"Keyed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I sit alone at midnight, with a huge, steel-bound, lock-and-keyed book that Jane has had made for me, with my name and the inscription, "In case of death, send unopened to Jane Mathers, Boston, Massachusetts," on the back, committed to a cause as crazy and as serious as anything since the Pilgrimages, or the Quest of the Knights ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... an especially happy day and I was so keyed up with enjoyment that I couldn't go to sleep right away, but lay looking out at the flowers and the waves. Mother went through to see that Max was all right and then came back to kiss me. She closed the door into his room, but left ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... coolly, but Rachael never knew it. Her radiant dream—or was it an awakening?—went on. Her mother, a neat, faded, querulous little woman, whose one great service was in sparing her husband any of the jars of life, was keyed to frantic anxiety lest Jerry be unappreciated, now that he had come back. Clara met the few men to whom her husband introduced her in London with feverish eagerness; afraid—after fifteen years—to say one word ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... Mathews, "which of itself almost carries him to the mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop going, when a smart one was required to set it in motion. While others are yawning and stretching themselves to overcome the vis inertiae, he has his eyes wide open, his faculties keyed up for action, and is thoroughly alive in every fiber. He walks through the world with his hands unmuffled and ready by his side, and so can sometimes do more by a single touch in passing than a vacant man is likely ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... they said: "We migrated, expecting freedom, and now we are not even free from the cares of subsistence; we are not, as out leader promised, the happiest, but in truth the most unfortunate of men. After our leader's words had keyed us to the highest pitch of expectation, and had filled out ears with vain hopes, he tortures us with famine and does not provide even the necessary food. With the name of a new settlement he has deceived this great multitude; after he had succeeded in leading us from a well-known ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... the world was young, there were no automobiles nor flying-machines to make one wonder; nor were there railway trains, nor telephones, nor mechanical inventions of any sort to keep people keyed up to a high pitch of excitement. Men and women lived simply and quietly. They were Nature's children, and breathed fresh air into their lungs instead of smoke and coal gas; and tramped through green meadows and deep forests instead of riding ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... the "small, yellow, one-keyed flute" which had superseded the musical reed provided by Nature, and practised upon it so fervently that a college-mate said that he "would play upon ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... resist the contagious sweep, catch up the music and add their own to it. We don't commonly associate music with the animal creation, nor with nature. It has been said that all the sounds of nature are keyed in the minor, as though some suffering had affected them. We talk of the sighing of the wind, the moaning of the sea-waves, and the mourning of the doves. Though the singing-birds must be excepted. They seem to have caught and kept some of the ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... want to go again. To go again might deepen my impression—might better register the thrill. But then it might not be just the same. I would be keyed to such expectancy that I might be disappointed. Persons in the seats behind me might whisper. And just as Chenal got to the "Amour sacre de la patrie" some one might cough. I am confident that something of the sort would surely happen. I want always to remember ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... XI Not so, well-keyed into the solid stone, Groans upon Alpine height the castle good, When by rude Boreas' rage or Eurus' strown, Uptorn are ash and fir in mountain wood, As groans Sir Rodomont, with pride o'erblown, Inflamed with anger and with thirst ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... chaotic, abounding in verve and daring imagery, but withal high-sounding, declamatory, and, at his worst, bombastic. There is a reminiscence in him of Klopstock's inflated rhetoric; and a certain dithyrambic ecstasy—a strained, high-keyed aria-style which sometimes breaks into falsetto. His great rival, Welhaven, was soberer, clearer, more gravely melodious. He sang in beautiful, tempered strains, along the middle octaves, never ranging high into the treble or deep into the base. There is a certain Tennysonian sweetness, ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... delight, and with even greater respect on the part of the critics. Even the formidable Jeffrey, who was supposed to dine off slaughtered authors as the Giant in "Jack and the Beanstalk" dined off young Englishmen, keyed his voice to unwonted praise. The influx of tourists into the Trossachs, where the scene of the poem was laid, was so great as seriously to embarrass the mail coaches, until at last the posting charges had to be raised in order to diminish the traffic. Far away ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... are all keyed-up for the rapids, and about six miles down we encounter the Brule, the first one, and take it square in mid-channel. We ship a little water, but pass through it all too soon, for the compelling grandeur of the Brule ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... communicated to his would be hostess and it goes without saying that she was as unable to understand as all the rest. It keyed well enough with his lately shown indifference, but the indifference keyed not at all with all that had gone before and still less with her very correct comprehension of Jack himself. She was quite positive as to the sincerity of those protestations which he had made ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... Walsen had taken an almost tearful leave of stalwart Ensign Blaine, now completely restored, and naturally keyed up by a prevision ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... I'll have to—if we're not to move into the house," said Lois in a high-keyed voice, with those tiresome tears coming, as usual, to her eyes. She felt inexpressibly hurt, disappointed, fooled. "I thought you said you were having so many orders lately. Does the money all have to 'go back into the business,'" ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... from his case, began sounding notes up and down the scale. He finally discovered, by the thrill that sent a tremor through the mighty structure, that he had found the note on which the great cable that upheld the mass, was keyed. He drew his bow across the string of the violin again, and the colossal wire, as if under the spell of a magician, responded with a throb that sent a wave through its enormous length. He sounded the note again and again, and the cable that ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... Street was one of a pair—a large solid square of brick—with two identical oval white porticoes and rows of windows keyed in white stone. Within the staircase swept up to a slender pillared opening, through which Lacy, calmly dressing, waved a deliberate hand. Mrs. Saltonstone was seated by the tall gilt framed mirror ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... subject soon made rapid progress, becoming a favorite pupil from his ability to play duets with his instructor; the latter being very fond of that kind of music. He afterwards made fine progress with the eight-keyed flute, taking lessons on this instrument from a Scotch gentleman by the name of Pollock. During all this time, it must be borne in mind that our zealous young student was unaided by any one in defraying the great expense incurred in pursuing his studies. He had to depend upon his own hard earnings. ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... that you must," he countered, and because he had keyed himself for this combat of wills he spoke more categorically than he realized. "At first thought, of course, you would feel that you couldn't. But your ability to stand a long siege will depend on conserving your strength. You are human and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... easy. "Quite so! I fancied myself that Mr. Harden came along with the idea of making a speech either for or against." And he grinned at Billy Harden in a way that seemed to make him wild, though he tried not to show it. Somehow the doctor seemed to be all keyed up, instead of scared, like a feller that's had jest enough to drink to give him a ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... family they were also looking for the boat and the fugitives it contained. The low-lying shore, with no trees fringing the bank, was the worst place for him and his friends, and he was in a fever of eagerness to reach the protecting shadows along shore. The nerves of all were keyed to the tensest point, when they caught the dim outlines of the overhanging growth, with the leafage as exuberant as it always is in a subtropical region at that season of the year. The men toiled with vigor and care, while the others glanced from ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... was exceeding Sweet, and wrought into a variety of inflections. It put me in mind of those heavenly Airs that are played from the tops of closely-packed wheeled Vehicles, from many-keyed Concertinas upon Bank-Holidays. My Heart melted away in Secret Raptures. By which signs I—who had read my Spectator at the Free Library—knew well that I was in the company of a Genius! It is only Genii who drop upon one ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... Myles, in his high-keyed nervousness, could not forbear a short hysterical laugh at his friend's warmth of enthusiasm. He took the fresh lance in his hand, and then, seeing that his opponent was walking his horse slowly up and down at his end of the lists, did the same during ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... start out with my mind on my destination, thinking only of what I shall do when I get there, and how I shall do it. This thought influences my whole body. I am all "keyed up," my muscles are tense, my breathing, even, is constricted and the walk does me ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... cheerfully. "It's just those occasional humorous suggestions that keep me keyed so heroically up to the point where I'm actually infuriated if you even suggest that I might be getting really interested in this mysterious Miss Molly! You haven't said a single sentimental thing about her that I ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... puzzled hesitation. One way of approach is set beside another for choice, and a third contrived for better choice. Still the puzzle persists, all because the one precisely right way might seem—shall we say intense, high keyed, clamorous? Yet if one way is the only right way, why pause? Courage! Slightly dazed, though certain, let us be on, into the shrill thick of ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... all the Men wanted to hear Rag Time played by Josephine, the Life-Saver. Josephine had to yield, and the Men all clustered around her to give their Moral Support. After one or two Selections, they felt sufficiently Keyed to begin to hit up those low-down Songs about Baby and Chickens and Razors. No one paid any Attention to the Lady President, who was off in a Corner holding an Indignation Meeting with the Secretary ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... they had followed, while at various distances farther on no less than six more small canoes were dotted about, their feather-crowned crews all busily employed fishing, while as the boats glided round the tree-covered rocks the nearest Indians struck up a soft minor-keyed chant which was taken up by the crews of the other canoes, the whole combining in a sweet low melody which floated over the smoothly-flowing river, fully explaining the sounds heard from the ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... determines the tone of his class. Many a teacher when tired, or out of patience, has concluded a recitation feeling that his pupils were about the most stupid group he has ever faced; the same teacher keyed up to enthusiasm has felt at the close of another recitation that these same pupils could not be surpassed. A student with whom the writer talked a short time ago remarked that she could always tell whether the day's class was going ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... have grooves cut on either side to allow the posts to "set in." This is to give the frame more rigidity. The lower horizontals or stretchers are to be tenoned through the posts and keyed. That the keys may be alike in size, a good plan is to make them first, then make the mortises in the stretchers to correspond. Work the keys to the proper thickness, unless they were ordered so, then to length and joint one edge straight and square. Next lay ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 3 • H. H. Windsor
... curiosity, I retired to the stump. Tom, meantime, turned out the mass of nests, and with it completely covered himself. The pile now resembled an enormous mouse-nest, or rather a small hay-cock. Pretty soon I heard a low, high-keyed, squeaking noise, accompanied by a slight rustle inside the nest. Evidently there were mice in it; and, feeling my character as fox at stake, I at once trotted forward, then crept up, and, as the rustling and squeaking ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... brave, but as always with the primitive, the darkness held infinite terrors for her. Not alone the terrors of the known but more frightful ones as well—those of the unknown. She had passed through much this night and her nerves were keyed to the highest pitch—raw, taut nerves, they were, ready to react in an exaggerated form to ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... As he had never run before he sped through the bush, bearing due south-east toward the deserted end-of-steel village, avoiding trees and fallen logs with uncanny ease. Some heard him and paused in their course, but they were keyed up to serious work, and there were so many of their friends abroad. Probably a messenger of their leader's ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... divided, or lost itself in little cul de sacs, from which the paddlers were obliged to retrace their way. All about them rose myriads of birds and wild fowl, which made their nests among these marshes, and the babbling chatter of the rail, the high-keyed calling of the coot, or the clamoring of the home-building mallard assailed their ears hour after hour as they passed on between the leafy shores. Then, again, the channel would sweep to one side of the marsh, and give view to wide vistas of high and rolling lands, dotted with ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... of things, he was not confident. He was supremely conscious of the precariousness of his situation. Though unperturbed by the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive and ready to be startled as any timorous deer. He was aware of the possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the darkness—intelligences similar to his own ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... description, the word somehow did not quite ring true. Those last words in particular did not ring true. There lay in her manner, just out of sight, I felt, this suggestion of the exact reverse—of unrest, shrinking, almost of anxiety. Certain small strings in her seemed over-tight. "Keyed-up" was the slang expression that crossed my mind. I looked rather searchingly into her face as she was telling ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... There comes, after a while, a certain mental as well as physical luxury in relaxation of rule and precept, permitting us a simplicity which sometimes, I think, becomes something less harmless. There is luxury in letting go of that live wire which keeps us all keyed to one conventional monotone in the North. I let go—for a moment—to-night. You let go when you said 'Calypso.' You couldn't have said it in New York; I couldn't have heard you, there.... Alas, Ulysses, I should not have heard you anywhere. But I did; and I answered.... Say good night to me, ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... for several minutes Mary played a tattoo on her machine. Then she keyed down quietly and, setting her transmitter at its maximum, she ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... keyed up to a pitch of excitement that made them forget they were about to face danger and death. They shouted as they swept past, and the poor villagers, filled with a momentary enthusiasm, sent ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... on the mountains, Mike never rested a minute, but moved silently from one place to another, with senses keyed for some sign of the rascals. However, that first night passed quietly away. His extra men spent the evening in smoking and playing cards, then they rolled up in their blankets and snored peacefully ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... movement by Chopin; a violoncello leaned in its case in one corner, a cornet-a-piston showed itself, like an arrangement in brass macaroni packed in red velvet upon a side-table; and in front of it lay open a small, flat flute-case, wherein were the two halves of a silver-keyed instrument side by side, in company with what seemed to be its young one—so exact in resemblance was the silver-mounted piccolo made ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... evening I speak of the house was packed almost to suffocation. The other characters in the play had withdrawn, and for the first time the two women were alone together. Both keyed up almost to the breaking point, we faced each other, and there was a dead, I might almost say a deadly ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... same moment as I did choked back the cold fear that had rushed upon me. I was not insane! Holman was listening too! I seemed to feel that the tiny thread of sound which had set my pulses beating madly had also keyed him up to the ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... the shield, at any rate; that was quite certain. And very little else could get in, or out. There was only one point of exit. Unholstering his gun and aiming it automatically keyed the shield to allow passage of a bullet, and the point of exit was controlled by the gun's aiming. It was efficient and ...
— Sight Gag • Laurence Mark Janifer
... condition and well fed to consume one hundred and one days in marching from their landing-port on the coast of Gaul to Placentia: ten miles a day was despicable marching even for lazy and soft-muscled recruits; any legionaries should make fifteen, miles at day under any conditions, earnest men keyed up to hurry should have made twenty and might often march twenty-five miles between camps. These blatherskites were on fire with high resolve, by their talk, yet had loafed along for a thousand miles, camping early, sleeping ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... and when dry the face is levelled off flush. This method is often used previous to veneering the face side of the box with rare veneers, and it is also useful for repair work. Note that the saw cuts are made at an angle. Small picture frames are sometimes keyed instead of nailed. ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... keyed up to the highest pitch. The guns were quickly swung to the angle indicated, and another ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... at the table were keyed up and expectant, the servant was smugly pleased, and he was wallowing in mortification. But he ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... came upon us so suddenly and we were all so keyed up that, although it seems flat enough to tell about it now, then it struck us as irresistibly funny and we laughed until tears started from our eyes. I heard Blodgett's cat-yowl of glee, Davie Paine's deep guffaw, Neddie Benson's shrill cackle of ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... (Matt. 18: 19). The word translated "agree" is a very suggestive one. It is, sympsonesosin, from which our word "symphony" comes. If two shall accord {150} or symphonize in what they ask, they have the promise of being heard. But, as in tuning an organ all the notes must be keyed to the standard pitch, else harmony were impossible, so in prayer. It is not enough that two disciples agree with each other; they must both accord with a Third—the righteous and holy Lord—before in the scriptural sense they can agree in intercession. There ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... the tents begin to glow and the campfires kindle until the valley became hooped about as if by a million giant fireflies. Five nights had I strayed, like a lost soul, through an unreal wilderness, harkening to the drone of stories told in an unfamiliar tongue, to the minor-keyed dirges of an unknown race, to the thumping of countless moccasined feet in the measures of queer dances. The odors of a savage people had begun to pall on me, and the sound of a strange language to annoy; I longed for another white man, for a ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... fair test," Mr. Heatherbloom replied anyhow. His thoughts were keyed to a straining-point; his glance would swerve; he strove his best to control it. She was there—there—Shrouds and stays seemed to sing the words. He would have sworn he caught the flash ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... stale, and unprofitable." Judith didn't realize how tired she was; mentally and emotionally she had been keyed up to a very high pitch during the last two or three months and now had come the inevitable reaction. No wonder she was dull and miserable. But next morning the sun was shining brightly, there was a fresh, clean-washed feeling ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... themselves in projectile fashion, had presently expended their forces. They slowly retreated, with their faces still toward the spluttering woods, and their hot rifles still replying to the din. Several officers were giving orders, their voices keyed to screams. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... not always systematically marked as such by the editor). The sidenotes are Hakluyt's own. Summarizing sidenotes are labelled [Sidenote: ] and placed before the sentence to which they apply. Sidenotes that are keyed with a symbol are labeled [Marginal note: ] and placed at the point of the symbol, except in poetry, where they are placed at a convenient point. Additional notes on corrections, etc. are ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... wondering if the optimism of the Westerners isn't really due to the sunshine they get. Who could be gloomy under such golden skies? Every pore of my body has a throat and is shouting out a Tarentella Sincera of its own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... keyed up to a rather high pitch these days, and it was difficult for those who were watching her with the anxious eyes of friendship to gauge the extent of her happiness or otherwise. From the moment of Mallory's departure she had ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... hills were steeped in silence. The world was black and gold—the fragrance of the honeysuckle came up from the hedge below. On such a night as this one could not sleep. He felt himself restless, emotionally keyed up. He descended the stairs. Then, suddenly, he found himself taking the trail ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... been keyed up to the pitch of his nerves, for to me the night remained as voiceless as a subterranean cavern. I became intensely irritated with him; within my mind I cried out against this infatuated pantomime of his. And then, of a sudden, there was a sound—the dying rumor of a ripple, somewhere ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... an electric torpedo actuated by accumulators, A A, keyed upon the shaft, and revolving along with the gearings. At the beginning of the running, the accumulators are not all coupled, but under the action of a clockwork movement which is set in motion at the moment of starting, metallic brushes descend one after another upon the collectors, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... a typical Hawaiian poem of the better sort, keyed in a highly imaginative strain. The multitude of specific allusions to topographical names make it difficult to [Page 54] translate it intelligently to a foreign mind. The poetical units are often so devised that each new division takes its clue from the last word of the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... that," Brinnaria countered. "He looks irritated and bored. Everybody else is alert and keyed up with anticipation. His eyes are dull and he looks as if he wished that the show was over ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... passed very close to them in an effort to hear what they were so excitedly talking about. But the girls had purposely lowered their voices till, when the two passed, they were talking in whispers. It was a great satisfaction to get Linda so keyed ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... LEO MAXSE keeps himself keyed up to concert pitch by coining new nicknames for Lord HALDANE. The list ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... Shorty, strolling down Main Street, aware of many curious eyes, his ears keyed tensely, heard a faint and distant explosion. Thirty seconds later there was a second, sufficiently loud to attract the attention of others on the street. Then came a third, so violent that it rattled the windows and brought the inhabitants into ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... number of solemnly smiling gentlemen in frock-coats with their top-hats genteelly resting in the hollows of their left arms, and without and beyond the station in the space usually filled by closed and open cabs was a swarm of automobiles. Then while our spirits were keyed to the highest pitch, the Queen of Spain descended from the train, wearing a long black satin cloak and a large black hat, very blond and beautiful beyond the report of her pictures. By each hand she led one of her two pretty boys, Don Jaime, the Prince of Asturias, heir apparent, and his ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... followed the night, but the whole battalion was keyed up with intense expectation for the attack which they knew was fixed for the night following. With expectation mingled curiosity. They knew all about raiding; that was their own specialty, but they were curious ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... on a shade of blue in places where the smoke from the fires cut through; a new tang smote the nostrils: the rank odor of burning hair and searing hides; a new note crept into the clamoring roar: the low-keyed ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... they were so many sacred elephants. Mechanical parts, pumps, jacks, boxes of tools, cans of oil, extra tires and wheels, cushions and innumerable odds and ends were scattered about each building and everybody seemed to be keyed up to an extreme nervous pitch. On every side could be heard remarks about the cars and drivers, their records and their chances for winning the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... hear presently the distant thunder of German guns, but reason told him it was only a trick of the imagination. Nerves keyed high often created ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... great in the gift of firing the hearts of hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of turning hares into heroes, slaves and skulkers into battalions that march to death with songs on their lips. But all these are exalting activities; they keep hand and heart and brain keyed up to their work; there is the joy of achievement, the inspiration of stir and movement, the applause which hails success; the soul is overflowing with life and energy, the faculties are at white heat; weariness, despondency, inertia—these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... voice that was keyed to a pitch almost as high as the bugle's strains. "Hold your yawp! Don't you hear that?" Lanigan screamed. "Don't you know the difference between that and a fish-peddler's horn? That's the tune we fellers heard the Huns play just before Armistice Day. That's retreat! Come on, Legion!" ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... He stopped the car at once and descended to the ground. As has already been noted earlier in these memoirs, Mr. Bryce, when occasion required it, for all his huge bulk, could move as agilely and noiselessly as that pre-eminently silent animal, the domestic cat. He had been so keyed up by the emotional stresses of the last few days that he threw himself into the adventure with all the zest of a schoolboy just being introduced into romance. The man was dodging through the trees a hundred yards or so ahead, and there was something ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... Jesus? Perhaps if you have ever walked in those narrow crowded alleys called streets, in China or Japan, you may have wondered, sometimes. Tired, dirty, pinched faces, eyes vacantly staring, or else fired with low passion, high-keyed voices bickering and jangling,—all this crowds in and out on every hand. Dirt, disease, low passion, selfishness, apparent absence of anything noble or refined, are all tangled inextricably up with ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... wings of sacrifice, had not foreseen the damning significance which might gather round her secret visit to Flint House and her subsequent disappearance. Not even when she heard of her father's death had the folly of her contemplated action dawned on her. Her dreamy unpractical temperament, keyed up to the great act of abnegation, had not paused to consider what the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... and Medora Phillips turned a studious glance on her companion. Carolyn was conceivably in a state of mind—keyed up to an all-inclusive appreciation. Did that foreshadow further verse?—a rustic rhapsody, a provincial pantoum? But Medora withheld question. Much as she would have enjoyed a well-consolidated impression of the visitors, she did not intend to ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... keyed to the breaking point. With a shriek he sprang toward an adjoining room, but the ape-man was upon his back while his leap was yet but half completed. Iron fingers sought his throat—the great coward squealed ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his spirit when he sought the presence of the girl whose soul was keyed up to almost a passion of self-sacrifice. His mind belittled the cause for which her idolized father was, at that moment, perilling his life, and to which her dearest friends had consecrated themselves. He was serene in congratulating himself that "little Strahan" ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... him she had nerved herself, had keyed herself up toward recklessness. She was in for it. She would put it through. No futile cowardly shrinking and whimpering! Why not try to get whatever pleasure there was a chance for? But—Sherry's—was it safe? ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... recitation; and in 1821, to crown all previous efforts, a conservatorium was opened, the programme of which might almost have satisfied a Berlioz. The department of instrumental music not only comprised sections for the usual keyed, stringed, and wind instruments, but also one for instruments of percussion. Solo and choral singing were to be taught with special regard to dramatic expression. Besides these and the theoretical branches of music, the curriculum included dancing, Polish literature, French, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... had a longer experience of the perilous work of log-driving. Here a gap, filled with spouting foam, opened up before him; there a trunk upon which he was about to step rolled over and sank. But he worked his way forward towards the center of the fir which keyed the growing mass. This log was many feet in girth. Pressed down level with the water, it was already bending like a ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... to see what would happen. Of quick, warm sympathies, always ready to bear with courage her own and others' burdens, she had none of that passive endurance which age and experience bring. She was keyed to the heroism of an occasion, but not yet to that which life lays as a daily burden ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... so passionate, creating the picture it desired. Always before, when the thought had flashed into her mind, "He is beginning to love me," she had thrust it away, shutting her mind against it. But that was before her spirit was keyed to the high music of river and forest in the Yosemite Valley. Since then she had passed from the twilight of little society shams and convenient, conventional self-deceivings into the glory where only Truth was ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... mountain-sides are all hard rock and rugged precipices. And the summits are of ice or with edges sharp and keen direct from Nature's workshop. But the sight, though it awes us, does not depress us or deter us. We are keyed up by high anticipation when we arrive on the threshold of this secluded region, and a fierce joy seizes us as we first set eyes on these mountains. We know we have before us one of the great sights of the world—something unique ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... he leads a kind of hair-trigger life, that feeds naturally upon excitement, even if only as a relief from the irksome idling in quarters. Try as they may to give him enough to do there, the time hangs heavily upon his hands, keyed up as he is, and need be, to adventurous deeds at shortest notice. He falls to grumbling and quarrelling, and the necessity becomes imperative of holding him to the strictest discipline, under which he chafes impatiently. "They nag like a lot ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... enough outside—for any reasonable mortal," returned Dexter. He was keyed to a high pitch. He felt that, at any instant, something might snap and leave ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... separate thing from water supply for the downstream metropolis and should not be treated as separate. They are all drinking from the same fountain. Where an upstream demand is great enough or is going to be great enough in a short span of years to warrant major storage, that storage must be keyed in with all other demands that it might meet or help to meet, including that at Washington. Where an area of lesser need is shut off by its location from sharing in such major storage, groundwater development or headwater reservoirs ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... and lost. It was a gay holiday world, as she looked down on it from her seat beside Phil. She wished that the drive could be prolonged indefinitely, but there was only time for the briefest spin before the hour for the matinee. More than all, the programme brought back that bewitching moment when, keyed to the highest pitch of expectation by the entrancing music of the orchestra, the curtain went up, and the world of Peter Pan drew ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to our advantage that we'd acted without hesitation, and I don't think we'd have been able to do that except that we'd been all set to kill each other when he dropped in. Our muscles and nerves and minds were keyed for instant ruthless attack. And some "civilized" people still say that the urge to murder doesn't contribute ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... oppression that warned him on the third day. Leaning as he did against the sled ropes he became aware of an added burden, as though the man behind had eased to shift his harness. When it did not cease he glanced over his shoulder. Keyed up as he was ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... had already fixed. That fact must still be faced, and the absence of any word from Brett this morning increased illimitably the sense of strain under which she was labouring. Last evening she had keyed herself up to the required pitch for the ordeal which awaited her. And now the whole agony and terror would have ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... foreman, like himself was stationed somewhere off there in the blackness, sitting on his pony as immovable as a statue, his straining eyes peering into the night, his ears keyed to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... Joyce, rather crestfallen, and glanced up to meet the dancing eyes of Larry, who was passing by and caught the high-keyed sentence. "But you know I have come here to live now, and I assure you I am not a teacher—just ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... people's, which saved trouble. I know you like to picture me wherever I am, so I must tell you at least that about Aberystwith, though describing places seems irrelevant in my present mood. I am keyed to the "top notch," and don't feel able to do anything leisurely. I do not expect to sleep to-night, and shall get up as soon as it's light, and dart down to the beach to look for amber, or carnelian, or onyx, which they say can be found here. I asked a chambermaid ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... 6.28 back to Potter's Bar. I lay back in my corner with closed eyes, recalling the events of that wonderful afternoon in the darkened, scented room. It had been a strange, almost overwhelming experience. I had been keyed up to a point of tension which was almost unendurable, while my friend gazed and murmured into the glass ball. These glimpses into the occult are really too much for my system; they wring my nerves. I could have screamed when Amy said, 'Wait—wait—the darkness stirs. I see—I see—a ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... herewith is intended for a mill, and is of 530 to 800 indicated horse-power, the pressure being seven atmospheres, and the number of revolutions forty-five per minute. As will be seen by the drawing each cylinder is placed in a separate foundation plate, the two connecting rods acting upon cranks keyed at right angles upon the shaft, W, which carries the drum, T. The high-pressure cylinder, C, is 760 mm diameter, the low pressure cylinder being 1,220 mm. diameter, and the piston speed 2.28 m. The drum, which also fulfills the purpose of a fly wheel, is provided with twenty-eight grooves for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... the pulpit or on to the platform. These were the moments that inspired his life, that gave it an ever-increasing vigour of human and divine perception. The enthusiasm of his reception by the crowds in these theatres keyed me up so that each new audience was a new pleasure. There were no preliminaries to his lectures. Frequently he had time only to drop his hat and step on to the stage as he had come from the train. After every lecture it was his custom to shake hands with hundreds ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... fool," I thought; "and James Whitcomb Riley was right when he said that the speaker who is about to make his bow to an audience is always so keyed up that at the moment he is incapable ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard
... treatment, not the subject, is the crux of originality. Of her longer books, Alcidamie, the first, has been spoken of. The Amours des Grandes Hommes and Cleonice ou le Roman Galant belong to the "keyed" Heroics; while the Journal Amoureux, which runs to nearly five hundred pages, has Diane de Poitiers for its chief heroine. Lastly, Carmente (or, as it was reprinted, Carmante) is a sort of mixed pastoral, with Theocritus himself introduced, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... working in the cylinder, G; E is the flexible steel rack connected to the piston, F, and gearing with a toothed wheel, B, which is inclosed in a watertight casing having cover, D, for convenient access. The wheel, B, is keyed on a steel shaft, C, which passes through stuffing-boxes in the casing, and has the winding barrel, A, keyed on it outside the casing. H is a rectangular tube, which guides the free end of the flexible ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... longer children, and occasionally in men, tickling may be a source of acute pleasure, which in very early life is not sexual, but later tends to become so under circumstances predisposing to the production of erotic emotion, and especially when the nervous system is keyed up to a high tone favorable for the production of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... blistered skin. He was so tired that once having settled himself, he did not move hand or foot. The night was dark, dismal, cloudy, windy, growing colder. A moan of wind in the mesquite was occasionally pierced by the high-keyed yelp of a coyote. There were lulls in which the silence seemed to be a thing of stifling, encroaching substance—a thing ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... chance in a thousand that, if he could accurately gauge the progress of his invisible antagonist, he could crash him and go down with him to death. If he could get close enough to feel his prop-wash! A wild chance, but Dick's mind was keyed up to desperation. He shot like an arrow toward the scene, with a view ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... find no trace of either in this transparent work, and an opera with a finale like that of the second act could not be named in the same breath with any of my favourite works. The only thing that impressed me was the unearthly keyed trumpet which, in the last act, represented the voice of the ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... She saw him daily, almost hourly. He was everywhere present about the great buildings. In no department was anybody sure of the time of his appearance, yet not one was overlooked. This kept the operators keyed to an expectancy which brought out from them their best, for the approbation of this observant 'boss' meant much to each. Yet he rarely spoke in a harsh tone to any, nor had any ever heard him utter an oath. This, in itself, gave him a distinction from ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... the talking?" Blades asked. Chung wasn't built for times as hectic as the last few hours, and was worn to a nubbin. He himself felt immensely keyed up. He'd ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... home life, interesting and not feverish. There was time for reading, time for turning over things in the mind, time for those interchanges of feeling and of ideas, by the fireside; she was not required to be always on dress parade, in mind or person, always keyed up to make an impression or receive one; how much wider and sounder was Morgan's view of the world, allowing for his kindly cynicism, than that prevalent in the talk where she had lately been! How sincere and hearty ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... known her speak like that before. For a moment he was inclined to lay bare his soul; but his nerve was broken. He did not want her to mistake the outpouring of a strong man's heart for the irresponsible ravings of a too hearty diner. It was one of Life's ironies. Here he was for the first time all keyed up to go right ahead, and he couldn't ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... angry with myself by this time, but it only left me well keyed. My bird fell dead inside of Orme's. A murmur of applause ran down the line. "Silence in ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... buggy—which sagged from habit even when disburdened of its owner—and they drove to another farm—a red brick farmhouse, this time, with yellow roses climbing its front. Here Sharon tarried longer in consultation. Wilbur staunchly held the roan, listened to the high-keyed drone of a reaper in a neighbouring field, and watched the old man make more figures in his black notebook. He liked this one of the Whipples pretty well. He was less talkative than Bill Bardin, and his speech was less ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... any quick moves, junk-yard, this little transmitter is keyed to a receiver in that bomb on your leg. One touch of my thumb, up you go in a cloud of smoke and come down in a shower of nuts and bolts." He signalled to Druce who opened a closet door. "And in case you want to be heroic, just think ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... aptly altered to suit the occasion, Seth, who was not so green but that he knew pages of poetry by heart, repeated in a high-keyed, nasal sing-song, which ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... of the sea was in his nostrils; greetings, many-keyed, hoarse-whistled by plying craft, were in his ears; creamy-foamed wakes of turbulent keels, swift-sent or laboring, boiled their swirling splendor against the black water. Mysterious, couchant, straining, the ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... money?" said Millard, reddening, and contracting his brows. "Did Phillida take it?" This last was spoken in a low-keyed monotone. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... eagerly for the choicest morsels,—and the bounty and providence it suggests. Or the chopper in the woods,—the prostrate tree, the white new chips scattered about, his easy triumph over the cold, his coat hanging to a limb, and the clear, sharp ring of his axe. The woods are rigid and tense, keyed up by the frost, and resound like a stringed instrument. Or the road-breakers, sallying forth with oxen and sleds in the still, white world, the day after the storm, to restore the lost track ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... slugs. When the fudge is used, a stereotyped front page of the paper is ripped open and a prominent blank space left, so that if the press were to print now, the paper would appear with a large unprinted space on its front page. To this blank space, however, the fudge is keyed, so that as the web of paper passes the main cylinder, the little emergency cylinder makes its impression and the page appears to all appearances printed ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... well-being of the men depend is due to the fact of travelling with animals whose needs are proportionately so much greater than those of the men. It follows that it must be sound policy to keep the men of a sledge party keyed up to a high pitch of well-fed physical condition as long as they have animals to drag their loads. The time for short rations, long marches and carefullest scrutiny of detail comes when the men are dependent ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... the band about her waist, breathing deeply. She bent her slender body this way and that, straightening up, stooping, twisting from side to side. She felt that every individual muscle must be made ready, keyed up to the work that was to be done in a flying moment. She must be steady, she must be sure. Not a fibre of her being must weaken or tremble or ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... appeared to thrive upon it in a scrambling, fugitive manner. The other two people were Mr. and Mrs. Dawes. Mr. Dawes was an entirely negative person, but Mrs. Dawes shone by virtue of a high, whining, insistent voice, keyed to within half a note ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... be created before the new century unfolds, and by then, our economy should be able to provide a job for everyone who wants to work. We must also enable our workers to adapt to the rapidly changing nature of the workplace. And I will propose substantial, new Federal commitments keyed to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... than it really is, for when the music comes to be heard, these formidable-looking intervals resolve themselves into something quite natural and generally not difficult of apprehension by a musical ear. Unfortunately we are compelled to learn music through the medium of a keyed instrument, generally through the most unmusical of instruments, the piano, and we learn theory largely through the eye and the reason instead of through the ear. The problems of harmony will seem much simpler if we remember that ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... one of four, and the other of fourscore—the one with the flaxen curls of childhood, and the other with the white locks of age—the one voice with the shrill treble of infancy, and the other with the high-keyed tones of decrepitude. Those people, who had seen the rebel army pass a few hours before, now felt the value of ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... at his watch. It was close to midnight. In that hour his nerves had been keyed to a tension that was almost at the breaking point. Not a sound came from off the Barren or from out of the scrub timber that did not hold a mental and physical shock for him. He believed that Bram and his pack would come up quietly; that he would not hear the ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... greater multitude eager for newspapers and verbal intelligence from the great Atlantic and European world. Through this crowd I made my way, along the well-built and well-lighted streets, as alive as by day, where boys in high-keyed voices were already crying the latest New York papers; and between one and two o'clock in the morning found myself comfortably abed in a commodious room, in the Oriental Hotel, which stood, as well as I could learn, on the filled-up cove, and not far from the spot where we used to ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... called a vibrator frame, to which the pneumatic vibrator is bolted and keyed, is shown in Fig. 5. To this frame the plate carrying the patterns, often, in cases of patterns having irregular parting lines, forming one and the same casting with the patterns, is fastened by the four machine screws, the small ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... in the bower at ten o'clock, with the band in attendance. Not one of the musicians had slept except Kelly, who said he had forty winks. When the pastors and their flocks of the various competing churches passed on their way to services, the band was keyed up in G, and was parading the streets, so that the faith of the Tahitians was severely tried. Even the ministers tarried a minute, and had to hold tightly their scriptures to control their ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... to the player to cover the six holes with his fingers. In course of time keys were added to it, and when changed into a bassoon shape its name changed to the Russian bass horn or basson Russe. A Parisian instrument maker, Halary, in 1817, made this a complete instrument, after the manner of the keyed bugle of Halliday, and producing it in brass called it the ophicleide, from two Greek words meaning serpent and keys—keyed serpent—although it was more like a keyed bass bugle. The wooden serpent has gone out of use in military bands within recollection, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... said, slowly. "You mean France. Yes, 'tis nice, an' they's certainly a great deal to see in it." She hesitated a moment, and then went on more rapidly. "You know," she continued, in her high- keyed, sibilant whisper, "it's some different with me from what 'tis with you. You can speak French. I heard you talkin' to the conductor. An' I suppose you've been here often, an' like it. But this is the first time I've come over to Europe. I've always meant to, sometime, but ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... only with Sir Edward but with nearly half the other members of the Cabinet, and they are all keyed up to the same tune. The press of both parties, too, are (for once) wholly agreed: Liberal and Conservative papers alike ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... The keyed-up Sam grunted at the suddenness of the shock and ran back for ten paces, gasping. Then he got command of himself, and came back ashamed ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... music-master to the queen, and his concerts, given in partnership with Abel at the Hanover Square rooms, soon became the most fashionable of public entertainments. He is of some historical interest as the first composer who preferred the pianoforte to the older keyed-instruments; but his works, though elegant and pleasing, were ephemeral in character and have ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... to the reed, And the beetle booms; The bird and the beast are keyed To the flower ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... him keenly as the three in that picture before the door stood keyed to such tension as the human intelligence seldom is called upon to withstand. Macdonald stood with one foot on the low threshold, the door swinging half open at his back. He was bareheaded, his rough, fair hair in wisps on temples and forehead. Dalton's teeth were showing between ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden |
