"Key" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this uncanny power. She had elaborated this thought in full detail. She did not know, what I found out only slowly, that in hysterical attacks at night, for which every memory was lost the next morning, she used a stolen switch key to open a switch, because she was angry with a railway official. I will ignore all such cases with an abnormal background here and confine ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... periods of Pitt and Fox and Sheridan and our own Patrick Henry stirred to life in the heart of this slave boy the genius for oratory which did not burst forth until years afterward. The worldly wisdom of denying to slaves the key to knowledge is apparent when it is said that Douglass first learned from a newspaper that there were such people as abolitionists, who were opposed to human bondage and sought to make all men free. At about this same period Douglass's mind fell under religious ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... war; and it was so capacious, that of these it would contain 220. This harbour and island were lined with docks and sheds, which received the ships, when it was necessary to repair them, or protect them from the effects of the weather. On the key were built extensive ranges of wharfs, magazines, and storehouses, filled with all the requisite materials to fit out the ships of war. This harbour seems to have been decorated with some taste, and at some expence; so that both it and the island, viewed at a distance, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... civilization, near the frontiers of Syria and Asia Minor.** To the north it commanded the passes which opened on to the basins of the Upper Euphrates and Tigris; it protected the roads leading to the east and south-east in the direction of the table-land of Iran and the Persian Gulf, and it was the key to the route by which the commerce of Babylon reached the countries lying around the Mediterranean. We have no means of knowing what affinities as regards origin or race connected it with Uru, but the same moon-god presided over the destinies of both towns, and the Sin of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... over two sticks in the form of a cross, on the first appearance of an approaching storm, in June 1752, he went out into a field, accompanied by his son, to whom alone he had imparted his design. Having raised his kite, and attached a key to the lower end of the hempen string, he insulated it by fastening it to a post, by means of silk, and waited with intense anxiety for the result. A considerable time elapsed without the apparatus giving any sign of electricity, even although a dense cloud, apparently charged with lightning, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... he that set me here, for he keepeth with him the key of the lock, and he told me when he departed hence that never more ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... What's a fellow's shoulders for, but to give a spread to his shrouds, which lead down the neck and are set up under the arms somewhere. They says a great deal about the heart, and I reckons it's likely every thing is key'd there." ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... obliged always to use the English word 'Grace' in two senses, but remember that the Greek [Greek: charis] includes them both (the bestowing, that is to say, of Beauty and Mercy); and especially it includes these in the passage of Pindar's first ode, which gives us the key to the right interpretation of the power of sculpture in Greece. You remember that I told you, in my Sixth Introductory Lecture (Sec. 151), that the mythic accounts of Greek sculpture begin in the legends of the family of Tantalus; and especially ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... was tense in study, for he had partially grasped, in a hazy, nebulous way, the rudiments of a thought which was destined to prove the key and the solution to the puzzling problem of the ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sound came now from before them, and they stopped to listen, with the day evidently growing hotter, for down in the gorge there was not a breath of air; while as they listened the whistling grew louder and was accompanied by another in a different key, the two producing a curious dissonant sound for a few minutes, increasing rapidly, and then ceased, to be followed by absolute silence, and then a dull sound followed as ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... autumn sort of weather that gets me," he telephoned nervously one morning. "I don't want to work and I've got to finish this stuff for Graham to-day. He'll pay at once if I do. Garry, I'm going to lock the studio door and throw the key over the transom to you. Don't let me out, no ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... All the ancient men and women, great-great-great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers, whose childhood lay wellnigh lost in the infinite past of April days, said it over to each other with thin, quavering voices; but all their experience gave them no key to the mysterious message. Then the post-riders were brought into requisition. The whole corporation of Gale, Breeze, Zephyr, & Co., Express Company, all their clerks, agents, and errand-boys, were sent to and fro through the Commonwealth, to see if any one anywhere had a little light to bestow ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... Here's a health to the Plague! Let the mighty ones dread, The poor never lived till the wealthy were dead. A health to the Plague! May She ever as now Loose the rogue from his chain and the nun from her vow: To the gaoler a sword, to the captive a key, Hurrah for Earth's Curse—'tis a Blessing ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... they had found the land in two days, and that the wild men gave them roots and fish to eat, and were so kind as to bring down eight slaves to take back with them, three of whom were men and five were girls. So they gave their good hosts an axe, an old key, and a knife, and brought off the slaves in their boat to the isle. As the chief and his friends did not care to wed the young girls, the five men who had been the crew of Paul's ship drew lots for choice, so ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth; and to him was given the key of the ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... in time to be a blessing to the kingdoms of the north. But to the freeman it was a curse. He fought against it as long as he could; worsted over and over again, he renewed the struggle, and at last, when the isolated efforts, which were the key-stone of his edifice of liberty, were fruitless, he sullenly withdrew from the field, and left the land of his fathers, where, as he thought, no free-born man could now care to live. Now it is that we hear of him in Iceland, where Ingolf was the first settler ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... They held the key of Syria, and though their territory was small in extent, their position was so strong that for more than a century and a half the majority of the Assyrian generals preferred to avoid this stronghold by making a detour to the west, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... hostelry, and was just inquiring of the clerk whether a Mr. Longworth was staying there, when that gentleman appeared at the desk, took some letters and his key. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... Armitage took the key to the shops, only to find when he entered that the storekeeper's books were in the safe, the combination to which he did not know. This by no means improved his temper and he began to blunder about the office in a dragnet search. Finally, when he ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... and, after being hospitably entertained, produced his warrant. The duke retained his presence of mind, appeared to acquiesce, and, with habitual courtesy, bowed his guest first out of the room; then suddenly shut the door, turned the key and made his escape through an ante-room, a backstairs, and a window, out into the grounds. Creeping from tree to tree he made his way to a paddock where he found a horse, without a saddle but with a halter. He mounted, and the animal galloped off. In this ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... in the Execution of Man's Orders. This is the fourth quality which serves as a key to the mental capacity and ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... statesmen and warriors, who regarded their hereditary priesthood in no other light than that of a political form. Their sacred books, their Vedas, were become unintelligible to them, not so much from obsoleteness of character, as because they no longer possessed the higher knowledge which was the key to that sanctuary. What the heroic tales of the Latins might have become under an earlier development, as well as their peculiar colouring, we may still see, from some traces in Virgil, Propertius, and Ovid, although even these poets did but handle ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... let our first extract thus run on to some length, both for the reason that the passage is as representative as any we could properly offer of the quality of Rabelais, and also for the reason that the key of interpretation is here placed in the hand of the reader, for unlocking the enigma of this remarkable book. The extraordinary horse-play of pleasantry, which makes Rabelais unreadable for the general public of to-day, begins so promptly, affecting the very prologue, that we could ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... pardon; I had never for a moment thought of such a thing as that she might ruin me. 'Dear Andreas,' she asked me, 'can we never get free from each other?' I do not know what I answered; I guess there was not much sense to it, for she asked immediately for my key, as she had lost her own. I gave it to her, and then she smiled. 'Smile again,' I said, and she did it for my sake, and said smilingly that I was a big baby. Yesterday morning I didn't see her before I got home from the office. She was still working ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... version" makes no further mention of the "key and casket;" but in the first draft (vide infra, p. 122) they were used by Manfred in calling up Astaroth (Selections from Byron, New York, 1900, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... about, with this droll title, "The Life of a Wise Man, by an Ignoramus." It is the story of the great Pasteur, whose discoveries in respect to life have made him world renowned. I turned to the book, eager to find out the key to such success, and I found the old story—"the child was father of the man." This philosopher, whose eye is so skilled in observing nature, and whose hand is so apt in experiments, is the boy grown up whose pictures were so good that the villagers thought him ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... gentleman followed and remained for a short time in the cabin. When he came out I observed that he examined the door, and seemed rather nonplussed on discovering that there was no key with which he could follow his usual custom of locking up his better half. I invited him to walk the deck with me, that he might give me a fuller account of the circumstances which had occurred at Angostura, requiring the visit ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... engaged in our plot to save the life of her affianced husband; and now, within an hour of daylight, when escape will be impossible, all our plans are thrown away—we are brought to a dead stand by the want of one miserable key, and shall have nothing more to do than to make up our minds to die with what composure ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... not be burnt in its pride, that it shall not triumph at the stake. If you, madam, in the greatness of your piety, of your charity, would take the trouble to work upon this woman, putting her for some years in pace in a safe cell, of which you only should have the key,—by thus keeping up the chastening process you might be doing good to her soul, shaming the Devil, and giving herself up meek and humble into the hands of ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... himself because he has been told that Zara has deserted him. Just as the dagger is at his heart, a lovely song is sung under his window, informing him that Zara is true but in danger, and he can save her if he will. A key is thrown in, which unlocks the door, and in a spasm of rapture he tears off his chains and rushes away to find and rescue his ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... all," said Rob, moodily. "I wish we had him under lock and key again. The question is, are we going to catch him again, or is he going to catch us first? That's what I want ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... words of earnest deprecation, he gave that excellent, heroic, Christian young lady into the hands of the jailer, and she was led into the cell of Watkins. So soon as I had heard the bolts of her prison door turned in the lock, and saw the key taken out, I bowed and said: 'The deed is done, completely done. It cannot be recalled. It has passed into the history of our nation and our age.' I went away with my steadfast friend, George W. Benson, assured that the legislators of the State had been guilty of a most unrighteous ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... had gone out without umbrella, and when he let himself in by his latch-key at his own house-door about half-past eight, it was no wonder that he wrung out his coat and trousers so that he should not soak his Persian rugs. But from him, as from the charged skies, some tension had passed; this tempest which had so cooled the ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated. Now, in this case there was not the slightest doubt in my mind from the first that the key of the whole matter must be looked for in the scrap of paper ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... through so far, that a violent shake would enable him to remove it altogether. But the window was nearly seventy feet above the ground, while the only way of leaving the court was by a door reserved for the governor alone, the key of which was always carried about his person. By day it was suspended from his belt, by night it was under his bolster. To gain possession of this key was the most difficult part of ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... evacuation were in Mexico at the very time of this pathetic scene between him and Carlotta. The despatch was in cipher when I received it, but was translated by the telegraph operator at my headquarters, who long before had mastered the key ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... names printed in raised letters. These she felt of very carefully, and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked lines spoon differed as much from the crooked lines key, as the spoon differed from the key in form. Small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them, were then put into her hands, and she soon observed that they were similar to those pasted on the articles. She showed her perception of this similarity by laying the label key upon the key, and the label spoon ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... self-sufficient. No, he could not venture it. It would look too much like anxiety to get in at a feast where no plate had been provided for him. In fact he could not get in at all, except by the back way, and with a false key; that is to say, a pretext—a pretext invented for the occasion by putting into my mouth words which I did not use, and by wresting sayings of mine from their plain and true meaning. Would he resort to methods ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in England as the four-course shift. Knowledge gained by successive generations of observant farmers has given us the key to what Nature had hitherto kept to herself, and to-day we know why the plan adopted by our forefathers was right, and why the rotation of crops was, and is, a necessity. Men of science are devoting their lives to the systematic study of Nature's hidden secrets, and by means of Agricultural Colleges, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... life, by his belief that the interpretation of the book of nature was not to be kept apart from the ultimate problems of existence; by the love of truth, in short, both theoretical and practical, which gave the key to the character of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... classes," must be free also "among those who hold the office of leaders and teachers of the rest in the highest things." The Ministers of the Church ought not "to be bound to cover up, but to open; and having, it is presumed, possession of the key of knowledge, ought not to stand at the door with it, permitting no one to enter unless by force. A National Church may also find itself in this position, which, perhaps, is our own." (p. 174.)—What a charming picture of the duties and the method ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... of Liberalism.*—The key to Austrian history during the period 1815—1848 is, then, the maxim of the Emperor Francis, "Govern and change nothing." In Hungary government was nominally constitutional; elsewhere it was frankly ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... honored name was the result,—one of the most perfect for its purposes that can be imagined,—and as he asked me to write an inscription for the corner-stone, I placed on it the words: "For the Promotion of God's work among Men.'' This has seemed, ever since, to be the key-note of the work done in ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... consists of a cylinder of wood around which, as shown, wire is wound. The length of this wire in the circuit, increasing as it does the resistance of the circuit, determines the current to the electro-magnet. The action is as follows: When it is necessary to apply the brakes, a simple pressure of a key or the turn of a handle sends the electric current into the wires of the electro-magnet. An attraction immediately takes place, and the poles and armatures are brought into contact. The friction between these causes the revolution of the magnet, the winding ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... is that house, And dark it is within; There thou art fast detained And Death hath the key. Loathsome is that earth-house, And grim within to dwell. There thou shalt dwell, And worms shall divide thee. Thus thou ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... to be discovered by later investigators,[389] Kowalevsky's work at once made the development of Amphioxus the key to vertebrate embryology, the typical ontogeny with which all ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... called the strong closet—a closet with a stout door and iron-barred windows, out of which no mortal could make his escape. Whilst he was busy searching in a drawer, I shut the door upon him, locked it, and put the key into my pocket. As I left the castle, I said in a jesting tone to some of the servants who met me—"I have locked Joe Kelly up in the strong room; if he calls to you to let him out never mind him; he will not get out till I come ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... it was pleasing, and the King gave him the key of the chamber in which were the vessels and implements used ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... in a brighter key, and jarred upon him. He covered his ears, and paced up and down the room as though ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... it; then I kicked his shins (the only vulnerable part of a nigger), but it was of no use; so pouring the contents of a water jug over him, in the hope that I might thus cause awful dreams to disturb his slumbers, I left him, voting myself a muff for leaving the key in my box. ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... of an abscess also may furnish a key to its source; in axillary abscess, for example, if the suppuration is in the lymph glands the infection has come through the afferent lymphatics; if in the cellular tissue, it has spread from the neck or chest wall; if in the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... of course, was but dimly sensed by the contemporaries of Copernicus. What they really felt was the new compulsion of natural law and the necessity of causation. Leonardo was led thus far by his study of mathematics, which he regarded as the key to natural science. He even went so far as to define time as a sort of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... ramshackle cottage, with a damp and moldy air pervading it within and without. The negro messenger opened the door without knocking, held it open while she passed in, then abruptly closed it and turned a key on the outside. The woman was trapped. In a minute voices were heard in the street; that of the messenger, and one that she knew better,—and worse,—the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... apply are coarse developments of insanity. Dr. Prichard was among the first of English medico-psychologists to recognize the existence of a more subtle form of disease, which he termed "moral insanity." Herbert Spencer supplied the key-note to this mystery of madness when he propounded the doctrine of "dissolution;" and Dr. Hughlings Jackson has since applied that hypothesis to the elucidation of morbid mental states and their correlated phenomena. When disorganizing—or, if we may borrow an expression from the terminology ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... on the bed and counting it over for his father. Then he brought out a curious box much ornamented with copper, now black by age except at the sides where it had been handled, and, unlocking it, put in the money, giving the key ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Well, I have a key that will open it," and so he smashed the lid with the axe; then he went through the pockets, got Yan's old silver watch and chain, and in Sam's trousers pocket ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... further than to mere variability. We cannot suppose that all the breeds were suddenly produced as perfect and as useful as we now see them; indeed, in several cases, we know that this has not been their history. The key is man's power of accumulative selection: nature gives successive variations; man adds them up in certain directions useful to him. In this sense he may be said to make for himself ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... that he could not even sit on his ox. But amidst all these difficulties and hardships he never omitted to observe the natural objects around him and to work at his map of the route. His diary was a big volume in stout boards with lock and key, and he wrote as small ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... 2451. What the key is to the mechanical watch, air is to the physical man. Once admit air into the mouth and nostrils, and the lungs expand, the heart beats, the blood rushes to the remotest part of the body, the mouth secretes saliva, to soften ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge, shut up the kingdom of heaven against men![1] for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, for ye devour widows' houses, and, for a pretense, make long prayers: ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... do!" exclaimed the old gentleman, looking back from the entrance at the other, with an expression of scornful defiance—"we will see if you do, madam!" he repeated, closing the door after him, and turning the key on his daughter, whom he thus left a prisoner in her ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... of the great cities of the world, the centre of all the East Indian commerce, the key of southern Asia, and one of the massive links in the armored chain with which ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... had been, and Peel still was, but he departed early the next morning. I had been anxious to go there to look over the Chesterfield MSS., but I was disappointed; there were only three large volumes of letters come-at-able out of thirty, the other twenty-seven being locked up, and the key was gone to be mended. These three I ran over hastily, but though they may contain matter that would be useful to the historian of that period (from 1728 to about 1732), there was little in any way attractive, as they consisted wholly of diplomatic letters ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... opened and searched for pearle in the presence of the Captaine, his Lieutenant, the Master, the Pilot, and marchant, or three of them, whereof the Captaine or his Lieutenant to be one, and to remaine in the custodie of the Captaine and marchant, vnder two lockes, either of them to haue a key to his owne locke, and that a true inuentorie be deliuered also to the Master and Pilot of the said pearle or other iewels of price gotten in the said voiage, to the intent that no partie be defrauded of his due, and that no ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... bolts were drawn—the key turned harshly in the lock and still the shrieks came from within the sepulcher where a human being ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the stream down for some distance. Passing through some narrow lanes, they presently emerged into a street of higher pretensions, and stopped at the door of a small house wedged in between two of much larger size. The boy took a key from his girdle, opened the door, ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... is the key to most of the Blackfoot medicine practices. These doctors for the most part effect their cures by prayer. Each one has his dream, or secret helper, to whom he prays for aid, and it is by this help that he expects to restore his patient to health. No doubt the doctors ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... Harry puzzled over the message. He transcribed the Morse symbols first into English letters and found they made a hopeless and confused jumble, as he had expected. The key of the letter E was useless, as he had also expected. But finally, by making himself think in German, he began to see a light ahead. And after an hour's hard work he ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... Sister Giuliana seems to have been but the beginning of an extraordinary love epidemic at the Convent of the Stigmata: the elder schoolgirls have to be kept under lock and key lest they should talk over the wall in the moonlight, or steal out to the little hunchback who writes love-letters at a penny a-piece, beautiful flourishes and all, under the portico by the Fishmarket. I wonder does that wicked little ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... those people?' pointing to a man and woman, curious figures, who had come out of a cabin, the door of which the woman, who came out last, locked, and carefully hiding the key in the thatch, turned her back upon the man, and they walked away in different directions: the woman bending under a huge bundle on her back, covered by a yellow petticoat turned over her shoulders; from the top of this ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... this consultation Tressilian and Raleigh broke in upon them. Foster fled at their entrance, and escaped all search. He perished miserably in a secret passage, behind an iron door, forgetting the key of the spring-clock, and years later ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... novel. Yet he was wrong, as we all know. In his letters to me, there are most important views and opinions with respect to Wilhelm Meister. But this work is one of the most incalculable productions; I myself can scarcely be said to have the key to it. People seek a central point, and that is hard, and not even right. I should think a rich, manifold life, brought close to our eyes, would be enough in itself, without any express tendency, which, after all, is only for the intellect. But if anything of the sort is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them: 'Look at me! Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you don't know me?' One of them answered: 'We know you very well, Mr. Dickens.' 'Then,' I said, 'my good fellow, for God's sake, give me your key, and send one of those laborers here, and I'll empty this carriage.' We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage vans, down the stream. I got into the ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... the United States was prepared. Neither the strength of the invading army, nor of the garrison had been understood. When therefore intelligence was received that a place, on the fortifications of which much money and labour had been expended, which was considered as the key to the whole northwestern country, and supposed to contain a garrison nearly equal to the invading army, had been abandoned without a siege; that an immense train of artillery, and all the military stores, had either fallen into the hands ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... little office to where red-headed, freckle-faced, big-hearted and impetuous Jerry Macklin was rapping away at another typewriter, and, two feet away from Jerry, "Slim" Goodwin, "one-hundred-and-seventy pounds in his stockinged feet, and five-feet-four in his gym suit," was working the telegraph key ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... time, day or night, just like a China herder. He ain't running the mill all the time, and he don't know about things. Machinery won't run itself, and, as I was saying, there ain't no man knows it all. And if the boss happens to catch two or three of us talking over how to fix up a battery, or key up a loose bull-wheel, he ain't no right to say that we're loafing and neglecting our business, and jack us up for it. As I said, Mr. Hartwell, the labouring man is honest; but if we're sneaked on as ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... worst of it,' said the girl; 'I left them. I put the baby in its crib upstairs, and I told Maggie to look after it, and then I put the table in front of the fire, and locked them in, and put the key in the window. I thought I should only be away ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... both arrested. Even then Jack might have been safe, had not the devil prompted me to speak the truth. Dismayed by the magistrate, I owned, wretched woman that I was, that I had received the watch from Rann, and in two hours Jack also was under lock and key. Yet, when we were sent for trial I made what amends I could. I declared on oath that I had never seen Sixteen-String Jack in my life; his name came to my lips by accident; and, hector as they would, the lawyers could not frighten me to an acknowledgment. Meanwhile Jack's own behaviour ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... sorts of credulous gossipers, had got me the devil of a reputation in the patio of the jail. Men detached themselves from the crowd, and went running about to announce my arrival. The alcayde drew his long body into the patio, and turned to lock the little door with an immense key. In the crowd all sorts of little movements happened. Women crossed themselves, and furtively thrust pairs of crooked, skinny, brown, black-nailed fingers in my direction. The man like ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... secret religion of all the religions, is also the secret of building and maintaining a civilization and a successful and permanent business. It is hard to believe how largely, for the last twenty years, it has been overlooked by employers as the real key of the labour problem—this art of steering ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... you. We had not made many steps from hence before we met poor Jumbo wandering like a dog that had lost his master. Mr. Belamour had taken the precaution of giving Jumbo the pass-key, and not taking him into that house (some day I will pull every brick of it down), so he watched till by and by he saw a coach come out with all the windows closed, and as his master had bidden him in such ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lies and bribes. The leader of the Phocian garrison, finding that no aid came from the Athenian fleet, surrendered to Philip, and that astute monarch won what he had long schemed for, the Pass of Thermopylae, the Key ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Colburn arithmatic. it is the wirst book i ever studded. i bet there aint a boy in this wirld whitch doesnt want to paist time out of old Colburn. i had ruther be a merderer if nomuddy gnew it than be a feler whitch rote a arithmatic. Ennyway old Colburn had a key whitch tells jest how to do the xamples and has them all figgered out. teechers is aloud to have the key but the scholers cant have it. Enny time old Francis dont know how to do a xample he looks in his key and lerns how and then a feller whitch dont have a key is snached baldheaded ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... a-gittin' cool an' coolah, Frost a-comin' in de night, Hicka' nuts an' wa'nuts fallin', Possum keepin' out o' sight. Tu'key struttin' in de ba'nya'd, Nary step so proud ez his; Keep on struttin', Mistah Tu'key, Yo' do' know ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... some bishop: this the German merchants of the Hans society were obliged by compact to keep in repair, and in times of danger to defend. They were in possession of a key to open or shut it, so that upon occasion they could come in, or go out, by ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... you is to go over there and ask our Heavenly Father. No one else can answer that question."—Then His Excellency descends upon the hospital like a whirlwind, blusters at the old staff-surgeon, and reiterates the order to keep all the patients safely under lock and key. His wrath by now is slightly assuaged, but it is revived by a message from the front. A brigadier-general reports terrible losses, and declares that he cannot hold the line without reinforcements. It was part of His Excellency's ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... does, your hypothetical rush will simply have to wait, Mr. Ford. We have the key to the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... up the lid. An iron box filled the bowl. Lupin took from his pocket a key with a complicated bit and wards and opened ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... Italien in Paris, under Mr. Lumley's management, as Elvira to Mr. Sims Reeves's Ernani, and the French critics were highly eulogistic over this fresh candidate for lyric honors. She did not highly strike the perfect key-note of her genius till she appeared as Leonora in "Fidelio," at Her Majesty's Theatre, in London, on May 20, 1851, Sims Reeves being the Florestan. Her improvement since her first London engagement had been marvelous. Though scarcely twenty, ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... found that she was already in debt. To his practical mind, it was an absurdity that the unmarried sister should keep things that were wholly unnecessary, and that the sister that was to be married should be without things that were needed. There was a big trunk, of which Camilla had the key, but which, unfortunately for her, had been deposited in her mother's room. Upon this she sat, and swore that nothing should move her but a promise that her plunder should remain untouched. But there came this advantage from the terrible question of the wedding raiments,—that ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... in which Moses ministered to Joshua was as follows. During the period he arose at midnight, went to Joshua's door, opened it with a key, and taking a shirt from which he shook out the dust, laid it near to Joshua's pillow. He then cleaned Joshua's shoes and placed them beside the bed. Then he took his undergarment, his cloak, his turban, his golden helmet, and his crown of pearls, examined them to see if they were in good condition, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... commencement of the sixth century, in honour of a saint, who is said to have here suffered martyrdom, having refused to abjure Christianity at the command of the Emperor Maximin. Its more ancient name is said by antiquarians to have been Agaunum. This place is very justly considered as the key of the Lower Valais, of which it is the chief town. Its bridge over the Rhone is of one arch, of 130 feet, which is thought to be the work of the Romans, and by its boldness, does not seem unworthy of a people whose edifices are so justly distinguished for their ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... Francois went away to seek the man belonging to the lift, and after a time returned with him. The lady produced another key, with which the man belonging to the lift unlocked the door of the brass cage ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the portals of a large building, through which, after some hesitation on the part of the guards, the steward and his companion were admitted. Nigel observed that Maitre Leroux slipped some money into the hands of two or three people, this silver key evidently having its usual power of opening doors otherwise closed. Going through a side door they reached a large hall, crowded with persons. Among those seated were numerous ecclesiastics, a judge in his robes, and lawyers and their ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... won't bring boys with them, and dad won't be here. There, it's striking six. Let me just drop a rope out of the window to climb in again with. Now we'll go out together; do thou lock the door, take the key, and go off home. Like enough they'll ask thee for the key, or they may bring their sledges to break it in. Anyhow it will make no difference, for there are a couple of bolts inside, and I shall make it fast with bars. There, that's right. Good-night, John. Remember, whatever comes of ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... began to be a subtle condition of discontent and insubordination. Men gathered in muttering groups, of which Nahum Beals seemed always to be the nucleus. His high, rampant voice, restrained by no fear of consequences, always served as the key-note to the chorus of rebellion. Ellen paid little attention to it. She was earning good wages, and personally she had nothing of which to complain. She had come to regard Beals as something of a chronic fanatic, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and more forcible in colour, but they are broken into small divisions, while the tower is simple, and therefore it still leads. Ehrenbreitstein is noble in its mass, but so reduced by aerial perspective of colour that it cannot contend with the tower, which therefore holds the eye, and becomes the key of the picture. We shall see presently how the very objects which seem at first to contend with it for the mastery are made, occultly to ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... have from the pen of one of the greatest masters the real key of the solution—the power, that is, of forcing the mass of the enemy's fleet to escort the transports. Hardy, of course, knew it well from his experience of 1744, and acted accordingly. This case is the more striking, since defence against the threatened invasion was ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... know that we should not want for either; and he introduced the person he had brought with him as one who was willing to act temporarily as our counsel. Not long after, Mr. David A. Hall, a lawyer of the District, came to offer his services to us in the same way. Key, the United States Attorney for the District, and who, as such, had charge of the proceedings against us, was there at the same time. He advised Mr. Hall to leave the jail and go home immediately, as the people outside were furious, and he ran the risk ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... full of a wonder, and the wonder was this, that the mushroom shed had behaved like a living thing. The door of the mushroom shed was not locked and in that matter he had told a lie. The door of the mushroom shed had been unlocked quite recently and the key and padlock had been dropped upon the ground. And when he had tried to open the mushroom shed it had first of all yielded to his hand and then it had closed again with great strength—exactly as a living mussel will behave ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... I slept. The door between me and the hall had a lock, but no key; another door, letting from my room to the room in front of it, had no lock, but was bolted. I slept heavily and for an hour or more. Then I was aware of something being moved—slowly—slyly—by littles—under my pillow. The pillow was in a case of ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... lately, I fear I have missed a letter or two of yours: I hope this will have better fortune; for, almost unintelligible, as it is, you will want even so awkward a key. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the distribution of the population according to age. Information is included by sex and age group (0-14 years, 15-64 years, 65 years and over). The age structure of a population affects a nation's key socioeconomic issues. Countries with young populations (high percentage under age 15) need to invest more in schools, while countries with older populations (high percentage ages 65 and over) need to invest more in the health sector. The age structure ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the north door. They went on quietly without any interruption, and at last reached it. Asgeelo turned the key and held the door half open for a moment. Then he turned and whispered to them ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... absurd, of course, but then in Russia nothing was so absurd that it could be lightly dismissed from consideration. He walked to the door and turned the key, then took from his pocket the thing which Israel Kensky had slipped in. It was a thick, stoutly bound volume secured by two brass locks. The binding was of yellow calf, and it bore the following inscription in ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... Antonio, with his big key, unlocked the great gate, they filed through into the eucalyptus-shaded road, and in ten minutes they had left the quiet school behind them, and were down in the gay little town of Fossato. It was new and wonderful to Irene. The wide main street with its intense brilliant ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... diameter of the hole in the gear and also in the pinion; the backing of both gear and pinion; the width of the face; the diameter of the gear hub; diameter of the pinion hub; and, finally, whether the gears are to be fastened to the shafts by key-ways ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... her friend, "and life-experiences correct my judgment and chasten my feelings, I see all things in a new aspect. I understand my own heart better—its needs, capacities and yearnings; and self-knowledge is the key by which we unlock the mystery of other souls. So a deeper self-acquaintance enables me to look deeper into the hearts of all around me. I erred in marrying Mr. Emerson. We were both too hasty, self-willed and tenacious of rights ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... the old tenants moved away, the agent gave Rushton the key so that he could go to see what was to be done and give an estimate for ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... could pull it away, my enemy had shut the door from the outside, and I heard the key turn in it. I looked about me; I was in a narrow paved chamber, with one small window very high up, through which the sunbeams came, chequered by a tall tree, so high that I knew it was late in the day, and that we must have driven far. There was the frame of a narrow bedstead in one corner, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge |
