"Cryptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drawing-room, singing with Sophia, or dreaming and speculating with her on all sorts of mysteries, were, in their way, equally charmful. He liked to walk slowly up and down, and to talk to her softly of things obscure, cryptic, cabalistic. The plashing rain, the moaning wind, made just the monotonous accompaniment that seemed fitting; and the lovely girl, listening, with needle half-drawn, and sensitive, sensuous face lifted to his own, made a situation in which he knew ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... that the patriarch of the Gnosis has selected the former." It is possibly showing gratitude for small mercies, because our friend has saved his reason, but is blood-guilty in the matter of common sense. Meanwhile, the widowed Gnosis illuminates its Ichabod in the cryptic quartiers of Paris, ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... from the shaded lamplight looked at me with a face clouded with displeasure. I, sitting on my spindly chair, very upright, heard the cryptic number three ringing in my brain. What was going to happen "at three"? At three to-morrow they would walk along the lane which wound around the town and down to the river. I thought of it now as "our lane," a sanctuary that would ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... ran after the dog whenever it escaped from the lady's lap and threatened mischief in the studio; and by way of amusing her—the purpose for which he had been imported—he kept up a stream of small cryptic gossip about various common acquaintances, most of whom seemed to belong to the music-hall profession, and to be either "stars" or the satellites of "stars." Madame listened to him with avidity, and occasionally broke into a giggling laugh. She ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Miss Theodosia's cryptic little smile lingered on her lips and in the clear windows of her eyes, as she gazed past the voluble wife of Andrew, through her vines, at the little House of Children next door. She imagined she heard Stefana ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... morning Duperre and Rayne were closeted together, while afterwards I drove Duperre into York, where from the telegraph office in the railway station he sent several cryptic messages abroad, of course posing to the telegraph clerk as a passing railway passenger. Rayne never sent important telegrams from the village post-office at Overstow, or even from Thirsk. They were all dispatched from places where, even if inquiry ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... space, Beyond the sunlight and the storm, Appears that lightning-laden form, That toothful smile, that cryptic face. ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... undivided attention. Aftenbladet[19] has a long and interesting review. Most of it is given over to a criticism of Isaachson's Hamlet. First of all, says the reviewer, Isaachson labors under the delusion that every line is cryptic, embodying a secret. This leads him to forget the volume of the part and to invent all sorts of fanciful interpretations for details. Thus he loses the unity of the character. Things are hurried through to a conclusion and the fine transitions ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... there is that absurd eagerness to save the striking of a second match, which occasions so many burned fingers, and such picturesque language. And again, there is the desire to compress a telegraphic message into the minimum sixpennyworth, and so send an ambiguous and cryptic sentence, when sevenpence would have made it as clear as light. We all tend to be stylists in ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... that, at the same rate of loss, the German casualties would amount to 12,250,000, which is almost unthinkable. Its very destructiveness should tend to shorten the duration of this terrible war. As Mr. Asquith said at the opening of Parliament, in a curiously cryptic and significant passage: "The war may last long. I doubt myself if it will last as long as many people originally predicted." God grant that this may ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... Cryptic words which, suddenly, for Beautrelet, shone bright with clearness! Was this not an exact statement of the reasons that determined Francis I. to create a town on this spot and was not the fate of the Havre-de-Grace linked with the very ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... before the boxed set, the manuscript of a play bristled with such cryptic signs as R. U. E., and L. F. E., meaning, when reduced to everyday English, "right upper entrance," "left first entrance," and the like. But as the old "entrances" of the stage have been lost with the introduction of the box set, which closely mimics a real room—being, ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... through" to some more or less satisfactory settlement. This was especially the case in the spring and summer of 1880, when the accession of Mr. Gladstone to power and the disaster of Maiwand changed the diplomatic and military situation. In one sense, and that not a cryptic one, these events served to supplement one another. They rendered inevitable the entire evacuation of Afghanistan. That, it need hardly be said, was the policy of Mr. Gladstone, of the Secretary for India, Lord Hartington (now Duke of ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... but I took good care to light on my head," responded Alcestis; a cryptic remark which so puzzled Old Kennebec that he mused over ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the Gaelic, was somewhat taken aback by the cryptic utterance; but an anxious-looking younger son of an embarrassed peer, who for a considerable consideration was bear-leading the millionaire through the social labyrinth, hurriedly interpreted it to him ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... first work, a commentary on Seneca's de Clementia. His purpose has been construed by the light of his late career; and some have seen in the book a veiled defence of the Huguenot martyrs, others a cryptic censure of Francis I, and yet others a prophetic dissociation of himself from Stoicism. But there is no mystery in the matter; the work is that of a scholar who has no special interest in either theology or the Bible. This may be statistically illustrated: Calvin cites twenty-two Greek authors ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... for Jefferson Creede! Deep and devious as was his knowledge of men in the rough, the ways of a woman in love were as cryptic to him as the poems of Browning. The first day that Miss Kitty rode forth to be a cowboy it was the rodeo boss, indulgent, but aware of the tenderfoot's ability to make trouble, who soberly assigned his fair disciple to guard a pass over which no cow could possibly come. