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Keystone   /kˈistˌoʊn/   Listen
Keystone

noun
1.
A central cohesive source of support and stability.  Synonyms: anchor, backbone, linchpin, lynchpin, mainstay.  "The keystone of campaign reform was the ban on soft money" , "He is the linchpin of this firm"
2.
The central building block at the top of an arch or vault.  Synonyms: headstone, key.



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"Keystone" Quotes from Famous Books



... intuitive knowledge of human nature, which, together with her extreme delicacy, with regard to the feelings of others, formed the keystone which unlocked to her the secret recesses of hearts, which, to a less careless observer, would have been veiled in ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... profound warping of a valley of erosion or by the unequal depression of the floor of a rift valley. But that the trough is a true valley of fracture is proved by the fact that on either side it is bounded by fault scarps and monoclinal folds. The keystone of the arch has subsided. Many geologists believe that the Jordan- Akabah trough, the long narrow basin of the Red Sea, and the chain of down-faulted valleys which in Africa extends from the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb as far south as Lake Nyassa—valleys which contain more than thirty lakes—belong ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... I came straight to you. I know you're the keystone of the whole affair, so I didn't waste time with these other people. Kirk's a damned idiot, and always has been; he isn't worth the powder to blow him to—excuse me—I mean he's just a ne'er-do-well; but I suppose I'll have to do my ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... the king. His private worth it is altogether impossible that such a man as I can appreciate; but in his public capacity I always revered, and always will with the soundest loyalty revere the monarch of Great Britain as—to speak in masonic—the sacred keystone of our royal arch constitution. As to Reform principles, I look upon the British Constitution, as settled at the Revolution, to be the most glorious on earth, or that perhaps the wit of man can frame; at the same time I think, not alone, that we have a good deal deviated ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... took Foyle and Green back to Scotland Yard. Both were glum and silent: Foyle because his plan had miscarried at the very moment that he had reached the keystone of the problem; Green because it was his natural habit. It was easy enough to realise now that the whole question was one of light. Had some one thought to strike a match while the struggle was going on there would have been no confusion, ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... ministers, who dreaded the increasing power of petty princes in remote provinces becoming in combination formidable to the central power. It was specially the object of Richelieu and Mazarin to check this sort of baronial imperium in imperio, and it became in the time of Louis XIV the keystone of that monarch's domestic policy. This tended to encourage the "hanging on" of grands seigneurs about the court, where many of the chief of them, after having exhausted their resources in gambling or riotous living, became dependent for place or pension on the Crown, and were in fact the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... men, or the abrogation of the treaty of alliance and of the commercial privileges it carried with it. Yorke gave the States-General three weeks for their decision; and on April 17, 1779, the long-standing alliance, which William III had made the keystone of his policy, ceased to exist. War was not declared, but the States-General voted for "unlimited convoy" on April 24; and every effort was made by the Admiralties to build and equip a considerable fleet. The ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... writers know is that certain of the larger producers of slap-stick comedy are not in the market for outside material. After being deluged with all kinds of "comedy" stories for years, the Keystone Company finally found it necessary to announce that nothing could be considered from free-lance writers, on account of the peculiar nature of the comedies produced by them and the necessity of having them written by inside writers who were familiar with ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... faith of idealists when fact gives theory the lie! What at this time was the unity of mankind in the Church but a formal hypothesis? The keystone of her all-embracing arch was the Papacy. But the Pope no longer sat heir of the Caesars in the seat of the Apostles; for seventy years he had been a practical dependant of the French king, living in pleasant Provence. Neither the scorn of Dante, nor the eloquence of Petrarch, ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... the companion and most favoured pupil of Socrates, was imbued with that doctrine, and, having arrived at the conclusion that the impulse to find out TRUTH was the necessity of intellectual man, he saw in Geometry the keystone of all Knowledge, because, among all other channels of thought, it alone was the exponent of absolute and undeniable truth. He tells us that "Geometry rightly treated is the Knowledge of the Eternal"; and Plutarch gives us yet another instance of ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein

... center literally cut away, the keystone of the Russian line had been pulled out, and nothing remained but to retire. Ten miles north of Ciezkovice lies the triangle formed by the confluence of the Dunajec and Biala rivers and the Zakliczyn-Gromnik road. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... on its four elevations the names in gold of the principal actions in the South African War in which the regiment took part. The entablature is surmounted by an Attic storey broken over the pilasters, and bearing two inscription panels. The front keystone supports a bronze cartouche, flanked by branches of bay bearing the arms of the regiment. Within the arch appear the names of the gallant 212 who perished in ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... Sir Richard Glendale, 'it is the very keystone of our enterprise, and the only condition upon which I myself and others could ever have dreamt of taking up arms. No insurrection which has not Charles Edward himself at its head, will, ever last longer than till a single foot company of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... strong King! I've fitted you to bear a burden which only a man could bear—to remind the world that 'King' means the Man Who Can—and I thought you could do it!" He paused only to draw a long breath, then hastened on again. "Yes, your task is thankless. Your Principality is small, but it is a keystone in Europe's arch. It is such Princelings as you who must send clean blood down to the thrones of to-morrow.... Is that not enough?... Have I built a King, day by day, year by year, idea by idea, only to see ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... first to attempt a thorough classification of Indian castes, and the number of the main castes enumerated in it is well over two thousand, each one divided up again into almost endless sub-castes. The keystone of the whole caste system is the supremacy of the quasi-sacerdotal caste of Brahmans—a caste which constitutes in some respects the proudest and closest aristocracy that the world has ever seen, since it is not merely an aristocracy of birth in the strictest ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... I did. Well, that did not prevent our getting on very well together. God made you what I call a scoundrel as he made me what you call a fool. (The effect of this observation on Burgess is to remove the keystone of his moral arch. He becomes bodily weak, and, with his eyes fixed on Morell in a helpless stare, puts out his hand apprehensively to balance himself, as if the floor had suddenly sloped under him. Morell proceeds in the same tone of quiet conviction.) It was not for me to quarrel with his ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw

... the approaching Jubilee rejoicings a spirit in some sense martial filled the air, and Grimbal with his yeomanry was destined to play a part. A transient comet-blaze of militarism often sparkles over fighting nations at any season of universal joy, and that more especially if the keystone of the land's constitution be a crown. This fire found material inflammable enough in the hearts of many Devonshire men, and before its warm impulse John Grimbal, inspired by a particular occasion, compounded with his soul at last. Rumoured ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... occasion. His subject furnished the keynote and the keystone of his opposition to slavery. Garrison, Phillips, Frederick Douglass and Theodore D. Weld appealed against slavery to a common humanity, to the primary moral instincts of mankind in condemnation of its villanies. The appeal carried them above and beyond constitutions ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke

... inn of the Holland Arms—so the mildewed brick in the keystone over the arch of the doorway says—and once the home of a Dutchman made rich by the China trade, whose ships cast anchor where Fop Smit's steamboats now tie up (I have no interest in the Line); a grimy, green-moulded, lean-over front and moss-covered, sloping-roof sort of an inn, with big beams ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... of citizenship, and providing information which will enable Americans to have a better understanding of their national affairs, is part of the arch of morale and of a strong uniting comradeship, the Armed Services nevertheless hold that the keystone of the arch, among fighting forces, is the inculcation of military ideals and the stimulation of principles of military action. Unless orientation within the services is balanced in this direction, the military ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... our Pennsylvania, grand old Keystone State; Land of far famed rivers, and rock-ribbed mountains great. With her wealth of "Dusky Diamonds" and historic valleys fair, Proud to claim her as our birthplace; land ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... during those next few days, events of the Earth, Venus and Mars swirled and raged around Georg as though he were engulfed in the Iguazu or Niagara. Passive himself at first—a spectator merely; yet he was the keystone of the Earth Council's strength. The Brende secret was desired by the publics of all three worlds. Even greater than its real value as a medical discovery, it swayed ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... questions of faith and cult are asserting their presence; and traditional Judaism developed in historical sequence is proving powerless to hold together the diverse factors of the national organism,—in these days the keystone of national unity seems to be the historical consciousness. Composed alike of physical, intellectual, and moral elements, of habits and views, of emotions and impressions nursed into being and perfection by the hereditary instinct active for thousands of years, ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... know what worse we could reproach him with,' said my father; 'I mean of course as far as his profession is concerned; discrimination is the very keystone; if he treated all people alike, he would soon become a beggar himself; there are grades in society as well as in the army; and according to those grades we should fashion our behaviour, else there would instantly be an ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... the keystone of our national policy, our defense program emphasizes an effective flexible type of power calculated to deter or repulse any aggression and to preserve the peace. Short of war, we have never had military strength ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... free passage? See here are recent fissures grooving and channelling the granite roof. This roof itself is formed of fragments of rock carried down, of enormous stones, as if by some giant's hand; but at one time the expulsive force was greater than usual, and this block, like the falling keystone of a ruined arch, has slipped down to the ground and blocked up the way. It is only an accidental obstruction, not met by Saknussemm, and if we don't destroy it we shall be unworthy to reach the centre ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... questions arose with each extension of knowledge; in the course of the work new methods of investigation were discovered; the sides of the arch were slowly and painfully erected by the work of many men, and finally one man placed the keystone and anthrax was for a long time the best known of diseases. Men whose reputation is now worldwide first became known by their work in this disease. It was a favorable disease for investigation, being a disease primarily of cattle, but occasionally appearing ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman

... to consider is indeed the brightest and best of all—Christianity: high on the brotherly arch of man's duty to his fellow-man, and forming its enduring keystone, we read, traced by Jehovah in imperishable letters, radiant with love, "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you;" "Love thy neighbour as thyself." Surely it needs no words of mine to show, that a faithful history ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... I was dead-tired and trying to give the last licks to my day's work without doing a Keystone fall over the kitchen table, Dinky-Dunk said: "Why haven't you ever given a name to this new place? They tell me you have a genius for naming things—and here we are still dubbing ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... it was agreed, were to renounce the conventional and arbitrary distinctions which had created inequality in civil and political life, and accept the absolute equality of citizenship. Liberty and fraternity were the two springers of the new arch; its keystone was to be equality. On August twenty-third the Assembly decreed freedom of religious opinion; on the next day ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... tide was already on the ebb, and for cogent reasons. There still remained the tribute to be paid by Montesquieu when he made Locke's separation of powers the keystone of his own more splendid arch. The most splendid of all sciolists was still to use his book for the outline of a social contract more daring even than his own. The authors of the Declaration of Independence had still, in words taken ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... Scott, that Jim Hall, hating all things in the society that misused him, rose up and raged in the court-room until dragged down by half a dozen of his blue- coated enemies. To him, Judge Scott was the keystone in the arch of injustice, and upon Judge Scott he emptied the vials of his wrath and hurled the threats of his revenge yet to come. Then Jim Hall went to his living death ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... to the countless billions of dead who kept the whole machine rolling along that allows you the full, long and happy life you enjoy today. What they gave to you, you must pass on to others. This is the keystone of ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... judicious action on the part of the temporary committee. Any suspicion of a particular delegation that anything was "framed" was quickly allayed after a conference with its advance committeemen. If a man from Pennsylvania suspected that anything was on foot not to the liking of the Keystone State he had only to ask his advance committeeman, Colonel D'Olier, about it. Incidentally the personnel of the advance committee was not so numerous that everybody couldn't know what everybody else was doing. As a matter of fact, everybody did know what everybody else was doing. ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat

... is spanned by a worn-out arch of the surrounding Secondary rock. Close to the north-west is the other, revetted with cut stone, and measuring six metres in diameter. It is an elaborate affair; with a pointed arch and a regular keystone, circular Sadud, or "walls for supporting the hauling-apparatus," and minor reservoirs numbering three. On a detached hillock, a few paces to the north, stands the Fort which defended the establishment. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... not intended to allude to more than was actually necessary to give an outline of the theory, and to introduce the main question, yet untouched. We have exhibited the stones of which the arch is composed; but they may be pasteboard,—for the reader has not handled them. We will now produce the keystone, and put it in its place. This he shall handle and weigh. He will find it hard,—a block of granite, cut from the quarry of observed facts, and far too heavy to be held in its place by a ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... the window to myriad windows, The high triangular door of the world . . . Till the walls and the roofs and the curious keystone, The carven ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke

... shell-fish, and with the same procedure could break the connection of Church and State, or give political power to two millions of citizens, and redistribute it among new constituencies."[54] The keystone of the law of the constitution is, indeed, the unqualified omnipotence which Parliament possesses in the spheres both of constitution-making and of ordinary legislation. In Parliament is embodied the supreme will of the nation; and although from ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... readiness and good-humor with which we relinquish the profits which were dear to us, and the product of our industry; but he has taken us through a very narrow channel, on a dark night, without striking rock or snag. He and I thank you heartily for your fidelity to our keystone,—co-operation." ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... out the reason why this appeals especially to Protestant missionaries. The reading of the Bible is a keystone in their evangelistic system, and with them Christianity and reading go hand in hand. We must then make room in our survey for a movement so profound, so widespread, and so vitally important, and a movement of this character ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen

... my regards, Mr. Ferris, and tell her she must come anyhow," insisted Mrs. Elliston. "Since I have heard that you married the daughter of my old schoolmate, I have been wanting the Keystone Construction Company to have a big contract here more than ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... musing over the "breezy" and "lively" Miss M'Gann, who, he judged, contributed much to the gayety of the Keystone Hotel. He had been hasty in suggesting that Alves might find a refuge in the Keystone. It would be for a few days, however, for he planned—he was rather vague about what he had planned. He wondered if there would be much of Miss M'Gann in ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... separation of the trachytic and basaltic series of lavas (page 113).), but without distinct reference and I fear not sufficiently, though I utterly forgot what he wrote) the separation of basalt and trachyte; but he does not appear to have thought about the crystals, which I believe to be the keystone of the phenomenon. I cannot but think this separation of the molten elements has played a great part in the metamorphic rocks: how else could the basaltic dykes have come in the great granitic districts such as those of Brazil? What a wonderful book for labour is ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... best, if not the very best metal known for preserving the teeth from caries. In consequence of its lack of the cohesive property, it is introduced and retained in a cavity upon the wedging principle, the last piece serving as a keystone or anchor to the whole filling. Each piece should fill a portion of the cavity from the bottom to the top, with sufficient tin protruding from the cavity to serve for thorough condensation of the surface, ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler

... as in most Oriental countries, the keystone of the social arch, the central point of the system, round which all else revolved, and on which all else depended, was the monarch. "L'etat, c'est moi" might have been said with more truth by an Assyrian prince than even by the "Grand ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... extreme limit of violence necessary for the support of the whole state organization, and it is the extreme limit to which submission on the part of the subjects can go. It is the keystone of the whole edifice, and its fall will bring ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... in the settlement. Nothing to hinder him. He would do so; but first one more journey to the plains—one more visit to his Waco friends, who had promised him—Ha! it was this very promise that was the keystone of all his hopes. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... own blood, his princedom, youth and hopes, To plunge old Merlin in the Arabian sea; So pushed them all unwilling toward the gate. And there was no gate like it under heaven. For barefoot on the keystone, which was lined And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, The Lady of the Lake stood: all her dress Wept from her sides as water flowing away; But like the cross her great and goodly arms Stretched under the cornice and upheld: And drops of water fell from either hand; And down from ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... all," exclaimed Mr. Hall indignantly. "Fancy, the original deed—the old Spanish grant—the very keystone of our case, was not to be found till the last moment, and then only by the merest accident, and where do ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... with some message for the nations and some mission for the world, and yet in his art criticism, his estimate of the joyous element of art, his whole method of approaching art, we are no longer with him; for the keystone to his aesthetic system is ethical always. He would judge of a picture by the amount of noble moral ideas it expresses; but to us the channels by which all noble work in painting can touch, and does touch, the soul are not those of truths ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... doctrine of the immortality of the soul, he is content with that interpretation, and he does not deem it necessary, except as a matter of curious or antiquarian inquiry, to investigate its historical accuracy, or to reconcile any of its apparent contradictions. So of the lost keystone; so of the second temple; so of the hidden ark: these are to him legendary narratives, which, like the casket, would be of no value were it not for the precious jewel contained within. Each of these legends is the expression ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... Autonomy ("State Sovereignty") and the principle of National Supremacy. Exaltation of the latter principle, as it is recognized in the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, paragraph 2) of the Constitution, was the very keystone of Chief Justice Marshall's constitutional jurisprudence. It was Marshall's position that the supremacy clause was intended to be applied literally, so that if an unforced reading of the terms in which legislative ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... that for the security of the community something better is needed. There is not the confidence on the part of the business community that there should be, and events like the recent occurrences in connection with the Keystone National Bank, in Philadelphia, are not likely to enhance that confidence. One of the most frequent of surmises is as to how many similar cases there may be, and a very commonly heard query is that as to the state of affairs ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... and 178, Fleet-street, east corner of Fetter-lane, was one of the coffee-houses of the Johnsonian period; and here was long preserved a portrait of Dr. Johnson, on the keystone of a chimney-piece, stated to have been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Peele's was noted for files of newspapers from these dates: Gazette, 1759; Times, 1780; Morning Chronicle, 1773; Morning Post, 1773; Morning Herald, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... gardeners, and by extensive reading. When I see the list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole series of Journals and Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that selection was the keystone of man's success in making useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms living in a state of nature remained for some time a ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... always be able to make their own paradise, and a jewelled sacrifice will be the keystone of each window in their house of love. But there are only a few lovers in the world compared with those who have come down through the realm of little morning clouds and are bearing the heat and burden ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... little Clara brought to us our mortar. Happily and lightly went by that summer. Haliburton and his wife made us a visit; Ben Brannan brought up his wife and children; Mrs. Haliburton herself put in the keystone to the central chamber, which had always been named G on the plans; and at her suggestion, it was named Grace now, because her mother's name was Hannah. Before winter we had passed the diameter of I, J, and K, the three uppermost cells of all; and the surrounding shell ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... incumbent upon him to urge the parents to make a due use of judicious parental authority. This is the very foundation of all social order, rule, and government, and to relax it is to loosen the very keystone of society. He ought also perpetually to inculcate obedience to their parents upon the children, as being one of their first and most important duties. Some have objected to our schools, that they are calculated to loosen the ties and the authority between parent ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... This prodigy of yours—he is unquestionably a prodigy—demonstrates the fact of an immense progressive variation. Once that is conceded, the main argument of Grossmann's 'Heredity' is invalidated. We shall have knocked away the keystone of his mechanistic ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... God would not be above man if He did not also love. The horrible spectre of a God who has power without love never ceased to lurk in the background of Browning's thought, and he strove with all his resources of dialectic and poetry to exorcise it. And no wonder. For a loving God was the very keystone of Browning's scheme of life and of the world, and its withdrawal would have meant for him the collapse of ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... the Jews the early settlers of the country. While Possevin, Becan, and several other sagacious writers lug in a supposed prophecy of the fourth book of Esdras, which being inserted in the mighty hypothesis, like the keystone of an arch, gives it, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... for me to abide at Master Ramsack's." But almost ere my thought was done, I heard the light quick step which I knew as well as "Watch," my dog, knew mine; and my breast began to tremble, like the trembling of an arch ere the keystone is put in. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... there was a wart upon his nose, that looked a little suspicious. 'I don't pretend to be a judge of those matters (said he) but I understand that warts are often produced by the distemper; and that one upon your nose seems to have taken possession of the very keystone of the bridge, which I hope is in no danger of falling.' L—n seemed a little confounded at this remark, and assured him it was nothing but a common excrescence of the cuticula, but that the bones ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... of the dry soil, he brought it down and laid it with the explosives. Next he called one of the sailors to "boost" him, and was soon perched on the flat slant of a huge rock which formed, as it were, the keystone to the blockade. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... seceded January 9, 1861. Florida followed, January 10, and Alabama, January 11. Then, in the great "keystone State" of Georgia, came deliberation and momentous debate. Against immediate Secession, the policy of patience, of conference with the other Southern States including the new "independent republics," and a united remonstrance to the North, of which the rejection would ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... which is not part of Canada. It is off these shores that the most important deep-sea fishing takes place. This fishery was one of the earliest American sources of wealth, and for nearly two centuries formed a sort of keystone of the whole commercial life of the United States. When in 1783 Great Britain recognized American independence, she recognized also that American fishermen had certain rights off these coasts. These rights, however, were not ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... settlements and the straggling American hamlets along the Ohio and its tributaries, while, on the shore of Lake Erie, Moses Cleaveland had just led a handful of men to the Connecticut Reserve. To-day it is the keystone of the American Commonwealth. Since 1860 the center of population of the United States has rested within its limits, and the center of manufacturing in the nation lies eight miles from President McKinley's Ohio home. Of the seven men who have been elected ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... streaming and sweeping round heaven, when, belated in lonely fields, I had paused to watch that mustering of an army with banners—that quivering of serried lances— that swift ascent of messengers from below the north star to the dark, high keystone of heaven's arch. I felt, not happy, far otherwise, but ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... this conjecture sounded a little conceited, be sure it was alternated with others self-depreciatory enough to balance it. But I have no space or need to describe the familiar process of architecture, by which with a perhaps for a keystone, possibilities for pillars, and dreams for pinnacles, lovers are wont to rear in a few idle hours, palaces outdazzling Aladdin's. I shall more profitably give a word or two of explanation to another point. Those familiar with the aristocratic constitution of New England society ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... it would have been well had Others made with similar Attentiveness—I found that the Arch thereof looked shaky and insecure; moreover, that a Great and Irregular-shaped Cleft or Crack ran, after the fashion of a Lightning-flash in a Painted Sea-scape, athwart the structure thereof from Keystone to Coping. As I was regarding this unpleasing Portent, the Genius told me that this Bridge was at first of sound and scientific construction, but that the flight of Years, Wear and Tear, vehement Molecular Vibration, and, above ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various

... picture on the wall were missing; not only would the long parallelogram of the curtain be unrelieved, but the return of the line to the subject in the ensemble of the picture would be broken. This, therefore, becomes the keystone of the composition. Other considerations besides its diversion from the curtain are, its curtailing of wall space, and, by its close placement to the curtain, its union therewith as a balance for head and body—in ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... Quita Lenox was very artist, though not, as yet, very woman. The complex Ego, which is the keystone of Art, had not been tested and dominated by the great simple forces, which are the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... an arched pediment. On the west (Strand) side, in two niches, stand, as eternal sentries, Charles I. and Charles II., in Roman costume. Charles I. has long ago lost his baton, as he once deliberately lost his head. Over the keystone of the central arch there used to be the royal arms. On the east side are James I. and Elizabeth (by many able writers supposed to be Anne of Denmark, James I.'s queen). She is pointing her white finger at Child's; ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... a word idly spoken may give rise to thoughts which may grow up and flourish, till they become like a upas tree to destroy all within their influence. To commit a small evil may be like the withdrawing the keystone from the arch, to cause the ruin of the whole edifice; or it may be like an ear of corn, which may soon serve to sow the whole field, and in the end millions and millions of acres. If men could but remember this, they would hesitate ere, by a seemingly trivial ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... until the igloo assumed the form of a dome. When it was nearly as high as his head, the upper tier of blocks was so close together that a single large block was sufficient to close the aperture at the top. This block was like the keystone in an arch, and held the others firmly in place. Akonuk now cut a round hole through the side of the igloo close to the bottom, and large enough for him to crawl through on his hands ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... Paramaribo the Sumter received tidings of the United States steamer Keystone State, which had been "in pursuit" of her for some time. This vessel was not very much larger than the Sumter, and their crews and armaments were very nearly equal, so there were great hopes on board the Confederate of a brush ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... unassisted is totally unable to attain? The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, is exceedingly glorified by the virtues of those great men; and that glory is exalted, and we are led to adore it, because the lives of those men have been written for our instruction. Is not Moses the keystone, as it were, of the Jewish covenant? Are they not his trials, his meekness, his attachment to God and to God's people, his incessant toils, and patience, and long-suffering, even more than the miracles wrought by his interposition, which render the law published by him, and the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... learn to emulate their parents' example, and seek their pleasures also abroad. The little children are left to servants to finish the corruption begun by parents. And so the home, the very spot designed by God to become the chief school of human virtue, the seminary of social affections, the keystone of the whole fabric of society, the germ-cell of civilization, becomes a hotbed of corruption, and almost as often on account of a husband's neglect and sins, as on account of a wife's ignorance or frailties or failings. Our stock of advice to wives ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... of photographs for the stereoscope, including Egypt, Palestine, Greece, and Italy, is issued by Underwood and Underwood, New York City. The same firm supplies convenient maps and handbooks for use in this connection. The Keystone stereographs, prepared by the Keystone View Company, Meadville, Penn., may also be cordially recommended. The architecture, costumes, amusements, and occupations of the Middle Ages in England are shown in Longmans' Historical ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... fitly defines the keystone of the arch of noble attributes upon which this heroic life is founded—as constant to a principle as to a friendship. There is nothing of the martyr in Miss Anthony's nature and she refuses to consider herself in the light of a vicarious sacrifice. "I do not look back upon a hard life," ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... wife of Richard S. Greenough, the monument is designed to represent Psyche escaping from the bondage of mortality. This Psyche is emerging from her garments and she holds in her hand a lamp. On this is the inscription: "Her loss was that as of a keystone ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... time all the railroad bridges had been made of wood; but it occurred to Carnegie that bridges should be made of steel, rather than wood. Accordingly, he organized the Keystone Bridge Company that built the first steel bridge across the Ohio River. As the bridge business grew, Mr. Carnegie decided that he could make more money by making his own steel for the bridges. To do this he organized a company and built the Union Iron Mills. So profitable ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... strong edifice, but the stones of the massive gateway, especially the great keystone, are split across, as if from ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... during the day. There was no answer. And a violent ringing of the doorbell also brought no response. The guard had been withdrawn, probably to join the small army of plainclothesmen and patrolmen who had been foolishly and futilely searching for the New York gunman—the keystone of ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... the two worlds, theoretic and practical, in the subject itself. He must demonstrate the existence of an activity, which is at once unconscious as nature and conscious as spirit. This activity we find in Aesthetic, which is therefore "the general organ of philosophy, the keystone of the whole building." ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... was felt that a day of vengeance might be at hand for those who had trampled upon it when it was defenceless. There was alarm and uneasiness amongst all classes. The Church of England, which depends upon the monarch as an arch depends upon the keystone; the nobility, whose estates and coffers had been enriched by the plunder of the abbeys; the mob, whose ideas of Papistry were mixed up with thumbscrews and Fox's Martyrology, were all equally disturbed. Nor was the prospect a hopeful ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... surprised me so much in the business as that Sparks should have allowed the purchase to slip through his fingers. It was worth thrice as much to him as to any body else. It was the keystone of his property. It was the one thing needful to render Lexley Park the most perfect seat in the county. But I was not slow in learning (for every thing transpires in a small country neighbourhood) that whatever my surprise ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... afforded entertainment to the curious eye. There were the rude capitals "St. J.B." and "St. F.X." on the keystone of the round-arched side doors at the foot of the towers. There were the series of circular windows leading one above another, on the towers, up to the charming belfry spire which crowned them. There were ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... clearly there. On that Problem we shall find that innumerable things, that all things whatsoever hang. By courageous steadfast persistence in that, I can foresee Society itself regenerated. In the course of long strenuous centuries, I can see the State become what it is actually bound to be, the keystone of a most real "Organization of Labor,"—and on this Earth a world of some veracity, and some heroism, once ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... with the Pick," seen on the side brackets, is a freely modeled statue, also appearing upon the portal of the Palace of Manufactures. The keystone figure typifies the Laborer, who is capable of relying on his brain. The upper group represents Age transferring ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt

... cling to them throughout their lives. But the multifarious interests of social existence do much to shake that young edifice of faith. The driving strength of stormy passions of all kinds undermines the walls of the fabric, and when at last the bolt of adversity strikes full upon the keystone of the arch, upon the self of man or woman, weakened and loosened by the tempests of years, the whole palace of the soul falls in, a hopeless wreck, wherein not even the memory of outline can be traced, nor the faint shadow of a beauty which is destroyed ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... machines hid the waves from me till they reached the shore, so that I did not observe the heavy roller till it came and broke. A ton of water fell on her, crush! The edge of the wave curled and dropped over her, the arch bowed itself above her, the keystone of the wave fell in. She was under the surge while it rushed up and while it rushed back; it carried her up to the steps of the machine and back again to her original position. When it subsided she simply shook her head, raised herself on one ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... lintel, joist, travis[obs3], trave[obs3], corner stone, summer, transom; rung, round, step, sill; angle rafter, hip rafter; cantilever, modillion[obs3];; crown post, king post; vertebra. columella[obs3], backbone; keystone; axle, axletree; axis; arch, mainstay. trunnion, pivot, rowlock[obs3]; peg &c. (pendency) 214[obs3]; tiebeam &c. (fastening) 45; thole pin[obs3]. board, ledge, shelf, hob, bracket, trevet[obs3], trivet, arbor, rack; mantel, mantle piece[Fr], mantleshelf[obs3]; slab, console; counter, dresser; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... 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 that what was in old days the keystone of an arch has come to be compounded with its ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... open admission of the Scriptures in the vernacular—which made it no longer possible for the individual to disclaim responsibility on the score that the priesthood alone held the key to the mysteries of religion. This was in truth the keystone of the Reformation, since it entailed upon every man the duty of private judgment even though the right continued to be denied; yet this was not the effect which Henry contemplated. Hence, out of ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... however, of the origin of the canine race, is so thoroughly obscured by the mists of countless ages, as to be incapable of direct proof. Philosophers may indulge themselves with speculations; but in the absence of that keystone, proof, the matter must rest on ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... glory, in one campaign, of defeating, in pitched battle, the best general and most powerful army possessed by France, and capturing its strongest frontier fortress, the masterpiece of Vauban, under the eyes of one hundred and twenty thousand assembled from all quarters for its relief. He put the keystone at the same time into this arch of glory, by again declining the magnificent offer of the government of the Low Countries, with its appointment of sixty thousand a-year for life, a second time pressed upon him by King Charles, from an apprehension that such an offer might give umbrage to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... monopoly, those Populist senators, but I ask you what is a man in my place to do? If you don't eat, somebody eats you—is it not so? Like the boa-constrictors—that is modern business. Look at the Keystone Plate people, over there at Morris. For years we sold them steel billets from which to make their plates, and three months ago they serve notice on us that they are getting ready to make their own billets, they buy mines north of the lakes and are building ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... bullet. When he did recall the fact, as the chase lengthened, he felt sure that the chief would not stop to fight at close quarters. He could not afford to risk his life in an encounter with a single person, when he was the very keystone ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... and now falls to! Marmont withdraws before him. Bernadotte Touching Bennigsen, joins attack with him, And Ney must needs recede. This serves as sign To Schwarzenberg to bear upon Probstheida— Napoleon's keystone and dependence here. But for long whiles he fails to win his will, The chief being nigh—outmatching ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... to the knights of Charlemagne. In this the Round Table is as Roman as the round arch, which might also serve as a type; for instead of being one barbaric rock merely rolled on the others, the king was rather the keystone of an arch. But to this tradition of a level of dignity was added something unearthly that was from Rome, but not of it; the privilege that inverted all privileges; the glimpse of heaven which seemed ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... seeking at this moment for Russia an aggrandizement which would fill the world with astonishment, and reecho like a war-cry throughout Europe. Let the dissolution of Turkey and her annexation to Russia be the keystone of our creation, the last work of the sixth day. Let us erect the new empires on solid foundations, which all the storms of ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... immediately practicable field of operations was to be found in the Turkish Empire. It was here that the most systematic endeavours were made during this period: the Berlin-Bagdad scheme, which was to be the keystone of the arch of German world-power, had already taken shape before our period closed, though the rest of the world was strangely blind to its significance. Abstractly regarded, a German dominion over the wasted and misgoverned ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... freedom, in public righteousness, in domestic stability, and in foreign influence and enterprise. Runnymede is a red-letter spot, and 1215 is a red-letter year, not only in the history of England, but in the history of the whole modern world. The keystone of all sound constitutional government was laid at that place on that date, and by that great bridge not England only, but after England the whole civilised world has passed over from ages of bondage and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... feet. Culpepper lay in the dust, his arms stretched out to form a cross, his face dead white and his beard of brilliant red pointing at the keystone of the arch of Calais gate. Poins lifted his hand, but the pulse still beat, and he dropped it moodily ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... of ten that's the way things go. There's a keystone to every arch, and when you remove that, the whole ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... capture the bald, jagged ridge twenty miles due east of Rheims, known as Blanc Mont Ridge. Here the armies of Germany and the Allies had clashed more than once, and attempt after attempt had been made to wrest it from German hands. It was a keystone of the German defense, the fall of which would have a far-reaching effect upon the enemy armies. To the glory of the United States marines, let it be said that they were again a part of that splendid 2d Division ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... architect would have praised, but it was passable for a first attempt. He knew that the northern masons built their winter dwellings in the form of a dome, therefore he essayed the same form; but it fell in more than once before the keystone of ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... "That is the keystone of the Big Idea. There never before was a company like this will be. In the first place, I shall put up all the money myself. Then, when I have prepared a farm ready to receive a man and his family, I will sell him ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... resolution. To you our Academy owes its existence and present prosperity, and if, in after times, it should become a great institution, your name will always be coupled with its greatness. But, if you leave us, I very much fear that the fabric will crumble to pieces. You are the keystone of the arch; if you remain with us time may furnish the Academy with another block for the place. I hope my fears may be vain, and that circumstances will conspire to induce you to ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... ideal unit and the keystone of the organization is the Patrol, consisting of eight girls who would naturally be associated as friends, neighbors, school fellows or playmates. They are a self selected and, under the regulations ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... Ottoman Music Hall and a milliner's shop. Architecturally it presented rather a peculiar appearance. The leading feature of the ground-floor was a vast arch, extending across the entire frontage in something more than a semicircle. Projecting from the keystone of the arch was a wrought-iron sign bearing a portrait in copper, and under the portrait the words 'Ye Shakspere Head.' Away beneath the arch was concealed the shop-window, an affair of small square panes, and in the middle of every small ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... at unity, in the person of that sleek egotist, Stepan—his relation by blood and marriage to both Anna and Kitty makes him in some sense a link between the two couples. But he is more successful as a personage than as the keystone of an arch. The novel would really lose nothing by considerable cancellation. The author might have omitted Levin's two brothers, the whole Kitty and Levin history could have been liberally abbreviated, and many of the conversations on philosophy and politics would never be missed. Yes, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... kinds; the first arose from the tendency of the round arch, when on a large scale and heavily weighted, to sink at the crown if there is even any very slight settlement of the abutments. If we turn again to diagram 77, and observe the nearly vertical line formed there by the joints of the keystone, and if we suppose the scale of that arch very much increased without increasing the width of each voussoir, and suppose it built in two or three rings one over the other (which is really the constructive ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various



Words linked to "Keystone" :   quoin, lynchpin, support, building block, coigne, arch, coign



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