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Keynote   /kˈinˌoʊt/   Listen
Keynote

verb
1.
Set the keynote of.
2.
Give the keynote address to (an audience).



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"Keynote" Quotes from Famous Books



... support—but was ready and eager to meet the enemy in the hour of need. If it is a sound axiom never to despise the enemy, it is nevertheless true that excessive prudence has lost many an action. Farragut's motto has been the keynote of the success of all the great sea-captains, "L'audace, et encore de ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... the first Christian Science church erected in Boston strikes a keynote of definite attention. This church is in the fashionable Back Bay between Commonwealth and Huntington avenues. It is one of the most beautiful, and is certainly the most unique structure in any city. The First ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy

... constant usage than any other part of the structure, it must be strong, and it must have a surface that will resist wear, or we shall simply store up trouble for the future. It is also a part of the decorative scheme, and as such must help to furnish the keynote of our plans. All these requirements ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... his faded eyes red with weeping. He was losing the only friend he had. Elsewhere the servants wandered about restlessly, waiting for news from the front, to learn if they, too, were to join in the mad flight from the city. Few servants love masters in adversity. Self-interest is the keynote to their existences. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... because the Government had made itself a tool of England and France. This same Government then organized an unparalleled guerrilla warfare in order to support a lost cause, and by that act—Herr Rolland, you are a musician!—struck the horrible keynote of conflict. If you are at all in a position to break your way through the giant's wall of anti-German lies, read the message to America, by our Imperial Chancellor, of Sept. 7; read further the telegram which on Sept. 8 the Kaiser himself addressed to President Wilson. You will then discover ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... mountain slopes of Kiu Shiu. Nor did he wish the thought of gain or of personal ambition to creep into Tatsu's heart. Now he spent most of the day-lit hours secluded in his little study, painting those scenes and motives suggested by the keynote of his mood. Of late he had begun to read, with deep interest, the various essays on art, gathered in Kano's small, choice library. He would sometimes talk with his father about art, and let the eager old man demonstrate to him the different brush-strokes ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... to be done," replied Fitz slowly, as was his wont. "That has been the keynote of his life as long as I have known him. If there had been anything to do, you may be sure that De Lloseta would ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... newspapers. The case had been taken up by more than one; and he was well aware that the keynote had been sounded by The Jupiter. He had been very intimate with Tom Towers, and had often discussed with him the affairs of the hospital. Bold could not say that the articles in that paper had been written at his own instigation. He did not even know, as a fact, that they had been written ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... because he has no property of his own that he is so slow to recognise the rights of property in others. But above all, his tongue—the weird, corrupt, barbarous Sanscrit 'patter' or 'jib,' known only to himself and to those of his blood—is the keynote of his strange life. In spite of every effort that has been made to fathom it, the Gipsy dialect is still unintelligible to 'Gorgios'—a few experts such as Mr. Borrow alone excepted. But wherever the true Gipsy goes he carries his tongue with ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... music-room that was deliberately planned as a background to the gay colors of women's gowns and the heavy black masses of men's evening clothes, a soft shimmering green and cream room that was incomplete and cold when empty of the color of costume. Such a room must have an architectural flavor. The keynote must be elegant simplicity and aristocratic reserve. Walls broken into panels, and panels in turn broken by lighting-fixtures, a polished floor, a well-considered ceiling, any number of chairs, and ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... overpowered with a sense of insignificance utterly foreign to her previous experience. But now she discovered with an agreeable sensation of surprise she could vibrate to such a keynote. And while she communed with this pleasant discovery the car sped down a straight stretch and around a corner and stopped short to unload sacks of mail at a weather-beaten yellow edifice, its windows displaying indiscriminately Indian baskets, groceries, and hardware. Northward ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... that Concentration is the keynote of piano mastery. Another principle which goes hand in hand with it is Relaxation. Unless this condition is present in arms, wrist and shoulders, the tone will be hard and the whole performance constrained and unmusical. There ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... table was large, and arranged with that wonderful simplicity which Mrs. Hastings had adopted as the keynote of her New York parties. She had taken, in fact, simplicity under her wing and made a new thing of it. There were more flowers than silver, and cut glass than heavy plate. There seemed to be an almost ostentatious desire to conceal the fact that Mr. Hastings had robbed the American public of a good ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... upwards, contempt for the masters was the keynote of all conversation about them. The Latin master, a little, insignificant-looking man, but a very good teacher, was said to be so disgracefully enfeebled by debauchery that an active boy could throw him ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... Lacedaemonians and the longings of the Athenian people for the blessings of peace. This leaves 'The Knights' to open the whole series—the most important politically of all Aristophanes' productions, embodying as it does his trenchant attack on the great demagogue Cleon and striking the keynote of the author's general attitude as advocate of old-fashioned conservatism against the new democracy, its reckless 'Imperialism' and the unscrupulous and self-seeking policy, so the aristocratic party deemed it, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... was as much the keynote of his existence as of that of his father and mother, many eyes were concentrated upon the development, spiritual and mental, of Ivan Gregoriev. Upon him had been fastened the hopes even of the Gregoriev serfs, who were as devoted ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... sometimes very thin. It has been suggested that Swift, who was with Pope during the composition, may have been directly responsible for some of these brutalities. At any rate, as I have said, Pope has here been working in the Swift spirit, and this gives, I think, the keynote of ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... association with this cultured old gentleman that Mary Louise had imbibed a certain degree of logic and philosophy unknown to many girls of fifteen. He taught her consideration for others as the keynote of happiness, yet he himself declined to mingle with his fellow men. He abhorred sulking and was always cheerful and pleasant in his home circle, yet when others approached him familiarly he resented it with a frown. He taught his granddaughter to be generous to the poor and supplied her freely with ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)

... also, Edward. I think too there is a measured music, a central time and tune, in every life. Quick, melodious natures like Ethel's never wander far from their keynote, and are therefore joyously set; while slow, irresolute people deviate far, and only come back after painful dissonances and ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... a long silence: for she was a practised observer of men and things, and the face before her compelled attention. The keynote of the whole was vigour: not mere impetuosity, though that was present also, but a sustained, indwelling vigour, ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... not to run, I'll spring on you the poem that seems to me to strike the keynote of the ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... significantly placed his Oktoberlied, written in the political gloom and uncertainty of the fall of 1848. While realizing fully its inherent tragic elements, Storm loved and glorified life and thirstily drank in its beauty to the very last. This is the keynote of Storm's lyrics. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various

... tells us how Denys l'Auxerrois, on his return from a long journey, 'ate flesh for the first time, tearing the hot, red morsels with his delicate fingers in a kind of wild greed,' but such passages are rare. Asceticism is the keynote of Mr. Pater's prose; at times it is almost too severe in its self-control and makes us long for a little more freedom. For indeed, the danger of such prose as his is that it is apt to become somewhat laborious. Here and there, one is tempted to say of Mr. Pater that ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... been amongst these surprised one or two people, notably Mr Seymour, who, being games' master had come a good deal into contact with Stanning, and had not been favourably impressed. The fact was that the keynote of Sheen's character was a fear of giving offence. Within limits this is not a reprehensible trait in a person's character, but Sheen overdid it, and it frequently complicated his affairs. There ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse

... speaks of these seven principles of man in exactly the same way, only from the standpoint of a higher form of observation of the world, as allusion is commonly made to the seven colours that make up white light, or to the seven notes of the scale (the octave being regarded as a repetition of the keynote). As light appears in seven colours, and sound in seven tones, so is the unity of man's nature manifested in the seven principles described. No more superstition attaches to the number seven in the case of occult ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... The cook is the keynote of happiness or unhappiness. Get a good cook, professionally and morally, one who understands that he is not in camp for a vacation. A capable cook will take care of fifty boys without any assistance, except what help the boys may render in the preparation of vegetables. For years two ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... speculators who engineer a corner in corn, or meat, or cotton, or some other vital commodity, and that the unearned increment in land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service but to the disservice done. It is monopoly which is the keynote; and where monopoly prevails, the greater the injury to society the greater the reward of the monopolist ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... state of simplicity or innocence through storm and stress into maturity or ruin; the evolution of a sentiment in a sonnet towards its final statement in the last line or two; the melody, in its departure from the keynote, its going forth and return; the career of ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... fit inside all of these for very cold weather. The eider bag costs about $16.00 or $18.00, but is worth it if you are going to camp out in the mountains after August. Do without one or two summer hats, but get it, for it is the keynote of ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

... measure, to his tact in discerning the American craving for novelty and sensation, and to his native originality and brilliancy, which allow him to respond so fully to these exigencies of public taste, as to possess on all occasions the keynote to applause. The faculty of never degenerating into dulness, the rock on which most pianists are wrecked in early youth, is another just cause for insuring to our compatriot the preeminence which he enjoys. Viewed from a critical point, the mechanical ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... him a running sketch of the chance guests, Graham heard scarce half she said, so occupied was he in trying to sense his way to an understanding of her. Naturalness was her keynote, was his first judgment. In not many moments he had decided that her key-note was joy. But he was dissatisfied with both conclusions, and knew he had not put his finger on her. And then it came to ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... therefore their attitudes are both reverent and natural. They are more earthly than Fra Angelico's melodists, and yet they are not precisely of human lineage. It is not, perhaps, too much to say that they strike the keynote of Venetian devotion, at once real and devoid ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... recognized for the moment and the soul feels at peace and is content in the feeling that it is at harmony with the All. The sense of Beauty, however expressed, when keenly experienced, has a tendency to lift us out of our consciousness of separateness into another plane of mind in which the keynote is Unity. The higher the human feeling, the nearer is the conscious realization ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... for governor. With one or two exceptions, he was the youngest member of the Nineteenth Congress. He was prominently connected with every leading question, and upon all he struck what proved to be the keynote for the action of his party. His maiden speech was in defense of the proposed amendment to the Constitution giving the choice of the President and Vice-President directly to the people. It at once placed him in the front rank of Congressional debaters. He opposed the appropriation for the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... cited are not casual or episodical; they strike the keynote of the whole poem, lay the keystone of the whole arch of thought. There is no contest of conflicting forces, no judgment so much as by casting of lots: far less is there any light of heavenly harmony or of heavenly wisdom, of Apollo or Athene from above. We have heard much ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... millions of men and women acquainted with grief and affliction? The early Christians did not exactly live lives of luxury or even security, sheltered from contact with tragedy and horror; yet the keynote of primitive Christianity is the note of joy, while the background of early Christian experience is a radiant conviction of the Divine benevolence. And when we remember that the same holds true of so many eminently spiritual souls in all ages, who have combined a keen sensitiveness to ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... wanted a general badly. He had been grievously disappointed in Sir William Howe, whose victories seemed never bringing the war any nearer to an end. Burgoyne brought forward his plan at the right moment, shrewdly touched the keynote of the king's discontent by declaring for aggressive war, smoothed every obstacle away with easy assurance, and so impressed the ministers with his capacity, that they believed they had found the very man the king wanted for the ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... enough. The effects will of course vary with the individual. Just as they vary in the same individual from time to time; but it is probable that in the former case, as in the latter, a generic resemblance will obtain. With me, as with every other person of whom I have heard, the keynote of the experience is the tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical illumination. Truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of almost blinding evidence. The mind sees all the logical relations of being with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity to which its normal ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... carry on his work. What this work was loomed largely, though vaguely, for her. The three slender volumes, literary and ethical, were the only permanent testament that her father had given to the world; and dealing, as in the main they did, with ultimate problems, their keynote an illumined democracy that saw in most of the results as yet achieved by his country a base travesty of the doctrine, the largeness of their grasp was perhaps a trifle loose. Imogen did not see it. Her appreciation was more of aims than of achievements; but she felt ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... remember, so he is an eclectic, they say. Leoncavallo writes pretty verses and Palestrina is a priest, and Confucius inspires Scriabin. A choice is freedom. Natural selection is but one of Nature's tunes. "All melodious poets shall be hoarse as street ballads, when once the penetrating keynote of nature and spirit is sounded—the earth-beat, sea-beat, heart-beat, which make the tune to which the sun rolls, and the globule of blood and the sap ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... countless versions of the symbol. But the drama of the eagle is eclipsed by the quiet unostentatious poetry of the angel of St. Matthew. We see a girl of intense grace and refinement, winged as an angel and looking modestly downwards to the open gospel in her hands. Delicacy is the keynote pervading every detail of the relief: in her hands, arms and throat, in the soft curves of the young frame, and in the drapery itself, which suggests all that is dainty and pure—everywhere, in fact, we find ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... artisans, reliable workmen, and of a good faith that everyone acknowledges and admires in their commercial dealings; in no country that is or was, has the commandment 'Honor thy father and thy mother', been so religiously obeyed, or so fully and without exception given effect to, and it is in fact the keynote of their family, social, official and national life, and because it is so their days are long in the land ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... my having been compelled, a few days ago, to glance through two or three little dramas of mine, wherein lies revealed the disquiet of a mind that has given itself wholly to mystery; a disquiet legitimate enough in itself, perhaps, but not so inevitable as to warrant its own complacency. The keynote of these little plays is dread of the unknown that surrounds us. I, or rather some obscure poetical feeling within me (for with the sincerest of poets a division must often be made between the instinctive feeling of their art and the thoughts of their real life), seemed to believe in a species ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... vision of her Master's face on Olives, and let other sounds crowd out of her ears the sound of His voice, were stagnant ages. They are commonly spoken of in history as the dark ages. "Go" is the ringing keynote of the Christian life, whether in a man or in ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... midst of such easy and over-credulous and mistaken assumptions of its complete, virtual destruction already, by undoubted friends of freedom, as in the case of the Times editor, General Grant, and numerous others, to listen to such hearty utterances, in the keynote of the right policy, as were made by Secretary Chase in his recent speech at Cincinnati, and to be able to believe that they foreshadow the course of the Administration in this trying epoch of our country's history. We quote the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... she repeated, upon the lowest note of her lower register, which sounded, at that solemn moment, like the keynote of a dreamer. Then, with a sudden change of ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... Byzantine purple. These with full blue breathed between them at the zenith, and green blue nearer the horizon, form the scales and chords of color possible to the morning and evening sky in pure and fine weather; the keynote of the opposition being vermilion against green blue, both of equal tone, and at such a height and acme of brilliancy that you cannot see the line where their edges pass into ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin

... This is the keynote of the surviving power of the human species. It is not enough that the body should be prepared to do good work under ordinary conditions, but it must be capable, if needs be, of meeting extraordinary ones. It is not enough ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... far as possible, to unify the collection by arranging the poems so that each should set the keynote to the next, or at least bear some relation to it in mood or theme. While it is impossible, with so varied a mass of material, that such a sequence should be exact, and in one or two instances the arrangement has been disturbed by the late addition or elimination of poems, the idea has been ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... on the famous keynote of the Epistle to the Philippians: Rejoice in the Lord. This is after all the only safe temper for tempted men. By preachers of a theology as narrow as their experience, it is often said that our guilt and native vileness, our unquestioned peril and instability, are such that no man of ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith

... interest is the Commedia. Any attempt to explain it, by narrowing that interest to politics, philosophy, the moral life, or theology itself, must prove inadequate. Theology strikes the keynote; but history, natural and metaphysical science, poetry, and art, each in their turn join in the harmony, independent, yet ministering to the whole. If from the poem itself we could be for a single moment in doubt of the reality ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... to us by the Rev. Mr. French, a chaplain who brought them from the donors in New York. All this was according to the programme. Then followed an incident so simple, so touching, so utterly unexpected and startling, that I can scarcely believe it on recalling, though it gave the keynote to the whole day. The very moment the speaker had ceased, and just as I took and waved the flag, which now for the first time meant anything to these poor people, there suddenly arose, close beside the platform, a strong male voice (but rather cracked and elderly), into which two women's ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... The keynote to all Washington's utterances is set in the "Memorandum for concerting a plan of operations with the French army," dated July 15, 1780, and sent by ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... fear. But she was not a private individual. She was an English sovereign, and the keynote of all her subtle, intricate, tortuous policy was the resolute determination, from which she never flinched, that England should be independent, spiritually as well as politically independent, of a foreign yoke. Her connection with the Protestants was political, not theological, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... 'the end,'"—so he told Lady Blessington on the 20th of November; and to Forster he expressed the yearning that was in him to "leave" his "hand upon the time, lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for the mass of toiling people that nothing could obliterate." This was the keynote of "The Chimes." He intended in it to strike a great and memorable blow on behalf of the poor and down-trodden. His purpose, so far as I can make it out, was to show how much excuse there is for their shortcomings, and how in their errors, nay even in their crimes, there ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... personalities usually keep their place and do not interfere with each other. Our professional and family selves may be different; they do not always collide. But the various characters that we are in various situations not infrequently do clash. The self whose keynote is ambition or learning may conflict with the self whose focus ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... Cavour. His high personal character, as well as his talents, made him no inconsiderable opponent. It was at this meeting that Cavour first entirely revealed himself. He showed that faith in the prudence of daring which was the keynote to his great strokes of policy. The demands of the Genoese, he said, were not too large, but too small. They hit wide of the mark, and the second of them was idle, because the king, while he remained an ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... the very keynote of romantic art was to him the proper basis of natural life. He saw no other basis. And when they brought him one, taken in the very act of sin and showed him her sentence written in the law, and asked him ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde

... of Mrs. Mary Barker Dodge (D. Lothrop & Co., Boston) has won a series of splendid notices; yet, so far as we know, sufficient stress has not been laid upon the keynote of the volume. Love, in its varying phases, sounds through the majority of the verses like the refrain of a song. Sometimes sad, sometimes solemn, oftener gay and hopeful, the differing themes take up, one after another, the burden of the initial poem; and answer, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... Benengeli in imitation of the almost invariable practice of the chivalry-romance authors, who were fond of tracing their books to some recondite source. In working out the new ideas, he soon found the value of Sancho Panza. Indeed, the keynote, not only to Sancho's part, but to the whole book, is struck in the first words Sancho utters when he announces his intention of taking his ass with him. "About the ass," we are told, "Don Quixote hesitated ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... the mantel and its arrangement of ornaments that sound the keynote upon first entering ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... of Aristotle's Problems (which, if not by Aristotle himself, are at least the product of his time or the succeeding century) he refers to the phenomena of sympathetic resonance; he asks further, why it is that when mese (the keynote of the lyre) is out of tune everything is out of tune; yet when any other string is out of tune it affects only the particular string which is not correctly adjusted. One of his most instructive, but also, as it turned out, most misleading questions was why they ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... has found its nest, the repose of faith, the quiet rest in the Lord, and 'waiting patiently for Him.' Such trust so directed is the one condition of such tranquillity. Then, again, note a Christian is all that he is because he is 'in Christ.' That phrase 'in Him' is in some sense the keynote of this Epistle to the Ephesians. If you will look over the letter, and pick out all the connections in which the expression 'in Him' occurs, I think you will be astonished to see how rich and full are its uses, and how manifold the blessings ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... hausfrau and of suffragist. Their intellectual forces, liberated and intensified, prey upon the more instinctive part of their natures, vexing them with unanswerable questions. So Fiammetta mistakes herself to some degree, loses her keynote, becomes embittered and perplexed. The equilibrium of soul and body is disturbed; and she fortifies herself in an obstinate idealism that cannot come to terms with the assaults of life. No single sonnet expresses absolute truth from even her own point ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... imitations does not end in the girl's life with her clothes. When she marries, she carries it into her home. Decoration, not furnishing, is the keynote of all she touches. It is she who is the best patron of the elaborate and monstrous cheap furniture, rugs, draperies, crockery, bric-a-brac, which fill the shops of the cheaper quarters of the great cities, and usually all quarters of the ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell

... briefly alluded to as eminently characteristic of the Sagas is their fatefulness. As we read we seem to hear the voice of Doom speaking continually. "Things will happen as they are fated": that is the keynote of them all. The Norse mind had little belief in free will, less even than we have to-day. Men and women were born with certain characters and tendencies, given to them in order that their lives should run in appointed channels, and their acts bring about ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... Reaper," "To a Highland Girl," "Stepping Westward," The Excursion, and a score of lesser poems. Joy and sorrow, not of princes or heroes, but "in widest commonalty spread," are his themes; and the hidden purpose of many of his poems is to show that the keynote of all life is happiness,—not an occasional thing, the result of chance or circumstance, but a heroic thing, to be won, as one would win any other ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... each other across the council table, a nation-wide demonstration will be under way in the United States. Organized labor announces that in every town and city the workers will join with other citizens in mass-meetings and parades and that the keynote of Armistice Day should be, 'It is time to disarm.' It will help in impressing upon our own government and upon other governments that the people are weary of war-made tax burdens; that they are deeply in earnest in their demands ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various

... entire property. Having secured pledges, amounting to twelve hundred dollars, the Pastor now led a strong force of volunteer laborers in the manual labor of the undertaking. Felling the first tree for the timber in the woods with his own hands, Brother Himebaugh gave the keynote to the movement. Nor did he stay his hand until he had expended sixty days ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... ranked with the most famous pamphlets ever written. It is difficult to wade through now, but even The Conduct of the Allies is not easy reading, and yet between Paine and Swift there is a great gulf fixed. The keynote of Common-sense was separation once and for ever, and the establishment of a great Republic of the West. It hit between wind and water, had a great sale, and made its author a personage and, in his own ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... of Wednesday will astound the world when made known in full. I know that two German detachments of 1,000 men each, which were surrounded and cornered but which refused to surrender, were wiped out almost to the last man. The keynote of these operations was the tremendous attack of the Allies along the Ourcq Tuesday, which showed the German commander that his lines were threatened. Then came ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... even sprawl out helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and dismembered. Nevertheless, in almost his very worst moods, there lies in him a singular attraction. A wild tone pervades the whole utterance of the man, like its keynote and regulator; now screwing itself aloft as into the Song of Spirits, or else the shrill mockery of Fiends; now sinking in cadences, not without melodious heartiness, though sometimes abrupt enough, into the common pitch, when we hear it only as a monotonous hum; of which hum the ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... happy marriage in 1804; and his calm temperament enabled him to bear an amount of abuse which might have broken the health of a more irritable man. Cobbett's epithet, 'parson Malthus,' strikes the keynote. He was pictured as a Christian priest denouncing charity, and proclaiming the necessity of vice and misery. He had the ill luck to be the centre upon which the antipathies of Jacobin and anti-Jacobin converged. Cobbett's language was rougher than Southey's; but the poet-laureate ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... display on the coach. She consulted with the other ladies as to the kind of dresses that were to be worn, but she decided everything herself; and when the time came she had all the young men ravaging the lanes and pastures for the goldenrod and asters which formed the keynote of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... prevailed.' And, says Christ: 'This man also is a son of Israel, one of God's warriors, who has prevailed with Him by prayer.' 'In whom is no guile'—Jacob in his early life had been marked and marred by selfish craft. Subtlety and guile had been the very keynote of his character. To drive that out of him, years of discipline and pain and sorrow had been needed. And not until it had been driven out of him could his name be altered, and he become Israel. This man has ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... "Episcopacy," on account of the jurisdiction of its Bishops,) was Protestant in doctrine, with gentle leaning toward Catholicism in externals, held still firmly by the "Act of Supremacy" in the controlling hand of the Sovereign. Above all else desiring peace and prosperity for England, the keynote of Elizabeth's policy in Church and in State was conciliation and compromise. So the Church of England was to a great extent a compromise, retaining as much as the people would bear of external form and ritual, for the ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... soaring mystic, Jacopone is one of the greatest of Christian singers, unpolished as his verses are. Noble by birth, he made himself utterly as the common people for whom he piped his rustic notes. "Dio fatto piccino" ("God made a little thing") is the keynote of his music; the Christ Child is for him "our sweet little brother"; with tender affection he rejoices in endearing diminutives—"Bambolino," "Piccolino," "Jesulino." He sings of the Nativity with extraordinary realism.[13] Here, in words, is a picture of the Madonna ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... faithful to his duties. But whether ministering at the altar or making the rounds of his parish, his spirit frequently found utterance in song. In 1880 he published a volume of poems, to which only a few additions were subsequently made. The keynote of his poetry is struck in the opening piece, Song of the Mystic. He dwelt much ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... intellectually brilliant, had many agreeable characteristics which won him the kindly and half-contemptuous regard of Miriam and her two friends. It was he whom they called Donatello, and whose wonderful resemblance to the Faun of Praxiteles forms the keynote of our narrative. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the Institution, Joseph Henry articulated a program that included the following statement: "It is proposed to publish a series of reports, giving an account of the new discoveries in science, and of the changes made from year to year in all branches of knowledge." This keynote of basic research has been adhered to over the years in the issuance of thousands of titles in serial publications under the Smithsonian imprint, commencing with Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge in 1848 and continuing with ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker

... sympathy which we think of as sympathy of the soul. If this poem were true, 'One Word More' would be false, quite otherwise than in that approach to exaggeration which is incidental to the poetic form. The true keynote of 'Two in the Campagna' is the pain of perpetual change, and of the conscious, though unexplained, predestination to it. Mr. Browning could have still less in common with such a state, since one of the qualities for which he was most conspicuous ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... Mr. Richardson has struck the keynote to a certain extent, we must put them near ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... is the Uncle Tom's Cabin of Christian Science. Its keynote is "Divine Love" in the understanding of the knowledge of all good things which may be obtainable. When the tale is told, the sick healed, wrong changed to right, poverty of purse and spirit turned ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... Perugino's "S. Michael" and "Warriors" of the Cambio seem to spread their legs because they are too puny to bear the weight of the body in any other manner, while with Signorelli, the attitude became the keynote of his resolute indomitable nature, and so much a part of his work, that one is apt to forget it ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell

... at the Democratic Convention in St. Louis, and the platform expressed a blanket endorsement of the achievements of his Administration. But the chief incident of that convention was the keynote speech of Martin H. Glynn, which was based on the text, "He kept us out of war." His recital of the long list of past occasions in American history when foreign violations of American rights and injuries to American interests had not led to war was received with uproarious enthusiasm by the ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan

... try to help Emma decide why she got into so much difficulty resulted in a most convincing discovery of beginnings. We found a keynote to the situation in asking her about the companionship which the mother had said she had broken up. It seems that Emma had for a year, quite clandestinely, been familiar with this family. She apparently now desired ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... forgotten, just here accidentally touched the piano with his elbow, and the sound that came forth was the keynote to Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." Forthwith he began to play it. Loretz looked at him, and seemed to feel suddenly reassured. A wavering light fell around him: he beckoned to the minister. "Do any of the folks around here ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... herself that she holds no dominion over a man, that it is only too perfectly clear that the impulse of loving is all on her side and that she has neither anything to expect nor anything to fear from him, since indifference is the keynote of his attitude to her, she will all the more readily believe that he loves elsewhere, worthily or unworthily the same to her. A woman is not a noble object in such a situation. All trusting feminine instincts, all sweet emotions of hope, all sentiment, all passion even, retreat ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... intimation of regret or of any desire to do other than march steadily ahead. Mr. Ignatz Steinhart, at the time manager of the Anglo-Californian Bank, careful, cautious, shrewd and a hard-headed financier, in his speech practically struck the keynote of the whole ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks

... you received your orders from headquarters. Your self-conceived plan has met with every encouragement from us. You will be placed in a unique position to achieve your final purpose. Now mark my words and do not misunderstand me. The very keynote of our progress is ruthlessness. To take even a single step forward towards the achievement of that purpose is worth the sacrifice of all the scruples and delicacies conceivable. But when a certain course of action ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... copied.] Prototype — N. prototype, original, model, pattern, precedent, standard, ideal, reference, scantling, type; archetype, antitype^; protoplast, module, exemplar, example, ensample^, paradigm; lay-figure. text, copy, design; fugleman^, keynote. die, mold; matrix, last, plasm^; proplasm^, protoplasm; mint; seal, punch, intaglio, negative; stamp. V. be an example, be a role model, set an example; set a copy. Phr. a precedent embalms a principle [Lat.Tran] [Disraeli]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... is recognised (that dramatic speech is not real speech, but poetical speech, and poetical speech infused with the individual style of each individual dramatist, modulated, indeed, but true to one keynote) then it must be granted that Browning has as much right to his own style as other dramatists have to theirs, and as little right as they to be accused on that account of putting his personality into his work. But as Browning's style is very ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... of political shibboleths, mainly drawn from the vocabulary of extreme Radical sentimentalists, which Mr. Mallik supplies to his readers in rich abundance, two may be selected which give the keynote to his opinions. The first, which is inscribed on the title-page, is St. Paul's statement to the Athenians that all nations of men are of one blood. The second, which occurs towards the close of ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... For the development of their commerce, the cities of the North had grouped themselves into the great Hanseatic League, with branches in Bruges, London, Bergen, and Novgorod. Commercialism had everywhere become the keynote of the closing Middle Ages, inspiring that maritime enterprise which was soon to outline a new ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... the Minister of Commerce, an author; the War Minister, a doctor; the Minister for the Navy, a journalist. Beaumarchais' epigram "The post required a mathematician—it was given to a dancing master!" strikes the keynote much more of a democracy than of an ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... good picture, I warrant," Walter said. "We want to stay and see that run over again. Ah-ha! here comes a Keynote Comedy. That will ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... will grant you that greed is the keynote of this place; yet even that has its interesting side. Where else do you see it so developed? Where else could you see the same emotion actuating a number of very different people in an altogether ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... she told them, still holds good, though it has declined in use, like all things chivalrous, in an age deafened by the clamour of industrial strife; an age grown blind to the beauty of service, that, in defiance of "progress," still remains the keynote of an ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... upon them when she considered them worthy. No one had ever voiced her belief that she was ready, although Nyoda knew how each one had coveted the title. She was able to read Agony clearly, and knew that the keynote of her life was ambition. She was pretty certain that Agony wanted to be a Torch Bearer because it was the highest rank to which a Camp Fire Girl could aspire, and she wanted to be on the top. As ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... away; and during the last fifteen years of Elizabeth's reign national feelings found increasing expression in parliament and in popular literature. In all forms of literature, but especially in the Shakespearean drama, the keynote of the age was the evolution of a national spirit and technique, and their emancipation from the influence of classical and foreign models. In domestic politics a rift appeared between the monarchy and the nation. For one thing the alliance, forged by Henry VIII ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... like the ripening peach In laden orchards on late summer days. Their work is Nature's own—not theirs the praise By culture won which midnight studies teach. Sounds the loud cataract in their sonorous speech, And strikes the keynote of their tuneful lays. As to remotest ages in the past We trace thy joyous story, more and more Bards won high honour mid thy hills and vales. So, Cymru, while this world of ours shall last, And Ocean ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... the tapioca are hard and uncooked. Such mistakes as these, however, can be avoided if the housewife will apply to desserts the principles she has learned in other parts of cookery, for knowledge coupled with care in preparation is the keynote of successful dessert making. ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... text in the presentation of this book; namely, that individual merit and stimulus is something of such extreme importance that it should be made the keynote for every boy who ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... boys should make their own rules for their own government, and they should also deal as a group with the infringement of their rules. This will solve the discipline problem of the Teacher. Responsibility should be the keynote of government, and the awakening of such a feeling in the boys should be ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander

... had surmised, the keynote of Tom's nature was that he was easily led, and therein rested the possibilities of great good or evil. The little confidential chats with his mother were a strong safeguard to him, and laid the foundation of the true principles by which he should be guided; ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... of Doellinger's mind. But the plausible reading of his life which explains it by his connection with such public men as Montalembert, De Decker, and Mr. Gladstone is profoundly untrue; and those who deem him a liberal in any scientific use of the term, miss the keynote of his work. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... exists already in some of the older ones, especially in the New England States, and in not a few of the very recently-established ones. But even where it does exist it has not full sway: it does not set, as it should set, the keynote to college life in all its variations. And in very many colleges it is unable to establish itself because of gross disorder. Should this opinion seem harsh and sweeping, the reader, if a student or a graduate, has only to recall ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... The keynote was struck at once in the Quarterly Review by Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. He declared that Darwin was guilty of "a tendency to limit God's glory in creation"; that "the principle of natural selection is absolutely ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... keynote of all my theology is that Christ is loveable because, and just because, he is the perfection of all that I know to be noble and generous, and loving, and tender, and true. If an angel from heaven brought me a gospel which contained doctrines that would not stand the test of such perfect ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... kind of a meeting held in the church with religious exercises. Then Mamanowatum made his address, always good and suggestive, the keynote of which was thanksgiving and gratitude to God for the blessings of the year. When he had finished, he called on different Indians for addresses. Some of them were very good also. This is the night of all others, when Indian orators try to be humorous and witty. ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... tempted to follow the political model of their great neighbour the United States; and if their development had been the outcome of friction with the mother-country, no doubt they would have done so. But they preferred to follow the British model. The keynote of the American system is division of power: division between the federal government and the state governments, which form mutual checks upon one another; division between the executive and the legislature, which are independent of one another at once in the states and ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... difference between Americans in America and in England. I found them simple where I had thought of them as the reverse, and now, after meeting others in various parts of the country, even in complex and composite New York, I should say that simplicity is the keynote of the American character. It is in his simplicity that the American differs most from the European. Such simplicity is perfectly consistent with the impatience, the desire for novelty, for brevity, of the American people. We think of them as always wishing to reduce life ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... attracted by a passing face. Beauty alone would have left him cold. The impression he received was far more rich, an impression to which the circumstances of the encounter gave a peculiar emphasis. The adventure seemed a possible keynote of the future, and there was an element of vague disquiet in his hope that he might meet her again, an element ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... usually demands is that the reporter cram the gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the magazine story is more often near the end of ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing

... I have got in a lifetime. Give you my word, Grig, when he was off his chump in the fever, he raved like a poet, and an orator, and he was only an ordinary sportsman when he left home in the spring! Cleopatra, he called her one day, and I fancy that was the keynote—she must have been one of those exceptional women we read of in ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... were forever hoisting up and lowering down. The expedition with which parties were formed for service; the rapidity of the frigate's movements night and day; the hasty sleep snatched at all hours; the waking up at the report of the guns, which seemed the only keynote to the hearts of those on board, the beautiful precision of our fire, obtained by constant practice; the coolness and courage of our captain, inoculating the whole of the ship's company; the suddenness of our attacks, the gathering after the combat, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... most successfully captured in this poem. It recalls the old "Debate between the Body and Soul," and still more the touches of divine compassion which soften the rigours of Catholic theology in the legends of the saints. It strikes the keynote, too, of that most modern ballad mode which employs the narrative only to emphasize some thought of universal application. There is salvation for all, is the thought, even for the blackest soul of the world, the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... existing side by side with certain general ideas of liberty and constitutional government, under the ultimate domination of the Emperors' despotism as introduced by Augustus, is to be found the keynote of Rome's subsequent social life. Without those things, the condition of society in the Middle Age would be inexplicable, and the feudal system could never have developed. The old Roman principle that 'order should have ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... our mother, but her soul was too gentle to keep in restraint hot, fiery youths like my brothers and myself. On the whole we were good boys, and I suppose caused her no more pain than the average youngsters. Perhaps the keynote of her character can best be found in the following incident, if that which was of daily occurrence could be called ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... The keynote of all these attacks upon the effort to secure honesty in business and in politics, is expressed in a recent speech, in which the speaker stated that prosperity had been checked by the effort for the "moral regeneration of the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... supported by the Roman Catholics of the old and influential families of the kingdom; and some of the Dissenters, who were disgusted with the treatment they received from Cromwell, occasionally lent them a kind of passive aid. Taking these considerations as the keynote to the song, attempts have been made to discover the meaning which was originally attached to its leading words. It is difficult at the present time to give a clear explanation of all its points. The following, however, is consistent throughout, and ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... elements breaks, came to us as out of the depths of an infinite repose. The youth of an untroubled world was in it. The joy of effortless activities breathed through it. We felt that we were once more in the morning of the world's day, and hope gave the keynote to all our thought. Life is divided between hope and memory; when memory holds the chief place, the shadows are lengthening ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... to suffer with the same intensity with which I had formerly enjoyed myself; sorrow had made of me a new man." Accordingly his later books, while still emphatically realistic, are chastened by an underlying tone of pessimism. Passion is no longer the keynote of life, but rather, as exemplified in 'Il Trionfo della Morte,' the prelude of death. Leaving Rome, where, "like the outpouring of the sewers, a flood of base desires invaded every square and cross-road, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Ghost, and they spake the {84} word with boldness" (Acts 4: 31), is a similar record. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, the narrative runs, regarding the choice of deacons in Acts 6: 5. "And he, being full of the Holy Ghost," is the keynote to his great martyr-sermon. This infilling of the Spirit marks a decisive and most important crisis in the Christian life, judging from the story of the apostle's conversion, to which we ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... Amadeo, are the presiding genii of the Certosa. To minute criticism, based upon the accurate investigation of records and the comparison of styles, must be left the task of separating their work from that of numerous collaborators. But it is none the less certain that the keynote of the whole music is struck by them, Amadeo, the master of the Colleoni chapel at Bergamo, was both sculptor and architect. If the facade of the Certosa be not absolutely his creation, he had a hand in the distribution of its masses and the detail of its ornaments. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... ordered them. But if any of them be proud of the skill he hath in his craft, because he thereby seemeth to gain something for the monastery, let him be removed from it and not exercise it again, unless, after humbling himself, the abbot shall permit him." Craft without graft was the keynote of ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... economy, Above all other virtues I particularly prize. I never join in merriment—I don't see joke or jape any— I never tolerate familiarity in shape any— This, joined with an extravagant respect for tuppence-ha'penny, A keynote to my character ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... photoplay book whether it belonged there or not. I hope you will do me the favour and honour to set my work in this order in your mind, for many of my small public still think A Handy Guide for Beggars the keynote of my present work. But it was really my ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... authors for their guiding rules. Horace, more than any other classic writer, set the standard for poetry. Pope and his followers cared more for the excellence of form than for the worth of the thought. Their keynote was:— ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... new phase through Charles Darwin's epochmaking work: "The Origin of Species." The keynote of Darwin's theory is Natural Selection, by which term the development of all living forms is referred to the working of certain laws which in the reproduction of plants and animals preserved those individuals which were best fitted to survive the struggle for existence. ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner

... invited us to walk. "We are so sorry not to bring you in the motor," they wrote, "but the roads are so frightfully dusty that we might get dust on our chauffeur." This little touch of thoughtfulness is the keynote of ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock



Words linked to "Keynote" :   set, speak, idea, thought, topic, note, c, musical note, address, theme, music, tone, subject



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