"Midas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and fresh; glades yet unsear'd by hand Of Midas-finger'd Autumn, massy-green; Bird-haunted nooks between, Where feathery ferns, a fairy palmglove, stand, An English-Eastern band:— While e'en the stealthy squirrel o'er the grass Beside me to the beech-clump dares to pass:— In this still precinct of the happy ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... misery in this cruel world about us come from nothing else but that men do not know this vision, that it is so hard—so dreadfully hard—to win. And he used to say that this power is infinite, that it depends only upon how much one wants it; and that he who possessed it had the gift of King Midas, and turned all things that he touched to gold. That is real madness to me, Arthur, and will not let me be still; and yet I know that it cannot ever die in me; for whenever there is an instant's weakness ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... with which the peasant feeds His hungry acres, stinks and is of use. The excise is fattened with the rich result Of all this riot; and ten thousand casks, For ever dribbling out their base contents, Touched by the Midas finger of the state, Bleed gold for Ministers to sport away. Drink and be mad then; 'tis your country bids! Gloriously drunk, obey the important call, Her cause demands the assistance of your throats;— Ye all can swallow, and ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... were known. At present he was an enforced absentee from the scenes of his exploits, being either immured by the British in the Tower of London, or in a German concentration camp as a spy. This inglorious interruption to the role he appeared to play while in the United States as a peripatetic Midas, setting plots in train by means of an overflowing purse, was due to an attempt to return to Germany on the liner Noordam in July, 1915. The British intercepted him at Falmouth, and promptly made him a prisoner of war ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... maladjustments: If we are denied power, influence, or love by society or by individuals, we can obtain these desiderata in our dreams. We can possess in dreams the things which we cannot have by day. In sleep the poor man becomes a Midas, the ugly woman handsome, the childless woman surrounded by children, and those who in daily life live upon a crust in their dreams dine like princes (after living upon canned goods for two months in the Dry Tortugas, the burden of my every dream ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... (folk). Melted butter. Member of society (child). Memnon. Memory. "Men-women." Mercury. Mere-patrie (la). "Merry Month" (May). Messages. Messenger-bird. Messerin. Metamorphoses. Metempsychosis. [Greek: Maetris]. Metropolis. Midas. Midnight. Midsummer. Milk. "Milk and Honey." Milk-tree. Milky Way. Mimicry. Mind-goddess. Minds (children's). (parents'). Minerva. Miniatures. "Ministering Children's League." Miracles. Mishosha. Mississippi. Mistress. Mock pig-hunting. tobacco. turtle-catching. Modelling. Moderson. Modersprak. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... much as she will want to impart her secret," answered the priest. "Who whispered to the earth, 'Midas has long ears'?" ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... very directness of gaze, that level glance which concealed nothing and evaded nothing became to him at first a small annoyance, and then a constantly aggravated irritation. His star of Destiny rode at its zenith. Every venture turned under his Midas hand to gold and increased power. He mounted to succeeding heights until it seemed that like Alexander he must soon brood over the smallness of the world's opportunity. Colossal mergers grouped themselves into structures of stupendous strength. His ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... constantly making to philanthropic objects, with the result that the gentle comedian was pestered with applications for money for all sorts of institutions. In order to provide Russell with the means to bestow unlimited largess, Field endowed him with the touch of Midas. He would report that the matchless exponent of "Shabby Genteel" bought lead mines, to be disappointed by finding tons of virgin gold in the quartz. Like Bret Harte's hero of Downs Flat, when Russell dug ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit on it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had become so very rich that it would have taken him ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... have known me twenty-five years, and you know that I am a man of my word. If ever a malevolent word from you regarding my wife should come to my ears, I shall elongate yours to such a degree that those of King Midas will be entirely ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... Which under his long locks he well conceal'd, (As monarchs' vices must not be reveal'd) 160 For fear the people have them in the wind, Who long ago were neither dumb nor blind: Nor apt to think from Heaven their title springs, Since Jove and Mars left off begetting kings. This Midas knew; and durst communicate To none but to his wife his ears of state: One must be trusted, and he thought her fit, As passing prudent, and a parlous wit. To this sagacious confessor he went, And told her what a gift the gods had sent: 170 But told it under ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... just think what capabilities there are in Midas. We will decidedly make him King of California, and I'll be the priestess of Apollo; there is an old three-legged epergne-stand that will make a most excellent tripod. And only think of the whispering into the reeds, 'King Midas has the ears of an ass.' I would have made more of a fight ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there lived a very rich man, and a king besides, whose name was Midas; and he had a little daughter, whom nobody but myself ever heard of, and whose name I either never knew, or have entirely forgotten. So, because I love odd names for little girls, I ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... but you need not resign your asses' ears. You shall wear them in the character of King Midas." ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... altitude; your ornaments are equally chaste and beautiful, with more variety and invention, more airiness and light. But why, among the Loves and Graces, does Apollo flay Marsyas?—and why may not the tiara still cover the ears of Midas? Cannot you, who detest kings and courtiers, keep away from them? If I must be with them, let me be in good humour and good spirits. If I will tread upon a Persian carpet, let it at ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... perceived him to be a personage of marked influence and authority; and, especially, you could feel just as certain that he was opulent as if he had exhibited his bank account, or as if you had seen him touching the twigs of the Pyncheon Elm, and, Midas-like, transmuting them to gold. ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for what it will net us in dollars and cents, we are not on the road leading to success. For success does not ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... Puritan saw a man going to the gallows, "There," he said, "but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford". When the rich man, entering his club, sees some wretched tatterdemalion, slouching on the pavement, there, he may say, goes Sir Gorgius Midas, but for—what? I am here and he there, he may say, because I was the son of a successful stock-jobber, and he the son of some deserted mother at the workhouse. That is the cause, but is it a reason? Suppose, as is likely enough, that ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... many, as Cranton tells us, and those very wise men, not now but long ago, have deplored the condition of human nature, esteeming life a punishment, and to be born a man the highest pitch of calamity; this, Aristotle tells us, Silenus declared when he was brought captive to Midas. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... to lend me an ear; yet not such a one as you are wont to hearken with to your reverend preachers, but as you listen withal to mountebanks, buffoons, and merry-andrews; in short, such as formerly were fastened to Midas, as a punishment for his affront to the god Pan. For I am now in a humour to act awhile the sophist, yet not of that sort who undertake the drudgery of tyrannizing over school boys, and teach a more than womanish knack of brawling; ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... sons of Temenos had passed over it, began to flow with such great volume of water that the horsemen became unable to pass over. So the brothers, having come to another region of Macedonia, took up their dwelling near the so-called gardens of Midas the son of Gordias, where roses grow wild which have each one sixty petals and excel all others in perfume. In these gardens too Silenos was captured, as is reported by the Macedonians: and above the gardens is situated a mountain called Bermion, which is inaccessible by reason of the cold. ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... the sepulchre. Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee; Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge 'Tween man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead, Which rather threaten'st than dost promise aught, Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence, And here choose I: joy be ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... house we were informed was an old miser whose passion for accumulating wealth reduced him into almost as unfortunate a state as Midas, who, according to the fable, having obtained the long-desired power of turning every thing he touched to gold, was starved by the immediate transmutation of all food into that metal the instant it touched his lips. The late possessor of the house I am speaking of, when he was about fifty ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... grown habituated to the flight of time. Years? we have seen so many of them that they make no great impression upon us. What! is it ten years since young Midas first came to the counting-room, asking humbly for an entry-clerk's place—he who is now the head of the firm? Bless us! it seems like yesterday. Is it ten years since we first put on that coat? Why, it must be clean out of ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... of the discourse of Lysias? See whether you can find any more connexion in his words than in the epitaph which is said by some to have been inscribed on the grave of Midas the Phrygian. ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... when Midas' Ears began to spring, (Midas, a sacred person and a king) 70 His very Minister who spy'd them first, (Some say his Queen) was forc'd to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When ev'ry coxcomb perks them in my face? A. Good friend, forbear! ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... where you will and you bring up all sorts of fish. In England if you go into educated society, you are likely to meet almost exclusively educated people—or at least people with the stamp of educated manners. Sir Gorgius Midas is not of course inexorably barred from the society of duchesses. Her Grace of Pentonville must have met him frequently. But in America the duchesses have to rub shoulders with him every day. And—which is worth noting—their husbands also rub ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... the irresistible energy and momentum of wealth as wealth, men said that fortune favored him from the outset. It was only a half-truth, but it sufficed to account for what was really a campaign of conquest. Grierson's touch was Midas-like, turning all things to gold; and even in Wahaska there were Mammon worshippers enough to hail him as a public benefactor whose wealth and enterprise would shortly make of the overgrown village a town, and of the town a ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... laughing, "I may have Midas' longing for gold, but I also have his ears. And the ears predominate. I am such an ass I have even returned a fair petitioner's perfumed note! Such a dainty little hand! How good the paper smelt! How devilish it read! The world's idea about the devil always smelling of sulphur and brimstone is ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... lived a very rich King whose name was Midas, and he had a little daughter whom he loved very dearly. This King was fonder of gold than of anything else in the whole world: or if he did love anything better, it was the one little daughter who played so merrily ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... of Infantine Hope, Unknown, mystic Felicity Sangrael of childish quest much sought, aethereal "Real Tea" Thy faintest tint of yellow on the milk and water pale Like Midas' stain on Pactolus, gives ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Then I leased my Dime Creek holdin's on royalties, an' that'll put me on my feet even ef this Golconda claim ain't all I think. But I done a lot o' prospectin' there once, an' it sure looks promisin'; an' besides it's right next t' the Midas, an' fer the last couple years or more Barclay has been takin' out ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... dethroned the last of the Heraclidae; and with a new dynasty seems to have commenced a new and less Asiatic policy. Gyges, supported by the oracle of Delphi, was the first barbarian, except one of the many Phrygian kings claiming the name of Midas, who made votive offerings to that Grecian shrine. From his time this motley tribe, the link between Hellas and the East, came into frequent collision with the Grecian colonies. Gyges himself made war with Miletus and Smyrna, and even captured Colophon. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... humble slave, Has now enslaved its master; And fast as flows its Midas-wave, My rebel tears ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... an old record of the existence of large double Roses in Asia by Herodotus, who tells us, that in a part of Macedonia were the so-called gardens of Midas, in which grew native Roses, each one having sixty petals, and of a scent surpassing all others ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... at first sight with Herminia. He admired and respected her. More than that, he understood her. She had power in her purity to raise his nature for a time to something approaching her own high level. True woman has the real Midas gift: all that she touches turns to purest gold. Seeing Herminia much and talking with her, Alan could not fail to be impressed with the idea that here was a soul which could do a great deal more for ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... exploiting the hitherto neglected or unknown natural resources of the country. Every year science furnished new methods of converting nature's products into man's wealth. Chemistry, the doubtful science, Midas-like, turned into gold every thing that it touched. There were not native workers enough, and so a steady stream of foreign immigrants flocked over from abroad. They came at first to better their own fortunes by sharing in the unlimited ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... disinherited his children, he was then in the mood to reconsider his act, being alive to the fact that his days were numbered. But he went about the business with the sagacity of an old dog who has been kicked hard by some one who was not his master. Instead of proclaiming himself to be the Midas-like Joseph Grimwell, he appeared before his son and daughters, as poor old Joseph Hooper, their long lost father, as poor—nay, even poorer than when he went away, for he had lost the rugged health that was his only possession at the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... ministers; senators, with embassies in prospect, laugh at instructions; representatives think they have made a good bargain when they exchange the barren approval of constituencies for the smile of one whom a lucky death, perhaps, has converted into the Presidential Midas of the moment; and in a nation of adventurers, success is too easily allowed to sanctify a speculation by which a man sells his pitiful self for a better price than even a Jew could get for the Saviour ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... beget children as useless as themselves, being persuaded that it was an injury both to the community and to the infirm person himself that he continue in the world, even though he were richer than Midas. ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... carpet-weaver, pious as Martin Luther, but a trifle liberal with her idioms. The tongue in her head wagged like a bell-clapper. Whatever was whispered in the Hills got somehow into Aunt Peggy's ears, and once there it went to the world like the secret of Midas. ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... pretend, and I know it will be impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of AEsop's cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem; or of Midas, that being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the Muses, and Pan, god of the flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for beauty and love against wisdom and power; or of Agrippina, occidat matrem, modo imperet, that preferred empire with any condition never ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... national superstition, would prove little inferior in poetical interest and association to the fanciful creations of the Greek mythology. The truth is, they are of one family, and we often discover allusions to the beautiful fable of Psyche or the story of Midas; sometimes with the addition, that the latter was obliged to admit his barber into his uncomfortable secret. Odin and Jupiter are brothers, if not the same person; and the northern Hercules is often represented as drawing a strong man by almost invisible threads, which pass ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... wise, I know, to preach to boys. And yet, sometimes, a man must speak his heart; even, like Midas's slave, to the reeds by the river side. And I had so often, fishing up and down full many a stream, whispered my story to those same river-reeds; and told them that my Lord the Sovereign Demos had, like old Midas, asses' ears in spite of all his ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Midas," Robert retorted. "All I touch turns to gold. My love will make her flesh imperial as a pope's niece and her rags as purple as ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to look back on the fatal and universal prevalence of Gold-worship recorded in the history of our race, from the period when Midas became its victim, and the boy chased the rainbow to find the pot of treasure at its foot, to the days when the alchemist offered his all a burnt-sacrifice on the altar; until we reach the present time, when, although the manner of its worship has changed, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... wise, I know, to preach to boys. And yet, sometimes, a man must speak his heart; even, like Midas' slave, to the reeds by the river side. And I had so often, fishing up and down full many a stream, whispered my story to those same river-reeds; and told them that my Lord the Sovereign Demos had, like ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... fund. (Loud and prolonged applause; the word "thousand" preceding the word "dollars" and itself preceded by any numeral from one to one million, inclusive, being invariably provocative of acclaim in a subscription meeting of representative citizens.) Mr. Douglas took pride in nominating that Midas of Medicine, Dr. Surtaine. (More and louder applause.) The Reverend Dr. Wales, of Dr. Surtaine's church, sonorously seconded the nomination. So did Hollis Myers, of the Security Power Products Company. So, a trifle grumpily, did Elias M. Pierce. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... in at the windows of a little bare studio next morning, as if to atone for the gloom of the darkness and storm of the night. The Midas touch of its rays fell upon the hair of Helen Greyson, turning its wavy locks into gold as she softly sang over ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... great paintings adorns the house of the Honourable Midas Bond, and every year adds a new treasure to his collection. He knows how much they cost him, and he keeps the run of the quotations at the auction sales, congratulating himself as the price of the works of his well-chosen artists rises in the scale, and the value ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... commonplaces and proverbs of wealth and luxury. The magnificence of Pelops imparts lustre even to the brilliant dreams of the mythologist. The name of Croesus, King of Lydia, whom I have already had occasion to mention, goes as a proverb for his enormous riches. Midas, King of Phrygia, had such abundance of the precious metals, that he was said by the poets to have the power of turning whatever he touched into gold. The tomb of Mausolus, King of Caria, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was the ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... beholds Hugues Capet, founder of the third dynasty of French kings, and stigmatized as "root of that ill plant," because this poem was composed only a few years after Philip IV's criminal attempt against Pope Boniface at Agnani. The poets also recognize there Pygmalion (brother of Dido), Midas, Achan, Heliodorus, and Crassus, [18] ere they are startled by feeling the whole mountain tremble beneath them and by hearing the spirits exultantly cry ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... and pungent sentence the sort of homage which Parisian ladies would have been willing to pay to Law if he had so desired. St. Simon, the mere litterateur and diplomatist, kept his head almost alone, and was not to be dazzled. Since the fable of Midas, he said, he had not heard of any one having the power to turn all he touched into gold, and he did not believe that virtue was given to M. Law. There is no doubt that Law was a man of great ability as a financier, and that his scheme in the beginning had promise in it. ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... fishing proceeded energetically but without bringing up any rarities. Our dragnet was filled with Midas abalone, harp shells, obelisk snails, and especially the finest hammer shells I had seen to that day. We also gathered in a few sea cucumbers, some pearl oysters, and a dozen small turtles that we saved for the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... are two very old fragments of knowledge which indicate at least the possibility of a Western World of which the ancients had knowledge. There is a fragment, preserved from the fourth century before Christ, of a conversation between Silenus and Midas, King of Phrygia, in which Silenus correctly describes the Old World—Europe, Asia, and Africa—as being surrounded by the sea, but also describes, far to the west of it, a huge island, which had its own civilisation and its own laws, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... version of the Midas story is taken from Bulfinch's Age of Fable, which is still one of the most valuable and interesting handbooks in its field. One who wishes simply good versions of the old myths without any of the apparatus of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Gordium, an ancient town of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was preserved an old wagon, rudely built, and very primitive in structure. Tradition said that it had originally belonged to the peasant Gordius and his son Midas, rustic chiefs who had been selected by the gods and chosen by the people as the primitive kings of Phrygia. The cord which attached the yoke of this wagon to the pole, composed of fibres from the bark of the cornel tree, was tied into a knot so twisted and entangled that it seemed as if the fingers ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of Juventian youths the flowret fair Not of these only, but of all that were Or shall be, coming in the coming years, Better waste Midas' wealth (to me appears) On him that owns nor slave nor money-chest 5 Than thou shouldst suffer by his love possest. "What! is he vile or not fair?" "Yes!" I attest, "Yet owns this man so comely neither slaves nor chest My words disdain thou or accept at best Yet neither ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... and waved his hand in dismissal of the topic. "Well, Mr. Corliss," he went on, shifting to a brisker tone, "I have come to make my fortune, too. You are Midas. Am I of sufficient importance to ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... these empty rooms could not be converted into a suitable home for the poor woman and her five children. Would not that be more just and fair than to leave the mother and her five little ones languishing in a garret, while Sir Gorgeous Midas sat at his ease in an empty mansion? Besides, good Sir Gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his own accord; his wife will be delighted to be freed from half her big, unwieldy house when there is no longer a staff of servants to ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... may well say it is an ideal. Yes, it is what men have meant by El Dorado, The Promised Land, and all such shy haunts of the Beatific Vision. Probably the quest of the Philosopher's Stone is not more wild. Yet men still seek that precious substitute for Midas. Brave spirits! Unconquerable idealists! ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... women. Massacre of Orpheus. The women transformed to trees by Bacchus. Midas' foolish wish to change all things he touched into gold. Contest of skill between Pan and Apollo. The ears of Midas transformed to asses ears. Troy built by Apollo and Neptune. Laoemedon's perfidy. Hesione freed by Hercules, and married to Telamon. Peleus and Thetis. Birth of ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... of the sea there is gold—about 400 tons in a cubic mile—in very much of the soil, some in all Philadelphia clay, in the Pactolian sands of every river where Midas has bathed, and in many rocks of the earth. But it is so fine and so mixed with other substances that in many cases it cannot be seen. Look at the ore from a mine that is giving its owners millions of dollars. Not a speck of gold can be seen. How can it be ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... And now, for a certain time, he was to be away from home. That respect for a New England education which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents. Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas's School near Boston—Hades was too small to hold their ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... enter poor into his inheritance; he will not slumber and forget himself in the lap of money, or spend his hours in counting idle treasures, but be up and briskly doing; he will have the true alchemic touch, which is not that of Midas, but which transmutes dead money into living delight and satisfaction. Etre et pas avoir—to be, not to possess—that is the problem of life. To be wealthy, a rich nature is the first requisite and money but the second. To be of a quick and healthy blood, to share in all honourable curiosities, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shock to Falco, who was crushed with horror at such a crime. He was even more horrified at the arrogance of the guilty Praetorians and at their shameless effrontery in offering the Imperial Purple to the highest bidder and in, practically, selling the Principiate to so bestial a Midas as Didius Julianus, who, of all the senators, seemed most to misbecome the Imperial Dignity and who had nothing to ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... cabin. Through the open door I saw that every inch of the walls was covered with stacked boxes of matches, yellow fronts exposed. On his mat in the middle of this golden treasury O Lalala reclined, smoking at his leisure, and smiling the happy smile of Midas. Outside a cold wind swept down from Calvary Peak, and a gray ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Quacks for the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb; Fools are their bankers—a prolific line, And every mortal malady's a mine. Each sly Sangrado, with his poisonous pill, Flies to the printer's devil with his bill, Whose Midas touch can gild his ass's ears, And load a knave with folly's rich arrears. And lo! a second miracle is thine, For sloe-juice water stands transformed to wine. Where Day and Martin's patent blacking roll'd, Burst from the vase Pactolian streams of gold; Laugh the sly wizards, glorying in their ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... mint, that gleamed joyously in the sunlight. He gave a little cry of delight as he let them run in a shining stream from hollowed hand to hollowed hand, and contemplated their jingle and glitter with the delight of a new Midas. But the first thought that welled up in his heart to welcome this strange ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... in and out. It argues, my Lord! of fine thoughts such a brood in us 45 To split and divide into heads multitudinous, While charms that surprise (it can ne'er be denied us) Sprout forth from each head, like the ears from King Midas. Were a genius of rank, like a commonplace dunce, Compell'd to drive on to the main point at once, 50 What a plentiful vintage of initiations[342:3] Would Noble Lords lose in your Lordship's orations. My fancy transports me! As mute as a mouse, And as fleet as a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... flight, for the leaves, waxen, oily, inert, hung limp and listless from the sticks that pointed like needles to the north to keep the stalks inclined as much as possible from the sun. Even they had taken on the Midas touch of gold, for all green and gold that world of blue-grass was—all green and gold, except for the shaggy unkempt fields where the king of weeds had tented the year before and turned them over to ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... 'Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much:' "Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch." All my demurs but double his attacks; At last he whispers, "Do; and we go snacks." Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door, Sir, let me see your works and you no more. 'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring (Midas, a sacred person and a king), His very minister who spied them first (Some say his queen) was forced to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When every coxcomb perks them in my face? A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in dangerous things. I'd never ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... their Fool—I, dreamer of knightly dreams, aspirant to hero's fame! I craved their wonder; I had won their laughter. I had prayed for popularity; it had been granted to me—in this guise. Were the gods still the heartless practical jokers poor Midas ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... our experience divine; it tells us that the Christian hero will ennoble the humblest field of labor; that nothing is mean which can be performed as duty; but that religious virtue, like the touch of Midas, converts the humblest call of conscience ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... liberate them. Some are certain to fly into the crater and try to scrape the glue off in the sand. Then," I added, triumphantly, "all we have to do is to haul in our birds and detach the wealth of Midas from their ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... determining factor at this crisis. Seeing in myself an embryonic Raphael, I had a habit of preserving all kinds of odds and ends as souvenirs of my development. These, I believed, sanctified by my Midas-like touch, would one day be of great value. If the public can tolerate, as it does, thousands of souvenir hunters, surely one with a sick mind should be indulged in the whim for collecting such souvenirs as come within his reach. Among the odds and ends that I had gathered were several corn ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... roll of the billows of the mountains and canyons wedged in between is redolent of memories of the argonauts and emigrants. Yonder are Yuba, Dutch Flat, the North Fork, the South Fork (of the American River), Colfax, Gold Run, Midas, Blue Canyon, Emigrant Gap, Grass Valley, Michigan Bluff, Grizzly Gulch, Alpha, Omega, Eagle Bird, Red Dog, Chips Flat, Quaker Hill and You Bet. Can you not see these camps, alive with rough-handed, full-bearded, sun-browned, stalwart men, and hear the clang of hammer ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... Phrygia, where he is joined by new forces. The city of Celaenae; the plain of Caystrus, where the soldiers demand their arrears of pay, which Cyrus discharges with money received from the queen of Cilicia. The town of Thymbrium; the fountain of Midas. Cyrus enters Cilicia, and is met at Tarsus by Syennesis, the ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... the hundredweight. Moreover—" He sifted down upon the dark wood beside the stones a thimbleful of dull yellow grains. "The sands of Pactolus, gentlemen! Sure 'twas in no Grecian river that King Midas bathed himself!" ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... which marked out his duty, aided his faith, and determined his action. The sign which I seek is somewhat similar. Money is not everything. It is not by any means the main thing. Midas, with all his millions, could no more do the work than he could win the battle of Waterloo, or hold the Pass of Thermopylae. But the millions of Midas are capable of accomplishing great and mighty things, if they be sent about doing good under the direction of ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... by the Thracian women; on which, a serpent, which attacks his face, is changed into stone. The women are transformed into trees by Bacchus, who deserts Thrace, and betakes himself to Phrygia; where Midas, for his care of Silenus, receives the power of making gold. He loathes this gift; and bathing in the river Pactolus, its sands become golden. For his stupidity, his ears are changed by Apollo into those of an ass. After this, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... in such a custom is the idea it gives that poor man of his own worth. Like King Midas he sees all things turn to gold at his touch, but he does not see the ass' ears growing. Let us keep Emile's hands from money lest he should become an ass, let him take the work but not the wages. Never let his work be ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... authority. He seems to have been the type of gossip (still to be met in London clubs) who can always tell with circumstance how the duchess came to have a black baby, and the exact composition of the party at which Midas played at 'strip poker.' But he was, like many of his kind, an amusing enough companion for the idle moment, and his description of Dr Forman is probably ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... Spanish. For if he had possessed even a tolerable knowledge of it, how could he have translated El Convidado de Piedra (the Stone Guest) into the Stone Feast, which has no meaning here, and could only be applicable to the Feasts of Midas?] we have only to look at the works of Thomas Corneille to be at once convinced that, with the exception of a few, they are all Spanish; as also are the earlier labours of Quinault, namely, his comedies and tragi-comedies. The right of drawing without scruple from this source was so universal, that ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... whose tuneful and well measur'd song First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas' ears, committing short and long; Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look wan; To after age thou shalt be writ the man, That with smooth air could'st humour best our tongue. Thou honour'st Verse, and Verse must lend ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... engravers, and etched a Judgment of Midas. Round the room of a tavern in Drury Lane, where was held a club of virtuosi, he painted a Bacchanalian procession, and presented the ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... 411. Frontal, Fr., a frontlet, or forehead band.—Cotgrave. A frontlet is mentioned as part of a woman's dress in Lyly's "Midas," 1592: "Hoods, frontlets, wires, cauls, curling-irons, periwigs, bodkins, fillets, hair laces, ribbons, rolls, knotstrings, glasses," &c. See also Mr Steevens's note on "King Lear," ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... was piling gorgeous masses of purple and crimson clouds high about him, cuddling his fat cheeks against their soft folds till, a Midas, he turned them to gold at the touch. Those farther away gloomed jealously at the favoritism of their lord, and huddled closer together—the purple for rage, perhaps; and the ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... should always kiss; 470 And to this day is every scholar poor: Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor. Likewise the angry Sisters, thus deluded, To venge themselves on Hermes, have concluded That Midas' brood shall sit in Honour's chair, To which the Muses' sons are only heir; And fruitful wits, that inaspiring[25] are, Shall, discontent, run into regions far; And few great lords in virtuous deeds ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... spoke slowly, seeming to consider his words—"I should like to ask them why, for years now, they should have let a valuable property remain idle. Even if they have the wealth of Midas it is still a puzzle. No one is ever quite rich enough, you know, and down there is Tom Tiddler's ground to ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... ordained for all our prayers so long as the day lasts, but when the night comes, we take up a contrary sound instead. Then we rehearse Pygmalion,[1] whom his gluttonous longing for gold made a traitor and thief and parricide; and the wretchedness of the avaricious Midas which followed on his greedy demand, at which men must always laugh. Then of the foolish Achan each one recalls how he stole the spoils, so that the anger of Joshua seems still to sting him, here.[2] Then we accuse Sapphira with her husband; ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... of Engraving, all in one. Craig dumped the wealth out on the table - stacks of genuine bills, gold coins of two realms, diamonds, pearls, everything portable and tangible all heaped up and topped off with piles of counterfeits awaiting the magic touch of this Midas to turn ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... be glad enough, both of them, if I drew out now! But I won't do it! It is mine, all mine, and I am going to find it! They shall have their shares, as I promised them: ten per cent each. And I, Sir Midas, will not be suspected then of falling in love with you as I am doing because you are rich ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... and his men continued to fish up plate, bullion, and dollars, as plentifully as ever, till their provisions grew short. Then, as they could not feed upon gold and silver any more than old King Midas could, they found it necessary to go in search of better sustenance. Phips resolved to return to England. He arrived there in 1687, and was received with great joy by the Duke of Albemarle and other English lords who had fitted out the vessel. Well ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... these common vegetables, whose external appearance is always before our eyes. He not only humanizes whatever attracts his attention, but he looks through a refining medium of his own personality. He has the gift of Midas to bring back the Golden Age for us. Who besides Homer has been able to describe a chariot-race, and who but Hawthorne could extract such ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... Persia, put him to death: a beloved brother, and one in whom he had always confided. Aristodemus, king of the Messenians, killed himself out of a fancy of ill omen, from I know not what howling of his dogs; and King Midas did as much upon the account of some foolish dream he had dreamed. 'Tis to prize life at its just value, to abandon it for a dream. And yet hear the soul triumph over the miseries and weakness of the body, and that it is exposed to all attacks and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... concert of "sweet breasts," as our ancestors would have called them, culled from club-rooms and orchestras—chorus singers—first and second violoncellos—double basses—and clarionets—who ate his cold mutton, and drank his punch, and praised his ear. He sate like Lord Midas among them. But at the desk Tipp was quite another sort of creature. Thence all ideas, that were purely ornamental, were banished. You could not speak of any thing romantic without rebuke. Politics were excluded. A newspaper was ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... that even his pigs of lead, By crossing with some by Midas bred, Made a perfect mine of his piggery. And as for cattle, one yearling bull Was worth all Smithfield-market full Of the Golden Bulls ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... art, that it is not even an amenity, should not blind us to the fact that it is an honest article. I admit that the man who produces it satisfies a vulgar and unprofitable taste; so does the very upright tradesman who forces insipid asparagus for the Christmas market. Sir Georgius Midas will never care for art, but he will always want a background; and, unless things are going to change with surprising suddenness, it will be some time before he is unable to get what he wants, at a price. However splendid and ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... secured during that summer a very advantageous option in a part of Africa on the Transvaal frontier, rumoured to be auriferous. Now, whether it was auriferous or not before, the mere fact that Charles had secured some claim on it naturally made it so; for no man had ever the genuine Midas-touch to a greater degree than Charles Vandrift: whatever he handles turns at once to gold, if not to diamonds. Therefore, as soon as my brother-in-law had obtained this option from the native vendor (a most respected chief, by name Montsioa), and promoted a company of ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... pleasures, I would so gladly take full draughts of joy from its golden cup! My husband comes and offers me a crystal shell, filled with heavenly dew and ether dust, which is, I suppose, angels' food, but he does not remark that I am hungering and thirsting to death. Like King Midas, before whose thirsty lips every thing turned to gold, and who was starving in the midst of all his glory, I beseech you, stepfather, undertake the role of the barber, bore a hole and cry out in it that I have ass's ears—ears as long as those of King Midas. Perhaps the rushes would grow again and ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... story of Danae as signifying that women have been and will be overcome by money. The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... Does the accursed Midas-touch of his mind dissolve everything, one very Holy of Holies, into ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... manner of confections. It had bestowed beauty and fortune and accomplishments on her, and sent dashing cavaliers to seek her hand when she came to the romance-reading age. Friends and social pleasures were hers at will when the lonely desert life grew irksome. Whatever was dull the Midas touch of her imagination made golden, so now it was easy to close her eyes and conjure up a make-believe chum that for the time was as ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Midas treads a wearier measure: All he touches turns to gold: If there be no taste of pleasure, What's the use of wealth untold? What's the joy his fingers hold, When he's forced to thirst for aye?— Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... and to assist him in doing so seems to be the only visible means of support of half the people of the town. The dance-house and the gambling-saloon, flaunting their gaudy attractions, own him for the hour their king. His Midas touch is all-powerful. I must confess, with all my admiration for his character, that his tastes are low. I know that the civilization of the East would bore him immeasurably, and that he considers Colt, with his revolvers, a broader philanthropist than Raikes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... of him, as of [v]Midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into coin. And when Mr. Gathergold had become so rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... a pound of chopped meat and a package of macaroni, and to be counting Hunt's pennies—remembering those days when he had been a personage to head waiters, and had had his table reserved, and with a careless Midas's gesture had left a dollar, or five, or twenty, ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... based)—an idea that is profoundly moral even if the tales are immoral. It is what may be called the flaw in the deed: the idea that, if I take my advantage to the full, I shall hear of something to my disadvantage. Thus Midas fell into a fallacy about the currency; and soon had reason to become something more than a Bimetallist. Thus Macbeth had a fallacy about forestry; he could not see the trees for the wood. He forgot that, though a place cannot ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... announced on the 23d of May] to write within six weeks or two months next ensuing, a book of stories made up of classical myths. The subjects are: The Story of Midas, with his Golden Touch; Pandora's Box; The Adventure of Hercules in Quest of the Golden Apples; Bellerophon and the Chimera; Baucis and Philemon; Perseus ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... he would say, "were erected by the Turks, to commemorate a victory. Here is where Byron swam the sea from Europe to Asia; and over there is where King Midas lived, whose touch turned piastres to napoleons, and flounders to goldfish. Here, to the left, on that hill, stood ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... from "Astrophel and Stella" Philip Sidney Silvia William Shakespeare Cupid and Campaspe John Lyly Apollo's Song from "Midas" John Lyly "Fair is my Love for April's in her Face" Robert Greene Samela Robert Greene Damelus' Song of His Diaphenia Henry Constable Madrigal, "My Love in her attire doth show her wit" Unknown On Chloris Walking in the Snow William Strode "There is a Lady Sweet ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... King Midas have a thruppence worth of truth in them, it might be his father's meanness that's ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... punishment of the attempt upon thy life—for dear repose of conscience, may all the gods forbid it should ever prove to have been an accident!—the family were seized and summarily disposed of, and their property confiscated. And inasmuch, O my Midas! as the action had the approval of our Caesar, who was as just as he was wise—be there flowers upon his altars forever!—there should be no shame in referring to the sums which were realized to us respectively from that source, for which ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... condition from that with which they came in contact now. What is that subtle, mocking change that comes over even the inanimate things that we have not seen since we were happy, and now meet again in grief? It is like a horrible inversion of the golden touch given to Midas. To Gore, during those days, the darkness fell upon every fresh thing to which he went back. The impression was so strong on him as he turned over the manuscript, that he shuddered. What was the use of all this? What was it worth? He knew in his heart that the person of all others ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... his body, by choice or preference; which is that which denominates him free, and is freedom itself. But if any one should ask, whether freedom were free, he would be suspected not to understand well what he said; and he would be thought to deserve Midas's ears, who, knowing that rich was a denomination for the possession of riches, should demand ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... this is he, foretold by ancient rhymes: Th' Augustus born to bring Saturnian times. Signs following signs lead on the mighty year! See! the dull stars roll round, and reappear. See, see, our own true Phoebus wears the bays! Our Midas sit Lord Chancellor of plays! On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ! Lo! Ambrose Philips is preferr'd for wit! See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall, While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... Agias, "I am already like to be very late at my dear friend Cimber's dinner party"—he mentioned the name of the owner of a very large villa not far down the road; "I have with me only Midas, my mute valet. If you detain me any longer ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... anything at all about him. He might be a battered old traveller, or an Anglo-Indian nabob, or a needy haunter of Continental pensions, or a convict just emerged from a term of penal servitude. He might be as rich as Midas, or as poor as a church-mouse. But on one thing Austin was determined—Aunt Charlotte must be saved from herself, if necessary. They wanted no interloper in their peaceful home. And he, Austin, would go forth into the world, wooden leg and all, rather than submit ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... daring hardiment. Python is slain, yet his accursed race Dare look divine Astrea in the face; Chaos return and with confusion Involve the world with strange disunion; For Pluto sits in that adored chair Which doth belong unto Minerva's heir. O hecatombs! O catastrophe! From Midas' pomp to Trus' beggary! Prometheus, who celestial fire Did steal from heaven, therewith to inspire Our earthly bodies with a sense-ful mind, Whereby we might the depth of nature find, Is ding'd to hell, and vulture eats his heart Which ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... listened patiently to the plaintive outpourings of her 'promeneuse', because she wished to acquire a right to reciprocate by a few half-confidences of her own. In her turn, therefore, she confided to Fraulein Schult—moved much as Midas had been, when for his own relief he whispered to the reeds—that if she were sometimes idle, inattentive, "away off in the moon," as her instructors told her by way of reproach, it was caused by one ever-present idea, which, ever since she had been able to think or feel, had taken possession ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... as a child's. "Agreed!" she cried. "You and the minister and Diccon Demon shall lay your muskets across your knees, and Angela shall witch you into stone with her old, mad, heathen charms. And then—and then—I will gather more gold than had King Midas; I will dance with the hamadryads; I will find out Oberon and ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the sordid fate To that melodious lyre assign'd, Beneath a tutor who so late With Midas and his rout combined By spiteful clamour to confound That very lyre's enchanting sound, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... sweet miracle it was, he mused! She was his now before all the world, thanks to Willie's skilful pilotage. Where was the little old man—that dreamer of dreams, who with Midas-like touch left upon everything with which he came in contact the golden impress of his heart? He must seek him out and thank ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... little lines between the corner of our Minnie's mouth and her nostril. And again, Minnie is one of those people whose dresses never seem to fit, but this fits like a glove. These retouchers are like Midas, and they turn all that comes to their hands to gold; or, like Spring, the flowers come back at their approach. They reverse the work of Ithuriel, and restore brightness to the fallen. They sit at their little desks, and scratch, scratch, scratch with those delicate pencils of theirs, scratching ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... labors that he wrote in the ocean, when every line was wet with a surge, and every humorous passion counterchecked with a storm. If you like it, so; and yet I will be yours in duty, if you be mine in favor. But if Momus or any squint-eyed ass, that hath mighty ears to conceive with Midas, and yet little reason to judge; if he come aboard our bark to find fault with the tackling, when he knows not the shrouds, I'll down into the hold, and fetch out a rusty pole-axe, that saw no sun this seven year, and either well baste him, or heave the coxcomb ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... mannish minded; you must then conclude these are natural instincts. If it happen to fall out, contrary to your expectation, that she hath more mind to a brave young fellow that's a Prentice, whose parts and humor she knows, then she hath in a Plush Jacketted or gilt Midas; then make your selves joyfull in the several examples that you have of others, who being so married, have proved to be the best Matches; of which examples multiplicities are at large prostrated to your view in the Theater of ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... addition of the typewriter to the printing-press has given a new and horrible impetus to the spread of half-baked thought. The labor of graving on stone or of baking tablets of brick or even of scrawling letters on paper with a pen is no longer a curb on the dangerous fluency of the inverted Midas. He now lolls in a Morris chair, sipping iced tea, dictating to four blonde and two dark-haired stenographers; three novels, a couple of books of travel and a short story written at once are nothing to a really enterprising ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... mountains of Pisidia, he encamped in the neighbourhood of Gordium in Phrygia. Here he was rejoined by Parmenio and by the new levies from Greece. Gordium had been the capital of the early Phrygian kings, and in it was preserved with superstitious veneration the chariot or waggon in which the celebrated Midas, the son of Gordius, together with his parents, had entered the town, and in conformity with an oracle had been elevated to the monarchy. An ancient prophecy promised the sovereignty of Asia to him who should untie the knot of bark which fastened the yoke of the waggon to the pole. Alexander ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... on judges bold, Who meddle with music's sacred strains! Judge Midas tried the same of old And was punisht like ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... durch ein glas, Vermeinet mehr reichtum zu haben, Dan Midas und Crsus besass; Ja grosser frsten gunst und gaben, 10 Dienst mpter, glck und herrlichkeit Tritt ich zu ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... To Midas given of old To touch a flower And leave the petals gold I then might touch thy face, Delightful boy, And leave a metal grace, ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... their hopes and fears and smiles and tears and such, Went by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas touch; About as fat as a chancel rat, and lo! despite my will, In the weary fight I had clean lost sight of the man I ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... beautiful among the cities of men, haunt of Persephone, thou who by the banks of Akragas' stream that nourisheth thy flocks, inhabitest a citadel builded pleasantly—O queen, graciously and with goodwill of gods and men welcome this crown that is come forth from Pytho for Midas' fair renown; and him too welcome therewithal who hath overcome all Hellas in the art which once on a time Pallas Athene devised, when she made music of ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... the wooded by-ways of this despised domain that Challis Wrandall and Sara, the earthly daughter of Midas, met and loved and defied all things supernal, for matches are made in heaven. Their marriage did not open the gates of Nineveh. Sebastian Gooch's paradise was more completely ostracised than it was before the disaster. The Wrandalls spoke ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... from it that you will be astonished. The man must know the secret of Midas, of turning ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... philosophicall epitaph in hierogliphicall figures. A briefe of the golden calf (the world's idol). The golden ass well managed, and Midas restored to reason. Written by J. Rod, Glauber, and Jehior, the three principles or originall of all things. Published by W.C., Esquire, 8vo. Lond. Printed for William Cooper, at the Pellican, in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... their plaints heard; the shepherd tended his sheep, and did no jobs or chores the while; the idyl had a chance to grow up, and modulate his oaten pipe. But now the poet must be at the whole expense of the poetry in describing one of these positions; the worker is a true Midas to the gold he makes. The poet must describe, as the painter sketches Irish peasant-girls and Danish fishwives, adding the beauty, and leaving out ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... man who frets at worldly strife Grows sallow, sour, and thin; Give us the lad whose happy life Is one perpetual grin: He, Midas-like, turns all to gold,— He smiles, when others sigh, Enjoys alike the hot and cold, And laughs through wet ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... newspaper in those days, but the four pages of which it consisted were full of meat. There was no descriptive reporting; but what could be more expressive than the announcement of a marriage in such terms as these:—"On Tuesday se'n-night, Squire Brown of Bumpkin Hall was married to Miss Matilda Midas of Halifax, a handsome young lady with ten thousand pounds to her dowry"? We are much more florid nowadays, but by no means so precise. The leader-writer did not spread himself abroad a hundred years ago. Indeed, soon after the Leeds Mercury gave up discussing the amiable weakness ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... let me live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch; If Heaven more generous gifts deny, I shall not miss them much,— Too grateful for the blessing lent Of simple tastes ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... a grimly humorous way, that in the matter of fame she had a sort of Midas touch; everything she did rebounded to her glory, now that the ball was once started rolling. And worst of all was the book that Edwin Langham had left for her, a beautiful copy of "The Desert Garden," bound in limp leather with gold edged leaves. Inside the cover was ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... thistle-blooms till they almost fall from the petals; the air is full of warm fragrance from the wild-grape clusters; the grass is burning hot beneath the naked feet in sunshine, and cool as water in the shade. Diving from this overhanging beam,—for Ovid evidently meant that Midas to be cured ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the arduous task of breaking up a powerful league which had been formed against him in the north. The Syro-Cappadocian Hittite states, including Tabal in Asia Minor and Carchemish in north Syria, were combining for the last time against Assyria, supported by Mita (Midas), king of the Muski-Phrygians, and Rusas, son of ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... all the enthusiasm was gone from Merrihew's heart. Since Kitty evinced a desire to avoid him, the world grew charmless; and the fortune of Midas, cast at his feet, would not have warmed him. On the way over to the hotel, however, he whistled bravely and jingled the golden largess in his pockets. He bade good night to Hillard and sought his room. Here he emptied his pockets on the table and built ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... serves as a food supply. When the side of the distended abdomen is tapped, the ant passes the 'honey' out of its mouth, and it is then eaten. Three species are known in Australia, Camponotus inflatus, Lubbock; C. cowlei, Froggatt; and C. midas, Froggatt. The aboriginal name of the first ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... love make Jove put on A form more bright, and nobler than his own; Nor were it just, would he resume that shape, That slack devotion should his thunder 'scape. 'Twas not revenge for griev'd Apollo's wrong, 15 Those ass's ears on Midas' temples hung, But fond repentance of his happy wish, Because his meat grew metal like his dish. Would Bacchus bless me so, I'd constant hold Unto my ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch, If Heaven more generous gifts deny, I shall not miss them MUCH, - Too grateful for the blessing lent Of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... moral force, working faithfully and ably day by day, year by year, and yet never being free from certain financial anxieties, if not financial needs; while his neighbor, who is neither very learned nor able, nor yet in any wise remarkable in his moral development, is living much after the fashion of Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold. But is gold ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... also a story told of Silenus, who, when taken prisoner by Midas, is said to have made him this present for his ransom; namely, that he informed him(74) that never to have been born, was by far the greatest blessing that could happen to man; and that the next best thing was, to die very soon; which ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... least, a heritage from his mother, seemingly untrodden by the foot of man, the woman at his side was his. From Holdfast over the spruces to Sawanec in the blue distance he was lord, a domain the wealth of which could not be reckoned in the coin of Midas. He turned to her as they flew down the slope, and she averted her face, perchance perceiving in that look a possession from which a woman shrinks; and her remark, startlingly indicative of the accord between them, lent a no less startling reality ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ages rise to view our times, Whate'er betide our silv'ry flowing rhymes, The brave we sing—Boeotian of the East Will still survive to spread the mimic feast. 'Tis said in fables that Silenus old To Midas lent the fatal gift of gold; But Terminus, the god of rogues, has giv'n Our hero gold unbless'd of man or heav'n. 'Mid all the tyrants of our age and clime, He stands alone in infamy and crime; Not e'en Thersites of the cunning tribe, Gloried in guile like him we now describe. ...
— The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons • James Fairfax McLaughlin
... The Queen's Masque," the stage chronicler or historian of the Four Ages appears as something more of a dramatic poet: his work has more of form and maturity, with no whit less of spontaneity and spirit, simplicity and vivacity. The framework or setting of these five acts, in which Midas and Apuleius play the leading parts, is sustained with lively and homely humor from induction to epilogue: the story of Psyche is thrown into dramatic form with happier skill and more graceful simplicity by Heywood than afterward by Moliere and Corneille; though there is here ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... farthing to Canada. Canada contributes not a dime to England. Though a tariff against alien lands and trade concessions to her colonies would bring such prosperity to those colonies as Midas could not dream, England confers no trade favor to her colonial children. There have been times, indeed, when she discriminated against them by embargoes on cattle or boundary concessions to cement peace with ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... From the slavery of the auction-block and cat-o'-nine-tails to that of the great industrial system, where souls as well as bodies are bought and sold; where wealth is created as by the magic wand of a genie or the touch of gold-accursed King Midas, while thousands and tens of thousands beg in God's great name for the poor privilege of wearing out their wretched lives in the brutal treadmill,—to barter their blood for a scanty crust of black bread and beg ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... looked in and called him, and then he came hopping out; but he merely did this as a concession to his master's weakness, and soon returned again to his own grave pursuits: peering into the straw with his bill, and rapidly covering up the place, as if, Midas-like, he were whispering secrets to the earth and burying them; constantly busying himself upon the sly; and affecting, whenever Barnaby came past, to look up in the clouds and have nothing whatever on his mind: in short, conducting ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... when Midas' Ears began to spring, (Midas, a sacred person and a king) 70 His very Minister who spy'd them first, (Some say his Queen) was forc'd to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... artistically ordered room. It was larger too than on the occasion of Geoffrey's visit; for the folding doors which led into a further apartment were thrown open. Two big fires were blazing; and old gold screens, glittering like Midas's treasury, warded off the draught from the windows. The air was heavy with fumes of incense still rising from a huge brass brazier, full of glowing charcoal and grey sand, placed in the middle of the floor. In one corner stood the Buddha table ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... this may be merely a matter of better nerves, of less sensitive temperament, of more abounding vitality; but there are many of the weakest and most sensitive among those who have learned that better way; they can turn everything into happiness as Midas turned everything into gold. It is surprising, looking through such a one's eyes, to see how full life is of delight. Yet in the same situations there may be room for endless complaint if "every grief is entertained that's offered." It all depends ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... "Hotel Midas," Johnny crisply directed, and jumped into the tonneau, whereupon the chauffeur touched one finger to her bonnet, and the machine ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester |
