"Chord" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... parts of a statesman's equipment, and appeals on the ground of a weakening of his position by his unremitting care for Labour interests could not have a feather's weight in the balance for one in whom the chord of self had long since been struck and passed in ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... legions fly. Still dauntless, with terrific blows, He struck and slew his foremost foes. At every blow, at every thrust, He laid a Vanar in the dust. So fell they neath the sword and lance In battle's wild Gandharva(961) dance, Where clang of bow and clash of sword Did duty for the silvery chord, And hoofs that rang and steeds that neighed Loud concert for the dancers made. So fiercely from Dhumraksha's bow His arrows rained in ceaseless flow, The Vanar legions turned and fled To all the winds discomfited. Hanuman ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... question—'Which do you consider the truest, noblest way of love—to imagine you have discovered every aspect of the eternal Feminine combined in one woman, or to run rapidly over the lips of woman as you run your fingers over the keys of a piano, till, at last, you find the sublime chord ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... many experiments, in which Professor Fillmore took part, and that brought to light many interesting facts. Among these facts may be mentioned the complexity of rhythms, one played against the other; the modulation implied in some of the melodies; the preference for a major chord in closing a minor song; and the use of certain harmonic relations which have been deemed peculiar to ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... warmly as his troublesome impediment permitted, and said that he would himself write to the Count de Gramont. Then, bending over his friend, took his hot, unquiet hand, and spoke to him again and again. His voice failed to touch any chord of memory and cause it to vibrate in recognition. Maurice was muttering the same word over and over; Gaston hardly needed to bow his head to catch the imperfect sound; he knew, before he heard distinctly, that it was the ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... song. Cleverest dodging I ever did! On the first night I was so nervous I could scarcely hold the mandolin. I'd never played the infernal thing before anybody at all—only up in my bedroom. I struck the first chord, and found the darned instrument was all out of tune with the orchestra. So I just pretended to play it, and squawked away with my song, and never let my fingers touch the strings at all. Old Florance was waiting for me in the wings. I knew he was going to fire me. ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... telepathy, the sympathetic chord, and so on, and so on, good honest words to describe that which no one understands, and which caused the girl sitting on a prosaic bed in a prosaic hotel to smile suddenly as she sat ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... no time to waste in vain speculations. My whole being was still vibrating to those magic syllables, "secret drawer;" and that particular chord had been touched that never fails to thrill responsive to such words as CAVE, TRAP-DOOR, SLIDING-PANEL, BULLION, INGOTS, or SPANISH DOLLARS. For, besides its own special bliss, who ever heard of a secret drawer with nothing in it? And oh, I did want money so badly! I mentally ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... moment's silence, while Kirby hesitated in what order to tell his facts. Hull mopped the back of his overflowing neck. Phyllis Cunningham moistened her dry lips. A chord in her throat ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... simply a lens through which one could see the feelings at work beneath, and Bannon knew that he had struck the right chord at last. "How is ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... word seemed to flow straight from his soul, and was burning with all the fire of conviction. Rudin was the master of almost the greatest secret—the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it seemed as though veils were lifted ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... foundation of benevolence, and stressed her tolerance for open dealing, and the advantage gained by personal dealings with her—after a mauling or two. His language and his illustrations touched an old-school chord in the Rev. Mr. Hampton-Evey, who hummed over the project, profoundly disrelishing the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Edna sympathetically, for Bessie's eyes had grown soft and misty as she touched this chord of sadness; "it must be terrible to lose any one whom one loves." And then she added, with a smile, "I did not mean to hurt your feelings by calling your brother a boy, but he seemed very young to me. You ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... he forgot every discomfort. For, with the first chord of the violins, as if ushered in and companied by the angels themselves of the sweet sounds, Barbara came flitting down the centre of the wide space toward her usual seat. The rows of faces that filled the area ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... accepted as the type of a romance in all languages. Goldsmith's tale will always be more popular than "The Scarlet Letter," owing to its blithesome spirit, its amusing incidents and bright effects of light and shade; but "The Scarlet Letter" strikes a more penetrating chord in the human breast, and adheres more closely to the truth of life. There are certain highly improbable circumstances woven in the tissue of "The Vicar of Wakefield," which a prudent, reflective reader finds it difficult to surmount. It is rather surprising that ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... he answered, there was no hint in his finely modulated tones of any chord having been touched in his breast, save the legitimate one of respectful appreciation of a woman who fulfilled the expectation of one alive to what is ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... good old man once more." Michael Stanley sent the following letter to the Committee of the Prison Association: "When I read the account of the venerable Friend Hopper's death, I could not help weeping. It touched a tender chord in my heart, when I came to the account of his being the prisoner's friend. My soul responded to that; for I had realized it. About six years ago, I was one of those who got good advice from 'the old man.' I carried it out, and met with great success. ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... twinkle in the corners of those cold gray eyes that told Cuthbert the other was not wholly a man of iron—there was another vein to his character not often seen by his fellows, but which could be played upon by touching the right chord, if one but knew ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... said, striking a lively chord or two, "I hope you'll catch it, young man. You're altogether too free and easy with your feminine friends.... What do you think of ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... mallet, sepulchral, grave, came from behind the wings; the leader of the orchestra raised his baton, then brought it slowly down, and while from all the instruments at once issued a prolonged minor chord, emphasised by a muffled roll of the kettle-drum, the curtain rose upon a mediaeval public square. The soprano was seated languidly upon a bench. Her grande scene occurred in this act. Her hair was un-bound; ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... but constrained faces. It seemed as if they were expecting some one or something. Time was passing; ten o'clock had just struck. From the little boudoir sounds of music were occasionally heard, when Micheline's nervous hand struck a louder chord on her piano. She was there, anxiously awaiting some one or something. Jeanne de Cernay, stretched in an easy-chair, her head leaning on ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... beautiful, my child, for you have never known such feelings. I am too selfish, or I would not be sad so often; it is right that I should pass through such a school of discipline. I hope it has already made me better." The look of resignation that beamed from Miss Clinton's tearful eyes, caused a chord in Alice's heart to tremble with a strange blending of ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... that gave them sustenance. By no other hypothesis can we intelligibly account for the immense expanse of pelvis, the great bulk of hind-legs, the solid tail, the massive anterior limbs furnished with such powerful claws, and the extraordinary large spinal chord—all these the characteristic features ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... in their passionate delight, the last ducat, the last watch, ring, and even horse, has been bestowed. The gypsies of Hungary conclude all pieces ending in the minor key by substituting the major chord for the minor chord; for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... in the grave kind face of the one, the glad yet sorrowful eyes of the other, before a word had passed on either side? What was it, that congealed the flood of joyful questionings, with which I went forward to meet them, in an icy lump pressing down upon my brain; and, that snapped a chord in my heart that has never ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to one single note applies also to the elements of a musical chord. A dozen notes may sound simultaneously, but the ear is able to assimilate each and blend it with its fellows; yet it requires a very sensitive and well-trained ear to pick out any one part of a harmony and concentrate the brain's attention on ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... work," she said, "vibrates through me in every form. What a pearl of eulogy is Maltro! What a great work is L'Abuglo! In the first of these poems you reach the sublime of love without touching a single chord of passion. What purity, and at the same time what ease and tenderness! It is not only the fever of the heart; it is life itself, its religion, its virtue. This poor innuocento does not live to love; she loves to live.... Her love diffuses itself like a perfume—like the scent of a flower.... ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... like your situation here?" "Oh yes, madam," answered the woman in a quick tone, and then tried to force a smile. "Why is it that you often look sad, and with tears in your eyes?" The mistress saw that she had touched a tender chord, and continued, "I am your friend; tell me your sorrow, and, if I can, I will help you." As the last sentence was escaping the lips of the mistress, the slave woman put her check apron to her face ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... is accompanied either by holding-notes or by a tremolo in several parts, of which the least apparent, occasionally, is that which the conductor must most regard, since upon its motion depends the change of chord:— ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... wanting, and the sweet home peace was disturbed. They felt this most when singing time came, for Beth could only play, Jo stood dumb as a stone, and Amy broke down, so Meg and Mother sang alone. But in spite of their efforts to be as cheery as larks, the flutelike voices did not seem to chord as well as usual, and ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... with a scream that brought the orchestra to a stop with a crashing chord, and the girl's cries of horror were echoed by the women in the audience. The girl started to run into the wings, but Andy, springing from his seat on the aisle, made a leap for the brass rail behind ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... annihilated. With such ignorance of the circumstances of the case, it is plain that we have no data for forming an opinion one way or the other. At the same time, we cannot help being in sympathy with the words of Burns; they certainly touch a chord in all our hearts: ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... closing progression of chords in which the sub-dominant or chord on the fourth degree of the scale precedes the tonic or chord on the first degree of the scale. The name arises from the modes used in early church music called Plagal Modes, which were a transposition of the authentic modes beginning on the fourth ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... inaudible growl from Dr. McPherson completed the triple chord of negation. A chord so explosive, so crassly out of keeping with the simple question that evoked it that Grimm stared amazed from one of the ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... speak of the manifestation of justice as the minor chord in the music of the harp of God. The minor chord seems necessary in music ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... all, one he had not mentioned to his partners; the touch of Molly's lips on his as he had bade her good-by. The kiss had not been that of a child, there had been a magic in it that had thrilled some chord in Sandy that still responded to that remembrance. He never dwelt on it long, it brought a vague reaction always, stirred that strange instinct of his that had branded him as woman-shy, kept him clean. Part ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... thought he, as he gazed upon them. "No chord of sympathy stirs in their bosom. Whether I go—-whether I remain—matters not to them. No, I am nothing to these children—since, at this awful moment, when they see me perhaps for the last time, no filial instinct tells them ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... happy, my father!" Here a sudden change was visible,—some chord of sorrow was touched, and it vibrated to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... and passed on to Clairvaux. Here he met John, the ex-Archbishop of Lyons, who was meditating away the last days of his life. Hugh asked him what scriptures most helped his thoughts, and the reply must have struck an answering chord in the questioner, "To meditate entirely upon the Psalms has now usurped my whole inward being. Inexhaustible refreshment always comes new from these. Such is fresh daily, and always delicious to the taste of the inner man." Hugh's devotion to the Psalms is evidenced by many ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... the baton; she tapped the music stand twice. Down came Mary on the opening chord; down came all those left hands, beating the air, and in ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... and good. The Bounding Zouaves, with one accord, bounded into their clothes and disappeared through the door just as a long-drawn chord from the invisible orchestra announced the conclusion of the ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... twilight lay heavy over the church, heaviest of all over the distant organ gallery, where Weldon could barely make out a single figure moving towards the bench. There was a rattle of stops, a tentative chord or two and then a few notes of this or that melody, as if the player, albeit a musician, found himself continually thwarted by the darkness and the absence ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... this morning was from Mrs. Gaskell, authoress of Mary Barton; she said I was not to answer it, but I cannot help doing so. The note brought the tears to my eyes. She is a good, she is a great woman. Proud am I that I can touch a chord of sympathy in souls so noble. In Mrs. Gaskell's nature it mournfully pleases me to fancy a remote affinity to my sister Emily. In Miss Martineau's mind I have always felt the same, though there are wide differences. Both these ladies are above me—certainly far my superiors in ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... roadway that we have travelled we see the landmarks, great and small, which have determined the direction of our feet. For some those of childhood stand out above all the rest; but I remember few notable ones, and those few the emphatic chord of the universe, rather than any commerce with my fellows. There was the night of my great disappointment, when I was borne from my comfortable bed to see the wonders of the moon's eclipse. Disappointment was so great that it sealed my lips; but, once back on my pillow, I sobbed for grief that ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... be the most famous person in the world. The song is there, waiting the singer. It has always been there, waiting, and the singer has never come. We who hear it in our hearts have no voices. Now and then some genius strikes the chord by accident, almost, and loses it. I don't think any one will ever find it completely. But if some one should! Heavens! What a grand harmony it ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... Co-operation. The piece, in three sharps, opened on the tonic, yet the very first note in the bass was a G-sharp. The following colloquy ensued: Editor: "Does the piece begin with the tonic chord of A?" Composer: "Yes." Editor: "Is the G-sharp, then, to be regarded as a suspension?" Composer: "Of course. That makes it right. How could ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... chord that changed the whole manner of the other. His air, which had borne the character of a genteel trifler, became more grave and dignified; and notwithstanding there was the evidence of a reckless disposition in ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... marked two-thirds of the Inferno and Paradiso as worthy of being committed to memory. Modern novelists have found in his prolific mind the storehouse from which they have drawn their noblest imagery, the chord by which to strike the profoundest feelings of the human heart. Eighty editions of his poems have been published in Europe within the last half century; and the public admiration, so far from being satiated, is augmenting. Every scholar knows how largely Milton was indebted to his poems for many ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... himself for having inadvertently touched some tender chord, hastened, somewhat clumsily, to ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... chord had been struck in his heart, and on hearing her history, he was at once convinced, from her extraordinary likeness to his own child, that she was her daughter though fairer, and of a more refined beauty, such as mental culture gives; ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... upon my character—morally—had been an incalculable benefit. I had enjoyed being among them. The rhythm of happiness that swept like a strain of sweet music through all their daily life, touched a chord in my ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... thou a quiver and clang? In thy sleep did it make thee start? 'Twas a chord in twain that sprang— But the lyre-shell ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... always the chord Of the Overword, Dominant, pleading, sure, No truth too small to save and make ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... I remember!" answered Godfrey, in a tone of indifference which it was difficult to mistake. The lady raised her two hands, held them suspended for an instant above the keys as if they were about to grasp another chord, and then with a half-turn on her music-stool she remained for a moment looking at the too tranquil Godfrey, whose eyes did ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... chord, but rather a faint and broken one, sounds in the five-twenties, or begins then. At Constantinople the thirteen pralayic and recuperative decades since the death of Theodosius and the split with the West have ended. Now an emperor dies; and it becomes a question ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... be the work of a microscopist, and not that of a physiologist or a scholar. Its merits are principally its illustrations, many of which are from original dissections, some of which are very good diagrams, others ordinary, and some—such as the view of the human brain and spinal chord on page 282—wretched. The colored figures are washed with dull tints in a very shabby and negligent way. The text is mainly an account of the objects illustrated in the figures, and will prove interesting to the working microscopist ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... of kissing night and day Were mingled in the eastern Heaven: Throbbing with unheard melody Shook Lyra all its star-chord seven: When dusk shrunk cold, and light trod shy, And dawn's grey eyes were troubled grey; And souls went palely up the ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... the Nubian desert cuts off the chord of an arc made by the great westerly bend of the Nile. This chord is about 230 miles in length. Throughout this barren desert there is no water, except at the half-way station, Moorahd (from moorra, bitter); this, although salt and bitter, is relished by camels. During the hot season ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... long lateral flexure with a shift of 4 inches eastward. Half-a-mile farther, the fish-plates were broken and the rails parted 8-1/2 inches. A little beyond the 10-mile point, an embankment 15 feet high was pushed 4-1/2 feet eastward along a chord of 150 feet. At the 12-mile point and beyond, fish-plates were broken, lines were bent and the joints opened; the road-bed was cut by a series of cracks, one of which was 21 inches wide, while the beginning of a long trestle was shifted ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... each heart a chord That vibrates with a music tone; Duty performed brings its reward, We live not ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... in dazzling attire swung silver censers. What splendour and magnificence he saw there! It streamed in upon his soul and overpowered him: the church and the faith of his parents surrounded him, and touched a chord in his heart that caused his eyes to ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... its support, the cause cannot be put aside. Even in the midst of war, Philosophy will be heard, especially when she speaks words of concurring authority that touch a chord in every heart. Leibnitz, Kant, and Fichte, a mighty triumvirate of intelligence, unite in testimony. As Germany, beyond any other nation, has given to the idea of Organized Peace the warrant of philosophy, it only ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... enough of wit to know the price at which her favours were bought; brave enough not to flinch, or to make abortive effort to avoid his fate. Her whole experience brought feeling of disgust toward men, when once satiated. With this man the chord of pity was touched. The honoured sleeves were wet with the honoured tears as she made answer to the plea. Without slightest effort to deny her once purpose she consoled and reassured him. "It was determined, that granted favour you should never leave this place." Her brow darkened for a moment at ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... of the wonders of that love Which Gabriel plays on every chord: From all below and all above, Loud hallelujahs to ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a week, a month, a year—Art exacts of its votaries no less service than a lifetime. But in her girl's soul the right chord had been touched, which began to vibrate unto noble music—the true seed had been sown, which day by day grew ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... strength. The rays from Voltaire's burning and far-shining spirit no sooner struck upon the genius of the time, seated dark and dead like the black stone of Memnon's statue, than the clang of the breaking chord was heard through Europe, and men awoke in new day and more spacious air. The sentimentalist has proclaimed him a mere mocker. To the critic of the schools, ever ready with compendious label, he is the revolutionary destructive. To each alike of the countless orthodox sects his name is the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... or what it stood for, he made no attempt to decide. He sat bitingly conscious of his hands spread open on the table under the scrutiny of eyes that were invisible to him vividly aware of the awkwardness of his position. He felt with instinctive certainty that a new chord had been struck; but a man seldom acts on instinctive certainties. If the exposure of his hands had struck this fresh note, then any added action would but heighten the dilemma. He sat ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... thrust the Nautilus's hull quivered like a resonating chord, and the ship sank steadily under the waters. Stationed in the lounge, the captain and I watched the needle swerving swiftly over the pressure gauge. Soon we had gone below the livable zone where most fish reside. Some of these ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... striking the resemblance! and who could not recognise the expression of majesty and gentleness, that——" "Fudge!" cried the king. Conscience had probably something to do with the abruptness of the exclamation. The old chamberlain had unwittingly touched a tender chord; every allusion to the queen appearing like a tacit reproach to the august and widowed spouse. "That portrait," added the king, "is too flattering, the queen was far from handsome"; then, as if inwardly repentant of his harshness, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... speech, the heart of the relentless witch is breaking. Like The Broken Heart of Ford, the ballad with the amended line was a masterly picture of suppressed emotion. I hoped the new incident touched the same chord. ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... signal from the princess, and commenced his playing, if such it could be called, thrumming violently, and jarring every chord of his instrument to a tone of such dissonance, that the attendant girls put their fingers into their ears, and pitied the beautiful ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... the chord, and the girls chimed in weakly. Then, the music, strengthening their hopes as it progressed, made them more cheerful. Loudly, they brought out ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... in the discovering of tones, peculiar to suffering, oppressed, and tormented souls, who can endow even dumb misery with speech. Nobody can approach him in the colours of late autumn, in the indescribably touching joy of a last, a very last, and all too short gladness; he knows of a chord which expresses those secret and weird midnight hours of the soul, when cause and effect seem to have fallen asunder, and at every moment something may spring out of nonentity. He is happiest of all when ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... historical romance. It re-tells a chapter in the life of the Jewish people at the time of the prophet Isaiah. The poet could not exercise any choice as to his subject—it was forced upon him inevitably. In order to be sure of touching a responsive chord in his people, it was necessary to carry the action twenty-five centuries back. A Jewish novel based on contemporaneous life would have been incongruous both with truth and with the spirit ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... was no musician, but she loved a tightly closed piano with a scarf draped over the top, and thought that no parlor should be without one. Up to middle C, as Aladdin in time found out, the piano in question was not without musical pretensions, but above that any chord sounded like a nest of tin plates dropped on a wooden floor, and the intervals were those of no known scale nor fragment thereof. But in time he learned to draw pleasant things from the old piano and to accompany ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... that time in the vanished past, when she had stood by the coffin that contained the loved of her youth, he who had made her girlhood one dream of happiness, but over whose calm face the grass had greened and faded for many a weary year; perhaps this remembrance touched a chord of her better nature. Life, with its cares, and sorrows, and disappointments, had hardened her, till she had almost lost faith in humanity. Moreover, she was a woman, homely, and old and common, and with feminine malice and spite ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... favor of one element amongst many. What he meant was, to indicate the radix out of which his particular system was expanded. It was the key-note out of which, under the laws of thorough-bass, were generated the whole chord and its affinities. Whilst the whole evolution of the system was in lively remembrance, there needed no more than this short-hand memento for recalling it. But now, when the lapse of time has left the little maxim stranded on a shore of wrecks, naturally ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... His chord of sensibility had trembled all gratefully into derision, and not to seem to swagger he had put his possible virtue at its lowest. This she beautifully showed that she beautifully saw. "I dare say that if you did even that we should have to take ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... it of our visit to the volcano." In such a form, the present—I did not write the amount down among my disbursements—was accepted frankly and freely. The poor girl was evidently in a state of great emotion: a few kind words from me had struck upon a chord ever ready to vibrate; the truth is, she sobbed, and could not answer. But when the tongue falters, and the lip trembles in the South, there is an eloquent substitute for language. She took my hand, and kissed it fervently, and a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the employment of frequent passages in chords. So he began trying to write his counterpoint in such a way that the voice parts should often come together in successions of chords. In order to do this he was compelled to adopt the kind of formations still in use and the fundamental chord relations of modern music—the tonic, ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... Tramp awoke, The golden fountain never broke, The lovely sobbing strain. The melody of that brown bird Awoke a delicate, prisoned chord ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... every morning; yet she never appears anxious to go to bed at night. The last sound which sleepy subalterns hear is Madame's voice, uplifted in steady discourse to the circle round the stove, sustained by an occasional guttural chord from 'Nri and 'Seph. She has been doing this, day in, day out, since the combatants settled down to trench-warfare. Every few weeks brings a fresh crop of tenants, with fresh peculiarities and unknown proclivities; and she ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... arms. He was weeping. When spoken to, he raised his arm with a movement of deprecation, and, in a voice full of pity and indignation, said—"to think that there was no one even to give Him a drink of water!" That poor savage had known what thirst is. This one awakened chord of human sympathy with the human Christ was communicative. Other hearts were touched, and from that time the Missionary began to reap a rich harvest from his labours. In the midst of the elaborate services of our fashionable London churches is there often to be found so genuine a feeling ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... suddenly there arose from the room beneath, oh, such sounds! It was Prince Albert, dear Prince Albert, playing on the organ; and with such master skill, as it appeared to me, modulating so learnedly, winding through every kind of bass and chord, till he wound up with the most perfect cadence, and then off again, louder and then softer. No tune, as I was too distant to perceive the execution or small touches so I only heard the harmony, but I never listened with much more pleasure to any music. I ventured at dinner to ask him what I had ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... the voice whose power Can in my heart awaken To passioned life each slumbering chord ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... were falling in love with each other, neither realizing it. And these two who played the lovers had found some hidden rhythm that brought them together in one picture as a chord is one sound. They played to each other and with each other instinctively; Talbot Potter had forgotten "the smile" and all the mechanism that went with it. The two held the little breathless silences of lovers; they broke these silences ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... he is naturalized: and then the new knowledge we have acquired will often exercise the most salutary influence and throw much light on other dishes, both old and lately invented ones, so that our palate is as it were strung with a new chord, which sends forth a variety of delicious notes. Moreover the ages that are gone and the ideas that prevailed among our forefathers are still acting upon this tastature of mankind, as a race made to relish, to discern, and to enjoy; and as ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... word that I did not catch, although it rang like a suddenly struck chord of music, and the door yielded to ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... crystal picture—to be willing to follow a stranger half around the globe, perhaps, because of his promise and a dream. Yet, it was so he knew that her nature must love—it was so he would have her love. It was this capacity for fanatical devotion which struck a responsive chord in his own heart. Her love would not allow her to have her father dead even though the report came. Her love admitted no barriers of land or sea. If so she was inspired by calm, filial love, what would she not do for love of her mate? If this mysterious stranger ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... we fail to notice the clear indication of purpose in these passages! The Poet brings Menelaus, as the culmination of his story, to strike the chord which stirs most profoundly the soul of Telemachus. The son is there to inquire concerning his father; without revealing himself he learns much about the character and significance of his parent. The same artistic ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... quick turn stretched out over splendid downs, beyond which lay a narrow glittering strip of grey sea. "There is the sea," announced Brigit, perfunctorily. It was not intrinsically beautiful, the scene, but as some chord in the human breast almost invariably vibrates in response to a view of salt water, this point was considered, at Kingsmead, to be a particularly important one, and as the motor flew on Brigit Mead wondered how many hundred times she had brought ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... of the town. When we arrived there one October afternoon the sun was setting amid flying clouds and watery yellow spaces of pure sky, with a wind blowing soft and humid from the sea. Long after he had sunk below the hills, a fading chord of golden and rose-coloured tints burned on the city. The cathedral bell-tower was glistening with recent rain, and we could see right through its lancet windows to the clear blue heavens beyond. Then, as the day descended into evening, the autumn trees assumed that wonderful ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... anxious to get your soul to Jesus." The letter somehow went to another city, and lay from the 28th of February till the 28th of March—just one month. He saw it was in his brother's handwriting, and tore it open and read the above words. It struck a chord in his heart, and was the means of converting him. And this was the Christian who led this drunken man to Christ. This young man had a neighbor who had drank for forty years, and he went to that neighbor and told him ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... vibration. Light, sound, sensation—all the mysteries of nature are either vibrations or interference of vibrations. There," she said, throwing another pair of pebbles in, and pointing to the two sets of widening rings as they overlapped one another; "the twinkling of a star, and the pulsation in a chord of music, are THAT. But I cannot picture the thing in my own mind. I wonder whether the hundreds of writers of text-books on physics, who talk so glibly of vibrations, realize them any better ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... been thrust out and Louis Philippe had been accepted as the citizen-king of the French, governing under a liberal constitution. This revolution, and simultaneous movements throughout western Europe, touched an answering chord in the breasts of Englishmen, and the Tories found themselves in a minority when the new Parliament assembled in November. The Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister, the last man from whom the popular cause could expect to receive any concessions. At the ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... and shawms: With perverse moods I trouble you, and urge The sense to beauty. Give me some sweet alms, Some reverie, some pang of a damasked sword, Some poignant moment yet unparalleled In my dream-broidered chronicles, some chord Of mystery Love's music never knelled Before;—but nought of the rough alchemy ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... machine so cunningly constructed and adjusted as not only to sound each note and chord in its proper sequence and relation, but to regulate also the duration of the sound vibration. If this machine were operated in such a manner as to play, in a single second of time, the entire overture of an opera which would normally occupy ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... costly jewel, for the sake of a bit of glass, shining only in the sunlight of thy ignorance, and trodden by the foot of every passing stranger. What! can I do nothing to rouse thy recollection? Look at me well! look hard, and it may be, something of me will touch as it were a chord ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... several stringed instruments. One of these, which Captain Grant describes, was played by an old woman; it had seven notes, six of which were a perfect scale. Another, which had three strings, was played by a man: they were a full, harmonious chord. A third instrument called "the laced nanga" formed of dark wood, in the shape of a tray, had three crosses in the bottom, and was laced with one string, seven or eight times, over bridges ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... but it seemed to come from far off; his words were a part of the strange, wild swirl in her bosom. Beverley's look, as he turned and left her, now shook every chord of her being. He had gone to his death at her command. How strong and true and brave he was! In her imagination she saw the flag above him, saw him die like a panther at bay, saw the gay rag snatched down and torn to shreds ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... him. "You are rapidly bringing me to 'tell the truth and shame the devil.' Oh, he must be dying of mortification this evening!" She struck a great crashing chord, holding the keys while the strings reverberated and echoed down slowly into silence again. "It isn't fair," she went on, "for you big simple men to disarm us. I don't care! I have my private opinion of such brute ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... could hardly have taken anything amiss from Louis. After having for so many years withheld all the lassez-aller of paternal affection, when the right chord had once been touched, his fondness for his grown-up son had the fresh exulting pride, and almost blindness that would ordinarily have been lavished on his infancy. Lord Ormersfield's sentiments were few and slowly adopted, but they had all the permanence and force of his strong character, and his ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Not one of the guests had ever before known the depth of sympathy in the old Bishop till now. Every chord in the nature of each man vibrated to ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... itself loomed up straight ahead, a great half-circle, its curved rim sharp and bright against the empty blackness of space; the chord ragged and blurred. In two hours ... I turned away ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... finally she yielded to his pleading and consented to become his wife, it was because he had unexpectedly shown some of the attributes that were the inborn heritage of the Texan. Could it be that his great love for her had found no answering chord in her heart? If she had loved the Texan, why had she married him? Could it be that she did not even now take him seriously? Was her love so shallow a thing that it must be fanned into a flame by the winds of high adventure? He knew that the commonplaces of society bored ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... this arrangement the more feasible did it seem to me; indeed, I saw no reason why the depression of a number of keys at the tuning fork end of the circuit should not be followed by the audible production of a full chord from the piano in the distant city, each tuning fork affecting at the receiving end that string of the piano with which it was in unison. At this time the interest which I felt in electricity led me to study the various systems ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... suppressed enthusiasm. And that proud suppressed enthusiasm in young people is dangerous! I jeered at you then, but let me tell you that, as a literary amateur, I am awfully fond of such first essays, full of the heat of youth. There is a mistiness and a chord vibrating in the mist. Your article is absurd and fantastic, but there's a transparent sincerity, a youthful incorruptible pride and the daring of despair in it. It's a gloomy article, but that's what's fine in it. I read your article and ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Who shall say What touch the chord of memory thrills? It passed, and left the August ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... struck a familiar chord in my memory, but I could not put a name to its owner. The girl looked at me with eyes grown suddenly horror-stricken. I noticed that her face had taken on ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... at our cost. It is equally certain that none of us can truly pray for the glory of God, unless we are living for it. It is only out of the heart that has but one purpose in life and death, that those prayers emanate which touch the tenderest chord in the Saviour's nature, and awaken all His energies to their highest activity, "That will ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... his leading words bear the distinct impress of this, like the sharply indented stamp of the mint on the new coin. Two such words stand out above all others, "believe" and "witness." The first actually occurs oftenest, sounding out like the dominant chord of music running throughout a symphony. The second is like the chief warp-thread into which ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... of her half bare arm, she brushed aside a portiere and disappeared. A crashing chord rolled out from a piano behind ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... constant intercourse with the natives, impressed me more and more with the conviction that we are all mainly the creatures of environments; yet through all the strata and fiber of human nature there is a chord that beats responsive to kindness—a "language that the dumb can speak, and ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... its hues, its radiant air! O, do you remember—" and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into passionate reminiscence, while he listened fascinated, and his heart burned within him. In himself, too, he knew that it was vibrating at last, that chord hitherto dormant and unsuspected. The mere chatter of these southern-bound birds, their pale and second-hand reports, had yet power to awaken this wild new sensation and thrill him through and through ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... looking at the pigeons, a flock of wild geese went by, harrowing the sky northward. The geese strike a deeper chord than the pigeons. Level and straight they go as fate to its mark. I cannot tell what emotions these migrating birds awaken in me,—the geese especially. One seldom sees more than a flock or two in a season, and what ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... the self-same consolation which steals still, like celestial music, to the smitten heart, when every chord of earthly gladness ceases to vibrate. And it is befitting too that Jesus should utter it. He alone is qualified to do so. The words spoken to the bereaved one of Bethany are words purchased by His own atoning work. "Thy brother—thy ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... the fire, the rustling of dry leaves swirled up by a stray gust, the "coo-whoo-a" of the white owl, the bark of the raccoon, and, at intervals, the dismal howling of wolves. These are the nocturnal voices of the winter forest. They are savage sounds; yet there is a chord in my bosom that vibrates under their influence, and my spirit is tinged with romance as I lie ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... bisect the chord ZZ'. Then, by geometry, the angle FQY is equal to the angle BTF, and the protuberance FY is equal the sine of that angle, making QF radius. This angle, made by the axis of the vortex and the surface of the sphere, is commonly between ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... to subdue a vitality which might otherwise have been aggressive; but while the full value of this effect of spiritual pose was caught and rendered, Kendal had done his work in a vibrant significant chord of color that strove for the personal force beneath it and brought ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... that break and give no sign Save whitening lip and fading tresses, Till Death pours out his cordial wine Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,— If singing breath or echoing chord To every hidden pang were given, What endless melodies were poured, As sad as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... still a wonderfully artless and unconscious record of its doubts and its faith, its sorrows and its triumphs, at each era of its existence. Wonderfully artless and correct—because all utterances which were not faithful to their time, which did not touch some sympathetic chord in their heart's souls, are pretty sure to have been swept out into wholesome oblivion, and only the most genuine and earnest left behind for posterity. The history of England indeed is the literature of England—but one very different from any ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... and have no sense of consequences. Nothing more is meant by them than meets the ear: they understand or feel nothing more than meets their eye. The web and texture of the universe, and of the heart of man, is a mystery to them: they have no faculty that strikes a chord in unison with it. They cannot get beyond the daubings of fancy, the varnish of sentiment. Objects are not linked to feelings, words to things, but images revolve in splendid mockery, words represent themselves in their strange rhapsodies. The categories ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... energy of thy arrows. Do thou like a leader of elephants rushing at a herd, pierce the ranks of the foe with straight arrows of golden wings, discharged from thy bow. Thy bow is even like a Vina. Its two ends represent the ivory pillows; its string, the main chord; its staff, the finger-board; and the arrows shot from it musical notes. Do thou strike in the midst of the foe that Vina of musical sound.[34] Let thy steeds, O lord, of silvery hue, be yoked unto thy car, and let thy standard be hoisted, bearing the emblem of the golden lion. Let thy keen-edged ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... first time Grace's sweet earnestness seemed to awaken a responsive chord in the heart of the obstinate freshman. The ready color dyed her cheeks crimson. The hard, defiant light ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... lonely tramp at night, with the grotesque streaks of the moonlight breaking quaintly into the pedestrian's contemplative mood. The music is curiously lonely and suggestive of a quiet moonlight night in the country. Particularly lovable are the soft, characteristic chord progressions, followed by lonely silence, on the second page, just before the opening melody returns. The piece ends with the moon kissing ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... modification in personality, a change of rhythm. I was walking with Nature, marching with her, with all her captains the great trees and her infantry the little bushes, and I caught in my ears her marching music. I was thrilled by the common chord that makes crowds act as one man, that in this case made my heart beat in unison with all the wild things. I may as well say at once I love them all and am ready to live with them ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... Montaigne as we please, even though that right includes the privilege of not reading every word of the famous Essays, and of only reverting—in our light return to them—to those aspects and qualities which strike an answering chord in ourselves. ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... country, against the broken evening sky, and said, "Now I see heights, and I shall never be happy or hungry till I have climbed them. The Lord made me so that I am never content until I am as near the sky as possible. Silly, no doubt. But what a sky! Blood-red and pale pink, what a unique chord of colour." ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in ...
— Beauties of Tennyson • Alfred Tennyson
... Cassandra,' said he. 'Don't let the lad be much with her; her talk would destroy the courage of the bravest man; she is so given over to superstition.' Something that she had said had touched a chord in my lord's nature which he inherited from his Scotch ancestors. Long afterwards, I heard what this was. Medlicott ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... 'front'. Many keys had three symbols on them: a letter and a symbol on the top, and a Greek letter on the front. For example, the 'L' key had an 'L' and a two-way arrow on the top, and the Greek letter lambda on the front. By pressing this key with the right hand while playing an appropriate 'chord' with the left hand on the shift keys, you ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... fore-shore unless specially granted by charter otherwise, and the court of vice-admiralty has jurisdiction as to flotsam and jetsam on the fore-shore. But all crimes are subject to the laws, and are tried by the ordinary courts as within the body of a county, comprehended by the chord between two headlands where the distance does not exceed three miles from the shore. Beyond that limit is "the sea, where high court of admiralty has jurisdiction, but ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... them, touch them, see them, perhaps, plunges me into an incessant melancholy—at once I melt and burn. I recall each lovely feature, each attitude of your exquisite person—that little foot, the seal of love, that bosom, the gem of bliss! The remembrance of your voice makes my soul thrill like the chord of an instrument—ready to burst from the clearness of its tone—and your kiss! that kiss in which I drank your soul! It showers roses and coals of fire upon my lonely bed—I burn—my hot lips are tortured by the thirst for caresses—my hand ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... her going to the very last chord, she too full of wonder and uncertainty to protest; and then he led her straight through the room to where Mrs. Raleigh stood, surrounded by the usual crowd of subalterns, muttered an excuse, ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Coverdale," cried a woman's voice,—clear and melodious, but, just then, with something unnatural in its chord,—"you are welcome! But you come half an hour too late, and have missed a scene which you ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... intervals and chords used in tuning. The lessons are not difficult, and they embody only those principles which are essential to the proper understanding of the key-board: the intervals of the diatonic scale and the major common chord in the twelve different keys, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, B-flat, D-flat, E-flat, G-flat, and A-flat. In connection with the harmony lessons, we use as a text-book "Clarke's Harmony,"[A] and the student is required to master the first ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... during dinner which sent him in this untimely scurry to Elm-tree Hill. 'As distant as El Dorado, and as desirable.' The sentence limned with precision the impression which London used to produce upon Drake. The sight of it touched upon some single chord of fancy in a nature otherwise prosaic, of which the existence was unsuspected by his few companions and ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... became an unearthly discord. If I were superstitious I should say that some evil spirit then went out of the violin, and broke in his parting throes the wooden tabernacle which had so long sheltered him. It was the last time the instrument was ever used, and that hideous chord was the last ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... heard Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird, Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred. Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo! Every least ripple of the strings' song-flow Died to a level with each level bow And made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so, As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go To linger in the sacred dark and green Where many boughs the still pool overlean And many leaves make shadow with their sheen. But presently A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... battalion halted; faced to the window, and spontaneously came to "Present!" as the ringing rebel yell rattled the windows of that block. The chord had been touched that the roughest ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... mast, and afterwards watched with great contentment the idle sail fill, and the canoe pull out to a light breeze. So, perhaps, I am prejudiced in favor of this legend of Homolsom Rock, for it strikes a very responsive chord in that portion of my heart that has always throbbed ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson |
