"Clew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attempt to enter the cottage, but hastened back to the hotel, in a state of agitation difficult to describe. I could not make up my mind to pass unnoticed such extraordinary coincidences; but how was any clew to be obtained ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... bar. The surf had beaten in her hatches, broken some plates, and afterwards washed her back across the sand. Then, while the captain tried to reach the beach, she had sunk in deeper water. The story was plausible, but, if Cartwright had found the proper clew, it ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... doors in the room where she sat, one opening into the inner office where I was at work, and two opening into a hall, one on the side and the other on the end opposite the freight elevator. We searched the entire building without finding a clew, and I ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... Also, she saw the agents and emissaries of foreign investors in Mexico, always in haste and often inopportune, arriving at the ranch to confer with Dick. Beyond his complaint that they ate the heart out of his time, he gave her no clew to ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... vain to obtain a clew to the lost treasure. He knew of no one that had visited the house during the fire who was bad enough to steal, unless it was Dock Vincent; but it was not right to suspect even him of the crime without some evidence. Neither Levi nor his uncle saw how Dock could have taken off the board, removed ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... had a clew to her interest, and followed it deftly. In a few minutes he had come about into her seat. He talked of sales of clothing, his travels, Chicago, and the amusements of ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... me of my cock and has fled. Oh, Nymphs of the mountains! oh! Mania! seize her! How unhappy I am! I was full busy with my work, I was sp-sp-sp-sp-spinning the flax that was on my spindle, I was rounding off the clew that I was to go and sell in the market at dawn; and he flew off, flew off, cleaving the air with his swift wings; he left to me nothing but pain, pain! What tears, tears, poured, poured from my unfortunate eyes! Oh! Cretans, children of Ida, take your bows; help me, haste hither, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... in connection with my son-in-law's extravagant expenditure—whether the clew to the mystery might not haply be the forging of bank-notes on the other side of the baize door. My mind was prepared for anything by this time. We descended again into the dining-room. Felicia saw how my spirits were dashed, and came and perched upon my knee. "Enough of my troubles ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... rumpled wristbands, a sure indication of extraordinary preoccupation; and the concierge, on taking up the provisions, had found the poor mother half mad, running from one room to another, looking for a note from the child, for any clew, however unimportant, that would enable her at least ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... isolated and unrelated facts. History is a great web, and in the events she sees the pattern that minds have worked. She is more concerned now with the reactions of her pupils to this pattern than she is with mere names and dates, for these reactions give her a clew to tendencies on the part of her pupils that may lead to results of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... the starboard tack, a manoeuvre which was followed in succession by the other vessels of the squadron, which had been previously directed to keep, though still within signal, at long distances from each other during the day, closing up at night, in order to spread a broad clew and give greater chance of ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... it in New Orleans in '59," said Mr. Thompson, with the general suggestion of referring to an epidemic. "Enter ye the narrer gate. Parse me the beans." Perhaps this practical quality upheld him in his apparently hopeless search. He had no clew to the whereabouts of his runaway son; indeed, scarcely a proof of his present existence. From his indifferent recollection of the boy of twelve, he now expected to identify the ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... which, however, I shall not commence, till I have again seen some of old Louis's old-fashioned Galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth: but as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short, I both know, and don't know what it should be. I am almost afraid I must go and read ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower Unfinished must remain! Hawthorne, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... lyrics and romances dramatic. He became consciously sensitive later to slight variations effected by his manipulation in shape and shade which it yet takes a little thought to discern, even after his own redivision of his work has given the clew to his self-judgments. ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... coincidence which I have mentioned was really one of those singular chances, which sometimes happen against all ordinary calculations; or whether Mannering, bewildered amid the arithmetical labyrinth and technical jargon of astrology, had insensibly twice followed the same clew to guide him out of the maze; or whether his imagination, seduced by some point of apparent resemblance, lent its aid to make the similitude between the two operations more exactly accurate than it might otherwise have been, it is impossible to guess; but ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Captain Jenkinson," said Captain Bird, "and you, Captain Burress, clew him up for'ard. You can stay in the bow, Captain Sanderson, and take the sheet-lines. I'll ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... scant receptivity for any such poetical analogies. The cloths, as seen through the lattice-work, had a somewhat sensational aspect; they spoke of battle and murder and sudden death, and sometimes the policeman passing by, if he was a new one, thought for a second that he had stumbled on a "clew." ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... while the little fellow spoke. That utterance came with difficulty to his lips was obvious. He must always have been a silent, backward little fellow, and sad, as children rarely become at an age so tender. Of who or what he was he gave no clew. He seemed to have no real name, to remember no parents, to feel no confidence in anything ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... rushing noise round my head, and raising it above the hammock I caught sight of numberless dark creatures with huge wings which kept sweeping round and round here and there through the verandah. Presently one of them pitched on the clew of my hammock. There was sufficient light from the bright stars to see its shape, and I beheld a creature with large ears standing out from the sides and top of its head, a spear-shaped appendage on the tip of its nose, while a pair of glittering black eyes ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the poet of the Sonnets and of the greater plays as unknown, I can but believe that the Sonnets, when carefully studied in connection with contemporaneous history and chronicles, will yet afford an adequate clew to his identification. It occurs to me that a promising line of inquiry might be made on this assumption,—that the poet was born about twenty years before Shakespeare and died soon after the production of the plays ceased, or when about sixty-five or seventy ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... before from the coast of Candia, and were then steering southeast. This intelligence was corroborated by a vessel spoken the same day. Southeast, being nearly dead before the prevailing wind, was an almost certain clew to the destination of an unwieldy body which could never regain ground lost to leeward; so, although Nelson now learned that some of his missing frigates had also been seen recently off Candia, he would waste no time looking for them. It may be mentioned that these frigates had ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... something had gone wrong—something demanding instant attention or Todd wouldn't be scared out of his wits. Those nearest him, who had overheard Todd's whispered words, halted in their talk in the hope of getting some clew to the situation; others, further away, kept on, unconscious that anything ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... rolling and pitching as though she would shake the long sticks out of her, and the sails were gaping open and splitting in every direction. The mizzen-topsail, which was a comparatively new sail and close reefed, split from head to foot in the bunt; the foretopsail went in one rent from clew to caring, and was blowing to tatters; one of the chain bobstays parted; the spritsailyard sprung in the slings, the martingale had slued away off to leeward; and owing to the long dry weather the lee rigging hung in large bights at every lurch. One of the main-topgallant shrouds had parted; and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... flat land, on which grew innumerable coconut and other trees; and the higher grounds beautifully interspersed with lawns. The wind being light and unfavourable we endeavoured all day but without success to get near the land. In the night we had a heavy squall which obliged us to clew up all our sails and soon after it ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... used to say that these were the work of giants who lived before the sun shone in the heavens. It is well known that the Incas had no writing characters or hieroglyphics. The monuments raised by their hands do not afford any clew to their history. Dumb walls merely, their mutism leaves large scope to imagination, and one may conjecture any but the right thing. Of the historical records of that powerful but short-lived dynasty we have nothing left but the few imperfect and rotten quippus which ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... this purpose, Schiller hastily amplified it to a sufficient size and wrote for it a noble prologue, which ranks among the best of his poems. When played at Weimar, in October, 1798, the 'Camp' was well received as a picturesque novelty, but that was all. It gave no clew to what was coming, and there was nothing in it to stir the depths ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... made for the grand fleet to anchor, All in the Downs that night for to meet; So cast off your shank-painter, let go your cat's-topper, Hawl up your clew-garnets, let fly tack ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... need only a few minutes to reach the place where Mary was stalled by the accident to her machine. Soon he was hovering over a level field, one of several that lined the country highways in that section. A small crowd on the turnpike gathered about an evidently disabled automobile gave Tom the clew he needed, and presently he made a landing. Instantly the throng of country people who had gathered to look at the automobile crash deserted that for a view ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... clew to so sudden a freak on the part of a young and beautiful woman, who, I have taken pains to learn, has not only a clean record but a reputation for good sense. The Fultons cannot supply it. She has lived a seemingly open and happy life in their house, and the mystery is as ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... of education and social customs, it is important to refer in considerable detail to a few physiological matters. Physiology serves to disclose the cause, and explain the modus operandi, of these ills, and offers the only rational clew to their prevention and relief. The order in which the physiological data are presented that bear upon this discussion is not essential; their relation to the subject matter of it will be ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... of her arrival her husband, after meeting her with reproaches, had fled from the house, leaving no clew to his destination, and giving no reason for his ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... fainting-fit Judith had watched him with tender anxiety, and it seemed to her that there was something strange in his manner that morning. She did not know what it was, but had she held any clew to his thoughts she would have perceived that Bertie was astonished and bewildered. He looked as if a dream had suddenly become a reality, as if a jest had turned into marvellous earnest. He smoked his pipe, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... the sail billowed out, full of wind, pulling hard at the clew-line, which was made fast to the gunwhale beside Hrolfur. The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... to the ground to see if I could get a clew to the mystery, and found that the dust all about the large spider was alive with little ones that she had just shaken off. What a load! And how did they ever get up on her back? Did they run up her slender legs, ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... my boyish delight at the prospect of visiting a place, the infallible clew to all whose intricacies I held ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... a stranger thing to me," replied Uncle William. "I am dreadfully puzzled over the whole matter. We have now four detectives at work, but up to the present they have not got the slightest clew to ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... pardon me, then, if I remind you that time is pressing? Even a half-hour gained to-night by the authorities may be invaluable. If you are able to supply any clew, the least hint of motive, the most shadowy of guesses at a personality behind this beastly crime, you will be ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... ancient days three warriors came from Green Ierne, to dwell in the wild glens of Cowal and Lochow,—how one of them, the swart Breachdan, all for the love of blue-eyed Eila, swam the Gulf, once with a clew of thread, then with a hempen rope, last with an iron chain, but this time, alas! the returning tide sucks down the over-tasked hero into its swirling vortex,—how Diarmid O' Duin, i.e. son of "the Brown," slew with ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... a flood of information about his estate: The architectural features of his house—the cost; the loveliness of his trees—the cost; the coloring of his flowers—the cost; the magnificence of his view, And all the while he studied his caller's face with sharp, furtive glances, trying to find some clew to the purpose ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... the whole shore of the lake was twinkling with lights borne high in the hands of men who were searching. Two boats were rowing back and forth on the lake, with bright lights at stern and prow; and loud shouts filled the air. No answer; no clew: at last, from the island, came a pistol shot,—the signal agreed on. Every man stood still and listened. Slowly the boats came back to shore, drawing behind them Hetty's boat; bringing one of the oars, and also Hetty's shawl, which they had found, just ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... boys, comes the best of the fun, It's hands about ship and reef topsails in one; So it's lay aloft, topman, as the hellum goes down, And clew down your topsails as the mainyard goes round. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... discovered to be in flames, which were extinguished by Harry and his companions at the risk of their lives, by employing engines filled with water and carbonic acid, always kept ready in case of necessity. The lamp used by the incendiary was found; but no clew whatever as to ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... copy was made, which is still preserved. In June, 1825, the Honorable James Prescott was in the possession of the original, which Caleb Butler, Esq., at that time transcribed into one of the town record-books, and thereby saved it for historical purposes. Even with this clew a special search has been made for the missing document, but without success. If it is ever found it will be by chance, where it is the least looked for. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the outlines or the faithfulness of the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... from the astonishment produced by this discovery I inquired whether other shamans had such books. "Yes," said Swimmer, "we all have them." Here then was a clew to follow up. A bargain was made by which he was to have another blank book into which to copy the formulas, after which the original was bought. It is now deposited in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology. The remainder of the time until the return was ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... two or three hours, and still Mercer and Anina gave us no clew to what we were about to see. It began to snow. Huge, soft flakes soon lay thick ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... stage, however, they were destined to disappointment; Wilson nosed in every corner like a terrier and examined the roof almost in the posture of a fly, but half an hour afterward they had to confess that they were still without a clew. Sir Walter's private secretary seemed more and more threatened with inappropriate slumber, and, having been the last to climb up the ladder, seemed now to lack the energy even to climb ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... while we are pursuing a fancied clew, and seeking to provide first a name, and then a fortune for this young lawyer,—what steps have you really taken to meet the danger that menaces me,—to secure, if our inquiries fail, an independence for yourself? Months have elapsed, and you have still shrunk ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which afforded Dory a clew to the strange event in the woods. He fancied it had some connection with the money the farmer had received for his farm. The hungry boy was called into another room by Mrs. Brookbine to eat his supper. He found a plentiful meal on the table, and he did ample justice to ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... are mostly night-walkers also, and the record they leave upon the snow is the main clew one has to their life and doings. The hare is nocturnal in its habits, and though a very lively creature at night, with regular courses and run-ways through the wood, is entirely quiet by day. Timid as he is, he makes little effort to conceal himself, usually ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... romance that had commenced in dots and dashes culminating in orange blossoms—a Wired Love. But now, to her vexation, she saw her anticipations liable to be set at naught, and herself unable to obtain even a clew to the trouble. Like the "line man," who goes up and down to find why the wires will not work, she could not find the "break" anywhere, and decided that romances, whether "wired" or taken in the ordinary way, were certainly very ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... notice; but a steam ascended from his left leg, as he sat immersed in his red volume. Into the study I never went again; but Raffles did, to restore to its proper shelf this and every other book he had taken out and so destroy that clew to the manner of man who had made himself at home in the house. On his last visit I heard him whisk off the dust-sheet; then he waited a minute; and when he came out it was to lead the way into the open air as though the accursed ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... struck Roland. He had heard it before. It had a happy memory, an air of prosperity about it. Lanhearne! It was a Cornish name! That circumstance gave him the clew. When he was a boy at Eton, he remembered a Mr. Lanhearne who stayed with his father. "By Jove!" he cried, starting to his feet, "he was an American. What a piece of luck it would be if it should be the same man!" He fixed the address in his mind ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... regions where I have found my felicity are accessible to all, and that many, better trained and better gifted, will explore them to far better purpose than I, and to the greater glory and benefit of mankind, when once I have given them the clew. Before I can do this, and in order to show how I came by this clew myself, I must tell, as well as I may, the tale of my checkered career—in telling which, moreover, I am obeying the last behest of one whose lightest wish ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... me to see the six brave men again?" she asked, smiling, but really she was prying at his mind to get a clew of the truth. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... to find some clew to Ben Haley. He had now a personal interest in bringing to justice the man who had made him so much trouble. He had scarcely got on shore than the boy who had sold Ben Haley the ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... homeward-bound crew was the same as the outward-bound, and Mr. Dodge had come abroad quite as green as he was now going home ripe, this traveller of six months' finish did not escape diver commentaries that literally cut him up "from clew to ear-ring," and which flew about in the rigging much as active birds flutter from branch to branch in a tree. The subject of all this wit, however, remained profoundly, not to say happily, ignorant of the sensation he had produced, being occupied in disposing of the Dresden pipe, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... prevented his carrying off, and which still remains, snug and safe, in some dusty repository, ready to reward "a fortunate speculator." I only wish,' continued he merrily, 'I could light upon the hoard! Give me a clew, dear Newburgh, and I'll buy you ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... why the youth of Grande Anse should be any finer than the youth of other places; and it seemed to me that the baker's own statement of his never having been there might possibly furnish a clew.... Out of the thirty-five thousand inhabitants of St. Pierre and its suburbs, there are at least twenty thousand who never have been there, and most probably never will be. Few dwellers of the west coast visit the east coast: in fact, except among ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... sprang from an ancient noble family, as he says on several occasions, it is possible that some particulars relating to the Schweidlers might be discovered in the family records of the seventeenth century which would give a clew to his native country; but I have sought for that name in all the sources of information accessible to me, in vain, and am led to suspect that our author, like many of his contemporaries, laid aside his nobility and changed his name when he took ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... neighbours could be so fond of it; but a humble sort of acquiescence in what was held to be good, had become a strong habit of that new self which had been developed in him since he had found Eppie on his hearth: it had been the only clew his bewildered mind could hold by in cherishing this young life that had been sent to him out of the darkness into which his gold had departed. By seeking what was needful for Eppie, by sharing the effect that everything produced on her, he had himself ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The others might have been asleep, but I was awake. I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clew to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the heavy night-air ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... responsibilities, leaving them on a door stone, while they crowded for a closer peep at the mysterious dancers in a hand-organ. From that day to this the whereabouts of the dollships has remained a solemn secret from the knowledge of all but the Midgetts. And it was to them Bunch had gone for a clew to ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... clew: he couldn't miss her," said Varney. "Let me go on, while I have time. Miss Carstairs, it is not fair to either of us to let matters stay like this. In the cottage last night, you forced me to let you ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... quick glance which Snaffle understood at once to mean that he was to second her in something she was attempting. He did not yet get his clew clearly enough to understand just how, but the look put him on the ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... consequences, is the precise point from which we should contemplate the world, if we would behold the power and goodness of God therein manifested. This is the secret of the world by which the dark enigma of evil is to be solved. This is the clew, by which we are to be conducted from the dark labyrinth of atheistical doubt and scepticism, into the clear and open light of divine providence. This is the great central light which has been wanting to the scheme of optimism, to convert it from a ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... not found—a big slouch hat being the only tangible clew unearthed to a real personality. And this Walter dug out of a hole near a rear wheel ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... Bud's absence? Larcher had knocked at that room two days after the Wednesday, and had got no answer, but this was no evidence that Davenport might not have made some use of the room in the meanwhile. If he had made use of it, he might have left some trace, some possible clew to his subsequent movements. Larcher, thinking thus on his way from Bagley's apartment-house, resolved to pay another visit to Mr. Bud's quarters before saying anything about ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... so ridiculous. I must get a cap to suit my rags; any old thing would be better than this horror. Hats like these are not worn; this one would be noticeable a verst* off; it would be remembered; people would think of it again some time after, and it might furnish a clew. I must attract as little attention as possible just now. Trifles become important, everything hinges ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... interest attaches to the McGowan story, for only a short time had elapsed after his return to America when he disappeared suddenly and mysteriously, and in spite of long-continued and strenuous efforts to obtain some light on the subject, no clew or trace of him was ever found. He was a favorite among the Edison "oldtimers," and his memory is still cherished, for when some of the "boys" happen to get together, as they occasionally do, some one is almost sure to "wonder what became of ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... from the bank, and the two young men turned into shore. "Come on," some one called. "We have a clew. Get in here. We must ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... going to Father Salvierderra. Temecula seemed the only place, now, to look for them; and yet from Temecula Felipe had heard, only a few days before leaving home, that there was not an Indian left in the valley. But he could at least learn there where the Indians had gone. Poor as the clew seemed, it was all he had. Cruelly Felipe urged his horse on his return journey. He grudged an hour's rest to himself or to the beast; and before he reached the head of the Temecula canon the creature was near spent. At the steepest part he jumped off and walked, to save her strength. As ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... be my mother. When she is dead I shall leave Eastborough never to return. My sole object in life from that day will be to find some trace of my parents or relatives. Now it may happen that through Mrs. Putnam or Miss Pettengill you may get some clew that will help me in my search. It is for this that I wish a friend, and I have a presentiment that some day you will be able to ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... Brisaeus from the earth, the power of life and action. She had already so conquered herself as to be able to leave her own quiet room, and descend to that of her parents. There she would sit calmly for hours, listening attentively to the conversation, hoping to catch some word that might give her a clew. ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... grand indeed! But supposing it true, how could we be expected to believe it like them that saw him with their own eyes? I couldn't be required to believe just as if I could have no doubt about it. It wouldn't be fair. Only—perhaps we haven't got the clew ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... That's what they all do; and HE'S got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do anything that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the time. S'pose he DON'T do nothing with it? ain't it there in his bed, for a clew, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll want clews? Of course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? That would be a PRETTY howdy-do, WOULDN'T it! I never heard of such ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... your Majesty's escape," said the Duke of Buckingham, "and not less in the quick wit which tracked that labyrinth of treason by so fine and almost invisible a clew." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Ham sent the warning to me. I called on him, learned the plans of Bill and Jed, and we sent for the detectives. The latter, we learned, were about to make an arrest anyhow, but it was of the men who really printed the bogus tickets. They hadn't a clew, as yet, to Bill and Jed, who were the real backers of the game. The detectives came on, disguised themselves with us, and we caught the scoundrels in the very act. Now they're ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... they returned to their usual necessitous state. Balboa then consented to their extending their incursions to more distant lands, as they had already wasted and ruined the immediate environs of Antigua, and he sent Valdivia to Spain to apprize the admiral of the clew he had gained to the South Sea, and the reported wealth of ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... gleam of gold, and was a foreign coin of some sort, possibly of Austrian coinage; but the letters which it had borne, and the figures, had been worn much away; and one side was worn quite smooth, so as to give no clew to ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... embroiled discoursing, "I yet keep; still more inseparably the Name, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh. From the veil can nothing be inferred: a piece of now quite faded Persian silk, like thousands of others. On the Name I have many times meditated and conjectured; but neither in this lay there any clew. That it was my unknown Father's name I must hesitate to believe. To no purpose have I searched through all the Herald's Books, in and without the German Empire, and through all manner of Subscriber-Lists (Pranumeranten), ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... shortly before his accession to the throne, and the subject of an old ballad. She is said to have been kept by her royal lover in a secret bower at Woodstock, the approaches to which formed a labyrinth so intricate that it could only be discovered by the clew of a silken thread, which the king used for that purpose. Here Queen Eleanor discovered and poisoned her, about 1173.— (Noted names of Fiction, 1175. See also ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... given him a valuable clew, for he reasoned that the barnyard home of Mr. Rooster must be near the general buildings of a farm. These buildings he decided to avoid. So, when he came to a fork in the path he chose the direction that led him further from what he ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... of the skipper were obeyed. The Languedocian made a third sailor. All bore a hand. Not satisfied with brailing up, they furled the sails, lashed the earrings, secured the clew-lines, bunt-lines, and leech-lines, and clapped preventer-shrouds on the block straps, which thus might serve as back-stays. They fished the mast. They battened down the ports and bulls'-eyes, which is a method of walling up a ship. These evolutions, though executed in a lubberly fashion, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... groupes invite, No dulcet sounds the ravish'd ear delight; 50 No tender cares:—- But in their place appear, Sullen Complaint, and cloy'd Disgust, and Fear; There, fever'd Jealousy with livid hue, And falt'ring steps unwinds Suspicion's clew; Arm'd with the blood-stain'd instruments of death, There, Rage and Hatred spread their poison'd breath; 55 While Malice, brooding over secret guile, Repays their labour with a treach'rous smile; Remorse, that never sleeps, brings up the rear, Hates his own deed, ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... had not told any one yet that she had a clew by which she hoped to win the reward Love had offered for the detection of the impostor; but after she had grappled with the wretch who was bearing off Dainty, she had found in the claw-like grasp of her fingers some bits of torn torchon lace that might have ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... to take a position in regard to theories which are not yet established. We found the most different problems—scientific, naturo-philosophical, metaphysical, religious and ethical—inextricably mixed, and were obliged, as one of our first tasks, to make an attempt at finding the clew and at examining and testing each single problem, together with attempts at its solution, separately, although keeping constantly in mind its connection with all other problems and their attempts at solution. We found ourselves ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... many of the cases of complaint made in this general way, and have felt mortified that our soldiers should do acts which are nothing more or less than stealing, but I was powerless without some clew whereby to reach the rightful party. I know that the great mass of our soldiers would scorn to steal or commit crime, and I will not therefore entertain vague and general complaints, but stand, prepared always to follow up any ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... another paper Kirk found something that relieved his mind a bit: evidently Williams had not died prior to the time of going to press, although he was reported in a critical condition. Kirk was interested to read that the police had a clew to the identity of the criminals and were confident of soon rounding them up. What mystified him most was the lack of detail. Evidently much had been printed previously, but he had no means of ascertaining ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... visited Schuyler, and at that time had met the small, grizzled individual who now stood before him. He had not, however, the slightest idea of the identity of his visitor, and waited a brief moment for a clew ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... postmaster with delight. And he himself harnessed the ancient horse to the creaking carriage. In the meantime Porthos was curious to behold. He imagined he had discovered a clew to the secret, and he felt pleased, because a visit to Athos, in the first place, promised him much satisfaction, and, in the next, gave him the hope of finding at the same time a good bed and good supper. The master, having got the carriage ready, ordered one ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a poor clew at the best. But I put a good face on it, and promised her I would find him if he could be found. And I spared no pains. I wrote to the postmaster at Tuckahoe, and to a minister I heard of there. I inquired of the Swedish consuls in New York and Philadelphia. Indeed, in the end, ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... was searched in vain. No clew to the purloined securities could be obtained,—the copies of the "Sunday Visitor," which had been substituted for them, affording not the least; for that valuable little paper was found in almost every household, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... have been many seconds that I sat up thus in bed staring about, without being able to regain the clew to my personal identity. I was no more able to distinguish myself from pure being during those moments than we may suppose a soul in the rough to be before it has received the ear-marks, the individualizing ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... married first; whoever got the nut would marry a widow or a widower; but if the nut were an empty shell, he or she would remain unwed. Again, a girl would take a clue of worsted, go to a lime kiln in the gloaming, and throw the clew into the kiln in the devil's name, while she held fast the other end of the thread. Then she would rewind the thread and ask, "Who holds my clue?" and the name of her future husband would come up from the depth of the kiln. Another way was to take a rake, go ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... vigorous search for a clew of some kind which might lead to their discovery, but without success; and was just about to leave town when I inquired if the late jewelry firm had employed any clerks ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... maintained in the highest respectability without any trouble of her own, should be normally in a state of contradiction to the blandest propositions and even to the most accommodating concessions, was a mystery in the scheme of things to which he had often in vain sought a clew in the early chapters of Genesis. Mr. Glegg had chosen the eldest Miss Dodson as a handsome embodiment of female prudence and thrift, and being himself of a money-getting, money-keeping turn, had calculated on much conjugal harmony. But in that ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Roy; "but suppose we examine the vicinity first. We might get a clew as to the rascals ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... be groping for some clew, some familiar sign that would resolve all the unfamiliarities to ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... had expatriated himself, resigned the work he valued, put the seas between himself and Deena, only to be baffled at every turn. For two months he had used his utmost acumen in prosecuting the search without even finding a clew, and when finally he made his great discovery, it was by yielding to the impulse of the moment rather than ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... a report to me every evening," remarked Kenneth; "and Mr. Burke says this is the most mystifying case he has ever encountered. So far there isn't a clew to follow. But you may rest assured that what any man can ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... gone to Mrs. Hadden first, who was very kind and old-fashioned, and not so overpoweringly grand. But she had her justification for her attempt from Mrs. Marchbanks's own lips, and she must take up her opportunity as it came to her, following her clew right end first. She meant simply to tell Mrs. Marchbanks how she had happened to think ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Connaught, a province to which he seems to have been drawn from the first, and there spent eight years, founding many churches and monasteries. There also he ascended Croagh Patrick, the tall sugar-loaf mountain which stands over the waters of Clew Bay, and up to the summit of which hundreds of pilgrims still annually climb ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... friend was pouring into his ear. Standing at the moment with my knee on Madame de Bruhl's stool, and remembering very well the meeting on the stairs, I conceived in a flash that the man was jealous; but whether he had yet heard my name, or had any clew to link me with the person who had rescued Mademoiselle de la Vire from his clutches, I could not tell. Nevertheless his presence led my thoughts into a new channel. The determination to punish him began to take form in my mind, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... particularly to see its writer. On inquiring, to their mutual surprise they were told, that the gentleman had left there early in the morning, having discharged his lodgings, and that they were unable to say whither he had gone. To hunt for a man without a clew, in the city of London, is usually time misspent Of this Moseley was perfectly sensible, and disregarding a proposition of Peter's, he returned to his own lodgings. The proposal of the steward, if it did not do much credit to his sagacity, was much in favor of his ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... will find that difficult. He has left no clew in this city where he once lived. He sold out all his property, and ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... thing with an interest inspired by all I had been hearing of the poor priest, and turned over the little volumes of his humble library to trace, if I might, some clew to his habits in his readings. They were all, however, of one cast and character—religious tracts and offices, covered with annotations and remarks, and showing, by many signs the most careful and frequent ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... weariness—sleep, perhaps. But as the young man hesitated on the threshold the sound of a muffled sob escaped the quiet figure. He turned noiselessly and went away, sorry and ashamed, because unwittingly he had stumbled upon the clew he ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... understand why Mr. Adams is not here," went on the young man. "Perhaps he has found some important clew and is following it up," he ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... they were following was their own track, leading them back to the mouldering remains of their own fire. They had gone round in a great circle, and come back upon their own course. Rollo looked exceedingly blank and confused at this unexpected termination of the clew, which he had hoped was to have led him out of his difficulty. What he was to do ...
— Rollo's Philosophy. [Air] • Jacob Abbott
... vessel, it is true I cannot hoist the sails single-handed, but luckily we have enough of sail set already; and if it should come on to blow a squall, I could at least drop the peaks of the main and fore sails, and clew them up partially without help, and throw her head close into the wind, so as to keep her all shaking till the violence of the squall is past. And if we have continued light breezes, I'll rig up a complication of blocks and fix them to the top-sail halyards, so that I shall ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... exclaimed Mally, pointing to a white speck in a green field. "Better run up quiet or she'll dash off like a deer," and making some mysterious sign to Jack, the erstwhile pathfinders darted off themselves toward their clew. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... clew left by the assassin was the "dog." At the inquest, the policeman on the beat swore that when he passed the house on his rounds at half-past four A.M., he tried both front doors, and that they were fastened, and that when he passed again a little before six o'clock, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... been destroyed by fire at the time of the accident, so there were no trunks to give evidence. The small traveling bag she had carried with her bore neither initial nor geographical designation, and contained nothing which gave any clew as to its owner's identity save that she was presumably a person of wealth, for her possessions were exquisite and obviously costly. A small jewel box contained various valuable rings, one or two pendants ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... conflicting opinions were expressed as to whither he had gone, in testing which I had visited no less than twenty cities, making careful inquiries, especially among medical men. Occasionally I struck what seemed to be a promising clew, which only increased my confusion and left me more hopelessly in the dark. I had reported my movements to Mr. Earl as often as once a week and I received letters from him frequently, encouraging me to continue the search and enclosing money ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... all the men of the detail—every one of them as anxious as myself—on a long and fruitless search beside the river, without coming upon a clew. Returning to Mr. Gray's, and dismissing the men, I sat upon the veranda alone, sadly reflecting upon the absence of my young companions ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... the helm!" cried Morgan the instant the boat was alongside. "Swing the mainyard and get the canvas off her. Aloft, topmen, settle away the halliards! Clew down! ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... tell us a' he could hae tell'd us, if he had liked, about the application for pardon, neighbours,' said Saddletree; 'there is aye a wimple in a lawyer's clew; but it's a wee bit ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... ball of yarn refused to follow her. She jerked at it in vain. She dared not let her clew break, because if she should lose the lover supposed to be holding its other end, she would die unmarried. "Let me see you! let me see you!" she cried, eagerly, and a figure drew near her in the darkness. An arm covered with dark cloth was almost round her. She drew away with ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... her name—'Angela,' which corresponded with the name embroidered on her clothing. This is all we know about her; and I greatly fear that those to whom she belonged perished in the storm. Even the wreckage that was washed ashore furnished no clew; it was part of two different vessels. The little waif was brought to me and with me ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... in question are simple enough, and in no way transcend our powers of comprehension if only we could find the clew; but for my part I prefer not to find it, for I am of a singularly romantic disposition, deriving more gratification from mystery than from knowledge. It was commonly remarked of me when I was a child ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... Pasht, who sits in the hall, very big, very grave, carved of black stone, and very ludicrous, wearing a dog's head. I will just mention the Rosetta Stone, with a Greek inscription, and another in Egyptian characters which gave the clew to a whole field of history; and shall pretermit all further handling of this ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he had thought that the child was only paying an impromptu visit until she mentioned her name. Erle had told him that Mrs. Trafford was Mr. Huntingdon's daughter, and that he had never seen her since her marriage. This clew guided him to the meaning of the sternness in Mr. Huntingdon's voice; but he had hardly understood in what way Erle was implicated, or why the child should receive so little notice from her brother. When Raby had finished his account, which was annotated ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... inevitably united and made ONE IDENTITY; Nativities, climates, the grass of the great pastoral Plains, Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil—these me, These affording, in all their particulars, the old feuillage to me and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the union of them, to afford the like to you? Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am? How can I but as here chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... suppositious landlord who had called, for the sense of some sound but stilled on the second of his waking was strong within him. He fastened upon the vague starlit space of the little window to give him a clew to his situation. Then he remembered Doom, and, with the window for his key, built up the puzzle of his room, wondering at the ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... languored lifting, fasten unto mine, Their rubric Message giving Hint and Clew How frequently a Kiss ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... doggedly to the task of finding a way back. To this end, he knelt down, and felt the smooth surface of the snow with bare fingers for some trace of his footsteps. There was none. The firm crust had carried him without strain. There was no least abrasion of the frozen surface to afford him a clew to his own trail. He strove to reason concerning the direction of his movements, but quickly abandoned the attempt as altogether baffling. In his circling about the tree from which he had garnered fuel, he had neglected to hold his bearings ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... conspiracies to perform dark deeds are hatched a clew or record is left behind. In spite of Germany's protestations of innocence, her loud cries that the war was forced upon her, there is ample evidence that for years she had been planning it; that she wanted it and only awaited the opportune time to launch it. It was a gradual ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... in mind some particular idea; some state of feeling springing out of some previous preparation of heart, which he can claim as his comfort in his affliction. The few verses preceding the text give a clew to this very state of mind and heart. Let us look over them and see what it was. In verse 44 he says: "I will keep thy law continually for ever and ever." Verse 45: "I seek thy precepts." Verse 46: "Of thy testimonies also, I will not be ashamed." ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... Valentin had evidently meant to put him in possession of a powerful instrument, though he could not be said to have placed the handle very securely within his grasp. But if he had not really told him the secret, he had at least given him the clew to it—a clew of which that queer old Mrs. Bread held the other end. Mrs. Bread had always looked to Newman as if she knew secrets; and as he apparently enjoyed her esteem, he suspected she might be induced to share her knowledge with him. So long ...
— The American • Henry James
... the other, on the opposite side of which lay the long, double-chimneyed drawing-room, less cheerful than our smaller assembly-room by half, and therefore less often used (there, you have our whole first-floor arrangement now, my reader, I believe, and I must begin over again, to catch the clew of my long sentence). We were sitting, then, around the cheerful fire in the parlor in question, when Morton, my father's "own man," announced "Mr. Bainrothe and son," and a moment afterward the two gentlemen so heralded entered the room together. With one you are already ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... boatswain, "but he couldn't leave the wheel, for 'twas pipin' up a freshish breeze on our port quarter, and we was doin' about seven, or seven and a half knots, with topmast and lower stunsails set to port, and of course we had to take 'em in, clew up the royal and to'ga'ntsail, and haul down the gaff- tops'l before we could round to; and that took us so long that at last, when we'd brought the hooker to the wind, hove her to, and had got the jolly-boat ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood |
