"Keyed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chair at her quaint mahogany dressing-table. Irene had not changed materially, though a close observer, had the light been that of day, might have remarked that she was thinner and more nervous. Her eyes held a shadowy, unsatisfied expression, and her voice was keyed unnaturally high. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... long-drawn breath, a little plaintive, but not complaining or melancholy. At times it indulges in something much more intricate and lark-like while hovering on the wing in midair, but a song is beyond the compass of its instrument, and the attempt usually ends in a breakdown. A clear, sweet, strong, high-keyed note, uttered from some knoll or rock, or stake in the fence, is its proper vocal performance. It has the build and walk and flight of the quail and the grouse. It gets up before you in much the same manner, and falls an easy prey to the crack shot. Its yellow breast, surmounted ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... originality and novelty; I could find no trace of either in this transparent work, and an opera with a finale like that of the second act could not be named in the same breath with any of my favourite works. The only thing that impressed me was the unearthly keyed trumpet which, in the last act, represented the ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... As he had never run before he sped through the bush, bearing due south-east toward the deserted end-of-steel village, avoiding trees and fallen logs with uncanny ease. Some heard him and paused in their course, but they were keyed up to serious work, and there were so many of their friends abroad. Probably a messenger of their ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... differential principle. The lifting chain is passed over two sheaves, each of which is geared internally, the one having one or more teeth in excess of the other. Revolving around these internal teeth is a pinion, actuated by an eccentric, which is keyed on to a shaft passing through the center of the block, with a bearing at each end in the outside frame of the block. At one end of this shaft is a wheel with an endless hand chain passing over it; this gives the motion to the eccentric shaft. The teeth of the internal ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... girl by the arm, drew her back into the cave; she was trembling. It seemed to her that this was no storm, that something had gone wrong with the scheme of things, that this Voice steadily being keyed up was the voice of some string keeping everything together, stretched to its utmost and ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... office. When I left him after our third talk, I was definitely re-engaged as a member of his staff, at a salary of six hundred pounds per annum, having promised to take up my duties with him in one month from that date. Every nerve in my body had been keyed to the attainment of this result, and I was grateful, and not a little flattered by its achievement. I was still a poor man; but this salary, with the few hundred pounds I might hope to add to it in a year, by means ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... could be no retreat for him. But love and longing and memory and fear all harassed him. He had as yet said nothing of this to his sister, but it weighed on him continually. Taken all in all, Robert Sumner's life, which had been keyed to so even a pitch, and to which all discord had been a stranger for so many years, was sadly jarred and ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... to me very often, in such cases, as if it were to escape the excitement. I think you're both keyed up pretty sharply by nature, Miss Bessie," said the doctor, with the personal kindness he felt for the girl, and the pity softening ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in Paris in the winter of 1917-18—in the midst of bombs, and raids, and death. Everyone was keyed up to a strange pitch, and only primitive instincts seemed to ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... hardly a fair test," Mr. Heatherbloom replied anyhow. His thoughts were keyed to a straining-point; his glance would swerve; he strove his best to control it. She was there—there—Shrouds and stays seemed to sing the words. He would have sworn he caught the flash of ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... more than hard work—hard work followed hard work—and there was danger. It had been hard from the very start—from the time the boy ranchers had left after the first wild alarm over the kidnapping of Rosemary and Floyd. They had been keyed up to high tension all the while, and this, in itself, if you have ever experienced it, is wearing. There had been absolutely no time for light enjoyment—none of the humor of the cowboys had ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... Courtney had passed very close to them in an effort to hear what they were so excitedly talking about. But the girls had purposely lowered their voices till, when the two passed, they were talking in whispers. It was a great satisfaction to get Linda so keyed up with curiosity. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... now. They were out of school—since two days before. The long summer vacation was ahead of them. Time might hang idly on their hands. So it behooved them to find something absorbing to keep their attention keyed up to the ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... sit alone at midnight, with a huge, steel-bound, lock-and-keyed book that Jane has had made for me, with my name and the inscription, "In case of death, send unopened to Jane Mathers, Boston, Massachusetts," on the back, committed to a cause as crazy and as serious as anything ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... an electric torpedo actuated by accumulators, A A, keyed upon the shaft, and revolving along with the gearings. At the beginning of the running, the accumulators are not all coupled, but under the action of a clockwork movement which is set in motion ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... was communicated to his would be hostess and it goes without saying that she was as unable to understand as all the rest. It keyed well enough with his lately shown indifference, but the indifference keyed not at all with all that had gone before and still less with her very correct comprehension of Jack himself. She was quite positive as to the sincerity of those ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... not have much to say about the machines and workshop, but each felt that it was to be their very own magazine, so that their interest and pleasure in every new development were keyed to ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... for the choicest morsels,—and the bounty and providence it suggests. Or the chopper in the woods,—the prostrate tree, the white new chips scattered about, his easy triumph over the cold, coat hanging to a limb, and the clear, sharp ring of his axe. The woods are rigid and tense, keyed up by the frost, and resound like a stringed instrument. Or the road-breakers, sallying forth with oxen and sleds in the still, white world, the day after the storm, to restore the lost track and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... the same moment as I did choked back the cold fear that had rushed upon me. I was not insane! Holman was listening too! I seemed to feel that the tiny thread of sound which had set my pulses beating madly had also keyed him up ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... with a world of meaning to the high-keyed question, "then my welcome was no mistake! Welcome waits Royalists here," and she gave me her hand to kiss just as an elderly woman with monster white ringlets all about her face and bejewelled fingers and bare shoulders and flowing draperies swept into the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... disappointment was telling on both of them. Each felt inclined to blame the other for their having fallen so far behind. They rode along in silence, their nerves becoming more and more keyed up as their hopes grew less. At garage after garage they ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... most of it, at least, Rosa and O'Reilly sat hand in hand, oblivious of hunger and fatigue, impatient for the coming of night, keyed to the highest tension. Now they would rejoice hysterically, assuring each other of their good fortune, again they would grow sick with the fear of disappointment. Time after time they stepped out of the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... reason. I can't make my husband really believe that I mean what I say; and you are my Declaration of Independence!" And she laughed, but a trifle wildly, and looking at her suddenly, I realized that she was keyed almost to ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... oil centrifugally. The separator consists of a chip holder, having an imperforate shell flaring upward and outward from the spindle (in fixed bearings) to which it is attached. When filled, a cover is placed upon it and keyed to the spindle. Between the cover and holder there is a small annular opening through which oil, but not chips, can escape. Fig. 29 (Pat. 225,949—C.F. Roper) is designed (like the greater part of the drawings inserted) to show relative position of parts merely, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... Rutherford, having a high-keyed voice, was a poor speaker; but that did not prevent him from holding multitudes spell-bound. They came from afar to hear him tell of the love of Christ. He gazed upon visions of Christ's loveliness, arose in raptures of joy as he ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... little apart from the other Japanese girls. Henry was on her with a bound. Now was his time. He felt keyed up, full of persuasive words. In the interval which had elapsed since their last conversation yeasty emotions had been playing the dickens with his self-control. It is practically impossible for a novice, suddenly introduced behind the ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... talking points without wasting a big appropriation. His letters are tested as accurately as the chemist in his laboratory tests the strength or purity of material that is submitted to him for analysis. How letters are keyed and tested is ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... Eric, keyed to a wild and excited perception, saw the captain of the steamer in the water, a few feet away, and swam to him. He found him conscious but unable to swim, the jerk from the breeches-buoy having twisted a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the casual interest of the feature story that now inspired Jimmy Hale, on his way the following morning with his friends to the camp of Isaac Higginbotham. Jimmy's vivid imagination was keyed to its highest pitch. Decidedly this trip to Canada seemed very much worth while, even to a star reporter. What McCall had intimated the day before whetted his appetite. He thrilled at the thought that he was on the scene where a big story might be in the ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... the door and for several minutes Mary played a tattoo on her machine. Then she keyed down quietly and, setting her transmitter at its maximum, she turned it towards ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... excited till anything quieter than lower Broadway hurts his ears, all passion and brilliance spent on business, dinners here and there, with people who all have their ax to grind, too, and are keyed up to it by rows and rows of cocktails. He drew him without mercy, and he had every wife there either wincing or laughing, with the truth of what he said. He was quite eloquent." She paused, she laughed softly, she turned her ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... rustling green Lulov—the palm-branch of the Feast of Tabernacles—and shook it piously toward every corner of the compass. At each shake the audience rolled about in spasms of merriment. A moment later a white gliding figure, moving to the measure of the cake-walk, keyed up the laughter to hysteria. It was the Ghost appearing to frighten Ophelia. His sepulchral bass notes ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... slowly on, eyes and ears and nostrils keyed for the hunt. He descended until he was not more than a hundred yards above the creek, and he no longer sought out the easiest trail, but the rough and broken places. He travelled slowly and in a zigzag fashion, stealing cautiously around great masses of boulders, ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... gone —pretty chipper. I used to come often from the other end of Newport Street, where I was born, to Pemberton's. But that wasn't on account of Pemberton, though he was agreeable, but on account of Madge Pemberton. Madge and I were agreed, and Pemberton was agreeable, but I was restless and keyed high in those days, resembling pups, ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... brothers we see what Minor[20] well enough calls the hot and cold passions. Karl is a hotspur whose emotions are always keyed up to the highest pitch; he is never calm and is incapable of sober reasoning. His boiling blood and his insensate ambition are his only oracles. We may say that his motives are lofty, but in trying to set the world right and make it conform to his perfervid dreams of ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... strolling down Main Street, aware of many curious eyes, his ears keyed tensely, heard a faint and distant explosion. Thirty seconds later there was a second, sufficiently loud to attract the attention of others on the street. Then came a third, so violent that it rattled the windows and brought the inhabitants ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... our advantage that we'd acted without hesitation, and I don't think we'd have been able to do that except that we'd been all set to kill each other when he dropped in. Our muscles and nerves and minds were keyed for instant ruthless attack. And some "civilized" people still say that the urge to ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... prepared for a great change in Pastor Drury, but he noticed no such signs of breakdown as he had expected to see. He did not know that the beloved pastor was keyed up for this meeting. He could not guess that the beaming eye, the old radiant smile, the touch of color in a face usually pale, were on special if unconscious display because the pastor's heart was thanking ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... had no expectation of coming upon Peppajee—unless Peppajee deliberately put himself in his way—and so there was no need of caution. He stopped once, and stood long minutes with his head turned to catch the faint sound of high-keyed laughter and talk which drifted up to him. If he went higher, he thought, he might get a glimpse of them—of her, to tell his thought honestly. Whereupon he forgot all about finding and expostulating with Peppajee, and ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... startling adventures in the last few weeks, and although several days had elapsed since the windup in these events and it seemed that a season of quiet, peaceful camp life was in store for them, still they were sufficiently keyed up to the unusual in life to accept surprises and astonishing climaxes as almost matters ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... of itself almost carries him to the mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop going, when a smart one was required to set it in motion. While others are yawning and stretching themselves to overcome the vis inertiae, he has his eyes wide open, his faculties keyed up for action, and is thoroughly alive in every fiber. He walks through the world with his hands unmuffled and ready by his side, and so can sometimes do more by a single touch in passing than a vacant man is likely ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... F is a piston working in the cylinder, G; E is the flexible steel rack connected to the piston, F, and gearing with a toothed wheel, B, which is inclosed in a watertight casing having cover, D, for convenient access. The wheel, B, is keyed on a steel shaft, C, which passes through stuffing-boxes in the casing, and has the winding barrel, A, keyed on it outside the casing. H is a rectangular tube, which guides the free end of the flexible steel rack, E. The hoist is fitted with a stopping ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... downstream metropolis and should not be treated as separate. They are all drinking from the same fountain. Where an upstream demand is great enough or is going to be great enough in a short span of years to warrant major storage, that storage must be keyed in with all other demands that it might meet or help to meet, including that at Washington. Where an area of lesser need is shut off by its location from sharing in such major storage, groundwater ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... him in this, and from beginning with clapping bones it was not long before he learned to play on the guitar, banjo, violin, and flute. On the Christmas when he was seven years old he was given a small one-keyed flute, and from that time on the flute became his favorite instrument. When he grew to manhood he became first flutist in the Baltimore orchestra. So passionately fond was he of music that he could scarcely decide between that and poetry as ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... it. The seven ships had to keep in formation. They had to start off on one course—with a slight spread as a safety measure—and at one time. So the firing-circuits were keyed to relays in series. Only when all seven firing-keys were down at the same time would any of the jatos fire. Then all would ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... Fanny, to herself, "or horribly nervous and high-keyed. They jump like a set of puppets ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... foreman, like himself was stationed somewhere off there in the blackness, sitting on his pony as immovable as a statue, his straining eyes peering into the night, his ears keyed to catch the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... only us. I say, as knows the long wild nights, and the wet and the rain and the mist of nights on the boglands—it's only us, I say, could listen him in the right way. And ye knowed, right well ye knowed, that every string of his fiddle was keyed to the crying ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... own "spirituals." By these they could sing themselves, as had their fathers before them, out of the contemplation of their own low estate, into the sublime scenery of the Apocalypse. I remember that this minor-keyed pathos used to seem to me almost too sad to dwell upon, while slavery seemed destined to last for generations; but now that their patience has had its perfect work, history cannot afford to lose this portion of its record. There is no parallel instance of an oppressed race ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... only to place one end of the yoke on the neck of the "off" ox, known, for example, as "Bright," and hold the other end toward the "nigh" ox, saying, "Come under here, Buck," and the obedient fellow placed himself in position. Then the bows were placed and keyed, and "Bright" and "Buck" were hitched for duty. It required but a few minutes to put three or four yoke of oxen ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... had a more vital meaning. No pictures crowded his brain. He was simply keyed to a high point of expectancy, and therefore, when the door was opened silently, he sprang up as if in acknowledgment of an alarm and faced Barry. The latter closed the door behind him and glided after ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... which it presides. Here begins rudimentary, unreasoning intelligence. It originates within the body as an inward, vital impulse, is manifested in an undeviating manner, and therefore displays no intention or discretion. While Dr. Carpenter likens the human organism "to a keyed instrument, from which any music it is capable of producing can be called forth at the will of the performer," he compares "a bee or any other insect to a barrel organ, which plays with the greatest exactness a certain number of tunes that are set upon ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... passed with greater zest; men moved with a freer step, a more joyous swing. The very machinery seemed in some incomprehensible way to be animated with the spirit of the workmen, while the droning, humming, roaring voice of the Mill was unquestionably keyed to a happier note. In the offices among the bookkeepers, clerks, stenographers and the department heads, the same brightening of the atmosphere was noticeable. Nor was the spirit of the event confined to the Mill itself; throughout ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... as the initial sparks, while the adrenals, as the carburetors, permit the freer flow of fuel, sugar, from the liver. The thyroid works as the accelerator, the original impulse finally landing upon muscles keyed up and supplied with food to meet the situation, be it that of removing a poison, removing an aggressor (attack) or removing the individual himself (running away). When one is exhausted by exertion and emotion, injury, intoxication ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... kept up for some time, neither seeming to gain to any appreciable extent. Of course both boys were keyed up to a state of intense nervousness. Passing through the air at this fearful speed fully five hundred feet above the ground was surely enough to excite them. One little accident and they would hardly ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... the post told that some one was sitting in the hammock. Evidently it was Lloyd, for Phil's voice sounded nearer the window. He had seated himself in the armchair that always stood in that niche, and was tuning a guitar. As soon as it was keyed up to his satisfaction, he began thrumming on it, a sort of ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... tones of the speaking voice are the middle and low keys. These should be used exclusively in daily conversation. The use of high pitch is due to habit or temperament, but may be overcome through judicious practice. The objection to a high-keyed voice is not only that it is disagreeable to the listener, but puts the speaker "out of ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... stand—a movement by Chopin; a violoncello leaned in its case in one corner, a cornet-a-piston showed itself, like an arrangement in brass macaroni packed in red velvet upon a side-table; and in front of it lay open a small, flat flute-case, wherein were the two halves of a silver-keyed instrument side by side, in company with what seemed to be its young one—so exact in resemblance was the silver-mounted piccolo made ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... stood all her life with dagger drawn, on the defensive against what certainly was to her an unmerciful world. With possibly one exception, the man now before her was the only one she had ever encountered whose speech and gesture were clearly keyed to that profound respect which is woman's first, foundation claim on man. And yet, by inexorable decree, she belonged to what we used to call "the happiest people under the sun." We ought ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... most thrilling and realistic fire pictures ever produced was "The Incendiary Foreman," released by Pathe Freres early in 1908. It had a well-developed plot that kept the dramatic interest keyed up every moment, but the features of the film were the many thrillingly realistic fire scenes, in which the Parisian fire department battled with the flames while several enormous buildings were being destroyed. One of the earlier scenes depicted the yard of the Pathe ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... character himself. When they came around to him to collect money for the church he'd contribute some of his unpaid shoe accounts. He knew the people that owed them would pay the church, because they'd be afraid not to. Old Deacon Timothy Todd used to do the collecting. He had a high-keyed voice and no front teeth, and always chewed as he talked. He'd pull out the bill and shake it at the man that owed it and say: 'A debt to the church is registered above. Not to pay it is a mortal sin. To perish in sin is to be burned with brimstone and eaten by the worm that dieth ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... quietly out. Offended? Not he. He had not listened to invective from that Celtic tongue for eight years not to know that high tension over a coming critical operation almost invariably meant brilliant success. But even he had never seen Red Pepper keyed up quite so taut as this. It must be a tremendous risk he meant to take. Success to him—the queer, fine ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... than a year, was received with the same popular delight, and with even greater respect on the part of the critics. Even the formidable Jeffrey, who was supposed to dine off slaughtered authors as the Giant in "Jack and the Beanstalk" dined off young Englishmen, keyed his voice to unwonted praise. The influx of tourists into the Trossachs, where the scene of the poem was laid, was so great as seriously to embarrass the mail coaches, until at last the posting charges had to be raised in order to diminish the ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... hard and eaten well. Sangree, also smoking, leaned against a tree with his gaze fixed on the girl, a depth of yearning in his face that he could not hide, and that really distressed me for him. And Joan herself, with wide staring eyes, alert, full of the new forces of the place, evidently keyed up by the magic of finding herself among all the things her soul recognised as "home," sat rigid by the fire, her thoughts roaming through the spaces, the blood stirring about her heart. She was as unconscious of ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... again, which made three distinct impulses to laughter in one conversation. This was not like Cliff's usual conservatism. As Johnny had known him he laughed seldom, and then only at something disagreeable. He was keyed up for something; a great coup of some sort was in sight, Johnny guessed shrewdly, studying Cliff's face and the sparkle in his eyes. He was like a man who sees success quite suddenly where he has feared to look upon failure. Johnny wondered ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... glow and the campfires kindle until the valley became hooped about as if by a million giant fireflies. Five nights had I strayed, like a lost soul, through an unreal wilderness, harkening to the drone of stories told in an unfamiliar tongue, to the minor-keyed dirges of an unknown race, to the thumping of countless moccasined feet in the measures of queer dances. The odors of a savage people had begun to pall on me, and the sound of a strange language to annoy; I longed for another white man, for a ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... consists in this: that the cut-off eccentric is not keyed fast, as is customary when valve gear of this kind is employed, but is loose upon the shaft, the angular position in relation to the crank being changed when the engine is reversed; two strong lugs are bolted on the shaft, one driving the eccentric in one direction, the other in the opposite, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... could bring her work into the sitting-room, she sat facing the glass door. She was not exactly happy; she was too strangely excited for happiness; but she was keenly awakened and alert. Every nerve in her seemed keyed up to its ultimate tension, and if the shadow of a cloud passed, even if a red leaf fell outside, she looked ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Joyce, rather crestfallen, and glanced up to meet the dancing eyes of Larry, who was passing by and caught the high-keyed sentence. "But you know I have come here to live now, and I assure you I am not a teacher—just ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... of some interesting modern developments will also speedily discover that the adoption of the so-called whole-tone scale as a basis of music is, except upon a keyed instrument tuned to the compromise of equal temperament, unnatural and impossible. No player upon a stringed instrument can play the scale of whole-tones and arrive at an octave which is in tune with the starting note, unless he deliberately changes one of ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... trembling with constitutional infirmity and age, upon whose consecrated head the vials of tyrannic wrath had been outpoured. Among the crowd of slaveholders who filled the galleries he could seek no friends, and but a few among those immediately around him. Unexcited, he raised his voice, high-keyed, as was usual with him, but clear, untremulous, and firm. In a moment his infirmities disappeared, although his shaking hand could not but be noticed: trembling not with fear, but with age. At first there was nothing of indignation in his tone, manner, or words. Surprise and cold contempt ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... power was in theory absolute. It was an imitation of Roman Imperialism, and made no allowance for those limitations, both in its domestic and foreign expressions, which existed as a consequence of national growth and the international system. Their authority at all times was keyed up to the pitch of a great emergency. It was supposed to be the immediate expression of the common weal. The common weal was identified with the security of society and the state. The security of the state dictated the ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... reddening, and contracting his brows. "Did Phillida take it?" This last was spoken in a low-keyed monotone. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... republican institutions; hateful in the sight of God, and ever abhorrent to all honest men. He hated slavery. He hated truckling, obsequious, cringing hypocrites. He put his feelings into vigorous English, and keyed his deeds and actions to the sublime notes of charity that filled his heart and adorned a long and eminently useful life. He gave shelter to the majestic and heroic John Brown. His door was—like the heavenly gates—ajar to every fugitive from slavery, and his fiery ...
— 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
... thankless the desert it blesses; Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses; Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing. What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses? What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes? Sweeter is music with minor-keyed closes, Fairest the vines ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... procession, And I hear the sound of coming full-keyed bugles, All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, As ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... an odd sense of impending trouble. For an instant it seemed as if they were about to break for cover; and when they approached us there was a strained, expectant expression on each tanned face, a wariness in their actions that looked unnatural to me. The nearer they came the more did I feel keyed up for some emergency. I can't explain why; that's something that I don't think will bear logical analysis. Who can explain the sixth sense that warns a night-herder of a stampede a moment before the herd jumps off the bed-ground? But that ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... various distances farther on no less than six more small canoes were dotted about, their feather-crowned crews all busily employed fishing, while as the boats glided round the tree-covered rocks the nearest Indians struck up a soft minor-keyed chant which was taken up by the crews of the other canoes, the whole combining in a sweet low melody which floated over the smoothly-flowing river, fully explaining the sounds heard from the ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... ships lying beyond. They rose straight and tall, their cordage like spider webs, in a succession of regular spaces until they were lost behind the mill. From the exhaust of the mill's engine a jet of white steam shot up sparkling. Close on its apparition sounded the exultant, high-keyed shriek of the saw. It ceased abruptly. Then Bob became conscious of a heavy rud, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... shred cho'rus ly'rist ob'sta cle dread po'rous li'vre pro'to col scheme hill'y ten'on mys'tic al chief lil'y pen'non mis'ti ness siege san'dal ros'trum rec're ant seat can'dle phan'tom reck'on er seethe nu'tant fan'ion wretch'ed ly keyed neu'ter ver'sion of'fi cer tweed ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... the dining room were lush. While they ate, the materialism of their lives was reinforced. From silvered-and-tapestried wall to wall there was life here, low-keyed with excitement in the blend of subdued talk and the shifting artistry of lights and music. Their table was almost in the center of the islands of tables and potted trees, and around them were the diners, their voices washing up at them both, inviting them with gentle tugs to ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... superior in the lords of the desert and the air. Obviously they were wise. Among them were some that knew in advance the change of the seasons. Others, indifferent to man and independent of him, migrated over highways known but to them. The senses of all were keyed to vibrations. They heard the inaudible, saw the invisible, and, though they had a language of their own, when questioned never replied. To ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... the greatest effort that Stiles pulled himself together. The excitement of seeing friends and of the escape had keyed him to the required effort, but with the tension relaxed he was on the point of collapse. None too strong at any time, the terrible experiences of the past few days had weakened him greatly; he had had little to eat and ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... was longed for with an eagerness he could not have dreamed. Everything must be in perfect order to receive him, and Peggy flew from house to garden, from garden to stables, from stables to paddock keyed to a state of excitement which infected every member of the household. Dr. Llewellyn smiled sympathetically. Harrison, the housekeeper, stalked after her, doing her best to carry out her orders, while announcing that: NOW, she guessed, there would be some hope of making Mr. Neil see the folly of ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... noted, were some crisp, telling sketches, big and little, in color and black-and- white, the work of the artist members of this coterie, which covered every square inch of the leak-stained surface of ceiling and wall, and the yellow-keyed, battered piano which occupied the centre of the open space and which stood immediately under two flaring gas-jets. At the moment of Fred's and Oliver's arrival the top of this instrument was ornamented by two musically inclined gentlemen, one seated cross- legged like a Turk, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... or more afterward, they sat around the blazing fire they had made, discussing eagerly ways and means for the morrow's search. All of them were keyed up to the highest pitch. They had no definite plans except to hunt and dig until their strength gave out, but there was not one of them, even including cautious Bill, who did not feel sure that victory was ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... sweet Robin! . . . After a few Words, they retired to theire Books; and my Husband, taking my Hand, sayd in his kindliest Manner,—"And now I leave my sweete Moll to the pleasant Companie of her own goode and innocent Thoughtes; and, if she needs more, here are both stringed and keyed Instruments, and Books both of the older and modern Time, soe that she will not find the Hours hang heavie." Methoughte how much more I should like a Ride upon Clover than all the Books that ever were penned; ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... of Isabelle's talk was not to be stayed. She was excited and keyed up high. There was a simplicity and directness about this Judd woman that made her think of Mrs. Benjamin, so she told all about Hill Top and her life there, her love of it, her ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... two or three singers can read is more convenient in the choir than a multiplicity of small books; and the music being in full score, its intention cannot be mistaken: for it must be understood that most of these tunes are set in the manner proper for voices, but unsuitable for the piano or other keyed instrument; and the book is intended to encourage unaccompanied singing. A choir that cannot sing unaccompanied cannot sing at all; and this is not an uncommon condition in our churches, where choirs with varying success accompany ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... kindness, Mr. Marrapit. Truly, as I say to myself every night, fair is my lot and goodly is my—" Icy dismay took her. Was the missing word "hermitage" or "heritage"? With masterly decision she filled the blank with a telling choke; keyed her voice to a brilliant suggestion of brightness struggling with tears: "The sweetling cats are safely sleeping. I have come straight from them. Ah, how they miss you! How well ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... octaves. Guido d'Arezzo, the famous sight-reading music teacher of the eleventh century, advised his pupils to "exercise the hand in the use of the monochord," showing his knowledge of the keyboard. The keyed monochord gained the name clavichord. Its box-like case was first placed on a table, later on its own stand, and increased in elegance. Not until the eighteenth century was each key ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... but he "arranged things" for people, and appeared to thrive upon it in a scrambling, fugitive manner. The other two people were Mr. and Mrs. Dawes. Mr. Dawes was an entirely negative person, but Mrs. Dawes shone by virtue of a high, whining, insistent voice, keyed to within half a ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the garrison has not attempted to escape, but is sending out upon its assailants a continuous and deadly fire. "Throughout the heaviest din of our fire," says Colonel Carpenter, "could be heard the peculiar high-keyed ring ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... a noted painter once said to me: These semi-invalids neither need nor deserve our commiseration, for in reality the beggars have the advantage of us. Their nerves are always sensitive and keyed to pitch, while we husky chaps have to flog ours up to the point. We must dig painfully through the outer layers of flesh before we can get at the spirit, while the invalids are all spirit. [Footnote: ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... that don't are Hakluyt's (and are not always systematically marked as such by the editor). The sidenotes are Hakluyt's own. Summarizing sidenotes are labelled [Sidenote: ] and placed before the sentence to which they apply. Sidenotes that are keyed with a symbol are labeled [Marginal note: ] and placed at the point of the symbol, except in poetry, where they are placed at a convenient point. Additional notes on corrections, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... no, it's not fatalism," Mr. Fargus used to say. "Not predestination. It's just exactly like a chess problem or an acrostic. The Creator sets it. He knows the solution, the answer. You've got to work it out. It's all keyed for you just as the final move in chess or the final discovery in an acrostic is keyed up to right from the start." And on this argument Mr. Fargus introduced Sabre to the great entertainment in "working back" when a game of Patience ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... man on the curb. Steering, beside the girl, looking down at her, not seeing Madeira because of her, nodded approvingly, the approval being for her honesty, her sweetness, her vitality. Something, perhaps the near climax for her father's enterprise at Canaan, seemed to have keyed her to a high pitch. Steering, who by now had had opportunities to see her often, had never seen her so beautiful, nor so quick of expression in word and look. Her voice thrilled him; and while he was thrilling, Madeira's voice came on to him: "You needn't hold back on ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... there comes a moment of puzzled hesitation. One way of approach is set beside another for choice, and a third contrived for better choice. Still the puzzle persists, all because the one precisely right way might seem—shall we say intense, high keyed, clamorous? Yet if one way is the only right way, why pause? Courage! Slightly dazed, though certain, let us be on, into the shrill thick ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... idle to assume that these do not possess pressure-resisting and arching properties. For instance, a soft clay arch of larger dimensions, under the condition described early in this paper, would undoubtedly stand if the rods supporting the intrados of the arch were keyed back to washers ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... is found in Oldham's coupling, Fig. 44. The two sections of shafting, A and B, have each a flange or collar forged or keyed upon them; and in each flange is planed a transverse groove. A third piece, C, equal in diameter to the flanges, is provided on each side with a tongue, fitted to slide in one of the grooves, and these tongues are at right angles to each other. The axes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... fully exposed, to the wonderment of the little boys sitting in the gallery behind, and to none more than our young musician. At eight years of age he began to play upon his father's old fife, which, however, would not sound D; but his mother remedied the difficulty by buying for him a one-keyed flute; and shortly after, a gentleman of the neighbourhood presented him with a flute with four silver keys. As the boy made no progress with his "book learning," being fonder of cricket, fives, and boxing, than of his school lessons— the village schoolmaster giving him up as "a bad job"—his ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Bucks, somewhat keyed up, fired twice again at the fleeing men, but with no more effect than to kick up the dust once behind and once ahead of them as they ran. The instant they reached the rocks where they found shelter Bucks drew back out of sight, ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... habit and inclination would have sent him riding fast and far over prairies untamed. Inaction comes hard when a man has lived his life mostly in the open, doing those things which keep brain and muscle keyed alike to alertness and leave ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... keyed up about graduation, now so near, and most of them were cramming at every opportunity on the subjects in which they felt themselves deficient. Such tenseness is natural before any final examinations, but in their case more so than it would have been in an ordinary ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... followed close upon his heels, his every sense upon the alert, his nerves keyed to the highest pitch of excitement. This was life! For the instant he forgot his resolutions of a few minutes past to hasten to the coast at some other point than that at which he had landed and make his way immediately back to London. He thought now only of the savage joy of living, and of ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... designed by the great architect Thorp. Of a Florentine favor externally, it was internally a magnificent illustration of what Elizabethan decorators could do, and the great hall gave the note to which the whole scheme was keyed. Its wonderful mullioned windows looked out across the moat on the terrace, and beyond the terrace on the park. Its walls of panelled oak were splendid witnesses to the skill of great craftsmen. Its carved roof was a marvel of art that had learned ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Keyed up to a high pitch of enthusiasm, I played golf for ten days, and found my friend to be a fine sportsman. Like all Englishmen, he took a beating gracefully, but gave me to understand that he had been having a good deal of trouble with rheumatism or neuritis in his right elbow. On the last day we ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... And thus so well-keyed was he, that he expressed clearly his key. He had no flare for anything. He was that rare individual, normal, average, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Tom in derision. It was impossible for him to stop talking, he was so keyed up. "It's paradise, I'm sure, compared to ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... aptly altered to suit the occasion, Seth, who was not so green but that he knew pages of poetry by heart, repeated in a high-keyed, nasal sing-song, which set all ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... essential things, still it changes her. She is less woman, less—whatever you choose to call it. A coarser touch has come upon her, and she is changed. Well, I say I believe all this, and I do, with all my soul; and yet, as you say, it's cruel hard for a young creature, all keyed up to a pitch of enthusiasm and devotion and noble aspiration, to be checked like a boy's kite, and brought down to the ground and told to mind her seam. It's cruel hard, I can see that; I can feel and sympathise intensely with all that part of it, ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... We were close to the Park, the Regent's, and when with extreme alacrity I had placed myself beside her and the carriage had begun to enter it she went on: "It was what I feared, you know. It reeked with culture. He keyed it ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... for a solitary ride such as had, before now, drawn much of the lonely ache out of his heart and keyed him up to the life which he must live and which chafed his spirit more than even he realized. Instead of such slender comfort, he was forced to ride beside the girl who had hurt him—so close that his knee sometimes brushed her horse— and to listen to her friendly chatter and make ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower |
