"Deciphered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the Sultan; the fleet was at Gibraltar. The voice continued, imprinting on the faces of the clerks in Whitehall (Timothy Durrant was one of them) something of its own inexorable gravity, as they listened, deciphered, wrote down. Papers accumulated, inscribed with the utterances of Kaisers, the statistics of ricefields, the growling of hundreds of work-people, plotting sedition in back streets, or gathering in the Calcutta ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... attended the classes of the erudite Blumenfeld, and what you can't learn from him—need I say any more? One evening I held the fan in front of a vivid electric light and at once noticed serried lines. These I deciphered after a long time. Another surprise. They were Chinese characters of a remotely early date—Heaven knows how many dynasties back! Now what, you will ask, is Chinese doing on a Samurai fighting fan! I don't ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... been accustomed to for centuries past. Mocking a nation's history!—as though the career of any people—even of the lowest African savages possessing no record—were not a page in the general history of mankind, written by the hand of God Himself. The very lost races are a palimpsest to be deciphered by a seeing eye. To a philosophic and pious mind, the races themselves are marks of Divine chirography clearly traced in black and white as on their skin; and if this simile holds good, the yellow race forms a precious page inscribed in hieroglyphics of gold! ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... of texts. There is a volume at Vienna, from Bobbio, made up of palimpsest leaves from many MSS., Biblical and classical. Two of these, apparently from one book, stand next to each other. They have only recently been deciphered; they are in Latin uncials of the fifth century. One of them is from the Apocalypse of Thomas, a book named in an old list of Apocryphal writings, but thought until a few years ago to be hopelessly lost. We now know complete MSS. of it ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... abruptly. Involuntarily, he passed his hand over his face, as if seeking to obliterate the traces she had deciphered. Then, with an obvious effort, he recovered a show of equanimity; he declared that it was only because he was so tousled in contrast with her fresh finery that she thought he looked supernaturally horrible! He would go upstairs forthwith and array ...
— The Phantom Of Bogue Holauba - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... streamed, making them flame like jewellery, and flinging their fair shadows of blue, and scarlet, and crimson, on the delicate carving of the pillars on either side. But, on the whole, the boys were most proud of showing their friends the old school-room, on whose rude panels many a name may be deciphered, carved there by the boyish hand of poets, orators, and statesmen, who in the zenith of their fame still looked back with fond remembrance on the home of their earlier days, and some of whom were then testifying by their presence ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... spoke; and some gravestones of the temple-cemetery were still to be seen. It[o] discovered the monuments in the middle of a dense thicket. They were of an ancient Chinese form, and were covered with moss and lichens. The characters that had been cut upon them could no longer be deciphered. ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... philologist had said, half in jest, half in earnest: "If a stone were to fall down from the Sun with an inscription in unknown signs, in an unknown language, upon it, we should be able to make it out,"—a remark which I called to mind many years later when Thomsen deciphered the Ancient Turkish inscriptions in the Mountains ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... then, we cannot doubt that the earth's crust, so far as yet deciphered by us, presents us with but a very imperfect record of the past. Whether the known and admitted imperfections of the geological and palaeontological records are sufficiently serious to account satisfactorily for the deficiency of direct evidence recognisable ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... looked at it, started, changed color,—his vision of "The Dangers of Beauty, a Sermon printed by Request," had vanished,—and passed the note to Father Pemberton, who sat by him in the pulpit. With much pains he deciphered its contents, for his eyes were dim with years, and, having read it, bowed his head upon his hands in silent thanksgiving. Then he rose in the beauty of his tranquil and noble old age, so touched with the message he had to proclaim to his people, that the three ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the message from the lord of Ringstetten that Bertalda was his guest, returned answer in some lines almost too illegible to be deciphered, but still the best his advanced life and long disuse of writing permitted him ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... knew no bounds, when their patience and assiduity, their washing and scraping, were crowned with success. The stone was uneven and broken, and the letters were straggling and irregular, but the following fragment of an inscription was clearly to be deciphered:— ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... letter with one glance of the eye, darting to the culminating point of each phrase as a deer bounds over ledges of rocks; he weighed the plain meaning as well as the innuendoes of the slightest expression, like a rabbi who comments upon the Bible, and deciphered the erasures with the patience of a seeker after hieroglyphics, so as to detach from them some particle of the idea they had contained. After analyzing and criticising this note in all its most imperceptible shades, he crushed it within his hand and began ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... monuments are not written in plain English, and need a key; and we must be first assured that Manetho's list has not been used for this purpose. We are told; for example, [55] that the name "Snefura," deciphered on a tablet found at the copper-mines of Wady Magerah, is the name of a King of the third dynasty, who reigned about 4000 B.C. Now if there were no doubt about the reading of this name on the tablet, and if his date and dynasty were as ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... her head upon her hand and not even looking up, while Josephine's pen was rapidly running over the paper. (The phrase is a proper one—Joseph's pen ran, always, when she attempted to write, and as a consequence her chirography was not the easiest in the world to be deciphered. No fear, however, but that what she wrote in this instance could be read!) When she had concluded and was rising from the desk, Mary first looked up, and there was such an expression of abject and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... no longer any enchanting unexpectedness, and life turns to prose the moment there is nothing unattainable. It needs no more a voice out of the unknown proclaiming "Great Pan is dead!" We have found his tombstone, deciphered the arrow-headed inscription upon it, know his age to a day, and that ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... He had deciphered the tank and superstructure plans on forty-five sets of blueprints, had formulated a proposition, exclusive of substructure work, basing a price per pound on the American market then ruling, f.o.b. tidewater, New York. He had the proposition in ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... volumes of Napoleon inconnu contain the text of these papers as deciphered for M. Masson and revised by him. My own examination, which antedated his transcription by more than a year (1891), led me to trust their authenticity absolutely, as far as the writer's memory and good faith are concerned. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... France. He encouraged the close study of Egyptian antiquities. [Footnote: It was an army officer on this Egyptian expedition who discovered the famous Rosetta Stone, by the aid of which hieroglyphics could be deciphered.] But his actual victories did not measure up to the excessively colored reports that he sent home. He was checked in Syria, and a great naval victory won by the celebrated English admiral, Lord Nelson, near the mouth of the Nile, effectually ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... the completest is the papyrus Sallier IV., which has been admirably treated by F. Chabas. Many days are noted as lucky, unlucky, etc. In the temples many Calendars of feasts have been found, the most perfect at Medinet Abu, deciphered by Dumich.] ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... some sense from the strange words. At the bottom of the last sheet she deciphered, Felipe Martinez' name under the notorial acknowledgment. All at once in scanning certain lines she came on names that were plain enough—Sorenson, Vorse, Burkhardt, Gordon. The last must mean Judge Gordon. Then presently she found two more names that excited her curiosity—James ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... dispatches from our envoys extraordinary since their arrival at Paris were received at the Secretary of State's office at a late hour last evening. They are all in a character which will require some days to be deciphered, except the last, which is dated the 8th of January, 1798. The contents of this letter are of so much importance to be immediately made known to Congress and to the public, especially to the mercantile part of our fellow-citizens, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... the hieroglyphics of the soul, had deciphered the return of the age of sentiment and ideas, Poe, in the field of morbid psychology had more especially investigated the domain of ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... handed him the scroll, and all waited in silence whilst Robin deciphered it. Carfax snapped his teeth together in vexation at this unexpected turn. "He cannot read the parchment. Is it likely?" he cried. "He will but pretend to read it, and make lies with which to confound me. 'Tis writ in most scholarly Latin, ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... has been deciphered. How is it to be turned to account, unless it be first understood? Inscriptions in Etruscan and the ancient language of Cambodia have been read, but no one understands them. As long as this is the case ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... deciphered and expressed in full, stands thus—the letters omitted in the original, above, being ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... invented a system of writing upon clay tablets. These were baked in the sun after the letters were inscribed. Commercial records and written laws and histories were thus made possible and in time a varied literature was created. Whole libraries of these baked clay tablets have been unearthed and deciphered by ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... adaptation to insects alone correlates and explains. That the results of illumining researches should be so slow in enlightening the popular mind can be due only to the technical, scientific language used in setting them forth, language as foreign to the average reader as Chinese, and not to be deciphered by the average student either, without the help of a glossary. These writings, as well as the vast array of popular books - too many for individual mention - have been freely ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... caso, et scrivermene come la supplico quanto prima per duplicate et triplicate lettere la sua santa determinatione assicurandosi che per quanto sara in me il negotio sara trattato con la debita circumspetione (Sega, Desp. Paris, Jan. 23, 1591; deciphered in Rome, March 26).] ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... which has been since borrowed by the worshipful author of the famous "History of Fryar Bacon," has been with difficulty deciphered. It seems to have been sung on occasion ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... till it was time to ask for something for his exertions. Meanwhile the Baron made a tour of the yard, taking a lesson in English from the lettering on the various coaches, when, on the hind boot of one, he deciphered the word Cheapside.—"Ah, Cheapside!" said he, pulling out his dictionary and turning to the letter C. "Chaste, chat, chaw,—cheap, dat be it. Cheap,—to be had at a low price—small value. Ah! I hev (have) ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... bore a message; the writing was microscopic, the script German, the language Flemish. Slowly, with infinite pains, the little bell-mistress of Sainte Lesse translated to herself each message as she deciphered it. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... nothing of Seth and Noah, for their reputation as amateurs is only based on the authority of the tract De Bibliothecis Antediluvianis. The library of Assurbanipal I pass over, for its volumes were made, as Pliny says, of coctiles laterculi, of baked tiles, which have been deciphered by the late Mr. George Smith. Philosophers as well as immemorial kings, Pharaohs and Ptolemys, are on our side. It was objected to Plato, by persons answering to the cheap scribblers of to-day, that he, though a sage, gave ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... of the Babylonians rest upon the express testimony of ancient writers—a testimony confirmed in many respects by the monuments already deciphered. It is suspected that, when the astronomical tablets which exist by hundreds in the British Museum come to be thoroughly understood, it will be found that the acquaintance of the Chaldaean sages with astronomical phenomena, if not also with astronomical laws, went considerably ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... excellent! why, gallants, is this he that cannot be deciphered? they were very blear-witted, i'faith, that could not ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... them, years and years before, by hands then young, but by now returned to dust. The history of this little kingdom, the hopes and joys, the fears and hatreds of the subjects, still remained, and might be gathered from these writings on the walls, just as are the history of Egypt and of Assyria now deciphered from the palaces and tombs. Here were the names of the kings—the head-masters—generally with some rough doggerel verse, not often very flattering, and illustrated with outline portraits. Here were caricatures of the ushers and tutors, ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... drifted into a reverie ... blissfully dreaming, with Frederick the foremost figure of her dreams. The solemn descent of night ever signified the mystery of his love to her. Now, from the fullness of her unalloyed joy, she glanced up at the sky and blessed the whole world. In imagination she deciphered the words the stars were forming. Stretched from pole to pole, they lettered the heavens with the wonders of infinitude. In a diadem of gold, "God is love" was written; from the unsearchable north to the south where in their turn the slender rimming clouds sent it ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... knew both Italian and German; so Mlle. de Negrepelise received instruction in those tongues, as well as in counterpoint. He explained the great masterpieces of the French, German, and Italian literatures, and deciphered with her the music of the great composers. Finally, as time hung heavy on his hands in the seclusion enforced by political storms, he taught his pupil Latin and Greek and some smatterings of natural science. A mother might have modified the effects of a man's education ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Plants. On the southern coast of India a river, which flows from the ghats to the sea, passing Tinnevelly, is called Tambapanni. Tambapanni, as the designation of Ceylon, occurs in the inscription on the rock of Girnar in Guzerat, deciphered by Prinsep, containing an edict by Asoka relative to the medical administration of India for the relief both of man and beast, (Asiat. Soc. Journ. Beng. vol. vii. ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... mention, ever since he was out of his time and went into partnership with Peffer. On that occasion, Cook's Court was in a manner revolutionized by the new inscription in fresh paint, PEFFER AND SNAGSBY, displacing the time-honoured and not easily to be deciphered legend PEFFER only. For smoke, which is the London ivy, had so wreathed itself round Peffer's name and clung to his dwelling-place that the affectionate parasite quite overpowered the ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... evaded; with patience and reflection IT IS OVERTHROWN. Moreover, one knows thoroughly only what one learns oneself; and I advise you earnestly, as far as possible, to have recourse to no aid other than reflection, above all for the sciences. A book of science is an enigma to be deciphered; if some one gives you the key of the enigma nothing appears more simple and more natural than the explanation, but if a second enigma presents itself you will be as unskilful as you ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... imposture of Soothsayers, and infidelity of Atheists. The delusion of Pythonists, Figure-casters, Astrologers, and vanity of Dreamers. The fruitlesse beggarly art of Alchimistry. The horrible art of Poisoning and all the tricks and conveyances of juggling and lieger-demain are fully deciphered. With many other things opened that have long lain hidden: though very necessary to be known for the undeceiving of Judges, Justices, and Juries, and for the preservation of poor, aged, deformed, ignorant ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... the code deciphered and found out who wrote the document. It proved, by the way, that Adolph Hensler is one of the most dangerous and most wanted German spies ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... eye. A slight mark, that would not be observed while only a short piece of it is seen in the field of view, becomes decidedly manifest if a large scope is seen at once. The binocular glass was very valuable, however, when the words on a buoy, or the colour on the chequers of a beacon had to be deciphered. ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... I was recalled by the arrival of a large van, very handsomely appointed, drawn by valuable horses, mounted by several men of an appearance more than decent, and bearing on its panels, instead of a trader's name, a coat-of-arms too modest to be deciphered from where I sat. It drew up before my house, the door of which was immediately opened by one of the men. His companions- -I counted seven of them in all—proceeded, with disciplined activity, to take from the van and carry into the house a variety of hampers, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... the coast of the Gulf, about sixteen miles from Cagliari. Nora, it may be remembered, is stated by Greek writers to have been the first town founded by colonists in the island of Sardinia; and though the inscription on the stone has not been satisfactorily deciphered, it seems to be agreed that it records the arrival of “Sardus,” called “Pater,” at ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... shall be seen in the old matron's elbow-chair. The miracle being wrought, then let the years roll back again, each sadder than the last, and the whole weight of age and sorrow settle down upon the youthful figure. Wrinkles and furrows, the handwriting of Time, may thus be deciphered and found to contain deep lessons ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... while the Emperor was hunting, there fell a heavy rain, which obliged him to seek shelter in a poor man's hut. The thunder rolled with violence; and the lightning killed a man, a woman, and a little boy. On the backs of the man and woman were found red characters, which could not be deciphered; but on the back of the little boy the following six words could be read, written in Tchouen (antique) characters: TSE-TCH'IN-TCHANG-TCHUN-HEOU-CHIN,—which mean: "Child of the issue of Tchang-tchun, who was a rebellious subject."—Le Livre des Recompenses ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... the same time you must admit that you are all taking a great deal for granted. You seem to think that there is no doubt about there being treasure on the island and also that this code when deciphered will tell you ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... these engravings represented. The two columns of closely-printed text, the impression of which remained very black upon the papers yellowed by time, frightened her by the strange, almost barbaric look of the Gothic letters. Still, she accustomed herself to it, deciphered these characters, learned the abbreviations and the contractions, and soon knew how to explain the turning of the phrases and the old-fashioned words. At last she could read it easily, and was as enchanted as if she were penetrating a mystery, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... unsightly-looking volume from his pocket, and gave it reverently to us to look at, and Aleck and I bent over it together, and deciphered on the title-page, in crooked lines of round handwriting, the name, Ralph Groves—his book; and underneath was a verse of a hymn, evidently remembered and not copied, which must have been one of those sung amongst the Methodists on that part of the ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... interesting flowers, but paying no heed to these, Cicely gave her whole attention to her task, which, indeed, was not an easy one. With knitted brows she bent over the manuscript of the "Diagnosis of Sympathy," and having deciphered a line or two, she wrote the words in a fair hand on a broad sheet before her. Then she returned to the study of the doctor's caligraphy, and copied a little more of it, but the proportion of the time ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... a batch of fourpenny loaves. This was not the reason why the little South London side-street was called Baker's Terrace, though it might well seem so; for Baker was the name of the builder, a worthy gentleman whose years and virtues may still be deciphered on a doddering, round-shouldered stone in a deceased cemetery not far from the scene ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... all the chief matters of life we are alone, and our true history is scarcely ever deciphered by others. The chief part of the drama is a monologue, rather an intimate debate between God, our conscience, and ourselves. Tears, griefs, depressions, disappointments, irritations, good and evil thoughts, decisions, uncertainties, deliberations, all these belong to our secret, and are ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... right, still, as the people of that vicinity rarely knew more than Hungarian, no meaning would appear. In case anybody understood English, it was hardly probable the Arabic text would be familiar too. Only by rare chance could this mysterious book be deciphered. What it contained was the description of a secret passage or tunnel that led from the Madocsany Castle to the turreted walls of Mitosin. Midway was the river Waag, which was here quite wide, but the tunnel passed under the river bed, ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... inconsiderable groups of those houses in stone and wood, of which so many ruins have been found from Cape Farewell, as far as Upernavik in about 72 degrees 50 minutes. At the same time numerous runic inscriptions, which have now been deciphered, have given a degree of absolute certainty to facts so long unknown. But how many of these vestiges of the past still remain to be discovered! how many of these valuable evidences of the bravery and spirit of enterprise ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... I sat there assiduously at work, before me a little statuette representing the goddess Pasht with her cat's head. This little monument bears an inscription imperfectly deciphered by Monsieur Grebault I was at work on an adequate interpretation with comments. The incident at the institute had left a less vivid impression on my mind than might have been feared. I was not unduly disturbed. To tell the ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... collected, the sorting for the place of destination follows, and Fig. 18 represents the sorting room in the Berlin Post Office. A feverish sort of life is led here day and night, as deficient addresses must be completed, and the illegible ones deciphered. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... returning in a few minutes with a queer bundle of odd-sized scraps of paper, tied round with a thick rope, and scribbled over, in an almost illegible manner, in all directions. At the top of the bundle was a poem, beginning, 'My love, thou art a nosegay sweet,' which Mr. Drury had no sooner deciphered, than he shook ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... common in Ireland as to have proved the favourite theme of her antiquaries; but of which the real use and meaning seems yet to be hidden in the mist of ages. This of Holm-Peel had been converted to the purpose of a watch-tower. There were, besides, Runic monuments, of which legends could not be deciphered; and later inscriptions to the memory of champions, of whom the names only were preserved from oblivion. But tradition and superstitious eld, still most busy where real history is silent, had filled up the long blank of accurate information ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... crystalline at the same time that I should, in emulation of life, consent to their being numerous and fine and characteristic of the London world (as the London world was in this quarter and that to be deciphered). All of which was to make in the event ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... Assyrians from an early period. At length Sargon captured their capital, Carchemish (717 B.C.), and broke down their power. Numerous Hittite inscriptions have been discovered, written in a hieroglyphic script which has not yet (1903) been deciphered. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... clay, with inscriptions, found in the tombs of Erech, the city of Nimrod—Genesis, chap. x. 10—and deciphered by Rawlinson) were, in point of fact, the equivalent of our bank notes, and prove that a system of artificial currency prevailed in Babylon and Persia at an unprecedentedly early age; centuries before the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... ray of light gleamed through the darkness like a star. A small, almost fragile, figure of a man, dressed in the mud- stained clothes of a country yokel, had turned up the shutter of a small lanthorn. By its flickering light he deciphered the letter which Henri de Montorgueil had written ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... was taken the famous collection of 3000 rolls of papyrus, chiefly filled with the writings of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, perhaps the greatest "find" of ancient literature that has yet been made, although the contents of this damaged library, deciphered with equal toil and ingenuity, have not proved to be of the value originally set upon them by expectant scholars. But much of the city itself has yet hardly been touched since the days when it was destroyed in the reign of Titus, so that far below the squalid lanes ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... quest after immortality, by these Ta Huang Hills, Wu Ch'i cave and Ch'ing Keng Peak. Suddenly perceiving a large block of stone, on the surface of which the traces of characters giving, in a connected form, the various incidents of its fate, could be clearly deciphered, K'ung K'ung examined them from first to last. They, in fact, explained how that this block of worthless stone had originally been devoid of the properties essential for the repairs to the heavens, how ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the earth, as one gathereth eggs, therefore shall the Lord of Hosts send among his fat ones leanness, and under his glory He shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire." In the inscriptions which have recently been deciphered on the broken and decayed monuments of Nineveh nothing is more remarkable than the boastful spirit, pride, and arrogance of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... structure of the grinding teeth is very complicated, the harder and the softer parts being, as it were, interlaced with one another. The result of this is that, as the tooth wears, the crown presents a peculiar pattern, the nature of which is not very easily deciphered at first; but which it is important we should understand clearly. Each grinding tooth of the upper jaw has an outer wall so shaped that, on the worn crown, it exhibits the form of two crescents, one in front and one ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... as contributing something to my hosts. One day there appeared here a trained agriculturalist. I did not hide because during my winter in the woods I had raised a heavy beard, so that probably my own mother could not have recognized me. However, our guest was very shrewd and at once deciphered me. I did not fear him because I saw that he was not a Bolshevik and later had confirmation of this. We found common acquaintances and a common viewpoint on current events. He lived close to the gold mine in a small village where ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... of more winsome landscape, or the assertive grandeur of mountain and gorge. To me this wayward diversity of spontaneous plant life bespeaks an unconfined, ungauged potentiality of resource; it unveils an ideographic prophecy, painted by Nature in her Impressionist mood, to be deciphered aright only by those willing to discern through the crudeness of dawn a promise of majestic day. Eucalypt, conifer, mimosa; tree, shrub, heath, in endless diversity and exuberance, yet sheltering little of animal life beyond half-specialised and belated types, anachronistic even to the Aboriginal ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... utterance of Empedocles (cf. p. 55) is epitomised what the ancient Egyptians thought about the eternal element in man and its connection with the divine. The proof of this may be found in the so-called Book of the Dead, which has been deciphered by the diligence of nineteenth-century investigators (cf. Lepsius, Das Totenbuch der alten Aegypter, Berlin, 1842). It is "the greatest continuous literary work which has come down to us from ancient ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... it as the church "under the pavement of which the remains of our hero were buried; but he was not able to see the stone placed over those remains, as the floor of the church at that time was covered with a carpet.... The epitaph to his memory, however, it is understood, cannot now be deciphered upon the tablet,"—which he supposes to be ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a scientific association called the 'Scientific Academy of St. Louis,' which is about a year old, and which is about to publish a volume of transactions, containing an account of an artesian well, and of some inscriptions just sent home from Nineveh, which Mr. Gust. Seyffarth has deciphered. ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... the early history of the Chosen People. But the most valuable aid to Bible study came from the discovery of the Assyrian Royal Library, a series of clay tablets and cylinders covered with cuneiform inscriptions which were deciphered by Mr. George Smith of the British Museum. From these and from the records on the monuments of Egypt historical information has been derived of inestimable value in the study ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... scandals of high society. No other such minute-picture of the daily life of an age has been written. Yet for a century and a half it remained entirely unknown, and not until 1825 was Pepys's shorthand deciphered and published. Since then it has been widely read, and is still one of the most interesting examples of diary writing that we possess. Following are a few extracts,[181] covering only a few days in April, 1663, from which one may infer the minute and interesting ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... away under lock and key, will secure any man from it, even if he had been appointed to backsliding and reprobation. Bishop Andrewes, as any one will see who reads his Private Devotions, was the chief of sinners; but his discovered and deciphered papers will all speak for him when they are spread out before the great white throne, "glorious in their deformity, being slubbered," as his editors say, "with his pious hands, and watered with his ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... mat of vines. Thinking, perhaps, that it was the retreat of some animal, he thrust in his hand, and to his surprise drew forth a glass bottle, partly full of whisky. The enigma of his master's walks and inequalities of temper stood immediately deciphered. After the reflection of a moment, he carefully replaced the bottle in its position, and returned to his place in school. In the evening he communicated his discovery and the result of his meditations to the larger boys ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... with hieroglyphic devices,—luminous circles and triangles, globes, rings, stars, flowers, figures of animals, even parts of the human body,—mystic symbols, to be deciphered only by the initiated. Ah! could I but have read them as in a book, construing all their allegorical significance, how near might I not have come to the distracting secret of this people! Gazing upon them, my thought flew back a thousand ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... preserved by the hardness of the stone on which the chisel of the artist carved them, as follows: Azure, on a pale, argent, three pilgrim's staff's sable; a fess bronchant, gules, charged with four grosses patee, fitched, or; with the heraldic form of a shield awarded to younger sons. Blondet deciphered the motto, "Je soule agir,"—one of those puns that crusaders delighted to make upon their names, and which brings to mind a fine political maxim, which, as we shall see later, was unfortunately forgotten by Montcornet. The gate, which was opened for Blondet by ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... in the ruined snow-house, clearing away the floor; soon he came out, bearing a half-burned piece of an envelope. A few words could be deciphered:— ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... out her hand for the Postal Guide, but the print was small, and necessitated the careful adjustment of a pair of spectacles before it could be deciphered, and finally the girl found the place herself, reckoned the amount and put down ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... reached the German Embassy piecemeal, and while the first part was being deciphered, its harsh tone produced in an increasing degree the impression: "Then it is war," which was not relieved until we came to the ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... himself in aged years; and one ascending, and leading to the "far terrace" on the mountain's side, where the poet was wont to murmur his verses as they came. Within the house were disposed his simple treasures: the ancestral almery, on which the names of unknown Wordsworths may be deciphered still; Sir George Beaumont's pictures of "The White Doe of Rylstone" and "The Thorn," and the cuckoo clock which brought vernal thoughts to cheer the sleepless bed of age, and which sounded its noonday summons when ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... time after I had deciphered the epistle, I stood as if rooted to the floor. I felt stunned—my last hope was gone; presently a feeling arose in my mind—a feeling of self-reproach. Whom had I to blame but myself for the departure of the Armenian? Would he have ever thought of attacking the Persians had I not put the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... which such wild fables were received by the credulity of Herodotus and by that of the Fathers. But the greater part of the hieroglyphics are phonetic like our alphabet, and are being slowly and precariously deciphered into the words of a language which is identified with the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... of the obscurest of human communities. The photographs on the walls, the twigs of withered box above the crucifixes, the old wedding-dresses in brass-clamped trunks, the bundles of letters laboriously written and as painfully deciphered, all the thousand and one bits of the past that give meaning and continuity to the present—of all that accumulated warmth nothing was left but a ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... Heiligenstern, "and this distinguished company, are doubtless familiar with the magic crystal of the ancients, in which the future may be deciphered by the pure in heart. This lad, whom I rescued from slavery and have bred to my service in the solemn rites of the priesthood of Isis, is as clear in spirit as the crystal which stands before you. The future lies open to him in this translucent sphere and he is prepared to ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... rifle into the house, ascended to his own room, and sat down to enjoy it to its smallest detail. The heavy blued octagon barrel bore an inscription which he deciphered—the maker's name, and the patents under which the arm was manufactured. He examined the sights, and how they were fastened to the barrel; the fall of the hammer; the firing-pin; the mechanism of the ejector, the butt plate, the polished stock and the manner in which it was ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... said Vivi with a look of having at last deciphered the mystery. "Besides, girls have spoiled you. You have had things too ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... show a hollow in this mountain, where they say that he made the boys go in. At the corner of this opening is an inscription, which is so old that it cannot now be deciphered; but the story is represented on the panes of the church windows; and it is said, that in the public deeds of this town it is still the custom to put the dates in this manner—Done in the year ——, after the disappearance of ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... set to work and persevered until the strange letters were deciphered, and the palace-walls gave up their secrets. Here was King Sennacherib; here Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings xv. 29); here Esarhaddon (2 Kings xix. 37). Oh, how wonderful to look at the old-time portraits which had been drawn from ...
— The Bible in its Making - The most Wonderful Book in the World • Mildred Duff
... carrefour, the sneak-thief who had scaled the park wall with the box—that was the face he had struck with his clenched fist, the same pink, high-boned face, with the little, pale, pig-like eyes. In the same second the man's name came back to him as he had deciphered it written in pencil on the maps—Siurd ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... old Mark—"Pray," said I, not a little confused by the elegance of the composition, "is this the usual style of college invitations?" Mark mounted his spectacles, and having deciphered the contents, assured me with great gravity that it was very polite indeed, and considering where it ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... most important reconstruction are almost entirely contained in a vast collection of two hundred tablets, forming one consecutive work in three books, over fifty of which have been sifted out of the heap of rubbish at the British Museum and first deciphered by Sir Henry Rawlinson, one of the greatest, as he was the first discoverer in this field, and George Smith, whose achievements and too early death have been mentioned in a former chapter. Of the three books into which the collection is divided, one treats ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... I deciphered a few of the texts on the scriptural patchwork quilt which covered my couch. There were—"Let not your heart be troubled," "Remember Lot's wife," and "Philander Keeler," traced in inky hieroglyphics, all in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... lusty family of goats. Their innate perversity and an apparent curiosity led them to resent exclusion; but after a lively pursuit they were ejected, and the bride and I sat on a bench to rest. The bridegroom took a last smoke, and the strangers deciphered obituary notices on the ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... at the rebuilding of the second temple, both inspired servants of God, equally knew them; and when the inscriptions on the wall, or on the ark, or in the sacred rolls, were lost and unknown to the people, they were easily deciphered by means of the knowledge of the Kabbalistic character, no matter what its form. Thus when Daniel saw the handwriting on {53} the wall he read it at once, possessed as he may have been of the knowledge how to read that cipher, while it can readily be seen why the Magi of Chaldea, ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... escaped her lips, was to be seen written everywhere by Berta's hand, on the garden walls, on the trunks of the trees; and even the vines that covered the pavilion had interlaced their branches in such a manner that "Adrian Baker" could be deciphered in them. This name was to be met everywhere, like the mute echo of an ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... the paper disdainfully, thinking, in spite of the servant's opinion, that he would find the name of a beggar who had not even had his name printed on a piece of Bristol-board, and, adjusting his glass, he deciphered the fine writing on the paper; then after involuntarily exclaiming: Ah! bah! and well! well! greatly astonished, he ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... the direction of the skilful musician who must himself make the sounds on his instrument before there is any music. So, too, if there is to be any real religion in the world, we Christians must do more than read and approve "the deciphered writings of illuminated men," we must act by the same Spirit that inspired those men, we must be "practitioners of the Divine Light," we must give "living expression to Divine love and righteousness," we must "practice the way of regeneration in the Spirit of Christ and divinitize ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... had ever done anything wonderful (or sometimes, no doubt, if he had not been famous for anything in particular), the history of his great achievements, real or fancied, was sculptured on the stone. These hieroglyphics have been deciphered in several instances, and we have learned from them a great deal ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... sciences, and less to be relied on in practice. There are reasons enough why the moral sciences must remain inferior to at least the more perfect of the physical; why the laws of their more complicated phenomena can not be so completely deciphered, nor the phenomena predicted with the same degree of assurance. But though we can not attain to so many truths, there is no reason that those we can attain should deserve less reliance, or have less of a scientific character. Of this topic, however, I shall treat more systematically in the concluding ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... entrusted to a woman of his acquaintance a letter written in cipher to be forwarded to the British commander. This letter was found upon the girl, she was taken to headquarters, and there the contents of the fatal message were deciphered and the defection of Doctor Church established. When questioned by Washington he appeared utterly confounded, and made ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford |
