"Keyed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seemed to Ann interminably long. Insensibly she was keyed up to a delicate pitch of expectancy, her ear nervously alert for the sound of a familiar footstep on the flagged path. And as the leaden moments crawled by, and the warm, sunshiny silence which enfolded the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... or the place lowly, or both, there will be a cheery eager using of the highest powers keyed to their best pitch. If higher up, a steady remembering that there can be no power save as the Spirit controls, and a praying to be kept from the dizziness which unaccustomed height is apt to produce. Large quantities of paper and ink will be saved. For many letters of application and indorsement ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... wringing her hands in helpless anxiety, had seemed to spend the other half superintending the preparation of a feast that should be truly worthy of the occasion. The guests were all cheerful and were still so keyed up by the struggle of the night that they did not yet feel weariness. Anthony Crawford sat on one side of Cousin Jasper, Tom Brighton on the other, while the three younger members of the party watched them wonderingly from the other end of the table. Everything, for the moment, ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... no less than six more small canoes were dotted about, their feather-crowned crews all busily employed fishing, while as the boats glided round the tree-covered rocks the nearest Indians struck up a soft minor-keyed chant which was taken up by the crews of the other canoes, the whole combining in a sweet low melody which floated over the smoothly-flowing river, fully explaining the sounds ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... to do the talking?" Blades asked. Chung wasn't built for times as hectic as the last few hours, and was worn to a nubbin. He himself felt immensely keyed up. He'd always liked a ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... Wergeland and Welhaven. The former was magnificently profuse and chaotic, abounding in verve and daring imagery, but withal high-sounding, declamatory, and, at his worst, bombastic. There is a reminiscence in him of Klopstock's inflated rhetoric; and a certain dithyrambic ecstasy—a strained, high-keyed aria-style which sometimes breaks into falsetto. His great rival, Welhaven, was soberer, clearer, more gravely melodious. He sang in beautiful, tempered strains, along the middle octaves, never ranging high into the treble or deep into the ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... made no secret of his pride and faith in Ken. It was this, perhaps, as much as anything, which kept Ken keyed up. For Ken was really pitching better ball than he knew how to pitch. He would have broken his arm for Worry; he believed absolutely in what the coach told him; he did not think ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... modern (19th-century) spelling conventions. Those that don't are Hakluyt's (and are not always systematically marked as such by the editor). The sidenotes are Hakluyt's own. Summarizing sidenotes are labelled [Sidenote: ] and placed before the sentence to which they apply. Sidenotes that are keyed with a symbol are labeled [Marginal note: ] and placed at the point of the symbol, except in poetry, where they are moved to the nearest convenient break in ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... apartment are hooks to hold his fishing-tackle, whips, spurs, and a favourite fowling-piece, curiously wrought and inlaid, which he inherits from his grandfather. He has, also, a couple of old single-keyed flutes, and a fiddle which he has repeatedly patched and mended himself, affirming it to be a veritable Cremona, though I have never heard him extract a single note from it that was not enough to make one's blood ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... evening I speak of the house was packed almost to suffocation. The other characters in the play had withdrawn, and for the first time the two women were alone together. Both keyed up almost to the breaking point, we faced each other, and there was a dead, I might almost say a deadly pause before ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... to the sunshine they get. Who could be gloomy under such golden skies? Every pore of my body has a throat and is shouting out a Tarentella Sincera of its own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough ticking to make ten big pillows, and unbleached linen for two ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... republican institutions; hateful in the sight of God, and ever abhorrent to all honest men. He hated slavery. He hated truckling, obsequious, cringing hypocrites. He put his feelings into vigorous English, and keyed his deeds and actions to the sublime notes of charity that filled his heart and adorned a long and eminently useful life. He gave shelter to the majestic and heroic John Brown. His door was—like the heavenly gates—ajar to every ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... and tension seemed to abate. He had been keyed to so high a pitch that his pulses grew gentler through very lack of force, and with the relaxation came a clearer view. He saw the sinking red sun through the banks of smoke, and in fancy he already felt the cool darkness upon his face after the hot and terrible ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Metcalf had not exchanged a dozen sentences with her. She saw him daily, almost hourly. He was everywhere present about the great buildings. In no department was anybody sure of the time of his appearance, yet not one was overlooked. This kept the operators keyed to an expectancy which brought out from them their best, for the approbation of this observant 'boss' meant much to each. Yet he rarely spoke in a harsh tone to any, nor had any ever heard him utter an oath. This, ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... him to the mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop going, when a smart one was required to set it in motion. While others are yawning and stretching themselves to overcome the vis inertiae, he has his eyes wide open, his faculties keyed up for action, and is thoroughly alive in every fiber. He walks through the world with his hands unmuffled and ready by his side, and so can sometimes do more by a single touch in passing than a vacant man is likely to do ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... he would tell the boys, "cannot be run on the low gear. You must keep her keyed up. Relax when the store is empty, but when you go to meet a customer put on the tension—take a brace—get spring into your step—learn to bunch your vitality and get it across. But ...
— Sam Lambert and the New Way Store - A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks • Unknown
... was supposed to average seventy-five miles a trip, riding from three to seven horses, accidents were likely to occur, and it was not uncommon for a man to lose his way. Such delays meant serious trouble in keeping the schedule, keyed up, as it was, to the highest possible speed. It was confronting such emergencies, and in performing the duties of comrades who had been killed or disabled while awaiting their turns to ride, that the most ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... that strain, or I'll weep on your shoulder. I'm all keyed up, you know—honest, Patty, it's pretty awful to have no mother or aunt or anything. Only just a father, who's heavenly kind and generous, but no good for advice or ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... thin arms, every movement of a muscle in the thin fingers, was swift and accurate. He worked at high tension, and the result was that he grew nervous. At night his muscles twitched in his sleep, and in the daytime he could not relax and rest. He remained keyed up and his muscles continued to twitch. Also he grew sallow and his lint-cough grew worse. Then pneumonia laid hold of the feeble lungs within the contracted chest, and he lost his job ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... an hour passed in this way. The strain was beginning to tell on some of the boys, for they felt that it was necessary to keep keyed up to a high tension all the time. They did not know at what moment loud yells would indicate that the battle had been ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... "spirituals." By these they could sing themselves, as had their fathers before them, out of the contemplation of their own low estate, into the sublime scenery of the Apocalypse. I remember that this minor-keyed pathos used to seem to me almost too sad to dwell upon, while slavery seemed destined to last for generations; but now that their patience has had its perfect work, history cannot afford to lose this portion of its record. There is no parallel instance of an oppressed ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... called "Fire! Fire!" These were the same ominous words she had heard Thanksgiving night, only they seemed now more alarming, more threatening. Who could be so foolish, so ill-advised as to scream those agitating words in a roomful of girls and boys already keyed up to a high pitch of excitement? Anne turned quickly and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... MAXSE keeps himself keyed up to concert pitch by coining new nicknames for Lord HALDANE. The list already ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... that she was near, Lady Muriel realized that the conversation was not low or under uttered. The smart voice was, in fact, loud and incisive. It was the heavy house that reduced the sounds. In fact, the conversation was keyed up. The two men ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... punctuation is largely confined to the dash, and there are many corrections and alterations. The Shelley-Rolls fragments, twenty-five sheets or slips of paper, usually represent additions to or revisions of The Fields of Fancy: many of them are numbered, and some are keyed into the manuscript in Lord Abinger's notebook. Most of the ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... war yelp,' says Boggs, explainin' of them clamors to the Signal party. 'Which it would seem from the fervor he puts into it, he's shorely all keyed up.' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... already in what positions our crank has to be at the opening and closing of the three valves, and with the aid of the diagram, fig. 28, we can determine the size of the cams. In fig. 29, S is the side shaft to which the cams have to be keyed, R the roller on valve lever, the latter being represented by the centre lines LL, as all we require to find is the motion this lever will transmit to the valve, the spindle of which ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... a great change in Pastor Drury, but he noticed no such signs of breakdown as he had expected to see. He did not know that the beloved pastor was keyed up for this meeting. He could not guess that the beaming eye, the old radiant smile, the touch of color in a face usually pale, were on special if unconscious display because the pastor's heart was thanking God that he had been permitted ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... smiling gentlemen in frock-coats with their top-hats genteelly resting in the hollows of their left arms, and without and beyond the station in the space usually filled by closed and open cabs was a swarm of automobiles. Then while our spirits were keyed to the highest pitch, the Queen of Spain descended from the train, wearing a long black satin cloak and a large black hat, very blond and beautiful beyond the report of her pictures. By each hand she led one of her two pretty boys, Don Jaime, the Prince of Asturias, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... Keyed up by this formula, repeated mentally a great many times, Kitty began to indulge in heroics. Aching to excite some admiration for herself she did "stunts" in the water that would have terrified her the day before. Once she plunged her bright head under the water and kept ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... break for cover; and when they approached us there was a strained, expectant expression on each tanned face, a wariness in their actions that looked unnatural to me. The nearer they came the more did I feel keyed up for some emergency. I can't explain why; that's something that I don't think will bear logical analysis. Who can explain the sixth sense that warns a night-herder of a stampede a moment before the herd jumps off the bed-ground? But that is how I felt—and immediately ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... was very significant. It did not seem a real pause, or the silence real silence, for both men continued to think so rapidly and strongly that one almost imagined their thoughts clothed themselves in words in the air of the room. I was more than a little keyed up with the strange excitement of all I had heard, but what stimulated my nerves more than anything else was the obvious fact that the doctor was clearly upon the trail of discovery. In his mind at that moment, I believe, he had already solved the nature ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and swelled again, a tremor ran over that silent waiting throng like a wind-ripple on standing crops. Overhead the sky shone with pin-point stars; a breath of air stirred about them faintly; all seemed keyed to that tense furtive quiet of the doomed Jews. Not a child cried, not a woman sobbed; they had learned, direfully enough, the piteous art of the oppressed—the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... rucksack apiece. All were in their old service uniforms, with long coats over the uniforms to mask them. All carried vacuum-flashlights in their overcoat pockets, and lethal-gas pistols, in addition to ordinary revolvers or automatics. And all were keyed to the top notch of energy, efficiency, eagerness. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... three octaves. Guido d'Arezzo, the famous sight-reading music teacher of the eleventh century, advised his pupils to "exercise the hand in the use of the monochord," showing his knowledge of the keyboard. The keyed monochord gained the name clavichord. Its box-like case was first placed on a table, later on its own stand, and increased in elegance. Not until the eighteenth century was each key ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... to me merely the usual plagiarism-hunter's blunder of forgetting that the treatment, not the subject, is the crux of originality. Of her longer books, Alcidamie, the first, has been spoken of. The Amours des Grandes Hommes and Cleonice ou le Roman Galant belong to the "keyed" Heroics; while the Journal Amoureux, which runs to nearly five hundred pages, has Diane de Poitiers for its chief heroine. Lastly, Carmente (or, as it was reprinted, Carmante) is a sort of mixed pastoral, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... also smoking, leaned against a tree with his gaze fixed on the girl, a depth of yearning in his face that he could not hide, and that really distressed me for him. And Joan herself, with wide staring eyes, alert, full of the new forces of the place, evidently keyed up by the magic of finding herself among all the things her soul recognised as "home," sat rigid by the fire, her thoughts roaming through the spaces, the blood stirring about her heart. She was as unconscious of the Canadian's gaze ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... stringers for flooring and oars and anchors for placing. In laying a bridge these boats were anchored side by side across the stream, stringers made fast across them, and plank then placed on the stringers. Every piece was securely keyed into place so that the bridge was wide enough and strong enough for a battery of artillery and a column of infantry to go over at the same time. The rapidity with which they would either lay or take up a bridge was amazing. If undisturbed they would bridge a stream two hundred ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... class is asked to bid you "Good morning," and the familiar greeting comes to you in the soft Italian accent, mingled with the higher-keyed voices ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... and restless, he had suddenly hardened and stiffened to a repressed, tense calm; speechless, almost rigid in his chair. Excitable under even ordinary circumstances, his every faculty was now keyed to its highest pitch. The nervous strain upon him was like the stretching and tightening of harp-strings, too taut to quiver. The color left his face, and the moisture fled his lips. His projected article, his promise ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... passion of a wider life. All Hilda's splendid vitality went into her intention, of which she was altogether mistress, riding it and reining it in a straight course through the encumbered hours. It keyed her to a finer and more eager susceptibility; and the things she saw stayed with her, passing into a composite day which the years were ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... she went to bed, but she felt too restless and keyed up to sleep, so she slipped into a soft, silken wrapper and established herself in a big ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... out, they were not exactly schoolgirls now. They were out of school—since two days before. The long summer vacation was ahead of them. Time might hang idly on their hands. So it behooved them to find something absorbing to keep their attention keyed ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... you knew how I feel your kindness, Mr. Marrapit. Truly, as I say to myself every night, fair is my lot and goodly is my—" Icy dismay took her. Was the missing word "hermitage" or "heritage"? With masterly decision she filled the blank with a telling choke; keyed her voice to a brilliant suggestion of brightness struggling with tears: "The sweetling cats are safely sleeping. I have come straight from them. Ah, how they miss you! How well they ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... him after our third talk, I was definitely re-engaged as a member of his staff, at a salary of six hundred pounds per annum, having promised to take up my duties with him in one month from that date. Every nerve in my body had been keyed to the attainment of this result, and I was grateful, and not a little flattered by its achievement. I was still a poor man; but this salary, with the few hundred pounds I might hope to add to it in a year, by means of independent literary work, would at all events mean that Cynthia ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... keyed up to its highest tension, he crouched there against the safe. Again and again his fingers rubbed over the rough carpet, and again the sweat beads oozed out upon his forehead with the strain—and then there came through the stillness ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... had a comrade in my afternoon strolls, and Sunday excursions; and as Harry was a generous fellow, he shared with me his purse and his heart. He sold off several more of his fine vests and browsers, his silver-keyed flute and enameled guitar; and a portion of the money thus furnished was pleasantly spent in refreshing ourselves at the road-side inns in the vicinity ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... rhythmic breathing "catches the swing," as it were, and is able to absorb and control a greatly increased amount of prana, which is then at the disposal of his will. He can and does use it as a vehicle for sending forth thoughts to others and for attracting to him all those whose thoughts are keyed in the same vibration. The phenomena of telepathy, thought transference, mental healing, mesmerism, etc., which subjects are creating such an interest in the Western world at the present time, but which have been known to the Yogis for centuries, can be greatly increased and ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... conditions it is easy to see that, where the wife is "keyed" or "timed" much slower than her husband, as is quite often the case, coitus is very liable to be a very one-sided affair, one in which the husband gets all the satisfaction, and the wife little or NONE—a most unfortunate status for both parties, but especially for the wife. The writer ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... channel divided, or lost itself in little cul de sacs, from which the paddlers were obliged to retrace their way. All about them rose myriads of birds and wild fowl, which made their nests among these marshes, and the babbling chatter of the rail, the high-keyed calling of the coot, or the clamoring of the home-building mallard assailed their ears hour after hour as they passed on between the leafy shores. Then, again, the channel would sweep to one side of ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... keyed to the breaking point before; but his alertness was now trebled, and, like a sensitive barometer, he felt the danger of Larry, the brute strength of Jeff, the cunning of Henry, the grave poise of Joe, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... "I hope you are," he told her. "When you lived under a daily strain you were probably keyed to a sort of harmony with it. Now you are getting more normal. Life is a thing ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... that way!" Sol yelled, pointing. He looked as though he was having the time of his life, all keyed up and delighted. He didn't have to tell me where the noise was coming from, I could hear for myself. It sounded like D-Day at Normandy, and I didn't like the sound ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... boy showed me a cave beautifully lined with the finest cut stone. It was evidently intended to be a Royal Mausoleum. On top of this particular boulder a semicircular building had been constructed. The wall followed the natural curvature of the rock and was keyed to it by one of the finest examples of masonry I have ever seen. This beautiful wall, made of carefully matched ashlars of pure white granite, especially selected for its fine grain, was the work of a master artist. ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... bars of wood or metal which are struck with a wooden mallet. The keyboard was invented in the eleventh century. It was applied first to an instrument called a clavier and later to the organ. The first stringed instrument to which this new device was applied was the clavicytherium, or keyed cithara. It had a box with a cover and strings of cat-gut, arranged in the form of a half triangle. It was made to sound by means of a quill plectrum attached in a rude way to the end of the keys. This was the progress the piano of today had ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... keyed-up for the rapids, and about six miles down we encounter the Brule, the first one, and take it square in mid-channel. We ship a little water, but pass through it all too soon, for the compelling ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... With every nerve keyed up and his reflexes answering his keen brain, he swayed backward and forward, rolled from side to side until his shoulder-blades were thrown completely out of joint. The pain was intense, but he summoned every ounce of strength at his command ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... expected plenty of originality and novelty; I could find no trace of either in this transparent work, and an opera with a finale like that of the second act could not be named in the same breath with any of my favourite works. The only thing that impressed me was the unearthly keyed trumpet which, in the last act, represented the ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... for a few keyed-up moments I imagined all existence as beautiful, but that my inner vision was cleared to the truth so that I saw the actual loveliness which is always there, but which we so rarely perceive; and I knew that every man, woman, bird, and tree, every living thing before me, was extravagantly ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... then, our economy should be able to provide a job for everyone who wants to work. We must also enable our workers to adapt to the rapidly changing nature of the workplace. And I will propose substantial, new Federal commitments keyed to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... yet his speech was not bravado, but the honest expression of his mind. He was keyed up to a mood in which he feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... tale there comes a moment of puzzled hesitation. One way of approach is set beside another for choice, and a third contrived for better choice. Still the puzzle persists, all because the one precisely right way might seem—shall we say intense, high keyed, clamorous? Yet if one way is the only right way, why pause? Courage! Slightly dazed, though certain, let us be on, into the shrill thick of ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... passed a caressing hand along his back, a snapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharging its pent magnetism at the contact. Every part, brain and body, nerve tissue and fibre, was keyed to the most exquisite pitch; and between all the parts there was a perfect equilibrium or adjustment. To sights and sounds and events which required action, he responded with lightning-like rapidity. Quickly as a husky dog could leap to defend from attack or ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... a noted painter once said to me: These semi-invalids neither need nor deserve our commiseration, for in reality the beggars have the advantage of us. Their nerves are always sensitive and keyed to pitch, while we husky chaps have to flog ours up to the point. We must dig painfully through the outer layers of flesh before we can get at the spirit, while the invalids are all spirit. [Footnote: From Landscape ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... order for attention runs down the column. Attention it is. Another order follows, higher-keyed, longer drawn out, and with one sharp "clack!" the sword-bayoneted rifles go to the shoulders of as fine a battalion as any in ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... best," said Henley, as he clucked to his horse, "but Long will be powerfully disappointed. He's got sort of keyed up over this thing, and it has gone and unsettled him. I reckon he's got a pretty picture of you in his mind, and keeps it before him ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... afterwards, an elderly gentleman, whose eyes had been kept close during the greater part of the time which had passed, suddenly leaned forward; the "congregation" followed his example in a crack, and for ten minutes they prayed, the elderly gentleman leading the way in a rather high-keyed voice, which he singularly modulated. But there was not much of "the old Foxian orgasm" manifested by him; he was serene, did not shake, was not agonised. He finished as he began without any warning; the general assemblage was seated in a second; ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... polishing the great machines as if they were so many sacred elephants. Mechanical parts, pumps, jacks, boxes of tools, cans of oil, extra tires and wheels, cushions and innumerable odds and ends were scattered about each building and everybody seemed to be keyed up to an extreme nervous pitch. On every side could be heard remarks about the cars and drivers, their records and their chances for winning ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... was exceeding Sweet, and wrought into a variety of inflections. It put me in mind of those heavenly Airs that are played from the tops of closely-packed wheeled Vehicles, from many-keyed Concertinas upon Bank-Holidays. My Heart melted away in Secret Raptures. By which signs I—who had read my Spectator at the Free Library—knew well that I was in the company of a Genius! It is only Genii who drop upon one suddenly and unannounced, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... act of Dyck had proved him just and capable. He had rigidly insisted on gun practice; he had keyed up the marines to a better spirit, and churlishness had been promptly punished. He was, in effect, what the sailors called a "rogue," or a "taut one"—seldom smiling, gaunt of face but fearless of eye, and with a body free ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... daylight above him. "Gee Gosh!" he panted, as he got to his feet outside the cave. "It was him!" He clambered over the circle of stones and backed away, eyeing the entrance as though he expected to see the Hopi emerge at any moment. He crouched behind a boulder, his pulses racing. He was keyed to a high tension of expectancy. In fact, he was in a decidedly receptive mood for that which immediately happened. He noticed that his horse, a hundred yards or so up the valley, was circling the cedar and pulling back on the reins. ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... we feel we "ought to." In the case of music it has happily been at last recognized that if you have not an "ear" you cannot care for it, but two generations ago, owing to the unfortunate cheapness and popularity of keyed instruments, it was widely held that one half of humanity, the feminine half, "ought" to play the piano. This "ought" is, of course, like most social "oughts," a very complex product, but its ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... who stood looking solicitously down at him and licked his lips. There was an acknowledgment which decency required his making in their presence, and he keyed himself for a ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the other for its perpetuation. . . . To every man came first the call of passion; then the love-hunger for a perfect mate. The latter had come to him to-night as Diane stood in the doorway, a slender, vibrant flame of life keyed exquisitely for the finer, subtler things and hating ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... snow, as I came out of my door three crows were perched in an apple tree but a few rods away. One of them uttered a peculiar caw as they saw me, but they did not fly away. It was not the usual high-keyed note of alarm. It may have meant "Look out!" yet it seemed to me like the asking of alms: "Here we are, three hungry neighbors of yours; give us food." So I brought out the entrails and legs of a chicken, and placed them upon the snow. The crows very soon discovered what I had done, ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... I took the card and obeyed implicitly. It is needless to say that I was keyed up to the greatest pitch of excitement during my interview with the health commissioner, when I finally got in to see him. I hadn't talked to him long before a great light struck me, and I began to see what Craig was driving at. The commissioner saw ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... rumble of a train and a short high-keyed shriek—we used to make just such shrieking sounds by blowing into keys when we were boys. The St. Petersburg express was approaching end foremost—the train with the special sleeping-car holding the balance of ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... been keyed up to the pitch of his nerves, for to me the night remained as voiceless as a subterranean cavern. I became intensely irritated with him; within my mind I cried out against this infatuated pantomime of his. And then, of a sudden, there was a sound—the dying ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... at last, as mornings do. With the first streaks of the gray dawn Anthony heard a little, high-keyed, strange cry—new to his ears. He leaped up the stairs, four at a time, and paused, breathless, by the closed door of the blue-and-white room. After what seemed to him an interminable time Mrs. Dingley came out. At sight of Anthony ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... hour ago I saw and heard some things which seemed to point to you. Maybe if my nerves weren't keyed up as they are I wouldn't have thought so. But, anyway, I did, and that's what ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... the black watches of the night And heard the low intoning of the main, A muffled heart-beat, an unceasing strain Of music keyed to dolor and delight. Now sorrow seemed ascendent, now the height Of rapture beat in the sublime refrain, Until the whole world's happiness and pain Had echoed utterance ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard
... frictional clutch, and chain pinion, and from this pinion a steel chain passes around the chain-wheel, H, which is free to revolve upon the axle, and carries within it the differential pinion, gearing with the bevel-wheel, B squared, keyed upon the sleeve of the loose tram-wheel, T squared, and with the bevel-wheel, B, keyed upon the axle, to which the other tram-wheel, T, is attached. To the other tram-wheels no gear is connected; one of them is fast to the axle, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... musical nicety could not touch—and the first two lines, at least, are good hymn-writing. Few of the best sacred lyrics have been sung with purer sentiment and more affectionate fervor than "The Sweet By-and-By." To any company keyed to sympathy by time, place, and condition, the feeling of the ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... Garry knew, that taxed Brian's patience to the utmost, plunged him into grotesque dilemmas and kept him keyed to an abnormal alertness of memory. Always his sense of loyalty revolted at the notion of denying any ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... any reasonable mortal," returned Dexter. He was keyed to a high pitch. He felt that, at any instant, something might snap and ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... Charlotte could bring her work into the sitting-room, she sat facing the glass door. She was not exactly happy; she was too strangely excited for happiness; but she was keenly awakened and alert. Every nerve in her seemed keyed up to its ultimate tension, and if the shadow of a cloud passed, even if a red leaf fell outside, she looked out ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... begun to feel somewhat like a wild creature who hears the pursuers on its track, and has the fear of capture added to the fatigue of flight. But when this excitement had gone too far and had neared the limit of exhaustion came Tryon's letter, with the resulting surprise and consternation. Rena had keyed herself up to a heroic pitch to answer it; but when the inevitable reaction came, she was overwhelmed with a sickening sense of her own weakness. The things which in another sphere had constituted her ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... your point. It's hard enough to sleep in the daytime anyway, but when you're all keyed up, it's impossible. Didn't lunch make you ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... had struggled; and the same shout was lifted up by those two children—the one of four, and the other of fourscore—the one with the flaxen curls of childhood, and the other with the white locks of age—the one voice with the shrill treble of infancy, and the other with the high-keyed tones of decrepitude. Those people, who had seen the rebel army pass a few hours before, now felt the ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... change. As of old, in his weariness he looked to the woods and streams for refreshment, for although poorly adapted to the wringing of his daily bread from the soil, he was nevertheless exquisitely keyed to the harmonies of Nature, and her touch upon ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... joinery embraces: 1. Exercising in sawing and planing to dimensions. 2 Application, or box nailed together. 3 Mortise and tenon joints; a plain mortise and tenon; an open dovetailed mortise and tenon (dovetailed halving); a dovetailed keyed mortise and tenon. 4. Splices. 5. Common dovetailing. 6. Lap dovetailing and rabbeting. 7. Blind or secret dovetail. 8. Miter-box. 9. Carpenter's trestle. 10. Panel door. 11. Roof truss. 12. Section of king-post ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... valley became hooped about as if by a million giant fireflies. Five nights had I strayed, like a lost soul, through an unreal wilderness, harkening to the drone of stories told in an unfamiliar tongue, to the minor-keyed dirges of an unknown race, to the thumping of countless moccasined feet in the measures of queer dances. The odors of a savage people had begun to pall on me, and the sound of a strange language to annoy; I longed for another white man, for a ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... the keyed tenons, the length of mortise must be slightly in excess of the width of the tenon—about 1/8-in. of play to each side of each tenon. With a shelf of the width specified for this table, if such allowance is not made so that ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... a high-keyed voice, was a poor speaker; but that did not prevent him from holding multitudes spell-bound. They came from afar to hear him tell of the love of Christ. He gazed upon visions of Christ's loveliness, arose in raptures of joy as he discoursed on Christ's glory, and seemed at times as ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... with his hand on the sill. It touched hers and closed over it. Then, somewhere from the dark came a night-sound heard only in June, the broken dream-trill of a bird in its sleep. When she spoke, her voice was low, keyed as the dream-voice from ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... white heat, Or spits her fire out in some dim manger of a hall, Or at a protest meeting on the Square, Her lit eyes kindling the mob... Or dances madly at a festival. Each dawn finds her a little whiter, Though up and keyed to the long day, Alert, yet weary... like a bird That all night long has ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... enough. Every sheep's voice is keyed up to a different pitch; they all sound different some way or another. And every lamb has a little voice of ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... of physical hygiene for the student, we cannot stress too much the value of relaxation. The life of a student is a trying one. It exercises chiefly the higher brain centres and keeps the organism keyed up to a high pitch. These centres become fatigued easily and ought to be rested occasionally. Therefore, the student should relax at intervals, and engage in something remote from study. To forget books for an entire week-end ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... upward to a stone gallery which ran all round the wall, with doors communicating with the apartments above. The hall ceiling, two storeys above the pavement, was of stone, groined; the ribs of the groins boldly moulded, and massively keyed in the centre with a stone of considerable size, boldly carved with the representation of a dragon or griffin coiled into a circle. Over the great fireplace hung a trophy of rusty and dinted armour, surmounted by another trophy of faded and dusty silken ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... moving from place to place enjoying new homes and new scenery! Here the fierce child of Nature lived amidst the grandest temples of God's building, where the song of the hermit thrush as old as these fragrant aisles, still rings like a newly-strung lute; while the wind among the myriad keyed pines thrums a whispering accompaniment and the yellow and white birch ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... her wandering son coolly, but Rachael never knew it. Her radiant dream—or was it an awakening?—went on. Her mother, a neat, faded, querulous little woman, whose one great service was in sparing her husband any of the jars of life, was keyed to frantic anxiety lest Jerry be unappreciated, now that he had come back. Clara met the few men to whom her husband introduced her in London with feverish eagerness; afraid—after fifteen years—to say one ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... first two years are hardest because it takes all that time for a fellow to get himself keyed up to the gait of study that is required in the government academies. But won't you let us talk about something that's really pleasant, girls?" Dave asked, with his charming smile. "Suppose we talk about yourselves. My, but you girls are good ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... silence for a minute more, then he walked quietly out. Offended? Not he. He had not listened to invective from that Celtic tongue for eight years not to know that high tension over a coming critical operation almost invariably meant brilliant success. But even he had never seen Red Pepper keyed up quite so taut as this. It must be a tremendous risk he meant to take. Success to him—the queer, ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... than they did to us as we tore over the country from Ossining to East Point, a silent party, yet keyed up by an excitement that none of ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... has built a house for a man, and has not keyed his work, and the wall has fallen, that builder shall make that wall firm ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... followed the night, but the whole battalion was keyed up with intense expectation for the attack which they knew was fixed for the night following. With expectation mingled curiosity. They knew all about raiding; that was their own specialty, but they were curious as to the new style of fighting which they knew to be awaiting them, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... thought she was listening, nerves keyed to sense sounds inaudible to him. Then, as he sat, fascinated, scarcely breathing lest the enchantment break, leaving him alone in the forest with the memory of a dream, a faint aromatic odor seemed to grow ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... Taylor," I said. I keyed for Stores; the object must have hit about there. "This is the Captain," I ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... Eric, keyed to a wild and excited perception, saw the captain of the steamer in the water, a few feet away, and swam to him. He found him conscious but unable to swim, the jerk from the breeches-buoy having twisted ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... down at her, not seeing Madeira because of her, nodded approvingly, the approval being for her honesty, her sweetness, her vitality. Something, perhaps the near climax for her father's enterprise at Canaan, seemed to have keyed her to a high pitch. Steering, who by now had had opportunities to see her often, had never seen her so beautiful, nor so quick of expression in word and look. Her voice thrilled him; and while he was thrilling, Madeira's ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... all keyed up to a pitch of excitement that made them forget they were about to face danger and death. They shouted as they swept past, and the poor villagers, filled with a momentary enthusiasm, sent ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... solitary ride such as had, before now, drawn much of the lonely ache out of his heart and keyed him up to the life which he must live and which chafed his spirit more than even he realized. Instead of such slender comfort, he was forced to ride beside the girl who had hurt him—so close that his knee sometimes brushed her ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... days, when the world was young, there were no automobiles nor flying-machines to make one wonder; nor were there railway trains, nor telephones, nor mechanical inventions of any sort to keep people keyed up to a high pitch of excitement. Men and women lived simply and quietly. They were Nature's children, and breathed fresh air into their lungs instead of smoke and coal gas; and tramped through green meadows ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... it. The seven ships had to keep in formation. They had to start off on one course—with a slight spread as a safety measure—and at one time. So the firing-circuits were keyed to relays in series. Only when all seven firing-keys were down at the same time would any of the jatos fire. Then ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... our advantage that we'd acted without hesitation, and I don't think we'd have been able to do that except that we'd been all set to kill each other when he dropped in. Our muscles and nerves and minds were keyed for instant ruthless attack. And some "civilized" people still say that the urge to ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... life was "flat, stale, and unprofitable." Judith didn't realize how tired she was; mentally and emotionally she had been keyed up to a very high pitch during the last two or three months and now had come the inevitable reaction. No wonder she was dull and miserable. But next morning the sun was shining brightly, there was a fresh, clean-washed feeling in the air, and as Judith stood at the open casement window in ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... separate. They are all drinking from the same fountain. Where an upstream demand is great enough or is going to be great enough in a short span of years to warrant major storage, that storage must be keyed in with all other demands that it might meet or help to meet, including that at Washington. Where an area of lesser need is shut off by its location from sharing in such major storage, groundwater development or headwater reservoirs may well be the answer, but ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... optimism of the Westerners isn't really due to the sunshine they get. Who could be gloomy under such golden skies? Every pore of my body has a throat and is shouting out a Tarentella Sincera of its own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough ticking to make ten big pillows, and unbleached linen ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... were fully exposed, to the wonderment of the little boys sitting in the gallery behind, and to none more than our young musician. At eight years of age he began to play upon his father's old fife, which, however, would not sound D; but his mother remedied the difficulty by buying for him a one-keyed flute; and shortly after, a gentleman of the neighbourhood presented him with a flute with four silver keys. As the boy made no progress with his "book learning," being fonder of cricket, fives, and boxing, than of his school ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... painting, music, or a soft landscape, affects them voluptuously. But it is an outrage for them to attribute this peculiarity of constitutional structure, or temperamental key, to everybody else. There are persons built after a nobler pattern, keyed to a loftier music, susceptible of a more undefiled and eternal stir of the atoms of consciousness. They look on a beautiful woman, with a delight circling purely in the mind, with a serene melodious joy, like that given them by an exquisite picture, statue, or landscape. ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger |
