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Chord   Listen
verb
Chord  v. i.  (Mus.) To accord; to harmonize together; as, this note chords with that.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Chord" Quotes from Famous Books



... but would not vouch for. Only, a very old inhabitant told it to him. It appeals to me as true. It must be true." A new warmth stole into Vanno's voice as he spoke. They had both been looking up at the tablet on the rock, but as that thrill like a chord on a violin struck her ear, Mary turned to him. Their eyes met, as they had so often met, but to-day there was no coldness in Vanno's, or hurt ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... inner apartments. The Bara Rani's room must have been drawing me again. It had become an absolute necessity for me, that day, to feel that this life of mine had been able to strike some real, some responsive chord in some other harp of life. One cannot realize one's own existence by remaining within oneself—it ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... Gospel, that it passed over them without even rousing their intellect, and so vanished without doing any hurt. Tuned to the truth by obedience, no falsehood they heard from the pulpit partisans of God could make a chord vibrate in response. Dawtie indeed heard nothing but the good that was mingled with the falsehood, and shone like a ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... all we have a right to treat Montaigne as we please, even though that right includes the privilege of not reading every word of the famous Essays, and of only reverting—in our light return to them—to those aspects and qualities which strike an answering chord in ourselves. ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... cried, "an' I want her back." Then, in a moment, his whole manner changed, and his words came with an irresistible pleading. Hard as was the gambler, the pathos of it struck a chord in him the existence of which, perhaps, even he ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... trot. As the flame died from the western sky and the shadows crept down from the trees, the bonfire was set alight. As the flame leaped high the soft strains of the orchestra died away. Then suddenly, clear, full and strong, a chord sounded forth, another, and then another. A hush fell upon the chattering, laughing crowd. Then as they caught the strain men lolling upon the ground sprang to their feet; lads stood ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... almost to form a semicircle. The chord—that is, a line drawn from the apex of the blade to the base of the petiole—of a young leaf, 4 3/4 inches in length, stood at 2.50 P.M. on [page 248] Dec. 5th at an angle of 13o beneath the horizon, but by 9.30 P.M. the blade had straightened itself so much, which ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... of the Great Feast strikes the same note when the liberal host sent out his servants, saying, 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled'. But the grand chord was sounded out by our Risen Lord when He said to His disciples, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature'. That is ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard

... her so sing had somehow imputed to the parade of bravado in the swing of its rhythm a something that might have belonged to a touched chord. Like enough a mistake of his, said Reason. But for all that the reminiscence played its part in soothing Fenwick's ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... when, working his will before him, the machine at last, resistless, silent, massive pantomime of a life, offers itself to the gaze of men's souls and the needs of their bodies,—to know an inventor at all is to know that at a moment like this a chord is touched in him strange and deep, soft as from out of all eternity. The melody that Homer knew, and that Dante knew, is his also, with the grime upon his hands, standing and watching it there. It is the same song that from pride to pride and ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee

... weeks in a lonely country place had been far too long the summer before for Madame, and a wilderness was the last place she desired. But the plaintive song touched a sentimental chord and answered every purpose. Mr. Stockman, who sat midway of the center aisle, grasping his gold-headed cane, suffered the keen business lines of his face to relax and looked palpably pleased. He recalled the money contributed ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... continued. I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... grandmother, to the bright little children, who read the advent of some impending calamity in the gloomy countenances and bitter words of their parents. The passion for the possession of land is the chord on which the agent plays, and at his touch it vibrates with 'the deepest notes of woe.' By the agent of an improving landlord it is generally touched so cunningly, that its most exquisite torture cannot easily be proved to be a grievance. He presents an alternative to the tenant; ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... supple. There is a marked indifference to the possibilities of contrapuntal effect, a dependence upon a method fundamentally homophonic rather than polyphonic—this music is a rich and shimmering texture of blended chord-groups, rather than a pattern of interlaced melodic strands. One cannot but note the manner in which it abhors and shuns the easily achieved, the facile, the expected. Its colors and designs are rare and far-sought ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman

... Frances, tenderly, "compose yourself; let no desire to oblige me endanger a life that is precious to—to—so many." The words were nearly stifled by her emotions, for the other had touched a chord that thrilled to ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... churches are not of my denomination." And so, in spite of her regard for the printer, she could not bring herself to link her destiny with one whose eternal future was so insecure, and whose life did not chord with that which was to her, the one great keynote of the universe, the church. And then, too, does not the good book say: "Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers." What could that mean if not, "Do not marry ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... is earth with me; silence resumes her reign: I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,—yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep; Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, The C Major ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... perversion! Since the playing of those melancholy minor strains in that red sunset so long ago, which had touched so responsive a chord in Laurelia's grief-worn heart, the crazy old fiddle had been naturalized, as it were, and had exchanged its domicile under the porch for a position on the wall. It was boldly visible, and apparently no more ashamed of itself than was the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... almost beyond redemption. Will you return to this gang of robbers, and to this man, when a word can save you? What fascination is it that can take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery? Oh! is there no chord in your heart that I can touch! Is there nothing left, to which I can appeal against ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... perceptible, while a peculiar somber fragrance pervaded the atmosphere. The music rapidly ran the gamut to the limit of audibility and, in the same tempo, the lights traversed the visible spectrum and disappeared. Then came a crashing chord and a vivid flare of blended light; ushering in an indescribable symphony of sound and color, accompanied by a slower ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... saw the Pleiades, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of a fool! Comfort? Comfort scorn'd of devils! ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... beat down. abme, m., abyss, chasm. abolir, to abolish, wipe out. abondance, f., abundance. abri, m., shelter; mettre l'—, to shield. absolu, absolute. abuser, to deceive. accabler, to overwhelm, crush. accepter, to accept; ne pas —, to decline. accompagner, to accompany. accord, m., chord (of music). accorder, to grant. accourir, to run, flock. acheter, to buy. achever (de), to finish. acte, m., act. action, f., action, deed. adieu, farewell. admettre, to admit. admirer, to admire, marvel ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... no doubt. She jumped whenever I came round the corner, and used to stand behind trees watching me. Also she used to come to see the dogs fed. Now, when I knew beyond all question the state of her feelings, I borrowed Guido's guitar, and struck one chord upon it at night under her window, and sang but one word—Vieni! In three minutes she came on to the balcony, and we looked at each other. There was a moon, and we could see quite well. We stood looking like that for five minutes without a syllable spoken, and then I went away. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... showed me the rainbow of blood. It was but the three-hundredth part of a grain, dissolved in a drop of water; and it cast its measured bars, for ever recognizable now to human sight, on the chord of the seven colors. And no drop of that red rain can now be shed, so small as that the stain of it cannot be known, and the voice of it heard ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... Robert that there was a strange sort of kinship between him and the bird—a kinship and understanding which touched a chord of ready feeling in his heart. The ominous hoot of an owl in the wood startled him, and he rose to his feet. He could not sit still. Idleness would drive him mad. He strode off on to the moor, away from the track, his whole being burning in torture, ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... chord at last. It quivered and thrilled under his touch; and the sense of mastery leaped in his blood. Of a sudden, he knew himself dominant. Her face was red, then white, and her eyes wavered before the blaze of his, that held ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... fields and in our own experience. Thoreau made his battle of the ants interesting because he made it illustrate all the human traits of courage, fortitude, heroism, self-sacrifice. Burns's mouse at once strikes a sympathetic chord in us without ceasing to be a mouse; we see ourselves in it. To attribute human motives and faculties to the animals is to caricature them; but to put us in such relation with them that we feel their ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... procession stopped; and one priest, tall and commanding of aspect, stepped forth from the rest, holding up his hands to enjoin silence. And then the Head quivered as with life,—its lips moved—there was a rippling sound like the chord of a harp smitten by the wind,—and a voice, full, sweet and resonant, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... near the 9-mile point. Here, there was a long lateral flexure with a shift of 4 inches eastward. Half-a-mile farther, the fish-plates were broken and the rails parted 8-1/2 inches. A little beyond the 10-mile point, an embankment 15 feet high was pushed 4-1/2 feet eastward along a chord of 150 feet. At the 12-mile point and beyond, fish-plates were broken, lines were bent and the joints opened; the road-bed was cut by a series of cracks, one of which was 21 inches wide, while the beginning of a long trestle was shifted 8-1/3 feet to the west. ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... seemed thoughtful and good. The Bounding Zouaves, with one accord, bounded into their clothes and disappeared through the door just as a long-drawn chord from the invisible orchestra announced the conclusion of the Grand ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse

... rigid, in a corner on the sofa. She lay back, as she had lain before, with her hands on her lap. The only change that I noted in her attitude was that her fists were clenched tightly. Mr. Wendall stopped playing abruptly. There was a short interval of silence, through which I seemed to feel the last chord that was struck vibrating ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... was toward Kirkwood. He had, indeed, taken a seat that gave him a particular view that he fancied and his eyes wandered from her hands to her lovely, high-bred face. No one spoke between the numbers, or until Rose, sitting quiet a moment at the end, while the last chord died away, found her own particular seat by ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... gaiety and fun of his nature bubbled up irresistibly. There was no contradiction in this complexity. A man can hold in himself a hundred conflicting passions and impulses without confusion. At this time the dominant chord in Oscar was ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... which one day touched upon this chord, her work fell from her hands, her eyes flashed, and she poured forth, in old Scripture phraseology, her indignation, her aspirations, and her glowing faith. She wholly identified her race with the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the circulation; I borrowed the book from an enthusiast. Talk sells a book, but we have to discover why people talk about The Young Visitors and not about—er—The Booming of Bunkie. The book that is to sell well must be able to touch a chord in the crowd heart, and The Young Visitors sold because it touched the infantile chord in the crowd heart; it brought back the happiest days of life, the schooldays: again, its naive Malapropisms appealed ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... a fine example of the all-around American high-school boys. His fondness for clean, honest sport of all kinds will strike a chord ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... says nothing. Has he no hope of Heaven? Does he not rejoice with us in the happy prospect of getting there when the silver chord shall be loosened, and the golden ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... considerable amusement. When an accurate rhyme, or apt expression, did not offer itself on the instant it was required, he knit his brows and clenched his fingers with impatience; but I think he never hesitated more than half a second. At the moment the chord was struck, the rhyme was ready. In this manner he poured forth between thirty and forty stanzas, with still increasing animation; and wound up his poem with some beautiful images of love, happiness, and innocence. Of his success ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... stretched as a chord across an arc of the river, which here takes a long sweep to the south; and the British faced it around this arc, with their left, centre, and right, upon three tributary streams—the Guarena, Trabancos, and Zapardiel—over which last, and just before it joins the ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... now nearer to Richmond than the enemy is, by the route that you can and he must take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on yours ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... Originally it was little more than an open bay, hollowed by the waters of the English Channel in the French coast, with a rocky shore exposed to every northern blast. But it was situated just where France needed a harbor, midway on her northern coast, facing England. Across this open bay, as a chord subtends its arc, a gigantic sea-wall has been stretched. Built in deep water more than a mile from the head of the bay, it extends almost from shore to shore. It is nearly three miles long. It is scarcely less than nine hundred feet wide ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... the room, he struck a chord of dead conclusion, the curtain stirred, she emerged from the gloom ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... altar; Monsignor was beginning the service; the father's chair was still vacant. And Renovales passed a tiresome half-hour following the ceremonies of the prelate with an absent-minded glance. Far away in the last of the studios, the stringed instruments struck a loud chord and a melody of earthly mysticism poured forth from room to room in the atmosphere laden with the perfume ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... day. I live like a drunken man who dances on a thin coating of ice, and spite of his better reason would persuade himself that he is on solid ground. I love with all my heart and soul; and if there be no truth in her affection, the last chord of my whole life has been struck. I shall still live on,—marry perhaps some day,—who knows? But love and trust again, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... corresponds to the ancient territory of the imperial period is called Agro Romano.[7] That which was properly called Ager Romanus at first only occupied the surface of a slightly expanded arc whose chord was the river Tiber.[8] Primitive Rome did not extend beyond the Tiber into Etruria, and toward Latium her possessions did not extend beyond the limits of some five or six miles reckoning from the Palatine. Toward the east the towns ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson

... poetry, accordingly, written when the Florentine democracy was young, vigorous, and mischievous, there is no chord of sympathy with the polity of his native place. On the contrary, the whole magnificent "Commedia" is a De profundis chanted out of an oppressed and scornful bosom, a fiery protest, an excoriating satire ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... oratorio immediately follows, for there is hardly a finer effect in music than that of the soft voices singing the words, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," while the strings gently pulse; and the fortissimo C major chord on the word "light," coming abruptly after the piano and mezzo-forte minor chords, is as dazzling in its brilliancy to-day as when it was first sung. The number of unisons, throwing into relief the two minor chords on C and F, should be especially noted. The ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... sincerity and fidelity, such eyes as a leader of forlorn hopes would like to know were behind him when he gave the order to charge. Then a curious thing happened. It may have been the contact of eye with eye that awoke question and response between them; it may have been a need in one that touched a chord of helplessness in the other; but suddenly Armitage leaped to his feet and grasped the outstretched hands of ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... Hon. Friend to whom he alluded, some time ago, would have found himself enabled, from the mystery in which certain matters were involved, to gratify himself and his auditors by allusions which found a responding chord in their own feelings, and to deal in the language, the sincere language, of panegyric, without intruding on the modesty of the great individual to whom he referred. But it was no longer possible, consistently with the respect to one's auditors, to use upon this subject terms either of mystification ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... to chiefs and ladies bright The harp of Tara swells: The chord alone that breaks at night, Its tale of ruin tells. Thus freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives Is when some heart indignant breaks, To ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various

... that led by the listeners themselves. Unlike the novel which commends itself to the world's grown children, these narratives had by no means necessarily a happy ending; for one thing Emma saw too deeply into the facts of life, and was herself too sad, to cease her music on a merry chord; and, moreover, it was half a matter of principle with her to make the little ones thoughtful and sympathetic; she believed that they would grow up kinder and more self-reliant if they were in the habit of thinking that we are ever dependent on each other for solace ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... letters were literature. He had received, from whatever source, a large and very positive literary impulse, a loftier conception and expression. It was at Tangier that he first struck the grander chord, the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... must be going," he said. "Tell young Bohun I shall be waiting for him to-night—7.30—Astoria—" He turned to Vera Michailovna to say good-bye, and then, suddenly, as she rose and their eyes met, they seemed to strike some unexpected chord of sympathy. It took both of them, I think, by surprise; for quite a moment they stared at ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... was greatly prejudiced against her, but he has left a striking testimony to the favourable impression which her tact and good sense made upon him when he first came into contact with her. She possessed to a high degree the power of choosing the right moment and striking the true chord, and she appears to have been an excellent judge not only of the feelings of large bodies of men, but also of the individual characters of those with whom she dealt. She had a style of writing which was eminently characteristic and eminently feminine, and it is easy to trace the letters ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... child had been as of what he might have been had he lived to this boy's age. It was not alone in the name, but something also in the tone of voice, in the turn of the head, in the look of the brown eyes; something which struck a chord of memory or hope, ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... I sat listening to the music. Then this ended with a soft chord, and on the other side of the curtain I heard the quick rustling of a girl's frock, and a girl's voice, "Just wait, I must put one more hair-pin in it or it ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... child!" exclaimed both women, and the elder flushed warmly as if the delicate contact had touched an intimate chord. She gave the mitten a pressure and held it, Elisabeth making ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelai, Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God. Is that time dead? Lo, with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance, And must I lose ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... of air, earth and sea, And the voices that sound in the sky; Their songs may be joyful to some, but to me There's a sigh in each chord and a sigh in each key, And thousands of sighs swell their grand melody. Ask them what ails them: they will not reply. They sigh — sigh forever — but never tell why. Why does your poetry sound like a sigh? Their lips will not answer you; ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... occasion, than by repeating, as singularly applicable to the conditions in which we find ourselves, these verses from a recent poem, than which I have heard none in the days that now are which strike a deeper or a truer chord, or one more appropriate to ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams

... as Ahab at Elijah's feet, so Trelawny at Shelley's was ready to humble himself for the first time; nor did he afterwards, to the end of a long life, ever speak of him without veneration. Shelley's exalted ideas touched a chord in the strong man's heart, and within a few weeks of his death he rejoiced in hearing of a crowded assembly in Glasgow, enthusiastic in hearing a lecture on Shelley, and asserted it is the "spirit of poetry which needs spreading now; science is popular to the exclusion ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... literature. Marco Polo, Froissart, Mme. de Sevigne, Taine, Bayard Taylor, Willis, Stevenson, and Sterne, all had opportunities for observation and made the most of them. If they had lived in the days of the automobile they might have sung a song of speed which would have been the most melodious chord in the ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... chord, and the girls chimed in weakly. Then, the music, strengthening their hopes as it progressed, made them more cheerful. Loudly, they brought out the ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell

... learned all that language can convey, there are still a thousand images, suggestions and associations recurring to the Indian, which can strike no chord in your heart. The myriad voices of nature are dumb to you, but to them they are full ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... deep echoes awoke, In the caverns and solitudes of my soul; But such a voice had never broke Through the sea of sounds that about us roll, Choking the ear in the daylight strife. There was sorrow and triumph, and death and life In each chord-note of that prophet-song, Blended in one harmonious throng: Such a chant, ere my voice has fled from death, Be it mine to mould of ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... silence, while Kirby hesitated in what order to tell his facts. Hull mopped the back of his overflowing neck. Phyllis Cunningham moistened her dry lips. A chord ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... saddened Betty. For the first time she saw a shadow of pain in his eyes. She looked away down the valley, not seeing the brown and gold hills boldly defined against the blue sky, nor the beauty of the river as the setting sun cast a ruddy glow on the water. Her companion's words had touched an unknown chord in her heart. When finally she turned to answer him a beautiful light shone in her eyes, a light that shines not on land or sea—the light of ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... consult his mother, but this he repelled. He could not endure the sight of a tear in her eye, and she could not restrain them when that chord was touched. It was a propensity she much disliked, the more because she thought it looked like affectation beside Sophy, whose feelings never took that course, but the more ill-timed the tears, the more they would come, at the most common-place condolence or remote ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... And today, for the first time, he seemed to have seen the woman in her—or was it the saint? and he recalled that wonderful illumination of her plain face that made her actually beautiful as she looked up from the little waif of humanity she held in her arms. It had startled him, and struck a new chord in his heart, and planted a new pang there that she had no belief ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... anything that I choose to do," said Rosamond, recovering her calmness at the touching of this chord. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord, its various tone, Each spring, its various bias. Then, at the balance, let's be mute, We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... small glass, and his clothes brought great pride. A chord in his nature responded to splendor of raiment, and the surroundings of the great world. Quebec might be corrupt but he could not hide from himself his immense interest in it. He noticed, too, that Willet wore his ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... unless he changed his resolution, the uncontrolled disease might not operate such disorganisation in his system as utterly and for ever to deprive him of reason?—I had now hit at last on the sensible chord; and, partly annoyed by our importunities, partly persuaded, he cast at us both the fiercest glance of vexation, and throwing out his arm, said, in the angriest tone, 'There,—you are, I see, a d—d set of butchers,—take away as much ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... impressively earnest frankness characteristic of him. He himself had never investigated Egyptian matters closely, and therefore did not seek to direct my course minutely, but advised me, in general, never to forget that the special science was nothing save a single chord, which could only produce its full melody with those that belonged to the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... man was keen enough of wit to know the price at which her favours were bought; brave enough not to flinch, or to make abortive effort to avoid his fate. Her whole experience brought feeling of disgust toward men, when once satiated. With this man the chord of pity was touched. The honoured sleeves were wet with the honoured tears as she made answer to the plea. Without slightest effort to deny her once purpose she consoled and reassured him. "It was determined, that granted favour you should ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... suddenly there arose from the room beneath, oh, such sounds! It was Prince Albert, dear Prince Albert, playing on the organ; and with such master skill, as it appeared to me, modulating so learnedly, winding through every kind of bass and chord, till he wound up with the most perfect cadence, and then off again, louder and then softer. No tune, as I was too distant to perceive the execution or small touches so I only heard the harmony, but I never listened with much more pleasure to any music. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... less the feeble note Of one small bird's awakening throat, Than that unnamed, tremendous chord Arcturus sounds before ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... reply, but walked away. It seemed to him that, at that instant, a chord in his filial love snapped, ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... the old theme, a favorite with the mystics, that evil spirits are driven out by music. But in this interpretation it is not the mere tones, the thrumming on the harp, it is the religious movement of the intelligence, it is the truth of Divine love throbbing in every chord, which constitutes the spell. And so in 'Abt Vogler'; the abbot's instrument is only the means whereby he strikes out the light of faith and hope within him. Not to dwell upon this point, I would only say that it seems clear that Browning ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... subject, he expressed a regret that the true nature and extent of his enterprise and its national character and importance had never been understood, and a wish that I would undertake to give an account of it. The suggestion struck upon the chord of early associations already vibrating in my mind. It occurred to me that a work of this kind might comprise a variety of those curious details, so interesting to me, illustrative of the fur trade; of its remote and ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... past and gone. Additional animation and life was given to the scene by flocks of water-fowl, whose busy cry and cackle in the water, or whirring motion in the air, gave such an idea of joyousness in the brute creation as could not but strike a chord of sympathy in the heart of a man, and create a feeling of gratitude to the Maker of man and beast. Although brilliant and warm, the sun, at least during the first part of their ride, was by no means oppressive; so that the equestrians stretched out at ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... continued Mr. Dubbe, "is usually found in the first inversion; hence the name, the sixth indicating the first inversion of the chord." ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... Clay, who hated a military hero, indulged in a series of fierce denunciations in the House of Representatives; Mr. Adams alone stood gallantly by the man who had dared to take vigorous measures upon his own sole responsibility. His career touched a kindred chord in Adams's own independent and courageous character, and perhaps for the only time in his life the Secretary of State became almost sophistical in the arguments by which he endeavored to sustain the ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... Come, strike the lyre! Down where the chord is minor D. Of wooing thee I'll never tire. Good gracious! Why do you ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall

... from Dr. McPherson completed the triple chord of negation. A chord so explosive, so crassly out of keeping with the simple question that evoked it that Grimm stared amazed from one of the ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... murmured sympathetically. The other's digestive tribulations touched a ready chord. An excellent trencherman himself, he understood ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... had touched the right chord. So he played on it, till he got Lord Tadcaster to pledge his honor not to do ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... power of controlling your thoughts, it will be serviceable to you to think over all the details of the annoyance from which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys you to suppose that the provocation originated with yourself instead of with her. It may be possible that some innocent words of yours may have appeared to her as cutting insinuations ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... to the Emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary; the King of England, the Czar of Russia and the President of France. The President's brief note touched the chord of sympathy of the whole world; but it was too late then to stop the war. European statesmen had been preparing for a conflict. With the public support which each nation had, each government wanted to fight until ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

... these combining circumstances it arose that the prosecution of Mr. Hastings, even after the accession of the Minister, excited but a slight and wavering interest; and, without some extraordinary appeal to the sympathies of the House and the country—some startling touch to the chord of public feeling—it was questionable whether the inquiry would not end as abortively as all the other Indian inquests [Footnote: Namely, the fruitless prosecution of Lord Clive by General Burgoyne, the trifling verdict upon the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... much-branched tendrils. The main petiole of the leaf, whilst young, moves spontaneously, and follows nearly the same irregular course and at about the same rate as the internodes. The movement to and from the stem is the most conspicuous, and I have seen the chord of a curved petiole which formed an angle of 59 degrees with the stem, in an hour afterwards making an angle of 106 degrees. The two opposite petioles do not move together, and one is sometimes so much raised ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... headlong rage, their courage steeled, And raised fair Lusitania's fallen shield, And gave new edge to Lusitania's sword, And taught her sons forgotten arms to wield - Shivered my harp, and burst its every chord, If it forget thy worth, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... Corcelle, is to me my duty, and I will sustain it in the best way in my power.... Ah! that ancient France, how one feels her grandeur here, and what a part she is known to have had in Christianity! It is that chord which I should like to have heard vibrate in a fluent writer like you, and not eternally those paradoxes, those sophisms. But what matters it to you who date from yesterday and who boast of it," he added, almost sadly, "that in the most insignificant corners of this city centuries of history abound? ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... overpowering array of impassioned thoughts and images. With this exterior, let the reader associate a voice, though not strong, eminently flexible and harmonious; a mind that felt, and therefore never erred in its emphasis; alternately touching the chord of pathos, or advancing with equal ease into the region of argument or passion; and then let him remember that every sentiment he uttered was clothed in expressions as mellifluous as perhaps ever fell from the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... must have struck a vibrant chord in the old man's breast. Absorbed in parish gossip and his 'Cottage Poems,' caring no longer for the world but only for newspaper reports of it, actively idle, living a resultless life of ascetic self-indulgence, the Vicar of Haworth was very proud of his energetic ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... chord of her agony slacked; she thought Something above relented; she felt as if Something far round drew nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... settled there after launching the movement and found among its young intellectuals not a few disciples that have since followed in his wake. There is something about an art for art's sake that appeals to an aristocracy of birth and breeding; it touched a responsive chord in the soul of Hugo von Hofmannsthal,[A] whose earlier work distinctly shows its influence and who to that influence still owes his ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... yellow morning mist hung over Auteuil. A long, slow rain fell softly. Chardon pulled the chord at the gate of the Hameau roughly summoning the concierge. He soon found himself under the viaduct on the Boulevard Exelmans, where he walked until he reached Point-du-Jour. There a few workingmen ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... you never pay any attention to the arpeggio, dear. It doesn't begin on the chord. It begins on the G flat. Look here, now. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... the common chord in music like a portion of the Mediterranean?—Because it's the E G & C ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... allegorical style, the quaint and grotesque imagery in which Dante delighted, must have touched an answering chord in the hearts of scholars like Philip Sidney ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... these Southerners in Wall Street divorced in spirit and sympathy from their old homes? [Cries of "No! No!"] You say "No." Let the record of their deeds also make reply. One of them had done a thing so unique and beautiful that I cannot refrain from alluding to it. It touches the chord of humanity in every true heart and makes it vibrate with sacred memories. In the cemetery of the little town of Hopkinsville, Ky., there stands a splendid monument dedicated to "The Unknown Confederate Dead." There is no inscription that even hints at ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... stele, or headstone, commences a series of separate stones, irregular in size and shape, but forming an arc, the chord of which varies from twenty to twenty-six feet; so that the whole figure somewhat resembles the bow and shank ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... re-tells a chapter in the life of the Jewish people at the time of the prophet Isaiah. The poet could not exercise any choice as to his subject—it was forced upon him inevitably. In order to be sure of touching a responsive chord in his people, it was necessary to carry the action twenty-five centuries back. A Jewish novel based on contemporaneous life would have been incongruous both with truth and with ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... that after a great and hearty humiliation, God delivered cities, &c. from their calamities. Some did observe in the late civil wars, that the Parliament, after a humiliation, did shortly obtain a victory. And as a three-fold chord is not easily broken, so when a whole nation shall conjoin in fervent prayer and supplication, it shall produce wonderful effects. William Laud, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, in a sermon preached before the Parliament, about the beginning of ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... laughed. Anne's laughter was silver and Leslie's golden, and the combination of the two was as satisfactory as a perfect chord ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... old woman with her magnificent dark eyes and deep metallic voice, and her evident knowledge of the king's habits, were too much for the menial—a chord of superstition had been touched; it vibrated, and he was quelled. Humbly but ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... passionately clasping her to his heart and covering the poor faded face with kisses; but Nita heard not. It seemed as if the silver chord had already snapped. Becoming suddenly aware of the impropriety as well as selfishness of his behaviour, Lewis hastily bore the inanimate form to the heap of straw, pillowed the small head on the old shawl, and began to chafe the hands while Emma ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... Bors, Lancelot and Percivale, For these have seen according to their sight. For every fiery prophet in old times, And all the sacred madness of the bard, When God made music through them, could but speak His music by the framework and the chord; And as ye saw it ye have ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... deep sigh, "God is punishing me perhaps for thinking too late of this just reparation. O my good and noble Sandra, you touch a chord which vibrates sadly in my heart, and you anticipate the unhappy confidence I was about to make. I feel a gloomy presentiment—and in the hour of death presentiment is prophecy—that the two sons of my nephew, Louis, who has been King of Hungary since his father died, and Andre, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... He struck a chord, and it sounded to him not like the voices of a musical instrument, but like a clattering together of tin dishes. This enraged him. His self-consciousness vanished. Those ivory keys and well-tempered wires had fooled him. He hated his piano. And he began to punish it. The heavy hands, rising ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... to the other; how easily any one of them might have been taken from the circle that night, and how irreparable would have been the loss, drew them all closely together as they had never been before—that delicious chord of sweet human sympathy that lies deep down, but ever present, in the human breast, vibrated strongly in their hearts, and they sat round the cheery blaze, talking and laughing softly, and looking ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross



Words linked to "Chord" :   key, strike a chord, sforzando, music, harmonise, touch a chord, change, triad, play, note, tone, seventh chord, straight line, harmonize, common chord, chordal



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