Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




More "Chord" Quotes from Famous Books



... we to each other belong, Come graceful elf, And around my lute in sympathy strong Now wind thyself; And quake as if mov’d by zephyr’s wing, ’Neath the clang of the chord, And a morning song with glee we’ll sing To ...
— The Expedition to Birting's Land - and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... any explanations, if authority was in the slightest degree at stake. Whoever had the address to make a question take this shape, might be assured that the King would throw aside all consideration of justice, right, and reason, and dismiss all evidence. It was by playing on this chord that his ministers knew how to manage him with so much art, and to make themselves despotic masters, causing him to believe all they wished, while at the same time they rendered him inaccessible to explanation, and to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... place is a kind of wilderness of ruin; there are scarcely any details; the great feature is the overtopping wall. This wall being the back of the scene, the space left between it and the chord of the semicircle (of the auditorium) which formed the proscenium is rather less than one would have supposed. In other words, the stage was very shallow, and appears to have been arranged for a number of performers standing ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... alluded, in consequence of the rapid manner in which he ran over their names; but so cunningly did he time his events, and so thrillingly did he make his appeals, aided as they were by the power of his deep-toned and stirring voice, that each of them struck an answering chord in the breast of some one ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of the old year, and, in the midst of the Christmas joy, there were allusions to it in the services and hymns. Something in the tune of 'Days and moments quickly flying,' touched some chord in Dolores's spirit, and set her off crying. She would have done anything to stop it, but there was no helping it, great round splashes came down, and the more she was afraid of being noticed, the worse ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... he answered, there was no hint in his finely modulated tones of any chord having been touched in his breast, save the legitimate one of respectful appreciation of a woman who fulfilled the expectation of one alive to what is ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... suitor there was one and only one in this wide, wide world, and her words, burning their way into his heart, had made this temptation possible: "No drooping Clytie could be more constant than I to him who strikes the chord that is ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... of God will ever triumph at our cost. It is equally certain that none of us can truly pray for the glory of God, unless we are living for it. It is only out of the heart that has but one purpose in life and death, that those prayers emanate which touch the tenderest chord in the Saviour's nature, and awaken all His energies to their highest activity, "That will ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... another from Opelousas to Fort Jesup, an abandoned military post, thence to Pleasant Hill, Mansfield, and Shreveport. At varying distances of twelve to thirty miles the valley of the Red River is an arc, of which this last-mentioned road is the chord, and several routes from the valley cross to ferries on the Sabine above Burr's. But the country between the Boeuf and Pleasant Hill, ninety miles, was utterly barren, and depots of forage, etc., were necessary before troops could march through it. With great expenditure of time and labor ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... and radiant, Mark put back the cover, twirled the stool, and carefully opened a green book marked "Chopin." Then he sat down, and, with the sigh of a happy child falling upon a feast, he struck an opening chord. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... will not break if the chord of the outer arch does not touch the inner arch. This is manifest by experience, because whenever the chord a o n of the outer arch n r a approaches the inner arch x b y the arch will be weak, and it will be weaker in proportion as the inner arch ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... Yet his eyes are closed. He certainly does not see. His mind has interpenetrated to a small extent the nervous system of the operator; and is in relation with his voluntary nerves and the anterior half of his cranio-spinal chord. (These are the organs by which the impulse to voluntary motion is conveyed and originated.) Farther into the other's being, he has not yet got. So he does not what the other thinks of, or wishes him to do; but only what the other either does, or goes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... imposing, indeed an awful, figure, the herald of death, seen only by warriors about to die. The Fate theme sounds from the orchestra, and another melody, out of which nearly the whole scene is woven, is heard, and then, to a simple chord—supernatural, ghostly in its effect—she calls Siegmund. She tells him he is to die and go with her to Valhalla. He pleads in vain; she (simply, be it remembered, a part of her father's will) cannot understand why he should refuse to go where his father and so many famous warriors have ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman

... and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells: The chord alone that breaks at night, Its tale of ruin tells. Thus freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives Is when some heart indignant breaks, To ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various

... her more than I do you," he added, fearing that he had been impolite. "But she strikes just that chord. She always makes me laugh. She is a sort of sun ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... trail wending his way toward the purple mountain—the silent way to the bunk-house at the camp—in that clear air where sound travels a long distance the traveler heard the song, and something thrilled his soul. A chord that never had been touched in him before was vibrating, and its echoes would be heard ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... blows that have no rebound in them. The sympathy excited is not a voluntary contribution, but a tax. Nothing is unforced and spontaneous. There is a want of elasticity and motion. The story does not "give an echo to the seat where love is throned." The heart does not answer of itself like a chord in music. The fancy does not run on before the writer with breathless expectation, but is dragged along with an infinite number of pins and wheels, like those with which the Lilliputians dragged Gulliver pinioned to the royal palace.—Sir Charles ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... her extremity something of the real passion of this wild youth found a chord of sympathy in Rosebud's heart. His sincerity, his splendid personality, savage though he was, made her listen attentively. The woman in her was not insensible to his address, but the very truth of his passion roused her fears again to the topmost pitch. There ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... in subconscious depths, a chord of fear seemed to have been struck in her as well—the fear of stony faces, drooped lids, and stretched, pointing fingers. For that night she started up, with a cry, from dreaming that not Annie Johns but she was being expelled; that an army of spear-like first fingers was marching ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... to Rhein-gold where Wagner wishes to portray a certain elemental condition he uses 136 measures of the chord of E flat major. ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger

... by heaven's design, That from my half unconscious touch, There swept a passing chord of such Sweet harmony, it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... hated a military hero, indulged in a series of fierce denunciations in the House of Representatives; Mr. Adams alone stood gallantly by the man who had dared to take vigorous measures upon his own sole responsibility. His career touched a kindred chord in Adams's own independent and courageous character, and perhaps for the only time in his life the Secretary of State became almost sophistical in the arguments by which he endeavored to sustain the impetuous ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... of the mining town. There was not a man in the place, no matter how rough his ways, nor how dark had been his past, who was not made the better by her presence. She touched a responsive chord in every heart. She awoke tones that had been silent for years, and stirred into life resolves that had lain dormant for a generation. When the weather grew milder with the approach of spring, she flitted like a bird from cabin to cabin, ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... the sun should shine in all his glory; Again, the twilight seems the fitting time. Yet sweet dark night would understand the story, So old, so new, so tender, so sublime. Wild storms should rage to chord with my desire, Yet faithful stars should shine and never ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... here, a note of passion beyond the deepest of Herrick's. This tone (whether from temperament or circumstance or scheme of art), is wanting to the HESPERIDES and NOBLE NUMBERS: nor does Herrick's lyre, sweet and varied as it is, own that purple chord, that more inwoven harmony, possessed by poets of greater depth and splendour,—by Shakespeare and Milton often, by Spenser more rarely. But if we put aside these 'greater gods' of song, with Sidney,—in the Editor's judgment Herrick's mastery (to ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... led for a brief space was not only beautiful in outward circumstance, as old Sophy had described it to the Reverend Doctor. It was that delicious process of the tuning of two souls to each other, string by string, not without little half-pleasing discords now and then when some chord in one or the other proves to be over-strained or over-lax, but always approaching nearer and nearer to harmony, until they become at last as two instruments with a single voice. Something more than a year of this blissful doubled consciousness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... me to join in what seemed to me little else than a mockery of human life; but rather than "displace the mirth," I tried, but could not long remain a passive spectator; the glee seemed forced and unnatural. It touched no sympathetic chord; it only jarred the feelings; it was the last attempt at gaiety I witnessed within ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... one overstretched chord of her agony slacked; she thought Something above relented; she felt as if Something far round drew nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word, only ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... physics, in the broadest sense, reveals beneath the seeming multiplicity and variety of things. It is a desire for beauty as well as a thoroughgoing scientific passion which prompts men like Poincare and Karl Pearson to seek for one law, one formula which, like "one clear chord to reach the ears of ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... room" to Lucy and George. It was a pretty room, white panelled and blue curtained—and no place for a foreman, as Eugene said. There was a grand piano, and Lucy stood leaning back against it, looking intently at George, while her fingers, behind her, absently struck a chord or two. And her dress was the dress for that room, being of blue and white, too; and the high colour in her cheeks was far from interfering with the general harmony of things—George saw with dismay that she was prettier than ever, and naturally he missed the reassurance ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... Coniglio of the Louvre, but the Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and St. Catherine, which is No. 635 at the National Gallery.[2] Few pictures of the master have been more frequently copied and adapted than this radiantly beautiful piece, in which the dominant chord of the scheme of colour is composed by the cerulean blues of the heavens and the Virgin's entire dress, the deep luscious greens of the landscape, and the peculiar, pale, citron hue, relieved with a crimson girdle, of the robe worn by ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips

... veined web of its delicate resistance—round the hollow stem and across the fluffy breadth of it—with a humming music as of wind among the telegraph wires, only infinitely sweet and far away. There were several notes in it, a chord—the music that accompanies all flying things, even a butterfly or settling leaf, and ever fills ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... he had touched the right chord. So he played on it, till he got Lord Tadcaster to pledge his honor not to ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... Tennessee to the plains of the Carolinas calling the black youths, whose hopes ran high within their bosoms, to rise and make for higher things? This clarion note, though still for the nonce, shall not become a lost chord. Its inspiring tones must again appeal to the youth to arise to their higher assertion and exertion. If you wish to reach and inspire the life of the people, the approach must be made not to the intellectual, nor yet to the feelings, as the final basis of appeal, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... dignity of the Roman orator, and diverging only from the pure and polished exposition of his cause to awake a feeling of commiseration for the wrongs which he unfolded.[571] Tiberius played but on a single chord; Caius on many. Tiberius appealed to noble instincts, Caius appealed to all and his Protean manifestations were a symbol of a more complex creed, a wider knowledge of humanity, a greater recklessness as to his means, and of that burning consciousness, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... And a white, white wave whispered, "List to me, I'm a note in the song for the beautiful sea, A song whose grand accents no earth din may sever, And the river flows on in the same mystic key That blends in one chord ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... perception, form organizations or complexes of "lost" memories. It thus comes about that in social situations, where no rapport exists between two persons, a suggestion may be made which, by striking the right chord of memory or by resurrecting a forgotten sentiment, may transform the life of the other, as in conversion. The area of suggestion in social life is indicated in a second paper selected from Bechterew. In later chapters upon "Social Control" and "Collective Behavior" the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... had failed in his attempt to speak with the indifference of a man who longs for a change, and is yet too weary to welcome it. Do what he would, the chord of eagerness vibrated. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... of Mendelssohn, therefore, London struck a sympathetic chord, and the pleasure which he felt on entering the city was heightened by the warmth of the welcome which he received at the hands of the musical public. His first appearance was at the Argyll Rooms, in Regent Street, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... Avery also, but in a different way. The personality of the player forced itself upon her with a curious insistence, and she had an odd feeling that he did it by deliberate intention. Every chord he struck seemed to speak to her directly, compelling her attention, dominating her will. He was playing to her alone, and, though she chose to ignore the fact, she was none the less aware of it. By his music he enthralled her, making her see the things he saw, making her feel the ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... chapter in my life had finished. Already, before the completion of my sixth year, this first chapter had run its circle, had rendered up its music to the final chord—might seem even, like ripe fruit from a tree, to have detached itself forever from all the rest of the arras that was shaping itself within my loom of life. No Eden of lakes and forest lawns, such as the mirage suddenly evokes in Arabian sands,—no pageant of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... expresses a happy thought. He calls East and West together in common appreciation of one whose influence was not merely local but worldwide. He invites the old world and the new to kneel together at the altar of sentiment, an appeal to the emotions which never fails to touch a responsive chord in ...
— Dickens in Camp • Bret Harte

... suddenly she glanced up. She saw that her companion's face had softened, and changed. There was a look,—Robinette caught it just for one moment,—such as a proud angry child might have worn: sulky, hurt to the heart, but determined not to cry. Instantly a chord was struck in Robinette's soul. "She has suffered, anyway," she thought. "May I be forgiven for ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... clearly and rapidly. He felt sure of himself, sure of his disguise; if this were an exhibition of woman's wiles, it would find him proof; on that he was resolved. Yet, dissolved in tears as she was, with her long lashes glistening and her mouth twitching pitifully, the dancer seemed to touch a chord deep ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... harp will be a mingled one, for so is our theme; having a sympathy alike for our mirthful and sorrowful moments, which it alike spiritualizes; striking the light, gleesome chord to the one, and attuning the soul to more ethereal joy; while by its soft influence it tones down the harshness of bitter, unavailing sorrow, and woos the heart, misanthropizing under the pangs of grief or unrequited love—pent up in its own solitude, unpitied and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... he, that his arm partly released its clasp. Oceaxe turned around to gaze at him. Whether or not she was satisfied with what she saw, she uttered a low laugh, like a peculiar chord. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... in cap and gown, his purple hood falling over his shoulders, entered followed by his faculty, also gowned and hooded. The students rose and remained standing until the president and faculty were seated. The organ sounded a final chord, and then the college chaplain rose and prayed—very badly. He implored the Lord to look kindly "on these young men who have come from near and far to drink from this great fount of learning, ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... chord of feeling those words touched, or what memories they awoke? but their effect upon Arthur was striking. He sprang up upon the deck, his eyes blazing, and his face white ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... says that detachments of the Mounted Police are found at points "where industrial activities are vital to the welfare of the nation" he strikes a chord that will find grateful response from every industrious citizen, whether employer or employed, who understands that "trade is the calm health of nations." There is nothing in this world of material things more to ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... hung over Auteuil. A long, slow rain fell softly. Chardon pulled the chord at the gate of the Hameau roughly summoning the concierge. He soon found himself under the viaduct on the Boulevard Exelmans, where he walked until he reached Point-du-Jour. There a few workingmen about to take ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... fled," were resented as an undeserved stigma upon the honor and good name of all the Kentuckians in the army, and upon the State of Kentucky herself. The epigrammatic phrase, construed to mean more than was intended, perhaps, like Burchard's "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," struck a chord of sympathetic emotion that vibrated not only in the army and the community of Louisiana, but throughout the entire country. These burning words are of record in the archives at Washington, and remembered in history; but the facts in full, which vindicate the truth and render justice to whom it ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith

... I said eagerly, for he had touched a chord which set me thinking—I mean trying to think; "that trouble hanging over us. There was some ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... on Fort Sumter, then held by a small garrison under command of Major Robert Anderson. The first gun fired on the 12th of April, 1861, resounded throughout the United States and the civilized world, touching an electric chord in every family in the northern states and changing the whole current of feeling. From this time forth, among the patriotic people of the loyal states, there was no thought or talk of compromise. That this insult ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... any part of it between the ends. The bight of his cable has swept our anchor, i.e. the bight of the cable of another ship as she ranged about has entangled itself about the flukes of our anchor. Any part of the chord or curvature of a rope between the ends may ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... wound received in the duel with Cumming, his nervous system suffered, and finally his brain. The ball remained imbedded in the spine, and pressed upon the spinal chord. An attempt to remove it, the surgeons determined, would be more hazardous to life than to permit it to remain. There was no remedy. From its effects his mind began to decay, and finally perished, leaving him, long before his death, a melancholy imbecile. In all the relations ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... Divine service at Rampart, and on Maundy Thursday, after four miles upon the river, we took the portage of eleven miles that cuts a chord to the arc of the greatest bend of the river within the Ramparts and so saves nine miles. Three miles more took us to the deserted cabin at the site of the abandoned coal-mine opposite the mouth of the Mike Hess River, here confluent with the Yukon, and in that cabin we spent ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... encouragement. In truth, Miss Royanna was much impressed with his manly bearing. He stood so erect, with his blue eyes looking straight into hers. For an instant there flashed into her mind the idea that she had seen those eyes before. Some chord of memory was stirred, which affected her in a remarkable manner. She tried to recall something, but ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... as the poem itself, suggests another criticism. Byron suffered or enjoyed vivid dreams, and, as poets will, shaped his dreams, consciously and of set purpose, to the furtherance of his art, but nothing concerning himself interested him or awoke the slumbering chord which was not based on actual fact. If the meeting on the "cape crowned with a peculiar diadem," and the final interview in the "antique oratory" had never happened or happened otherwise; if he had ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... to waste in vain speculations. My whole being was still vibrating to those magic syllables, "secret drawer;" and that particular chord had been touched that never fails to thrill responsive to such words as CAVE, TRAP-DOOR, SLIDING-PANEL, BULLION, INGOTS, or SPANISH DOLLARS. For, besides its own special bliss, who ever heard of a secret drawer with nothing in it? And oh, I did want money so badly! ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... are the grim ones. Designed, as epitaphs are, to arrest and hold in their momentary grasp the wandering attention and languid interest of the passer-by, they must hit him hard and at once, and this they can only do by striking some very responsive chord, and no chords are so immediately responsive as those which relate to death and, it ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... terrific blows, He struck and slew his foremost foes. At every blow, at every thrust, He laid a Vanar in the dust. So fell they neath the sword and lance In battle's wild Gandharva(961) dance, Where clang of bow and clash of sword Did duty for the silvery chord, And hoofs that rang and steeds that neighed Loud concert for the dancers made. So fiercely from Dhumraksha's bow His arrows rained in ceaseless flow, The Vanar legions turned and fled To all the winds discomfited. Hanuman saw the Vanars fly; He heaved a mighty rock on high. His keen eyes ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... would have told you. But her sense of humor did not conceal from her that in spite of her grin-and-bear-it mien, she was far from happy. At any rate, the suggestion that Jimmy was hopeless awoke a sympathetic chord in her breast, so that she looked at him more tenderly on the day after she had been told. Jimmy was slow of speech and rather dirty as to his face. There were warts on his hands, and his sphinx-like countenance was ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... marble sculpture especially arrests the eye, and awakens a chord of feeling in the most callous heart. It represents one of those Imagines Clipeatae which the ancient Romans were so fond of sculpturing in their temples or upon their tombs; a clam shell or shield with the bust ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... Not one of the guests had ever before known the depth of sympathy in the old Bishop till now. Every chord in the nature of each man vibrated to the ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley

... of half-forgotten perfume, or a long-lost chord fresh sounded, brings back the memories of a lifetime, so does this chance remark of his now recall to her a scene almost gone out of mind, yet still fraught with recollections ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... till after trial following trial the fugitive found that his efforts to escape in that way could only result in tiring out his mustang, and so cleverly had the enemy manoeuvred that they had cast, as it were, a line round him, a semicircle whose chord was the edge of the depression, towards which when it pleased them and they felt certain, they could press him back, gradually contracting their line till he ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... of the English press. Each press issue for several weeks harped on the same chord, though sounding varying notes. If the South really means forcible resistance, said the Times, it is doomed to quick suppression. "A few hundred thousand slave-owners, trembling nightly with visions of murder and pillage, ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... lone carriage a face looked forth upon him. It looked with a vacant gaze. It was Margaret's face that, even she knew not why, stared upon Clarence. An electric chord seemed to connect the two,—the one with wealth and the vigor of life, the other with ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... heart, not for a lost love, but for the vanished dreams of girlhood. The chord he had hoped to touch remained mute. In view of the fact that she believed love to be dead between them, this method of stimulating an outworn romance seemed sentimental and insincere. Had he loved her, she might well have thought it boyish and pathetic. What he spoke of as a disguise had seemed ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... given to long speeches, nor ever before had I descended to bombast, but I had guessed at the keynote which would strike an answering chord in the breasts of the green Martians, nor was I wrong, for my harangue evidently deeply impressed them, and their attitude toward me thereafter ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... coasting-vessels moored near at hand. The semi-silence of the night was broken by musical sounds, scarcely melody, but an uneven kind of chant, commencing in unison, and dying away in a prolonged melancholy, wailing chord, swelling and falling, almost like the notes produced by an AEolian harp as the wind sweeps over its strings. The glow of light which showed the door of a wine-shop across the water marked where the singers were enjoying ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... born, and here, I am convinced, we shall find the key to the mystery, though I'm very far from guessing what that key is. But I have a premonition—you may smile if you wish—that I'll find the clew I'm seeking at Etretat. The name has somehow struck an answering chord in me." ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson

... there was something more in it all than the gratification of mere fun and laughter, more even than the rarer pleasure that underlies the outbreak of all forms of genuine humor. Another chord had been struck. Over and above the lively painting of manners which at first had been so attractive, there was something that left deeper mark. Genial and irrepressible enjoyment, affectionate heartiness of tone, unrestrained exuberance of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... of regulators or slides, called layettes, moving up and down in longitudinal grooves round the circumference of the barrel, the length of the drone pipes could be so regulated that a simple harmonic bass, consisting mainly of the common chord, could be obtained. The chaunter, of narrow cylindrical bore, was also furnished with a double reed and had eleven holes, four of which had keys, giving a compass of twelve notes from F to C. [Notation: F4 to C6.] This number of holes was not invariable. After Mersenne's time, Jean ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... God who gives thee thy mirror of imagination, and if thou keep it clean, it will give thee back no shadow but of the truth. Never a cry of love went forth from human heart but it found some heavenly chord to fold it in. Be sure thy friend inhabits a day not out of harmony with this morning of earthly spring, with this sunlight, those rain-drops, that sweet wind that flows so softly over ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... struck a chord, and the children lined up, the girls on one side, the boys on the other, a long line, with Mrs. Van Buren in the center. Another chord, rather a long one. Mrs. Van Buren curtsied to the girls. The line dipped, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... all, the light and heat and lustre of the unclouded sun!—Here there was no dreaming possible, . . nothing but glad life, glad youth, glad love! With an ambrosial rush of tune, like the lark descending, the dancing bow cast forth the final chord from the violin as though it were a diamond flung from the hand of a king, a flawless jewel of pure sound,—and the Minstrel monarch of Andalusia, serenely saluting the now wildly enthusiastic audience, left the platform. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... performer let her hands fall upon the last somber chord (her puritanical soul enjoying the double dissipation of pretending to herself while she afflicted others), she lifted her eyes to the mirror over the piano and saw Irene out in the hall. In the ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... up. This girlish voice rang upon the chord of memory. Wade had not the strength to look at her then. It was not that he could not bear to look, but that he could not bear the disillusion sure to follow his first glimpse of this adopted daughter of Belllounds. ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... the wood into a clearing. Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the thoughts affect the scenery. We see places through our humours as through differently coloured glasses. We are ourselves a term in the equation, a note of the chord, and make discord or harmony almost at will. There is no fear for the result, if we can but surrender ourselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows us, so that we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable sort of story as we go. We become thus, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in a dream, promising that this man might come. She had found herself later in her own apartments, panting, wide-eyed, afraid. Some great hand, unseen, uninvited, mysterious, had swept ruthlessly across each chord of womanly reserve and resolution which so long she had held well-ordered and absolutely under control. It was self-distrust, fear, which now compelled her to take refuge in this woman's fence of speech with him. "Surely," argued she with herself, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... decide. He sat bitingly conscious of his hands spread open on the table under the scrutiny of eyes that were invisible to him vividly aware of the awkwardness of his position. He felt with instinctive certainty that a new chord had been struck; but a man seldom acts on instinctive certainties. If the exposure of his hands had struck this fresh note, then any added action would but heighten the dilemma. He sat ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... in a marked and distinct manner when it has run its course, and we find a similarly felt necessity in regard to musical form. The repetition so common at the close of a piece of music of the same chord several times in succession is exactly analogous to the repetition of cross lines at the necking of a Doric column to stop the vertical lines of the fluting, or to the strongly marked horizontal lines of a cornice ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various

... all that great building, but one little group sat silent. Ivan and the three gathered close at his side, were like men dead. Long before it was over, Nicholas had flung his baton to the floor and left the stage; but still the orchestra went on—and on. In the silence following on the last chord—a silence broken by no demonstration, either of applause or of hissing—Ivan the composer rose, pushed his way to an aisle, and hurried blindly out into the streets. Thus he knew nothing of the remarkable sequel of the affair: how Rubinstein, an instant ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... body sang. Life, thought, emotion broke in waves in the seething sea of his consciousness. The notes strike a chord of memory. A cloud of recollection hovers before him, shaping the figure of a woman who holds him to her breast. He gropes in his consciousness—it was thus that his mother's arms cradled him, his face pressed to her breast ... her figure grows ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... Edinburgh all manner of loud bells join, or rather disjoin, in one swelling, brutal babblement of noise. Now one overtakes another, and now lags behind it; now five or six all strike on the pained tympanum at the same punctual instant of time, and make together a dismal chord of discord; and now for a second all seem to have conspired to hold their peace. Indeed, there are not many uproars in this world more dismal than that of the Sabbath bells in Edinburgh: a harsh ecclesiastical ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... thirty-two conductors only; this arrangement has been adopted to avoid the heating from the Foucault currents, which, with 11/2 in. conductors, would have been very considerable. The bars are coupled at the ends of the core across a certain chord ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various

... was hardly more than a rare accelerated heart-beat at a chord of music like the memory of a lost happiness, or at the sea shimmering with morning. He never spoke of it now, not even to Fanny; although it was possible that he might be doing her understanding an injustice. Fanny, generally, was a ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... Its chord of penetrating passion and melancholy, again, its Titanism as we see it in Byron,—what other European poetry possesses that like the English, and where do we get it from? The Celts, with their vehement reaction against the despotism of fact, with their sensuous nature, their manifold striving, ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... verdant, velvet sward, Oh may we hold in reverent thought The debt we owe, forgetting not The spirit passed to its reward Of one whose giant soul was fraught With true benignity—who sought To touch humanity's quick chord With fire from Heaven's altar brought, That love and zeal and being caught As ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... suppress an exclamation. So he had not told her what he was going to do, and yet he had not forbidden me to tell her. Poor Bob was more subtle than I had supposed, but it was a simple subtlety, a strange chord but still in key with his ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... Judah's sky, That voice o'er Bethlehem's palmy glen! The lamp far sages hailed on high, The tones that thrilled the shepherd men: Glory to God in loftiest heaven! Thus angels smote the echoing chord; Glad tidings unto man forgiven, Peace from the presence of ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... the drawling quality of his voice which sounded as mellow as though someone had struck a chord upon a harp, surprised them out of an answer. Rousing ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... forced into a corner near the witness-box in which he was to make an unwilling appearance. And from that corner he looked with renewed interest at the man who was presently placed in the dock, and for the hundredth time asked himself what it was in his face that woke some chord of memory in him. ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... stated in parabolic language, and is appreciated only by the consecrated follower of Jesus; but when understood, it is indeed a harp that yields the most entrancing music that ever fell upon human ears. Strike now the chord of restitution and hear how beautifully it responds and harmonises with all the other strings upon the divine harp! Know, then, that as the people come to learn of God's wonderful arrangement, all whose hearts are right will praise him. The Psalmist ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... simply a lens through which one could see the feelings at work beneath, and Bannon knew that he had struck the right chord at last. "How ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... lips and eyes, And lights up in a lover's sighs. Fancy these young Venetian maids Listening, at night, to serenades From amorous lutes, where Music, such As southern skies alone afford, Echoes to every burning touch, And thrills in each impassion'd chord. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... and the storm and stress of existence; and the outcome of it is to show the vanity of all human effort. Deeply moved, we are either directly prompted to disengage our will from the struggle of life, or else a chord is struck in us which ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer

... reach the people in this way, why, there are other courses to pursue. We should not despair. If we fail in accomplishing our ends in one manner, we must try other plans, and finally we may be able to touch the right chord. (Dennis S. ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... from some chord of an angel's harp had reached them, the children were still for ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner

... stringed instruments. One of these, which Captain Grant describes, was played by an old woman; it had seven notes, six of which were a perfect scale. Another, which had three strings, was played by a man: they were a full, harmonious chord. A third instrument called "the laced nanga" formed of dark wood, in the shape of a tray, had three crosses in the bottom, and was laced with one string, seven or eight times, over bridges ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... aching chord in the doctor's heart, but he gave no sign of the jealousy which had troubled him, and for a moment there was silence in the room; then, as the doctor began faintly to realize that Maddy had refused him, there awoke within him a more intense ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... betrayed the miserable truth; perhaps some chord of sympathy passed from me to them—I know not. They jumped up and came forward with a sudden fear in their eyes. I had already bidden them farewell, and they did not expect to see me again, until I rode from the city in ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx

... by the canopy, came a little piteous wail; then another followed, and was lost in the singer's voice. During a long phrase on the harpsichord, sharp and tinkling, the singer turned his head towards the dais, and there came a plaintive little sob. But he, instead of stopping, struck a sharp chord; and with a thread of voice so hushed as to be scarcely audible, slid softly into a long cadenza. At the same moment he threw his head backwards, and the light fell full upon the handsome, effeminate face, with its ashy pallor ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... final chord, and rose from the piano. Then he turned to me and said, composedly enough, 'Well, I'm ready.' He, apparently, had in some measure pulled himself together. In the street he took my arm. 'Let's walk in this direction,' he said, leading ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... of the art and its higher influences had prompted her clever novelette La Marquise. Here she illustrates the power of the stage as a means of expression—of the truly inspired actor, though his greatness be but momentary, and his heroism a semblance, to strike a like chord in the heart of the spectator—and, in a corrupt and artificial age, to keep alive some latent faith in the ideal. Since then the stage and players had figured repeatedly in her works. Sometimes she portrays a perfected type, such as Consuelo, or Imperia in Pierre qui ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... in his Commonwealth, discoursing of the faculties of the soul, has very well compared the symphony of reason and of the irascible and the concupiscent faculties to the harmony of the middle, lowest, and highest chord, (See "Republic," iv. p. 443.) ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... brown eyes reminded Randy of the little sister at home. Then a strange hush pervaded the hall, and as the director swayed his baton, twenty bows were drawn across the strings of as many violins in one grand chord ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks

... the tree and peered on tiptoe at the embedded volume. On a blank page stood pencilled: "This is the last fruit of the tree. Come not to gather more." There was no meaning for her in that sentimental chord but she must have got some glimpse of a meaning; for now, as in an agony, her lips fashioned the words: "If I forget his face I may as well die;" and she wandered on, striving more and more vainly to call up his features. The—"Does he think of me?" and—"What am I to him?"—such timorous little ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... light and dark, a stranger from one of the coaches, asking for a barber, was directed by the hostler to the cellar opposite. Coming in hastily, he requested to be shaved quickly, while they changed horses, as he did not like to violate the Sabbath. This was touching the barber on a tender chord. He burst into tears; asked the stranger to lend him a half-penny to buy a candle, as it was not light enough to shave him with safety. He did so, revolving in his mind the extreme poverty to which the poor ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... hurried by Each vacant space, each slackened chord; Nor would her wayward zeal let die The music-spirit ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... the common chord in music like a portion of the Mediterranean?—Because it's the E ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... voice touched a responsive chord in me. I looked at her earnestly; she raised her ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... next door Desire of it destroyed it Detestable feminine storms enveloping men weak enough Didn't say a word No use in talking about feelings Distaste for all exercise once pleasurable Divided lovers in presence Enthusiasm struck and tightened the loose chord of scepticism Enthusiast, when not lyrical, is perilously near to boring Exult in imagination of an escape up to the moment of capture Few men can forbear to tell a spicy story of their friends Greatest of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... his starting-point, in the days of his innocency, and his goal, the lowest depths of degradation and sham, was so direct an appeal to his last chord of poetic feeling, that the unhappy fellow melted into tears. For four hours he wept, as rigid in appearance as a figure of stone, but enduring the subversion of all his hopes, the crushing of all his social vanity, and the utter overthrow of his pride, smarting in each separate ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... touched some secret chord—though what it was he was too busy to inquire. The girl drew herself up proudly, blushing ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... tease him, contradict him, and make him listen to long pieces of scientific music as she played them on the piano, when she knew he always said that music to him was nothing but a disagreeable noise; she would laugh at his thanks when a final chord, struck with her utmost force, roused him from a brief slumber; in short, it amused her to prove that this coarse, rough man was to her alone no object of fear. She would have done better ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... her half bare arm, she brushed aside a portiere and disappeared. A crashing chord rolled out from a piano behind the curtains and ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... weird impressiveness of the scene there could be no doubt. It even touched some unfamiliar chord in the soul of Nicol Brinn. The effect of such an interview upon an imaginative, highly strung temperament, could be well imagined. It was perhaps theatrical, but that by such means great ends had already been achieved he knew to ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... that good old man once more." Michael Stanley sent the following letter to the Committee of the Prison Association: "When I read the account of the venerable Friend Hopper's death, I could not help weeping. It touched a tender chord in my heart, when I came to the account of his being the prisoner's friend. My soul responded to that; for I had realized it. About six years ago, I was one of those who got good advice from 'the old man.' I carried it out, and met with great success. I was fatherless, motherless, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... conspicuously absent, we will not say wanting, in the Portraits,—these are the characteristics, and that in a surpassing degree, of the Causeries. The whole arrangement, too, is different. There is no preluding, there are no intricate harmonies: the key-note is struck in the opening chord, and the theme is kept conspicuously in view throughout all the modulations. The papers at once acquired a popularity which of course had never attended the earlier ones. "He has not the time to make them bad," was the praise accorded by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... from hence is the gentle hill Carambis, on the north, opposite to which, at a distance of 2,500 furlongs, is the Criu-Metopon, a promontory of Taurica. From this spot the whole of the sea-coast, beginning at the river Halys, is like the chord of an ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... upon the Town Square, and across it to the Mayoralty. The square had once been the Franciscans' burial-ground, and was really no square at all, but a semicircle. The townspeople called it Mount Folly. The chord of the arc was formed by a large Assize Hall, with a broad flight of granite steps, and a cannon planted on either side of the steps. The children used to climb about these cannons, and Taffy had picked out his first letters from the words Sevastopol and Russian ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... importance. Knowledge is not forthcoming as to just when or by whom such application was made. If this was an Arabic innovation, it was perhaps the most important one with which that nation is to be credited. Another mathematical improvement was the introduction into trigonometry of the sine—the half-chord of the double arc—instead of the chord of the arc itself which the Greek astronomers had employed. This improvement was due to the famous Albategnius, whose work in other fields we ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... concern us, but also in the perfectly disinterested judgments we form of the events of history or of the characters in fiction and poetry. Great exhibitions of heroism and self-sacrifice touch a genuine chord of enthusiasm. The affections of the domestic circle are the rule and not the exception; patriotism can elicit great outbursts of purely unselfish generosity and induce multitudes to risk or sacrifice their lives for causes which are quite other than their own selfish interests. Human ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... particularly affected by it, owing to the leven of prejudice that the beliefs and ideas of the past have left in the mind of modern man. The cause of female suffrage is one sure to strike a sympathetic chord in every unprejudiced man, because it represents the cause of the weak who, deprived of the means to defend themselves, are compelled to throw themselves upon the mercy of ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma

... few paces with an energetic, as if soldierly, stride; he bowed a second time after which he straightened as a chord and, looking straight into the Mahdi's ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... is," continued the O'Kelly, "that I'm such a healthy beggar; it don't give her a chance. If I were only a chronic invalid, now, there's nothing that woman would not do to make me happy. As it is—" The O'Kelly struck a chord. We ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... is in souls a sympathy with sounds; And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased. With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies. How soft the music of those village bells Falling at intervals upon the ear ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... classical design of the pavement is uniform throughout, but the higher and lower portions are distinguished by separate inscriptions, one across the chord of the apse, the other along the step immediately within the railing. These inscriptions ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... to widen the gulf between him and his fellow-man, whose sword was never drawn in defence of the right? Genius! The very word is instinct with nobility and heartiness. Genius clasps hands with true souls everywhere: it wakes the chord of brotherhood in rude hearts in hovels, and quickens the pulses under the purple and ermine of palaces. It has a smile for childhood and a reverent tone for white-haired age. Its clasp takes in the frail flower bending from slender stems and the stars in their ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... interposes. The young man watches her emotions with a penetrating eye, conscious that he has touched a chord in which all the milk of ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... address was given in the newspaper as Old Change, so at once I resolved to see him. Although I could not recall the details of our previous meeting, if, indeed, he should turn out to be the same person, yet the mere sight of the name had produced a mental pleasure, as a chance chord struck may bring a grateful harmony to the mind. I determined to get my credentials from Mr. White if possible, for his recommendation would in truth be much more valuable than that of the gruff old nobleman to whom I had first applied, because, ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... Ivanhoe, by Sir ARTHUR S. SULLIVAN, Mus. Doc. From what our Musical Critic has seen of the score, he is able to wink his eye wisely but not too well, and to hint that as Mr. Guppy says, "There are chords"; and to make these chords in combination, the strings are admirably fitted. There is one chord (will it be recognised as belonging to Box?) which— But, as Sir ARTHUR says, "Where will be the surprise, if your Musical Critic tells everything beforehand?" He is right, quite right, and, thank goodness, he is quite well, and not ; but the Composer is in the playfullest of humours, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various

... creative power. When he is thoroughly satisfied that he can produce the effect at will, he abandons it for something newer and a little higher. The boy who discovers, without being told, that the dominant chord, followed by the tonic, produces a certain musical effect, is doing something that for him is on a par with Wagner's searching the piano for those marvellous effects of his that are often ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... embers; fan into a flame; foster, heat, warm, foment, raise to a fever heat; keep up, keep the pot boiling; revive, rekindle; rake up, rip up. stir the feelings, play on the feelings, come home to the feelings; touch a string, touch a chord, touch the soul, touch the heart; go to one's heart, penetrate, pierce, go through one, touch to the quick; possess the soul, pervade the soul, penetrate the soul, imbrue the soul, absorb the soul, affect the soul, disturb the soul. absorb, rivet the attention; sink into ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... it to a coincidence that Mrs. L.'s best poem strikes a very familiar chord? It is called the "River ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... beams shone out full and clear once more, that shadowy figure seemed to gather substance, and I felt as if some unknown force were compelling my attention and chaining my every sense in a mute endeavor to establish some chord of connection between me and the dim spirit world which floats forever round us. Now waxing, now waning, the vision grew, till I fancied I caught a glint of armor. For an instant a wild imploring glance met my own, and a transparent ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... I complained of you just now that you never looked at the Byzantine font in the temple of St. John. The sacristan generally will not let you. He takes you to a particular spot on the floor, and sings a musical chord. The chord returns in prolonged echo from the chapel roof, as if the building were all one ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin

... so dark as to be barely perceptible, while a peculiar somber fragrance pervaded the atmosphere. The music rapidly ran the gamut to the limit of audibility and, in the same tempo, the lights traversed the visible spectrum and disappeared. Then came a crashing chord and a vivid flare of blended light; ushering in an indescribable symphony of sound and color, accompanied by a slower succession of ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... his ear, than his whole frame was agitated; his heart throbbed so violently that its beating could be seen; and so great was his excitement, that it was necessary instantly to stop the music. Some chord of feeling had been struck; perchance he was reminded, for a moment, of his desert home, and of the friends from whom he had been ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie

... he slowed his steps, enchanted by the thunder of the elevated trains above him and the soothing crash of the wheels on the cobbles. And then there was a new, delightful chord in the uproar—the musical clanging of a gong and a great shining juggernaut belching fire and smoke, that people were hurrying ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... be suited to the trials of a minister's life. But finding that Henry was firm in his opinion that this sound general principle did not in the least apply to this particular case, the professor proceeded to touch the tenderest chord in the young man's heart. He told him that it would be ungenerous, and in some sense dishonorable, for him to take a woman delicately brought up into the poverty and trial incident to a minister's life. If you understood, sir, how ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... begin to sing a song, you go on and on to the end without thinking about it at all. It is the theme that carries you. Well, a human life is made like a song,—it carries itself along. You do not stop to think why. It can't stop in the middle, on one chord, for long. Yours now is resting, on a chord of happiness. But soon it will go on again. You want it to. Life in the Forest, though, isn't like that. Here it is music without any theme, like the music we dance to. Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmm. But there is ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot

... to live again, it must be exquisite to die pushing the eager breast against the sword. In the flush of strength to face the sharp pain joyously, and laugh in the last glance of the sun—if only to live again, now on earth, were possible. So subtle is the chord of life that sometimes to watch troops marching in rhythmic order, undulating along the column as the feet are lifted, brings tears in my eyes. Yet could I have in my own heart all the passion, the love and joy, burned ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... of the old woman with her magnificent dark eyes and deep metallic voice, and her evident knowledge of the king's habits, were too much for the menial—a chord of superstition had been touched; it vibrated, and he was quelled. Humbly but quickly he ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... the mere fact that an acquaintance was in danger and distress would scarcely have sufficed to cause me to sacrifice, or at least to greatly complicate, my own chances of escape in order to promote hers simply because that acquaintance was of the other sex. But Emma had touched a new chord in my nature, and I felt, whether I liked it or not, that whatever I could do for myself I must do for her also. So I ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard

... this misuse of analogy. Feeling, imagination, instinct are too many for her; and any mood, from fun to earnest, from nonsense to sublimity, may hear a responsive note when this chord is touched. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... Dr. McPherson completed the triple chord of negation. A chord so explosive, so crassly out of keeping with the simple question that evoked it that Grimm stared amazed from one of ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... is," Amarinth said softly to Mrs. Windsor, as Lord Reggie ranged the little boys before him, and prepared to strike a chord upon the piano. "There is nothing in the world worth having except youth, youth with its perfect sins, sins with the dew upon them like red roses—youth with its purple passions and its wild and wonderful tears. The world worships youth, for the world is very old and grey ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... if she should appeal to him some day, in some celebrated spot—in Italy, say, in the evening; in Venice, in a gondola, by moonlight—if she should be a little clever about it and touch the right chord, perhaps he would fold her in his arms and tell her that he forgave her. Catherine was immensely struck with this conception of the affair, which seemed eminently worthy of her lover's brilliant intellect; ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... Plato in his Commonwealth, discoursing of the faculties of the soul, has very well compared the symphony of reason and of the irascible and the concupiscent faculties to the harmony of the middle, lowest, and highest chord, (See "Republic," iv. p. 443.) some ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... affection, which is sometimes a less intense, at other times a more intense, feeling than the emotions aroused during courtship. The process may be compared to a modulation in music, in which some of the tones in a chord are retained while others are displaced by new ones. Such modulations are delightful, and the new harmony may be as beautiful as the old. A visitor to Wordsworth's ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry about it. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and felt as if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been since the days of the dear old doll, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... that slowly she became taut and rigid almost as he, with wide eyes gazing into the night. He had struck a hidden chord; struck it ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... The poet and the philosopher, the painter and the sculptor, rank as high through pen, pencil, and chisel, as the warrior by his blade and his bloody exploits. Art, in the North, finds no existence, and strikes no sympathizing chord in the bosoms of the sturdy Northmen. Art, to be perfect, requires a distinctness of conception, and an assimilation to human nature in its subjects, entirely at variance with the dim, mysterious character of the Scandinavian imagination. Painting is a thing utterly unknown, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... seated on a huge stone beneath a fig-tree, looking on that mingling of light and motion which we call the Sea. From time to time the sail of a fisherman's boat, or the smoke which hung like drapery above the pipe of a steamer, rose above the chord of the arc which formed the gulf, and afforded a relief to the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... incomprehensible feint of strangeness. But her dying eyes searching the face close to them discover in it no glimmer of feeling. Her heart-broken murmur: "Siegfried.... knows me not?" touches no chord. The hero is for handing her over with all convenient haste to her proper guardian. "Gunther, your wife is ailing!" As Gunther comes, he rouses her: "Awake, woman! Here is your husband!" Because her senses seem clouded and she a moment before ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... cents in the box office for me," Gorry interpreted, forcibly, while the band belched forth a chord like the groan of a dying monster, calling them ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... gather all the ages in my song And send them singing up the heights to thee! Chord by aeonian chord the stars prolong Their passionate echoes to Eternity: Earth wakes, and one orchestral symphony Sweeps o'er the quivering harp-strings of mankind; Grief modulates into heaven, hate drowns in love, No strife now but of love in that great sea Of song! I dream! I dream! ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might, Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... made with enthusiasm and interest, and does it thus at once strike a responsive chord ...
— A Guide to Methods and Observation in History - Studies in High School Observation • Calvin Olin Davis

... long! The artistic temperament is not merely artistic perception, with which it is so often confounded. You may be steeped to the lips in that temperament, and yet not be able to arrange flowers with deftness, draw a volute, or strike a true chord. And you may be able to do all these, and yet be dead in heart and cold in brain—a mere curly-wigged poodle doing its clever tricks with dexterity, and obedient to the hand that feeds it. The artistic temperament is not this, but something far ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... and dark. Now, would you know the means by which the musician has worked, so as to admire him to-morrow for the secrets of his craft after enjoying the results to-night? What do you suppose produces this effect of daylight—so sudden, so complicated, and so complete? It consists of a simple chord of C, constantly reiterated, varied only by the chord of 4-6. This reveals the magic of his touch. To show you the glory of light he has worked by the same means that he used to represent darkness ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... our less giddy island there rose, amidst hours of business in Scotland and of idleness in England, three troubadours of quite different temper. Different also themselves, but not opponent; forming a perfect chord, and adverse all the three of them alike to the French musicians, in this main point—that while the Ca ira and Marseillaise were essentially songs of blame and wrath, the British bards wrote, virtually, always songs of praise, though by no means psalmody in the ancient keys. On the contrary, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... as warmly as his troublesome impediment permitted, and said that he would himself write to the Count de Gramont. Then, bending over his friend, took his hot, unquiet hand, and spoke to him again and again. His voice failed to touch any chord of memory and cause it to vibrate in recognition. Maurice was muttering the same word over and over; Gaston hardly needed to bow his head to catch the imperfect sound; he knew, before he heard distinctly, that it was ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... disguise; if this were an exhibition of woman's wiles, it would find him proof; on that he was resolved. Yet, dissolved in tears as she was, with her long lashes glistening and her mouth twitching pitifully, the dancer seemed to touch a chord deep ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... one dove, Than tones or colours in chord, We are one—and safe, and for ever, my love, Two thoughts in the heart of ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... inspire,—as, "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it." The instructive maxim opens a vista of truth to the intellect, as when Goethe said, "A man need not be an architect in order to live in a house." The inspiring maxim strikes a martial chord in the soul, as when Alexander said to his Greeks, shrinking at the sight of the multitudinous host of Persians, "One butcher does not fear many sheep." The evil of self-ignorance is, that it permits men to choose as their favorite and guiding maxims those adages ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... FEEL) so exactly alike on some points that there can be no discussion between us? Your words on this paper express my thoughts. Well-argued it is,—clear, logical,—but vast is the hiatus of omission; harsh the consequent jar on every finer chord of the soul. What is this hiatus? I think I know; and, knowing, I will venture to say. I think the writer forgets there is such a thing as self-sacrificing love and disinterested devotion. When I first read the paper, I thought ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... except through the medium of my own mind and that of his father. The subject interested him, and he gave much serious thought to it, questioning me closely at some of our interviews, as if dissatisfied with the idea conveyed to him. Our discussions, however, had reached some slumbering chord in him, which, once touched, stirred his blood with its vibrations. I do not think his isolation could have lasted much longer, for he became restless and eager to see ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller

... am happy, my father!" Here a sudden change was visible,—some chord of sorrow was touched, and it vibrated ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... a trace of anger or animosity, and the grave, kind tones made some way in the winding avenues leading to Royston's heart. Besides this, the last word struck the chord of the misgiving that had haunted him ever since he proposed the flight, and had already made him half repent it. But the fortress did not ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... first comes upon it clad in spring and summer verdure. The rippling Vire at its very feet gives at once the note; it not only binds and enwraps it like the setting of a precious stone, but adds that one feature which, lacking, would be a chord misplaced. Perhaps no other cathedral in all France, with regard to its bijou setting, certainly no other so accessible to the English tourist, has more dainty charm than this not very grand, but graceful, church at St. Lo. Its towers, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... morbid feeling would vanish if the chord of sympathy between him and his countrymen were touched. But my persuasions were vain, the mind could not be bent from its natural inclination. Shelley shrunk instinctively from portraying human passion, with its mixture ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley

... wisdom and austere control? Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelai, Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God. Is that time dead? Lo, with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance, And must ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... a familiar chord in my memory, but I could not put a name to its owner. The girl looked at me with eyes grown suddenly horror-stricken. I noticed that her face had taken on the hue ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... pathos exclaimed, "How striking the resemblance! and who could not recognise the expression of majesty and gentleness, that——" "Fudge!" cried the king. Conscience had probably something to do with the abruptness of the exclamation. The old chamberlain had unwittingly touched a tender chord; every allusion to the queen appearing like a tacit reproach to the august and widowed spouse. "That portrait," added the king, "is too flattering, the queen was far from handsome"; then, as if inwardly repentant of his harshness, he rose from ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... followed, and managed, when it was needed, that the herd should keep the great circle, of which the wagon cut a small chord. At sundown he came to Verde Crossing, and there was Charley with a fresh horse and food, and Jo went on in the same calm, dogged way. All the evening he followed, and far into the night, for the wild herd was now getting somewhat used to the presence of the harmless strangers, and were more ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... perpendicular to it. Then the measuring wedge is introduced until a stoppage occurs through the contact of the buttons with the sides of the tube. Finally, their distance apart is read on the scale. Such distance apart will be the measure of a diameter or a chord of the tube's section, according as the buttons have been kept in the diametral plane or moved out of it. In order that the operator shall not be obliged to watch the position of the line of calibrating buttons in obtaining the diameter, the following ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various

... characteristic manner a lonely tramp at night, with the grotesque streaks of the moonlight breaking quaintly into the pedestrian's contemplative mood. The music is curiously lonely and suggestive of a quiet moonlight night in the country. Particularly lovable are the soft, characteristic chord progressions, followed by lonely silence, on the second page, just before the opening melody returns. The piece ends with the moon kissing ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte

... great tracts of our lives through which we have passed mechanically, and which seem to have left no trace on the mirror of our consciousness, we still, all of us, have experiences which make that all-recovering memory credible. Some passing association, a look, a touch, an odour, a sun-set sky, a chord of music will bring before us some trivial long-forgotten incident or emotion, as the chance thrust of a boat-hook will draw to the surface by its hair, a long-drowned corpse. If we are, as assuredly we are, writing with invisible ink our whole life's history on the pages of our own minds, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... allegorical style, the quaint and grotesque imagery in which Dante delighted, must have touched an answering chord in the hearts of scholars like Philip Sidney and ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... Giles. Sally was not so sure about Lavinia. The slim girl was now a woman. She carried herself with an air. She had exchanged her shabby garments for clothes of a fashionable cut which she knew how to wear. Still, some chord in Sally's memory was stirred and she advanced into the shop with a puzzled ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... can impart, because it is a produce neither of hand nor brain, but of the player's individual soul. Desmond's fingers were unpractised, but he gave every note its true value; and he played slowly, as though composing each chord as it came, or building it up from memory. It was almost as if he were thinking aloud; and Honor had just decided that she really had no business to be overhearing his thoughts, when an apprehensive "woof" from the Aberdeen brought them suddenly ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... line by a quadrant. But we took our dividers, and found your d—n'd metre, In each single verse, took up a diameter. But how, Mr. Sheridan, came you to venture George, Dan, Dean, and Nim, to place in the centre?[1] 'Twill appear to your cost, you are fairly trepann'd, For the chord of your circle is now in their hand. The chord, or the radius, it matters not whether, By which your jade Pegasus, fix'd in a tether, As his betters are used, shall be lash'd round the ring, Three fellows with whips, and the Dean holds the string. Will Hancock declares, you are out of ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... is the next best thing to this, strung like a harp, with about a dozen ringing intelligences, each answering to some chord of the macrocosm. They do well to dine together once in a while. A dinner-party made up of such elements is the last triumph of civilization over barbarism. Nature and art combine to charm the senses; the equatorial zone of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... be taught a fault; but the womanly love and devotion, and unselfishness, are all there, writ in clear and uncompromising characters. The first and last acts were decidedly the best; in the latter especially Miss Anderson touched a true pathetic chord, and fairly elicited the pity and sympathy of the audience. With a gentle wonder and true dignity she meets the gradual dropping away of her illusion, the crumbling of her unreasoning faith, the cruel stings when her spiritual nature is misunderstood, and her actions misinterpreted. ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... night I saw the Pleiades, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of a fool! Comfort? Comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, That ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... occurs. Those who perform on the violin use the same notes as in our division, and they tune the instrument by fifths to a great nicety. They are fond of playing the octave, but scarcely use any other chord. The Sumatran tunes very much resemble, to my ear, those of the native Irish, and have usually, like them, a flat third: the same has been observed of the music of Bengal, and probably it will be found that ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... an artist—not in a week, a month, a year—Art exacts of its votaries no less service than a lifetime. But in her girl's soul the right chord had been touched, which began to vibrate unto noble music—the true seed had been sown, which day by day grew ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... words, the little child is not equipped psychologically to hear complicated units. I wish some one could determine how the average four-year-old hears the harmony of a chord on the piano. Is it much except confusion? In the same way, he is not equipped to leap a span between units. I wish some one would determine the four-year-old's memory span for rhymes, for instance. ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... with pathos and charm, the look, the attitude from which all formality had fled and only the natural grace remained, all were of the sort which sways without virtue and rouses in both weak and strong an answering chord of sympathy. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... As Venice herself, by type of constitution and historical development, remained sequestered from the rest of Italy, so her painters demand separate treatment.[235] It is enough, therefore, for the present to remember that without the note they utter the chord of the Renaissance ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... the name suddenly gave me the clue so long wanting. It aroused within me a sense of impending evil regarding the very man of whom we were speaking. The sound of the name seemed to strike the sympathetic chord within my brain, and I at once became cognisant that the unaccountable presage of impending misfortune was connected with that rather incongruous household down ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... overwrought, In summer time when skies are hot We seek its verdant, velvet sward, Oh may we hold in reverent thought The debt we owe, forgetting not The spirit passed to its reward Of one whose giant soul was fraught With true benignity—who sought To touch humanity's quick chord With fire from Heaven's altar brought, That love and zeal and being caught ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... replied: "Because you never pay any attention to the arpeggio, dear. It doesn't begin on the chord. It begins on the G flat. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... she said at last, her smooth voice vibrating as if he had touched some chord of passion which was usually hushed to silence, "I should know better what you mean. You deal too much in hints and insinuations. You have said things of this sort before. I ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... introduced into music by the chord of the dominant seventh, the invention of which is attributed to Monteverde. However, Palestrina had already employed that chord in his "Adoremus," but probably without understanding its importance or divining ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens

... struck a superstitious chord in Jonah, and he went out of his way to find a plan for relieving the old man without showing his hand. He consulted his solicitors, and then an advertisement in the morning papers offered a reward to anyone giving the whereabouts of Hans Paasch, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... no time to waste in vain speculations. My whole being was still vibrating to those magic syllables, "secret drawer;" and that particular chord had been touched that never fails to thrill responsive to such words as CAVE, TRAP-DOOR, SLIDING-PANEL, BULLION, INGOTS, or SPANISH DOLLARS. For, besides its own special bliss, who ever heard of a secret drawer with nothing in it? And oh, I did want money so badly! ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... his mountain ideals, and more, were caught and kept enshrined—visions still, and of mightier peaks and ampler valleys, romantically "tost" and sublimely "lost," as he had so often written in his favourite rhymes. In the vignettes to Rogers' "Italy," Turner had touched the chord for which John Ruskin had been feeling all these years. No wonder that he took Turner for his leader and master, and fondly tried to copy the wonderful "Alps at Daybreak" to begin with, and then to imitate this new-found magic art with his own subjects ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... in the days of his innocency, and his goal, the lowest depths of degradation and sham, was so direct an appeal to his last chord of poetic feeling, that the unhappy fellow melted into tears. For four hours he wept, as rigid in appearance as a figure of stone, but enduring the subversion of all his hopes, the crushing of all his social vanity, and the utter overthrow of his pride, smarting in each separate I that exists ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... prophecies which they have foretold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but now the path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet, Elfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation—take again in thy hand that chord of sweet sounds —struggle with the civilized world and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground—let the night-OWL send forth its screams from the stubborn oak—let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... occasionally in Decamps, whose oriental landscapes and figures, far less important intellectually, far less magistrales in conception, have at times, one may say perhaps without being too fanciful, a truly symphonic quality that renders them unique. "The Suicide" is like a chord on a violin. But it is when we come to speak of the "Fontainebleau Group," in especial, I think, that the aesthetic susceptibility characteristic of the latter half of the nineteenth century feels, to borrow M. Taine's introduction to his lectures ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell

... timber, en moanin', en groanin', en sweekin', kyars my 'memb'ance back ter ole times, en 'min's me er po' Sandy." The pathetic intonation with which he lengthened out the "po' Sandy" touched a responsive chord in our ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... painting in this respect is a chord—a momentary expression fixed in material media. A melody of light requires succession just as the melody in music. The restless colors of the opal comprise a light melody like the songs of birds. The gorgeous splendor of the sunset ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... important a part in our Christian organs and organizations today. The music, whoever plays, is bound to be thin when the tops of "Instant Obedience" and "Fiery Valor" are missing or unused, and without them to play the "Lost Chord" of Heroism is ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd

... the pet of the mining town. There was not a man in the place, no matter how rough his ways, nor how dark had been his past, who was not made the better by her presence. She touched a responsive chord in every heart. She awoke tones that had been silent for years, and stirred into life resolves that had lain dormant for a generation. When the weather grew milder with the approach of spring, she flitted like a bird from cabin to cabin, equally at ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... German oracles in its support, the cause cannot be put aside. Even in the midst of war, Philosophy will be heard, especially when she speaks words of concurring authority that touch a chord in every heart. Leibnitz, Kant, and Fichte, a mighty triumvirate of intelligence, unite in testimony. As Germany, beyond any other nation, has given to the idea of Organized Peace the warrant of philosophy, it only remains now that she should insist ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... sounds that we cannot hear. At either end of the scale are notes that stir no chord of that imperfect instrument, the human ear. They are too high or too grave. I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying an entire tree-top—the tops of several trees— and all in full song. Suddenly—in a moment—at absolutely the same instant—all spring into the air and fly away. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... right chord, and, after a momentary and half-convulsive sob, she rose quietly, and said, "Tell me what to ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... the maiden, in tones as soft and tremulous as the lightly-touched chord of some musical instrument, as she threw back her veil, and disclosed a beauty of features and sweetness of countenance that at once raised a buzz of admiration through ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... wheels over the cobbles seems to wake an agonized chord in every bosom. To-day this dread visitation descends on Jacques; but who can tell—so the neighbors say to themselves—when the same fate may strike some other household now happily unconscious! All along the narrow way sorrow-drooped heads protrude in rows; from every casement dangle ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... found in the Gospel, that it passed over them without even rousing their intellect, and so vanished without doing any hurt. Tuned to the truth by obedience, no falsehood they heard from the pulpit partisans of God could make a chord vibrate in response. Dawtie indeed heard nothing but the good that was mingled with the falsehood, and shone like a ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... always the chord Of the Overword, Dominant, pleading, sure, No truth too small to save and make endure. ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman

... building, building yet, Where dawn and midnight mingled and woke no birds, In the last courses, building past his knowledge A wall that swung—for towers can have no tops, No chord can mete the universal segment, Earth has not basis. Yet the yielding sky, Invincible vacancy, was there discovered— Though piled-up bricks should pulp the sappy balks, Weight generate a secrecy of heat, Cankerous charring, crevices' fronds ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... same Time that these Buboes appeared, severals towards the Decline of this Fever complained of a Pain all along the Spermatic Chord; and soon after a Swelling of the Testicle appeared[22]. However, this Complaint was not peculiar to those who had the Fever; for others recovering from Fluxes, and other Disorders, were likewise affected with such Swellings. I did not observe any Symptom of this Kind in Fevers while I was ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... may be found in some of the mazurkas of Chopin. He was, as Rubinstein called him, "the soul of the pianoforte." No one before or after him knew how to make that instrument speak so eloquently. By ingeniously scattering the notes of a chord over the keyboard while holding down the pedal, he practically gave the player three or four hands, and greatly enlarged the harmonic and coloristic possibilities of the pianoforte. Liszt, Rubinstein, Paderewski, and others have gone farther ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... Mrs. Embury whose volume of verse, "Love's Token Flowers," was just out and being warmly praised; and George P. Morris, Willis's partner in the Mirror, whose "Woodman, Spare that Tree!" and "We were Boys Together," had (touching a human chord) made him popular. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... deep vivid vermilion-red, upon dark cold green? Look at the hip-loaded rose-briar burning in the last rays of a red October sunset! You get physical pleasure from the sight; the eye seems to vibrate to the harmony as the ear enjoys a chord struck upon the strings. Therefore do not fear. But mind, it must be in nature's actual colour, not merely "green" and "red": for I once saw the head of a celebrated tragic actress painted by a Dutch artist who, to make it as deathly as he could, had ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... all was still. No light shone upon the tuneful beaks. Like Theseus, I picked my way along, guided by an Ariadne's thread. My Ariadne was a slumbering orchestra deftly spinning out a thick proboscis-chord of such stuff as dreams are made of. Taking this web in my ear, I safely traversed the labyrinth, and meandered at last into pen No. 1. In placing my foot on the edge of the under-world crib, I unwittingly pressed some secret spring which straight swung ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... "It will do him no harm, and may cool his peppery blood some!" had been the keeper's decision. So the door was left open, and Last Bull entered or refrained, according to his whim. It was noticed, however,—and this struck a chord of answering sympathy in the plainsman's imaginative temperament,—that, though on ordinary nights he might come in and stay with the herd under shelter, on nights of driving storm, if the tempest blew from the west or northwest, Last Bull was sure to be out ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... full tone, rose, and hoarsely trailed off into silence again. Then the accompanist glanced over his shoulder, and struck a ringing chord while he waited for a sign. There was a curious stirring in the audience. The girl in the shimmering dress stood quite still for a moment with a spot of crimson in her cheek and a half-dazed look in her eyes. Then, turning swiftly, she moved ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... became a more and more sensible deficiency, till at last the instinct of the multitude filled it up in this amazing manner." When Theodore Parker, in his morning prayer on a beautiful summer Sunday, addressed the All-loving as "Our Father and our Mother," he struck a chord which will one day vibrate through the heart of universal humanity. It was a thought worth infinitely more than all the creeds ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... I pretended to enjoy in the hope of pleasing her. Over this we talked more like old and well proven friends than mere acquaintances of ten days' standing. Just once or twice the mysterious chord which marred the girl's charming conversation was touched. She immediately changed the subject on observing my distress. I say distress, for a weaker word would not fittingly describe the emotion I felt whenever she blundered into the pseudo-scientific nonsense which was her brother's favourite affectation. ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... record of its doubts and its faith, its sorrows and its triumphs, at each era of its existence. Wonderfully artless and correct—because all utterances which were not faithful to their time, which did not touch some sympathetic chord in their heart's souls, are pretty sure to have been swept out into wholesome oblivion, and only the most genuine and earnest left behind for posterity. The history of England indeed is the literature ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... another string: "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Slavery is an insurmountable barrier to the increase of knowledge in every community where it exists; slavery, then, must be abolished before this prediction can be fulfiled. The last chord I shall touch, will be this, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... radiant air! O, do you remember—" and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into passionate reminiscence, while he listened fascinated, and his heart burned within him. In himself, too, he knew that it was vibrating at last, that chord hitherto dormant and unsuspected. The mere chatter of these southern-bound birds, their pale and second-hand reports, had yet power to awaken this wild new sensation and thrill him through and through with it; what would one moment of the real ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... The electric chord in Isaura's heart was touched. Who cannot conceive what the young writer feels, especially the young woman-writer, when hearing the first cheery note of praise from the lips of a writer of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... lights on the ancient altar, and the muffled roll of an organ broke into sonorous waves, like reverberations of far-away thunder; and why was it, tell me, that the universal glory thrilled me only as a sensuous chord of color, but in the dark corner consecrated to the worship of our God, my soul expanded, as if a holy finger touched it, and I fell on my knees, and prayed? Each of us comes into this world dowered with the behest to make desperate war against that indissoluble 'Triple Alliance, the World, the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... the 9th, 11th, or the 99th, but a lens far different tells us they are used with different aims from those of Debussy. Emerson is definite in that his art is based on something stronger than the amusing or at its best the beguiling of a few mortals. If he uses a sensuous chord, it is not for sensual ears. His harmonies may float, if the wind blows in that direction, through a voluptuous atmosphere, but he has not Debussy's fondness for trying to blow a sensuous atmosphere from his own voluptuous cheeks. And so he is an ascetic! There is a distance ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... peasant tasks, and have encouraged peasant ignorance—ignorance being the mainspring of contentment, and contentment the bed-rock of happiness; but it is all to no purpose. A note from the other world will strike upon the chord of my being, and the spirit which has been dozing within me awakens and fiercely beats at its bars, demanding some nobler thought, some higher aspiration, some wider action, a more saturnalian pleasure, something more than the peasant life ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... as the local poet. Encouraged by the generous applause, he announced that he would recite some lines 'he 'ad wrote on the great storm which committed such 'avoc on hour pier.' There were local descriptions, and local names, which always touched the true chord. Notably an allusion to a virtuous magnate ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald

... interests which it was necessary to conciliate, asked Jefferson to see the governor of Maryland, so that that State might be brought into the undertaking, and referred to the danger of being anticipated and beaten by New York, a chord of local pride which he continued to touch most adroitly as the business proceeded. Very characteristically, too, he took pains to call attention to the fact that by his ownership of land he had a personal interest in the enterprise. He looked far beyond his own lands, but ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... was no time for the indulgence of sentiment; she knew that duty must be done, even though every chord of her heart quivered with agony. After much consideration and earnest prayer, she had concluded to let him go, and the thought of sending him away from her, and all he loved, among entire strangers, was what made her so sorrowful. She strove to calm herself by the reflection, that she had done ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous

... soul, my lord, is fashioned—like the lyre. Strike one chord suddenly, and others vibrate. Your name abruptly mentioned, casual words Of comment on your deeds, praise from your uncle, News from the armies, talk of your return, A word let fall touching your youthful passion, Suffused her cheek, call'd to her drooping eye A momentary ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... fathers, and for their weeping mothers too. My father did not forget in his art the note he found in beautiful Florence, though it was too sad to introduce by a definite exposition, and falls upon the ear, in "Monte Beni," like a wordless minor chord. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... grandfather and grandmother, to the bright little children, who read the advent of some impending calamity in the gloomy countenances and bitter words of their parents. The passion for the possession of land is the chord on which the agent plays, and at his touch it vibrates with 'the deepest notes of woe.' By the agent of an improving landlord it is generally touched so cunningly, that its most exquisite torture cannot easily be proved to be a grievance. He presents an alternative to the tenant; he does ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... the Arch; and in saying, the Angle of Contact hath some magnitude, his meaning is, that the Arch of a Circle hath some crookedness, or, is a crooked line: and that, of equal Arches, That is the more crooked, whose chord is shortest: which I think none will deny; (for who ever doubted, but that a circular Arch is crooked? or, that, of such Arches, equal in length, That is the more crooked, whose ends by bowing are brought nearest together?) ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... his arm partly released its clasp. Oceaxe turned around to gaze at him. Whether or not she was satisfied with what she saw, she uttered a low laugh, like a peculiar chord. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... occupants of the howdahs, this was a final chord from the band, for the huge beasts were thoroughly startled, and the lookers-on noted that similar uneasiness was being displayed by the nine great elephants that appertained to Rajah Hamet's force, these in particular showing a disposition to turn tail ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... wet and clinging clothes. As he struggled to his feet a stab of pain shot through his left hand, and up through his forearm. It was so keen and penetrating that he surmised, in his blank and unreasoning haste, that he must have torn a chord or broken a bone in his wrist. But on a matter like that, he felt, he could now waste ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... incessant pain came a ripening of the man's character. Frohman developed a great admiration for Lincoln. Often he would ask Gillette to read him the famous "Gettysburg Address." Simple, haunting melodies like "The Lost Chord" took hold of him. Marie Doro was frequently summoned to play it for him on the piano. Although his courage did not falter, he looked upon men and events with a larger ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... on a given chord the angle subtended by it at the centre of the circle is double the angle subtended by it at the circumference; ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams

... the memorizing takes place. The music is before me on the piano; I forget to turn the pages, and thus find I know the piece. In playing with orchestra I know the parts of all instruments, unless it be just a simple chord accompaniment; it would not interest me to play with orchestra and not know the music in this way. On one occasion I was engaged to play the Sgambatti concerto, which I had not played for some time. I tried it over on the piano and found I could ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... was their disorder. The visitors opened the drawers wide, tapped on the wood of the sideboard, felt of the curtains, and sometimes, as she passed the piano, a lady, without stopping or removing her gloves, would lightly strike a chord or two. The child thought himself dreaming. And his mother, where was she? He went toward her room, but the crowd surged at that moment in the same direction. The child was too little to see what attracted them, but he ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... to chiefs and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells; The chord alone that breaks at night Its tale of ruin tells. Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives Is when some heart indignant breaks, To show that still ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... Alaska, he wanted to be still wealthier. It was a big game he was playing in, and he liked it better than any other game. In a way, the part he played was creative. He was doing something. And at no time, striking another chord of his nature, could he take the joy in a million-dollar Eldorado dump that was at all equivalent to the joy he took in watching his two sawmills working and the big down river log-rafts swinging ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... level voice mingled with the clouded red of the room, and again a prophetic chord of ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... From the first chord of the Grieg concerto to the finale of the Chopin ballade, Ruth had sat tensely on the edge of her chair. She had dreaded the beginning of this hour. What would happen to her? Would her soul be shaken, twisted, hypnotized?—as it had been those other times? Music—that ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... pink cliffs glowed, the fairest marvel that the eye beheld—and this in a land of wonders. And soon the twilight gave place to the coming out of stars, and the colours of Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And the sight of those cliffs was to me as some chord of music that a master's hand had launched from the violin, and which carries to Heaven or Faery the tremulous ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany

... there was no doubt of the fact: the thing was a piano. There, where by all the laws of God and man it was impossible that it should be—there the thing impudently stood. Gideon threw open the keyboard and struck a chord. Not a sound disturbed the quiet of the room. 'Is there anything wrong with me?' he thought, with a pang; and drawing in a seat, obstinately persisted in his attempts to ravish silence, now with sparkling arpeggios, ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... the single tone of color gradually leads to the comprehension of the full chord; the recognition of single colors leads to the recognition of shades and their harmonious connections: thus, step by step, the capacity of comprehending nature in its beauty and ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... leader, in a speech of five minutes duration, and in his most oratorical style, dwelt on Mr. Gladstone's fervid sympathy for the oppressed people of all races, and touched a chord which stirred the House. As Mr. Dillon had spoken for Ireland, so Mr. Abel Thomas followed as ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... me around somethin' scandalous," Bud was wont to remark, as he rose from his labors and prepared for bed. "There I was huntin' around for that chord I lit on the other night and almost findin' it, when he has to howl like a coyote with a sore throat and spile the whole thing. I ought to ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... fine example of the all-around American high-school boys. His fondness for clean, honest sport of all kinds will strike a chord of sympathy ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... the elbow that pressed against hers, and the ecstasy of her child's voice still trilling on the black silence, Lilly was conscious of movement. The gray silhouette marching down the aisle of gloom. A group up about the piano. Another chord struck out. Zoe's voice ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... in a series of fierce denunciations in the House of Representatives; Mr. Adams alone stood gallantly by the man who had dared to take vigorous measures upon his own sole responsibility. His career touched a kindred chord in Adams's own independent and courageous character, and perhaps for the only time in his life the Secretary of State became almost sophistical in the arguments by which he endeavored to sustain the impetuous warrior against an adverse Cabinet. The authority ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... each word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the greatest secret—the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it seemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something radiant, ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev

... the secret of their own sensations, she ran down to the tree and peered on tiptoe at the embedded volume. On a blank page stood pencilled: "This is the last fruit of the tree. Come not to gather more." There was no meaning for her in that sentimental chord but she must have got some glimpse of a meaning; for now, as in an agony, her lips fashioned the words: "If I forget his face I may as well die;" and she wandered on, striving more and more vainly to call up his features. The—"Does he think of me?" and—"What ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... a chord in my memory, and I looked out. The man who had put the question, and who was now being directed on his way—by Maignan, my equerry, as it chanced had his back to me, and I could see only that he was young, shabbily dressed, and with the air of a workman carried a small frail of tools ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... the midst of all this bustle, Willie moped and pined. He had the same chord of delicacy running through his mind that made his body feeble and weak. He kept out of the way, and was apparently occupied in whittling and carving uncouth heads on hazel-sticks in an out-house. But he positively avoided Michael, and shrunk away ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell

... suffuse her face with a quick blush, and instantly replace it with a touch of pallor; render her manner with a suggestion of hauteur, softened by a gesture of timidity and doubt; listen to her voice, low-toned and infinitely calm yet vibrating in a minor chord of uncertainty and dread; feel the clasp of her hand, cold when it touches yours, yet instantly thrilling you with a glow induced by the contact, and—remain thoroughly master of yourself if you can. Retain, if you have the strength to do so, the opinions you had formed, ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... these instruments cost so much. You know it takes several elephants alone to make these," and he struck another chord. ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... of this," said the gentle-hearted wife, in whose spirit was a tuneful chord for every outward touch of beauty; "it looks as lovely now as yesterday; it was as lovely yesterday as the day my eyes first drank ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur

... by which the gatherers went when they collected the vintage. Young virgins and youths, of tender minds, bore the luscious fruit in woven baskets,[615] in the midst of whom a boy played sweetly on a shrill harp; and with tender voice sang gracefully to the chord; whilst they, beating [the ground] in unison with dancing and shouts, followed, skipping with ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... old-fashioned kitchen whose spotless rows of pans and its rocker by the window reflected nothing of first citizenship, the memory-making mystery of child and woman in a homely setting drew taut an age-old chord of sympathy. Out of the hum of the kettle and the fire-shadows of the grate it came, out of the winter wind that rattled the checkerpaned windows—that eternal something that is only given to women to understand. Jimsy did ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple

... fully accomplished, and it has nothing further to do with the material. Only that Almighty Power which created it can restore its association with a perception of matter, and that by reuniting the broken chord—the silver chord which bound it to its prison walls of clay. Henceforth it is to deal only with pure spirit and as pure spirit; it has a nobler destiny before it, and higher and more glorious objects to employ its powers and engross its emotions and affections than any that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... up arms against the regicides of Paris; and Pitt, as we shall see, early sought to avoid friction in the West Indies. Otherwise, he would be highly blameable; for England's easy acquisition of Hayti could not but ruffle the feelings of the Dons. No chord in the highly strung nature of the Spaniard vibrates so readily and so powerfully as that of pride in the retention or recovery of the conquests of his ancestors. The determination of the Court of Madrid to win back Louisiana and the Floridas, not to speak of Minorca, had potently ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... apprehending a disposition to find fault, exclaimed, with the air of a man who had money in both pockets, "I shall soon be in better chambers than these." The harmless bravado drew a reply from Johnson which touched the chord of proper pride. "Nay, sir," said he, "never mind that. Nil te quaesiveris extra," implying that his reputation rendered him independent of outward show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith could he have kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind, and squared ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... said Atlee thoughtfully, 'you have just—as it were by mere hazard—struck the one chord in the English nature that will always respond to the appeal of a home affection. Were I to say, "Do you know why Kostalergi makes so hard a bargain? It is to endow a daughter. It is the sole provision he stipulates to make her—Greek statesmen can ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... quiet and dim, and drawing toward eventide. The lady at the harpsichord chanced to let fall her hand upon the keys. They gave forth a deep and melancholy sound that vibrated through the room. The chord was like an odor in its subtle power to bring crowding memories. To Haward, and perhaps to Evelyn, scenes long shifted, long faded, took on fresh colors, glowed anew, replaced the canvas of the present. For years the two had been friends; later months had seen him her avowed suitor. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... will try to help thee the whilst—although, our Lady pity me, I know nothing of these strange devices—not even the names. But our rule commands us to labour; there can be no harm therefore, in turning this winch—or in placing this steel-headed piece of wood opposite to the chord, (suiting his actions to his words,) nor see I aught uncanonical in adjusting the lever thus, or in ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... daughters' appeal for help and required her son to sing "The Lost Chord" as a febrifuge. The other song was confiscated after the mother had read the words so unblushingly penned by an author whom she ever afterward deemed an abandoned profligate. She considered that Bedouins ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... your father. Yet you have just said, were you young Waverly, you would renounce parental authority, and abjure your name. This shews that there is an innate principle in your composition at enmity with filial obedience; touch but the chord that moves it, and duty ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... there was nothing more to hear but the double chorus of frogs in the pools of the island. Our pools, Natacha, are like the enchanted lakes of the Caucasus which are silent by day and sing at evening; there are innumerable throngs of frogs which sing on the same chord, some of them on a major and some on a minor. The chorus speaks from pool to pool, lamenting and moaning across the fields and gardens, and re-echoing like AEolian ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... sense or spirit? Who shall say What touch the chord of memory thrills? It passed, and left the August day ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... spirit within; as gallantly clad as he had ever been, even in the old Bath days when he had been courting fair Madeleine de Savenaye; his head proudly uplifted, his tread firm, strong of soul, strong of body—some chord was struck in the perverted old heart that had so long revelled in unholy and gruesome pleasure. She drew the pipe from her lips, and ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the entire audience started convulsively with the feeling that a worse thing had befallen them than even they ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... male wiseheads came together, and, desperate to snap the chord of impotent suspense, mooted and rejected plan after plan that their sane judgment knew from the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... a guardian spirit, which deigns to flit through this wayward world, to cheer the stricken breast, and purify feelings, whose every chord vibrates to the touch of woe; surely such presides, and throws a sunny halo, on the group, that blood has united—on which family love has shed its genial influence—and of which, each member, albeit bowed down by sympathetic grief, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... was said after George finished this homely, but practical and excellent children's sermon; but I can remember that Aleck's face looked somewhat lighter; the words seemed to have touched some inner chord, and to have met his troubles more than they did mine. My load, on the contrary, lay all the more heavily on my conscience; as I realized that I was entirely shut out from such consolations as George tried to ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... pharmacopoeia is overcrowded with nerve tonics, nerve stimulants, nerve sedatives. The medical profession devotes its best energies to the treatment of neuropaths. And as a people we are, or are becoming, excitable, irritable, morbid, prone to sudden collapse through snapping of the overtense chord of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... clearing. Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the thoughts affect the scenery. We see places through our humours as though differently colored glasses. We are ourselves a term in the equation, a note of the chord, and make discord or harmony almost at will. There is no fear for the result, if we can but surrender ourselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows us, so that we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in what she had said, but more in her manner of saying it, which made pleasant impression upon him—something in her tone that touched a chord already making music in his heart. If it did not give him surety of her love, it, for the time, hindered ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... voice when he had spoken yesterday had left her ears dull to this real first time of hearing love speeches, so that this seemed the second, and the words she heard, after the first little shock of realizing what they were, touched no chord ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... your thoughts, it will be serviceable to you to think over all the details of the annoyance from which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys you to suppose that the provocation originated with yourself instead of with her. It may be possible that some innocent words of yours may ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... set like a marble coronet upon the forehead of the town. When we arrived there one October afternoon the sun was setting amid flying clouds and watery yellow spaces of pure sky, with a wind blowing soft and humid from the sea. Long after he had sunk below the hills, a fading chord of golden and rose-coloured tints burned on the city. The cathedral bell-tower was glistening with recent rain, and we could see right through its lancet windows to the clear blue heavens beyond. Then, as the day descended into evening, the autumn trees assumed that wonderful ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... a kindred chord in the bosom of Hortense de Beauharnais. They were stamped upon her heart forever. A few years after this prediction, Jumonville de Villiers lay slain under a flag of truce on the bank of the Monongahela, and of all the maids ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... re-tells a chapter in the life of the Jewish people at the time of the prophet Isaiah. The poet could not exercise any choice as to his subject—it was forced upon him inevitably. In order to be sure of touching a responsive chord in his people, it was necessary to carry the action twenty-five centuries back. A Jewish novel based on contemporaneous life would have been incongruous both with truth and with the spirit ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... Richard went no more in the autumnal storms to look for his wayward brother. There was something in the beautiful simplicity of the church service which went straight to Andy's heart, and more than all, there was something in Mr. Townsend's voice, and manner, and face, which touched a responsive chord in the breast of the boyish Andy, and when at last the bishop came to that section of Iowa, his hands were first laid in blessing on the bowed head of Andy, who knelt to receive the rite of confirmation in the presence of a large concourse of people, to most of whom the service ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... this time that I discovered the deepest tonic my nerves have ever known. The explosion of the Haymarket bomb found a responsive chord, the vibrations of which will never cease in me, I hope. The unconscious in me was at last released, and I held my mad balance on the crater's edge and gazed into it. Hereafter, I was to live on dangerous ground, at least in thought. No more doubt, no more shuffling now. I must try ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... candlelight, reading M. Guizot, suddenly there arose from the room beneath, oh, such sounds! It was Prince Albert, dear Prince Albert, playing on the organ; and with such master skill, as it appeared to me, modulating so learnedly, winding through every kind of bass and chord, till he wound up with the most perfect cadence, and then off again, louder and then softer. No tune, as I was too distant to perceive the execution or small touches so I only heard the harmony, but I never listened with much more pleasure to any ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... preacher's face lighted with the faint, prophetic joy of martyrdom; poor Marg'et Ann had touched the wrong chord. "It cannot be worse for me than it is for them,—I must go," he broke out impatiently; "do not say anything ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... the fullness of their grace. When a man's mother holds his child in her gladdened arms he is aware (with some instinctive sense of propriety) of the roundness of life's cycle; of the mystic harmony of life's ways. There speaks humanity in its chord of three notes: its little capture of completeness and joy, sounding for a moment against the silent flux of time. Then the perfect span is shredded away and is ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... himself strangely moved. Somewhere deep within his soul a chord had been suddenly struck by the little presence; and the sound was unfamiliar to him. Yet it awakened memories of distant scenes, of old dreams, and forgotten longings. It seemed to echo from realms of his soul that had never been penetrated. The tumult within died away. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... are the positions of the forward and backward eccentrics. Through these points draw straight lines from the centre of the circle, and mark the intersection of these lines with the circle of the crank shaft; measure with a pair of compasses the chord of the arc intercepted between either of these points, and the diameter which is at right angles with the crank, and the diameters being first marked on the shaft itself, then by transferring with the compasses the distance found ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... golden chord which binds us all Is loosed, not rent in twain; And love, and hope, and fear, unite To bring the past again. But this grave is so desolate, With no remembering stone, No fellow-graves for sympathy,— 'Tis ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... ever found through effort or desire? In all scenes of beauty or of excitement, in the allurements of society, in solitude and in sorrow, my heart still turned to you with ceaseless longing, as if you alone could touch its master-chord, and waken the harmonies which were struggling for expression. By slow degrees, as I learned to dissever you from the material world, there came a conviction of the nearness of your spirit, sometimes so positive that I would waken from a reverie, in which I was lost to sights ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... waves were gently beating the shore with their restlessness. If the beauty and purity of the Lake were in harmony with the deepest religion of the Bible, certainly the voice of the pines was also in chord with it. ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... slightly—"that you may buy a remembrance with it of our visit to the volcano." In such a form, the present—I did not write the amount down among my disbursements—was accepted frankly and freely. The poor girl was evidently in a state of great emotion: a few kind words from me had struck upon a chord ever ready to vibrate; the truth is, she sobbed, and could not answer. But when the tongue falters, and the lip trembles in the South, there is an eloquent substitute for language. She took my hand, and kissed it fervently, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... cry, wrung from the lips of many that the word of the Nations' Law might be fulfilled—wrung from the lips of Nicanor himself. He knew the full measure of its bitterness, and somewhere in him an answering chord stirred and woke to life. He put his hand ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... killing twenty maurauding Utes. But what soon followed filled them with an astonishment that stilled their mischievous tongues, stirred sentiments long dormant, and ultimately, in a measure, tuned their own heart-strings into chord with the sweet melody ringing over ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... him. The swarthy singer sat down to the instrument and struck a ringing chord. He had a pure and infinitely powerful tenor voice, clear as crystal, loud as a clarion, strong, rich, and rippling. He sang a love-song he had composed himself. He called it 'The Homage of King Pan to the Princess.' It was voluptuous and vehement and sweet as ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... appeal smote a responsive chord in his heart. It would be good to have a man of his own race beside him, even though it were but such a ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... hearts could not bear a touch on the chord of gratitude; and Paula burst in, "Label or libel, ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... struck a familiar chord in my memory, but I could not put a name to its owner. The girl looked at me with eyes grown suddenly horror-stricken. I noticed that her face had taken on the ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... had offered to our ambassador; but the real ground of quarrel was to be found in an official gasconade of Bonaparte's, in which he declared that "Britain could not contend single handed against France," a vainglorious boast, which (in those days at least) touched a chord which thrilled the patriotic feelings of every Englishman that ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... thought. This man was keen enough of wit to know the price at which her favours were bought; brave enough not to flinch, or to make abortive effort to avoid his fate. Her whole experience brought feeling of disgust toward men, when once satiated. With this man the chord of pity was touched. The honoured sleeves were wet with the honoured tears as she made answer to the plea. Without slightest effort to deny her once purpose she consoled and reassured him. "It was determined, that granted favour you should never leave ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... of the deserted two on Cod Lead must have appealed to the commander. He was profane about it, and talked about elephants and men who owned them in a way that struck an answering chord in the Cap'n's breast. But he finally gave orders for the embarkation of Imogene, and after much more profanity and more slurs which Hiram was obliged to listen to meekly, the task was accomplished, and the cutter proceeded on her way along coast on ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... ages hung upon her hands Heavy with burdened love. The music hushed. Deep in the mystery of her steady eyes Lingered the secret of the world, and then Laughter and light came dancing from her smile. Her fingers fluttered on the harp of love, And every chord uttered itself again Within some dusky heart. The earth was still. The warm night air was strong with heavy scent Of oil upon the dancers and the flowers That decked their breasts and hair. Malua's soul Fainted beneath the load of so much love, And when the dance was finished, ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay

... into a purpose so all-absorbing that I might have been overwhelmed by it, had not my over-active imagination been brought to bay by another's common sense. Hugo's plea for suffering Humanity—for the world's miserable—struck a responsive chord within me. Not only did it revive my latent desire to help the afflicted; it did more. It aroused a consuming desire to emulate Hugo himself, by writing a book which should arouse sympathy for and interest in that class of unfortunates in whose behalf I felt ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... chords. So he began trying to write his counterpoint in such a way that the voice parts should often come together in successions of chords. In order to do this he was compelled to adopt the kind of formations still in use and the fundamental chord relations of modern music—the ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson

... voice in a single long note or shake used to bring the house down in the days of our grandparents, just as the subtle orchestral blendings of Wagner entrance hearers incapable of distinguishing the notes of a chord and sometimes even incapable of following ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee

... domain, and for a moment Uniacke thought he would quietly turn about and make his way down again. For, after a short pause, he half swung round, still keeping his eyes vaguely fixed on the artist, who continued to paint as if quite alone. But apparently some chord of curiosity had been struck in this poor and benumbed mind. For the big man wavered, then stole rather furtively forward, and fixed his sea-blue eyes on the canvas, upon which appeared the rough wall of the belfry, the narrow window, with a section of wild sky in which a weary ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... bosom's lord? Why this anguish in thine eye? Oh, it seems as thy heart's chord Had broken ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... slept the night in the woods, were mustered at dawn and marched back to the landing-place. Their General, falling back upon common sense after the loss of a precious day, was now resolved to try the short and beaten path by which Montcalm had retreated. It formed a four-mile chord, with the loop of the river for arc, and presented no real difficulty except the broken bridge, which Bradstreet was ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... towers, the slender tracery of the sloping parapets, the chiselled wonder of a thousand yellow windows with their oblongs and hectagons and triangles of golden light, the shattered softness of the intersecting planes of star-shine and blue shade, all trembled on John's spirit like a chord of music. On one of the towers, the tallest, the blackest at its base, an arrangement of exterior lights at the top made a sort of floating fairyland—and as John gazed up in warm enchantment the faint acciaccare sound of violins drifted down in a rococo harmony that was ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... her, his footsteps muffled by the carpeting. The music had a curious rhythm that suggested figures dancing wildly around firelight. She struck a final chord, muted the strings. ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert

... quite natural that the chord whose vibrations influence the most powerful human emotion—sexual love—has an infinite variety of vibrations in all forms of art. Music gives expression to the sexual sensations and their psychic irradiations by tones representing desire, passion, joy, sadness, deception, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... strike the lyre! Down where the chord is minor D. Of wooing thee I'll never tire. Good gracious! Why ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall

... across the crests of Norwood. It was then and there that the tragic significance of life first dimly awed and appealed to his questioning spirit: that the rhythm of humanity first touched deeply in him a corresponding chord. ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... upon the piano led to many experiments, in which Professor Fillmore took part, and that brought to light many interesting facts. Among these facts may be mentioned the complexity of rhythms, one played against the other; the modulation implied in some of the melodies; the preference for a major chord in closing a minor song; and the use of certain harmonic relations which have been deemed peculiar to ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher

... particulars—Harmony and Tonality. Harmony is the use of combined sounds. These may be either dissonant, inharmonious in relation to each other, or harmonious, agreeable. All points of repose in a harmonized piece of music must be consonant; or, to say it differently, the combined sound (chord) standing at the beginning or end of a musical phrase must be harmonious. All the elements in it must bear consonant relations to all the others. Between the points of repose the combined sounds may or may not be consonant. ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... more and more, the pinnate form of the usual coco-leaf. But long ere this, from the butt of the white plumule, just outside the nut, white threads of root have struck down into the sand; and so the nut lies, chained to the ground by a bridge-like chord, which drains its albumen, through the monkey's eye, into the young plant. After a while—a few months, I believe—the draining of the nut is complete; the chord dries up—I know not how, for I had neither microscope ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... what we know to be true in other fields and in our own experience. Thoreau made his battle of the ants interesting because he made it illustrate all the human traits of courage, fortitude, heroism, self-sacrifice. Burns's mouse at once strikes a sympathetic chord in us without ceasing to be a mouse; we see ourselves in it. To attribute human motives and faculties to the animals is to caricature them; but to put us in such relation with them that we feel their kinship, that we see their lives ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... lonely minor chord that sings Faintly and far along the forest ways, When the firs finger faintly on the strings Of that rare violin the night wind plays, Just as it whispered once to you and me Beneath the English pines beyond ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... hands down with a bang on to the final chord of his rhapsody. There was just a hint in that triumphant harmony that the seventh had been struck along with the octave by the thumb of the left hand; but the general effect of splendid noise emerged clearly enough. Small details matter little so long as the general ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... could not recognise the expression of majesty and gentleness, that——" "Fudge!" cried the king. Conscience had probably something to do with the abruptness of the exclamation. The old chamberlain had unwittingly touched a tender chord; every allusion to the queen appearing like a tacit reproach to the august and widowed spouse. "That portrait," added the king, "is too flattering, the queen was far from handsome"; then, as if inwardly repentant of his harshness, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... The dreary, never-changing tale Of mortal maladies is worn and stale. You cannot charm or interest or please By harping on that minor chord, disease. ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... commercial, and industrial—and among them were two men, Mr. Thomas Sinclair and Mr. Thomas Andrews, who had been life-long Liberals, but who from this time forward were distinguished and trusted leaders of Unionist opinion in Ulster. It was Mr. Andrews who touched a chord that vibrated through the vast audience, making them leap to their feet, cheering for several minutes. "As a last resource," he cried, "we will be prepared to defend ourselves." But the climax of this memorable assembly was reached when ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... into the ear, and from that moment all consciousness takes on a dulness, and the man becomes terrified lest life is losing its possibilities for him. He rushes back on to a familiar platform of experience, and there finds comfort in touching a well-known chord of passion or emotion. And too many having done this linger on, afraid to attempt the unknown, and satisfied to touch continually that chord which responds most readily. By this means they get the assurance that life is still burning within them. But at last their fate is the same as that ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins

... took up the Harp of Life And smote on all its chords with might; Smote the chord of self, that trembling, Passed ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... the latter a membranous partition of the two halves of the body. With this partition is connected the mass of connective tissue which acts as a sheath both for the medullary tube and the underlying chorda, and is, therefore, called the chord-sheath (perichorda); it originates from the dorsal and median part of the coelom-pouches, which we shall call the skeleton plate or "sclerotom" in the craniote embryo. In the latter the chief part of the skeleton—the vertebral column and skull—develops from this chord-sheath; ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... spots of blood upon one of her torn white feet, that was but half-nestled in the folds of her dress. Bending his head down, like a bird beaking at prey, he kissed the foot passionately. Vittoria's eyelids ran up; a chord seemed to snap within her ears: she stole the shamed foot into concealment, and throbbed, but not fearfully, for Angelo's forehead was on the earth. Clumps of grass, and sharp flint-dust stuck between his fists, which were thrust out stiff on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... with all its painful accompaniments, that He now retired. But the very difficulty of this act of consecration consisted just in this: that He might, if He pleased, avoid death. It was because Peter's words, "This be far from Thee," touched a deep chord in His own spirit, and strengthened that within Himself which made Him tremble and wish that God's will could in any other wise be accomplished—it was this which caused Him so sharply and suddenly to rebuke Peter. Peter's words penetrated to what was lurking near at hand as His normal temptation. ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods

... that her companion's face had softened, and changed. There was a look,—Robinette caught it just for one moment,—such as a proud angry child might have worn: sulky, hurt to the heart, but determined not to cry. Instantly a chord was struck in Robinette's soul. "She has suffered, anyway," she thought. "May I be ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... wonder Was some heart-chord snapped asunder When the threads were soft and silken? Did some fatal boyish blunder Plant a canker in my bosom That ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... leader of elephants rushing at a herd, pierce the ranks of the foe with straight arrows of golden wings, discharged from thy bow. Thy bow is even like a Vina. Its two ends represent the ivory pillows; its string, the main chord; its staff, the finger-board; and the arrows shot from it musical notes. Do thou strike in the midst of the foe that Vina of musical sound.[34] Let thy steeds, O lord, of silvery hue, be yoked unto thy car, and let thy standard ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... a strange and solemn pause as the judge resumed his seat, and all eyes turned on Henry. The firmness of the judge had touched the right chord at last. The sword dropped back into its sheath, the scowl of passion gave place to the flush of shame, the wild eyes sought the ground, and the haughty head hung down in confusion. Without a word he submitted to the officers of the court, and accompanied them to the place of ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... song of our love-life," murmured Eloise. "How full of memories it is—what tenderness and harmony—and oh! what peace it brings! But tell me, Master, what means this minor chord,—this undertone of sadness and of pathos that flows like a deep, unfathomable current throughout it all, and wailing, weaves itself about thy theme of love and happiness with its weird and ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... yacht," said she with a sharp chord in her voice. It was an expressive voice at all times, and doubly expressive in this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... into swooning, into death. Evidently. But to be no more, to be here no more, to be ours no more! Not even to be able, any more, to press against one's human heart, some idle afternoon, the ancient sadness contained in one little chord on the piano!" ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... Venice herself, by type of constitution and historical development, remained sequestered from the rest of Italy, so her painters demand separate treatment.[235] It is enough, therefore, for the present to remember that without the note they utter the chord of the Renaissance ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... 11th, or the 99th, but a lens far different tells us they are used with different aims from those of Debussy. Emerson is definite in that his art is based on something stronger than the amusing or at its best the beguiling of a few mortals. If he uses a sensuous chord, it is not for sensual ears. His harmonies may float, if the wind blows in that direction, through a voluptuous atmosphere, but he has not Debussy's fondness for trying to blow a sensuous atmosphere from his own voluptuous cheeks. And so he ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... of the same age as Ralston. But there was little else which they had in common. The two men had met some fifteen years ago for the first time, in Peshawur, and on that first meeting some subtle chord of sympathy had drawn them together; and so securely that even though they met but seldom nowadays, their friendship had easily survived the long intervals. The story of Hatch's life was a simple one. He had married in his twenty-second year a wife a year younger than himself, and ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... yourself. You must re-educate your memory. You want to know all about this murder, of course. Well, now, look over these papers. They'll tell you in brief what little we know about it. And they may succeed in striking afresh some resonant chord ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... knowledge were the three notes of one harmonious chord; but he did not advocate manual training merely that children might be kept busy, nor even that technical skill might be acquired. The piece of finished kindergarten work is only a symbol of something more valuable which the child has acquired ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... of April, 1836. There is no rancor in it; no taunt of triumph; "the foe long since in silence slept"; but throughout there resounds a note of pure and deep rejoicing at the victory of justice over oppression, which Concord fight so aptly symbolized. In "Hamatreya" and "The Earth Song," another chord is struck, of calm, laconic irony. Shall we too, he asks, we Yankee farmers, descendants of the men who gave up all for freedom, go back to the creed outworn of medieval feudalism and aristocracy, and say, of the land that yields us its produce, "'Tis mine, my children's, and ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... dream, a silent chord. I can not wake my own strings to music; but under the hands of those who comprehend me, I become an eloquent friend. Wanderer, ere thou goest, try me! The more trouble thou takest with me, the more lovely will be the tones with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... and went over to the sick woman, on whose face beamed a tender smile, as Isabel spoke to her. A chord thrilled in two lives hitherto unknown to each other; but what was said Basil would not ask when the invalid had taken Isabel's hand between her own, as for adieu, and she came back to his side with swimming eyes. Perhaps ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... at the piano. In two strides he was across the room, and sitting on the stool he lifted the cover and struck a chord. The instrument sounded a little flat and apparently had not received the attention of a ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... for, he made no attempt to decide. He sat bitingly conscious of his hands spread open on the table under the scrutiny of eyes that were invisible to him vividly aware of the awkwardness of his position. He felt with instinctive certainty that a new chord had been struck; but a man seldom acts on instinctive certainties. If the exposure of his hands had struck this fresh note, then any added action would but heighten the dilemma. ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... listeners themselves. Unlike the novel which commends itself to the world's grown children, these narratives had by no means necessarily a happy ending; for one thing Emma saw too deeply into the facts of life, and was herself too sad, to cease her music on a merry chord; and, moreover, it was half a matter of principle with her to make the little ones thoughtful and sympathetic; she believed that they would grow up kinder and more self-reliant if they were in the habit of thinking that we are ever dependent on each other for solace ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... most terrible irony to stand there and see the savages rejoicing over the cruel fate of their comrade, and, as the water rose in their eyes, there came at the same time out of the depths of the forest the long lone howl of the wolf, now a deep thrilling note, something like a chord. ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... a pitiful little cry and turned tender, beseeching eyes to her lover, and the sound of her voice touched that chord which was fine in Eustace Medlicott's heart. He seemed suddenly to see things as they were, and to realize that love had indeed come to his betrothed, though not for him, so he rose above the pain this conviction caused him and let justice ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn

... off in front he saw the flickering fires of the enemy. As the wind increased the lights wavered and the cones split into many streams of flame before it. The leaves and boughs whistled in the rush of air and the waters of the creek sang a minor chord on the shallows. Talbot had heard these sounds a hundred times when a boy in the wilderness of the deep woods, and it was easy enough for him to carry himself back there, with no army or soldier near. But he quickly dismissed such thoughts as would lull him ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... only woman my father had ever met who could be the companion to his mind, walk through the garden of knowledge by his side, and trim the flowers while he cleared the vistas. On the other hand, there was an inborn nobility in Lady Ellinor's sentiments that must have struck the most susceptible chord in Roland's nature, and the sentiments took eloquence from the look, the mien, the sweet dignity of the very turn of the head. Yes, she must have been a fitting Oriana to a young Amadis. It was not hard to see that Lady Ellinor was ambitious, that she ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that break and give no sign Save whitening lip and fading tresses, Till Death pours out his cordial wine, Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,— If singing breath or echoing chord To every hidden pang were given, What endless melodies were poured, As sad as earth, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... no less the feeble note Of one small bird's awakening throat, Than that unnamed, tremendous chord ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... of responsibility was flattered by the frequency of our united appeal to her for some answer to the marvellous riddle. We had all turned it over till we were tired of it, threshing out the question why the note he strained every chord to pitch for common ears should invariably insist on addressing itself to the angels. Being, as it were, ourselves the angels we had only a limited quarrel in each case with the event; but its inconsequent character, given the forces set in motion, was peculiarly baffling. ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... impassioned thoughts and images. With this exterior, let the reader associate a voice, though not strong, eminently flexible and harmonious; a mind that felt, and therefore never erred in its emphasis; alternately touching the chord of pathos, or advancing with equal ease into the region of argument or passion; and then let him remember that every sentiment he uttered was clothed in expressions as mellifluous as perhaps ever fell from the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... appreciation of the art and its higher influences had prompted her clever novelette La Marquise. Here she illustrates the power of the stage as a means of expression—of the truly inspired actor, though his greatness be but momentary, and his heroism a semblance, to strike a like chord in the heart of the spectator—and, in a corrupt and artificial age, to keep alive some latent faith in the ideal. Since then the stage and players had figured repeatedly in her works. Sometimes she portrays a perfected type, such as Consuelo, or Imperia in Pierre qui roule, but always ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... hot We seek its verdant, velvet sward, Oh may we hold in reverent thought The debt we owe, forgetting not The spirit passed to its reward Of one whose giant soul was fraught With true benignity—who sought To touch humanity's quick chord With fire from Heaven's altar brought, That love and zeal and being caught As inspiration from ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... fancy cling— Glow at thy smile, as when, in younger years, I've seen thee smiling through thy maiden tears, Like a fair floweret bent with morning dew, While sunbeams kissed its leaves of loveliest hue. Thou wert the chord and spirit of my lyre— Thy love the living voice that breathed—"aspire!"— That smoothed ambition's steep and toilsome height, And in its darkest paths was round me, light. Then, sit thee by me, love, and list the strain, Which, but for thee, had ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... Fancher," said he, "the excellent Fancher is wroth. Let us proceed, gentlemen, to more friendly topics. You, now, Doctor Chord, with what new thing in chemics are you ready to ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... captured the fancy of his countrymen with one song, "Said the Rose," which at one time was the most popular song in the United States. It has not the depth and the melting tenderness of "Home, Sweet Home," but its quaint fancy and melodious verse struck a responsive chord. In his "Inkerman," a stirring ballad, which every American boy of a former age knew by heart, there was an echo of the "Lays of Ancient Rome," of the "Lays" of Scott and Aytoun, while in the more ambitious "Christine" (1866), there was the accent of the genuine ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... window again, and looked out. His aunt's words touched a chord in his heart, which vibrated strongly. To live with her, in any capacity whatever—assuredly that would be the highest attainable good. To draw from her gentle presence that bliss of absolute rest and ease which he had never known ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... the conviction of the nullity of human things, are exquisite in style; they breathe a perpetual melancholy, which is often sublime, and they relax and pain your soul like the music of a single chord, while their strange sweetness wins you to them again and again." This is the language of an Italian critic who wrote after Leopardi's death, when already it had begun to be doubted whether he was the greatest ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... croquet-party furnished a safe topic. Colonel Rolleston thought the gentle dissipation had made his daughter quite lively. Afterwards she took refuge at the piano, which was imprudent, for music only too surely touches the chord of feeling, and every piece was associated with Bertie. Cecil shut the instrument, and effected a strategical retreat to her bed-room, where, in the luxury of solitude, she might worry and torment herself to her ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... should all modern machines. Rudder and elevator a good deal like the Nieuport. One passenger. Roomy cockpit and enclosed fuselage. Bleriot control. Nearer streamline than any American plane yet. Span, 33.6 ft., length 24, chord of wing at fuselage 6' 5''. Chauviere propeller, 6' 6'', pitch 4' 5''. Dandy new Gnome engine, 70 h.p., should develop ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... with an energetic, as if soldierly, stride; he bowed a second time after which he straightened as a chord and, looking straight into the ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... trivial music like Mendelssohn's "Spring Song" or meaningless music like Taubert's Waltz: he creates a beauty out of sound itself and a beauty which is at the root of music. There are moments when a single chord seems to say in itself everything that music has to say. That is the moment in which everything but sound is annihilated, the moment of ecstasy; and it is of such moments that Pachmann is ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... moral caution; this would have argued a craze in favor of one element amongst many. What he meant was, to indicate the radix out of which his particular system was expanded. It was the key-note out of which, under the laws of thorough-bass, were generated the whole chord and its affinities. Whilst the whole evolution of the system was in lively remembrance, there needed no more than this short-hand memento for recalling it. But now, when the lapse of time has left the little maxim stranded on a shore of wrecks, naturally it happens ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... darlings, with what might be called the "scholastic-veneration-cult"; the cult, namely, of becoming a superior person by reading the best authors. It comes back, after all, to what your young person emphatically is, in himself, independent of all this acquiring. If he has the responsive chord, the answering vibration, he may well get more imaginative stimulus from reading "Alice in Wonderland," than from all the Upanishads and Niebelungenlieds in the world. It is a matter of the imagination, ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... sorrow and mounted dying away to the heavens. Lavretsky drew himself up, and rose cold and pale with ecstasy. This music seemed to clutch his very soul, so lately shaken by the rapture of love, the music was glowing with love too. "Again!" he whispered as the last chord sounded. The old man threw him an eagle glance, struck his hand on his chest and saying deliberately in his own tongue, "This is my work, I am a great musician," he played again his marvellous composition. There was no candle ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... were superstitious I should say that some evil spirit then went out of the violin, and broke in his parting throes the wooden tabernacle which had so long sheltered him. It was the last time the instrument was ever used, and that hideous chord was the last ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... stood one admiring, and pitying whilst admiring, till nature, stronger than the ties of country and of custom, spurning their control, armed with irresistible persuasion the Indian maiden's tongue, and touched a new chord in the stern breast of her sire and king; at once giving to the hopeless captive life and freedom, and winning for the name of Pocahontas the immortality of a nation's gratitude: and never, surely, did nature ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... gray, and better befriended. The ousel haunts them, while still hang about their coasts the thin undercut drifts that never quite leave the high altitudes. In and out of the bluish ice caves he flits and sings, and his singing heard from above is sweet and uncanny like the Nixie's chord. One finds butterflies, too, about these high, sharp regions which might be called desolate, but will not by me who love them. This is above timber-line but not too high for comforting by succulent small herbs and golden tufted grass. ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... good-natured enough to seat himself at the piano, struck a thunderous chord—but in the same instant, and before Hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed the picture of the dead face and the fleeing ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... cant of criticism of the worthies on the free list, and to the instinctive applause of the popular voice. Even with these humbler hands to build up his monument, the great master of music has a perpetual possession within the hearts of men, that the poet and the painter may well envy. Every chord in the human frame that answers to his strains, every tear that rises at the bidding of his cadences, every sob that struggles for an outlet at his touches of despairing tenderness, or at the thunders of his massive harmony, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... that the north was in open revolt, it struck a chord in the hearts of both brothers; and when the dark-browed twins came with the news that they had openly joined the standard of Llewelyn, they did not encounter the opposition they had expected, and it was with an eager ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... saw the Pleiades, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of a fool! Comfort? Comfort scorn'd of devils! ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... ordinary little sentiment, Miss Kay. The Spanish cavalier, having settled himself under his lady's window, thrums a preliminary chord or two, just to let her and the family know he's not working on the sly; then he says in effect: 'I think of thee, my little Tessie, when the moonlight is shining on the world; your bright eyes have me going for fair, kid, and due to a queer pain in my interior, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... To song more drear, while thought soars into gloom. Find me the harbor of the roaming storm, Or end of souls whose doom is life itself! So vague, yet surely sad, the song I dream And utter not. So sends the tide its roll,— Unending chord of horror for a woe We but half know, even when we ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... had awakened a chord of memory, or, to be accurate, they had given emphasis to what before had been only blurred and vague. For he had spoken the words which Stumm had uttered behind his hand to Gaudian. I had heard something like 'Uhnmantl,' ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... eyes which met his touched a chord of memory long suppressed. So Kitty had looked when he met her for the first time after her flight with O'Guire; so she had looked the last time he had seen her when she had pleaded for mercy to her dying parents and he had taunted her ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott

... whistling notes arose once more, sounding somewhat as if a person were running the notes of a chord up and down with ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... turned fisherman and learned to fish. Once only have I seen him get his dinner in this way. It was on the north shore of Nantucket, one day in the winter of 1890-91, when the remarkable flight of white owls came down from the north. The chord of the bay was full of floating ice, and swimming about the shoals were thousands of coots. While watching the latter through my field-glass, I noticed a snowy owl standing up still and straight on the edge of a big ice cake. "Now what is that fellow doing there?" ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... anything that interests us is not without interest to Christ. Anything that is big enough to occupy our thoughts and our efforts is large enough to be taken into His. All our ignoble toils, and all our petty anxieties, touch a chord that vibrates in that deep and tender heart. Though other sympathy may be unable to come down to the minutenesses of our little lives, and to wind itself into the narrow room in which our histories are prisoned, Christ's sympathy ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... my—Jessie," he cried, "an' I want her back." Then, in a moment, his whole manner changed, and his words came with an irresistible pleading. Hard as was the gambler, the pathos of it struck a chord in him the existence of which, perhaps, even ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... the curate, therefore, had touched altogether the wrong chord when he spoke of displacing Grace. And when, that same afternoon, he sauntered down to the pier-head, wearied with his parish work, not only did Tardrew stump away in silence as soon as he appeared, but Captain Willis's face assumed a grave ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... have often been seduced, and as it were carried off, by their own youth, but toward the days of autumn, restored to the maternal hearth, they have added to their harps the grave or plaintive chord on which either religion or unhappiness finds expression. Old age is a traveler in the night time; the earth is hidden from sight and he can see nothing but the heavens ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various

... old tune, like this"—and striking a chord or two, she was off before the rest had any guess of her intention, with a merry devil in her eye and her face glowing like a flower ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... him, and a certain suspense of judgment—quite unlike her familiar attitude of mind—always marked her agreement in hopes for his future. The old woman of the world interpreted this by her own lights. At moments it vexed her, for she did not like to be mystified; at others, it touched a chord of sympathy in some very obscure corner of her being. And, as no practical problem could be put before her without her wishing to solve it autocratically, Lady Ogram soon formed a project with regard to these two persons, a project which took firmer consistence, and pleased ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... it is sung softly like the farmhand quartettes do in the rural melodrama outside the old homestead in harvest time. Oh! I tell you it's a truly rural octette. Listen to that exhibition bass voice of Jimmy Sands and that wandering tenor of Tommy Whiteing, and as the last chord dies away (over the fields ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... striking a lively chord or two, "I hope you'll catch it, young man. You're altogether too free and easy with your feminine friends.... What do ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... were letters from all over the State, and among them three invitations from widely separated cities, all based upon the newspaper reports of his Ophir speech. It seemed to be plainly evident that the "campaign-of-education" idea was striking a popular chord, and the proponent of the idea saw what a miraculous opportunity was offering for the railroad if only the "powers" that Gantry had refused to name were broad enough and high-minded enough ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... man had accomplished what everyone else, priest, lawyer, Sheriff and watcher, had failed to do: he had shaken Grassette out of his blank isolation and obdurate unrepentance, had touched some chord ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... slowed his steps, enchanted by the thunder of the elevated trains above him and the soothing crash of the wheels on the cobbles. And then there was a new, delightful chord in the uproar—the musical clanging of a gong and a great shining juggernaut belching fire and smoke, that people ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... little child is not equipped psychologically to hear complicated units. I wish some one could determine how the average four-year-old hears the harmony of a chord on the piano. Is it much except confusion? In the same way, he is not equipped to leap a span between units. I wish some one would determine the four-year-old's memory span for rhymes, for instance. The ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... his deep and patient sigh touched a tender chord in that ungoverned creature; or perhaps the time had come for one passion to ebb and another to flow. The princess sank languidly into a seat, and the tears began to steal rapidly down ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... end of the second year an assistant was appointed—a gentleman who had been a student in the department. To him were entrusted the classes in rudimentary harmony, dictation, and chord-analysis: and to this extent he relieved MacDowell until the latter had his sabbatical vacation in 1902-03; he then took over the classes in strict counterpoint; but all the more advanced courses were discontinued until MacDowell's return. Even with an assistant, however, ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... a deep sigh, "God is punishing me perhaps for thinking too late of this just reparation. O my good and noble Sandra, you touch a chord which vibrates sadly in my heart, and you anticipate the unhappy confidence I was about to make. I feel a gloomy presentiment—and in the hour of death presentiment is prophecy—that the two sons of my nephew, Louis, who has been King of Hungary since ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... muse shall quite forget to sound The chord whose music is undying, if She do not strike it when Sam Patch is drowned. Leander dived for love. Leucadia's cliff The Lesbian Sappho leapt from in a miff, To punish Phaon; Icarus went dead Because the wax did not continue stiff; And, had he minded what his father said, He ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... refined organization, but they can colour all that they combine with the evanescent hues of this ethereal world; a word, a trait in the representation of a scene or a passion, will touch the enchanted chord, and reanimate, in those who have ever experienced these emotions, the sleeping, the cold, the buried image of the past. Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the world; it ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... yet shivered through the room, he struck a chord of dead conclusion, the curtain stirred, she emerged from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... fall in ripples and cascades over mossy walls among maidenhair and spleen-worts. They are very sweet, and the sound of trickling water seems to mingle with their fragrance in a most delicious harmony. Sound, smell, and hue make up one chord, the sense of which is pure and perfect peace. The country-people are kind, letting us pass everywhere, so that we make our way along their aqueducts and through their gardens, under laden lemon-boughs, the pale fruit dangling at our ears, and swinging showers of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... moment to say, "You'll look out, won't you?" and then followed the rest on to the window-sill, where, taking the time from Captain Wag, they all stood in a row, bowed with their caps off, straightened up again, each sang one note, which combined into a wonderful chord, faced round and disappeared. I followed them to the window and saw the inhabitants of the house separating and going to their homes with the young ones capering round them. One or two of the elders—Wag's father in ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James

... appearances, and have no sense of consequences. Nothing more is meant by them than meets the ear: they understand or feel nothing more than meets their eye. The web and texture of the universe, and of the heart of man, is a mystery to them: they have no faculty that strikes a chord in unison with it. They cannot get beyond the daubings of fancy, the varnish of sentiment. Objects are not linked to feelings, words to things, but images revolve in splendid mockery, words represent themselves in their strange rhapsodies. The categories of such a mind are pride and ignorance—pride ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... of a rich girl. She would not be suited to the trials of a minister's life. But finding that Henry was firm in his opinion that this sound general principle did not in the least apply to this particular case, the professor proceeded to touch the tenderest chord in the young man's heart. He told him that it would be ungenerous, and in some sense dishonorable, for him to take a woman delicately brought up into the poverty and trial incident to a minister's life. If you understood, sir, how morbid his sense of honor is, you would not wonder at the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... Let B bisect the chord ZZ'. Then, by geometry, the angle FQY is equal to the angle BTF, and the protuberance FY is equal the sine of that angle, making QF radius. This angle, made by the axis of the vortex and the surface of the sphere, is commonly between ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... sun should shine in all his glory; Again, the twilight seems the fitting time. Yet sweet dark night would understand the story, So old, so new, so tender, so sublime. Wild storms should rage to chord with my desire, Yet faithful stars should shine and never tire, ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord, its various tone, Each spring, its various bias: Then at the balance let's be mute, We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute, But know not ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... thoughtful and good. The Bounding Zouaves, with one accord, bounded into their clothes and disappeared through the door just as a long-drawn chord from the invisible orchestra announced the conclusion of the ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse

... the rights and liberties of the people and were inherently arbitrary and despotic, being imposed without the consent of the Colonies and to their grave hurt and detriment. In pleading the Colonial cause against the Writs, Otis struck a chord in the heart of the people which tingled and vibrated, while stirring up such opposition to them that the authorities were fain to hold their hand and await instructions from the English ministry as to their withdrawal or enforcement. The response of the home government ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... which I, as musical adviser of our club, had not only had to rehearse, but was then forced to conduct. Towards the end of this piece, which grew ever wilder and which was sung to ever quicker time, I made a sign to my friend, and just as the last chord rang like a yell through the building, he and I vanished, leaving ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... all modern machines. Rudder and elevator a good deal like the Nieuport. One passenger. Roomy cockpit and enclosed fuselage. Bleriot control. Nearer streamline than any American plane yet. Span, 33.6 ft., length 24, chord of wing at fuselage 6' 5''. Chauviere propeller, 6' 6'', pitch 4' 5''. Dandy new Gnome engine, 70 h.p., should ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... adequately utter none Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. Therein I hear the Parcae reel The threads of man at their humming wheel, The threads of life and power and pain, So sweet and mournful falls the strain. And best can teach its Delphian chord How Nature to the soul is moored, If once again that silent string, As erst it wont, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... he struck a tender chord—all the tender chords of her twilight playing that now rose up softly ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... she readily acquiesced in the prospect of meeting Captain and Mrs. Berwick. She was even flattered by it. The right chord of genuine nobility was in her, though she was reported to be satirical. It was true that she was slightly disposed to make abrupt, ironical speeches, the practice being one of her few small privileges. But she felt that Miss Sandys' confidence was honourable ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... that he saw her, Francois Tessier liked the face. One sometimes meets a woman whom one longs to clasp in one's arms without even knowing her. That girl seemed to respond to some chord in his being, to that sort of ideal of love which one cherishes in the depths of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... influence was not merely local but worldwide. He invites the old world and the new to kneel together at the altar of sentiment, an appeal to the emotions which never fails to touch a responsive chord in the ...
— Dickens in Camp • Bret Harte

... music, costs more than anything; and Arthur was fastidious. Aggie's fingers had grown stiff, and their touch had lost its tenderness. Of their old tricks they remembered nothing, except to stumble at a "stretchy" chord, a perfect bullfinch of a chord, bristling with "accidentals," where in their youth they had been apt to shy. ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair

... worldly prosperity, even in those whom Fortune seems most highly to favour. One of the most popular books of the preceding century had been Lydgate's version of Boccaccio's poems on the calamities of illustrious men, a vast monody in nine books, all harping on that single chord of the universal mutability of fortune. Lydgate's Fall of Princes had, by the time that Mary ascended the throne, existed in popular esteem for a hundred years. Its language and versification were now so antiquated as to be obsolete; it was time that princes ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... so? You cannot understand him, you never could say this if you understood him. For me a simple chord of Beethoven is ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... the Uitlanders, to protest against their grievances, appeared in all the morning papers, and its eloquent language aroused the greatest enthusiasm in the town. Thus was the gauntlet thrown down with a vengeance, and an ominous chord was struck by the statement, also in the papers, that Mr. Leonard had immediately left for Cape Town, "lest he should be arrested." It must be remembered that any barrister, English or Afrikander, holding an official position in the Transvaal, had ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... darkness, but, as the beams shone out full and clear once more, that shadowy figure seemed to gather substance, and I felt as if some unknown force were compelling my attention and chaining my every sense in a mute endeavor to establish some chord of connection between me and the dim spirit world which floats forever round us. Now waxing, now waning, the vision grew, till I fancied I caught a glint of armor. For an instant a wild imploring glance ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... grow lighter as he comes out of the wood into a clearing. Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the thoughts affect the scenery. We see places through our humours as through differently coloured glasses. We are ourselves a term in the equation, a note of the chord, and make discord or harmony almost at will. There is no fear for the result, if we can but surrender ourselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows us, so that we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable sort ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... not with those Who only stand and wait for his reward. He pours the heavenly gift of song restored Into thy breast, and bids thee nobly close A noble life, with poetry that flows In mighty music of the major chord. ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke

... by inhuman fathers, and for their weeping mothers too. My father did not forget in his art the note he found in beautiful Florence, though it was too sad to introduce by a definite exposition, and falls upon the ear, in "Monte Beni," like a wordless minor chord. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... B Mess was nearing the climax of GRIEG'S "Peer Gynt" suite. Hyldebrand just failed to perpetrate the time-worn gag of jumping through the big drum, but he contrived to make that final crashing chord sound like the last sneeze of a giant dying of hay-fever. The rest the crowd saw through a film of dust. Hyldebrand headed for the turning by the school, reached it as the gates opened to release young France, and comedy would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various

... was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the entire audience started convulsively with the feeling that a worse thing had befallen them than even they ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... would be patiently submitted to. And he would faithfully represent to His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, the loyalty, zeal, and unanimity of His Canadian subjects. The Houses trembled with emotion. A thrill of intense satisfaction ran through every vein. Sir George had touched that chord in the human heart, which was never touched in vain. He had spoken of patriotism; he had acknowledged that the brave were brave indeed; and he had admitted that those who had been represented as treasonable ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... the Lad dropped the bow upon the strings. Strong and round, mellow and sweet, the note swelled forth. Starting with the least filament of sound, it wove itself into a compact chord of sonorous resonance; filled the great parlors; passed through the doorway into the receptive stillness outside; charged it with throbbings—thus held the air a moment; reigned in it—then, calling its powers back to itself, drew in its vibrating tones; checked its undulating force; ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... Ethel, however, struck the chord, and the girls chimed in weakly. Then, the music, strengthening their hopes as it progressed, made them more cheerful. Loudly, they brought out the ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell

... truest, noblest way of love—to imagine you have discovered every aspect of the eternal Feminine combined in one woman, or to run rapidly over the lips of woman as you run your fingers over the keys of a piano, till, at last, you find the sublime chord of harmony?' ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelai, Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God. Is that time dead? Lo, with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance, And must I lose a ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... them with his eyes; suddenly he leaped up, and a wild thought burned in his breast. But with an effort he checked himself, grasped his violin, and struck a wailing chord of lament. Then he laid his ear close to the instrument, as if he were listening to some living voice hidden there within, ran warily with the bow over the strings, and warbled, and caroled, and sang with maddening glee, and still with ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... of ours united here, Ere long shall cease to be; A thought which strikes a tender chord ...
— Silver Links • Various

... feel, think as they think, enjoy as they enjoy, suffer as they suffer, and thus he brings into his daily waking life that sense of unity with others which he experiences in the higher realms of being. He must develop a sympathy which vibrates in perfect harmony with the many-toned chord of human life, so that he may link in himself the human and the divine lives, and become a mediator between ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... spasm that seized her calm features, and shuddered through her tall figure, that he had touched, perhaps too rudely, some chord in her nature which— ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... an old Cassandra,' said he. 'Don't let the lad be much with her; her talk would destroy the courage of the bravest man; she is so given over to superstition.' Something that she had said had touched a chord in my lord's nature which he inherited from his Scotch ancestors. Long afterwards, I heard what this was. Medlicott ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... was no hint in his finely modulated tones of any chord having been touched in his breast, save the legitimate one of respectful appreciation of a woman who fulfilled the expectation of one alive to what ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... nodded, and swayed, until, it had fairly nodded itself from its sweet resting-place, and, falling to the floor, lay within Bellew's reach. Whereupon, he promptly stooped, and picked it up, and,—even as, with a last, crashing chord, Anthea ceased playing, and turned, in that same moment he dropped it ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol

... has done what is possible with the talent entrusted to him, and unconsciously made the gift more suitable to join the Everlasting Choir, Eternal in the Heavens, to join in the congregation of saints who had found the harmony of the Lost Chord, and to make the heavens ring with the melody of the last strain, Only in heaven I shall ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... sent forth such a melody of joyous music that it echoed thrilling through the hot discordant notes of the world beyond the sunset; and for a moment a chord of harmony ran through the life ...
— The Strange Little Girl - A Story for Children • V. M.

... said he, "the excellent Fancher is wroth. Let us proceed, gentlemen, to more friendly topics. You, now, Doctor Chord, with what new thing in chemics are you ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... and the brawl of the stream beyond. The twilight lay heavy over the church, heaviest of all over the distant organ gallery, where Weldon could barely make out a single figure moving towards the bench. There was a rattle of stops, a tentative chord or two and then a few notes of this or that melody, as if the player, albeit a musician, found himself continually thwarted by the darkness and the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... 'Tis said the seeds wrapt up among the balms And hieroglyphics of Egyptian kings Hold strange vitality, and, planted, grow After the lapse of thrice a thousand years. Some day, perchance, some unregarded note Of our poor friend here—some sweet minor chord That failed to lure our more accustomed ear— May witch the fancy of an unborn age. Who knows, since seeds have such tenacity? Meanwhile he's dead, with scantiest laurel won And little of our Nineteenth Century gold. So, take him, Earth, and this his ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... if to touch such chord be thine, Restore the ancient tragic line, And emulate the notes that wrung From the wild harp, which silent hung By silver Avon's holy shore, Till twice a hundred years roll'd o'er; When she, the bold Enchantress, came, With fearless hand and heart on flame! ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... could conceive, was this he who should have redeemed Israel. And yet the suggestion of something still to come,—something connected with three days,—lingered in their minds. And, in the midst of their despondency, striking upon this very chord, the startling rumor reached them that Christ had risen from the dead. It was in this mood that Jesus found the two disciples whose words I have selected for my text;—faith and doubt, disappointment and hope, alternating in their minds; their Jewish ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... of English art effected by the colour of Turner. It should be remembered that he appeared at a time when coldness of tone was almost a fashion in painting. The chilliness of the shadows of Lawrence and his followers was remarkable. Turner raised the chord of colour a whole octave, if it is permissible to say so, illustrating one art by the terms of another. Mr. Ruskin ascribes to him the discovery of the scarlet shadow. It was in truth less a new discovery than the re-awakening of an old one. The early masters were well aware ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... the mediaeval story above related. Here was the same idea: the young man mysteriously killed, the equally strange sudden death of his friend's bride, and the old organist found dead on his bench after the playing of an impressive requiem, the last chord of which was inordinately prolonged as if it never ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... untimely silenced Coleridge's muse. And the loss is the more trying to posterity because he seems, to a not, I think, too curiously considering criticism, to have once actually struck that very chord which would have sounded the most movingly beneath his touch,—and to have struck it at the very moment when the failing hand was about to ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... alike on some points that there can be no discussion between us? Your words on this paper express my thoughts. Well-argued it is,—clear, logical,—but vast is the hiatus of omission; harsh the consequent jar on every finer chord of the soul. What is this hiatus? I think I know; and, knowing, I will venture to say. I think the writer forgets there is such a thing as self-sacrificing love and disinterested devotion. When I first read the paper, I thought it was the work of a powerful-minded, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... sent alone To drift upon the moonless sea; A lute whose leading chord is gone; A wounded bird that hath but one Imperfect wing to soar upon, Are like me Oh loved ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... out the big circle A for the disc. The circumference of this is divided into six equal parts (chord equal to radius), and through the points of division are drawn the six lines from the centre. Describe circles aaa, each half the diameter of A. The circles bbb are then drawn from centres on the ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... psalm singing done in a half century by this peaceful man was certainly marvelous. The leading of most of the hymns in the social meetings was a very small proportion of it. Whenever he found a psalm, a hymn, or a chorus that struck a chord in his devout heart he laid it carefully away in his retentive memory, and it was instantly called up when ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er

... did, a tone To earthly lutes and lips unknown; With every chord fresh from the touch Of Music's spirit, — ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... between his starting-point, in the days of his innocency, and his goal, the lowest depths of degradation and sham, was so direct an appeal to his last chord of poetic feeling, that the unhappy fellow melted into tears. For four hours he wept, as rigid in appearance as a figure of stone, but enduring the subversion of all his hopes, the crushing of all his social vanity, and the utter overthrow ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... life, you need not be silly about it; the old thing was so upsetting, and—and it was so hard to get it out." Phillis would not have told for worlds how utterly she had broken down over that task of hers; how the stranger's sympathy had touched so painful a chord that, before she knew what she was doing, she had laid her head down on the counter and was crying like a baby,—all the more that she had so bravely pent up her feelings all these days that she might ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... a woman's delicate tact. But daily the bushman put the woman to shame, while she stood dumb or stammering. The Maluka had touched the one chord in the man's heart that was not strained to breaking point, and instantly the fingers closed over the sovereigns, and the defiant hand fell to his side, as with a husky "Not from your sort, boss," he turned sharply on ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... peak some ten miles away, and shot to it in a line which was impeccably straight. Then he repeated the flight, this time in a slight even curve, flowing and smooth as the rise, swell, and gradual fall of a musical chord. The next time, he flew to the peak in a zipping parabola that was as ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... in front, halted us as we approached. Terse and to the point were the questions and answers exchanged between the military arm of the government and the quarantine authorities of Montana. When the question arose of indemnity to citizens, in case of death to native cattle, a humane chord was touched in the young lieutenant in command, resulting in his asking several questions, to which the "major-domo" protested. Once satisfied of the justice of quarantine, the officer, in ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... tried in a brave endeavor To chord my harp with the sun, But the strings would slacken ever, And the task was a weary one: And so, like a child impatient And sick of a discontent, I bowed in a shower of teardrops And mourned with ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley

... thou hast made it needful for me to know that the songs which are sung by divine love are rarely heard by cruel hearts. Grant that my soul may chord with the sweetest music that vibrates in the beauty and harmony ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz

... much to her honour, entered into the conspiracy and whose sense of responsibility was flattered by the frequency of our united appeal to her for some answer to the marvellous riddle. We had all turned it over till we were tired of it, threshing out the question why the note he strained every chord to pitch for common ears should invariably insist on addressing itself to the angels. Being, as it were, ourselves the angels we had only a limited quarrel in each case with the event; but its inconsequent character, given the forces ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... it that the rainbow and the tints of evening clouds Dispel the mists in which the world our spirits still enshrouds? The chord they strike!—oh, tell me not that it can be of earth— The golden heart-string that they touch is not of mortal birth: The very buds and blossoms, and the balmy summer air, Awake within us shadows vague of things more bright and fair; 'Tis almost ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... little sermon touched a responsive chord in Arthur as nothing else had done. "You're a good fellow, Ellen," he said affectionately, "and to prove that I think so I'm going down to ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick

... he had failed in his attempt to speak with the indifference of a man who longs for a change, and is yet too weary to welcome it. Do what he would, the chord of eagerness vibrated. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... him to consult his mother, but this he repelled. He could not endure the sight of a tear in her eye, and she could not restrain them when that chord was touched. It was a propensity she much disliked, the more because she thought it looked like affectation beside Sophy, whose feelings never took that course, but the more ill-timed the tears, the more they would come, at the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a fine example of the all-around American high-school boys. His fondness for clean, honest sport of all kinds will strike a chord of ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... Cooper thus strikes the keynote, or, more accurately, the triple chord, of his life. For he was first of all an American, keenly aware of the opportunities offered by the free institutions of his country to individual ambition, industry, and genius, and of his own personal ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond

... feelings were not such as to enable me to join in what seemed to me little else than a mockery of human life; but rather than "displace the mirth," I tried, but could not long remain a passive spectator; the glee seemed forced and unnatural. It touched no sympathetic chord; it only jarred the feelings; it was the last attempt at gaiety I witnessed within ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... this experience in the early days of light purses; who have not, in the dawn of their genius, stood in the presence of a master and felt the throbbing of their hearts, will always carry in their inmost souls a chord that has never been touched, and in their work an indefinable quality will be lacking, a something in the stroke of the brush, a mysterious element that we call poetry. The swaggerers, so puffed up by self-conceit ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac

... art and its higher influences had prompted her clever novelette La Marquise. Here she illustrates the power of the stage as a means of expression—of the truly inspired actor, though his greatness be but momentary, and his heroism a semblance, to strike a like chord in the heart of the spectator—and, in a corrupt and artificial age, to keep alive some latent faith in the ideal. Since then the stage and players had figured repeatedly in her works. Sometimes she portrays a perfected type, such as Consuelo, or Imperia in Pierre ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... pre-revolutionary type? May we not say, too, in parenthesis, that the man is the votary, not of wisdom, but of a bald and shapeless asceticism, who is so excessively penetrated with the reality, the duties, the claims, and the constant hazards of civilisation, as to find in himself no chord responsive to that sombre pensiveness into which Obermann's unfathomable melancholy and impotence of will deepened, as he meditated on the mean shadows which men are content to chase for happiness, and on all the pigmy progeny of giant effort? 'C'est ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley

... the spectacle of this strange woman, to whom he had lately grown so much attached, plunged into intense emotion, awakened, apparently, by anxiety about his fate, stirred him very deeply—as it would have stirred anybody. Indeed, it struck some chord in him for which he could not quite account, and its echoes charmed and yet frightened ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... expense he had incurred in getting up his large expedition. Of course I told him how disappointed I had been in not getting a sight of the Little Luta Nzige. I described how we had seen the Nile bending west where we crossed in Chopi, and then, after walking down the chord of an arc described by the river, had found it again in Madi coming from the west, whence to the south, and as far at least as Koshi, it was said to be navigable, probably continuing to be so right into the Little Luta Nzige. Should this ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... The city of Manila is built in the form of a large segment of a circle, having the chord of the segment on the river: the whole is strongly fortified, with walls and ditches. The houses are substantially built after the fashion of the mother country. Within the walls are the governor's palace, custom-house, treasury, admiralty, several churches, convents, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... father!" Here a sudden change was visible,—some chord of sorrow was touched, and it ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... piano struck a soft sensuous chord or two, but Francis Hargrave would not have it, and he pulled out the proper phonographic record and cranked the machine while Cecil rolled up ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... curiosity for Egypt alone, and traversed from Alexandria to Syene the entire valley of the Nile, listening complacently to all the legends which the priests deemed fitting to rehearse to Roman ears. He was of course treated with marked attention. Memnon's statue sounded its loudest chord at the first touch of the morning ray; the priests, in their ceremonial habiliments, read to him the inscriptions on the walls of the great Temple at Carnac—and proved to him that after all the Roman empire was no "great shakes;" since a thousand years before, Rameses III. had led more ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... young Hamiltons, who vainly endeavoured to check the public torrent. "He was not always as he is now, and then, poor Welshman as he is, he always lorded it over us, and we will requite him now," was the only reply they obtained; but the first sentence touched a chord in Herbert's heart. Misfortune might have reduced him to the rank he now held, and perhaps he struggled vainly to teach his spirit submission; but how could he obtain his friendship, in what manner succeed in introducing himself. Herbert was naturally too reserved to make advances, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... at length, as if his quiet scrutiny had somehow touched in her a responsive chord, she turned her head and saw him. Their eyes met, and a curious thrill ran tingling through the man's veins. He had never seen this woman before, but as she looked at him, with wonderful dark eyes that seemed to hold ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... church, their minds were so set on doing what they found in the Gospel, that it passed over them without even rousing their intellect, and so vanished without doing any hurt. Tuned to the truth by obedience, no falsehood they heard from the pulpit partisans of God could make a chord vibrate in response. Dawtie indeed heard nothing but the good that was mingled with the falsehood, and shone like a lantern through ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... passage in the oratorio immediately follows, for there is hardly a finer effect in music than that of the soft voices singing the words, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," while the strings gently pulse; and the fortissimo C major chord on the word "light," coming abruptly after the piano and mezzo-forte minor chords, is as dazzling in its brilliancy to-day as when it was first sung. The number of unisons, throwing into relief the two minor chords on C and F, should be especially noted. The chorus ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... single note applies also to the elements of a musical chord. A dozen notes may sound simultaneously, but the ear is able to assimilate each and blend it with its fellows; yet it requires a very sensitive and well-trained ear to pick out any one part of a harmony and concentrate the brain's ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... place is less bravely peninsular than Florence and Rome, at least it is more in the scenic tradition than New York Paris; and while I paced the great arcades and looked at the fourth-rate shop windows I didn't scruple to cultivate a shameless optimism. Relatively speaking, Turin touches a chord; but there is after all no reason in a large collection of shabbily-stuccoed houses, disposed in a rigidly rectangular manner, for passing a day of deep, still gaiety. The only reason, I am afraid, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... Goldsmith was fidgeted by this curious scrutiny, and apprehending a disposition to find fault, exclaimed, with the air of a man who had money in both pockets, "I shall soon be in better chambers than these." The harmless bravado drew a reply from Johnson which touched the chord of proper pride. "Nay, sir," said he, "never mind that. Nil te quaesiveris extra," implying that his reputation rendered him independent of outward show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith could he have kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind, and ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... this visit of the departed guid-man, and, having touched a chord which was extremely sensitive and not easily put to rest after having been made to vibrate, old Mrs Cameron entertained her with a sweet and prolix account of the last illness, death, and burial of the said guid-man, with the tears swelling up in her bright old eyes and hopping over her wrinkled ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... she said. She played the air over a little very sweetly and stirringly, and then as the children stood up she came down close to them, standing just in front of Betsy. She drew the bow across the strings in a big chord, and said, "NOW," and Betsy burst into song with the others. The sun came in the windows brightly, the teacher, too, sang as she played, and all the children, even the littlest ones, opened their mouths wide and ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield

... Chord" and "The Old Folks at Home," and both were complete failures—a mere jumble of notes, with no tune in them at all. I confess that ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain

... the point where the animal had lain down to watch him pass. From this point he followed the trail just far enough to catch its curve. Then he left it and ran in a straight line shrewdly calculated to form the chord to his quarry's section of a circle. His plan was to intercept and pick up the trail again about three quarters of a mile further on. In nine cases out of ten his calculation would have worked out as he wished; but in this case he had not made allowance for ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... caveat for the Gracioso. I have not wholly dropt the two Students, but kept them quite under: and brought out the religious character of the Piece into stronger Relief. But as I have thrown much, if not into Lyric, into Rhyme, which strikes a more Lyric Chord, I have found it much harder to satisfy myself than with the good old Blank Verse, which I used to manage easily enough. The 'Vida es Sueno' again, though blank Verse, has been difficult to arrange; here also Clarin is not quenched, but subdued: ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... then, I have struck The chord that answers to your gloomy thoughts. Bah! on your sibyl and her prophecy! Put Guido's blood aside, and yet, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker

... at him as her fingers wandered to the final chord. His lips were set in a thin line, and ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of self that, trembling, pass'd ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Hudson, and told her in dollars and cents how cheap a summer's lodging she might secure. He dwelt upon the fact that she would strike a truce with tables-d'hote and have a cook of her own, amenable possibly to instruction in the Northampton mysteries. He had touched a tender chord; Mrs. Hudson became almost cheerful. Her sentiments upon the table-d'hote system and upon foreign household habits generally were remarkable, and, if we had space for it, would repay analysis; and the idea ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... them to secure the requisite anchorage in the compressed part of the concrete. Applied to a riveted truss, the author's reasoning would require that all the rivets by which web members are attached to the top chord should be above the center of gravity of the ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey

... first time Grace's sweet earnestness seemed to awaken a responsive chord in the heart of the obstinate freshman. The ready color dyed her cheeks crimson. The hard, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife—oh how like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom. To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them—for instance, the large and well-modelled statue, Sarah—no; I should be a bad husband, under such circumstances, as well ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... most when singing time came, for Beth could only play, Jo stood dumb as a stone, and Amy broke down, so Meg and Mother sang alone. But in spite of their efforts to be as cheery as larks, the flutelike voices did not seem to chord as well as usual, and ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... his shoulders. "All the first matter should be removed except for the spinal chord and the ...
— Man Made • Albert R. Teichner

... Christian friend, Peter Bohler, "Had I a thousand tongues I would praise Christ Jesus with them all," struck an answering chord in Wesley's heart, and he embalmed the wish in his fluent verse. The third stanza (printed as second in some hymnals), has made language for pardoned souls ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... were to be taken that the two sections of the Netherlands might remain friends. "We are in great danger unless we rely upon each other," it was urged. "But touch this chord very gently, lest the French and English hearing of it suspect some design to injure them. At least we may each mutually agree to chastise such of our respective subjects as may venture to make any alliance with the enemies ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... still light, and Arthur and Amy went out to walk. In spite of the ten years difference in their ages, he always enjoyed her company as well as anybody's in the world, because she was so refreshingly childlike and natural. Every chord of feeling answered so true and clear to the touch, that to talk with her was like playing on a musical instrument, only far more delightful. Arthur had looked forward to walks and talks with Amy as among ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... without a trace of anger or animosity, and the grave, kind tones made some way in the winding avenues leading to Royston's heart. Besides this, the last word struck the chord of the misgiving that had haunted him ever since he proposed the flight, and had already made him half repent it. But the fortress did not ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... the most eloquent pleading could have done. Man in a crowd is an unstable being. At any moment he will veer right round and run in an opposite direction. The idea that the condemned man had a Susan who would mourn over his untimely end touched a chord in the hearts of many among the crowd. The reference to her sweet blue eyes at such a moment raised a smile, and an extremely dismal but opportune howl from poor ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... sovereign, and our father!" sang the children; but clear above them all were heard the sonorous tones of the mother, exclaiming in the fulness of her love, "Long live my emperor, and my husband!" As if every tender chord of Maria Theresa's heart had been struck, she broke forth into one of Metastasio's most passionate songs; while Elizabeth, catching the inspiration, accompanied her mother with sweetest melody. The empress, her ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... sympathy with his fellow-men that has enabled him to find his way so readily to their hearts. Without seeking to represent the intensity of passion, he deals with the fresh, simple emotions of the human soul, and in his simplicity lies his power. He touches a chord that finds an echo in every heart, and his poems have a humanity in them that is irresistible. We admire the "grand old masters," but shrink abashed from their sublime measures. Longfellow is so human, he understands us so well, that ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... will remind this hero of his combats; but he also remembers his moments of love and happiness, and his soul is quieted. Then the music unfolds itself serenely, and rises with calm strength to the closing chord of triumph, which is placed like a crown of glory on ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... the howdahs, this was a final chord from the band, for the huge beasts were thoroughly startled, and the lookers-on noted that similar uneasiness was being displayed by the nine great elephants that appertained to Rajah Hamet's force, these in particular ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... when Mrs. Croly suddenly revealed in a marked way her true, deep instincts. While on a visit to this country on one occasion, Madame Antoinette Sterling, a concert singer in England, was a guest of the Woman's Press Club. She was asked to sing for us, and responded with "The Lost Chord." In answer to an encore she sang a ballad of her own composition, called "The Sheepfold." Mrs. Croly was visibly affected by the words; seldom had she ever manifested more feeling. When the song was ended she quickly rose, and in a tremulous voice exclaimed: "Does ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various

... have struck a vibrant chord in the old man's breast. Absorbed in parish gossip and his 'Cottage Poems,' caring no longer for the world but only for newspaper reports of it, actively idle, living a resultless life of ascetic self-indulgence, the Vicar ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... touched a responsive chord. The friendless solitary old man worshiped friendship: the one great love of his life had been a friendship which he had left behind him: it was his inward treasure: when he thought of it he felt ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... struggle in England against the West Indian interest and other obstacles, says, that, for some time, "worst of all, we found the people, not actually against us, but apathetic, lethargic, incredulous, indifferent. It was then, and not till then, that we sounded the right note, and touched a chord that never ceased to vibrate. To uphold slavery was a crime against God! It was a NOVEL DOCTRINE, but it was a cry that was heard, for it would be heard. The national conscience was awakened to inquiry, and inquiry soon produced conviction." Sir ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... fell out, and squatted there, along the wayside. At once discipline was relaxed. Their faces were a study as the wee piano was set up again, and Johnson, in uniform, of course sat down and trued a chord or two. And then suddenly something happened that broke the ice. Just as I stood up to sing a loud voice broke ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... nicely, only the ink is poor—" "There is little of anything here at Asensio's house—" "It is cold before the dawn—" ... Poor little Rosa! He had always thought of her as so proud, so high-spirited, so playful, but another Rosa had written this letter. Her appeal stirred every chord of tenderness, every impulse of chivalry in his impressionable Irish nature. She doubted him; she feared he would not come' to her. Well, he would set her doubts at rest. "O God! Come quickly, if you love me." He leaped to his feet; he dashed the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... own, the whole cabin ringing with her long-drawn howl. Up in the funnel basin Breed had picked up her trail and was trying to work it out from among the trails left by the dogs. He stopped abruptly and listened. A strange muffled sound had reached him, hollow and drumlike, but there was a familiar chord in it, and Breed swept ahead on Shady's trail, his hope ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... of these words, there was a touch of earnestness in the boy's voice which struck a sympathetic chord in Reginald's nature, and drew him mysteriously to this new hour-old acquaintance. He told him of his own hard fortunes, and by what means he had come down to his present position. Gedge listened to ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... itself considered, but in view of greater good. And when he spoke, not a nerve quivered; the great mysterious sorrow with which the creation groaneth and travaileth, the sorrow from which angels veil their faces, never had touched one vibrating chord either of body or soul; and he laid down the obligations of man to unconditional submission in a style which would have affected a person of delicate sensibility much like being mentally sawn in sunder. Benevolence, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... the grim ones. Designed, as epitaphs are, to arrest and hold in their momentary grasp the wandering attention and languid interest of the passer-by, they must hit him hard and at once, and this they can only do by striking some very responsive chord, and no chords are so immediately responsive as those which relate to death and, it may be, judgment ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... separation. Uncle was overjoyed to see her again, upon earth, and mother was delighted to see him and Aunt Betsey. The light of other days, youth and happy associations of life flashed up before them in memory clear and vivid, which touched the most sensitive chord of their hearts and caused them to vibrate, in love for one another. They visited as only two who love so well and have been separated so long can visit. Minds less sensitive, than theirs, cannot imagine with what degree of intensity of spirit and ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin

... then appears, and presents him with a pair of white kid gloves. The illustrious conductor, having taken some time to thrust them upon a very large and red hand, leisurely takes up his baton, rises, grins upon the expectant musicians, lifts his arm, and—the first chord is struck! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... the thick and the thin, just as we do to-day in our own sailing craft; getting well dusted at times, with the salt thick on their cheeks and decks. Taking it all round, the sea is rather a minor chord; so that these Burlington House pictures of the Argo and The Heroes, in orange and rose on a wine-red sea are not convincing. When my patron comes home I will humbly suggest Orpheus singing at the stem, a following wind, a great bellying sail behind, and all around wet air ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... but a poor comforter even at the best of moments, but in this instance, not knowing upon what chord to touch, my speaking could be of very little avail; nevertheless, I hazarded a few consolatory words, such as we always have at hand to exhort sufferers to bear their ills with patience and look ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... is a breach of etiquette to neglect calling upon your friends. "Visiting," says a French writer, "forms the chord which binds society together, and it is so firmly tied that were the knot ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... placed on the chord of the apse, is a noble and sumptuous example of early Renaissance taste and workmanship, but like the stallwork, its dimensions are such as to diminish the scale of the choir, the five arches opening to the procession path being completely obscured ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... not mean to strike a tragic chord," she replies; "indeed I did not. As to 'escaping with my life,' it was just a phrase ... for the rest I am essentially better ... and feel as if it were intended for me to live and not to die." And referring to a passage relating to Prometheus she asks: "And tell ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... tender, and Tallman Taylor's neglect and unkindness during the past year, had in some measure chilled her first feelings for him. She now, however, looked upon herself as the most afflicted of human beings; the death of her baby had indeed touched the keenest chord in her bosom—she ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... Henry III. was present, as well as Prince Edward, afterwards king. When the new portion of the church was ready, the remains of the four saints were removed further east. In the Norman church the high altar was in the chord of the apse, assuming one to have been built; after Bishop Northwold's alterations it was placed at the east end of the present sixth bay, where the apse terminated. The shrine of the foundress was placed some feet further ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting

... asserting his personal liberty. "I will carry out my lectures if they walk over my body as a dead corpse; and I say to the Mayor of Birmingham that he is my servant while I am in Birmingham, and as my servant he must do his duty and protect me." Touching and beautiful words, which find a sympathetic chord in every British bosom! The moment it is plainly put before us that a man is asserting his personal liberty, we are half disarmed; [61] because we are believers in freedom, and not in some dream of a right reason to which the assertion ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... it left Major Buckley's at Baroona, made a sudden bend to the west, a great arc, including with its minor windings nearly twenty-five miles, over the chord of which arc Sam had now been riding, making, from point to point, ten miles, or thereabouts. The Mayfords' station, also, lay to the left of him, being on the curved side of the arc, about five miles from Baroona. The reader may, if ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... love with the old lady at first sight. There are very few old people to be seen in India, and the dignity and pathos of her appearance touched a tender chord. He admired her fine white hair and handsome features, all furrowed with the countless little lines of time. And she wore such stiff brocades and silks, such beautiful old lace, and the funniest brooches, with pictures in them. ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave

... safety belt and crossed swiftly and silently to the console. Johnny sat raptly. A slow smile of satisfaction began to spread over his face. His gaze flicked to dials and gauges; he nodded very slightly, and brought both hands down like an organist playing a mighty chord. He watched the gauges. The needles were still, lying on their zero pins, and where lights should have flickered and flashed there was nothing. Paresi glanced at Anderson and met a worried look. Hoskins had his head cocked to one side, listening, puzzled. Ives rose from the couch and ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn

... one chord of his amazing shell Would he fetch out the voice of quires, and weight Of the built organ; or some twofold strain Moving before him like some sweet-going yoke, Ride like an Eastern conqueror, round whose state ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee

... like the March-cloud's shadow That sweeps with its wing the faded meadow Not long! And yet thy fleeting, Thy tender, flute-toned greeting, O bluebird, wakes an answer that remains The purest chord in all the ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... am not given to long speeches, nor ever before had I descended to bombast, but I had guessed at the keynote which would strike an answering chord in the breasts of the green Martians, nor was I wrong, for my harangue evidently deeply impressed them, and their attitude toward me thereafter ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... hurried away, leaving in Norbert's heart a more deadly poison than the one she had endeavored to persuade the son to administer to his father, the Duke de Champdoce. She knew each chord that vibrated in his heart, and could play on it at will. She felt sure that in a month he would again be her slave, and that she could exercise over him a sway more despotic than she had yet done, and, in addition to this, that he ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... on the outskirts of a town, where the chime of church-bells was distinctly heard. These are sweet, romantic associations; but "garden flowers," and "silvery chimes," and "childhood's home," are words which awaken no answering chord in my heart—for Reality was stern, and Fancy wove no fabric of fairy texture wherewith ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... me; silence resumes her reign: I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 90 Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,—yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep: Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, The ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... triumph,—the moment when, working his will before him, the machine at last, resistless, silent, massive pantomime of a life, offers itself to the gaze of men's souls and the needs of their bodies,—to know an inventor at all is to know that at a moment like this a chord is touched in him strange and deep, soft as from out of all eternity. The melody that Homer knew, and that Dante knew, is his also, with the grime upon his hands, standing and watching it there. It is the same song that from pride to pride and joy to joy has been ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee

... a description of the battle of Waterloo, for nothing so touched a responsive chord in his mind as the recording of a most fearful catastrophe, the direst calamity known to history, nor served as well to alleviate by comparison ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... not until she had seen his look change and the slightly cynical smile—the smile of one who has examined everything and believes in nothing—fade from his lips. She had touched some chord deep down within him of which he had long ago forgotten even the existence—some echoed harmony of what had been perhaps the living ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... one of these final Alexandrines, it is to be observed, sums up the note of its stanza in a chord of majestic power. They are the most Miltonic lines in the poem; for it is precisely "majesty" {103} which is the unique and essential Miltonic quality; and Dryden in the famous epigram ought to have kept it for him and not given it to ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... beyond all other griefs, when fate First leaves the young heart lone and desolate In the wide world, without that only tie For which it loved to live or feared to die; Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne'er hath spoken Since the sad day its master-chord was broken! ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson

... the features of some remote progenitor will revive again freshly in the latest offspring of the womb of time. Our earth hangs well-nigh silent now, amid the chorus of her sister orbs, and not till past and present move harmoniously together will music once more vibrate on this long silent chord in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... very ready to appropriate praise. I had a curiously complete instance of this the other day. In a parish which I often visit, the organ in the church is what is called presided over by the most infamous executant I have ever heard—an elderly man, who seldom plays a single chord correctly, and whose attempts to use the pedals are of the nature of tentative and unsuccessful experiments. His performance has lately caused a considerable amount of indignation in the parish, for a new organ has been placed in the church, of far louder tone than the old instrument, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... forward and backward eccentrics. Through these points draw straight lines from the centre of the circle, and mark the intersection of these lines with the circle of the crank shaft; measure with a pair of compasses the chord of the arc intercepted between either of these points, and the diameter which is at right angles with the crank, and the diameters being first marked on the shaft itself, then by transferring with the compasses the distance found in the diagram, and marking the point, the eccentric may ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... were an exhibition of woman's wiles, it would find him proof; on that he was resolved. Yet, dissolved in tears as she was, with her long lashes glistening and her mouth twitching pitifully, the dancer seemed to touch a chord deep down in ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... all over the State, and among them three invitations from widely separated cities, all based upon the newspaper reports of his Ophir speech. It seemed to be plainly evident that the "campaign-of-education" idea was striking a popular chord, and the proponent of the idea saw what a miraculous opportunity was offering for the railroad if only the "powers" that Gantry had refused to name were broad enough and high-minded enough to ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... spoke with a fervency and passion that seemed to waken a responsive chord in Margaret Henson's breast. A brighter gleam ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... poet-philosophers had risen to a lofty apprehension of "the Fatherhood of God," for they had taught that "we are all his offspring;" and he seems to have felt that in asserting the common brotherhood of our race, he would strike a chord of sympathy in the loftiest school of Gentile philosophy. He thus "recognized the Spirit of God brooding over the face of heathenism, and fructifying the spiritual element in the heart even of the natural man. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... the name struck an obscurely familiar chord in my brain—something connected with a stained handkerchief, and the ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... it in the English language. Thelma!" And he lingered on the pronunciation of the strange word with a curious sensation of pleasure. "There is something mysteriously suggestive about the sound of it; like a chord of music played softly in the distance. Now, can I get through this door, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... green plain turned to a dull soft hue as the twilight crept over it, ever darker and more misty. In the gardens of the palace the birds in thousands sang together in chorus, as only Eastern birds do sing at sunrise and at nightfall, and their voices sounded like one strong, sweet, high chord, unbroken and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... eagerly scanning the rough country to the south, and expectant any moment of an attack from that direction. He and his men, as well as the horses, mules, and teamsters, are fairly tired out when at nightfall they park the wagons in a big semicircle, with the broad river forming a shining chord to the arc of white canvas. All the live-stock are safely herded within the enclosure; a few reliable soldiers are posted well out to the south and east, to guard against surprise, and the veteran Sergeant Clancy is put in command of the sentries. The captain gives strict injunctions as to ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... ever seen in this land of contemptuous youth. I hailed these picturesque groups and masses with the feelings of a European, to whom ruins are like a sort of relations. In my country, ruins are like a minor chord in music, here they are like a discord; they are not the relics of time, but the results of violence; they recall no valuable memories of a remote past, and are mere encumbrances to the busy present. Evidently they are out of place in America, except ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... Leslie laughed. Anne's laughter was silver and Leslie's golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect chord in music. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... him, pulling his hair and twitching his cloak. And they mocked his music, singing, "Blind boy, blind boy! Where are you going, blind boy!" Then it is said that a wonderful thing happened. Herve was sorry because they were so cruel and unkind, and he struck a strange chord of music on his harp and sang ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown

... another's; as well compare a summer valley with the white clouds sailing over it; each is to be enjoyed in its own way. But Cornelia's loveliness carried with it a peculiar quality, which not only gratified the eye, but went further, and seemed to touch a vital chord in the beholder, jarring throughout his being with a sweet distribution of effect, and causing heart and voice to vibrate. It made Bressant conscious in every fibre that he was man and she woman. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... suspected more than her aunt knew of the true cause of her agitation. A similar motive for grief made her acute. Sylvia, mourning alone of a Sabbath night upon her hair-cloth sofa, struck an old chord of her own heart. Charlotte dared not say a word to comfort her directly. She condoled with her for the fifteen-years-old loss of her mother, and did not allude to Richard Alger; but going home she said to ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... there be a guardian spirit, which deigns to flit through this wayward world, to cheer the stricken breast, and purify feelings, whose every chord vibrates to the touch of woe; surely such presides, and throws a sunny halo, on the group, that blood has united—on which family love has shed its genial influence—and of which, each member, albeit bowed down by sympathetic ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... usages and conventions which obtained when the work was composed. One of these, as I have pointed out, was the substitution of one note for another in certain places; another, that in declamatory recitative, or recitativo parlante, the chord in the orchestra should come after the voice ("dopo la parola"). These words appear in many scores of the Italian operas, even of the present day. But when they do not, the musical director is supposed to be familiar with ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... bad one. As to the wife—oh how like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom. To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them—for instance, the large and well-modelled statue, Sarah—no; I should be a bad husband, under such circumstances, as ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... pianissimo, and stole through the room like the fluttering breath of a soft sea wind. I had always been an excellent waltzer, and my step had fitted in with that of Nina as harmoniously as the two notes of a perfect chord. She found it so on this occasion, and glanced up with a look of gratified surprise as I bore her lightly with languorous, dreamlike ease of movement through the glittering ranks of our guests, who watched us admiringly as we circled the room two ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... the window again, and looked out. His aunt's words touched a chord in his heart, which vibrated strongly. To live with her, in any capacity whatever—assuredly that would be the highest attainable good. To draw from her gentle presence that bliss of absolute rest and ease which he had never ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells; The chord alone that breaks at night Its tale of ruin tells. Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives Is when some heart indignant breaks, To ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... influence and was greatly prejudiced against her, but he has left a striking testimony to the favourable impression which her tact and good sense made upon him when he first came into contact with her. She possessed to a high degree the power of choosing the right moment and striking the true chord, and she appears to have been an excellent judge not only of the feelings of large bodies of men, but also of the individual characters of those with whom she dealt. She had a style of writing which was eminently characteristic and eminently feminine, and it is easy to trace the letters ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... should shine in all his glory; Again, the twilight seems the fitting time. Yet sweet dark night would understand the story, So old, so new, so tender, so sublime. Wild storms should rage to chord with my desire, Yet faithful stars should shine and never ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... whose birth the sister powers of Art Propitious view'd, and from his genial star Shed influence to the seeds of fancy kind, Than his attemper'd bosom must preserve The seal of Nature. There alone unchanged, Her form remains. The balmy walks of May There breathe perennial sweets; the trembling chord Resounds for ever in the abstracted ear, 370 Melodious; and the virgin's radiant eye, Superior to disease, to grief, and time, Shines with unbating lustre. Thus at length Endow'd with all that nature can bestow, The child of Fancy oft in silence bends O'er ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... the occupants of the howdahs, this was a final chord from the band, for the huge beasts were thoroughly startled, and the lookers-on noted that similar uneasiness was being displayed by the nine great elephants that appertained to Rajah Hamet's force, these in particular showing a disposition to turn tail ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... Lessing touched a chord which vibrated throughout the land. While in charge of the celebrated Library at Wolfenbuettel he met with a manuscript production of Reimarus, bearing the title of Vindication of the Rational Worshipers ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... she got into the habit of going to church, and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial abb. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human interests, his love of God, his youthful and untutored inexperience, his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the stuff martyrs ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... Harmony is the use of combined sounds. These may be either dissonant, inharmonious in relation to each other, or harmonious, agreeable. All points of repose in a harmonized piece of music must be consonant; or, to say it differently, the combined sound (chord) standing at the beginning or end of a musical phrase must be harmonious. All the elements in it must bear consonant relations to all the others. Between the points of repose the combined sounds may ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... The chord of her voice told him of the gulf she had sunk in during the night. The thought of her endurance became ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... happened in an instant. Some chord in him, numbed till then, had begun to throb. It was as if he had awakened from a dream, or returned to consciousness after being stunned. There was something in the sight of her, standing there so cool and neat and composed, so typically American, a sort of goddess of America, ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... if circuses were prohibited in heaven, she did not wish to go there. She had been baptized, was under Christian influences, and, previous to this heterodoxy, had never given her good parents a moment's anxiety. Her naive utterance touched a responsive chord within my own breast, for well did I remember how gloriously the circus shone by the light of other days; how the ring-master, in a wrinkled dress-coat, seemed the most enviable of mortals, being on speaking terms with all the celestial creatures who jumped over flags and through balloons; how ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... common chord in music like a portion of the Mediterranean?—Because it's the E G & C ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... used for a filler, but this must not be taken in derogation, for it is filler chosen with the good taste that characterizes the choice of all the other contributions. In spite of its simplicity and its brevity, it plays with the deft touch of mastery on that chord of pathos that always vibrates to the thought of Time's ceaseless and inevitable surge. From every point of view the whole journal is a ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... 4th space, is orange; note D, 1st space below, violet; note F, 4th space above clef, ambergris. To make a proper bouquet, therefore the different odors must be harmonized, just the same as the notes of a musical chord are selected. ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... Fritsche was suddenly so affable and what it all meant. For all that Emilie did not come back and he was beginning to lose patience and feel bored when all at once he heard through the wall the sounds of a guitar. First there was the sound of one chord, then a second and a third and a fourth—the sound continually growing louder and fuller. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was surprised: Emilie certainly had a guitar but it only had three strings: he had not yet bought her any new ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... exclaimed rapturously, when his entertainer at length raised his fingers from the key-board. Whereupon Lance began to play and sing "Hail, Columbia." Johnson stood still and silent as a statue now, the stirring strains touched an altogether different chord of his memory, and for an instant something suspiciously like a tear glistened ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... stripling in its tentative delicacy, compared to the mature splendor of Fontainebleau, for example. This forest had the virility of a young savage; it was neither dense nor vast; yet, in contrast to the ribbony grain fields, and to the finish of the villa parks, was as refreshing to the eye as the right chord that strikes upon the ear after ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... region,—then in the cup of hot coffee that I had drunk in the restaurant, which might possibly have been poisonous;—finally, it occurred to me that the hoof-beats of the horses were tuned to a very saddening minor chord. The coachman in his hurry had forgotten to take bells with him, and in order to avoid violating police regulations he had borrowed at the inn another peal, and my sad state dated from the moment I heard it. I banished the sound and immediately ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... bent listlessly over the harp she had been playing as she spoke, her fingers touching a chord or two that seemed in unison with her thoughts. The two girls, Gerty Keane and she, who were seldom separate now, by day or night, sat in Flora's boudoir, which had two great windows opening on to a balcony and overlooking the grand old gardens of Grantley Hall, Suffolk. Grant ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... backward through the story of four hundred industries to their beginning in the 'four,' and remember that each new door had opened because some women toiled and strove; for all these the exercises were a part of a great thanksgiving paean, each phase of progress striking its own chord, and finding each its echo in the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... new knowledge we have acquired will often exercise the most salutary influence and throw much light on other dishes, both old and lately invented ones, so that our palate is as it were strung with a new chord, which sends forth a variety of delicious notes. Moreover the ages that are gone and the ideas that prevailed among our forefathers are still acting upon this tastature of mankind, as a race made to relish, to discern, and to enjoy; and as in philosophy and science, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the small clerk, they had merely the effect of all miracles—they changed the universe. He discovered the fact that all romantics know—that adventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the chord of monotony is stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound like song. He had scarcely noticed the weather before, but with the four dead eyes glaring at him he looked round and ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... from any one of them. He admits that their poet-philosophers had risen to a lofty apprehension of "the Fatherhood of God," for they had taught that "we are all his offspring;" and he seems to have felt that in asserting the common brotherhood of our race, he would strike a chord of sympathy in the loftiest school of Gentile philosophy. He thus "recognized the Spirit of God brooding over the face of heathenism, and fructifying the spiritual element in the heart even of the natural man. He feels that in these human principles there were some faint adumbrations of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... country men and women said their prayers aloud, and the refrain of "Namu Amida Butsu" seemed perpetually in one's ears. As the conclusion of the service approached, the voices of the choir, the priests, and the congregation increased in strength and volume, and ceased suddenly in a final chord of supplication. For a few moments there was stillness over the bowed heads of the congregation, and then the priests rose and the crowd began to stream down the great flight of steps. In the streets ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... different tells us they are used with different aims from those of Debussy. Emerson is definite in that his art is based on something stronger than the amusing or at its best the beguiling of a few mortals. If he uses a sensuous chord, it is not for sensual ears. His harmonies may float, if the wind blows in that direction, through a voluptuous atmosphere, but he has not Debussy's fondness for trying to blow a sensuous atmosphere from his own voluptuous cheeks. ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... dwell upon the gloomy and fantastic side of Webster's genius. But it must not be thought that he could touch no finer chord. Indeed, it might be said that in the domain of pathos he is even more powerful than in that of horror. His mastery in this region is displayed in the creation of that dignified and beautiful woman, the Duchess of Malfi, who, with nothing in her nature, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... health of his Hon. Friend to whom he alluded, some time ago, would have found himself enabled, from the mystery in which certain matters were involved, to gratify himself and his auditors by allusions which found a responding chord in their own feelings, and to deal in the language, the sincere language, of panegyric, without intruding on the modesty of the great individual to whom he referred. But it was no longer possible, consistently with the respect to one's auditors, to use upon this subject ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... for the ring of thy gold, oh my Queen, and the last chord-tone from my harp mingled in mystical unity and made a sound unheard before on earth. And the spirit of that sound, which is of money and of music, is the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... thousand fond presages. I answered in the affirmative; and we met by accident at the ball. I could nut behold him without emotion: when he accosted me, his well-known voice made my heart vibrate, like a musical chord, when its unison is struck. All the ideas of our past love, which the lapse of time and absence had enfeebled and lulled to sleep, now awoke, and were reinspired by his appearance; so that his artful excuses ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... close touch with nature, and though he had read much, his thoughts had something of the pristine purity and vigour of the land he dwelt in, and were in a fashion musical; but now and then the girl venturing overfar chanced upon a chord that rang harsh and discordant, and shrinking a little recognized, she fancied, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... Hugon, but with no notice to bestow upon the bowing schoolmaster; then walked over to the harpsichord, and, sitting down, began to play an old tune, soft and slow, with pauses between the notes. When he came to the final chord he looked over his shoulder at the Colonel, standing before the mantel, with his eyes upon the fire. "So they have gone," he said. "Good riddance! ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... thoughts were a dark, minor chord in the general light-hearted chatter, for he cordially hated the whole blooming business of automobiles, golf, and bridge. He was the raven at the feast. Everybody seemed to be talking to somebody else. Only he was alone. He wondered why he had not been a better "mixer." ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge

... the branches of the climbing rose. Even the humble burdock weeds and sunflowers lining the path that led to the gate seemed to be exalted by the breath of the morning air, and not out of harmony with the fine, high chord of ecstasy that was stirring the soul of things. And yet in that hour, James Sears, with a green-checked gingham apron tied about his neck, stood near a rain-barrel, bobbing up and down on a churn-handle. His back ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... effected by the colour of Turner. It should be remembered that he appeared at a time when coldness of tone was almost a fashion in painting. The chilliness of the shadows of Lawrence and his followers was remarkable. Turner raised the chord of colour a whole octave, if it is permissible to say so, illustrating one art by the terms of another. Mr. Ruskin ascribes to him the discovery of the scarlet shadow. It was in truth less a new discovery than the re-awakening ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... serviceable to you to think over all the details of the annoyance from which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys you to suppose that the provocation originated with yourself instead of with her. It may be possible that some innocent words of yours may have appeared to her as ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... yourself; let no desire to oblige me endanger a life that is precious to—to—so many." The words were nearly stifled by her emotions, for the other had touched a chord that thrilled to ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... the profoundest cunning. He believes easily in powers of light and darkness, yet is a sceptic all the while. Stirling knew this; but he could not know just when, if ever, the young charlatan Cheschapah would succeed in cheating the older chiefs; just when, if ever, he would strike the chord of their superstition. Till then they would reason that the white man was more comfortable as a friend than as a foe, that rations and gifts of clothes and farming implements were better than battles and prisons. Once ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... black brook which dropped from stone to stone beneath the shadow of our Rattlesnake Rocks, the air seemed at first as silent above me as the earth below. The buzz of summer sounds had not begun. Sometimes a bee hummed by with a long swift thrill like a chord of music; sometimes a breeze came resounding up the forest like an approaching locomotive, and then died utterly away. Then, at length, a Veery's delicious note rose in a fountain of liquid melody from beneath me; and when it was ended, the clear, calm, interrupted chant of the Wood-Thrush fell ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... of ranges of seats was seventeen, divided into wedges by six flights of steps, and in stalls by lines yet visible upon the stone. The upper tiers were approached by vomitories and by a subterranean corridor. The orchestra formed an arc the chord of which was indicated by a marble ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... unquiet crew; Adjust their staring kilts; and their swift eyes Turn still to him who sits to supervise. He in the midst, perched on a fallen tree, Eyes them at labour; and, guitar on knee, Now ministers alarm, now scatters joy, Now twangs a halting chord, now tweaks a boy. Thorough in all, my resolute vizier Plays both the despot and the volunteer, Exacts with fines obedience to my laws, And for his music, too, ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mother slipped from her life, the mental conception of Mr. Moses Feldt deepened. She thought about him a great deal and very seriously; the things he said, the warm impact of his being, vibrated in her memory. He had the effect on her of the music of Christopher Gluck—the effect of a pure fine chord. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... between them. Maria and her brother both burst into tears; but Agnes's affection rose above the mood of ordinary grief. The confidence that her beloved sister's tenderness for her would enable her to touch a chord in a heart so utterly her own as Jane's was, assumed upon this occasion the character of a wild but mournful enthusiasm, that was much more expressive of her attachment than could be the loudest and most ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... miles from our Pacific coast. Yet if a line be drawn from the point of our territory nearest Asia to the Southern boundary of California, that line being the chord of which our Pacific coast is the bow, Hawaii will fall this side of it. Held by a great Nation with whom we were at war, it would be a most formidable and valuable base of supplies. We had sustained a peculiar relation to ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... touched some finer chord of Mary's nature, or perhaps Mary had done her day's allowance of backing; whatever the case was, she indulged no further caprice that afternoon beyond shying vigorously at a heavily loaded tin-pedler's wagon, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... commanding eminences on either flank, where far-reaching batteries could be posted, were great advantages. It covered the principal roads to Washington and Baltimore, and its convex shape, enabling troops to reinforce with celerity any point of the line from the centre, or by moving along the chord of this arc, was probably the cause of our final success. The enemy, on the contrary, having a concave order of battle, was obliged to move troops much longer distances to support any part of his line, and could not communicate orders rapidly, nor ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... due south. The river makes a long bend to E.N.E., and this morning's march formed the chord of the arc. Halted; again delayed for the day, as we are not far from the capital, and a messenger must be sent to the king for instructions before we proceed. I never saw such abject cowardice as the redoubted Kamrasi exhibits. Debono's vakeel having made a razzia upon his frontier ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... he brought about the very last thing he intended with his music—stopped the flirtation's immediate progress. Maga seemed to take to Fred's unchastened harmony with all the wildness that possessed her. Some chord he struck, or likelier, some abandoned succession of them touched off her magazine of poetry. And so ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... raccoons are well-known denizens of trees, and both furnish famous country sports, especially in the South. ''Possum up de gum-tree, cooney in de hollow,' is a line from a negro ditty that touches a deep chord in the African heart. The former is found not infrequently in this region, but the Hudson seems to be the eastern boundary of ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... been standing all the while eagerly absorbing her every word and gesture. The overwhelming reality of Sowinska's grief, so simple and strong, had called forth a responsive chord in ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... briefest question and answer about her well-being at the commencement of it—the two had kept silence, as though conscious Faircloth's assertion of contentment struck a chord any resolution of which might imperil the simplicity of their relation. Thus far that relation showed a noble freedom from embarrassment. It might have continued to do so but for a hazardous ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... forms the chord of a semi-circle, whilst a continuation, not planted, is the segment, which turning round the walls of the city extends along the beach of the bay, giving a fine view of the shipping ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... away down here in this old southern State, as she stands nearing the border land of another world, recompensed the great pioneer for much that she had borne when life was young and audiences, as she said, less sympathetic. Mrs. Merrick's remarks, also, touched a deep chord and roused the audience to a ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... and a certain suspense of judgment—quite unlike her familiar attitude of mind—always marked her agreement in hopes for his future. The old woman of the world interpreted this by her own lights. At moments it vexed her, for she did not like to be mystified; at others, it touched a chord of sympathy in some very obscure corner of her being. And, as no practical problem could be put before her without her wishing to solve it autocratically, Lady Ogram soon formed a project with regard to these two persons, a project which took firmer consistence, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... time, however, Mrs. Donovan's mother and two sisters, who had some hours previously been sent for, just arrived, a circumstance which once more touched the newly awakened chord of the mother's heart, and gave her that confidence which the presence of "one's own blood," as the people expressed it, always communicates upon such occasions. After having kissed and admired the babe, and bedewed its face with the warm tears of affection, they piously ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... voluntary contribution, but a tax. Nothing is unforced and spontaneous. There is a want of elasticity and motion. The story does not "give an echo to the seat where love is throned." The heart does not answer of itself like a chord in music. The fancy does not run on before the writer with breathless expectation, but is dragged along with an infinite number of pins and wheels, like those with which the Lilliputians dragged Gulliver pinioned to the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... their world is in another hemisphere. We want to love them, and we love, remember, and are glad to meet them again, but they feel that we are unfamiliar, and, because we have grown different outwardly, they seem to miss some chord that used to ring. Richard, I— ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... which the tendencies shall no longer oppose, but serve each other to a common end. It demands that we shall not pursue broken ends, but great and comprehensive purposes, in which soul and body may unite like notes in a harmonious chord. That were indeed a way of peace and pleasure, that were indeed a heaven upon earth. It does not demand, however, or, to speak in measure, it does not demand of me, that I should starve my appetites for no purpose under heaven but as a purpose in itself; or, in a weak despair, pluck ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Snap, chord of manhood's tenser strain! To-day I will be a boy again; 20 The mind's pursuing element, Like a bow slackened and unbent, In some dark corner shall be leant. The robin sings, as of old, from the limb! The catbird croons in the lilac bush! 25 Through the dim arbor, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... an incredulous voice, for Fern's sweet unselfishness and bright content made the sunshine of their humble home. There seemed no chord of fretfulness in the girl's nature; her pure health and buoyant spirits found no cause for complaint. Nea lived her youth again in her child, and she often thanked Heaven even in her desolate moments for this one blessing that had ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... voice at last, and wheezed out a flat something, distantly akin to what it ought to be, would not have known that it was destined for no common touch, but one that smote, though gently as an angel's hand, upon the deepest chord within thee! And if a friendly glance—aye, even though it were as guileless as thine own, Dear Tom—could have but pierced the twilight of that evening, when, in a voice well tempered to the time, sad, sweet, and low, yet hopeful, she first sang to the altered instrument, and wondered ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... lady had the grace of one born to the instrument. As she took the sticks in her hands and struck a chord upon the outstretched strings, her face assumed a new expression; so far, we must confess, there had been much "naivete" in it, now she felt at ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... scarcely looked at the bride during the ceremony. At last, the minister, in conclusion, announced the twain to be husband and wife. I saw Wallingford give a slight start as if a tensely strung chord of feeling had been jarred. A moment more and the spell was broken! Every lineament of his countenance showed this. The stern aspect gave way—light trembled over the softening features—the body stood more erect as if a great pressure had ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... his hands down with a bang on to the final chord of his rhapsody. There was just a hint in that triumphant harmony that the seventh had been struck along with the octave by the thumb of the left hand; but the general effect of splendid noise emerged clearly enough. Small details ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... undone more than two years of resolve. She had heard herself, as it were in a dream, promising that this man might come. She had found herself later in her own apartments, panting, wide-eyed, afraid. Some great hand, unseen, uninvited, mysterious, had swept ruthlessly across each chord of womanly reserve and resolution which so long she had held well-ordered and absolutely under control. It was self-distrust, fear, which now compelled her to take refuge in this woman's fence of speech with him. "Surely," ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... to suffering, oppressed, and tormented souls, who can endow even dumb misery with speech. Nobody can approach him in the colours of late autumn, in the indescribably touching joy of a last, a very last, and all too short gladness; he knows of a chord which expresses those secret and weird midnight hours of the soul, when cause and effect seem to have fallen asunder, and at every moment something may spring out of nonentity. He is happiest of all when creating from out the nethermost depths of human ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... historical romance. It re-tells a chapter in the life of the Jewish people at the time of the prophet Isaiah. The poet could not exercise any choice as to his subject—it was forced upon him inevitably. In order to be sure of touching a responsive chord in his people, it was necessary to carry the action twenty-five centuries back. A Jewish novel based on contemporaneous life would have been incongruous both with truth and with the spirit ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... Challenged him to lead up to her desired stormy scene Could we—we might be friends Death is always next door Desire of it destroyed it Detestable feminine storms enveloping men weak enough Distaste for all exercise once pleasurable Divided lovers in presence Enthusiasm struck and tightened the loose chord of scepticism Exult in imagination of an escape up to the moment of capture Greatest of men; who have to learn from the loss of the woman He gave a slight sign of restiveness, and was allowed to go He had gone, and the day lived again for both of them I look on the back ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... night, and chiselled shadow: be the tomb That speaks him famous graven with signs of doom Intrenched inevitably in lines athwart, As on some thunder-blasted Titan's brow His record of rebellion. Not the day Shall strike forth music from so stern a chord, Touching this marble: darkness, none knows how, And stars impenetrable of midnight, may. So looms the likeness of thy soul, ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... dost thou hear them ring? what a grief is this Thus to be deaf, and lose such harmony. Wretched Auditus, now shalt thou never hear The pleasing changes that a well-tun'd chord Of trolling bells will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... associate themselves with the hero whose story he is telling. At times a storm will remind this hero of his combats; but he also remembers his moments of love and happiness, and his soul is quieted. Then the music unfolds itself serenely, and rises with calm strength to the closing chord of triumph, which is placed like a crown of glory on ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... kept the candle in his hand. Barbara had made no offer to take it back; she feared the trembling of her hand might betray her. Wrought up to a pitch of suspense at which every nerve quivered like a tense chord, she yet by a desperate effort controlled her features and steadied her step, but she felt she could not keep her fingers from trembling. Colonel Jeff's comrade remained as before, standing in the open doorway, while the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... a cloud swooping darkly across the heaven of my thoughts, came the suggestive question: "Is it all true? Was Christ indeed Divine—or is it all a myth, a fable—an imposture?" Unconsciously I struck a discordant chord on the organ—a faint tremor shook me, and I ceased playing. An uncomfortable sensation came over me, as of some invisible presence being near me and approaching softly, slowly, yet always more closely; and I hurriedly ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... a coincidence that Mrs. L.'s best poem strikes a very familiar chord? It is called the ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... thy heart a need That mine can not fulfill? One chord that any other hand Could better wake, or still? Speak now—lest at some future day My whole life wither ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... When we arrived there one October afternoon the sun was setting amid flying clouds and watery yellow spaces of pure sky, with a wind blowing soft and humid from the sea. Long after he had sunk below the hills, a fading chord of golden and rose-coloured tints burned on the city. The cathedral bell-tower was glistening with recent rain, and we could see right through its lancet windows to the clear blue heavens beyond. Then, as the day descended into evening, the autumn trees assumed that wonderful effect of luminousness ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... this simple letter touched an answering chord in my heart. I scarcely knew how to answer it. At last a brilliant thought struck me. I would show it to my tame Hussar-Captain, SHABRACK. That gallant son of Mars is not only a good sportsman, but he has, in common ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... proper step to take and the proper appeal. If we cannot reach the people in this way, why, there are other courses to pursue. We should not despair. If we fail in accomplishing our ends in one manner, we must try other plans, and finally we may be able to touch the right chord. (Dennis S. ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... Michael Stanley sent the following letter to the Committee of the Prison Association: "When I read the account of the venerable Friend Hopper's death, I could not help weeping. It touched a tender chord in my heart, when I came to the account of his being the prisoner's friend. My soul responded to that; for I had realized it. About six years ago, I was one of those who got good advice from 'the old man.' I carried it out, and met with great success. I was fatherless, motherless, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... farmhand quartettes do in the rural melodrama outside the old homestead in harvest time. Oh! I tell you it's a truly rural octette. Listen to that exhibition bass voice of Jimmy Sands and that wandering tenor of Tommy Whiteing, and as the last chord dies away (over the fields ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... day Jo followed, and managed, when it was needed, that the herd should keep the great circle, of which the wagon cut a small chord. At sundown he came to Verde Crossing, and there was Charley with a fresh horse and food, and Jo went on in the same calm, dogged way. All the evening he followed, and far into the night, for the wild herd was now getting somewhat used to the presence of the harmless ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... about it; the old thing was so upsetting, and—and it was so hard to get it out." Phillis would not have told for worlds how utterly she had broken down over that task of hers; how the stranger's sympathy had touched so painful a chord that, before she knew what she was doing, she had laid her head down on the counter and was crying like a baby,—all the more that she had so bravely pent up her feelings all these days that she might ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... finger of God seemed freshly to have touched her face. It was simple and harmonious as a chord of music, yet inexhaustible in its variety. It recalled no other face, yet might be seen in it the germs of a mighty nation, that should begin from her and among a myriad resemblances evolve no perfect ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... the joy of freedom. And how? As does the string that is bound to the harp. When the harp is truly strung, when there is not the slightest laxity in the strength of the bond, then only does music result; and the string transcending itself in its melody finds at every chord its true freedom. It is because it is bound by such hard and fast rules on the one side that it can find this range of freedom in music on the other. While the string was not true, it was indeed merely bound; but a loosening of its bondage would ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore

... her discipline,' Father Oliver jerked out, and it was all he could do to check himself from further snaps at the parish priest, a great burly man who could not tell a minor from a major chord, yet was venting the opinion that good singing distracted the attention of the congregation at their prayers. He would have liked to ask him if he was to understand that bad singing tended to a devotional mood, but wishing to remain on good terms with his superior, he said nothing and ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... sympathetically. His speech and general appearance struck a long-dormant chord; but in her mind was no recognition ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign: I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,—yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep; Which, hark, I have dared and done, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... himself (which his references in almost any connection were wont to be) as of the person or the occasion evoked. I had reached my sixteenth year when she died, and as my only remembered grandparent she touches the chord of attachment to a particular vibration. She represented for us in our generation the only English blood—that of both her own parents—flowing in our veins; I confess that out of that association, for reasons and reasons, I feel her image most beneficently bend. We were, as to three parts, of ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... me in that little cathedral town would be most difficult to describe. After the hurry, rattle, and fever of the city, the rare weeks spent here were infinitely peaceful. They were full of a quaint sense of childhood, with sometimes a deeper chord touched—the giant and spiritual things childhood has dreams of. The little room I slept in had opposite its window the great grey cathedral wall; it was only in the evening that the sunlight crept round ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... intimacy must have died a natural death. But we found a common ground of sympathy in our revolt against the subserviency in modern life of romance to matter-of-fact considerations. He harped upon this string, and awoke a corresponding chord in my breast. His ideas were a correlation of the dreams of my girlhood. I felt that I was understood. There was such a thing as the love I had imagined; Mr. Dale had pondered over it, fathomed it, and could talk about it. Not ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... impression. A passing cloud left the room for a few moments in darkness, but, as the beams shone out full and clear once more, that shadowy figure seemed to gather substance, and I felt as if some unknown force were compelling my attention and chaining my every sense in a mute endeavor to establish some chord of connection between me and the dim spirit world which floats forever round us. Now waxing, now waning, the vision grew, till I fancied I caught a glint of armor. For an instant a wild imploring glance met my own, and a transparent finger pointed to the richly-carved paneling ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... or the finest flow of elocution. He was a soldier himself, and partook in all the feelings of the soldier, his joys, his hopes, and his disappointments. He was not raised by rank and education above sympathy with the humblest of his followers. Every chord in their bosoms vibrated with the same pulsations as his own, and the conviction of this gave him a mastery over them. "Lead on," they shouted, as he finished his brief but animating address, "lead on wherever you think best. We will follow with good-will, and ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... needs no long successions of verbal protection by inspiration; it is self-protected; first, internally, by the complex power which belongs to the Christian system of involving its own integrations, in the same way as a musical chord involves its own successions of sound, and its own resolutions; secondly, in an external and obvious way, it is protected by its prodigious iteration, and secret presupposed in all varieties of form. Consequently, as the peril connected with language is thus effectually barred, the call for any ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey









Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com




Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |