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More "Mystery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... artifice was ineffectual, and the baron at last saw thro' it, and assuming a very grave countenance, I perceive, Horatio, said he, you do not think me worthy your confidence, and I was to blame to press you to reveal what you resolve to make a mystery of. ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... detective—what you might call a hyper-super-ultra detective. Detective sticks out big all over him—like a sort of universal mumps. He never looks except when he looks cautiously out of the corner of his eye; he walks on his tiptoes; he talks in whispers; he simply oozes mystery. Fat head?—why, Lige Stone wears his hat on a ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... those from whom I come, were crushed by this terror even from the blackest night of time, I tremble, and my reason totters. All this is false, I know—the god obeys the priest. Yet, from these towering columns, horror and mystery descend upon me—[A thunder clap brings him to his knees. The stones that mask the entrance to the sanctuary roll slowly back. He tries to look] The holy of holies opens—I am afraid—I am afraid—[He mutters words, wipes the sweat from his brow ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... momentary grace of form or the transient gladness of colour, but the whole sphere of feeling, the perfect cycle of thought. The painter is so far limited that it is only through the mask of the body that he can show us the mystery of the soul; only through conventional images that he can handle ideas; only through its physical equivalents that he can deal with psychology. And how inadequately does he do it then, asking us to accept the torn turban of the Moor for the noble rage of Othello, or a ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by her friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last encumbrance of mystery. "And then," said she, "if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... was alone, the situation presented itself to his mind in a very disagreeable light. Corona's assurance that the mystery was a harmless one seemed wholly inadequate to account for her meeting with Gouache and for her kind treatment of him, especially after she had shown herself so evidently cold to him in the presence of the others. Either Giovanni was a very silly fellow, or he was ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... to make his bow before a thin, dark, charmingly pretty young woman, who smiled up at him from her deck-chair through an enhancing mystery of veils; and presently he found himself sitting beside her. He could not help trembling slightly at first, but he would have giving a great deal if, by some miraculous vision, Mary Kramer and other friends of his in Cranston could have seen him engaged ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... through the Ways to the branches of Duality. Before me, there was nothing. But I've learned to open a path—a difficult path for one in this world—and to draw from it, as you have been drawn. Don't try to understand what is a mystery even to the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... the sufferer till he sinks under its influence; the natives themselves are by no means free from its strokes, to which attacks every stranger who remains for many days in the vicinity of the marshes is liable. Though a veil of mystery still covers the particulars of poor Moorcroft's fate, it seems more than probable that he fell a victim to the fever of this country, though the seed that was sown did not mature till some time after he ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... startling news came that the missing statesman had been killed by the Comanches in the wilds of the Indian Reservation, far from any agency, and that he had been living and preaching there as a volunteer missionary for many months before the massacre, the mystery of his sudden and unexplained disappearance from the State capital on the day of his inauguration was not cleared up and made intelligible, but darkened ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... for one's self the fable of those immortal groups. Each spectator must pluck out, unaided, the heart of their mystery. Those matchless colossal forms, which the foolish chroniclers of the time have baptized Night and Morning, speak an unknown language to the crowd. They are mute as Sphinx to souls which cannot supply the music and the poetry which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... this. The boys were overawed. They had been afraid, every one of them; and the mystery of their escape and whereabouts oppressed them. But they got the anchor over the bow; and presently they had the cabin stove going and were drying off. Nobody turned in; they waited anxiously for the first light of day to ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... ocean is before that ship, and a wider mystery. But in the passage of time, as the strange cruise proceeds, its course begins to tell upon the chart. The zigzag line, like obscure chirography, has an intelligible look, and seems to spell out intimations. As order ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... extended over a period of upwards of sixty years, during which he has ranged over many fields—of law, literature, politics, and science,—and achieved distinction in them all. How he contrived it, has been to many a mystery. Once, when Sir Samuel Romilly was requested to undertake some new work, he excused himself by saying that he had no time; "but," he added, "go with it to that fellow Brougham, he seems to have time for everything." ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... a deep, hoarse voice. "A mystery. But," she added quickly, "you will not prejudge me until you know—will you? Recollect me merely as an unhappy woman whom you have assisted, not as——" She sighed deeply, without concluding ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... some denominations of Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated the human mind, THE CROSS, finds here its source and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its sacredness in many natural religions, and have reverently accepted it as a mystery, or offered scores of conflicting and often debasing interpretations. It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points, the four winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a study of its use and meaning ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Edith had no explanation of this mystery, nor did she seek one. After the first days of amazement and questioning she fell back on what she took to be her paramount duty—to trust. She argued that if he had seen her in some analogous situation, however astounding, he would have trusted her to the uttermost; ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... well considered it? A sublime and divine mystery is accomplished. Such a being costs nature the most vigilant maternal care; yet man who would cure you, can think of nothing better than to offer you lips which belong to him in order to teach you how to cease ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... narrowing in the distance, without a second thought he dashed after it. His disappointment, his self-criticism, his practical resolutions were forgotten. He had but one idea now—the vision was providential! The clue to the mystery was before him—he ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... the room, and, raising a shade, stood looking absently into the moonlight. Gilbert Allison leaned forward and seemed trying to obtain the solution of some mystery from the outlines of ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... wrought in his appearance. Finding that Gerald still slept profoundly, he took the resolution of instantly questioning Sambo, as to all that had befallen them during their absence, and ascertaining, if possible, to what circumstance the mystery which perplexed him was attributable. Opening and reclosing the door with caution, he hastened to the room, which, owing to his years and long and faithful services, had been set apart for the accommodation of the old man when on shore. Here he found Sambo, who had dispatched his substantial ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... The Great Motor Mystery.—At Lancaster two motorists were fined, according to the Manchester Evening News, "for driving a motor-car over a trap near Carnforth, at twenty-nine and thirty-four miles per hour respectively." We are of the opinion that the action of the second gentleman in driving ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... understood the mystery which he had been before too excited to inquire into. He remembered the hints of Bruce, and he had learned enough of border customs and principles to perceive that the justice of the woods had at last overtaken the horse-thief. The pursuing party had captured him,—taken him in the very manner, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... was the leader of the party, but it was not yet clear what they were planning to do. Yet he knew that if he listened long enough something was sure to be dropped that would give him a clue to the mystery. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... lady was satisfied. Her strong-minded relative was a mighty mystery to her, just as men were mighty mysteries. Whatever she or they said could be done and should be done, why of course it would be done, and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... cross in comparatively modern times as the simplest and most natural symbol both of addition and of multiplication, should have led no one to perceive that, being for these very reasons also the simplest and most natural symbol of Life, a probable solution of the mystery surrounding the origin of the pre-Christian cross as a symbol of Life, as it were stared them in the face. As to the contention of not a few authorities, apparently founded upon the mistaken assumption that the Svastika was the earliest form of cross to acquire importance as a symbol, ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons
... did; that solves the mystery. But to think of her giving information!" replied Le, in the same ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the spot. He made very little mystery either of the crime or of its motives—alleging that there was sufficient against him to deprive him of Leicester's confidence, and to destroy all his towering plans of ambition. "I was not born," he said, "to drag on the remainder of life a degraded outcast; nor will I so die ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... concealing his thoughts, and he was manifestly worried by the prospect of possible developments, but Mern was not able to pin him down to anything specific. As a matter of fact, Crowley had not fathomed the mystery of Miss Kennard's actions in Adonia and was not in a way to do so by any processes of his limited intelligence; he admitted as much ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... feel. Take the sorrows of others to your heart; they shall widen and deepen it. Ours is a religion of sorrow. The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering; our Father is the God of all consolation; our Teacher is named the Comforter; and all other mysteries are swallowed up in the mystery of the Divine sorrow. 'In all our afflictions He is afflicted.' God refuseth not to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... forward to get the report of the mail agent. He had put things to rights, and told me that, though the mail had been pretty badly mixed up, only one pouch at worst had been rifled. This—the one for registered mail—had been cut open, but, as if to increase the mystery, the letters had been scattered, unopened, about the car, only three out of the whole being missing, and those very probably had fallen into the pigeon-holes and would be found on a more ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... and though the white variety rarely occurs, yet the varying tints of blue upon the same stalk are a perpetual gratification to the eye. I know not why shaded blues should be so beautiful in flowers, and yet avoided as distasteful in ladies' fancy-work; but it is a mystery like that which repudiates blue-and-green from all well-regulated costumes, while Nature yet evidently prefers it to any other combination in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... ever haunted by a thought of mystery, Of the dark, shoreless, desolate, heaving and moaning sea, Which round about the cold, still earth goes drifting to and fro, As a mother, holding her dead child, swayeth herself with woe. In all ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... not sure that I need tell you, Owen; and yet I suppose I had better. It will be safer," said Mrs. Elmore, nursing her mystery to the last, enjoying it for its own sake, and dreading it for its effect upon her husband. "I suppose you will think your troubles are ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... injunctions to adopt every caution in preserving her incognita; she was even desirous that her sex might not be made known. "I beg the publisher will make no mention of a lady," she wrote to one of her correspondents, "as you observe, the more mystery the better, and still the balance is in favour of the lords of creation. I cannot help, in some degree, undervaluing beforehand what is said to be a feminine production." "The Scottish Minstrel" was completed in 1824, in six royal octavo volumes, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... finally she was the Alexander seeking new worlds. But there WERE no new worlds, there were no more MEN, there were only creatures, little, ultimate CREATURES like Loerke. The world was finished now, for her. There was only the inner, individual darkness, sensation within the ego, the obscene religious mystery of ultimate reduction, the mystic frictional activities of diabolic reducing down, disintegrating the vital ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Mr. St. Claire took his leave, it was with a strange feeling of interest for the child, whose antecedents must always be shrouded in mystery, and whose future he could ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... garment, and persons who have missed any of their friends mysteriously perhaps might find, upon examination, that which would lead them to know their friend had suffered death from the hands of a murderer. A sample of each I will keep to exhibit through the country, hoping to solve the mystery. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... of mystery to Marcus as he tramped through the forest, following the slightly beaten road. Time seemed to be no more, and distance not to count. Everything was dreamy and strange, over-ruled by the one great thought ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... house and received his orders—orders of which he made a great mystery afterward at the store, although they consisted simply of directions to be prepared to drive Jethro to Brampton the next morning. But the look of the man had frightened Jake. He had never seen vengeance ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Know for I Believe. I follow closely where the Seers have led: But that intangible dim path of theirs, Which may be trodden but by other Seers, I seek to render solid for the feet Of all mankind. With reverent hands I lift The mask from Mystery: and show the face Of Reason, smiling bravely on the world. The visions of the prophets, one by one, Grew visible beneath my tireless touch: And the white secrets of elusive stars I tell aloud, to ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of marriage, but it seemed a great mystery to Primrose. There was no one she liked but Cousin Andrew, but she liked liberty better, she thought. Why should one want to get married? The pretty young girls who came out to the farm had no husbands. Patty had none and she was ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... amusement. Such was the programme; and the eager curiosity of the select few who were invited brought them punctually to the philosopher's eyry. Haguna of course was there,—as unconsciously lovely as if the disappearance of the unfortunate Anthrops were as much a mystery to her as to the rest of the wondering citizens. The philosopher, laying aside the brusqueness acquired in his solitude, devoted himself with the utmost courtesy to the amusement of his guests, —opened for them dusty cases of butterflies, shells, and rare stones, which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... that all the world is ignorant of her passion; she throws over her eyes the veil which she has thrown over her heart; but when it is lifted up by some cherishing hand, the secret inquietudes of passion suddenly burst their bounds, and the soothing overflowings of confidence succeed that reserve and mystery with which the oppressed heart had enveloped its feelings. Virginia, deeply affected by this new proof of her mother's tenderness, related to her how cruel had been those struggles which Heaven alone had ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... of literature as never to forget for a single instant that they were in print. With the exception of Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth, the women writers of the early part of this century were, as I have just said, rather literary women than actual creators of literature. It is still a mystery how they attained to their great successes. Frances Burney charms great Burke and mighty Johnson and wise Macaulay in later times. Mrs. Opie draws compliments from Mackintosh, and compliments from the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, and Sydney Smith, and ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... feels a sense of awe in her soul when she bends over her own infant child; but in the case of Mary we may be sure that the awe was unusual, because of the mystery of the child's birth. In the annunciation the angel had said to her, "That which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God." Then the night of her child's birth there was a wondrous vision of angels, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... and poured themselves out, often, in a rushing flood. Towards all others she bore herself with a calm, sweet dignity of manner, that captivated the heart, and made it sigh for a better acquaintance with one around whom mystery had hung a veil that no hand but her own could push aside—and ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... the parchment when I made my sketch of the scarabaeus. I became perfectly certain of this; for I recollected turning up first one side and then the other, in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of course I could not have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glowworm-like conception of that truth which last night's adventure ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... told him what had taken place, and the young officer's words came like a bombshell upon this steady-going and rather dull officer. If it were true, all the mystery of the last few weeks was cleared up. But he could not believe it. Waterman was regarded as one of the most capable and trustworthy of the staff officers. He had shown zeal beyond the ordinary, and his ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... Mr. Panton expresses the opinion that the tent-peg was the property of Dr. Leichardt, one may be sure that he has good grounds for his supposition. Whether Leichardt lost his life in the heart of this wilderness or not, the complete mystery hiding his fate makes his history sufficiently remarkable; and though I consider that there is little to show that he ever reached a point so far across the continent, there is no reason that he should not have done so, and I leave it for my readers ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... them in his head according to this order, which is in fact that in which he has become acquainted with them, and in which it concerns him to think about them. This order—the most natural of all—is the one which I have thought it well to follow in this volume. My classification has no more mystery in it than the reader has just seen ... it is preferable to the most profound and ingenious that can be conceived, for there is none of all the classifications which ever have been made or ever can be, which has not ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... poverty and crime at the North, which are exhibited by the census, will help to explain the seeming mystery that the South multiplies by natural increase faster than the North. In 1845, according to her statistical report, Massachusetts had seven-eighths of her marriageable young women working in factories under male overseers. The census of 1840 shows that, with fewer adults, Virginia ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... barber-shop next to the corner drug store and Penrod, undergoing a toilette preliminary to his very slowly approaching twelfth birthday, was adhesive enough to retain upon his face much hair as it fell from the shears. There is a mystery here: the tonsorial processes are not unagreeable to manhood; in truth, they are soothing; but the hairs detached from a boy's head get into his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth, and down his neck, and ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... trees, or the low-voiced neighboring ocean, breaks the stillness. Along the rocky shore and over these green-clad cliffs one may wander for days in absolute solitude, seeing or hearing naught of humanity or the handiwork of man. Here may be found the wondrous magic and mystery of the sea in all its moods—pathetic, peaceful or grand, and its society, where none intrude. Here, too, wedged among the wave-washed rocks, can be found many a tale of shipwreck, despair and death, or whispers of luxuriant life in tropical lands, and all the flotsam and ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... the heart of my mystery,' as Hamlet says, do you not, my friend?"—and he smiled—"Well, so you shall, if you can discover aught in me that is not already in yourself! I assure you there is nothing preternatural about ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... "This mystery must never be revealed," he murmured. And it never would, had not the hero-journalist printed the story. Thus it was that the tale became international property. Now it is known all the world over that the General sacked a shop to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... say, anyhow, I shan't close it till the last minute, with a P. S. to say we're arriving safely—if we do! One never knows nowadays. And we have on board a man who's been torpedoed twice. I hope he isn't the kind to whom everything happens in threes. By the way, he's the Ship's Mystery, and this letter can't be a complete record of the voyage unless I tell you about him. Place aux dames, however. There's a girl I want to tell you about first. Or had I better polish off our own family history and make a clean sweep of ourselves before ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... "The mystery of woman can not be solved by intellectual processes," the young man remarked. "Observation is the only help and mine has been mostly telescopic. We have managed to keep ourselves separated by a great distance ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... appearance, his grey mantle thrown picturesquely across his shoulder, had taken up a position behind them, and was examining the picture with sparkling eyes. They got into conversation, and the stranger said almost in atone of solemnity, "It is indeed a singular mystery, how a picture often arises in the mind of an artist, the figures of which, previously indistinguishable, incorporate mist driving about in empty space, first seem to shape themselves into vitality ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... so inexpressibly a part of me; and shall I not refrain as Mdlle. de Maupin refrained, knowing well that the face of love may not be twice seen? Great was my conversion. None more than I had cherished mystery and dream: my life until now had been but a mist which revealed as each cloud wreathed and went out, the red of some strange flower or some tall peak, blue and snowy and fairylike in lonely moonlight; and now so great was my conversion that the more brutal ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... blubber like Johann in Herod's rain-barrel. The sanctified are few and far between. The vast majority of us must suffer in hell, just as we suffer on earth. The divine grace, so omnipotent to save, is withheld from us. Why? There, alas, is your insoluble mystery, your riddle ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... and walk together just as they pleased. Aileen always had a good word for Starlight, and seemed to pity him so for having to lead such a life, and because he said he had no hope of ever getting free from it. Then, of course, there was a mystery about him. Nobody knew who he'd been, or almost where he had come from—next to nothing about him had ever come out. He was an Englishman—that was certain—but he must have come young to the colony. No one could look at him for a moment and see his pale, proud face, his dark eyes—half-scornful, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... come so far by this time," said the mate. "I think that I can unravel the mystery. This whale was attacked by the boats of a ship, some of which were probably destroyed by the monster. It was then towed alongside, when she was either capsized in a storm, or, receiving damage ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... perpetually on guard against the cosmic forces, whose ends are not his ends, without and within himself; so long as he is haunted by inexpugnable memories and hopeless aspirations; so long as the recognition of his intellectual limitations forces him to acknowledge his incapacity to penetrate the mystery of existence; the prospect of attaining untroubled happiness, or of a state which can, even remotely, deserve the title of perfection, appears to me to be as misleading an illusion as ever was dangled before the eyes of poor humanity. And there ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the mystery regarding the German spy, Franz Linder, were at once ousted from the minds of the Navy boys. Their first cruise in a superdreadnaught was of much ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... which the tired horses plodded, became one illimitable shadow out of which rose strange sounds of beasts and eerie night cries of birds, the spell of the wilderness renewed itself and she felt herself enveloped in world-old mystery. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... back again to the infernal number with which her delirium began, and she shrieks it out perpetually. It is a frightful relapse. Begone! young man; yet stay—I will go with you. You can, doubtless, give us a key to this mystery." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... aristocrat should come to be the musical prophet of an evangelical bourgeoisie would be felt as a most comical irony, were it only something less of a mystery. Handel was brought up in the bosom of the Lutheran Church, and was religious in his way. But it was emphatically a pagan way. Let those who doubt it turn to his setting of "All we like sheep have gone astray," in the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... in our inner life that they all appeal to. Possibly at this centre are the great primitive emotions common to all men. The religious group, the deep awe and reverence men feel when contemplating the great mystery of the Universe and their own littleness in the face of its vastness—the desire to correspond and develop relationship with the something outside themselves that is felt to be behind and through all things. ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... was gone, Fred wanted the mystery of the letters explained, and I told him all there was to tell, including as good a description of the pony as I could give him. We tried to hit on some plan to get word to those outside, but it wasn't to be done. At least it was a point gained that some one of our party besides ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... faltering hope, harassed always by a fear that she had at some time in her life committed the unpardonable sin, as to the nature of which she knew nothing, and which was, therefore, all the more feared, as the nature of it was to her the terrible mystery ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... gleaming in the sun, which was falling now through wide refulgent skies and tumbling caravans of light down into the streets. New York, he supposed, was home—the city of luxury and mystery, of preposterous hopes and exotic dreams. Here on the outskirts absurd stucco palaces reared themselves in the cool sunset, poised for an instant in cool unreality, glided off far away, succeeded by ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Englishmen at Jamestown. The first attempt of the English, under the inspiration of the great Raleigh, to establish a colony in the fine country to the north of Spanish Florida, then known as Virginia, is only remembered for the mystery which must always surround the fate of Virginia Dare and the little band of colonists who were left on the island of Roanoke. Adventurous Englishmen, Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth, had even explored the coast of the present United States as far as the Kennebec before the voyages of ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... doubtful. In them he certainly confesses the impudent trick which he had played in his youth, when he passed himself off as a Formosan convert. He wished, he writes, 'to undeceive the world by unravelling that whole mystery of iniquity' (p. 5). He lays bare roguery enough, and in a spirit, it seems, of real sorrow. Nevertheless there are passages which are not free from the leaven of hypocrisy, and there are, I suspect, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... who was, how ever, cheered a little by his friend's tone and manner. "Everything is mystery. I look up, I look around, I look within; all is dark, mysterious. Only on this is my mind clear—the Great Spirit is good. He cannot be otherwise. I will trust Him. One day, perhaps, He will explain all. What I understood not ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... German detectives! One of them whistles as soon as we come up; and the soldier, who has been told, of course, that this whistle is a signal from the French accomplices, the soldier, whom Dourlowski or his confederates hold in a leash, like a dog, the soldier is let go. That's the whole mystery! It was not he, the poor wretch, whom they were after, but Jorance and Morestal. Morestal, right enough, flies to the rescue of the fugitive. They collar him, they lay hold of Jorance; and there we are, accomplices both. Bravo, gentlemen! ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... efficacy came the natural sympathy for the aged parents mourning for their child, for the young man cut off in the flower of his days; and besides this, there is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty. This feeling, I am sure, gives much impetus to the police. Their senses are ever and always on the qui-vive, and they enjoy the collecting and collating evidence, and the life of adventure they experience: a continual ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... souls; and thereby extended their authority as far as the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in dark groves or other secret recesses [g]; and in order to throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbad the committing of them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised among them: the spoils of war were ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... same caresses which Mahomet bestowed on his daughter Phatemah. Quando, (says the prophet himself,) quando subit mihi desiderium Paradisi, osculor eam, et ingero linguam meam in os ejus. But this sensual indulgence was justified by miracle and mystery; and the anecdote has been communicated to the public by the Reverend Father Maracci in his Version and Confutation of the Koran, tom. i. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... 10. Felix Woyrsch's Mystery for soli, chorus, orchestra and organ, "Toedtentanz" given by the Apollo ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... mark of any master; and for the student who does not aspire so high as to be numbered with the giants, it is still the one quality in which he may improve himself at will. Passion, wisdom, creative force, the power of mystery or colour, are allotted in the hour of birth, and can be neither learned nor simulated. But the just and dexterous use of what qualities we have, the proportion of one part to another and to the whole, the elision of the useless, the accentuation of the important, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there is very little known about the Armenians; their early history, in particular, is involved in considerable mystery.' ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... to play with. Since their wives can bear no children they buy children from poor people, and these duly become their own. Thus when the eunuch dies he has children to worship at his grave." In this land of mystery even eunuchs can correctly become ancestors. Yet this is a trivial detail which I should not ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... make peace. It will not be you; it never can be you:- you, who can do nothing, as your wife said, but trade upon your station - you, who spent the hours in begging money! And in God's name, what for? Why money? What mystery ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my curiosity once more. I felt there was some strange mystery which I could not fathom, but what was my surprise, when, as I went into the sitting-room, I heard the blind girl say in a melancholy ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... animal nature alone is visible. Thought was rare. It seemed to be an effort; its seat was in the heart more than in the head; it led to acts rather than ideas. But, examining that grand old man with sustained observation, one could penetrate the mystery of this strange contradiction to the spirit of the century. He had faiths, sentiments, inborn so to speak, which allowed him to dispense with thought. His duty, life had taught him. Institutions and religion thought for him. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... shifted at length—as it inevitably must—to women, and the unalterable and uncharted mystery of their mental currents: the jagged and cruelly unsuspected reefs that rear suddenly under rippling shoal-water, the maelstrom that boils just beyond the soft curve of ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... glittering, unfamiliar object forward, and then lifted it wonderingly in her hand. It was a string of burnished gold beads, the avowed desire of Patty's heart; a string of beads with a brilliant little stone in the fastening. And, as if that were not mystery enough, there was something slipped over the clasped necklace and hanging from it, as Waitstill held it up to the light—a circlet of plain ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... mate talking together in the friendliest way possible. That Hudson is a humbug; there is some mystery ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... however, do what the earliest founders of poetry find mythology did: search Nature closely, bear constantly in mind her one great principle of potent Being, continually displaying itself in all things as life and death, mutually creating each other, and acting in all organic life by the mystery of Love, Then, while establishing those affinities and correspondences between natural objects which constitute Poetry, let it be ever present to the mind that each is, so to speak, always polarized with its positive end of activity, creation or birth, and its negative of cessation, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... forward with unwonted interest to the arrival of Lady Laura's sister, Lady Geraldine Challoner. To a girl who has never had a lover—to whom the whole science of love is yet a profound inscrutable mystery—there is apt to be something especially interesting in the idea of an engagement. To her the thought of betrothal is wondrously solemn. A love-match too, and an attachment of long standing—there were the materials for a romance in these brief hints ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the guide-book. The absence of the romantic spirit in most English and American compilations dealing with the Rhine legends is noteworthy, and in writing this book the author's intention has been to supply this striking defect by retaining as much of the atmosphere of mystery so dear to the German heart as will convey to the English-speaking reader a true conception of the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... the first time there was a gulf between her and Catherine. As an intelligent and intellectual companion, as an affectionate friend, Catherine was perfect; but in matters pertaining to love—that great mystery which comes into most lives—her unawakened ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... stands clear of mystery; (As you have said) he coins himself the slander With which he taints her ear;—for a plain reason; He dreads the presence of a virtuous man Like you; he knows your eye would search his heart, Your justice stamp upon his evil deeds The punishment they ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... the miniature in the hands of the ladies to be admired, and, addressing himself to Mr. Percy, began to tell with much mystery the story of Euphrosyne. She was an actress of whom the prince, heir apparent at the German court where he resided, had become violently enamoured. One of the prince's young confidants had assisted his royal ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... solved the mystery. Aunt Susan was a miser, of that there was no doubt. Imagine a woman of her immense wealth taking a boarder and living as she did. Ethel wondered if at night when everyone was sound asleep she counted her money as misers do; and perhaps it was on this very mahogany table that ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... glance seemed to be dressed almost wholly in soft chocolate brown, alighted in the snow close by and at once began to run about in search of seeds. It was Wanderer the Horned Lark. Peter hailed him joyously, for there was something of mystery about Wanderer, and Peter, as ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... darkly, dimly, and afar; and can contemplate the utterly free, the utterly beautiful, and the utterly good in the character of God and the face of Jesus Christ. They entered while on earth into the mystery and the glory of self-sacrifice; and now they find their bliss in gazing on the one perfect and eternal sacrifice, and rejoicing in the thought that it is the cause and ground of the whole universe, even the Lamb slain before the ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... said,' replied the Jew. 'If they were taught to read good books, it would probably mend their manners. But if that were all, why should there be so much mystery about it? why should these people do it so secretly, and deny it so stoutly?' and again he shook his head, and shuddered. But being fully persuaded that he had gained his point, he thought it safest to change the subject; and accordingly he did so as soon as he had emphatically ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... him, and his position one of great peril. And now once more reflecting on the sudden, as unexplained, disappearance of the latter from their old place of residence—to say the least, a matter of much mystery—bethinking himself, also, that he is quite twenty miles from his estancia, and for any chances of retreat, or shifts for safety, worse off than if he were alone, he at length, and very naturally, feels an apprehension stealing over him. Indeed, not ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... oracle, my Judah. A few lessons from my teacher of rhetoric hard by the Forum—I will give you a letter to him when you become wise enough to accept a suggestion which I am reminded to make you—a little practise of the art of mystery, and Delphi will receive you as Apollo himself. At the sound of your solemn voice, the Pythia will come down to you with her crown. Seriously, O my friend, in what am I not the Messala I went away? I once heard the greatest logician in the world. His subject ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... when in a youthful dream, I saw a moonlit sea, And sailing o'er its dark expanse, A ship of mystery. ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... her own illness; and that he was as completely absorbed in keeping at bay his heretic subjects, as her highness by the desire of converting them into the subjects of France. It was only those admitted into the confidence of Don John who possessed the clue to the mystery. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... towards the establishment of artificial theology, which has passed for Christianity ever since, were enthusiastical. They were not heretics alone who delighted in wild allegories and the pompous jargon of mystery; they were the orthodox Fathers of the first ages, they were the disciples of the Apostles, or the scholars of their disciples; for the truth of which I may appeal to the epistles and other writings of these men that are extant—to those of Clemens, of Ignatius, or of Irenaeus, for ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... Vivian knew more of her attachment to him than what had been discovered the day before he left Glistonbury; and Vivian could not help admiring the honourable and delicate manner in which his friend spoke of her, without any air of mystery, and with the greatest respect. He told Vivian he had heard that proposals had been lately made to her ladyship by a gentleman of great talents and of high character; but that she had positively declined his addresses, and had repeated her declaration ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... excitedly read it over to himself, going over each word with his blunt forefinger. He turned it over and examined the seal, he looked at the stamp and inside of the envelope, and failing to find any clue to the mystery he ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... was a romanticist and fed his brain on pabulum from the pen of Mr. Fergus Hume and other ingenious concocters of peripatetic mystery, wondered as he gave his horse a meaning lash with his whip—a tribute to the beauty of the fare—"Wot the dickens she was h'up to, with 'er big ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... a sea could so brood with the memory of aeons. Only a sea, lying so silent beneath the high skies, could hint the mystery of life still behind ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... was a much better judge of the value of prayer than these theorists; he was much further learnt in this direction than any of them, and therefore his testimony was more reliable than theirs; what to them was a mystery and impossibility was to him a simple daily enjoyment. They that would test the value of prayer must really pray themselves, and believe while they pray, otherwise they will be no wiser. Prayer is not ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... nature expresses the intentions of reproduction by giving animals distinctive organs with certain secretions for this purpose, etc. All the different stages of development can be easily determined, but how and why life takes place under such special condition and under no other, is an unsolved mystery. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... don't, old chap. I don't want you to tell me till you like, only it is rather a joke sometimes that you make such a mystery of what uncle and I know as ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... has never been my forte. My life had been a thing of outward manifestations. I never had been secret or even systematically taciturn about my simple occupations which might have been foolish but had never required either caution or mystery. But in those four hours since midday a complete change had come over me. For good or evil I left that house committed to an enterprise that could not be talked about; which would have appeared to many senseless and perhaps ridiculous, but was certainly full of risks, and, apart ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... everything about them looked common, to most of them, save the owners, wearisome. But to yon pale-faced student, gliding in the glow of his red gown, through the grey mist back to his lodging, and peeping in at every open door as he passes, they are so full of mystery, that gladly would he yield all he has gathered from books, for one genuine glance of insight into the vital movement of the hearts and households of which those open shops are the sole outward and visible signs. Each house is to him a nest of human birds, over which brood ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... to sit at the feet of Revere, his "skipper," that is to say, the Captain of his Company, and to be instructed in the dark art and mystery of managing men, which is a very large part ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... am delighted to hear that you are not the author of the two articles attacking Society. The fact that they happen to be signed with the name of another well-known lady had made me think it possible that this might be the case. Society? It is a great mystery. I can hardly think of it without taking off my boots and prostrating myself orientally. To criticize it is a mistake; it is even, if I may for once use a harsh word, subversive. It is the only one we've got. Oh, hush! Only in whispers ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... of the whole experience was the marvellous demonstration of occult power which attended the final seance of the society, the true nature of which is still wrapped in mystery. ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... up my mystery, though I suspected no one, could offer no information, knew absolutely nothing save that the murdered man was not I, but Radfoot. Next day while I hesitated, and next day while I hesitated, it seemed ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the surface of the rocks in some places. He was confident that they had been made by the feet of the wolves; but in spite of these encouraging signs, he was baffled in his main purpose, and how the visitor made his way in and out of the cave remained an impenetrable mystery. ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... passed by, leaving a sense of mystery in the air; though for Derek, all sense of annoyance disappeared in the knowledge that he ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... boys were disappointed. There was, then, no lovely mystery to be unravelled, no subterrene story excavated, no romance at all, nothing but a spiritual looking Englishman with an odd first name and a gift of ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... made a portage of half a mile or so to avoid them. The woods on either side were primeval, which are more easily penetrated than woods of the second growth, and we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes through them. How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? The height of the trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anything which I in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards in magnificent columns until, at an enormous distance ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... did not even know their own "best friends." And so the tide of detraction ebbed and flowed while Hesden was absent, his destination unknown, his return a matter of conjecture, and his purpose a mystery. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... were as taut as a fiddle string. A cloud of mystery enveloped the camp and I was unable to see my way. Was the whole great issue for which so many of us had perished and fought and endured all manner of hardships, being bartered away in the absence of our beloved Commander? I have suffered much but never ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... switch the impulses evoked by sense stimuli on to one or other tract of the axons, or axis cylinder processes, which form the association pathways? Such a hypothesis is no explanation; it simply puts back the whole question a step further, and leaves it wrapped in mystery. It cannot be fatigue that produces the hypothetical interruptions of the dendritic synapses and then induces sleep, for sleep can follow after fatigue of a very limited kind. A man may sleep equally well after a day spent in scientific research as after one spent in mountain climbing, or after ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... nature, O earnest thinker, for the created is but the veil of the Creator. Revelation and nature are from the same God, and both demand our serious attention. Revelation is indeed the Word of Nature; the sole key to its many wards of mystery. Truth never contradicts itself. Let the savant, whether in material nature or metaphysical realms, examine, classify, and arrange his facts—they, when fairly computed, thoroughly investigated, can ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... mighty kingdoms three!' 'Much marvel I That thou, the greatest of the Powers above, Me visitest with such exceeding love. What thing is this? A God to make me, nothing, needful to his bliss, And humbly wait my favour for a kiss! Yea, all thy legions of liege deity To look into this mystery desire.' 'Content you, Dear, with them, this marvel to admire, And lay your foolish little head to rest On my familiar breast. Should a high King, leaving his arduous throne, Sue from her hedge a little Gipsy Maid, For far-off royal ancestry bewray'd By some ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... schooner, had made unto himself a name—particularly as a connoisseur of Island beauty—among the Marquesas, Society, Hervey and Paumotu Groups, from Nuka-hiva to Rapa-nui (Easter Island), that ethnographical mystery of the Southern Seas, whose gentle and amiable people, thirty years ago, met with so dreadful a fate at the murderous hands ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... seem to have tried to fit himself into the skin of that entertaining villain. Mr. MURRAY CARRINGTON had an exceedingly tough task with his Heyst. But was he even as detached and eccentric as the average modern don? Certainly he was not the man of mystery of the original pattern, but rather the amiable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... sufficient to make juvenile readers wait anxiously for seven whole days in order to find out what would happen "in our next." It has been demonstrated, however, that what holds the attention of the photoplay spectator, young or old, is the mystery connected with the story, and it is the solving of this mystery that must constantly be kept in mind. "Who is the masked stranger?" "Who is the owner of the mysterious clutching hand," "Who is the mysterious ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... am positive that it is written by no acquaintance of mine, or of my daughter's, for we have none—except you. As the case now stands, it is a mystery, not worth the exploring." ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... impress me when first, after long desire, I saw it. There was nothing to suggest the silence of once roaring flame, no half-molten rocks, no huge, honey-combed scoriae, no depths within depths glooming mystery and ancient horror. It was the more desolate that it moved no active sense of dismay. What I saw was a wide stretch of damp-looking level, mostly of undetermined or of low-toned colour, with here and there a black spot, or, on the margin, the brighter green of a patch of some growing crop. Flat ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... man but the king. But when he threatened that he would have the truth out of her by a trial, he was told that he was the offspring of a slave. By the evidence of the avowal thus extorted he understood the whole mystery of the reproach upon his origin. Abashed as he was with shame for his low estate, he was so ravished with the young man's cleverness, that he asked him why he had aspersed the queen with the reproach that she had demeaned herself like a slave? But while resenting that the courtliness ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... looked out over the bay. A dying gleam of sunset broke through a cloud and fell across her hair. For a moment she seemed the spirit of the shore personified—all its mystery, all its uncertainty, all ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Encouragement of Mr Dean & enterd Surgeon on board the Revenge Sloop, built by order of a Come of Congress authorizd thereto & at the Continental Expense, and till lately supposd to have ever since remaind Continental Property, but now so invelopd in political Commercial Mystery as that it cannot be ascertaind whether she is ownd by the United States or private Persons, or whether she is the property partly publick & private. I will tell you more of this Matter when the Mystery shall be unraveld if it ever is; ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... glancing at Lord Hastings, "before our present work is over we may know something of the mystery"—he lowered his ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... many curious details of Gortz and his end.] how, Ambassador Cellamare, and the Spanish part of the Plot, having been discovered in Paris, Cardinal Alberoni at Madrid was discovered, and the whole mystery laid bare; all that mad business, of bringing the Pretender into England, throwing out George I., throwing out the Regent d'Orleans, and much more,—is now sunk silent enough, not worthy of reawakening; but it ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... overhung his path like menacing deadfalls, and the rolling thunder of summer storms was mingled with the black smoke of ten thousand undreamed-of industries. The simplicity of the mountain cornfields of his youth had become a mystery of production, of activity, of passing phenomena which he neither knew nor understood. In his thoughts there was but ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... the cause of Lucille's profound mental agitation, it was an impenetrable mystery to Julie. Blassemare obviously did not know what to make of it; and as the fete drew near without eliciting any corresponding interest on her part, Julie, who had observed with pleasure the delight ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... the power of utterance, I wrote immediately to his Royal Highness, requiring an explanation. He remained silent. Again I wrote, but received no elucidation of this most cruel and extraordinary mystery. The prince was then at Windsor. I set out in a small pony phaeton, wretched, and unaccompanied by any one except my postilion (a child of nine years of age). It was near dark when we quitted Hyde Park Corner. On my arrival at Hounslow the innkeeper ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... spoke to the daisy about it, and the daisy called in the violet, and the three little ones had a very serious conference; but, having talked it all over, they came to the conclusion that it was as much of a mystery as ever. The old ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... imposing lady, with tremendous brilliants in her ears and somewhat theatrical clothes; Mile. Sandoval, the elder daughter, was of Arab type, with black eyes, an aquiline nose, pale rose-coloured lips, and a malicious smile, full of mystery, as if it ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... Haddo would take this opportunity to disclose to us the mystery of his birth and family. I have a suspicion that, like the immortal Cagliostro, he was born of unknown but noble parents, and educated ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... a blessing. A man's mind is not always agape for company, but his mouth is for a good dinner; a book or a newspaper will be company to him, but he wants the comfort that comes only through his wife; and if she gets burdened with the mystery of the universe or stretches her thoughts toward matters too high for her, or even if she takes an interest in politics, she is apt to lose sight of the hundred and one things that make up the every-day comfort that ought to pervade a house like the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... the grave, demure Quakeress of having snatched from the English their anticipated victory; but after the return of the British troops Gen. Howe summoned Lydia to his apartment, locked the door with an air of mystery, and motioned her to a seat. After a moment of silence, he said: "Were any of your family up, Lydia, on the night when I received my company here?" "No," she replied, "they all retired at eight o'clock." "It is very strange," said the officer, and mused a few minutes. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... blessedness and beauty of His Example, all the mystery and meaning of His Death, and all the power of His Resurrection, depend on the fact that 'it is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... that proved too much for his friend, Mr. Maverick Narkom, Superintendent of Police. I am confident boys will enjoy meeting "Cleek" and will, with keen delight, follow him as he unravels the threads of the great mystery of the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... confined themselves more to the North African coast than was the case later on. The pioneers of the piratical movement, after the fatal date 1492, which saw the wholesale expulsion of the Moors from Spain, were comparatively speaking inexpert practitioners in the art and mystery of piracy; they had not the habit of the sea, and in consequence confined their depredations to the neighbourhood of their own selected ports in Africa, which dominated that sea lane running east and ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... car, or the train, and was not seen again by his friends, although search was made for him. His body was found some hours afterwards, hanging in a woods near Stemmer's Run. Just how he met his death is a mystery that never was made clear. It was claimed at the time that investigation proved that Miller was dead before his body was hanged to the tree, and that he ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... that terrible and most mysterious criminal, of whose hellish influence he seemed to be conscious yet once again. "Fantomas! Fantomas! Did Fantomas really commit this murder? And if he did, shall I ever succeed in throwing light upon this new mystery, and learning the secret ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... gentleman," said he, solemnly, "that the Romance in question must be tickled; it is not given to raw beginners to conquer that great mystery of our science." ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and Lincoln. He distinctly remembered also standing at her knees and trying, at intervals, to commit to memory the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He had learned it all since, because he thought it would please his mother, and because there was something in it that appealed to his coming sense of the mystery of life. When he repeated it to Celia, who had never heard of it, and remarked that it was all made up, and that she never tried to learn a long thing like that that wasn't so, Philip could see that her respect for him increased a little. He did not know that the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... incarnation of the genius of humanity, chained and suffering under the tyranny of the evil principle which at present rules over the world, typified in Jupiter; the name Prometheus, FORESIGHT, connecting him with that poetic imagination which is the true prophetic power, penetrating the mystery of things, because, as Shelley implies, it is a kind of divine Logos incarnate in man—a creative force which dominates nature by acting in ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... a picture of the old tile mantel-piece in the other room. There is some mystery about ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... life which looks closely to the facts will probably increase our sense of mystery and of strangeness in common things. If on the other hand it is a theory of experience which chiefly interests us, we may divert our attention somewhat from the experience to the theory, leaving the world as humdrum as it was before we explained it. In that case we must ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... pallid calling for expressing his work-day joy. He could have understood a feeling of sinister passion for Sylvia Molineaux and likewise he could have indulged it. But the snare was more subtle and cruel than that. He was fated to feel the awe and mystery and beauty of a rose-white love which he saw hourly trampled in the grime of the streets. He had fancied once that love was a matter of give and take ... he knew now that it was essentially an outpouring ... that to love was sufficient to itself ... that it could ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... off with the horses, and Mary returned to the house. What mystery had this man to tell her, "that no one might hear but she"?—very strange and alarming! Was he drunk?—no, he was evidently quite sober; as she looked out once more, she could see him at the stable, cool ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... the Gothic tongue), to revenge herself on the priest because he disdained her love. But why and wherefore the unfortunate corpse was found so often turned upon its face, that I cannot explain, and it must ever remain a mystery, I think. However, I shall pass on now to other matters, for truly we have had enough of these disgusting horrors. [Footnote: One of the most inveterately rooted of our superstitions is this belief in the existence of man-wolves. Ovid mentions it in his Lycaon, and even Herodotus. Many ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... hands were, after all, material, and limited in their powers. He proved that the 'spirits' shared all Eusapia's likes and dislikes, and knew no more of chloride of iron or ferro-cyanide of potassium than she herself possessed—in short, while admitting the mystery of the process, he reduces all these phenomena to human, terrestrial level, and relates them wholly and simply to the brain and will of the psychic. Perhaps his state of mind is best expressed at the close ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... no longer be 'the mystery of a class,' but shall become the heritage of all mankind. When, because much is known by all, nothing shall be dreaded by any. When all mankind shall be absolutely its own master, strong, and brave, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... Miss Nussey, which would seem to indicate a suggestion upon the part of 'E' that some attempt should be made to furnish a biography of her friend—if only to set at rest, once and for all, the speculations of the gossiping community with whom Charlotte Bronte's personality was still shrouded in mystery; and indeed it is clear from these letters that it is to Miss Nussey that we really owe Mrs. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... sir," replied the coachman, who had been staring around him as if to seek some solution of the mystery. "I'll tell you all that happened—I was just beginning to tell Mr. Kitteridge here when you come in. I fetched Mr. Herapath from the House of Commons last night at a quarter past eleven—took him ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... scale of expressive hospitality. If it might be TO him, it would be well; if it might be FOR him, it would be still better! She was so tall and yet so light, so active and yet so still, so elegant and yet so simple, so frank and yet so mysterious! It was the mystery—it was what she was off the stage, as it were—that interested Newman most of all. He could not have told you what warrant he had for talking about mysteries; if it had been his habit to express himself in poetic figures he might have said that in observing Madame de Cintre he seemed to see the ...
— The American • Henry James
... exclaimed, so loud that he startled himself, "I will have to accept it as a mystery and patiently wait time's own pleasure ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner
... are to take them as the poesie that Titian loved to call them, there is a certain want of significance, neither the divine nor the human note being struck with any depth or intensity of vibration. The glamour, the mystery, the intimate charm of the early pieces is lost, and there is felt, enwrapping the whole, that sultry atmosphere of untempered sensuousness which has already, upon more than one occasion, been commented upon. That this should be so is only natural when creative power is not extinguished by ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... which they had so laboriously built for themselves, mankind were to remain no longer. And now it is all gone—like an unsubstantial pageant faded; and between us and the old English themselves a gulf of mystery which the prose of the historian will never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and our imagination can but feebly penetrate to them. Only among the aisles of the cathedrals, only before the silent figures sleeping on the tombs, some faint conceptions ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... that induced Cheenbuk to throw an air of mystery over the expedition. Having no definite idea himself of what he was going in search of, or how long he should be away, he thought it wisest to look solemn and keep his thoughts to himself; thereby impressing his kinsmen with the belief that he was one of the wisest men of the ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... most popular and pleasant-looking of officials—a scholar and a gentleman—Mr. EDWARD PIGOTT—the Examiner of Plays, was published in Vanity Fair. Unrecognisable as a portrait, the picture was painfully hideous. Why it should have been allowed to appear is a mystery, as Mr. PIGOTT is a man that either is, or should be, without an enemy. There is only one thing to be done—our contemporary (following a recent precedent preserved in its own columns) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... luck!—who must be the stumbling and unwelcomed guide of Rachel's child! How, in the name of mystery, had the child grown up so different from the mother? Well, impatience wouldn't help him—he must set his mind to it. That ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know now. I can do it," said Mercer. Then I sprang to my feet, and my first impulse was to run, my second to stand fast, for how he got up to us so close from behind without being seen was a mystery to me; but there, just in the midst of the confusion and excitement of capturing the second rabbit, was Bob Hopley, the keeper, his big, sturdy form seeming to tower above us, and, caught, as we were in this nefarious act, ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... her part to conclude a reconciliation, of which she had hitherto expressed herself so desirous, excited the surprise and apprehension of the Court, who sought a solution of the mystery from the Bishop of Lucon; but the wily Richelieu was careful not to betray that they were his own counsels which regulated the conduct of the Queen-mother. He had well weighed his position, and he felt that it was not yet sufficiently assured to enable ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... continued, as long as the house should be used by me, upon merchant security: such a dearth there is really of accommodations of this nature for the present, and for a long time hath been; yet there want not descants, that there is some great mystery of state in the matter, which doubtless will fly as far as ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... merchant service, where the sailor received his initiation into the art and mystery of the sea, life during the period under review, and indeed for long after, was hard enough in all conscience. Systematic and unspeakably inhuman brutality made the merchant seaman's lot a daily inferno. Traders sailing out of Liverpool, Bristol and a score of other British ports depended almost ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... and providentially attended to by Reine Vincart, the return to the chateau in the vehicle belonging to La Thuiliere, the sending of the lilies, were all a source of great mystification to Manette. She suspected some amorous mystery in all these events, commented somewhat uncharitably on every minor detail, and took care to carry her comments all over the village. Very soon the entire parish, from the most insignificant woodchopper to the Abbe Pernot himself, were made aware that there was something going on between ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... Colonel Godfrey hesitated, still looking out over the garden to where the line of the eternal snows glimmered white and passionless in the splendid moonlight. "Yet you know, my boy, one could hardly blame a man for blowing out his brains after a tragedy of this sort. No." With a last glance at the mystery of the snows he turned back to the lighted verandah and took out his cigar-case. "I think one could not blame this fellow Anstice if he chose that way out." He selected a cigar with care. "After all, he must feel as though ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Prince, "you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Hall was early astir. The news of the murder had spread far and wide, and had caused a feeling of consternation in the neighbourhood, which was intensified by the mystery in ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... so, miss," she said, and looked as if for calming over Alicia's shoulder away into the after-sunset bars along the sky. The colour sank back out of her face, and the light from the window rested on it ethereally. The beautiful mystery drew her eyes to seek, and their blue seemed to deepen and dilate, as if the old splendour of the uplifted ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... one thing, it is true, which puzzled the little fellow very much. He thought over the mystery of it much oftener than any one supposed; even his mother did not know how often he pondered on it; the Earl for a long time never suspected that he did so at all. But, being quick to observe, the little boy could ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... knowing Whence the stream, and where 'tis going Seems all mystery—by and by He will speak, and ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... like enough to find life a tough job—hard work inside and out. It's a strange thing to think of a man as can lift a chair with his teeth and walk fifty mile on end, trembling and turning hot and cold at only a look from one woman out of all the rest i' the world. It's a mystery we can give no account of; but no more we can of the sprouting o' the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... there was a curious expression on her face—it seemed to him so watchful as to be almost furtive. He began to suspect that something was wrong. She was certainly overwrought and almost hysterical—beyond anything the journey would bring about. Possibly that was the explanation of the mystery. Elsie had rarely spoken of her stepmother. Perhaps her husband's death ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... countenance, and about as much animation, mentally or physically, as a cow. She was given to brooding; in fact, she brooded all the time. She brooded all day over her school work, but did it fairly well. How the previous teachers had taught her all she knew was a mystery to the new one. There had been a tragedy in August's family when she was a child, and the affair seemed to have cast a gloom over the lives of the entire family, for the lowering brooding cloud was on all their faces. August would take to the bush when things went wrong at home, ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... pomp, Who drank iniquity in cups of gold, 325 Whose names were many and all blasphemous, Hath met the horrible judgment! Whence that cry? The mighty army of foul Spirits shrieked Disherited of earth! For she hath fallen On whose black front was written Mystery; 330 She that reeled heavily, whose wine was blood; She that worked whoredom with the Daemon Power, And from the dark embrace all evil things Brought forth and nurtured: mitred Atheism! And patient Folly who on bended knee ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... your Service. I'll do it as well as I can after my Manner. That they have given a Boy's Face to Bacchus, has this Mystery in it; that Wine being drank, takes away Cares and Vexations from our Minds, and adds a Sort of a Chearfulness to them. And for this Reason, it adds a Sort of Youthfulness even to old Men, in that it makes ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... haggard man who tramped their meadow-ways with his sketch-books under his arm, his daughter always with him, preserving still the look and manners of the gently born, though they wore the shabbiest of shabby garments, and could scarcely pay for the simple food they ate. It was a great mystery to them, and they regarded the spectacle with the impatience of those who ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... mystery began to define itself, as figures grow clearer with the lifting of a fog. Here was this good and pious lady pursued from place to place by a sinister and unrelenting figure. She feared him, or she would not have fled from Lausanne. He had still followed. Sooner ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of St. James? Answer this. May Dacre, or Bertha Vere, or Clara Howard? Lady St. Jerome, is it to be a daughter of thy house? Lady Faulconcourt, art thou to be hailed as the unrivalled mother?' Tis mystery all, as must always be the future of this world. We muse, we plan, we hope, but naught is certain but that which is naught; for, a question answered, a doubt satisfied, an end attained; what are they but fit companions for clothes out of fashion, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... with a large profit, by the duties upon what is carried. It is, perhaps, the only mercantile project which has been successfully managed by, I believe, every sort of government. The capital to be advanced is not very considerable. There is no mystery in the business. The returns are not ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... of these outstanding qualities, it is strange that nut trees are today unfortunately and shamefully neglected in the north. Especially, I claim, is this true of the Eastern Black walnut. Here is a mystery. Why do not northern planters of trees plant more Eastern Black walnuts for their ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... to the wise, In which a mystery there lies; Read it, therefore, with that eye Which can discern ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... again, the bell tolled, and he wondered whether anything he had eaten at dinner could be held responsible for the hallucination. Scarcely had he resumed his reading when the bell again tolled. He could stand it no longer, and must come upon the solution of the mystery. Bells do not toll at nine o'clock, and the weirdness of the affair disconcerted him. The nearer he drew to the foot of the stair, in his quest for information, the more foolish he felt his question would seem to the members of the family. But the question had scarce been asked when ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... itself upon my countenance; for Isora, after looking upon me long and mournfully, said, in a quiet but melancholy tone, "I see your thoughts, and I do not reproach you for them—it is natural that you should think ill of one whom this mystery surrounds,—one too placed under such circumstances of humiliation and distrust. I have lived long in your country: I have seen, for the last few months, much of its inhabitants; I have studied too the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... if there is a mystery," said the woman dully. And then followed as before the strange ceremony of ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... description of what lay before her, and had read one or two hand-books on the subject, so that she was spared the fearful imaginings and reliance on old wives' tales which are the results of the ancient policy of surrounding normal functions with mystery. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... And a woman nowadays marries the man, the man. It's only horses, dogs and cattle that we buy for their pedigrees. Come; you ought to have a strawberry mark on your arm," I suggested lightly; for there were times when Max brooded over the mystery ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... them of a fearful spectre that had made its appearance in one of the best houses in Twenty-seventh Street. The narrative was detailed with circumstantial accuracy, and yet with an apparent discreet reserve, that gave the finishing touch of delightful mystery to the story. ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... to prevent their utterance," cried Richmond, with a somewhat jealous look at his friend, "for I have determined to know more of this mystery, and shall require the earl's assistance to unravel it. I think I remember Morgan Fenwolf, the keeper, and will send for him to the castle, and question him. But in any case, I and Surrey ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... positive data, which might lead to the arrest of the kidnapers. Tony's mother was dead. An older brother who had been in business in the far west was once a victim of the Malatesta clan. In spite of every possible effort, the disappearance of the boy remained a mystery; nor could any of the Malatesta relatives, known by various names and suspected ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... placed round his neck—a feat which had been considered impossible by one fastened as he was, without the loosing of the knots of the cords with which he was bound. His last exposure was the Katie King mystery, the calling of 'material spirits' from the other world, and exhibiting them in the room. This performance puzzled the audience as much as any of the others while it proceeded, and the explanation given of it was as amusing as it turned ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... influence, his art to tempt men, his might to subdue them, and the fascination that enabled him, though cold at heart, to win the love of woman, we gaze at this production of his pen as into his own inscrutable eyes, seeking for the mystery of his nature. How singular that a character imperfect, ruined, blasted, as this man's was, excites a stronger interest than if it had reached the highest earthly perfection of which its original elements would admit! It is by the diabolical part of Burr's character that he produces his effect ...
— A Book of Autographs - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... come to be the musical prophet of an evangelical bourgeoisie would be felt as a most comical irony, were it only something less of a mystery. Handel was brought up in the bosom of the Lutheran Church, and was religious in his way. But it was emphatically a pagan way. Let those who doubt it turn to his setting of "All we like sheep have gone astray," in the "Messiah," and ask whether a religious man, whether Byrde or Palestrina, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... mind. I should be glad that I am more advanced in my progress of being, so that I can view Dr. Johnson with a steadier and clearer eye. My dissatisfaction to-night was foolish. Would it not be foolish to regret that we shall have less mystery in a future state? That we "now see in[631] a glass darkly," but shall "then see face to face?"' This reflection, which I thus freely communicate, will be valued by the thinking part of my readers, who may have themselves experienced a similar state ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... people that were flocking hither and thither through the streets, many of whom recognizing Sah-luma waved their hands or shouted some gay word of greeting,—he saw, as it were without seeing. The whirling pageant around him was both real and unreal,—there was always a deep sense of mystery that hung like a cloud over his mind,—a cloud that no resolution of his could lift,—and often he caught himself dimly speculating as to what lay BEHIND that cloud. Something, he felt sure,—something that like the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... seem to love mystery!" I said to myself. "Some chance word of mine suggested an idea—and in this form ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... of God's children! What enigmas would many things in the lives of many of the redeemed have been! But when God said "All things," He placed a key in the hands of every redeemed man, every real child of His, with which to unlock the door of every mystery; that every trial, every disaster, every accident, every burden, every humiliation, every disappointment, every affliction, every sorrow,—"All things work together for good to those that love God, to those who ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... time when he had made his great appeal for the poor, deserted child shut up in the coldly correct halls of Marypoint College. What an irony it all seemed now. Then he remembered her first coming to Sachigo, and the mystery of the letter from Father Adam heralding her arrival. He had understood the moment Nancy had announced her name to him on the quay. He had understood the thought, the hope ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... and her eyes twinkled. It was evident that some mystery was in the air, and that the word 'tonic' was used in a figurative rather than a literal sense. Mellicent pondered, hit on the solution of chocolates, and being an inveterate sweet-tooth, found consolation in the prospect. ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... delight, and delightful mystery, of the stuffed stocking! Ellen's trembling fingers sought the top, and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... statecraft, the supreme and essential mystery be to hoodwink the subjects, and to mask the fear, which keeps them clown, with the specious garb of religion, so that men may fight as bravely for slavery as for safety, and count it not shame but highest honour to risk their blood ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... had spoken. "Such is my opinion exactly," he declared. "But what course would you pursue, my dear marquis? How would you set about solving this mystery?" ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... West that there was about Mr. Burke a degree of mystery, connected with his early life, which their long intercourse, subsequent to the introduction at Dr. Markham's, never tended to explain. He never spoke of any companions of his boyhood, nor seemed to have any of those pleasing recollections ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... eclipsed by the dominant impulse of lives absorbed in an idea, based upon supernatural agency. While it is an evidence of a misguided zeal, unequaled by anything the whole world has heretofore probably known, in and of itself it is no mystery. ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... continued to maintain its ascendancy over all the other cities in the kingdom, and it was now for the first time authentically ordained, that no person should be held to enjoy civic freedom unless he were a member of some trade or "mystery," or admitted by full assent ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... solemn purpose of the early work. This takes on neatness of detail, then fineness; a great maturity dignifies all the northern side. Upon the western you already see that spell beneath which the Middle Ages died. The mystery of the fifteenth century; none of its wickedness but all its final vitality is there. You see in fifty details the last attempt of our race to grasp and permanently to ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... the prearranged plan of campaign, but disaster lay between us and this military force on the Canadian River. Neither the Nineteenth Cavalry commanders, the scouts, nor the soldiers knew a foot of that pathless mystery-shrouded, desolate land stretching away to the southward beyond the Arkansas River. We had only a meagre measure of rations, less of grain in proportion, and there was no military depot to which we could resort. The maps were all wrong, and in the trackless wastes and silent sand-dunes ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... that they owe money to has his share of every sum they receive; never borrowed all this war but L30,000 by the King's express command, but do usually stay till their assignments become payable in their own course, which is the whole mystery, that they have had assignments for a fifth part of whatever was assigned to the Navy. They have power of putting out and in of all officers; are going upon a building that will cost them L12,000; that they out of their stock ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... everywhere shows his superiority to the beggarly elements of history, dogma, and ritual, another declares that he was so enslaved by his Jewish prejudices and the trumpery he had picked up at the feet of Gamaliel, that he knew but little or next to nothing of the real mystery of the very Gospel he preached; that while he proclaims that it is "revealed, after having been hidden from ages generations," he himself manages to hide it afresh. This you will be told is a perpetual process, going on even now; that ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... long that day and earnestly upon the mystery of the lagoons, their opaline transparencies of air and water, their fretful risings and sudden subsidence into calm, the treacherousness of their shoals, the sparkle and the splendour of their sunlight. I had asked myself how would ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... love is the most surpassing of all loves; it is the eighth wonder of the world; it is a mystery before which that of the Sphinx shrinks to insignificance; it is the one love which asks for so very little in return for all ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... which would have thoroughly explained the transaction has still left all its essential particulars in some degree of mystery; and the interest of the clergy, who supported one of their own body, coupled with the arts and bribes of the high houses connected with the plotting prelate, must, of course, have discoloured greatly even what was ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... de Lloseta de Mallorca would be looked upon as a mystery, because he lived in a large house by himself; because it was not known what his tastes might be; because the interviewer interviewed him not, and because the Society rags had no opportunity ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... the same; and, to the no small gratification of both mother and daughter, promis'd to explain the mystery.—But before I began, Miss Delves was sent to desire Miss Warley would continue in bed an hour longer, on account of some visitors ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... by George Manville Fenn, full of mystery, suspense and terror—to coin a phrase. Ned, a boy of sixteen, who has just left school, and who has been brought up by an uncle who is a naturalist and who is often away, begs that he may be allowed to come on the uncle's next expedition. By the way, how could ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... the husbandman. To enumerate and describe these ever so briefly would require an entire volume. This short chapter is a suggestion only that "By reason of scenic grandeur, absorbing interest of physical features, the majesty and mystery of its flow through some of the wildest as well as some of the most beautiful regions of the globe, and at the last by the peculiar grandeur of its entrance into the greatest of the oceans, this 'Achilles of Rivers' attracts alike historian, scientist, poet, statesman, ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... kind apart from loveliness of feature in the chosen object; his instincts were, in fact, revolted by the idea of love for such a person as Janet Moxey. Christian seemed to be degraded by such a suggestion. In his endeavour to solve the mystery, Godwin grew half unconscious of the other people ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... which follows her look from him to ADELAIDE, where she sees between them an 'understanding' about her) Sure you need help, Claire. Your nerves are a little on the blink—from all you've been doing. No use making a mystery of it—or a tragedy. Emmons is a cracker-jack, and naturally I want you to get a move on yourself ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... was now apparent, though down below it had seemed as if their sweetness was all too brief. Up here in the tower they were not at all melodious; they were rough, discordant, and uneven, some sounding as though out of tune and cracked. All of the mystery and glamour of sweet tenderness, all their pathos and weirdness, had quite vanished, and here amid the smell of lubricating oil and the heavy, noisy grinding of the cog wheels, and the rattle of iron chains, all the poetry and elusiveness ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... were bound on some nefarious errand, Theodora slipped downstairs and out of the house. The next minute she was hurrying along the trail in the moonlight. The great dazzling prairie was around her, the mystery and splendour of the northern night all about her. It was very calm and cold, but Theodora walked so briskly that she kept warm. The trail from Red Butte to Spencer was a lonely one. Mr. Lurgan's house, halfway to town, was the only ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the friends of Monseigneur were allowed to see her; and amongst these were M. le Prince de Conti, Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne, Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, and M. le Duc de Berry. There was always, however, an air of mystery about the matter. The parties that took place were kept secret, although ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Best of all, he could detect in these messages nothing that was not open and innocent. At their worst they were merely an effort to side-step old Lady Convention; this inclination was so rare in the British, he felt it should be encouraged. Besides, he was inordinately fond of mystery and romance, and these engaging twins hovered always ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... golden truth amidst the dross. He must construct anew. Wagner's theoretical edifice will not stand as it is; it is too loosely jointed; but the materials are valuable. That there will ever be a real science of aesthetics I do not believe; art would cease to be art if it lost its mystery. For the present at least we must be content to remain in darkness as to the precise conditions of musical expression, and eschew theory. That music does reveal the nature of things in a way different from words can scarcely be questioned. So, too, does all nature through ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... this girl, who bore an excellent character for truth and honesty, though rather stupid. The volume of the Spectator still remained as much a mystery as ever. Nor did a second conversation with this young woman bring to light anything new; her answers on both occasions corresponded exactly; and beyond proving the fact of Clapp's having been over the house with the sailor, nothing was gained from her report. At the second ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the country everyone knows the business of everyone else, and when there is a mystery no one is happy until it's solved. That's why Zara and her father got themselves so disliked. There was a mystery about them, and the people in Hedgeville just made up their ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... portrayed. According to the vision before us, it was by virtue of Christ's death that he was able to open the book at all; and the plan of redemption itself, which is based upon his atonement, is declared by the Scriptures to be a "mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God." Eph. 3:9. This redemption scheme was the great center of attraction to the prophets of the old dispensation, who "inquired and searched diligently" that they might comprehend its deep mysteries, "which things the angels desired ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... Latter contended, that for a Ghost to knock for admittance was a proceeding till then unwitnessed, and totally incompatible with the immaterial nature of a Spirit. They were still discussing this subject when the Page appeared with Cunegonda and cleared up the mystery. On hearing his deposition, it was agreed unanimously that the Agnes whom Theodore had seen step into my Carriage must have been the Bleeding Nun, and that the Ghost who had terrified Conrad was no ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... and the Chinese shore, the left to the northwest and the dim lowlands of Sumatra that lay along the road to Burma,—anything seemed possible. Moon-madness was upon us, and we were carried away by the mystery of the night. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... make her doubly fair. Meanwhile from the rose of the sunset, rosy lights were stealing over the water and faintly glorifying the old house and its spreading gardens. An overpowering sense of youth—of the beauty of the world—of the mystery of the future, beat through his pulses. The coming dance became a rite of Aphrodite, towards ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... voice, with a flushed face—as if it was quite a triumph to have prevented this woman from discovering his address. What reason could he have for being so anxious to keep her away from him? Could I venture to conclude that there was a mystery in the life of a man so blameless, so truly pious? It shocked one even to think ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... latter street and soon sight on our R. the massive machicolated Tower of Jean sans Peur (p. 133). It was at the Hotel de Bourgogne that the Confreres de la Passion de Jesus Christ were performing in the sixteenth century, and where in 1548 they were forbidden by royal decree to play the mystery of the Passion any longer, and limited to profane, decent and lawful plays. From 1566-1576 the comediens of the Hotel de Bourgogne continued their performances, which at length became so gross that complaints were made of the blasphemes ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... keen eye at last penetrated the mystery: "a buffalo, lying down and asleep." Here, then, was another chance for making a good meal, and we felt our courage invigorated. Gabriel went ahead on foot, with his rifle, in the hope that he should at least get near enough to wound the animal, while Roche and I made every preparation for ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... that Tom's fears about the missiles colliding were well founded. The mystery blip had veered as the recovery missile speeded up. Within seconds, the three blips met on the screen and fused into a ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... Paul's eyes as Locke unconcernedly withdrew, whispering to the detective, who nodded deferentially to the young scientist who had been assigned by the Department of Justice, strangely, to the very case which now he realized in some unknown way must concern himself and the very mystery ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... possible that you may be—as I was—a little breathless before the end of this vehement story is reached. The average tale of criminals and detectives is not apt to move slowly, but here Mr. LESLIE HOWARD GORDON maintains the speed of a half-mile relay race. I am not going to reveal his mystery except to say that Tien T'ze was a Chinese organisation which perpetrated crimes, and that Donald Craig, Kyrle Durand—his secretary (female) and cousin—and Bruce MacIvor, superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... boy is in a bad hole, Tony. But he will keep out of the worst of the bog. He has grit and chivalry enough to pull through somehow. And maybe before many weeks the mystery will be cleared for better or worse. We can only hope for the best and hold on tight to Larry, and Ruth too, till they ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... heat, and power steadily increases; but, notwithstanding its importance in industry, the increasing abundance of the foreign supply, and the ever-widening area of production, practical men in England continue to distrust its permanence, and owing to the mystery surrounding its origin, and the paucity of indications where and how to undertake the boring of wells, they hesitate to seek for it in this country, or even to extend the use of it whenever that would involve alterations of existing machinery. The object of this paper ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... of white silk and linen in the chamber appropriated to himself at Windsor. But long before this period (to say nothing of the Bayeux Tapestry),—namely, in the reign of Edward III. (in 1344),—a writ was issued to inquire into the mystery of working tapestry; and in 1398 Mr. Britton observes that the celebrated arras hangings at Warwick Castle are mentioned. (See Britton's "Dictionary of Architecture and Archaelogy," art. "Tapestry.")] ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The style of Titian, which in breadth and clearness of colouring so much excels that of almost every other painter, was the peculiar characteristic of the Venetian school which interested him the most, and seemed to him, at first, involved in inexplicable mystery. He was never satisfied with the explanations which the Italian amateurs attempted to give him of what they called the internal light of that master's productions. Repeated experiments, however, enabled him, at last, to make the discovery himself. Indeed, he was from the first ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... irrational, which we had allowed to be real. Secondly, that whatever is deducible from the admission of a self- comprehending and creative spirit may be legitimately used in proof of the possibility of any further mystery concerning the divine nature. Possibilitatem mysteriorum, (Trinitatis, etc.) contra insultus Infidelium et Haereticorum a contradictionibus vindico; haud quidem veritatem, quae revelatione sola stabiliri possit; says Leibnitz in a letter to his Duke. He then adds the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... have been Peter," said De Soto positively. "He's old, right enough, but he is as big as the side of a house, with a face like a full moon, and he is Yankee to his toes. By gad, Barnes, the plot thickens! A woman has been added to the mystery. Now, who the devil is she and what has ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... the work of Raphael's father, and that the figures represent the baby Raphael and his mother. The picture is faded and dim, like the history of this sainted woman who gave to earth one of the gentlest, greatest and best men that ever lived. Mystery enshrouds the early days of Raphael. There is no record of his birth. His father we know was a man of decided power, and might yet rank as a great artist, had he not been so unfortunate as to have had a son that outclassed him. But now Giovanni Sanzio's ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... quarter alone seemed to possess the requisite mystery and "local color." Here whole streets of tiny shops, ablaze with rainbow-hued leather goods, were presided over by taciturn, olive-skinned brothers of the Turks, who appeared almost handsome when seen thus in masses, with opportunities ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... a mystery in the countenance of some causes, which we have not always present judgment enough to explain. It is distressing to see an enemy advancing into a country, but it is the only place in which we can beat them, and in which we have always beaten them, whenever they made the attempt. The nearer any ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... remain. Nowadays one can buy almost anything ready-made, or get it made without difficulty; yet he who is able to make things for himself will always have an advantage over the person to whom the use of tools is an unprobed mystery. ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... kill the Queen, made the way of his access by betraying of others, and in impeaching of the priests of his own correspondency, and thereby had access to confer with the Queen, as oftentimes private and familiar discourse with Walsingham, will not be the query of the mystery, for the Secretary might have had an end of a further discovery and maturity of the treason; but that, after the Queen knew Parry's intent, why she would then admit him to private discourse, and Walsingham ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... under many obligations. To begin with, he loves his trade and honours the wares in which he deals, and so continues the good tradition that should knit writers, printers, vendors and purchasers of books together as partakers of an excellent mystery. He studies—and on occasion will fight for—the whims as well as the convenience of his customers. It was he who took arms against the Westminster City Council in defence of the out-of-door-stall, the 'classic sixpenny box,' and at least brought off a drawn battle. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... aroused by the growing coldness of the water. Why should he delay? Here, where he was now, let him drop the curtain, let him seek the ineffable refuge, let him lie down with all races and generations of men in the house of sleep. It was easy to say, easy to do. To stop swimming: there was no mystery in that, if he could do it. Could he? And he could not. He knew it instantly. He was aware instantly of an opposition in his members, unanimous and invincible, clinging to life with a single and fixed resolve, finger by finger, sinew by sinew; something that was at once he and not he—at once ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his means—of his fortune. As I was talking with my new acquaintance, I recollected an amalgam of mercury with lead and bismuth, by which the mercury increases one-fourth in weight. I said nothing, but I bethought myself that if the mystery should be unknown to the Greek I might profit by it. I felt that some cunning was necessary, and that he would not care for my secret if I proposed to sell it to him without preparing the way. The best ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... do entreat the Court To give me leave to utter openly The dreadful secret of this mystery, And to point out the very guilty one Who with this dagger ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... alone a moment or two, and then they would see him, with his head bent down, brooding, brooding, his eyes fixed on some chip, some stone, some common plant, any commonest thing, as if it were the clew and index to some mystery; and when, by chance startled out of these meditations, he lifted his eyes, there would be a kind of perplexity, a dissatisfied, foiled look in them, as if of his speculations he found no end. Such was now the case, while Robert and the girl ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of this affection. It was known and described several centuries prior to the beginning of the Christian era, and from the earliest dawn of history it has been feared and dreaded. Its terrible manifestations have always been surrounded with an atmosphere of awe and mystery, and it is not surprising that myths, fallacies, and misconceptions in regard to it have been common and widely accepted. As the investigations by which we have come to a tolerably clear understanding of the facts concerning rabies have been comparatively recent, and for the most part, have ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... would keep woman a dependent and a slave, I rejoin—Not so: it would keep her what she should be—the mistress of all around her, because mistress of herself. And more, I should express a fear that those who made that answer had not yet seen into the mystery of true greatness and true strength; that they did not yet understand the true magnanimity, the true royalty of that spirit, by which the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... reproof, certainly—Rosalind could go no farther in that direction. But her words had brought a mystery into existence, thus sharpening her interest in him. She was conscious, though, of a slight pique—what possible reason could he have for evasion? He had not the appearance of a ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... several days, producing the most implacable and bitter animosities; a contest which terminated in the election of Mr. Jefferson and the ruin of Colonel Burr. Until within a few years that scene has been completely enveloped in mystery. A part of the incidents connected with it, however, in a fugitive form, are before the world. But the period has arrived when the question should be met with manly firmness; when the voice of history ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... has been rightly named, and until recently was called with good reason, the "Dark Continent." But though it has been thus designated, as the least known of the world's grand divisions, the progress of discovery and settlement is rapidly dispelling the ignorance and mystery to which the designation was due. The ancient seats of African civilization were confined to the northern parts of the continent. The Phoenicians are said to have circumnavigated Africa as early as the seventh century before Christ. In the middle of the fifteenth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... said John, smiling, "I always was lucky! What is this dreadful mystery?" he asked, with an assumed ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... over the ground, and finding that it was "equal angles subtended by equal sides," declared that it was all right. Easy took his station, the boatswain was put into his, and Mr Easthupp, who was quite in a mystery, was led by the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... is beginning to be called the Throckmartin Mystery and to kill the innuendo and scandalous suspicions which have threatened to stain the reputations of Dr. David Throckmartin, his youthful wife, and equally youthful associate Dr. Charles Stanton ever since a tardy despatch from Melbourne, Australia, ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... thousand strong, had been very severely mauled, and forced to fall back. This confirmed the statements that we had before heard, from the peasantry and the French deserters. Now there is a chance of penetrating the mystery, which has been a profound puzzle to us here, and indeed to ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... tributary of the Indus, he joined general Elphinstone, the successor of Cotton, who was retiring. Why Elphinstone should have been chosen to conduct a war which the mountainous country was certain to render difficult is a mystery, and another mystery is why Elphinstone should have accepted the appointment, as he was so crippled with gout that he could hardly move. However, there he was, commander-in-chief of this part of the expedition, and from this unwise choice ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... your logic worth here? Has it armed you against the surprises held in store for you by a multitude of facts inaccordant with your reasonings? Oh, proud and haughty reason, bow your head! Confess the inanity of your ways. Bow yet, once again, and contemplate the mystery whence luminous ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... and measured grace, Among the lowly takes its place: Nor dreams its future yet shall be A wondrous thing of mystery. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... dinner; and hog, hominy, and corn-cake for supper—and such corn-cake, baked in the ashes of the hearth, a plentiful supply of the grayish condiment still clinging to it!—is its never-varying bill of fare. I endured this fare for a day, how, has ever since been a mystery to me, but when night came my experiences were indescribable. Retiring early, to get the rest needed to fit me for a long ride on the morrow, I soon realized that "there is no rest for the wicked," none, at least, for sinners at the South. Scarcely had my head ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... of switches grew heavier upon the wall, and was now intermingled with creaks, and a rattling like the rattling of dice. The wind blew stronger; there came first a snapping, then a crash, and some portion of the mystery was revealed. It was the breaking off and fall of a branch from one of the large trees outside. The smacking against the wall, and the intermediate rattling, ceased from ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... perhaps, a ghostly visitation later on? Or was he the victim of some clever trick? He had once witnessed such dubious attempts to relieve the monotony of a country house. He again examined the room carefully, but without avail. Well! the mystery or trick would be revealed at half-past one. It was a somewhat inconvenient hour, certainly. He looked down at the baleful gift in his buttonhole, and for a moment felt inclined to toss it in the fire. But this was quickly followed by his former revulsion of resentment and defiance. No! he would ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... laws; and not one which is limited to the mind of Man, and so fitted to its incapacity as to nurse him in his natural ignorance, to educate him in his born foolery and conceit, to teach him to ignore by rule, and set at nought the infinite mystery ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... and pleased all that day. There was an air of mystery and importance about her. I knew what it meant; I ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... she said, holding up one finger with an air of mystery, as she put out her hand towards ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... with eager desire at every changing aspect of this marvellous scene. It was infinitely more gorgeous, more compelling, than his moonlight experience the night before, for here reality, definite and powerful, was interfused with mystery. These foot-hills, hitherto pleasantly precipitous, had suddenly become grandiose. All was made over upon a mightier scale, each rock and tree being distorted by the passing translucent clouds into a kind of monstrous yet ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... too, many small children cry merely because they have swallowed something which does not agree with them, such as, for example, a gold tooth or a shoe horn; the remedy in this case consists in IMMEDIATELY feeding the child the proper counter irritant. There is, really, no great mystery about the successful raising of children and with a few common sense principles, such as presented above, any mother may relieve herself of a great deal of useless anxiety. I hope I may be pardoned for a digression ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... whole significance, power, and use of language in general. Well,—the mythical conception, projected at last, in drama or sculpture, is the name, the instrument of the identification, of the given matter,—of its unity in variety, its outline or definition in mystery; its spiritual form, to use again the expression I have borrowed from William Blake—form, with hands, and lips, and opened eyelids—spiritual, as conveying to us, in that, the soul of rain, or of a Greek river, or of swiftness, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... other hand, by Pao-ch'ai, and, when he noticed how different Tai-y's voice and manner were from former occasions, and how they actually bore out Pao-ch'ai's insinuation, he was at a great loss how to solve the mystery. "These two," he consequently pondered, "were never like this before! From all I can now see, they're, really, a hundred times far more friendly than any others are!" But presently he also observed Lin Tai-y rush after Pao-ch'in, and call out 'Sister,' ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... all, there had been the engrossing mystery of the spring hat; this, followed by the still more exciting problem of the summer hat; and now she was planning for the fall hat—she had seen the cutest feathery toque, that came low down about her face, pushing to all sides little wisps of golden curls and making her look—well, very nice ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... was a man of mystery and violence, who threw himself into every kind of human activity with superhuman, Satanic, zest; traveller, sportsman, financier, mining expert, lover of wine and women, of books and prints; one of the founders, I believe, of the Rhodesia Company; faultlessly dressed, infernally rich ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... letter from my uncle in Halifax. He is ordered off to the Cape of Good Hope. I wrote him a very long time ago, as I told you, asking him to tell me without reserve all that he knew about my father's death. I told him plainly that there was a mystery about it which I was determined to solve. I reproached him for keeping it secret from me, and reminded him that I was now a mature man; and that he had no right nor any reason to maintain any farther secrecy. I insisted on knowing all, no matter ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... real mystery about the exodus, is that in all the Southland there has not been a single meeting or promoter to start the migration. Just simultaneously all over the South about a year ago, the negro began to cross the Mason and Dixon line. Indeed, this is a most striking ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... to himself, "for what dealings could a knight honestly have with the ruffians who haunt these swamps. It is assuredly no business of mine, but it may lead to an adventure, and I have had no real fun since I left Aldgate. I will follow and see if I can get to the bottom of the mystery." ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... knife and fork with a curse, and left the hall. Men began to see clearly that there must have been some mystery attached to the Aeschylus paper, known to Brogten and Kennedy, and very discomfiting to the latter. But as Kennedy was concerned, they did not suspect ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... Legislature gathered around the editor of the Evening Journal for counsel and advice. It resembled a President's levee. He remained standing in the centre of the room, conversing with those about him and shaking hands with new-comers; but there was nothing in his manner to indicate the slightest mystery or excitement so ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... There are several islands in Polynesia that have been looked upon from time immemorial as islands of the dead. These places are shunned by the islanders, and the centuries have invested them with the same atmosphere of brooding mystery that Professor Herndon and his party felt when they landed upon the silent isle where the Wizards of the Centipede performed their weird rites without interference from ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... position. He was fortunate in his entire ignorance of sixpenny 'science,' but if the whole library had been projected into his brain it would not have moved him to 'deny in the darkness that which he had known in the light.' Darnell knew by experience that man is made a mystery for mysteries and visions, for the realization in his consciousness of ineffable bliss, for a great joy that transmutes the whole world, for a joy that surpasses all joys and overcomes all sorrows. He knew this certainly, though he knew it dimly; and he was ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... of salt happen to be washed out near the statue, it was believed that a household dog, also transformed into salt, had followed her back from beneath the deep. Did more statues than one appear at one time, that simply made the mystery more impressive. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Volume in 1752; after which, owing to the explosions that ensued, no Second came, nor ever will;—and that the actual contents of that far-famed OEUVRE DE "POESHIE" (number of volumes even) are points of mystery to me, at this day. [Herr Preuss—in the CHRONOLOGICAL LIST of Friedrich's Writings (a useful accurate Piece otherwise), and in two other places where he tries—is very indistinct on this of DONJON ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... believe that boys will find it capital reading. It is full of incident and mystery, and the mystery is kept up to the last moment. It is rich in effective local colouring; and it ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... of a dream is then no mystery. It resembles the birth of all our perceptions. The mechanism of the dream is the same, in general, as that of normal perception. When we perceive a real object, what we actually see—the sensible matter of our perception—is very little ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson
... times as he stumbled along he snatched out his pocket searchlight and was about to use it, when some sixth sense, plus the mystery of Slim's absence, prevailed upon him to take ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... ladies came to call on me, Mr. Ferguson," she exclaimed, well aware that this announcement left the mystery of the women's presence ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... Alexandria, lured by a dream, instead of for Cork; and the older Imperialists beat the new Imperialists and secured a fresh century of unprecedented triumph. The Pyramids looked down on Waterloo; but the headlands of Bantry Bay concealed the mastery, and the mystery, of the seas. ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... The mystery of John Riviere intrigued Elaine. There was certainly a mysterious something about this man which she had not fathomed. His most open confidences held deep reserves. If he had not avowed himself a scientist, she would have classed ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... a career involving manual work, I should take steps to have him initiated into the Art and Mystery of Bricklaying. At the rate we are moving the working-hours would probably be about eight per week, with approximately eight pounds per day salary, by the time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... happy. Life, she often thought, however much one tabulated was yet a mystery. There were always some people it was impossible to place. Frederick was one of them. He didn't seem to bear the remotest resemblance to the original Frederick. He didn't seem to have the least need of any of the things he used to say were so important and beautiful—love, home, complete communion ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Captain, drew together. It is pleasant to find that each of the old gentlemen set a high value on the good looks of the other, doubtless also on his own; and a fine picture they made as they walked the green terrace at Hailes, conversing by the hour. What they talked of is still a mystery to those who knew them; but Mr. Austin always declared that on these occasions he learned much. To both of these families of elders, due service was paid of attention; to both, Fleeming's easy circumstances ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be a mystery to me," said Lewis Wynne, "how I missed your father's letter, although certainly I was roaming about a good deal at the time, and afterwards never hearing my brother's name from Dr. Hughes, who wrote occasionally, I naturally thought he was still keeping ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... this ineradicable hornet's nest is unknown. Whether they are the remnant of the original Ethiopians, who possessed the country prior to the conquests of the Abyssinians, or whether they are descended from the woolly-haired tribes of the south banks of the Blue Nile, is equally a mystery; all we know is that they are of the same type as the inhabitants of Fazogle, of the upper portion of the Blue River; they are exceedingly black, with woolly hair, resembling in that respect the ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... over, and, what was more, Wyllard, who pledged the rest to secrecy, fancied that what had become of the schooner would remain a mystery. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... days; in proportion as the world has grown narrower and the element of fear and mystery diluted, our sympathies have broadened; the Goth, in particular, has learnt the knack of detecting natural charm where the Latin, to this day, beholds nothing ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... by the stout old German, who, on reaching the front-door, drew forth a letter from his pocket and handed it to him with much pretence of mystery. He was thinking of other things, to tell the truth; and as he walked along he regarded the outside of the envelope with but little curiosity. It was addressed, "All' Egregio Sigmore, Il Signor ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... soul, while brooding over the golden brown plain on our way down river, now and then sought to fathom the mystery of the country's future. As we left Kurna and entered the fair, broad-bosomed Shatt-el-Arab he suddenly swept his arm round the horizon. "All this show of ours out here is nothing in itself," he said. "It's a beginning ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... upstairs again. The news began to creep about the school, however, that the Abbey was being haunted by a spiritual visitor. Many of the girls saw it glide along the landing in the dusk, and disappear up a certain narrow flight of stairs. Now herein lay the mystery. The stairs went up ten steps in full view of the passage, then they turned a sharp corner, rounded a yard of landing, and with four more steps ended in a locked attic door. Several of the most venturesome members of the school had tried to ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Hooker may have believed that Jackson was retreating, he was bound to guard against the possibility of an attack, knowing as he did Jackson's whereabouts and habit of rapid mystery. Had he thrown the entire Eleventh Corps en potence to his main line, as above indicated, to arrest or retard an attack if made; had he drawn troops from Meade on the extreme left, where half an hour's reconnoitring would have shown that ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Jimmy saw now. The mystery was solved. So, that was why Molly had allowed them to force her into the engagement with Dreever. For a moment, a rush of anger filled him; but he looked at McEachern, and it died away. He could not be vindictive now. It would be like ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... been interred, for the purpose of exhuming the body. After digging for some time they came to an oblong box or coffin in which the remains had been placed, but it was empty, the interment within the walls had been a mock ceremony, and the final resting-place of the body lies hidden in mystery. Now there is one thing very evident from the fact, and that is that Riel and his immediate followers were themselves conscious of the enormity of the deed they had committed, for had they believed that the taking of this man's life was really an execution justified upon any grounds of ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... morning, he happened to cast his eyes where the ginger-pop stood, when, to his very great astonishment, he saw a bottle move off the board just for all the world as if it had possessed the power of locomotion. A second was about to follow the first, when he popped his head out at the door and the mystery was cleared up, for there he discovered the young delinquent making a rapid retreat on all-fours, with the "ginger-pop," the cork of which had flown out, fizzing from his breeches-pocket. After a smart administration of the strappado, he proceeded to ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... is bluish gray above, streaked with black, and yellow below with the throat and sides streaked. Until the summer of 1903, the locality where they bred was a mystery. The capture of a specimen, in June, in Oscodo Co., Michigan, led to the search for the nests by N. A. Wood, taxidermist for the Michigan Museum at Ann Arbor. He was successful in his quest and found two nests with young and one egg. The nest in which the egg was found contained two young birds ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... Shield, lance, and brand, and plume, and scarf, Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf, And wizard with his want of might, And errant maid on palfrey white. Around the Genius weave their spells, Pure Love, who scarce his passion tells; Mystery, half veiled and half revealed; And Honour, with his spotless shield; Attention, with fixed eye; and Fear, That loves the tale she shrinks to hear; And gentle Courtesy; and Faith, Unchanged by sufferings, time, or death; And Valour, lion-mettled ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... in Genoa, with the fair hair and blue eyes and grave freckled face that made him remarkable among his dark companions, had no doubt early received and accepted the vast mysteries of the Christian faith; and as that other mystery began to grow in his mind, and that idea of worlds that might lie beyond the sea-line began to take shape in his thoughts, he found in the holy wisdom of the prophets, and the inspired writings of the fathers, a continual confirmation ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... desired recurrence for an effect of his own will, and the dreaded recurrence for an effect of the will of his enemies. Thus the springs which set the vast machine in motion, though they lie far beyond our ken, shrouded in a mystery which we can never hope to penetrate, appear to ignorant man to lie within his reach: he fancies he can touch them and so work by magic art all manner of good to himself and evil to his foes. In time the fallacy of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... as in the morning; she wakened fresh with the world every day, and her eyes had a deeper colour then, like the blue flowers that are never so blue as when they first open. I could sit idle all through a Sunday morning and look at her. Ole Benson's behaviour was now no mystery to me. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... sit down and be quiet, which last remark was rather unnecessary, considering that the man was dumb. Then she sat down behind her bar and resumed her perusal of a novel called The Duke's Duchesses, or The Milliner's Mystery,' which contained a ducal hero with bigamistic proclivities, and a virtuous milliner whom the aforesaid duke persecuted. All of which was very entertaining and improbable, and gave Miss Twexby much pleasure, judging from the sympathetic ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Strange mystery! It is better then To weep and yearn and vainly call, Till peace is won from pain, Than not to ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... order a horse at once. It is all very mysterious and extraordinary; but then you have been a mystery, Rupert Hyde, a riddle and a puzzle, ever since I ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... Scriptures, at once lewd and wild. Nana was all covered with fine hair; a russet made her body velvety, while the Beast was apparent in the almost equine development of her flanks, in the fleshy exuberances and deep hollows of her body, which lent her sex the mystery and suggestiveness lurking in their shadows. She was, indeed, that Golden Creature, blind as brute force, whose very odor ruined the world. Muffat gazed and gazed as a man possessed, till at last, when he had shut his eyes in order to escape it, the Brute reappeared in the darkness ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... all—with the earth's pressure the power motive," Asher nodded. "So, after my Miner is on the bottom of our well, I can burn—or dissolve—a room as large as this laboratory in a few minutes. The whole thing is no mystery after you learn it—not nearly so much as radium, or radio, was. Merely creating a spark of electricity and fanning it through a vacuum and a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... the Nile, recurring as regularly as the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, necessarily remained an unsolved mystery to the ancients, for until the discovery of the tropical regions, with their mountainous lakes and deluging rains, it was impossible to learn the occasion of this increase. It is now known that the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... Hundred neither wished the Five Thousand to exist, nor to have it known that they did not exist; being of opinion that to give themselves so many partners in empire would be downright democracy, while the mystery in question would make the people afraid of ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... did later on will be told in another volume, to be called, "Tom Swift and His Wireless Message; or, The Castaways of Earthquake Island"—a strange tale of ship-wreck and mystery. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... (otherwise Governor) Lewis was tragical and was shadowed by a cloud. Official business calling him to Washington, he left St. Louis early in September, 1809, and prosecuted his journey eastward through Tennessee, by the way of Chickasaw Bluffs, now Memphis, of that State. There is a mystery around his last days. On the eleventh of October, he stopped at a wayside log-inn, and that night he died a violent death, whether by his own hand or by that of a murderer, no living man knows. There were many contradictory ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... meeting-places save the fashionable cafes or our own reception rooms. The police follow us—what can they discover?—nothing! What is there to discover?—nothing! Our lives are lived before the eyes of all Paris. There is never any suspicion of mystery about any of our movements. We have our hobbies, and we indulge in them. Monsieur the Marquis de Sogrange here is a great sportsman. Monsieur le Comte owns many racehorses. I myself am an authority on pictures, and own a collection ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the Jolly Roger?' he inquired, with perfect gravity; and immediately after, went into peals of laughter. 'Pardon me,' said he; 'but here for the first time I recognise your ladyship's impetuosity.' Nor, try as I pleased, could I extract from him any explanation of this mystery, but only oily ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... serve to discourage and disgust the beginner in the study. Our intent is not to erect a new Temple of Knowledge, but rather to place in the hands of the student a Master-Key with which he may open the many inner doors in the Temple of Mystery through the main portals he ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... white with a dire alarm as the facts of the mystery suddenly flashed before them. The Kanawha was the ship in which Captain Mogul Mackenzie had made himself notorious as a privateersman. Every one had heard her awe-inspiring name, and every Yankee seafaring ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... dark with mystery. She pressed against Stella with a small protective gesture. "Darling, she said horrid things, but they aren't true any of them. If Uncle Everard had been there, she wouldn't have dared. I ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... down upon her from the cabin-roof seemed somehow to hurt her, for after a second or two she leaned to one side without rising from her knees and switched it off. Then with her hands tightly clasped, she gazed out over the dim, starlit sea. The mystery of it, the calm, the purity, closed round her like a dream. She gazed forth into the great waste of rippling waters, ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... spelled out "James Woodson," and mused upon him, Till Harry said, poring, "I wish I could know What manner of man used the bones down below." Answered Tom,—as he took his cigar from his lip And tapped off the ashes that crusted the tip, His quaint face somewhat shaded with awe and with mystery,— "You shall hear, if you will, the main points in his story."— "You don't mean you knew him? You could not! See here! Why, this, since he died, is the thirtieth year!"— "I never saw him, nor the place where he lay, Nor heard of nor thought of the man, till to-day; But I'll tell you his story, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the real meaning of that mystery which appears so prominently in the lives of great sceptics, which appears with especial prominence in the life of Charles II. I mean their constant oscillation between atheism and Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is indeed a great ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... year of grace 1921. Thanks to this, I came to know the calm, good and honest Mongolian people; I read their souls, saw their sufferings and hopes; I witnessed the whole horror of their oppression and fear before the face of Mystery, there where Mystery pervades all life. I watched the rivers during the severe cold break with a rumbling roar their chains of ice; saw lakes cast up on their shores the bones of human beings; heard unknown wild voices in the mountain ravines; made out the fires over miry ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... Charles grew hourly worse, and he rapidly approached his last moments. None knew better than his heartless mother, as she had herself admitted, that he must die; but yet, with so much artifice and intrigue did she envelope in mystery his lost condition, that, even in the Palace of the Louvre, his own nearest relations were ignorant how near approached the hour, which, by leaving the crown as heirloom to a successor far away in a distant country, opened ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... A mysterious, scared-looking woman, with a deep scar across one of her wrists. Her antecedents were full of mystery, and Pip suspected her of being Estella's mother.—C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... there were no other passengers for the east-bound Flyer; and finding he still had some minutes to wait, Ormsby lounged into the telegraph office. Here the bonds of ennui were loosened by the gradual development of a little mystery. First the telephone bell rang smartly, and when the telegraph operator took down the ear-piece and said "Well?" in the imperious tone common to his kind, he evidently received ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... tragedy of mere human passion; that sensation tragedy, which is the only one the world knows now, and of which the world is growing rapidly tired—behind all, I say, lessons of the awful and unfathomable mystery of human existence, of unseen destiny; of that seemingly capricious distribution of weal and woe, to which we can find no solution on this side the grave, for which the old Greek could ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... appearance of man. And very wonderful, surely, has that course been! How strange a procession! Never yet on Egyptian obelisk or Assyrian frieze,—where long lines of figures seem stalking across the granite, each charged with symbol and mystery,—have our Layards or Rawlinsons seen aught so extraordinary as that long procession of being which, starting out of the blank depths of the bygone eternity, is still defiling across the stage, and of which we ourselves form ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... life being in truth miracle and mystery, I do not know how to explain what each one knows so well; I do not know how there is developed within us that sublime state known and described under different names by Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Tauler, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... mind, in its activity, independent of the body—were the wounded spirit unable to forget its pain—could the guilty conscience sting incessantly—then the chief human industry would come to be the erection of asylums for the insane. But by an unfathomable mystery the tireless regal spirit has been blended with the flesh and blood of its servant, the body. In heaven, where there is neither sin nor pain, even the body becomes spiritual; but on earth, where it so often happens, as in the case of poor Haldane, that to think and to remember is torture, it ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... when this was disproved that they were being built for the Viceroy of Egypt. This also proved to be untrue. Finally it was declared that the real owners were certain French merchants whose purpose in contracting for such clearly warlike vessels was left in mystery, but with the intimation that Egypt was to be the ultimate purchaser. Captain Bullock had indeed made such a contract of sale to French merchants but with the proviso of resale to him, after delivery. On his part, Russell was seeking proof fully adequate to seizure, but ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... of perfection; horn a symbol of power; and eyes a symbol of wisdom. Therefore this One is pictured as having perfect power and perfect wisdom to perform this wonderful privilege and duty. This is the first time that the great mystery of Jehovah, his great plan or program, was made known to any one; and since then, from time to time, he has been pleased to reveal portions of his plan to men who have honestly and faithfully sought to understand it. He has promised to reward those that diligently ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... the baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the brig on either side of the caboose. An ideal perch. The sun was setting over Australia way, in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. Some mystery of mirage caused the water to heave and tremble as if troubled by ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... scarf; and she generally had innumerable ends of quilted net flying about her skirts, not unlike tails. It was certain she did not spend much money upon her own attire; and how she procured the costly dresses for Maude the latter appeared in was ever a mystery. You can hardly fancy the bedecked old figure that she made. The O'Moore nearly laughed out, as he civilly turned to answer ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... rivers. This gives it naturally a depressed appearance, which must have much aided Mark Tapley in his endeavors. Who were the founders of Cairo I have never ascertained. They are probably buried fathoms deep in the mud, and their names will no doubt remain a mystery to the latest ages. They were brought thither, I presume, by the apparent water privileges of the place; but the water privileges have been too much for them, and by the excess of their powers have succeeded in drowning all the capital of the early Cairovians, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... place, in a foolish hurry, though the Newport season had not yet begun: Roger's determination to begin with a house-party and a dance; his civil, quiet coldness to her; the strange look she caught in his eyes at times; the mystery of Clo's silence, which deepened day by day; fear of reprisals for loss of the papers; these things seemed harder to bear in Newport than at home in New York. Often Beverley wondered how ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... heard by us, O monarch, that what thou askest is a mystery even to the gods. I shall, however, speak of it unto thee, after bowing down (to the self-born). The son of Jamadagni (Parasurama), after twenty-one times making the earth bereft of Kshatriyas wended to that best of mountains Mahendra and there began his ascetic ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... canon. "Living in the house there was no need for him to use such mystery. He might have pretended illness and remained in the house. Does it not seem ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... son; she turned the conversation, and began talking of a murder committed the week before at Bolbec Nointot. Their minds were immediately full of the circumstances under which the crime had been committed, and absorbed by the interesting horror, the attractive mystery of crime, which, however commonplace, shameful, and disgusting, exercises a strange and universal fascination over the curiosity of mankind. Now and again, however, old Roland looked at his watch. "Come," said he, "it is time to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... a friend in the north of England who favoured my disguise, that I became acquainted with Miss Wardour, and was romantic enough to follow her to Scotland. My mind wavered on various plans of life, when I resolved to apply once more to Mr. Neville for an explanation of the mystery of my birth. It was long ere I received an answer; you were present when it was put into my hands. He informed me of his bad state of health, and conjured me, for my own sake, to inquire no farther into the nature of his connection with me, but to rest satisfied with his declaring it to be such ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... addressed to the matron, on behalf of the sick man. He desired to be "informed of it, if the new nurse was an Irishwoman." Hearing that she was an Englishwoman, he at once accepted her services, being himself (as an additional element of mystery in the matter) ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... the whole mystery consisted in the simple fact that the people, the nation, had steadily refused to sanction the act of their leaders; and all the pretensions of English kings, statesmen, and lawyers, were valueless. Those Irishmen who subsequently entered into the various Geraldine and Ulster confederacies, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... objects are quite invisible to the naked eye. In some rocks they are very abundant, indeed they may be crowded together in such numbers as to darken the colour of the mineral containing them. They have long been a mystery to petrologists. ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... external form corresponding to the nature of the nucleus comes out into manifestation on the plane of the objective and relative. This is the universal method of Nature on every plane. Some of the most advanced thinkers in modern physical science, in the endeavour to probe the great mystery of the first origin of the world, have postulated the formation of what they call "vortex rings" formed from an infinitely fine primordial substance. They tell us that if such a ring be once formed on the minutest scale and set rotating, ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... reptile along the sides of the ajoupa, and, crawling on his belly, arrived at the sleeping-mat of Djalma, beside which he squatted himself, so as to occupy as little space as possible. Then began a fearful scene, by reason of the mystery ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... think of something else in the way of entertainment and diversion. If this well-meaning hostess will accompany me to the guest-room while its temporary occupant is reading on the "front porch," perhaps I can point out to her some things that will give a clue to the mystery. ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... distressed; he could not exactly comprehend the meaning of this dumb show; and yet felt that some dire mystery was connected with these phantoms, which he was called upon to unravel. After breakfast he wandered out, and lost in the maze of thought, sauntered, ere he was aware of it, into the churchyard. Shortly afterwards the church-door was opened by the sexton, who kept his pickaxe ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... the boys had imagined they were to settle down to a quiet life, but such was not to be. On a houseboat the lads, with some friends, sailed down the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, and then found themselves on the Plains, where they solved the mystery of Red Rock ranch. Then they set sail on Southern Waters, and in the Gulf of Mexico ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... Our Lord in his Mother's arms enthroned between four angels. There is nothing in Christendom to compare with these mosaics. They are unique and, as I like to think, in their wonderful significance are the key to a mystery that has for long remained unsolved. For these long processions of saints, representing that great crowd of witnesses of which S. Paul speaks, stand there above the arcade and under the clerestory where in a Gothic church the triforium is set. But the triforium is the one inexplicable ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... towards him—a grimy shoulder, which showed naked through a wide rent in his blouse. This portion of the cell was well- nigh in total darkness; the feeble shaft of light which came through the open door hardly penetrated to this remote angle of the squalid burrow. The same sense of mystery and unreality overcame Chauvelin again as he looked on the miserable creature in whom, an hour ago, he had recognised the super-exquisite Sir Percy Blakeney. Now he could only see a vague outline in the gloom: the stooping ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... understand a people who had suddenly become incredible was indeed one of the most remarkable facts in English intellectual life during the opening phases of the war. The English state of mind was unlimited astonishment. There was an enormous sale of any German books that seemed likely to illuminate the mystery of this amazing concentration of hostility; the works of Bernhardi, Treitschke, Nietzsche, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, became the material of countless articles and interminable discussions. One saw little clerks on the way ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... grave. Forgive me if I ramble: But, then, a negative needs some preamble To break the blow. I feel with you, in truth, These complex miseries of Age and Youth; I feel with you—and none can feel it more Than I—this burning Problem of the Poor; The Want that grinds, the Mystery of Pain, The Hearts that sink, and never rise again;— How shall I set this to some careless screed, Or jigging stave, when Help is what ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... Mystery adds its fascination to his story. The causes of his imprisonment are hidden in obscurity; it is still disputed whether he was insane ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... comes the world does not understand how it is that you can rejoice; and when circumstances are very unfavorable, how you can be happy is a mystery to them. It is because you do not live in the things of the world, but in a much higher realm. If your life is hid with Christ in God, your heart's longings will be for the things above; all your affections will be on ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... have made a more gallant defense against Masinissa, and concentrated all her energies for a last stand upon her own territories. But why should we thus speculate? The doom of Carthage had been pronounced by the decrees of fate. The fall has all the mystery and solemnity of a providential event, like the fall of all empires, like the defeat of Darius by Alexander, like the ruin of Jerusalem, like the melting away of North American Indians, like the final overthrow of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... are too plain—so plain as to make them involve a mystery. What do you mean by this sudden ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... knew, and taught, that when a machine is steeply banked the rudder and the elevator appear to exchange functions, so that the rudder directs the machine up or down and the elevator turns it to this side or that, but they could not always explain the reason of this mystery. Nor could they explain why in a fog or cloud the compass of an aeroplane is suddenly possessed of a devil, and begins to spin around. But although they were not all well versed in technical knowledge and theory, they were all fit ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, Where ranges forth the spirit far and free? Through what strange realms and unfamiliar skies Tends her far course to lands of mystery? To lands unspeakable—beyond surmise, Where shapes unknowable to being spring, Till, faint of wing, the Fancy fails and dies Much wearied with the spirit's journeying, Ere sleep comes down to soothe the ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... commonalty are tradesmen, artificers, and labourers; who (as well as all others) must in pursuance of the statute 1 Hen. V. c. 5. be stiled by the name and addition of their estate, degree, or mystery, in all actions and other ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... would have been worn down, in spite of sacerdotal or other influences to sustain and foster them. Such a happy state of affairs had not arrived in 1853, and the old tales of brutal and barbarous murders filled Europe-with a sense of astonishment and mystery as to the social and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... inscription was found by John, shortly before they left Wonder Island, and which, though its full meaning was wrapt in mystery, pointed, as did the others, to another island than the one on which it was found. What made the matter still more interesting, was the knowledge that some one, by the name of Walters, either had prepared the inscription, or had some knowledge of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... priest, from the very first I declined having anything to do with this matter. It is now all over, and we can never, by our conjectures, unravel the mystery; let it rest; ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... being engaged. Hanny made no reply. She went home in a strange mood. To be sure, Steve had married Dolly, but that was different. How could Margaret leave them all and go away with some one who did not belong to them! She could not understand the mystery. It was as puzzling as Cousin Lois' death. She did not know then it was a mystery even to those who loved, and the poets who wrote ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... at Victoria College forty years ago. He was a good man, no doubt; but no student at that College ever thought of comparing him with the Principal of the College. How he ever got to be Editor of the Guardian was always a mystery to me. I never had the slightest difference with him—quite the reverse; but no comparison could be instituted between James ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... person is a daughter or widow of the trade, such a one is commonly best instructed in the mystery of the business, best able to conciliate the affection of the boys, and make most ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... walked rather quickly, mesmerised possibly by the magic of the illustrious Christian name, and Audrey gave occasional schoolgirlish leaps by their side. A little policeman appeared inquisitive from a by-street, and Audrey tossed her head as if saying: "Pooh! I belong here. All the mystery of this city is mine, and I am as at home as in ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Lytton, with his usual remarkable foresight in things psychic, clearly perceived this. In his story, "The Haunters and the Haunted," he says: "In all that I had witnessed, and indeed in all the wonders which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a material human agency is always required. On the Continent you will still find magicians who assert that they can raise spirits. Assume for a moment that they assert truly, still the living, material form of the magician is present, and he is the material agency by which, ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... to a court martial in Fort Brady. This is the gentleman whose family is referred to in a previous part of my journal in the autumn of 1822, on the occasion of the gentle Mr. Laird's missionary visit to St. Mary's; and his high moral character and correct deportment render it a subject of mystery to me what cause of complaint his brother officers could ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Mrs. Mumbray, with an air of great responsibility, "the mystery is too plain. I don't hint at the worst—it would be uncharitable—but the poor creature had undoubtedly made some discovery in that woman's house which ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... does not know a farmhouse when he sees one. The house was a deserted hut in those days where no one had lived for a great many years. That is why the mystery was the greater. A bridle path then led past the door and joined a road that was a short cut into Westhaven. The path is ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... light, and that she held his fate in her hands, for he was madly in love, which statement she had time to consider and digest before the quadrille again allowed them to come close enough for conversation, when she asked the meaning of his mystery. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... juncture, when every instant is priceless, the Senate proceeds by unanimous consent to consider resolutions of the highest privilege, and reverently pauses in obedience to the holiest impulses of human nature to contemplate the profoundest mystery of human destiny—the mystery of death. In the democracy of death all men at least are equal. There is neither rank, nor station, nor prerogative in the ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... contain of the actual look of Sophocles, must be idealized. To appreciate it properly one must remember that this poet, though he dealt with tragic themes, was not wont to brood over the sin and sorrow and unfathomable mystery of the world, but was serene in his temper and ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... officials whereby they successfully oppose all innovations which savour of progress, and preserve unbroken that lethargic sleep in which China has been wrapt for so many centuries: beyond this all is mystery and doubt. Some say the natives themselves do not believe in it; others declare they do; others again think that the masses have faith, but that enlightened and educated Chinese scout the whole thing as a bare-faced imposture. Most Chinamen will acknowledge they are entirely ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... prodigal admiration only because others are as magnificent as itself. The traces remaining in my memory represent it as airy rather than massive. A multitude of beautiful shapes appeared to be comprehended within its single outline; it was a kind of kaleidoscopic mystery, so rich a variety of aspects did it assume from each altered point of view, through the presentation of a different face, and the rearrangement of its peaks and pinnacles and the three battlemented towers, with the spires that shot heavenward ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... agitated men and women were running hither and thither in unavailing efforts to locate the sound yet ringing in their ears. Not till these various searchers had all come together again, in terror of a mystery they could not solve, did he let his hand fall and himself awake to the scene ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... present towards the unsounded deeps of the future. In many cases their loss has taken all joy and colour from the lives of those who survive them, and tear-stained faces are instinctively turned towards the portals of the Great Mystery. ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... her back to the Cromptons generally, and during the next half hour Eloise had a pretty graphic description of the Colonel and his eccentricities, of Amy, when she was a young girl, of the way she came to the Crompton House, and the mystery which ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... it calls to me, The luring voice of the rebel sea! And I long with a love that is born of tears For the wild fresh life, and the glorying fears, For the quest and the mystery. ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... hallooing and shouting with great appearance of perturbation and distress. The boat out-rowed them, and when she came near the shore, the people on board discovered some women gathering mussels among the rocks. This at once explained the mystery; the poor Indians were afraid that the strangers, either by force or favour, should violate the prerogative of a husband, of which they seemed to be more jealous than the natives of some other countries, who in their appearance are less savage and sordid. Our ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... able to trace the origin of the custom, nor do I remember having read any explanation of its meaning. I once heard an aged woman, who was a most stern observer of all customs of the neighbourhood, especially those which had an air of mystery or a superstition attached to them, attempt to connect the observance with the disciple who sold the Saviour. In her mind all the observances of Christmas were associated with the birth or death of Christ, and ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... by the memory of every romance she had ever read, created for herself an ideal who resembled D'Argenton. The expression of her face so changed in looking at him, her laughing eyes assumed so tender an expression, that her passion soon ceased to be a mystery to any one. ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... which is the immoral playwright's fittest material; because, while the inward savagery moves the passions of the audience, the outward civilisation brings the character near enough to them to give them a likeness of themselves in their worst moments, such as no 'Mystery of Cain' or 'Tragedy of Prometheus' ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... porter, who murdered King Yasa Silo, A.D. 60, and reigned for six years (Mahaw. ch. xxxv. p. 218). A carpenter, and a carrier of fire-wood, were each accepted in succession as sovereigns, A.D. 47; whilst the "great dynasty" was still in the plenitude of its popularity. The mystery is perhaps referable to the dominant necessity of securing tranquillity at any cost, in the state of society where the means of cultivation were directly dependent on the village organisation, and famine and desolation would have ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Warbel was brought to him, told a part of his tale, and was admitted readily as a member of the household; but the story of his incarceration in the secret chamber remained a secret known only to himself and the three boys. So delightful a mystery as the existence of this unknown chamber was too precious to be parted with; and it was a compact between the boys and the man, who now became their chief attendant and body servant, that the trick of that door and the ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... keep a decent place for Billy to sleep and eat, and she never had a box come by freight in her life. But the burly one did not know that. Just what Billy Gaston did it for, perhaps he did not quite know himself, save that the lure of hanging round a mystery was always great. Moreover it gave him deep joy to know that he knew something about this man that the man did not know he knew. It was always good to know things. It was always wise to keep your mouth shut ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... millions, and there may be more, To make in turn a various estimation Of its old ills and ashes, and the traps Of its apparent wrath. Many with ears That hear not yet, shall have ears given to them, And then they shall hear strangely. Many with eyes That are incredulous of the Mystery Shall yet be driven to feel, and then to read Where language has an end and is a veil, Not woven of our words. Many that hate Their kind are soon to know that without love Their faith is but the perjured name of nothing. ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... these mournful customs of the country, nevertheless, Israel's instinct whispered him that Squire Woodcock lived no more on this earth. At once the whole three days' mystery was made clear. But what was now to be done? His friend must have died very suddenly; most probably struck down in a fit, from which he never more rose. With him had perished all knowledge of the fact that a stranger was immured ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... to the vestry of St. Columb Major, and had satisfied himself that he was misled by no false report. There was the entry in the Marriage Register. The one unexplained mystery was the mystery of Launce's conduct in permitting his wife to return to her father's house. Utterly unable to account for this proceeding, Turlington could only accept facts as they were, and determine to make ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... remarkable tow-horse that had filled Captain Harvey and his companions with so much surprise. The appearance of the sledge immediately after, with a shout and a cheer from Dicey and the men, explained the mystery. ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... punished in the least, but cherished as a son and allowed to live quietly on his estates and marry Afrosina. On the 31st of January 1718 the tsarevich reached Moscow. Peter had already determined to institute a most searching inquisition in order to get at the bottom of the mystery of the flight. On the 18th of February a "confession'' was extorted from Alexius which implicated most of his friends, and he then publicly renounced the succession to the throne in favour of the baby grand-duke Peter Petrovich. A horrible reign of terror ensued, in the course of which the ex-tsaritsa ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... commenced trampling the thicket through and through. The search was most minute, for there was still a mystery. An extra bow—that is to say, a third—had been found, with its quiver of arrows. Where was the owner? Could he have escaped from the thicket while the men were engaged around the fallen buffaloes? He might, though it was barely probable; but the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... which had come so close aboard of the Bellevite was a mystery to all, from the captain down to the humblest seaman; but the American ensign over the Confederate flag had been observed by a few, and this settled her status. Not more than half of the seamen ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... by nature secretive. He is loath to tell where he made his big catches and shrouds the location of the streams in mystery. If pinned down closely he will sometimes indicate a general locality but it is hard to get him to be more definite. The reason for this is obvious. He is zealous of his rights as a "discoverer" ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... the Queen, made the way of his access by betraying of others, and in impeaching of the priests of his own correspondency, and thereby had access to confer with the Queen, as oftentimes private and familiar discourse with Walsingham, will not be the query of the mystery, for the Secretary might have had an end of a further discovery and maturity of the treason; but that, after the Queen knew Parry's intent, why she would then admit him to private discourse, and Walsingham to suffer him, considering the conditions of all the ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... knowledge of this Bodine was not more improbable than the ballet story. Her strange absences, the mystery surrounding her, all seemed to testify that she had some connection—perhaps only an innocent one—with these desperate people whom the Vigilance Committee were hunting down. Her attempt to save the ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... the spirit world this mystery: Creation is summed up, O man, in thee; Angel and demon, man and beast, art thou, Yea, thou art all ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... ever learned to dance is a mystery to me," said Arthur, "and Harry too, I saw him carrying off Miss Elphinstone, with all the coolness imaginable. Really, the young people of ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... one in 10,000 could not read or write, and these dunces were all Slavs. But how even a Slav born under the eye of the Eagle can remain illiterate is a mystery. In 1905 there were 59,348 elementary schools in the empire, and their organisation is as elaborate and well planned as the organisation of the army. In Berlin alone there are 280. All the teachers at these schools have been trained to teach at special seminaries, and have passed State examinations ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... was doubled. For four weeks the Francis Cadman had been pottering about the Indian Ocean without discovering a single adventure to break the stupid monotony of sky and sea, and restore the faith of the passengers in their favourite maritime authors; but here, at last, was a sensation and a mystery. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... advancing into such a country as we were now threatening, must have ample and easy communications with its base of supplies. Could such people for a moment realize the vast amount of material consumed by such an army as ours, the mystery might be solved. To attempt to advance into a desert country without first either providing a supply for many days, or opening ready communications with our base of supplies, would have been suicidal. General Sherman might lead his army through a fertile country, where ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S boundless energy has long been a mystery. It is now known to be derived from a raw leek eaten on rising, and a dinner of Welsh rabbit, made from a modicum of Government cheese and half a slice ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... life that challenges the imagination and induces a curiosity hard to decipher. The dress of the Chinese, their strange customs, their difficult language, and their apparently impenetrable mask-like faces appeal to the fancy and throw a veil of mystery ...
— Pung Chow - The Game of a Hundred Intelligences. Also known as Mah-Diao, Mah-Jong, Mah-Cheuk, Mah-Juck and Pe-Ling • Lew Lysle Harr
... "Oh, that's the mystery just at present, whether poor old Putney is dead or not! No great loss, I imagine! But where do you suppose Mrs. Congdon went to hide her ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... business: but if you will misspend your Time, pray lay the fault upon yourself; for I have dealt pretty fairly in the matter, told you in the Title Page what you are to expect within. Indeed, had I hung a sign of the Immortality of the Soul, of the Mystery of Godliness, or of Ecclesiastical Policie, and then had treated you with Indiscerpibility and Essential Spissitude (words, which though I am no competent Judge of, for want of Languages, yet I fancy strongly ought to mean just nothing) with a company ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... every eye was turned in fearful suspense toward the Moorish border, anxiously looking in every fugitive from the mountains for the lineaments of some friend or relative whose fate was yet a mystery. At length every hope and doubt subsided into certainty; the whole extent of this great calamity was known, spreading grief and consternation throughout the land and laying desolate the pride and hopes of palaces. It was a sorrow that visited the marble hall ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... itself. A moment, and the gleam was gone, the water flowing away, but I had had them. Beside the physical water and physical light I had received from them their beauty; they had communicated to me this silent mystery. The pure and beautiful water, the pure, clear, and beautiful light, each had given me something of ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... I had not shaved without crying. I'd spend 3/4 of an hour whetting away on my hand—no use, couldn't get an edge. Tried a razor strop-same result. So I sat down and put in an hour thinking out the mystery. Then it seemed plain—to wit: my hand can't give a razor an edge, it can only smooth and refine an edge that has already been given. I judge that a razor fresh from the hone is this shape V—the long point being the continuation of the edge—and that after much ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... were walking up the principal street of the town, the place standing on a hill, like Porto Ferrajo, perfectly at their ease as regards fire-ships, English frigates, and the dangers of the seas. But all this was a profound mystery to Cuffe and his companions, who had long been in the habit of putting the most favorable constructions on the results of their professional undertakings, and certainly not altogether without reason; and who nothing doubted that le Feu-Follet had, to use their own language, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of utilities that are taken away by dirty men in dirty carts, will in a day or two lift itself from the mud on a full tide and float away like a spirit into the sunset or curtsy to the image of the North Star. Mystery lies over the sea. Every ship is bound for Thule. That, perhaps, is why men are content day after day to stand on the pier-head and to gaze at the water and the ships and sailors running up and down the decks and ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... of his bodily misery, that night ride impressed itself strongly upon Anthony's mind. The black mystery of the jungles, the half-suggested glimpses of river and hill, the towns that flashed past in an incandescent blaze and were buried again in the velvet blackness, the strange odors of a new land riotous ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... the fleets of the great nations, developed during the second six months of the war into a strange series of adventures. The fleets of the British and the Germans stood like huge phantoms—the first enshrouded in mystery somewhere in the Irish and North Seas; the second held in leash behind the Kiel Canal, awaiting the opportune moment to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... perceived, that her questions might easily be answered. She was now, however, inclined to go back to the apartment and examine the picture; but the loneliness of the hour and of the place, with the melancholy silence that reigned around her, conspired with a certain degree of awe, excited by the mystery attending this picture, to prevent her. She determined, however, when day-light should have re-animated her spirits, to go thither and remove the veil. As she leaned from the corridor, over the stair-case, and her eyes wandered ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... the forest. And never was known, to Moor or Christian, the future fate of the hero of Granada. Whether he reached in safety the shores of his ancestral Africa, and carved out new fortunes and a new name; or whether death, by disease or strife, terminated obscurely his glorious and brief career, mystery—deep and unpenetrated, even by the fancies of the thousand bards who have consecrated his deeds—wraps in everlasting shadow the destinies of Muza Ben Abil Gazan, from that hour, when the setting sun threw its parting ray over his stately form and his ebon barb, disappearing amidst the breathless ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... It was in the stead of thee, my maid, if thou wilt have it so: He died that thou mightest never die withouten end.—Or wherefore He loved, wouldst know? Truly, I can but bid thee ask that of Himself, for none wist that mystery save His own great heart. There was nought in us that He should love us; but there was every cause in ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... thought of the farmer's words and wondered if the prayer would have any effect upon the day. Some way he thought it would, and he decided to watch and see. The day was ideal, and the help orderly; and God kept them free from accident and trouble. It was all a mystery to John, and he pondered over it along the way home and even during the night. Farmer Z had opened up a new channel ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... trilium, the dog-tooth violets, the quaint, early, bright-green undergrowths—were just reaching their perfection. Migration was in full tide. Birds, little and big, flashed into view and out again, busy in the mystery of their northward pilgrimage, giving the appearance of secret and silent furtiveness, yet each uttering his characteristic call from time to time, as though for a signal to others of the host. The woods were swarming as city streets, yet ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... great circles, always returning to the same starting point,—the tragedy and mystery of his own boyhood. He knew perfectly that there was neither pleasure nor profit in dwelling upon this subject. In the years that he had had his full manhood he had tried to force the matter from his thoughts, and mostly he had succeeded. Self-mastery was his first law, the code by which he ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
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