"Touchstone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the cause of Labour led him to make the Factory Acts a touchstone of character. To the end of his days his view of public men was largely governed by the part which they had played in that great controversy. "Gladstone voted against me," was a stern sentence not seldom on his lips. "Bright was the most malignant opponent the Factory Bill ever ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... species. The test would be an admirable one, if, in the first place, it were always practicable to apply it, and if, in the second, it always yielded results susceptible of a definite interpretation. Unfortunately, in the great majority of cases, this touchstone for species ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... The response to this must be the touchstone of their lives. A—half dozen words might alter all the future, might be the watch word to the end of all things. Involuntarily her heart fashioned the response he ought to give—"I shall have you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is the Forest of Arden. Touchstone. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I. When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content. Rosalind. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old, in solemn talk. As You Like It. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... things, Langland thunders anathema. Lack of sincerity, all the shapes and sorts of "faux semblants," or "merveilleux semblants," as Rutebeuf said, fill him with inextinguishable hatred. In shams and "faux semblants" he sees the true source of good and evil, the touchstone of right and wrong, the main difference between the worthy and the unworthy. He constantly recurs to the subject by means of his preachings, epigrams, portraits, caricatures; he broadens, he magnifies and multiplies his figures and his precepts, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... critical moment. Russia must be made to rise at once from the metaphysical to the positivist stage of intellectual development; metaphysical reasoning and romantic sentiment must be rigorously discarded; and everything must be brought to the touchstone of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... impossible for me to make use of a good, white, perfectly clean sheet of paper; gray old leaves, even if scribbled over on one side already, charmed me most, just as if my awkwardness had feared the touchstone of a white ground. Nor were any of my drawings quite finished; and how should I have executed a whole, which indeed I saw with my eyes, but did not comprehend, and how an individual object, which I had neither skill nor patience ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... set up house in that fashion, and make love to some delicately-nurtured miss, win her affections, and bring her home to such a spot. Wouldn't that be a touchstone of affection, Dick?' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Brentwoods were not rich, as riches are measured in millions; but they lived in their own house in the Back Bay wilderness, moved in Boston's older substantial circle, and, in a world where success, economic or other, is in some sort the touchstone, were many social planes ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... most delicate goodness, have nowhere been more prominent than in the private existence of those devoted to the public mimicry of men and women. Contact with the stage, almost throughout its history, presents itself as a kind of touchstone, to bring out the bizarrerie, the theatrical tricks and ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... Divine Blessed Exhortations to true Repentance and Amendment, as also Plaine Instructions concerning the highly worthy and precious Knowledge of the Divine and Natural Wisdome; together with a Right Touchstone or Triall of these Times, for an Introduction to the Author's other Writings: published in English for the good of the sincere Lovers of true Christianitie, by I. S.[2]" (I have only a MS. copy ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... influence. The divine right of kings, and the theory that power sprang from the ruler, gradually yielded to the democratic principle of political equality and the origination of power in the people. Civil liberty became the touchstone of good government, instead of centralization of power and consolidation. General eligibility to office grew into vogue in the place of the ancient mode, which practically limited the selection ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... passage in his "Bartholomew Fair" which I feel sure is meant as a skit upon the relations we find in the Sonnets. In Act V, scene iii, there is a puppet-show setting forth "the ancient modern history of Hero and Leander, otherwise called the Touchstone of true Love, with as true a trial of Friendship between Damon and Pythias, two faithful friends o' the Bankside." Hero is a "wench o' the Bankside," and Leander swims across the Thames to her. Damon and Pythias meet at her lodgings, and abuse each other violently, only ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... "Reconstruction," in the October number of the "London Quarterly Review," makes a statement very pertinent to this matter; "The economic, political and social factors in human life are so inextricably entangled that if we accept quality of life and not mere power or wealth as the touchstone of national success we dare not, even in the consideration of economic or political questions, lose sight of the ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... characteristic of Bentham's teaching. It was not the bare appeal to utility, but the attempt to follow the clue of utility systematically and unflinchingly into every part of the subject. This one doctrine gives the touchstone by which every proposed measure is to be tested; and which will give to his system not such unity as arises from the development of an abstract logical principle, but such as is introduced into the physical sciences ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... was one of those favorites of society who are allowed Touchstone's license. He had just as little wish to reform, and just as much wish to abuse society as society has to be reformed and abused. He was a dark, bright-eyed young artist with a silky moustache. He had lived much in ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... 184: The name means "Turk," and has served as a touchstone for the dullness of commentators. To the Northmen a "Southman" would naturally be a German, and why should a German be called a Turk? or how should these Northmen happen to have had a Turk in their company? Mr. Laing suggests that he may have been a Magyar. Yes; ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... by the weary men that are left, if they choose to insist upon it. They have shown the same bravery, endurance, self-sacrifice, resource, and grim determination as the men. In every war, it may be argued, women have displayed the same spirit and the same qualities, proving that they needed but the touchstone of opportunity to reveal the splendor of their endowment, but treated by man, as soon as peace was restored, as the same old ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... great pursuit of it on every side, and no truer or more needful instinct has been given to Man, but he fails to use it in the way intended. This world is a Touchstone, a Finding-place for God. Whoever will obey the law of finding God from this world instead of waiting to try and do it from the next, he, and he only, will ever grasp and take into himself that fugitive mysterious unseen Something ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... soon come to a work, before which we find indeed no critical essay, but which disdains to shrink from the touchstone of the severest critic; and which certainly, as I remember to have heard you say, if it contains some of the worst, contains also some of the best things in ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... not to say forced—the fun of physical incongruity and exaggeration. But in the Belle Helene the fun, easy and flowing, is of a very high quality, and it has root in mental, not physical, incongruity. Here indeed is the humorous touchstone of a whole system of government and of theology. And, allowing for the variations made with comic intent, it is altogether Greek in spirit—so Greek, in fact, that I doubt whether any one who has ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... bestir themselves just as the soldier rushes to arms when the tempest sounds. But how different is the result. The only question is how to find out subterfuges for escaping. I say this in regard to the greater part; for persecution is a true touchstone by which God ascertains who are His. And few are so faithful as to be prepared to meet ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... women steal to rendezvous by night Through darkness that a needle might divide, Show them the road with lightning-flashes bright As golden streaks upon the touchstone's side— But rain and thunder not, ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... and plants; while even lowly forms of life exhibit more or less characteristic phases when they reach their adult stage. But, of life's beginnings, the microscope is as futile as a kind scientific touchstone for distinguishing animals from plants as is power of movement, or shape, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... havoc among the revenues of sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil from attractive superstitions, are working as actively in literature as in society. The credulity of one writer, or the partiality of another, finds as powerful a touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticism of a temperate class of antagonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church. History and tradition, whether of ancient or comparatively ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... of mere adventures as contrasted to the observation and dissection of character and manners we find in the true "novel." Rather be it said that it is one in which the hidden soul is made patent under the touchstone of blood-stirring incidents, of hairbreadth risks, of recklessness or fierceness. There are soaring passions, secrets of the innermost heart, that can only be set free in desperate situations—and those situations are not found in the tenor in ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... "It's from Lady Touchstone. I was at school with her niece. They live at Bell Hammer, a beautiful place about five miles from here. You're included, of course. I saw her last week, so she knows all about you. It's because of her niece's birthday. Only ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... woods, where we worshipped "blushing sixteen" in dainty boots and white muslin. There, too, we met a match for sighing Orlando,—mirrored in the water; there, too, some diluted Jaques may have "moralized" the excursion for next day's "Courier," and some lout of a Touchstone (there are always such in picnics) passed the ices, made poor puns, and won more than his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... found waiting upon God, is the thriving one; the best way to be assured of our election is to examine our state with the touchstone of truth, the Scriptures. The elect of God know Christ savingly, esteem him precious, and obey him cheerfully from love ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... justification. Hand all your accounts over to free grace. And if you have any bands of apprehension in your death, recollect that your apprehensions are not canonical.' And the dying man answered: 'There is nothing that I have done that can stand the touchstone of God's justice. Christ is my all, and ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... Egidio's amenities were mainly exercised on the mill-hands composing his parish proved the genuineness of his gift. It is easier to simulate gentility among gentlemen than among navvies; and the plain man is a touchstone who draws out all ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... this test may be rejected. Morals, it may be urged, is the touchstone of civilisation, not art. Well, take morals. The question is a large one; but, summarily, where do the Japanese fail, as compared with the Western nations? Is patriotism the standard? In this respect what nation can compete with them? Is ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... and facility that try men and bring out the good that is in them, so much as trial and difficulty. Adversity is the touchstone of character. As some herbs need to be crushed to give forth their sweetest odor, so some natures need to be tried by suffering to evoke the excellence that is in them. Hence trials often unmask virtues and bring to light ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... miss the use. He could not, it is true, shield his legs from the insidious attacks of such sneaking blasts as will always find out the undefended spots; but his great heart was so well-to-do in the inside of him, that, unlike Touchstone, his spirits not being weary, he cared not for his legs. The worst storm in the world could not have made that heart quail. For, think! there had just been the strong, the well-dressed, the learned, the wise, the altogether ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve. But since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the proof and touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a Grecian (or in the first form) at Christ's Hospital, where I was deputy Grecian; and the same subordination and deference to him I have preserved through a life-long acquaintance. Great in his writings, he was greatest in his conversation. ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... [658] Gold is usually melted in the employer's presence, who, to guard against fraud, keeps a small piece of the metal called chasni or maslo, that is a sample, and when the ornament is ready sends it with the sample to an assayer or Chokshi who, by rubbing them on a touchstone, tells whether the gold in the sample and the ornament is of the same quality. Further, the employer either himself sits near the Sunar while the ornament is being made or sends one of his family to watch. In spite of these precautions ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... years. He may then regard himself as rubbish and expect to be carted away. A man is nothing now unless he has within him a full appreciation of the new era, an era in which it would seem that neither honesty nor truth is very desirable, but in which success is the only touchstone of merit. We must laugh at everything that is established. Let the joke be ever so bad, ever so untrue to the real principles of joking; nevertheless we must laugh—or else beware the cart. We ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... rock will grope down the bare stone for the earth by which it must be fed. Let the sense of our own weakness ever lead to a buoyant confidence in what we, even we, may become if we will only take the grace we have. To this touchstone let us bring all claims to higher holiness—they who are perfect are most conscious of imperfection, and most eager in their efforts after a further progress in the knowledge, love, and likeness of God ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language: as a novelist he can do everything, except tell a story: as an artist he is everything except articulate. Somebody in Shakespeare—Touchstone, I think—talks about a man who is always breaking his shins over his own wit, and it seems to me that this might serve as the basis for a criticism of Meredith's method. But whatever he is, he is not a realist. ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... closed, a set of resolutions had been passed which did away with all necessity for further disputation. These so-called "Vesteras Ordinantia" were even more far-reaching than the "Vesteras Recess." Since they are the touchstone of the modern Swedish faith, the reader will pardon prolixity if I give them all. They are as follows: (1) Vacancies in the parish-churches are to be filled by the bishop of the diocese. If, however, he appoints murderers, drunkards, or persons who cannot or will not preach the Word of God, the ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... sententious satire, and while preserving the low-comedy style of the character, brought it into keeping with a lofty and even a tragic view of life. In "King Lear" the Fool rises into heroic proportions, and becomes a sort of conscience, or second thought, to Lear. Compared even with Touchstone he is very much more elevated, and shows not less than Hamlet, or than Lear himself, the grand development of Shakespeare's mind at this period of its maturity. In the representation of Shakespeare's plays there ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... Touchstone, with unfailing loyalty, follows his master with quip and quirk, into exile. When all, even his daughters, have forsaken King Lear, the fool bares himself to the storm and covers the shaking old man with his own cloak. And when in our own day we meet the avatars ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... that the real saint can never be afraid to let God teach him one lesson more, or unteach him one more error. Then I rejoiced to feel how right and sound had been our principle, that no creed can possibly be used as the touchstone of spirituality: for man morally excels man, as far as creeds are concerned, not by assenting to true propositions, but by loving them because they are discerned to be true, and by possessing a faculty of discernment sharpened by the ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... we come to one name which immediately if whimsically suggests poetry. The man was, like Touchstone's Audrey, not poetical and yet a great poet has been pleased to address him, very much as Pindar might have addressed the Ancestral Hero of some ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... forceth him, the dread Child of fore-scheming Woe! And help is vain; the fell desire within Is veiled not, but shineth bright like Sin: And as false gold will show Black where the touchstone trieth, so doth fade His honour in God's ordeal. Like a child, Forgetting all, he hath chased his winged bird, And planted amid his people a sharp thorn. And no God hears his prayer, or, have they heard, The man so base-beguiled They cast ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... to that incredible latter-day myth which goes by the name of "the Continuity Theory". It is difficult to us to realise how such a theory can possibly be held by thoughtful and earnest men and women who have even a moderate acquaintance with history. Bishop Vaughan applies more than one touchstone, which, one would imagine, ought to be sufficient to prove to any unprejudiced mind the falsity of that theory. Among these, what I may call the "pallium touchstone,"—which still bears its irrefragable testimony in the arms of the ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... only touchstone of democratic sensitiveness. At Wellesley there has always been uneasiness at the hint of unequal opportunity. When the college grew so large that membership in the six societies took on the aspect of special privilege, restiveness was as marked among the privileged as among the unprivileged, ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... in height, that the leaves of the branches were newly fallen; from whence I inferred that the horse had touched them, and that he must therefore be five feet high. As to his bit, it must be gold of twenty-three carats, for he had rubbed its bosses against a stone which I knew to be a touchstone, and which I have tried. In a word, from the marks made by his shoes on flints of another kind, I concluded that he was shod with silver eleven ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... any Socratic "conceptualism," and ready, like Protagoras, to show us how man is the measure of all things and how the individual is the measure of man. The ardour of his intellectual curiosity burns with a clear smokeless flame. He brings back to the touchstone of a sort of distinguished common sense, free from every species of superstition, all those great metaphysical and moral problems which have been too often monopolised by the acrid and technical ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... home, and when they came to the dun, the King had his son into his treasury. "Here," said he, "is the touchstone which shows truth; for there is no truth but plain truth; and if you will look in this, you will ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... life, which, but for that gross act of traitorous ingratitude, had been fair and honourable. But what of that? The hypocrite is a saint, and the false traitor a man of honour, till opportunity, that faithful touchstone, proves their metal ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the idea broached by others had already occurred to him. We who knew him best knew that often the idea had occurred to him and had been thought out more lucidly than any adviser could state it. But he would test his own views by the touchstone of other minds' reactions to the situations and problems which he was facing and would get ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... is of rock crystal, the second of copper, the third of fine steel, the fourth of brass, the fifth of touchstone, the sixth of silver, and the seventh of massy gold. He has furnished these palaces most sumptuously, each in a manner suited to the materials that they are built of. He has filled the gardens with grass and flowers, intermixed with pieces of water, water- ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... the foundation of the Absolute philosophy, the Supreme and unalterable Reason. Before thinking of the Metallic work, we must be firmly fixed on the Absolute principles of Wisdom; we must be in possession of this Reason, which is the touchstone of Truth. A man who is the slave of prejudices will never become the King of Nature and the Master of transmutations. The Philosophal Stone, therefore, is necessary above all things. How shall it be found? Hermes tells us, in his "Table of Emerald," we must separate the subtile from the fixed, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... undeclinable, and Jerry obeyed accordingly. The King was much amused with his visiter, and, says our informant, "his Majesty was delighted at seeing him eat the state dinner, consisting of venison, &c., which had been prepared for him."[2] Thus, Jerry was not in the parlous state described by Touchstone: he was not damned, like the poor shepherd: he had been to court. He had also learnt good and gallant manners. He recognised many of his frequent visiters, and if any female among them was laid hold of, in his presence, he would bristle with rage, strike ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... French writer, is the touchstone of good breeding. According to circumstances, it should be respectful, cordial, civil, affectionate or familiar:—an inclination of the head, a gesture with the hand, the touching or doffing ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... real one,—corrupt and treacherous, as it was,—he set these lands up for the purpose of making that discovery, and pretended that the discovery would yield a most amazing increase of rent. And for some time it appeared so to do, till it came to the touchstone of experience; and then it was found that there was a defalcation from these monstrous raised revenues which were to cancel in the minds of the Directors the wickedness of so atrocious, flagitious, and horrid an act of treachery. At the end of five years what do you think was the failure? No ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mere personal politics, he (like every man when reviewed from a station distant by forty years) will often appear to have erred; nay, he will be detected and nailed in error. But this is the necessity of us all. Keen are the refutations of time. And absolute results to posterity are the fatal touchstone of opinions in the past. It is undeniable, besides, that Coleridge had strong personal antipathies, for instance, to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas. Yet why, we never could understand. We once heard him tell a story upon Windermere, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... of certainty, according to the philosophers, will be, when discovered, an infallible method of establishing the truth of an opinion, a judgment, a theory, or a system, in nearly the same way as gold is recognized by the touchstone, as iron approaches the magnet, or, better still, as we verify a mathematical operation by applying the PROOF. TIME has hitherto served as a sort of criterion for society. Thus, the primitive men—having observed that they were not all equal in strength, beauty, and labor—judged, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... absurdity in its scenes, or in its catastrophe, and dissecting its faulty characters; in a word, weighing in the critical scales the nonsense of the poet. Parody sometimes became a refined instructor for the public, whose discernment is often blinded by party or prejudice. But it was, too, a severe touchstone for genius: Racine, some say, smiled, others say he did not, when he witnessed Harlequin, in the language of Titus to Berenice, declaiming on some ludicrous affair to Columbine; La Motte was very sore, and Voltaire, and others, shrunk ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... other hand, won't use such methods; he composes out of his own head. Believe me, it is a common mistake in this country to judge a student's learning altogether too much from his sermons. But let the fellow dispute as I do—there's the touchstone of learning. If any one says this table is a candlestick, I will justify the statement. If any one says that meat or bread is straw, I will justify that, too; that has been done many a time. Listen, father! Will you admit that the man ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... a touchstone which influences all social relations, especially when on one side there is a somewhat morbid susceptibility, and on the other a lack of good breeding and education. The Sparks, father and daughter, Americans of the lower class, though willing to spend any number of dollars for their own pleasure, ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... great admiration and often attended the Thursday noon meeting at the Temple, "to see and hear the greatest actor in England," a compliment which Parker much appreciated, otherwise he would not have repeated it. "If I ever take to the stage, I will play the part of Jacques or Touchstone," said Huxley. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... between the Christian doctrine of inspiration and all others which have, in heathen lands, partially reached similar conceptions—that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has laid emphasis upon the Holy Spirit, and has declared that holiness of heart is the touchstone and test of all claims of divine inspiration. Gifts are much, graces are more. An inspiration which makes wise is to be coveted, an inspiration which makes holy is transcendently better. There we find the safeguard against all the fanaticisms which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... always been a dormant nature. She was waiting for a touchstone. But now she is beginning ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... man's death often seems to give people a truer idea of his character, whether for good or evil, than they have ever possessed while he was living and acting among them. Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes falsehood, or betrays its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves the gold, and dishonors the baser metal. Could the departed, whoever he may be, return in a week after his decease, he would almost invariably find himself at a higher or lower point than he had formerly occupied, on the scale of public appreciation. ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for detecting the presence or absence of high ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... this period of trial that my mother was enabled to prove, by that unerring touchstone, adversity, who were her real and disinterested friends. Many, with affected commiseration, dropped a tear—or rather seemed to drop one—on the disappointments of our family; while others, with a malignant ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... difficult and disagreeable, yet one would think, it possible for an officer to act; energetically without ignoring the common courtesies of life, and to maintain rigid discipline without constantly emulating the army that swore terribly in Flanders. The oath of allegiance—that is the touchstone whose mark gives everything its marketable value. The Union flag must wave over every spot—chapel, mart, institute, or ball-room—where two or three may meet together; and beyond the shadow of the enforced ensign there is little safety or comfort ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... The constant touchstone and point of reference for every stage of the history of the Church must be the gospel of Jesus. But what was the gospel of Jesus? In what way did the very earliest Christians apprehend that gospel? This question is ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... The touchstone of naval excellence is Nelson. As Mahan has so ably pointed out, while weapons change principles remain. Dewey, in deciding to take the chances involved in a night entry of Manila Bay did so in answer to his own question, "What would Farragut do?" ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... about 1676, when he was eighteen, because those plays were performed or published at that time. It used to be said that the music, though immature, showed promise, and was indeed marvellous for so young a man. But unless one possesses the touchstone of a true critical faculty and an intimate acquaintance with Purcell's music and all the music of the time, one should be cautious—one cannot be too cautious. The music for these plays was not composed till ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... surpassing anything which he had known. Hand in hand he saw two figures, himself and her, gliding through the years with a sort of effortless energy, tasting together of everything in life that was sweet, and pure, and beautiful; scattering all trouble and worldly vexation to the winds, by the touchstone of their undying love. There was intoxication—ethereal intoxication in such a vision. The winds blew against him, and the torrents of driven rain, cold and stinging, dashed themselves against his pale, steadfast face. Down on the beach below the mad sea was thundering upon the cliffs, ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a criminal worthy of affection and confidence. What an expansive nature, with kindness presented on every side. Even the dogs fawned upon him and the birds came at his call. An accomplished gentleman, considerately mannered—queer, as becomes a foreigner, yet possessing the touchstone of universal sympathy. Another man with crime to commit almost certainly would have dispatched it with ruthless coldness; but how kindly and gently Count Fosco administered the cord of necessity. With what delicacy he ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... which alone we have to do. This investigation, which we cannot properly call a doctrine, but only a transcendental critique, because it aims not at the enlargement, but at the correction and guidance, of our knowledge, and is to serve as a touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all knowledge a priori, is the sole object of our present essay. Such a critique is consequently, as far as possible, a preparation for an organon; and if this new organon should be found to ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... appear so. He did not answer her, and there the incident seemed to end. But it left them both with the sense of frustrated hope, and over and above that Jack had felt, sharper than ever before, the old shoot of weariness for "papa" as the touchstone for such ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... secured to the children of the Queen of Spain. "Every difficulty would be removed if there were an appearance of more equality," wrote the Regent to Dubois on the 24th of January, 1718. "I am quite aware that my personal interest does not suffer from this inequality, and that it is a species of touchstone for discovering my friends as well at home as abroad. But I am Regent of France, and I ought to so behave myself that none may be able to reproach me with having thought of nothing but myself. I also owe some consideration to the Spaniards, whom I should ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Schell; "but the rest of the ticket will receive its warm and hearty support." Then he paused. Kelly, standing in the background of the little group, seemed to shrink from the next step. Regularity was the touchstone of Tammany's creed. Indifference to ways and means gave no offence, but disobedience to the will of a caucus or convention admitted of no forgiveness. Would Kelly himself be the first to commit this unpardonable sin? He could invoke no precedent to shield him. In 1847 the Wilmot Proviso ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the immeasurable value of the theory of descent in the causal explanation of the most difficult morphological problems. Gegenbaur might, therefore, with perfect right, enunciate this axiom in the Introduction to his "Comparative Anatomy." "The theory of descent will at once find a touchstone of proof in comparative anatomy. Up to this time no experience in comparative anatomy has transpired which contradicts that theory; on the contrary, they all lead up to it. Thus it will receive back from science that which it has given to scientific method: clearness and certainty." In point ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... stumbling-block in the passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at five-and-twenty minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every description of matter,—animal, vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at some time or other, into ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... his thoughts; living, palpitating things, as if they were hidden of a purpose to be discovered only by him who cared to search. Hidden truths came to light that filled his soul with wonder. Gradually he understood that Belief was the touchstone by which all these treasures were to be revealed. Everywhere he found it, that belief in Christ was a condition to all the blessings promised. He read of hearts hardened and eyes blinded because of unbelief, and came to see that unbelief was something ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... use," he muttered despairingly, as he looked above him again, and, as he did so, saw that the men were laughing at his predicament, for, as Touchstone the clown told the shepherd, he ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... sense, as all Long Island forests are (e.g., Forest Hills), where even the lioness and the green and gilded snake have their suburban analogues, which we will not be laborious to explain—we see Time standing still while Ganymede and Aliena are out foraging with the burly Touchstone (so very like that well-loved sage Mr. Don Marquis, we protest!). And, to consider, what a place for a colyumist was the Forest of Arden. See how zealous contributors hung their poems round on trees so that he could ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... account of its origin and effects. The same might be said respecting good works. And, again, as to the Holy Scriptures, they received the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the complete revelation of all that is necessary for salvation, and consequently, as the touchstone for testing the Fathers, the councils, and the traditions of the Church. Two points remained for consideration: the sacraments and the government of the Church. "We are agreed, in our opinion," said Beza, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... glory, took up the management of her Inn with renewed vigor. She had found her touchstone. The flower of love, which she had scarcely understood to be indigenous to the soil of her own practical little garden, had suddenly lifted up its head there in fragrant, radiant bloom. She was so happy that she was impatient of all the inadequate, inefficient manipulation ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... Satisfaction is the touchstone of value; without reference to it all talk about good and evil, progress or decay, is merely confused verbiage, pure sophistry in which the juggler adroitly withdraws attention from what works the wonder—namely, that human ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... pains of hell; Declare what fate unlucky stars have given, And ask a world upon my life to dwell; Make known the faith that fortune could no move, Compare my worth with others' base desert, Let virtue be the touchstone of my love, So may the heavens read wonders in my heart; Behold the clouds which have eclipsed my sun, And view the crosses which my course do let; Tell me, if ever since the world begun So fair a rising had so foul a set? And see if time, if he would strive to prove, Can show a second ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... holiday evenings of department stores, but they all entered into the pantomime and interpreted the reading with spirit, as they did at another time in some of the Shakespeare scenes, Rosalind, Celia and Touchstone, Hamlet and Ophelia, Bottom and Titania, with attendant fairies, and Shylock and Portia. The Dickens scenes were repeated for a younger club, just trying its dramatic wings in charades, and when May-time came these younger girls of twelve ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... touchstone of the men it has broken this war is judged, and the makers of this war. And more than ruined villages and desecrated churches these soldiers pronounce condemnation. They, who have given so much, are, ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... fine, looking to the whole kingdom of organic nature, we find that our full receiving of its beauty depends first on the sensibility and then on the accuracy and touchstone faithfulness of the heart in its moral judgments, so that it is necessary that we should not only love all creatures well, but esteem them in that order which is according to God's laws and not according to our own human passions and ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... for the first time was it laid down that the business of a School was to train its children so as to fit them in some obvious manner for the work of their life. Latin and Greek and Hebrew had become the touchstone of education, primarily because they were the "holy" languages, and after Religion had long ceased to be the mainspring of education, their intrinsic merits fell into the background. Utility became a more pungent argument. Secondly, the Governors ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... views capable of reaching beyond the next election. The criticism of Europe alone can rescue us from the provincialism of an over or false estimate of ourselves. Let us be thankful, and not angry, that we must accept it as our touchstone. Our stamp has so often been impressed upon base metal, that we cannot expect it to be taken on trust, but we may be sure that true gold will be equally persuasive the world over. Real manhood and honest achievement are nowhere provincial, but enter the select society of all time on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... two-for-five-cent cigar, preening himself on his stylish appearance, and looking after the girls. Others were there with him—town dandies and nobodies, young men who came there to get shaved or to drink a glass of whisky. And all of these he admired and sought to emulate. Clothes were the main touchstone. If men wore nice clothes and had rings and pins, whatever they did seemed appropriate. He wanted to be like them and to act like them, and so his experience of the more pointless ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... to finde the certaine goodnesse of a piece of golde, which is newly offered vnto him, he presently bringeth the same to the touchstone, where by comparing the shewe or touch of this new piece with the touch or shew of that which he knoweth of old, he forthwith is able to iudge what the value is of that, which is newly offered vnto him. After the example whereof ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... poured out upon him, after their compact of friendship, in their walk back to the church, of her enthusiasm for her Socialist friends and their ideals,—with a momentary madness of self-suppression and tender humility. In reality, a man like Aldous Raeburn is born to be the judge and touchstone of natures like Marcella Boyce. But the illusion of passion may deal as disturbingly with moral ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is a pretty fair touchstone to manners for both young and old. A man is himself in the presence of the unexpected. The automobile is so strange that it carries people off their equilibrium, and they say and do things impulsively, and ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... hope I do not derogate from the genius of Elia. Jaques, it will be remembered, after hearing the "motley fool" moral on the time, declared that "motley's the only wear"; and I opine that Lamb would consider it no small praise to be likened, in wit, wisdom, and eloquence, to Touchstone, or to the Clown in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... breathes who would ever wish to call himself anything but English; while it is quite rare for Germans in England, America, or France to take any pride in their blood. The second generation constantly denies it, changes its name, assures you it knows nothing of Germany. They have not the spirit of a Touchstone, and in so far they do their country ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... imitation simply, good as that might seem, yet always bringing a sense of failure, and that sense the thing you remember most. It is to be some One living His life in you, coming in through the open door of your will. Your part is opening up, and keeping open, listening and loving and obeying. The touchstone of the "Follow Me" life is not imitation but following; not copying but obeying; not struggle—though there will be struggle—but companionship, a companionship which nothing is allowed to take the fine edge ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... interpretation, the smallest, commonest text sufficed him. The strolls of these short autumn days were never barren of interest and advantage to him. The man carried his treasures within himself; he only needed the slightest touchstone from the outside world to draw them out. A fieldmouse's nest was nearly as good to him as an eagle's eyrie, an ox-eyed daisy as a white rose, a red hemp-nettle as a foxglove. He put down his hat and stood contemplating the bit of rock, until every morsel of leaf told him its tale, and then proceeded ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... misunderstanding of the case. Because you neither play nor sing, it by no means follows that you are unmusical. If you love music and appreciate it, you may be more musical than many pianists and singers; or latent within you and only awaiting the touchstone of music there may be a deeper love and appreciation of the art than can be attributed to many virtuosos. For most of a virtuoso's love and appreciation is apt to be centered upon himself. And when you say, 'I cannot play,' you are mistaken. You are thinking of ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... is a house of care, A place where none can thrive, A touchstone true to try a friend, A grave for men alive. —Inscription on the Old Prison ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... concerned with the hardship and grime of our own day, "amid the dust and defilement of the city, on the highway, always in quest of lodgings, climbing to the fifth story, wounded on every angle." Only sympathy and a poetic touchstone could bring out the essence and sweetness of a nature so unhappily disguised; but Sainte-Beuve, discarding with a single gesture her penitential mask and hood, finds Madame Desbordes-Valmore "polished, gracious, and even hospitable, investing everything with a certain attractive ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... her work in the daytime. Edoocation is the great business of the Institoot. Amoosements are objec's of a secondary natur', accordin' to my v'oo." [The unspellable pronunciation of this word is the touchstone of New ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... kept "in communicado" as their excited friends called it. I had seen the editor and his family only during Prince Kropotkin's stay at Hull-House, when they had come to visit him several times. The editor had impressed me as a quiet, scholarly man, challenging the social order by the philosophic touchstone of Bakunin and of Herbert Spencer, somewhat startled by the radicalism of his fiery young son and much comforted by the German domesticity of his wife and daughter. Perhaps it was but my hysterical symptom of the ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... cried, "that very word makes me surer than ever that it cannot but be true. Let us go on putting it to the hardest test; let us try it until it crumbles in our hands,—try it by the touchstone of action founded on ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... years the Commons ventured again. This time the queen replied that she hoped her dutiful and loving subjects would not take away her prerogative, which is the choicest flower in her garden, but promised to examine all patents and abide the touchstone of the law. Nevertheless, four years later the list of articles subject to monopoly was so numerous that when it was read over to the House in 1601 an indignant member exclaimed: "Is not bread amongst them? Nay, if no remedy is found for these, bread will be there before ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... idiosyncrasies in Yankeedom, there is no doubt of it. We had a long drive to the cars, but there our close companionship, and our acquaintance, too, ended, except that the woman's husband—for she had a husband, some Touchstone, whose 'humor' it was to 'take that no other man would,' came to me, and asked me to put my window down, for his 'wife was sick.' But as I had just observed the good woman munching a bit of mince-pie, I thought that, coming so ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... filled all her blood with a deep music of devotion. A man with such a nature had been a poet or the founder of a creed. But the ideal of a man is an idea, while the ideal of a woman is a man. Time alone can bring the touchstone to ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... am in Arden. And I may say with Touchstone, "When I was at home I was in a better place,"[268] and yet this is not by any means to be complained of. Good apartments, the people civil and apparently attentive. No appearance of smoke, and absolute warrandice against my dreaded enemies, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the accident viewed as an exponent of universal truths; but for the simple sake of seeing his old friend and exchanging greetings. Indeed, where was the use of wasting the good material of friendship by seeking to convert it to a touchstone whereby to measure up one's theological beliefs? Reed was Reed, albeit flattened out upon his long, lean back, and not a ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the thought. "You can't possibly mean that. The galaxy is filled with Truth, it's the touchstone of Life itself. It's the thing that separates Mankind ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... keels, floating wrecks; but here and there a ship rides the raging sea, and flings defiance to the wind. She overlives the sea because she is sea-worthy. Not our eighty years of peace alone, but our two years of war, are the touchstone of our character. We have rolled our Democracy as a sweet morsel under our tongue; we have gloried in the prosperity which it brought to the individual; but if the comforts of men minister to the degradation of man, if Democracy ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... only refer them to the first word of my title and remind them that we are primarily out to be amused—not, it is true, without some hope of picking up morsels of knowledge by the way. If the manner is light, I can only say, in the words of Touchstone, that it is "an ill-favoured thing, sir, but my own; a ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... either yea or nay therto. He aunswered, If ye wyll admitte God and his word spoken by the mouth of hys blessed sonne Jesus Christ our Lord and Sauiour, ye wyll admit that I haue sayd: for I haue sayd or taught nothing, but that the word, which is the triall and touchstone, sayth, whiche ought to be Judge to me, and to ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... It explains the magnificent largesse given by Shakespeare to the professional fool. Work had to be found for him, and Shakespeare, whose difficulties were stepping-stones to his triumphs, gave him Touchstone and Feste, the Porter in Macbeth and the Fool in Lear. Others met the problem in an attitude of frank despair. Not all great tragic writers can easily or gracefully wield the pen of comedy, and Marlowe in Dr. Faustus took the course ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... be influenced by the simple grandeur of this poem we can hardly doubt. Indeed, it may have been to him a sort of literary touchstone, that in time would lead him to produce, as has been said, some of the purest English written ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Friend, the noblest that Man cou'd ever boast of: [embraces him] When first my rigid Fate threw on me this Command to fight, I had recourse to many whom I always thought my Friends; but when the Touchstone of my Danger try'd 'em, I found 'em like the cursed Fruit of Sodom, fair without, but rotten at the Heart: But then I found out Bonvile, my only dearest Friend. Bonvile no sooner heard of my ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... Moreover, if, at that very time, his preaching was emphatic in any direction, it was in the boldness with which he insisted that all pulpit teaching and Christian practice must be subjected to one great test, namely, the touchstone of the word of God. Already an Elijah in spirit, his great aim was to repair the broken-down altar of the Lord, to expose and rebuke all that hindered a thoroughly scriptural worship and service, and, if possible, to restore apostolic simplicity ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... is liberality, that is, the habit of disputing questions and judging persons on their merits, with due allowance for that never wholly negligible possibility that the other man is right. Among those who are united by this spirit, there is one joke that is an unfailing touchstone and bond of union—the institution of lese-majeste. It is a matter for unquenchable laughter, {166} that superiority should require to be protected against inferiority by the enforced signs of respect, or by a hedge ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... he would make an appreciation of Boswell's Life of Johnson a test of friendship. Many of us would be almost equally inclined to make such a test of Borrow's Lavengro. Tennyson declared that an enthusiasm for Milton's Lycidas was a touchstone of taste in poetry. May we not say that an enthusiasm for Borrow's Lavengro is now a touchstone of taste in ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... from the board Looked up at Aymon's son; but who this while Well marked him, as he eyed Montalban's lord, Had deemed him more disposed to weep than smile. "So oft reminded, to maintain my word, 'Tis time meseems (said he, that owned the pile) To shew the touchstone for a woman's love, Which needs to wedded man must ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... breeds Happiness'—That is a proposition with which you can hardly quarrel; sententious, sedate, obviously true; provoking delirious advocacy as little as controversial heat; in short a very fair touchstone. Now hear how the lyric treats it, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... as discreditable to them as the repeal itself. You will observe by the papers that notice has been given for the repeal of almost all—indeed, I may say all—the taxes which bear on agriculture. This therefore must be the touchstone, and upon this they must rest their determination. If I were to speculate on the question of the Postmaster-General, I should think it would not be carried; but such is not the general opinion, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... (investigation) 461; screen; trial, tentative method, tatonnement. verification, probation, experimentum crucis [Lat.], proof, (demonstration) 478; criterion, diagnostic, test, probe, crucial test, acid test, litmus test. crucible, reagent, check, touchstone, pix^; assay, ordeal; ring; litmus paper, curcuma paper^, turmeric paper; test tube; analytical instruments &c 633. empiricism, rule of thumb. feeler; trial balloon, pilot balloon, messenger balloon; pilot engine; scout; straw to show the wind. speculation, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Protestant religion, knocked him down and carried him to Newgate. The confidential correspondent of the States General informed them that, in spite of all the stories which the disaffected party invented and circulated, the general persuasion was that the allies would be successful. The touchstone of sincerity in England, he said, was the betting. The Jacobites were ready enough to prove that William must be defeated, or to assert that he had been defeated; but they would not give the odds, and could hardly be induced ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is the weakest side of a Tartar) a ducat is the touchstone of his fidelity; and it is difficult to imagine the extent of their greediness for profit! The Armenian character is yet a thousand times more vile than theirs; but the Tartars hardly yield to them in corruption and greediness—and this is saying a good deal. Is it surprising that, beholding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... concern, and on which he should become duly informed, and thus be prepared to act intelligently. For this preparation he needs light, which light the real working of things, properly set forth, would surely give. Experience is ever regarded as the best school-master, the proper touchstone to all ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... the auctioneer proceeds: 'Bring forward the head from Herculaneum.... Now, gentlemen, here is a jewel.... The very mutilations of this piece are worth all the most perfect performances of modern artists. Now, gentlemen, here is a touchstone for your taste!' He is asked whether the head is intended to represent a man or a woman. 'The connoisseurs differ,' he answers. 'Some will have it to be the Jupiter Tonans of Phidias, and others the ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the old man two of his best oxen if he would disclose the author of the theft. The ruse succeeded, for the avaricious shepherd, unable to resist the tempting bait, gave the desired information, upon which Hermes, exerting his divine power, changed him into a lump of touchstone, as a {120} punishment for his treachery and avarice. Hermes now killed two of the oxen, which he sacrificed to himself and the other gods, concealing the remainder in the cave. He then carefully extinguished the fire, and, after ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... vigor and libertie is cleane extinct. Nunquam tutelae suae fiunt: "They never come to their owne tuition." It was my hap to bee familiarlie acquainted with an honest man at Pisa, but such an Aristotelian, as he held this infallible position; that a conformitie to Aristotles doctrine was the true touchstone and squire [Footnote: Square.] of all solid imaginations and perfect veritie; for, whatsoever had no coherencie with it, was but fond Chimeraes and idle humors; inasmuch as he had knowne all, seene all, and said all. This proposition ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... (as sweet as that adapted by Chateaubriand to Ma soeur, te souvient-il encore), sung in this little town of the Brie district, must have been to the ears of a Breton maiden the touchstone of imperious memories, so faithfully does it picture the manners and customs, the surroundings and the heartiness of her noble old land, where a sort of melancholy reigns, hardly to be defined; caused, perhaps, by the aspect ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... of the natives came down with fowls, pigs, milk, and bread. Mr. Innes, the surgeon's mate, happened luckily to have some silver in his pocket, to which they applied the touchstone, but would not give us any thing for guineas. However, anchor-buttons answered the purpose, as they gave us provision for a few buttons, which they refused the same number of guineas for; till a hungry dog, one of the carpenter's crew, happening to pick up an officer's jacket, spoiled the ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... seventeen years old; the trusty soldier, Joutel, and the friar, Anastase Douay. Duhaut followed, a man of respectable birth and education; and Liotot, the surgeon of the party. At home, they might, perhaps, have lived and died with a fair repute; but the wilderness is a rude touchstone, which often reveals traits that would have lain buried and unsuspected in civilized life. The German Hiens, the ex-buccaneer, was also of the number. He had probably sailed with an English crew, for he was sometimes known as Gemme Anglais or "English Jem." [Footnote: Tonty ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... are one of my touchstones," Mr. Scogan explained. "They are characters functioning, so to speak, in the void. They are human beings developed to their logical conclusions. Hence their unequalled value as a touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone for the first time, I ask myself this question: Given the Caesarean environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble—Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of character, each mental and emotional bias, each ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... the title-pages of the time, "tragi-comedies." The low comedy interlude, on the other hand, was broadly comic. It was cunningly interwoven with the texture of the play, sometimes loosely, and by way of variety or relief, as in the episode of {115} Touchstone and Audrey, in As You Like It; sometimes closely, as in the case of Dogberry and Verges, in Much Ado about Nothing, where the blundering of the watch is made to bring about the denouement of the main action. The Merry Wives of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... American metropolis knows that that is the quarter where poor immigrants foregather, to live, for the most part, as unkempt, half-washed, toiling, unaspiring foreigners; pitiful in the eyes of social missionaries, the despair of boards of health, the hope of ward politicians, the touchstone of American democracy. The well-versed metropolitan knows the slums as a sort of house of detention for poor aliens, where they live on probation till they can show a certificate of ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Suckling Song, "Why so pale and wan, fond Lover" John Suckling Wishes to His Supposed Mistress Richard Crashaw Song, "Love in fantastic Triumph sate" Aphra Behn Les Amours Charles Cotton Rivals William Walsh I Lately Vowed, but 'Twas in Haste John Oldmixon The Touchstone Samuel Bishop Air, "I ne'er could any luster see" Richard Brinsley Sheridan "I Took a Hansom on Today" William Ernest Henley Da Capo Henry Cuyler Bunner Song Against Women Willard Huntington Wright Song of Thyrsis Philip Freneau ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... for As You Like It in Thomas Lodge's contemporary novel Rosalynde, but Touchstone and Adam ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... I stand, and take breath for a little ere I speak. For much and in many ways hath been said ere now; and the contriving of new things and putting them to the touchstone to be tried is ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... the touchstone of the entire civilization which followed upon the heels of these scenes of violence. It was fair play which really animated the great Montana Vigilante movement and which eventually cleaned up the merciless gang of Henry Plummer and his associates. The centers of civilization ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... "This reason methinks is the true chimera, and never spawned anything but fables. Take these gold bars, which I cast in this form yesterday, after extracting the metal last week from some lead: there lies a touchstone; scratch it; and then tell me whether it ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck |
