"Key" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any such thing—always seemed to me a stupid impertinence. When people pay visits to me, I wish them to come to the front door, and ring the bell, and send up their names. I don't wish them to climb in at the window, or creep through the pantry, or, worst of all, float through the key-hole, and catch me in undress. So I believe that in all worlds thoughts will be the subjects of volition,—more accurately expressed when expression is desired, but just as entirely suppressed when ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... no inns. The lord of the castle promised him that with much pleasure, and asked where he was going? Hans answered, "To the Griffin." "Oh! to the Griffin! They tell me he knows everything, and I have lost the key of an iron money-chest; so you might be so good as to ask him where it is." "Yes, indeed," said Hans, "I will do that." Early the next morning he went onwards, and on his way arrived at another castle in which he again stayed the night. When the people who lived there learnt ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... you? Who put such an idea into your head! Oh, I know!" She threatened Clementina with the door-key, which she was carrying in her hand. "It was you, was it? What an artful, suspicious thing! What's got into you, child? Do you hate me?" She did not give Clementina time to protest. "Well, now, I can just tell you I do want ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to himself, as he stepped to the door and ostentatiously locked it, putting the key into his pocket, before he went into the adjoining bed-room to change his coat. "We'll soon see what Brett and Grattan say to him. Confound the fellow! Who would think that that smooth saintly face ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of Morgana the keys of her prison, and the fairy, feigning a complacent aspect, delivered up a key of silver, bidding him to be cautious in the use of it, since to break the lock would be to involve himself and all in inevitable destruction; a caution which gave the Count room for long meditation, and led ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... covered with Virginia creepers and wild honeysuckles. The others pushed Tom in, and Peter, dashing forward, slammed the door on him with a bang. Snap! went the bolt, and now nothing earthly could open it again but a Bramah key or a gunpowder explosion. Young Secession was fast, and ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... any feat of frontier athletics, was doubtless a matter of pride with him; but stronger than all else was his eager craving for knowledge. He felt instinctively that the power of using the mind rather than the muscles was the key to success. He wished not only to wrestle with the best of them, but to be able to talk like the preacher, spell and cipher like the school-master, argue like the lawyer, and write like the editor. Yet he was as far as possible ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... lighter beside her, from which she was taking in an extra complement of her own shells and material for making Lennard's explosive, as well as a full load of fuel for her engines. They pulled up at the door of the Bear and Key Hotel, and as the motor came to a standstill a man dressed in the costume of an ordinary worker on the oyster-beds came up, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... to lock and unlock a padlock. The animal most proficient in this became able to select the right Yale key out of a bunch of half a dozen or more, with as much quickness and precision as the ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... great truth of our time; that the wealth of the state is not the prosperity of the people. Macaulay and the Mills and all the regular run of the Early Victorians, took it for granted that if Manchester was getting richer, we had got hold of the key to comfort and progress. Carlyle pointed out (with stronger sagacity and humour than he showed on any other question) that it was just as true to say that Manchester was getting poorer as that it was getting ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... comparatively restricted, and a reputation confined to Scotland; and when he prepared his first models, and exhibited them in Merchants' Hall, he can hardly be acquitted of audacity. John Clerk of Eldin stood his friend from the beginning, kept the key of the model room, to which he carried 'eminent strangers,' and found words of counsel and encouragement beyond price. 'Mr. Clerk had been personally known to Smeaton, and used occasionally to speak of him to me,' ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into vacancy; the Scotch butler looks distinctly heavenward, as if he were brooding on the principle of co-ordinate jurisdiction with mutual subordination. It would be impossible for me to deny the key of the wine-cellar to a being so steeped in sanctity, but it has been done, I am told, in certain rare and ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to Cowes," she explained. "He cannot be back until late to-night. No one else has a key to the treaty safe, and Von Behrling declined to give up the document to any ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... flame. Twenty yards from the cabin he dropped Billy in the snow, and ran back. In that seething room of smoke and fire was everything on which their lives depended, food, blankets, even their coats and caps and snowshoes. But he could go no farther than the door. He returned to Billy, found the key in his pocket, and freed him from the chain about his ankles. Billy stood up. As he looked at Brokaw the glass in the window broke and a sea of flame sprouted through. It lighted up their faces. The sergeant's jaw was ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... to hear the Bible read in connection with the text-book of Christian Science, "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures," by Mary Baker G. Eddy. These are our only preachers. They are the word of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... overtaking the Huguenots. When Guise and his party reached the Porte de Bussy[1042]—the gate leading from the city into the faubourg in which the Protestants had been lodging—which was closed in accordance with the king's orders, they found that they had been provided by mistake with the wrong key, and the delay experienced in finding the right one afforded Montgomery an advantage in the race, of which he ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Trap door under the table. The man who has this key commands the brig while I am away. The serang understands. You have her very ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... house at the end of the park without windows and with but one door, which was always locked. Rosalie's father entered this house every day and always carried the key about his person. Rosalie thought it was only a little hut in which the garden-tools were kept. She never thought of speaking about it but one day, when she was seeking a watering-pot for her flowers, ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... "I can at present use the whole number. I know the key for every particular lock, though I frequently find the wards ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Peel still was, but he departed early the next morning. I had been anxious to go there to look over the Chesterfield MSS., but I was disappointed; there were only three large volumes of letters come-at-able out of thirty, the other twenty-seven being locked up, and the key was gone to be mended. These three I ran over hastily, but though they may contain matter that would be useful to the historian of that period (from 1728 to about 1732), there was little in any way attractive, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... is seen at the Madonna's left, gazing at some little cherubs who hover in mid air with sprays of flowers. We know him by the mammoth key he carries in his left hand, a symbol of his authority in spiritual concerns. The reference is to the words of Jesus when Peter declared him to be the Christ: "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven."[10] He seems here a very old man, and ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Marables. There was a kindness about him that won me, and I was distressed to perceive that he was often very melancholy. What surprised me most was to find that during the first week the cabin was constantly locked, and that Marables had not the key; it appeared so strange that he, as master of the barge, should be locked out of his own cabin by ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... The key to composting paper is to shred or grind it. Layers of paper will compress into airless mats. Motor-driven hammermill shredders will make short work of dry paper. Once torn into tiny pieces and mixed with other materials, paper is no more subject to compaction than ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... Crocodile put the remainder of the food away, with a tiny key opened a small steel trunk, took out the gold ornament, and gave it to Batangnorang. "Give this to your mother, Crocodile. When she wants to use it, hang it up and place a beautiful mat underneath. Then strike it one time with the first finger. ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... and swore he'd blow out his brains there and then if he didn't stop quiet. We had to use the same words over and over again. Jim used to grin sometimes. They generally did the business, though, so of course he was quite helpless. We hadn't to threaten him to find the key of the safe, because it was unlocked and the key in it. He was just locking up his gold and the day's cash as we ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... hat, gathered up some papers lying on his desk, pulled down its rolling cover, turned the key in it, and gave the papers to an extremely handsome young woman at one of the desks in the outer office. She was stylishly dressed, as Bartley saw, and her smooth, yellow hair was sculpturesquely waved over a low, white forehead. "Here," said Lapham, with the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... by all who wished to understand them; why is it that the misunderstanding of Mr. Darwin's "distinctive feature" should have been so long and obstinate? Why is it that, no matter how much writers like Mr. Grant Allen and Professor Ray Lankester may say about "Mr. Darwin's master-key," nor how many more like hyperboles they brandish, they never put a succinct resume of Mr. Darwin's theory side by side with a similar resume of his grandfather's and Lamarck's? Neither Mr. Darwin himself, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... you remember her father was Kaaukuu. Well, he was, and he was a giant. When they built the Mausoleum, his bones, nicely cleaned and preserved, were dug out of their hiding- place, and placed in the Mausoleum. Hiwilani had an old retainer, Ahuna. She stole the key from Kanau one night, and made Ahuna go and steal her father's bones out of the Mausoleum. I know. And he must have been a giant. She kept him in one of her big jars. One day, when I was a tidy size of a lad, and curious ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... question for the Church to-day is—shall we enter the open door? And this is a key-question, too. Its answer includes a full satisfactory answer to all the other questions we are discussing. All questions of finance, of uncertain wabbling pulpit voices, of careless and indifferent or empty pews, and of city evangelization ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... affection of the Indians around us; but should we forfeit that by any mismanagement on our part, or by the superior address of the French, we are in a miserable situation. The Cherokees alone have several thousand gunmen well acquainted with every inch of the province ... their country is the key to Carolina." By a treaty concluded at Saluda (November 24, 1753), Glen promised to build the Cherokees a fort near the lower towns, for the protection of themselves and their allies; and the Cherokees on their part agreed to become the subjects of the King of Great ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... invariably considerate of them, and treated them very generously with regard to money. And yet ... for some reason or other they felt injured by him; and thought and spoke of him with a kind of churlish resentment. She was not clever enough to find the key to the riddle—it was no such simple explanation as that he felt himself too good for them. That was not the case: he was proud, certainly, but she had never known any one who—under, it was true, a rather sarcastic manner—was more broadly tolerant ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Upanishads practically abolished the national pantheon and the old Brahmanic ritual—knowledge, they taught, was the key to bliss, and the knowledge was not that of the Veda, it came by reflection; emancipation from earthly bonds, absorption into the Infinite, was the goal of effort, but the effort was individualistic and led to no devotional organization. Ascetic observances, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... tops nor bottoms) full of money; I see also two tablets of accounts. I am about to descend into that cupboard and to bring you one of those tablets. I saw you lock the cupboard half an hour ago, and I know you have the key in your possession. But I descend from Space; the doors, you see, remain unmoved. Now I am in the cupboard and am taking the tablet. Now I have it. Now I ascend ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... angry, but I can fancy how delightful you looked. And, after all, you said something to me the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely fanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... of possessing himself of the talisman. But he did not venture to ask her plainly to show him the ring. He flattered and cajoled her, but the only thought in his mind was to get possession of the ring. Presently the maiden took the key of the casket from her bosom as if to unlock it; but she changed her mind, and replaced it, saying, "There's plenty of time for ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... sea chest, and from under his belongings pulled out a second chest. Fitting a key to the lock, he lifted up the lid. Chris, perched on his shoulder, peered over to see the contents. They were disappointing—merely a gray powder carefully packed in a piece ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... Leotychides departed homewards with the Peloponnesian vessels. Xanthippus however, the Athenian commander, seized the opportunity to recover from the Persians the Thracian Chersonese, which had long been an Athenian possession; and proceeded to blockade Sestos, the key of the strait. This city surrendered in the autumn, after a protracted siege, whereupon the Athenians returned home, carrying with them the cables of the bridge across the Hellespont, which were afterwards preserved in the ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... Then amazement tripped up the heels of terror: for now passed Mother Sereda, or, as Anaitis had called her, AEsred. To-day, in place of a towel about her head, she wore a species of crown, shaped like a circlet of crumbling towers: she carried a large key, and her chariot was drawn by two lions. She was attended by howling persons, with shaved heads: and it was apparent that these persons had parted with possessions which ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... too—now that she is gone? Will he not grant that men have loved such women, when the women have loved them so utterly? It has been: she knows that, and the more certainly now that she has yielded finally her claim to a like miracle. His soul is locked fast; but, "love for a key" (if he could but have loved her!), what might not have happened? She might have grown the same in his eyes as ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... pardon; and besought her to take the key of the private drawer in my escritoire, where they lay, that she herself might see that I had no ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... have appointed the bearer, Timothy Flanagan, janitor in your place. You will give him the key of the schoolhouse, and he will ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... from a short whispering which presently ensued between them and the vintner relative to the best way of escape, that they had entered by the back-door, with the connivance of John Grueby, who watched outside with the key in his pocket, and whom they had taken into their confidence. A party of the crowd coming up that way, just as they entered, John had double-locked the door again, and made off for the soldiers, so that means of retreat was cut ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... by the Swiss tour, was a new interest in physical geology, which his father so far approved as to give him Saussure's "Voyages dans les Alpes" for his birthday in 1834. In this book he found the complement of Turner's vignettes, something like a key to the "reason why" of all the wonderful forms and marvellous mountain-architecture of the Alps. He soon wrote a short essay on the subject, and had the pleasure of seeing it in print, in Loudon's ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... says Guicciardini, "conscio dei sospetti, i quali il re forse non vanamente aveva avuti di lui," etc. (Istoria, tom, iv. p. 30.) This way of damning a character by surmise, is very common with Italian writers of this age, who uniformly resort to the very worst motive as the key of whatever is dubious or inexplicable in conduct. Not a sudden death, for example, occurs, without at least a sospetto of poison from some hand or other. What a fearful commentary on the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... of Egypt, held the highest place. Carchemish, which has been wrongly identified with Circesium, lay certainly high up the river, and most likely occupied a site some distance to the north of Balis, which is in lat. 36 deg. nearly. It was the key of Syria on the east, commanding the ordinary passage of the Euphrates, and being the only great city in this quarter. Tyre, which had by this time surpassed its rival, Sidon, was the chief of all the maritime towns; and its possession gave the mastery of the Eastern Mediterranean to the power ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... coffers into the pockets of any thief whatever. The best means discovered by the Gascon was to inclose his treasure, for the present, under locks so solid that no wrist could break them, and so complicated that no master-key could open them. D'Artagnan remembered that the English are masters in mechanics and conservative industry; and he determined to go in the morning in search of a mechanic who would sell him a strong box. He did not go far; Master Will Jobson, dwelling in Piccadilly, listened to his propositions, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... key turning in the lock again, and Hortense ran to the window which looked out on to the street, opened it quickly, and then in a low and determined voice said: 'You will come and pick me up when he is ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... say was, that I thoroughly appreciate your admirable caution in not confiding to any one—no, not even to me—the exact means by which you intend to extricate us from our present dilemma." Here Quirk got very fidgety, and twirled his watch-key violently. ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... believe.(430) Why, then, did the Scribe leave off? But the Reader is already in possession of the reason why. A sufficient explanation of the difficulty has been elicited from the very MSS. themselves. And surely when, suspended to an old chest which has been locked up for ages, a key is still hanging which fits the lock exactly and enables men to open the chest with ease, they are at liberty to assume that the key belongs to the lock; is, in fact, the only instrument by which the ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... margin of the land, Where Guadalhorce winds his way, My lady lay: With golden key Sleep's gentle hand Had closed her eyes so bright— Her eyes, two suns of light— And bade his balmy dews Her rosy cheeks suffuse. The River God in slumber saw her laid: He raised his dripping head, With weeds o'erspread, Clad in his wat'ry robes approach'd ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... door at the far end of the arena opens, and the suite comes forth. There are a couple of sombre-looking cloaked horsemen mounted on rather sorry nags, and these amble forward, salute the president, and request the key of the Toril, the great stable where the bulls wait to die. Then come the matadors—they who do the killing—from two to four of them, dressed in knickerbocker attire, with short jackets, after the fashion of an Eton coat. These are generally of light pink or blue silk, ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... following morning I was awakened by the shrill cries of the Tibetan maidens, calling the yaks to be milked, "Toosh—toosh— toooosh," in a gradually higher key; to which Toosh seemed supremely indifferent, till quickened in her movements by a stone or stick, levelled with unerring aim at her ribs; these animals were changing their long winter's wool for sleek hair, and the former hung about them in ragged ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... "Yes, that's the key move to the problem," Dunn said. "And tomorrow we shall know it, if Deede Dawson was speaking ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... railway, at three o'clock, without any further anxiety. There were only a couple of sleepy porters at the station, so we left the blankets, etc., lying on the platform until one porter found the man who had the key of the storehouse. Picking up our satchels, and shivering as the cold morning air came in contact with our wet clothes, we went over the prairie a hundred yards or so to a hotel, hastily put up for the accommodation of benighted travellers, there being ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... now, dear," he said. "I can get in at the back gate—I have the key, as the stores are brought in through that way. I do not think that you need feel any uneasiness. The row is evidently still going on, but only a few guns are being fired now. Certainly the rascals cannot be attacking the stores, ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... of the speaker fitted Hermas' mood as a key fits the lock. He opened his heart to the old man, and told him the story of his life: his luxurious boyhood in his father's house; the irresistible spell which compelled him to forsake it when he heard John's preaching of the new religion; his lonely year ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke
... it, exactly? What were his exact words?" Shannon demanded, emphatically, pointing a forceful forefinger at Stener in order to key him up to a clear memory of ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... or counsellor, is no less barren for himself than for his creatures, and his own barrenness and lone egoism in himself is the cause and rule of his indifferent and unregarding despotism around. The first note is the key of the whole tune, and the primal idea of God runs through and modifies the whole system and ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... relate to the state of the Church in all ages: and amongst the old Prophets, Daniel is most distinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood: and therefore in those things which relate to the last times, he must be made the key to the rest. ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... myself for this reason,—that it demonstrates my dreaming tendencies to have been constitutional, and not dependent on laudanum." At the same age he "connected a profound sense of pathos with the reappearance, very early in the spring, of some crocuses." These two incidents are a key to the working of De Quincey's mind. Waking or sleeping, his intellect had the rare power of using the facts of life as the composer might use a song of the street, building on a wandering ballad a whole symphony of transfigured sound, retaining skillfully, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... fought and lost—when the government for which he had struggled was crumbling about him—when his staff, asking, in despair, 'What can now be done?' he gave that memorable reply, 'It were strange indeed if human virtue were not at least as strong as human calamity.' This is the key to his life—the belief that trials and strength, suffering and consolation, come alike from God. Obedience to duty was ever his ruling principle. Infallibility is not claimed for him in the exercise of his judgment in deciding what duty was. But what he believed duty to command, that he performed ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... which, it is said, was from eighteen to twenty thousand strong, and seemed to be in a condition either to take Paris itself, or to force the royal army to enter the field and accept a decisive battle. To bring that about, Conde thought the best thing was to besiege Chartres, "the key to the granary of Paris," as it was called, and "a big thorn," according to La Noue, "to run into the foot of the Parisians." But Catherine de' Medici had quietly entered once more into negotiations with some ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in this way the living doing of the plant from stage to stage we become aware of a significant rhythm in its total life cycle. This, when first discovered by Goethe, gave him the key to an understanding of nature's general procedure in building living organisms, and in ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... feel that it grew. The flower and leaf forms which enrich the near ground are such as spring up on days like the one she has chosen. Another month, and new combinations would have given another key to her work and rendered the present impossible. In that real landscape had wrought the secret vitality clothing the earth in leafage and bloom. In its representation we see that a still more refined, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... Sue, whose mere popularity exceeded that of any other writer discussed in this half of the volume except Dumas; of men like Sandeau, Charles de Bernard, and Murger, whose actual work in prose fiction is not much less than consummate in its own particular key and subdivisions; of one of the best political satirists in French fiction, Louis Reybaud; and of others still, like Soulie, Mery, Achard, Feval, Ourliac, Roger de Beauvoir, Alphonse Karr, Emile Souvestre, who, to no small extent individually and to a very great extent when taken in battalion, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... know. No man ever quite knows what positive qualities in a woman can make his heart leap. MacRae was no wiser than most. But he was not prone to cherish illusions, to deceive himself. He had imagination. That gave him a key to many things which escape ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of German philosophy; the works of Campanella and Vanini (Bruno much later, for his works were then exceeding rare. I now have Weber's edition), and also, with intense relish and great profit, an old English version of Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. In which last work I had the real key and clue to all German philosophy and Rationalism, as I in time found out. I must here modestly mention that I had, to a degree which I honestly believe seldom occurs, the art of rapid yet of carefully-observant reading. George Boker once, quite unknown to me, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... grievances always revive "against the Vergniauds, Guadets" and company;[3364] it does not like them, and has no confidence in them, and will let them be crushed without helping them. The infuriates may expel the Thirty-Two, if they choose, and put them under lock and key. "There is nothing the aristocracy (meaning by this, owners of property, merchants, bankers, the rich, and the well-to-do), desire so much as to see them guillotined."[3365] 'Even the inferior aristocracy ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... again the key—it was to this I was indebted for ridding me of my fright, and once more giving me the advantage over my unlettered companion. In that book I remembered having read—of course in the same chapter ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... they are distinguished from the covered ways made by the termites, who use a glutinous saliva for cementing their edifices. These blind ecitons build up the side of their convex arcade, and in a wonderful manner contrive so to fit in the key-stones, without allowing the loose uncemented structure to fall to pieces. Whenever a breach is made in any of their covered ways, the workers remain behind to repair the damage, while the soldiers issue forth in a menacing manner, rearing their heads, and snapping their jaws with an ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... catch the favorable hour, in walking, riding, or boating to talk with this joyful guest, who brought wit, anecdotes, love-stories, tragedies, oracles with her, and, with her broad relations to so many fine friends, seemed like the queen of some parliament of love, who carried the key to all confidences, and to whom every question had been ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... puzzled over the message. He transcribed the Morse symbols first into English letters and found they made a hopeless and confused jumble, as he had expected. The key of the letter E was useless, as he had also expected. But finally, by making himself think in German, he began to see a light ahead. And after an hour's hard work he ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... monstrous caterpillar across the moonlit landscape, and their road led them under one of its huge arches, and past the circle of crumbling bricks which marks the old arena. At last Burger stopped at a solitary wooden cow-house, and he drew a key from his pocket. "Surely your catacomb is not inside a ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... when sitting alone sometimes in your room, at midnight, in the month of November, how, after a lull in the blast, the bleak wind will all at once seem to clutch at the windows, with a demoniac howl that makes the house rock? Do you remember the half-whistles and half-groans through the key-holes and crevices,—the cries and shrieks that rise and fall,—the roaring in the chimney,—the slamming of distant doors and shutters? Well, all this seemed to be suggested in the ringing of the iron cord. The very leaves, green and dewy, and the delicate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... voices from above proclaimed the return of Leroux with the doctor. They were talking in an excited key, the voice of Leroux, especially, sounding almost hysterical. They created such a disturbance that they attracted the attention of Mr. John Exel, M. P., occupant of the flat below, who at that very moment ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... wounded by his own early failures and slow recognition. He knew himself to be a chief in the clan, and when the clan heeded him not he withdrew in haughty disdain. Look at his proud, sensitive face and you hold the key to his life. ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... roguish nigger in the country. He'd take him home and give him the key to everything on de place and say to help hisself. Soon as he got all he wanted to eat he'd quit being a rogue. Old Judge said that was what made niggers ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... it bore the brightness of a face-to-face communion with her Lord; and she rose and went about her preparations for the night. Then, just as she had taken down her hair and was brushing it in a silver cloud about her shoulders, she heard a car drive up. A moment more a key turned in the latch, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... of masters have the right; a slave, to be perfectly contented as a slave, must be in total ignorance. But better, far better, greater suffering, if it bring enlargement of man's higher being, than that system that would smother the soul in its bodily case. Let the slave have the key to the gate of Life Eternal, even if his pathway through this life must be more thickly sown with thorns. Let the opposing principles wage, until the right of one is asserted. And, oh! above all pray for the day when these fetters shall be stricken from the souls God has ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... in a placid mood, and strangely inclined to retrospection. Thoughtfully fingering the key which locked up the record of his wealth, he walked to the window and looked out. It was a dreary prospect of brown moor and gray sea, but Crawford loved it. The bare land and the barren mountains was the country of the Crawfords. He had ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... top of the steps after Lefty. He let us in with a key. We were in a dimly-lit hall that had a staircase against its left wall and an open door at its right, ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... back." Banks laughed, a shrill, mirthless laugh, and added in a higher key: "Lost ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... heavy dresser, but the wall was without opening behind it. She looked for the key to the door, and was glad to find the lock in order. For the first time now she laid off her bonnet, unfastened her wrap. With a hand which trembled she made some sort of attempt at toilet, staring into the mirror at a face scarcely recognized as her own. The corners of its mouth were ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... poor Dalton behaved very kindly—made him what he is, in fact—and this is his reward! A pettifogger, by Heaven!—a pettifogger! Seizing the Dalton estates, the scoundrel, and then putting Miss Dalton under lock and key! Why, the man's mad—mad! yes, a raving maniac! He is, ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... to a table behind the screen of which Kitty had spoken. There Helen had sat, there lay her writing case, the key sealed in an envelope addressed to me. Picking up a slip of paper torn from ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... question is John's. The answer is sent to him: it is he who is to ponder the things which the messengers saw, and to answer his own question thereby. The note which the evangelist prefixes to his account gives the key to the incident. John was 'in prison,' in that gloomy fortress of Machaerus which Herod had rebuilt at once for 'a sinful pleasure-house' and for an impregnable refuge, among the savage cliffs of Moab. The halls of luxurious vice and the walls of defence are gone; but the dungeons are there ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... convince the Japanese Staff, at last, that the defences on the eastern slope were impregnable to assault, and must be captured by other means. They accordingly next turned their attention to 203 Metre Hill, which was the key to the eastern defences of Port Arthur, and determined to ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... even for the infidel Sadducee. He complies with the unreasonable wishes of the skeptical Thomas. He pardons Peter. He is severe with the Scribes and Pharisees only, who made void the law of righteousness by their traditions, and took the key of knowledge, and used it, not to open, but to keep shut the door ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... as well as we could, and Leon strutted like Bobby, because he locked the door and carried the key. When we reached home I was sorry I hadn't gone with father, so I could have seen mother, Sally, Candace, and Laddie when first they met the new teacher. The shock showed yet! Miss Amelia had taken off her smothery woollen dress and put on a black calico, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... facing the great High Altar, which at that distance could only just be discerned among its darkening surroundings by the little flickering flame of the suspended lamp burning dimly before the holy Tabernacle, wherein was locked with golden key behind snowy doors of spotless marble, the sacred ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... all sides, but when Al-ice had been all round and tried each one, she found they were all locked. She walked back and forth and tried to think how she was to get out. At last she came to a stand made all of glass. On it was a ti-ny key of gold, and Al-ice's first thought was that this might be a key to one of the doors of the hall, but when she had tried the key in each lock, she found the locks were too large or the key was too small—it did not fit one of them. But when she went round the hall once more ...
— Alice in Wonderland - Retold in Words of One Syllable • J.C. Gorham
... the climate and atmospheric conditions peculiar to San Francisco. Every phase of sky and sea and land, every shadow upon the Marin hills, across the bay, was noted in choosing an imitation of natural travertine for the key color ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... gathered together after a summer vacation. A hollow-chestedness and a tendency to round shoulders may be detected as a common characteristic. A general air of tension, marked by frequent bursts of laughter in too high a key, seems to pervade the throng. Murray and Eileen, as if to avoid contact with the others, come over to the right in front ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... young gentleman up to Master Carl's room, and give him the key of his trunk. He is going ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... there are no nightingales, listening to the marvellous silence, and letting its blessedness descend into my very soul. The nightingales in the forests about here all sing the same tune, and in the same key of (E flat). ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... once I visited her in her city home. I have been favored with many of her sparkling, vivacious letters, and have read and re-read all her published writings; but that first meeting held in it for me the key-note of all her wonderfully beautiful and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... key-note to that canvass was given by Mr. Vallandigham himself in a letter written from Canada, July 15, 1863. That letter contained ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... composition. Especially he had learned to shun those enchanted hours when the labour of creation became suspiciously easy, for he had found by experience that the work he did in these moments of inspiration was either bad in itself or out of key with the preceding chapters. He thought that inspiration might be useful to poets or writers of short stories, but personally as a novelist he found it a nuisance. By dint of hard work, however, he succeeded in eliminating its evil influence from his final ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... the insane. The modern hospital is not constructed with the idea of caring for dangerous criminals, and in many instances the habitual criminal, who because of his dangerous tendencies and ever readiness to escape, has to be constantly kept under lock and key, would be much better off if he were treated within the enclosure of the prison. There the construction of the place permits of a wider latitude of outdoor exercise. An annex located within the enclosure of a prison could well afford to allow ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... doors has either lock or key. The Fezzanee observed, "Strangers may steal, but Fezzanees never. All the dates remain securely on the trees until gathered by the owners." It must be observed, however, that the anomaly of vast possessions being held by one man, who can scarcely consume or utilise ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... a box with a proper lock that was opened with a key and not with a shovel, and when the cloth was spread on the table, a real feast ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... The key was attached by a ribbon to the portfolio, and was tucked into a fold of the leather, and no sense of either delicacy or honor prevented her making use of her opportunity for gratifying her curiosity regarding the young wife, without the necessity ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... each other by these tribes. "They all desire to appropriate to themselves exclusively whatever advantage may be obtained from the visits of foreigners, and they are distressed at the prospect of their neighbours getting any share." Proof was soon afforded that this explanation is the right key to their behaviour. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... passed on into a room beyond which other rooms extended, each different, but all in the same key, a monotone attenuated by lustres and the atmosphere, infinitely relaxing, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them: "Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you don't know me." One of them answered: "We know you very well, Mr. Dickens." "Then," I said, "my good fellow, for God's sake give me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and I'll empty this carriage." We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage vans, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... Germany as this, hopelessly lop-sided. He so pervades German life that to write of the Germany of the last twenty-five years without attempting to describe William the Second, German Emperor, would be to leave every question, institution, and problem of the country without its master-key. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... dark, and I had shut the window (I had been lying, for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing, and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone came in with some bread and meat, and milk. These she put down upon the table without a word, glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness, and then retired, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... her contemplations;—the grating of his key in the outer door,—of his step in the ante-room. Mechanically she rose, and advanced to meet the truant who had kept her watching,—who had so often kept her watching,—so often been forgiven. A momentary glimpse of his countenance convinced her that he was in no mood even to wish for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... Wilding Davison, was a bagatelle not worth bothering about. But all attempts to get the Home Office to reconsider Miss Warren's case or to shorten her imprisonment (except by the abridgment that could be earned in the prison itself) were unavailing. So long as the Cabinet held Vivie under lock and key, the Suffrage movement—they foolishly ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... country, in olden times, of divination by the moon. It is quoted by Mr. Thiselton-Dyer from an old chap-book: 'When you go to bed (at the period of harvest moon) place under your pillow a Prayer-Book open at the part of the matrimonial service, which says, "With this ring I thee wed"; place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust, and the following cards: a ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief, and, on getting into bed, cover your ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... feel, thought of anything but the glorious work they had done? What if their mothers on this platform be angular, old, wrinkled, and gray? They, too, have fought a good fight for freedom, and proudly bear the scars of the battle. We alone have struck the key-note of reconstruction. While man talks of "equal, impartial, manhood suffrage," we give the certain sound, "universal suffrage." While he talks of the rights of races, we exalt the higher, the holier idea proclaimed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... At night time, however, in the etapes[28] a separate cell is set apart for their use. On arrival at Irkutsk prison-dress is discarded, and an exile may wear his own clothes, although he remains under lock and key and in close charge of the Cossack who is responsible for his safe delivery. In summer-time the two-thousand-miles' journey to the first stage northwards, Yakutsk, is made by river-steamer, but during the winter months this weary journey must be accomplished in uncovered sleighs, and is ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... not include accented characters. All accented characters are shown with a 4 character representation of that character, such as [a] for an a with a macron over it. For a full list of these characters, see the KEY TO ...
— A Manual of Pronunciation - For Practical Use in Schools and Families • Otis Ashmore
... drew away the heavy curtains from the long window, and the moonlight, clear and bright like silver, poured into the room and clothed her in its soft radiance. She drew back the bolts at the top and bottom of the glass door and turned the key in the lock. She touched the glass and the door swung open upon the garden, easily, noiselessly. She drew it close again and leaving it so, raised her hands to the curtains at the side. As she began carefully ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... great-aunt told the boy about the golden key would have been nonsense, had it not been that their little house stood on the borders of Fairyland. For it is perfectly well known that out of Fairyland nobody ever can find where the rainbow stands. The creature takes such good care of its golden key, always flitting from place ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... got very late to Marsfield by the last train, and, letting myself in with my key, I found Chucker-out waiting for me in the hall, and apparently in a very anxious frame of mind, and extremely demonstrative, wanting to say something more than usual—to ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... ranges over a magnificent expanse of western England. If the tower is ascended one may stand just a thousand feet above the sea. The door is usually locked, but the key may be obtained from a lodge near by, down the slope to the east. This walk can with profit be extended to Long Knoll (945 feet) over two miles north-east; beyond is Maiden Bradley, an interesting village not far from the confines of Longleat, the famous ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... accordingly rubbed out the stain a second time, but the second morning it appeared again. The third morning also it was there, though the library had been locked up at night by Mr. Otis himself, and the key carried upstairs. The whole family were now quite interested; Mr. Otis began to suspect that he had been too dogmatic in his denial of the existence of ghosts, Mrs. Otis expressed her intention of joining the Psychical Society, and Washington prepared a ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... until needed. Meantime rub the fish over very well with salt and pepper, then with a mixture made by mincing very fine three bay leaves, three sprigs each of thyme and parsley, three cloves of garlic, and six allspice pounded to powder. Rub the mixture in well and thoroughly—here is the key to success. The seasoning must go through and through the fish. Put into a very wide pan, two tablespoonfuls of olive oil, heat it gently, add two mild onions, chopped and let them cook a little without browning. Now lay in the fish, slice ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... determined to translate in Latin, but only finished about a tenth part. Halley, extremely interested by the subject, but with an entire ignorance of the Arabic language, resolved to complete the imperfect version! Assisted only by the manuscript which Bernard had left, it served him as a key for investigating the sense of the original; he first made a list of those words wherever they occurred, with the train of reasoning in which they were involved, to decipher, by these very slow degrees, the import of the context; till at last Halley succeeded ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... four eyes than two in case of anyone following you. I'll be back by twelve. Be sure you don't start without me. I had better take the key, Gemma, so as not to wake anyone ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... free!" The moment she saw the gate unlocked, and realized that she could indeed go when and where she pleased, she also realized that she had not the least wish to go, and flung herself into her captor's arms. Here we have Ibsen's situation transposed into the key of fantasy, and provided with the material "guarantee of good faith" which is lacking in The Lady from the Sea. The Duke's change of mind, his will to set the Lady Henrietta free, is visibly demonstrated by ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... key-word of the comedy. You thought you had two vices at your need; But she had Jove and you had Ganymede. [They are struck dumb and still with amazement. ALICIA claps her ...
— Household Gods • Aleister Crowley
... early marks. Sweltering on the rich plain of the lower Jordan, eight hundred feet below the sea, at the entrance of the two chief passes into the Judean highlands, it was too indolent or cowardly to maintain its own importance. Stanley called it "the key of Palestine"; but it was only a latch which any bold invader could lift. The people of Jericho were famous for light fingers and lively feet, great robbers and runners-away. Joshua blotted the city out with a curse; five centuries later Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... of wood. This also was locked, but at its side lay an old key. The Professor, as well as his chisel, had prudently brought a small bottle of oil, and eventually was able to make the key turn in the lock, and they found that the box was in two compartments, one entirely filled with ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... had guessed the secret, he had plucked out the heart of the mystery and was clamoring for a keener sensation. At the end of a month, he presented, mentally, a puzzling spectacle to his companion. He had caught, instinctively, the key-note of the old world. He observed and enjoyed, he criticised and rhapsodized, but though all things interested him and many delighted him, none surprised him; he had divined their logic and measured their proportions, and referred them infallibly to their categories. Witnessing ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James |
