"Enigmatical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where did they get it from? Private supplies of cakes and sweets were utterly forbidden at The Woodlands. Their prohibition was one of the strictest rules of the school, to break which would be to incur a very severe penalty from Miss Teddington. Was this the explanation of Tootie's rather enigmatical remarks down by ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... Central Chile, a later origin than the western chain (the nearest the Pacific), but that the circumstance of the rivers of a lower mountain chain having forced their way through a higher chain seems, without this supposition, to be enigmatical. Mr. Darwin is of opinion that the phenomenon is assignable to a periodical and gradual elevation of the second mountain line (the Andes); for a chain of islets would at first appear, and as these were lifted up, the tides would be always wearing ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... But this passage is enigmatical, as the original type seems to be involved in dense obscurity. Buffon considered the shepherd dog to be the least modified by domestication—very erroneously, according to Dr Prichard; it is still a vexata questio, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... any one have the goodness to furnish us with a literal yet lucid interpretation of this enigmatical form of speech so incessantly employed in the Parisian beau monde? Among the translatable words of the French language,—among the expressive terms which cannot be rendered by equally significant expressions in our own more copious tongue,—among the phraseology invented ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... enigmatical spectacle the artist descends within himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be deserving and fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which, because of the warlike conditions of ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... German family, the continental acquaintances of the wife of one of Fyne's colleagues in the Home Office. Flora of the enigmatical glances was dispatched to them without much reflection. As it was not considered absolutely necessary to take them into full confidence, they neither expected the girl to be specially cheerful nor were they discomposed unduly by the indescribable quality of her glances. The ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... (and yet she could dress herself admirably and wore her dresses triumphantly), had divested herself of her riding habit and sat cross-legged enfolded in that ample blue robe like a young savage chieftain in a blanket. It covered her very feet. And before the normal fixity of her enigmatical eyes the smoke of the cigarette ascended ceremonially, straight up, in ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... inadequately it explains my meaning. But perhaps it will become more intelligible in the course of my story. But, indeed, in the expression of her golden eyes, that seemed at times to throw out sparks of light, in the curve of her enigmatical mouth, in the substance of her skin, at once brown and yet luminous, in the play of the angular and yet harmonious lines of her body, in the ethereal lightness of her footsteps, even in her bare arms, ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... Irene's memory. She drew from it formerly, extensive conclusions, then she ceased altogether to recall it; now she thought again of it, forgetting her painted chrysanthemums, which, on the blue satin, seemed to gaze at her, having as subtle and enigmatical a look as ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... somewhat enigmatical terms, was dated from Baltimore, and was explicit upon one point only—that it was the manifest will of Providence that Ida should marry him—S. M. Hudson. We read the letter together, laughed a little over it, and threw it into the waste basket. ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... knew nothing of Colonel Henry; she understood very little about the Dreyfus case; and all she had to go upon was the enigmatical telegram and M. Zola's talk during the evening, when he was expressing his thoughts aloud. But at that moment he had foreseen no death, murder, or suicide, and if the possibility of any arrest had occurred to ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Alencon had by no means decided to descend into the plain. In presence of the Constable, my Lord the Bastard and the captains, he consulted the holy Maid, who gave him an enigmatical answer: "See to it that ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... enigmatical, and I do not know whether I understood it exactly. I suppose you told me what you did for good reasons of your own, and I did not think much about it. I believe the question of taste did not come ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of his attendants, and was only roused from his own dark reflections by the notice he paid to the falcon, to which, however, the lady seemed to attend, as if studying to find either an opportunity of speaking to the Baron, or of finding something enigmatical in the expressions which he used to the bird. All this the strangers had time enough to remark; for no sooner had they entered the apartment than their usher, Christie of the Clinthill, after exchanging a significant glance with the menials or troopers at the lower end of the apartment, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... globe. With my binocular I could trace those long white streaks which radiate from the crater ring, called 'Tycho,' and run hundreds of miles in all directions over the moon. As I gazed at these singular objects I recalled the various theories which astronomers, puzzled by their enigmatical aspect, have offered to a more or ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... enigmatical, that I am forced to conclude you resort to this method of defence. The exigencies of professional duty compel me to assume toward you an attitude, as painfully embarrassing to me as it is threatening ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... that he was glad to hear it, and, finding the silence becoming oppressive, inquired affectionately concerning the health of Mrs. Willett, and learned to his discomfort that she was in the same enigmatical condition as her daughter. ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... the Times newspaper, which a gentleman had just laid down. It was only the advertisement sheet, for some one else had immediately snapped up the rest, and she glanced vaguely down the first columns, puzzling over such enigmatical insertions as "Our tree, our bridge, our walk," "What shall we do with the Tusk?" and that "John is entreated to write and send remittances to his afflicted Teapot,"—when her eye lit upon the following name among ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... him now. Briefly he told Francis of his absence from the Mill House in response to the summons from Nur-el-Din, of his interview with the dancer and her story of the Star of Poland, of his hurried return just in time to meet Mortimer, and of Mortimer's enigmatical reference to the dancer ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... untroubled as to the origin of dreams, the popular view holds firmly to the belief that dreams really have got a meaning, in some way they do foretell the future, whilst the meaning can be unravelled in some way or other from its oft bizarre and enigmatical content. The reading of dreams consists in replacing the events of the dream, so far as remembered, by other events. This is done either scene by scene, according to some rigid key, or the dream as a whole is replaced by something else of which it was a symbol. Serious-minded persons laugh ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... whose position remains to some extent enigmatical, appeared about this time and unquestionably had some intercourse with Jesus. About the year 28 of our era there spread through the whole of Palestine the reputation of a certain John, a young ascetic, full of fervour and passion. The fundamental ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... less was to be expected than that the story of the Baron's marvellously lucky play should pass from mouth to mouth, and also that all sorts of enigmatical mysterious circumstances should be invented and added on to it, representing the Chevalier as a man in league with supernatural powers. But the fact that the Chevalier in spite of his good-luck did not touch another ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... out a respectable edition of Polyaenus—contained among other things the notes which the old Vicar had made upon the occasion of Sir Matthew Fell's death. And for the first time Sir Richard was confronted with the enigmatical Sortes Biblicae which you have heard. They ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... the later years of the Roman occupation. The second class, of greater antiquity than the first, at least on the ground of subject, is also distinguished by a much more mythological character, a bolder use of the miraculous, an enigmatical form, a style full of alliteration and plays upon words. Of this number are the tales of Pwyll, of Bramwen, of Manawyddan, of Math the son of Mathonwy, the Dream of the Emperor Maximus, the story of Llud and Llewelys, and ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... attaining to perfection," and absorbed in a higher association of ideas. Sexual love has undergone a change, it is no longer love in the true sense, but the unconditional love of the mystic. The enigmatical figure of Kundry is not the impersonation of one woman, she is woman herself. The incarnation of everything female, she embodies the sensuous, seductive and destructive element together with the contempt ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... An enigmatical creature, and yet not wholly unlovable; he may be unsound or even unprincipled, he may be deficient in qualities that go to make men respected and satisfied with the world in general, but he possesses, I think, certain citizen-virtues unintelligible to the self-centred, rustic type ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... find him here," was the enigmatical reply, "but I am almost certain that he is here. I might have expected it, and I blame myself ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... tasted like they could never decide. It reminded them of many things and of nothing. It was sweet yet bitter; it repelled but at the same time pleased them; it was as perplexing as the voice—as enigmatical. When they had eaten it they resumed their former positions on the ground, and the voice ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Jewish prophets was destined for the Jews, and that he ought to have been their liberator, instead of destroying their worship and their religion. If it be possible to unravel any thing in these obscure, enigmatical, and symbolical oracles of the prophets of Judea, as we find them in the Bible,—if there be any means of guessing the meaning of the obscure riddles, which have been decorated with the pompous name of prophecies, we shall perceive that the inspired writers, when they are in ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... to himself; and went away with a lighter heart. The trick of reading truly the enigmatical forces at work in women at given times, which with some men is an unerring instinct, is peculiar to minds less direct and honest ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Mr. Egremont's disappointment and anger were great, and he could not be persuaded that all was not the fault of Mr. Dutton's suspicion and precaution in holding back the money, nor could any one persuade him that it was mere imposture. When another ill-written enigmatical letter arrived, he insisted that it was from the same quarter, and made Broadbent conduct the negotiations, with the result that after considerable sums had been paid in circuitous fashions, the butler was directed to a railway arch where ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and looking up, caught Mrs. Larkins' eye and flushed guiltily. But Mrs. Larkins, with unusual restraint, said nothing. She merely made a grimace, enigmatical, but in its ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... This enigmatical utterance produced a startling effect. Mr. Perkins turned a pale green and hastily excused himself, his breakfast wholly untouched. Mrs. Holmes dropped her fork and recovered it in evident confusion. Mrs. Dodd's face was a bright scarlet and appeared ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... monster which the world ne'er saw," but inscrutable as the Sphinx, whom it were vain, or worse, to question of the whence and whither. Under the other, the perfection of Nature, if relative, is multifarious and ever renewed; and much that is enigmatical now may find explanation in some record of ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... he ever so Frenchified and denationalized. The word "Virgin Soil" was a favorite phrase with Tourgueneff when speaking of his country, and he used it as the title of his last novel. It seemed to him to explain everything in Russian conditions that to the rest of the world appeared enigmatical. The whole of Dr. Brandes's book is interpenetrated with this consciousness of the vast possibilities hidden in the virgin bosom of the new earth, even though they may be too deeply hidden to sprout up into the daylight for centuries to come. The ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... relieved of a burden; and only a week later the porter told me in confidence that Baxter had paid for an expensive operation, undertaken in the hope of prolonging the child's life. I therefore drew no conclusions from Baxter's somewhat enigmatical smile. He left the room at this point in the ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... still in Limerick, Strongbow died in Dublin. As it was of the highest political importance that his death should be concealed until some one was present to hold the reigns of government, his sister, Basilia, sent an enigmatical letter[301] to her husband, which certainly does no small credit to her diplomatic skill. The messengers were not acquainted with the Earl's death; and such of the Anglo-Normans in Dublin as were aware of it, had too much prudence to betray the ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... came out in broken snatches, to the last particle. For once in her life Evelyn Desmond spoke the unvarnished truth, adorning nothing, extenuating nothing; and Honour listened in an enigmatical silence—a silence which held even after the last word had been spoken. Evelyn looked up ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... the course of this conversation, which had sufficiently explained to her whatever was enigmatical in the first appearance of the bailiffs. The painful and incredible reality that was thus presented effectually dissipated the illusions of frenzy to which she had just been a prey. "My dear Madam," ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... to this letter, in the two drafts which were finally rejected, the following enigmatical sentence is added:—"It would be permissible to give the name of the things a man presents, to him who receives them; but proper sense of what is fitting prevents it being ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... professionally, socially or racially. They seemed created for the Italian restaurant, unless the Italian restaurant had been perchance created for them. But that last hypothesis was unthinkable, since one could not place them anywhere outside those special establishments. One never met these enigmatical persons elsewhere. It was impossible to form a precise idea what occupations they followed by day and where they went to bed at night. And he himself had become unplaced. It would have been impossible for anybody to guess ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... The enigmatical conduct of Sir Barnard was no less perplexing. His sudden desertion of Hector, and of the cause which he had so loudly defended, were alarming. For what other interpretation could be put upon the voters in the Baronet's interest, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... of the discovery of the philosopher's stone, I now inquired about the sublime alkahest or universal solvent, and whether he had succeeded in deciphering the enigmatical descriptions of the ancient writers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various
... of Josie, however, was enigmatical. Cornish's attentions to her redoubled, while Jim seemed dropped out of the race—and therefore my wife's relations with Miss Trescott were subjected to a severe strain. Naturally, being a matron, and of the ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... herself after her desperate deed? His heart ached and yearned toward her while his senses revolted in horror of the crime. His world was torn asunder. The awful discovery he had made had once and for all precluded a change of plans. Sudden resistance on his part would have been enigmatical to Denning—or he must confess the state of affairs in the silent house he had just left. At least by his ruse he had gained time for her, ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... be unintelligible in Pittsburg. A colloquial ephemeralism in a city may be undecipherable in the country districts twenty-five miles away. A large percentage of the athletic jargon of the sporting club and field is enigmatical to the uninitiated. And since a newspaper man writes for the world at large rather than for any specific class or group, he cannot afford to take chances on muddying his sentences by the use of slang. The best test of a good journalist is the instinct for writing for heterogeneous masses of ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... Sybil had often described to her little son the concealed valuables, which, if the exiled Royalists were ever able to re-visit England, she hoped to recover for herself and for him; and, in later years, Sir Ralph could still recall the enigmatical words in which his mother had (possibly with the idea that the rhyme might, as it did, cling to his childish memory) spoken to ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... When he ascended the platform he seemed to be wrapped in thought, but only because he had the habit of making riddles of every question that occurred to him. At this moment he was occupied with the following enigmatical proposition: ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... particular harm. If you wish to find me, there is only one way to seek me; should I tell you what it is, I should run the risk of losing you,—that is, I should preclude the manifestation of a certain quality which I hope to find in the man who may—or, rather, must—be my friend. This sounds enigmatical, yet you have read enough of my nature, as written in these random notes in my sketch-book, to guess, at least, how much I require. Only this let me add: ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... across, coldly and steadily, at the woman. Her expression struck him as oddly enigmatical; meeting his glance, Plimmer reddened, her eyes dropped. "I expect any simple key would open ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Pantheism with its one Spirits plastic stress; and Science with its one Energy. He is hard upon Christianity and its trinal God: I have not softened his expression ({Arabic} a riddle), although it may offend readers. There is nothing more enigmatical to the Moslem mind than Christian Trinitarianism: all other objections they can get over, not this. Nor is he any lover of Islamism, which, like Christianity, has its ascetic Hebraism and its Hellenic hedonism; with the world of thought moving between these two ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... been amicable, for Fergus was crazy to go in and see Clement's little pump, which he declared 'would do it'- —an enigmatical phrase supposed to refer to the great peg-top- perpetual-motion invention. He was dragged away with difficulty on the plea of its being too late by Aunt Jane, who could not quite turn two unexpected children in on Mrs. Varley, and had ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sure of that," replied Mustapha, with a stern look, in hopes of frightening the man into a compliance with his wishes—"there was something very enigmatical in those words. Your 'hard crust' may mean his sublime highness the pacha; 'wearing away your teeth' may imply exactions from the government and as you affirmed that he was happy who could command the hard crust—why it is as much as to say that you would be very glad ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... if I ask an explanation of your enigmatical language; there is some hidden meaning, I ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... of dangers in the enigmatical smile of the lank high-priest. The image of my father, as I had seen him, it might be, confessing to this man in black, who was I knew not what, haunted me with the disagreeable uncertainties of a mind very uninstructed as to the ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... croppers—Luke, who had steadily refused to have anything to say to General Lud and his schemes against the masters. Mary's last words gave him a clue to the mystery—"Your dear feyther gave his life for little Jenny." He coupled it with Luke's enigmatical words, "A loife ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... speaker a rather disconcerting stare, hardly explained, he thought, by the enigmatical statement that came after it: "Why, that is how we are living, all ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... times over with those enigmatical proverbs of yours," said the Parson testily, "you would not make it ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... when further conversation showed me that the whole of the "Principles" were included in the "fads"!) Darwin himself possessed a copy of Playfair's "Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory", and occasionally quotes it; but I have met with only one reference to Hutton, and that a somewhat enigmatical one, in all Darwin's writings. In a letter to Lyell in 1841, when his mind was much exercised concerning glacial questions, he says "What a grand new feature all this ice work is in Geology! How old Hutton would have ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... against the Protestants of Saintes, was: "Agimus a gagne Pere Eternel!" As Agimus was the first word of the customary grace said at meals by devout Roman Catholics—"Agimus tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus," etc.—this apparently enigmatical expression was only a profane formula to celebrate the triumph of the Roman over the reformed church. See Bulletin, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... "It was this very place!" Whew! Jonah had tied a bit of his bootlace on the hedge just under the spot, and could find it again within a foot. Then the rencontre with the two boys and the strange, enigmatical talk in the shed, pointing to the plot of a new crime of which he—Trimble—was to be the victim. Ha, ha!—and the business over that tricycle too, in the candle-light. Jonah could see through that. He could put a spoke in a wheel ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... 1,873,676; 1851, about 2,250,000. But this table is subject to the correction above hinted at. Nearly a century ago, Maitland said: 'This ancient city has engulfed one city, one borough, and forty-three villages.' A formidable addition has since been made to this 'engulfed' family. So enigmatical is this metropolis of ours, that it would be equally true to state that 'London is rapidly increasing in population,' and that 'London is slowly decreasing in population.' The metropolis, as a whole, yearly increases its numbers; but the City, the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... The minute apertures between the stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount of light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain, save for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the edge of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... the attorney to retain his enigmatical smiles as he climbed the stairs to the TIMES office. He was angry, but he knew the value of that irritating smile that hinted superiority and a knowledge of hidden details. He needed it in his talk with ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... entire day the girl was enigmatical both to Horace and to Ann. Weary hours, crowding one upon another, offered her no relief. The thought of Lon's letter shattered hope and made her desolate. She did not stop to reason that her relations with Horace ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... the letters and turned, and rested her hands on the counter. She looked at him and again her lips turned at the corners in that faint, enigmatical beginning of a smile. ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... around him, M. le Marquis spoke little, in a very high voice, and as though he were stooping towards those whom he was honouring with his conversation. From time to time he would throw to the Nabob across the table a few words enigmatical for all. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... was about, he could not imagine. He knew nothing, naturally, of the dark intrigues of an enigmatical adventurer far away in the Tuileries, nor how they could affect him. And so he put away as absurd the fancy that she in her turn might interfere with ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... sudden change, and catching, with all the mysterious rapidity of instinct peculiar to the lower animals, at the enigmatical character of the situation, turned his pleading, melancholy eyes from one to another of the motionless three, as if begging that his humble intellect (pardon me, naturalists, for the use of this word "intellect" in the matter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... back upon his prisoner, and these two enigmatical men retraced their steps and soon passed the sentinel, who expressed his general sense of things by a needless and exaggerated salute to ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... silent and enigmatical as ever, had constructed a log shack near a little creek over in the hardwood. There he attended diligently to the business of trapping. Thorpe had brought him a deer knife from Detroit; a beautiful instrument ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... opened, and the guilty creature stood awaiting the verdict of the judges. But they maintained a cautious reserve, whilst an enigmatical smile wreathed their white lips. Then two of them put on their mantillas and gloves, and darted into the street, to return in a short time to the domestic hearth with blazing eyes, agitated faces, and in ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... his wife as he spoke and she nodded her head as if the memory was not pleasant to recall. Her husband smiled an enigmatical smile ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... connection with the works on which their literary fame chiefly depended—that that 'glorious Willy,' who finds these forbidden fields of science all open to his pastime, was secretly claimed by this company—that a style of 'delivery' elaborately enigmatical, borrowed in part from the invention of the ancients, and the more recent use of the middle ages, but largely modified and expressly adapted to this exigency, was employed in the compositions of this school, both in prose ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... declares here, in the second part, the future events before they spring forth, before the facts begin to sprout forth from the soil of the Present, and hence could have been known and predicted by human combination. The words, "before they spring forth," become completely enigmatical, if it be denied that Isaiah [Pg 185] wrote the second part; inasmuch as, in that case, it would have in a great part, to do with things which did not belong to the territory of prophetic foresight, but of ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... memory of my nearest relations, who have been most shamefully libelled by this female 'Tisiphom', a name which your 'Ladyship' will recollect to have belonged to one of the Furies. You need not take the precaution of writing in so enigmatical a style in your next, as, bad as the woman is, she would not dare to open any letter addressed to me from you. Whenever you can find time to write, believe me, your epistles will be productive of the greatest ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... The walls, inner and outer, in disrepair. An inscription on a tablet testified that this was the temple of Spiritual Perception. On the sides of the door was also a pair of old and dilapidated scrolls with the following enigmatical verses. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of that last enigmatical line? Does it mean that the expected bolt from the sky has not fallen, that God approves of the murder? Or does it mean that the man is vaguely disappointed, that he had hoped to hear a voice from Heaven, saying, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... which were worshipped in it stand to each other? That question cannot at the present time be fully answered. Even should it be proved, as it appears likely to be, that Egyptian civilisation was derived originally from Mesopotamia, much will still be dark and enigmatical. The foremost scholars in Egyptology confess that no history of Egyptian religion can as yet be written. Those who have tried to sketch it differ from each other as widely as possible, some alleging monotheism as its starting-point, and some ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... sides in quest of chance prey, and quickened into a whole system of imagination by the electric quiver imparted by a single word, at once the key and symbol of the thinking it had led to. And so he puts down word or phrase, so enigmatical to us who see it by itself, which to him would wake up a whole train of ideas, as he remembered the occasion of it—how at a certain time and place this word set the whole moving, seemed to breathe new life and shed new light, and has remained ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... sides, could not see one another. Each scale was as big as a, shield; and a man might ride in at its mouth. What can this description allude to, this [Greek: drakon peptokos], but the ruins of an antient Ophite temple; which is represented in this enigmatical manner to raise admiration? The plains of Macra were not far from Mount Lebanon and Hermon; where the Hivites resided; and where serpent-worship particularly prevailed. The Indian Dragon above mentioned seems to have been of the same nature. It was probably a temple, and its environs; where ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... "Enigmatical!" said Mr. Carlisle. "The only thing I understand is this—and this—" and he kissed alternately her cheek and lips. "Here is my wife—here is what I wish her to be. It will be all right the twenty-first of next month. What will ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... no page is it transcribed that their heads, or brains, or hearts are the regions wherewith they argue; and, when this honey had been gathered, Hod's rotundity of countenance was not all cheer. This, because man's sense of humor is an enigmatical product, afforded Jess many pleasant chuckles as he trudged, now with a full bucket of the golden prize, back to his horse; and, in order to portray Hod's antics more vividly to the several acquaintances he met on his way to town, he not infrequently dismounted. But, entering the Court ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... hand had a seductive frankness, a sort of exquisite virility. I do not know why she should have felt so friendly to me. It may be that she thought I understood her much better than I was able to do. The most precise of her sayings seemed always to me to have enigmatical prolongations vanishing somewhere beyond my reach. I am reduced to suppose that she appreciated my attention and my silence. The attention she could see was quite sincere, so that the silence could not be suspected of coldness. It seemed to satisfy her. And it is to be noted that if she confided ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... were invariably accompanied or followed by an access of cheerful zeal in the desperate cause—a pleasing phenomenon, though somewhat unintelligible to this honest fellow, who had never microscoped the enigmatical sex. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... earliest problems which the Tuebingen school set itself. An attempt to write the biography of Paul reminds us sharply of our limitations. We know almost nothing of Paul prior to his conversion, or subsequent to the enigmatical breaking off of the account of the beginnings of his work at Rome. Harnack's Mission und Ausbreitung des Christenthums, 1902 (translated, Moffatt, 1908), takes up the work of Paul's successors in that cardinal activity. It offers, strange as it may seem, the first discussion of the dissemination ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... was to announce her engagement to Captain Golightly. Rose seemed very happy, but there was an undertone of regret about the letter which was uncomfortably suggestive of her flirtation with Tom. Also there were sentences which, to Erica, were enigmatical, about "having been so foolish last summer," and wishing that she "could live that Brighton time over again." All she could do was to choose the time and place for telling Tom with discrimination. No opportunity presented ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... shan't be long," answered the young hostess, with a confident wink in Alfaretta's direction. To which that matter-of-fact maid replied by a contemptuous toss of her head and the enigmatical words: ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... in the Egyptian darkness of the allegorieo-metaphysico-mystico-logico-transendental, 'formulae' of the most obscure and contentious philosophy ever devised by man; and lastly, that all this superfluous trouble is to give us, after all, only the mysteries of a most enigmatical philosophy: For of Hegel, in particular, we think it may with truth be said that the reader is seldom fortunate enough to know that he knows his meaning, or even to know that ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... interest remaining are a handsome overmantel in one of the private rooms of the firm, and a curious ceiling. The former is of wood, and is varnished and painted in various tones of bronze and gold. The carving upon it is very elaborate and enigmatical. The panelled ceiling has some affinity with it, but has been modernized, and is not so interesting. The front of the house remains as it was, and claims to be the only ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... acted like a tonic, and her face was full of gratitude as she bade him goodnight, and turned to confer with Frank. Carroll stood by the reporters' tables, irresolutely, until presently Silvia beckoned her. The two women exchanged looks which were enigmatical to Frank, but evidently perfectly intelligible to them, for Carroll turned away with a sound like a strangled sob, and the pall of weariness and depression which had lifted for a moment again settled over Silvia, now that ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... when once he asked Beethoven to tell him what the F minor and the D minor (Op. 31, No. 2) sonatas meant, he received for an answer only the enigmatical remark: "Read Shakespeare's 'Tempest.'" Many a student and commentator has since read the "Tempest" in the hope of finding a clew to the emotional contents which Beethoven believed to be in the two works, so singularly associated, only to ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... letter of the youth whom in her innocence she called her lover was almost enigmatical to Pierrette, she believed in it with all her virgin faith. Her heart was filled with that sensation which travellers in the desert feel when they see from afar the palm-trees round a well. In a few days her misery would end—Jacques said so. She relied on this promise of her childhood's friend; ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... had of her wonderful eyes, widely opened and turned upon me with such an enigmatical expression as set my heart leaping wildly—then, stepping back, Karamaneh placed the lamp upon the boards of the passage and ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... "Your question is as enigmatical as an ancient oracle. I must have a little more light. Do these differences of feeling or opinion touch action? - either yours ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of the spirit's triumph, of youth besting destiny? I do not see it so. To me its significance, like that of "The Shadow Line," is all subjective; it is an aging man's elegy upon the hope and high resolution that the years have blown away, a sentimental reminiscence of what the enigmatical gods have had their jest with, leaving only its gallant memory behind. The whole Conradean system sums itself up in the title of "Victory," an incomparable piece of irony. Imagine a better label for that tragic record of heroic and yet bootless ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... countenances, so mysteriously muffled up with the dread litham, having before them ranges of spears, parallel to themselves, a bright forest hedge of pines, awaiting their orders for war or warlike pomp. I have frequently passed this forest range of lances, and looked up fearfully to the dark enigmatical figures or shapes of human beings, reclining in the most profound death-like silence, not exchanging a word with one another. A most trivial call of attention, a rustling or breath of an accident of novelty, nevertheless, is enough to put instant action and fire into ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... myself looking forward to Dr. Saugrain's dinner with suppressed excitement, while I puzzled my brains to interpret his and Mr. Gratiot's enigmatical ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... doorway of Omar's hut. The reed walls glistened in the light of the fire, the smoke of which, thin and blue, drifted slanting in a succession of rings and spirals across the doorway, whose empty blackness seemed to him impenetrable and enigmatical like a curtain hiding vast spaces full of unexpected surprises. This was only his fancy, but it was absorbing enough to make him accept the sudden appearance of a head, coming out of the gloom, as part of his idle fantasy or as the beginning of another short dream, ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... would pass to the consideration of a far more enigmatical class of agglomerated matter — the smallest of all asteroids, to which we apply the name 'arolites', or 'meteoric stones',* when they reach our atmosphere ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Grasmere; and, being invited to stay to tea at one of those visits, he stayed the whole evening. Kenelm was more and more fascinated in proportion as he saw more and more of a creature so exquisitely strange to his experience. She was to him not only a poem, but a poem in the Sibylline Books; enigmatical, perplexing conjecture, and somehow or other mysteriously blending its interest with ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this was enigmatical to Rainey, but there was no mistaking Lund's tremendous seriousness and, duly impressed, Rainey promised to carry ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... on a bench, and she looked up at him now with bright, enigmatical eyes. "You don't mind waiting a moment, do you?" she asked. To his secret resentment she appeared to be deliberately appraising either his abilities or his attractions—he wasn't sure which engaged her ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... say just this. The world is enigmatical enough in all conscience, whatever theory we may take up toward it. The indeterminism I defend, the free-will theory of popular sense based on the judgment of regret, represents {177} that world as vulnerable, ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... any caressing cadences in the voice of Lance Lorrigan, any provocative tilt to his eyebrows, any tenderness in his smile, anything enigmatical in his personality, none of these things were apparent when he set the first bucket of water on the stove to heat. He had added to his charms a broad streak of soot across his forehead and a scratch on his neck, acquired while putting up the stovepipe. He had set his ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... that moment, her footsteps falling soundlessly on the greensward, her face blushing and her eyes downcast. As she passed him and entered the house she raised her eyes for a moment, and Reuben read in them a sweet, enigmatical intelligence, and a charmed shyness so delicious that he thrilled at it from head ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... the gift was not at all gracefully acknowledged. The unfortunate brickfields were pelted again; it was enigmatical; that Mr. Rhodes should be reckoned "a brick," by Boers, was improbable; rumour had it that his blood was hungered for. Some shells were hurled also at the grand stand of the race-course. Finally, the enemy appeared ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... XIV, the elder Pitt, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon; and among the non-political Roger Bacon, Erasmus, Luther, Sir Thomas More, Isaac Newton, Faraday, and Darwin. The Elizabethan age had for him a magnetic attraction, because of the Queen with her enigmatical personality, marvellous statecraft and capacity for inspiring devotion, and of the brilliant galaxy of great men, statesmen and sailors, poets and scholars, who enriched her reign with so much glory. ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... content to win ten on behalf of a cause I know of, and to fall in the tenth—then, indeed, I would die blessing the Lord.' A year or two later, he unearthed and reassumed the ancient motto of the House of Savoy: 'J'attends mon astre.' Nevertheless, to the outward world his intentions remained enigmatical, and it was therefore with extreme surprise that Massimo d'Azeglio (who, on his return from the Roman states, asked permission to inform the King of the impressions made on him by his travels) received the ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... afterwards), somebody indicated by seven asterisks and possessing an income of L1200 a-year, was "totally transformed into baseness." There is certainly not much light here, any more than in the equally enigmatical description of the third sorrow as being "in some sort included in the second," so that "what the former was to friendship the latter was to a still more inward bond." The truth is, that all Coleridge's ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... sold the famous cheese-cakes of that place. All the travellers got out. Puzzled by the apparent truth mingled with Georges' inventions, the count returned to the coucou when the others had entered the house, and looked beneath the cushion for the portfolio which Pierrotin told him that enigmatical youth had placed there. On it he read the words in gilt letters: "Maitre Crottat, notary." The count at once opened it, and fearing, with some reason, that Pere Leger might be seized with the same curiosity, he took out the deed of sale for the farm at Moulineaux, put it into his ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... carved in the eyes of the volutes, which are probably those alluded to by Pliny, although the latter says pedestal. Modern painters and engravers have frequently adopted similar devices as a rebus, or enigmatical representation of their names. See Spooner's Dictionary of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and Architects; Key to Monograms and Ciphers, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... day of her departure. She would tell her how she loved her—better than any one else she had ever known except her mother—and how she had never been so happy in her life as with her. Then she would make the same enigmatical but satisfactory reference to her future and how it made the step imperative, adding that if Cousin Julia could understand, she would agree that she couldn't have ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... was equally ready in all forms of writing that his neighbours followed he, of course, wrote Characters. They were "Fifty-five Enigmatical Characters, all very exactly drawn to the Life, from several Persons, Humours, Dispositions. Pleasant and full of Delight. By R. F., Esq." The Duke of Newcastle admired, and wrote, in ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... I keep my word!" was the enigmatical remark the smiling Quimby made as he entered. Then, catching sight of the festive board, he stopped short and stared, with an utterly confounded face, at that, at the embarrassed Nattie, at Cyn, ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... and I am to speak to her when she comes in,' said Albinia, glad as perhaps was Sophy of the enigmatical form to which Maurice's ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... acquaintance with the very matters defined. It would be tedious to enumerate the countless absurd explanations given in elementary text-books of the phenomena of interference, polarization, and double refraction,—explanations as enigmatical as the inscriptions at Memphis and Karnak,—explanations useless to the optician because needless, and to the student because obscure. It would seem that subjects so simple and beautiful as these could not be rendered difficult of comprehension, except by the most awkward ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... when a well-known voice struck his ear, and he turned round. Herzog, smiling in his enigmatical manner, was before him. Serge bowed, and wanted to pass on, but the financier put his ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... enigmatical enough in itself, is made by him more enigmatical still. He concludes the forty-first chapter, in which the great deeds of the conqueror of Italy and Africa, and the ingratitude with which Justinian ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... feared as the Czar of Muscovy." This apprehension has ever been on the increase; in favour of Russia, they made the first formal renunciation of territory which had been consecrated to Islam by the solemnities of religion,—a circumstance which has sunk deep into their imaginations; there is an enigmatical inscription on the tomb of the Great Constantine, to the effect that "the yellow-haired race shall overthrow Ismael;" moreover, ever since their defeats by the Emperor Leopold, they have had a surmise that ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... voices. Another time he came upon a working-gang busy at hoeing weeds. They scarcely noticed him when he came up, though they knew thoroughly well what was going on. It was no affair of theirs that the enigmatical white men should be out trying to kill each other, and whatever interest in the proceedings might be theirs they were careful to conceal it from Sheldon. He ordered them to continue hoeing weeds in a distant and out-of-the-way ...
— Adventure • Jack London |
