"Unravel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... called for another glass, and then set himself to the consideration of how far the disappearance of the boy would interfere with his obtaining payment of the various sums due by the Insurance Offices. This point was either more knotty and difficult to unravel than the previous one, or the grog began to render his intellect less capable of grappling with it. At all events it cost him an hour to determine his course of action, and required another glass of grog to enable ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the territory cannot give rise to any constitutional questions, for the reason that the constitutions, like the land tenures, are in a state of such utter confusion that only a strong hand can unravel them, and the restoration will result in the establishment of a strong military government. If I go down with the expedition I have organized I shall be in full control of the situation and in a position to carry out ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... will be your engaging task to unravel, and to this end will be your opportunity of closely watching Fuh-sang's unsuspecting movements in ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... was completed; and I looked forward to the fresh enterprise of new rivers and lower latitudes, that should unravel the mystery of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... was strangely familiar to him. Even so the trees had leaned together, and the clear ripples pulsed upon the bank. Something strange and beautiful had befallen him there. What was it? The mind could not unravel ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hitherto with horror, didn't scare him if he went into it hand in hand with Joan. With Alice trying, in her persistently gentle way, to cure him, life was unthinkable. Life with Joan—there was that to achieve. Let the law unravel the knots while he and she wandered in France and Italy, she triumphantly young, and he a youth again, his dream come true.... Would she have come with him to-night if she hadn't grown weary of playing flapper? She ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... down the anger that inflames me, and hear all you have to say about your mission. I must unravel this confusion before I see my wife. Collect your senses, think well over what you say, and answer each question ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... faced their darkest moment. Feeling, as they did, that they were encircled by hidden enemies, the very air they breathed became a menace. Every attempt to find the thread that might unravel the dark mystery proved futile. It was not to be wondered at that they despaired. Even the weird laughter of Eva's stricken father, echoing hollowly through the house, seemed to be ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... would read her letter over, burning every word of it upon his brain, until the piteous minor appeal would torture him once more and he would begin again to try to get hold of some thread of thought that would unravel this ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... place himself by the side of Newton, in virtue of his discovery of this new law of attraction. If any comparison can be made, we think—inasmuch as to unravel the problem of humanity is a greater task than to elucidate the movements of the planets—that Fourier was warranted in placing himself infinitely above Newton. Unfortunately, there is this difference between the two, that Newton's law explains existing phenomena, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... perceived," observes an author by no means friendly to the Huguenots, "that the accident (of Conde's death) had happened only in order to reveal in all its splendor the merits of the Admiral de Chatillon. The admiral had had during his entire life very difficult and complicated matters to unravel, and, nevertheless, he had never had any that were not far below his abilities, and in which, consequently, he had no need of exerting his full capacity. Thus those qualities that were rarest, and that exalted him most ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... eat the turkey on Christmas Day. A few days before Christmas, the doctor and wife, on their daily visit, found the turkey had vanished. Inquiries were made for it, and the invited friends were assiduous in helping to unravel the mystery, and concluded in the end that it had been stolen. They condoled and sympathized with the bereaved, and tried to assuage the grief by telling Trimble and wife that they would give him a dinner on Christmas Day instead! The grief-stricken ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... uncouth, that it will be seen at the post-office, that the names are disguised on purpose."—"Do you think then, that they amuse themselves at the post-office by opening and reading all the letters of business which pass through? They could not get through them. I have attempted to unravel the correspondence carried on under the disguise of banking transactions, but I could never succeed. The post-office is like the police, only fools are caught; yet think of any other method: I shall have ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... tells us that these Diurnals differ from a Mercurius Aulicus (the paper of his party),—"as the Devil and his Exorcist, or as a black witch doth from a white one, whose office is to unravel her enchantments." ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... responded Cleek, with an enigmatic smile. "And I can't help having a sneaking admiration for the person who's engineering the whole thing. How he must laugh at the state of the old Yard, with never a clue to settle down upon, never a thread to pick up and unravel! All of which is unbusinesslike of me, I've no doubt. But, cheer up, man, I've a piece of news which ought to help matters on a bit. Just came from ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... delightful thread to unravel!" he exclaimed. "I should like to aid in it; but unless you have a clue, it is not likely that ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... doubt, this might have happened under a Parliamentary government. But, then, many members of Parliament, the entire Opposition in Parliament, would have been active to unravel the matter. All the principles of finance would have been worked and propounded. The light would have come from above, not from below—it would have come from Parliament to the nation instead of from the nation to Parliament But exactly the reverse happened in America. Mr. Wells ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... far by this time," said the mate. "I think that I can unravel the mystery. This whale was attacked by the boats of a ship, some of which were probably destroyed by the monster. It was then towed alongside, when she was either capsized in a storm, or, receiving damage from some other cause, she went ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... card playing and theatre-going rank side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed. What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... aloud. "Well, I think my most worthy cousin, Ernest Augustus, of Saxe-Weimar, will understand this allusion, and in gratitude for my giving his name to posterity in my 'Anti-Machiavel,' will unravel the mystery, and inform the world how it is possible, with the annual income of four hundred dollars, to keep a retinue of seven hundred men, a squadron of one hundred and eighty, and a company of cavalry; if he is capable of accomplishing this, without plunging into debt, ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... post-horses, and as my master has gone in the direction of Bordeaux with Monsieur the Baron's passport, and as Monsieur the Baron goes toward Geneva with my master's passport, the skein will probably be so tangled that the police, clever as their fingers are, can't easily unravel it." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... of Marly-le-Roi appears from the chronicles the most complicated to unravel of that of any of the kingly suburbs of old Paris, though in the days of the old locomotion a townlet twenty-six kilometres from the capital was hardly to be ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... friendly in spite of her apparent bitterness toward him, which perhaps he understood better than I. Possibly Mrs. Hunter may have broken their relations, for there is no doubt about her feelings. Well, time must unravel the snarl. It would now seem that he is devoted to this girl here, and she to him as far as she can be to any one. What he will think when he learns that she ran shrieking away and left him, while Mara, reckless of life itself, stood ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... "Mais, monsieur, we are only human! Arrested him? No, not quite. But tracked out how he did it. That is already much—to unravel Colonel Clay, gentlemen!" ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... from the outside, attributing them arbitrarily to motives which are pretty sure to be the lowest possible, because it is easier to conceive a low motive than a lofty one, and to call a man a villain than to unravel patiently the tangled web of good and evil of which his thoughts are composed. He has attempted to conceive of his characters as he would if they had been his own contemporaries and equals, acting, speaking in his company; and ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... with these unpleasant thoughts, Grayson sat at his desk in the office of the ranch trying to unravel the riddle of a balance sheet which would not balance. Mixed with the blue of the smoke from his briar was the deeper azure of a spirited monologue in which Grayson ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... turning over in his mind the secret that had been partly revealed to him, through the words of Grannie Thornton, could not make up his mind just what to do about it. He had almost decided to entrust what he knew to Lawyer Estes, for him to unravel, when the lawyer was called out of town for several weeks, on an important case. Again, another event intervened to cause delay. Miss Matilda Burns made a visit to her home in Massachusetts, and took Henry Burns with her; and it was well into November, ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... If we would unravel the mysteries involved in present religious faiths, we should begin not by attempting to analyze or explain any existing system or systems of belief and worship. Such a course is likely to end not only in confusion and in a subsequent ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... overlooked, store my surplus clothes with the postmaster at the general store, and repack my kit for pony travel. Then, after watching Big Pete skilfully throw the diamond hitch, we were off for the hills and our first camp. I hoped that I was on my way to find my real father and unravel the mystery that surrounded my strange babyhood. But I little guessed what adventures I was to have or the strange things I was to see ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... every step, and retreats before the unexpected and the irreconcilable. Would you have before you the nobly humiliating spectacle of human genius battling with infinite power, you have but to follow Darwin's endeavours to unravel the strange, incoherent, inconceivably mysterious laws of the sterility and fecundity of hybrids, or of the variations of specific and generic characters. Scarcely has he formulated a principle when numberless exceptions assail him; and this very principle, soon completely overwhelmed, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the magnificent diction and poetic imagination of the one, and the homely picturesque genius of the other, the grand themes treated of are degraded if not vulgarized, without our being in any way helped to unravel their essential mysteries. In point of individual personal interest, "The Holy War" contrasts badly with "The Pilgrim's Progress." The narrative moves in a more shadowy region. We may admire the workmanship; but the same undefined sense of unreality pursues us through Milton's noble ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... word passed her lips. She began again to try and unravel the meaning of his letter. Why had he gone in search of them to the ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... told me he never travelled without them, and we caught a lot of fish with them up in the mountains just after we started before. I don't know about line, but one might unravel one of the ropes." ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... Santa Fe, with the firm determination to revisit Pecos at a future day, and then do what I was compelled reluctantly to leave undone this time. Should, in the mean time, some archaeologist explore the same locality, correct my errors, and unravel the mysteries hovering about the place, I heartily wish him as much pleasure and quiet enjoyment as I have had during my ten days' work, in which the dream of a life has at last begun its realization. Before, however, turning to the close of my report, which will embody scraps of history ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... curious and fantastic for belief he loved to trace to their hidden sources. To unravel a tangle in the very soul of things—and to release a suffering human soul in the process—was with him a veritable passion. And the knots he untied ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the sixteenth of a hint to rush armed with full fervour into the mysteries of his system. Mrs. Gunilla took up a packet of old gold thread, which she set herself to unravel, whilst the Candidate coughed ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... is removed, but as far as she is concerned, the truth must still be concealed for Clemency's sake. It must not be known that that dead man was her father, and the very instant we let go one thread of the mystery the whole fabric will unravel. Poor Clara can never be acknowledged openly as my wife, the best and most patient wife a man ever had, and under a heavier sentence of death this moment than the utmost ingenuity of man could contrive." Gordon groaned, and let his head ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... not know what it meant. She could not keep it nor use it. She could not unravel its message nor rest upon its strength. It was gone almost while it came, but it did something for the lady of the feathers. It gave to her the little seed of expectation that, quite alone in a weary desert, yet makes ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... from this list how difficult it is to unravel the tale of the false Bellinis. The master's own works speak for themselves with no uncertain voice, but away from these it is very difficult to pronounce as to whether he had given a design, or a few touches, or advice, and still more difficult ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... to astonish Nicol Hendry, but he was considerably astonished now. Yet it was impossible to have the remotest doubt of Franklin Marmion's absolute earnestness. But why should he of all men on earth want to unravel the Zastrow mystery? What interest save the merest curiosity could he have in the matter? And yet he was by no means the sort of man to be merely curious. The very strangeness of his proposition half-convinced him that there ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... to consider a duty. Worse, you would destroy a man's happiness for a morbid phantasm. What can you do towards avenging Leslie's death? You hold no clue. What the police have failed to fathom, how can you hope to unravel? If I were a man, do you know what I'd do to you? I'd take you by the shoulders and shake you until that foolish head of yours threatened to part company with your equally foolish body. You should have thought of these things before, and not now, when you realize how fond you ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... mean to preach upon every page. I have begun by trying to tell you how a great influencing thought was given into Leslie Goldthwaite's life, and began to unravel for her perplexing questions that had troubled her,—questions that come, I think, to many a young girl just entering upon the world, as they came to her; how, in the simple history of her summer among the mountains, a great deal ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... impression upon his mind than they ought, considering the circumstances; and the small victory which his reason had thence gained over this weak imposture, remarkably increased his reliance upon his own powers. The facility with which he had been able to unravel this deception appeared to have surprised him. Truth and error were not yet so accurately distinguished from each other in his mind but that he often mistook the arguments which were in favor of the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... vision of the working of God in the world, the most buoyant faith in the divine origin and destiny of man. Half his poetry is an effort to express, in endless variety of iteration, the nearness of God, to unravel the tangled circumstance of human life, and disclose everywhere infinity enmeshed amid the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... final leave of this subject of Ireland. The only difficulty in discussing it is a want of resistance—a want of something difficult to unravel and something dark to illumine. To agitate such a question is to beat the air with a club, and cut down gnats with a scimitar: it is a prostitution of industry, and a waste of strength. If a man says, 'I have ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... other discoveries in dynamics may seem very obvious now; but it is often the most every-day matters which have been found to elude the inquiries of ordinary minds, and it required a high order of intellect to unravel the truth and discard the stupid maxims scattered through the works of Aristotle and accepted on his authority. A blind worship of scientific authorities has often delayed the progress of human knowledge, just as too much "instruction" of a youth often ruins his "education." Grant, ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... it up in the middle, and folded it in two, and laid it down gently at the bottom of the boat. Harris had lifted it up scientifically, and had put it into George's hand. George had taken it firmly, and held it away from him, and had begun to unravel it as if he were taking the swaddling clothes off a new-born infant; and, before he had unwound a dozen yards, the thing was more like a badly-made ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... note once more. "If I were a storybook hero, I'd stick this thing in my pocket and set out by myself to unravel the mystery behind it. But I've chucked the hero job for good and all. I'm going to hand this over to Dangloss. It's the sensible thing to do, even if it isn't what a would-be hero in search of a princess aught to do. What's more, I'll hunt the Baron up this very hour. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Divisions that languished at Suvla and Helles. What chance had the Haughty Islanders now of escaping? The wintry storms were already cutting their frail line of communications by sea, and smashing up their miserable jetties on the beaches. The plot should unravel simply. The German-Turk combine would attack in force, and the British, unable to escape, would either surrender or, in good ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... belittling the study of the cut of a coat, or the tie of a cravat, or the wrinkle in a shoe, or the color of a ribbon! How they are worried if something gets untied, or hangs awry, or is not nicely adjusted! With a mind capable of measuring the height and depth of great subjects; able to unravel mysteries; to walk through the universe; to soar up into the infinity of God's attributes,—hovering perpetually over a new style of mantilla! I have known men, reckless as to their character, and regardless of interests momentous and eternal, exasperated by the shape ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... it's not as simple an affair to unravel as that; for I can tell you one of the things, at least, which was apparently occupying her thoughts at the time, yet I can't quite see why or how it could have much to do with you. You remember, perhaps, that you came while ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... geologist pretends that it stands on the same level with any authentic history, much less with the Bible record; inasmuch as the discovery of a single new fact may overturn the whole theory. "It furnishes us with no clew by which to unravel the unapproachable mysteries of creation. These mysteries belong to the wondrous Creator, and to him only. We attempt to theorize upon them, and to reduce them to law, and all nature rises up against us in our presumptuous rebellion. A stray splinter of cone bearing wood—a fish's ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... not incur the confusion of Babel; this should men study to be perfect in, and becoming again as little children condescend to take the alphabet of it into their hands, and spare no pains to search and unravel the interpretation thereof, but pursue it strenuously and persevere even unto death."—Preface to Historia Naturalis: translated, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... influence of the body on the soul and of the soul on the body. It came upon me with a shock of surprise that while these things are the most serious realities in the world, and undoubtedly more important than any other thing, little attempt is made by humanity to unravel or classify them. I cannot here enter into the details of these instructions, which indeed would be unintelligible, but they showed me at first what I had not at all apprehended, namely the proportionate importance and unimportance of all ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... transposition required by the law. At this stage, however, Mr. Orr, who entered the council some time after the rupture, produced his appointment, which, unlike certain others, was expressed in the legal form. Thus again all the previous proceedings were quashed; and the governor, unable to unravel the difficulty, dismissed the council, to await instructions from Downing-street, or a warrant for the nominees under the sign-manual of the Queen (July, 1847). Thus during 1847 there was no legislature sitting, but at length the Gazette announced ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... an interesting fact about Diana's Grove—there is, I have long understood, some strange mystery about that house. It may be of some interest, or it may be trivial, in such a tangled skein as we are trying to unravel." ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... anxious hope that the present volumes may be thought worthy of attention. They are the result at least of severe and conscientious labour at the original sources of history, but the subject is so complicated and difficult that it may well be feared that the ability to depict and unravel is unequal to the earnestness with which the attempt ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... find the ideal modern life, even when one is anxious to conform to it, began tugging at all the strands of difficulty at once, not seeing them very clearly, but still with no notion but that if he set his strength to it, he could unravel them all in the half-hour's walk that lay between him ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... to fail, in the case of the King of Bohemia and the Irene Adler photograph, but when I looked back to the weird business of the "Sign of the Four," and the extraordinary circumstances connected with the "Study in Scarlet," I felt that it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... comprehended the cause of the Prince's fury as all the rest they had seen, were at a loss to unravel this new circumstance. The young peasant himself was still more astonished, not conceiving how he had offended the Prince. Yet recollecting himself, with a mixture of grace and humility, he disengaged himself from Manfred's grip, and then with an obeisance, which discovered ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... Who shall unravel the mystery of a woman's weeping? Who shall declare whether it is a pain or a relief to the overcharged heart? The dignity of a crowned queen is capable of utterly dissolving and disappearing in a shower of tears, when Love's burning finger touches the pulse and ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... eyes glittering with excitement. "That is an inspiration. I imagine that if anyone can unravel the mystery, ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... knife, Tom," cried Uncle Richard; "cut a piece three feet long off one of those ropes, and unravel it ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... Friendship to him, advised him from her Company; and spoke several Things to him, that might (if Love had not made him blind) have reclaimed him from the Pursuit of his Ruin. But whatever they trusted him with, she had the Art to wind herself about his Heart, and make him unravel all his Secrets; and then knew as well, by feign'd Sighs and Tears, to make him disbelieve all; so that he had no Faith but for her; and was wholly inchanted and bewitch'd by her. At last, in spite of all that would have opposed it, he marry'd this famous Woman, possess'd by so many great ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... your first line to lower down to me, unravel your hose or under-jerkin, or any garment you can spare without it being noticed. This will give you a long, thin line, to the end of which you must secure a light weight to prevent it from blowing about. Now, until to-night, farewell! I shall be there at midnight exactly, and ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... little time, however, she hoped would unravel this mystery; in two days, the entertainment which Mr Harrel had planned, to deceive the world by an appearance of affluence to which he had lost all title, was to take place; young Delvile, in common with every other person who had ever been seen ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... developed. In particular, that potent instrument called the infinitesimal calculus, which Newton had invented for the investigation of nature, had become so far perfected that Laplace, when he attempted to unravel the movements of the heavenly bodies, found himself provided with a calculus far more efficient than that which had been available to Newton. The purely geometrical methods which Newton employed, though they are admirably adapted for demonstrating in a general way the tendencies of forces ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... as the same or different, the best test to take is the plot. Identity exists where the Complication and Unravelling are the same. Many poets tie the knot well, but unravel it ill. Both arts, however, should ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... from a professional fisherman who fishes for fish—and you get into a rowboat that you undertake to pull yourself and that starts out by weighing half a ton and gets half a ton heavier at each stroke. You pull and pull until your spine begins to unravel at both ends, and your palms get so full of water blisters you feel as though you were carrying a bunch of hothouse grapes in each hand. And after going about nine miles you unwittingly anchor off the mouth of a popular garbage dump and everything you catch is second-hand. The sun beats down ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... they are all on top of him before one can say 'Knife!' Then one has to rush in with the whip—and every one of the team of eleven jumps over the harness of the dog next to him and the harnesses become a muddle that takes much patience to unravel, not to mention care lest the whole team should get away with the sledge and its load and leave one behind to follow on foot at leisure. I never did get left the whole of this depot journey, but I was often very near it and several times had only time to seize ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... book among books. It is a phenomenon among phenomena. Its origin and growth in this world can be studied as those of any other natural object can be studied. The old apple-tree growing in my garden is the witness to me of some transcendent truths, the shrine of mysteries that I cannot unravel. What the life is that was hidden in the seed from which it sprang, and that has shaped all its growth, coordinating the forces of nature, and producing this individual form and this particular variety of fruit,— this I do not know. There are questions here that ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... in their own places. Would Noah, who was so much disgusted at his son Ham as to curse him, permit the children of his other sons, whom he blessed, to have any communication with his children? Bishop Cumberland, in the last century, took some pains to unravel this, and concluded that the marginal translation in our bibles is the right one—that in the text being, "Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh", &c.; that in the margin, "And he [Nimrod] went out of that land into Assyria"—for Asshur generally in scripture signifies the ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... since his return, it has not so much as appeared that he remembers anything of what he has done; and I acknowledge I have a curiosity to know what it is has changed him so: it would not be very difficult for me to unravel this affair," added she; "the Viscount de Chartres, his intimate friend, is in love with a lady with whom I have some power, and I'll know by that means the occasion of this alteration." The Queen-Dauphin spoke with an air of sincerity which convinced ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... let him make confession and restitution before he left to-day, and although he could not be suffered to return to the school, he might at least be spared the shame of confronting his schoolmates after discovery. For he would leave no stone unturned, he said, emphatically, to unravel the mystery; and if nothing came to light before to-night, he should at once place the matter in competent hands for ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... attacks. It had not been in his power to look upon the young lady without being dazzled; and the uneasiness he felt at following the muleteer at a distance, and the fear lest any accident might happen by the way that should deprive him of his conquest, taught him to unravel his thoughts. He was more than usually delighted, when, being arrived safe at home, he saw the chest unloaded. He dismissed the muleteer, and having caused a slave to shut the door of his house, opened the chest, helped the lady out, gave her his hand, and conducted her to his apartment, lamenting ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... an air of cheerfulness which was not entirely assumed, "I hope we're nearing the end of our trouble at last. This is Mr. Patten—Terry Patten of New York, who has come to help me unravel the mystery." ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... paths the tangled clue He taught the nations to unravel; And mapped the track where safely through The ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... mankind in bloody battle-fields; dark of counsel, and terrible of execution; him to whom in after years the Empress Sophia sent word that he was more fit to spin among maids than to command armies, and he answered, that he would spin her such a thread as she could not unravel; and kept his word (as legends say) by inviting the Lombards ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... my heart up with a bound. "On board the 'Queen.'" I had crossed the Channel in the "Queen," and this beginning alone was enough to make me hope that the bit of paper might do more than any detective to unravel the mystery. ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate, And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; But not ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... south-west to the plains of India. Between the summit and the plains, a distance of 60 to 70 miles, there are higher, middle, and lower ranges, so cut up by deep and winding valleys and river-courses, that no labyrinth could be found more confusing or difficult to unravel. There is nowhere any tableland, as at the Cape or in Colorado, with horizontal strata of rock cut down by water into valleys or canyons. The strata seem, on the contrary, to have been shoved up and crumpled ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... should resort to dream analysis instead of taking the history of the case in the usual way. In all cases the patient should be permitted to tell her story in her own way. This method of procedure, with cross questioning, may and should indeed be sufficient to unravel the case for us in most cases. But if we find that we have not gained the confidence of the patient and have not that condition of being en rapport with the patient which is essential for progress and success in ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... out to reap but stayed to unravel the corn-stalks. Ha! Ha! Ha! Is there any sense in ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... silent for awhile; then he said, "Look here, Peter. Let us cut a piece off the sail about five feet long, and say three feet wide, double it longways, and sew up the ends so as to make a bag; we can unravel some string, and make holes with our knives. Then we can sink it down two or three feet, and watch it; and when we see that some little fish have got in it, we can draw it up very gently, and, by raising it gradually from ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... of this story lay in a tangle—in Paris, in Boulogne, and in Kent! I never laboured hard to unravel them; but time took up the work, and I was patient. Also, I was far away from its scenes, and only passed through them at intervals—generally at express speed. It so happened, however, that I was at hand when the crisis and the ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... you. We must put our heads together, and unravel the mysteries of this plot. The matter is serious; all my enemies seem to be in league. Come now, do you fancy ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... head or tail of them," I said when I had looked carefully at each, and endeavoured to unravel its secret, for obviously it must possess some secret meaning. "What do ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... that followed the death of the Taiko are extremely difficult to unravel, and the result is not commensurate with the trouble. Several annalists have sought to prove that Ieyasu strenuously endeavoured to observe faithfully the oath of loyalty made by him to Hideyoshi on the latter's death-bed. They claim for him ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... to convulse the heavens and to subvert the earth. But at an unforeseen moment resounded in the air the gentle rapping of a 'wooden fish' bell. A voice recited the sentence: "Ave! Buddha able to unravel retribution and dispel grievances! Should any human being lie in sickness, and his family be solicitous on his account; or should any one have met with evil spirits and come across any baleful evils, we have the means ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... himself body and mind to unravel the remainder of the mystery. The story repeated to him was always the same: 'She ran away with the curate.' A strangely circumstantial piece of intelligence was added to this when he had pushed his inquiries ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... simultaneously upon the brain of man, which modify him so diversely in the different periods of his existence, are the true causes of that obscurity in morals, of that difficulty which is found, when it is desired to unravel the concealed springs of his enigmatical conduct. The heart of man is a labyrinth, only because it very rarely happens that we possess the necessary gift of judging it; from whence it will appear, that his circumstances, his indecision, his conduct, whether ridiculous, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... way as that which I have detailed to you. A person observing the occurrence of certain facts and phenomena asks, naturally enough, what process, what kind of operation known to occur in nature applied to the particular case, will unravel and explain the mystery? Hence you have the scientific hypothesis; and its value will be proportionate to the care and completeness with which its basis had been tested and verified. It is in these matters as in the commonest affairs ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... reward. You live happy in the esteem and love of all who know you, and I drag on the life of a miserable impostor, indebted for the marks of regard I receive to a tissue of deceit and lies, which the slightest accident may unravel. He has produced me to his friends, since the estate opened to him, as a daughter of a Scotchman of rank, banished on account of the Viscount of Dundee's wars—that is, our Fr's old friend Clavers, you know—and he says I was educated in a Scotch ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... each side, when he came to charge the jury, did it in the words following: "Gentlemen of the jury, you must get along with this cause as well as you can; for my part, I am swamp'd." Now Reubon is exactly in the case of this judge, and I am at a loss what to advise him. You could unravel this thing in five minutes. Would to God you were here; but to ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... yet to lie undiscovered; but behold, the voice cries out, ADAM! and now he begins to tremble. 'Adam, where art thou?' says God; and now Adam is made to answer (Gen 3:7-11). But the voice of the Lord God doth not leave him here: no, it now begins to search, and to inquire after his doings, and to unravel what he had wrapt together and covered, until it made him bare and naked in his own sight before the face of God. Thus, therefore, doth the Word, when managed by the arm of God. It findeth out, it singleth out the sinner; the sinner finds it so; it finds out ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that the Nemesis which had dogged his footsteps all his life was again close behind him. In the Japanese attack on Kiaochow he foresaw a web of complications which even his unrivalled diplomacy might be unable to unravel; for he knew well from bitter experience that wherever the Japanese sets his foot there he remains. It is consequently round this single factor of Japan that the history of the two succeeding years revolves. From being indisputably the central figure on the Chinese canvas, Yuan Shih-kai suddenly ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... rolled it from skeins to balls. They rolled it from shuck broches to the balls. Put shucks around the spindle to slip it off easy. I have seen big balls this big (2 ft. in diameter) down on the floor and mama, knitting off of it right on. When the feet wore out on socks and stockings, they would unravel them, save the good thread, and reknit the foot or ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... be studied apart: that (to resume our former metaphor) the regularity which exists in nature is a web composed of distinct threads, and only to be understood by tracing each of the threads separately; for which purpose it is often necessary to unravel some portion of the web, and exhibit the fibres apart. The rules of experimental inquiry are the contrivances for unraveling ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... might be no divided counsels. Dowdeswill said: "On the repeal of the Stamp Act, all America was quiet; but in the following year you would go in pursuit of your peppercorn—you would collect from peppercorn to peppercorn—you would establish taxes as tests of obedience. Unravel the whole conduct of America; you will find out the fault is at home." Pownall, former Governor of Massachusetts and earnest advocate of American rights, said: "The dependence of the colonies is a part of the British Constitution. I hope, for the sake of this ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... to unravel the possible motives for her confidence. They were so many and so mixed. It was possible that she honestly suspected him of a dawning passion for Frida and that she meant to warn him of the hopelessness of such an attachment; apparently she understood her friend. Or the conversation may have ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... somewhere between these two extremes; the fact being that the personal and social causes of poverty act and react upon each other, changing places as cause and as effect, until they form a tangle that no hasty, impatient jerking can unravel. The charity worker and the settlement worker have need of each other: neither one can afford to ignore the experience of the other. Friendly visitors and all who are trying to improve conditions in poor homes should welcome the experience of those who are studying trade conditions and other ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... was only at the beginning of his work. The father and grandfather and uncle and great-uncles, the great-grandfather and great-great-uncles, with all their progenies, lay before him in a maze of entanglement which it would be his business to unravel. And as he was obliged to keep his limited legal connection together while he devoted himself to this task, the work promised to extend over months, or indeed years; and in the meanwhile there was always the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... life), "curiously attentive, gracefully subdued." With the second sight of genius, which pierces through the mask, she saw the sweetness, the passion, the delicate emotional sensibility of Chopin; and her insatiate nature must unravel and assimilate this new study in human enjoyment and suffering. She had then just finished "Lelia," that strange and powerful creation, in which she embodied all her hatred of the forms and tyrannies of society, her craving for an impossible social ideal, her tempestuous hopes and ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... had she gone in the story of the world's first civilization; but she had gone further in her friendship with Michael Amory and in her knowledge of things Mohammedan. He had helped her to unravel the skein of difficulties which Egypt's three distinct and widely-different civilizations had presented to her—the period of ancient Egypt, the period which we now call Coptic or Early Christian and the period of the Arab invasion, with its importation of a Mohammedan civilization. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... unendurable with its fondest ties broken, its closest links dissevered? There is a double influence often felt by gifted temperaments when upon the eve of some event which is to decide their fate. The eager heart, urged on by a desire to unravel the mystic secrets of the unknown Future, contradicts the colder, the more timid intellect, which fears to plunge into the uncertain abyss of the coming fate! This want of harmony between the simultaneous previsions of the mind and heart, often ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... that when thou didst go by chance to her, she was ready for thee. But if this is all she knows, it goes not far. Still it may help—it may help. In a tangled web, no one may say which will be the thread which patiently followed may unravel the skein." ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... this arduous undertaking has been to unfold all the abstruse and sublime dogmas of Plato, as they are found dispersed in his works. Minutely to unravel the art which he employs in the composition of all his dialogues, and to do full justice to his meaning in every particular, must be the task of some one who has more leisure, and who is able to give the works of Plato to the public on a more extensive plan. In accomplishing ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... recalled that Jane Strong over the dictograph had heard old Hoff speak of something that he called the "wonder-worker." As soon as Carter returned with the other advertisements that had been appearing he felt positive that he would be able to unravel the cipher. Two words he was sure of—"passports" and "wonder-working." One footprint does not lead anywhere, but two do, and given three footprints, a pathway ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston |
