Lead line

“ Oh, gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse,
Saying: "We tell the fortunes of the nations,
And revel in the deep palm of the world.
The head-line is the road we choose for trade.
The love-line is the lane wherein we camp.
The life-line is the road we wander on. ”

“ Should a group succeed in tagging the rear of the line in front, but it is found that their own line is broken through the effort, it does not count. But the broken line can be tagged by the rear of the line and it will count. ”

“ Two Kinds of Leads.—The story, technically, is [Pg 69] [A] made up of two parts—the lead and the body. The lead is easily the more important. If a reporter can handle successfully this part of the story, he will have little trouble in writing the whole. The lead is the first sentence or the first group of sentences in the story and is of two kinds, the summarizing lead and what may be called the informal lead. The summarizing lead gives in interesting, concise language the gist of the story. ”

“ The chief, for instance, will imprint five spots on the sand, and round them trace an interminable line which just misses each spot in turn. The five spots signify the vain ambitions of man, and the line is man’s vain effort ever to reach them. ”

“ When we have made our choice we must abide by its consequences. Looked at from above, human destiny seems rather like a network of railway lines. A man starts out on a locomotive, and chooses his line of rail ”

“ A line, or the equivalent of a line, parting the quantities of the effects, must exist in nature, though not visible to the eye of the philosopher, and we are at liberty to reason respecting the quantities placed on each side of this line in the same manner as if its position were actually ascertained. ”

“ We make headway only by the head way. Action without forethought tends to follow a straight line; but in life the straight line is often the longest distance between two points, because, as Leonardo said, the straightest line offers the greatest resistance. Thought is roundabout, and loves flank attacks. ”

“ The simplest symbol of it is the circle, the line which returns into itself, not the straight line produced indefinitely; and the readiest way to find it is to consider the satisfaction of desire. There we have myself and its opposite, and the return from the opposite, the finding in the other nothing but self. ”

“ There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. ”

“ Tell me whether you agree in this statement of the matter. Every Line has a pair of directions, opposite to each other. And if two Lines be said to have 'the same direction,' we must understand 'the same pair of directions' ”

“ For this wire is as a part of our body, as a vein torn from us, glowing with our blood. Are we proud of this thread of metal, or of our hands which made it, or is there a line to divide these two? ”

“ The first and largest, that which encircles the thumb, is called the Line of Life; by the length, colour and evenness, or the reverse, of this line the length of life is indicated, and also the illnesses and accidents by which the life is menaced in running its course. The line immediately above it, crossing the palm of the hand, is the Line of Head; by it we are to judge of the intellectual powers. Above it is the Line of Heart, from which we form an opinion of the strength of affection, or the want of it, in the native. ”

“ Yet even here, if we look beneath the apparent freedom and informality, we find certain laws at work which seem to differ only in degree from the more definite and constructive control of line which we have been considering. In the first place, there are our direct impressions from nature; and, secondly, our conscious aims and efforts to express an idea in our minds. We have the same restricted and definite forms of language and materials in each case—line, form, space, brushes, pencil, colour, paper, canvas, or clay. ”

“ The elastic resistance of the line is a “heart-animating strain,” only too slight; and sensible is the thrill in it as the ranks of the riverside plants, with their small summit-flower of violet-pink, are swept aside like a long green breaker of flourishing green. The line drums lightly in the ears when the bushes are high and it grows taut; it makes a telephone for the rush of flowers under the stress of your easy power. ”

“ Two straight lines meeting in opposing directions give an impression of abruptness, severity, or even violence; the difference of movement being emphasized. If a third line is added, as in the sketches below, the opposition is softened and an effect of unity and completeness produced.
This combination typifies beauty itself which has been defined as consisting of elements of difference harmonized by elements of unity.
A very common example of Transition is the bracket, No. 15. The straight line is modified into curves and may be elaborated with great complexity of modelling. ”

“ Our first business must be to measure off as correctly as possible the longest line we can get—and, with a little management, I think we ought to be able to make that line a mile in length, which will be long enough for our purpose. ”

“ But there is yet a third possibility — a possibility not so much yet of movement along another line at right angles to both of these others, but rather a possibility of looking up such a line — looking up as a man at the bottom of a well might look up at a star in the sky above him. ”

“ No one except the anchorite lives to himself; and he is merely a person who evades his responsibilities.
Here and there you find a curious complication of lines. From a junction in front, there stretches out into the mist a single line and a double line; and meantime, along a track converging toward your own, there spins a bright little loco., in holiday trim, dazzling you with her radiant head-lights, and commanding your admiration by her 'tractive power. Quick! Choose! Single line to the next junction, or double line to the terminus? A major-alternative, my boy! ”

“ As he advances, and surveys the line in either direction, he looks more and more down it and less and less at it, until, when abreast of the midmost man, he feels the end men to be most distant; then when the line casts hardly any lateral image on his retina at all, what distance shall he judge to be that of the end men? ”

“ A leader goes down the centre asking the right-hand line, beginning at the head, “What do you like best?” Each one must answer just what he or she wishes to, funny objects of course adding to the jollity of the game. When Leader has finished, she turns around and goes up the centre, asking the left hand line, “What do you dislike most?” ”

“ Can not a civil engineer continue a line into the beyond, and predict where the projection of that line will strike; can he not also calculate the effect that a curve will have on his line's destiny? Why should a being conversant with the lines and curves of humanity's journey for ages past not be able to indicate the lines that men must follow in the future? [Pg 299] Of course he could guide the boat, in what was to me a trackless waste of water, but you err in asserting that I had said he did not have a guide, even if it were not a compass. ”

“ For example, a line with many sudden turns or changes of direction is an energetic and exciting line because it demands in perception a constant and difficult and shifting attention; a straight line, on the contrary, because simple and unvarying in its demands upon the attention, is monotonous and reposeful; while the curved line, with its lawful and continuous changes, at once stimulating yet never distracting attention, possesses the character of progressive and happy action. ”

“ A main line is scornful of the station in whose heart it consents for a moment to linger, its eyes are staring forward towards the vast cities who are impatiently awaiting it; but a side line has its very home here. ”

“ We feel then indeed that the line passed over between two stops is described with a single indivisible stroke, and that we seek in vain to practice on the movement, which traces the line, divisions corresponding, each to each, with the divisions arbitrarily chosen of the line once it has been traced. The line traversed by the moving body lends itself to any kind of division, because it has no internal organization. ”

“ A straight line, for example, is supposed to be a certain track in space whose parts all exist simultaneously. We shall now find that what is a straight line for one observer is not a straight line for another. ”

“ We draw with a continuous line, after having looked at, or thought of, our model. How shall we explain such a faculty, except by our habit of discovering at once the organization of the outlines of common objects, that is to say, by a motor tendency to draft their diagram in one continuous line? ”

“ The "prime-way" then seems to be an abbreviated form of a long phrase "prime-signed man's way," and the phrase "Pack and Prime Way," an abbreviation of "Packman and Prime-signed man's Way." The popular speech abhors long phrases, and seeks to express its thoughts in the fewest words. ”

“ This line is sometimes called the sister line to the line of Life because it is often found running parallel with that line and denotes increased vital force—courage, because it strengthens the heart and thus the energy. ”

“ In other words, instead of always moving in the direction of one of your extremities, do you never feel a desire to move in the direction, so to speak, of your side?
King. Never. And what do you mean? How can a man's inside "front" in any direction? Or how can a man move in the direction of his inside?
I. Well then, since words cannot explain the matter, I will try deeds, and will move gradually out of Lineland in the direction which I desire to indicate to you. ”

“ It goes to the finer particles of the air, and passes on and on. There is an endless chain. It is as if there were numberless staffs, larger and smaller, and when one falls it either raises itself or passes on its rising to another or to others. There is an endless chain of movement to and fro, and as one ceases another comes. But, O king, I wish to take thee behind this long chain and to place thee where thou mayest not say, I will do this or that; but where thou canst say, This whole chain of movement shall be or shall not. ”

“ Each time that the straight line makes a complete revolution round we consider it to have described four right angles, taken with the positive or negative sign according to the direction in which it has revolved ”

“ Very difficult, no doubt, but absolutely essential, if you mean to write a book adapted to the use of beginners. My own belief as to the course of thought needed to grasp the theory of 'direction' is this:—first you grasp the idea of 'the same direction' as regards Lines which have a common point; next, you convince yourself, by some other means, that different Lines exist which make equal angles with all transversals; thirdly, you go back, armed with this new piece of knowledge, and use it unconsciously, in forming an idea of 'the same direction' as regards different Lines. ”

“ All else is contributive matter. The theme is comparable to the main line of a railroad that is fed and sustained by way-stations and branch lines; if we expect to reach an important destination we can arrive only by way of the main line. ”

“ A line having no balance or symmetry in itself may become balanced. The line may be regarded as if it were a series of dots close together. The line is then a relation of positions indicated by dots. It is a composition of attractions corresponding and equal. It is only necessary, then, to find what I have called the center of equilibrium, the balance-center of the attractions, and to indicate that center by a symmetrical inclosure. The line will then become balanced.
Fig. 93
Here is a line. ”

“ The extent to which this generation of circles, wheel without wheel, will go, depends on the force or truth of the individual soul. For it is the inert effort of each thought, having formed itself into a circular wave of circumstance, — as, for instance, an empire, rules of an art, a local usage, a religious rite, — to heap itself on that ridge, and to solidify and hem in the life. ”

“ The Table Line originates with the Line of Life at the wrist, and runs through the hollow of the hand towards the middle finger. If broad and fair without being broken, it is a sure sign of a happy and comfortable life; if narrow and contracted, it is a sign of poverty and crosses in the world. ”

“ Your old dad has maintained satisfactory discipline among quite a bunch of men on more than one trunk line without ever writing a letter of reprimand or sending a hot message over the wire. The advice of the famous politician to walk ten miles to see a man rather than write him a letter is paraphrased for our business to mean rawhide yourself fifty or a hundred miles over the road to jack up a man rather than play him a tune on the typewriter. ”

“ We generally attach an importance to the third line, calling it the line "for change," and the fourth is the conclusion; the first line is, of course, the commencing of the subject, and the second is "to receive and develop." ”

“ If a number of individuals stand one behind another in a line, each with his hands laid firmly on the shoulders of the one next to him, and the person at the end be pushed, the force will be conveyed through all the intermediate individuals, and cause the unsupported person at the distant end to move. ”

“ Conclusion.—Of the two types of lead, the beginner is advised to attempt at first only the summary lead, relying on the excellence of the news to carry the story. This kind of lead is definite. A reporter always can know when his lead answers the questions who, what, when, where, why, and how. And if he has presented his facts clearly in the lead, he may feel a certain degree of assurance that he has been successful. In writing the informal lead, on the contrary, one can never be positive of anything or of any effect. ”