"Mystery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was a man of mystery and violence, who threw himself into every kind of human activity with superhuman, Satanic, zest; traveller, sportsman, financier, mining expert, lover of wine and women, of books and prints; one of the founders, I believe, of the Rhodesia Company; faultlessly dressed, infernally rich ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... letter from my uncle in Halifax. He is ordered off to the Cape of Good Hope. I wrote him a very long time ago, as I told you, asking him to tell me without reserve all that he knew about my father's death. I told him plainly that there was a mystery about it which I was determined to solve. I reproached him for keeping it secret from me, and reminded him that I was now a mature man; and that he had no right nor any reason to maintain any farther secrecy. I insisted on knowing all, no matter ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... real mystery about the exodus, is that in all the Southland there has not been a single meeting or promoter to start the migration. Just simultaneously all over the South about a year ago, the negro began to cross the Mason and Dixon line. Indeed, this is a most striking ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... to himself, "for what dealings could a knight honestly have with the ruffians who haunt these swamps. It is assuredly no business of mine, but it may lead to an adventure, and I have had no real fun since I left Aldgate. I will follow and see if I can get to the bottom of the mystery." ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... knife and fork with a curse, and left the hall. Men began to see clearly that there must have been some mystery attached to the Aeschylus paper, known to Brogten and Kennedy, and very discomfiting to the latter. But as Kennedy was concerned, they did not suspect ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... Legislature gathered around the editor of the Evening Journal for counsel and advice. It resembled a President's levee. He remained standing in the centre of the room, conversing with those about him and shaking hands with new-comers; but there was nothing in his manner to indicate the slightest mystery or excitement so ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... There are several islands in Polynesia that have been looked upon from time immemorial as islands of the dead. These places are shunned by the islanders, and the centuries have invested them with the same atmosphere of brooding mystery that Professor Herndon and his party felt when they landed upon the silent isle where the Wizards of the Centipede performed their weird rites without interference from ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... position. He was fortunate in his entire ignorance of sixpenny 'science,' but if the whole library had been projected into his brain it would not have moved him to 'deny in the darkness that which he had known in the light.' Darnell knew by experience that man is made a mystery for mysteries and visions, for the realization in his consciousness of ineffable bliss, for a great joy that transmutes the whole world, for a joy that surpasses all joys and overcomes all sorrows. He knew this certainly, though he knew it dimly; and he was ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... of salt happen to be washed out near the statue, it was believed that a household dog, also transformed into salt, had followed her back from beneath the deep. Did more statues than one appear at one time, that simply made the mystery more impressive. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Volume in 1752; after which, owing to the explosions that ensued, no Second came, nor ever will;—and that the actual contents of that far-famed OEUVRE DE "POESHIE" (number of volumes even) are points of mystery to me, at this day. [Herr Preuss—in the CHRONOLOGICAL LIST of Friedrich's Writings (a useful accurate Piece otherwise), and in two other places where he tries—is very indistinct on this of DONJON ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... believe that boys will find it capital reading. It is full of incident and mystery, and the mystery is kept up to the last moment. It is rich in effective local colouring; and it ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... of a dream is then no mystery. It resembles the birth of all our perceptions. The mechanism of the dream is the same, in general, as that of normal perception. When we perceive a real object, what we actually see—the sensible matter of our perception—is very little ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson
... times as he stumbled along he snatched out his pocket searchlight and was about to use it, when some sixth sense, plus the mystery of Slim's absence, prevailed upon him to take ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... ladies came to call on me, Mr. Ferguson," she exclaimed, well aware that this announcement left the mystery of the women's presence ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... Alexandria, lured by a dream, instead of for Cork; and the older Imperialists beat the new Imperialists and secured a fresh century of unprecedented triumph. The Pyramids looked down on Waterloo; but the headlands of Bantry Bay concealed the mastery, and the mystery, of the seas. ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... The mystery of John Riviere intrigued Elaine. There was certainly a mysterious something about this man which she had not fathomed. His most open confidences held deep reserves. If he had not avowed himself a scientist, she would have classed ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... a career involving manual work, I should take steps to have him initiated into the Art and Mystery of Bricklaying. At the rate we are moving the working-hours would probably be about eight per week, with approximately eight pounds per day salary, by the time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... happy. Life, she often thought, however much one tabulated was yet a mystery. There were always some people it was impossible to place. Frederick was one of them. He didn't seem to bear the remotest resemblance to the original Frederick. He didn't seem to have the least need of any of the things he used to say were so important and beautiful—love, home, complete communion ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Captain, drew together. It is pleasant to find that each of the old gentlemen set a high value on the good looks of the other, doubtless also on his own; and a fine picture they made as they walked the green terrace at Hailes, conversing by the hour. What they talked of is still a mystery to those who knew them; but Mr. Austin always declared that on these occasions he learned much. To both of these families of elders, due service was paid of attention; to both, Fleeming's easy circumstances ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be a mystery to me," said Lewis Wynne, "how I missed your father's letter, although certainly I was roaming about a good deal at the time, and afterwards never hearing my brother's name from Dr. Hughes, who wrote occasionally, I naturally thought he was still keeping ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... this ineradicable hornet's nest is unknown. Whether they are the remnant of the original Ethiopians, who possessed the country prior to the conquests of the Abyssinians, or whether they are descended from the woolly-haired tribes of the south banks of the Blue Nile, is equally a mystery; all we know is that they are of the same type as the inhabitants of Fazogle, of the upper portion of the Blue River; they are exceedingly black, with woolly hair, resembling in that respect the ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... over, and, what was more, Wyllard, who pledged the rest to secrecy, fancied that what had become of the schooner would remain a mystery. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... days; in proportion as the world has grown narrower and the element of fear and mystery diluted, our sympathies have broadened; the Goth, in particular, has learnt the knack of detecting natural charm where the Latin, to this day, beholds nothing ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... by the stout old German, who, on reaching the front-door, drew forth a letter from his pocket and handed it to him with much pretence of mystery. He was thinking of other things, to tell the truth; and as he walked along he regarded the outside of the envelope with but little curiosity. It was addressed, "All' Egregio Sigmore, Il Signor ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... soul, while brooding over the golden brown plain on our way down river, now and then sought to fathom the mystery of the country's future. As we left Kurna and entered the fair, broad-bosomed Shatt-el-Arab he suddenly swept his arm round the horizon. "All this show of ours out here is nothing in itself," he said. "It's a beginning ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... upstairs again. The news began to creep about the school, however, that the Abbey was being haunted by a spiritual visitor. Many of the girls saw it glide along the landing in the dusk, and disappear up a certain narrow flight of stairs. Now herein lay the mystery. The stairs went up ten steps in full view of the passage, then they turned a sharp corner, rounded a yard of landing, and with four more steps ended in a locked attic door. Several of the most venturesome members of the school had tried to ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Hooker may have believed that Jackson was retreating, he was bound to guard against the possibility of an attack, knowing as he did Jackson's whereabouts and habit of rapid mystery. Had he thrown the entire Eleventh Corps en potence to his main line, as above indicated, to arrest or retard an attack if made; had he drawn troops from Meade on the extreme left, where half an hour's reconnoitring would have shown that ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Jimmy saw now. The mystery was solved. So, that was why Molly had allowed them to force her into the engagement with Dreever. For a moment, a rush of anger filled him; but he looked at McEachern, and it died away. He could not be vindictive now. It would be like ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... been interred, for the purpose of exhuming the body. After digging for some time they came to an oblong box or coffin in which the remains had been placed, but it was empty, the interment within the walls had been a mock ceremony, and the final resting-place of the body lies hidden in mystery. Now there is one thing very evident from the fact, and that is that Riel and his immediate followers were themselves conscious of the enormity of the deed they had committed, for had they believed that the taking of this man's life was really an execution justified upon any grounds of ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... morning, he happened to cast his eyes where the ginger-pop stood, when, to his very great astonishment, he saw a bottle move off the board just for all the world as if it had possessed the power of locomotion. A second was about to follow the first, when he popped his head out at the door and the mystery was cleared up, for there he discovered the young delinquent making a rapid retreat on all-fours, with the "ginger-pop," the cork of which had flown out, fizzing from his breeches-pocket. After a smart administration of the strappado, he proceeded to ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... is bluish gray above, streaked with black, and yellow below with the throat and sides streaked. Until the summer of 1903, the locality where they bred was a mystery. The capture of a specimen, in June, in Oscodo Co., Michigan, led to the search for the nests by N. A. Wood, taxidermist for the Michigan Museum at Ann Arbor. He was successful in his quest and found two nests with young and one egg. The nest in which the egg was found contained two young birds ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... Shield, lance, and brand, and plume, and scarf, Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf, And wizard with his want of might, And errant maid on palfrey white. Around the Genius weave their spells, Pure Love, who scarce his passion tells; Mystery, half veiled and half revealed; And Honour, with his spotless shield; Attention, with fixed eye; and Fear, That loves the tale she shrinks to hear; And gentle Courtesy; and Faith, Unchanged by sufferings, time, or death; And Valour, lion-mettled ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... in Genoa, with the fair hair and blue eyes and grave freckled face that made him remarkable among his dark companions, had no doubt early received and accepted the vast mysteries of the Christian faith; and as that other mystery began to grow in his mind, and that idea of worlds that might lie beyond the sea-line began to take shape in his thoughts, he found in the holy wisdom of the prophets, and the inspired writings of the fathers, a continual confirmation ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... desired recurrence for an effect of his own will, and the dreaded recurrence for an effect of the will of his enemies. Thus the springs which set the vast machine in motion, though they lie far beyond our ken, shrouded in a mystery which we can never hope to penetrate, appear to ignorant man to lie within his reach: he fancies he can touch them and so work by magic art all manner of good to himself and evil to his foes. In time the fallacy of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... as in the morning; she wakened fresh with the world every day, and her eyes had a deeper colour then, like the blue flowers that are never so blue as when they first open. I could sit idle all through a Sunday morning and look at her. Ole Benson's behaviour was now no mystery to me. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... sit down and be quiet, which last remark was rather unnecessary, considering that the man was dumb. Then she sat down behind her bar and resumed her perusal of a novel called The Duke's Duchesses, or The Milliner's Mystery,' which contained a ducal hero with bigamistic proclivities, and a virtuous milliner whom the aforesaid duke persecuted. All of which was very entertaining and improbable, and gave Miss Twexby much pleasure, judging from the sympathetic ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Strange mystery! It is better then To weep and yearn and vainly call, Till peace is won from pain, Than not to ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... order a horse at once. It is all very mysterious and extraordinary; but then you have been a mystery, Rupert Hyde, a riddle and a puzzle, ever since I ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... Scriptures, at once lewd and wild. Nana was all covered with fine hair; a russet made her body velvety, while the Beast was apparent in the almost equine development of her flanks, in the fleshy exuberances and deep hollows of her body, which lent her sex the mystery and suggestiveness lurking in their shadows. She was, indeed, that Golden Creature, blind as brute force, whose very odor ruined the world. Muffat gazed and gazed as a man possessed, till at last, when he had shut his eyes in order to escape it, the Brute reappeared in the darkness ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... all—with the earth's pressure the power motive," Asher nodded. "So, after my Miner is on the bottom of our well, I can burn—or dissolve—a room as large as this laboratory in a few minutes. The whole thing is no mystery after you learn it—not nearly so much as radium, or radio, was. Merely creating a spark of electricity and fanning it through a vacuum and a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... the Nile, recurring as regularly as the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, necessarily remained an unsolved mystery to the ancients, for until the discovery of the tropical regions, with their mountainous lakes and deluging rains, it was impossible to learn the occasion of this increase. It is now known that the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... Hundred neither wished the Five Thousand to exist, nor to have it known that they did not exist; being of opinion that to give themselves so many partners in empire would be downright democracy, while the mystery in question would make the people afraid of ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... did later on will be told in another volume, to be called, "Tom Swift and His Wireless Message; or, The Castaways of Earthquake Island"—a strange tale of ship-wreck and mystery. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... (otherwise Governor) Lewis was tragical and was shadowed by a cloud. Official business calling him to Washington, he left St. Louis early in September, 1809, and prosecuted his journey eastward through Tennessee, by the way of Chickasaw Bluffs, now Memphis, of that State. There is a mystery around his last days. On the eleventh of October, he stopped at a wayside log-inn, and that night he died a violent death, whether by his own hand or by that of a murderer, no living man knows. There were many contradictory ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... meeting-places save the fashionable cafes or our own reception rooms. The police follow us—what can they discover?—nothing! What is there to discover?—nothing! Our lives are lived before the eyes of all Paris. There is never any suspicion of mystery about any of our movements. We have our hobbies, and we indulge in them. Monsieur the Marquis de Sogrange here is a great sportsman. Monsieur le Comte owns many racehorses. I myself am an authority on pictures, and own a collection ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the Jolly Roger?' he inquired, with perfect gravity; and immediately after, went into peals of laughter. 'Pardon me,' said he; 'but here for the first time I recognise your ladyship's impetuosity.' Nor, try as I pleased, could I extract from him any explanation of this mystery, but only oily ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... serve to discourage and disgust the beginner in the study. Our intent is not to erect a new Temple of Knowledge, but rather to place in the hands of the student a Master-Key with which he may open the many inner doors in the Temple of Mystery through the main portals he ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... white with a dire alarm as the facts of the mystery suddenly flashed before them. The Kanawha was the ship in which Captain Mogul Mackenzie had made himself notorious as a privateersman. Every one had heard her awe-inspiring name, and every Yankee seafaring ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... dark with mystery. She pressed against Stella with a small protective gesture. "Darling, she said horrid things, but they aren't true any of them. If Uncle Everard had been there, she wouldn't have dared. I ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... down upon her from the cabin-roof seemed somehow to hurt her, for after a second or two she leaned to one side without rising from her knees and switched it off. Then with her hands tightly clasped, she gazed out over the dim, starlit sea. The mystery of it, the calm, the purity, closed round her like a dream. She gazed forth into the great waste of rippling waters, ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... spelled out "James Woodson," and mused upon him, Till Harry said, poring, "I wish I could know What manner of man used the bones down below." Answered Tom,—as he took his cigar from his lip And tapped off the ashes that crusted the tip, His quaint face somewhat shaded with awe and with mystery,— "You shall hear, if you will, the main points in his story."— "You don't mean you knew him? You could not! See here! Why, this, since he died, is the thirtieth year!"— "I never saw him, nor the place where he lay, Nor heard of nor thought of the man, till to-day; But I'll tell you his story, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the real meaning of that mystery which appears so prominently in the lives of great sceptics, which appears with especial prominence in the life of Charles II. I mean their constant oscillation between atheism and Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is indeed a great ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... year of grace 1921. Thanks to this, I came to know the calm, good and honest Mongolian people; I read their souls, saw their sufferings and hopes; I witnessed the whole horror of their oppression and fear before the face of Mystery, there where Mystery pervades all life. I watched the rivers during the severe cold break with a rumbling roar their chains of ice; saw lakes cast up on their shores the bones of human beings; heard unknown wild voices in the mountain ravines; made out the fires over miry ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... Charles grew hourly worse, and he rapidly approached his last moments. None knew better than his heartless mother, as she had herself admitted, that he must die; but yet, with so much artifice and intrigue did she envelope in mystery his lost condition, that, even in the Palace of the Louvre, his own nearest relations were ignorant how near approached the hour, which, by leaving the crown as heirloom to a successor far away in a distant country, opened ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... A mysterious, scared-looking woman, with a deep scar across one of her wrists. Her antecedents were full of mystery, and Pip suspected her of being Estella's mother.—C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... there were no other passengers for the east-bound Flyer; and finding he still had some minutes to wait, Ormsby lounged into the telegraph office. Here the bonds of ennui were loosened by the gradual development of a little mystery. First the telephone bell rang smartly, and when the telegraph operator took down the ear-piece and said "Well?" in the imperious tone common to his kind, he evidently received ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... tragedy of mere human passion; that sensation tragedy, which is the only one the world knows now, and of which the world is growing rapidly tired—behind all, I say, lessons of the awful and unfathomable mystery of human existence, of unseen destiny; of that seemingly capricious distribution of weal and woe, to which we can find no solution on this side the grave, for which the old Greek could ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... appearance of man. And very wonderful, surely, has that course been! How strange a procession! Never yet on Egyptian obelisk or Assyrian frieze,—where long lines of figures seem stalking across the granite, each charged with symbol and mystery,—have our Layards or Rawlinsons seen aught so extraordinary as that long procession of being which, starting out of the blank depths of the bygone eternity, is still defiling across the stage, and of which we ourselves form ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... life being in truth miracle and mystery, I do not know how to explain what each one knows so well; I do not know how there is developed within us that sublime state known and described under different names by Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Tauler, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... mind, in its activity, independent of the body—were the wounded spirit unable to forget its pain—could the guilty conscience sting incessantly—then the chief human industry would come to be the erection of asylums for the insane. But by an unfathomable mystery the tireless regal spirit has been blended with the flesh and blood of its servant, the body. In heaven, where there is neither sin nor pain, even the body becomes spiritual; but on earth, where it so often happens, as in the case of poor Haldane, that to think and to remember is torture, it ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... when this was disproved that they were being built for the Viceroy of Egypt. This also proved to be untrue. Finally it was declared that the real owners were certain French merchants whose purpose in contracting for such clearly warlike vessels was left in mystery, but with the intimation that Egypt was to be the ultimate purchaser. Captain Bullock had indeed made such a contract of sale to French merchants but with the proviso of resale to him, after delivery. On his part, Russell was seeking proof fully adequate to seizure, but ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... of perfection; horn a symbol of power; and eyes a symbol of wisdom. Therefore this One is pictured as having perfect power and perfect wisdom to perform this wonderful privilege and duty. This is the first time that the great mystery of Jehovah, his great plan or program, was made known to any one; and since then, from time to time, he has been pleased to reveal portions of his plan to men who have honestly and faithfully sought to understand it. He has promised to reward those that diligently ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... the baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the brig on either side of the caboose. An ideal perch. The sun was setting over Australia way, in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. Some mystery of mirage caused the water to heave and tremble as if troubled by ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... scarf; and she generally had innumerable ends of quilted net flying about her skirts, not unlike tails. It was certain she did not spend much money upon her own attire; and how she procured the costly dresses for Maude the latter appeared in was ever a mystery. You can hardly fancy the bedecked old figure that she made. The O'Moore nearly laughed out, as he civilly turned to answer ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... rivers. This gives it naturally a depressed appearance, which must have much aided Mark Tapley in his endeavors. Who were the founders of Cairo I have never ascertained. They are probably buried fathoms deep in the mud, and their names will no doubt remain a mystery to the latest ages. They were brought thither, I presume, by the apparent water privileges of the place; but the water privileges have been too much for them, and by the excess of their powers have succeeded in drowning all the capital of the early Cairovians, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... place, in a foolish hurry, though the Newport season had not yet begun: Roger's determination to begin with a house-party and a dance; his civil, quiet coldness to her; the strange look she caught in his eyes at times; the mystery of Clo's silence, which deepened day by day; fear of reprisals for loss of the papers; these things seemed harder to bear in Newport than at home in New York. Often Beverley wondered how ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... heard by us, O monarch, that what thou askest is a mystery even to the gods. I shall, however, speak of it unto thee, after bowing down (to the self-born). The son of Jamadagni (Parasurama), after twenty-one times making the earth bereft of Kshatriyas wended to that best of mountains Mahendra and there began his ascetic ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... canon. "Living in the house there was no need for him to use such mystery. He might have pretended illness and remained in the house. Does it not seem ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... son; she turned the conversation, and began talking of a murder committed the week before at Bolbec Nointot. Their minds were immediately full of the circumstances under which the crime had been committed, and absorbed by the interesting horror, the attractive mystery of crime, which, however commonplace, shameful, and disgusting, exercises a strange and universal fascination over the curiosity of mankind. Now and again, however, old Roland looked at his watch. "Come," said he, "it is time to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... a friend in the north of England who favoured my disguise, that I became acquainted with Miss Wardour, and was romantic enough to follow her to Scotland. My mind wavered on various plans of life, when I resolved to apply once more to Mr. Neville for an explanation of the mystery of my birth. It was long ere I received an answer; you were present when it was put into my hands. He informed me of his bad state of health, and conjured me, for my own sake, to inquire no farther into the nature of his connection with me, but to rest satisfied with his declaring it to be such ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... addressed to the matron, on behalf of the sick man. He desired to be "informed of it, if the new nurse was an Irishwoman." Hearing that she was an Englishwoman, he at once accepted her services, being himself (as an additional element of mystery in the matter) ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... the whole mystery consisted in the simple fact that the people, the nation, had steadily refused to sanction the act of their leaders; and all the pretensions of English kings, statesmen, and lawyers, were valueless. Those Irishmen who subsequently entered into the various Geraldine and Ulster confederacies, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... objects are quite invisible to the naked eye. In some rocks they are very abundant, indeed they may be crowded together in such numbers as to darken the colour of the mineral containing them. They have long been a mystery to petrologists. ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... external form corresponding to the nature of the nucleus comes out into manifestation on the plane of the objective and relative. This is the universal method of Nature on every plane. Some of the most advanced thinkers in modern physical science, in the endeavour to probe the great mystery of the first origin of the world, have postulated the formation of what they call "vortex rings" formed from an infinitely fine primordial substance. They tell us that if such a ring be once formed on the minutest scale and set rotating, ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... reptile along the sides of the ajoupa, and, crawling on his belly, arrived at the sleeping-mat of Djalma, beside which he squatted himself, so as to occupy as little space as possible. Then began a fearful scene, by reason of the mystery ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... think of something else in the way of entertainment and diversion. If this well-meaning hostess will accompany me to the guest-room while its temporary occupant is reading on the "front porch," perhaps I can point out to her some things that will give a clue to the mystery. ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... distressed; he could not exactly comprehend the meaning of this dumb show; and yet felt that some dire mystery was connected with these phantoms, which he was called upon to unravel. After breakfast he wandered out, and lost in the maze of thought, sauntered, ere he was aware of it, into the churchyard. Shortly afterwards the church-door was opened by the sexton, who kept his pickaxe ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... the boys had imagined they were to settle down to a quiet life, but such was not to be. On a houseboat the lads, with some friends, sailed down the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, and then found themselves on the Plains, where they solved the mystery of Red Rock ranch. Then they set sail on Southern Waters, and in the Gulf of Mexico ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... Our Lord in his Mother's arms enthroned between four angels. There is nothing in Christendom to compare with these mosaics. They are unique and, as I like to think, in their wonderful significance are the key to a mystery that has for long remained unsolved. For these long processions of saints, representing that great crowd of witnesses of which S. Paul speaks, stand there above the arcade and under the clerestory where in a Gothic church the triforium is set. But the triforium is the one inexplicable ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... towards him—a grimy shoulder, which showed naked through a wide rent in his blouse. This portion of the cell was well- nigh in total darkness; the feeble shaft of light which came through the open door hardly penetrated to this remote angle of the squalid burrow. The same sense of mystery and unreality overcame Chauvelin again as he looked on the miserable creature in whom, an hour ago, he had recognised the super-exquisite Sir Percy Blakeney. Now he could only see a vague outline in the gloom: the stooping ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... understand a people who had suddenly become incredible was indeed one of the most remarkable facts in English intellectual life during the opening phases of the war. The English state of mind was unlimited astonishment. There was an enormous sale of any German books that seemed likely to illuminate the mystery of this amazing concentration of hostility; the works of Bernhardi, Treitschke, Nietzsche, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, became the material of countless articles and interminable discussions. One saw little clerks on the way ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... grave. Forgive me if I ramble: But, then, a negative needs some preamble To break the blow. I feel with you, in truth, These complex miseries of Age and Youth; I feel with you—and none can feel it more Than I—this burning Problem of the Poor; The Want that grinds, the Mystery of Pain, The Hearts that sink, and never rise again;— How shall I set this to some careless screed, Or jigging stave, when Help is what ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... Mystery adds its fascination to his story. The causes of his imprisonment are hidden in obscurity; it is still disputed whether he was insane ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... comes the world does not understand how it is that you can rejoice; and when circumstances are very unfavorable, how you can be happy is a mystery to them. It is because you do not live in the things of the world, but in a much higher realm. If your life is hid with Christ in God, your heart's longings will be for the things above; all your affections will be on ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... have made a more gallant defense against Masinissa, and concentrated all her energies for a last stand upon her own territories. But why should we thus speculate? The doom of Carthage had been pronounced by the decrees of fate. The fall has all the mystery and solemnity of a providential event, like the fall of all empires, like the defeat of Darius by Alexander, like the ruin of Jerusalem, like the melting away of North American Indians, like the final overthrow of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... are too plain—so plain as to make them involve a mystery. What do you mean by this sudden ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... knew, and taught, that when a machine is steeply banked the rudder and the elevator appear to exchange functions, so that the rudder directs the machine up or down and the elevator turns it to this side or that, but they could not always explain the reason of this mystery. Nor could they explain why in a fog or cloud the compass of an aeroplane is suddenly possessed of a devil, and begins to spin around. But although they were not all well versed in technical knowledge and theory, they were all fit ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, Where ranges forth the spirit far and free? Through what strange realms and unfamiliar skies Tends her far course to lands of mystery? To lands unspeakable—beyond surmise, Where shapes unknowable to being spring, Till, faint of wing, the Fancy fails and dies Much wearied with the spirit's journeying, Ere sleep comes down to soothe the ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... commonalty are tradesmen, artificers, and labourers; who (as well as all others) must in pursuance of the statute 1 Hen. V. c. 5. be stiled by the name and addition of their estate, degree, or mystery, in all actions and other ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... would have been worn down, in spite of sacerdotal or other influences to sustain and foster them. Such a happy state of affairs had not arrived in 1853, and the old tales of brutal and barbarous murders filled Europe-with a sense of astonishment and mystery as to the social and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... inscription was found by John, shortly before they left Wonder Island, and which, though its full meaning was wrapt in mystery, pointed, as did the others, to another island than the one on which it was found. What made the matter still more interesting, was the knowledge that some one, by the name of Walters, either had prepared the inscription, or had some knowledge of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... priest, from the very first I declined having anything to do with this matter. It is now all over, and we can never, by our conjectures, unravel the mystery; let it rest; ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... being engaged. Hanny made no reply. She went home in a strange mood. To be sure, Steve had married Dolly, but that was different. How could Margaret leave them all and go away with some one who did not belong to them! She could not understand the mystery. It was as puzzling as Cousin Lois' death. She did not know then it was a mystery even to those who loved, and the poets who wrote ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... at Victoria College forty years ago. He was a good man, no doubt; but no student at that College ever thought of comparing him with the Principal of the College. How he ever got to be Editor of the Guardian was always a mystery to me. I never had the slightest difference with him—quite the reverse; but no comparison could be instituted between James ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... person is a daughter or widow of the trade, such a one is commonly best instructed in the mystery of the business, best able to conciliate the affection of the boys, and make most ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... walked rather quickly, mesmerised possibly by the magic of the illustrious Christian name, and Audrey gave occasional schoolgirlish leaps by their side. A little policeman appeared inquisitive from a by-street, and Audrey tossed her head as if saying: "Pooh! I belong here. All the mystery of this city is mine, and I am as at home as in ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Lytton, with his usual remarkable foresight in things psychic, clearly perceived this. In his story, "The Haunters and the Haunted," he says: "In all that I had witnessed, and indeed in all the wonders which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a material human agency is always required. On the Continent you will still find magicians who assert that they can raise spirits. Assume for a moment that they assert truly, still the living, material form of the magician is present, and he is the material agency by which, ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... to a court martial in Fort Brady. This is the gentleman whose family is referred to in a previous part of my journal in the autumn of 1822, on the occasion of the gentle Mr. Laird's missionary visit to St. Mary's; and his high moral character and correct deportment render it a subject of mystery to me what cause of complaint his brother officers could ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Mrs. Mumbray, with an air of great responsibility, "the mystery is too plain. I don't hint at the worst—it would be uncharitable—but the poor creature had undoubtedly made some discovery in that woman's house which ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... does not know a farmhouse when he sees one. The house was a deserted hut in those days where no one had lived for a great many years. That is why the mystery was the greater. A bridle path then led past the door and joined a road that was a short cut into Westhaven. The path is ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... light, and that she held his fate in her hands, for he was madly in love, which statement she had time to consider and digest before the quadrille again allowed them to come close enough for conversation, when she asked the meaning of his mystery. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... juncture, when every instant is priceless, the Senate proceeds by unanimous consent to consider resolutions of the highest privilege, and reverently pauses in obedience to the holiest impulses of human nature to contemplate the profoundest mystery of human destiny—the mystery of death. In the democracy of death all men at least are equal. There is neither rank, nor station, nor prerogative in the ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... contain of the actual look of Sophocles, must be idealized. To appreciate it properly one must remember that this poet, though he dealt with tragic themes, was not wont to brood over the sin and sorrow and unfathomable mystery of the world, but was serene in his temper and ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... officials whereby they successfully oppose all innovations which savour of progress, and preserve unbroken that lethargic sleep in which China has been wrapt for so many centuries: beyond this all is mystery and doubt. Some say the natives themselves do not believe in it; others declare they do; others again think that the masses have faith, but that enlightened and educated Chinese scout the whole thing as a bare-faced imposture. Most Chinamen will acknowledge they are entirely ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... prodigal admiration only because others are as magnificent as itself. The traces remaining in my memory represent it as airy rather than massive. A multitude of beautiful shapes appeared to be comprehended within its single outline; it was a kind of kaleidoscopic mystery, so rich a variety of aspects did it assume from each altered point of view, through the presentation of a different face, and the rearrangement of its peaks and pinnacles and the three battlemented towers, with the spires that shot heavenward ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... agitated men and women were running hither and thither in unavailing efforts to locate the sound yet ringing in their ears. Not till these various searchers had all come together again, in terror of a mystery they could not solve, did he let his hand fall and himself awake to the scene ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... present towards the unsounded deeps of the future. In many cases their loss has taken all joy and colour from the lives of those who survive them, and tear-stained faces are instinctively turned towards the portals of the Great Mystery. ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... her back to the Cromptons generally, and during the next half hour Eloise had a pretty graphic description of the Colonel and his eccentricities, of Amy, when she was a young girl, of the way she came to the Crompton House, and the mystery which ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... it calls to me, The luring voice of the rebel sea! And I long with a love that is born of tears For the wild fresh life, and the glorying fears, For the quest and the mystery. ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... hallooing and shouting with great appearance of perturbation and distress. The boat out-rowed them, and when she came near the shore, the people on board discovered some women gathering mussels among the rocks. This at once explained the mystery; the poor Indians were afraid that the strangers, either by force or favour, should violate the prerogative of a husband, of which they seemed to be more jealous than the natives of some other countries, who in their appearance are less savage and sordid. Our ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... able to trace the origin of the custom, nor do I remember having read any explanation of its meaning. I once heard an aged woman, who was a most stern observer of all customs of the neighbourhood, especially those which had an air of mystery or a superstition attached to them, attempt to connect the observance with the disciple who sold the Saviour. In her mind all the observances of Christmas were associated with the birth or death of Christ, and ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... by the memory of every romance she had ever read, created for herself an ideal who resembled D'Argenton. The expression of her face so changed in looking at him, her laughing eyes assumed so tender an expression, that her passion soon ceased to be a mystery to any one. ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... which is the immoral playwright's fittest material; because, while the inward savagery moves the passions of the audience, the outward civilisation brings the character near enough to them to give them a likeness of themselves in their worst moments, such as no 'Mystery of Cain' or 'Tragedy of Prometheus' ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... porter, who murdered King Yasa Silo, A.D. 60, and reigned for six years (Mahaw. ch. xxxv. p. 218). A carpenter, and a carrier of fire-wood, were each accepted in succession as sovereigns, A.D. 47; whilst the "great dynasty" was still in the plenitude of its popularity. The mystery is perhaps referable to the dominant necessity of securing tranquillity at any cost, in the state of society where the means of cultivation were directly dependent on the village organisation, and famine and desolation would have ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... Warbel was brought to him, told a part of his tale, and was admitted readily as a member of the household; but the story of his incarceration in the secret chamber remained a secret known only to himself and the three boys. So delightful a mystery as the existence of this unknown chamber was too precious to be parted with; and it was a compact between the boys and the man, who now became their chief attendant and body servant, that the trick of that door and the ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... keep a decent place for Billy to sleep and eat, and she never had a box come by freight in her life. But the burly one did not know that. Just what Billy Gaston did it for, perhaps he did not quite know himself, save that the lure of hanging round a mystery was always great. Moreover it gave him deep joy to know that he knew something about this man that the man did not know he knew. It was always good to know things. It was always wise to keep your mouth shut ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... mystery to your San Francisco!" Enrico Caruso once exclaimed. "Why isn't everyone fat in this city of such ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... millions, and there may be more, To make in turn a various estimation Of its old ills and ashes, and the traps Of its apparent wrath. Many with ears That hear not yet, shall have ears given to them, And then they shall hear strangely. Many with eyes That are incredulous of the Mystery Shall yet be driven to feel, and then to read Where language has an end and is a veil, Not woven of our words. Many that hate Their kind are soon to know that without love Their faith is but the perjured name of nothing. ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... these mournful customs of the country, nevertheless, Israel's instinct whispered him that Squire Woodcock lived no more on this earth. At once the whole three days' mystery was made clear. But what was now to be done? His friend must have died very suddenly; most probably struck down in a fit, from which he never more rose. With him had perished all knowledge of the fact that a stranger was immured ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... to the vestry of St. Columb Major, and had satisfied himself that he was misled by no false report. There was the entry in the Marriage Register. The one unexplained mystery was the mystery of Launce's conduct in permitting his wife to return to her father's house. Utterly unable to account for this proceeding, Turlington could only accept facts as they were, and determine to make ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... remarkable tow-horse that had filled Captain Harvey and his companions with so much surprise. The appearance of the sledge immediately after, with a shout and a cheer from Dicey and the men, explained the mystery. ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... punished in the least, but cherished as a son and allowed to live quietly on his estates and marry Afrosina. On the 31st of January 1718 the tsarevich reached Moscow. Peter had already determined to institute a most searching inquisition in order to get at the bottom of the mystery of the flight. On the 18th of February a "confession'' was extorted from Alexius which implicated most of his friends, and he then publicly renounced the succession to the throne in favour of the baby grand-duke Peter Petrovich. A horrible reign of terror ensued, in the course of which the ex-tsaritsa ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... commenced trampling the thicket through and through. The search was most minute, for there was still a mystery. An extra bow—that is to say, a third—had been found, with its quiver of arrows. Where was the owner? Could he have escaped from the thicket while the men were engaged around the fallen buffaloes? He might, though it was barely probable; but the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... which had come so close aboard of the Bellevite was a mystery to all, from the captain down to the humblest seaman; but the American ensign over the Confederate flag had been observed by a few, and this settled her status. Not more than half of the seamen ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... by nature secretive. He is loath to tell where he made his big catches and shrouds the location of the streams in mystery. If pinned down closely he will sometimes indicate a general locality but it is hard to get him to be more definite. The reason for this is obvious. He is zealous of his rights as a "discoverer" ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... the Queen, made the way of his access by betraying of others, and in impeaching of the priests of his own correspondency, and thereby had access to confer with the Queen, as oftentimes private and familiar discourse with Walsingham, will not be the query of the mystery, for the Secretary might have had an end of a further discovery and maturity of the treason; but that, after the Queen knew Parry's intent, why she would then admit him to private discourse, and Walsingham to suffer him, considering the conditions of all the ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... knowledge of this Bodine was not more improbable than the ballet story. Her strange absences, the mystery surrounding her, all seemed to testify that she had some connection—perhaps only an innocent one—with these desperate people whom the Vigilance Committee were hunting down. Her attempt to save the ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... the spirit world this mystery: Creation is summed up, O man, in thee; Angel and demon, man and beast, art thou, Yea, thou art all ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... ever learned to dance is a mystery to me," said Arthur, "and Harry too, I saw him carrying off Miss Elphinstone, with all the coolness imaginable. Really, the young people of ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... one in 10,000 could not read or write, and these dunces were all Slavs. But how even a Slav born under the eye of the Eagle can remain illiterate is a mystery. In 1905 there were 59,348 elementary schools in the empire, and their organisation is as elaborate and well planned as the organisation of the army. In Berlin alone there are 280. All the teachers at these schools have been trained to teach at special seminaries, and have passed State examinations ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... was doubled. For four weeks the Francis Cadman had been pottering about the Indian Ocean without discovering a single adventure to break the stupid monotony of sky and sea, and restore the faith of the passengers in their favourite maritime authors; but here, at last, was a sensation and a mystery. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... advancing into such a country as we were now threatening, must have ample and easy communications with its base of supplies. Could such people for a moment realize the vast amount of material consumed by such an army as ours, the mystery might be solved. To attempt to advance into a desert country without first either providing a supply for many days, or opening ready communications with our base of supplies, would have been suicidal. General Sherman might lead his army through a fertile country, where ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S boundless energy has long been a mystery. It is now known to be derived from a raw leek eaten on rising, and a dinner of Welsh rabbit, made from a modicum of Government cheese and half a slice ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... life that challenges the imagination and induces a curiosity hard to decipher. The dress of the Chinese, their strange customs, their difficult language, and their apparently impenetrable mask-like faces appeal to the fancy and throw a veil of mystery ...
— Pung Chow - The Game of a Hundred Intelligences. Also known as Mah-Diao, Mah-Jong, Mah-Cheuk, Mah-Juck and Pe-Ling • Lew Lysle Harr
... "Oh, that's the mystery just at present, whether poor old Putney is dead or not! No great loss, I imagine! But where do you suppose Mrs. Congdon went to hide her ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... business: but if you will misspend your Time, pray lay the fault upon yourself; for I have dealt pretty fairly in the matter, told you in the Title Page what you are to expect within. Indeed, had I hung a sign of the Immortality of the Soul, of the Mystery of Godliness, or of Ecclesiastical Policie, and then had treated you with Indiscerpibility and Essential Spissitude (words, which though I am no competent Judge of, for want of Languages, yet I fancy strongly ought to mean just nothing) with a company ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... every eye was turned in fearful suspense toward the Moorish border, anxiously looking in every fugitive from the mountains for the lineaments of some friend or relative whose fate was yet a mystery. At length every hope and doubt subsided into certainty; the whole extent of this great calamity was known, spreading grief and consternation throughout the land and laying desolate the pride and hopes of palaces. It was a sorrow that visited the marble hall ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... itself. A moment, and the gleam was gone, the water flowing away, but I had had them. Beside the physical water and physical light I had received from them their beauty; they had communicated to me this silent mystery. The pure and beautiful water, the pure, clear, and beautiful light, each had given me something of ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... I had not shaved without crying. I'd spend 3/4 of an hour whetting away on my hand—no use, couldn't get an edge. Tried a razor strop-same result. So I sat down and put in an hour thinking out the mystery. Then it seemed plain—to wit: my hand can't give a razor an edge, it can only smooth and refine an edge that has already been given. I judge that a razor fresh from the hone is this shape V—the long point being the continuation of the edge—and that after much ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... were walking up the principal street of the town, the place standing on a hill, like Porto Ferrajo, perfectly at their ease as regards fire-ships, English frigates, and the dangers of the seas. But all this was a profound mystery to Cuffe and his companions, who had long been in the habit of putting the most favorable constructions on the results of their professional undertakings, and certainly not altogether without reason; and who nothing doubted that le Feu-Follet had, to use their own language, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of utilities that are taken away by dirty men in dirty carts, will in a day or two lift itself from the mud on a full tide and float away like a spirit into the sunset or curtsy to the image of the North Star. Mystery lies over the sea. Every ship is bound for Thule. That, perhaps, is why men are content day after day to stand on the pier-head and to gaze at the water and the ships and sailors running up and down the decks and ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... of his bodily misery, that night ride impressed itself strongly upon Anthony's mind. The black mystery of the jungles, the half-suggested glimpses of river and hill, the towns that flashed past in an incandescent blaze and were buried again in the velvet blackness, the strange odors of a new land riotous ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... the fleets of the great nations, developed during the second six months of the war into a strange series of adventures. The fleets of the British and the Germans stood like huge phantoms—the first enshrouded in mystery somewhere in the Irish and North Seas; the second held in leash behind the Kiel Canal, awaiting the opportune moment to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... perceived, that her questions might easily be answered. She was now, however, inclined to go back to the apartment and examine the picture; but the loneliness of the hour and of the place, with the melancholy silence that reigned around her, conspired with a certain degree of awe, excited by the mystery attending this picture, to prevent her. She determined, however, when day-light should have re-animated her spirits, to go thither and remove the veil. As she leaned from the corridor, over the stair-case, and her eyes wandered ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... mystery," she said to herself. "He's as true-born a gentleman as ever lived—with a gentleman's ways, a gentleman's voice, and a gentleman's hands, and yet he's 'on the road' like a tramp! Well! there's many ups and downs in life, certainly, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... the forest. And never was known, to Moor or Christian, the future fate of the hero of Granada. Whether he reached in safety the shores of his ancestral Africa, and carved out new fortunes and a new name; or whether death, by disease or strife, terminated obscurely his glorious and brief career, mystery—deep and unpenetrated, even by the fancies of the thousand bards who have consecrated his deeds—wraps in everlasting shadow the destinies of Muza Ben Abil Gazan, from that hour, when the setting sun threw its parting ray over his stately form and his ebon barb, disappearing amidst the breathless ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... It was in the stead of thee, my maid, if thou wilt have it so: He died that thou mightest never die withouten end.—Or wherefore He loved, wouldst know? Truly, I can but bid thee ask that of Himself, for none wist that mystery save His own great heart. There was nought in us that He should love us; but there was every cause in ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... thought of the farmer's words and wondered if the prayer would have any effect upon the day. Some way he thought it would, and he decided to watch and see. The day was ideal, and the help orderly; and God kept them free from accident and trouble. It was all a mystery to John, and he pondered over it along the way home and even during the night. Farmer Z had opened up a new channel ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... trilium, the dog-tooth violets, the quaint, early, bright-green undergrowths—were just reaching their perfection. Migration was in full tide. Birds, little and big, flashed into view and out again, busy in the mystery of their northward pilgrimage, giving the appearance of secret and silent furtiveness, yet each uttering his characteristic call from time to time, as though for a signal to others of the host. The woods were swarming as city streets, yet ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... great circles, always returning to the same starting point,—the tragedy and mystery of his own boyhood. He knew perfectly that there was neither pleasure nor profit in dwelling upon this subject. In the years that he had had his full manhood he had tried to force the matter from his thoughts, and mostly he had succeeded. Self-mastery was his first law, the code by which he ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall |
