"Enigmatical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like a tonic, and her face was full of gratitude as she bade him goodnight, and turned to confer with Frank. Carroll stood by the reporters' tables, irresolutely, until presently Silvia beckoned her. The two women exchanged looks which were enigmatical to Frank, but evidently perfectly intelligible to them, for Carroll turned away with a sound like a strangled sob, and the pall of weariness and depression which had lifted for a moment again settled over Silvia, now that there were no longer any prying or unfriendly ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... as to the result. He was determined to secure Antwerp, but he yet thought it possible to secure it by negotiation. The enigmatical policy maintained by France perplexed him; for it did not seem possible that so much apparent solemnity and earnestness were destined to lead to an impotent and infamous conclusion. He was left, too, for a long time in ignorance of his own master's secret schemes, he was at liberty to guess, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with the same double reference which prevails throughout, when he once more declares the annihilation of the monarchy, which, rather than a particular person, is meant by 'the king.' 'In the morning' is enigmatical. It may mean 'prematurely,' or 'suddenly,' or 'in a time of apparent prosperity,' or, more probably, the Prophet stands in vision in that future day of the Lord, and points to 'the king' as the first victim. The force of the prophecy does not depend on the meaning of this ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... at the country store opposite and poured across the street, in sixes and sevens, like so many reliefs on army duty. A gang would enter the sitting room occupying the chairs and sofa, look on with open mouths for ten or fifteen minutes and listen to what must have been enigmatical to them; then looking one at the other, the entire party would rise together, stalk back to the store, where they would relate their experience to others, who in turn would brace up and make a descent on the lion of the hour. They did not rap for admittance, did not remove their hats on ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... at Ocean View, days in which there was no worriment about the packet of diamonds. Allen was allowed to keep the mysterious box and the original of the cipher, but he was never able to discover the meaning of it, nor who the enigmatical "B. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... shapely hand had a seductive frankness, a sort of exquisite virility. I do not know why she should have felt so friendly to me. It may be that she thought I understood her much better than I was able to do. The most precise of her sayings seemed always to me to have enigmatical prolongations vanishing somewhere beyond my reach. I am reduced to suppose that she appreciated my attention and my silence. The attention she could see was quite sincere, so that the silence could not be suspected of coldness. It seemed to satisfy ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... for example about a certain impresario, Maxfield Ware, who created a sensation among the company and staff by turning up ostentatiously unaccounted for from New York and looking intensely enigmatical whenever any one asked him any questions. He was a sufficiently well-known figure in that world for surmises to spring up like round-eyed ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... extensive conclusions, then she ceased altogether to recall it; now she thought again of it, forgetting her painted chrysanthemums, which, on the blue satin, seemed to gaze at her, having as subtle and enigmatical a look as ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... against the Protestants of Saintes, was: "Agimus a gagne Pere Eternel!" As Agimus was the first word of the customary grace said at meals by devout Roman Catholics—"Agimus tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus," etc.—this apparently enigmatical expression was only a profane formula to celebrate the triumph of the Roman over the reformed church. See Bulletin, xii. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... affixed so infernal a frontispiece to the sacred poem chanted by the rest of the edifice. Archdeacon Claude had the credit also of having fathomed the mystery of the colossus of Saint Christopher, and of that lofty, enigmatical statue which then stood at the entrance of the vestibule, and which the people, in derision, called "Monsieur Legris." But, what every one might have noticed was the interminable hours which he often employed, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... was not at all gracefully acknowledged. The unfortunate brickfields were pelted again; it was enigmatical; that Mr. Rhodes should be reckoned "a brick," by Boers, was improbable; rumour had it that his blood was hungered for. Some shells were hurled also at the grand stand of the race-course. Finally, the enemy appeared to suspect that the cattle might have had ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... collection of 'Men and Women' was the poem called 'Two in the Campagna'. It is a vivid, yet enigmatical little study of a restless spirit tantalized by glimpses of repose in love, saddened and perplexed by the manner in which this eludes it. Nothing that should impress one as more purely dramatic ever ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Pohlenz, instead of having to conduct a vocal quartette, a cantata, or an Italian aria, took his place at the desk to undertake this highly complicated instrumental work, with its particularly enigmatical and incoherent opening, one of the most difficult tasks that could possibly be found for a musical conductor. I shall never forget the impression produced upon me at the first rehearsal by the anxiously and ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... know how they bored these long barrels, which seemed perfectly true and are said to shoot admirably; and, on asking the Gusti, received the enigmatical answer: "We use a basket full of stones." Being utterly unable to imagine what he could mean, I asked if I could see how they did it, and one of the dozen little boys around us was sent to fetch the basket. He soon returned with this most extraordinary ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... glanced towards Avery, but she did not raise her eyes. She worked on, still with that faint, enigmatical smile ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... was in a state of great depression; "What is the matter?" I asked. "er in or ist aus!" I questioned her more closely, so as to get at the meaning of this enigmatical remark: "What 'in ear'?" (or being meant for Ohr ear). She replied: "eid zu sagen" ( oath to tell—or to say) adding "ich auch aus" ... ( I also done for). She looked absolutely miserable, and dropped ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... sordid tragedy came out in broken snatches, to the last particle. For once in her life Evelyn Desmond spoke the unvarnished truth, adorning nothing, extenuating nothing; and Honour listened in an enigmatical silence—a silence which held even after the last word had been spoken. Evelyn looked up at ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... turned to him with puzzled questioning look and enigmatical reply. "Thinking?" asked her eyes. "I wasn't thinking," ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... so—ha—my dear, we can't blame the porridge," said Mr. Somers with slight jocularity which pleased at least himself. "But Pattaquasset is about as near the impossible state as most places, that I know. What have you heard of, Mrs. Somers? You deal in rather—a—enigmatical construction, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... problems which the Tuebingen school set itself. An attempt to write the biography of Paul reminds us sharply of our limitations. We know almost nothing of Paul prior to his conversion, or subsequent to the enigmatical breaking off of the account of the beginnings of his work at Rome. Harnack's Mission und Ausbreitung des Christenthums, 1902 (translated, Moffatt, 1908), takes up the work of Paul's successors in that cardinal activity. It ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... A stray volume of Darwin, a nagging wife, and a pretty Fitu-Ivan widow had driven him into the ranks of the backsliders. It was not a case of apostasy. The effect of Darwin had been one of intellectual fatigue. What was the use of trying to understand this vastly complicated and enigmatical world, especially when one was married to a nagging woman? As Ieremia slackened in his labours, the mission board threatened louder and louder to send him back to the atolls, while his wife's tongue grew correspondingly ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... evidently determined to remain enigmatical; but Valerie Upton quietly drew aside her reserves. "That is the trouble, you think; ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron—at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... an odd and enigmatical condition, entirely remote from the subject at issue? Yet from the moment of the first impassioned pleadings of the stricken George, De Jussac had insisted upon it as one from which there should be ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... words of doom. How am I to interpret your enigmatical conduct? But now I thought you a friend, come to give me timely warning to guard against threatened danger, when, all at once, you declare my situation a hopeless one! If you are my friend, why not warn ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... era of Pericles demanded the tragedy, and such a tragedy as only Aeschylus and Sophocles could originate; while the foibles of an earlier era made the comedy imperative. On like principles, the writings of Lucretius are not enigmatical, but easy ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... met before, to be sure, nevertheless they were enemies. Was it because of the discharge of the workmen? Then Martinez' mind flashed back to the scene in Vorse's saloon when Gordon had showed such sudden emotion at the engineer's name and his enigmatical reference to some event in the past. That was it! Something which had occurred thirty years ago, probably something crooked. Men committed deeds in those early days that they would now like to forget. He, Martinez, would ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... pp. 235. 342.).—In one of Dr. Byrom's Common-place Books now in the possession of his respected descendant, Miss Atherton, of Kersal Cell, is the following arrangement and translation of this enigmatical inscription, probably made by the ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... enigmatical reflection, he looked up to behold, sitting by the roadside, a tramp of sinister aspect, who turned his head indolently as the detective approached, and then applied himself closer to a luncheon of broken victuals, eating like a ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... This enigmatical utterance produced a startling effect. Mr. Perkins turned a pale green and hastily excused himself, his breakfast wholly untouched. Mrs. Holmes dropped her fork and recovered it in evident confusion. Mrs. Dodd's face was a bright scarlet and appeared about ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... contrary, my sweet friend: only the poet is talking in riddles after the fashion of his tribe. For all poetry has by nature an enigmatical character, and it is by no means everybody who can interpret it. And if, moreover, the spirit of poetry happen to seize on a man who is of a begrudging temper and does not care to manifest his wisdom but keeps ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato
... the missive finally reached its destination. This visitor had hardly departed when another was announced in the person of a Dr. Scholtz, whom, with his wife, I had met at Groot Schuurr as Mr. Rhodes's friends. This gentleman, who is since dead, had always seemed to me somewhat of an enigmatical personage. German by origin, he combined strong sympathies with the Boers and fervent Imperialism, and I was therefore always a little doubtful as to his real sentiments. He came very kindly on this occasion to pay a friendly call, but also to inform me that he was playing a prominent part in ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... youth whom in her innocence she called her lover was almost enigmatical to Pierrette, she believed in it with all her virgin faith. Her heart was filled with that sensation which travellers in the desert feel when they see from afar the palm-trees round a well. In a few days her misery would end—Jacques said so. ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... was first issued in 1885, by Messrs. Sampson Low, in two slim volumes, with the longer, and to most persons, enigmatical title of The Purple Land That England Lost. A purple land may be found in almost any region of the globe, and 'tis of our gains, not our losses, we keep count. A few notices of the book appeared in ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... which did not occur till seven years afterwards), somebody indicated by seven asterisks and possessing an income of L1200 a-year, was "totally transformed into baseness." There is certainly not much light here, any more than in the equally enigmatical description of the third sorrow as being "in some sort included in the second," so that "what the former was to friendship the latter was to a still more inward bond." The truth is, that all Coleridge's references to himself in his later years are shrouded ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... it hard reading the character of John Charles Fremont, calling it enigmatical and baffling. Not so with those who knew him best. "His unwritten history," writes one of these, "gives the clew ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... sure that I gave you my name, Miss Killigrew." He was secretly confused over this enigmatical reception. ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... message, not reassuring and quite enigmatical. I took my Mauser and also hid in the cuff of my coat my cyanide of potassium. The Baron was quartered in the yurta of the military doctor. When I entered the court, Captain Veseloffsky came up to me. He had a Cossack sword and a revolver without its holster beneath his girdle. ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... nautical principles, by fixing my eye on the pole-star, and seeking ambitiously for a north-west passage, instead of circumnavigating all the capes and head-lands I had doubled in my outward voyage, I came suddenly upon such knotty problems of alleys, such enigmatical entries, and such sphynx's riddles of streets without thoroughfares, as must, I conceive, baffle the audacity of porters and confound the intellects of hackney-coachmen. I could almost have believed at times that I must be the first discoverer of some of these terrae incognitae, and doubted ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... next forty-eight hours Walker hung about the hotel like a culprit. He would have sacrificed even a glimpse of Edith to feel free to go away. He couldn't go away while the other man's plans remained enigmatical; but he wished he hadn't come. He felt his position undignified, grotesque, like that of a boy detected in some bit of ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... who stand here to witness," said the messenger, "that I showed him my blazon, and explained my character. He that will to Cupar maun to Cupar,"and he slid his enigmatical ring from one end of the baton to the other, being the appropriate symbol of his having been forcibly interrupted in ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... him what he meant, for, with all his honesty, Phil could be enigmatical when he chose. Moreover, it really didn't much matter, for, as she tacitly admitted to herself, fond as she was of him, he no longer occupied the place of honour in her thoughts, and she was not vitally interested in him now that the ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... crowd of people struggling toward the hostess across Mrs. Denton Frostwinch's handsome drawing-room. Mrs. Frostwinch belonged, beyond the possibility of any cavilling doubt, to the most exclusive circle of fashionable Boston society. Boston society is a complex and enigmatical thing, full of anomalies, bounded by wavering and uncertain lines, governed by no fixed standards, whether of wealth, birth, or culture, but at times apparently leaning a little toward each of these three great factors of American ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... the money in his pocket, when one fine morning he walked into his own door, as dictatorial, as set in his own opinion as ever; the only change to be detected in his manners and conversation thereafter was the enigmatical assertion at times that he was a "ransomed saint," followed by a low chuckle of enjoyment. Those who heard this often made bold to say to one another that he "didn't act like it," and this opinion was shared by the sheriff ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... goin' to be with us long, I'm afeerd:" and, without looking up, June knew the wireless significance of the speech was going around from eye to eye, but calmly she pulled her thread through a green pod and said calmly, with a little enigmatical shake of her head: ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... the asa-faith. The two Eddas constitute, as it were, the Odinic Bible. The Elder Edda is the Old Testament, the Younger Edda the New. Like the Old Testament, the Elder Edda is in poetry. It is prophetic and enigmatical. Like the New Testament, the Younger Edda is in prose; it is lucid, and gives a clue to the obscure passages in the Elder Edda. Nay, in many respects do the two Eddas correspond with the two ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... an enigmatical answer, but the only true one I can give," said Lafayette, turning to his companion and putting both hands upon his shoulders. "The face is still the face of the boy I knew, and of whom I have thought often; there is exactly that courage ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... given to the enigmatical words by Daniel put an end to the merry-making of the feasters. They scattered in dread and fear, leaving none behind except the king and his attendants. In the same night the king was murdered ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... "Your question is as enigmatical as an ancient oracle. I must have a little more light. Do these differences of feeling or opinion touch action? - either ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... said Lesley's father, with a slight enigmatical smile. "Especially with the Earl of Courtleroy. Hallo! there's the dinner bell. We have wasted all our time talking up here: you'll stay ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... his mysterious charge out of the boat, a gentle pressure from the warm soft hand which for a moment rested upon his, quickened every pulse in his frame; and long after the enigmatical being had disappeared behind the angle of a palace, he stood gazing, like one entranced, at the spot where he had last seen her imposing and graceful figure. The approach of Jacopo, still crossing himself, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... and under the steadiness of her silent gaze, his momentary reassurance wilted. He had foreseen the possibility of encountering a woman turned Valkyrie, but was unaccoutred to face this enigmatical calm. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... scholars, philosophers, and statesmen. They will then remember, with strange tenderness, many objects once familiar to them, the avenue and the terrace, the busts and the paintings, the carving, the grotesque gilding, and the enigmatical mottoes. With peculiar fondness they will recall that venerable chamber, in which all the antique gravity of a college library was so singularly blended with all that female grace and wit could devise to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to spoil her child. She may say, with a loving and enigmatical smile, that she prefers to "spoil" it; but that is only her way of saying that she knows better than some stern and misguided people what is best for its tender wants. If she thought for a moment she was really spoiling the child's character, she would ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... resignation some old people display towards the fugue of youth. Older by a quarter of a century than General D'Hubert, he looked upon him in the secret of his heart as a rather troublesome youngster in love. He had heard his enigmatical words very well, but attached no undue importance to what a mere man of forty so hard hit was likely to do or say. The turn of mind of the generation of Frenchmen grown up during the years of his exile was almost unintelligible ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... ears and dulcet tones, facts, and rumours of facts, which none the less often determined events by stirring the strong feelings of your ancestors, whose conduct, unless explained by this light, must remain enigmatical. ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... in politics. One, the stately Artemis Prologuizes, is the sole remaining fragment of a classical drama, "Hippolytus and Aricia," composed in 1840, "much against my endeavour," wrote the poet,—a somewhat enigmatical phrase—"while in bed with a fever." A considerable number of the poems may be grouped together as expressions or demonstrations of various passions, central among which is the passion of love. A few, and these conspicuous for their masterly handling of novel themes, treat of art, ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... equally ready in all forms of writing that his neighbours followed he, of course, wrote Characters. They were "Fifty-five Enigmatical Characters, all very exactly drawn to the Life, from several Persons, Humours, Dispositions. Pleasant and full of Delight. By R. F., Esq." The Duke of Newcastle admired, and wrote, in lines ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... may have gone far towards shaping itself, but just as in that sort of lantern show that used to be known in the village as the "Dissolving Views," the scene that is going remains upon the mind, traceable and evident, and the newer picture is yet enigmatical long after the lines that are to replace those former ones have grown bright and strong, so that the new England of our children's children is still a riddle to me. The ideas of democracy, of equality, and above all of promiscuous fraternity ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... sudden flights of thought so common in dreams I heard the hoarse falsetto of the bric-a-brac dealer, repeating like a monotonous refrain the phrase he had uttered in his shop with so enigmatical an intonation: ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier
... so enigmatical, that I am forced to conclude you resort to this method of defence. The exigencies of professional duty compel me to assume toward you an attitude, as painfully embarrassing to me as it is threatening to you. Because the stern and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... recruiting man, as they came," she replied. As always the deeps of her eyes were enigmatical; but the surfaces, at least, of her mood ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... xxxvii. Fifty-five[DT] Enigmatical Characters, all very exactly drawn to the Life, from several Persons, Humours, Dispositions. Pleasant and full of Delight. By R. F. Esq.; London: Printed for William Crook, at the sign of the Three Bibles ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... understood what she meant, and her father only half heard these mysterious words without pondering over their thoroughly enigmatical meaning. ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... the girl knew nothing of Colonel Henry; she understood very little about the Dreyfus case; and all she had to go upon was the enigmatical telegram and M. Zola's talk during the evening, when he was expressing his thoughts aloud. But at that moment he had foreseen no death, murder, or suicide, and if the possibility of any arrest had occurred to him ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... keep my word!" was the enigmatical remark the smiling Quimby made as he entered. Then, catching sight of the festive board, he stopped short and stared, with an utterly confounded face, at that, at the embarrassed Nattie, at Cyn, behind the door, and at the saucepan cover, which, embellished ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... the rules to smoke?" Without a word the Texan complied, and as he held a match to the cigarette he stared straight into the man's eyes: "You've started out good," he remarked gravely. "I'm just wonderin' if you can play your string out." With which enigmatical remark he turned to the cowboys: "The drinks are on me, boys. Jerk off that rope, an' go back to town! An' remember, this lynchin' come ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... seen the yachtsman. He came up the street and hung about a little, pretending to look at the shops, then walked away briskly, which showed Charlotte that the plot was thickening, and greatly excited her. Beth smiled and nodded as though well satisfied when she heard the news, but preserved an enigmatical silence. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... delusion of being independent of every power except himself, freely and arbitrarily controlling his own destiny, owing no gratitude except to his own might, and being compelled to yield to nothing save the enigmatical, pitiless power of eternal laws or their co-operation, so incomprehensible to the human intellect, called "chance," which took no heed of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the least idea what you mean, my dear sir," he stammered. "All that you say is entirely enigmatical to me. What have I to do with this ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... perils, travels, scenes, joys, and sorrows; loves and hates; friendships and indifferences. My mind followed the various and rapid transition of my life's passages; it drew the lengthy, erratic, sinuous lines of travel my footsteps had passed over. If I had drawn them on the sandy floor, what enigmatical problems they had been to those around me, and what plain, readable, intelligent histories they had been ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... something enigmatical to me, between Frank and the money account. I could not conceive how he should want the means immediately to furnish such a sum as would have been sufficient for the poor fugitive. And this again reminded me how assiduously Frank had ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... folds produced by lateral pressure— faults of various width— intrusive dikes of trap— organic bodies of diversified shapes, and other causes of unevenness in the planes of deposition, both on the small and on the large scale, will interfere with parallelism. If complex and enigmatical appearances did not present themselves, it would be a serious objection to the metamorphic theory. Mr. Sorby has shown that the peculiar structure belonging to ripple-marked sands, or that which is generated when ripples are formed during the deposition of the materials, is ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... walls, inner and outer, in disrepair. An inscription on a tablet testified that this was the temple of Spiritual Perception. On the sides of the door was also a pair of old and dilapidated scrolls with the following enigmatical verses. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... know anything;" and then, with an enigmatical smile, promptly admitted: "However, I'm afraid ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... the worship of the gods of Greece. At the appointed season of festival to each several deity, his praises were sung, his traditionary achievements were recited. One of the divinities last introduced into Greece—the mystic and enigmatical Dionysos, or Bacchus, received the popular and enthusiastic adoration naturally due to the God of the Vineyard, and the "Unbinder of galling cares." His festival, celebrated at the most joyous of agricultural seasons [7], was ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was the consciousness that he was using rather grandiloquent language in the wording of this enigmatical little speech, that caused the good professor to look so red and embarrassed. Abbie drew her hand away, and laid her finger on ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... It was an enigmatical reply, and Dick saw that it was useless to ask them questions. Robertson mounted, and Dick, without another word, sprang up behind him. Two of the privates rode up close, one on either side, and the other kept immediately ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... aspirations, could not compass his desires, in short, could not fully assert himself. Here, indeed, we have lit upon the tragic motive of Chopin's life-drama, and the key to much that otherwise would be enigmatical, certainly not explicable by delicacy and disease alone. His salon acquaintances, who saw only the polished outside of the man, knew nothing of this disparity and discrepancy; and even the select few of his most intimate friends, from whom he was not ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... an advocate worth having, Miss Leyburn,' he said at last, an enigmatical smile he could not restrain playing about his mouth. 'I could not argue with you; I had ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... children, we were blind to the enigmatical hatred which has to an appalling extent developed all around us. This hate which has been nourished systematically and with satanic cleverness probably originated in a slight feeling of jealousy, and the tendency ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... doubt that is what I must have meant," said Holmes, with his enigmatical smile. Lestrade had learned by more experiences than he would care to acknowledge that that brain could cut through that which was impenetrable to him. I saw him ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... again, come back twa!" was the enigmatical sentence with which the landlady made her adieu, and a faint colour flickered in Margot's cheek as ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... entered the Mosque, and presently returned with the Fakir's answer, in these enigmatical words:—"He who would see the sun rise must watch ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... the girl was enigmatical both to Horace and to Ann. Weary hours, crowding one upon another, offered her no relief. The thought of Lon's letter shattered hope and made her desolate. She did not stop to reason that her relations with Horace demanded ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... "Perhaps," was her enigmatical reply. "Who knows? It is, however, evident that Il Passero is seriously concerned at the tragic affair at the ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... of those highly condensed and somewhat enigmatical expressions of which Sun Tzu is so fond. This is how it is explained by Ts'ao Kung: "Make it appear that you are a long way off, then cover the distance rapidly and arrive on the scene before your opponent." Tu Mu says: "Hoodwink ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... and erratic confessions of Solness, to his doubts, his craven timidities, his selfish secrets, and his terror at the uniformity of his "luck." It is less easy to see exactly what Ibsen believed himself to be presenting to us in the enigmatical figure of Hilda, so attractive and genial, so exquisitely refreshing, and yet radically so cruel and superficial. She is perhaps conceived as a symbol of Youth, arriving too late within the circle which Age has trodden for its steps to walk in, and luring it too rashly, by the ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... ministry of Christ in the early conflict against human slavery in this country would be enigmatical in the extreme, utterly beyond apprehension, if it were not matter of history that the representatives of the Christian Church, in conflicts with every giant wrong, have always been the strongest supporters, the most obsequious ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... Injin Charley, silent and enigmatical as ever, had constructed a log shack near a little creek over in the hardwood. There he attended diligently to the business of trapping. Thorpe had brought him a deer knife from Detroit; a beautiful instrument made of the best tool steel, in one long piece extending through the buck-horn handle. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... caressing cadences in the voice of Lance Lorrigan, any provocative tilt to his eyebrows, any tenderness in his smile, anything enigmatical in his personality, none of these things were apparent when he set the first bucket of water on the stove to heat. He had added to his charms a broad streak of soot across his forehead and a scratch on his neck, acquired while putting up the stovepipe. He ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... now; but I shan't be long," answered the young hostess, with a confident wink in Alfaretta's direction. To which that matter-of-fact maid replied by a contemptuous toss of her head and the enigmatical words: ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... stand to each other? That question cannot at the present time be fully answered. Even should it be proved, as it appears likely to be, that Egyptian civilisation was derived originally from Mesopotamia, much will still be dark and enigmatical. The foremost scholars in Egyptology confess that no history of Egyptian religion can as yet be written. Those who have tried to sketch it differ from each other as widely as possible, some alleging monotheism as its starting-point, and some the worship of animals. The religion also comes into ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... many crimes pass unsuspected it is none the less obvious that they have been committed; now while some of them are due to ordinary criminals, others are the work of enigmatical beings who are difficult to trace and too clever or intelligent to let themselves be caught. History is full of stories of such mysterious characters, the Iron Mask, for instance, and Cagliostro. In every age there have been bands ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... Gardens. The moment I entered her drawing-room, I became aware of an occult presence that seemed to be hovering around her. Wherever she moved, it moved with her, and I FELT that its strange, fathomless, enigmatical eyes were fixed on her, noting and guiding her innermost thoughts and her every action ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... shall, perhaps, best grasp the whole depth of that meaning according to the Messianic reference which we give to the text, if we consider the sad and solemn conception of man's life that underlies it; the enigmatical and obstinate hope which it holds out in the teeth of all experience—'A man shall be a refuge'; and the solution of the riddle ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... puerile abbreviation as well as the reasons assigned for it, were intended to be a Sterne-like jest, apitiful one. Why Goedeke should suggest "Meine Randglossen" is quite inexplicable, since Gchhausen himself in the very first chapter indicates the real title. Beneath the enigmatical title stands an alleged quotation from Shandy: "Ein Autor borgt, bettelt und stiehlt so stark von dem andern, dass bey meiner Seele! die Originalitt fast so rar geworden ist als die Ehrlichkeit."[65] The book itself, like Sterne's Journey, is divided into brief chapters ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... passage is enigmatical, as the original type seems to be involved in dense obscurity. Buffon considered the shepherd dog to be the least modified by domestication—very erroneously, according to Dr Prichard; it is still a vexata questio, whether the original progenitor of the dog be a wolf, a jackal, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... most elegantly dressed of those whom the enigmatical masquerade attracted, was a young man, of whom it would have bee difficult to say to what race he belonged. His face was covered by a closely-fitting silken mask, in which every hue of the rainbow was blended, but which, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... moment. It was shared—at least it was pleasant to think so—by my old Annamite friend of the Penguin experience, who stood by his flag nodding his head at me. He said, "Beaucoup bon," showing his polished black teeth in an approving grin. I forgot for the moment that "beaucoup bon" was his enigmatical comment upon all occasions, and that he would have grinned just as broadly had he been dragging me out from a mass ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... in Cambridge, I may say, and subsequently brought out a respectable edition of Polyaenus—contained among other things the notes which the old Vicar had made upon the occasion of Sir Matthew Fell's death. And for the first time Sir Richard was confronted with the enigmatical Sortes Biblicae which you have heard. They amused ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... cross-grain was in the men, not in the timber." The king, on historical evidence, and by what he said in his own works, claims the honour of discovering the gunpowder plot, by the sagacity and reflection with which he solved the enigmatical and ungrammatical letter sent on that occasion. The train of his thoughts has even been preserved to us; and, although a loose passage, in a private letter of the Earl of Salisbury, contradicted by another passage in the same letter, would indicate that the earl was the man; yet even Mrs. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... she was very curious. The steam from the cauldron of Mystery seldom arose in the little "dwelling in amity" save about Christmas time or just previous to Nan's birthday. But Papa Sherwood certainly was enigmatical and Momsey was mysteriously happy, as Dr. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... forehead, were of a deep, blue black, and the warm, dark coloring of the skin betokened rather a son of the south than of German parentage. Neither did the eyes, which flashed in the youthful countenance, belong to the cool, earnest north; they were enigmatical eyes, dark as the night, and full of hot, passionate fire. Beautiful as they were, however, there was something uncanny hidden in their depths, and though the laughter which accompanied Hartmut's words was free and unrestrained, it was not ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... of memory there came to her some half-enigmatical words; they had been quoted by Charles Osmond in his speech, but she did not remember where she had heard them, only they began to ring in ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... fifty times over with those enigmatical proverbs of yours," said the Parson testily, "you would not make it ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... was the enigmatical answer, given with a shake of the head, "but I have 'em all right. However, that's another matter. What we have to do now is to get ready to meet any of these sheep men if they come up and try ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker |
