"Theme" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... minutes later, he stumbled breathlessly into the school room, only to find that roll call had been finished and that "B" class was holding its English recitation. Miss Brown frowned and made a mark in the record book on her desk, and went on with the class work. Out came his theme pad and pencil. The fifteen minute study period was his for the composition of that letter and he ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... half of them may be reduced to three: that I am I, that you are you, and that there are other people dimly understood to be not quite the same as either. Wherever talk may range, it still runs half the time on these eternal lines. The theme being set, each plays on himself as on an instrument; asserts and justifies himself; ransacks his brain for instances and opinions, and brings them forth new-minted, to his own surprise and the admiration of his adversary. All natural talk is a festival of ostentation; ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hearts, made her presently forget the flattery that would have offended her in another. She turned the conversation, however, into general channels, and she talked of Italian poetry with a warmth and eloquence worthy of the theme. While they thus conversed, a new guest had arrived, who, from the spot where he stood, engaged with Lord Saxingham, fixed a steady and ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rose—warmed, expanded, or fell silent altogether—as the order of the year, the colours, the whole expression of things changed, gathering around the full mystic effulgence of the pontiff in his own person, while the sacred theme deepened at the great ecclesiastical seasons, when the aisles overflowed with a vast multitude, and like a court, combed, starched, rustling around him, Gaston and his fellows "served" Monseigneur—they, zealous, ubiquitous, more prominent than ever, though for the most ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... for the few pictures which belong to it are all inferior. However, studies for the figure exist dated 1508, so we may suppose it was a project brought back from Venice. His ill-success with this subject may remind us of Shakespeare's long pedantic exercise in rhyme on the same theme. The pictorial motive of Duerer's work is beautiful and worthy of a Greek: indeed it is identical with that of Watts' Psyche, of which the version in private hands is very superior to that in ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... could scarcely meet Mrs. Steel again without a word about the prospective story, which they had so often discussed together, and upon which he was at last free to embark; nor could he touch upon that theme without disclosing the new knowledge which would burn him until he did. Charles Langholm and Rachel Steel had two or three qualities in common: an utter inability to pretend was one, if you do not happen to think it ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... revolving his sensations. In another mood he would have called, them thoughts, perhaps, and marvelled at their immensity. The theme was Love and Death. One might have supposed, from his occasional mutterings at the pace regulated by the postillion, that he was burning with anxiety to catch the flying coach. He had forgotten it: forgotten that he was giving ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in the Commons was satisfactory. Peel was very much cheered. O'Connell spoke well, and was heard in perfect silence. Brougham made an ordinary speech; theme a bad one, violent. ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... forestalling and monopoly. As there is no enemy so bitter as the estranged friend, so of all the tyrants and tramplers upon the poor, there is none so fierce and reckless as the upstart that sprang from their ranks. The offensive pride of Jacques Coeur to his inferiors was the theme of indignant reproach in his own city, and his cringing humility to those above him was as much an object of contempt to the aristocrats into whose society he thrust himself. But Jacques did not care for the former, and to the latter ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... was earnest in my endeavor to have the poor of all classes enter these lands. On the political stump at every election, while having as my mission the political ascendancy of my party, I always felt it a duty to dwell impressively upon that theme. Upon asking all those living on their own lands to hold up their hands, the gleam of pride on the countenances of many of my colored auditors as, standing tiptoe, with hands at arms' length, was shared by me, and ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... one of its stories, noteworthy as an early attempt of an English author to write for an American juvenile public. She found her theme in the movement of emigration strong in England just then among the laboring people. No amount of discouragement and bitter criticism of the United States by the British press was sufficient to stem appreciably the tide of laborers that flowed ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... Ministerial exertions were also paralysed by another cause. A prevalent notion existed that there was a mysterious power about the court which worked to the detriment of the public good. This was a constant theme of invective among the opposition, and, it would seem, not without good reason. But there was another cause of obstruction to the measures formed by government. This was found in the democratical spirit, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... function of locomotion. This is especially true in regard to the members of the equine family, the most numerous and valuable of all the beasts of burden, and it naturally follows that with the horse for a subject of discussion the special topic and leading theme of inquiry, by an easy lapse, will become an inquest into the condition and efficiency of his power for usefulness as a carrier or traveler. There is a great deal of abstract interest in the study ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... stately Frankland House, whose romance was to interest Doris deeply a few years hence and to be a theme for poet and novelist. But now she was a good deal amused when her uncle told her of a Captain Kemble in the days of Puritan rule who, after a long sea voyage, was hurrying up the Square, when his wife, who had heard the vessel was sighted, started to go to the landing. As they met ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... tale, Socrates, is one of your sort, for love was the theme which occupied us—love after a fashion: Lysias has been writing about a fair youth who was being tempted, but not by a lover; and this was the point: he ingeniously proved that the non-lover should be accepted rather than ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... more awed than curious as the tale went on; it even seemed to her she was listening to a theme beyond her sphere, like some shameless eavesdropper at the curtains of a secret ceremonial. Once or twice she looked at her mother and at the Young Doctor, as though to reassure herself that she was not a vulgar intruder. It was far more impressive to her, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... circumstance has been known for some time to telegraph engineers. It has been patented several times over. It has formed the theme of scientific papers, which have been read both in France and in England. The explanation generally given of the advantage of uniting the coils in parallel is, I think, fallacious; namely that the "extra currents" (i.e., currents due ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... newly invented pianofortes of Silbermann which the king had bought, and also to try the organs of the churches of Potsdam. Frederick, whose musical reputation rested on a genuine if narrow basis, gave him a splendid theme on which to extemporize; and on that theme Bach afterwards wrote Das musikalische Opfer. Two years after this event his sight began to fail, and before long he shared the fate of Handel in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... not here to bandy quibbles and paradoxes with a girl who blunders over the greatest names in history. I am in earnest. I am treating a solemn theme seriously. I never said that the son of a man six feet high would be ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... am sliding 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, ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... troops ever did. The trouble seemed to be the lack of experience among the officers, which led them after a certain time to simply quit, without being particularly whipped, but because they had fought enough. Their authorities of the present day grow enthusiastic over their theme when telling of these victories, and speak with pride of the large sum of money they forced us to pay in the end. With us, now twenty years after the close of the most stupendous war ever known, we have writers ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a striking absurdity in supposing that a right of this kind does not exist, but we are reduced to the dilemma either of embracing that supposition, preposterous as it may seem, or of contravening or explaining away a provision, which has been of late a repeated theme of the eulogies of those who oppose the new Constitution; and the want of which, in that plan, has been the subject of much plausible animadversion, and severe criticism. If we are unwilling to impair ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... lights them with an insight so piercing, that the play made a deep impression when it appeared. This was also partly owing to the masterly way in which it was acted at the Artists' Theatre in Moscow. The theme is, as usual, the greyness of provincial life, and the night is lit for his little group of characters by a flash of passion so intense that the darkness which succeeds it ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... inside information. The men who were ranged in front of the bar, behind which half a dozen attendants in white aprons busily waited on their wants, usually talked oil and nothing but oil. To-day they had another theme. The same subject engrossed the groups scattered here and there throughout the ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... of evidence upon which many judges look askance—that sort of evidence which is circumstantial and that sort which purely is hearsay. In this connection, and departing for the space of a paragraph or so from the main theme, I am reminded of the incident through which a certain picturesque gentleman of the early days in California acquired a name which he was destined to wear forever after, and under which his memory is still affectionately encysted in the traditions of our great Far West. I refer to the late ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... a bird from a net, and the brooding sadness began to fade from her face. The preacher had come down from the pulpit with a certain exhilaration, as of duty done. He was inspired to hope, and even certainty, by the greatness of the theme. Helen should see the truth, his silence should no longer mislead her, she should believe in the justice of God. He had forgotten his sin of cowardice in the onward-sweeping wave of his convictions; he seemed to yield himself up to the grasp of truth, and lost even personal remorse in the contemplation ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... and dame, long since gathered to their rest, were placed masterpieces of the Italian and Flemish art, which generation after generation had slowly accumulated, till the Beaufort Collection had become the theme of connoisseurs and ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... delicious hints Of fairest face, and rarest blooms; You Spirit of a darling Dream Which links itself with every theme And thought of mine by surf or stream, In glens—or ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... found color and form for his canvas; the romanticist, theme and character for his story. In the deep-voiced caverns of these towering cliffs lived the Pirates of Penzance. The solitude of yonder St. Malo inspired Chateaubriand with his immortal "Monks of the West"; and Morlix, just east of Brest, ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... predominant force in the twentieth century. Its existence and some of its consequences have become an all-embracing theme for thought and discussion. They have put into the hands of present-day humanity the ideas, experiments and experiences needed for transforming nature, rebuilding social institutions and practices and opening the ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... caught at her words. "Before you ordered me to smoke," he said, "you told me to give you some advice. Your first command must have prior claim." He grasped unhesitatingly at the less risky theme. ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... see and talk with her again. Ethie knew she meant to be kind, and believed she was sincere in her professions of friendship. At another time she might have been glad to see her; but now, when she guessed what the theme of conversation would be, she felt a thrill of terror as the good woman came in, knitting in hand, and announced her intention of sitting through the chapel exercises. She was not going to prayer meeting that night, she said, for Dr. Foster was absent, and they were always stupid when he was away. ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... a very happy performance, and Roderick had risen to the level of his subject. It was thoroughly a portrait, and not a vague fantasy executed on a graceful theme, as the busts of pretty women, in modern sculpture, are apt to be. The resemblance was deep and vivid; there was extreme fidelity of detail and yet a noble simplicity. One could say of the head that, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... More seeking to stem the secularisation of the Church, are like those who would save men's lives from the avalanche by preaching to the mountain on the text of the sixth commandment. The efforts of good men to avert a sure but cruel fate are the truest theme of the Tragic Muse; and it is possible to represent Henry's reign as one long nightmare of "truth for ever on the scaffold, wrong for ever on the throne"; for Henry VIII. embodied an inevitable movement of politics, while Fisher and More stood ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... the writer his theme. People who have not lived, no matter how grammatically they may write, have no real message. Robert Louis had now severed the umbilical cord. He was going to live his own life, to earn his own living. He could ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... he set before them "The glorious Gospel of the blessed God." He said little of the dead, only that he was a sinner saved by grace; and then he set forth the glory of that wondrous grace to the living. "Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" was his theme—victory over sin, the world, death. The Gospel of Christ full, free, sufficient, was clearly set before the ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... a shark and dog-fish wait Under an Atlantic Isle, For the negro ship, whose freight Is the theme of their debate, Wrinkling their red ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... entangle himself with affairs of this life, that he might please Him who had called him to be a soldier;" and the reader of his life will find that this unworldly man took similar pains to avoid wealth, which others do to acquire it. Perhaps I may be excused for dwelling a moment on this theme, when I state that one of the latest public acts of my beloved and lamented father-in-law, James Cropper, was to cause John Woolman's auto-biography and writings to be re-edited, and a large and cheap ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... as his theme that trait in human nature which leads men and women to seek always the lime light, to endeavor always to be protagonists even at the expense of the truth. His book is a study of that most interesting and pertinent type in modern life, the sentimentalist, the man whose emotions are interesting to ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... made overnight, and should include a review of the period since the last Communion was made, prayers for pardon and new resolves, if possible a short meditation on the essential meaning of the Sacrament, and the selection of some particular theme to be the focus of ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... writer whose pen would have been able worthily to set forth the delights of the first few days at Bodyfauld—Jean Paul. Nor would he have disdained to make the gladness of a country school-boy the theme of that pen. Indeed, often has he done so. If the writer has any higher purpose than the amusement of other boys, he will find the life of a country boy richer for his ends than that of a town boy. For example, he has a ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... with my humour for a space to foist the man's personality upon you as yours and call you scientific—that most abusive word. But here he is, indisputably, with me in Utopia, and lapsing from our high speculative theme into halting but intimate confidences. He declares he has not come to Utopia to ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... travellers at an early time, as well as of their tenacious vitality. The first mention of these mythical people seems to have been made by Greek travellers in Scythia as early as the seventh century before Christ; and they furnished Aristeas of Proconnesus, somewhat later, with the theme of his poem "Arimaspeia," which has perished, all except six verses quoted by Longinus. See Mure's Literature of Antient Greece, vol. iv. p. 68. Thence the notion of the Arimaspians seems to have passed to Herodotus (iii. 116; ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... humour) by the unfilial Sam. Down at the "Man-o'-War," in the bar-parlour, for seven days it formed the sole topic of discussion; and Mr. Moggridge (who ought to have respected Sophia's father) even wrote a humorous ode upon the theme, beginning— ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... four Monastic Conversations the first and the last are concerned with the question whether monks should be allowed to read the books of the Gentiles, that is to say, the classics. He handles his theme sensibly and liberally. Piety, of course, is to come before eloquence, and there is to be choice of books. Anything of loose tendency is to be forbidden, but he would encourage the reading of Cicero, Seneca, and Aristotle's Ethics. The last was only accessible to himself, he says regretfully, ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... methods, I now find it difficult to write with absolute accuracy upon things in general. But I have found this to be the case in all my travels. What is, or seems to be, accurate to-day of any given thing in a given place is wrong tomorrow under seemingly the same conditions; and although no theme could be more tempting, and no subject offer wider scope for ingenious hypothesis and profound generalization, one has to forego much temptation to "color" if he would be accurate of anything he writes of the Chinese. Eminent sinologues agree as to the impossibility ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... theme was Margaret, whom he outspokenly worshipped. He rhapsodized over her in great stretches, calling me to testify with him to her divineness, and rating me soundly if, in the bitterness of my heart, I was a little laggard in my devotions. And, at irregular intervals, like Selah ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... laboured long and carefully. Like 'Romeo and Juliet,' the play exists in two forms, and there is reason to believe that in the earlier form, in each instance, we possess an imperfect report of Shakespeare's first treatment of his theme,"[4] We know also that Shakespeare had before him, at least as early as 1589, an old play in which "a ghost cried dismally like an oyster wife, 'Hamlet! Revenge!'" and Shakespeare worked upon this until from what was probably a rather sorry ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... was interpreted upon the bills as a musical presentment of the mythological story of Orpheus and Eurydicc. That did very well as a figure to represent it, but it was taken by the audience as a theme; and they all fixed their eyes upon the explanation, thereby to judge the symphony. It was grand, and full of his genius. It was another of those earnest, hopeless questionings of Destiny. The very first bars were full of this. ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... 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 ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... daughter of any Choctaw or Sioux Indian. Of course, not all the Irish, even of the wretchedly poor, are thus unskilled and helpless, but a deplorably large class is; and it is this class whose awkwardness and utter ignorance are too often made the theme of unthinking levity and ridicule when the poor exile from home and kindled lands in New York and undertakes housework or anything else for a living. The "awkwardness," which means only inability to do what one has never even seen done, is not confined to any class ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... unblameable Scotsmen who need no forgiveness.' His literary skill, his thorough acquaintance with Scottish ecclesiastical life, his religious insight, his chastened enthusiasm, have enabled the author to produce an excellent piece of work.... It is a noble and inspiring theme, and Mr. Taylor Innes has handled ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... realism, and common sense of Horace, the cultured man of the world, the biting wit, the astonishing descriptive power, and the masterly rhetoric of Juvenal. We care little for the greater part of Persius' disquisition[242] on the trite theme of the schools, 'what should be the object of man's prayers to heaven?' when we have read the tenth satire of Juvenal. There is the same commonplace theme in both, and there is perhaps less originality to be found in the general ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... was a sympathetic attack, concurrent with Allenby's great Gaza offensive. This campaign is the theme of the ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... creations, from their very nature, must always be inferior to the thought they are meant to express; by no means can they go beyond it. This truth is nowhere more striking than in the art of Greece. Fortunately we are there able to see how a single theme is treated, in the first place, in poetry,—the interpreter of the popular beliefs,—and afterwards in art; we can discover how Phidias and Praxiteles, to speak only of sculptors, treated the types created by Homer and Hesiod. In the case of Chaldaea we have no such opportunity. ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... my friend often spoke, for it was a theme on which he always delighted to dwell. I have never seen any one whose reverence for woman's gifts was so strong, and who appreciated with such sincerity the moral loveliness of her perfected nature. It was about this time that the birth of a second ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... henceforth the pride of engineers, the model of architects, the subject of artists, the theme of poets, the Mecca of pilgrims, the eighth wonder ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... different nature were the "Inventions from the Book of Job," which are pronounced the most remarkable series of etchings on a Scriptural theme that have been produced since the days of Rembrandt and Albrecht Duerer. Of these drawings we have copies in the second volume of the "Life," from which one can gather something of their grandeur, their bold originality, their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... history, as laid down by the chroniclers, was familiar to the authors of the tales and heroic ballads, one of two things must be admitted, either that the events and kings did succeed one another in the order mentioned by the chroniclers, or that what the chroniclers laid down was then taken as the theme of song by the bards, and illuminated and ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... smiled upon Clara, and made a deprecating gesture with his left hand. Nothing seemed to pierce his ironclad composure. A moment afterward he returned to the theme, and recited some verses called "Stonewall Jackson's Way." He recited them very well. One stanza lingers in ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... condition in life. In all these events, the religious man traces the hand of retributive justice; the philosopher regards the nullity of sublunary grandeur; the historian finds matter for serious reflection; the poet for affecting narrative; the moralist for his tale; and the school-boy for his theme.—Ordericus Vitalis sums the whole up admirably. I should spoil his language were I to attempt to translate it; I give it you, therefore, in his own words:—"Non fictilem tragoediam venundo, non loquaci comoedia cachinnantibus parasitis faveo: sed studiosis lectoribus varios eventus ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... part, and by no means the major part, of the educational process, and in which we have distinguished and separated the home element in the boarding-school from the schooling proper, there still remains something more than a simple theme in schooling. After all these eliminations we remain with a mixed function and mixed traditions, and it is necessary now to look a little into the nature of ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... happiness I raise my glass, The goal of every human, The hope of every clan and class And every man and woman. The daydreams of the urchin there, The sweet theme of the maiden's prayer, The strong man's one ambition, The sacred prize of mothers sweet, The tramp of soldiers on the street Have all the selfsame mission. Life here is nothing more or less Than just a quest ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... to follow up the theme in lookin' about him onto the magnificent, seen, and a seein' the throngs of men and wimmen growin' more and more denser, and every crowd on 'em that swept by us, and round us, and before us, a growin' more gorgus in dress, or so it seemed to us. Gemms of every gorgus coler ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case for the perfectly legitimate, I believe, purpose of bringing it home to the minds and bosoms of the readers. There it was no longer a matter of sincere colouring. It was like another art altogether. That sombre theme had to be given a sinister resonance, a tonality of its own, a continued vibration that, I hoped, would hang in the air and dwell on the ear after the last note ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... the modern painter are so different from those which the older masters met, that our latter-day painting offers fewer examples of the Mother and Child. Dagnan-Bouveret, in France, however, has treated the subject in such a way as to show that there yet remains new presentations of the world-old theme. To-day the painter has to retain the sentiment of his subject through a network of technical difficulties, and the gracious virginal figure which Monsieur Dagnan-Bouveret has painted does this measurably well; while ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... eight days in Dresden, the loud theme of Gazetteers and rumors; the admired of two classes, in all Countries: of the many who admire success, and also of the few who can understand what it is to deserve success. Among his own Countrymen, this last Winter has kindled all their admirations to the flaming ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... directions, romantically hold. Fortified by thought of the Miss Minetts' agitated interest in all which might befall her, she indulged in imaginary conversations with that great proconsul, her employer—the theme of which, purged of lyrical redundancies, reduced itself to the somewhat crude announcement that "your daughter, yes, may, alas, not impossibly be taken from you; ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... evergreen tree with many branches. This is a young shoot. It is part of an old theme, ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... taken upon 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 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to knowing the adversary and his environment are examined, an emerging theme is the clear shift from technology developments that once resided within our government to those driven by commercial demands. For example, the information technologies used by U.S. intelligence agencies are ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... Heraclitus, and Zeno; and I saw the good collector of the qualities, Dioscorides, I mean; and I saw Orpheus, Tully, and Linus, and moral Seneca, Euclid the geometer, and Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Avicenna, Galen, and Averrhoes, who made the great comment. I cannot report of all in full, because the long theme so drives me that many times speech ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... spoken to 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 to it. I have had in my mind no thought of any immediate or particular ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... eighth), while through the fields they walk'd, Their children shouting by the way. 'Not careless of the gift of song, Nor out of love with noble fame, I, meditating much and long What I should sing, how win a name, Considering well what theme unsung, What reason worth the cost of rhyme, Remains to loose the poet's tongue In these last days, the dregs of time, Learn that to me, though born so late, There does, beyond desert, befall (May my great fortune make me great!) The first of themes, sung last of all. In green and undiscover'd ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... may be things which some folk nowadays find it hard to believe. But surely the theme of each is true. It is not hard to see how gentle bodies who had no other friends should make comrades of the little folk in fur and fins and feathers. For, as St. Francis knew so well, all the creatures ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... must arrive at an interpretation essentially defective. Both modes of investigation are indispensable for acquiring a full comprehension of the expressions employed and the thoughts intended. But to be fitted to understand the theme in its historical aspect which, in this case, for purposes of criticism, is by far the more important one must be intelligently acquainted with the Hebrew personification of the Wisdom, also of the Word, of God; ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them on. Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat. Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat's tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. Corpus paradisum. Corncrake croaker: ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... in the story, the more rapidly we read. Attention is sustained here, and still it moves. Sustained attention is not glued to one point, by any means, but is simply confined to a given object or theme, within which its motion may be ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... this theme, Toby told her an anecdote about one of the other fellows at his work. Sally listened with a breathless interest that was only half-feigned. She wanted him to think she understood. She wanted him to like ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... The secondary theme became the most important part of the book, because the remedies he then proposed for his country's ills became the guidelines for his own policies when he returned to Australia. Through the influences which he ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... 