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Keystone   Listen
noun
Keystone  n.  (Arch.) The central or topmost stone of an arch. This in some styles is made different in size from the other voussoirs, or projects, or is decorated with carving.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Keystone" Quotes from Famous Books



... desire to promote the general happiness, will not suffer you to hesitate a moment to bring into action the talents, knowledge, and integrity, which are so necessary to be exercised at the head of that department which must be considered the keystone of our ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... On the keystone of one of the vaults, "The Last Supper" is sculptured in solid stone; on another, "The Ordination of the Shepherd." Within the church there are several chapels. The first in the southern aisle contains a magnificent fresco by M. Duval, representing Christ ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... modified."[20] Representation by quota has always been recognized by advocates of the single transferable vote as being the great reform accomplished by the new method of voting. The Government Statistician of Tasmania, Mr. R. M. Johnston, declared that "those who ignore this keystone, or foundation of the Hare system, and restrict their attention entirely to peddling or unimportant details—such as the element of chance involved in quota-excess-transfer-votes—fail altogether to comprehend the grandeur and ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... The Keystone State. New Jersey The Jersey (pronounced Jar-say) Blues. Delaware Little Delaware. Maryland Monumental. Virginia The Old Dominion, and sometimes the Cavaliers. North Carolina Rip Van Winckle. South Carolina The Palmetto State. Georgia Pine State. Ohio The ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... Saul of Tarsus, he had entered upon his ministry, not through the easy stages of ecclesiastical apprenticeship, but with the warrior-spirit of a man wholly converted from the ranks of the scoffers. Accordingly it was appropriate that he should come as the guest of Eben Tollman, the keystone in the arch of the church's laity and of the old minister who still held power as ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... now the chancel tall; The darkened, roof rose high, aloof On pillars lofty, light, and small: The keystone that locked, each ribbed aisle Was a fleur-de-lis, or a quatre-feuille; The corbels were carved grotesque and grim; And the pillars, with, clustered shafts so trim, With, base and with capital flourished around, Seemed bundles of lances ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... we have to consider is indeed the brightest and best of all—Christianity: high on the brotherly arch of man's duty to his fellow-man, and forming its enduring keystone, we read, traced by Jehovah in imperishable letters, radiant with love, "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you;" "Love thy neighbour as thyself." Surely it needs no words of mine to show, that a ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... was always very prominent. As a young man he was secretary of the Corporation of Georgetown, which fact is recorded on the keystone of the little bridge on High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) over the canal. He was for some time a law partner of Francis Scott Key, and later was appointed Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia. He was holding this office at the outbreak ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... When I set the list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole series of Journals and Transactions, I am surprized at my industry. I soon perceived that selection was the keystone of man's success in making useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms living in a state of nature, remained for some time a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... own part, nothing surprised me so much in the business as that Sparks should have allowed the purchase to slip through his fingers. It was worth thrice as much to him as to any body else. It was the keystone of his property. It was the one thing needful to render Lexley Park the most perfect seat in the county. But I was not slow in learning (for every thing transpires in a small country neighbourhood) that whatever my surprise on finding that the old Hall had changed its master, that of Sparks ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... house of the Venetian days, relieves the dreary white with a wash of ochre, stained and streaked to any tint almost. A little nearer the bottom of the port is an old Venetian gate, which once shut the Marina in at night while the custom-house guard slept, and over the keystone of which the Lion of St. Mark's still turns his mutilated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... pillar to another, on which are standing the holy women and other pious personages, in attitudes of grief and adoration; Adam and Eve, one on either side, are arranging their paradisaic costume as decently as may be; above the cross the keystone of the arch projects, adorned with flowers and leafage, and serves as a standing-place for an angel with long wings. This construction, hanging in mid-air, and evidently light in weight, notwithstanding its ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... separate power was planted in the centre of Ireland sufficiently powerful to prevent the formation of another civilisation, yet not sufficiently powerful to impose a civilisation of its own. Feudalism was introduced, but the keystone of the system, a strong resident sovereign, was wanting, and Ireland was soon torn by the wars of great Anglo-Norman nobles, who were, in fact, independent sovereigns, much like the old Irish kings. The Scotch invasion of the fourteenth century added enormously to the anarchy ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... Architecturally it presented rather a peculiar appearance. The leading feature of the ground-floor was a vast arch, extending across the entire frontage in something more than a semicircle. Projecting from the keystone of the arch was a wrought-iron sign bearing a portrait in copper, and under the portrait the words 'Ye Shakspere Head.' Away beneath the arch was concealed the shop-window, an affair of small square panes, and in the ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... for my candor, if I venture to tell you that your frequent affectation of unconsciousness of the presence of others, 'is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance,' and may prove prolific of annoyance in coming years; for courtesy constitutes the keystone in the beautiful arch of social amenities which vaults the temple of Christian virtues. Lest you should take umbrage at my frankness, which ought to assure you of my interest in your happiness and improvement, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... geometry. Once understood, it is by the same act of the mind seen to be true. Some people, indeed, do not see it. Bentham rather ignores than answers some of their arguments. But his mode of treating opponents indicates his own position. 'Happiness,' it is often said, is too vague a word to be the keystone of an ethical system; it varies from man to man: or it is 'subjective,' and therefore gives no absolute or independent ground for morality. A morality of 'eudaemonism' must be an 'empirical' morality, and we can never extort from it that 'categorical imperative,' without ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... altogether impossible that such a man as I can appreciate; but in his public capacity I always revered, and always will with the soundest loyalty revere the monarch of Great Britain as—to speak in masonic—the sacred keystone of our royal arch constitution. As to Reform principles, I look upon the British Constitution, as settled at the Revolution, to be the most glorious on earth, or that perhaps the wit of man can frame; at the same time I think, not alone, that we have a good deal ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... the nation at this relief. Among the multitudes of pamphlets expressing this joy which have come down to us the "Friend of the Revolution" is the most interesting. It begins as follows: "Citizens, the deed is done. The assignats are the keystone of the arch. It has just been happily put in position. Now I can announce to you that the Revolution is finished and there only remain one or two important questions. All the rest is but a matter of detail which cannot ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White

... respectable, and would give him a higher standing in the settlement. Nothing to hinder him. He would do so; but first one more journey to the plains—one more visit to his Waco friends, who had promised him—Ha! it was this very promise that was the keystone of ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... to bank. When the logs get jammed, and have to be released, it requires a great deal of courage to go right into the middle of the stream and find the key-log, the one which holds the whole together, like the keystone of an arch; most exciting work this is, many a man loses his life or his limbs over it. In Burma, where the teak companies run their business on the same lines, elephants are taught to do this; they ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... best, if not the very best metal known for preserving the teeth from caries. In consequence of its lack of the cohesive property, it is introduced and retained in a cavity upon the wedging principle, the last piece serving as a keystone or anchor to the whole filling. Each piece should fill a portion of the cavity from the bottom to the top, with sufficient tin protruding from the cavity to serve for thorough condensation of the surface, and ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler

... abrogation of the treaty of alliance and of the commercial privileges it carried with it. Yorke gave the States-General three weeks for their decision; and on April 17, 1779, the long-standing alliance, which William III had made the keystone of his policy, ceased to exist. War was not declared, but the States-General voted for "unlimited convoy" on April 24; and every effort was made by the Admiralties to build and equip a considerable fleet. The reception given to the American privateer, Paul Jones, who, despite English protests, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... away, the keystone of the Russian line had been pulled out, and nothing remained but to retire. Ten miles north of Ciezkovice lies the triangle formed by the confluence of the Dunajec and Biala rivers and the Zakliczyn-Gromnik road. Within this triangle, commanding the banks of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... scaffold, skeleton, beam, rafter, girder, lintel, joist, travis[obs3], trave[obs3], corner stone, summer, transom; rung, round, step, sill; angle rafter, hip rafter; cantilever, modillion[obs3];; crown post, king post; vertebra. columella[obs3], backbone; keystone; axle, axletree; axis; arch, mainstay. trunnion, pivot, rowlock[obs3]; peg &c. (pendency) 214[obs3]; tiebeam &c. (fastening) 45; thole pin[obs3]. board, ledge, shelf, hob, bracket, trevet[obs3], trivet, arbor, rack; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... is going," said the surgeon crisply, "to be an awful big war. I shouldn't be surprised if it makes a Napoleonic thunder down the ages—becomes a mighty legend like Greece and Troy! And, do you know, Miss Cary, the keystone of the arch, as far as we are concerned, is a composition of three,—the armies in the field, the women of ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... allies of Catholic Austria. The Emperor opposed the destruction of his faithful dependents; the ecclesiastical princes themselves raised a bitter outcry, and demonstrated that the fall of their order would unloose the keystone of the political system of Europe; but they found few friends. If Prussia coveted the great spoils of Muenster, the minor sovereigns, as a rule, wore just as eager for the convents and abbeys that broke the continuity of their own territories: only the feeblest of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... interference? To whom lies the last appeal? This, sir, the Constitution itself decides also, by declaring, "that the judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States." These two provisions cover the whole ground. They are, in truth, the keystone of the arch! With these it is a government, without them a confederation. In pursuance of these clear and express provisions, Congress established, at its very first session, in the judicial act, a mode for carrying them into full effect, and ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... large scale and heavily weighted, to sink at the crown if there is even any very slight settlement of the abutments. If we turn again to diagram 77, and observe the nearly vertical line formed there by the joints of the keystone, and if we suppose the scale of that arch very much increased without increasing the width of each voussoir, and suppose it built in two or three rings one over the other (which is really the constructive method of a Gothic arch), we shall see that these joints in the uppermost portion ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... have seen, was a state institution in reality as well as in name; but the educational arch of which she was the keystone was not yet completed. The earlier close connection between the University and the schools of the State, contemplated when the branches were established, had proved impossible of realization, and the union high schools which soon succeeded them were tied to the University ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... that of many who make even greater pretensions. The whole keystone of our old life in Egypt was not the inscriptions or monuments of which you make so much, but was our hermetic philosophy and mystic knowledge, of which you say ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... patience can you alter the social structure to better it. Cautious and wary replacement is the only method, not exploding a mine beneath the keystone. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... the French Empire. It has not only crushed the liberties of France, but it is the keystone and the focus of the system of military despotism in Europe. Bismarck, O'Donnell, and all the rest who rule by sabre-sway, are its pupils. It is intensely propagandist,—feeling, like slavery, that it cannot endure the contagious neighborhood of freedom. It has to a terrible ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... POSITION.—The Battle Position will be established in the area in which the commander decides to fight out the battle and break the enemy's attack. It therefore forms the keystone of the whole defensive position and must be organised in depth to afford elasticity for defensive action. "In principle, in order to protect {85} the battle position from being obliterated by a preliminary bombardment, it should ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... few pregnant hints; he must put the dots upon his i's; he must corroborate the songs of Apollo by some of the darkest talk of human metaphysic. He tells his disciples that they must be ready "to confront the growing arrogance of Realism." Each person is, for himself, the keystone and the occasion of this universal edifice. "Nothing, not God," he says, "is greater to one than oneself is;" a statement with an irreligious smack at the first sight; but like most startling sayings, a manifest truism on a second. He will give effect to his own character without apology; he sees ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... assembled in front of the building. These great events have made Philadelphia the birthplace of freedom, the Mecca of this western world, where the lovers of liberty go up to worship; and made the Keystone State so rich in memories, the brightest star in the republican constellation, where in 1776 freedom was proclaimed, and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... crime. You may enact laws for the suppression of immorality, but the secret and silent power of the Sabbath constitutes a stronger shield to the vital interest of the community than any code of penal statutes that ever was enacted. The Sabbath is the keystone of the arch which sustains the temple of virtue, which, however defaced, will survive many a rude shock so long as ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... The keystone to the arch of this grand union of the slavery party of the United States, is the compromise of 1850. In that compromise we have all the objects of our slaveholding policy specified. It is, sir, favorable to this view of ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... did. Well, that did not prevent our getting on very well together. God made you what I call a scoundrel as he made me what you call a fool. (The effect of this observation on Burgess is to remove the keystone of his moral arch. He becomes bodily weak, and, with his eyes fixed on Morell in a helpless stare, puts out his hand apprehensively to balance himself, as if the floor had suddenly sloped under him. Morell proceeds in the same tone of quiet conviction.) It was not ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw

... any hostile squadron on the Italian coast, as its cruisers would cut off all transports of coal, provisions, &c. &c.,—in a word, render the communication of the hostile squadron with the Mediterranean very difficult.... Lissa is the keystone of the Adriatic. This island, the importance of which in former times was never denied, commands the straits which lead from the southern to the northern half of the Adriatic.... The naval force at Lissa ought to be a local one, consisting of light fast gun-boats to cruise in the narrow waters, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... those Populist senators, but I ask you what is a man in my place to do? If you don't eat, somebody eats you—is it not so? Like the boa-constrictors—that is modern business. Look at the Keystone Plate people, over there at Morris. For years we sold them steel billets from which to make their plates, and three months ago they serve notice on us that they are getting ready to make their own billets, they ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... experienced writers know is that certain of the larger producers of slap-stick comedy are not in the market for outside material. After being deluged with all kinds of "comedy" stories for years, the Keystone Company finally found it necessary to announce that nothing could be considered from free-lance writers, on account of the peculiar nature of the comedies produced by them and the necessity of having them written by inside writers who were familiar with ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... decide at once upon a buyer within their own religious fellowship. In the week following the minister or a church member writes back to Pennsylvania and the correspondence is pressed, until a family comes out from the older settlements in the Keystone State to purchase this farm in Iowa and to extend the colony of his fellow Dunkers. Reference is made elsewhere to the communal support given to their own members who suffer economic hardship. The serious tillage of the soil necessarily involves mutual support and ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... up in spiral form, and narrowing in each upper round until the igloo assumed the form of a dome. When it was nearly as high as his head, the upper tier of blocks was so close together that a single large block was sufficient to close the aperture at the top. This block was like the keystone in an arch, and held the others firmly in place. Akonuk now cut a round hole through the side of the igloo close to the bottom, and large enough for him to crawl through on his ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... the great literary ensemble that rests upon Shakespeare, Dante and Milton are, in some sort, the two supporting abutments of the edifice of which he is the central pillar, the buttresses of the arch of which he is the keystone. ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... as in most Oriental countries, the keystone of the social arch, the central point of the system, round which all else revolved, and on which all else depended, was the monarch. "L'etat, c'est moi" might have been said with more truth by an Assyrian prince than ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... Much, all. But cold Reason answers, Little almost nothing. Is not loyalty a law of Nature? ask the Tickets of Entry. Is not love of your King, and even death for him, the glory of all Frenchmen,—except these few Democrats? Let Democrat Constitution-builders see what they will do without their Keystone; and France rend its hair, having lost ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... when I was dead-tired and trying to give the last licks to my day's work without doing a Keystone fall over the kitchen table, Dinky-Dunk said: "Why haven't you ever given a name to this new place? They tell me you have a genius for naming things—and here we are still dubbing ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... could swear that the days of fairies had passed? To meet a dream-Irene on his way to Kieff was unlikely, to rescue her from an infuriated mob (for though they insisted that she was in no danger he was no less insistent that he rescued her, since this illusion was the keystone to all others), to be sitting at lunch with such a vision of youthful loveliness—all these things were sufficiently outside the range of probabilities to encourage the development of his dream ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... made the Sun the leader and king of the dead, who, as they said, followed where he had gone first, "showing the way to many." The Egyptians, perhaps the wisest and most spiritual of all ancient nations, came to make this myth the keystone of their entire religion, and placed all their burying-places in the west, amidst or beyond the Libyan ridge of hills behind which the sun vanished from the eyes of those who dwelt in the valley of the Nile. The Greeks imagined a happy residence for their bravest ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in black and white. The job ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... "vagrant sympathy" which makes it come home to us and which makes it suggest what it does not say. Test the Tale of Cinderella by this standard. As to mind, it makes one think of a bridge in which the very keystone of the structure is the condition that Cinderella return from the ball by the stroke of twelve. And its "vagrant sympathy" is quite definite enough to reach a maid of five, who remarked: "If I'd have been Cinderella, I wouldn't have helped ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... supposed him to be the object of an avenging fate, so successive were the evils which pursued him; but as he was only a somewhat commonplace farmer, I believe we must attribute his calamities to some want in his character of the one quality required to act as keystone to many excellences. While his wife lived, all worldly misfortunes seemed as nothing to him; her strong sense and lively faculty of hope upheld him from despair; her sympathy was always ready, and the invalid's room had an atmosphere of peace ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... extremity of the valley of Jehosaphat a small hill rises like a keystone; in this hill are several grottoes, formed either by nature or art, which also once served as sepulchres. They are called the "rock-graves." At present the greater portion of them are converted into stables, ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... remembrance, there needed no more than this short-hand memento for recalling it. But now, when the lapse of time has left the little maxim stranded on a shore of wrecks, naturally it happens that what was in old days the keystone of an arch has come to be ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... of idealists when fact gives theory the lie! What at this time was the unity of mankind in the Church but a formal hypothesis? The keystone of her all-embracing arch was the Papacy. But the Pope no longer sat heir of the Caesars in the seat of the Apostles; for seventy years he had been a practical dependant of the French king, living in pleasant ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... the Rue Bouvreuil (see Map D). The room in which Jeanne stood to answer her accusers has been carefully restored, but it is obscured by the huge plaster cast of a statue by Mercie. The vaulting is the original work intact, and on the keystone is carved the oldest existing shield of the arms of France, the six truncated Fleurs de Lys of Philip Augustus, which are reproduced more clearly on the huge and lofty cowl above the chimney. Beneath the floor there is still the ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... there may be enough to show that something extraordinary occurred; but not enough, unless we assume the fact to be true on far other grounds, to produce any absolute and unhesitating conviction; and inasmuch as the resurrection is the keystone of Christianity, the belief in it must be something far different from that suspended judgment in which history alone would ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... parties, and differing only in its combination of these elements, because the Party tactics would have to be completely transformed and the Party temporarily weakened by being forced to limit itself entirely to revolutionary efforts, Kautsky turns against this keystone of democratic reform. ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... that a day of vengeance might be at hand for those who had trampled upon it when it was defenceless. There was alarm and uneasiness amongst all classes. The Church of England, which depends upon the monarch as an arch depends upon the keystone; the nobility, whose estates and coffers had been enriched by the plunder of the abbeys; the mob, whose ideas of Papistry were mixed up with thumbscrews and Fox's Martyrology, were all equally disturbed. Nor was the prospect a hopeful one for their cause. Charles was a very lukewarm Protestant, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... suitors. Perhaps—well if this conjecture sounded a little conceited, be sure it was alternated with others self-depreciatory enough to balance it. But I have no space or need to describe the familiar process of architecture, by which with a perhaps for a keystone, possibilities for pillars, and dreams for pinnacles, lovers are wont to rear in a few idle hours, palaces outdazzling Aladdin's. I shall more profitably give a word or two of explanation to another point. Those familiar with the aristocratic constitution ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... then properly shaped by the man inside the igloo; he pushes it up endwise through the aperture, turns it over by reaching through the top, lowers it into place, and chips off with his knife until it fits the hole like the keystone of an arch, firmly keying the structure, whose general proportions are not ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... him there was a wart upon his nose, that looked a little suspicious. 'I don't pretend to be a judge of those matters (said he) but I understand that warts are often produced by the distemper; and that one upon your nose seems to have taken possession of the very keystone of the bridge, which I hope is in no danger of falling.' L—n seemed a little confounded at this remark, and assured him it was nothing but a common excrescence of the cuticula, but that the bones were all sound below; for the truth of this assertion he appealed ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... about your damned proletariat who represents the dregs of Russia. What is he? The inefficient, whining that the other man has the luck, so kill him! Russia, the kindly ox, fallen among wolves! You cannot tear down the keystone of civilization—which took seven thousand years to construct—insert it upside down, and expect the arch to stand. You have your chance to prove your theories. Prove them in Petrograd and Moscow, and you will not have to go forth with the torch. And what is this torch but the hidden fear that ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... subsidence is going on. This in turn, led to the still wider and more suggestive conclusion that the geological record as a whole is, and never can be more than, a series of more or less isolated fragments. The recognition of this important fact constitutes the keystone to any theory of evolution which seeks to find a basis in the actual study of the types of life that have formerly inhabited ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... ornamental boxes, fancy goods and games of all sorts, in the Rue Honore, opposite the Oratoire and near the office of the Messageries, at the sign of the Amour peintre. The shop was on the ground floor of a house sixty years old, and opened on the street by a vaulted arch the keystone of which bore a grotesque head with horns. The semicircle beneath the arch was occupied by an oil-painting representing "the Sicilian or Cupid the Painter," after a composition by Boucher, which Jean Blaise's father had put up in ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... red letter day of this kind, years ago, that Wheeler and myself started out under the charge of Judge Blair and Sheriff Baswell to visit the mines at Last Chance, and more especially the Keystone, a gold mine that the Judge had recently become president of. The soft air of second summer in the Rocky Mountains blew gently past our ears as we rode up the valley of the Little Laramie, to camp the first night at the head of the valley behind Sheep Mountain. The whole party was full of joy. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... fields attracted them in large numbers. Bluefield, which developed in a few years from a barren field in 1888 to a town of almost ten thousand by 1900, indicates how rapidly the population there increased. Other large centers of industry, like Elkhorn, Northfork, Welch, and Keystone, soon became more than ordinary ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... you cause the whole fabric to totter, for on this doctrine, as a foundation, rests the arch, of which confession is the keystone." ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... the window to myriad windows, The high triangular door of the world . . . Till the walls and the roofs and the curious keystone, The carven rose with its ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke

... Sumter received tidings of the United States steamer Keystone State, which had been "in pursuit" of her for some time. This vessel was not very much larger than the Sumter, and their crews and armaments were very nearly equal, so there were great hopes on board the Confederate of a brush with the enemy on something like equal terms. These hopes, however, ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... us primarily ethical—to solve the problem of free will; Maimonides places it in the very centre of his system. The doctrine of attributes as leading to a true conception of God,—of God as absolutely incorporeal and without any resemblance or relation whatsoever to anything else—is the very keystone of Maimonides's philosophical structure. His purpose is to teach a spiritual conception of God. Anything short of this is worse than idolatry. He cannot reconcile the Bible to such a view without ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... the travelers pass on to "the great vestibule, or porch of the gate," which "is formed by an immense Arabian arch, of the horseshoe form, which springs to half the height of the tower. On the keystone of this arch, is engraven a gigantic hand. Within the vestibule, on the keystone of the portal, is sculptured, in like manner, a gigantic key," emblems, say the learned, of Moorish ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... Hudson Taylor, the distinguished Founder of the Mission, certainly believes it, and has frequently stated his belief in public. Ancestral worship is the keystone of the religion of the Chinese; "the keystone also of China's social fabric." And "the worship springs," says the Rev. W. A. P. Martin, D.D., LL.D., of the Tung Wen College, Peking, "from some of the ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... and looking at these two groups as they stand before us in these two texts, the question is irresistibly suggested, Why did not the one fall away into its separate elements, as the other did? The keystone of the arch was in both cases withdrawn—why did the one structure topple into ruin while ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... and providing information which will enable Americans to have a better understanding of their national affairs, is part of the arch of morale and of a strong uniting comradeship, the Armed Services nevertheless hold that the keystone of the arch, among fighting forces, is the inculcation of military ideals and the stimulation of principles of military action. Unless orientation within the services is balanced in this direction, the military spirit of all ranks will suffer, ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... order of our lord the pope, one hundred florins were handed over by the papal chamber to Master John of Loubires to distribute among the masters to celebrate the placing of the keystone in the vaulting of the new chapel of the palace and the completion of the said chapel. On All Saints' Day of that same year Clement recited (a month before his death) the first solemn mass in his great new chapel and preached ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... would be as well to look at our telephone exchange first of all. It perhaps might prove of some small interest to you." With that he led the way through a jumble of corridors to a far corner of the Prefecture of Laon, perching high on the Hill of Laon and forming for the moment the keystone of the arch of the German center. So that was how the most crowded day in a reasonably well-crowded newspaperman's life began for me—with a visit to a room which had in other days been somebody's reception parlor. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... duties, tallages—that is, special charges on particular towns,—and the war tax called the Danegelt; all except the first being arbitrary taxes. The violence of King John led to the demand of the barons for the Great Charter, the keystone of English liberty, securing the persons and property of all freemen from arbitrary imprisonment or spoliation. Thenceforth no right of general taxation is claimed. The barons held themselves warranted in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... and difficulties, not perhaps recognized when first you meet them so suddenly. {142} The bridges on the Seine were often not high enough to allow the yawl to pass under, except in the centre, or within a few feet on one side or other of the keystone, and as the wind is deflected by the bridge, just at the critical moment when you reach such places, and the current of water below rushes about in eddies from the piers, there is quite enough of excitement to keep a captain pretty well awake in beating to windward through ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... Goff's ranch, called the Keystone, was an ideal one for hunting, with clumps of cottonwoods and pines scattered here and there, and numerous cliffs and ravines, the hiding-places of game unnumbered. The ranch home stood at the foot of several well-wooded hills, a long, low, ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer

... the Mediterranean. England, above all others, was instrumental in preserving that precarious Balance, and England now must confess the utter failure of her policy there throughout a century. It is humiliating to acknowledge the complete collapse of that which for so many decades has been the keystone of our ruling with regard to our Eastern Empire, but the arch has collapsed; Germany pulled the keystone out, and all our efforts to exclude Russia from free access to the Mediterranean have only resulted in letting Germany in. To-day she holds Constantinople, ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... keep them at all," exclaimed Mr. Hall indignantly. "Fancy, the original deed—the old Spanish grant—the very keystone of our case, was not to be found till the last moment, and then only by the merest accident, and where do you ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... the keystone is withdrawn? What of the sheep when the shepherd disappears? My Lord, you do yourself and your great military gifts a wrong. Through my deep regard for you I gave strict command that not even the meanest of your train should be allowed ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... spectre of a God who has power without love never ceased to lurk in the background of Browning's thought, and he strove with all his resources of dialectic and poetry to exorcise it. And no wonder. For a loving God was the very keystone of Browning's scheme of life and of the world, and its withdrawal would have meant for him the collapse ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... prayer and sacrifice. Without religion there is no society; without the Catholic Church there is no religion; without the sovereign Pontiff there is no Catholic Church. The sovereignty of the Pope is therefore the keystone of civilisation; his it is to give and take away the crowns of kings. Governments absolute over the people, the Pontiff absolute over governments—such is the earthly reflection of the Divine monarchy in heaven. To suppose that men can begin the world ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... coordinates the thoughts of the others, avoiding the useless, pursuing the relevant and retaining the valuable. It is by far the most important of the five, and is, of course the superior intellect. It is the keystone of ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore

... in making the amendment because it is a step in the right direction. Justice to woman is the keystone in the arch of the temple of liberty we are now building. That no citizen should be taxed without representation is an underlying principle of a republic and no free government can ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... of the nearest city gate, and back through the Janiculum, and, finally, homeward over the Ponto Rotto. Standing on the bridge, I saw the arch of the Cloaca Maxima, close by the Temple of Vesta, with the water rising within two or three feet of its keystone. ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... this noble protest was laid the keystone of the Reformation. The pontifical hierarchy shook to its centre, and the great cause of truth and regenerate religion spread with electric speed. The marble tomb of ignorance and error gave way, as it were, of a sudden; a thousand glorious events and magnificent discoveries thronged ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... had a valuable ally. It was a curious fact that the Audubon officials encountered their strongest resistance in Bok's own State: Pennsylvania. But Bok's personal acquaintance with legislators in his Keystone State helped ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... ridge twenty miles due east of Rheims, known as Blanc Mont Ridge. Here the armies of Germany and the Allies had clashed more than once, and attempt after attempt had been made to wrest it from German hands. It was a keystone of the German defense, the fall of which would have a far-reaching effect upon the enemy armies. To the glory of the United States marines, let it be said that they were again a part of that splendid 2d Division which swept forward in the attack which freed Blanc ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... consequence of the conflicts which have at times arisen between the idea of State Autonomy ("State Sovereignty") and the principle of National Supremacy. Exaltation of the latter principle, as it is recognized in the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, paragraph 2) of the Constitution, was the very keystone of Chief Justice Marshall's constitutional jurisprudence. It was Marshall's position that the supremacy clause was intended to be applied literally, so that if an unforced reading of the terms in which legislative power was granted to Congress confirmed its right to enact a particular ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... channelling the granite roof. This roof itself is formed of fragments of rock carried down, of enormous stones, as if by some giant's hand; but at one time the expulsive force was greater than usual, and this block, like the falling keystone of a ruined arch, has slipped down to the ground and blocked up the way. It is only an accidental obstruction, not met by Saknussemm, and if we don't destroy it we shall be unworthy to reach the centre of ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... effected a change in its form; when abrupt differences of opinion with regard to questions of faith and cult are asserting their presence; and traditional Judaism developed in historical sequence is proving powerless to hold together the diverse factors of the national organism,—in these days the keystone of national unity seems to be the historical consciousness. Composed alike of physical, intellectual, and moral elements, of habits and views, of emotions and impressions nursed into being and perfection ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... has made is perhaps less than that of some ingenious and forgotten forerunner. He who advances the work from the phase of a promising idea, to that of a common boon, is entitled to our gratitude. But in honouring the keystone of the arch, as it were, let us acknowledge the substructure on which it rests, and keep in mind the entire bridge. Justice at least is due to those who have ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... Respectfully but firmly he begged the King to decide between him and Thurlow. The result was a foregone conclusion. Having to choose between an overbearing Chancellor, and a Prime Minister whose tact, firmness, and transcendent abilities formed the keystone of the political fabric, the King instructed Dundas to request Thurlow to deliver up the Great Seal.[46] For the convenience of public business, his resignation was deferred to the end of the session, which came at ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... rich, I have worn it the live long day, You think I value it, so I do, yet I deem it worthless clay, Compared with the other jewel rare, this Keystone brought to me, Bright gem, long hidden but not destroyed in some unfathomed sea, More honorable than golden fleece, more precious than the stone, That alchemysts seek vainly for, or gems of a regal crown, A Keystone brought to light once more, all ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... theological sense a delusion. The Church under Henry VII. was emphatically a theocracy or ecclesiastical monarchy, the Pope, as the supposed successor of the supposed prince of the Apostles, being the very keystone of the spiritual arch. Under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth the Church of England had become a kind of aristocracy of bishops, governed very really as well as theoretically by the Crown, totally cut off from what called itself the Chair of ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... resolution. To you our Academy owes its existence and present prosperity, and if, in after times, it should become a great institution, your name will always be coupled with its greatness. But, if you leave us, I very much fear that the fabric will crumble to pieces. You are the keystone of the arch; if you remain with us time may furnish the Academy with another block for the place. I hope my fears may be vain, and that circumstances will conspire to induce ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... their presence, or careless of their existence; it was only that his thoughts were out, like heavenly bees, foraging; a word of direct address brought him back in a moment, and his soul would return to them with a smile. He stood as one on the keystone of a bridge, and held communion now with these, now with those: on this side the river and on that, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... I would like to say." He spoke without turning. "Man without Woman is not complete. They two are but one being, complete and life-giving. Love when it comes is the keystone of this brief span of Life of ours. They who have loved have tasted truly of the best that Life can give to them. And this is the great wrong of civilisation to-day, that it takes Love from most and leaves in us only a feverish, degrading Lust. It is when we lust that Woman drags us down to the ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... and legislating or making laws for themselves through persons of their own choosing, called representatives. And this is, my little folks, what is meant by taxation, and legislation by representation, in a nation. You will do well to bear this in mind continually; for it is the very keystone to the arch of all ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... the achievements of The Keystone in the field of horology were the three serials devoted to the lever, cylinder and chronometer escapements. So highly valued were these serials when published that on the completion of each we were importuned to republish it in book form, but we deemed it advisable to postpone ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous

... uncover the capital, so, leaving Virginia with his whole army, he pushed toward Pennsylvania, determined at least to draw our army as far away from Washington as possible, and to reap rich harvests of spoils among the overflowing granaries of the Keystone State. No sooner had the movement of the main body of Lee's army into Maryland commenced, than General Hooker, with his ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... Master Ramsack's." But almost ere my thought was done, I heard the light quick step which I knew as well as "Watch," my dog, knew mine; and my breast began to tremble, like the trembling of an arch ere the keystone is put in. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... which appears on another page, illustrates in a very striking manner the mutual dependence of all the stones, representing the divinely appointed elements of character, on their crown, the keystone, which represents the Sabbath or fourth commandment, the connecting link between the first and second tables of the law and the visible bond of every man and nation to ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... came to her to be smoothed down and put right. He was conscious of her pleasant influence over him, and became at peace with himself when in her presence; just as a child is at ease when with some one who is both firm and gentle. But the keystone of the family arch was gone, and the stones of which it was composed began to fall apart. It is always sad when a sorrow of this kind seems to injure the character of the mourning survivors. Yet, perhaps, this injury may be only temporary or ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell



Words linked to "Keystone" :   key, backbone, lynchpin, mainstay, Keystone State, arch, coign, support



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