"Touchstone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by a great deal, the position of modern astronomers. Science has felt the necessity of the celestial motions being studied in their minutest details. Theories must explain these details; it is their touchstone; it is by details that theories become confirmed or fall to the ground. Besides, in Astronomy, the most important truths, the most astonishing results, are based on the measurement of quantities of extreme minuteness. Such ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... If you only knew," her lifted eyebrows confessed the tedium of Calcutta small talk. "But why do you say you are lightly esteemed? Surely the public is a touchstone—and you hold the public in ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... Touchstone, with unfailing loyalty, follows his master with quip and quirk into exile. When all, even his daughters, had forsaken King Lear, the fool bares himself to the storm and covers the shaking old man with his own cloak; and when in our day we meet the avatars of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... types of lead one uses, whether the summarizing or the informal, one point further needs attention in the writing,—the value of constructing such a lead as will suggest the tone of the story. Half the leads that one reads in the daily papers do not possess this touchstone of superiority, but all the leads to the big stories have it. If the article is to be pathetic, tragic, humorous, mildly satirical, the lead should suggest it; and the reporter will find that in proportion as he is able to imbue his ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... rode home, and when they came to the dun, the King had his son into his treasury. "Here," said he, "is the touchstone which shows truth; for there is no truth but plain truth; and if you will look in this, you will ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... meditating beneath his ilex tree, being moved to evaluate his life by the chance appeal of his memory to that dead friend whose "white soul" had so often, when he was alive, proved a touchstone for those who knew him. He was sure that in the larger issues Virgil would have given him praise on this afternoon; and with that thought came another which was already familiar to him. It was less probing, perhaps, but more regretfully sad. If only his father could ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages, and blood of our heroes, have been devoted to their attainment; they should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... fair a prospect that they will long to pass further, this "cluster of grapes" being one of the "lures immortal" for the rapidly increasing number of discriminating lovers of the high poetry that is the touchstone of beauty. The finest lyric work of our day needs no further introduction; the poet is his own best interpreter; but it may be added, in anticipation of adventitious criticism of the limitations of these examples, that ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... false apostles was not unjustified. Neither are our attacks upon the papacy. When we call the Pope the Antichrist and his minions an evil brood, we do not slander them. We merely judge them by the touchstone of God's Word recorded in the first chapter of this Epistle: "Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... Fool, I hope I do not derogate from the genius of Elia. Jaques, it will be remembered, after hearing the "motley fool" moral on the time, declared that "motley's the only wear"; and I opine that Lamb would consider it no small praise to be likened, in wit, wisdom, and eloquence, to Touchstone, or to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... writings) "we have brought this excellent prelate unto his end, after two years and a half hard imprisonment. His body was not carried to the grave in state, nor buried, as many of his predecessors were, in his own cathedral church, nor inclosed in a monument of marble or touchstone. Nor had he any inscription to set forth his praises to posterity. No shrine to be visited by devout pilgrims, as his predecessors, S. Dunstan and S. Thomas had. Shall we therefore ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... this test may be rejected. Morals, it may be urged, is the touchstone of civilisation, not art. Well, take morals. The question is a large one; but, summarily, where do the Japanese fail, as compared with the Western nations? Is patriotism the standard? In this respect what nation ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... admiration. She was a stumbling-block in the passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at five-and-twenty minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every description of matter, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at some time or other, into close ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... and grasses, Yet the song of peace continued. Peaceful still, yet no more silent; For where man, with human passion, Dwells in all this wide creation, Strife is ever slumb'ring, waiting, Waiting for the magic touchstone, For the trouble he is born to, "Trouble, as the sparks fly upward." So there rose a reign of terror, Of dismay and cruel bloodshed, When the white man came among them, The all-potent, dreaded pale-face, He, another bold invader, An usurper of the woodland. When he came with might ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... to causation. The shepherd in the play, when asked by Touchstone, "Hast any philosophy in thee?" replies, "No more but that I know that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep: and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun," and upon the strength of this knowledge is ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... the first place, it were always practicable to apply it, and if, in the second, it always yielded results susceptible of a definite interpretation. Unfortunately, in the great majority of cases, this touchstone for species is ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... whole cow, defied the chill and the sleet, and had no books of which to miss the use. He could not, it is true, shield his legs from the insidious attacks of such sneaking blasts as will always find out the undefended spots; but his great heart was so well-to-do in the inside of him, that, unlike Touchstone, his spirits not being weary, he cared not for his legs. The worst storm in the world could not have made that heart quail. For, think! there had just been the strong, the well-dressed, the learned, the wise, the altogether mighty and considerable Donal, the cowherd, actually desiring him, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... never beautiful, but always singularly attractive from its mild and earnest character. Looking at her, one felt assured that here was a right womanly woman, gentle, just, and true; possessed of a well-balanced mind, a self-reliant soul, and that fine gift which is so rare, the power of acting as a touchstone to all who approached, forcing them to rise or fall to their true level, unconscious of the test applied. Her presence was comfortable, her voice had motherly tones in it, her eyes a helpful look. Even the soft hue of her dress, the brown gloss of her ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... Maitland, we consider, has here brought Mesmerism to the 'touchstone of truth,' to the test of the standard of right or wrong. We thank him for this first instalment of his inquiry, and hope that he will not long delay the remaining ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... mere forms of friendship, are the touchstone of a man. O'Neill was credited in his world with the friendship of Regnault. It had even been to him a matter of some social profit; there were many who deferred willingly to the great man's intimate. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... expected and not found, a very new mode of trial was instituted. The suspected or accused person was suspended by the neck until the process of strangulation was nearly completed. He was then let down, and if he was still pertinacious, the touchstone was again tried, until he either confessed or accused others. In other cases, it was ascertained what quantity of arms should be brought in by a certain village or district—if the full quantity could not be ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... is the critical moment. Russia must be made to rise at once from the metaphysical to the positivist stage of intellectual development; metaphysical reasoning and romantic sentiment must be rigorously discarded; and everything must be brought to the touchstone of naked practical utility. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... thought. "You can't possibly mean that. The galaxy is filled with Truth, it's the touchstone of Life itself. It's the thing that separates ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... bravery, endurance, self-sacrifice, resource, and grim determination as the men. In every war, it may be argued, women have displayed the same spirit and the same qualities, proving that they needed but the touchstone of opportunity to reveal the splendor of their endowment, but treated by man, as soon as peace was restored, as the same ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... place of earth filled him with wonder. There was a tree such as he had never seen before; its branches were alike, but it bore flowers and fruit of a thousand kinds. Near it a reservoir had been fashioned of four sorts of stone—touchstone, pure stone, marble, and loadstone. In and out of it flowed water like attar. The prince felt sure this must be the place of the Simurgh; he dismounted, turned his horse loose to graze, ate some of the food Jamila had given him, drank of the stream ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... fair touchstone to manners for both young and old. A man is himself in the presence of the unexpected. The automobile is so strange that it carries people off their equilibrium, and they say and do ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... ready, like Protagoras, to show us how man is the measure of all things and how the individual is the measure of man. The ardour of his intellectual curiosity burns with a clear smokeless flame. He brings back to the touchstone of a sort of distinguished common sense, free from every species of superstition, all those great metaphysical and moral problems which have been too often monopolised by the acrid and technical pedantry ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... their place, continuing down to our own day. This same Porlock was taken from Algar, son of Leofric, and given to Baldwin Redvers. Countisbury was taken from Ailmer, and held by William himself. Lynton was taken from Ailward Touchstone—it is interesting to find the name of Shakespeare's fool in Domesday Book—and held by William. Combe Martin (then called "Comba") was taken from Aluric and held by Jubel. Bideford and Clovelly were taken from Brihtric and ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... the whole kingdom of organic nature, we find that our full receiving of its beauty depends first on the sensibility and then on the accuracy and touchstone faithfulness of the heart in its moral judgments, so that it is necessary that we should not only love all creatures well, but esteem them in that order which is according to God's laws and not according to our own human passions and predilections, not looking for ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... events nobody could mistake him for anything but a fool, in his 'Touchstone' costume, and so he was jest-er going ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... immeasurable value of the theory of descent in the causal explanation of the most difficult morphological problems. Gegenbaur might, therefore, with perfect right, enunciate this axiom in the Introduction to his "Comparative Anatomy." "The theory of descent will at once find a touchstone of proof in comparative anatomy. Up to this time no experience in comparative anatomy has transpired which contradicts that theory; on the contrary, they all lead up to it. Thus it will receive back from science that which it has given to scientific method: clearness and certainty." In point ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... Orlando. Every line of Orlando should have sounded the knell of his fate in her ears. However, it must be remembered that Orlando was young and good-looking, and that, at least in the play, men of the right stamp seemed to be scarce. Of course, it is out of Touchstone that Shaw has evolved ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... melted in the employer's presence, who, to guard against fraud, keeps a small piece of the metal called chasni or maslo, that is a sample, and when the ornament is ready sends it with the sample to an assayer or Chokshi who, by rubbing them on a touchstone, tells whether the gold in the sample and the ornament is of the same quality. Further, the employer either himself sits near the Sunar while the ornament is being made or sends one of his family to watch. In spite of these precautions the Sunar seldom fails to filch ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... figure just by, whose attitude seemed to announce the deity of sleep, I made immediately up to it. You know my fondness for this drowsy personage, and that it is not the first time I have quitted the most splendid society for him. I found him, at present, of touchstone, with the countenance of a towardly brat, sleeping ill through indigestion. The artist had not conceived such high ideas of the god as live in my bosom, or else he never would have represented him with so ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... and Queries, 3rd S. v. 33, is given the following title-page of one of his books: '[Greek: Pharmako-Basauos]: or the Touchstone of Medicines, etc. By Sir John Floyer of the City of Litchfield, Kt., M.D., of Queen's College, Oxford. London: Printed for Michael Johnson, Bookseller, and are to be sold at his shops at Litchfield and Uttoxiter, in Staffordshire; and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the nomination of Lucius Robinson," said Schell; "but the rest of the ticket will receive its warm and hearty support." Then he paused. Kelly, standing in the background of the little group, seemed to shrink from the next step. Regularity was the touchstone of Tammany's creed. Indifference to ways and means gave no offence, but disobedience to the will of a caucus or convention admitted of no forgiveness. Would Kelly himself be the first to commit this unpardonable sin? He could invoke no precedent ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... himself and her, gliding through the years with a sort of effortless energy, tasting together of everything in life that was sweet, and pure, and beautiful; scattering all trouble and worldly vexation to the winds, by the touchstone of their undying love. There was intoxication—ethereal intoxication in such a vision. The winds blew against him, and the torrents of driven rain, cold and stinging, dashed themselves against his pale, steadfast face. Down on the beach below the mad sea was thundering ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "that very word makes me surer than ever that it cannot but be true. Let us go on putting it to the hardest test; let us try it until it crumbles in our hands,—try it by the touchstone of action founded ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... common enough, for genius often goes unrecognized until its possessor is dead; just as many men are hailed as geniuses by their contemporaries, and promptly forgotten by the succeeding generation. The touchstone of time infallibly separates the false ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... wandering madman was seeking the touchstone, with matted locks tawny and dust-laden, and body worn to a shadow, his lips tight-pressed, like the shut-up doors of his heart, his burning eyes like the lamp of ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... the best only, but the poorest, thinking, perhaps, as good a lesson as could come to the careless or the incapable would come from that sure touchstone of the value of any writing,—its ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... or the Revolution, but of an anxious woman concerned with the hardship and grime of our own day, "amid the dust and defilement of the city, on the highway, always in quest of lodgings, climbing to the fifth story, wounded on every angle." Only sympathy and a poetic touchstone could bring out the essence and sweetness of a nature so unhappily disguised; but Sainte-Beuve, discarding with a single gesture her penitential mask and hood, finds Madame Desbordes-Valmore "polished, gracious, and even hospitable, investing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... 'Why, I didn't calculate right, did I?' There are idiosyncrasies in Yankeedom, there is no doubt of it. We had a long drive to the cars, but there our close companionship, and our acquaintance, too, ended, except that the woman's husband—for she had a husband, some Touchstone, whose 'humor' it was to 'take that no other man would,' came to me, and asked me to put my window down, for his 'wife was sick.' But as I had just observed the good woman munching a bit of mince-pie, I thought that, coming so close upon the segar might possibly offend her stomach ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... their great moment. The response to this must be the touchstone of their lives. A—half dozen words might alter all the future, might be the watch word to the end of all things. Involuntarily her heart fashioned the response he ought to give—"I shall have you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... whatever to his extravagant words. I only try in my poor way, as occasion presents itself"—she let her voice drop down so it went sort of soft and ketchy—"to mollify some of the harsher asperities of our youthfully strenuous community; to apply, as it were, the touchstone of Boston social standards—the standards that you and I, sir, recognize—to the sometimes too rough ways of our rough little frontier settlement. It is true, though, and I am proud to say it, that the boys do ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... and Spontini's scores are thin compared with his; even Auber's grandest ensembles lack his sham magnificence. Wagner's artistic conscience had not ripened to the point at which conscience is an absolute, unfailing, unerring touchstone. He had been impressed with Meyerbeer's showiness and superficial sparkle: it had not yet occurred to him to test the music with the touchstone of truth. It is not at all hard for me to believe that he had at this time a sincere admiration for ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... him cards considerably below kings,—though knaves were his constant companions. But this elegant English, figlio mio, may be more idiomatically rendered, perhaps, in the language of the day, thus:—It doesn't pay! Paying is the touchstone nowadays to which everything is brought, from the stock of the great Beaugous Bootjack Company to the great ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... the thimble and examined it, weighed it, and submitted its metal to the test of the touchstone. It was a pretty thimble, though small, or it would not have fitted Adrienne's finger. This fact struck the woman of the shop, and she cast a suspicious glance at Adrienne's hand, the whiteness and size of which, however, satisfied her that the thimble had ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... Seneca. // in Latin, namely in oikonomia et Decoro, although Senacaes elocution and verse be verie commendable for his tyme. And for the matters of Hercules, Thebes, Hippolytus, and Troie, his Imitation is to be gathered into the same booke, and to be tryed by the same touchstone, as is spoken before. In histories, and namelie in Liuie, the like diligence of Imitation, could bring excellent learning, and breede stayde iudgement, in taking any like matter in hand. Onely Liuie were a sufficient taske for one mans studie, Tit. Liuius. // to compare him, ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... remembered signing a certain business document which gave her a handsome pecuniary interest in my success, if I became Mrs. Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose. The chance of turning this mischievous morsel of paper to good account, in the capacity of a touchstone, was too tempting to be resisted. I asked my devout friend's permission to say one last word before I ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... the two most vigorous, free, and commercially enterprising states of Europe would allow themselves long to be excluded from the most attractive and lucrative trade in the world. After England, in her resistance to the Armada in 1588, applied the touchstone to the naval prestige of Spain and showed its hollowness, her merchants and mariners took heart and pressed directly to the East. In 1591 an English squadron of three ships, under Captains Raymond and Lancaster, with the queen's leave, sailed down the ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... nowhere been more prominent than in the private existence of those devoted to the public mimicry of men and women. Contact with the stage, almost throughout its history, presents itself as a kind of touchstone, to bring out the bizarrerie, the theatrical tricks and contrasts, of the ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... framework is not appetising. I have gone so far in order to illustrate the characteristic of Bentham's teaching. It was not the bare appeal to utility, but the attempt to follow the clue of utility systematically and unflinchingly into every part of the subject. This one doctrine gives the touchstone by which every proposed measure is to be tested; and which will give to his system not such unity as arises from the development of an abstract logical principle, but such as is introduced into the physical sciences when we ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... "It's from Lady Touchstone. I was at school with her niece. They live at Bell Hammer, a beautiful place about five miles from here. You're included, of course. I saw her last week, so she knows all about you. It's because of her niece's birthday. Only about eight couples, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... that the blue African sky and sunshine are more agreeable than Piccadilly fogs; but, after all, his own kennel is best for a dying dog, and his own familiar surroundings best for his declining hours. Again, Touchstone had not the faintest idea what he was going to do in the Forest of Arden, and I was equally ignorant of what would befall when I landed at Algiers. He was bound on a fool adventure, and so was I. He preferred the easy way of home, and so do ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the proof and touchstone of all my cogitations." Lamb did not long outlive his old schoolfellow. Walking in the middle of December along the London road, he stumbled and fell, inflicting a slight wound upon his face. The injury at first seemed trivial; but soon ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... forceth him, the dread Child of fore-scheming Woe! And help is vain; the fell desire within Is veiled not, but shineth bright like Sin: And as false gold will show Black where the touchstone trieth, so doth fade His honour in God's ordeal. Like a child, Forgetting all, he hath chased his winged bird, And planted amid his people a sharp thorn. And no God hears his prayer, or, have they heard, The man so base-beguiled They ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... flashed out at him that fairly dazzled his thoughts; living, palpitating things, as if they were hidden of a purpose to be discovered only by him who cared to search. Hidden truths came to light that filled his soul with wonder. Gradually he understood that Belief was the touchstone by which all these treasures were to be revealed. Everywhere he found it, that belief in Christ was a condition to all the blessings promised. He read of hearts hardened and eyes blinded because of unbelief, and came ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... whether I have, in the self-conceit common to all men, peculiarly prominent in myself, overrated both the power and the integrity of my mind (for the one is bootless without the other,) neither I nor the world can yet tell. "Time," says one of the fathers, "is the only touchstone which distinguishes the prophet from ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... answer was that trade conditions, the demand of customers for cheaper garments and articles, made relief impracticable. Perhaps their profits are on a narrow basis, Philip; but the volume of their business is the touchstone of their success, for how otherwise could so many become millionaires? Just what the remedy is I do not know, but I want to give you the facts so that in recasting the laws you may plan something to alleviate ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... death was firm and manly, becoming the general tenor of his life, which, but for that gross act of traitorous ingratitude, had been fair and honourable. But what of that? The hypocrite is a saint, and the false traitor a man of honour, till opportunity, that faithful touchstone, proves ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... an appearance of more equality," wrote the Regent to Dubois on the 24th of January, 1718. "I am quite aware that my personal interest does not suffer from this inequality, and that it is a species of touchstone for discovering my friends as well at home as abroad. But I am Regent of France, and I ought to so behave myself that none may be able to reproach me with having thought of nothing but myself. I also owe some consideration to the Spaniards, whom I ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... she a'n't smart enough to finish up all her work in the daytime. Edoocation is the great business of the Institoot. Amoosements are objec's of a secondary natur', accordin' to my v'oo." [The unspellable pronunciation of this word is the touchstone of New England Brahminism.] ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... moralist, some copybook maxim, I care not what. 'Contentment breeds Happiness'—That is a proposition with which you can hardly quarrel; sententious, sedate, obviously true; provoking delirious advocacy as little as controversial heat; in short a very fair touchstone. Now hear how the lyric treats it, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... spurious bards have failed to chime with the others, the resulting discord has not been of serious moment. A counterfeit coin may be as good a touchstone for the detection of pure silver, as is pure silver for the detection of counterfeit. Not only are a reader's views frequently clarified by setting a poetaster beside a poet as a foil, but poets themselves have clarified their views ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... The touchstone of naval excellence is Nelson. As Mahan has so ably pointed out, while weapons change principles remain. Dewey, in deciding to take the chances involved in a night entry of Manila Bay did so in answer to his own question, "What would Farragut do?" Hence in considering Jutland one may take a broader ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... your attention to Touchstone the courtier who is playing clown and who we are told "uses his folly like a stalking horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit." Notice that Touchstone refuses to be married to Awdrey (who probably represents ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... already totally obliterated. There was a similar reformation in the outward man of Davie Gellatley, who met them, every now and then stopping to admire the new suit which graced his person, In the same colours as formerly, but bedizened fine enough to have served Touchstone himself. He danced up with his usual ungainly frolics, first to the Baron, and then to Rose, passing his hands over his clothes, crying, 'BRA', BRA' DAVIE,' and scarce able to sing a bar to an end of his thousand-and-one ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... this period of trial that my mother was enabled to prove, by that unerring touchstone, adversity, who were her real and disinterested friends. Many, with affected commiseration, dropped a tear—or rather seemed to drop one—on the disappointments of our family; while others, with a malignant triumph, condemned the expensive style in which my father had ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... "is an admirable discovery, for it is the most sensitive touchstone of souls, the most intolerable act which the Church has ever imposed ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... this is the Forest of Arden. Touchstone. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I. When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content. Rosalind. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old, in solemn talk. As You Like ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... statements at St. Petersburg at a convenient opportunity, but to ask the Shah that, as an earnest of his good intentions towards us, the Persian rivers should be thrown open to our trade—not a bad touchstone. We discussed the Afghan boundary, and decided that, if the Russians would not agree to our proposed starting-point for the delimitation, we would send an Afghan British Commission without them to make ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... upon sanctification, but upon justification. Hand all your accounts over to free grace. And if you have any bands of apprehension in your death, recollect that your apprehensions are not canonical.' And the dying man answered: 'There is nothing that I have done that can stand the touchstone of God's justice. Christ is my all, and I ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... science which analyzes every spring and every part brought to play in the manifestation of life? A compass to guide us to the desired goal; a measure of proportion to fix each variety in the immensity of types; a touchstone by which to judge of each ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... [are?] Divine Blessed Exhortations to true Repentance and Amendment, as also Plaine Instructions concerning the highly worthy and precious Knowledge of the Divine and Natural Wisdome; together with a Right Touchstone or Triall of these Times, for an Introduction to the Author's other Writings: published in English for the good of the sincere Lovers of true Christianitie, by I. S.[2]" (I have only a MS. copy of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... she had sponged her face and pinned on her hat, he said, in response to her beseeching eyes, which, as so often before, made the granting of this one request, a touchstone of his love for her: "Look here, Lulu, if I possibly can, I'll drop in at the end of the first act. Look out for me then, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Story of Coronis. Tale of the daw to the raven. Change of the raven's color. Esculapius. Ocyrrhoe's prophecies, and transformation to a mare. Apollo's herds stolen by Mercury. Battus' double-dealing, and change to a touchstone. Mercury's love for Herse. Envy. Aglauros changed to a statue. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... won. Bit by bit Patsy's rigid attitude of condemnation relaxed; the comradeship crept back in her eyes, the smile to her lips. "Heigho! 'Tis a bad bargain ye can't make the best of. But mind one thing, Master Touchstone! Ye'll find the right road to Arden this time or ye and the duke's daughter will part company—for all Willie Shakespeare wrote ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... A mighty touchstone has been applied to these earthly orbs since then, and the power to discriminate has been given to my soul. As Gregory and Sabra were devils, I verily believe, so was Mabel one of Swedenborg's angels. Who shall gainsay me? Who knows more than I on this subtle subject? Not ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... say, for men to lay conversion to God, on a legal, or ceremonial, or delusive bottom, on such a bottom that will sink under the burden that is laid upon it; on such a bottom that will not stand when it is brought under the touchstone of God, nor against the rain, wind, and floods that are ordained to put it to the trial, whether it is true or false. The Pharisee here stands upon a supposed conversion to God; "I am not as other men;" but both he and his conversion are rejected by the ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... sure to meet with, who does in the least scruple any of the common opinions? And he will be much more afraid to question those principles, when he shall think them, as most men do, the standards set up by God in his mind, to be the rule and touchstone of all other opinions. And what can hinder him from thinking them sacred, when he finds them the earliest of all his own thoughts, and the most ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... after the fashion of Touchstone," said Fleda, laughing; "he thinks, that 'in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is nought. In respect that it is solitary, he likes it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... them as the repeal itself. You will observe by the papers that notice has been given for the repeal of almost all—indeed, I may say all—the taxes which bear on agriculture. This therefore must be the touchstone, and upon this they must rest their determination. If I were to speculate on the question of the Postmaster-General, I should think it would not be carried; but such is not the general opinion, and if we ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... and facility that try men and bring out the good that is in them, so much as trial and difficulty. Adversity is the touchstone of character. As some herbs need to be crushed to give forth their sweetest odor, so some natures need to be tried by suffering to evoke the excellence that is in them. Hence trials often unmask virtues and ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... nose, to ascertain whether the copper that was brought him were true Corinthian. There have been Indian merchants who, if a piece of money were given them, by applying their nose to it, defined its quality to a nicety, without touchstone, balance, or aqua-fortis. Europeans, also, are to be found whose sense of smelling ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... it is our secret self-love which is set upon this favor from on high; such may be our desire, but such is not the will of God. We are to be exercised, humbled, tried, and tormented to the end. It is our patience which is the touchstone of our virtue. To bear with life even when illusion and hope are gone; to accept this position of perpetual war, while at the same time loving only peace; to stay patiently in the world, even when it repels us as a place ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... plain test and a double-barrelled one, which tries both our love and our obedience with a sharp touchstone. 'If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments.' That implies, first, that there is no love worth calling so which does not keep the commandment. All the emotional and the mystic, and the so-called higher parts of Christian experience, have to be content to submit to this plain test—do ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... a parlous state"; and any boy whose heart first begins to burn within him, who feels his blood kindle and his spirit dilate, his pulse leap and his eyes lighten, over a first study of Shakespeare, may say to such a teacher with better reason than Touchstone said to Corin, "Truly, thou art damned; like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side." Nor could charity itself hope much profit for him from the moving appeal and the pious prayer which temper that severity of sentence—"Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of Mr Hardy's poetry was concealed or visible during the period of the novels, development there was into a maturity so overwhelming that by its touchstone the poetical work of his famous contemporaries appears singularly jejune and false. But, though by the accident of social conditions—for that Mr Hardy waited till 1898 to publish his first volume of poems is more a social than an artistic fact—it is impossible to follow out the phases of his poetical ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... picture at least some reference to a familiar masterpiece, create, unconsciously enough, a thoroughly unwholesome atmosphere. For they are rich and patronising and liberal. They are the very innocent but natural enemies of originality, for an original work is the touchstone that exposes educated taste masquerading as sensibility. Besides, it is reasonable that those who have been at such pains to sympathise with artists should expect artists to think and feel as they do. Originality, however, thinks and feels for itself; commonly the original ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... straight as a young pine. Now, with her rigidity suddenly become so pliant that it was a fluid thing mixed of indignation, fearlessness, and compelling sympathy, she sprang to his side. She knew the touchstone to her father's emotion. He did not want his cheek patted in that moment of agony. He wanted a stimulant; some ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Everlasting Peas, &c.) are of different family (Lathyrus, not Pisum), but very closely allied. There is a curious amount of folklore connected with Peas, and in every case the Peas and Peascods are connected with wooing the lasses. This explains Touchstone's speech (No. 6). Brand gives several instances of this, from which one stanza from ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... this about? how tell what things you have been used to keep and what to give up? how keen a desire it is well to quell, and which ones? To reach this point, it is necessary to digress again in order to find the element of the magic touchstone which will tell us whether the thing we are looking at is made of ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... tree of life to them whose sorrows grow, Beneath its fruit of virtue bending low; Father to good men; virtue's touchstone he; The mirror of the learned; and the sea Where all the tides of character unite; A righteous man, whom pride could never blight; A treasure-house, with human virtues stored; Courtesy's essence, honor's precious hoard. He doth to life its fullest meaning ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... bottom be inconsistent with the character of this term; so that our attitude even toward the unexpected is in a general sense defined. Take again the notion of immortality, which for common people seems to be the touchstone of every philosophic or religious creed: what is this but a way of saying that the determination of expectancy is the essential factor of rationality? The wrath of science against miracles, of certain philosophers against the doctrine ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... Who will tarry in Jerusalem awaiting the coming Spirit, and then, the Comforter having come, be ready to "Go into all the world, discipling all nations"? Answer: All who are truly children of God. The preaching of sanctification is the touchstone by which the genuineness of conversions can be tested. The truly living "hunger and thirst after righteousness"; the dead do not "bother their heads about ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... Hamlet's mother, the Queen,) is the figure under which Ophelia is ridiculed in 'Eastward Hoe.' [48] The first is a girl of loosest manners. Her ambition torments her to marry a nobleman, in order to obtain a 'coach.' To her mother (Mrs. Touchstone) she incessantly speaks words of most shameless indecency, which cannot be repeated; more especially as regards her 'coach,' for which she asks ever and anon. A lackey, called Hamlet, must procure it to her. We will give some fragments of that scene. The remainder cannot ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... play was then commanded at the two Theatres Royal. The effect produced at Drury-Lane I do not recollect; but it is certain that the announcement at Covent-Garden reduced rather than increased the receipts. The pit was but moderately attended, and the boxes nearly deserted. This was a touchstone from which there was no escaping; and it was really a mortifying scene to witness the utter neglect with which majesty was received. But alas! the bitter cup of mortification was to be drained to the very dregs; and the Queen's own rashness, or the bad advice of wrong-headed counsellors, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... prepared to act intelligently. For this preparation he needs light, which light the real working of things, properly set forth, would surely give. Experience is ever regarded as the best school-master, the proper touchstone ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... respecting good works. And, again, as to the Holy Scriptures, they received the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the complete revelation of all that is necessary for salvation, and consequently, as the touchstone for testing the Fathers, the councils, and the traditions of the Church. Two points remained for consideration: the sacraments and the government of the Church. "We are agreed, in our opinion," said Beza, "regarding the meaning of the word sacrament. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... and still uphold the teachings of Straton, which your fellow-pupil, King Ptolemy, outgrew long ago. Yet he, also, recognised in philosophy, first of all, the bond which unites the widely sundered acquisitions of the intellect, the vital breath which pervades them, the touchstone which proves each true or false. If the praise of Alexandria is to be sung, we must not forget the library to which the most precious treasures of knowledge of the East and West are flowing, and which feeds those who thirst for knowledge with the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... they have been minded to write on their hobbies, have sought beauty and stateliness of work where they could most readily find them, and that the labourers in the book-field of our own country are not numerous. Touchstone's remark, 'a poor thing, but mine own,' might, on the worst view of the case, have suggested greater diligence at home; but on a wider view English book-work is by no means a 'poor thing.' Its excellence at certain periods is as striking as its inferiority at ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... I can only refer them to the first word of my title and remind them that we are primarily out to be amused—not, it is true, without some hope of picking up morsels of knowledge by the way. If the manner is light, I can only say, in the words of Touchstone, that it is "an ill-favoured thing, sir, but my own; a poor humour ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... Bob had become a despot. That is to say, he had to decide to whom a broken law was to apply, and to whom not, and this without being given any touchstone of choice. The matter rested with his own experience, knowledge and personal judgment. Fortunately he was a beneficent despot. A man evilly disposed, like Plant, could have worked incalculable harm for others and great financial benefit to himself. That this ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... been so long dominant over her heart it would have been different. But the habit of being guided by reason was second nature. She knew that not only his vow, but the habit of life engendered by the vow, was an insuperable barrier. And besides, and this was the touchstone of her conception of life and duty, she felt that if he were to break his vow, though she might love him, her respect for him ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... need to have an ideal in our minds with which to test all realities. But it is equally true, and less noted, that we need a reality with which to test ideals. Thus I have selected Mrs. Buttons, a charwoman in Battersea, as the touchstone of all modern theories about the mass of women. Her name is not Buttons; she is not in the least a contemptible nor entirely a comic figure. She has a powerful stoop and an ugly, attractive face, a little like that ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... the most distinguished American and British historians would be even more calamitous than that of their Continental brethren. If the touchstone of impartiality were applied, Prescott might perhaps pass unscathed through the trial. But few will deny that Motley wrote his very attractive histories at a white heat of Republican and anti-Catholic fervour. He, as also Bancroft, are ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... somedeal smiling, from the board Looked up at Aymon's son; but who this while Well marked him, as he eyed Montalban's lord, Had deemed him more disposed to weep than smile. "So oft reminded, to maintain my word, 'Tis time meseems (said he, that owned the pile) To shew the touchstone for a woman's love, Which needs to wedded man must ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... this daughter of the southern seas, Herself a billow in her energies, To bear the bark of others' happiness. Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less: Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew No joy like what it gave; her hopes ne'er drew Aught from experience, that chill touchstone, whose Sad proof reduces all things from their hues: She fear'd no ill, because ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... my chores, and before I go up to bed, I'm going to read Rabbi Ben Ezra right through to the end. I'll do it in front of the fire, with my feet up and with three Ontario Northern Spy apples on a plate beside me, to be munched as Audrey herself might have munched them, oblivious of any Touchstone and ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... cautiously approached his hiding-place in the wall and waited. Presently his head emerged from the line of weeds by the fence, his nose began working anxiously, he sifted and resifted the air with it, and then quickly withdrew; his nose had detected me, but his eye had not. The touchstone of most animals is the nose, and not the eye. The eye quickly detects objects in motion, but not those at rest; this is the function of ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... that which made his prayer the more weighty, and the more also to be taken notice of. Yea, in mine opinion, the Lord Jesus has committed it to record, for that he liked it, and for that it shall pass for some kind of touchstone of prayer, that is made in good sense of sin, and of God, and of need of his goodness and mercy. For verily, all these postures signify sense, sight of a lost condition, and a heart ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he was moved to emulate the simple grandeur of that poem, for he often repeated it in those days, and somewhat later we find it copied into his notebook in full. It would seem to have become to him a sort of literary touchstone; and in some measure it may be regarded as accountable for the fact that in the fullness of time "he made use of the purest English of any modern writer." These are Goodman's words, though William Dean Howells ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... caged in a creed or a clan? Who dares to think Truth frozen—on this phantasmagorical planet, that whirls in beginningless time through endless space! Let us trust, for the honor of God, that the contradictory creeds for which men have died are all true. Perhaps humor—your right Hegelian touchstone to which everything yields up its latent negation, passing on to its own contradiction—gives truer lights and shades than your pedantic Philistinism. Is Truth really in the cold white light, or in the shimmering interplay of the rainbow tints that fuse in it? Bah! Your Philistine critic will sum ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... in the bas-reliefs. Unless we had thoroughly understood the system of which the sculptors made use, we should have been unable to base our restorations upon their works in any important degree; and, besides, if there be one touchstone more sure than another by which we may determine the plastic genius of a people, it is the ingenuity, or the want of it, shown in the contrivance of means to make lines represent the thickness of bodies and the distances of various planes. In this matter Chaldaea and ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... moonlit atmosphere of the "Midsummernight's Dream," to the tender gloom of "Cymbeline," to the "philosophic poetry" of "As You Like It." Some of his interpretations of isolated passages are hardly to be surpassed. He comments minutely and exquisitely on what he considers to be a touchstone of poetic feeling, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... but own that to Imogen it might well appear so. He did not answer her, and there the incident seemed to end. But it left them both with the sense of frustrated hope, and over and above that Jack had felt, sharper than ever before, the old shoot of weariness for "papa" as the touchstone for such ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... stricken yet now dares to hope for the day of recovery. This was a law which did not denounce the world as illusion or enjoin a cloistral seclusion upon the mind, but rather proposed each and every appearance as a touchstone on which the quality of personality should be unceasingly tried. By the constant application of a high standard to life, it seemed to implant an incorrupt seed of manliness, and to create in its disciples that saner mood which holds in ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... way. That clue is action. While it is generally very difficult to ascertain what any man thinks, it is comparatively easy to ascertain what he does; and what a man does, not what he says, is the surest touchstone to his real belief. Hence when we attempt to study the religion of backward races, the ritual which they practise is generally a safer indication of their actual creed than the loudest profession of faith. In regard ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... catastrophe, and dissecting its faulty characters; in a word, weighing in the critical scales the nonsense of the poet. Parody sometimes became a refined instructor for the public, whose discernment is often blinded by party or prejudice. But it was, too, a severe touchstone for genius: Racine, some say, smiled, others say he did not, when he witnessed Harlequin, in the language of Titus to Berenice, declaiming on some ludicrous affair to Columbine; La Motte was very sore, and Voltaire, and others, shrunk away with a cry—from a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... western world has received no notice in this volume, though it might very well be the subject of a detailed study in itself. This is the relation of the more advanced and powerful nations of the West towards the weaker and less progressive peoples. It might, indeed, be treated as the touchstone of our civilization, just as the education of the young is a good, perhaps the best, test of the advancement of any single people. For it involves some joint action of the western nations; it shows ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... those days of danger, I fancy I see while I write. Indeed, this keen participation in the nature and delights of the young was the secret of his success during the Kafiristan exploration. It was the touchstone of his sympathy with the various barbaric tribes with whom he had to come in contact, and whose nature he did not require to learn, for he had already sounded all that was human in its touching variety. Love and sympathy for man as man, could alone give this knowledge and furnish this magic key ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... sweet as that adapted by Chateaubriand to Ma soeur, te souvient-il encore), sung in this little town of the Brie district, must have been to the ears of a Breton maiden the touchstone of imperious memories, so faithfully does it picture the manners and customs, the surroundings and the heartiness of her noble old land, where a sort of melancholy reigns, hardly to be defined; caused, perhaps, by the aspect of life in Brittany, which is deeply touching. This power ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... With Mrs. Clarke's touchstone it is easy to separate the base metal from the fine gold; though you have only to ring most of Cibber's counterfeits to see how flat they are. Would any one take the following for genuine coin, and believe that Shakespeare could make a poor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... liver, is peculiar to the breed, and is the great touchstone and hall-mark of purity of blood. No other dog has exactly the same shade of coat, which the word "liver" hardly describes exactly, as it is totally different from the ordinary liver colour of an Irishman, a Pointer, or even a liver Field Spaniel. It is rather a golden chestnut ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... persecute us for the faith that those who will forsake their faith shall keep their goods, and those shall lose their goods who will not leave their faith—lo, this manner of persecution shall try them like a touchstone. For it shall show the feigned from the true-minded, and it shall also teach them who think they mean better than they do indeed, better to discern themselves. For there are some who think they mean well, while they frame themselves a conscience, and ever keep still a great heap ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... where, with no long pondering, I opined it merely our modern comradery, poetically aggrandized, masquerading in antique habiliments and phraseology. It never came home to me; it attuned to no tone in the scale of my sympathies; I possessed no touchstone for transmitting the recitals of those ambiguous amours into fiery messages. The relation to my own sex was, intellectually, an occasional friendship devoid of strong affection; physically, a mild antagonism, the naked body of a man was slightly repellant. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... he resumed, "I am disposed to say that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I should consider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You appear to me to be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I see you, my dear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole little orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel inclined to say to myself—in fact I do say to myself ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... typical visions, the anticipation of a restless impatience which yearned for the touchstone of sober experience, to-day they are the re-creation of memory, and a rehearsal of all those circumstances that have made sober experience ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... penny memorandum book from his pocket (You want to mention that Mr. Bonar Law took a notebook out of his pocket. But pockets are humdrum things. How give a literary touch? Call it a poke? No, we can better that; who was it drew what from his poke? Why, Touchstone, a dial, to be ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English
... not essentially (though this has sometimes been advanced) a narrative of mere adventures as contrasted to the observation and dissection of character and manners we find in the true "novel." Rather be it said that it is one in which the hidden soul is made patent under the touchstone of blood-stirring incidents, of hairbreadth risks, of recklessness or fierceness. There are soaring passions, secrets of the innermost heart, that can only be set free in desperate situations—and those situations are not found in the tenor in every-day, well-ordered ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... 184: The name means "Turk," and has served as a touchstone for the dullness of commentators. To the Northmen a "Southman" would naturally be a German, and why should a German be called a Turk? or how should these Northmen happen to have had a Turk in their company? Mr. Laing suggests that he may ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... regard himself as rubbish and expect to be carted away. A man is nothing now unless he has within him a full appreciation of the new era, an era in which it would seem that neither honesty nor truth is very desirable, but in which success is the only touchstone of merit. We must laugh at everything that is established. Let the joke be ever so bad, ever so untrue to the real principles of joking; nevertheless we must laugh—or else beware the cart. We must talk, think, and live up to the spirit of the times, and write up ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... stand, and take breath for a little ere I speak. For much and in many ways hath been said ere now; and the contriving of new things and putting them to the touchstone to be tried is ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... exhibited an eagerness to be of immediate service to the ladies in whatever capacity might be conceived. Mrs. Makebelieve instantly invoked the Pragmatic Sanction; she put the entire matter to the touchstone of absolute verity by demanding an advance of fifty pounds. Her mind reeled as she said the astounding amount, but her voice did not. A check was signed and a clerk dispatched, who returned with eight five-pound notes and ten sovereigns of massy gold. Mrs. Makebelieve secreted these, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... touchstone of all genius Art, In poet, painter, sculptor, is the same: What cometh from the heart goes to the heart, What comes from effort only is but tame. Nature the only perfect artist is: Who studies Nature may approach her skill; ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... amount to the amazing sum of six hundred millions of maravedies, or more than 4,500,000 livres. It is true that the proof or essay of this gold was made hurriedly, and only by means of the touchstone, as they had no aqua fortis to conduct the process in a more exact manner. It afterwards appeared that this gold had been estimated two or three carats below its real value; so that the whole amount ought ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Money is a touchstone which influences all social relations, especially when on one side there is a somewhat morbid susceptibility, and on the other a lack of good breeding and education. The Sparks, father and daughter, Americans of the lower class, though willing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... [Here is a sumptuous cenotaph erected by Pope Gregory XIII. to the memory of his brother Giovanni Buoncampagni. It is called the Monumentum Gregorianum, of a violet-coloured marble from Scravezza in this neighbourhood, adorned with a couple of columns of Touchstone, and two beautiful spherical plates of Alabaster.] At the other end of the corridore, there is a range of antient sepulchral stones ornamented with basso-relievo brought hither from different parts ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... chapters. How often have I done so, and the thing gone no further! But there seemed elements of success about this enterprise. It was to be a story for boys; no need of psychology or fine writing; and I had a boy at hand to be a touchstone. Women were excluded. I was unable to handle a brig (which the Hispaniola should have been), but I thought I could make shift to sail her as a schooner without public shame. And then I had an idea for John Silver from which I promised myself funds of entertainment; ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of measuring the common fate. You have had the touchstone of success, and the world has opened up before you. But what depress me and impress me are the sodden people whom I meet by the hundred; and I can't help reading my fate in the light of theirs. There are such millions of us, obscure and ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... they conventional characters, or do they have distinct personalities? Compare Touchstone ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... Shepherd?"[173] was the question of Touchstone in the Shakespeare play; and that is the question we must always ask ourselves. Long ago Kant said that it is the mission of philosophy, not to discover truth, but to set it in order, to seek out the rhythm of things and their reason for being. Beginning in wonder, it sees the familiar ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... cities of the island, a half dozen or so of them, the traveller is made fairly comfortable and is almost invariably well fed. But any question of physical comfort in hotels, more particularly in country hotels, raises a question of standards. As Touchstone remarked, when in the forest of Arden, "Travellers must be content." Those who are not ready to make themselves so, no matter what the surroundings, should stay at home, which, Touchstone also remarked, "is a better place." If the standard is the ostentatious structure ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... the fashion of Touchstone," said Fleda laughing;—"he thinks that 'in respect of itself it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, he likes it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Lover John Suckling Song, "Why so pale and wan, fond Lover" John Suckling Wishes to His Supposed Mistress Richard Crashaw Song, "Love in fantastic Triumph sate" Aphra Behn Les Amours Charles Cotton Rivals William Walsh I Lately Vowed, but 'Twas in Haste John Oldmixon The Touchstone Samuel Bishop Air, "I ne'er could any luster see" Richard Brinsley Sheridan "I Took a Hansom on Today" William Ernest Henley Da Capo Henry Cuyler Bunner Song Against Women Willard Huntington Wright Song of Thyrsis Philip Freneau The Test ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... concluded our investigation of this first period of organised society, and have ascertained many facts that we can use as a touchstone to try the truth of the various theories that are put forward with regard to woman and her position in the family and in the State. The importance of the mother-age to women is evident. Thus I offer no apology for the length at which I have ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... and selling seems always strange; You're hostile, and that's the thing that's meant. It's man against man—you're almost brutes; There's here no thanks, and there's there no pride. If Charity's Christian, don't blame my pursuits, I carry a touchstone ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... master. It is indeed too frequently mistaken as to the merits of every candidate for favour; but to make amends, it is never mistaken long. A performance indeed may be forced for a time into reputation, but, destitute of real merit, it soon sinks; time, the touchstone of what is truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, and an author should never arrogate to himself any share of success till his works have been read at ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part he plays is yet more damnable and parlous than Corin's in the eyes of Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign without a rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine wife-beater that has ever fallen under my notice, the criminal was somewhat ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dear Friend, the noblest that Man cou'd ever boast of: [embraces him] When first my rigid Fate threw on me this Command to fight, I had recourse to many whom I always thought my Friends; but when the Touchstone of my Danger try'd 'em, I found 'em like the cursed Fruit of Sodom, fair without, but rotten at the Heart: But then I found out Bonvile, my only dearest Friend. Bonvile no sooner heard of my Engagement, but flew unto my Succour with as much Bravery, as ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... The touchstone of that policy is the interest of the United States—the welfare and the freedom of the people of the United States. But nations sink when they see that interest ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... would fence it up at each end, and turn it into a hog-lot." Here Brigadier Downright betrayed unequivocal signs of alarm. Drawing us aside, he vehemently demanded of the captain if he were mad, to berate in this unheard-of manner the touchstone of Bivouac sentiment, nationality, taste, and elegance! This street was never spoken of except by the use of superlatives; a usage, by the way, that Noah himself had by no means neglected. It was commonly thought to be the longest and the shortest, the widest and the narrowest, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... flowing towards other regions. When the Understanding, withdrawn into the mind, succeeds in absorbing itself into contemplation that is free from attributes, it attains to a knowledge of Brahma like the touch of gold on a touchstone. The mind is the apprehender of the objects of the senses. It must first be extinguished (before Brahma can be attained). Dependent upon the attributes of objects that are before it, the mind can never show that which is without attributes. Shutting up all the doors constituted by the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... pages, the obsequious courtiers, the swaggering guardsmen, the insolent nobles, and not seldom majesty itself. And thus it is that painters and romancers have loved to draw him. Who would not rather be Yorick than Osric, or Touchstone than Le Beau, or even poor Bertuccio than one of his brutal mockers? Was not the redoubtable Chicot, with his sword and brains, the true ruler of France? To come to the jesters of history—which is so much less real than fiction—what ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... the title-pages of the time, "tragi-comedies." The low comedy interlude, on the other hand, was broadly comic. It was cunningly interwoven with the texture of the play, sometimes loosely, and by way of variety or relief, as in the episode of {115} Touchstone and Audrey, in As You Like It; sometimes closely, as in the case of Dogberry and Verges, in Much Ado about Nothing, where the blundering of the watch is made to bring about the denouement of the main action. The Merry Wives of Windsor is an exception to this plan of construction. It ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... the humour with which he has delineated the character, that Shakspeare has given his Falstaff an abiding place in our memories. It is not the repartees of Benedick and Beatrice, but the immortal fatuity of Dogberry, that the name of Much Ado About Nothing recalls. None of the verbal quips of Touchstone tickle us like his exquisite patronage of William and the fascination which he exercises over the melancholy Jaques. And it is the same throughout all Shakspeare. It is of the humours of Bottom, and Launce, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Poetry and Purity of Materialism The Viceroys of the King of Kings Political Opportunism in Excelsis The Betrayal of Western Civilization Circumstantial Selection in Finance The Homeopathic Reaction against Darwinism Religion and Romance The Danger of Reaction A Touchstone for Dogma What to do with the Legends A Lesson from Science to the Churches The Religious Art of the Twentieth Century The Artist-Prophets Evolution in the Theatre My Own Part in the Matter In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden) The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw |
