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Keyed

adjective
1.
Fitted with or secured by a key.  "The locks have not yet been keyed"
2.
Set to a key or tone.



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"Keyed" Quotes from Famous Books



... important and complex matter, but in 1963 it was ignored by both the Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell Committee. President Kennedy, however, seemed aware of the problem. Before leaving for Europe in the summer of 1963 he called on the Secretary of Defense to consider establishing training programs keyed primarily to the special problems of black servicemen found ineligible for technical training. According to Lee White, the President wanted to use new training techniques "and other methods of stimulating interest and industry" that might help thousands of men bridge "the gap that presently ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... Rock[1] formally stated his theories in The Negro: The Southerner's Problem. The worst, however—if there could be a worst in such an array—was yet to appear. In 1905 Thomas Dixon added to a series of high-keyed novels The Clansman, a glorification of the KuKlux Klan that gave a malignant portrayal of the Negro and that was of such a quality as to arouse the most intense prejudice and hatred. Within a few months the work was put on the stage ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... keyed to the breaking point before; but his alertness was now trebled, and, like a sensitive barometer, he felt the danger of Larry, the brute strength of Jeff, the cunning of Henry, the grave poise of Joe, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... capable letter writer tests out his arguments and proves the strength of his talking points without wasting a big appropriation. His letters are tested as accurately as the chemist in his laboratory tests the strength or purity of material that is submitted to him for analysis. How letters are keyed and tested is the subject of ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... I was tremendously keyed up; and yet—curiously I didn't care which of these things happened. It was rather as if I were in a theatre, watching an act of a play that might end in one of several ways, neither one ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... back to Darth was as anticlimactic as that. There was no trouble finding the space yacht in its remote orbit. Hoddan sent out an unlocking signal, and a keyed transmitter began to send a signal on which to home. When the liner nudged alongside it, Hoddan's last contrivance operated and the yacht clung fast to the larger ship's hull. There were four days in overdrive. ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... camp on the mountains, Mike never rested a minute, but moved silently from one place to another, with senses keyed for some sign of the rascals. However, that first night passed quietly away. His extra men spent the evening in smoking and playing cards, then they rolled up in their blankets and snored peacefully the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... she went to bed, but she felt too restless and keyed up to sleep, so she slipped into a soft, silken wrapper and established herself in a ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... to be pretty well agreed," Charley said, trying in vain to shake off the vague feeling of impending evil, that had suddenly settled over him. "Speaking for myself, I feel too keyed up and anxious to do anything much until we get this thing over with. I move we get all our gear into shape and try to plan some way to get the plume birds hereafter without killing. That will take us until dark, I guess. Then let's quietly take our blankets and move back into the forest ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... brothers we see what Minor[20] well enough calls the hot and cold passions. Karl is a hotspur whose emotions are always keyed up to the highest pitch; he is never calm and is incapable of sober reasoning. His boiling blood and his insensate ambition are his only oracles. We may say that his motives are lofty, but in trying ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... took on a shade of blue in places where the smoke from the fires cut through; a new tang smote the nostrils: the rank odor of burning hair and searing hides; a new note crept into the clamoring roar: the low-keyed blat ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... The Curtis Publishing Company. Copyright, 1922, by Stacy Aumonier. Reprinted by permission of the author and of Curtis Brown, Ltd. people were Mr. and Mrs. Dawes. Mr. Dawes was an entirely negative person, but Mrs. Dawes shone by virtue of a high, whining, insistent voice, keyed to within half a note ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... however, that the foreman, like himself was stationed somewhere off there in the blackness, sitting on his pony as immovable as a statue, his straining eyes peering into the night, his ears keyed to catch the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... her. She saw him daily, almost hourly. He was everywhere present about the great buildings. In no department was anybody sure of the time of his appearance, yet not one was overlooked. This kept the operators keyed to an expectancy which brought out from them their best, for the approbation of this observant 'boss' meant much to each. Yet he rarely spoke in a harsh tone to any, nor had any ever heard him utter an oath. This, in itself, gave him a distinction from all other mill superintendents under which ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... cheerfully. "It's just those occasional humorous suggestions that keep me keyed so heroically up to the point where I'm actually infuriated if you even suggest that I might be getting really interested in this mysterious Miss Molly! You haven't said a single sentimental thing about her that I haven't scoffed at—now ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... way, and they said: "We migrated, expecting freedom, and now we are not even free from the cares of subsistence; we are not, as out leader promised, the happiest, but in truth the most unfortunate of men. After our leader's words had keyed us to the highest pitch of expectation, and had filled out ears with vain hopes, he tortures us with famine and does not provide even the necessary food. With the name of a new settlement he has deceived this great multitude; after he had succeeded in leading us from a well-known to an uninhabited ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... enough outside—for any reasonable mortal," returned Dexter. He was keyed to a high pitch. He felt that, at any instant, something might snap and leave ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... sudden calmness Kate saw there was some one near, and turning, looked at David. But he did not glance her way. How much or how little he had heard of Kate's tirade, which in her passion had been keyed in a high voice, he never let them know and neither dared to ask him, lest perhaps he had not heard anything. There was a light of steel in his eyes toward everything but Marcia, and his tone ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... letters of a musical instrument maker named Paliarino, written, as we learn from the valuable article "Pianoforte," contributed by Mr. Hipkins to Sir George Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, already in the year 1598, and addressed to Alfonso II., Duke of Modena. The earliest sonata for a keyed instrument mentioned in this volume was published in 1695; and to avoid what seems an unnecessary distinction, I have used the term "Pianoforte Sonata" for that sonata and for some other works which followed, and which are usually and properly ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock

... whatever, and, to all intents, was quite oblivious of what was being done. He was again the favoured passenger, taking a stroll for his health's sake. And yet I knew that both his officers were uncomfortably aware of his presence and were keyed to their finest seamanship. I know, now, Captain West's position on board. He is the brains of the Elsinore. He is the master strategist. There is more in directing a ship on the ocean than in standing watches ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... five men Was keyed to an extraordinary patriotic pitch For these were patriotic concerts, Supported by the leading patriots of the town, (Including a Bulgarian merchant, an Austrian physician and a German lawyer), And all the musicians ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton

... The origin of Phoenician architecture was the excavated rock, not the column, as was the case with the Greeks. The wall replaced the excavated rock after a time, but without wholly losing its character. There is nothing that leads us to believe that the Phoenicians knew how to construct a keyed vault. The monolithic principle which dominated the Phoenician and Syrian art, even after it had taken Greek art for its model, is the exact contrary of the Hellenic style. Greek architecture starts from the principle of employing small stones, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... to town. I want to hear more of his playing; and I seem, from the little I have seen of him, to like the man. I know not how it is, but I really receive more musical pleasure from such private cameranious Fiddlings and singings, and keyed instrument playings, than from all the appret of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... unusual. The contestants in the Twenties needed undisturbed rest, therefore nights in the dormitories were as quiet as death. During the first few days, of course, the rule wasn't observed too closely. The men themselves were too keyed up and excited to rest easily. But as soon as the scores began to mount and eliminations cut into their ranks, there was complete silence after dark. Particularly so on this last night, when only two of the little cubicles were occupied, the thousands of others ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... brought to act on a few strings, commanding often three octaves. Guido d'Arezzo, the famous sight-reading music teacher of the eleventh century, advised his pupils to "exercise the hand in the use of the monochord," showing his knowledge of the keyboard. The keyed monochord gained the name clavichord. Its box-like case was first placed on a table, later on its own stand, and increased in elegance. Not until the eighteenth century was each key provided ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore

... hand on the sill. It touched hers and closed over it. Then, somewhere from the dark came a night-sound heard only in June, the broken dream-trill of a bird in its sleep. When she spoke, her voice was low, keyed as the dream-voice ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... gladly yielding to the more potent excitement of their own "spirituals." By these they could sing themselves, as had their fathers before them, out of the contemplation of their own low estate, into the sublime scenery of the Apocalypse. I remember that this minor-keyed pathos used to seem to me almost too sad to dwell upon, while slavery seemed destined to last for generations; but now that their patience has had its perfect work, history cannot afford to lose this portion of its record. There is no parallel instance ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... him, lost in thought, large eyes sober, lips serious that were fashioned for laughter, round little chin firm with some occult resolution. It was not hard to fancy her nerves keyed to a high pitch of courage and determination, nor easy to guess for what reason. Watching always, keenly sensitive to the beauty of each salient line betrayed by the flying lights, Kirkwood's own consciousness lost itself in a profitless, even a ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... those at the table were keyed up and expectant, the servant was smugly pleased, and he was wallowing in mortification. But he recovered ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... noted painter once said to me: These semi-invalids neither need nor deserve our commiseration, for in reality the beggars have the advantage of us. Their nerves are always sensitive and keyed to pitch, while we husky chaps have to flog ours up to the point. We must dig painfully through the outer layers of flesh before we can get at the spirit, while the invalids are all spirit. [Footnote: ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... followed the night, but the whole battalion was keyed up with intense expectation for the attack which they knew was fixed for the night following. With expectation mingled curiosity. They knew all about raiding; that was their own specialty, but they were curious as ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... moving off, there was a sharp crack and a bullet struck the wall to the right of the door. It was a random shot, and I did not return it. Its effect on me was to send me into the hall with a leap that was almost a back-somersault. Somehow, though I was keyed up for violence and the shooting of pistols, I had not expected it at just that moment, and I was disagreeably surprised at the shock it had given me. I slammed the door and bolted it. I was intensely irritated to find that my ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... had stopped abruptly at the same moment as I did choked back the cold fear that had rushed upon me. I was not insane! Holman was listening too! I seemed to feel that the tiny thread of sound which had set my pulses beating madly had also keyed him ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... was that love had keyed them up, or whether hours of study of Braid's "Advanced Golf" and the Badminton Book had produced a belated effect, I cannot say; but both started off quite reasonably well. Our first hole, as you can see, is a bogey four, and ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... that his mental process was keyed to the highest pitch of melodrama. It was not usual for him to indulge in mental abuse. He had never quite understood the dark and moving processes of red-eyed anger. There had been something absurd in the theatrical hauteur of his manner in this last scene with Mrs. Condor—that is, if it were ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... press, and a greater multitude eager for newspapers and verbal intelligence from the great Atlantic and European world. Through this crowd I made my way, along the well-built and well-lighted streets, as alive as by day, where boys in high-keyed voices were already crying the latest New York papers; and between one and two o'clock in the morning found myself comfortably abed in a commodious room, in the Oriental Hotel, which stood, as well as I could learn, on the filled-up cove, and not far from the spot where we used to beach our boats ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... longer than they did to us as we tore over the country from Ossining to East Point, a silent party, yet keyed up by an excitement that none of us had ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... of a year ago for expelling the Turks from Europe is rapidly dying down. In the spring of 1919 Turkey could have been partitioned by the Allies with comparatively little friction. No one expected it more than Turkey herself. Whenever she heard a step on the floor, a knock at the door, she keyed herself for the ordeal of the anesthetic and the operating table. But the ancient jealousies and rivalries of the Entente nations, which had been forgotten during the war, returned with peace and now it looks as though, as a result of these nations' ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... but there were people with her. He was almost sorry; and yet it keyed him up to see that there was some necessity "to still play the gentleman." He played it, and played it well—with much of his old-time ease. The feat was so extraordinary as to call out a round of mental applause for himself; and, after all, he reflected, ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... punctuation is largely confined to the dash, and there are many corrections and alterations. The Shelley-Rolls fragments, twenty-five sheets or slips of paper, usually represent additions to or revisions of The Fields of Fancy: many of them are numbered, and some are keyed into the manuscript in Lord Abinger's notebook. Most of the changes were incorporated ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... silence as Jason's gun went off. The horndevil fell on its side, keyed to react to the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison

... less woman, less—whatever you choose to call it. A coarser touch has come upon her, and she is changed. Well, I say I believe all this, and I do, with all my soul; and yet, as you say, it's cruel hard for a young creature, all keyed up to a pitch of enthusiasm and devotion and noble aspiration, to be checked like a boy's kite, and brought down to the ground and told to mind her seam. It's cruel hard, I can see that; I can feel and sympathise intensely ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards

... secret of his pride and faith in Ken. It was this, perhaps, as much as anything, which kept Ken keyed up. For Ken was really pitching better ball than he knew how to pitch. He would have broken his arm for Worry; he believed absolutely in what the coach told him; he did not think of ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... how it is waitin' in a push of people for a steamer. Everybody's excited and anxious and keyed up, ready to jump at every whistle, and stretchin' their necks for a peek down the river. It's as catchin' as the baseball fever when you're in a mob watchin' the scores posted. I finds myself actin' just as eager as any, and me only ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... the fundamental principles of political economy; destructive to republican institutions; hateful in the sight of God, and ever abhorrent to all honest men. He hated slavery. He hated truckling, obsequious, cringing hypocrites. He put his feelings into vigorous English, and keyed his deeds and actions to the sublime notes of charity that filled his heart and adorned a long and eminently useful life. He gave shelter to the majestic and heroic John Brown. His door was—like the heavenly gates—ajar to every fugitive from slavery, and his fiery earnestness kindled the flagging ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... Hakluyt's (and are not always systematically marked as such by the editor). The sidenotes are Hakluyt's own. Summarizing sidenotes are labelled [Sidenote: ] and placed before the sentence to which they apply. Sidenotes that are keyed with a symbol are labeled [Marginal note: ] and placed at the point of the symbol, except in poetry, where they are moved to the nearest convenient ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... melancholy. At times it indulges in something much more intricate and lark-like while hovering on the wing in mid-air, but a song is beyond the compass of its instrument, and the attempt usually ends in a breakdown. A clear, sweet, strong, high-keyed note, uttered from some knoll or rock, or stake in the fence, is its proper vocal performance. It has the build and walk and flight of the quail and the grouse. It gets up before you in much the same manner, and falls an easy prey to the crack shot. Its yellow breast, surmounted by a black crescent, ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... passed over two sheaves, each of which is geared internally, the one having one or more teeth in excess of the other. Revolving around these internal teeth is a pinion, actuated by an eccentric, which is keyed on to a shaft passing through the center of the block, with a bearing at each end in the outside frame of the block. At one end of this shaft is a wheel with an endless hand chain passing over it; this gives the ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... things, he was not confident. He was supremely conscious of the precariousness of his situation. Though unperturbed by the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive and ready to be startled as any timorous deer. He was aware of the possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the darkness—intelligences similar to his own in ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... ambition, tired out at the end of the day, too tired to be possibly amusing, his nerves excited till anything quieter than lower Broadway hurts his ears, all passion and brilliance spent on business, dinners here and there, with people who all have their ax to grind, too, and are keyed up to it by rows and rows of cocktails. He drew him without mercy, and he had every wife there either wincing or laughing, with the truth of what he said. He was quite eloquent." She paused, she laughed softly, she turned her eyes upon him. "Then, Joey, guess—just ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... the instrument. Dr. Burney mentions, in his History of Music (Vol. IV. p. 664), that when he came to London in 1744, "Handel's Harpsichord Lessons and Organ Concertos, and the two First Books of Scarletti's Lessons, were all the good music for keyed instruments at that time in the nation." We have at this moment before us the catalogue of music sold by one house in Boston, Oliver Ditson & Co. It is a closely printed volume of three hundred and sixty pages, and contains the titles of about thirty-three thousand pieces ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... struggle that had begun some miles back. After leaving the lake Peggy, who had held some speed in reserve while her opponent had keyed her machine to its top pitch, had gradually gained on her. But still there was a gap between the ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham

... or not was by no means certain. Watching him as his health came back, Ethel wondered how he would be when he returned to the office. How much of what he had said to her, the first night of his illness, had come only from a mind keyed up? How much of his promise would he remember? Men sick and men well are in separate worlds. She could not speak of it to Joe, for the doctor ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... accidental that this characteristic of mind is found so commonly among successful men during the years of their most fruitful labor. According to the American ideal, the man who is sure to succeed is the one who is continuously 'keyed up to concert pitch'—who is ever alert and is always giving attention to ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton

... Eric, keyed to a wild and excited perception, saw the captain of the steamer in the water, a few feet away, and swam to him. He found him conscious but unable to swim, the jerk from the breeches-buoy having twisted a sinew ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... his spirit when he sought the presence of the girl whose soul was keyed up to almost a passion of self-sacrifice. His mind belittled the cause for which her idolized father was, at that moment, perilling his life, and to which her dearest friends had consecrated themselves. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... your kindness, Mr. Marrapit. Truly, as I say to myself every night, fair is my lot and goodly is my—" Icy dismay took her. Was the missing word "hermitage" or "heritage"? With masterly decision she filled the blank with a telling choke; keyed her voice to a brilliant suggestion of brightness struggling with tears: "The sweetling cats are safely sleeping. I have come straight from them. Ah, how they miss you! How ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... said Vergil Gunch. "That's the way I look at it. If a fellow is keyed up to what you might call intensive living, the way you get it here in Zenith—all the hustle and mental activity that's going on with a bunch of live-wires like the Boosters and here in the Z.A.C., why, he's got to save his nerves by ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... that, if he could accurately gauge the progress of his invisible antagonist, he could crash him and go down with him to death. If he could get close enough to feel his prop-wash! A wild chance, but Dick's mind was keyed up to desperation. He shot like an arrow toward the scene, with a view to intercepting ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... expended their forces. They slowly retreated, with their faces still toward the spluttering woods, and their hot rifles still replying to the din. Several officers were giving orders, their voices keyed to screams. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... to hide the chagrin of yesterday's defeat. And they were there, ready, inordinately alert, ears turned to the faintest sound, eyes searching for the vaguest trace of meaning in those of their rivals, nervous, keyed to the highest tension, ready to thrust deep into the slightest opening, to spring, mercilessly, upon the smallest undefended spot. Grossmann, the little Jew of the grimy flannel shirt, perspired in the stress of the suspense, all but ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... we're not to move into the house," said Lois in a high-keyed voice, with those tiresome tears coming, as usual, to her eyes. She felt inexpressibly hurt, disappointed, fooled. "I thought you said you were having so many orders lately. Does the money all have to 'go back into ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... for his sake, for I could see, when he gave me the intelligence, that it was a matter which had keyed up ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... her waist, breathing deeply. She bent her slender body this way and that, straightening up, stooping, twisting from side to side. She felt that every individual muscle must be made ready, keyed up to the work that was to be done in a flying moment. She must be steady, she must be sure. Not a fibre of her being must weaken ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... palm-branch of the Feast of Tabernacles—and shook it piously toward every corner of the compass. At each shake the audience rolled about in spasms of merriment. A moment later a white gliding figure, moving to the measure of the cake-walk, keyed up the laughter to hysteria. It was the Ghost appearing to frighten Ophelia. His sepulchral bass notes mingled ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... voice that was keyed to a pitch almost as high as the bugle's strains. "Hold your yawp! Don't you hear that?" Lanigan screamed. "Don't you know the difference between that and a fish-peddler's horn? That's the tune we fellers heard the Huns play just ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... as fast as they had been when he was young, but they were better educated. Also, he was already keyed-up. Almost as it started, the flurry in the leaves stopped with the roar of his rifle. Fired like that, the heavy gun just about took his hand off, but he did not notice it at the moment. He came erect in a quick scramble, jacking in a fresh round as he did so. The scene ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams

... He hadn't expected it. The seven ships had to keep in formation. They had to start off on one course—with a slight spread as a safety measure—and at one time. So the firing-circuits were keyed to relays in series. Only when all seven firing-keys were down at the same time would any of the jatos fire. Then all would ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... Nan herself was keyed up to a rather high pitch these days, and it was difficult for those who were watching her with the anxious eyes of friendship to gauge the extent of her happiness or otherwise. From the moment of Mallory's departure she had flung herself with zest into ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... dining room were lush. While they ate, the materialism of their lives was reinforced. From silvered-and-tapestried wall to wall there was life here, low-keyed with excitement in the blend of subdued talk and the shifting artistry of lights and music. Their table was almost in the center of the islands of tables and potted trees, and around them were the diners, their voices washing up at them both, inviting them ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... barbecue pits there came an appetizing odor of roasting beef; high-keyed voices flung good-humored taunts, and once they heard a great shout of laughter surge through the crowd gathered there. From the great platform built under a group of live oaks near the patio they heard the resonant plunk-plunk-plunk of a harp making ready for the dance, and the shrill laughter ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... in the basket on the hall table," he said in high-keyed endeavour to express withering contempt. "If it had been for me, Jarvis would have brought it to me later. I seldom carry my reading glasses about the ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob with excitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just now her whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension for this prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timed his steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have it untied, would be in the saddle. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... night Shorty, strolling down Main Street, aware of many curious eyes, his ears keyed tensely, heard a faint and distant explosion. Thirty seconds later there was a second, sufficiently loud to attract the attention of others on the street. Then came a third, so violent that it rattled the windows and brought the inhabitants ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... end of Newport Street, where I was born, to Pemberton's. But that wasn't on account of Pemberton, though he was agreeable, but on account of Madge Pemberton. Madge and I were agreed, and Pemberton was agreeable, but I was restless and keyed high in those days, resembling pups, ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... interesting bustle, a buzz of comment, a craning of necks—flattery accepted by the young women with ostensible unconcern, a cliche of their caste. As they had entered in a humour keyed to the highest pitch of gaiety consistent with good breeding, so with more half-stifled laughter they settled into chairs well apart from all others but, as it happened, in a direct line between Lanyard and the man whose repellent cast ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... principle of the arch; each therefore exercised an outward thrust upon the walls, which must be met and combated by embedded chains. My grandfather's flooring-stones, on the other hand, were flat, made part of the outer wall, and were keyed and dovetailed into a central stone, so as to bind the work together and be positive elements of strength. In 1703 Winstanley still thought it possible to erect his strange pagoda, with its open gallery, its florid scrolls and ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were too drunk to know what they were doing, and they were hourly growing more so. Many were gambling and drinking in the salon or dining room and others came from the liquor store on shore a few rods away. The voices of the women were keyed to the highest pitch as they shouted with laughter at the rough jokes or losing games of the men, while red-faced, perspiring waiters hurried back and forth with trays laden with bottles and glasses. Now and ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... or wiping and polishing the great machines as if they were so many sacred elephants. Mechanical parts, pumps, jacks, boxes of tools, cans of oil, extra tires and wheels, cushions and innumerable odds and ends were scattered about each building and everybody seemed to be keyed up to an extreme nervous pitch. On every side could be heard remarks about the cars and drivers, their records and their chances for winning ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump

... the eyes that glared at her through the slit masks with a splendid assumption of scorn and defiance. She was keyed to that mood which makes it possible for martyrs to acquit themselves, even at the stake, with ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... of the south, where he is on the most cordial terms socially with the pine warbler and the red-cockaded woodpecker. A most active little body, he scampers from the roots of the trees to the terminal twigs at the top, inspecting every cone, cranny and knot hole, chirping his fine, high-keyed notes, sometimes in a querulous tone, and again in the most cheerful and good-natured temper imaginable, now gliding up a tree trunk, now scudding down head foremost, anon ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... vibrator frame, to which the pneumatic vibrator is bolted and keyed, is shown in Fig. 5. To this frame the plate carrying the patterns, often, in cases of patterns having irregular parting lines, forming one and the same casting with the patterns, is fastened by the four machine screws, the small tapped holes for which are shown in the corners. In fact, in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... that every act of Dyck had proved him just and capable. He had rigidly insisted on gun practice; he had keyed up the marines to a better spirit, and churlishness had been promptly punished. He was, in effect, what the sailors called a "rogue," or a "taut one"—seldom smiling, gaunt of face but fearless of eye, and with a body free ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... through the shield, at any rate; that was quite certain. And very little else could get in, or out. There was only one point of exit. Unholstering his gun and aiming it automatically keyed the shield to allow passage of a bullet, and the point of exit was controlled by the gun's aiming. It was efficient ...
— Sight Gag • Laurence Mark Janifer

... creature in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, as though unable to resist the contagious sweep, catch up the music and add their own to it. We don't commonly associate music with the animal creation, nor with nature. It has been said that all the sounds of nature are keyed in the minor, as though some suffering had affected them. We talk of the sighing of the wind, the moaning of the sea-waves, and the mourning of the doves. Though the singing-birds must be excepted. They seem to have caught and kept ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... held my breath as he evaded blow after blow, some of which seemed to miss him by a mere hair's breadth. He was taking chances, I thought, so narrowly did he permit the blows to miss him. I was all keyed up, on edge with excitement, eager for my man to strike, to show he was not a mere ring-tactician. But the ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... his hat and caught it with his head in the manner of a vaudeville artist. But he didn't go. He stood waiting, keyed to a great sympathy. There was something in Martin's voice and at the back of his eyes which made him see him plainly and suddenly as a man standing all alone and wounded. But he waited in vain. There was a curious silence,—a ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... to the sunshine they get. Who could be gloomy under such golden skies? Every pore of my body has a throat and is shouting out a Tarentella Sincera of its own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough ticking to make ten ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... arrived and El Caney is not taken; the garrison has not attempted to escape, but is sending out upon its assailants a continuous and deadly fire. "Throughout the heaviest din of our fire," says Colonel Carpenter, "could be heard the peculiar high-keyed ring of the defiant ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... not only with Sir Edward but with nearly half the other members of the Cabinet, and they are all keyed up to the same tune. The press of both parties, too, are (for once) wholly agreed: Liberal and Conservative papers ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... exactly schoolgirls now. They were out of school—since two days before. The long summer vacation was ahead of them. Time might hang idly on their hands. So it behooved them to find something absorbing to keep their attention keyed up to ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose

... aromatic herbs, which, as we crushed them, sent up a delicate odour. The little pools and shallows of the burns were as clear as a Lothian trout-stream. We were now going at a good pace, and I found that my earlier weariness was growing less. I was being keyed up for some great crisis, for in my case the spirit acts direct on the body, and fatigue grows and ebbs with hope. I knew that my strength was not far from breaking-point; but I knew also that so long as a chance was left me I should have enough for ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... seemed to abate. He had been keyed to so high a pitch that his pulses grew gentler through very lack of force, and with the relaxation came a clearer view. He saw the sinking red sun through the banks of smoke, and in fancy he already felt the cool darkness upon his face after the hot ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler

... faculty keyed up to its highest tension, he crouched there against the safe. Again and again his fingers rubbed over the rough carpet, and again the sweat beads oozed out upon his forehead with the strain—and then there came through the stillness a long-drawn intake of his breath. The handle ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... Mary Kirke with a world of meaning to the high-keyed question, "then my welcome was no mistake! Welcome waits Royalists here," and she gave me her hand to kiss just as an elderly woman with monster white ringlets all about her face and bejewelled fingers and bare shoulders and flowing draperies swept into the room, followed by ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... electric torpedo actuated by accumulators, A A, keyed upon the shaft, and revolving along with the gearings. At the beginning of the running, the accumulators are not all coupled, but under the action of a clockwork movement which is set in motion at the moment of starting, metallic ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... appointed music-master to the queen, and his concerts, given in partnership with Abel at the Hanover Square rooms, soon became the most fashionable of public entertainments. He is of some historical interest as the first composer who preferred the pianoforte to the older keyed-instruments; but his works, though elegant and pleasing, were ephemeral in character ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... loveliness of painting, music, or a soft landscape, affects them voluptuously. But it is an outrage for them to attribute this peculiarity of constitutional structure, or temperamental key, to everybody else. There are persons built after a nobler pattern, keyed to a loftier music, susceptible of a more undefiled and eternal stir of the atoms of consciousness. They look on a beautiful woman, with a delight circling purely in the mind, with a serene melodious joy, like that given them by an ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... close to them in an effort to hear what they were so excitedly talking about. But the girls had purposely lowered their voices till, when the two passed, they were talking in whispers. It was a great satisfaction to get Linda so keyed up ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... "I hope you are," he told her. "When you lived under a daily strain you were probably keyed to a sort of harmony with it. Now you are getting more normal. Life is a ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... fed to consume one hundred and one days in marching from their landing-port on the coast of Gaul to Placentia: ten miles a day was despicable marching even for lazy and soft-muscled recruits; any legionaries should make fifteen, miles at day under any conditions, earnest men keyed up to hurry should have made twenty and might often march twenty-five miles between camps. These blatherskites were on fire with high resolve, by their talk, yet had loafed along for a thousand miles, camping early, sleeping long after sunrise, resting at midday and gorging themselves ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... her wandering son coolly, but Rachael never knew it. Her radiant dream—or was it an awakening?—went on. Her mother, a neat, faded, querulous little woman, whose one great service was in sparing her husband any of the jars of life, was keyed to frantic anxiety lest Jerry be unappreciated, now that he had come back. Clara met the few men to whom her husband introduced her in London with feverish eagerness; afraid—after fifteen years—to say one word that might suggest ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... comes, after a while, a certain mental as well as physical luxury in relaxation of rule and precept, permitting us a simplicity which sometimes, I think, becomes something less harmless. There is luxury in letting go of that live wire which keeps us all keyed to one conventional monotone in the North. I let go—for a moment—to-night. You let go when you said 'Calypso.' You couldn't have said it in New York; I couldn't have heard you, there.... Alas, Ulysses, I should not have heard you anywhere. But I did; and I answered.... Say good night ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... planetary arrangement is found in Oldham's coupling, Fig. 44. The two sections of shafting, A and B, have each a flange or collar forged or keyed upon them; and in each flange is planed a transverse groove. A third piece, C, equal in diameter to the flanges, is provided on each side with a tongue, fitted to slide in one of the grooves, and these tongues are at right angles to each other. The axes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... green velvet. Rather she seemed to be looking there, for the light that usually shown outward in those luminous eyes was turned inward. The little volume of poems had dropped unheeded from the white hand. It had done its office: the passion of its lines had keyed her thoughts to a harmony that suffused her whole being, until all seemed as naturally a part of the glorious day as the fleecy clouds in the sapphire sky, the cheerful hum of the bees, and the ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... the stand—a movement by Chopin; a violoncello leaned in its case in one corner, a cornet-a-piston showed itself, like an arrangement in brass macaroni packed in red velvet upon a side-table; and in front of it lay open a small, flat flute-case, wherein were the two halves of a silver-keyed instrument side by side, in company with what seemed to be its young one—so exact in resemblance was the silver-mounted piccolo made to fit into ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... myself, I was keyed up to a tremendous tension. I stared until my eyes ached; every muscle and nerve was taut. Everything depended on seeing the beast promptly, and firing quickly. With the manifest advantage of being able to see us, she would spring ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... a builder has built a house for a man, and has not keyed his work, and the wall has fallen, that builder shall make that wall firm at ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... of all thicknesses, the arrangement described above may be replaced by a system consisting of two drums having several channels to receive as many saws, or two corresponding series of channeled pulleys, b b (Fig. 4), independent of each other, but keyed to the same axles, i i. When the pulleys have been properly spaced by means of keys, the whole affair is rendered solid by a bolt, g. The extremity of the axles forms a nut into which pass vertical screws, c c. These latter ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various

... the climbing bothered Lennon. But between the burning heat and his very natural excitement over Carmena's stealthy bearing at the turns, he became keyed to rather a ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... the same side of the bridge are keyed to a longitudinal shaft which is set in motion at one point of its length by a system of gearings. The winch upon which is exerted the stress that is to effect the lifting or the descent of the bridge is fixed upon the shaft of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... sometimes, as well; and of those few, not one but was of the underworld itself. And it was that fact which held his muscles strained and rigid now under the miserable rags that covered them, and it was that which kept the keen, quick brain alert and active, every faculty keyed up and tense. If it were the police, he had little to fear, for they could not force their way in without warning; but if it were the underworld, he was in imminent peril, and had done little better than run himself into a trap from ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... child of Nature lived amidst the grandest temples of God's building, where the song of the hermit thrush as old as these fragrant aisles, still rings like a newly-strung lute; while the wind among the myriad keyed pines thrums a whispering accompaniment and the yellow and white birch ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... divine right of kings was a foregone conclusion, antagonism to which was heresy. Here let us not blame Philip; for this was the temper of his era, and to have anticipated in him larger views than those of his contemporaries is not just. To this notion was his whole nature keyed. He commanded the Netherlands to be faithful Catholics. What more was needed? Let this be the end. So reasoned the Spanish autocrat; and fealty to religious convictions on his subjects' part seemed to ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... harp, the lyre, the dance, the chorus, all those first necessary accompaniments which verse never quite forgets; and we concluded that, as Music ever introduces emotion, which is indeed her proper and only means of persuading, so the natural language of verse will be keyed higher than the natural language of prose; will be keyed higher throughout and even for its most ordinary purposes—as for example, to tell us that So-and-so sailed to Troy with ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... fig and in very active circulation. She rustled, she swooped, she darted, she was as if on springs. "Well, she feels her oats," commented Little O'Grady. He looked at her again. No, what moved her was not vainglory, not a restless sense of triumph. She was keyed up to the most racking pitch of anxious expectation. She looked whither Eudoxia and Roscoe Orlando and all the others had looked, but with an intensified expression, and Little O'Grady almost felt as if challenged to solve some ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... necessary in order to secure alertness and effort. Mere repetition is not drill. Monotonous going over the words of a poem or the list of books of the Bible with wandering or slack attention will fail of results. The learner must be keyed up, and give himself whole-heartedly to the work. Let the child come to feel a real need of mastery, and one great motive is supplied. Let him desire the words of the song because he is to sing in the chorus, or desire the words ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts

... was him!" He clambered over the circle of stones and backed away, eyeing the entrance as though he expected to see the Hopi emerge at any moment. He crouched behind a boulder, his pulses racing. He was keyed to a high tension of expectancy. In fact, he was in a decidedly receptive mood for that which immediately happened. He noticed that his horse, a hundred yards or so up the valley, was circling the cedar and pulling back on the reins. He wondered what ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... sketches, big and little, in color and black-and- white, the work of the artist members of this coterie, which covered every square inch of the leak-stained surface of ceiling and wall, and the yellow-keyed, battered piano which occupied the centre of the open space and which stood immediately under two flaring gas-jets. At the moment of Fred's and Oliver's arrival the top of this instrument was ornamented by two musically inclined gentlemen, one seated cross- legged ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... one else on the State pay-roll, Freckles was keyed high during this first week of the new session. It was a reform Legislature, and so imbued was it with the idea of reforming that there was grave danger of its forcing reformation upon everything in sight. It happened that the Governor was of the same ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... occasionally in men, tickling may be a source of acute pleasure, which in very early life is not sexual, but later tends to become so under circumstances predisposing to the production of erotic emotion, and especially when the nervous system is keyed up to a high tone favorable for the production of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... years old, passionately devoted to Daniel Webster, and a personal friend of Millard Fillmore. As a speaker he was polished, smooth, and refined, and even when impassioned kept his passion well within conventional bounds. On this occasion his mellow and far-reaching voice, keyed to the pitch of sustained rhetoric, dropped his well-balanced and finely moulded sentences into the convention amidst hearty applause. He did not then see with the clearness of Seward's vision. He belonged rather to the more enlightened and intelligent conservatives who had begun to feel the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... lyre too tensely keyed and strung, A broken music, weirdly incomplete: Here a proud mind, self-baffled and self-stung, Lies coiled in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... rumble of a train and a short high-keyed shriek—we used to make just such shrieking sounds by blowing into keys when we were boys. The St. Petersburg express was approaching end foremost—the train with the special sleeping-car holding the balance of the circus troupe. The next moment ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... seemed to Ann interminably long. Insensibly she was keyed up to a delicate pitch of expectancy, her ear nervously alert for the sound of a familiar footstep on the flagged path. And as the leaden moments crawled by, and the warm, sunshiny silence which enfolded the Cottage remained ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... mixed with oil, which fall from the various machines, and extracting the oil centrifugally. The separator consists of a chip holder, having an imperforate shell flaring upward and outward from the spindle (in fixed bearings) to which it is attached. When filled, a cover is placed upon it and keyed to the spindle. Between the cover and holder there is a small annular opening through which oil, but not chips, can escape. Fig. 29 (Pat. 225,949—C.F. Roper) is designed (like the greater part of the drawings inserted) to show relative position of parts merely, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various

... absolutely necessary. Most of your composition seems but the effort to perpetuate about you the admiration and the adulation, the glowing eyes and half-parted lips and heaving bosoms. Everything in your piano-music is keyed for that effect. The shameless sentimentalities, the voluptuous lingerings over sweet chords and incisive notes, the ostentatious recitatives, the moist, sensual climaxes, the titillating figuration, the over-draperies, were called into existence ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... go again. To go again might deepen my impression—might better register the thrill. But then it might not be just the same. I would be keyed to such expectancy that I might be disappointed. Persons in the seats behind me might whisper. And just as Chenal got to the "Amour sacre de la patrie" some one might cough. I am confident that something of the sort would surely happen. I want always to remember that ten minutes while ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... or outer end, will serve, by their going through both the front and back walls, to bind the house more firmly together. The spring beams or iron bars fastened to them must reach quite through the back wall, and be keyed or screwed up tight; and they must be firmly fastened to the lever wall on each side, either by iron bars, firm pieces of wood, or long strong stones, reaching far back into the wall. They must also be bedded solidly, and the residue of ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... brought into contact with the spring, f{2}. As soon as the winch is left to itself a counter-spring forces the disk, P, to return to a contact with the spring, f{1}. Figs. 2 and 3 show the details of such communication. The winch, K, is keyed to one of the extremities of a sleeve that carries the disk, P, at its other extremity. This sleeve is fixed upon the axle of the first friction roller, that is to say, upon the axle that controls the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... over this, but could make nothing of it. He felt that he ought not to inquire further. He saw her anxious eyes, her expression of one keyed up and waiting for a verdict. "I'd have only to look at you to know your mother was a fine woman," said he. Then, to escape from the neighborhood of the dangerous riddle, "Now, about your—your going," he began. "I've ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... the same popular delight, and with even greater respect on the part of the critics. Even the formidable Jeffrey, who was supposed to dine off slaughtered authors as the Giant in "Jack and the Beanstalk" dined off young Englishmen, keyed his voice to unwonted praise. The influx of tourists into the Trossachs, where the scene of the poem was laid, was so great as seriously to embarrass the mail coaches, until at last the posting charges had to be raised in order to diminish the traffic. Far ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... came word that her father would come home on a month's leave and August was longed for with an eagerness he could not have dreamed. Everything must be in perfect order to receive him, and Peggy flew from house to garden, from garden to stables, from stables to paddock keyed to a state of excitement which infected every member of the household. Dr. Llewellyn smiled sympathetically. Harrison, the housekeeper, stalked after her, doing her best to carry out her orders, while announcing that: NOW, she guessed, ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... that now caught his attention had a still different effect. Listening, he lay motionless in his blanket with every faculty keyed; had a man at that moment stood before him reading his death warrant, he could not have been more awake. The noise was slight; only a small fragment of rock had fallen and the echoes of its journey were lost almost at once; it was the beginning of the sound that he was thinking of—the ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... a fair test," Mr. Heatherbloom replied anyhow. His thoughts were keyed to a straining-point; his glance would swerve; he strove his best to control it. She was there—there—Shrouds and stays seemed to sing the words. He would have sworn he caught the flash ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... an automatic method of playing on wind instruments by moving a band of perforated paper which controlled the supply of air to the pipes; and likewise proposed to play a number of keyed instruments at a distance by means of the electric current. Both of these plans ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... odd sense of impending trouble. For an instant it seemed as if they were about to break for cover; and when they approached us there was a strained, expectant expression on each tanned face, a wariness in their actions that looked unnatural to me. The nearer they came the more did I feel keyed up for some emergency. I can't explain why; that's something that I don't think will bear logical analysis. Who can explain the sixth sense that warns a night-herder of a stampede a moment before the herd jumps off the bed-ground? But that is how I felt—and immediately it ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... the Pitti Palace, which depicts a young Augustinian monk as he plays on a keyed instrument, having on one side of him a youthful cavalier in a plumed hat, on the other a bareheaded clerk holding a bass-viol, was, until Morelli arose, almost universally looked upon as one of the most typical Giorgiones.[31] The most gifted of the purely aesthetic critics who have ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips

... when the room-clerk told him that his father and Mrs. Honoria and their guest had gone to the theatre. He was keyed to the fighting-pitch, and he wanted to have the deciding word spoken while his blood was up and there was still time to act. A glance at the clock showed him that he had a full half-hour to wait; and, as much to escape the buzzing lobbyists as to satisfy his ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... repeated Louis, his eyes fixed searchingly on La Mothe's face. The lad's prompt response promised well, all that was needed was to keep this enthusiasm of devotion keyed to the pitch of action. "Body and soul! Be sure I shall not forget. But what you promise in hot blood you will forget when your mood cools. No? Well, Molembrais' mood cooled and he has been colder than his mood these three days past. But you are different, you are of stronger, ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... snow, as I came out of my door three crows were perched in an apple tree but a few rods away. One of them uttered a peculiar caw as they saw me, but they did not fly away. It was not the usual high-keyed note of alarm. It may have meant "Look out!" yet it seemed to me like the asking of alms: "Here we are, three hungry neighbors of yours; give us food." So I brought out the entrails and legs of a chicken, and placed them upon the snow. The crows very ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... of Isabelle's talk was not to be stayed. She was excited and keyed up high. There was a simplicity and directness about this Judd woman that made her think of Mrs. Benjamin, so she told all about Hill Top and her life there, her love of it, her despair at ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... Robinson, keyed to exultation by this outcome of his watchfulness. She was going to The Hollies, of course. The road led to Knoleworth, and no young woman of her age in the village would dream of taking a lonely walk in the country ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... moments that followed, while he stood listening, with every fibre of his being keyed to attention, the sense of his utter isolation chilled his heart as with ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... the wrong approach," Jake said one morning. "Our body defenses are keyed up to top performance right now. Maybe if we break them down we ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse

... His labors in preparation for the winter had been severe and unremitting, and his nerves had been keyed very high by the arrival of the bears and the singular quality in the air. Now, nature claimed her toll, and he did not awake until nearly noon, Tayoga having preceded him a half hour. The Onondaga stood at the door of the cave, looking over the stones ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... wish to sleep. The feeling of tremendous events impending was too strong and his nervous system was keyed too highly for such thoughts to enter his mind. He was used to great battles now, but there was a mystery, a weirdness about the one near at hand that sometimes turned the blood in his veins ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... distinguishes this Exposition above all others in America or Europe rests on two outstanding facts: the substantial unity of its architectural scheme, and its harmony of color, keyed to Nature's coloring of the landscape in which it is placed. The site furnished the clue to the plan; co-operation made possible the great success with which it has been ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... near Calamba in the same province, in Naig (Cavite), in Camarines Province, and a few other places, an attempt to improve upon the current system by employing an ingenious wooden mechanical apparatus worked by buffaloes. It consisted of a vertical shaft on which was keyed a bevel-wheel revolving horizontally and geared into a bevel pinion fixed upon a horizontal shaft. In this shaft were adjusted pins, which, at each revolution, caught the corresponding pins in vertical sliding columns. These columns ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... have been something that she had on. . . . A gold something. This came because of a fallen bit of gold-brown tapestry on the threshold. It had folds. Out of the cone of it, was a rising sheen like thin gold smoke. A fallen garment was the first thing that came to Skag's mind, keyed to the suggestion of some fabric which Carlin was to put on. The thing actually before his eyes had not dislodged for an instant, ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... in derision. It was impossible for him to stop talking, he was so keyed up. "It's paradise, I'm sure, compared to being ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... new jobs will be created before the new century unfolds, and by then, our economy should be able to provide a job for everyone who wants to work. We must also enable our workers to adapt to the rapidly changing nature of the workplace. And I will propose substantial, new Federal commitments keyed to retraining and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... a deep, warm dust of yellow gold; nowhere is there a margin of the earth so splashed with spots of brilliant color: sweaters, parasols, bathing suits, canvas shelters—blue, green, purple, pink, yellow, orange, scarlet—vibrating together in the sharp sunlight like brush marks on a high-keyed canvas by Sorolla; nowhere has flesh such living, glittering beauty as the flesh of long, white, lovely arms which flash out, cold and dripping, from the sea; nowhere does water appear less like water, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... a stone gallery which ran all round the wall, with doors communicating with the apartments above. The hall ceiling, two storeys above the pavement, was of stone, groined; the ribs of the groins boldly moulded, and massively keyed in the centre with a stone of considerable size, boldly carved with the representation of a dragon or griffin coiled into a circle. Over the great fireplace hung a trophy of rusty and dinted armour, surmounted by another trophy of faded and dusty ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... sky and the snow and this altitude, and being shut in from all the world that make everything so tense. On these far-off, ice-bound plains, life is abnormally vivid. We are all keyed up too high here." ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... the sand in the midst of the circle. The file and coil of rope lay on the ground near by. The beach-comber was talking in a high-keyed sing-song, but with a lisp. He told them partly in pigeon English and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie translated, that their men were eight in number, and that they had intended to seize the schooner that night, but that probably ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... s1, s2, and s3. The thickness of w is equal to that of the three wheels, s1, s2, and s3, and a special spring secures at every instant an intimate contact between the pinion and the said wheels. These latter are insulated from each other and from the axle upon which they are keyed, and communicate, each of them, with conductors, I., II., and III. They are so formed and mounted that, in each of them, the tooth in one corresponds to the interspace in the two others. As a result of this, in the motion of the pinion, w, the latter is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various

... Arncliffe in the Advocate office. When I left him after our third talk, I was definitely re-engaged as a member of his staff, at a salary of six hundred pounds per annum, having promised to take up my duties with him in one month from that date. Every nerve in my body had been keyed to the attainment of this result, and I was grateful, and not a little flattered by its achievement. I was still a poor man; but this salary, with the few hundred pounds I might hope to add to it in a year, by means ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... hungry for a solitary ride such as had, before now, drawn much of the lonely ache out of his heart and keyed him up to the life which he must live and which chafed his spirit more than even he realized. Instead of such slender comfort, he was forced to ride beside the girl who had hurt him—so close that his knee sometimes brushed her horse— and ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower



Words linked to "Keyed" :   keyless, high-keyed, tonal, low-keyed



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