"Unravel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... introduced, with its varying attraction, first on one and then on the other, complications are introduced that only the most masterly minds can follow. Introduce a dozen or a million bodies, and complications arise that only Omniscience can unravel. ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... unjust, ruthless, almighty being is no God. But by means of the theophany—which is to be understood merely as a process in his own heart, and which clearly shows him the impotence of feeble man to unravel the world-enigmas—he attains to insight; not, indeed, of a positive kind such as a knowledge of the ways of God would confer, but negative insight by means of that resignation which flows from excess of pain. It is thus that his own heroic saying is fulfilled ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... dissipation.... Cruelty in the penal code and the tendency to exaggerate punishment are sure signs of a low civilization and of an imperfect educational system.... It seems to me that we can no more expect to unravel the mechanism of associative memory by histological or morphological methods than we can expect to unravel the dynamics of electrical phenomena by microscopic study of cross-sections through a telegraph wire or by counting and locating the ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... designs in gold and azure and vermilion fill up the details; and on each side there is a confessional wherein all members, whether large or diminutive, whether dressed in corduroy or smoothest, blackest broad cloth, in silk or Surat cotton, must unravel the sins they have committed. This confession must be a hard sort of job, we know, for some people; but we are not going to enter upon a discussion of its merits or demerits. Only this may be said, that if there was full confession at every place of worship in Preston the ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... in carefully studying the works of these authors, tried to get at the real meaning,—the idea between the lines. Gorky's philosophy has often been discussed; a great many men of letters have tried to unravel what there was of pessimism, of indifference or of mystic idealism in the soul of Tchekoff. This everlasting habit, not to say this mania, of analyzing the mind or soul of an author in order to get ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... no room in his brain for an impure thought. Notwithstanding he was still a young man, being but fifty years of age, nevertheless he had attained distinct success and fame as a musician, composer, scientist, inventor, architect, and athlete. He endeavored to unravel all the mysteries of nature which attracted his attention. One of the many occult forces he experimented with was human magnetism. It was his belief that man could preserve himself indefinitely, either in a state of animation or suspended vitality, by the strength of his own will ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... honest face. A little behind was Mary, winding one of Blanche's silks over the back of a chair, and so often looking up to revel in the contemplation of Harry's face, that her skein was in a wild tangle, which she studiously concealed lest the sight should compel Richard to come and unravel it with those wonderful fingers ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... made. Would she marry him? "My family," said he, "is respectable, and as it is not wealth we seek, I have an independence, at least equal, I should hope, to our wishes; but anything else which you may think mysterious about me I cannot unravel until you are indissolubly mine." It was a point of no slight difficulty; Emily entrusted its decision entirely to her mother. Her mother saw that the stranger was inflexible in his purpose, and she saw also that her child's ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... pedestal would have been jerked out from under him without compunction or mercy. Eva cautioned him to be more than silent on the subject for the child's sake as well as for their own, and Anderson saw wisdom in her counselling. He even lagged in his avowed intention to unravel the mystery or die in the attempt. A sharp reminder in the shape of an item in the Banner restored his energies, and he again took up the case with a vigour that startled even himself. Anything in the shape ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... as science—"ignorance pour laquelle concevoir il n'y a pas moins de science qu'a concevoir la science." And a propos of the immense traditional evidence which weighed with such men as Bodin, he says—"As for the proofs and arguments founded on experience and facts, I do not pretend to unravel these. What end of a thread is there to lay hold of? I often cut them as Alexander did his knot. Apres tout, c'est mettre ses conjectures a bien haut prix, que d'en faire ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... skiff until morning, Billy Brackett, weary and disheartened, sought such accommodation as the only hotel of the little town afforded. All night he tossed sleeplessly on his uncomfortable bed, striving in vain to unravel the mystery in which the fate of his nephew and of Major Caspar's raft ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... and painfully unravel their tattered socks for wool. They tie the bits together, often two or three inches in length, and knit new feet in old socks, or—when they secure enough—new socks. For the Germans hold the wool cities of France. ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his opportunity had arrived that night. It had always been his dream to have the chance to unravel single-handed some great crime—a murder for choice—in which he alone should have all the glory and praise and newspaper paragraphs. He determined to make the most of the lucky chance which had fallen into his hands, before anybody ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... south-west to the plains of India. Between the summit and the plains, a distance of 60 to 70 miles, there are higher, middle, and lower ranges, so cut up by deep and winding valleys and river-courses, that no labyrinth could be found more confusing or difficult to unravel. There is nowhere any tableland, as at the Cape or in Colorado, with horizontal strata of rock cut down by water into valleys or canyons. The strata seem, on the contrary, to have been shoved up and crumpled in all directions ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... data and apply his devices to a task in his art, a fallacy is included which is radical and mischievous beyond measure. We have, as yet, no calculus for the variable elements which enter into social problems and no analysis which can unravel their complications. The discussions always reveal the dominion of the prepossessions in the minds of the disputants which are in the mores. We know that an observer of nature always has to know his own personal equation. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... entered the council some time after the rupture, produced his appointment, which, unlike certain others, was expressed in the legal form. Thus again all the previous proceedings were quashed; and the governor, unable to unravel the difficulty, dismissed the council, to await instructions from Downing-street, or a warrant for the nominees under the sign-manual of the Queen (July, 1847). Thus during 1847 there was no legislature sitting, but at length the Gazette announced that the Queen had reinstated ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... had heard old Hoff speak of something that he called the "wonder-worker." As soon as Carter returned with the other advertisements that had been appearing he felt positive that he would be able to unravel the cipher. Two words he was sure of—"passports" and "wonder-working." One footprint does not lead anywhere, but two do, and given three footprints, ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... Dick. 'I don't quite know what to make of her. She says that she is going out to earn her bread; but when I asked her how, she either couldn't or wouldn't answer me. She is a mystery, and mysteries are always worth unravelling. I shall go to work and unravel her.' ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... this might have happened under a Parliamentary government. But, then, many members of Parliament, the entire Opposition in Parliament, would have been active to unravel the matter. All the principles of finance would have been worked and propounded. The light would have come from above, not from below—it would have come from Parliament to the nation instead of from the nation to Parliament But exactly ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... him, and in the hall said: "I will continue to watch you unravel the threads of this mystery, if ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... insurrection scheme! And, what an impudent, what an incorrigible, what a hardened impostor, must this writer be, who can tell the public, that this hand-bill excited much apprehension! Apprehension, I believe, indeed, in him and his associates and encouragers; for it furnishes the clue to unravel all their falsehoods and to expose them to scorn and to detestation; but, it is calculated to excite 'apprehension' in nobody else. The public indignation is fast collecting and winding up to a high pitch; and it only waits the result of the present ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... argument from the lessons of History is that for some reason or another the international concern, whose unlucky affairs we are now trying to unravel, has always been carried on at a loss: the point of the argument from Self-government is that the loss would have been avoided if the Irish shareholders had for a certain number of the transactions been more influentially represented on the Board. That is quite apart from the sentiment of ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... potent being, who occupied so great a place; whose me (le moi), as M. Nicole says, had so wide a dominion; who was the centre of so many orbs. What affairs had he not to manage! what designs, what projects, what secrets! what interests to unravel, what wars to undertake, what intrigues, what noble games at chess to play and to direct! Ah! my God, grant me a little time; I want to give check to the Duke of Savoy—checkmate to the Prince of Orange. ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... fail, in the case of the King of Bohemia and the Irene Adler photograph, but when I looked back to the weird business of the "Sign of the Four," and the extraordinary circumstances connected with the "Study in Scarlet," I felt that it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... the public will doubtless remember, they had been robbed of some valuable gems between London and Amsterdam in a singularly audacious manner. My second was the case of the celebrated Russian swindler, who called herself the Countess Demikoff. This case alone took me nearly six months to unravel, but I did not grudge the time, seeing that I was well paid for my labours, and that I managed to succeed where the police had failed. From that time forward I think I may say without boasting that I have ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... of local priesthoods endeavoured to classify them and bring them into a kind of harmony: many they rejected and others they recast in order to better reconcile their statements: they arranged them in systems, from which they undertook to unravel, under inspiration from on high, the true history of the universe. That which I have tried to set forth above is very ancient, if, as is said to be the case, it was in existence two or even three thousand years before our era; but the versions of it which we possess were drawn up much later, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... resignation, benevolence, and urbanity. Having politely assisted his egress, he passed onward with a graceful gesture of acknowledgment. He had taken but a few steps, when the thought occurred to me that he must have come from within the perplexing structure by some secret door, and that he could unravel its mystery. I was impelled to follow him, and proceeded hastily to do so, when the indelicacy of my intrusion on one evidently connected with the grief which the monument was designed to commemorate, flashed upon me, and I suddenly paused. He probably observed my rapid ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... nothing but a little gratitude for having delivered her from the men in black, who wished to carry her off, and that she had promised him nothing. He considered himself an outraged, betrayed, and ridiculed lover. Blood and anger mounted to his face; he was resolved to unravel ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... through the Seventh Gate I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; But not the Master-knot of ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... having put off the old man and put on the new, obtain the blessed fruit of everlasting life." Again, he tells us: "Eagles often fly so high that their wings are scorched by the sun; so those who in the Holy Scriptures strive to unravel the deep and hidden secrets of the heavenly mysteries, beyond what is allowed, fall below, as if the wings of the presumptuous imaginations on which ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... by since this horrible and mysterious event, which no one sought to unravel at the time it occurred. One June evening, 1771, four persons were sitting in one of the rooms of a modestly furnished, dwelling on the third floor of a house in the rue Saint-Victor. The party consisted of three women and an ecclesiastic, who boarded, for meals only, with the woman ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Capella is leaving London for the North. She must not be regarded in our operations. The woman is weighted with a secret. I am sorry for her. I prefer to allow events as supplied by others to unravel the skein. Secondly, Jiro and his wife, and all who visit them, or whom they visit, must be watched incessantly. Get all the force required for this operation in its fullest sense. You, with one trusted associate, must ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... remembered an interesting fact about Diana's Grove—there is, I have long understood, some strange mystery about that house. It may be of some interest, or it may be trivial, in such a tangled skein as we are trying to unravel." ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... brother Bjoern lay a-cold—Bjoern the justly slain of Brighteyes; yet how could she wed the man who slew her brother? From Ospakar she was divorced by death; from Eric she was divorced by the blood of Bjoern her brother! How might she unravel this tangled skein and float to weal upon this sea of death? All things went amiss! The doom was on her! She had lived to an ill purpose—her love had wrought evil! What availed it to have been born to be fair among women and to have desired that which might not ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... we observe phenomena under varied circumstances, and endeavour to deduce the laws of their relations. Every natural phenomenon is, to our minds, the result of an infinitely complex system of conditions. What we set ourselves to do is to unravel these conditions, and by viewing the phenomenon in a way which is in itself partial and imperfect, to piece out its features one by one, beginning with that which strikes us first, and thus gradually learning how to look at the whole ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... to get to America, where he threatens, I hear, to do much mischief to me. However, he will not probably be permitted to depart, unless he slips off very privately. Should that be the case, or should he write letters, you have now a clue to unravel him ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... just one more leaf, and are lost again. At last comes a third call in tones so imperative that it cannot be longer ignored, and we lay the book down, but open to the place where we left off, and where we hope soon to begin further to unravel the delightful mystery. Was it an effort to attend to the reading? Ah, no! it took the combined force of our will and of mother's authority to drag the attention away. This ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... party of six white men (including Leichhardt) and two black boys, with 12 horses, 13 mules, 50 bullocks, and 270 goats, have never been heard of since they left McPherson's station on the Cogoon on 3rd April, 1848; and although there have been several attempts to unravel the mystery, there is scarcely a possibility of any discovery in regard to their fate ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... yet, oddly enough, I remember as if it were yesterday, that, as we passed slowly through the village of Hampton, we saw two boys fighting behind a red barn. There was also a shaggy yellow dog, who looked as if he had commenced to unravel, barking himself all up into a knot with excitement. We had only a hurried glimpse of the battle—long enough, however, to see that the combatants were equally matched and very much in earnest. I am ashamed to say how many times since I have speculated as to which boy ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... each; quarrels with all his tenants, and lawsuits with them; lawsuits with the lawyers; lawsuits with the Mining and Dock Companies in which he was proprietor; and with every person with whom he had business. To unravel these difficulties and to set the estate clear was a task worthy of the orderly and persevering diplomatist of Pumpernickel, and he set himself to work with prodigious assiduity. His whole family, of course, was ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... some other note that chords, so as to produce the effect of a marvellous complication and variety, and yet with the most perfect time, and rarely with any discord. And what makes it all the harder to unravel a thread of melody out of this strange network is that, like birds, they seem not infrequently to strike sounds that cannot be precisely represented by the gamut, and abound in 'slides from one note to another, and turns and cadences not ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... part of the territory cannot give rise to any constitutional questions, for the reason that the constitutions, like the land tenures, are in a state of such utter confusion that only a strong hand can unravel them, and the restoration will result in the establishment of a strong military government. If I go down with the expedition I have organized I shall be in full control of the situation and in a position to carry out all ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... heavy with sleep, could not unravel the memories of the night. He knew only that he had had unpleasant dreams; perhaps he had wept. The one thing he could recall was a pale face, rising from among the black veils of unconsciousness, around which all his dreams were centered. It was not Josephina; the ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... mystery of the queer little girl, who frightened Andy MacMurry out of his race, and who had met the girls on their arrival in Bellaire, that furnished the real peak to their mountain interest and adventure. They were determined to hunt her out and unravel the mystery. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... a tragedy as the same or different, the best test to take is the plot. Identity exists where the Complication and Unravelling are the same. Many poets tie the knot well, but unravel it ill. Both arts, ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... distressed me. In Aunt Maria's category of sins dancing, card playing and theatre-going rank side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed. What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and watched a game of cards? After a little while I asked ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... his eyes glittering with excitement. "That is an inspiration. I imagine that if anyone can unravel the mystery, ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... to look back on the time that followed, all is confusion. I cannot unravel the threat of events clearly in my own mind, and can only describe a few scenes that detach themselves, as it were, from a back-ground of reports, true and false, of alarms, of messages to and fro, and a horrible mob surging backwards ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... meaningless, now he compared himself with others. As soon as ever he got into the cart, and the nag into its old trot, these sad thoughts would reappear, and his mind would go round and round the subject until he was worn out. He could not unravel it. Why was he called the rag and bone man, and treated as if he were unclean? He earned his living as honestly as any one else. Why should his children be jeered at like outcasts—and his home called the Crow's Nest? And why did the ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that the distracted Jew was no longer visible. It seemed plain that the person or the event he had awaited with such obvious nervousness had arrived and passed; one more of the problems, anxieties or crises that join and unravel moment by moment in the human ant-hill of London, had perhaps closed for good or ill within the past half-hour; perhaps it had ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... responded Cleek, with an enigmatic smile. "And I can't help having a sneaking admiration for the person who's engineering the whole thing. How he must laugh at the state of the old Yard, with never a clue to settle down upon, never a thread to pick up and unravel! All of which is unbusinesslike of me, I've no doubt. But, cheer up, man, I've a piece of news which ought to help matters on a bit. Just came from the ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... as a thumb with a bone felon. Take yore time, son. Don't go off half-cocked." The little Captain rose and put his hand on the shoulder of the boy. "I reckon things have got in a sort of kink for you. Give 'em time to unravel, Tex." ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... how soon the whole conscience begins to unravel, if a single stitch drops; one little sin indulged makes a hole you could ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... But in the case of miracles, as our inquiry is a question purely philosophical (namely, whether anything can happen which contravenes, or does not follow from the laws of Nature), I was not under any such necessity: I therefore thought it wiser to unravel the difficulty through premises ascertained and thoroughly known by the natural light of reason. I say I thought it wiser, for I could also easily have solved the problem merely from the doctrines and fundamental principles ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... the thought that it is not easy to find the ideal modern life, even when one is anxious to conform to it, began tugging at all the strands of difficulty at once, not seeing them very clearly, but still with no notion but that if he set his strength to it, he could unravel them all in the half-hour's walk that lay between ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... once more. "If I were a storybook hero, I'd stick this thing in my pocket and set out by myself to unravel the mystery behind it. But I've chucked the hero job for good and all. I'm going to hand this over to Dangloss. It's the sensible thing to do, even if it isn't what a would-be hero in search of a princess aught to do. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... full control upon German expulsion in 1945. Although Communist, his new government and its successors (he died in 1980) managed to steer their own path between the Warsaw Pact nations and the West for the next four and a half decades. In the early 1990s, post-TITO Yugoslavia began to unravel along ethnic lines: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina were recognized as independent states in 1992. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro declared a new "Federal Republic ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... be possibly communicated to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and sometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from the throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before company, seems extravagance or affectation; and on the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our being at every turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it (otherwise the end is not answered) is a task to which few are competent. We must "give it an understanding, but no tongue." My old friend C——, however, could do both. He could go on in the most delightful ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... instead of taking the history of the case in the usual way. In all cases the patient should be permitted to tell her story in her own way. This method of procedure, with cross questioning, may and should indeed be sufficient to unravel the case for us in most cases. But if we find that we have not gained the confidence of the patient and have not that condition of being en rapport with the patient which is essential for progress and ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... despite the exertions of the soldiers and the citizens, nearly a third part of the city was consumed to ashes. A few incendiaries fell a sacrifice to the rage of the soldiers, and many individuals were arrested on suspicion, but no clue was found to unravel the mystery, though no doubt can exist that the fearful deed was committed by order of the American general. The act has been applauded as one emanating from stern patriotism and self-devotion, but ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a traitor," replied Beecot, darkly, "and, knowing he has lost your confidence, he will certainly try and give Maud Krill possession of the money. No, I'll speak to Hurd, who is my friend and yours. He is clever and will be able to unravel this tangle." ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... tom. ii. p. 255, Nicephorus Bryennius, p. 21) have confounded, in this revolution, the truth of time and place, of names and persons, of causes and events. The ignorance and errors of these Greeks (which I shall not stop to unravel) may inspire some distrust of the story of Cyaxares and Cyrus, as it is told by their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... the opera follows Goethe's tragedy very closely, and is confined to the first part. It may be briefly told. Faust, an aged German student, satiated with human knowledge and despairing of his ability to unravel the secrets of nature, summons the evil spirit Mephistopheles to his assistance, and contracts to give him his soul in exchange for a restoration to youth. Mephistopheles effects the transformation, and ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... had been willing to listen, and patient enough to calm the boy's excitement and unravel the story, its value would have been apparent. But his skeptical manner only threw Stuart more off his balance. The vice-consul was, by temperament, a man of routine, an efficient official but lacking in imagination. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... across lots and on the bias until the whole thing is so hopelessly mixed and tangled up that if the mystery of a woman's ways, or the fate of Charlie Ross were solved upon one of these cards all the "experts" in the world could not unravel it. A penny saved may be as good as a penny earned, and I have no objections to your saving it in a legitimate way, but when it comes to saving it at the expense of my time, patience, and eye-sight, I object most decidedly. Hereafter I ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me,"' said Pleydell. 'But we must have some news from the land of Egypt, if possible. O, if I had but hold of the slightest thread of this complicated skein, you should see how I would unravel it! I would work the truth out of your Bohemian, as the French call them, better than a monitoire or a plainte de Tournelle; I know how to manage a ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... my dear Fern, that my story will unravel the mystery. I am delighted to find that you have already become interested in Gilbert, and have discovered so many of his good qualities! I can assure you that he is worthy of your sympathy and friendship! He is a noble fellow! Richly endowed, with a ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... liberated," said my cousin, "but the keys to all the outer gates and doors of the Hall have been stolen and carried away. Can you help me unravel ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... indicates,[6] baptism—that is to say, the religion of many baptisms—the origin of the sect still existing called "Christians of St. John," or Mendaites, which the Arabs call el-Mogtasila, "the Baptists."[7] It is difficult to unravel these vague analogies. The sects floating between Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabeism, which we find in the region beyond the Jordan during the first centuries of our era,[8] present to criticism the most singular problem, in consequence of the confused accounts of them which have ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... that the money must ultimately come out of his own pocket? Because,—so Mr. Grey thought,—Augustus would not trust his own father. The creditors, if they could get hold of Mountjoy when his father was dead, and when the bonds would all become payable, might possibly so unravel the facts as to make it apparent that, after all, the property was Mountjoy's. This was not Mr. Grey's idea, but was Mr. Grey's idea of the calculation which Augustus was making for his own government. According to Mr. Grey's reading of all the facts ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... say that they take no interest in crimes as such, but only investigate a case when it possesses features of a distinctly puzzling character. They seek perplexity for its own sake—something to unravel. As often as not the circumstances are of no importance to anybody, but they just form a little puzzle in real ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... lamented their departure since now they would have no one to bring them fresh meat every day. It is pleasant indeed to spend your time eating and drinking, and sleeping all day long in the cool shade of the rocks, while clouds ravel and unravel their fleecy threads on the ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... least barely hoped,—that Mrs Arabin might be able to suggest something which would put them all on a track towards discovery of the truth. But he found that she had the clue in her hand, and that the clue was one which required no further delicacy of investigation. There would be nothing more to unravel; no journey to Jerusalem would ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the public his nut-cracker if I do not, before the Budget is concluded, "unravel" the paradox, which is the mathematico-geometrical nut he has given me to crack. Mr. Smith is a crack man: he will crack his own nut; he will crack my shell; in the mean time he cracks himself up. Heaven send he do not crack himself ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... his life! Raise him up from this bed of illness, that he may unravel the web of mystery that entangles the fate of my ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... man. "You're beginning to use your brain a little. You're beginning to realize the value of money—and you don't like it. Well, you can unravel your own tangle. ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... absolutely incredible, and I thought the world was surely coming to an end. When the news was confirmed, and events which no one believed could ever happen had apparently occurred and seemed likely to be permanent, I gave the whole thing up like a riddle which it was beneath me to unravel, and turned away in disgust from the contemplation of this puzzling world. As a playful reminiscence of our hopes of the year 1852, I suggested to Uhlig that in our correspondence during that year we should ignore its existence and should date ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... truly—and there was no reason to think the child was lying—then Tochatti's supposed inability to write was an error; and once that fact were proved it should not, surely, be difficult to unravel the mystery which had already caused so ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... loose. disjoin, disconnect, disengage, disunite, dissociate, dispair^; divorce, part, dispart^, detach, separate, cut off, rescind, segregate; set apart, keep apart; insulate, isolate; throw out of gear; cut adrift; loose; unloose, undo, unbind, unchain, unlock &c (fix) 43, unpack, unravel; disentangle; set free &c (liberate) 750. sunder, divide, subdivide, sever, dissever, abscind^; circumcise; cut; incide^, incise; saw, snip, nib, nip, cleave, rive, rend, slit, split, splinter, chip, crack, snap, break, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... books. It is a phenomenon among phenomena. Its origin and growth in this world can be studied as those of any other natural object can be studied. The old apple-tree growing in my garden is the witness to me of some transcendent truths, the shrine of mysteries that I cannot unravel. What the life is that was hidden in the seed from which it sprang, and that has shaped all its growth, coordinating the forces of nature, and producing this individual form and this particular variety of fruit,— this I ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... I admit—but, as things are now, my advice may be worth having for all that. I tell you plainly, we shall be wasting our time, and cudgelling our brains to no purpose, if we attempt to try back, and unravel this frightful complication from the beginning. Let us close our minds resolutely to all that happened last year at Lady Verinder's country house; and let us look to what we CAN discover in the future, instead of to what we can NOT discover in ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... to dispel the drowsy mist then pervading my brain. The slow thought waves gradually ceased their surging, and after a slight pause began to collect round the offending mystery, as if seeking to unravel it in a half-hearted sort of way. They gave me to understand that the "something" recurred at intervals, and even suggested that it might be a voice, though from which side of the elastic dividing line it emanated ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... Peter, "without condescending at all. As you say, we won't begin by tearing the net; we'll unravel it. What do you think would have happened to you, Mrs. Winston, before you were married, if you'd had to travel day after day in a motor car with a man you ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... their situation. It is to this point that Jesus leads us. He makes us conscious of "the still sad music of humanity." No further incentive is needed to make us love humanity than the pathos of the human lot. A man may be a knave, a fool, a rogue; yet could we unravel all the secrecies of his disaster we should find so much to move our pity, so much in his life which resembles crises in our own, that in the end the one vision that remains with us is of a wounded brother man. When once we see that vision all our ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... "on the tired heart like rain"; and when she left him he lay still, wrapped in a tangle of thought which his weakness could not unravel. Presently ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my cousin, my sweet cousin; I have loved you deeply, but silently, long before my heart could unravel the mystery of the feelings with which it glowed. But this—all this—it were now idle to repeat. I know that I have no hope of return; that the heart whose possession would have made my whole life a dream, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he feel that life would be almost unendurable with its fondest ties broken, its closest links dissevered? There is a double influence often felt by gifted temperaments when upon the eve of some event which is to decide their fate. The eager heart, urged on by a desire to unravel the mystic secrets of the unknown Future, contradicts the colder, the more timid intellect, which fears to plunge into the uncertain abyss of the coming fate! This want of harmony between the simultaneous previsions of the mind and heart, often causes the firmest spirits to make assertions ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... Baltimore." Five writers out of six would commit the error of using as in both members of the sentence. The most prevalent misuse of as is in connection with soon; and this general misuse, having moreover the countenance of good writers, is so inwoven into our speech that it will be hard to unravel it. But principle is higher than the authority derived from custom. Judges are bound to give sentence according to the statute; and if the highest writers, whose influence is deservedly judicial, violate ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... less particular in the choice of his studies; they were generally bent towards exploded chimeras*—the perpetuum mobile, the circular shot, philosopher's stone, silent gunpowder, making chains for fleas, nets for flies, and instruments to unravel ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... is able to unravel the tangled skein of crime and hypocrisy among individuals can it be extended to communities and nations, as nations are only man in the aggregate, they are the aggregate of his crimes and deception and depravity, and so long as these constitute the ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... at the same time, that he was once blessed with a son, who, had he lived, would have been nearly of my age. This observation, delivered with a profound sigh, made my heart throb with violence: a crowd of confused ideas rushed upon my imagination, which, while I endeavoured to unravel, my uncle perceived my absence of thought, and tapping me on the shoulder, said, "Oons, are you asleep, Rory?" Before I had time to reply, Don Rodrigo, with uncommon eagerness of voice and look, pronounced, "Pray, captain, what is the young gentleman's ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... swept into the ash-pit, there are two conditions, especially one which is peremptory: FIRST, that they should not be lies;—SECOND, that they should be of some importance, some wisdom; which with known lies is not a possible condition. To unravel cobwebs, and register laboriously and date and sort in the sorrow of your soul the oaths of crowned dicers,—what use is it to gods or men? Having well dressed and sliced your cucumber, the next clear human duty is: Throw it out of window. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... given. When the two were placed face to face, Arnold du Tilh vehemently denounced the last arrival as an impostor in the pay of Peter Guerre, and expressed himself content to be hanged if he did not yet unravel the whole mystery. Nor did he confine himself to vituperation, but cross-questioned Martin as to private family circumstances, and only received hesitating and imperfect answers to his questions. The commissioners ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... mother and a box party will be waiting for us in the lobby. Do you think she would listen to a declaration from me during that six or eight minutes under those circumstances? No. And what chance would I have in the theatre or afterward? None. No, dad, this is one tangle that your money can't unravel. We can't buy one minute of time with cash; if we could, rich people would live longer. There's no hope of getting a talk with Miss Lantry before ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... post-horses, and as my master has gone in the direction of Bordeaux with Monsieur the Baron's passport, and as Monsieur the Baron goes toward Geneva with my master's passport, the skein will probably be so tangled that the police, clever as their fingers are, can't easily unravel it." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... of Knox, have not taken the trouble to unravel this question of the treaty of July 24. But the behaviour of the Lords and of Knox seems characteristic, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... the darkness beyond this lit inn of ours, unthought-of possibilities, overlooked considerations, surprises, riddles, incommensurables, a whole monstrous intricate universe of consequences that I have to do my best to unravel. I attempt impossible recapitulations and mingle the weird quality of ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... may have said, you are quite mistaken. There's a mystery somewhere. Keep his letter and show it to me. I may, perhaps, be able to unravel the tangle. I'm more than ever convinced that what I said to you last night was perfectly true. We will save him ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... almost too curious and fantastic for belief he loved to trace to their hidden sources. To unravel a tangle in the very soul of things—and to release a suffering human soul in the process—was with him a veritable passion. And the knots he untied ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... mother. This was the second time Licquet's attention had been attracted by the name of Mme. de Combray. He had already read it, incidentally, in the report of Flierle's examination, and with the instinct of a detective, for whom a single word will often unravel a whole plot, he had a sudden intuition that in it lay the key to the entire affair. Tourlour's imprudent admission, which was to bring terrible catastrophes on Mme. de Combray's head, gave Licquet a thread that was to lead him through the maze that ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... unfriended, With sophistry blended, Deep science in Chaos had slept; Its limits were fettered, Its voters unlettered, Its students in movements but crept. Till, despite of great foes, Great WALSH first arose, And with logical might did unravel Those mazes of knowledge, Ne'er known in a college, Though sought for with unceasing travail. With cheers we now hail him, May success never fail him, In Polar Geometrical mining; Till his foes be as tamed As his works are far-famed ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... said concerning religion. What the Founder said cost him enormous labour to discover and to possess. We shall gain so much and no more of the same spiritual substance as we put the same kind of energy in motion. In order that we may unravel the complexities of our day, a spirit similar to his spirit must become ours. When such a spirit ceases to exist, Christianity will become merely a [p.179] name; its power will have disappeared, and men can delude ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... for Dryads, to haunt the woods again; More welcome were the presence of hungering, thirst- ing men, Whose doubts we could unravel, whose hopes we could fulfil, Our wisdom tracing backward, the river to the rill; Were such beloved forerunners one summer day restored, Then, then we might discover the ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... of March, 1877, and then the campaign began with a rapid advance by Chang Yao from Hami to Turfan. The Kashgarians were driven out of Pidjam, and compelled, after a battle, to evacuate Turfan. The Chinese records do not help us to unravel the events of the month of April. The campaign contained no more striking or important episodes, and yet the reports of the generals have been mislaid or consigned to oblivion. The Athalik Ghazi fought a second battle at Toksoun, where he rejoined his ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... He must unravel the mystery, and turns thus, once more, with his sole companion, his own heart, to measure everything,—even sin, folly, impiety,—and more bitter even than that bitter death that has again and again darkened all his counsel and dashed his hopes, is one awful evil ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... heart that has lost its owner, and seeks and seeks again, turning for comfort like a poor lost dog to every face which may prove friendly. Just now things seem to be in such a dreadful tangle that I can not even find a thread of it that I can unravel. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... the Hospitalier, "unless thou wouldst slay him outright. Return to the Spital with me; and at morn, if he have recovered himself, unravel these riddles as thou and ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... circumstances it seems essential that the St. Petersburg Cabinet, whose desire to unravel this crisis peacefully is manifest, should immediately give their adherence to the British proposal. This proposal must be strongly supported at Berlin in order to decide [Secretary of State] Von Jagow to take real action at Vienna capable of stopping Austria and preventing ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... her saint-like eyes; Talks very much, plays idle tricks, While rising stock [Footnote: South Sea, 1720.] her conscience pricks; When being, poor thing, extremely gravel'd, The secrets op'd, and all unravel'd. But on she will, and secrets tell Of John and Joan, and Ned and Nell, Reviling every one she knows, As fancy leads, beneath the rose. Her tongue, so voluble and kind, It always runs before her mind; As times do serve, she ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... said Mr. Noah enthusiastically. 'I must make him a baronet now. His title will grow grander with each deed. There's an old prophecy that the person who finds out how to unravel the carpet must be the first to dance in the Hall ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... the staircase. Making no further effort to unravel the puzzle which only beclouded my faculties, I began my wary ascent. I had not the slightest fear, I was too full of ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the Paint Rock, and after ten hours hard ride we arrived on this sacred and historic ground. We picketed our tired horses, piled our packs under a cottonwood tree, and were soon trying to unravel the mysteries of an extinct race. Strange to say no horses were visible on the great calendar of rocks, but men, women, children, and hieroglyphics were crowded on all available places that one could get to register some fact or fancy of ...
— The Sheep Eaters • William Alonzo Allen
... the pope, to the emperor, and to other Christian lords, accusing each other of breach of faith, and treachery. The ambassador carrying the letters of the prince was the clever Mikolaj of Rzeniewa, a man of great ability who could unravel the thread which was woven by the artifice of the Knights of the Cross, convincingly demonstrating the great wrongs done to the lands of Lithuania ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... not, as she has learned to night, if not before. He went to her aid because he was friendly in spite of her apparent bitterness toward him, which perhaps he understood better than I. Possibly Mrs. Hunter may have broken their relations, for there is no doubt about her feelings. Well, time must unravel the snarl. It would now seem that he is devoted to this girl here, and she to him as far as she can be to any one. What he will think when he learns that she ran shrieking away and left him, while Mara, reckless of life itself, stood by him to the last, I cannot know. If he loves her ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... see Monadnock, in simple grandeur, in the northwest, rising nearly a thousand feet higher, still the "far blue mountain," though with an altered profile. The first day the weather was so hazy that it was in vain we endeavored to unravel the obscurity. It was like looking into the sky again, and the patches of forest here and there seemed to flit like clouds over a lower heaven. As to voyagers of an aerial Polynesia, the earth seemed like ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... not hesitate to place himself by the side of Newton, in virtue of his discovery of this new law of attraction. If any comparison can be made, we think—inasmuch as to unravel the problem of humanity is a greater task than to elucidate the movements of the planets—that Fourier was warranted in placing himself infinitely above Newton. Unfortunately, there is this difference between the two, that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... unreasonable," Lady Mason had said. And what could a poor wife answer? "Oh! Lady Mason, pray let it bide a time till it all comes right." But it never did come right; and the affair of those two fields created the great Orley Farm Case, which it will be our business to unravel. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... days after the Fair were spent by the young preacher at Drawwell Farm, knitting up a friendship with its inmates that neither time nor suffering was able thereafter to unravel. ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... precipitates our actions. We see today how the Freudian psychology, just because it is not satisfied with registering the routine of consciousness but endeavours to trace its hidden mechanism and to unravel its physical causes, is driven to use the most frankly mythological language. The physiological processes concerned, though presupposed, are not on the scale of human perception and not traceable in detail; and the moral action, though familiar in ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... another, and these variations do not take place simultaneously and according to the same laws for all, but in most cases happen apparently capriciously, or at least according to laws not sufficiently simple for us to be able to unravel. Often one or more become indistinct, or even wholly invisible, whilst others in their vicinity increase to the point of becoming conspicuous even in telescopes of moderate power. The first of our maps shows all those that have been seen in a long series of ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... rough diagrams, the warp weights appear to hang from a single thread only, but this can not have been correct. The warp threads must have been bunched, because a single suspended thread with a tension weight immediately begins to unravel, and so loses the advantage of its having been spun, as any one can ascertain for oneself. As regards the same point on the Lake Dwellers looms, Cohausen was the first to surmise that the warp threads were bunched ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... sit down in any cosmopolitan cafe in Cairo or Stamboul and knock off immortal verses in the style of Byron —verses with no "philosophy" for us to expound, no technique for us to analyse, no "message" for us to interpret, no aesthetic subtleties for us to unravel, no mystical orientation for us to track out, what is there left for a poor sedentary critic to do? Our occupation is gone. We must either enjoy romance for its own sake in a frank, honest, simple manner; confessing that Byron was "some poet" and letting ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... continued Paul, "lies my second book. It contains the key to mysteries which have baffled men since the world began. I do not say it with vanity; vanity is dead within me. I say it with fear, for I did not unravel those mysteries; I did not write ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... the rest, that an explanation of a part can never be considered final, so long as any problem remains unresolved. The latest experimentator, brooding over hitherto neglected details, may always hope to light upon some clue that shall unravel the entire entanglement in a different manner, and reform upon a new basis ideas now grouped in pretended fixity. The excitement caused by this possibility is amply sufficient to stimulate research. And there is no need to discover an immediate practical application for the theory in order ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... almost every where, and were now universally abolished. The ridiculous quibble was also used that, in the preachings other religious exercises were not included, whereas it was notorious that they had never been separated. It is, however, a gratuitous task, to unravel the deceptions of tyranny when it hardly deigns to disguise itself. The dissimulations which have resisted the influence of centuries are more worthy of serious investigation, and of these the epoch offers us a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ah! She is like unto me: both are outcasts; she in the heyday of youth and flowing over with wealth, I an old hag and poor as a barren rock, save for this bit of gold. The goddess is no respecter of persons. What can be the sin of this golden-haired beauty? Mine I know. I will unravel hers. Where does she go, I wonder? And with Chios? And he gave her the richest flowers. I will follow far behind. My sight is keen. I will know where ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... The don was studying the situation and the man together. "Almost have I grasped the thread that will unravel the whole. No, no! I do not mean your going, Senor. That would but limber the tongue of scandal; and besides, I do not mean that I withdraw my friendship from you. A man must be narrow, indeed, if he cannot carry more than one friendship in ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... a final leave of this subject of Ireland. The only difficulty in discussing it is a want of resistance—a want of something difficult to unravel and something dark to illumine. To agitate such a question is to beat the air with a club, and cut down gnats with a scimitar: it is a prostitution of industry, and a waste of strength. If a man says, 'I have a good place, and I do not choose to lose it,' this mode of arguing upon the Catholic Question ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... If we would unravel the mysteries involved in present religious faiths, we should begin not by attempting to analyze or explain any existing system or systems of belief and worship. Such a course is likely to end not only in confusion and in a subsequent denial ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... cry either, my little Delphine. Look up and let me kiss away the tears. There! I shall find my wits and unravel this skein of your ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... he explored the wondrous zone of the Milky Way, gauged its depths, measured its dimensions, and, in attempting to unravel the intricacies of its structure, penetrated its recesses far beyond the limit attained by any other observer. Acting on the assumption that the stars are uniformly distributed throughout space, Herschel, by his method of star-gauging, concluded that the sidereal system consists ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... to, he knows not. And next, that he hath taken money for several bargains that have been made with the Crown; and did instance one that is already complained of: but there are so many more involved in it, that, should they unravel things of this sort, every body almost will be more or less concerned. But these are the two great points which he thinks they will insist on, and prove against him. Thence I to the Chapel, and there heard the sermon and a pretty good anthem, and so home by water ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... lay on the grass, whiling away the time by alternately playing with Watch and trying to unravel the mysteries of a flower of golden-rod, until the hermit should have finished his prayers and be ready to attend to him, Piers came through the wood, evidently sent on a message, and made him understand that he ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... century, and had a regular intercourse with Asia. The name of Valaam does not come from Balaam, as one might suppose, but seems to be derived from the Finnish varamo, which signifies "herring-ground." The more I attempted to unravel the history of the island, the more it became involved in obscurity, and this fact, I must confess, only heightened my interest in it. I found myself ready to accept the tradition of Andrew's visit, and I accepted without a doubt the grave of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... announced severely, when the figures had all been dabbed upon the paper, "You ought to have lost. It would be a lesson to you. I haven't quite figured all your winnings, these six-to-ones and ten-to-ones and—and all that, take time to unravel. But you, yourself, stood to lose just three hundred and sixty-five dollars. Gee! but you cowboys ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... possession and the other in Barker's, brought about the discharge of the prisoner from custody; and the "Frewenton Atrocity" became one of many horrible murders, the mystery of which time alone, if anything, could unravel. ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Zancigs I came to the conclusion that although the alleged transmission of thought might possibly depend on a code or codes which I was unable to unravel, yet their performance was of such a nature that it was worthy of serious scientific examination. On the assumption that they possessed genuine telepathic powers it would be a pity that the opportunity of investigating ...
— Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent • W. W. Baggally
... say that—to blame because this time there's a snarl to unravel! The thing is done often enough. It should not be done, but it is. Staff service with us is far too irregular. The officer stands to receive a severe reprimand—but there is no reason to believe that he did not give the order to the courier with all the accuracy with ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... reproduced on earth, until a web of fiction and allegory was woven, partly by art and partly by the ignorance of error, which the wit of man, with his limited means of explanation, will never unravel. Even the Hebrew Theism became involved in symbolism and image-worship, borrowed probably from an older creed and remote regions of Asia,—the worship of the Great Semitic Nature-God AL or ELS and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the basis of many a double meaning. There is, in fact, no lyric song describing natural scenery that may not have beneath it some implied, often indelicate, allusion whose riddle it takes an adroit and practiced mind to unravel. ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... relaxation around the camp-fire. The men, who had all day been strung to a keen pitch of nervous energy, lounged in loose, picturesque uncouthness, while each began to unravel his own lively miscellany of information or invention. There was jest, laughter, spinning of yarns, singing of songs. As Peter lay in the fire-light, smoking his brier-wood, he noticed that the man next him spent a great deal of time poring over a letter, holding it close to the blaze, now ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... prove of vital importance to her and her future. Now, when the verdict of the coroner's jury had been suicide, and when only he, and the servant Sexton suspected otherwise, it was of the utmost importance that they endeavour to unravel the crime. For her sake he could do no less, thus serving and protecting her to the ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... come so far by this time," said the mate. "I think that I can unravel the mystery. This whale was attacked by the boats of a ship, some of which were probably destroyed by the monster. It was then towed alongside, when she was either capsized in a storm, or, receiving damage from some other cause, she went down, and the articles we now see floated up out ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... year in 1881. Mary Shelley, in a letter to Maria Gisborne, February, 1822, describes him as "A kind of half-Arab Englishman.... He is clever: for his moral qualities I am yet in the dark. He is a strange web which I am endeavoring to unravel." ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... at him with great eyes, but agreed at once, and they appointed time and place. He then bade her good night, and the moment she left him lay down on the bed to think. But he did not trouble himself yet to unravel the plot against him, or determine whether the violence he had suffered had the same origin with the poisoning. Nor was the question merely how to continue to serve his sister without danger to his life; for he had just learned what rendered it absolutely imperative that she ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... long thread triumphantly to the end—out it flew, and away the button hopped again as if glad to be released. And then the thread kinked horribly, and got all twisted up in disagreeable little snarls that took all Polly's patience to unravel. ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... on his pillow and seemed trying to unravel the tangled thoughts which perplexed him. Once more the dame came and brought him a cooling drink. He drank it, thanked her, and ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... to his farm, the state of his feelings is described in the following stanzas. We suspect that the metaphysical acumen of Boccacio himself would have been a good deal puzzled to unravel the meaning of some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... but it was strangely familiar to him. Even so the trees had leaned together, and the clear ripples pulsed upon the bank. Something strange and beautiful had befallen him there. What was it? The mind could not unravel ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... brings it about is readily credited by Thoas, who does not attempt to make any opposition till both are safe, and then he is appeased by one of the ordinary divine interpositions. This device has been so used and abused by Euripides, that in nine out of his eighteen tragedies, a divinity descends to unravel the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... found it impossible to unravel the tangled skein of their relationship, and to assign a definite amount of blame to each. She did not shirk hers, and was willing to accept a full measure. That she had done wrong in marrying him, and again in leaving him to marry another man, she acknowledged ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the trail of the wind to travel, Search and course with the roving tide, All year long where his hands unravel Blossom and berry ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Warsaw or Breslau. A more incongruous collection I never saw, and I am sure that had it not been for the train of thought I was pursuing when the director called upon me, I should have returned the papers to him without troubling my head with any attempt to unravel ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... said De Skirlaw. "I will not be the one to try to unravel it. Let us away to the king and say what ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... seeing or hearing him was beyond her comprehension. It could only have been by passing behind her very quietly while she was bumping with the iron. But this notion did not satisfy her: it was surely impossible that she should not have seen him come in through a room so small. She could not unravel the mystery, and felt very queer and uncomfortable about it. However, she would not disturb him to question him then, and went to ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... before the mind; And, lest we err by Wit's wild dancing light, Secure us kindly in our native night. Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence, Guard the sure barrier between that and sense; Or quite unravel all the reas'ning thread, And hang some curious cobweb in its stead! As, forc'd from wind-guns, lead itself can fly, And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky; As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe, The wheels ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... as simple an affair to unravel as that; for I can tell you one of the things, at least, which was apparently occupying her thoughts at the time, yet I can't quite see why or how it could have much to do with you. You remember, perhaps, that you came while we were at luncheon the day after our ride into ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... apprehend the meaning of the whole, or to follow the links of the connection between its several parts. I am myself as little able to understand where the difficulty lies, or to detect any lurking obscurity, as those critics found themselves to unravel my logic. Possibly I may not be an indifferent and neutral judge in such a case. I will therefore sketch a brief abstract of the little paper according to my own original design, and then leave the reader ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Eustace should have her thoughts elsewhere. As he sat signing letters at the India Board, relieving himself when he was left alone between each batch by standing up with his back to the fire-place, his mind was full of all this. He could not unravel truth quickly, but he could grasp it when it came to him. She was certainly greedy, false, and dishonest. And,—worse than all this,—she had dared to tell him to his face that he was a poor creature because he would not support her in her greed, and falsehoods, and dishonesty! Nevertheless, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... they were, they imagined them through the prism of desire or regret: they seemed, like herself, to be peering through the chinks of the old wall. But they knew much more, they knew all the things which she was longing to know, and clothed them with sweet, mysterious words, which she had to unravel with infinite care to find ... to find ... Ah! She could find nothing, but she was always sure that she was on the very ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... gazed at her as she danced joyously about the deck, with a mingled feeling of sadness and curiosity; for our reserve while on shipboard had surrounded us with a sort of mystery which none knew how to unravel. ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... the whole together in spite of all the evil; and now the old librarian had brought him close up to the good in the other side of the cleft too. He had settled down to his shoemaking again and refused to be roused by the others' impatience; but he looked as if he had an eternity in which to unravel ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... The Saviour, indeed, does not now lead us forth, amid the scene of our trial, as He did the bereft sisters, to unravel the mysteries of His providence, and to shew glory to God, redounding from the darkest of His dispensations. To us the grand sequel is reserved for eternity. The grand development of the divine plan will not be ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... confession. It was like the revolving whirl of a pinwheel, this series of events: continuous and mystifying, but without beginning or end. Surely, somewhere in the procession of horrors, there would be a loose end to cling to. Some loose end that would eventually unravel the pinwheel! ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... had taken up her abode in a little shepherd hut on the slope of a little hill by a water-course, and shaded by some lime trees, in which the birds paid her homage morning and evening.... Such a place and such solitude refreshed the more than human Rosemund, and in such peace she was able to unravel her ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... clear to Riviere that he must make the journey to Paris if he were to unravel the mystery of that astounding statement. The dead Clifford Matheson mentioned authoritatively as Chairman of the new company! Why should such an impossible story be set afloat, and what was the "reliable source" spoken of? He knew that ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... which invariably comes. We may ring for No. 1, but No. 2 always answers the bell. We may labour to construe a tree per se to the mind, but what we always do construe to the mind is the perception of a tree. What we want is No. 1, but what we always get is No. 2. To unravel the thing explicitly—the manner in which we impose upon ourselves is this:—As explanatory of the perceptive process, we construe to our minds two number twos, and one of these we call No. 1. For example, we have the perception of a tree (No. 2); we wish to think the tree itself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... shall never try to read it," said Sir Norman. "I am about tired of this labyrinth of mysteries, and shall save time and La Masque to unravel them at ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... "that he should leave to men the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hand of the eunuch." "I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily unravel!" is said to have been the reply which indignation and conscious virtue extorted from the hero. Instead of attending, a slave and a victim, at the gate of the Byzantine palace, he retired to Naples, from whence (if any credit is due to the belief of the times) Narses invited the Lombards ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon |
