"Theme" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the Emperor Gallienus, and occurred probably in the third century. Medals of many kinds of metal have been frequently found in excavating, which prove the period; but the learned have not been silent on so tempting a theme, and the history of the Arenes de Poitiers has occupied the attention of all the antiquaries of France. It appears that the size was greater ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Silver Fox Patrol when on one of their vacation trips to the wonderland of the great Northwest. How apparent disaster is bravely met and overcome by Thad and his friends, forms the main theme of the story, which abounds in plenty ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and Gingolphus, and the first act of the comedy consists in their observations upon the promoters of learning, Reuchlin, Erasmus, and Faber Stapulensis, who afterwards make their appearance, and the discussion becomes general, but no impression can be made upon the stupid and prejudiced monks. The theme is, of course, the inutility of the new learning, Hebrew and Greek and correct Latinity. One short ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... Ball and the Grasshopper's Feasts Excited the spleen of the Birds and the Beasts: For their mirth and good cheer—of the Bee was the theme, And the Gnat blew his horn, as he danc'd in the beam. 'Twas humm'd by the Beetle, 'twas buzz'd by the Fly, And sung by the myriads that sport through the sky. The Quadrupeds listen'd with sullen displeasure, But the tenants of air were enraged beyond measure. The PEACOCK display'd his bright ...
— The Peacock 'At Home:' - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball • Catherine Ann Dorset
... course struck by these phenomena, and everybody has his own way of accounting for them; it will not, therefore, appear presumptuous in us to offer a word on the common theme. Let it be premised, however, that we do not undertake a scientific solution of the problem, but only a suggestion or two as to what the problem itself really is. In a difficult or complicated case, a great deal is often accomplished ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... few recent novels which have come out of England will compare with this story in two points—absolute conciseness of form and analysis of motive.... Here is a theme of vital truthfulness and Mr. Louis Zangwill has dealt with it with the hand of a master ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... arena,' I still said to myself, 'were first fought out the chief destinies of the world'; and so, played upon by an unending theme, I ate and drank in a reverie, still wondering, and then lay down beneath the shade of a little tree that stood alone upon that edge of a new world. And wondering, I fell ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... consider the magnitude of the prize we contended for, the doubtful nature of the contest, and the favorable manner in which it has terminated, we shall find the greatest possible reason for gratitude and rejoicing. This is a theme that will afford infinite delight to every benevolent and liberal mind, whether the event in contemplation be considered as a source of present enjoyment, or the parent of future happiness; and we shall have equal occasion to felicitate ourselves on the lot which Providence ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Boundless luxury,' he thought, 'and thirst for excitement, have raised a set of writers who show a strong sympathy for all that is most opposite to the very foundations of English life.' The 'Saturday Review' articles enlarge upon the same theme. He will not accept legislators whose favourite costume is the cap and bells, or admit that men who 'can make silly women cry can, therefore, dictate principles of law and government.' The defects of our system are due to profound historical causes. 'Freedom and ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... midst of one of his thoughtful moods, with Bob for his theme, and asking himself what he should do if Bob did begin to thrash him first time they were on shore; and he had just come to the conclusion that he would not let Bob thrash him if he could help it, when Bob suddenly ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... half-religious, half-courtier-like adoration, whether it be triumphantly successful or sighingly despairing. The man and the woman—or rather, I should say, the knight and the lady, for mediaeval love is an aristocratic privilege, and the love of lower folk is not a theme for song—the knight and the lady, therefore, seem always, however knit together by habit, nay, by inextricable meshes of guilt, somehow at the same distance from one another. Once they have seen and loved each other, their passion ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... say on his favorite theme, viz.: the settling of the immense interior and bringing its trade to ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... in his eighteenth year has furnished the subject of a volume, which even the deficient animation of its writer has not deprived of attraction.[94] If the juvenile age of Prince Henry has proved such a theme for our admiration, we may be curious to learn what this extraordinary youth was even at an earlier period. Authentic anecdotes of children are rare; a child has seldom a biographer by his side. We have indeed been recently treated with "Anecdotes of Children," in the "Practical ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Books (the Shadows of Them) Ventures, on an Old Theme British Literature Darwinism (then Furthermore) "Society" The Tramp and Strike Questions Democracy in the New World Foundation Stages—then Others General Suffrage, Elections, Etc. Who Gets the Plunder? Friendship (the Real Article) Lacks and Wants Yet ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... gardens, or of costly gardens whether great or only costly, we here say nothing. Our theme is such a garden as a householder may himself make and keep or for which, at most, he needs professional advice only in its first planning, and for its upkeep one gardener, with one occasional helper in pressing seasons or in ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... them, although we cannot pretend to render full justice to such a theme. And, returning for a moment to the considerations with which we started, we can truly say that, in the whole range of modern history, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a national life to compare with that of poor, despised ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... power to chant to rest that sombre past which memory kept as a funeral theme for ever on its vibrating strings? Was there at last a file for the serpent, that had so long made its lair in ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the division was encamped on the north side of Bull Run, near the Gainesville or Warrenton turnpike, where we remained undisturbed until the evening of the 18th, when the forward movement began which culminated on the 19th in the battle of Buckland Mills, which will be the theme ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... without art, book, grammar, or precept, whipping, or the expense of a tear, I had, by that time, learned to speak as pure Latin as my master himself, for I had no means of mixing it up with any other. If, for example, they were to give me a theme after the college fashion, they gave it to others in French; but to me they were to give it in bad Latin, to turn it into that which was good. And Nicolas Grouchy, who wrote a book De Comitiis Romanorum; Guillaume Guerente, who wrote a comment upon Aristotle: ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... sell at ten times their value they were for resistance to the death. Now that they have nothing more to sell, they talk of capitulating. Ah! when one thinks of these scandals one is almost inclined to blow one's brains out. (Laughter and applause.) A fourth citizen takes up the same theme with the same energy and conviction. He knows, he says, a restaurant which is frequented by bank clerks, and where last week there were eaten two cows and a calf, whilst the ambulance opposite was without fresh meat. (Violent murmurs.) This is a part of the ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... same nature as that which is derived from pursuits which are commonly regarded as purely intellectual. I mean, that the source of pleasure is exactly the same as in most of my problems in morphology—that you have the theme in one of the old masters' works followed out in all its endless variations, always appearing and always reminding you of unity ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... First Series of Jedediah Cleishbotham was, as Scott told me, to include four separate tales illustrative of four districts of the country, in the like number of volumes; but, his imagination once kindled upon any theme, he could not but pour himself out freely—so that notion ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... need your services." I recalled how in his last moments I had promised him I would carry out his wishes. There was nothing else left for me to do but to go into those dark places. But there was the rub; and every Sunday evening Mr. Washington thundered that same theme: "Go into the darkest places, the places where you are most needed, and there give your life with little thought of self." I knew about those dark places. I had been born in one of them. I had been spending ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... the thin, hard hand appreciatively. He knew more of Martin than Martin suspected, for Marcia Lowe had made it her first duty, after the Markhams' arrival, to get into touch with them. Not Sandy alone had been the theme of the little doctor's discourse; Martin's grim and self-sacrificing fight in her cabin was given in detail with ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... of the landscape around. As Antonina beheld the brightened fields and the shadowed woods, here mingled, there succeeding each other, stretched far onward and onward until they joined the distant mountains, that eloquent voice of nature, whose audience is the human heart, and whose theme is eternal love, spoke inspiringly to her attentive senses. She stretched out her arms as she looked with steady and enraptured gaze upon the bright view before her, as if she longed to see its beauties resolved into a single and living form—into a spirit human enough to be ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... Wilts Journal the songs sung by the boys and girls of the Radstock National Schools on Empire Day included "Raise the Flagon High." We cannot but think this Bacchic theme a little unsuitable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... Great Play. He had urged Courtlandt, much against the latter's will this day, to come up with him, simply that he might set a little scene such as this promised to be and study it from the vantage of the prompter. He knew that the principal theme of all great books, of all great dramas, was antagonism, antagonism between man and woman, though by a thousand other names has it been called. He had often said, in a spirit of raillery, that this ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... admired and envied him. What qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valour? Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and lithe; and he had a certain indefinable grace of gesture and address which fits itself only to one who, by descent and breeding, has been "to the manner born." His hair was dark, and almost silky fine; and the poise of his head would be a theme for the pen or the pencil of Rossetti. His eye was dark as night, but it revealed an immense range of expression; a capacity for great tenderness, and passion without bound. His nose approximated the aquiline type; his firm mouth ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... difficult to overlook him even in the midst of a distinguished circle, had been conversing eagerly with the Arab, who, in the course of their two-days' acquaintance, had inspired him with a regard which was fully reciprocated. At last Orion had been the theme of their discourse, and the physician, a restless toiler who could not like any man whose life was one of idle enjoyment, though he did full justice to his brilliant gifts and well-applied studies, had judged him far more hardly than the older man. To the leech all forms of human ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... material, however, clustering around each period of developing life is so great that selection must be made. Therefore only those facts illuminating the chosen theme of ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... qualities, are so familiar to every native and inhabitant of Guernsey—they have, as it were, become so much the common property of the community—they have been so much the objects of their study—so constantly the theme of their praise and admiration—that it may seem almost a work of supererogation in us to make any observation on them on the present melancholy occasion. We cannot, however, allow the grave to close upon him without strewing it with some of those ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... selected a period to the romance of which other historical novelists have been singularly blind. The boyhood of Frederick the Great and the strange wooing of his charming sister Wilhelmina have afforded a theme, rich in its revelation of human nature and full of ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Nature, both having for their theme "Skin-furrows on the Hand," solicit information on the subject from China.[1] As the subject is considered to have a bearing on medical jurisprudence and ethnology as well, this report is a suitable vehicle for responding to ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... sympathy in the United States, and its effect on religion there was largely to increase a sense of the worth of man. 'Universalism,' the final restoration of all, became a conspicuous doctrine with some. The need for practical measures to uplift the general life here was a theme more to the mind of others. The distinctly 'Unitarian' trend was from the first associated with this eager attention to the higher culture. Harvard College, in the very heart of New England, rapidly developed into a fruitful source of the ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... again Ballantyne is on familiar ground. The theme is the trials and tribulations suffered by the early settlers, the pioneers, in the lands to the east of the Rockies, in particular in the Red River basin, where it flows northwards into Lake Winnipeg. There ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... choice of his theme, and by the comprehensive manner in which he has treated it, Milton has been enabled by his poetic genius to give to the world in his 'Paradise Lost' a poem which, for sublimity of thought, loftiness of imagination, and beauty of expression ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... town, and Peak, unwilling to appear before strangers in a state of profuse perspiration, again moderated his friend's speed. They began to talk about the surrounding country, a theme which occupied them until the house was reached. With quick-beating heart, Godwin found himself at the gate by which he had already twice passed. Secure in the decency of his apparel, and no longer oppressed by bashfulness, he would have gone joyously forward but for the dread ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... the life of our design: Were it not glory that we more affected, Than the performance of our heaving spleens, I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector, She is a theme of honour and renown, A spur to ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Twain touches upon one of his favorite fancies: that life should begin with old age and approach strong manhood, golden youth, to end at last with pampered and beloved babyhood. Possibly he contemplated writing a story with this idea as the theme, but He seems never ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the letter go through and leave the settlement of the matter until after the war. Such a situation would in ordinary times have provided a theme for a three-volume ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... monotonously. The sun was just beginning to show itself; but the morning was misty and dreary, which, together with the aspect of desolation which the country exhibited, had an unfavourable effect on my spirits. I got down and walked, entering into conversation with the old man. He seemed to have but one theme, "the robbers," and the atrocities they were in the habit of practising in the very spots we were passing. The tales he told were truly horrible, and to avoid them I mounted again, and rode ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... is to be able to write well upon a theme, he must no longer feel interest in it; the thought which is to be soberly expressed must already be entirely past and must no longer personally concern the writer. So long as the artist invents and is inspired, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... scene and the day. I preached on Rest in Christ, and the service was very comforting to us both. How well I recall the same drive and a similar service early in September of 1876, when prayer was my theme! What sweet talks and sweeter fellowship we had together by the way, going and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... barriers of nature, so the waves of trial and misfortune break on frail humanity in crushing proximity. The second and third billows of misfortune are fast undulating on the tide of time, and will sweep over the home of Cassier, leaving it a miserable wreck, a theme for the sympathy and the ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... sterling veracity—the veracity which is faithful to the spirit and gambols only with the letter. The humor of that work lies in its sympathetic and creative insight quite as much as in the broad good-humor and imaginative whimsicality with which the author handles his theme. The caricature of a true artist gives a better likeness than ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... near, the activity of intrigue and the agitation of the populace increase; the citizens are divided into hostile camps, each of which assumes the name of its favorite candidate; the whole nation glows with feverish excitement; the election is the daily theme of the public papers, the subject of private conversation, the end of every thought and every action, the sole interest of the present. As soon as the choice is determined, this ardor is dispelled; and as a calmer season returns, the current of the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... quite at ease. Bouchette opened at once with an account of the great ball. He said that he had come purposely for that. He described all its phases in his own unconventional way, and especially dilated on the share that Pauline had taken in it. He grew eloquent on this particular theme. He assured M. Belmont that he ought to be proud of his daughter, as she had made the most favourable impression on all the guests ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... brings! But tell me, Master, what means this minor chord,—this undertone of sadness and of pathos that flows like a deep, unfathomable current throughout it all, and wailing, weaves itself about thy theme of love and happiness with its ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... earliest of these songs arose among the Breton followers of Hrodland or Roland; but they spread to Maine, to Anjou, to Normandy, until the theme became national. By the latter part of the eleventh century, when the form of the "Song of Roland" which we possess was probably composed, the historical germ of the story had almost disappeared under the mass of legendary accretion. Charlemagne, ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... all in the singing, any more than the wit is all in the saying. It is in the occasion, the surroundings, the spirit of which it is the expression. My friend said that the bird did not fully let itself out. Its song was a brilliant medley of notes,—no theme that I could detect,—like the lark's song in this respect; all the notes of the field and forest appeared to be the gift of this bird, but what tone! what accent! like ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... reason which makes our theme appear paradoxical as we maintain it, is the illusion or prejudice that we possess a more complete intuition of reality than we really do. One often hears people say that they have in their minds many important thoughts, but that they are not able to express ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... sensitive. He was a man who knew no guile, and his sweet and artless nature is faithfully portrayed in the outpourings of an impressionable, poetic soul. To dance with rustic maidens on the lea; to sing by moonlight to the piper's strain; to be happy, always happy, such is the theme, delicate and refined, of these ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... other malady of Russia, both expressed in what M. Haumand terms his "Hamletisme." But in Virgin Soil he is easy and almost negligent master of his instrument, and though he is an exile and at times a sharply embittered one, he gathers experience round his theme as only the artist can who has enriched leis art by having outlived his youth without forgetting its pangs, joys, ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... of course incapable of looking at history with the modern philosophic spirit, Livy was honest and candid, and possessed a wonderful command of his native language. His work enjoyed an unbounded popularity, not entirely to be accounted for by the fascinations of his theme, He realized his desire to present a clear and probable narrative, and no history of Rome can now be written without constant reference ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... the firm's reorganized; it's Hunter, Hunter & Brauer. Thorny told me about it. And Miss Sherman's married, and Miss Cottle's got consumption and has to live in Arizona, or somewhere. However,—-" she returned to the original theme, "Peter seems to be still enjoying life! Did you see the account of his hiring an electric delivery truck, and driving it about the city on Christmas Eve, to deliver his own Christmas presents, dressed up himself as an expressman? ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... my review I said all the usual things. I said that Mr. Blank's attitude to life was "subjective rather than objective" ... and a little lower down that it was "objective rather than subjective." I pointed out that in his treatment of the major theme he was a neo-romanticist, but I suggested that, on the other hand, he had nothing to learn from the Russians—or the Russians had nothing to learn from him; I forget which. And finally I said (and this is the cause of the whole trouble) that ANTOINE VAURELLE'S world-famous classic—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... result. The London Times, and other metropolitan, and many local, journals publish almost daily distressing accounts of the miserable tenements occupied by the men and women whose labor makes England the garden of fertility and beauty that it is. Editors are making the subject the theme of able and stirring articles, and some of the most eloquent members of Parliament are speaking of it with great power. It is not only generous but just to take the language in which the writers and orators of a country denounce the evils existing in it cum grano salis, or ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... which infects a man as a prolonged disease. There is something prodigious in Turgenev's insight into, and his inexhaustible richness, truthfulness, and freshness in the rendering of those emotions which have been the theme of all poets and ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... no scope for such a theme; and besides, painful as it is to pass to common topics, they claim their dues. Life, ay, common life, must go on as it ever did, and nothing shall tear that infinite web of mystery in which it walks enveloped. Ours, however, in these days, is rather a shaded life. Absence from home, a strange ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... fascination of the white way. Paga! There were dollars in the ground, and for the asking they could be made to grow. This lesson learned, Fetuao threw off her indifference and became as ardent a planter as her unwearied husband. Lying in his arms at night, her talk ran continually on the theme of which neither ever tired. Not a dollar was earned but was thus laid out in advance, with eager questioning and debate. The cow was bought, the horse, the chickens, the wire for fencing. It was a game in which each played a part with ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... there is a return to the theme or refrain of the piece, when the end is close upon us. One of the finest points in this play is, that after the successive episodes of the killing of Polonius, the madness and death of Ophelia, and the wild bout with Laertes at her burial, Hamlet reassumes his every-day nature, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... the grace to blush. "Aw," he explained in some confusion, "my prof's full of hooey. He doesn't know a C theme from an A one. He makes me ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... of the Apostle Paul cease in the age of the Paraclete, is a view we find still more strongly emphasised in the Montanist writings than in Irenaeus. In ad uxor. 3 Tertullian had already said: "Quod permittitur, bonum non est," and this proposition is the theme of many arguments in the Montanist writings. But the intention of finding a basis for the laws of the Paraclete, by showing that they existed in some fashion even in earlier times, involved Tertullian in many contradictions. It is evident from his writings ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... felt that he dared not press her further. He could not doubt the truth of her first assertion; but, alas! it availed only for his own private consciousness,—it took no stain from him, in the eyes of the world. Yet, now that the painful theme had been opened,—not less painful, it seemed, since the suspected dishonor did not exist,—he craved and decided to ask, enlightenment on ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... prose. Swift, we are told (perhaps a little too frequently), could write beautifully of a broomstick; which may strike a common person as a marvel of dexterity. After a while, the journalist is apt to find that it is the perfect theme which proves to be the hardest to treat adequately. Clothe a broomstick with fancies, even of the flimsiest tissue paper, and you get something more or less like a fairy-king's sceptre; but take the Pompadour's ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... circumference of the globe. You say we have expelled Union families by thousands. The truth is, not a single family has been expelled from the Confederate States, that I am aware of; but, on the contrary, the moderation of our Government toward traitors has been a fruitful theme of denunciation by its enemies and well-meaning friends of our cause. You say my Government, by acts of Congress, has confiscated "all debts due Northern men for goods sold and delivered." The truth is, our Congress gave ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... that on Achaia's hills "Rove, was I seen; none closer beat than I "The thickets; none than I more skilful spread "Th' ensnaring net. Yet though no fame I sought "For beauty; though robust, I bore the name "Of beauteous. Whilst the constant theme of praise, "My features fair, to me no pleasure gave; "What other nymphs inspire with joyful pride, "Corporeal charms, did but my blushes raise. "To please I thought a crime. Once tir'd with sport, "The Stymphalidian forest I had left: "Warm was the day; I with ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... love-lorn people in the Saturday Storyteller, which found its way into the homes of the ranchers, but he had always sworn or laughed at their sufferings as a part of the play. He felt quite differently about these cases. Love was no longer a theme for jest, an abstraction, a far-off trouble; it had become a hunger more intolerable than any he had ever known, a pain that made all others he had experienced transitory and ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... pacifying England by concession: this year you are for pacifying Ireland by coercion. How can you vindicate your consistency?" Surely my honourable friend cannot but know that nothing is easier than to write a theme for severity, for clemency, for order, for liberty, for a contemplative life, for a active life, and so on. It was a common exercise in the ancient schools of rhetoric to take an abstract question, and to harangue first on one side and then on the other. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... War is its theme but not its purpose. War breeds hatred, horror, pestilence and famine, yet from its tears and ashes eventually must rise the clean white spirit ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... heard much of you, Miss Paget," said Gustave presently, "and of your devotion to your father. He has no more favourite theme than your goodness." ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... be so; it may be that I am growing old, but it seems astonishing to me sometimes that the world does not grow a little weary of endless variations on the same theme.' ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know;—that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost ...
— Meno • Plato
... the pains to write down the proverbial or pithy phrases I have heard, or if I had sooner thought of noting the Yankeeisms I met with in my reading, I might have been able to do more justice to my theme. But I have done all I wished in respect to pronunciation, if I have proved that where we are vulgar, we have the countenance of very good company. For, as to the jus et norma loquendi, I agree with Horace and those who have paraphrased or commented him, from Boileau to Gray. I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of Preserving Health is the only production by which he is likely to be remembered. The theme which he has chosen is one, in which no man who lives long does not at some time or other feel an interest; and he has handled it with considerable skill. In the first Book, on Air, he has interwoven very pleasing descriptions both of particular places and of situations ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... perpetual Lectureship in connection with the School of Religion of the University, to be restricted in its scope to a defense and advocacy of the Christian religion. The lectures shall be delivered at such intervals, from time to time, as shall be deemed best by the Board of Trust; and the particular theme and lecturer will be determined by the Theological Faculty. Said lecture shall always be reduced to writing in full, and the manuscript of the same shall be the property of the University, to be published or disposed of by the Board of ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... will speak! The time has come for it. Besides, I'm quite ready to discuss this new theme; it is ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... personage has long been the theme, not only of children's early study and terror, it will be gratifying to peruse the character of that being who really existed, and who was distinguished in horror and derision by the strange ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... glad of such a companion, and such a theme," said the old gentleman, with a smile. "Well, Laurence, if our oaken chair, like the wooden Palladium of Troy, was connected with the country's fate, yet there appears to have been no supernatural obstacle to its ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... tremens, directing all their remarks to him, and telling him what fearful objects, such as snakes and rats, were always seen by the victims of this horrible disease. When the conversation had waxed high on this theme, one of the number stepped out of the room, and from a trap which was at hand let a large rat into the room. None of his friends appeared to see it, but the young man who was to be the victim seized a chair and hurled it at the rat, completely ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Meissonier and Bouguereau. And a print, after all, is only a print. He's slightly ashamed to admire beauty as mere beauty, contending that at the core of all such things there should be a moral. So we pow-wowed for an hour and more over the threadbare old theme and the most I could get out of Gershom was that the lady in The Old-fashioned Gown reminded him of me, only I was more vital. But all that talk about landscape and composition and line and tone made me momentarily homesick ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... And so, while she did not repel him, or offend his sensitive spirit, she, in some way which he could not exactly define, made him feel that he must defer the thing to him so important, and talk on other subjects. There was one theme on which she was always eager to talk and to get him to talk, and to her it never grew stale or threadbare. It was about what he and she had learned or could remember of the book of heaven, and the good white ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... documents, he was cordially received by Sir Peregrine. He dined and spent the evening at the Cottage. In the course of conversation he referred to the project of establishing a Court of Equity—which by this time was no secret—and was surprised to find that the theme was distasteful to his host, who, in a tone not to be misunderstood, remarked: "Sir, you have not got your Court of Equity yet." "The words," wrote Mr. Willis,[96] "made some impression at the time, and subsequent ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the people of color in Louisiana might be written. It is a theme too large to be treated save by a master hand. It is interwoven with the poetry, the romance, the glamour, the commercial prosperity, the financial ruin, the rise and fall of the State. It is hung about with garlands, like the garlands of the cemeteries on All Saints Day; it may be ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... the last words that he uttered will forgotten be by few: "I have bravely fought them, mother—I have bravely fought for you!" Let his memory be green in the hearts who love the South, And his noble deeds the theme that ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... subject has been given out to the public, while separate phases of it have been minutely discussed by competent critics, so that at every point there is new temptation for the biographer to expand the theme where the scope of his work ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... regard to this subject, and a hundred years later, in our own time, Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer, following up the work of various intermediary observers, has given the subject much attention, making it the central theme of his work on The Dawn of Astronomy.(1) Lockyer's researches make it clear that in the main the temples of Egypt were oriented with reference to the point at which the sun rises on the day of the summer solstice. The time of the solstice had peculiar interest for the Egyptians, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... appointed, who spoke nothing but Magyar and some words of German.... However, by taking in this way a few examples of Magyar methods, one may be accused of having chosen merely those which illustrate one's theme. It would be hazardous to draw conclusions as to Magyar officers in general because a certain Lieutenant Chaby, who, during the War, found himself quartered on a Serbian family of the name of Stejvovi['c] at Priboj ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... an icy and death-like constitution, that he neither loved his friends nor hated his enemies. But, be this as it may, I see no reason that a difference between Mr. Washington and me should be made a theme of discord with other people. There are those who may see merit in both, without making themselves partisans of either, and with this reflection I close ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... weakness and incapacity, he only acted, when he did act, behind the scenes. Ministerial exertions were also paralysed by another cause. A prevalent notion existed that there was a mysterious power about the court which worked to the detriment of the public good. This was a constant theme of invective among the opposition, and, it would seem, not without good reason. But there was another cause of obstruction to the measures formed by government. This was found in the democratical spirit, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... not know in what order the chapters of The Parts Men Play were written, but it seems to me that as Mr. Baxter gets to grip with the realities of his theme, he begins to lose a certain looseness of touch which marks his opening pages. If so, he is showing the power of development, and to the artist this power is everything. The writer who is without it is a mere static consciousness ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... immediately evinced him to be the author of the distich, and Bathyllus became the theme of public ridicule. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... a great stroke. He went back to the original theme. "You ask me where my duty lies!" His great voice rose and rang through the hall magnificently: "I reply—'first to my State and her needs'! Is that answer enough? If it be necessary that I should answer for my personal loyalty to one man or another then I ask you: Shall it go to the friend ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... the theme of mutual felicitation were we assured of experiencing similar moderation and justice from the French Republic, between which and the United States differences have unhappily arisen; but this is denied us by the ultimate ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... being in a passion Mr Sadler will not disclaim. His is a theme, he tells us, on which "it were impious to be calm;" and he boasts that, "instead of conforming to the candour of the present age, he has imitated the honesty of preceding ones, in expressing himself with the utmost plainness and freedom throughout." If ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... codified our evolving strategic doctrine in a number of interrelated and mutually supporting Presidential Directives. Their overarching theme is to provide a doctrinal basis, and the specific program to implement it, that tells the world that no potential adversary of the United States could ever conclude that the fruits of his aggression ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... almost without a place in our literature. Other rivers, historically lesser rivers, have had their stories told again and again, their beauties lauded, and their praises sung. But this great pioneer waterway, fit theme for an ode, is to-day our ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... who sate for Salisbury, especially distinguished himself. He had always, he said, looked with dread and aversion on standing armies; and recent experience had strengthened those feelings. He then ventured to touch on a theme which had hitherto been studiously avoided. He described the desolation of the western counties. The people, he said, were weary of the oppression of the troops, weary of free quarters, of depredations, of still fouler crimes which the law called felonies, but for which, when perpetrated ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... defiance, were a constant interruption, and stones thrown against the windows a warning of coming danger. But through it all this brave Southern woman stood unmoved, except by the intense earnestness of her own great theme. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... since in the Christian Church the rise of error has been the means of calling forth the clearest statements of doctrine. The ruling impulse, however, of his thinking, as of his life, was ever Christ, and it was his lifelong devotion to this exhaustless theme that made ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... times he was on the point of speaking on the subject. Once, indeed, he made a playful allusion to the flautist of the bower that was provocative of no more than a reddened cheek and an interlude of silence. But tacitly the lover was a theme for strict avoidance. Not even the Baron had a word to say on that, and they were numberless the topics they discussed in this ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... particular gratitude. My one concern was that grandmother should keep every one away from me. If the story once got abroad, I would never hear the last of it. I could well imagine what the old men down at the drug-store would do with such a theme. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... brightly, but there was in her tone, an undercurrent of feeling which touched Helen, and betrayed the fact that this return to the old theme was not wholly without a cause. Mrs. Greyson divined that Edith was not happy, and with the keenness of womanly instinct she divined also that there was not perfect harmony between Mrs. Fenton and her husband. She looked ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... that in speaking of his troubles we were led on to this heart-stirring theme? Yes, I have seen them, the sweet angels; and I tell you also that I have seen their mother. I insisted on going to her when I heard her history ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... to whose genius we owe the obese robin perched upon a horse-shoe, or the churchyard by moonlight after (apparently) a severe spangle-storm. Here again a poet, whose eye in a fine frenzy rolling proclaims an inspiration, or at least some subtle variant upon a familiar theme. He stoops and, even as I watch, has traced swiftly, with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... admiring the diligence and erudition of M. Martin, we cannot for a moment suppose that the tale was told to Solon by an Egyptian priest, nor can we believe that Solon wrote a poem upon the theme which was thus suggested to him—a poem which disappeared in antiquity; or that the Island of Atlantis or the antediluvian Athens ever had any existence except in the imagination of Plato. Martin ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... talk of glory and the guards, Of fighting heroes, and their great rewards! Our eyes behold you glow with martial flame, Our ears attend the never-ceasing theme. Fast from your tongue the rousing accents flow, And horror darkens on your sable brow! We hear the thunder of the rolling war, And see red vict'ry shouting from ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... subjects present themselves even in other countries. The end of it all surely no man can see, unless it be that collective humanity is destined to perish from a rupture of its tympanum. That is a theme for a later hour, and meanwhile perhaps it is well not to be too frightened. Some of the items I just spoke of are, after all, larger than others; and if, as a general thing, it is a mistake to pull up our reputations to ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... unnatural; but if we survey the whole human race, it has been as influential and as widely spread as the other. In the Phaedrus it is really a figure of speech in which the 'spiritual combat' of this life is represented. The majesty and power of the whole passage—especially of what may be called the theme or proem (beginning 'The mind through all her being is immortal')—can only be rendered very inadequately ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... Hard-Shell Baptist Church the congregation had assembled and services had begun before Mr. Meech arrived. He appeared singularly flushed and breathless, and caused some confusion by giving out the hymn which had just been sung. It was not until he became stirred by the power of his theme that he ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... lost interest when India was not the theme; and, as the elders fell into an undercurrent of talk, his eyes sought Tara's face. Her answering smile spurred him to a bold move; and he leaned towards her, over the edge of the boat. "Miss Despard," he said under his breath, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... said of the effect of fine scenery upon the development of genius. And as this is the theme of one-half of the "Minstrel," we must be permitted a few remarks on it. The finest scenery in the world cannot, then, 'create' genius. A dunce, born in the Vale of Tempe, will remain a dunce still. And, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... on one side, and rested with their ends on the ground. The means which had been used for this end, the reason why one only was broken, and that one the uppermost, how a pair of horns could be so managed as to effect that which the hands of man would have found difficult, supplied a theme ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... it more commonplace ideas. The white and juicy flesh of the iguana was quite a feast for us all. Our meal we sat over a longer time than usual; for in conversation we entered upon the subject of our native countries, and the theme appeared inexhaustible. I reminded my friend that, only a few days before, he had shown as much emotion as the Indian on seeing two butterflies which he fancied belonged to a Swiss species; and I brought forward these feelings to oppose the intention he so often expressed of taking up his ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... said Mr Pluck, 'when I see so much sweetness and beauty on the one hand, and so much ardour and devotion on the other, I—pardon me, Pyke, I didn't intend to resume that theme. Change ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... more aggressive, he would have none of it. Perhaps if Edward had been willing to concede that the Bumpuses had been brought to their present lowly estate by the sinister agency of the fair sex Chris might conditionally have accepted the theme. Hannah, contemptuously waving a tattered palm leaf fan, was silent; but on one occasion Janet took away the barber's breath by suddenly observing:—"You never seem to think of the women whose lives are ruined ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the fourteenth century, a French monk, Robert Langlande, wrote the "Vision of Piers Plowman," an account of a dream he is supposed to have had when among the Malvern Hills. It is possible that the sight of the grand old abbey may have suggested his theme, for he inveighs not only against the laity, but especially against the ecclesiastics for their neglect of the poor. The poem is remarkable for being without rhythm, but alliterative, such as was ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... after His Ascension (see the Latin Form). The Saviour's Existence, from the Eternal Beginning on to the Eternal Future, is the central thought of the Hymn. The dual form of each line in this Middle Stanza proves it to be a separate Stanza. The Incarnation is its theme—The Incarnation and its ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... about twenty years of age,—in the full splendor of loveliness, and endowed with charms which presented to the gaze of those around a very incarnation of the ideal beauty which forms the theme of raptured poets. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... becoming indignation of an ill-used man; and as Mr. Bumble felt that it rather tended to convey a reflection on the honour of the parish; the latter gentleman thought it advisable to change the subject. Oliver Twist being uppermost in his mind, he made him his theme. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the unpromising theme of mail-order merchandising, the Great Gaines afterward said that it was a kaleidoscopic panorama set moving to the harmonic undertones of a song of winds and waters, of passion and the inner meanings of life, as if Shelley had rhapsodized ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... cannot give a panoramic view of a great historical epoch. They do not require that sustained attention that relates to-day's readings with that of yesterday, and that takes a wider survey of many parts in their relation to a central theme. The larger work gives a culture and a liberal education, when it is treated in the proper manner, that is very different from the fragmentary knowledge of an author that would be gained by even the intensive study of many short extracts. The treatment of the extract, as we have said, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... of the pantheist poetical philosophers, Mr. Edgar Quinet, has a poem, in which Christ and the Virgin Mary are made to die similarly, and the former is classed with Prometheus. This book of "Spiridion" is a continuation of the theme, and perhaps you will listen to some of the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... talking of Netta. It was Mrs Prothero's one theme when alone with him or Gladys. They could comfort her aching heart by assuring her that they believed her child's repentance to have been sincere, and her faith, if at times troubled and confused by the wandering mind and puzzled brain, placed on ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... words my estimation thereof."—G. P. B., M. D. "It seems that since our beloved Denton's departure you are almost left alone to fight the great battle of Psychometry. If you will make Psychometry the leading theme in your JOURNAL, you will do more to hasten that dawn of a higher civilization that your noble science is destined to usher in than all other sciences combined."—DR. A. B. D. "I am delighted with it. I send for ten more copies for ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... fact that he had no other object or purpose than to do justice to his subject. He is entirely free from self-reference. There is not in the remotest corner of his mind a wish to magnify his office and draw attention from the theme of the biography to the biographer himself. He permits himself no digressions, he obtrudes no needless reflections, enters into no profitless discussions: he is content to unfold the panorama of Mr. Choate's life, and do little more than point out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various |
