"Mystery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... years are not all fallow. The dark brooding night is as necessary for our life as the garish day. Great crops of wheat that feed the nations grow only where the winter's snow covers all as with a garment. And ever behind the mystery of sleep, and beneath the silence of the snow, Nature ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... could make nothing whatever of the portmanteau and the excursion to the early train, and she got up long before her hour was over, since she found that the more she thought, the more invincible were the objections to any conclusion that she drowningly grasped at. Whatever attack she made on this mystery, the garrison failed to march out and surrender but kept their flag flying, and her conjectures were woefully blasted by the forces of the most elementary reasons. But as the agony of suspense, if no fresh topic of interest intervened, would be frankly ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... through the minds of the two girls as they sat there, and thoughts came which would never have come in daylight. Somehow they felt in the calmness of the night the nearness of God and the presence of the Great Mystery. All the petty little daylight perplexities faded from reality; their souls became serene, while their hearts beat high with ambition and resolve. They had no desire to speak to each other; each was planning out her life on a nobler scale; each ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... buzzards in very light winds and the writer was compelled to confess: "Now, this spiral soaring in steady breezes of 5 to 10 miles per hour which are apparently horizontal, and through which the bird maintains an average speed of about 20 miles an hour, is the mystery to be explained. It is not accounted for, quantitatively, by any of the theories which have been advanced, and it is the one performance which has led some observers to claim that it was done through 'aspiration.' ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... wide as to take in the whole scheme of creation, and all that is implied by them and by their mutual action and reaction. Generally, I would say that in the scheme of a First Cause anything is possible. So long as the inherent forces or tendencies of any one thing are veiled from us we must expect mystery." ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... artifice was ineffectual, and the baron at last saw thro' it, and assuming a very grave countenance, I perceive, Horatio, said he, you do not think me worthy your confidence, and I was to blame to press you to reveal what you resolve to make a mystery of. ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... detective—what you might call a hyper-super-ultra detective. Detective sticks out big all over him—like a sort of universal mumps. He never looks except when he looks cautiously out of the corner of his eye; he walks on his tiptoes; he talks in whispers; he simply oozes mystery. Fat head?—why, Lige Stone wears his hat on a ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... those from whom I come, were crushed by this terror even from the blackest night of time, I tremble, and my reason totters. All this is false, I know—the god obeys the priest. Yet, from these towering columns, horror and mystery descend upon me—[A thunder clap brings him to his knees. The stones that mask the entrance to the sanctuary roll slowly back. He tries to look] The holy of holies opens—I am afraid—I am afraid—[He mutters words, wipes the sweat from his brow ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... momentary grace of form or the transient gladness of colour, but the whole sphere of feeling, the perfect cycle of thought. The painter is so far limited that it is only through the mask of the body that he can show us the mystery of the soul; only through conventional images that he can handle ideas; only through its physical equivalents that he can deal with psychology. And how inadequately does he do it then, asking us to accept the torn turban of the Moor for the noble rage of Othello, or a ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by her friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last encumbrance of mystery. "And then," said she, "if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... was alone, the situation presented itself to his mind in a very disagreeable light. Corona's assurance that the mystery was a harmless one seemed wholly inadequate to account for her meeting with Gouache and for her kind treatment of him, especially after she had shown herself so evidently cold to him in the presence of the others. Either Giovanni was a very silly fellow, or he was ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... to make his bow before a thin, dark, charmingly pretty young woman, who smiled up at him from her deck-chair through an enhancing mystery of veils; and presently he found himself sitting beside her. He could not help trembling slightly at first, but he would have giving a great deal if, by some miraculous vision, Mary Kramer and other friends of his in Cranston could have seen him engaged ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... through the Ways to the branches of Duality. Before me, there was nothing. But I've learned to open a path—a difficult path for one in this world—and to draw from it, as you have been drawn. Don't try to understand what is a mystery even to the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... the sufferer till he sinks under its influence; the natives themselves are by no means free from its strokes, to which attacks every stranger who remains for many days in the vicinity of the marshes is liable. Though a veil of mystery still covers the particulars of poor Moorcroft's fate, it seems more than probable that he fell a victim to the fever of this country, though the seed that was sown did not mature till some time after he ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... startling news came that the missing statesman had been killed by the Comanches in the wilds of the Indian Reservation, far from any agency, and that he had been living and preaching there as a volunteer missionary for many months before the massacre, the mystery of his sudden and unexplained disappearance from the State capital on the day of his inauguration was not cleared up and made intelligible, but darkened ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... for one's self the fable of those immortal groups. Each spectator must pluck out, unaided, the heart of their mystery. Those matchless colossal forms, which the foolish chroniclers of the time have baptized Night and Morning, speak an unknown language to the crowd. They are mute as Sphinx to souls which cannot supply the music and the poetry which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... this. The boys were overawed. They had been afraid, every one of them; and the mystery of their escape and whereabouts oppressed them. But they got the anchor over the bow; and presently they had the cabin stove going and were drying off. Nobody turned in; they waited anxiously for the first light of day to ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... ocean is before that ship, and a wider mystery. But in the passage of time, as the strange cruise proceeds, its course begins to tell upon the chart. The zigzag line, like obscure chirography, has an intelligible look, and seems to spell out intimations. As order ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... extended over a period of upwards of sixty years, during which he has ranged over many fields—of law, literature, politics, and science,—and achieved distinction in them all. How he contrived it, has been to many a mystery. Once, when Sir Samuel Romilly was requested to undertake some new work, he excused himself by saying that he had no time; "but," he added, "go with it to that fellow Brougham, he seems to have time for everything." ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... a deep, hoarse voice. "A mystery. But," she added quickly, "you will not prejudge me until you know—will you? Recollect me merely as an unhappy woman whom you have assisted, not as——" She sighed deeply, without concluding ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... some denominations of Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated the human mind, THE CROSS, finds here its source and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its sacredness in many natural religions, and have reverently accepted it as a mystery, or offered scores of conflicting and often debasing interpretations. It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points, the four winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a study of its use and meaning ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Edith had no explanation of this mystery, nor did she seek one. After the first days of amazement and questioning she fell back on what she took to be her paramount duty—to trust. She argued that if he had seen her in some analogous situation, however astounding, he would have trusted her to the uttermost; ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... well considered it? A sublime and divine mystery is accomplished. Such a being costs nature the most vigilant maternal care; yet man who would cure you, can think of nothing better than to offer you lips which belong to him in order to teach you how to cease ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... narrowing in the distance, without a second thought he dashed after it. His disappointment, his self-criticism, his practical resolutions were forgotten. He had but one idea now—the vision was providential! The clue to the mystery was before him—he ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... the room, and, raising a shade, stood looking absently into the moonlight. Gilbert Allison leaned forward and seemed trying to obtain the solution of some mystery from the outlines of ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... wrought in his appearance. Finding that Gerald still slept profoundly, he took the resolution of instantly questioning Sambo, as to all that had befallen them during their absence, and ascertaining, if possible, to what circumstance the mystery which perplexed him was attributable. Opening and reclosing the door with caution, he hastened to the room, which, owing to his years and long and faithful services, had been set apart for the accommodation of the old man when on shore. Here he found Sambo, who had dispatched his substantial ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... The Great Motor Mystery.—At Lancaster two motorists were fined, according to the Manchester Evening News, "for driving a motor-car over a trap near Carnforth, at twenty-nine and thirty-four miles per hour respectively." We are of the opinion that the action of the second gentleman in driving ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... understood the mystery which he had been before too excited to inquire into. He remembered the hints of Bruce, and he had learned enough of border customs and principles to perceive that the justice of the woods had at last overtaken the horse-thief. The pursuing party had captured him,—taken him in the very manner, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... was the leader of the party, but it was not yet clear what they were planning to do. Yet he knew that if he listened long enough something was sure to be dropped that would give him a clue to the mystery. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... lady was satisfied. Her strong-minded relative was a mighty mystery to her, just as men were mighty mysteries. Whatever she or they said could be done and should be done, why of course it would be done, and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... cross in comparatively modern times as the simplest and most natural symbol both of addition and of multiplication, should have led no one to perceive that, being for these very reasons also the simplest and most natural symbol of Life, a probable solution of the mystery surrounding the origin of the pre-Christian cross as a symbol of Life, as it were stared them in the face. As to the contention of not a few authorities, apparently founded upon the mistaken assumption that the Svastika was the earliest form of cross to acquire importance as a symbol, ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons
... did; that solves the mystery. But to think of her giving information!" replied Le, in the same ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the spot. He made very little mystery either of the crime or of its motives—alleging that there was sufficient against him to deprive him of Leicester's confidence, and to destroy all his towering plans of ambition. "I was not born," he said, "to drag on the remainder of life a degraded outcast; nor will I so die ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... concealing his thoughts, and he was manifestly worried by the prospect of possible developments, but Mern was not able to pin him down to anything specific. As a matter of fact, Crowley had not fathomed the mystery of Miss Kennard's actions in Adonia and was not in a way to do so by any processes of his limited intelligence; he admitted as much ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... feel. Take the sorrows of others to your heart; they shall widen and deepen it. Ours is a religion of sorrow. The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering; our Father is the God of all consolation; our Teacher is named the Comforter; and all other mysteries are swallowed up in the mystery of the Divine sorrow. 'In all our afflictions He is afflicted.' God refuseth not to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... forward to get the report of the mail agent. He had put things to rights, and told me that, though the mail had been pretty badly mixed up, only one pouch at worst had been rifled. This—the one for registered mail—had been cut open, but, as if to increase the mystery, the letters had been scattered, unopened, about the car, only three out of the whole being missing, and those very probably had fallen into the pigeon-holes and would be found on a more ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... and though the white variety rarely occurs, yet the varying tints of blue upon the same stalk are a perpetual gratification to the eye. I know not why shaded blues should be so beautiful in flowers, and yet avoided as distasteful in ladies' fancy-work; but it is a mystery like that which repudiates blue-and-green from all well-regulated costumes, while Nature yet evidently prefers it to any other combination in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... ever haunted by a thought of mystery, Of the dark, shoreless, desolate, heaving and moaning sea, Which round about the cold, still earth goes drifting to and fro, As a mother, holding her dead child, swayeth herself with woe. In all ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... not sure that I need tell you, Owen; and yet I suppose I had better. It will be safer," said Mrs. Elmore, nursing her mystery to the last, enjoying it for its own sake, and dreading it for its effect upon her husband. "I suppose you will think your troubles are ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... injunctions to adopt every caution in preserving her incognita; she was even desirous that her sex might not be made known. "I beg the publisher will make no mention of a lady," she wrote to one of her correspondents, "as you observe, the more mystery the better, and still the balance is in favour of the lords of creation. I cannot help, in some degree, undervaluing beforehand what is said to be a feminine production." "The Scottish Minstrel" was completed in 1824, in six royal octavo volumes, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... finally she was the Alexander seeking new worlds. But there WERE no new worlds, there were no more MEN, there were only creatures, little, ultimate CREATURES like Loerke. The world was finished now, for her. There was only the inner, individual darkness, sensation within the ego, the obscene religious mystery of ultimate reduction, the mystic frictional activities of diabolic reducing down, disintegrating the vital ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Mr. St. Claire took his leave, it was with a strange feeling of interest for the child, whose antecedents must always be shrouded in mystery, and whose future he could ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... garment, and persons who have missed any of their friends mysteriously perhaps might find, upon examination, that which would lead them to know their friend had suffered death from the hands of a murderer. A sample of each I will keep to exhibit through the country, hoping to solve the mystery. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... of mystery to Marcus as he tramped through the forest, following the slightly beaten road. Time seemed to be no more, and distance not to count. Everything was dreamy and strange, over-ruled by the one great thought ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... house and received his orders—orders of which he made a great mystery afterward at the store, although they consisted simply of directions to be prepared to drive Jethro to Brampton the next morning. But the look of the man had frightened Jake. He had never seen vengeance ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Know for I Believe. I follow closely where the Seers have led: But that intangible dim path of theirs, Which may be trodden but by other Seers, I seek to render solid for the feet Of all mankind. With reverent hands I lift The mask from Mystery: and show the face Of Reason, smiling bravely on the world. The visions of the prophets, one by one, Grew visible beneath my tireless touch: And the white secrets of elusive stars I tell aloud, to ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of marriage, but it seemed a great mystery to Primrose. There was no one she liked but Cousin Andrew, but she liked liberty better, she thought. Why should one want to get married? The pretty young girls who came out to the farm had no husbands. Patty had none and she was ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... amusement. Such was the programme; and the eager curiosity of the select few who were invited brought them punctually to the philosopher's eyry. Haguna of course was there,—as unconsciously lovely as if the disappearance of the unfortunate Anthrops were as much a mystery to her as to the rest of the wondering citizens. The philosopher, laying aside the brusqueness acquired in his solitude, devoted himself with the utmost courtesy to the amusement of his guests, —opened for them dusty cases of butterflies, shells, and rare stones, which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... that all the world is ignorant of her passion; she throws over her eyes the veil which she has thrown over her heart; but when it is lifted up by some cherishing hand, the secret inquietudes of passion suddenly burst their bounds, and the soothing overflowings of confidence succeed that reserve and mystery with which the oppressed heart had enveloped its feelings. Virginia, deeply affected by this new proof of her mother's tenderness, related to her how cruel had been those struggles which Heaven alone had ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... of literature as never to forget for a single instant that they were in print. With the exception of Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth, the women writers of the early part of this century were, as I have just said, rather literary women than actual creators of literature. It is still a mystery how they attained to their great successes. Frances Burney charms great Burke and mighty Johnson and wise Macaulay in later times. Mrs. Opie draws compliments from Mackintosh, and compliments from the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, and Sydney Smith, and ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... feels a sense of awe in her soul when she bends over her own infant child; but in the case of Mary we may be sure that the awe was unusual, because of the mystery of the child's birth. In the annunciation the angel had said to her, "That which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God." Then the night of her child's birth there was a wondrous vision of angels, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... and poured themselves out, often, in a rushing flood. Towards all others she bore herself with a calm, sweet dignity of manner, that captivated the heart, and made it sigh for a better acquaintance with one around whom mystery had hung a veil that no hand but her own could push aside—and ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... the parchment when I made my sketch of the scarabaeus. I became perfectly certain of this; for I recollected turning up first one side and then the other, in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of course I could not have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glowworm-like conception of that truth which last night's adventure ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... told him what had taken place, and the young officer's words came like a bombshell upon this steady-going and rather dull officer. If it were true, all the mystery of the last few weeks was cleared up. But he could not believe it. Waterman was regarded as one of the most capable and trustworthy of the staff officers. He had shown zeal beyond the ordinary, and his ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... Mr. Panton expresses the opinion that the tent-peg was the property of Dr. Leichardt, one may be sure that he has good grounds for his supposition. Whether Leichardt lost his life in the heart of this wilderness or not, the complete mystery hiding his fate makes his history sufficiently remarkable; and though I consider that there is little to show that he ever reached a point so far across the continent, there is no reason that he should not have done so, and I leave it for my readers ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... them in his head according to this order, which is in fact that in which he has become acquainted with them, and in which it concerns him to think about them. This order—the most natural of all—is the one which I have thought it well to follow in this volume. My classification has no more mystery in it than the reader has just seen ... it is preferable to the most profound and ingenious that can be conceived, for there is none of all the classifications which ever have been made or ever can be, which has not ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... poverty and crime at the North, which are exhibited by the census, will help to explain the seeming mystery that the South multiplies by natural increase faster than the North. In 1845, according to her statistical report, Massachusetts had seven-eighths of her marriageable young women working in factories under male overseers. The census of 1840 shows that, with fewer adults, Virginia ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... barber-shop next to the corner drug store and Penrod, undergoing a toilette preliminary to his very slowly approaching twelfth birthday, was adhesive enough to retain upon his face much hair as it fell from the shears. There is a mystery here: the tonsorial processes are not unagreeable to manhood; in truth, they are soothing; but the hairs detached from a boy's head get into his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth, and down his neck, and ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... trees, or the low-voiced neighboring ocean, breaks the stillness. Along the rocky shore and over these green-clad cliffs one may wander for days in absolute solitude, seeing or hearing naught of humanity or the handiwork of man. Here may be found the wondrous magic and mystery of the sea in all its moods—pathetic, peaceful or grand, and its society, where none intrude. Here, too, wedged among the wave-washed rocks, can be found many a tale of shipwreck, despair and death, or whispers of luxuriant life in tropical lands, and all the flotsam and ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... the heart of my mystery,' as Hamlet says, do you not, my friend?"—and he smiled—"Well, so you shall, if you can discover aught in me that is not already in yourself! I assure you there is nothing preternatural about ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... "This mystery must never be revealed," he murmured. And it never would, had not the hero-journalist printed the story. Thus it was that the tale became international property. Now it is known all the world over that the General sacked a shop to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... say, anyhow, I shan't close it till the last minute, with a P. S. to say we're arriving safely—if we do! One never knows nowadays. And we have on board a man who's been torpedoed twice. I hope he isn't the kind to whom everything happens in threes. By the way, he's the Ship's Mystery, and this letter can't be a complete record of the voyage unless I tell you about him. Place aux dames, however. There's a girl I want to tell you about first. Or had I better polish off our own family history and make a clean sweep of ourselves before ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... "The mystery of woman can not be solved by intellectual processes," the young man remarked. "Observation is the only help and mine has been mostly telescopic. We have managed to keep ourselves separated by a great distance ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... appearance, his grey mantle thrown picturesquely across his shoulder, had taken up a position behind them, and was examining the picture with sparkling eyes. They got into conversation, and the stranger said almost in atone of solemnity, "It is indeed a singular mystery, how a picture often arises in the mind of an artist, the figures of which, previously indistinguishable, incorporate mist driving about in empty space, first seem to shape themselves into vitality ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... so inexpressibly a part of me; and shall I not refrain as Mdlle. de Maupin refrained, knowing well that the face of love may not be twice seen? Great was my conversion. None more than I had cherished mystery and dream: my life until now had been but a mist which revealed as each cloud wreathed and went out, the red of some strange flower or some tall peak, blue and snowy and fairylike in lonely moonlight; and now so great was my conversion that the more brutal ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... blubber like Johann in Herod's rain-barrel. The sanctified are few and far between. The vast majority of us must suffer in hell, just as we suffer on earth. The divine grace, so omnipotent to save, is withheld from us. Why? There, alas, is your insoluble mystery, your riddle ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... and walk together just as they pleased. Aileen always had a good word for Starlight, and seemed to pity him so for having to lead such a life, and because he said he had no hope of ever getting free from it. Then, of course, there was a mystery about him. Nobody knew who he'd been, or almost where he had come from—next to nothing about him had ever come out. He was an Englishman—that was certain—but he must have come young to the colony. No one could look at him for a moment and see his pale, proud face, his dark eyes—half-scornful, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... come so far by this time," said the mate. "I think that I can unravel the mystery. This whale was attacked by the boats of a ship, some of which were probably destroyed by the monster. It was then towed alongside, when she was either capsized in a storm, or, receiving damage ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... perpetually on guard against the cosmic forces, whose ends are not his ends, without and within himself; so long as he is haunted by inexpugnable memories and hopeless aspirations; so long as the recognition of his intellectual limitations forces him to acknowledge his incapacity to penetrate the mystery of existence; the prospect of attaining untroubled happiness, or of a state which can, even remotely, deserve the title of perfection, appears to me to be as misleading an illusion as ever was dangled before the eyes of poor humanity. And there ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the mystery regarding the German spy, Franz Linder, were at once ousted from the minds of the Navy boys. Their first cruise in a superdreadnaught was of much ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... which the tired horses plodded, became one illimitable shadow out of which rose strange sounds of beasts and eerie night cries of birds, the spell of the wilderness renewed itself and she felt herself enveloped in world-old mystery. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... back again to the infernal number with which her delirium began, and she shrieks it out perpetually. It is a frightful relapse. Begone! young man; yet stay—I will go with you. You can, doubtless, give us a key to this mystery." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... aristocrat should come to be the musical prophet of an evangelical bourgeoisie would be felt as a most comical irony, were it only something less of a mystery. Handel was brought up in the bosom of the Lutheran Church, and was religious in his way. But it was emphatically a pagan way. Let those who doubt it turn to his setting of "All we like sheep have gone astray," in the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... in our inner life that they all appeal to. Possibly at this centre are the great primitive emotions common to all men. The religious group, the deep awe and reverence men feel when contemplating the great mystery of the Universe and their own littleness in the face of its vastness—the desire to correspond and develop relationship with the something outside themselves that is felt to be behind and through all things. ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... was gone, Fred wanted the mystery of the letters explained, and I told him all there was to tell, including as good a description of the pony as I could give him. We tried to hit on some plan to get word to those outside, but it wasn't to be done. At least it was a point gained that some one of our party besides ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... faltering hope, harassed always by a fear that she had at some time in her life committed the unpardonable sin, as to the nature of which she knew nothing, and which was, therefore, all the more feared, as the nature of it was to her the terrible mystery ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... gleaming in the sun, which was falling now through wide refulgent skies and tumbling caravans of light down into the streets. New York, he supposed, was home—the city of luxury and mystery, of preposterous hopes and exotic dreams. Here on the outskirts absurd stucco palaces reared themselves in the cool sunset, poised for an instant in cool unreality, glided off far away, succeeded by ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Englishmen at Jamestown. The first attempt of the English, under the inspiration of the great Raleigh, to establish a colony in the fine country to the north of Spanish Florida, then known as Virginia, is only remembered for the mystery which must always surround the fate of Virginia Dare and the little band of colonists who were left on the island of Roanoke. Adventurous Englishmen, Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth, had even explored the coast of the present United States as far as the Kennebec before the voyages of ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... doubtful. In them he certainly confesses the impudent trick which he had played in his youth, when he passed himself off as a Formosan convert. He wished, he writes, 'to undeceive the world by unravelling that whole mystery of iniquity' (p. 5). He lays bare roguery enough, and in a spirit, it seems, of real sorrow. Nevertheless there are passages which are not free from the leaven of hypocrisy, and there are, I suspect, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... who was, how ever, cheered a little by his friend's tone and manner. "Everything is mystery. I look up, I look around, I look within; all is dark, mysterious. Only on this is my mind clear—the Great Spirit is good. He cannot be otherwise. I will trust Him. One day, perhaps, He will explain all. What I understood not ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... German detectives! One of them whistles as soon as we come up; and the soldier, who has been told, of course, that this whistle is a signal from the French accomplices, the soldier, whom Dourlowski or his confederates hold in a leash, like a dog, the soldier is let go. That's the whole mystery! It was not he, the poor wretch, whom they were after, but Jorance and Morestal. Morestal, right enough, flies to the rescue of the fugitive. They collar him, they lay hold of Jorance; and there we are, accomplices both. Bravo, gentlemen! ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... efficacy came the natural sympathy for the aged parents mourning for their child, for the young man cut off in the flower of his days; and besides this, there is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty. This feeling, I am sure, gives much impetus to the police. Their senses are ever and always on the qui-vive, and they enjoy the collecting and collating evidence, and the life of adventure they experience: a continual ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... souls; and thereby extended their authority as far as the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in dark groves or other secret recesses [g]; and in order to throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbad the committing of them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised among them: the spoils of war were ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... same caresses which Mahomet bestowed on his daughter Phatemah. Quando, (says the prophet himself,) quando subit mihi desiderium Paradisi, osculor eam, et ingero linguam meam in os ejus. But this sensual indulgence was justified by miracle and mystery; and the anecdote has been communicated to the public by the Reverend Father Maracci in his Version and Confutation of the Koran, tom. i. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... 10. Felix Woyrsch's Mystery for soli, chorus, orchestra and organ, "Toedtentanz" given by the Apollo ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... mark of any master; and for the student who does not aspire so high as to be numbered with the giants, it is still the one quality in which he may improve himself at will. Passion, wisdom, creative force, the power of mystery or colour, are allotted in the hour of birth, and can be neither learned nor simulated. But the just and dexterous use of what qualities we have, the proportion of one part to another and to the whole, the elision of the useless, the accentuation of the important, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there is very little known about the Armenians; their early history, in particular, is involved in considerable mystery.' ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... to play with. Since their wives can bear no children they buy children from poor people, and these duly become their own. Thus when the eunuch dies he has children to worship at his grave." In this land of mystery even eunuchs can correctly become ancestors. Yet this is a trivial detail which I should not ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... make peace. It will not be you; it never can be you:- you, who can do nothing, as your wife said, but trade upon your station - you, who spent the hours in begging money! And in God's name, what for? Why money? What mystery ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my curiosity once more. I felt there was some strange mystery which I could not fathom, but what was my surprise, when, as I went into the sitting-room, I heard the blind girl say in a melancholy ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... animal nature alone is visible. Thought was rare. It seemed to be an effort; its seat was in the heart more than in the head; it led to acts rather than ideas. But, examining that grand old man with sustained observation, one could penetrate the mystery of this strange contradiction to the spirit of the century. He had faiths, sentiments, inborn so to speak, which allowed him to dispense with thought. His duty, life had taught him. Institutions and religion thought for him. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... shifted at length—as it inevitably must—to women, and the unalterable and uncharted mystery of their mental currents: the jagged and cruelly unsuspected reefs that rear suddenly under rippling shoal-water, the maelstrom that boils just beyond the soft curve of ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... glittering, unfamiliar object forward, and then lifted it wonderingly in her hand. It was a string of burnished gold beads, the avowed desire of Patty's heart; a string of beads with a brilliant little stone in the fastening. And, as if that were not mystery enough, there was something slipped over the clasped necklace and hanging from it, as Waitstill held it up to the light—a circlet of plain ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... mate talking together in the friendliest way possible. That Hudson is a humbug; there is some mystery ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... however, do what the earliest founders of poetry find mythology did: search Nature closely, bear constantly in mind her one great principle of potent Being, continually displaying itself in all things as life and death, mutually creating each other, and acting in all organic life by the mystery of Love, Then, while establishing those affinities and correspondences between natural objects which constitute Poetry, let it be ever present to the mind that each is, so to speak, always polarized with its positive end of activity, creation or birth, and its negative of cessation, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... forward with unwonted interest to the arrival of Lady Laura's sister, Lady Geraldine Challoner. To a girl who has never had a lover—to whom the whole science of love is yet a profound inscrutable mystery—there is apt to be something especially interesting in the idea of an engagement. To her the thought of betrothal is wondrously solemn. A love-match too, and an attachment of long standing—there were the materials for a romance in these brief hints ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the guide-book. The absence of the romantic spirit in most English and American compilations dealing with the Rhine legends is noteworthy, and in writing this book the author's intention has been to supply this striking defect by retaining as much of the atmosphere of mystery so dear to the German heart as will convey to the English-speaking reader a true conception of the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... the first time there was a gulf between her and Catherine. As an intelligent and intellectual companion, as an affectionate friend, Catherine was perfect; but in matters pertaining to love—that great mystery which comes into most lives—her unawakened ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... stands clear of mystery; (As you have said) he coins himself the slander With which he taints her ear;—for a plain reason; He dreads the presence of a virtuous man Like you; he knows your eye would search his heart, Your justice stamp upon his evil deeds The punishment they ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... the miniature in the hands of the ladies to be admired, and, addressing himself to Mr. Percy, began to tell with much mystery the story of Euphrosyne. She was an actress of whom the prince, heir apparent at the German court where he resided, had become violently enamoured. One of the prince's young confidants had assisted his royal ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... solved the mystery. Aunt Susan was a miser, of that there was no doubt. Imagine a woman of her immense wealth taking a boarder and living as she did. Ethel wondered if at night when everyone was sound asleep she counted her money as misers do; and perhaps it was on this very mahogany table that ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... glance seemed to be dressed almost wholly in soft chocolate brown, alighted in the snow close by and at once began to run about in search of seeds. It was Wanderer the Horned Lark. Peter hailed him joyously, for there was something of mystery about Wanderer, and Peter, as ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... darkly, dimly, and afar; and can contemplate the utterly free, the utterly beautiful, and the utterly good in the character of God and the face of Jesus Christ. They entered while on earth into the mystery and the glory of self-sacrifice; and now they find their bliss in gazing on the one perfect and eternal sacrifice, and rejoicing in the thought that it is the cause and ground of the whole universe, even the Lamb slain before the ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... said,' replied the Jew. 'If they were taught to read good books, it would probably mend their manners. But if that were all, why should there be so much mystery about it? why should these people do it so secretly, and deny it so stoutly?' and again he shook his head, and shuddered. But being fully persuaded that he had gained his point, he thought it safest to change the subject; and accordingly he did so as soon as he had emphatically ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... him, and his position one of great peril. And now once more reflecting on the sudden, as unexplained, disappearance of the latter from their old place of residence—to say the least, a matter of much mystery—bethinking himself, also, that he is quite twenty miles from his estancia, and for any chances of retreat, or shifts for safety, worse off than if he were alone, he at length, and very naturally, feels an apprehension stealing over him. Indeed, not ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... oracle, my Judah. A few lessons from my teacher of rhetoric hard by the Forum—I will give you a letter to him when you become wise enough to accept a suggestion which I am reminded to make you—a little practise of the art of mystery, and Delphi will receive you as Apollo himself. At the sound of your solemn voice, the Pythia will come down to you with her crown. Seriously, O my friend, in what am I not the Messala I went away? I once heard the greatest logician in the world. His subject ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... when in a youthful dream, I saw a moonlit sea, And sailing o'er its dark expanse, A ship of mystery. ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... her own illness; and that he was as completely absorbed in keeping at bay his heretic subjects, as her highness by the desire of converting them into the subjects of France. It was only those admitted into the confidence of Don John who possessed the clue to the mystery. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... towards the establishment of artificial theology, which has passed for Christianity ever since, were enthusiastical. They were not heretics alone who delighted in wild allegories and the pompous jargon of mystery; they were the orthodox Fathers of the first ages, they were the disciples of the Apostles, or the scholars of their disciples; for the truth of which I may appeal to the epistles and other writings of these men that are extant—to those of Clemens, of Ignatius, or of Irenaeus, for ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... Vivian knew more of her attachment to him than what had been discovered the day before he left Glistonbury; and Vivian could not help admiring the honourable and delicate manner in which his friend spoke of her, without any air of mystery, and with the greatest respect. He told Vivian he had heard that proposals had been lately made to her ladyship by a gentleman of great talents and of high character; but that she had positively declined his addresses, and had repeated her declaration ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... excitedly read it over to himself, going over each word with his blunt forefinger. He turned it over and examined the seal, he looked at the stamp and inside of the envelope, and failing to find any clue to the mystery he ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... was a romanticist and fed his brain on pabulum from the pen of Mr. Fergus Hume and other ingenious concocters of peripatetic mystery, wondered as he gave his horse a meaning lash with his whip—a tribute to the beauty of the fare—"Wot the dickens she was h'up to, with 'er big ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... a sea could so brood with the memory of aeons. Only a sea, lying so silent beneath the high skies, could hint the mystery of life still behind ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... was a much better judge of the value of prayer than these theorists; he was much further learnt in this direction than any of them, and therefore his testimony was more reliable than theirs; what to them was a mystery and impossibility was to him a simple daily enjoyment. They that would test the value of prayer must really pray themselves, and believe while they pray, otherwise they will be no wiser. Prayer is not ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... nature expresses the intentions of reproduction by giving animals distinctive organs with certain secretions for this purpose, etc. All the different stages of development can be easily determined, but how and why life takes place under such special condition and under no other, is an unsolved mystery. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... don't, old chap. I don't want you to tell me till you like, only it is rather a joke sometimes that you make such a mystery of what uncle and I know as ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... has never been my forte. My life had been a thing of outward manifestations. I never had been secret or even systematically taciturn about my simple occupations which might have been foolish but had never required either caution or mystery. But in those four hours since midday a complete change had come over me. For good or evil I left that house committed to an enterprise that could not be talked about; which would have appeared to many senseless and perhaps ridiculous, but was certainly full of risks, and, apart ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... everything about them looked common, to most of them, save the owners, wearisome. But to yon pale-faced student, gliding in the glow of his red gown, through the grey mist back to his lodging, and peeping in at every open door as he passes, they are so full of mystery, that gladly would he yield all he has gathered from books, for one genuine glance of insight into the vital movement of the hearts and households of which those open shops are the sole outward and visible signs. Each house is to him a nest of human birds, over which brood ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... to sit at the feet of Revere, his "skipper," that is to say, the Captain of his Company, and to be instructed in the dark art and mystery of managing men, which is a very large part ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... am delighted to hear that you are not the author of the two articles attacking Society. The fact that they happen to be signed with the name of another well-known lady had made me think it possible that this might be the case. Society? It is a great mystery. I can hardly think of it without taking off my boots and prostrating myself orientally. To criticize it is a mistake; it is even, if I may for once use a harsh word, subversive. It is the only one we've got. Oh, hush! Only in whispers ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... of the whole experience was the marvellous demonstration of occult power which attended the final seance of the society, the true nature of which is still wrapped in mystery. ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... up my mystery, though I suspected no one, could offer no information, knew absolutely nothing save that the murdered man was not I, but Radfoot. Next day while I hesitated, and next day while I hesitated, it seemed ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the surface of the rocks in some places. He was confident that they had been made by the feet of the wolves; but in spite of these encouraging signs, he was baffled in his main purpose, and how the visitor made his way in and out of the cave remained an impenetrable mystery. ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... passed by, leaving a sense of mystery in the air; though for Derek, all sense of annoyance disappeared in the knowledge that he ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... boys were disappointed. There was, then, no lovely mystery to be unravelled, no subterrene story excavated, no romance at all, nothing but a spiritual looking Englishman with an odd first name and a gift of ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... made a portage of half a mile or so to avoid them. The woods on either side were primeval, which are more easily penetrated than woods of the second growth, and we had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes through them. How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? The height of the trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anything which I in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards in magnificent columns until, at an enormous distance ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... did not even know their own "best friends." And so the tide of detraction ebbed and flowed while Hesden was absent, his destination unknown, his return a matter of conjecture, and his purpose a mystery. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... were as taut as a fiddle string. A cloud of mystery enveloped the camp and I was unable to see my way. Was the whole great issue for which so many of us had perished and fought and endured all manner of hardships, being bartered away in the absence of our beloved Commander? I have suffered much but never ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... switch the impulses evoked by sense stimuli on to one or other tract of the axons, or axis cylinder processes, which form the association pathways? Such a hypothesis is no explanation; it simply puts back the whole question a step further, and leaves it wrapped in mystery. It cannot be fatigue that produces the hypothetical interruptions of the dendritic synapses and then induces sleep, for sleep can follow after fatigue of a very limited kind. A man may sleep equally well after a day spent in scientific research as after one spent in mountain climbing, or after ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... nature, O earnest thinker, for the created is but the veil of the Creator. Revelation and nature are from the same God, and both demand our serious attention. Revelation is indeed the Word of Nature; the sole key to its many wards of mystery. Truth never contradicts itself. Let the savant, whether in material nature or metaphysical realms, examine, classify, and arrange his facts—they, when fairly computed, thoroughly investigated, can ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... mighty kingdoms three!' 'Much marvel I That thou, the greatest of the Powers above, Me visitest with such exceeding love. What thing is this? A God to make me, nothing, needful to his bliss, And humbly wait my favour for a kiss! Yea, all thy legions of liege deity To look into this mystery desire.' 'Content you, Dear, with them, this marvel to admire, And lay your foolish little head to rest On my familiar breast. Should a high King, leaving his arduous throne, Sue from her hedge a little Gipsy Maid, For far-off royal ancestry bewray'd By some ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... schooner, had made unto himself a name—particularly as a connoisseur of Island beauty—among the Marquesas, Society, Hervey and Paumotu Groups, from Nuka-hiva to Rapa-nui (Easter Island), that ethnographical mystery of the Southern Seas, whose gentle and amiable people, thirty years ago, met with so dreadful a fate at the murderous hands ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... seem to have tried to fit himself into the skin of that entertaining villain. Mr. MURRAY CARRINGTON had an exceedingly tough task with his Heyst. But was he even as detached and eccentric as the average modern don? Certainly he was not the man of mystery of the original pattern, but rather the amiable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... sufficient to make juvenile readers wait anxiously for seven whole days in order to find out what would happen "in our next." It has been demonstrated, however, that what holds the attention of the photoplay spectator, young or old, is the mystery connected with the story, and it is the solving of this mystery that must constantly be kept in mind. "Who is the masked stranger?" "Who is the owner of the mysterious clutching hand," "Who is the mysterious ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... am positive that it is written by no acquaintance of mine, or of my daughter's, for we have none—except you. As the case now stands, it is a mystery, not worth the exploring." ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... impress me when first, after long desire, I saw it. There was nothing to suggest the silence of once roaring flame, no half-molten rocks, no huge, honey-combed scoriae, no depths within depths glooming mystery and ancient horror. It was the more desolate that it moved no active sense of dismay. What I saw was a wide stretch of damp-looking level, mostly of undetermined or of low-toned colour, with here and there a black spot, or, on the margin, the brighter green of a patch of some growing crop. Flat ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... man but the king. But when he threatened that he would have the truth out of her by a trial, he was told that he was the offspring of a slave. By the evidence of the avowal thus extorted he understood the whole mystery of the reproach upon his origin. Abashed as he was with shame for his low estate, he was so ravished with the young man's cleverness, that he asked him why he had aspersed the queen with the reproach that she had demeaned herself like a slave? But while resenting that the courtliness ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned") |
