"Theme" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The Somerset and Wilts Journal the songs sung by the boys and girls of the Radstock National Schools on Empire Day included "Raise the Flagon High." We cannot but think this Bacchic theme a little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... had so many variations, however, like a piece of music, was to return to the original theme before it closed. It had been a day of forebodings and anxiety. Fate never permitted Elizabeth Farnshaw more than a short snatch at happiness, and as John Hunter drove away after he had helped her deposit ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... to speculate on this theme, however, for the next instant a piteous cry broke from the girl's lips—a cry in a voice strangely familiar; a cry that sent the blood bounding through his heart like an electric shock—and before he could take a step forward to prevent it, the slender ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... Silver Fox Patrol when on one of their vacation trips to the wonderland of the great Northwest. How apparent disaster is bravely met and overcome by Thad and his friends, forms the main theme of the story, which abounds in plenty ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... property for twenty years, and would now rob him of half his revenge. Not that he ever spoke even to himself of revenge. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." He would have been as able as any man to quote the words, and as willing. Justice, outraged justice, was his theme. Whom had he ever robbed? To whom had he not paid all that was owing? "All that have I done from my youth upwards." Such were his thoughts of himself; and with such thoughts was it possible that he should willingly be absent from Alston during such ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... another theme for remark. His conversations with Farmer Baldwin had inspired him with disgust for this kind of amusement. He hated war, and was not pleased with any thing which reminded him of it. Besides the nonsense of this soldier-playing, he said there was an objection to it, as ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... but fair to warn you that this is only the first of a volume of similar poems which I contemplate writing. And as the theme appears now to be inexhaustible, I am not sure that I can see any limit to the number of volumes I shall be compelled to issue. Pray accept this author's copy with his best and hopefullest wishes. One ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... to reject these vaporings as those of an eccentric old man who could know little or nothing on the subject, Lois reverted to the aspect of the question which had been in her mind when she started the theme. "You still haven't answered what I asked—as to why men fall in love with inferior women, and often with a kind of infatuation they hardly ever feel for ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... face steadily to the fore invited with no sign; and after covertly stealing a glance or two at her clear unresponsive profile I still could manage no theme that would loosen my tongue. Thereby let her think me a dolt. Thank Heaven, after another twenty-four hours at most it might not matter what ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending. I listened motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore Long after ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... mentioned this fact to anyone, but all the interested denizens of that particular square could tell by the unusual air of bustle and activity which pervaded the Hart domicile. Lillian, the aesthetic, who furnished theme for many spirited discussions, leaned airily out of the window; her auburn (red) tresses carefully done in curl papers. Martha, the practical, flourished the broom and duster with unwonted activity, which the small boys of the neighborhood, ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... But here, his larger audience, the open air, the blue heavens, the graves around, the burial of the young girl side by side with the old slave, all contributed to inspire him. Human brotherhood, universal love, the stern democracy of death, immortality,—these were his theme. Life, incrusted with conventionalities; Death, that strips them all away. This is the portal (pointing to the grave) at which the soul drops all its false incumbrances,—rank, riches, sorrow, shame. It enters naked into eternity. There worldly pride ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... the full verbal recitation but to little else; the words written in water meant distraction and little attention to the meaning or to the words; and the angels who wrote nothing watched the insolence of those who were voluntarily distracted. The vision has furnished the theme of much pious writing and a theme for Christian painters. It shows how God watches over the daily work of priests, while His angels record in golden or silvern letters the work of pious recitation, or perhaps hold their pens ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... Forgiveness, yes. A good theme, young sir, but—very unpopular. Men prefer to dwell upon the wrongs done them, rather than cherish the memory of benefits conferred. But, nevertheless, I go up and down the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... is faithful to the spirit and gambols only with the letter. The humor of that work lies in its sympathetic and creative insight quite as much as in the broad good-humor and imaginative whimsicality with which the author handles his theme. The caricature of a true artist gives a better likeness ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... compose integral portions of their existence. As for the deacon, he really thought it would be unseemly, and of evil example, for Daggett to converse with Dr. Sage, touching these doubloons, of the Lord's day: while he had felt no scruples himself, a short hour before, to make them the theme of a long and interesting discussion, in his own person. It might not repay us for the trouble, to look for the salve that the worthy man applied to his own conscience, by way of reconciling the apparent contradiction; though it probably was connected with ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... huntin up several reasons for supportin him. I hev em all ready. I only want this additional one, and then I fling my banner to the breeze. Faith is sed to be the sun of all religious systems. POST OFFIS is the central figger in all Democratic creeds—the theme uv conversation by day, and the staple uv dreems by night. How ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... towards the old musician, and how careful he was to follow his directions; one would have said he was a diligent and obedient pupil. It was a touching homage from one who had already proved himself a master by works like Le Chant de la cloche, Wallenstein, La Symphonie sur un theme montagnard, and who was perhaps at that time better known and more popular than Cesar Franck himself. Since then twenty years have passed, and I still see M. d'Indy as I saw him that evening; and, whatever may happen in the future, his memory for me will be ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... "That theme is rather more difficult: for, when Mademoiselle Poirier marries the Marquis de Presles, she becomes the Marquise de Presles; whereas, when Mademoiselle de Montmorency marries Monsieur Bernard, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... "For opportunities lost," he said. "The lost opportunities—how sad a theme, how melancholy a retrospect! Tell me ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... reminiscences—works of great value to scientists and others. To hear Killick dilate upon the dangers of the new disease, the "Epidemic Rag" (which seems to be quite as catching as the mumps), Gill upon the risks of the piscatorial art, or Savage upon an original Polynesian theme, "Zulu Lulu," was to feel like Keats's watcher of the skies, "when a new planet swims into his ken." For the admirer of Spanish customs there was A. E. J. Inglis (O.A.) to sing, as only he can, the Toreador's song; while for the ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... the sublime works of nature," ergo, reasoned Mary, "Dr. Redgill must be of a more elevated way of thinking than I had supposed." The entrance of Lady Juliana prevented her expressing the feelings that were upon her lips; but she thought what pleasure she would have in resuming the delightful theme at another opportunity. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... strength that renunciation brings, and the duty of learning resignation. There was a pervasive note of sadness in his deliverance of the theme, and Amarilly felt her joyousness in the return of ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... His meditations on this theme occupied him agreeably the rest of that week, during which time he overlooked his workmen and conferred with his architect. Besides, his horses, his books, his domestics, and his journals arrived successively ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... doubtfully At a loss for answer; but the knight went on: "How came it in your hands, and who hath tuned your voice to follow it." "I am unskilled, Good father, but my mother smote its strings To music rare." Diverted from one theme, Pleased with the winsome candor of the boy, The knight encouraged him to confidence; Then his own gift of minstrelsy revealed, And told bright tales of his first wanderings, When in lords' castles and ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... and sportsmanship, the birds that he shot, and the fish that he caught, and the leaps that he took, are to this hour recorded in the tradition of the inhabitants of the Black Islands. At that time, his feats of personal activity and address made him the theme of every tongue, the delight of every eye, the admiration of every woman, and the envy of every man: not only with the damsels of Peggy Sheridan's class was he the favourite, but with all the young ladies, the belles of the half gentry, who filled the ball-rooms; and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... to it. I remember having heard an incident of war, myself, which affected me much," said Murphy, who caught the infection of military anecdote which circled the table; and indeed there is no more catching theme can be started among men, for it may be remarked that whenever it is broached it flows on until it is rather more than time to go to ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... hailed him as the savior and redeemer of Israel. All that the Jews needed was to make themselves deserving of his kindness, and worthy of the citizenship they saw in store for them. In Russian, in Hebrew, and in Yiddish, in prose and in poetry, the one theme uppermost in the mind of all was enlightenment, or rather Russification. From all quarters the reveille was sounded. Abraham Baer Gottlober ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... of all the mirth there was a pathetic passage between a couple of impecunious players, Johnny Brinkley (played by Mr. GEORGE ELTON, who had many good things to say and said them well) and Effie, his wife, on the theme of the precariousness of their career. It must have melted the cynical heart of many a critic in the audience, and I for one was almost persuaded to confine myself for the future to encomium ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... of a river god; and he loved her and made her his wife. But this happiness was destined not to be of long duration. The Fates[A] had decreed it otherwise. Œnone the beautiful, whose sorrows have been the theme of many poets, was to lose the love of the young shepherd prince, and the dream of Hecuba was to have ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... American journalism for a number of years. He conceived the topic "Should America Have a Westminster Abbey?" and induced some twenty of the foremost men and women of the day to discuss it. When the discussion was presented in the magazine, the form being new and the theme novel, Edward was careful to send advance sheets to the newspapers, which treated it at length in reviews and editorials, with marked effect upon ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... for the family, when nothing was pressing, to remain at table discussing this and that, nearly always providing the theme was German. He encouraged this because he could learn from the well-stocked information which the members possessed about Germany and the Germans, and for the ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... appointed capitar pacha, to combat in the north against a barbarous nation called Sclavonians, or Russians. My curiosity was raised to see this rustam of a warrior, for his exploits and unvaried success were constantly the theme of the sultan's encomiums. A Georgian slave who had been the favourite previous to my arrival, and who had never forgiven my supplanting her, had been sent to him by the sultan as a compliment; and this rare distinction had been conferred upon him on the day when I requested leave to remain ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... Upon this theme he continued to preach for half an hour. The alcalde snored, and Maria Clara nodded, for the poor child could no longer keep from sleeping, since she had no more paintings or images to study, nor anything else to amuse her. On Ibarra the words and allusions made no more ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... to see it. The Beautiful itself could only be the mirror of the Truth present before us in Nature. Patriotism, like all the other virtues based on a religious attitude of mind, and which can be mentioned only when people have the courage to talk in earnest, became a rhetorical theme on which it was rather bad taste ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... his head a little sorrowfully. Now that they were nearing the end of the voyage, many cares pressed upon him, which to the volatile nature of Arthur seemed only theme for adventure. Whither to bend their steps in the first instance, was a matter for grave deliberation. They had letters of introduction to a gentleman near Carillon on the Ottawa, and others to a family at Toronto. Former friends had settled beside the lonely Lake Simcoe, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... How was it that in speaking of his troubles we were led on to this heart-stirring theme? Yes, I have seen them, the sweet angels; and I tell you also that I have seen their mother. I insisted on going to her when I heard her history ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... a strong, virile novel with the lumber industry for its central theme and a love story full of interest as a sort ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... ablest members of that party were actively engaged in the canvass. The "martyr" in Canada was the hero of these meetings, and his compulsory arrest and absence from the state, but near its border, was the constant theme of complaint. It was observed that the rival meetings were attended by men of both parties in nearly equal numbers, so that it was difficult to form an opinion of the result. Mr. Brough kept a memorandum book containing the names of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... her place near here, Bath Easton Villa, she has set up a Roman vase bedecked with myrtle, and into this we drop our bouts-rimes. Mrs. Calliope has a ball every Thursday, when the victors are crowned. T'other day the theme was 'A Buttered Muffin,' and her Grace of Northumberland was graciously awarded the prize. In faith, that theme taxed our wits at the Bear,—how to weave Miss Dolly's charms into a verse on a buttered muffin. I shall not tire you with mine. Storer's deserved to win, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... about the principles of sorrow, accumulation, destruction, and the incontrovertible truths, as declared by the lord. But because the lord is going to die, we all have sorrow; and we cannot raise our thoughts to the high theme of the lord's preaching. Perhaps some fresh disciple, whose feelings are yet not entirely freed from other influences might doubt; but we, who now have heard this tender, sorrowful discourse, have altogether ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... for the superstitious. At dinner a night or two ago I happened to say that I had never been in danger of drowning. I am not sure now that it was true, but I still think that it was harmless. However, before I had time to elaborate my theme (whatever it was) I was peremptorily ordered to touch wood. I protested that both my feet were on the polished oak and both my elbows on the polished mahogany (one always knew that some good instinct inspired the pleasant habit of elbows on the table) ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... voice! I am sick of my own; I have had a glut of that all these weary eight months; tell me about them all! How are they all? how are the boys?" (with a playful smile of recollection at what used to be my one subject, the one theme on which I was wont to wax illimitably diffuse). But now, at the magic name no pleasant garrulity overcomes me; only the remembrance of my worries; of all those troubles that I mean now to transfer from my own to Roger's broad ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... theme unbearable, she prays The song-bird cease! So, on the tale I dare, Your "hush!" your wistful ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as in a piece written by a man who takes a month's vacation from sex to recoup his strength (pt. 2, p. 12). And the related image of the female with a sexual organ capable of absorbing a man plays a variation on the vagina dentata theme (e.g., pt. 2, pp. 19, 24). A drawing of a man hanging himself for love raises a considerable debate on whether such a thing can indeed occur (pt. 2, pp. 17-18). In a more realistic vein, though equally cynical, ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... the sound, E'en Echo gives it back with int'rest, The joyful gales swell with the pleasing theme, And waft it far away to distant hills. O that my breath was poison, then indeed I'd hail him like the rest, but ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... and feeling her all over, her unwashed cunt had come in for its share of my attentions, I had been twiddling it till outside it was dry. Recurring to the never-failing, and always charming theme, I got close to her, kissed her, my fingers sought the innermost recesses of her tight little orifice. "Don't you like fucking?—does it give you pleasure?" "It never gived me much pleasure that I know on," she replied. "But you don't dislike it?" "Not if they don't hurt ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme; Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; Strong ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... will not linger here; Guanajuato and Zacatecas and Pachuca shall be our theme in another chapter, and the tale of toil and silver which they tell. For the moment the way lies down the Great Plateau, among its intersecting ranges of hills, through the fertile valleys, which alternate with the ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... his preface), but of it may be said, as in the case of its predecessor, that it makes better reading than it must have made acting, for the scenes are loosely constructed and often illogical. Our playwright yet betrays the amateur touch. It is regrettable, too, for he chose an excellent theme and setting. The time is near the close of the sixteenth century, under the rule of Philip II. of Spain and the much-dreaded Inquisition. An inventor, a pupil of Galileo, barely escapes the Holy Office because of having discovered the secret ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... Minnie was his theme now, but, strange to say, he felt little or no tenderness towards her. She was beset by a hundred ruffians in pea-jackets and sou'westers. Something stirred him to madness. He rushed at the foe, and began to hit out at them right and left. The hitting was ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... I have interrogated persons who knew the chief characters in the story; I have studied the locality, and know intimately the scene of the tragedy: and even though "The Tale of Timber Town" has in the writing taxed my energies for many a month, I have by no means exhausted the theme which ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Stereopticon, and, as I observe, is wandering farther and farther. He began with George, but, George having suggested Tom and Miss Somerby, by the same law of thought each of them would have suggested two others. Poor Frank, who was quite master of his one theme, George, finds unawares that he is dealing with two, gets flurried, but plunges on, only to find, in his remembering, that these two have doubled into four, and then, conscious that in an instant they will be eight, and, which is worse, eight themes or subjects on which he is not prepared to speak ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... the editor's grandfather saw the six pirates of the Mexican, almost the last of their profession, hanged at about the same spot. I find that Mr. Paine has printed this piece, in Buried Treasure, but I know no other that so well illustrates its particular aspect of our theme.] ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... her dress, the furniture of her room, even her cake and wine, will undergo the most minute scrutiny, and be the theme of conversation among all the gossips of the place for the next nine days. No wonder that she feels nervous, and that her manners are constrained, and that nothing looks easy or natural about her, from her ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... omelette, an unmerited steak. The return of this asymmetrical Saturday was one of those petty occurrences, intra-mural, localised, almost civic, which, in uneventful lives and stable orders of society, create a kind of national unity, and become the favourite theme for conversation, for pleasantries, for anecdotes which can be embroidered as the narrator pleases; it would have provided a nucleus, ready-made, for a legendary cycle, if any of us had had the epic mind. At daybreak, before we were dressed, without rhyme or reason, save for ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Househill (a seat in the vicinity) to Cruikston Castle, the country is rich, and the scenery delightful. The castle itself might be the subject of volumes, as it has been the theme of many a poet, and the subject of many a painter's pencil. Its name is known all over the world, or may be so, from the circumstance of its once having been the residence of Mary Queen of Scots and Henry Lord Darnly; and though the famed yew-tree decks not now ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... accounted for; they are, for the most part, taken from the Bible. But the melodies, where did they come from? Some of them so weirdly sweet, and others so wonderfully strong. Take, for instance, "Go Down, Moses"; I doubt that there is a stronger theme in the whole musical literature of ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... difficult theme with great skill, and produced a narrative of absorbing interest to scientist as well as layman. It reads like fiction, but it is not fiction; and this I state emphatically, knowing how prone the uninitiated are to doubt ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... detestable friend" is the way the prototype of Claude Lantier puts the case. "A bad book and a completely false one," he added, when speaking to the painter Emile Bernard on the disagreeable theme. Naturally Zola did not pose his old friend for the entire figure of the crazy impressionist, his hero, Claude. It was a study composed of Cezanne, Bazille, and one other, a poor, wretched lad who had been employed to clean ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... fight and the magnificent way in which Armitage had handled his long skirmish-line. He was enthusiastic in his praise of the tall Saxon captain. He soon noted how silent and absorbed she sat when he was the theme of discourse; he incidentally mentioned little things "he" had said about "her" that morning, and marked how her color rose and her eyes flashed quick, joyful, questioning glance at his face, then fell in maiden shyness. ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... 'The Rambler in Madeira' (Mr. Lyall) proclaimed the theme utterly threadbare, in consequence of 'every traveller opening his quarto (?) with a short notice of it;' and he proceeded at once to indite a fair-sized octavo. Humboldt said something of the same sort in his 'Personal ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... John M. Mason were honorably conspicuous in this work. But one unknown young man of thirty, in a corner of Long Island, uttered words in his little country meeting-house that pricked the conscience of the nation. The words of Lyman Beecher on this theme may well be quoted as being a part of history, for the consequences that ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Daisy, Tom had opened it, and without a moment's hesitation packed his valise, and, leaving a note for the McDonalds when they should return, started for Rouen. Daisy did not know him, and in her delirium she said things to him and of him which hurt him cruelly. Guy was her theme, and the letter which went "too late, too late." Then she would beg of Tom to go for Guy, to bring him to her and tell him how much she loved him and how good she would be if he would take ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... even though that happiness may be the creation of a delusion, I like to leave them so. I, therefore, encouraged Mr Pridhomme to pour all his raptures into, what he thought, an approving ear, and Jemima was the theme, until he left me at the door of the hotel at which I was to dine with Captain Reud. Whatever the reader may think of Jemima, I was, at this period, perfectly innocent myself, though not wholly ignorant. I should ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... went round the farm, and for many a day did it furnish him with a theme of scolding in ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... Raften talked with unusual freeness about his plans for his son. (Yan began to realize that the storm had blown over.) He harped on his favourite theme, "eddication." If Yan had only known, that was the one word of comfort that Raften found when he saw his big boy go down: "It's eddication done it. Oh, but he's fine eddicated." Yan never knew until years afterward, when a grown man and he and Raften were talking of the old days, that ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... a great breath of relief. She had been the victim of some extraordinary hallucination: "—with the little brooks for variations on the theme," ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... turn from these brief records of military affairs, the more pleasing theme for the historian of the Netherlands in comparison with domestic events, which claim attention but to create sensations of regret and censure. Prince Maurice had enjoyed without restraint the fruits of his ambitious daring. His power was uncontrolled and unopposed, but it was publicly ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... with the English Constitution itself; this is become the object of the animosity of Englishmen. This constitution in former days used to be the envy of the world; it was the pattern for politicians; the theme of the eloquent; the meditation of the philosopher in every part of the world. As to Englishmen, it was their pride, their consolation. By it they lived, and for it they were ready to die. Its defects, if it had any, were partly covered by partiality, and partly borne by ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said his friend, still pursuing his theme. "It was a question of a plan in which we included you as a superior person, that is to say, somebody who can put himself above other people. The constitutional thimble-rig is carried on to-day, dear boy, more seriously than ever. The infamous monarchy, displaced by the heroism ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... which was endless with Jock, so that the original topic here glided out of sight as the exalted gifts of that model of all the virtues became the theme. This conversation, however, was but one of many. It was their meeting ground, the matter upon which they found each other as of old, two beings separated from the world, which wondered at and did not understand ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... his own coin," Zoe said to herself, and Mr. Larned was surprised at the great cordiality and winning sweetness of her manner as she took the vacated seat by his side, then at the spirit and vivacity with which she rattled away to him, now on this theme, now ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... him dead; if he obeyed, and threw himself down, he was equally as certain to be killed by the fall—sixty feet or more. Wherever he went he was surrounded by his bodyguard, and his haughty and domineering disposition was a general theme among the white traders of the Pacific Islands. To those captains who supplied him with firearms he was liberal to lavishness in the favours he conferred; to any who crossed him or declined to pander to him, he would be grossly insulting, ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... her breast, and then, staring into the scrap of fire, she counseled Mary wisely on many affairs of life and the conduct of a girl under all kinds of circumstances—to be adequate in spirit if not in physique: that was her theme. Never be a servant in your heart, said she. To work is nothing; the king on his throne, the priest kneeling before the Holy Altar, all people in all places had to work, but no person at all need be a servant. One worked and was paid, and went away keeping the integrity ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... country awakened within him. His fancy roamed beyond the familiar trails and peopled foreign regions with strange tribes. By his eloquence he played upon the responsive minds of his companions until they were fired with the same restless spirit. A wandering life became the theme of general interest as they smoked round the evening camp-fire. When finally fifty of the boldest expressed a desire to go on such an expedition as Tecumseh had planned, a party was organized. With due ceremony Cheeseekau was appointed leader, to decide each day's journey and ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... you to-day, Gentlemen, upon a single theme, the thorough preparation of the nation to care for its own security and to make sure of entire freedom to play the impartial role in this hemisphere and in the world which we all believe to have been providentially assigned ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... little ones to repeat what they remember of the tale you have told, or to tell something new on the same theme. If the story you have given has been within their range and on a familiar subject, a torrent of infantile reminiscence will immediately gush forth, and you will have a miniature "experience meeting." ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... said this, she arose from her chair, and walking deliberately across the room, rang the parlor bell, and then quietly walked back again and resumed her seat, continuing her remarks as she did so, upon the exhaustless theme she had introduced. In a little while a ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... died within a year after Pizarro. Hinojosa was assassinated but two years later in La Plata; and his old comrade Valdivia, after a series of brilliant exploits in Chili, which furnished her most glorious theme to the epic Muse of Castile, was cut off by the invincible warriors of Arauco. The Manes of Pizarro ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... and wherever he went women and men had admired and envied him. What qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valour? Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of fable and of dream I sought an eligible theme; But none I found, or found them shared Already by some happier bard, Till settling on the current year I found the far-sought treasure near. A theme for poetry, you see— A theme t' ennoble even ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... Theme! Whereon with eloquence less deep than full, Still maundering on in slow continuous stream, All can expatiate, and all be dull: Bane of the mind and topic of debate That drugs the reader to a restless doze, Thou that with soul-annihilating weight Crushest the Bard, and hypnotisest those Who plod ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... familiar with those words, written in that peculiar chirography. "Justice... submission ... ruling ..." He had caught them at a glance, though he did not know how they were connected, or what relation they bore to the general theme. Political bunk, his mind tagged it therefore, and had no doubt whatever that ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... three separate but closely related meanings. In the first place, it speaks, to the mind, of that process of diffraction by which are disarticulated the several colored and other rays of which light is composed. It indicates our feeling that the theme of a poem is to be regarded as a prism, upon which the colorless white light of infinite existence falls and is broken up into glowing, beautiful, and intelligible hues. In its second sense, the term Spectric relates to the reflex ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... crowns be now my theme? Shall I boast, ye princes, that ye dream?— While the worm the monarch's heart may tear, Golden sleep twines round the Moor by stealth, As he, at the palace, guards the wealth, Guards—but ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... cannot be said that his sermon this morning was striking or impressive. He talked with considerable hesitation. It was evident that some great idea struggled in his thought for utterance, but it was not expressed in the theme he had chosen for his preaching. It was near the close of his sermon that he began to gather a certain strength that had been painfully lacking ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... from Russia to China of a whole population of Tartars had so much interested Gibbon that he refers to it in that chapter of his great work in which he describes the ancient Scythians. De Quincey had fastened on the same document as supplying him with an admirable theme for literary treatment. Explaining this some time ago, while editing his Revolt of the Tartars for a set of Selections from his Writings, I had to add that there was much in the paper which he could not have derived from that original, and that, therefore, unless ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... not the case. The theme of the militia Christi appears in the oldest ecclesiastical authors, in the epistles of St. Clement and even in those of St. Paul. It is impossible to admit an imitation of the Mithraic mysteries then, because at that period ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... continued, with a hand on the musician's shoulder, patting him in appreciation as he spoke, "we will forgive you anything. You have so exactly suited to the 'cello the opening theme. And the flute passages!—they are exquisitely introduced. We will let Miss Clendenning decide when she hears it—" and he turned Unger's head in the direction of the advancing lady. "Here she comes now; you, of course, know the fine quality ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... impropriety of Miss Reynolds's appearing to stab herself in the hand with a pin, is far too obvious, and too glaringly unladylike, to be pointed out), we descended from our maiden elevation to discuss this uncongenial and this unfit theme. Responsible inquiries having assured us that it was but one of those 'airy nothings' pointed at by the Poet (whose name and date of birth Miss Giggles will supply within half an hour), we would now discard ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... here are finer than music," Helen remarked, fleeing to an impersonal theme. "To walk in the moonlight, without wraps and with no sense of discomfort, in the middle of December, is a wonderful experience to me. Last night I heard a mocking-bird singing; and my aunt has been asking Mrs. Haley if ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... her views on matrimony, in the George Sand manner—beating the drum to Madame Sand's trumpet. No doubt she was very unhappy; Blumenthal was an old beast. Since then she has published a lot of literature—novels and poems and pamphlets on every conceivable theme, from the conversion of Lola Montez to the Hegelian philosophy. Her talk is much better than her writing. Her conjugophobia—I can't call it by any other name—made people think lightly of her at a time when her rebellion against marriage was probably only theoretic. She ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... you to contrast Nature and Fortune, you could not have chosen a happier theme upon which to descant, for both have made a trial of their strength on the subject of your Memoirs. What Nature did, you had the evidence of your own eyes to vouch for, but what was done by Fortune, you know only from hearsay; and hearsay, I need not tell you, is liable to be influenced ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... good, Mr. Robbie continued to develop the same theme. "You're, no doubt, what they call a dancing-man?" said he. "Well, on Thursday night there is the Assembly Ball. You must certainly go there, and you must permit me besides to do the honours of the ceety and send you a ticket. I am a thorough believer in a young man being a young man—but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... preacher: and such was the effect of his oratory. The theme on which he loved to dwell was this. Repent! A judgment of God is at hand. A sword is suspended over you. Italy is doomed for her iniquity—for the sins of the Church, whose adulteries have filled the world—for the sins of the tyrants, who encourage ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... and part of the next the court labored upon the old theme—the male attire. It was shabby work for those grave men to be engaged in; for they well knew one of Joan's reasons for clinging to the male dress was, that soldiers of the guard were always present in her room whether she was asleep or awake, and that the male dress was a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Their compositions evidence a practical knowledge of stringed instruments, as distinct from theory. The glorious compositions of Beethoven for the Violin need no comment here; their beauties have formed the theme of the ablest critics; and I have no desire to contribute my humble mite to their ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... cold, black river, in which He was to be baptized. 'Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground.' So, reverently listening to the words, sacred because of the Speaker, the theme, and the circumstances, we note in them these things: His calm anticipation of the assailant, His unveiling of the secret and motive of His apparent defeat, and His resolute advance to the conflict. Let us look ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... Doctor being at leisure, he and Denison talked long and earnestly of their never-failing theme, the aluminum globe. Denison ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... in the midst of one of his thoughtful moods, with Bob for his theme, and asking himself what he should do if Bob did begin to thrash him first time they were on shore; and he had just come to the conclusion that he would not let Bob thrash him if he could help it, when Bob suddenly leaped forward and hit ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... has such a celebrity in travel and romance, that I feel my pen catching in the tatters of a threadbare theme. And yet I love the place and its people so well, that I could scarcely pass it without mention. Every tourist who spends a week in Venice goes to see the convent, and every one is charmed with it and the courteous welcome of the fathers. Its best interest is the intrinsic interest attaching ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... had never been so happy in her life before, as she went out to pick and choose among the flowers, looking for a theme for her composition. At last she satisfied herself, and came back to the school-room, and went ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... MAID OF ARC had snatch'd from coward man The heaven-blest sword of Liberty; thy sex Could boast no female ROLAND'S martyrdom; No CORDE'S angel and avenging arm Had sanctified again the Murderer's name As erst when Caesar perish'd: yet some strains May even adorn this theme, befitting me To offer, ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... learned from Atkins, who adorned his narrative with praise and admiration of its theme. Captain Len Guy, of Liverpool, was three-fifths owner of the vessel, which he had commanded for nearly six years. He traded in the southern seas of Africa and America, going from one group of islands to another and from continent to continent. His ship's company was but a dozen men, it ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... thrown into the river Arno. Such was the miserable end of the great Florentine preacher, whose strange and complex character has been so often discussed, and whose remarkable career has furnished a theme for poets and romance-writers, and forms the basis of one of the most powerful novels of ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... scant division from Byzantium's hold Chalcedon oyster-rich: and small the strait Through which Propontis pours the Euxine wave. Then marvelling at their ancient fame, he seeks Sigeum's sandy beach and Simois' stream, Rhoeteum noble for its Grecian tomb, And all the hero's shades, the theme of song. Next by the town of Troy burnt down of old Now but a memorable name, he turns His steps, and searches for the mighty stones Relics of Phoebus' wall. But bare with age Forests of trees and hollow mouldering trunks Pressed down Assaracus' palace, and with roots ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... for Jean Valjean is poverty. The people of this drama are named "the miserable ones." And poverty is modern and a modern question. All socialists, anarchists, and communists talk of poverty; this is their one theme. Superficial social reformers make poverty responsible for the total turpitude of men. Men are poor, hence criminal. Jean Valjean is poor—miserably poor; sees his sister's children hungry, and commits crime, is a thief; becomes a galley slave as punitive result. Ergo, poverty ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... chief clerk to the Jury Court, Edinburgh, when he first learned it, now nearly thirty years ago, from a passenger in the mail-coach. With Mr. Clerk's consent, I gave the story at that time to poor Mat Lewis, who published it with a ghost-ballad which he adjusted on the same theme. From the minuteness of the original detail, however, the narrative is better calculated for prose than verse; and more especially as the friend to whom it was originally communicated is one of the most accurate, intelligent, and acute persons ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... accusation of "sinning against the most obvious demands of literary property-rights"? To what part of the "theory of ethics" belongs Dr. Royce's "professional warning" against pretensions which were never made? His false accusations and their false grounds were the main theme of my article, and they had nothing to do with "theoretical ethics," Dr Adler and Dr. Royce to the contrary notwithstanding. Dr. Royce had no shadow of right to set up so preposterous a claim, and ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... rather than a study of human beings. Of course there are good reasons for this. Defoe was more interested in dramatizing proletarian utopian ideals than in developing the inner workings of Misson's mind. The novelette is unified by its epic theme, not by its study of character ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... insensibly into a Theme, that requires rather a Volume, than a Page or two; I hasten therefore to present you a Paraphrase on the Six Days Work of the Creator, as described to us by Moses, in the First Chapter of Genesis, which, you know, was written, originally, in Verse. It wou'd be difficult, I am sure, ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... Wait before the Lord. Think of Him. Pray Him to send His life into you, and into the meeting, and into the people of the world. Should these inward practices prove of no avail, I sometimes fall back on this device. There is always in us some theme that the mind wants to think of, some fear, some desire, some problems, some situation, some prospect. Though the theme is not a fit one for a meeting for worship, I let my mind run on about it. Once the mind is well started on this topic, I switch it and transfer its momentum to one of ...
— An Interpretation of Friends Worship • N. Jean Toomer
... to Greece. Whatever poetic sentiment was felt centred rather in the city herself than in the deities who guarded her. Rome was the one name that roused enthusiasm; from first to last she was the true Supreme Deity, and her material aggrandisement was the never-exhausted theme of literary, as it had been the consistent goal of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... contribute very frequently to engraft upon these "re-unions" a variety of eminent foreigners and intellectual citizens of America. It is a trite saying, that few men can be good or useful abroad who are not happy at home. Mr Bennoch has been fortunate in wedded life. She who is the theme of many of his sweetest and most touching verses, is a woman whom a poet may love and a wise man consult; in whom the sociable gentleman finds an ever cheerful companion, and the husband a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... first of these documents was remarkable for its optimism, the second might justly be described as a {25} masterpiece of faith pure and undefiled by any contact with sordid facts. Its theme is the magnitude of the compensations which Greece might expect in return for her entry into the War: "I have a feeling," says the author, "that the concessions in Asia Minor suggested by Sir Edward Grey can, especially if we submit to sacrifices to the Bulgars, assume ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... the orthodox beginning to one of those talks among country folk which are like an interminable song, full of repetitions, each speaker agreeing with the words last uttered and adding more to the same effect. And naturally the theme was the Canadian's never-ending plaint; his protest, falling short of actual revolt, against the heavy burden of the long winter. "The beasts have been in the stable since the end of October and the barn is just about ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... remember how many voices of patriotic fervor have here been heard; that in it originated the first movements from which the Revolution sprung; that here began that system of town meetings and free discussion which is the glory and safety of our country; that I had enough to warn me, that though my theme was more humble than theirs, (as befitted my poorer ability,) that it was a hazardous thing for me to attempt to speak in this sacred temple. But when I heard your statesman (Gen. Cushing) say, that ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... Theme no poet gladly sung, Fair to old and foul to young; Scorn not thou the love of parts, And the articles of arts. Grandeur of the perfect sphere Thanks the ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... we, weak minstrels of a laggard day Skilled but to imitate an elder page, Timid and raptureless, can we repay The debt thou claim'st in this exhausted age? Thou givest our lyres a theme, that might engage Those that could send thy name o'er sea and land, While sea and land shall last; for Homer's rage A theme; a theme for Milton's mighty hand - How much unmeet for us, a faint ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... wander'd? do I dream? 175 Sure slaves of power are not my theme; But honest slaves, the sons of toil, Who ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... sporting feats and adventures interesting to the outsider. Which is saying a lot. At the same time his sense of humour is sufficiently strong to save enthusiasm from becoming oppressive. Certainly he loves his theme, as I suppose a good pig-sticker should. "To see hog and hunter charge each other bald-headed with a simultaneous squeal of rage is," he says youthfully, "always delightful." It is all, in these more strenuous times, most refreshing and even a little wistful in its naivete. The honest ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... singular thing that those poetical plays which are now written in England by the most advanced students of the drama follow exclusively the lines of Maeterlinck, and use verse and rhyme for the adornment of a profoundly tragic theme. But rhyme has a supreme appropriateness for the treatment of the higher comedy. The land of heroic comedy is, as it were, a paradise of lovers, in which it is not difficult to imagine that men could talk poetry all day long. It is far more conceivable ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... thought can pass through the mind of man, but its sound has at some time or other passed over his head with rustling pinions. On whatever question or author you speak, he is prepared to take up the theme with advantage—from Peter Abelard down to Thomas Moore, from the subtlest metaphysics to the politics of the Courier. There is no man of genius, in whose praise he descants, but the critic seems to stand above the author, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... reply, but merely requested that a lute should be brought him. The lute was brought; and he played such ravishing and tender melodies, that all the court were melted into tears. He then changed his theme, and played airs so sprightly, that he set the grave philosophers, sultan and all, dancing as fast as their legs could carry them. He then sobered them again by a mournful strain, and made them sob and sigh as if broken-hearted. The sultan, highly delighted with his powers, entreated ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the other. In the Phaedrus it is really a figure of speech in which the 'spiritual combat' of this life is represented. The majesty and power of the whole passage—especially of what may be called the theme or proem (beginning 'The mind through all her being is immortal')—can only be rendered very inadequately in ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... de la Rose" the rivalry between the Friars and the Parish Priests is the theme of much satire, evidently unfavourable to the former and favourable to the latter; but in England, where Langland likewise dwells upon the jealousy between them, it was specially accentuated by the assaults of Wyclif upon the Mendicant Orders. Wyclif's Simple Priests, who at ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... years of his life to the study. The most I can do is to name the architects of the most famous of the palaces and draw the reader's attention to the frequency with which the lovely Ducal gallery pattern recurs, like a theme in a fugue, until one comes to think the symbol of the city not the winged lion but a row of Gothic curved and pointed arches surmounted by circles containing equilateral crosses. The greatest names in Venetian architecture are ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... 1:11, 12. The atonement is the scarlet cord running through every page in the entire Bible. Cut the Bible anywhere, and it bleeds; it is red with redemption truth. It is said that one out of every forty-four verses in the New Testament deals with this theme, and that the death of Christ is mentioned in all one hundred and seventy-five times. When you add to these figures the typical and symbolical teaching of the Old Testament some idea is gained as to the important place which this doctrine ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... sequence impairs the picture's unity. In the second, though the objects are contiguous there is no subjective union, and in David's composition the formality of the decorative structure is inapplicable to the theme. ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore |