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 ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... good. The poet perceived instantly he had a theme upon which to build his verse, and hastily bidding BOB "good-by," he flew exultingly to his paternal abode, rushed up the garret stairs, seized his goose-quill, and amid the tumultuous beatings of his over-charged heart and throbbing ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... out some of the characteristics of each of his four periods. Why is Shakespeare often called a great dramatic artist? How did his audience and manner of presentation of his plays modify his treatment of a dramatic theme? ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... society, from top to bottom, had come under the famous "Champion of Order," the dreaded Nicholas. That Czar had been in the habit of speaking of Turkey as the Sick Man. Russia was now shown to be the Sick Man. Neither did St. Petersburg, Moscow or the other chief towns, alone serve as a theme for this kind of semi-political literature. "Provincial Sketches" also came out in a similar strain. These publications obtained an ever-increasing success among those classes—few in number, it is true—which were able to read. A whole "Revelation Literature" sprang up, dealing ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... to avoid him. And his opinions, such an unfolding! You never caught him looking with admiration, oh no! I might have laid a wilderness of charms on the floor, at his very feet, and he would have brushed them all away with indifference. His mind revolved around a weightier theme than any 'lady of fashion;' like a newly discovered moon, he flew around the earth, and with miraculous speed. He stopped in China to say 'Confucius;' in India, to say 'Brahma;' in Persia, to say 'Ormuzd;' and so on around. My dear Lenox, if you had asked him whether Ormuzd was at peace ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... you. I could see that the last two Sundays you were preaching right at him." He had vainly hoped she had not noticed this, though he had not concealed from her that his talk with Hilbrook had suggested his theme. "What are you going to do about ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... two guests, who were eating with appetite from the well-filled platters placed before them, and he began to speak as though taking up a theme which had ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... solemn shadows round us; the changing moon shall hear our confession, and a glorious congregation of stars join in our prayers! Think you our talk of love can ever be exhausted! Oh, no! One smile from Louisa were a theme for centuries—the dream of life will be over ere I can exhaust the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... are not arguing a case—we are recording facts. They did cheer, and cheer with a will, too. It was not, perhaps, taking the view of either side, Federal or Confederate, but in admiration of the skill, pluck, and daring of the Alabama, her captain, and her crew, who now afford a general theme of admiration for the world ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... have handled a 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 the truthfulness ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... with us into the one-night-stand country called Sleepland, a practical working nightmare that we use again and again, no matter how varied the theme or setting of our dream-drama. Your surgeon, tossing uneasily on his bed, sees himself cutting to remove an appendix, only to discover that that unpopular portion of his patient's anatomy already bobs in alcoholic glee in a bottle on the top shelf ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... fantastic stores. Then is the time to penetrate into the inmost labyrinths of a subject, to indulge in pleasing discursiveness, as the fancy leads one, and yet to return again and again with renewed relish to the central theme. Such talks as these, with no overshadowing anxiety upon the mind, held on breezy uplands or in pleasant country lanes, make the moments, indeed, to which the mind, in the sad mood which remembers the days that are gone, turns with that sorrowful desolation of which Dante ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... or hasten its overthrow. Its determination to restore friendly relations with the United States, and to receive our minister to negotiate for the settlement of this question, was violently assailed, and was made the great theme of denunciation against it. The Government of General Herrera, there is good reason to believe, was sincerely desirous to receive our minister; but it yielded to the storm raised by its enemies, and on the 21st of December refused to accredit Mr. Slidell upon the most ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... flings out at random, a person who had no faculty but memory might make a brilliant Book. That Minerva has just published her Work on PHYSICS: not wholly bad. It was Konig"—whom we know, and whose late tempest in a certain teapot—"that dictated the theme to her: she has adjusted, ornamented here and there with some touch picked from Voltaire at her Suppers. The Chapter on Space is pitiable; the"—in short, she is still raw in the Pure Sciences, and should ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... touched his harp, and in the perfect silence was heard the strains of the mermaid's song, and through it the pleasant ripple of summer waters on the pebbly beach. Then the theme was changed, and on the air was borne the measured sweep of countless oars and the swish of waters around the prows of contending galleys, and the breezy voices of the sailors and the sea-bird's cry. Then his theme was changed to the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... New-England study, as do so many of my tribe, to peruse the "Atlantic," I wonder whether, like its namesake, hospitable to many persons and things, it will for once let me write as well as read, and launch from my own calling a theme on its bosom. Our cloth has been worn so long in the world, I doubt how far it may suit with new fashions in fine company-parlors; but, seeing room is so cordially made for some of my brethren, as the Reverend Mr. Wilbur and "The Country Parson," to keep up the dignity of the profession, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... times holds a mesmeric spell for the brain And a tense excitation for nerves; and the shriek Of the engine compels one to lean near to speak Or to list to his neighbor. Formality flies With the smoke of the train and floats off to the skies. Roger led his companion to talk; and the theme Which he chose, was herself, her life story. The dream Of the previous night was forgotten. The charm Of ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... gratitude, for he had robbed the inheritance to the utmost of his power, commanded, from the wild decision of his life, the savage respect of his successor. In vain Mrs. Cadurcis would pour forth upon this, the favourite theme for her wrath and her lamentations, all the bitter expressions of her rage and woe. Plantagenet had never imbibed her prejudices against the departed, and had often irritated his mother by maintaining that the late lord was ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... at this burst of feeling, so singular at such a moment, the young sailor was at a loss for a reply; but as his duty was uppermost in his thoughts, he still dwelt on the theme ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... are we to expect from that quarter, concerning our bank-laws and our corn-laws; our systems of credit and of commerce; our endless disquisitions on the balance of power and of parties, on the rights of suffrage and of conscience. While we reserve to the theorist the privilege of adorning his theme by allusions to the polity of Lycurgus and Numa, we are sensible that the practical statesman who trusts himself to such examples will be constantly liable to be deluded by false parallels and imperfect analogies. A voice, like that which is said to have startled the mariner ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... theme, and I revere; I hear your precepts tried; Must I confess I also hear A sermon at ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... there is an old saying, or a proverb—"Griefs lose themselves in telling," and a greater truism was never uttered. The ice once broken, touching his feelings with regard to Sibylla, Lionel found comfort in making it his theme of conversation, of complaint, although his hearer and confidant was only Lucy Tempest. A strange comfort, but yet a natural one, as those who have suffered as Lionel did may be able to testify. At the time of the blow, when Sibylla deserted him with coolness so ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... secret heart that his own son Harry, whose acquaintance we have already formed, is worth a dozen young Browns. To him, then, not quite an impartial judge, Mr. Brown unbosoms his dissatisfaction, presenting to him his son's Theme as an experimentum crucis between him and Mr. White. Mr. Black reads it through once, and then a second time; and then ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... that Poesy is on the wane, And that the Muses tune their lyres in vain? 'Mid all the treasures of romantic story, When thought was fresh and fancy in her glory, Has ever Art found out a richer theme, More dark a shadow, or more soft a gleam, Than fall upon the scene, sketched carelessly, In the ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... Rang," religious exaltation is the mood to be created, and the divine beauty of charity is the main theme. ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... spirited appeal to his audience not to waste regrets on defects of stage machinery, but to bring to the observation of his piece their highest powers of imagination, whereby alone can full justice be done to a majestic theme. The central topic of the choric speech is the essential limitations of all scenic appliances. The dramatist reminds us that the literal presentation of life itself, in all its movement and action, lies outside the ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... "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, she becomes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... State [Rutherford B. Hayes and William M. Evarts], are between us. [Laughter.] For here is a special occasion for the application of the policy of peace. [Laughter.] I therefore reserve what few remarks I shall make upon this special theme ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... sold for five pounds, you are believed to have received about four thousand. Horace was wrong, mediocre poets may exist (now and then), and he was a wise man who first spoke of aurea mediocritas. At length the great work was achieved, a work thrice blessed in its theme, that divine Maiden to whom France owes all, and whom you and Voltaire have recompensed so strangely. In folio, in italics, with a score of portraits and engravings, and culs de lampe, the great work was ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... paid to English influence and action throughout the struggle by those Continental writers who had dealt imaginatively with Napoleon's career, seemed always to leave room for a new handling of the theme which should re-embody the features of this influence in their true proportion; and accordingly, on a belated day about six years back, the following drama was outlined, to be taken up now and then ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... in June I shall hear nothing but this tune:— Whether I like Long's "Vashti," or Like Leslie's "Naughty Kitty" more; With all that critics, right or wrong, Have said of Leslie and of Long.... No. If you value my esteem, I beg you'll take another theme; Paint me some pictures, if you will, But spare me ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... was disappointed in that superstition. I couldn't find anything to write an article about, the first day. Then it occurred to me that inasmuch as it was the 22nd of April, 1864, the next morning would be the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's birthday—and what better theme could I want than that? I got the Cyclopaedia and examined it, and found out who Shakespeare was and what he had done, and I borrowed all that and laid it before a community that couldn't have been better prepared for instruction about ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... heir to the English Crown, and used as pretext for an abortive rising against KING JAMES I. You can see that in practised hands (as here) and decorated with a pretty trimming of sentiment, abductions, witch-finding and other appropriate accessories, this furnishes a theme rich in romance. Perhaps I was a thought disappointed that more was not made of the actual conspiracy, and that, having started "too near the throne," the tale subsequently gave it so wide a berth. But this is no great fault. I can witness that Mrs. WILSON FOX has at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... the type of Bishop Barlow—despised and shocked a people they never understood. The sanctity of St David's, the theme of the best poets of the Middle Ages and the goal of generations of pilgrims, was described by its Protestant bishop—who unroofed the palace in order to get the lead—as a desolate angle frequented only by vagabond pilgrims. A Welshman is not appealed to by what is an insult to his country ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... length, because every great writer of fiction must pass through the entire mental process. The fiction-writer differs from other seekers for the truth, not in the method of his thought, but merely in its subject-matter. His theme is human life. It is some truth of human life that he endeavors to discover, to understand, and to announce; and in order to complete his work, he must apply to human life an attention of thought which is successively scientific, philosophic, and artistic. He must first ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... May, "you mustn't bore my cousin with the Post-Office. You know that when you once begin on that theme ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... theme had all the desired effect upon Peregrine, who not only considered it as a piece of unmannerly abuse leveled against his own conduct, but also a retrospective insult on the memory of his grandfather, who, as he had been informed, was in his lifetime more noted for his cunning than candour ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Vergil was essentially a poet of rural life, he was especially fitted to be the national poet, since the Roman life was founded on the agricultural country life. He also chose a theme which particularly appealed to the patriotism of the Romans. For this reason, the poem was immediately received into popular favor, and was made a text-book of the Roman youths. It is often said of Vergil by way of reproach, that his work was ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... "Sarcognomy has been a source of wonderful aid to me; I cannot give in words my estimation thereof."—G. P. B., M. D. "It seems that since our beloved Denton's departure you are almost left alone to fight the great battle of Psychometry. If you will make Psychometry the leading theme in your JOURNAL, you will do more to hasten that dawn of a higher civilization that your noble science is destined to usher in than all other sciences combined."—DR. A. B. D. "I am delighted with it. I send for ten more ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... creative power by which or whom the world was formed. Thus "God is love" is a sublime doctrine which philosophy revealed to the Greeks, and the emphatic and continuous and assured declaration of which was the central theme of the revelation made by Jesus, the Christ, who resolved all the Law and the Gospel into the element of Love,—fatherly on the part of God, filial and fraternal ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... taste frankly and freely the innocent joys of life; to renounce those joys and accept privation, suffering, death, when duty calls,—such purposes and dispositions as these are unquestionably a true rule of life. The main theme to be illustrated in these pages is that this ideal and rule is in itself an all-sufficient principle. Fidelity to the best we know, and search always for the best, is the natural road to peace and joy, the sure road to victory. It is the key which opens to man the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... don't believe that you know whether a woman has a figure! You might write a Symphonie Colossale with Alice and her brood as the theme." ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... (like a fourth sphere resting on three others in contact) to build up the Ideal Pyramid is a discourse on the Relation of the two branches (Mathematics and Physics) to, their action and reaction upon, one another, a magnificent theme, with which it is to be hoped that some future President of Section A will crown the edifice and make the Tetralogy (symbolizable by ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... mental vision. But this is clear and broad of range—as broad, indeed, as that of Dante, Milton and Goethe, sweeping beyond the horizon of eschatology and mounting, like Francis Thompson's, even to the Throne of Grace itself when the theme ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... left to themselves, discussed the theme that the captain's words had suggested, and were rather ashamed to see how vague their knowledge of the famous battle was. So, at Alec's suggestion, Norton agreed to read the account of the fight as given in the captain's book; and grouped about Hugh's hammock, ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... a lyric, having for its theme the pangs of despised love and the faithlessness of the fair. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... loose condition, they got him in a room, and commenced conversing about delirium tremens, directing all their remarks to him, and telling him what fearful objects, such as snakes and rats, were always seen by the victims of this horrible disease. When the conversation had waxed high on this theme, one of the number stepped out of the room, and from a trap which was at hand let a large rat into the room. None of his friends appeared to see it, but the young man who was to be the victim seized a chair and hurled it at the rat, completely ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various |