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... arrangement of ions, anions and cations upon two sides of the permeable membrane of a repair cell. The cell is an electrolyte and therefore division of the cell in course of preparation for multiplication might perhaps depend upon an electric impulse so delicately in balance that Nature for some cryptic reason might prefer not to allow the necessary balance to go toward cell division in grafts consisting of green growth of the year in perennials. Perhaps I might defeat natural processes by leaving a leaf or part of one at the distal part of a green graft ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... which graced his visiting cards. There were half a dozen Poltavos in the Almanack De Gotha, any one of whom might have been Ernesto, for so vague is the Polish hierarchy that it was impossible to fix him to any particular family, and he himself answered careless inquiries with a cryptic smile ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... This cryptic passage refers, I imagine, to a translation by John Black, afterwards the editor of the Morning Chronicle, of August Von Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, 2 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... my attention upon the cryptic parchment; but it was of no use. In spite of myself, my head would jerk up to a listening attitude every time a board creaked or I fancied I heard a door somewhere in the house being cautiously opened. Time after time I would be sent stealthily to some ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... him. His brows cleared, the wrath that had made his face almost unrecognizable subsided; he even smiled. And the girl trembled, knowing that he had solved her secret; for she had hoped against hope that the only words he could have heard her speak would have had too cryptic a significance for ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... piece of nature, which he that studies wisely learns, in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume.' And again, 'There is another way of God's providence full of meanders and labyrinths and obscure methods: that serpentine and crooked line: that cryptic and involved method of His providence which I have ever admired. Surely there are in every man's life certain rubs, and doublings, and wrenches, which, well examined, do prove the pure hand of God. And to be true, and to speak out my soul, ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... no leisure for wondering how Cynthia's mother came to be in the grounds of Sanstead House, for her companion, almost before the car had stopped, jumped out and clutched me by the arm, at the same time uttering this cryptic speech: ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... beneath them testified in the great man's own handwriting that he was yours sincerely or affectionately or for ever. The father and daughter would have been quite content, apparently, to eat their dinner in silence, or with a few cryptic remarks expressed in a shorthand which could not be understood by the servants. But silence depressed Mrs. Hilbery, and far from minding the presence of maids, she would often address herself to them, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the Scarlet too? Then bitter anomalies annul her choir Of puissant and subtle instincts, rended through By gorgeous dualisms of vain-desire. For Love outrages Art's clear disciplines, And Art lures Love to guilt of cryptic treason: The spirit of imagination pines, Captive in webs of exquisite unreason. Alas for this translated soul of hers, The rose's, that ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... at my colleague in amazement, and was about to ask for some elucidation of this cryptic reply, when he held up his finger and turned again ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... with which the islanders had called for Italy. But the journalist had heard of the National Council and he asked, very naturally, whether it shared these sentiments. "Ha parlato da Italiano!" ("I have spoken as an Italian"), replied the delegate; and when the newspaper reached the island, this cryptic saying was interpreted in various ways, his critics pointing out that, as he had diverged from truthfulness, this was another little Song of Hate. The Bishop, Dr. Mahni['c],[12] did not go to Italy for several months. He was a learned Slovene, an ex-Professor ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... No reek of alcohol met his nostrils, as with the boatswain, but, none the less Little Billy's cryptic jargon confirmed his suspicions. Also drunk, he reflected. The revered and gentle old mate of the brig Cohasset would have cause for grief when his two ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... birthplace. Disdaining to use any but mathematical symbols for so great a mathematician, he writes that he was born on the 21st of December, 1571, in longitude 29 7', latitude 48 54'! It may be worth mentioning, that on this cryptic spot stood the little town of Weil in the Duchy of Wrtemberg. His birth was cast at a time when his parents were reduced to great poverty, and he received very little early schooling. He was, however, sent to Tbingen, and here he pursued the scholastic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... running directly the cuckoo is heard for the first time in the year, and thirty or forty years ago, if a girl obeyed this tradition, anyone near her would laugh and say: 'Run, run! and don't let no Tiverton man catch you!' The other saying is cryptic: 'He must go to Tiverton and ask Mr Able.' An interpretation suggested is that this was originally said to a questioner who asked for unattainable information, and that 'Mr Able' meant anyone able to furnish it. It is not exactly a satisfactory solution, and as to the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... This remark, cryptic though it was, came as a fresh shower to Mrs. Tiffany's curiosity. Never before had Eleanor so nearly committed herself on the subject which lay like lead on her aunt's responsibilities. It prompted Mrs. Tiffany to try for ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... an insignificant, ugly, little, crosseyed commercial traveler; she was a pretty, little creature who looked as innocent and was as merry as a child; we all vied in paying her attentions and waiting on her like slaves, the husband always smiling a cryptic smile. After they had left it was hinted they were not married at all; the oldest hands had been taken in.... One afternoon I met Dolly, the commercial traveler's wife, and she stopped and spoke to me. I remembered what I had heard and ventured on some pleasantry at which she laughed, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Range 77W—about thirty miles from Pierre. It seemed more real now. The hotel proprietor promised to find us a claim locator to whom that cryptic number made sense. ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... in silence—thinking. And that evening, by the light of her coal-oil lamp she puzzled over the roughly sketched map with its cryptic signs and notations. There were a half-dozen samples, too—chips of rough, heavy rock that didn't look a bit like gold. "High grade," her daddy had called them as he babbled incessantly upon his death-bed. But ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... what roue would not turn away his sinful eyes in shame and pity?). The highly satisfied young man in the very rented-appearing evening clothes (photographed, it is apparent, in the day time). The blank-looking person who for some cryptic reason is enamoured of the studious, literary pose, and appears, in effect like a frontispiece portrait, glancing up from a writing table (an obviously artificial cigar between the fingers of one hand, apparently made of carbon, and, presumably, the property of the photographer). The aspiring ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... "Why cryptic after your really admirable frankness? But there's always a point beyond which women never will go when confessing their souls. . . . I suppose you think you're as hard as nails. Do you really imagine that you will ever be able to fall in love and ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... my goo' flien'," chanted each of these apparitions; and each, after a long, slow discourse that ended more darkly than it began, retired with fatuous nods and smirks of satisfaction, leaving Rudolph dismayed by a sense of cryptic negotiation in which he had ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... the cryptic answer. 'And yet, Herbert,' Lawford solemnly began again, 'it has changed me; even in my way of thinking. When I shut my eyes now—I only discovered it by chance—I see immediately faces quite strange to me; or places, sometimes thronged ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... had lost her first shyness and bewilderment at living with so many new people, and was beginning to feel that she herself was an old girl and ready to uphold and defend York Hill traditions. Everything had so far been made so easy for her that she had lost sight of Aunt Nell's cryptic remarks concerning the important things that the girls were to teach her. But the week was not to end without the beginning of the discipline Aunt ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... secret code, But who would guess at guile in that? Unless he used the cryptic mode He couldn't be a diplomat; He wished (we thought) to be discreet, Telling his friends how frail and fair is The exotic feminine you meet In bounteous ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... would have its bad hours. He would bound off on false scents as I had done— he would clap his hands over new lights and see them blown out by the wind of the turned page. He was like nothing, I told him, but the maniacs who embrace some bedlamitical theory of the cryptic character of Shakespeare. To this he replied that if we had had Shakespeare's own word for his being cryptic he would at once have accepted it. The case there was altogether different—we had nothing but the word of Mr. Snooks. I returned that I was stupefied ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... word-drunk debauch and to find my own natural intelligence again, the common sense that I was born with. Then I saw that the whole thing went wrong from the place where that Knox legal note came in. Congressmen in the backwoods quoted cryptic passages from it, thought they were saying something, and proceeded to make their audiences believe that somehow England had hit us with a club—or would have hit us but for Knox. That pure discourtesy kept us apart from English sympathy for ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... Oliver said. He had cried out with delight when he first saw her. She had been sixteen when he left, and tall and thin; now she was nineteen, and with the pale tints of the dawn in her hair and face. In the auto, Oliver had turned and, stared at her, and pronounced the cryptic judgment, ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... mean all superstitions, premonitions, and other forms of mental paralysis or panic caused by what is vague. To heed signs, omens, cryptic sayings, and all talk of fate and luck, is nothing but mental dirt. I have seen many bright minds sullied by it. It is worthy only of the mind of an ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... oneself &c 893; lurk, sneak, skulk, slink, prowl; steal into, steal out of, steal by, steal along; play at bopeep^, play at hide and seek; hide in holes and corners; still hunt. Adj. concealed &c v.; hidden; secret, recondite, mystic, cabalistic, occult, dark; cryptic, cryptical^; private, privy, in petto, auricular, clandestine, close, inviolate; tortuous. behind a screen &c 530; undercover, under an eclipse; in ambush, in hiding, in disguise; in a cloud, in a fog, in a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... figure of the loans to Allies and Dominions during the war period, because they are not included in the weekly financial statements. The amount that we borrow abroad is set out week by week—at least, that is believed to be the meaning of the cryptic item "Other Debt"—but the amount that we lend to Allies and Dominions is hidden away in the Supply Services or somewhere, and we only get occasional information about it from the Chancellor in the course of his speeches on the Budget or ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... Reread, the cryptic sentences began to take on meaning. An unknown named Bassett, whoever he might be, was going to Norada bent on "mischief," and another unknown who signed himself "G" was warning David of that fact. But the mischief was designed, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... made by thrusting a pin in from the side which bore the illustrations. The perforations were liberally scattered. Most, though not all of them, transfixed certain letters. Accepting this as indicative, Bertram had copied out all the letters thus distinguished, with the following cryptic result: ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... states. An interesting and invaluable peculiarity of French archives is, that bound up with despatches received are the outlines of those sent, and generally not merely a sketch, but the first draft with all annotations and corrections, these quite often in Napoleon's almost cryptic but still decipherable handwriting. Much of course is in cipher, but the key is available and sometimes the official decipherment. The archives of St. Petersburg are also available for properly accredited searchers; Tratchefski ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... rather a cryptic utterance, but he asked for no explanation. These two were full of little jokes, of allusions, of reminiscences, interesting to them, in which he had no part, close ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... know," said Peter, frankly. "I'll see you in New York—if not sooner." With which cryptic observation he clattered down the ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... whispered Old Pete as he fell sprawling on his face, "fer pure flesh!" With which cryptic word he bade farewell to the sounding passes, the tenets of manhood as he conceived them, the valour, and the grumbling ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... foes, with bated breath. The conspirators had as yet no intimation of his intentions: Governor Claiborne was torn by suspicion of this would-be savior, for at the very time he was reading Wilkinson's gasconade he received a cryptic letter from Andrew Jackson which ran, "keep a watchful eye on our General and beware of an attack as well from your own country as Spain!" If Claiborne could not trust "our General," ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... chance, of course, that Baker would ever be able to talk with Sam again. That one fortuitous encounter would have to do for a lifetime. But Sam's great cryptic statement was slowly beginning to make sense: When you cease to be fearful of Authority, you ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... a cryptic speech. In another it might have signified a spitefulness unthinkable in Sylvia Armytage; therefore it puzzled him very deeply. He stood silent, wondering what precisely she might mean, and thus in silence they continued for a spell. Then slowly she turned ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... a difficult person, to be sure; the eldest daughter of that cryptic old millionaire, Watson Asham, who lived in New York and resided, for purposes of taxation, at West Smithfield; a graduate of Brainmore College; president of the Social Settlement of Higher Lighters; a frequent contributor in ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... proper name, I think, is the launce) a silverling. The "coasting reader" is the courteous reader when walking along the coast, and what he sees are silver fish and gold fish, adoring the Lord by the beauty of their scales. The Song to David is cryptic to a very high degree, but I think there are no lines in it which patient reflection will not solve. On every page are stanzas the verbal splendour of which no lover of poetry will question, and lines which will always, to me at least, retain an echo of that gusto ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... Krugersdorp to-morrow, sorr, and I'll be able to get yiz some claning matherials,' to which his weary master replied, 'I don't care a damn whether I'm clean or whether I'm dirty.' In answer his man made the following cryptic remark: ''Tis no use talking like that, sorr. Lord Roberts says the war is over, and ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... meaning of those cryptic headlines and the business-like letter broke in on Alaric. All the Chichester ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... intently at her wide, flushed face, freckled nose, fierce little mouth, and her delicate, tender chin—the one soft touch in her hard little Scandinavian face, as if some fairy godmother had caressed her there and left a cryptic promise. Her brows were usually drawn together defiantly, but never when she was with Dr. Archie. Her affection for him was prettier than most of the things that went to make up the doctor's ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... Lanyard was well satisfied that he now held the true focus of this conspiracy, a secret of the first consequence, far too momentous to the designs of England to be entrusted, though couched in the most cryptic cipher ever mind of man devised, even to cables or mails ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... frank lover of the flesh, lofty idealist, impressionist and judge, philosopher, dramatist, essayist, master of the comic and above all, Poet. Eloquence, finesse, strength and sweetness, the limpid and the cryptic, are his in turn: he puts on when he will, like a defensive armor, a style to frighten all but the elect. And they who persist and discover the secret, swear that it is more than worth the pains. Perhaps the lesson of it all is that a first-class writer, ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... those lights," he said, pointing to those that gleamed across the water through the London haze that sometimes makes for a melancholy beauty, "and that movement of the river in the night, tremulous and cryptic like our thoughts. ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the mood of the early Allegro; a wistful melody of the clarinet plays more slowly between cryptic reminders of the first theme of the symphony. In sudden Allegro risoluto over rumbling bass of strings, a mystic call of horns, harking far back, spreads its echoing ripples all about till it rises in united tones, with a clear, descending answer, much like the original ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... that the ultimate foundation of every form of matter is spirit, and hence that a universal intelligence subsists throughout Nature inherent in every one of its manifestations. But this cryptic intelligence does not belong to the particular form excepting in the measure in which it is physically fitted for its concentration into self-recognizing individuality: it lies hidden in that primordial substance of which the ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... and Carew in his Survey of Cornwall of 1602 gives a by no means nice phrase (which he spells all anyhow and translates wrong), Mollath Dew en dha ’las! The curse of God in thy belly! Another serio-comic but rather cryptic expletive, peculiar to Camborne, or at any rate to the Drama of St. Meriasek, is Mollath Dew en gegin! God’s curse in the kitchen! It does not seem to mean anything in particular, except perhaps ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... replied the girl, and Annie, failing to see anything cryptic in the words, laughed gaily ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Stone," I said, smiling, "you talk like a real story-book detective. Cryptic utterances of that sort are impressive to the layman, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... waiting for any reply to this cryptic utterance, she stepped swiftly round behind the carriage again, waved her hand from the door-step and then swung away, with lazy, long-limbed grace, past the waiting men-servants and through to the ruddy ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... cryptic way the missionary came to the climax of his story. Again the Southern Cross shot into view as we turned a curve in ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... woman was in a less cryptic mood at breakfast. She was particularly hospitable to Udo, and from some secret store produced an unending variety of good things for him to eat. To Coronel it almost looked as if she were fattening him up for something, ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... far," he cried. "That was not the exact reason. No, my dear Miss Maxwell, I begin to exercise a new-born discretion. I shall not elucidate that cryptic remark until after New Year's Day. But I don't mind telling you why I have hit on a definite date. If all goes well with us—and we have had so many escapes that Providence may well send us a few more—the Kansas should steam out of our little bay of Good Hope about that period. Then I ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... grave-clothes. He forgets that after all he is only a statue. To himself he is still a king—or at least a man who was once a king and, having done no wrong, ought not now to be insulted. If he had in his composition one marble grain of humour, he might... but no, a joke against oneself is always cryptic. Fat men are not always the best drivers of fat oxen; and cryptic statues cannot be depended on ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... found—nay, not a tithe of that he found. For, listening with a kindlier heart—even he, hurt by her neglect, had judged her for a while too harshly—he discerned that at her wildest and loudest, in the act of bandying cryptic jests with the buckeens, and uttering much that was thoughtless—Flavia did not suffer one light or unmaidenly word to pass ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... M.P., liked this Pathan gentleman so well after reading his letter and enclosure. Before long they liked him very much less—although they did not know it—which sounds cryptic. ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... fell, pregnant and cryptic, and, while the voices of the children and the soft mandatory protests of the Asiatic maids drew nearer from the beach, Martha Scandwell felt herself vibrant and tremulous with sudden resolve of daring. She waved ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... Mrs. Goring, and—oh, everything, old scout," Little began. "You saw her face last night. Is she stuck on you, or me, think? Or why the interchange of cryptic eyes between her and little ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... flashes of elephantine jocularity enlivened the proceedings of the Club. I picked up some useful items of knowledge from them, for I regret to admit that up to that time I had no idea what a bill of lading was, or a ship's manifest; after a while, even such cryptic expressions, too, as f.o.b. and c.i.f. ceased to have any mysteries for me. Let the inexperienced beware of "Swedish Punch," a sickly, highly-scented preparation of arrack. I do not speak from personal experience, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... I marveled at these cryptic utterances. They shadowed a modern Black Art, of which I had had no conception—a recrudescence in other language of the age-old dualism of good and evil. It was a sort of ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... him well because they thought him a Gypsy? and in another place referred to the time when he lived with the English Gypsies? Had he not, in his introductions, spoken of "my brethren, the Smiths," a phrase then cryptic and only to be explained by revealing his sworn brotherhood with Ambrose Smith, the Jasper Petulengro of later books? He had said, moreover, in a perfectly genuine tone, with no trace ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... cryptic signal she flashed slipped unseen from Maria Angelina's vision. Johnny Byrd was nice, but it was a gay, cheery, everyday sort of niceness, she thought, with none of the quicksilver charm of the young man at the dinner ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... which you mix metaphors is beautiful. You produce a dinner-table and transform it into an altar which instantly becomes a racecourse. That is what I call genius. But to an every-day sort of chap like me, would you mind being less cryptic?" ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... it; he produced it from his pocket, and—perhaps in consideration of the tip he had received from Miss Morley—he did not confiscate the spool, but handed it over intact with a polite gesture and a cryptic smile. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... the whole country in explanation and defense of our administration. [Johnson was president.] When I am ready I will wire you, and then send me one of your best reporters." About two weeks afterwards Mr. Raymond received this cryptic telegram from Mr. Seward: "Send me the man of ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... and the twins, their eyes bright with the unholy light of mischief, never looked at her. They sometimes looked heavenward with a sublime contentment that drove Connie nearly frantic. Occasionally they uttered cryptic words about the morrow,—and the older members of the family smiled pleasantly, but Connie shuddered. She remembered so many April ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... They repeated vaguely this most commonplace of messages. As the final result of their strenuous enterprise, these cryptic words seemed pitifully inadequate. Quest's face darkened. He crumpled the paper ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... problems design their ornament with very little thought about the colors which they propose to employ, making it an after-consideration; but the two things should be considered synchronously for the best final effect. There is a cryptic saying that "color is at right angles to form," that is, color is capable of making surfaces advance toward or recede from the eye, just as modelling does; and for this reason, if color is used, a great deal of modelling may be dispensed with. If a receding color is used on a recessed ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... Blalok said as he grinned and walked to the door. The parting shot missed its mark entirely as Kennon looked at him with blank incomprehension. "You should have been a Mystic," Blalok said. "A knowledge of the sacred books would do you no end of good." And with that cryptic remark ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... We rather look forward to it. It means one day less of waiting for the trains." It was rather cryptic, but Leslie was too deeply absorbed in self-pity to take account of the pathos in ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... There was no letterhead, no salutation or address-line. Just a mass of chemical formulae, and a concise report on tests. It seemed to be a report on an improved syrup for a carbonated soft-drink. There were a few cryptic cautionary ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... and looked questioningly at his employer, as if to ask what this cryptic sentence meant. Pine knew only too well, since Chaldea had impressed him thoroughly with the fact that she had overheard many of his secrets. Therefore he did not waste time in argument, but nodded ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... not a little mystified by Merkle's cryptic message, for she could imagine no possible way in which she or the writer himself could be connected discreditably with Jarvis Hammon's affair. She gained some light, however, when that evening she ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... the French police received additional evidence against him in the form of a cryptic telegram addressed to the Chateau, an infamous and easily deciphered message which, no doubt, had been sent with the distinct purpose of strengthening the amazing charge against him. He protested entire ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... amazement at this cryptic utterance. "That sure beats me. I always said I got out of my depth with women, and you've got me out of my depth now. Why you want me to lose everything, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... deceit she smiles—like Mona Lisa. But was the great Leonardo deceived by the smile of his wife when she posed for him so sweetly? No, he read her thoughts—how she was thinking of another—and his master hand wove them in. There she smiles to-day, smooth and pretty and cryptic; but Leonardo, the man, worked with heavy heart as he laid bare the tragedy of his love. The message was for her, if she cared to read it, or for him, that rival for her love; or, if their hearts were pure and free from guilt, then there was no message at all. She was just a pretty ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... fence, I'd break my neck. Yet did you ever see anything so graceful as those two girls and that magnificent dog when they went over? I tell you, girls, we've got something worth while in this school now, believe me. And just you wait!" and with this cryptic ending Juno jockeyed ahead ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... of Siberian Rifles surround the building with fixed bayonets. The general entered the room and sat at his table, they remained standing. Looking at, and through, each one separately, he delivered this cryptic speech: "Gentlemen, I have brought you here to tell you that out on the railway between you and your enemies lie the remains of our brave army! They have little clothes, but plenty of wood, so their fires may prevent their bodies ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... from the Hall altogether only about an hour and twenty minutes. There was still at least an hour before it would be possible for her to plead weariness and escape. And opposite, in the shadows of the distant box, the mock Prince Shan seemed always to be gazing at her with that cryptic smile ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shone with unaffected pleasure at the meeting, and he presented the reviewer to his wife and the children, two boys and two girls. The two boys, aged about ten and eight, immediately uttered cryptic remarks which Stockton ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... of common sense and explicable phenomena; and I was much put out to find, this morning, a cabbalistic inscription written in letters of large menace on my bath-room floor. TAM HTAB—what could be the meaning of these cryptic words, and how on earth had they got there? Like Belshazzar, my eyes were troubled by this writing, and my knees smote one against the other; till majestic Reason, deigning to look downward from her contemplation of eternal causes, spelt backwards for me, with a pitying smile, the homely, ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... be quite so—so cryptic—such a very abstruse problem. Sometimes I think I understand you better than you do yourself, and sometimes I am utterly lost; now, if you were younger I could read you easily for myself, and, if you were older, you would read ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... a pale-green booklet from the desk and opened it before her. She saw the cryptic characters for the first time. And she saw them with his glowing eyes. In their mysterious strokes and curves and dots she saw romance, and the key of the future; she saw the philosopher's stone. She saw a new religion ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... at times to all animals, is absolutely essential to some; and it is wonderful in what different ways it is attained. In cases of "cryptic resemblance to surroundings" the shape, colouration, or markings are such as to conceal an animal by rendering it difficult to distinguish from its immediate environment. In most cases the effect is PROTECTIVE; but in snakes, spiders, mantids, and other preying animals ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... gone, and M. de Kercadiou was alone, purple in the face, puzzling out that last cryptic utterance, and not at all happy in his mind, either on the score of his godson or of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He was disposed to be angry with them both. He found these headstrong, wilful men who relentlessly followed their own impulses very disturbing and irritating. Himself he loved his ease, and ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... submission before wine and chatter. Silly rich peasants stamp the carpets of men, Dead men who dreamed fragrance and light Into their woof, their lives; The rug of an honest bear Under the feet of a cryptic slave Who speaks always of baubles, Forgetting state, multitude, work, and state, Champing and mouthing of hats, Making ratful ...
— War is Kind • Stephen Crane
... Guard." When the credentials have been examined the visitor is sent under the guidance of a bluejacket to the "Officer of the Day," whose "cabin" is inside the maze of corrugated iron and weather-board. The doors flanking the passages traversed display cryptic lettering, such as I.O. (Intelligence Office), S.R. (Signal Room), S.N.O. (Senior Naval Officer), "Commander" (usually the second in command of the base), P.M.S.O. (Port Minesweeping Officer), C.B.O. (Confidential Book Office), M.L.Com. ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... "Cryptic, positively cryptic!" murmured Sir Francis, as he folded up the letter and put it by. "There's no clue to anything anywhere. What does he mean by a bad speculation?—a loss 'on the whole gamble'? I know—or at least I thought I knew—every number on which he had put his money. It won't affect his ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Clermont finances are now on a sound basis, but it might after all prove advantageous to raise further capital; although in such a case we would, perhaps, lie open to attack. Nairn's inclined to be cryptic in his remarks; but he seems to hint that it would be advisable to make Horsfield some concession—in other words, to ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... High Street to take his bus his mind was divided between two exultant convictions. He felt that he had not only found Treffinger's greatest picture, but that, in James, he had discovered a kind of cryptic index to the painter's personality—a clue which, if tactfully followed, might lead ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... know what this is all about, Professor," he heard the great financier say. "Marjorie's telegram last night was as cryptic as it was over-joying. But I do know that I owe you a deep debt ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... to whom we had applied Our shopman's test of age and worth, Was elemental when he died, As he was ancient at his birth: The saddest among kings of earth, Bowed with a galling crown, this man Met rancor with a cryptic mirth, Laconic—and Olympian. ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... the natural ambition of the mercury in summer. The habit so easily formed was as easily unlearned when I returned to civilisation. On the whole, it may be philosophic to conclude that a universal habit in any country has some solid if cryptic reason for its existence, and to surmise that the drinking of ice-water is not so deadly in the States as it might be elsewhere. It certainly is universal enough. When you ring a bell or look at a waiter, ice-water is immediately brought to you. Each meal ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... thing, separate life from religion, what is left except the words, "Have mercy on me"? They are therefore sure to maintain that salvation is instantaneous, accomplished by these words, even if uttered at the hour of death, if not before. What does the Word become to them then but an obscure and cryptic utterance issuing from a tripod in a cave, or like an incomprehensible response from the oracle of an idol? In a word, if you remove repentance, that is, sever life from religion, what is human nature then but evil aglow with infernal ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... resonant phrase needing interpretation. The rulers of Japan to-day, if they were interrogated on the subject, would probably reply that the record of Japan for over thirty-eight years past is the practical interpretation of the Emperor's cryptic utterance. Be that as it may, the ink was hardly dry on the Imperial edict before Japan laid herself out with earnestness, not to say enthusiasm, to carry into effect the principles enunciated in the edict. The ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... it out that way and mebbe not so far wrong," said the cryptic Mr. Searle. "But if you think you'd like to buy or rent her place I'm fully empowered to act. Got the keys right here and a car standing outside—take you right on out there in a jiffy ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... and of the finder of the body brought nothing new to the reporters' net. That of the police was as colourless and cryptic as is usual at the inquest stage of affairs of the kind. Greatly to the satisfaction of Mr Bunner, his evidence afforded the sensation of the day, and threw far into the background the interesting revelation of domestic difficulty ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... again to the Baronet's mysterious private affairs; and when she had seated herself at the typewriter and re-read the reports—confidential reports they were, but framed in a manner which only the old man himself could understand—he dictated to her cryptic replies, the true nature of which were to ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... argue the point. She put the freshly painted wooden chicken on the table to dry in the sun. Her eyes fell upon a letter bearing an American postmark and addressed to Sergeant Chester Ball, with a lot of cryptic figures and letters strung out after it, such as A.E.F. and ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... the story with me. We looked over the papers together. There was a rude cryptic sort of map; I have it. It meant nothing without a key. We searched everywhere for that key. Marc pretending to aid me, had it all of the time in his hand. When he had had time to carry it away and place it where ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... Must bring news," said Bell, leaving her hurriedly, and so neglecting to ask the meaning of her cryptic remark. ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... him to give a few cryptic orders through the telephone. All traces of displeasure had now left his face. He nodded energetically when ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... on the social setup and not one word of them made sense. They were a solid maze of unknown symbols and cryptic charts. "Please continue, Doctor," he insisted. "The societics reports are valueless so far. There are factors missing. You are the only one I have talked to so far who can give me ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... other diversities of methods vulgar and received: as that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or systasis, of concealment or cryptic, &c., which I do allow well of, though I have stood upon those which are least handled and observed. All which I have remembered to this purpose, because I would erect and constitute one general inquiry (which seems to me deficient) touching ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... to finger her gloves. They had been cleaned and the cryptic marks of the shopkeeper were visible along the inner side of the wrist hem. This was, to the woman, the first subterfuge of decaying smartness. When a woman began to send her gloves to the laundry she was on her way down. Other evidences were not entirely lacking ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... be useful," Tish replied in her cryptic manner. "Forearmed is forewarned, Mr. Burton. What is ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to live in this house," remarked Mr. Jones. "And by the by, what could he have meant by speaking of circumstances which prevented him lodging us in the other bungalow? You remember what he said, Martin? Sounded cryptic." ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... (2:18) a very significant episode is recorded. John inculcated fasting, and his disciples fasted a great deal ("pykna", Luke 5:33); and once, Mark tells us, when they were actually fasting, they asked Jesus why his disciples did not do the same? Jesus' answer is a little cryptic at first sight. "Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?" Who fasts at the wedding feast, in the hour of gladness? And then he passes on to speak about the new patch on the ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... sentences we exchanged. Then there was that curious question about the sheep. It must have been a password—I saw that now, and I could have kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. Of course I had no idea of the proper answer, but I might at least have replied with some equally cryptic sentence and tried to bluff him into thinking I was using a different code. As it was, I had made it perfectly obvious that I ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... modestly disclaimed the thrills and excitements commonly attributed to his trade. I knew that many pages would not be turned before he would land us in the middle of some crimson intrigue; mysterious strangers, disguises, cryptic and invaluable manuscripts, urgent telegrams, codes, Italian hidden hands, Scotland Yard, pseudo-taxicabs, clues and things. But let others beware of Mr. JOHN FOSTER, a most ingenious manipulator of the old stock-in-trade and possessing a rare sense of humour. For the reader to pit his wits against ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... assented. "I rejoice that, being of French extraction, and unconversant with your somewhat cryptic patois, the lady in question is the less likely to have been sickened by your extravagances in the way of misapprehension. I candidly confess such imbecility annoys me. What!" he cried out, "what if I marry! is matrimony to be ranked with arson? And what ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... examined to see its exact place upon the clearly-defined line, afterwards noting it in his book in cryptic figures, and then carefully switching off again, when the ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... cried the lieutenant, "you were sent here in charge of him for some cryptic idea of the captain, and you tell me he's gone? You don't mean to tell me that ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... homewards, her mind a maelstrom of conflict. She knew nothing about money; it had never occurred to her that her father had none, and the cryptic allusion to the "bar'l" was even more puzzling. She knew that her father was a man to be feared, but he had always been the same; she expected nothing else of him, or of fathers generally. She knew that he lived most of his time in ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... disconcert her in the least. Madame Tancredi was the exact opposite of her friend Milano in all save the kindly spirit of the true artist. She was stout and heavy, where Milano was swift and graceful; she was frankness itself where Milano was cryptic; and, finally, she was the owner of ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... killing a cat than by choking it with cream," was his cryptic remark. "What would you say if I told you that in an hour's time we, will have every drop of water out of the yacht, and that following that we will have ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... it's the bleakest I've seen yet, an' I've been to Brighton and Blackpool. Travelled quite a lot, I 'ave, Miss. The lydy who read me 'and said I would, for me teeth are so wide apart." Which cryptic saying puzzled Pamela until Priorsford was reached, when ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... them to sudden action, came a cryptic message from the secret service, announcing that the Federal Sugar Company could use experienced refiners at once. Henry took the message, and recalling what Captain Hardy had told the woman when they ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... knowledge of his words, he gestured with a dignity that conveyed all the meaning of Lying Bill's relation of the incident. In the expression and motion of the dramatic mute the aged uncle had the sublimity of Lear. For Vava, in a mask and an attitude, by some cryptic understanding encompassed the resignation and appeal ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... and that he was quite prepared to reveal the hiding-place to his English friends, feeling assured that they would use it in the manner which had been intended when it was first concealed. This again was a distinctly cryptic remark, of which neither of the Englishmen could possibly guess the meaning; but Stukely replied that Vilcamapata might rest assured that they would employ it wisely and well; and with that answer the Peruvian seemed perfectly satisfied. But ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... hidden hand," which is supposed to paralyse our military efforts, are divided in opinion as to whether this cryptic member is most actively employed by Lord HALDANE, Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON or Sir EYRE CROWE, Assistant-Secretary to the Foreign Office. They will probably regard Lord ROBERT CECIL'S statement that some seven years ago Sir EYRE drew up a memorandum calling the attention ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... these are now in the Cathedral: the Poggio, the so-called Joshua in the south aisle, which has been said to be a portrait of Gianozzo Manetti; and the St. John the Evangelist in the eastern part of the nave. The Poggio certainly belongs to the series: it would be delightful if the cryptic writing on the borders of the garment were to prove it to be the Job. The St. John Evangelist is an earlier work than the Poggio; it was begun when Donatello was twenty-two years old, and, as Lord Balcarres says, "it challenges comparison with one worthy rival, ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... campaign. The waters of talk spread a little, and Maggie presently contributed an idea in saying: "What has really happened is that the proportions, for us, are altered." He accepted equally, for the time, this somewhat cryptic remark; he still failed to challenge her even when she added that it wouldn't so much matter if he hadn't been so terribly young. He uttered a sound of protest only when she went to declare that she ought ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... Angus's lantern disappeared behind the stable, the old man's voice was lowered, and he gave forth this cryptic utterance: ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... street of Cliffe leads northwards to South Malling; here is a conventicle named "Jireh" erected by J. Jenkyns, W.A. These cryptic initials mean "Welsh ambassador." In the cemetery behind is the tomb of William Huntingdon, the evangelist, whose ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes |
