"Clue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... someone—you know who I mean—who mysteriously disappeared. That interests you, I see. It's very difficult; such people don't let themselves be dropped upon by chance a second time. But, do you know, I have something very like a clue, at last. Yes'—she nodded ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... which follow each other like the notes in the musical scale. It is our own experience that is there portrayed, both present and prospective. What we as individuals, and nations are now going through in our efforts for betterment, is told in the story of Genesis. More than this, the clue to assured betterment is found there also. This experience is on two lines which are always distinct but never separate—the male and the female. These are indissolubly bound together "from the beginning," ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... 'precise meaning.' You surely don't want me to see that you're rather losing your temper and trying to cover it up by being dignified. You've been so careful with your effects, too! . . . I said 'Ah,' because you'd given me the clue I was looking for. You were a very clever ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... Atmospheric effects may be seen there that are unobtainable without the combustion of soft coal. Talk, for example, as much as you please about the electric sky-signs of Broadway—not all of them together will write as much poetry on the sky as the single word "Illinois" that hangs without a clue to its suspension in the murky dusk over Michigan Avenue. The visionary aspects of ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... Ned at last, "have you actually no clue at all? No suspicion of any kind? Haven't you got on the track of any possible reason for ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... machine, to copy sheet after sheet for him, every morning from nine till four, and again every evening from five till ten. Mine was a law tutor of a superior sort. Wherever he could, he gave me a clue to guide me through the labyrinth; and when no reason could be devised for what the law directs, he never puzzled me by attempting to explain what could not be explained; he did not insist upon the total surrender of my rational faculties, but with wonderful liberality would allow ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... truth? why all our never-ceasing efforts in its pursuit? Is it merely that we may exercise the mind, and make truth the toy of our imagination? Impossible. At any rate it would be a secret to which, as yet, God has not given us any clue. But in doing this, in constantly placing the phenomena of creation before us without their causes or without ever explaining them, and at the same time instilling into our souls an insatiable thirst for truth, the Almighty has placed within us a ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... gaily bedizened with streamers, was observed to shove off from the side of one of the French frigates, and pull directly for our gangway. In the stern sheets reclined Mowanna and his consort. As they approached, we paid them all the honours clue to royalty;—manning our yards, firing a salute, and making a ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... home. The excitement and disappointment, added to the severe cold to which I was exposed, broke me down, and I was taken suddenly ill. When I recovered, I returned to Bristed Hall only to find my priceless bird flown, and no clue to be had to ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... abominable," he declared. "Here we are supposed to have the finest police system in the world, and yet a man can disappear from his rooms in the very centre of London, and no one has even a clue as to what has ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... It is well known, however, that it is not the degree but the character of the cold which renders it obnoxious to men, and the climate of this country is quite as agreeable, if not more so, than the best part of Canada. The height of the latitude gives no clue whatever to the degree of cold or to ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... looks have made me drunken, not his wine; * His grace of gait disgraced sleep to these eyne: Dazed me no cup, but cop with curly crop; * His gifts overcame me not the gifts of vine: His winding locks my patience-clue unwound: * His robed beauties ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... hours, when, had he possessed the slightest clue to the hiding-place of Berene Dumont, he would have flown to her, even knowing that he left disgrace and death behind him. He realised that he now owed a duty to the girl he loved, higher and more imperative by far than ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... will advance further toward comprehending the spirit of his subject by patiently considering what he knows to be in part perhaps a mythus, than by starting with the foregone conclusion that the legend must of necessity be worthless, and that his cunning will suffice to supply the missing clue.[57] ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... hasn't lost his affection for you; if it were so, we shouldn't have that symptom. I will tell you, briefly, my theory of the case. But first let me say, in justice to Frye, that he was in no position to know certain facts that give the clue to George's ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reached Hillsdale before their arrival, and the friends and acquaintances of both, comprising pretty much the whole village, hastened to present their congratulations. Many supposed now they had obtained a clue to the singularities of the Solitary, and expected that since he had recovered his son, he would resume the habits of ordinary life. But nothing seemed further from Holden's intention. In spite of the entreaties of his son, and ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... proportionately increased. How often we see one, two, or three drugs exhibited in mania without any result, while a fourth acts like a charm. Only by studying in detail the special characteristics of each case, can we hope to find a clue which will serve as a guide to the treatment of ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... whisper or the card; then I am lost, and flounder hopelessly about without bearings of any kind, asking leading-questions, cautiously feeling my way, not knowing whether I am talking to a person of great importance or the contrary. When at last my extreme wariness and diplomacy get hold of a clue, then I swim along beautifully on ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... consisting of money in his hands, belonging to private individuals. Among his victims was Colonel S. of Baltimore, who determined to make an effort to recover his money. His first step was a visit to Halifax. His endeavors there to find Keith's whereabouts were for some time fruitless. But at last a clue was found. A girl, who had accompanied Keith in his flight, had written a letter to a relative in Halifax, and Colonel S. by some means obtained a sight of the envelope. The post-mark, plainly legible, indicated that the letter had been written at an obscure ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... would have scorned it as a shameless and presumptuous bid for immortality; but the whole point of view had vanished in 1900. Not he, but Sir Henry Maine and Rudolph Sohm, were the parents or creators of Sac and Soc. Convinced that the clue of religion led to nothing, and that politics led to chaos, one had turned to the law, as one's scholars turned to the Law School, because one could see no ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... limits of the human—he never said the female—understanding to comprehend these things without the aid of men learned in the law, he humbly offered his assistance to guide her out of that labyrinth, into which, unwittingly and without any clue, she had ventured farther and farther, till she was just in the very jaws of nonsuit and ruin. She put her affairs completely into his hands, and promised that she would no farther interfere, even with her advice; for it was upon this condition that Alfred engaged to undertake the management of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the means by which that system is affected, we see that a variety of conditions affect it; but as to the modes in which they act upon it, we have as yet little if any clue. ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... was an article in the Saturday Review on "the knowledge necessary to make a blunder,'' and this title gives the clue to what a blunder really is. It is caused by a confusion of two or more things, and unless something is known of these things a blunder cannot be made. A perfectly ignorant man has not sufficient knowledge ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... officer too, for he hesitated. Then with visible effort he advanced toward the hunks of flesh, casting back and forth as if to find some clue to the manner of their death. He was still so engaged when a second alien burst out of the archway, a splintered length of white held out before him as if he ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... The Prussian appears to be quite intellectually incapable of this thought. He cannot, I think, conceive the idea that is the foundation of all comedy; that, in the eyes of the other man, he is only the other man. And if we carry this clue through the institutions of Prussianised Germany, we shall find how curiously his mind has been limited in the matter. The German differs from other patriots in the inability to understand patriotism. Other European peoples ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... did she ever obtain from Sir Bale, nor any clue to the cause of the agony that was so powerfully expressed in his countenance. Thus much only she learned from him, that Feltram had sought that interview for the purpose of announcing his departure, which was to take place within ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... have explained everything. Your letter gave me the suspicion. I secured a transcript of the Herr Doctor's report for myself. My suspicion became a certainty. You will find the clue in the report. Consider: The Leader had had the experience I imagined for my she-dog. He had linked his mind with a stronger one and a greater personality—if it must be said, a greater man. For a moment The Leader knew what that man knew most certainly, with most profound conviction, with most ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... that she might ask him and allay her fears. But what right had she? Upon what grounds could she set a question upon so secret a matter? She conceived him raising his brows in that supercilious way of his, and looking her over from head to toe as though seeking a clue to the nature of this quaint thing that asked him questions. She pictured his smile and the jest with which he would set aside her inquiry. She imagined, indeed, just what she believed would happen did she ask him; which was precisely what would not have happened. Imagining ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... has obligingly informed me, that the picture of ALTHEA, as well as that of Lovelace himself, bequeathed by Cartwright the actor to Dulwich College in 1687, bears no clue to date of composition, or to the artist's name, and that it does not assist in the identification of the lady. This is the more vexatious, inasmuch as it seems probable that ALTHEA, whoever she was, ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... as of mist, and this drips during the day and so forms stalactites of ice, often a foot or more in length. "Clout" is a "dictionary word," a knock on the head, but it is pronounced differently here; they say a "clue" in the head. Stuttering and stammering each express well-known conditions of speech, but there is another not recognised in dictionary language. If a person has been made a butt of, laughed at, ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... rather a fatal thing to do?" His own bitter memories gave him the clue to her state of mind. "No good ever comes of remembering sad things. I think the perfect memory would be one which would only retain the happiness of life. You know the old motto found on many sundials: ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... are now as white as windsor soap can make them, could complain of their wrongs, what contaminations with dusty Ainsworth and Scapulas would they enumerate! if his brain were to reveal its labours, what labyrinths of prose and verse, in which it has been bewildered when it had no clue of a friendly translation, or Clavis to conduct it through the wanderings, would it disclose! what permutations and combinations of commas, what elisions and additions of letters, what copious annotations on a word, an accent, or a stop, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... with reserve, but with a suggestion of curious eagerness. I marked it at once. Not, however, till the usual questions as to my journeys and so on were over, did I get a clue to the cause of it. But then, when we were seated on stools by the great stone I have mentioned, big clay beakers of thin, delicious light beer beside us, he put a question. 'Why have you been so long a time ...
— The Priest's Tale - Pere Etienne - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • Robert Keable
... millionaire. There was a great deal of talk after the body had been placed in the Lambert vault, and there was more talk in the newspapers when an account was given of the funeral. But neither by word of mouth, nor in print, was any suggestion made likely to afford the slightest clue to the name or the whereabouts of the assassin. Having regard to Pine's romantic career, it was thought by some that the act was one of revenge by a gypsy jealous that the man should attain to such affluence, while others hinted that the motive for the crime was to be ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... Having discovered the modus operandi of the pair, and having read their cards, so to speak, he next set himself to discover where they banked their swag. But this was by no means easy. His utmost vigilance went unrewarded by so much as a single clue. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... the ridge to the mail box, grimly determined to let no little clue to Johnny Jewel's insufferable behavior escape her. Johnny was up to something, and it might be that the mail box was worth inspecting that morning. So Mary V rode up ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... Willis and his officers, and some of the gentlemen passengers, were making every possible examination of the boat and the dead bodies, to endeavour to discover some clue, by which they might be able to trace to what ship they had belonged, or whence they had come. There was, unfortunately, little on their bodies to identify them. One of the men had fastened round his neck ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... from my throat ere it should undo the work of Providence. If they escape the present vengeance of Heaven, thee shalt answer for it, not I. Yet I will give thee a clue to find this woman who hath fooled thee. Seek her where there are thieves and drunkards to mock at thy simplicity, to jeer at their easy gull, for I say again thy wife never was in Barbary, but playing ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... left these behind, and for the next few years will probably settle down to the idea of being nothing in particular, or else a professional cricketer. Then he will suddenly, for good or evil, make his choice. Neither his blue eyes nor his fair hair give any clue as to what that choice will be, but I should let him keep both, as they may be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... satchels, and looked over the heads of the motley crowd into the still more motley street beyond. Two short rows of one-story buildings, distinctive by the brightness of new lumber on their sheltered side, bordered a narrow street, half clogged by the teams of visiting farmers. Not the faintest clue to a hostelry was visible, and the eyes of the man wandered back, interrupting by the way another pair of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... together in the clear dusk, were murdered by a party of miscreants, who escaped before any suspicion of what had occurred had been aroused, even in the minds of those who had actually witnessed the struggle from a distance. For many months no clue to the perpetrators of the deed was discoverable, and it seemed to be only too likely to be added to the long list of crimes for which no retribution has ever been exacted. Happily for Irish credit this ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... significant, and it checked me. I couldn't remember what the deuce she had said that night. There recurred to me her mimicry of a woman's voice—Laura Bowman's as I believed—to determine through Chung who Thomas Gilbert's feminine visitor had been. Should that clue have been followed up before I moved on Eddie Hughes? Even as I got to this point, I heard Worth, punctuating his remarks with the whang of his rock on the bit of twig he ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... I hope not," said Lord Ashiel earnestly. "I have got her to promise to come to Scotland, and in a few days I may get some definite clue as to which of them it is. It is a very odd coincidence that both the girls bear names so much like that of my poor wife's." He paused reflectively, and then added, "In the meantime you will go on with your ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... a horrid, dirty dog! Why doesn't that man drive him out?" demanded Miss Sturgis, who had followed Tzaritza hot foot, having been in the main hall when the great hound went tearing through and up the stairs, nose and ears having given her the clue to ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... be, in what does its nature differ from love founded in long observation and slow growth? Perhaps its effects are not so permanent; but they are, while they last, as violent and intense. We walk the pathless mazes of society, vacant of joy, till we hold this clue, leading us through that labyrinth to paradise. Our nature dim, like to an unlighted torch, sleeps in formless blank till the fire attain it; this life of life, this light to moon, and glory to the sun. What does ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... first glance it would seem almost hopeless to attempt the naming of every kind and degree of color. But, if all these varieties possess the same three qualities, only in different degrees, and if each quality can be measured by a scale, then there is a clue to this labyrinth. ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... standing apart on the poop steps. But perhaps I turned on the whole with the greatest curiosity to the figure labelled "E. Goddedaal, 1st off." He whom I had never seen, he might be the identical; he might be the clue and spring of all this mystery; and I scanned his features with the eye of a detective. He was of great stature, seemingly blonde as a Viking, his hair clustering round his head in frowsy curls, and two enormous whiskers, like the tusks of some ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that awful roar. Then at last I began to feel that the rush of wind and water was passing over me, and that I was in some kind of shelter; and when I had once hit upon this, I had as it were grasped a clue. I knew that I was lying on stones, and saw that rising above me was a mass of rock, which I knew by the touch, and this stone was sheltering me from the ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... thrust in McLean unfeelingly. "Knocking a woman about the desert.... Not much chance of a clue after all these years," he concluded with a very British air ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... a clue. A wretched hobbledehoy of a fellow, something in the bookseller's shop at the corner of Kettle Street, has come with a rigmarole about a society that he and a few more belonged to, including this Francois Gaspard, who is missing. He protests that the thing was legal, and all that—only ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... the six Greek letters composing the Saviour's name, 10820070400200888. Precisely so John here tells us what is the numerical value of the letters in the name of the Beast. If we tried the Latin or the Greek names of Nero the clue would not be found; but John was writing mainly for Hebrews, and the Hebrew letters of Kesar Neron, the name by which every Jew knew this Emperor, ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... I have one clue, and only one. I know his handwriting. If he puts his new false name upon a hotel register and does not disguise it too much, it will be valuable to me if I ever run ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... red roan, the best horse in the camp, had been stolen! The burly lumbermen came hurrying from all directions. There was no doubt about it—the horse was gone, and the snow had covered every trace. There was absolutely no clue to follow. Silently and sullenly the men filed in to breakfast. In a lumberman's eyes hardly a crime could exceed that of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... wonderingly. A captain's commission in the regular army was to be desired. She remembered how John Drayton had had to serve for years to obtain one. Such an office gave a rank that no militia could offer. Could any youth deliberately cast aside the distinction? A glance at Fairfax gave no clue to his mental attitude. It seemed a long time that he sat there meditating, but presently he looked up and met the questioning gaze of Thomas Ashley with ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... surprising that Malthus should have been needed to give him the clue, when in the Note Book of 1837 there should occur—however obscurely expressed—the following forecast{13} of the importance of the survival of the fittest. "With respect to extinction, we can easily see that a variety of ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... little north of the French settlement in Florida, then supposed to be in successful operation, but of which nothing had yet been published to give either the world at large or the Spaniards in the peninsula a premature clue to his enterprise. ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... herbs and drove home again, much puzzled by our discovery. The story of the "daguerreotype saloon" at Dresser's Lonesome soon spread abroad, but no one was able to furnish a clue to its history. Of course all manner of rumors began to circulate; some people declared that the owner of the "saloon" must be a naturalist who had journeyed up there to take pictures of wild animal life; others thought ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... friend. The general scheme he got—the list of committee names, the local agents, the foreign agents. But the complete list of the League he failed to find. He secured the list of subscribers, but learned nothing from it because the sums were identified by a numeral only, the clue to the numbers being the complete list, which I burned when I ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... did in the eternal cities, with those whose names are immortal—and there I have seen the humble pipe! the sole evidence of luxury or enjoyment; when his daily task was suspended, it can never end, for he must weave and weave the fibres of his brain into the clue that leads him to the means of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... the rage and mortification of Roger Nowell and Potts, on learning that their chief prey had thus escaped them; and by their directions, for more than a week, the strictest search was made for the fugitive throughout the neighbourhood, but without effect—no clue could be discovered to her retreat. Suspicion naturally fell upon the two Asshetons, Nicholas and Richard, and Roger Nowell roundly taxed them with contriving and executing the enterprise in person; while ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with indisputable proof of the Semitic affinity, as Professor Adolf Erman showed years ago. The anatomical examination by Professor Elliot Smith of a large number of skeletons, dated by careful excavations, has given us a further clue. There is a prehistoric race found in the earliest cemeteries—neither Negroid nor Asiatic in characteristics. In the late predynastic and the early dynastic periods, when the great development began, this primitive race had become modified by ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner
... dozen stalwart ruffians grouped around him, most of them masked, but two or three with faces bare, their coverings having come off in the struggle. These slipped quickly out of sight, behind the others, as if not wishing to give clue for ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... fenced-in hay-stacks and the corral-gate I found a battered decoy-duck with a string tied to its neck. It was one of a set that Francois and Whinstane Sandy had whittled out over a year ago. It was at least a clue. Dinkie must have dropped ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... at the first glance as if the mind must be confused by these varieties, whose possible number fades into infinity; but the teacher does not open this labyrinth to his disciples without providing them with a clue. ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... no factor, for the war against England is taking on increasingly an almost religious character; from the German point of view, it will soon be, not a war, but a crusade. I get one clue to this in the new phrase of leave-taking that has gained an astounding currency in the past few weeks. Instead of saying "Good-bye" or "Auf Wiedersehen," the German now says: "God punish England!" to which the equally fervent rejoinder is, "May He do so!" This new, polite formula ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... rays of the lifeboats were detected in landing?" asked Brandon. "That might have given them a clue." ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... her this way before, you say?" said Jamieson, quickly. "What was the matter then? What made her act so? If we know why she did it before, perhaps it will give us a clue to why she is behaving in such a queer ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... thy intercession, he would sign thy death-warrant the day after, for serving the Commonwealth. A generation of vipers! there is nothing upright nor grateful in them: never was there a drop of even Scotch blood in their veins. Indeed, we have a clue to their bedchamber still hanging on the door, and I suspect that an Italian fiddler or French valet has more than once crossed ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... nearly all objected to the practice of their gathering together; think it gives them extravagant ideas of liberty, has a tendency to make them insubordinate, &c. Another place a colored man was killed—supposed to have been shot for a small amount of money he happened to have with him; no clue to the murderers. Another place within one-fourth of a mile of Lexington, a colored man was shot through the head on the public road, (was not yet dead,) and his pockets rifled of the few cents he had; also his knife. Over in Attala county I learned ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... had been growing in the back part of the brain of each of them began to assume shape and a definite aspect. The man had the craftier mind, but the woman had a woman's intuition, and she already had read his thoughts while yet he had no clue to hers. For the primal instinct of self-preservation, blazing up high, had burned away the bond of bogus love that held them together while they were putting her drunkard of a husband out of the way, and now there only remained ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... and leave Hippolytus? Oh, why were you too young to have embark'd On board the ship that brought thy sire to Crete? At your hands would the monster then have perish'd, Despite the windings of his vast retreat. To guide your doubtful steps within the maze My sister would have arm'd you with the clue. But no, therein would Phaedra have forestall'd her, Love would have first inspired me with the thought; And I it would have been whose timely aid Had taught you all the labyrinth's crooked ways. What anxious care a life so dear had cost me! No thread had ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... then—the assurance sped like fire through the parched minds of the other members. In their eagerness to gain the least little clue to Xingu they almost forgot the joy of assisting at ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... Palmetto, Ga., destroyed a hotel, two stores, and a storehouse, on which property there was little insurance. The next Saturday there was another fire and this destroyed a considerable part of the town. For some weeks there was no clue as to the origin of these fires; but about the middle of March something overheard by a white citizen led to the implicating of nine Negroes. These men were arrested and confined for the night of March 15 in a warehouse to await trial the next morning, a dummy guard of six men being placed before ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... solitary man, Whom thoughts abstruse or high have chanced to lure Forth from the walks of men, revolving oft, And oft again, hard matter, which eludes And baffles his pursuit—thought-sick and tired Of controversy, where no end appears, No clue to his research, the lonely man Half wishes for society again. Him, thus engaged, the sabbath bells salute Sudden! his heart awakes, his ears drink in The cheering music; his relenting soul Yearns after all the joys ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... tidy formula for the easy determination of what is a fundamental right for purposes of legal enforcement may satisfy a longing for certainty but ignores the movements of a free society. * * * The real clue to the problem confronting the judiciary in the application of the Due Process Clause is not to ask where the line is once and for all to be drawn but to recognize that it is for the Court to draw it by the gradual and empiric process ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... evident that the young man was vitally interested now. Was it the prospective vision of almighty dollars that was needed to release the hidden spring that had baffled the girl? With this clue in mind, she watched him closely and fed ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... poor child, she ought not to have cared for, viz.,—to that obsolete useless pauper birthright, a branch on the family tree of a French noble. But in pinch of circumstance, and from female curiosity, hunting among the papers her father had left for some clue to the reasons for the pension he had received, she found letters from her mother, letters from my father, which indisputably proved that she was grandchild to the fue Vicomte de Mauleon, and niece ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... attempts to arouse the sleeper, but in obedience to the order of his comrade, lifted off the hat; and, having procured one of the great candles, he and Rube started off without saying another word, of giving any clue ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... were occupied with Polly, Dick had stepped out on the gravel sweep, where he was endeavouring, by close examination, to discover some clue to the puzzle. Suddenly he ran back into ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... twenty-eighth day of March he fell in with a French squadron, commanded by the marquis du Quesne, consisting of four ships, namely, the Foudroyant, of eighty guns, the Orphee, of sixty-four, the Oriflamme, of fifty, and the Pleiade frigate, of twenty-four, in their passage from Toulon to reinforce M. de la Clue, who had for some time been blocked up by admiral Osborne in the harbour of Carthagena. The enemy no sooner perceived the English squadron than they dispersed, and steered different courses: then Mr. Osborne detached divers ships in pursuit of each, while he himself, with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... as purposely introductory to an intimate scene, notwithstanding that it was made in a thoroughly matter-of-fact tone and without the slightest trace of coquetry. But Johnson did not make the mistake of misconstruing her words, puzzled though he was to find a clue to them. His curiosity about her was intense, and it showed plainly in the voice ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... day or two his lips are sure to be swollen pretty badly. Of course if you have no one in your mind's eye as being specially likely to make an attempt upon your life these little things will afford you no clue whatever, but if you have any sort of suspicion that one of three or four men might be likely to have a grudge against you, they may enable you to pick out the fellow who attempted my life. Of course I may be mistaken altogether and the fellow may have been only an ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... of view by winding paths. But— and as also I have heard it said, by men practised in public address, that hearers are never so much fatigued as by the endeavour to follow a speaker who gives them no clue to his purpose,—I will take the slight mask off at once, and tell you plainly that I want to speak to you about the treasures hidden in books; and about the way we find them, and the way we lose ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... be unprofitable to spend more time in disentangling, or rather in showing up the knots in, the ravelled skeins of our neighbours. Much more to the purpose is it to ask if we possess any clue of our own which may guide us among these entanglements. And by way of a beginning, let us ask ourselves—What is education? Above all things, what is our ideal of a thoroughly liberal education?—of ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... read, "The enclosed papers were found on the field by one of my orderlies. One of them being addressed to you, furnishes a clue to their owner, who must have dropped them in the hurry of the advance. Should Captain Charles Darragon be your husband, I have the pleasure to inform you that he was seen alive and well at the end of the day." The writer assured Desiree of his respectful consideration, ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... chased the quiet of Medonte's shades Through the green windings of the forest road, Past Nature's venerable rank and file Of primal woods—her Old Guard, sylvan-plumed— The far-off Huron, like a silver thread, The clue to some enchanted labyrinth, Dimly perceived beyond the stretch of woods, Th' approaches tinted by a purple haze, And softened into beauty like the dream Of some rapt seer's Apocalyptic mood; And when at Rockridge we sat looking out Upon the softened shadows of the night, ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... reasoned. "And they won't start to search for me until some time to-morrow. When I don't show up at the game they'll think it's queer, and I suppose they'll fine me. I wouldn't mind that if they only come and find me. But how can they do it? There isn't a clue they could follow, as far as I know. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... of boilers was the clue. He had it; he was sure he was right. It was the roar of escaping steam far, far down in that fearful hole. The vapors, the hot, wet wind—dead steam, half condensed during its long rush upward. Down there in the bowels of the mountain ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... alone has found the clue to his sorrow, for she has overheard him mutter that, if the ring were given back to the Rhine-daughters, the curse spoken by Alberich would be annulled, and the gods could yet be saved ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... presently. The "Catalogues" proper were a series of genealogies which traced the Hellenic race (or its more important peoples and families) from a common ancestor. The reason why women are so prominent is obvious: since most families and tribes claimed to be descended from a god, the only safe clue to their origin was through a mortal woman beloved by that god; and it has also been pointed out that 'mutterrecht' still left its traces in northern Greece ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... the couch she had left, but not to sleep. A new pulse of life, stronger than I could bear, was throbbing within me. I dreaded a fever, lest I should talk in it, and drop the clue to my secret treasure. But the light of the morning stilled me, and a bath in ice-cold water made me strong again. Yet I felt all that day as if I were dying a delicious death, and going to a yet more exquisite life. As far ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... of these general opinions appear in my official correspondence: other parts of this system are palpable with the smallest clue, and the whole militates decisively against the opinions of the Duke of Portland and Mr. Fox, whom I particularize, as they continue to keep up a constant correspondence with the popular leaders in this kingdom. Your Majesty will, therefore, judge how perfectly impracticable it is for ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... said. "There's a clue to it, right there. I'll say that those fellows are on the edge of sapience, and it's ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... the tortures of the damned and blasphemers. For you well know, queen, only such as have blasphemed God, or have not recognized King Henry as the pope of their Church, have the honor of the rack as their clue. But hush! here we are at the door, and here is the ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... clue," an evening paper added to the criminal's identity.... The police were blamed, of course.... Such a thing must never be allowed to occur again. It was reported that the Queen had in no way suffered from the ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... even with the best intentions and the most untiring industry, a helpless prey to intrigues and cabals and all the artifices and deceptions which beset a throne? Gioja and Romagnosi are under the ban, and he has no wish to ask them for the clue to the labyrinth he is wandering in, even if he had the time. He has no time to read the newspapers. His knowledge of them is derived from abstracts prepared for him by a clerk in the Governor's ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... which you spent together, does anything stand out in your memory as throwing any possible light upon the tragedy? Think carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any clue which can help me." ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... may possibly differ as to just what, or what not, cathedrals of France should be included in this term. The French proverb known of all guide-book makers should give a clue as to those which at least may not ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... you, if you don't mind." She watched them retreat to the bunk-house together. Swan's big form towering above the doctor's slighter figure. Swan was talking earnestly, the mumble of his voice reaching Lorraine without the enunciation of any particular word to give a clue to what he was saying. But it struck her that his voice did not sound quite natural; not so ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... The fact was, that his own happiness became, in some degree, involved in their calamity; and, as he came in to breakfast on the fourth morning of its occurrence, he could not help observing as much to his mother. His suspicions of Flanagan, as to possessing some clue to the melancholy business, were by no means removed. On the contrary, he felt that he ought to have him brought before the bench of magistrates who were conducting the investigation from day to day, and, with this determination, he himself resolved to state fully and candidly ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... escaped from her captor or captors, had she been rescued, had she perished like her ill-fated brother, or had the abduction been successfully accomplished? None of these questions could Esperance answer. One thing, however, was plain—there was no trace of her now; no clue that he could follow; therefore, further pursuit for the present was useless. Sadly he determined to wait for day and then resolve upon some plan to put into immediate execution to retrieve, as far as possible the great wrong ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... in this well-known scrap of evidence, there is a deeper meaning than is usually attached to it. I do not know, but it may be—I have a strong suspicion that it is—a clue to the slow growth of the crime, and its gradual development in the mind. More than this; a clue to the mental connection of the deed, with the punishment to which the doer of that deed is liable, until the two, conjoined, give birth to ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... was left unsolved, except by Bruno, who fancied that he guessed its meaning; but since the clue was one which he preferred not to pursue, he discreetly left matters to shape themselves, or rather, to be shaped by Providence, ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... two more questions, really to hide my puzzlement. "What in the world is it?" I said to myself; "all so fat and puffy." I cudgelled my brain for a clue. As I examined the hand in silence to play for time and conceal my ignorance, ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... indefinite. If only he had finished his name, we'd have had some clue. But the map's no good to us, in such shape. Besides, we wouldn't think of touching money or mine, as long as there's a single chance of the rightful claimants ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... have quoted is, in fact, so preposterous, so utterly incompatible with anything but absolute ignorance of some of the best established facts, that we should have passed it over in silence had it not appeared to afford some clue to M. Flourens' unhesitating, a priori, repudiation of all forms of the doctrine of progressive modification of living beings. He whose mind remains uninfluenced by an acquaintance with the phenomena of development, must indeed lack one of the chief motives towards ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... of ceaseless watchfulness and vigilance, at last he gained a clue to their retreat, and lost no time in following it up, taking with him Kit Nubbles, the errand-boy at the Shop in old days, who, though now in the employ of kind Mr. Garland, was still loyal to the memory of his beloved Miss Nelly—and only too grateful to be allowed to go in search of ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... matters worse these vivid and unorganized experiences, simply because they lie along the shore of the infinite and have no single clue, no governing philosophy of life, are overswept by the dense and chilling fogs of unreality that roll in from the great deep. Life is swallowed up in awful mystery. External facts are less real than ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... find a peasant girl's dress. Dress yourself as quickly as you can; we shall be ready for you in attire to match. You had best do up your own things into a bundle, which I will carry. If they were left here they might, when the news of your being missing gets abroad, afford a clue to the manner of your escape. I will tell you all about the arrangements we have made as we ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... clue, and a stealthy silence as of a neatly executed crime, characterise this murderous disaster, which, as you may remember, had its gruesome celebrity. The wind would have prevented the loudest outcries from reaching the shore; ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... thing as subjectivity apart from objectivity. Mr Sinnett very properly tells you 'that occult science regards force and matter as identical, and that it contemplates no principle in nature as wholly immaterial. The clue to the mystery involved,' he goes on to say, 'lies in the fact, directly cognisable by occult experts, that matter exists in other states than those which are cognisable by the five senses;' but it does not become only cognisable subjectively on that account. You know very well, ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... fancied facts when there are so few to go upon. Do you suppose that the detective in Florence had any definite plan of action given to him by his employer? For just supposing that your guess is right, they may have got some clue to what happened in the letter that was sent by mistake to Lady Rose. Have you no notion at all whether they may not now have got some evidence to prove ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... find that she was some English trader to the Bosphorus, or Greek man-of-war, of perhaps little less doubtful character than the Sea Hawk herself. The inhabitants of the islands either knew nothing about her, or would give no information, nor could any clue be obtained from any craft they fell in with; so at last Captain Fleetwood resolved to return south again, keeping close along by the Greek coast, to examine the dense group of islands and islets of ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... towards the hall from which the cries came, leaving Rachel alone. But she felt no special interest in a rough encounter between two men towards whom she was utterly indifferent. Their fate could not thrill her as did the memory of Dan's burning words. What did they mean? Had she the clue to conduct on his part which had grieved her sorely. She could not help a glow of expectation, and a thrill of pleasure. It was at this moment Joyce caught the radiant look on her face, and shared to a degree in that ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Mr. Todd has added a note, which gives a clue to the meaning of the word. He says, "Mr. Church here observes, that ruffin is reddish, from the Latin rufus." I suspect, however, that the poet did not intend to specify the colour of the dress, but rather to give a very characteristical expression even to the raiment ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... he is never in his house; and has an address where letters may be left; but only simpletons go with the hopes of seeing him.—Only a few of the faithful know where he is to be found, and have the clue to his hiding-place. So, after the disputes with his wife, and the misfortunes consequent thereon, to find Sir Francis Clavering at home was impossible. "Ever since I hast him for my book, which is fourteen pound, he don't come home till three o'clock, and purtends to be asleep ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had been in, I would not have done it. You know Aunt Jane said there was no harm in giving a clue, ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge |
