "You have said all that can be said, you have gifts greater than you yourself believe; and I have been tempted; but it is no use, there are deeper things than luxuries and the magazines of merchandise— much deeper. No, no, I cannot marry you; if you were as rich as Midas, as powerful as Caesar, I would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tales, to his, as well as her, heart's content. The merest trifle which had the slightest connexion with the other, could not be passed over without a minute description, without abundant repetitions and exclamations. Love, like Midas, transforms every thing it touches into gold, and, alas! often perishes, like Midas, for want of finding some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... much of Edwardes and that very directness of gaze, that level glance which concealed nothing and evaded nothing became to him at first a small annoyance, and then a constantly aggravated irritation. His star of Destiny rode at its zenith. Every venture turned under his Midas hand to gold and increased power. He mounted to succeeding heights until it seemed that like Alexander he must soon brood over the smallness of the world's opportunity. Colossal mergers grouped themselves into structures of stupendous strength. His pride was bloated with successes, yet ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... recall long happy hours on the seashore, or by the brookside, when we gathered and sorted shells and smooth glistening pebbles, and laid them in rows and patterns? The mere handling of a great store of these gave a Midas-like delight, and what primitive artistic pleasure we felt as we arranged them according to the principle of repetition to border our garden-beds or to inclose our miniature ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of the irresistible energy and momentum of wealth as wealth, men said that fortune favored him from the outset. It was only a half-truth, but it sufficed to account for what was really a campaign of conquest. Grierson's touch was Midas-like, turning all things to gold; and even in Wahaska there were Mammon worshippers enough to hail him as a public benefactor whose wealth and enterprise would shortly make of the overgrown village a town, and of the town ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... pigs of lead, By crossing with some by Midas bred, Made a perfect mine of his piggery. And as for cattle, one yearling bull Was worth all Smithfield-market full Of the Golden Bulls ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... pieces by the Thracian women; on which, a serpent, which attacks his face, is changed into stone. The women are transformed into trees by Bacchus, who deserts Thrace, and betakes himself to Phrygia; where Midas, for his care of Silenus, receives the power of making gold. He loathes this gift; and bathing in the river Pactolus, its sands become golden. For his stupidity, his ears are changed by Apollo into those of an ass. After this, that God goes ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... in fact, in their real and permanent operation, prejudicial to her industry, knowledge, and power. It would seem that the acquisition of the more precious metals, which may be likened to the power of converting every thing that is touched into gold, is to nations what it was to Midas,—a source of evil instead of good. Spain, having substituted the artificial stimulus of her American mines in the place of the natural and nutritive food of real industry, on which she fed during the dominion of the Moors, gradually fell off in commercial importance, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... and people complimented profusely (criticizing sotto voce), and envied openly; and when I bowed myself out at last, I felt like Sir Peter Teazle on quitting Lady Sneerwell's: 'I leave my character behind me.' Mamma was charmed with me, and Mr. Silas Midas looked proud possession, as if he had in his vest pocket a bill of sale to every pound of my white flesh,—and Mr. Erle Palma smiled as benignly as some cast-iron statue of Pluto, freshly painted white, and glistening in the sunshine. A propos! ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... while it is light; such as thou heardest me record, when I addressed myself to the blessed Virgin. But when night comes, we take another tone. Then we denounce Pygmalion,[39] the traitor, the robber, and the parricide, each the result of his gluttonous love of gold; and Midas, who obtained his wish, to the laughter of all time; and the thief Achan, who still seems frightened at the wrath of Joshua; and Sapphira and her husband, whom we accuse over again before the Apostles; and Heliodorus, whom we bless the hoofs of the angel's horse for trampling;[40] and ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... Herminia. He admired and respected her. More than that, he understood her. She had power in her purity to raise his nature for a time to something approaching her own high level. True woman has the real Midas gift: all that she touches turns to purest gold. Seeing Herminia much and talking with her, Alan could not fail to be impressed with the idea that here was a soul which could do a great deal more for him than "make him comfortable,"—which could raise him to moral heights he had hardly ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... Midas (we read) with wond'rous art of old, Whate'er he touch'd, at once transformed to gold; This modern statesmen can reverse with ease, Touch them with gold, they'll ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... Andy, 'of a little hunt without horn, hound or camera among the great herd of the Midas Americanus, commonly ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... artistically ordered room. It was larger too than on the occasion of Geoffrey's visit; for the folding doors which led into a further apartment were thrown open. Two big fires were blazing; and old gold screens, glittering like Midas's treasury, warded off the draught from the windows. The air was heavy with fumes of incense still rising from a huge brass brazier, full of glowing charcoal and grey sand, placed in the middle of the floor. In one corner stood the Buddha table ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... nature of truth, cannot long be concealed by pouring the usual libations, or maintaining a cautious reserve. The whispered opinions of false philosophers will soon be loudly echoed by the popular voice, which is less timid, because it is more honest. Even thus did Midas laboriously conceal the deformity of his head; but his barber, who saw him without disguise, whispered his secret in the earth, and when the winds arose, the voices of a thousand reeds proclaimed to the world, 'King Midas hath ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... day by day, year by year, and yet never being free from certain financial anxieties, if not financial needs; while his neighbor, who is neither very learned nor able, nor yet in any wise remarkable in his moral development, is living much after the fashion of Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold. But is ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... to view our times, Whate'er betide our silv'ry flowing rhymes, The brave we sing—Boeotian of the East Will still survive to spread the mimic feast. 'Tis said in fables that Silenus old To Midas lent the fatal gift of gold; But Terminus, the god of rogues, has giv'n Our hero gold unbless'd of man or heav'n. 'Mid all the tyrants of our age and clime, He stands alone in infamy and crime; Not e'en Thersites ...
— The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons • James Fairfax McLaughlin
... citadel of Gordium, an ancient town of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was preserved an old wagon, rudely built, and very primitive in structure. Tradition said that it had originally belonged to the peasant Gordius and his son Midas, rustic chiefs who had been selected by the gods and chosen by the people as the primitive kings of Phrygia. The cord which attached the yoke of this wagon to the pole, composed of fibres from the bark of the cornel tree, was tied into a knot so twisted ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... efforts of imagination"; and that, "as a series of lines," "Comus" "may be considered as worthy of all the admiration with which the votaries have received it." But he makes peevish objections to its dramatic probability, finds its dialogues and soliloquies tedious, and unmindful of the fate of Midas, solemnly pronounces the songs—"Sweet Echo" and "Sabrina fair"—"harsh in their diction and not very musical in their numbers"! Of the sonnets he says: "They deserve not any particular criticism; for of the best it can only be said that they are not bad."[8] Boswell reports that, Hannah More ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... to adjudge a musical contest between Pol and Pan. He decides in favor of Pan, whereupon Pol throws off his disguise, appears as the god Apollo, and, being indignant at the decision, gives Midas "the ears of an ass."—Kane ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... like Midas," Robert retorted. "All I touch turns to gold. My love will make her flesh imperial as a pope's niece and her rags as ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... side by structures as grim and as gay as itself, yet far less significant in their generation. Here dwelt the most important man in the principality, not excepting the devoted prime minister himself. Not that Perse was so well beloved, but that he held the destinies of the land in Midas-like fingers. More than that, he was the father of the far-famed Countess Marlanx, the most glorious beauty at the Austrian and Russian courts. She had gone forth from Graustark as its most notable bride since the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sung, when Midas' Ears began to spring, (Midas, a sacred person and a king) 70 His very Minister who spy'd them first, (Some say his Queen) was forc'd to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When ev'ry coxcomb perks them in my face? A. Good friend, forbear! ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... of), one of the pilgrims travelling from Southwark to Canterbury, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. She tells her tale in turn, and chooses "Midas" for her ...
— 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.
... humorous way, that in the matter of fame she had a sort of Midas touch; everything she did rebounded to her glory, now that the ball was once started rolling. And worst of all was the book that Edwin Langham had left for her, a beautiful copy of "The Desert Garden," bound in limp leather with gold edged leaves. Inside the cover was written in a flowing, ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... their hopes and fears and smiles and tears and such, Went by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas touch; About as fat as a chancel rat, and lo! despite my will, In the weary fight I had clean lost sight of the man I ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... persons habitually complaining, lest they beget children as useless as themselves, being persuaded that it was an injury both to the community and to the infirm person himself that he continue in the world, even though he were richer than Midas. ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... the night comes, we take up a contrary sound instead. Then we rehearse Pygmalion,[1] whom his gluttonous longing for gold made a traitor and thief and parricide; and the wretchedness of the avaricious Midas which followed on his greedy demand, at which men must always laugh. Then of the foolish Achan each one recalls how he stole the spoils, so that the anger of Joshua seems still to sting him, here.[2] Then we accuse Sapphira with her husband; we praise the kicks that Heliodorus ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... dazzling deeds, but by making our experience divine; it tells us that the Christian hero will ennoble the humblest field of labor; that nothing is mean which can be performed as duty; but that religious virtue, like the touch of Midas, converts the humblest call of conscience into ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... know, to preach to boys. And yet, sometimes, a man must speak his heart; even, like Midas' slave, to the reeds by the river side. And I had so often, fishing up and down full many a stream, whispered my story to those same river-reeds; and told them that my Lord the Sovereign Demos had, like old Midas, asses' ears in spite of all his gold, that ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... not idle. Those were the days of many of our greatest railway operators, daring, able, enthusiastic men, who had the rare gift of imparting confidence to their followers and the public, and realized the fable of King Midas, whose touch transmuted all things into gold. Their careers were those of conquest and accumulation, like that of Napoleon; and, like him, they underwent, with few exceptions, their retreats from Russia and their Waterloos. Of such were ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... the whole extent of this hemisphere of the heavens, hath his report and fame, even until this present time, remained very memorable and renowned. Then all of you are derived from the Phrygian blood, if I be not deceived. If you have not so many crowns as Midas had, yet have you something, I know not what, of him, which the Persians of old esteemed more of in all their otacusts, and which was more desired by the Emperor Antonine, and gave occasion thereafter to the Basilico at Rohan to be surnamed Goodly Ears. If you have not heard of him, I will presently ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of the discourse of Lysias? See whether you can find any more connexion in his words than in the epitaph which is said by some to have been inscribed on the grave of Midas ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... Harrison Cressy had begun to show the authentic Midas touch. Only the little Carlotta stood between him and sheer, sordid money grubbing. And even she was an excuse for the getting of always more and more wealth. He told himself Carlotta should be a veritable princess, should go always clad in the finest, have ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... love under the thin veil of poetry. As for the cardinal, I knew well enough that the better the stanzas were written, the more disposed he would be to sign them. All I wanted was clearness, so difficult to obtain in poetry, while a little doubtful darkness would have been accounted sublime by my new Midas. But, although I wanted to please him, the cardinal was only a secondary consideration, and the handsome marchioness ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... informed of, if for so short a while you will have but the patience to lend me an ear; yet not such a one as you are wont to hearken with to your reverend preachers, but as you listen withal to mountebanks, buffoons, and merry-andrews; in short, such as formerly were fastened to Midas, as a punishment for his affront to the god Pan. For I am now in a humour to act awhile the sophist, yet not of that sort who undertake the drudgery of tyrannizing over school boys, and teach a more than womanish knack of brawling; but in imitation ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... business of marketing. It amused him to be buying three pounds of potatoes and a pound of chopped meat and a package of macaroni, and to be counting Hunt's pennies—remembering those days when he had been a personage to head waiters, and had had his table reserved, and with a careless Midas's gesture had left a dollar, or five, or ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott |
