"Topical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mothers, in aid of their parental tasks, are not so clearly present, if present at all, in special aids given to all the population in matters of public sanitation, personal hygiene and the care of the sick. If we make our public aid topical rather than by classes, and to all citizens alike in definite aid, we avoid much of the taint of charity. Few, if any, propose, for example, to give maternity aid to the rich. Fewer still advocate old-age pensions for those of independent incomes of moderate size. Many see, however, that ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... reference to the moments at which they were severally composed. It was clear that these must have their dates affixed to them. And for sake of uniformity I have dated all the others, and, doing so, have thought I need not exclude all such topical remarks as in them too were uttered, nor throw into a past tense such of those remarks as I have retained. Perhaps a book of essays ought to seem as if it had been written a few days before publication. ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... man, was devoted to literature. He held that Shakspere, besides being our greatest poet, was the greatest moral teacher that England has ever produced. I was brought up on Shakspere,' said Mr. Knight, smiling. 'My father often sent communications to the leading London papers on subjects of topical interest, and one of my most precious possessions is a collection of these which he ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... humour which Burns possesses, and which overtakes the tenderness of the poem as the lights and shadows overtake one another among the hills. The other eclogue, " The Invasion," has something of a topical interest at a time like the present, when England is once more engaged in war with a continental power; for it was written when the fear of a French invasion of our shores weighed heavily upon the people's minds. In the eclogue this danger ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... only remaining partner had been ill in bed for some weeks, and the Chairman of the Tribunal promptly remarked, "Obviously a sleeping partner." This joke has been duly noted by a well-known revue manager, and as soon as a cast has been engaged an entirely new and topical review ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various
... clean houses, they do not like house-cleaning. They have certain absurd notions which they would wish to carry out; such, for instance, as that constant-quiet, preventive care, or frequent topical applications, carefully applied, would gradually renovate the whole interior. But who wishes to be cleaning all the time? Who wishes to be always dusting? Indeed, at the best, we are constantly with broom, brush, or besom in hand; but the men will ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... between the two, the teacher asking simple questions and the child responding to them. In more advanced grades the questions may be so arranged as to require longer and more complex answers, and thus lead up to the topical method of reciting. ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... stage of knowledge and ignorance, have been playing for all these centuries. It is not surprising, therefore, that an endless series of variations of the story has been evolved, each decked out with topical allusions and distinctive embellishments. But throughout the complex tissue of this highly embroidered fabric the essential threads of the web and woof of its foundation can be detected with surprising ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... is topical; first, three poetical books, The Psalms, The Proverbs, and Job; then five so-called Megilloth, or Rolls, read in the later synagogues on certain great feast days,—The Song of Songs at the Passover, Ruth at Pentecost, ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... life than many of the more celebrated ones in the rest of the novelist's fiction; and, in the episode entitled the Napoleon of the people,—the narration of an old soldier of the First Empire,—there is a topical realism that makes one regret the never-achieved Battle. Add to these excellences the writer's having put into his work, for the nonce, a sincere aspiration towards the idea; and, despite flaws, the ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... other morning. Scene: the breakfast table at Porticobello House, Ladbroke Grove. Myself and other select boarders engaged in masticating fowl eggs with their concomitant bacon, while intelligently discussing topical subjects (for we carry out the poetical recipe of "Plain thinking ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... himself yours obediently, you know that he means the opposite of what he says. Religious forms are, at the worst, fables; they might be true. Secular forms are falsehoods; they are not true. Take a more topical case. The German Emperor has more uniforms than the Pope. But, moreover, the Pope's vestments all imply a claim to be something purely mystical and doubtful. Many of the German Emperor's uniforms imply a claim ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... thinking and doing. The treatment of the new West, the South, and the West Indies, which follows this portion of the book is merely certain generalizations which may be obtained from an average knowledge of American history and from such topical discussions of the Negro history as may be found in B.A. Johnson's History of the Negro Race or in John W. Cromwell's The Negro in American History. In his discussion of the Indian and the Negro there is an effort ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... Croly, her husband, long a newspaper man of admitted power and executive force, Mrs. Croly was a constant help, as he too was to her. From him she learned not a little of her topical discernment and technical knack. He was never afraid of ability in whomever found, and he rejoiced that the sex of his wife, and the novel fact that she was the first woman in America to write daily for publication, ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... large grain of truth in his charges; the trouble is that he has too often allowed an honest indignation to carry him past his mark into the regions of burlesque, and in particular to confuse character with caricature. But as a topical squib, briskly written, How They Did It will provide plenty of angry amusement, with enough suggestion of the roman a clef to keep the curious happy in fitting originals to its many portraits. I should perhaps add that the plot, such as it is, is held together by a rather ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various
... affected with chronic catarrh is usually much benefited, probably locally, as indicated by Dr. Weber, by the readier separation of the mucus. I have also had cases of tuberculous ulceration of the larynx, in which the ulcers have healed under topical and general treatment, though Dr. Weber states such cases ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... This topical outline is arranged to accompany Robinson's "History of Western Europe" or to correlate with "Readings in European History" by the same author. It is not a lecture syllabus, but is meant as an aid in studying the text-books ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... a soubrette trilling snatches of her topical song as she creamed off her make-up, came to them through the sulky gloom of the corridor. Behind the closed door of Miss De Voe's dressing room, the gabble of the pink satin ponies was like hash in the chopping. Overhead, moving scenery created a remote ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... curtains drew together upon her retreat amid unaffected applause. Recalled, she gave the encore prepared for such an event. Recalled over and over, like singers of topical songs, to hear what she would say next, Aurora, a little off her head with the new wine of glory, exhausted her bag of parlor tricks to satisfy an audience so kind. Then it was that she made her mistake. Recalled ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... flout his audience. Being himself the nature that brought them forth, he guides them in the course predestined at their conception. So only have they a chance of defying Time, which is always lying in wait to destroy the false, topical, or fashionable, all—in a word—that is not based on the permanent elements of human nature. The perfect dramatist rounds up his characters and facts within the ring-fence of a dominant idea which fulfils the craving of his spirit; having got them there, he suffers them ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 'Eroico,' 'Negromantico,' and 'Baccanale.' It is now known to represent a revision of the piece made, probably by Antonio Tebaldeo, for representation at Ferrara, and in it much of the popular and topical element has been eliminated. The action of the piece is based in a general manner upon the story given by Ovid in the tenth book ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... as the mediate cause of his decease. The proximate cause was one of especial singularity. In an excursion to the Ragged Mountains, a few days since, a slight cold and fever were contracted, attended with great determination of blood to the head. To relieve this, Dr. Templeton resorted to topical bleeding. Leeches were applied to the temples. In a fearfully brief period the patient died, when it appeared that in the jar containing the leeches, had been introduced, by accident, one of the venomous vermicular sangsues ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... ambition at the present day is Culture. Whilst all the world is in pursuit of power, and of wealth as a means of power, culture corrects the theory of success. A man is the prisoner of his power. A topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, a disputant; skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... and a Rabelaisian license of uproarious mirth. It rests with the audience to take the whole as pure extravaganza, or as a reductio ad absurdum or playful defense of the conception underlying the original idea. In the intervals between the scenes, the chorus sing rollicking topical songs or bits of exquisite lyric, or in the name of the poet directly exhort and admonish the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... verses about the adventures of his fellow-prisoners, and presently he was writing verses about the jailers, and about other prisoners in this part of the jail. He would have moods of inspiration, and would make up topical verses as he went along; then again he would sink back into his despair, and say that life was hell, and making rhymes about ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... twenty years ago, because that is their nature. In 1600 they would have done the same for 1579. Without question men were regretting in 1600 the genius of the youthful Shakespeare of the '80's, later quenched by commercialism (see the appeals to the pit and the topical references in "Hamlet"); and good conservatives were certainly regretting the sad course of the drama which, torn from the scholars and flung to the mob, had become mad clowning. What we need in the Tory line is not such ice-bound ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... all text-books, all supplementary reading matter for classroom use, all ordinary reference books, should be furnished by the school authorities. But the more extensive and the more expensive dictionaries, gazetteers, cyclopedias, and books for topical reference cannot be so furnished. If they are to be used by public school pupils, the library must supply them, and make access to them as easy and as pleasant ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... the upper town of Portlossie, which raised itself high above the sea town in other respects besides the topical, there were none who did not make poor Lizzy feel they were aware of her disgrace, and but one man who made her feel it by being kinder than before. That man, strange to say, was the factor. With all his faults he had some chivalry, and he showed it to the fisher girl. Nor ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... plan, and stick to it. Better a fairly good plan faithfully followed, than the best plan if used brokenly or only occasionally. Probably all the numerous methods of study may be grouped under three general heads, wide reading, topical study, and textual. We all do some textual study in a more or less small way. Digging into a sentence or verse to get at its true and deep meaning. We all do some topical study probably. Gathering up statements on some one subject, studying a character. ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... John"—had been not only crowded, but crowded out, and London was by now fully aware that it possessed in Arthur Meadows a person capable of painting a series of La Bruyere-like portraits of modern men, as vivid, biting, and "topical"—mutatis mutandis—as the great French ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... meeting of the British Association. If you send to an editor an anecdotal history of the British Association only a a few days before the meeting itself, you thereby assume that the editor is depending for his topical articles on chance contributions received at the last moment. Which is patently absurd. Without doubt that editor had arranged his British Association articles a couple of months previously, and it is not improbable that he accepted the suggestions of some outside contributor ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... monologist. Where you got that stuff I don't know, But you would be a riot in the two-a-day. Quit this hanky-panky And I'll make you a headliner." Well, I fell for his line of talk Like the sod busters had fallen for mine. Aaron Hoffman wrote me a topical monologue; Max Marx made me a suit of clothes; And Lew Dockstader wised me up On how to jockey my laughs. I opened in Hartford; Believe me, I was some scream. I gave them gravy, and hokum, And when they ate it up I came through With the old jasbo, Than which ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... topical index, somewhat to its own disadvantage, but it contains a map of Haiti, a rather confusing appendix, a list of the Presidents of Haiti from 1804 to 1906 and a list of the names and works of the more noted Haitian ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... reached it with a flourish that would have done credit to a more elegant equipage than this second-hand one of the Nashes. Two elegant young gentlemen, week-end guests of Willard's and duly presented to Neil the night before, ignored his existence, perusing a gaudily covered series of topical songs with exaggerated attention on the rear seat of the car, ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... Ten o'Clock Club assembled in the foyer. How far what later followed was due to their presence and to the efforts of the press agent only that gentleman can tell. It was in the second act that Miss Blanche Winter sang her topical song. In it she advised the audience when anxious to settle any question of personal or national interest to "Put it up to the Man in the Moon.'" This night she introduced a verse in which she told of her desire to know which horse on the morrow would ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... House and afterwards unsuccessfully attempted to shoot himself. Enormous public interest was excited, and Croft—baronet, parson, and literary adventurer—got hold of copies which Hackman had kept of some letters he had sent to the charming Miss Reay. These he published as a sensational topical novel in epistolary form, calling it Love and Madness. This is quite worth reading for its own sake, but much more so for its 49th letter, which purports to have been written by Hackman to satisfy Miss Reay's curiosity about Chatterton. As a matter ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... now an opportunity," said the Syrian; "the north of Palestine, though it has no topical splendor, has much variety and a peculiar natural charm. The burst and brightness of spring have not yet quite vanished: you would find our plains radiant with wild-flowers, and our hills green with young crops; and, though we cannot ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... Without circumlocution or reserve, he spoke of the officers concerned in convict management as blinded by habit—as empirics who could patch and cauterise a wound, but were involved in the hopeless prejudices of a topical practice, and much too far gone to comprehend improvements founded on scientific principles. His deviations from the tone of philosophical discussion were not numerous, but they were marked. The chief police magistrate he compared to the lamplighter, by whom ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... account of a topical Remedy for the cure of ulcerated Cancer. By M. I. Soultzer, first Physician to his Royal Highness the ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... that Carey not only refers to the three managers of Drury Lane but mentions them in the same order and as bearing the same relationship to himself. Several highly topical theatrical allusions in the pamphlets, by which the works can be dated, accord closely to the life, views, and writings of Carey. All three managers of Drury Lane were subscribers to Carey's Poems on Several Occasions (1729), which ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... a topical order has been followed, although the fact that our best literature is of recent growth has made it impossible to adhere as closely to a chronological plan as in the English sketch. In the reading courses appended to the different chapters I have named a few of the most important ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... oleograph portrait of the late King Edward in the costume of an Admiral, a large engraving of Mr. Landseer's inevitable stag, and several coloured and illuminated texts. One of the latter struck me as being topical if a little ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... been necessary to abandon [Page ix] the chronological order in favor of the topical, for during the early years at Hull-House, time seemed to afford a mere framework for certain lines of activity and I have found in writing this book, that after these activities have been recorded, I can scarcely recall ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... now adorns, certain papers which were left lying in his study passed into my hands, for I was almost his only friend. It had long been Titterby's belief that a great future lay before the librettist who should produce topical light operas on the GILBERT and SULLIVAN model, dealing with our present-day economic crises. The thing became an idee fixe, as the French say, or, as we lamely put it in English, a fixed idea. There can be no doubt that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... by the powers of some future telescope. Perhaps the glass of some observer, in a distant age, may enable him to construct the map of another world, and to lay down the surface of it in all its minute and topical varieties. But there is no end of conjecture; and to the men of other times we leave the full assurance of what we can assert with the highest probability, that yon planetary orbs are so many worlds, that they teem with life, and that the mighty Being who presides in high authority over ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... until the lucky 13, the opus-number of a bundle of "Water Scenes," brought Nevin the greatest popularity of all, thanks largely to "Narcissus," which has been as much thrummed and whistled as any topical song. ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... nursery of the topical song. There, by lantern or candle-stump, wit Rabelaisian, Aristophanic or Antarctic was cradled into rhyme. From there, behind the scenes, the comedian in full dress could step before the footlights into salvoes of savage applause. "A Pair of Unconventional ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... of some eminent followers of TYRTAEUS, Mr. Punch has great pleasure in printing the following topical soldiers' song, composed by one of his young men after reading about a British force that seized Archibong in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... with great clearness his views on the suppression of the Jansenists, the literary style of Racine, the suitability of Turenae for the post of commander-in-chief, and the religious reflections of Madame de Maintenon. For, at their best, the candidate's topics are not topical. Home Rule is a very good thing, and modern education is a very bad thing; but neither of them are things that anybody is talking about in High Wycombe. This is the first and simplest way of missing the point: deliberately to avoid and ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton |
