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Key   /ki/   Listen
Key

adjective
1.
Serving as an essential component.  Synonyms: cardinal, central, fundamental, primal.  "The central cause of the problem" , "An example that was fundamental to the argument" , "Computers are fundamental to modern industrial structure"



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"Key" Quotes from Famous Books



... is very much like that of the wood thrush, and a good observer might easily confound the two. But hear them together and the difference is quite marked: the song of the hermit is in a higher key, and is more wild and ethereal. His instrument is a silver horn which he winds in the most solitary places. The song of the wood thrush is more golden and leisurely. Its tone comes near to that of some rare stringed instrument. One feels that perhaps the wood thrush has more compass and power, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... a sound of a key in a lock, and a small, dark woman opened the door. She was somewhat spinstery in type, her thin, black hair was neatly parted in the middle, and her face ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... had been a blackjack that had hit him was important. It was vital, as a matter of fact. Malone knew that perfectly well. It was a key fact in the case ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett

... ghosts and eternal gods. The word Kalou is applied to all supernal beings, and mystic or magical things alike. It seems to answer to mana in New Zealand and Melanesia, to wakan in North America, and to fee in old French, as when Perrault says, about Bluebeard's key, 'now the key was fee.' All Gods are Kalou, but all things that are Kalou are not Gods. Gods are Kalou vu; deified ghosts are Kalou yalo. The former are eternal, without beginning of days or end of years; ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... brush, I do not know if it is true, but true or false in reality, it is true in art. But the jarring dissonance of her marriage is inadmissible; it cannot be led up to by chords no matter how ingenious, the passage, the attempts from one key to the other, is impossible; the true end is the ruin, by death or lingering life, of Elly and the remorse ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... sometimes gay and sometimes glittering. In the middle of the Square was a garden, and in the middle of the garden, very clearly visible from Ernest Henry's window, was a fountain. It was this fountain, always tossing and leaping, that gave Ernest Henry the key to his memories. Gazing at it he had no difficulty at all to find himself back in the old life. Even now, although only two years had passed, it was difficult not to reveal his old experiences by means of terms of his new discoveries. He thought, for ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... away, he was careful to fasten the window securely inside, and he locked the door after him, taking the key. He carried the brass lamp with him, for the corridor was very dark and ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... key into the Yale lock, and in another moment the two were standing inside the dim and chilly hall, looking about them. A few circulars lay in a heap on the floor, there was a film of dust on the polished parquet. A man's overcoat and hat adorned the rack. ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... Route from Hang-chau southward. 2. Bamboos. 3. Identification of places. Chang-shan the key ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... nothing of what I felt. I saluted him easily, and swung myself off my horse. He had gone into the house at my approach; and I followed him straight through into a little parlour to which, it seemed, he had particular access, for he turned a key in the door as he went in. When I was in, after him, and the door was shut, he turned to me, with a ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... right moment—reading it by hunter's signs in nature's book—to get the word to ring. There were none of the usual reasons that the schoolmaster should live close to the schoolhouse. There was no demand for its key. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... he came back with a smiling Greek who was holding a key. As the man went to open the door, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... nane could flee, and nane daur'd break the jail, And still the sobbing o' the sea might mix wi' their warlock wail, But then came in black echty-echt, and bluidy echty-nine, Wi' Cess, and Press, and Presbytery, and a' the dule sin' syne, The Saints won free wi' the power o' the key, and cavaliers maun pine! It was Halyburton, Middleton, and Roy and young Dunbar, That Livingstone took on Cromdale haughs, in the last fight of the war: And they were warded in the Bass, till the time they should be slain, Where bluidy Mitchell, ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang

... giving it," said he, harshly—"in giving it you had the presence of mind to keep the aim of your tenderness always in view. While your arms were around me, your little hand which seemed to rest upon my heart, sought for the key which I always kept in my vest-pocket, and which I had lately told you belonged to the desk in which the important papers of the embassy were placed. You found this key, Rosa, and I knew it, but I only laughed, and pressed ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... from that fortress, unable to resist a royal fleet and navy, they fled into Man or Scotland, and thence escaped in disguise into France. With their guest de Braos, they wrought as gardeners in the grounds of the Abbey of Saint Taurin Evreux, until the Abbot, having discovered by their manners the key to their real rank, negotiated successfully with John for their restoration to their estates. Walter agreed to pay a fine of 2,500 marks for his lordship in Meath, and Hugh 4,000 marks for his possessions in Ulster. Of de Braos we ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... its cutting edge upwards, the butt end is presented with the spur vertically before the face of the observer. It will then be seen that the surface turned to the observer presents the principal features of the human figure, standing with arms akimbo face to face with the observer. The key to the puzzle Is the double row of teeth. Above this are the two eyes. Below the level of the mouth the elbows project laterally, and a little below these and nearer the middle line are the two hands; and below these again the two legs ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... been called out to a case," said Sylvia from her perch in front of the wagon. "Nealie, can't you send the boys to find out where Father keeps the key? I am sure that we ought to get Rupert out of the wagon as soon as possible, for he seems to get more ill every ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... to-day reaches the comprehensive state of mind that he is going to reject Jesus over any and all evidence, he has gone into the house, shut and locked the door and thrown away the key. God can not reach him. Such a man will be let alone by the Spirit of God. That Paul understood this condition to be unpardonable, we read in Heb. 6:4-6: "But as touching those who were once enlightened, and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney

... in silence, preserving an unmoved countenance, whereupon she cursed him for a fool, and passed out. He closed the door, and turned the key, Hortensia watching him in a sort of horror. "Let me go!" she found voice to cry at last, and advanced towards the door herself. But Rotherby came to meet her, his face white, his eyes glowing. She fell away before his opening arms, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... with a snap, and looked as if he wished devoutly some one could turn a key on it ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... hush, and antique menials stiff with tradition, surrounded him. As soon as he had paid the entrance fee and deposited all his valuables in a drawer of which the key was formally delivered to him, he was motioned through a turnstile and requested to permit his boots to be removed. He consented. White linens were then ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... two points which may prove of value to you—I say to my laboratory, but it really is not mine; I use any laboratory that is handiest, and I know most of the good ones in the city. You see, I do not need to have a key to enter a room; that is one of the great advantages we have, as you will discover one of these days. Just now I can get you in very well because the owner of the laboratory to which we will go is out of town. I will go in first and unlock ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory

... incandescent tire and chewing gum signs; jazz bands and musical comedies to the ticket speculators' tune of five dollars a seat, My Khaki-Boy, covered with the golden hoar of three hundred Metropolitan nights rose to the slightly off key grand finale of its eighty-first matinee, curtain slithering down to the rub-a-dud-dub of a score of pink satin drummer boys with slim ankles and curls; a Military Sextette of the most blooded of Broadway ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... family was to take himself out of sight. Napoleon entered Lyons on the 10th of March, and now formally resumed his rank and functions as Emperor. His first edicts renewed that appeal to the ideas and passions of the Revolution which had been the key-note of every one of his public utterances since leaving Elba. Treating the episode of Bourbon restoration as null and void, the edicts of Lyons expelled from France every emigrant who had returned without the permission of the Republic or ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... bursting into my room, and much smoke. It happened that the day before a friend in Alabama had sent me eleven hundred dollars wherewith to pay for him certain debts. My first thought was for this money, so I hurried to get the key of the secretary in which it was—keys never can be found in a hurry—and when found, I could not find the right one in the bunch. And then it stuck in the lock and would not open it, till finally I succeeded and got the money out. And then, not finding myself quite dead, I in a hurry ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... on the southern borders of the Everglades, at Key West, Florida, bids fair to become as extensive and as profitable as at Bermuda, whence, at present, we receive the bulk of our supplies. The wild root, which the Indians call Compti, grows spontaneously over an immense area ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... enabled him to comprehend the effect produced upon a character otherwise unamiable and rugged, by the grandeur of self-immolation and the absorption of one devoted heroic thought. In the strength and bitterness of passion which thus pledged her existence to redeem another's, he obtained the key to her vehement and jealous nature; saw why she had been so cruel to the child of a rival; why she had conceived compassion for that child in proportion as the father's unnatural indifference had quenched the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the period which elapsed between the date of the Captivity and the advent of Christianity. The law they observed, however, was not the written law as it stood, but that law as expounded by the oral law of the Scribes, as the sole key to its interpretation, so that their attitude to the Law of Moses was pretty much the same as that of the Roman Catholics and the High Churchmen in relation to the Scriptures generally, and they were thus at length the representatives of clericalism as well as legalism in the Jewish Church, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... suprasensible substratum of humanity." Thus beauty becomes a symbol of morality. "The subjective principle alone, that is, the indeterminate idea of the suprasensible in us, can be indicated as the sole key to reveal this faculty, which remains unknown to us in its origin. Nothing but this principle can make that hidden ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... strange mixture of legend and history might have been useful, because the case of Theodoric is one of the most luculent testimonies for that blending of fact and fancy in strictly historical times which people find it so difficult to believe, but which offers the key, and the only true key, for many of the most perplexing problems, both of history and ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... having an entrance into both, stands the Lupanar, from which the latter street derives its name. We can not venture upon a description of this resort of Pagan immorality. It is kept locked up, but the guide will procure the key for those who may wish to see it. Next to it is the House of the Fuller, in which was found the elegant little bronze statuette of Narcissus, now in the Museum. The house contained ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... He had fished the key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my shoe bag and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw—a foundation of brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in sight to give it snap. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... who are in the secrets of Maga, and to whom the very brain-workings of her poets and painters are as palpable as the crystal curdling of the lake beneath the filmy breath of the Frost King, of course know all about it, and will whisper in your ear the key to the pretty harmonies of wood and sky and happy faces which he has spread out in a sort of visible cavatina, or dear little love-song, beneath ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... them had disappeared through the door, Britz turned the key in the lock and advanced toward the woman. She had dropped into a chair which the receiver had thoughtfully provided. At her side, regarding her with an expression of puzzled interest, stood a medium-sized, stooped man, with iron-gray hair and beard, whose cold, steely ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... weary of the old mill, and as he had made a handsome fortune by his industry, he determined to sell it and go to the city, there to spend his days in a more social way, and of use to his fellow-men. After having agreed with a purchaser, and received payment, he delivered the key to ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman

... the youth "We have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery; We are reaching, through His laws, To the garment-hem of Cause, Him, the endless, unbegun, The Unnamable, the One Light of all our light the Source, Life of life, and Force of force. As with fingers of the blind, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... that, in consequence of a severe cold, the young lady was gone to bed. She then immediately proceeded homewards, and consequently arrived at Craig Farm more than an hour before her usual time. She let herself in with her latch key, and proceeded to her bedroom. There was no light in Mr. Wilson's chamber, but she could hear him moving about in it. She was just about to go down stairs, having put away her Sunday bonnet and shawl, when she heard a noise, as of persons entering by the back way, and walking gently ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... into the ear of a shepherdess."] I determine to hunt it up in the Concordance. First of all, I find out from the Dictionary, if I do not know, to what Tone tale, always the last word of the phrase, belongs. Under that tone will be found various groups of words, each with a key-word which is called the Rhyme, that is to say, a key-word with which all the words in this group rhyme. There are only 106 of these key-words all together distributed over the Tones, and every word in the Chinese language must rhyme with ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... and opened it far enough to put her hand in and take the key from the other side, which she then inserted on my side, turned in the lock, drew out, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... reflect, as she must do occasionally, that the sphinx-like groom knew perfectly well that she was going to the Lathom Woods, that he had the key of the nearest gate in his pocket, that he would be a witness of her meeting with Falloden, whatever they did with him afterwards, and that Falloden had in all probability paid him largely to hold his tongue. All that side of it was odious—degrading. But the thought of ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... practises of France, To kill us here in Hampton: to the which This knight, no less for bounty bound to us Than Cambridge is,—hath likewise sworn.—But, O, What shall I say to thee, lord Scroop? thou cruel, Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature! Thou that did'st bear the key of all my counsels, That knew'st the very bottom of my soul, That almost might'st have coin'd me into gold, May it be possible, that foreign hire Could out of thee extract one spark of evil That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange, That, though the truth of it stands ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... house, and put on the door a lock of wood. It was a big lock, but it had no key. The natives stole everything. We could keep nothing. Scallamera was angry. One day he hid in the house while I went to work. When a hand was thrust through the opening to undo the lock, Scallamera took his brush knife and cut it off. He threw it through the hole and said, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... Colonel Campbell's column proceeded to push on to the centre of the city. The other two columns, merged practically into one, turned themselves towards the Lahore Gate, the capture of which was all-important. Here, in fact, was the key to Delhi. ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley

... of the handkerchiefs, she shut the wardrobe and turned the key. She went first to her own small, prim room to restore stolen property to its rightful place, and then she descended towards the kitchen with the other handkerchief. Giving it to her mother, and concealing her triumph beneath a mask of wise, long-suffering benevolence, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... "It is the key to the position," Aiken said, "and if Heinze should sell us out, we would have to run for our lives. These people are all smiles and 'vivas' to-day because we are on top. But if we lost Pecachua, every man of them ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... days ago. Then Bowman, who kept the key, opened the trunk in my presence, and took out the package of bonds, locking ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger

... on the desk, shut his eyes in one hand, and see the fair young head of the mother drooping tenderly over that smaller head in her bosom. Sometimes the tone of the lines was hopefully grave, discussing in the old tentative, interrogative key the future and its possibilities. Some pages were given to reminiscences,—recollections of all the droll things and all the good and glad things of the rugged past. Every here and there, but especially where the lines drew toward ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... out of his blankets and washing his face in a tin basin standing in one corner of the office, was to tap the telegraph key. The instrument gave out ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering

... permitted to remain in the same apartment which had been assigned to him after his arrest. When he heard the key turn in the lock, he sprang from his ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... come to the blind artist from Nature by the aid of his physical vision. The realm of reality was closed to him; but he had found the key to that of the ideal, and what he found in it proved to be no less true than the objects the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... rousing story, replete with all the varied forms of excitement of a campaign, but, what is still more useful, an account of a territory and its inhabitants which must for a long time possess a supreme interest for Englishmen, as being the key to our Indian ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... most problems," the Chief admitted. "Plain enough after you see the key equation. Well, I'm perfectly willing to be convinced, but I warn you that I'll take a lot of convincing—and someone else will ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith

... closely at the cabinet. It was not absolutely ebony and gold; but it was japan, black and yellow japan of the handsomest kind; and as she held her candle, the yellow had very much the effect of gold. The key was in the door, and she had a strange fancy to look into it; not, however, with the smallest expectation of finding anything, but it was so very odd, after what Henry had said. In short, she could not sleep till she had examined it. So, placing the candle with great ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... difficulties of his position. Around him went on the business of life; he heard the workmen come and go. It was evening, and he would be sent to prison. Suddenly he heard the stairs creak under a heavy tread, then the turning of the key, and Zenaide ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... Whether it was this disturbance that had broken her rest, she did not really know. She listened intently. There was a swift and heavy running to and fro, and a confusion of tongues, giving voices in mingled tones of fear, grief, rage, consternation, expostulation, and every key ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... will give a promise in writing, signed by him, to Lady Waldegrave, that he or his representatives will deliver the said chest, unopened and unsealed, by my executor and executrix, to the first son of Lady Waldegrave who shall attain the age of' twenty-five years. The key of the said chest is in one of the cupboards of the green closet, within the blue breakfast room, at Strawberry Hill; and that key, I desire, may be delivered to Laura, Lady Waldegrave, to be kept by her till her son shall receive ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... the finished gentleman of the present day, of course," continued Sparkle; "and as I have not had a lounge in these Corinthian regions for some little time, I am glad to be thus furnished with a key to characters that may be new ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... insurgents, and yet so troublesome in harassing invaders. The Cuban army was not a myth, certainly, but it has been a disappointment to those who were swift in shouting its praises, upon information given by the Cuban Key West Bureau of News novelettes. It was well that the attack on Spain in the West Indies was directed upon Santiago and Porto Rico. The former manifestly was a point that commanded the central waters of the West Indies; recently there have been expressions of surprise ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... come in here"—he hunted about in his pocket for the key of the cupboard—"Cyrus, I'll tell you what happened; that female across the street came in, and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland

... the key to his virtues, nor the spell for his vices. Neither was the state to which poverty compelled them one well calculated for that tender meditation, heightened by absence and cherished in indolence, which so often supplies one who loves ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... together the Father hung the key of the gate on one of many hooks above the bed. It was the third hook from the end nearest the window, and the key was an old one with very few wards. John watched all this, and even observed that there were books on the floor, and that a man might stumble ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... but in half an hour the novelty had faded, he had guessed the secret, he had plucked out the heart of the mystery and was clamoring for a keener sensation. At the end of a month, he presented, mentally, a puzzling spectacle to his companion. He had caught, instinctively, the key-note of the old world. He observed and enjoyed, he criticised and rhapsodized, but though all things interested him and many delighted him, none surprised him; he had divined their logic and measured their proportions, and referred them infallibly to their categories. Witnessing ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... in the shadow of the wall. The Jew who held the lantern, alarmed by the sounds within, entered hastily and, catching his foot against the body of a dead man who lay there, stumbled so that he fell upon his knee. In her hand Miriam held the key, and as the guard regained his feet, but not before its light fell upon her, she struck with it at the lamp, breaking and ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... get horses, and I should be detained in the precarious neighbourhood of my cousin. Hungry as I was, I made my way first of all to the postmaster, where he stood—a big, athletic, horsey-looking man, blowing into a key in the ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... infallibility, nor an exclusive reference of that faith to cases in which reason is synonymous with demonstration, that is, to cases which leave no room for it, is at once relieved, and effectually relieved, by the maxim—the key-stone of all ethical truth—that only voluntary error condemns us;—that all we are really responsible for, is a faithful, honest, patient, investigation and weighing of evidence, as far as our abilities and ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... shewing truth to flattered state, Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he, In his immortal spirit been as free As the sky-searching lark and as elate. Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait? Think you he nought but prison walls did see, Till, so unwilling, thou unturn'dst the key? Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate! In Spenser's halls! he strayed, and bowers fair, Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew With daring Milton! through the fields of air; To regions of his own his genius true Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair When thou art dead, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... serious complications on the Continent, it was decided that an alliance should be concluded for the defence of the ancient rights and liberties of Scotland. An English army of eight thousand men marched into Scotland, and the English fleet blockaded the fortress of Leith which was the key to the capital. Owing to the Huguenot risings in France the assistance that had been promised could not be sent, but nevertheless the invaders were thrown back in their first assault. In June 1560, however, Mary of Guise, worn out by the anxieties and cares of her ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... Boston, and the other was a 'long-shoreman. We had a valuable cargo on board, but the craft wasn't hurt a bit; and if the skipper—who was a little colonial man, not much acquainted with the judicial value of a wrecker's services—had a' taken my advice, he wouldn't got into the snarl he did at Key West, where they carried him, and charged him thirty-six hundred dollars for the job. Yes, and a nice little commission to the British consul for counting the doubloons, which, by-the-by, Skipper, belonged to that great house ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... seen no one, and in despair and disgust at the storm. You, I think of in Lenox—which is a summer spot only to my memory; alas! with nothing summery now, I fancy, but your rage at the equinoctial. Does Mrs. Hawthorne yet remember that she sent me a golden key to the studio of Crawford, in Rome? I have neither forgotten that, nor any smallest token of her frequent courtesy in the Concord days. Such be our days forever! ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... affect one profoundly. They only sing when the mood takes them; never with a view to please others, but always simply to give vent to their emotions. Their love-songs generally open with a sentimental recitative, and then change into actual singing, with frequent modulations from one key into another. The time is irregular, and though certain rhythmical peculiarities recur constantly, yet each performer gives to what he sings so strong a personality of execution as to make it almost an individual composition. Any one hearing Shokas ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... ingredients in our composition. Messer Griffo was no such fantastico, but a plain, straightforward, journeyman sword-bearer that would kill any mortal or mortals whom he was paid to kill, unless—and here is the key to his character and the explanation of all that happened after—unless he was paid a better price by some one else not to kill his intended victims. In this particular business he was, maugre Messer Simone's beard, paid a better price not to do what Simone paid a less price to have ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... unsatisfied chemical affinities, and that it is due to this that molecules of substances adapted for food can enter the cells and unite with them; but there must be some coincidence of molecular structure to enable the union to take place, the comparison being made of the fitting of a key into a lock. The toxines—that produced by the diphtheria bacillus being the best example—are substances whose molecular structure enables them to combine with the cells of the body, the combination being effected through certain chemical affinities belonging to the cells ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman

... I return to Albert. I lock the door, and at last I am bringing my hero forward nicely (my knee in the small of his back), when this startling question is shot by my sister through the key-hole- ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... Even the diamond books which reflect the light of God so brilliantly may not be all of first water. We must allow for the hues in the less perfect prisms. Were the greatest musical genius in the world to sit before the key-boards he could not draw from a harmonium the notes of a Lucerne organ. The impact of a writing on our souls must be proportionate to the spiritual and ethical force with which it is charged. Everyone recognizes ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... Arragon, in 1461. In form it closely resembles the Miracle-Plays founded on Scripture, the Saviour being one of the characters, the others being five Jews, a bishop, a priest, a merchant, and a physician and his servant. The merchant, having the key of the church, steals the Host, and sells it to the Jews, who promise to turn Christians in case they find its miraculous powers verified. They put the Host to various tests. Being stabbed with their daggers, it bleeds, and one of the Jews goes mad at the sight. They next attempt nailing it to ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... of Appeal, set up by the wisdom of God, the Church would disintegrate and fall into pieces to-morrow. To remove from the Church of Christ the infallibility of the Pope would be like removing the hub from the wheel, the key-stone from the arch, the trunk from the tree, the foundation from the house. For, in each case the result must mean confusion. If such a result could ever have been doubted in the past, it can surely be doubted no longer. The sad experience ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... he grew up and flourished, and its standards and spirit. He, like others of his stamp, were, in a great measure, but products of the times; and it is not the man so much as the times that are of paramount interest, for it is they which supply the explanatory key. In preceding chapters repeated insights have been given into the methods not merely of one phase, but of all phases, of capitalist formulas and processes. At the outset, however, in order to approach impartially this narrative of the Gould fortune, and to ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... great idea. But he could not stand stupid people, especially those who are made stupid by education: people who are full of opinions not one of which they even understand, a peculiarly modern type, summed up by Christ when he describes it as the type of one who has the key of knowledge, cannot use it himself, and does not allow other people to use it, though it may be made to open the gate of God's Kingdom. His chief war was against the Philistines. That is the war every ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde

... the sisters saw very little of each other. One morning Eleanor waylaid Julia as she was passing her door, drew her in, and turned the key in the lock. The first impulse of the two was to spring to each other's arms for a ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... the ideographic characters of later times, the meaning of which I was enabled, thanks to the instruction that my friend the guardian of the archives had given me, fully to understand. In short, my discovery precisely paralleled that of Boussard; for even as the Rosetta Stone gave the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics, so did this transliteration into intelligible characters make all Aztec picture-writing plain. As the full significance of my discovery burst upon me, my joy and the excitement of my splendid ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... the wildest character. The flood was most tremendous at this bridge, for the water was so confined that it filled the smaller arch altogether, and rose in the great arch to within three feet of the key-stone, that is to say, forty feet above the usual level. This fine old bridge sustained but little damage, while many of the modern buildings were entirely swept away. At another part of the river, it is ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous

... which can be read without a tear from the first page to the last. That is precisely the quality which commends it to this stern reader, who thought that in fiction as in life a man should keep his feelings under lock and key. In spite of his rather peculiar canons of taste, Fitzjames was profoundly interested, even in spite of himself, in some novels constructed on very different principles. In these early articles he falls foul ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... was the Door to which I found no Key; There was the Veil through which I might not see: Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE There was—and then no ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... with a heart All hell, and undermine them hour by hour! This island scarce can fend herself from France, And now Spain holds the keys of all the world, How should we fight her, save that my poor wit Hath won the key to Philip? Oh, I know His treacherous lecherous heart, and hour by hour My nets are drawing round him. I, that starve My public armies, feed his private foes, Nourish his rebels in the Netherlands, Nay, sacrifice ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... amused to look over Joseph's case of books?" handing her the key, and then sitting down with her knitting, contented in having finished her duty. "After a while thee'll have a pleasant time,"—smiling consciously. "Richard'll be awake. Richard's our boy, thee knows? I wish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... Bordeaux, Lyons, Lille, Strasburg, and Paris. The Paris lottery was drawn on the twenty-fifth of each month, and the lists closed on the twenty-fourth, at midnight. Philippe studied all these points and set himself to watch. He came home at midday; the Descoings had gone out, and had taken the key of the appartement. But that was no difficulty. Philippe pretended to have forgotten something, and asked the concierge to go herself and get a locksmith, who lived close by, and who came at once and opened the door. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... you might have known but for that superfluous cunning which you think an elegance. Oh! never be seduced by such silly pretences," continued he; "if a wench wants a good gown, do not give her a fine smelling-bottle, because that is more delicate: as I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor scribbling dependant, as if she took the woman for an ostrich that could digest iron." He said, indeed, "that women were very difficult to be taught the proper manner of conferring pecuniary favours; that they always gave too much money or ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... method of teaching reading, but it is a necessary part of every good, modern method. It is the key to word mastery, and word mastery is one of the first essentials in learning to read. A knowledge of the sounds of letters, and of the effect of the position of the letter upon its sound, is an essential means of mastering the mechanics of reading, and of enabling children ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams

... have long to wait now. We should have ready some plan of attack, so that we may throw away no chance. Hush, there is no time now. Have all your arms! Be ready!" He held up a warning hand as he spoke, for we all could hear a key softly inserted in the ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... distance of the intervening years, midday halts, where an hour of daydream lay sandwiched in between two half days of tramp. And I thought of the companions now so far away. Having heard the tune in a minor key, these came in as chords of some ampler variation, making a kind of symphony of sentiment, where I was brought back ever and anon to the simple motif. And the teahouse maidens entered and went out again like mutes ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... interesting friend was still rendering himself a source of amusement and an object of admiration. Without stopping to compliment him upon the excellence of his performance, I approached the front door, turned the key which was in the lock, unfastened the chain, and passed out into the street, just as the clock of a neighboring steeple was proclaiming ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson

... to go out to market, or on any other errand, she found the front door locked and the key taken away. Was this done purposely or not? Surely Professor Hardwigg did not intend the old woman and myself to become martyrs to his obstinate will. Were we to be starved to death? A frightful recollection came to my mind. Once we had fed on bits and scraps for a week while ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... you, as far as looks goes," she said, in the same key as before, apostrophising Fleda, who had drawn back, but not stirring her eyes from Mr. Carleton all the time. And then she added to him, with a little, satisfied nod, and in a very decided tone of ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... only to have kept him awake, but it should have insured perfect decorum on his part. The opening hymn commenced with the words, "Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing," etc. The organist, who played "by ear," started the tune in too high a key to be followed by the choir and congregation, and had to try again. A second attempt ended, like the first, in failure. "Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing, my blest—" came the opening words for the third time, followed by a squeak from the organ, and a relapse into painful silence. Will could ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... industrial tasks may be found in certain laboratory investigations which refer to the learning of telegraphing, typewriting, and so on. For instance, we have a careful study[20] of the progress made in learning telegraphy, both as to the transmitting of the telegrams by the key movement and the receiving of the telegrams by the ear. It was found that the rapidity of transmitting increases more rapidly and more uniformly than the rapidity of receiving. But while the curve of the latter rises ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg

... parties. Situated on the same coast, and only a few miles from Rochelle, the stronghold of the Huguenots, it was obviously exceedingly important to them that it should be in their possession, both as the key to the commerce of the surrounding country and from the very great annoyance which an enemy holding it could offer to them in numberless ways. Notwithstanding its strong defences, it was nevertheless taken and retaken several times during the struggles of ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... drum, and wound round it, the other end being fixed to the larger end of the fusee, which is attached to the driving-wheel of the watch or clock by the intervention of a ratchet and click (not shown). To wind the spring the fusee is turned backward by means of a key applied to the square end A of the fusee arbor, and this draws the string from off the drum on to the fusee. The force of the spring causes the fusee to rotate by pulling the string off it, coil by coil, and so drives the train of wheels. But while the mainspring, when fully wound, turns the fusee ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... rafters met. Round the base lay several little heaps of either bits of broken branches, withered and peeled, or half-whitened bones; I could not distinguish which. As I approached, the ground sounded hollow beneath my horse's hoofs. The knight took a great key from his pocket, and reaching past the stem of the tree, with some difficulty opened the door. "Dismount," he commanded. I obeyed. He turned my horse's head away from the tower, gave him a terrible blow with the flat ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... voice of Pansie, crying at the door, which was locked, and, turning the key, he caught her in his arms, and hastened with her below stairs, to give her into the charge of Martha, who seemed half stupefied with a sense of something awful that ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the sheriff asked Billy Boyle the other day where the key to the door was, Billy seemed to feel hurt. What did Billy know about a key, and what use had he ever found for one in that hospitable spot, whither famished folk of every class gravitated naturally for the flying ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... the counting-house door with a big basket, the one he always brought over, filled with provisions for our use, as so much time was spent at the mine; and as my father pulled out a big key, Sam took in the basket, cleared the table, and threw over it a white cloth, upon which he ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... have hinted in the course of this sketch more than once, the answer to this problem, as well as the key to the general understanding of the Roman religion, is to be found in the worship of the household. If we knew more of it, we should see more clearly where religion and morality joined hands, but we know enough ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey

... back, as we had occasion, from our classes to the crowded stair of our "land"—with its greasy handrail, and the faint whiff of humanity clinging about the numbered doorways. Our key grated in the lock. Mrs. Craven opened the kitchen door with a cry that our dinners would be ready in a jiffey. We were done with the world for the day. Henceforth four walls contained us. Many books lay tumbled about, or had to be heaped on the floor whenever the half of ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... till daylight comes, if we iver say it, please God, for it's as dark now as a blue dog in a black entry, and you couldn't say your hand before your face to set any sail, if ever a man could git up the rigging—but whist now about that! Steward," he added in a louder key, "come, look alive here and git the cuddy to rights in shipshape fashion! By the powers, but the skipper'd be in a foine rage if he saw it all mops and brooms like this! Bear a hand, man, and be smart, and I'll send the carpenter to help you as soon as the watch ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... makes them all tremble with constant dread that something awful may happen. And, then, if you knew what tricks she plays to get something to drink! For it was found out that she drank, and all the liqueurs were put under lock and key. So you don't know what she devised? Well, last week she drained a whole bottle of Eau de Melisse, and was ill, quite ill, from it. Another time she was caught sipping some Eau de Cologne from one of the bottles in madame's dressing-room. I now really ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... consists in quieting the alarm of the child if it be frightened, and in applying cold water or pounded ice to the nose and forehead and to the back of the neck. It is because of its coldness that the key placed down the back, as so commonly advised in domestic practice, ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... the embers of his fire with sand, was at some pains to throw half a cupful of fetid water over my head, an attention for which I could have fallen on my knees and thanked him, but he was laughing all the while in the same mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me on my first attempt to force the shoals. And so, in a semi-comatose condition, I ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... palavering Professor should pull him this way or that; for Mother Trigedgo had given him a book, to consult on all important occasions. It was Napoleon's Oraculum, or Book of Fate; and as Denver had glanced at the key—with its thirty-two questions covering every important event in human life—a thrill of security had passed over him. With this mysterious Oraculum, the Man of Destiny had solved the many problems of his life; and in question ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... closed eye, Coronado turned to a dressing-table, pulled out a drawer, seized a key, and opened Garcia's trunk. Before the old man could interfere, the younger one held in his hand a paper containing two ounces ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... despair Claude fled from the grating, and fell back upon the straw. For a time he seemed unconscious of everything; but at length he was roused by a rattle at the door of his cell. In a moment he was on his feet, listening. It was the sound of a key as it slowly turned in the lock. Claude moved not, spoke not; he waited. If this was his deliverer, all well; if not, he was resolved to have a struggle for freedom. Then he ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... to recognise them by their demeanour. In a little time, the stepmother and wife rose, and throwing themselves on the coffin, howled for half an hour; but it was easy to see that their grief did not come from the heart. Their moaning was always pitched in the same monotonous key. Both then returned with smiling faces and dry eyes to their seats, and appeared to resume the conversation at the point at which they had broken it off. The deceased's canoe ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... leap, saw his foot shoot out, heard a rending crash and next moment he was in the room and I behind him. The man in the blue spencer was in the act of locking the door of the inner room and stood, his hand upon the key, glaring at ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... brother seated at the piano, letting his fingers run lightly and carelessly over the key-board, and then looking up to the ceiling and muttering, "What key is it in again?" as if he were searching for the right one, a shiver always ran through Cousin Ola. For he knew that Hans had mastered three accompaniments, and no ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... with the parson at this moment, and they all went upstairs together, preceded by Liddy Smallbury. Everything was silent as the grave when they paused on the landing. Liddy knocked, and Bathsheba's dress was heard rustling across the room: the key turned in the lock, and she opened the door. Her looks were calm and nearly rigid, like a ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... world roused to revenge against him. Caleb Williams was the wife who, in spite of warning, persisted in his attempts to discover the forbidden secret; and, when he had succeeded, struggled as fruitlessly to escape the consequences, as the wife of Bluebeard in washing the key of the ensanguined chamber, who, as often as she cleared the stain of blood from the one side, found it showing itself with ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... They compromised at length on the science course at the Tredgold Women's College—she had already matriculated into London University from school—she came of age, and she bickered with her aunt for latch-key privileges on the strength of that and her season ticket. Shamefaced curiosities began to come back into her mind, thinly disguised as literature and art. She read voraciously, and presently, because ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... The dead-bolt was thrown. It takes a key to do that from the outside or this thumb-turn on the inside." The hotel man demonstrated the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... being only effected on the other side of the apse, which it is impossible that any one should see at the same time. This is one of the curious pieces of system which so often occur in mediaeval work, of which the key is now lost. The groups at the ends of the transepts correspond neither in number nor arrangement; we shall presently see why, but must first examine more closely the treatment of the triangles themselves, and the nature of the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... sword," saith Mahomet, "is the key of heaven and of hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months' fasting or prayer. Whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven at the day of judgment; his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion, and odoriferous ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... "that is the key of the whole enigma. The young girl has been playing her pranks; what people say about her and the king is true, then; our young master has been deceived; he ought to know it. Monsieur le comte has been to see the king, and has told him a piece of ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... concealing spirits, and was very ingeniously contrived. Its door was a portion of the side of the forecastle, and a keyhole was concealed behind a removable knot. Garta had not opened the locker before, for the reason that he had been unable to find the key. He knew it had been concealed in the forecastle, but it had taken him a long time to find it. Now his secret was discovered, and he was enraged. Going over to the hammock, where Inkspot had again ensconced himself, he leaned over the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... at the back door and waiting for Aunt Stanshy. He had fallen asleep, so thoroughly tired was this patriotic young American, and the day for him was ending as it began—in a chair. Aunt Stanshy came at last, feeling her way through the shadows in the porch and striving to reach the back door, whose key she carried. ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

... Timothy looked a little nervously around, but the park itself lay almost like a deep green pool, unobserved, and invisible from anywhere except the house itself. He spoke a few words to each of the horses, and, producing his key, passed through the door in the wall into The Sanctuary garden, closing it quickly as he recognised Francis ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... soaked with a trampled conglomerate of mud and water, oil and filth, the debris left by the feet of the maddened, howling crowd, were entirely ruined; beds and bedding, mirrors, and smaller articles had been carried away, the grand piano had had a fire kindled on the key-board, as had the sofas and chairs upon their velvet seats, fires that were, none knew ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... trouble and expense of dissolving the phosphate if it has to become insoluble again in the soil? This question is one of very great importance, for the answer to it furnishes, in our opinion, the key to the whole phosphate question. When superphosphate is added to the soil, being soluble in water, it is soon dissolved and carried down by the rain into its pores, and becomes thoroughly mixed with the soil-particles. It is thus soon fixed in the soil, beyond the ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... Johnson seems to have meant the Address to the Reader with a KEY subjoined to it; which have been prefixed to the modern editions of that play. He did not know, it appears, that several additions were made to The Rehearsal after the first edition. MALONE. In ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... on a stone by the roadside. The sun clouded over, a keen wind blew, and Christina shivered. There was nothing for it but go back to the cottage. The key was in the door, Ian turned it, and they went in. Certainly this time no one was there. The old woman so lately groaning on her bed had vanished. Ian made up the fire, and did what he could for his ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... county, tells how he saved his bacon. He hid it all out but three pieces. When the troopers came and raided his smoke-house an officer, looking in, ordered them out, saying, "You shall not take all the man's meat; leave him one piece." He locked the door and put the key in his pocket and ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott



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