... the natural course of things that modern criticism, ever aiming at a wider comprehension, a keener analysis, a greater independence of judgment and expression, should test itself anew on a subject affording so full a scope and so sure a touchstone as the life and writings of Rousseau. The character of Rousseau, with its strange blending of delicate beauty and repulsive infirmity, requires to be handled with the firm but tender and sympathetic touch which the nurse or the physician lays upon a child ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various Read full book for free!
... weighed the thought. "You can't possibly mean that. The galaxy is filled with Truth, it's the touchstone of Life itself. It's the thing that separates ... — The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey Read full book for free!
... elocution and verse be verie commendable for his tyme. And for the matters of Hercules, Thebes, Hippolytus, and Troie, his Imitation is to be gathered into the same booke, and to be tryed by the same touchstone, as is spoken before. In histories, and namelie in Liuie, the like diligence of Imitation, could bring excellent learning, and breede stayde iudgement, in taking any like matter in hand. Onely Liuie were a sufficient taske for one mans studie, Tit. Liuius. // ... — The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham Read full book for free!
... at the truth, were it not that we possess a clue to guide us on the dark and slippery way. That clue is action. While it is generally very difficult to ascertain what any man thinks, it is comparatively easy to ascertain what he does; and what a man does, not what he says, is the surest touchstone to his real belief. Hence when we attempt to study the religion of backward races, the ritual which they practise is generally a safer indication of their actual creed than the loudest profession of faith. In regard to the state of the human soul after death the beliefs of the Australian aborigines ... — The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer Read full book for free!
... Wordsworth—in the number of selections that are there given, and rightly given, as imperishable masterpieces of English poetry. Tennyson, also, was at one with Cowper in declaring that an appreciation of Lycidas was a touchstone of taste for poetry. To Tennyson, as to Cowper, Milton was the one great English poet after Shakspere; and here, also, we revere the saneness of view. More sane too, was Cowper than any of the modern critics, in that he did not believe that mere technique was the standpoint ... — Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter Read full book for free!
... "that very word makes me surer than ever that it cannot but be true. Let us go on putting it to the hardest test; let us try it until it crumbles in our hands,—try it by the touchstone of action founded ... — The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... earlier days melted away under its influence. The divine right of kings, and the theory that power sprang from the ruler, gradually yielded to the democratic principle of political equality and the origination of power in the people. Civil liberty became the touchstone of good government, instead of centralization of power and consolidation. General eligibility to office grew into vogue in the place of the ancient mode, which practically limited the selection of statesmen and officials to a privileged class, comprising the largest and most cultured minds ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various Read full book for free!
... great tragedy of Phedre. The play contains one of the most finished and beautiful, and at the same time one of the most overwhelming studies of passion in the literature of the world. The tremendous role of Phedre—which, as the final touchstone of great acting, holds the same place on the French stage as that of Hamlet on the English—dominates the piece, rising in intensity as act follows act, and 'horror on horror's head accumulates'. ... — Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey Read full book for free!
... sown on the top of a rock will grope down the bare stone for the earth by which it must be fed. Let the sense of our own weakness ever lead to a buoyant confidence in what we, even we, may become if we will only take the grace we have. To this touchstone let us bring all claims to higher holiness—they who are perfect are most conscious of imperfection, and most eager in their efforts after a further progress in the knowledge, love, and likeness ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... spectators and, in attempting to effect a love denouement, he disgusts us by uniting the noble discoverer with the vile Faustine. Even the element of humor is wanting in his portrayal of Quinola—who is a combination of the slave in a Latin comedy and the fool, or Touchstone of Shakespeare. This play is, however, ingenious, powerful ... — Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden Read full book for free!
... desires or aims of her children or other family belongings, becomes a mere domestic drudge or machine, with no higher aims than are contained in the general ordering of household business. Love,—the miraculous touchstone which turns everything to gold,—is driven out of the circle of Life with the result that Life itself grows weary of its present phase, and makes haste to seek another more congenial. Hence proceeds what ... — The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli Read full book for free!
... by a great passion, he is endowed for a moment with the poet's speech. A poetic fact, one may almost say, is just any fact at its best. Art, it is true, looks at its object through a medium, but it always seems its inmost meaning. In Lear, Othello, Hamlet, in Falstaff and Touchstone, there is a revelation of the inner truth of human life beyond the power of moral science to bestow. We do well to seek philosophy in the poets, for though they teach only by hints and parables, they nevertheless reflect the concrete truth ... — Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones Read full book for free!
... ease and facility that try men and bring out the good that is in them, so much as trial and difficulty. Adversity is the touchstone of character. As some herbs need to be crushed to give forth their sweetest odor, so some natures need to be tried by suffering to evoke the excellence that is in them. Hence trials often unmask virtues and bring ... — How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon Read full book for free!
... challenged Ironsyde's mind. His old sentiments and opinions respecting the marriage bond took a very different colour before the vision of an Estelle united to himself. Thus circumstances alter opinions, and the theories he had preached to Sabina went down the wind when he thought of Estelle. The touchstone of love vitiates as well ... — The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts Read full book for free!
... the theme of general admiration. She was a stumbling-block in the passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at five-and-twenty minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every description of matter,—animal, vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at some time or other, into close ... — The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... delineated the character, that Shakspeare has given his Falstaff an abiding place in our memories. It is not the repartees of Benedick and Beatrice, but the immortal fatuity of Dogberry, that the name of Much Ado About Nothing recalls. None of the verbal quips of Touchstone tickle us like his exquisite patronage of William and the fascination which he exercises over the melancholy Jaques. And it is the same throughout all Shakspeare. It is of the humours of Bottom, and Launce, and Shallow, and Sly, and Aguecheek; it is of the laughter ... — Sterne • H.D. Traill Read full book for free!
... each resemble, if you were given the opportunity of behaving like a Caesar. The Caesars are one of my touchstones," Mr. Scogan explained. "They are characters functioning, so to speak, in the void. They are human beings developed to their logical conclusions. Hence their unequalled value as a touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone for the first time, I ask myself this question: Given the Caesarean environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble—Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of character, ... — Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley Read full book for free!
... A mighty touchstone has been applied to these earthly orbs since then, and the power to discriminate has been given to my soul. As Gregory and Sabra were devils, I verily believe, so was Mabel one of Swedenborg's angels. Who shall gainsay me? Who knows more than I on ... — Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield Read full book for free!
...Touchstone, with unfailing loyalty, follows his master with quip and quirk, into exile. When all, even his daughters, have forsaken King Lear, the fool bares himself to the storm and covers the shaking old man ... — Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann Read full book for free!
... was meditating beneath his ilex tree, being moved to evaluate his life by the chance appeal of his memory to that dead friend whose "white soul" had so often, when he was alive, proved a touchstone for those who knew him. He was sure that in the larger issues Virgil would have given him praise on this afternoon; and with that thought came another which was already familiar to him. It was less probing, perhaps, but more regretfully sad. If only his father ... — Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson Read full book for free!
... himself, that there was gross cruelty and injustice in refusing to admit the prisoner to the credit of being a true and honest man, until, by way of proving his rectitude, he had strained every sinew, and crushed every joint in his body, as well as those of his son. "I have no touchstone," he said internally, "which can distinguish truth from falsehood; the Bruce and his followers are on the alert,-he has certainly equipped the galleys which lay at Rachrin during winter. This story, too, of Greenleaf, about arms being procured for a new insurrection, tallies ... — Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott Read full book for free!
... Harrison and, the elevation of Tyler to the presidency, Mr. Chase, promptly discerning the signs of the times, took the initiative toward making the national attitude and tendency on the subject of slavery the touchstone of politics. Politic and prudent by nature, and with no personal disappointments or grievances to bias his course, he doubtless would have preferred to save and use the accumulated and organized force of one or the other of the political parties ... — Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts Read full book for free!
... brethren that the Gospel was no more worthy of belief than Caesar's Commentaries or any other histories written by learned men of authority; and from the hour I heard that I would believe no preacher's word unless I found it in harmony with the Word of God, which is the true touchstone for ... — The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre Read full book for free!
... feel his reproaches; yet I would not change this too exquisite nicety for the gross content with which he tramples on the thorns of love! His engaging me in this duel has started an idea in my head, which I will instantly pursue. I'll use it as the touchstone of Julia's sincerity and disinterestedness. If her love prove pure and sterling ore, my name will rest on it with honour; and once I've stamped it there, I lay aside my doubts for ever! But if the dross of selfishness, the ... — The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan Read full book for free!
... laughed at, for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715, and 1745. That they failed, I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden, until put to the touchstone of exigency; and that there is a caprice of fortune, an omnipotence in particular accidents and conjunctures of circumstances, which exalt us as heroes, or brand us as madmen, just as they ... — The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns Read full book for free!
... the first place, it were always practicable to apply it, and if, in the second, it always yielded results susceptible of a definite interpretation. Unfortunately, in the great majority of cases, this touchstone for species is ... — The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley Read full book for free!
... is found waiting upon God, is the thriving one; the best way to be assured of our election is to examine our state with the touchstone of truth, the Scriptures. The elect of God know Christ savingly, esteem him precious, and obey him ... — The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan Read full book for free!
... indeed the touchstone of the entire civilization which followed upon the heels of these scenes of violence. It was fair play which really animated the great Montana Vigilante movement and which eventually cleaned up ... — The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough Read full book for free!
... some copybook maxim, I care not what. 'Contentment breeds Happiness'—That is a proposition with which you can hardly quarrel; sententious, sedate, obviously true; provoking delirious advocacy as little as controversial heat; in short a very fair touchstone. Now hear how the lyric treats it, in these lines ... — On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch Read full book for free!
... age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads ... — United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various Read full book for free!
... Moussorgsky, for all his emotional profundity; nor Borodin, for all his sumptuous imagination—had so firm an intellectual grasp of the common problem, nor was technically so well equipped to solve it. None of them, for instance, had as wide an acquaintance with the folk-song, the touchstone of their labors. For Rimsky-Korsakoff was something of a philosophical authority on the music of the many peoples of the Empire, made collections of chants, and could draw on this fund for his work. Nor did any of the others possess his technical ... — Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld Read full book for free!
... of misery forceth him, the dread Child of fore-scheming Woe! And help is vain; the fell desire within Is veiled not, but shineth bright like Sin: And as false gold will show Black where the touchstone trieth, so doth fade His honour in God's ordeal. Like a child, Forgetting all, he hath chased his winged bird, And planted amid his people a sharp thorn. And no God hears his prayer, or, have they heard, The man so base-beguiled ... — Agamemnon • Aeschylus Read full book for free!
... well-to-do peasant regards domestic service in the light of degradation, his daughters in turn may become heads of houses without ever having once been inside a home conducted on modern principles. One word more: ill-kept, ofttimes squalid as is the house of the French peasant owner, he can say with Touchstone, 'Tis a poor thing, but 'tis my own.' The son of the soil in France may want carpets, wardrobes, clean swept hearths: he at least owns a home from which only imprudence or ... — The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards Read full book for free!
... the most distinguished American and British historians would be even more calamitous than that of their Continental brethren. If the touchstone of impartiality were applied, Prescott might perhaps pass unscathed through the trial. But few will deny that Motley wrote his very attractive histories at a white heat of Republican and anti-Catholic fervour. He, as also Bancroft, are classed by Mr. Gooch amongst those who ... — Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring Read full book for free!
... muttered Placer. "All right, Touchstone. Hold tight and keep that door locked. We'll ... — Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay Read full book for free!
... the garden. After seeing these, we were led by the gardener into the summer-house, in the lower part of which, built semicircularly, are the twelve Roman emperors in white marble, and a table of touchstone; the upper part of it is set round with cisterns of lead, into which the water is conveyed through pipes, so that fish may be kept in them, and in summer-time they are very convenient for bathing. In another room for entertainment, very near this, ... — Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton Read full book for free!
... therefore, who expect in every picture at least some reference to a familiar masterpiece, create, unconsciously enough, a thoroughly unwholesome atmosphere. For they are rich and patronising and liberal. They are the very innocent but natural enemies of originality, for an original work is the touchstone that exposes educated taste masquerading as sensibility. Besides, it is reasonable that those who have been at such pains to sympathise with artists should expect artists to think and feel as they do. ... — Art • Clive Bell Read full book for free!
... stand, and take breath for a little ere I speak. For much and in many ways hath been said ere now; and the contriving of new things and putting them to the touchstone to be ... — The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar Read full book for free!
... education except that crude, elementary sort which fits men for the coarse delights of business and affairs but confers no capacity of rational enjoyment; by exalting the worth of wealth and making it the test and touchstone of merit; by ignoring art, scorning literature and despising science, except as these might contribute to the glutting of the purse; by setting up and maintaining an artificial standard of morals which condoned all offenses against the property and peace of every one ... — The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce Read full book for free!
... moment. Russia must be made to rise at once from the metaphysical to the positivist stage of intellectual development; metaphysical reasoning and romantic sentiment must be rigorously discarded; and everything must be brought to the touchstone... — Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace Read full book for free!
... having been "Victorians." The centenaries of Hawthorne and Longfellow and Whittier were celebrated at a period of comparative indifference to their significance. But if the present moment is still too near to Lowell's life-time to afford a desirable literary perspective, a moral touchstone of his worth is close at hand. In this hour of heightened national consciousness, when we are all absorbed with the part which the English-speaking races are playing in the service of the world, we may surely ask whether ... — Modern American Prose Selections • Various Read full book for free!
... thy heart's desire? Is power thy climbing aim? Is love thy folly's fire? Is wealth thy restless game? Pride, power, love, wealth and all, Time's touchstone shall destroy, And, like base coin, prove all ... — Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell Read full book for free!
... always bringing a sense of failure, and that sense the thing you remember most. It is to be some One living His life in you, coming in through the open door of your will. Your part is opening up, and keeping open, listening and loving and obeying. The touchstone of the "Follow Me" life is not imitation but following; not copying but obeying; not struggle—though there will be struggle—but companionship, a companionship which nothing is allowed to take the fine ... — Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon Read full book for free!
... good works. And, again, as to the Holy Scriptures, they received the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the complete revelation of all that is necessary for salvation, and consequently, as the touchstone for testing the Fathers, the councils, and the traditions of the Church. Two points remained for consideration: the sacraments and the government of the Church. "We are agreed, in our opinion," said Beza, "regarding the meaning of the word sacrament. The sacraments are ... — The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird Read full book for free!
... palace is of rock crystal, the second of copper, the third of fine steel, the fourth of brass, the fifth of touchstone, the sixth of silver, and the seventh of massy gold. He has furnished these palaces most sumptuously, each in a manner suited to the materials that they are built of. He has filled the gardens with grass and flowers, intermixed with pieces of water, water- works, fountains, canals, cascades, ... — Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon Read full book for free!
... affirmed that, according to his experience, the talent, property, and respectability of the country were all against the government. This is the worn-out cant of England; and yet, when reform has been brought to the touchstone, its greatest opponents have been found among the parvenus. On being requested to mention individuals, the diplomatic man in question named three New York merchants, all of whom are foreigners by birth, neither ... — A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... at a given moment: he has a different angle to distract the sight of every observer; and let no one think that he knows Baudelaire when he has read the letters to Poulet-Malassis, the friend and publisher, to whom he showed his business side, or the letters to la Presidente, the touchstone of his spleen et ideal, his chief experiment in the higher sentiments. Some of his carefully hidden virtues peep out at moments, it is true, but nothing that everybody has not long been aware of. We hear of his ill-luck with money, with proof-sheets, with his own health. ... — Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons Read full book for free!
... sure, but they are such a troop of swine! And their behaviour is really so deeply beneath any possible standard, that on a retrospect I wonder I have been able to endure them myself until the yarn was finished. Well, there is always one thing; it will serve as a touchstone. If the admirers of Zola admire him for his pertinent ugliness and pessimism, I think they should admire this; but if, as I have long suspected, they neither admire nor understand the man's art, and only wallow in his rancidness like a ... — Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... a duel, I declare; died fighting for his principles, if the truth were known! I shall have a double respect for his opinion, for this is the touchstone of a man's honesty. Mr. Sharp, let us take a glass of Geissenheimer to his memory; we might honour ... — Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... causation. The shepherd in the play, when asked by Touchstone, "Hast any philosophy in thee?" replies, "No more but that I know that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep: and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun," and upon the strength of this knowledge ... — The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various Read full book for free!
... His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language: as a novelist he can do everything, except tell a story: as an artist he is everything except articulate. Somebody in Shakespeare—Touchstone, I think—talks about a man who is always breaking his shins over his own wit, and it seems to me that this might serve as the basis for a criticism of Meredith's method. But whatever he is, he is not a realist. Or rather I would say that he is a child of realism who is not on speaking ... — Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde Read full book for free!
... readers to whom this volume will open out so fair a prospect that they will long to pass further, this "cluster of grapes" being one of the "lures immortal" for the rapidly increasing number of discriminating lovers of the high poetry that is the touchstone of beauty. The finest lyric work of our day needs no further introduction; the poet is his own best interpreter; but it may be added, in anticipation of adventitious criticism of the limitations of these examples, that the capacity of the present volume ... — A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various Read full book for free!
... 3rd S. v. 33, is given the following title-page of one of his books: '[Greek: Pharmako-Basauos]: or the Touchstone of Medicines, etc. By Sir John Floyer of the City of Litchfield, Kt., M.D., of Queen's College, Oxford. London: Printed for Michael Johnson, Bookseller, and are to be sold at his shops at Litchfield and Uttoxiter, in Staffordshire; and ... — Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell Read full book for free!
... therto. He aunswered, If ye wyll admitte God and his word spoken by the mouth of hys blessed sonne Jesus Christ our Lord and Sauiour, ye wyll admit that I haue sayd: for I haue sayd or taught nothing, but that the word, which is the triall and touchstone, sayth, whiche ought to be Judge to me, ... — The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox Read full book for free!
... is indeed "in a parlous state"; and any boy whose heart first begins to burn within him, who feels his blood kindle and his spirit dilate, his pulse leap and his eyes lighten, over a first study of Shakespeare, may say to such a teacher with better reason than Touchstone said to Corin, "Truly, thou art damned; like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side." Nor could charity itself hope much profit for him from the moving appeal and the pious prayer which temper that severity of sentence—"Wilt thou rest damned? God help ... — A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne Read full book for free!
... gratification of which my mind is susceptible. But the latter being secondary, I cannot make the former yield to it, unless some criterion more infallible than partial (if they are not party) meetings can be discovered as the touchstone of public sentiment. If any person on earth could, or the great Power above would, erect the standard of infallibility in political opinions, no being that inhabits this terrestrial globe would resort to it with more eagerness than myself, so long as I remain a servant of the public. But as I have ... — Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing Read full book for free!
... on the Aventine, on the top of a short spirally-fluted column of white marble, which marks the spot where St. Dominic, the founder of the order of the Dominicans, used to kneel down and pray. It has received the name of Pietra di Paragone, or the Touchstone. Another may be seen at the entrance of the church of Santa Pudenziana, on the Esquiline, supposed to have been built on the site of the house of the Roman senator Pudens, whose daughter, Pudentiana, St. Peter is said to have converted ... — Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan Read full book for free!
... prison is a house of care, A place where none can thrive, A touchstone true to try a friend, A grave for men alive. —Inscription on ... — Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway Read full book for free!
... Lack of sincerity, all the shapes and sorts of "faux semblants," or "merveilleux semblants," as Rutebeuf said, fill him with inextinguishable hatred. In shams and "faux semblants" he sees the true source of good and evil, the touchstone of right and wrong, the main difference between the worthy and the unworthy. He constantly recurs to the subject by means of his preachings, epigrams, portraits, caricatures; he broadens, he magnifies and multiplies his figures and his precepts, ... — A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand Read full book for free!
... classics, where, with no long pondering, I opined it merely our modern comradery, poetically aggrandized, masquerading in antique habiliments and phraseology. It never came home to me; it attuned to no tone in the scale of my sympathies; I possessed no touchstone for transmitting the recitals of those ambiguous amours into fiery messages. The relation to my own sex was, intellectually, an occasional friendship devoid of strong affection; physically, a mild antagonism, the naked body of a man was slightly ... — Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis Read full book for free!
... and dissecting its faulty characters; in a word, weighing in the critical scales the nonsense of the poet. Parody sometimes became a refined instructor for the public, whose discernment is often blinded by party or prejudice. But it was, too, a severe touchstone for genius: Racine, some say, smiled, others say he did not, when he witnessed Harlequin, in the language of Titus to Berenice, declaiming on some ludicrous affair to Columbine; La Motte was very sore, and Voltaire, ... — Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli Read full book for free!
... Van Swieten was a hard and honest man, the touchstone opportunity came to him, and he did an act of heartless roguery. It seemed a safe one. It had hitherto proved a safe one, though he had never felt safe. To-day he had seen youth, enterprise, and, above all, knowledge, ... — The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade Read full book for free!
... You are not such a Christian as you ought to be, if your religion is more manifest in loving trust than in practical obedience which comes from trust. 'He that doeth righteousness is righteous,' and he is to be righteous 'even as He is righteous.' If you are God's, you will be like God. Apply the touchstone to your lives, and test your Christianity by this simple and ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... chores, and before I go up to bed, I'm going to read Rabbi Ben Ezra right through to the end. I'll do it in front of the fire, with my feet up and with three Ontario Northern Spy apples on a plate beside me, to be munched as Audrey herself might have munched them, oblivious of any Touchstone and his ... — The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer Read full book for free!
... the dog, we see a romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part he plays is yet more damnable and parlous than Corin's in the eyes of Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign without a rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine wife-beater that has ever fallen ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... serious and soft, T Timothy Touchstone, tomboy and torch, U Uniform, Union, and Unicorn trot, V very vexatious his ... — Funny Alphabet - Uncle Franks' Series • Edward P. Cogger Read full book for free!
... auctioneer proceeds: 'Bring forward the head from Herculaneum.... Now, gentlemen, here is a jewel.... The very mutilations of this piece are worth all the most perfect performances of modern artists. Now, gentlemen, here is a touchstone for your taste!' He is asked whether the head is intended to represent a man or a woman. 'The connoisseurs differ,' he answers. 'Some will have it to be the Jupiter Tonans of Phidias, and others the Venus of Paphos from Praxiteles; but I don't think it fierce ... — Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook Read full book for free!
... the foundation of the Absolute philosophy, the Supreme and unalterable Reason. Before thinking of the Metallic work, we must be firmly fixed on the Absolute principles of Wisdom; we must be in possession of this Reason, which is the touchstone of Truth. A man who is the slave of prejudices will never become the King of Nature and the Master of transmutations. The Philosophal Stone, therefore, is necessary above all things. How shall it be found? Hermes tells us, in his "Table of Emerald," we must separate the subtile from the fixed, ... — Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike Read full book for free!
... transformation of Calistho to a bear; and afterwards with Arcas to a constellation. Story of Coronis. Tale of the daw to the raven. Change of the raven's color. Esculapius. Ocyrrhoe's prophecies, and transformation to a mare. Apollo's herds stolen by Mercury. Battus' double-dealing, and change to a touchstone. Mercury's love for Herse. Envy. Aglauros changed to ... — The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid Read full book for free!
... dazzled his thoughts; living, palpitating things, as if they were hidden of a purpose to be discovered only by him who cared to search. Hidden truths came to light that filled his soul with wonder. Gradually he understood that Belief was the touchstone by which all these treasures were to be revealed. Everywhere he found it, that belief in Christ was a condition to all the blessings promised. He read of hearts hardened and eyes blinded because of unbelief, and ... — The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz Read full book for free!
... to the cause of Labour led him to make the Factory Acts a touchstone of character. To the end of his days his view of public men was largely governed by the part which they had played in that great controversy. "Gladstone voted against me," was a stern sentence not seldom on his lips. "Bright was the most malignant opponent the ... — Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell Read full book for free!
... the pressure of three centuries. But those of Charlemagne fell as soon as his hand was cold, while the works of many ordinary legislators have attained to a perpetuity denied to the statutes of Solon or Lycurgus. Durability is not the test of merit in human institutions. Tried by the only touchstone applicable to governments, their capacity to insure the highest welfare of the governed, we shall not find his polity deserving of much admiration. It is not merely that he was a despot by birth and inclination, nor that he naturally substituted as far as was practicable, the despotic ... — The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley Read full book for free!
... things that are not seen will so overwhelmingly outweigh the things that are seen, that the solemn majesty of the eternal will make the temporal look to our awed eyes the contemptible unreality which it really is. They who humbly receive and faithfully use that engrafted word, have in it a sure touchstone against which their own sins and errors are shivered. It is for the Christian consciousness the true Ithuriel's spear, at the touch of which 'upstarts in his own shape the fiend' who has been pouring his whispered poison into an unsuspicious ear. The standard weights and measures ... — Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... careful whom he knew, what women he danced with, what houses he visited; and any of his acquaintances who cared to ascertain their own social status to a hair's-breadth had only to apply to it the touchstone of ... — Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley Read full book for free!
... that of throwing East Retford into the hundred. The Duke was decidedly of opinion that whatever we did we should do from ourselves, and certainly not act in concert with an enemy. The Tories look to our conduct upon this question as the touchstone. ... — A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough) Read full book for free!
... there's the touchstone! O, I know my poets!' cried the Doctor. 'We are but dust and fire, too and to endure life's scorching; and love, like the shadow of a great rock, should lend shelter and refreshment, not to the lover only, but to his mistress and to the children that reward them; and their very ... — Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... with wonder. There was a tree such as he had never seen before; its branches were alike, but it bore flowers and fruit of a thousand kinds. Near it a reservoir had been fashioned of four sorts of stone—touchstone, pure stone, marble, and loadstone. In and out of it flowed water like attar. The prince felt sure this must be the place of the Simurgh; he dismounted, turned his horse loose to graze, ate ... — The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang Read full book for free!
... must remain largely experimental, individual. Conscience will play a very useful role in spurring us to our recognized duty in the commoner situations, but for all the more delicate decisions we need a more ultimate touchstone. We must grasp the underlying principles of right conduct, and weigh the relative goods attainable by each possible act. A well-balanced and normal conscience will save us the recurrent reasoning out ... — Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake Read full book for free!
... forty years) will often appear to have erred; nay, he will be detected and nailed in error. But this is the necessity of us all. Keen are the refutations of time. And absolute results to posterity are the fatal touchstone of opinions in the past. It is undeniable, besides, that Coleridge had strong personal antipathies, for instance, to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas. Yet why, we never could understand. We once heard him tell ... — Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey Read full book for free!
... duels. It explains the magnificent largesse given by Shakespeare to the professional fool. Work had to be found for him, and Shakespeare, whose difficulties were stepping-stones to his triumphs, gave him Touchstone and Feste, the Porter in Macbeth and the Fool in Lear. Others met the problem in an attitude of frank despair. Not all great tragic writers can easily or gracefully wield the pen of comedy, and Marlowe in Dr. Faustus took the course of leaving ... — English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair Read full book for free!
... the fashion of Touchstone," said Fleda laughing;—"he thinks that 'in respect of itself it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, he likes it very well; but ... — Queechy • Susan Warner Read full book for free!
... reasons let me urge you, when you are looking for stories to tell little children, to apply this threefold test as a kind of touchstone to their quality of fitness: Are they full of action, in close natural sequence? Are their images simple without being humdrum? Are they repetitive? The last quality is not an absolute requisite; but it is at least very often an attribute ... — How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant Read full book for free!
... with the giants we will come down to the big fellows, and by that time we shall have an eye for the proportions of the rest. But before we part for the time being, let me offer the uncritical reader one valuable touchstone. Let him recall the stories he has read, say, five years ago. If he can find a live man or woman anywhere amongst his memories, who is still as a friend or an enemy to him, he has, fifty to one, read a sterling book. Dickens' people stand this test with all readers, whether they admire him ... — My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray Read full book for free!
... second Phi Sigma Tau to undergo the ordeal. As she briskly delivered the opening lines, the actor stopped her. Taking the book from her, he turned to the part where Touchstone, quaintly humorous, holds forth upon "the lie ... — Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower Read full book for free!
... the Madrasi Tyl Eulenspiegel and Scogin who by means of a lady saves his life from the Rajah and the High Priest. Mr. G. H. Damant (pp. 357-360 of the "Indian Antiquary" of 1873) relates the "Tale of the Touchstone," a legend of Dinahpur, wherein a woman "sells" her four admirers. In the Persian Tales ascribed to the Dervish "Mokles" (Mukhlis) of Isfahan, the lady Aruya tricks and exposes a Kazi, a doctor and a governor. Boccaccio (viii. 1) has the story of a lady who shut up her gallant in a chest ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... want to go. The attraction that held her was as yet too intangible to be definitely analyzed, but she could not deny its existence. She did not love the man—oh, surely she did not love him—for she did not want to marry him. She brought her feelings to that touchstone and it seemed that they were able to withstand the test. But neither did she want to cut herself finally adrift from all chance of contact with him. It would hurt her to go. Probably—almost certainly—she ... — The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell Read full book for free!
... no books of which to miss the use. He could not, it is true, shield his legs from the insidious attacks of such sneaking blasts as will always find out the undefended spots; but his great heart was so well-to-do in the inside of him, that, unlike Touchstone, his spirits not being weary, he cared not for his legs. The worst storm in the world could not have made that heart quail. For, think! there had just been the strong, the well-dressed, the learned, the wise, the altogether mighty and considerable Donal, ... — Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... already occurred to him. We who knew him best knew that often the idea had occurred to him and had been thought out more lucidly than any adviser could state it. But he would test his own views by the touchstone of other minds' reactions to the situations and problems which he was facing and would get ... — Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty Read full book for free!
... presumption. Much that he would fain have destroyed because he found it customary, was solid, true, and beneficial. Much that he thought it desirable to substitute, was visionary, hollow, and pernicious. He lacked the touchstone of mature philosophy, whereby to separate the pinchbeck from the gold of social usage; and in his intense enthusiasm he lost his hold on common sense, which might have saved him from the puerility of arrogant iconoclasm. The positive side of his creed remains precious, not ... — Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds Read full book for free!
... somewhat lightly over the offenses of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you can not do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon ... — The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various Read full book for free!
... you how I got married. You see marriage is an important thing, the touchstone that tests the whole man: in it, as in a glass, is reflected.... But that sounds too hackneyed.... If you'll allow me, I'll take a pinch ... — A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev Read full book for free!
... slave in his quarters; mentally struggling with the problems his position wakes her to. Alone, not confused, but seeking something to lean on, she grasps the Church, which proves a broken reed. No whit disheartened, she turns from one sect to another, trying each by the infallible touchstone of that clear, childlike conscience. The two old lonely Quakers in their innocence rest her foot awhile. But the eager soul must work, not rest in testimony. Coming North, at last, she makes her own religion,—one ... — History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage Read full book for free!
... French writer, is the touchstone of good breeding. According to circumstances, it should be respectful, cordial, civil, affectionate or familiar:—an inclination of the head, a gesture with the hand, the touching ... — The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman Read full book for free!
... courted. He had possessed, and had known himself to possess, in his office as well as in the outside world, a sort of rank much higher than that which from his position he could claim legitimately. Now he was being deposed. There could be no better touchstone in such a matter than Butterwell. He would go as the world went, but he would perceive almost intuitively how the world intended to go. "Tact, tact, tact," as he was in the habit of saying to himself ... — The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... of Prince Zeyn Alasnam, the enchanted mirror was able to reflect character, and was called the Touchstone of Virtue. Here again we have Hamlet's idea of holding the mirror up to Nature. The young King, Zeyn Alasnam, had eight beautiful statues of priceless value, and he wanted a ninth to make up his set. The difficulty was to find one beautiful enough; but the ... — Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor Read full book for free!
... the trusty soldier, Joutel, and the friar, Anastase Douay. Duhaut followed, a man of respectable birth and education; and Liotot, the surgeon of the party. At home, they might, perhaps, have lived and died with a fair repute; but the wilderness is a rude touchstone, which often reveals traits that would have lain buried and unsuspected in civilized life. The German Hiens, the ex-buccaneer, was also of the number. He had probably sailed with an English crew, for he ... — France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman Read full book for free!
... fine, looking to the whole kingdom of organic nature, we find that our full receiving of its beauty depends first on the sensibility and then on the accuracy and touchstone faithfulness of the heart in its moral judgments, so that it is necessary that we should not only love all creatures well, but esteem them in that order which is according to God's laws and not according to our own human passions and ... — Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin Read full book for free!
... primarily interested in the technique of agriculture. He conceives agriculture and country life as Arthur Young and Cobbett did, as a means to an end, the sound basis, the touchstone of a healthy State. I was helped in Japan not only by my close acquaintance with the rural civilisation of two pre-eminently small-holdings countries, Holland and Denmark, but by what I knew to be precious in the rural ... — The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott Read full book for free!
... of contemporaries is rarely conclusive; and we will not attempt to anticipate that of posterity. It may be said, however, that the best applicable touchstone of permanency is that of seeming continuously fresh to cultivated tastes after many readings; and that Mr. Barrie's four best books bear the test ... — Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner Read full book for free!
... was the very touchstone to shew whether the fear of man were the guide. And Ellen was still more terrified that day, for when she went across to the farm for the evening's supply of milk and butter, Mrs. Shepherd launched out into such a torrent of abuse against her and her mother, that she came home trembling ... — Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge Read full book for free!
... In other words, I was staking a human soul which was infinitely dear to me, against wealth and station—a hundred to one chance, even with the Fates smiling. When one considers how seldom the long odds are taken and how often they win, one cannot help believing that courage is the touchstone of Fortune; the criterion by which the capricious Goddess measures her votaries and ... — The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major Read full book for free!
... athletics, but as soon as he discovered that it was the touchstone of power and popularity at school, he began to make furious, persistent efforts to excel in the winter sports, and with his ankles aching and bending in spite of his efforts, he skated valiantly around the Lorelie rink every afternoon, ... — This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald Read full book for free!
... of the proposed treaty was therefore of importance, and that if the late assurances respecting our independence were not realized by an unconditional acknowledgment, neither confidence nor peace could reasonably be expected; that this measure was considered by America as the touchstone of British sincerity, and that nothing could abate the suspicions and doubts of her good faith, which ... — The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various Read full book for free!
... Well, this is the Forest of Arden. Touchstone. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I. When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content. Rosalind. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old, in solemn talk. As You Like It. ... — Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott Read full book for free!
... us apply our touchstone to this question of inclusion in "full" numbers. Will it be good for Ireland? ... — The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers Read full book for free!
... basement were to be two tombs of black touchstone supporting the images of the king and queen, not as dead, but sleeping, "to show," so runs the order, "that famous princes leaving behind them great fame do never die." On the right hand, at either corner of the tomb, was to be an angel holding the king's arms, with a great ... — Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth Read full book for free!
... is of little or no value; but, by the common consent of mankind, is erected into a general arbitrator, to fix a value upon all others: a medium through which every thing passes: a balance by which they must be weighed: a touchstone to which they must be applied to find their worth: though we can neither eat nor drink it, we can neither eat nor drink without it.—He that has none ... — An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton Read full book for free!
... for our imagination the essence of the beauty that environs us. It seems, at such a fortunate moment, as though we had been waiting for this revelation, although perchance the want of it had not been previously felt. Our sensations and perceptions test themselves at the touchstone of this living individuality. The keynote of the whole music dimly sounding in our ears is struck. A melody emerges, clear in form and excellent in rhythm. The landscapes we have painted on our brain, no longer lack their central figure. The life proper ... — Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds Read full book for free!
... thing I knew I had some papers before me and was writing out a list of chapters. How often have I done so, and the thing gone on further! But there seemed elements of success about this enterprise. It was to be a story for boys: no need of psychology or fine writing; and I had a boy at hand to be a touchstone. Women were excluded. I was unable to handle a brig (which the Hispaniola should have been), but I thought I could make shift to sail her as a schooner without public shame. And then I had an idea for John Silver from which ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... Bentham's teaching. It was not the bare appeal to utility, but the attempt to follow the clue of utility systematically and unflinchingly into every part of the subject. This one doctrine gives the touchstone by which every proposed measure is to be tested; and which will give to his system not such unity as arises from the development of an abstract logical principle, but such as is introduced into the physical sciences when we are able to range all the indefinitely ... — The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen Read full book for free!
... lead the South to dream of material prosperity as the touchstone of all success; already the fatal might of this idea is beginning to spread; it is replacing the finer type of Southerner with vulgar money-getters; it is burying the sweeter beauties of Southern life beneath pretence and ostentation. For every social ill the panacea of Wealth has been urged,—wealth ... — The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois Read full book for free!
... still uphold the teachings of Straton, which your fellow-pupil, King Ptolemy, outgrew long ago. Yet he, also, recognised in philosophy, first of all, the bond which unites the widely sundered acquisitions of the intellect, the vital breath which pervades them, the touchstone which proves each true or false. If the praise of Alexandria is to be sung, we must not forget the library to which the most precious treasures of knowledge of the East and West are flowing, and which ... — Uarda • Georg Ebers Read full book for free!
... being marvellous. The most ludicrous and inconceivable monstrosities find an easy place in his system. He does not attach any superstitious meaning to them; on the contrary, he ridicules the idea that omens or portents are sent by the gods, but he has no touchstone by which to test the rare but possible results of real experience as distinguished from the figments of the imagination or ordinary travellers' stories. In the zoological part he gives the reins to his love of the marvellous; all kinds of absurdities are narrated with the utmost gravity; ... — A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell Read full book for free!
... given the suspicion utterance? There is a passage in his "Bartholomew Fair" which I feel sure is meant as a skit upon the relations we find in the Sonnets. In Act V, scene iii, there is a puppet-show setting forth "the ancient modern history of Hero and Leander, otherwise called the Touchstone of true Love, with as true a trial of Friendship between Damon and Pythias, two faithful friends o' the Bankside." Hero is a "wench o' the Bankside," and Leander swims across the Thames to her. Damon and Pythias meet at her lodgings, and abuse each other violently, only to finish ... — The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris Read full book for free!
... his fancy,—not one world but a thousand worlds, circling through the empyrean of his rhythmic splendor,—not one joy but a thousand joys, all quivering song-wise through the radiance of his clear illumined inspiration. The heart,—the human heart alone is the final touchstone of a poet's genius,—and when that responds, who shall deny his ... — Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli Read full book for free!
... all men, peculiarly prominent in myself, overrated both the power and the integrity of my mind (for the one is bootless without the other,) neither I nor the world can yet tell. "Time," says one of the fathers, "is the only touchstone which distinguishes ... — Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... companies as the Bancrofts, and Messrs. Hare and Kendall's, or stars of the first magnitude, to come out here. Since Ristori was here in 1874, Scott-Siddons, Creswick and Rignold, have been the best known actors we have seen; although Marshall's Quilp, Vernon's Bunthorne, and Hoskins's Touchstone, were impersonations of a high-class. Soldene, curious to say, did not hit the popular taste. The cardinal fault of colonial acting seems to me to be exaggeration. Most of our actors are artificial and stagey; even those who clear themselves ... — Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny Read full book for free!
... unquam. No,—whenever I speak against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded, or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering that it is a false theory is by comparing it with practice. This is the true touchstone of all theories which regard man and the affairs of men,—Does it suit his nature in general?—does it suit his nature as modified ... — The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke Read full book for free!
... "Midsummernight's Dream," to the tender gloom of "Cymbeline," to the "philosophic poetry" of "As You Like It." Some of his interpretations of isolated passages are hardly to be surpassed. He comments minutely and exquisitely on what he considers to be a touchstone of poetic feeling, ... — Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin Read full book for free!
... myth which goes by the name of "the Continuity Theory". It is difficult to us to realise how such a theory can possibly be held by thoughtful and earnest men and women who have even a moderate acquaintance with history. Bishop Vaughan applies more than one touchstone, which, one would imagine, ought to be sufficient to prove to any unprejudiced mind the falsity of that theory. Among these, what I may call the "pallium touchstone,"—which still bears its irrefragable testimony in the ... — The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan Read full book for free!
... form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads ... — U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various Read full book for free!
... about the Haunted House. Since our earliest years it had been the very touchstone of courage to go to the gate on a moonlight night, hold the bars and cry three times, "I'm no feared!" Some had done this, I myself among the number. But—though, of course, being a school-master's son, I did not believe in ghosts—I admit that the return journey ... — The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett Read full book for free!
... pyramids of wood and other materials up and down the garden. After seeing these, we were led by the gardener into the summer-house, in the lower part of which, built semicircularly, are the twelve Roman emperors in white marble, and a table of touchstone; the upper part of it is set round with cisterns of lead, into which the water is conveyed through pipes, so that fish may be kept in them, and in summer-time they are very convenient for bathing. In another room for entertainment, very near this, and joined to ... — Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton Read full book for free!
... tribulation of the Turk: If he so persecute us for the faith that those who will forsake their faith shall keep their goods, and those shall lose their goods who will not leave their faith—lo, this manner of persecution shall try them like a touchstone. For it shall show the feigned from the true-minded, and it shall also teach them who think they mean better than they do indeed, better to discern themselves. For there are some who think they mean ... — Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More Read full book for free!
... youth Orlando, fleeing from the treachery of a wicked elder brother and from the malice of the usurping Duke. To them comes Rosalind, daughter of the exiled Duke, who has lived at the usurper's court, but has, in her turn, been exiled, and who brings with her Celia, the usurper's daughter, and Touchstone, the lovable court fool. And through these newcomers the Duke and his friends are brought into contact with a shepherd and shepherdess as unreal and as charming as those of Dresden china, and with other country folk who smack more strongly of the soil. In the forest, ... — An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken Read full book for free!
... its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what renders every civil and political scheme beneficial or obnoxious to mankind." At another time he exclaims: "This is the true touchstone of all theories which regard man and the affairs of men; does it suit his nature in general, does it suit his nature as modified by his habits?" And again he extends his system to affairs outside the realm of politics. "All government," he declares, "indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every ... — Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke Read full book for free!
... backslider. Woe is me! How can the arch-deceiver assume the form of an angel of light! Yet is here no name written. The memorandum may refer to some-one else. But that cannot be. Himself is meant. Why should he carry about with him a note of this kind respecting another? This betrayer of treachery, this touchstone of truth, shall off forthwith to Winthrop, and be the antidote to the ... — The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams Read full book for free!
... paper and poked it playfully under the arm of a small boy that was passing. That boy was named Johnny, and he took the paper home with him. His sister was named Gladys, and she had written to the beauty editor of the paper asking for the practicable touchstone of beauty. That was weeks ago, and she had ceased to look for an answer. Gladys was a pale girl, with dull eyes and a discontented expression. She was dressing to go up to the avenue to get some braid. Beneath her skirt she pinned two leaves of the paper Johnny had brought. When she walked ... — Whirligigs • O. Henry Read full book for free!
... him, after their compact of friendship, in their walk back to the church, of her enthusiasm for her Socialist friends and their ideals,—with a momentary madness of self-suppression and tender humility. In reality, a man like Aldous Raeburn is born to be the judge and touchstone of natures like Marcella Boyce. But the illusion of passion may deal as disturbingly with ... — Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward Read full book for free!
... feet I stand, and take breath for a little ere I speak. For much and in many ways hath been said ere now; and the contriving of new things and putting them to the touchstone to be ... — The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar Read full book for free!
... thought. "You can't possibly mean that. The galaxy is filled with Truth, it's the touchstone of Life itself. It's the thing that separates Mankind from ... — The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey Read full book for free!
... conviction. The truth of Scripture is testified by human nature itself, which, educated by Christianity, recognizes freely and personally the truth of the gospel. The natural faculty that performs this high office is reason, not feeling. Scripture is the touchstone of the Christianity of a conviction, but not of its truth. The Reformers very properly distinguished between a first and secondary authority, and allowed themselves complete liberty in their search after the origin of the books of Scripture. This was not ... — History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst Read full book for free!
... church remained unredeemed. Mr. T. Duncombe bitterly reproached ministers for their supposed dereliction of principle; they might talk as they chose of their Irish tithe-bill and their appropriation clause, but English church reform would be the touchstone by which it would be tried whether they would retain the confidence of the country. On a division, Mr. Hume's amendment was rejected by a majority of one hundred and seventy-five against forty-four, ministers being supported by the conservatives, ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan Read full book for free!
... palpitating things, as if they were hidden of a purpose to be discovered only by him who cared to search. Hidden truths came to light that filled his soul with wonder. Gradually he understood that Belief was the touchstone by which all these treasures were to be revealed. Everywhere he found it, that belief in Christ was a condition to all the blessings promised. He read of hearts hardened and eyes blinded because of unbelief, and ... — The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz Read full book for free!
... opportunity to separate from Mrs. Verver with the due amount of form—and all the more that he was, in so pathetic a way, unable to treat himself to a quarrel with it on the score of taste. Taste, in him, as a touchstone, was now all at sea; for who could say but that one of her fifty ideas, or perhaps forty-nine of them, wouldn't be, exactly, that taste by itself, the taste he had always conformed to, had no importance whatever? If meanwhile, at all events, he felt her as ... — The Golden Bowl • Henry James Read full book for free!
... in question, has not been proved. What people have not examined without prepossessions, they have not examined thoroughly. Scepticism is the touchstone. (Sec. 31.) ... — Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley Read full book for free!
... never at bottom be inconsistent with the character of this term; so that our attitude even toward the unexpected is in a general sense defined. Take again the notion of immortality, which for common people seems to be the touchstone of every philosophic or religious creed: what is this but a way of saying that the determination of expectancy is the essential factor of rationality? The wrath of science against miracles, of certain philosophers against the doctrine of free-will, has precisely the same root,—dislike to admit ... — The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James Read full book for free!
... being foremost in doing that which would be honourable to their feelings, but might not accord with their condition, or might seem as the ostentatious display of unusual benevolence. Where men are congregated, conduct must be regulated by the touchstone of public opinion; and, although it is the fashion of New-York to applaud acts of charity, and to do them too in a particular manner—it is by no means usual to run to the assistance of a fellow creature who is lying in distress ... — Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... test may be rejected. Morals, it may be urged, is the touchstone of civilisation, not art. Well, take morals. The question is a large one; but, summarily, where do the Japanese fail, as compared with the Western nations? Is patriotism the standard? In this respect what nation can compete ... — Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson Read full book for free!
... fowlers; [4935]aucupium amoris, the shoeing horns, "the hooks of love" (as Arandus will) "the guides, touchstone, judges, that in a moment cure mad men, and make sound folks mad, the watchmen of the body; what do they not?" How vex they not? All this is true, and (which Athaeneus lib. 13. dip. cap. 5. and Tatius hold) they are the chief ... — The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior Read full book for free!
... his best oxen if he would disclose the author of the theft. The ruse succeeded, for the avaricious shepherd, unable to resist the tempting bait, gave the desired information, upon which Hermes, exerting his divine power, changed him into a lump of touchstone, as a {120} punishment for his treachery and avarice. Hermes now killed two of the oxen, which he sacrificed to himself and the other gods, concealing the remainder in the cave. He then carefully extinguished the fire, and, after throwing his twig shoes into ... — Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens Read full book for free!
... concluded our investigation of this first period of organised society, and have ascertained many facts that we can use as a touchstone to try the truth of the various theories that are put forward with regard to woman and her position in the family and in the State. The importance of the mother-age to women is evident. Thus I offer no apology ... — The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley Read full book for free!
... hiding-place in the wall and waited. Presently his head emerged from the line of weeds by the fence, his nose began working anxiously, he sifted and resifted the air with it, and then quickly withdrew; his nose had detected me, but his eye had not. The touchstone of most animals is the nose, and not the eye. The eye quickly detects objects in motion, but not those at rest; this is the ... — The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs Read full book for free!
... one world but a thousand worlds, circling through the empyrean of his rhythmic splendor,—not one joy but a thousand joys, all quivering song-wise through the radiance of his clear illumined inspiration. The heart,—the human heart alone is the final touchstone of a poet's genius,—and when that responds, who ... — Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli Read full book for free!
... name means "Turk," and has served as a touchstone for the dullness of commentators. To the Northmen a "Southman" would naturally be a German, and why should a German be called a Turk? or how should these Northmen happen to have had a Turk in their company? Mr. Laing suggests that he may have been a Magyar. Yes; or he may have visited the Eastern ... — The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske Read full book for free!
... need not much perplex the student. Least of all is the question to be settled by anybody's dictum, which is apt to be positive inversely in proportion to the speaker's acquaintance with the subject. No one test can be applied as a universal touchstone to separate plants from animals. Such is simply petitio principii. Nor is there any advantage at present apparent in attempts to associate slime-moulds with other presumably related groups. Saville ... — The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride Read full book for free!
... PORTRAIT by Emery Pottle (The Touchstone). This study in Italian backgrounds is by another disciple of Henry James, who portrays with deft sure touches the nostalgia of an American girl unhappily married to an Italian nobleman. It just fails of complete persuasiveness because it is a trifle overstrung, but nevertheless ... — The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various Read full book for free!
... the Queen of Spain. "Every difficulty would be removed if there were an appearance of more equality," wrote the Regent to Dubois on the 24th of January, 1718. "I am quite aware that my personal interest does not suffer from this inequality, and that it is a species of touchstone for discovering my friends as well at home as abroad. But I am Regent of France, and I ought to so behave myself that none may be able to reproach me with having thought of nothing but myself. I also owe some consideration to the Spaniards, whom I should completely ... — A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot Read full book for free!
... dark and slippery way. That clue is action. While it is generally very difficult to ascertain what any man thinks, it is comparatively easy to ascertain what he does; and what a man does, not what he says, is the surest touchstone to his real belief. Hence when we attempt to study the religion of backward races, the ritual which they practise is generally a safer indication of their actual creed than the loudest profession of faith. In regard to the state of the human soul after death the beliefs of ... — The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer Read full book for free!
... works. And, again, as to the Holy Scriptures, they received the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the complete revelation of all that is necessary for salvation, and consequently, as the touchstone for testing the Fathers, the councils, and the traditions of the Church. Two points remained for consideration: the sacraments and the government of the Church. "We are agreed, in our opinion," said Beza, "regarding the meaning of the word sacrament. The sacraments are visible signs by means of which ... — The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird Read full book for free!
... distant by forty years) will often appear to have erred; nay, he will be detected and nailed in error. But this is the necessity of us all. Keen are the refutations of time. And absolute results to posterity are the fatal touchstone of opinions in the past. It is undeniable, besides, that Coleridge had strong personal antipathies, for instance, to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas. Yet why, we never could understand. We once heard him tell a story upon Windermere, to the late Mr. ... — Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey Read full book for free!
... glance, the kind of man by whom you are confronted? Should not a magistrate be not merely the best administrator of the law, but the most crafty expounder of the chicanery of his profession, a steel probe to search hearts, a touchstone to try the gold which in each soul is mingled with more or ... — The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere Read full book for free!
... have ascertained the parsimony of the wealthy only through the medium of your own beggary; otherwise to him who lays covetousness aside the generous man and miser seem all one. The touchstone can prove which is pure gold, and the beggar can say which is the niggard." He said: "I speak of them from experience; for they station dependants by their doors, and plant surly porters at their gates, to deny admittance to the worthy, and to lay violent hands upon the collars of the elect, and ... — Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous Read full book for free!
... behalf of those readers to whom this volume will open out so fair a prospect that they will long to pass further, this "cluster of grapes" being one of the "lures immortal" for the rapidly increasing number of discriminating lovers of the high poetry that is the touchstone of beauty. The finest lyric work of our day needs no further introduction; the poet is his own best interpreter; but it may be added, in anticipation of adventitious criticism of the limitations of these ... — A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various Read full book for free!
... a touchstone by which finally you can, and you must, test every book that your brain is capable of comprehending. Does the book seem to you to be sincere and true? If it does, then you need not worry about your immediate feelings, or the possible future ... — LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT Read full book for free!
... impersonates for our imagination the essence of the beauty that environs us. It seems, at such a fortunate moment, as though we had been waiting for this revelation, although perchance the want of it had not been previously felt. Our sensations and perceptions test themselves at the touchstone of this living individuality. The keynote of the whole music dimly sounding in our ears is struck. A melody emerges, clear in form and excellent in rhythm. The landscapes we have painted on our brain, no longer lack their central figure. The life proper ... — Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds Read full book for free!
... two miserable and empty-veined old men squabbling across a deal-table, breaking up a friendship of thirty years. And yonder Marian and this Humphrey Degge—who are within a measurable distance of insanity, if their conversation be the touchstone,—yet tread the pinnacles of some seventh heaven of happiness. April has brought them love, Harry. Oh, I concede their love is folly! But it is all folly, Harry Heleigh. Purses, titles, blue ribbons, and ... — Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell Read full book for free!
... to which the sage is not subject. Before his keen vision, the deception falls to the ground, and by this very fact he is delivered. To the feeling of Europe and Christianity, however, life and the universe are genuine, deep realities, the touchstone of the soul. Love is the soul's greatest treasure and the only true path to God; knowledge can never take its place. "The divine stream of love flowing through the soul," says Eckhart, "carries the soul along with it to its origin, to ... — The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka Read full book for free!
... 'when I begin to fancy that you do not like me. Why, why, dear Somerset, this lack of cordiality? I am depressed; the touchstone of my life draws near; and if I fail'—he gloomily nodded—'from all the height of my ambitious schemes, I fall, dear boy, into contempt. These are grave thoughts, and you may judge my need of your delightful company. ... — The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson Read full book for free!
...touchstone of the entire civilization which followed upon the heels of these scenes of violence. It was fair play which really animated the great Montana Vigilante movement and which eventually cleaned up the merciless gang of Henry Plummer and his associates. The ... — The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough Read full book for free!
... sufficient to effect a present liking, but not to fix a lasting admiration; for nothing but truth can long continue; and time is the surest judge of truth. I am not vain enough to think that I have left no faults in this, which that touchstone will not discover; neither, indeed, is it possible to avoid them in a play of this nature. There are evidently two actions in it; but it will be clear to any judicious man, that with half the pains I could have raised a play from either of them; for this ... — The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden Read full book for free!
... bowers and groves, and within it is the Creator: Within this vessel are the seven oceans and the unnumbered stars. The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within; And within this vessel the Eternal soundeth, and the spring wells up. Kabr says: "Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved ... — Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.) Read full book for free!
... tacit acknowledgment that she lies under some disadvantage, and that there is less to be said for her than for error.'[225] 'Tis only things false and adulterate which shun the light and fear the touchstone.' He has left a beautiful prayer which his editor believed he was in the habit of using before he composed a sermon. In it he asks to be made impartial in his inquiry after truth, ready always to receive it in love, to practise it in his life, ... — The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton Read full book for free!
... to set up house in that fashion, and make love to some delicately-nurtured miss, win her affections, and bring her home to such a spot. Wouldn't that be a touchstone... — Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever Read full book for free!
... we bring this about? how tell what things you have been used to keep and what to give up? how keen a desire it is well to quell, and which ones? To reach this point, it is necessary to digress again in order to find the element of the magic touchstone which will tell us whether the thing we are looking at is made of ... — A Jolly by Josh • "Josh" Read full book for free!
... struggling with the problems his position wakes her to. Alone, not confused, but seeking something to lean on, she grasps the Church, which proves a broken reed. No whit disheartened, she turns from one sect to another, trying each by the infallible touchstone of that clear, childlike conscience. The two old lonely Quakers in their innocence rest her foot awhile. But the eager soul must work, not rest in testimony. Coming North, at last, she makes her own religion,—one of sacrifice ... — History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage Read full book for free!
... be well, at this point, to consider for a little what we mean when we use the term "dramatic." We shall probably not arrive at any definition which can be applied as an infallible touchstone to distinguish the dramatic from the undramatic. Perhaps, indeed, the upshot may rather be to place the student on his guard against troubling too much about the formal definitions ... — Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer Read full book for free!
... &c.) are of different family (Lathyrus, not Pisum), but very closely allied. There is a curious amount of folklore connected with Peas, and in every case the Peas and Peascods are connected with wooing the lasses. This explains Touchstone's speech (No. 6). Brand gives several instances of this, from which one stanza from Browne's "Pastorals" ... — The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe Read full book for free!
... as it is obvious, and furnishes us with a kind of touchstone, by which we may try every system in this species of philosophy. It is from the resemblance of the external actions of animals to those we ourselves perform, that we judge their internal likewise to resemble ours; and ... — A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume Read full book for free!
... they conventional characters, or do they have distinct personalities? Compare Touchstone... — Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely Read full book for free!
... the accident viewed as an exponent of universal truths; but for the simple sake of seeing his old friend and exchanging greetings. Indeed, where was the use of wasting the good material of friendship by seeking to convert it to a touchstone whereby to measure up one's theological beliefs? Reed was Reed, albeit flattened out upon his long, lean back, and not a ... — The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray Read full book for free!
... it. I had seen the editor and his family only during Prince Kropotkin's stay at Hull-House, when they had come to visit him several times. The editor had impressed me as a quiet, scholarly man, challenging the social order by the philosophic touchstone of Bakunin and of Herbert Spencer, somewhat startled by the radicalism of his fiery young son and much comforted by the German domesticity of his wife and daughter. Perhaps it was but my hysterical symptom of the universal ... — Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams Read full book for free!
... care not what. 'Contentment breeds Happiness'—That is a proposition with which you can hardly quarrel; sententious, sedate, obviously true; provoking delirious advocacy as little as controversial heat; in short a very fair touchstone. Now hear how the lyric treats it, in ... — On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch Read full book for free!
... the thimble and examined it, weighed it, and submitted its metal to the test of the touchstone. It was a pretty thimble, though small, or it would not have fitted Adrienne's finger. This fact struck the woman of the shop, and she cast a suspicious glance at Adrienne's hand, the whiteness and size of which, however, satisfied her that the ... — Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... other, wanting ease, wanting confidence; and now, when the first real shock had come, though for a moment it threw them into each other's arms, this was not, as they knew, the real, the final reconciliation, the touchstone that proved the gold. Francis's death, the cousin whom Michael loved, at the hands of one of the nation to whom Sylvia belonged, had momentarily made them feel that all else but their love was but external circumstance; and, even in the ... — Michael • E. F. Benson Read full book for free!
... world was not made for him; but it certainly had yielded to him in everything. Why did he doubt now? That he did doubt showed him the intensity of his interest in Margaret. For love is humble, and undervalues self in contrast with that which it desires. At this touchstone rank, fortune, all that go with them, seemed poor. What were all these to a woman's soul? But there were women enough, women enough in England, women more beautiful than Margaret, doubtless as amiable and intellectual. Yet now there was for him only one woman in ... — Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner Read full book for free!
... stated to the reader, but it must be clearly stated by the writer for his own guidance. It is, however, usually announced at the opening of the essay. Whether announced or not, it is most essential to the success of the essay. It is the touchstone by which the author tries all the material which he has collected. Not everything on the subject of patriotism should be admitted to an essay that has for its theme, "A real partisan cannot be a true patriot." It would save many ... — English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster Read full book for free!
... tales, as if genuine humor were more fresh when related to the things of actual life. The English Lazy Jack is a delightful realistic droll which contains motifs that appear frequently among the tales. The Touchstone motif of a humble individual causing nobility to laugh appears in Grimm's Dummling and His Golden Goose. It appears also in Zerbino the Savage, a most elaborated Neapolitan tale retold by Laboulaye in his Last Fairy Tales; a tale full of humor, wit, ... — A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready Read full book for free!
... The touchstone of naval excellence is Nelson. As Mahan has so ably pointed out, while weapons change principles remain. Dewey, in deciding to take the chances involved in a night entry of Manila Bay did so in answer ... — A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott Read full book for free!
... constituents would be the highest gratification of which my mind is susceptible. But the latter being secondary, I cannot make the former yield to it, unless some criterion more infallible than partial (if they are not party) meetings can be discovered as the touchstone of public sentiment. If any person on earth could, or the great Power above would, erect the standard of infallibility in political opinions, no being that inhabits this terrestrial globe would resort to it with more eagerness ... — Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing Read full book for free!
... Such an one is indeed "in a parlous state"; and any boy whose heart first begins to burn within him, who feels his blood kindle and his spirit dilate, his pulse leap and his eyes lighten, over a first study of Shakespeare, may say to such a teacher with better reason than Touchstone said to Corin, "Truly, thou art damned; like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side." Nor could charity itself hope much profit for him from the moving appeal and the pious prayer which temper that severity of sentence—"Wilt ... — A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne Read full book for free!
... the slums of any American metropolis knows that that is the quarter where poor immigrants foregather, to live, for the most part, as unkempt, half-washed, toiling, unaspiring foreigners; pitiful in the eyes of social missionaries, the despair of boards of health, the hope of ward politicians, the touchstone of American democracy. The well-versed metropolitan knows the slums as a sort of house of detention for poor aliens, where they live on probation till they can show a certificate of ... — The Promised Land • Mary Antin Read full book for free!
... power—and her having the sense of the power—to "shine" in the world is his highest measure of her, the test applied by him to her beautiful human value; just as the manner in which she turns on him is the application of her own standard and touchstone. She is perfectly sure of her own; for—if there were nothing else, and there is much—she has tasted blood, so to speak, in the form of her so prompt and auspicious success with the public, leaving all probations behind (the whole of which, as the book gives it, is too rapid ... — The Tragic Muse • Henry James Read full book for free!
... their relations. Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog, we see a romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part he plays is yet more damnable and parlous[13] than Corin's in the eyes of Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign without a rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine ... — Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... question. Moreover, if, at that very time, his preaching was emphatic in any direction, it was in the boldness with which he insisted that all pulpit teaching and Christian practice must be subjected to one great test, namely, the touchstone of the word of God. Already an Elijah in spirit, his great aim was to repair the broken-down altar of the Lord, to expose and rebuke all that hindered a thoroughly scriptural worship and service, ... — George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson Read full book for free!
... best-conditioned animal. I call him my test—the touchstone by which I try a friend. No one can properly be said to love me, ... — The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb Read full book for free!
... life to them whose sorrows grow, Beneath its fruit of virtue bending low; Father to good men; virtue's touchstone he; The mirror of the learned; and the sea Where all the tides of character unite; A righteous man, whom pride could never blight; A treasure-house, with human virtues stored; Courtesy's essence, honor's precious hoard. He doth to life its fullest meaning give, So good is he; we others breathe, ... — The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka Read full book for free!
... Coronis. Tale of the daw to the raven. Change of the raven's color. Esculapius. Ocyrrhoe's prophecies, and transformation to a mare. Apollo's herds stolen by Mercury. Battus' double-dealing, and change to a touchstone. Mercury's love for Herse. Envy. Aglauros changed to a statue. ... — The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid Read full book for free!
... received no notice in this volume, though it might very well be the subject of a detailed study in itself. This is the relation of the more advanced and powerful nations of the West towards the weaker and less progressive peoples. It might, indeed, be treated as the touchstone of our civilization, just as the education of the young is a good, perhaps the best, test of the advancement of any single people. For it involves some joint action of the western nations; it shows how far they are disinterested ... — The Unity of Civilization • Various Read full book for free!
... that it had the power to build up a valid content to Religion, since the very nature of Religion is such, that the mental operations which are reliable in the realm of Science cannot be so in the realm of Religion. To answer this, we must consider the argument for conceivability as the touchstone which is to separate the "Knowable" from the "Unknowable." Corresponding to small objects, a piece of rock for example, where the sides, top, and bottom can be considered as practically all present ... — The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various Read full book for free!
... would have given the suspicion utterance? There is a passage in his "Bartholomew Fair" which I feel sure is meant as a skit upon the relations we find in the Sonnets. In Act V, scene iii, there is a puppet-show setting forth "the ancient modern history of Hero and Leander, otherwise called the Touchstone of true Love, with as true a trial of Friendship between Damon and Pythias, two faithful friends o' the Bankside." Hero is a "wench o' the Bankside," and Leander swims across the Thames to her. Damon and Pythias ... — The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris Read full book for free!
... Hoe, 1605, Touchstone assures Goulding that he hopes to see him reckoned one of the worthies of the city of London "When the famous fable of Whittington and his ... — The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H. Read full book for free!
... why he did not kill a lot of those fellows during those days of danger, I fancy I see while I write. Indeed, this keen participation in the nature and delights of the young was the secret of his success during the Kafiristan exploration. It was the touchstone of his sympathy with the various barbaric tribes with whom he had to come in contact, and whose nature he did not require to learn, for he had already sounded all that was human in its touching variety. Love and sympathy for man as man, could ... — Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard Read full book for free!
... Lover John Suckling Song, "Why so pale and wan, fond Lover" John Suckling Wishes to His Supposed Mistress Richard Crashaw Song, "Love in fantastic Triumph sate" Aphra Behn Les Amours Charles Cotton Rivals William Walsh I Lately Vowed, but 'Twas in Haste John Oldmixon The Touchstone Samuel Bishop Air, "I ne'er could any luster see" Richard Brinsley Sheridan "I Took a Hansom on Today" William Ernest Henley Da Capo Henry Cuyler Bunner Song Against Women Willard Huntington Wright Song of Thyrsis Philip Freneau The Test Walter Savage Landor "The Fault is not ... — The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various Read full book for free!
... from the dreary exile of the actual world." This study is one of "those elements in human life which merit a place in heaven." "The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely ... — Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana Read full book for free!
... over; he further said, that he should have consigned him to his own ordinary for examination, but for the particular interest he took in his welfare, for his and his friends' sake. From this exordium he proceeded to the touchstone question of the real presence ... — Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox Read full book for free!
... was the single and unanimous will ([Greek: thelesis]) of the Ionian people that the seven islands should be united to Greece. Mr. Gladstone fought like a lion for scholar's authority to treat the word as only meaning wish or disposition, and he took for touchstone the question whether men could speak of the [Greek: thelesis] of the Almighty; the word in the Lord's Prayer was found to be [Greek: thelema]. As Finlay truly says, it would have been much more to the point to accept the word as it was meant by those ... — The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley Read full book for free!
... coin at all times and under all circumstances. No bank ought ever to be chartered without such restrictions on its business as to secure this result. All other restrictions are comparatively vain. This is the only true touchstone, the only efficient regulator of a paper currency—the only one which can guard the public against overissues and bank suspensions. As a collateral and eventual security, it is doubtless wise, and in all cases ought to be required, that banks shall hold ... — A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson Read full book for free!
... things Horace was meditating beneath his ilex tree, being moved to evaluate his life by the chance appeal of his memory to that dead friend whose "white soul" had so often, when he was alive, proved a touchstone for those who knew him. He was sure that in the larger issues Virgil would have given him praise on this afternoon; and with that thought came another which was already familiar to him. It was less probing, perhaps, but more regretfully ... — Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson Read full book for free!
... made the touchstone of orthodoxy. And when, under the pressure of the evidences, we found ourselves obliged to acknowledge and assert the present and persistent power of God, in the maintenance and in the continued formation of "types," what happened was the abolition of a time-limit. We were forced only to a bolder ... — Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others Read full book for free!
... other hand it is not essentially (though this has sometimes been advanced) a narrative of mere adventures as contrasted to the observation and dissection of character and manners we find in the true "novel." Rather be it said that it is one in which the hidden soul is made patent under the touchstone of blood-stirring incidents, of hairbreadth risks, of recklessness or fierceness. There are soaring passions, secrets of the innermost heart, that can only be set free in desperate situations—and those situations are not found in the tenor in every-day, ... — The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle Read full book for free!
... gliding through the years with a sort of effortless energy, tasting together of everything in life that was sweet, and pure, and beautiful; scattering all trouble and worldly vexation to the winds, by the touchstone of their undying love. There was intoxication—ethereal intoxication in such a vision. The winds blew against him, and the torrents of driven rain, cold and stinging, dashed themselves against his pale, steadfast face. Down on the beach below the mad sea was thundering upon the cliffs, ... — The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim Read full book for free!
... For Dolly—Who does not Learn her Lessons Questions The Daisies The Touchstone The December Rose The Fire Song A Parting The Gift of Life Incompatibilities The Stolen God—Lazarus to Dives Winter Sea-shells Hope The Prodigal's Return The Skylark Saturday Song The Champion The Garden Refused These Little Ones ... — Many Voices • E. Nesbit Read full book for free!
... of the branches were newly fallen; from whence I inferred that the horse had touched them, and that he must therefore be five feet high. As to his bit, it must be gold of twenty-three carats, for he had rubbed its bosses against a stone which I knew to be a touchstone, and which I have tried. In a word, from the marks made by his shoes on flints of another kind, I concluded that he was shod with ... — Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne Read full book for free!
... in Harper's Ferry,' say the journals. What is the character of that calm which follows when the law and the slaveholder prevail? I regard this event as a touchstone designed to bring out with glaring distinctness the character of this Government. We needed to be thus assisted to see it by the light of history. It needed to see itself. When a government puts forth its strength on the side of injustice, as ours, to maintain slavery ... — The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan Read full book for free!
... books of which to miss the use. He could not, it is true, shield his legs from the insidious attacks of such sneaking blasts as will always find out the undefended spots; but his great heart was so well-to-do in the inside of him, that, unlike Touchstone, his spirits not being weary, he cared not for his legs. The worst storm in the world could not have made that heart quail. For, think! there had just been the strong, the well-dressed, the learned, the wise, the altogether mighty and considerable Donal, the ... — Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... absolute, and infallible; but limited and fallible: any synod or council may err, being constituted of men that are weak, frail, ignorant in part, &c., and therefore all their decrees and determinations are to be examined by the touchstone of the Scriptures, nor are they further to be embraced, or counted obligatory, than they are consonant thereunto, Isa. viii. 20. Hence there is liberty of appeal, as from congregational elderships to the classical presbytery, and from thence to the provincial synod, so from the provincial ... — The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London Read full book for free!
... statesmen who had never tasted that strange concoction into asseverating their faith in the nostrum's infallibility for any and all ailments; to persuade into fulsome print solemnly asinine Senators and unwarily flattered Congressmen—that was the touchstone of his living. Some the Demon Rum betrayed into his hands. Others he won by sheer personal persuasiveness, for he was a master of the suave plea. Again, political favors or "inside information" made ... — The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams Read full book for free!
... courtiers, the swaggering guardsmen, the insolent nobles, and not seldom majesty itself. And thus it is that painters and romancers have loved to draw him. Who would not rather be Yorick than Osric, or Touchstone than Le Beau, or even poor Bertuccio than one of his brutal mockers? Was not the redoubtable Chicot, with his sword and brains, the true ruler of France? To come to the jesters of history—which is so much less real than fiction—what laurels are greener than those of Triboulet, ... — The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field Read full book for free!
... to leave her. She knew he was trying to break away from her finally, to be free. But still she believed in her strength to keep him, she believed in her own higher knowledge. His own knowledge was high, she was the central touchstone of truth. She only ... — Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence Read full book for free!
... difficult and disagreeable, yet one would think, it possible for an officer to act; energetically without ignoring the common courtesies of life, and to maintain rigid discipline without constantly emulating the army that swore terribly in Flanders. The oath of allegiance—that is the touchstone whose mark gives everything its marketable value. The Union flag must wave over every spot—chapel, mart, institute, or ball-room—where two or three may meet together; and beyond the shadow of the enforced ensign there is ... — Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence Read full book for free!
... himself on his stylish appearance, and looking after the girls. Others were there with him—town dandies and nobodies, young men who came there to get shaved or to drink a glass of whisky. And all of these he admired and sought to emulate. Clothes were the main touchstone. If men wore nice clothes and had rings and pins, whatever they did seemed appropriate. He wanted to be like them and to act like them, and so his experience of the more pointless ... — Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser Read full book for free!
... the return of Mrs. Chump to Brookfield. In that erewhile abode of Fine Shades, the Nice Feelings had foundered. The circle of a year, beginning so fairly for them, enfolded the ladies and their first great scheme of life. Emilia had been a touchstone to this family. They could not know it in their deep affliction, but in manger they had much improved. Their welcome of Mrs. Chump was an admirable seasoning of stateliness with kindness. Cornelia and Arabella took her hand, listening with an incomparable soft smile to her ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith Read full book for free!
... be the creed of our political faith,—the text of civil instruction,—the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various Read full book for free!
... a mountain summit and flowing towards other regions. When the Understanding, withdrawn into the mind, succeeds in absorbing itself into contemplation that is free from attributes, it attains to a knowledge of Brahma like the touch of gold on a touchstone. The mind is the apprehender of the objects of the senses. It must first be extinguished (before Brahma can be attained). Dependent upon the attributes of objects that are before it, the mind can never show that which is without attributes. Shutting up ... — The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown Read full book for free!
... moved to emulate the simple grandeur of that poem, for he often repeated it in those days, and somewhat later we find it copied into his notebook in full. It would seem to have become to him a sort of literary touchstone; and in some measure it may be regarded as accountable for the fact that in the fullness of time "he made use of the purest English of any modern writer." These are Goodman's words, though William Dean Howells has said them, also, in substance, ... — Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine Read full book for free!
... may glimmer at the far end of the quest; but the quest itself is experienced as a bitter striving. Bitter though it may be, however, it is likewise ennobling. Here, then, I find the philosophic, that is, the ultimate and truest, touchstone of human progress, namely, in the capacity for that ennobling form of experience whereby we become conscious co-workers and co-helpers in an age-long, world-wide ... — Progress and History • Various Read full book for free!
... wars; it is the unfolding of the moral, the political, the artistic, the social, and the spiritual progress of the human family. The time will yet come when the names of dynasties and of battles shall not form the titles of its chapters. The truths revealed in the Bible have been the touchstone which has ... — The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee Read full book for free!
... carted away. A man is nothing now unless he has within him a full appreciation of the new era, an era in which it would seem that neither honesty nor truth is very desirable, but in which success is the only touchstone of merit. We must laugh at everything that is established. Let the joke be ever so bad, ever so untrue to the real principles of joking; nevertheless we must laugh—or else beware the cart. We must talk, think, and live up to the spirit of the times, ... — Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... beautiful, but always singularly attractive from its mild and earnest character. Looking at her, one felt assured that here was a right womanly woman, gentle, just, and true; possessed of a well-balanced mind, a self-reliant soul, and that fine gift which is so rare, the power of acting as a touchstone to all who approached, forcing them to rise or fall to their true level, unconscious of the test applied. Her presence was comfortable, her voice had motherly tones in it, her eyes a helpful look. Even the soft hue of her dress, ... — Moods • Louisa May Alcott Read full book for free!
... in repeating to you, that his death was firm and manly, becoming the general tenor of his life, which, but for that gross act of traitorous ingratitude, had been fair and honourable. But what of that? The hypocrite is a saint, and the false traitor a man of honour, till opportunity, that faithful touchstone, proves ... — Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott Read full book for free!
... however, by extravagance, crudity, and presumption. Much that he would fain have destroyed because he found it customary, was solid, true, and beneficial. Much that he thought it desirable to substitute, was visionary, hollow, and pernicious. He lacked the touchstone of mature philosophy, whereby to separate the pinchbeck from the gold of social usage; and in his intense enthusiasm he lost his hold on common sense, which might have saved him from the puerility of arrogant iconoclasm. The positive side of his creed remains ... — Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds Read full book for free!
... (as sweet as that adapted by Chateaubriand to Ma soeur, te souvient-il encore), sung in this little town of the Brie district, must have been to the ears of a Breton maiden the touchstone of imperious memories, so faithfully does it picture the manners and customs, the surroundings and the heartiness of her noble old land, where a sort of melancholy reigns, hardly to be defined; caused, perhaps, by the aspect of life in Brittany, which is deeply touching. ... — The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... cause of Labour led him to make the Factory Acts a touchstone of character. To the end of his days his view of public men was largely governed by the part which they had played in that great controversy. "Gladstone voted against me," was a stern sentence not seldom on his lips. "Bright was the most malignant opponent the Factory ... — Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell Read full book for free!
... that repentance can avail nothing when a man has not repentance? yet let these passages appear, with a casting weight of allowance, and their absurdity will not be so extravagant, as when examined by the literal touchstone.— ... — The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber Read full book for free!
... him his, not because he liked him any better than the Marquess (who kept him out), but because Guy's title seemed to him a good one. At bottom Richard was as deliberate as a pair of scales; and just now was acting the perfect king, the very touchstone of justice. Through all this time of great doings Jehane stayed quaking at home, sitting strangely among her women—a countess who knew she was none, a queen by nature who dreaded to be queen by law. Yet one thing she dreaded more. She was in a horrible pass. Wife of a dead ... — The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett Read full book for free!
... Langland thunders anathema. Lack of sincerity, all the shapes and sorts of "faux semblants," or "merveilleux semblants," as Rutebeuf said, fill him with inextinguishable hatred. In shams and "faux semblants" he sees the true source of good and evil, the touchstone of right and wrong, the main difference between the worthy and the unworthy. He constantly recurs to the subject by means of his preachings, epigrams, portraits, caricatures; he broadens, he magnifies and multiplies his figures and his ... — A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand Read full book for free!
... her all former glory is less a jewel than a touchstone, and with her portion of it daily she appraises her own doing, and without vain speech. And her high past she values now, in chief, as fit foundation of that edifice whereon she labors day by day, and with ... — The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell Read full book for free!
... Presently the auctioneer proceeds: 'Bring forward the head from Herculaneum.... Now, gentlemen, here is a jewel.... The very mutilations of this piece are worth all the most perfect performances of modern artists. Now, gentlemen, here is a touchstone for your taste!' He is asked whether the head is intended to represent a man or a woman. 'The connoisseurs differ,' he answers. 'Some will have it to be the Jupiter Tonans of Phidias, and others the Venus of Paphos from Praxiteles; but I don't think it fierce enough for the first, nor handsome enough ... — Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook Read full book for free!
... done. Force and reason are inseparably linked in its nature, and the force of reason is not more important than the reason of force, if the matter is to be brought to a successful issue. The very touchstone of loyalty is that just demands will be put upon it. It cannot endure and strengthen except through finding material means of expression. When men are given absolute freedom, with no compulsion upon them but to eat and sleep, as with a group of South Sea ... — The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense Read full book for free!
... wise sophist of our own age, unspoiled by any Socratic "conceptualism," and ready, like Protagoras, to show us how man is the measure of all things and how the individual is the measure of man. The ardour of his intellectual curiosity burns with a clear smokeless flame. He brings back to the touchstone of a sort of distinguished common sense, free from every species of superstition, all those great metaphysical and moral problems which have been too often monopolised by the acrid and technical pedantry of ... — Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys Read full book for free!
... Hotspur, or Macbeth. Promise that through to-morrow's spirit-war Man's deathless soul will hack and hew its way, Each flaunting Caesar climbing to his fate Scorning the utmost steps of yesterday. Never a shallow jester any more! Let not Jack Falstaff spill the ale in vain. Let Touchstone set the fashions for the wise And Ariel wreak ... — The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay Read full book for free!
... law, the law of opinion or reputation, called also philosophical, coincides on the whole, though not throughout, with the first, the divine law of nature, which is best expressed in Christianity, and which is the true touchstone of the moral character of actions. While Locke, in his polemic against innate ideas, had emphasized the diversity of moral judgments among individuals and nations (as a result of which an action is condemned in one place and praised as virtuous in another), ... — History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg Read full book for free!
... steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment; they should be the creed of our political faith; the text of civic instruction; the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road which alone leads to ... — Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al. Read full book for free!
... [658] Gold is usually melted in the employer's presence, who, to guard against fraud, keeps a small piece of the metal called chasni or maslo, that is a sample, and when the ornament is ready sends it with the sample to an assayer or Chokshi who, by rubbing them on a touchstone, tells whether the gold in the sample and the ornament is of the same quality. Further, the employer either himself sits near the Sunar while the ornament is being made or sends one of his family to watch. ... — The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell Read full book for free!
... has been indeed a new touchstone to the Christian religion; and, in brief, to make plain how far Christianity has proved its force and its fitness to survive will occupy the remaining chapters of this book. What has been the nature and extent of ... — New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison Read full book for free!
... prominent in myself, overrated both the power and the integrity of my mind (for the one is bootless without the other,) neither I nor the world can yet tell. "Time," says one of the fathers, "is the only touchstone which distinguishes ... — Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... zealous friends of the constitution. Where arms were expected and not found, a very new mode of trial was instituted. The suspected or accused person was suspended by the neck until the process of strangulation was nearly completed. He was then let down, and if he was still pertinacious, the touchstone was again tried, until he either confessed or accused others. In other cases, it was ascertained what quantity of arms should be brought in by a certain village or district—if the full quantity could not be produced by the inhabitants, their habitations were reduced to ... — The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous Read full book for free!
... its scenes, or in its catastrophe, and dissecting its faulty characters; in a word, weighing in the critical scales the nonsense of the poet. Parody sometimes became a refined instructor for the public, whose discernment is often blinded by party or prejudice. But it was, too, a severe touchstone for genius: Racine, some say, smiled, others say he did not, when he witnessed Harlequin, in the language of Titus to Berenice, declaiming on some ludicrous affair to Columbine; La Motte was very sore, and Voltaire, and others, ... — Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli Read full book for free!
... had herself been much changed by the progress of these years. Marriage is always the great touchstone of character at least with women; but in her case the change from a troubled and premature independence, full of responsibilities and an extremely difficult and arduous duty, to the protection and calm of early married life, in which everything was done for her, and all her burdens taken ... — Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant Read full book for free!
... a scale which, to the narrow ideas of the universe then prevailing, seemed altogether extravagant.[22] The existence of such apparent or "parallactic" displacements was accordingly regarded as the touchstone of the new views, and their detection became an object of earnest desire to those interested in maintaining them. Copernicus himself made the attempt; but with his "Triquetrum," a jointed wooden rule with the divisions marked in ink, constructed by himself,[23] he was hardly able ... — A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke Read full book for free!
... Hamlet's mother, the Queen,) is the figure under which Ophelia is ridiculed in 'Eastward Hoe.' [48] The first is a girl of loosest manners. Her ambition torments her to marry a nobleman, in order to obtain a 'coach.' To her mother (Mrs. Touchstone) she incessantly speaks words of most shameless indecency, which cannot be repeated; more especially as regards her 'coach,' for which she asks ever and anon. A lackey, called Hamlet, must procure it to her. We will give some fragments ... — Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis Read full book for free!
... had sponged her face and pinned on her hat, he said, in response to her beseeching eyes, which, as so often before, made the granting of this one request, a touchstone of his love for her: "Look here, Lulu, if I possibly can, I'll drop in at the end of the first act. Look out for me then, ... — Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson Read full book for free!
... finer rhythms, in addition to the particular forms already given—rhythms not altogether 'learned,' but occasionally far-sought and peculiarly delicate—may be profitably examined. One should keep the metrical pattern constantly in mind as a test or touchstone of the variations. To classify or arrange these illustrations in special groups is difficult because so often the same line exemplifies more than one sort of variation, but the following more or less vague classes of modulation (substitution and syncopation) may be differentiated, ... — The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum Read full book for free!
... of the most distinguished American and British historians would be even more calamitous than that of their Continental brethren. If the touchstone of impartiality were applied, Prescott might perhaps pass unscathed through the trial. But few will deny that Motley wrote his very attractive histories at a white heat of Republican and anti-Catholic fervour. He, as also Bancroft, are classed by Mr. ... — Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring Read full book for free!
... you only knew," her lifted eyebrows confessed the tedium of Calcutta small talk. "But why do you say you are lightly esteemed? Surely the public is a touchstone—and you hold the public in the ... — The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan) Read full book for free!
... LEGACIE: Found after his death in his cell at Silexedra, Bequeathed to Philantus' sonnes nursed up with their Father in England. Fetched from the Canaries by T.L., Gent." Such is the fanciful title of the story which Shakespeare transformed into "As You Like it." In the comedy, the characters of Touchstone, Audrey, and Jacques are added, but otherwise the dramatist has followed his original quite closely. He made use, not infrequently, of the language as well as the incidents of Lodge, which in itself is sufficient praise. "Rosalynde," is, indeed, a charming tale, containing agreeable ... — A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman Read full book for free!
... attention whatever to his extravagant words. I only try in my poor way, as occasion presents itself"—she let her voice drop down so it went sort of soft and ketchy—"to mollify some of the harsher asperities of our youthfully strenuous community; to apply, as it were, the touchstone of Boston social standards—the standards that you and I, sir, recognize—to the sometimes too rough ways of our rough little frontier settlement. It is true, though, and I am proud to say it, that the boys do like me—of course Mr. Charles's ... — Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier Read full book for free!
... Drury-Lane I do not recollect; but it is certain that the announcement at Covent-Garden reduced rather than increased the receipts. The pit was but moderately attended, and the boxes nearly deserted. This was a touchstone from which there was no escaping; and it was really a mortifying scene to witness the utter neglect with which majesty was received. But alas! the bitter cup of mortification was to be drained to the very dregs; and the Queen's own rashness, or the bad advice of wrong-headed counsellors, ... — The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various Read full book for free!
... Lewes once happily remarked that he would make an appreciation of Boswell's Life of Johnson a test of friendship. Many of us would be almost equally inclined to make such a test of Borrow's Lavengro. Tennyson declared that an enthusiasm for Milton's Lycidas was a touchstone of taste in poetry. May we not say that an enthusiasm for Borrow's Lavengro is now a touchstone of ... — George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter Read full book for free!
... illumined with a joy so transcendent that one might easily have believed that it was to him love's touchstone had been given. ... — Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett Read full book for free!
... more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may be very dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for detecting the presence ... — Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various Read full book for free!
... state of public feeling in regard to certain political measures, the diplomate affirmed that, according to his experience, the talent, property, and respectability of the country were all against the government. This is the worn-out cant of England; and yet, when reform has been brought to the touchstone, its greatest opponents have been found among the parvenus. On being requested to mention individuals, the diplomatic man in question named three New York merchants, all of whom are foreigners by birth, neither of whom can speak good English, neither ... — A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... far in order to illustrate the characteristic of Bentham's teaching. It was not the bare appeal to utility, but the attempt to follow the clue of utility systematically and unflinchingly into every part of the subject. This one doctrine gives the touchstone by which every proposed measure is to be tested; and which will give to his system not such unity as arises from the development of an abstract logical principle, but such as is introduced into the physical sciences when we are able to ... — The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen Read full book for free!
... prescript, prescription, order, ruling; standard, criterion, touchstone, brocard; maxim, law, canon; norm; government, sway, regency, domination, authority, direction, empire, dynasty, supremacy, ... — Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming Read full book for free!
... ranks third—that is, after Shakspere and Wordsworth—in the number of selections that are there given, and rightly given, as imperishable masterpieces of English poetry. Tennyson, also, was at one with Cowper in declaring that an appreciation of Lycidas was a touchstone of taste for poetry. To Tennyson, as to Cowper, Milton was the one great English poet after Shakspere; and here, also, we revere the saneness of view. More sane too, was Cowper than any of the modern critics, in that he did not believe that mere technique was ... — Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter Read full book for free!
... breakfast is the [Greek text] of the great work of the day. Chocolate, coffee, tea, cream, eggs, ham, tongue, cold fowl, all these are good, and bespeak good knowledge in him who sets them forth: but the touchstone is fish: anchovy is the first step, prawns and shrimps the second; and I laud him who reaches even to these: potted char and lampreys are the third, and a fine stretch of progression; but lobster is, indeed, matter for a May morning, and demands a rare ... — Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock Read full book for free!
... Marston," he said. "After the way he was generally regarded at home, it was strange to hear that Canadian's opinions; but I've a notion that this country's a pretty severe touchstone. I mean that the sort of qualities that make one popular in England may not prove ... — Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss Read full book for free!
...
