"Inkling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time Georgie had got a tolerable inkling of the import of all this. It was not at present to be war; it was to be magnificent rivalry, a throwing down perhaps of a gauntlet, which none would venture to pick up. To confirm this view, Lucia went on ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... part was that after the first moment of surprise, the persons whom I tricked laughed as heartily as I; it should be mentioned that the majority of those passing were neighbors who must certainly have had some inkling of the mystifying joke about to be played on them. I was much loved in the neighborhood at that time. Or if the pedestrians chanced to be sailors, the easy going fellows, themselves only grown children, were much delighted ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... communicate my suspicions to my "dear friend" Roebuck. As it was, with each refusal I had seen his confidence in me sink; if he should get an inkling how near to utter disaster I and my candidate were, he would be upon me like a tiger upon its trainer when he slips. I reasoned out my course while we were descending from the fifth "king's" office to our cab: If the negotiations ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... less than six miles. A single spy, a single traitor, during the anxious time that their defection was being planned, and Adoni-zedec, the king of Jerusalem, would have heard of it in less than a couple of hours; and the Gibeonites would have been overwhelmed before Joshua had any inkling that they were anxious to treat with him. Whoever was dilatory, whoever was slow, the Gibeonites dared not be. It can, therefore, have been, at most, only a matter of hours after Joshua's return to Gilgal, before ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... a pearl may in a toad's head dwell, And may be found too in an oyster-shell; If things that promise nothing do contain What better is than gold; who will disdain, That have an inkling of it, there to look, That they may find it? Now, my little book, (Though void of all these paintings that may make It with this or the other man to take) Is not without those things that do excel What do in ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... much she missed the power of referring to him and leaning on his support in all questions, small or great, that cropped up; and she had begun to feel that the stick might be a staff; besides which, having imbibed more than an inkling of the cause of detention, she was anxious to gather what she ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and early hours of the shepherd and his son did not at all suit the city youth. But Archie, though ignorant of the reasons which kept such a dandy in their humble home, soon perceived clearly the benefit he could derive from him. And once Archie got an inkling of the meaning of "double entry" he was never weary of applying it to his own particular business; so that in a few weeks Alexander Semple was ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... as secret as possible, yet not so close as to prevent the authorities of Berne obtaining some inkling of their intentions. Three confidential messengers were first dispatched to the valleys to ascertain the disposition of the population, and more particularly to examine the best route by which an invasion might be made. On their return with the necessary information, ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... children of the wilderness have no more inkling of any line between dirt and cleanliness, nor any more desire to improve their conditions, themselves, or their surroundings, which we of civilized lands think of as humanity's privilege and requirement, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... British scientist, this electro-magnetic world is as difficult to conceive of as it would be for us to walk upon air. Yet many times in our lives is this world in overwhelming evidence before us. During a thunderstorm we get an inkling of how fearfully and wonderfully the universe in which we live is made, and what energy and activity its apparent passivity and opacity mark. A flash of lightning out of a storm-cloud seems instantly to transform the whole passive universe into a terrible living ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... of the company. The President of the Westmore mills was a trim middle-sized man, whose high pink varnish of good living would have turned to purple could he have known Mr. Langhope's opinion of his jewelled shirt-front and the padded shoulders of his evening-coat. Happily he had no inkling of these views, and was fortified in his command of the situation by an unimpaired confidence in his own appearance; while Mr. Langhope, discreetly withdrawn behind a veil of cigar-smoke, let ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... an inkling of the conflict that would hurl them one against the other if he dared to state his objections more minutely. And he ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... he understand one whit of this. But he vehemently desired her, and his desire was straight. Because it was straight, while he rode some inkling ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... spite of it. The fatalism that she scorned as Muhammad's lie held her in its grip, and her natural courage fought with it. Womanlike, she turned to King in that minute and confided to him her very inmost thoughts. And he, without an inkling as to how she must fail, yet knew that ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... practice in dandling Sir Andrew out of his money, and paying him off with the odd hope of gaining Olivia's hand. And the funniest of it is, that while Sir Toby understands him thoroughly he has not himself the slightest suspicion or inkling of what he is; he being as confident of his own wit as others are of his want of it. Nor are we here touched with any revulsions of moral feeling, such as might disturb our enjoyment of their fellowship; on the contrary, we sympathize with Sir Toby's sport, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... irreligious Volney; moreover, the elite of the Roman priesthood are perfectly well aware that their system is nothing but Buddhism under a slight disguise, and the European world in general has entertained for some time past an inkling ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... herself, and could not but see that all appearances bore out Margarita's statements. Alessandro's sudden departure had been a tremendous corroboration of the story. Not one of the men had had an inkling of it; Juan Canito, Luigo, both alike astonished; no word left, no message sent; only Senor Felipe had said carelessly to Juan Can, after breakfast: "You'll have to look after things yourself for a few days, Juan. Alessandro ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... hurl insults at him. Then Jean-Christophe would reply with scant respect, and the end would be a rumpus. The old man would go out and slam the door. So Jean-Christophe spoiled the joy of these poor people, who had no inkling of the cause of his bad temper. It was not their fault if they had the souls of servants, and never dreamed that it is possible to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Hadley speaks of us going to Panama. That's the first we've had an inkling to that effect. What in the ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... hand in the conversation. If big Bob were left to carry on alone, he might blunderingly give this man an inkling of what the boys knew or suspected about their mysterious neighbors. Frank felt that his chill of suspicion, experienced when he encountered Higginbotham in New York, was being justified. Decidedly, ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... whereby to shape their course: what great attempt might they not presume to vndertake? But alas our English nation, at the first setting foorth for their Northeasterne discouery, were either altogether destitute of such cleare lights and inducements or if they had any inkling at all it was as misty as they found the Northren seas, and so obscure and ambiguous, that it was meet rather to deterre them then ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Boston and was named as Commander of the Army, his chief concern seemed to be how he would make peace with Martha. Ho! ye married men! do you understand the situation? He was to be away for a year, two, or possibly three, and his wife did not have an inkling of it. Now, he must break the ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Thisbe begins with a moderately engaging portrayal of the youngsters' innocent friendship; it soon falls into absurdity, from which it never subsequently gets entirely clear. Gale seems to have had no inkling of the ridiculous possibilities of "serious" verse. Consequently, he is able to write of Pyramus and Thisbe "sit[ting] on bryers,/Till they enjoyd the height of their desires," (Stanza 13), with no sense of the incongruity of ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... of red-coats met a pretty lass in the fields of Cortelyou. He stilled her alarm by aiding her to gather wild-flowers, and it came about that the girl often went into the fields and came back with prodigious bouquets of daisies. The elder Cortelyou had no inkling of this adventure until one of his sons saw her tryst with the red-coat at a distance. Be sure the whole family joined him in remonstrance. As the girl declared that she would not forego the meetings with her lover, the father swore that ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... promised to become similar to the old one. Why does the Spider desert her former mansion, which is in no way dilapidated—far from it—and still exceedingly serviceable, as far as one can judge? Unless I am mistaken, I think I have an inkling of the reason. ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... perspiration suddenly breaking out upon my body. Either the fellow had obtained an inkling of the truth in some incredible way, or was blindly on the track of it, guided by some diabolical scent. Under the spell of his eyes I could not manage the outright lie ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a man who once in a while gets a little inkling of the truth. I see he says that the creed lies in the biliary duct. That's good orthodox doctrine, I don't care who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... that morning from the professor's gallant efforts to impress the importance of the study of his language on the minds of his class. Her thoughts were with Mary and what she had best say to conciliate her. She had as yet no inkling of the truth. She did not dream that jealousy of Constance had prompted Mary's outburst. She believed that the whole trouble lay in whatever Mignon ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... but just a printed name; an English surname with title and initials, in cheap gilt lettering on the back of an old book; a silent, sneering witness of our snug party. The catastrophe came and passed so suddenly that at the time I had scarcely even an inkling of what caused it; but I know now that this is how it happened. Our visitor was sitting at the forward end of the starboard sofa, close to the bulkhead. Davies and I were opposite her. Across the bulkhead, on a level ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... floor of the place was a shining vacancy. The dais was remote in the greatness of the area; it would have looked a mere slab of metal had it not been for the group of seven men who stood about a table on it, and gave an inkling of its proportions. They were all dressed in white robes, they seemed to have arisen that moment from their seats, and they were regarding Graham steadfastly. At the end of the table he perceived the glitter of some ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... where you wrong Abbot, captain," answers Mr. Hunnewell, very promptly, "and I want to hit that nail on the head right here. I thought just as you did, for a while; but got an inkling as to the real state of the case some time ago. It wasn't Abbot who endorsed him at all, except by silence and sufferance, you may say. Hollins was at his tent day and night—always following him up and actually forcing ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... have sounded to the distraught girl. It was the first time, since he had set out to see her, that it occurred to him how one-sided was the proposition. She had no knowledge of his resolve to thrust his aid upon her. He told himself that she could have no possible inkling of his feelings toward her; and he waited with no little anxiety ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... accumulation of empty and motley phrase, like a garish bunch of coloured bladders; his joy in platitude and pomposity, his proneness to say a little thing in great words, are only too easy to translate. We shall be well content if our version also gives some inkling of his qualities; not only of what Erasmus called his "wonderful vocabulary, his many pithy sayings, and the excellent variety of his images"; but also of his feeling for grouping, his barbaric sense of colour, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... language of love rises indeed to the point of lyrical inspiration, yet what she reveals is rather the slow consuming flame of the blood than the inwardness of the subjective heart and soul." Nor was Byron deceived: "I don't think Sappho's ode a good example." The historian Bender had an inkling of the truth when ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... wounded, would die on their hands, and that rather than face the results of such a contingency they would attempt to obtain some obscure but experienced medical aid, and in a way which would give the physician no inkling of his patient's identity or whereabouts. I therefore sent out that circular letter to every doctor in Illington, warning each one to come to me in the event of his having received a mysterious summons. It worked, as you know, ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... her sacrifice been in vain? Had he got an inkling of the truth? But he went on sternly ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... differentiates the Middle Kingdom (XIth-XIIIth Dynasties) from the Old Kingdom was caused by Egypt's coming into contact with other outside nations at this period. During the whole history of the Old Kingdom, Egyptian relations with the outer world had been nil. We have some inkling of occasional connection with the Mediterranean peoples, the Ha-nebu or Northerners; we have accounts of wars with the people of Sinai and other Bedawin and negroes; and expeditions were also sent to the land ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... of Woosung Road, perhaps the most bewildered Chinaman in all Shanghai last April. The Blind Madonna flung him into a great game and immediately cast him out of it, giving him never an inkling of what the game was about and leaving him buffeted by the four winds ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... would plead for Raleigh. There is reason to believe that if he had done so with success, he would have invited Raleigh to return with him, and to become Admiral of the Danish fleet. But matters never got so far as this. James I. had an inkling of what was coming, and he took an early opportunity of saying to Christian IV., 'Promise me that you will be no man's solicitor.' In spite of this, before he left England, Christian did ask for Raleigh's pardon, and was refused. When he had left England, and all hope was ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... undertook the task of learning twelve hundred miles of the great changing, shifting river as exactly and as surely by daylight or darkness as one knows the way to his own features. As already suggested, he had at least an inkling of what that undertaking meant. His statement that he "supposed all that a pilot had to do was to keep his boat in the river" is not to be accepted literally. Still he could hardly have realized the full majesty of his task; nobody could ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of John Mark in Scripture are sufficient to give us an outline of his life, and some inkling of his character. He was the son of a well-to-do Christian woman in Jerusalem, whose house appears to have been the resort of the brethren as early as the period of Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison. As the cousin of Barnabas he ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... on these cases, wondering whether the dead man may not have carried to the grave with him the secret of some strange perplexity, some passion or craving or irresistible impulse, of which perhaps his intimates, and certainly the coroner's jury, can have had no inkling. ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... soldierly virtue, the exercise of which sheds a nobility over the repulsive horrors of the battlefield. Joshua had to be fitted to command by learning to obey, and, like that other soldier whose rough trade had led him to some inkling of Christ's authority by its familiarising him with the idea of the strange power of the word of command, had to realise that he himself was 'under authority' before he could ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... stiffen as hard as a piece of wood. My feeling of her little pinky slit gave rise in her to nice sensations, but on the slightest attempt to insert even my finger, the pain was too great. We had made so little progress in the attouchements that not the slightest inkling of what could be done in that way dawned upon us. I had begun to develope a slight growth of moss-like curls round the root of my cock; and then, to our surprise, Mary began to show a similar tendency. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... in parliament roused by the prince's decision that one of his most inveterate opponents now declared that it would be an act of high treason for the prince to desert the country at such a crisis. We have an inkling of what might have resulted in the letter written by the Emperor of Austria to Prince Carol at the time, assuring him that 'my Government will eagerly seize any opportunity which presents itself to prove by deeds the interest it takes in a country ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... boletes with the red tubes, the purple bolete and the satanic bolete, change into a dark gruel? I have an inkling of the reason. Both of them turn blue, with an admixture of green. A third species, the bluish bolete (Boletus cyanescens, BULL., var. lacteus, LEVEILLE), possess remarkable color sensitiveness. Bruise it ever so lightly, ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... back of his round, squat, busy head he had an inkling that some day he would even matters with some people. Meanwhile he was patient, good-humoured, amusing when given a chance, and, as the few people he knew found out, inventive and resourceful in suggesting new methods of time-killing ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... understands the dreadful prospect which was opening before Europe at the moment when this Presidential note added a new cause for general despondency. Rumania had collapsed, the first inkling of the Russian revolution had been obtained, the British well knew that the submarine warfare was to be resumed, and British finances were also in a desperate plight. More and more it was becoming evident to the British ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... upon the possibilities of the spiritual evolution of mankind for which the completion of its material evolution has but prepared the beginning. What we have so far learned we are convinced is but the first faint inkling of the knowledge we shall attain to; and yet if the limitations of this earthly state were such that we might never hope here to know more than now we should not repine, for the knowledge we have has sufficed to turn the shadow of death into a bow of promise and distill the saltness ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... journeying from Kurnalpi to the Twenty-five Mile. Finding that in the meantime others had been there and pegged out leases and claims, we passed on and set up our condensers on the "Wind and Water" lake, and began to get an inkling that our job was not ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... top of a clump of asters so far away that it did not seem possible that he could hear her, he immediately looked up. Then he hastened towards her. As he drew near a look of concern deepened on his face. He had had an inkling at the first glimpse of her that something was wrong. He reached the fence and stood looking at her on ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of Gridley, who had followed the football team this day, and who had got an inkling of the story of the arrest, removed a cigar from between his lips and pointed an accusing ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... up, and pretended to look under their desks. Most of them had an inkling of the situation, but they were human enough to enjoy an interruption in the midst of ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... wife who wore gloves on her bloodless hands as she did the house-work and spent numberless afternoons in trimming her own bonnets. Her peevishness grew apace as the newness of the experience wore off. Uncle Jim seldom spoke to her, as he seldom spoke to anybody, but she had an inkling of the rancour in his heart, and many a time she put blame upon his shoulders to her husband, when some unavoidable ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... matter is! You have come here by special train to warn me that I face ruin; and you pretend to have no inkling of the nature of my peril! You speak of veiled threats. Are you ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... he had an inkling of how matters stood, as he presently began to talk of my affairs and prospects. I told him of my late ill success with the booksellers, and inveighed against their blindness to their own interest in refusing to publish my translations. "The last that I addressed myself to," said I, "told ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... first inkling that he was regarded as a traitor of his planet who had sold out to the Invaders. All the plans made from his information would be based on the supposition that he intended to betray mankind by ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... said Cleek, replying to the major's query, as they sat late that night discussing the affair. "Well, I think the first faint inkling of it came when I arrived here yesterday, and smelt the overpowering odour of the incenses. There was so much of it, and it was used so frequently—twice a day—that it seemed to suggest an attempt to hide other odours of a less pleasant ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... remark of Tournefort's which gave Chauvelin the first inkling of something strange and, to him, positively awesome. Tournefort, who walked close beside him, heard him suddenly ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... scenes, its black-stained but unvarnished tables littered with riding, driving and country-life society papers, to give it that air of sans ceremonie with an upper world of which its habitues probably possessed no least inkling but most eagerly craved. Here, along with a goodly group of his latter-day friends, far different from those by whom he had first been surrounded—a pretentious society poet of no great merit but ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... the woman always is to blame If a man ventures to commit himself In a proposal unacceptable. The rule has its exceptions; for I gave No word, no inkling of encouragement To Captain Dudley; yet I had an offer From Captain Dudley. Young, and elegant, Though of a stock somewhat attenuate; Rich, though a younger son; a gentleman, A scholar,—what good reason could ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... the Mall of Kensington, where he had parted with the prince on the night before. For three nights the colonel had not been to bed: the last had been passed summoning the prince's friends together, of whom the great majority had no sort of inkling of the transaction pending until they were told that he was actually on the spot, and were summoned to strike the blow. The night before and after the altercation with the prince, my gentleman, having suspicions of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... really any science, however much it is applied, must remain fundamentally a pure science; that is, it must seek most of all to know and understand. Practical scientific knowledge was usually first obtained without any inkling of how it might be used. The science of electricity is the most striking example of this. It began as an attempt to understand certain curious phenomena, which seemed to be nothing but curiosities; yet when the knowledge of these phenomena had progressed to a certain ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... tremendous opinion of her father; she lavished upon him all the warm affection of her young ardour. She reigned like a young queen within the confines of her home. She was about the gardens and the grounds all day, as joyous as a bird. Once or twice her governess gave her some inkling as to the suitors who came to the mansion requesting her hand, for that is an affair that cannot be kept from the most jealously-guarded damsel. The governess had a sense of humour and entertained the girl ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... because the terminology was over his head. And the fact that he could not follow these men in full intellectual flight spurred him to find the truth or falsity of those things for himself. He got an inkling of the economic problems that afflict society. He found himself assenting offhand to the reasonable theorem that a man who produced wealth was entitled to what he produced. He listened to many a wordy debate in which the theory of ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... no sign of bestowing her blithe affections upon either of us. But one day she let out to me an inkling of what she preferred in a man. It was tremendously interesting to me, but not illuminating as to its application. I had been tormenting her for the dozenth time with the statement and catalogue of my ...
— Options • O. Henry
... are big words in the language of any man. But I had more than an inkling that my husband had been taking a gambler's chance to reach the end in view. And now, in that twilit shadow-huddled cubby-hole of a room, it came over me, all of a heap, that having taken the gambler's ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the point, but I should be surprised to learn that General Booth, when Providence moved him to begin his labours among the poor, had even an inkling of their future growth within the short period of his own life. He sowed a seed in faith and hope, and, in spite of opposition and poverty, in spite of ridicule and of slander, he has lived to see that seed ripen into a marvellous ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... of man I should have expected," Hilda answered, with a suppressed smile. "I have a sort of inkling that Miss Montague likes HIM best; he is nearer her type; but she thinks Cecil Holsworthy the better match. Has ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... arrived before Mr. Effingham was again alone, when, being by himself in the library once more, Mr. Bragg entered, full of his subject. He was followed by John Effingham, who had gained an inkling of ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... painting, and then Sebastian Serlio was summoned from Bologna in 1541 to fill the place of "surintendant des bastiments et architecte de Fontainebleau." Il Rosso-Giovambattista had been a Florentine pupil of Michelangelo, but refused to follow any master, having, as Vasari says, "a certain inkling of his own." Franois I. was delighted with him at first, and made him head of all the Italian colony at Fontainebleau, where he was known as "Maitre Roux." But in two years the king was longing to patronize some other genius, and implored Giulio Romano, then engaged ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... of a few men standing in line waiting for the opening of that bank door was like a lighted match to a barn full of dry hay. At the first inkling of a suggestion of a financial panic money began to disappear. Nothing is so cowardly in its cautiousness as money. Scholarship comes next to it. The savings of years have the tightest grip on most human hands. As though by magic, money began hunting ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... unseasonably, never cast his pearls before unappreciative animals. But when he saw a chance, an opening, a sympathetic tendency, or a weak spot, he fastened on it with unerring instinct. His line was rather admonitory than persuasive. When he thought that the person whom he was addressing had an inkling of the truth, but was held back from avowing it by cowardice or indecision, he would utter the most startling warnings about the danger of dallying ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... turned around and went back to the second wagon, the cover of which he had noticed was not on exactly straight. He hoped to be able to see what was underneath, but he found that the cover was strapped down so tightly that he could get no inkling. ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... with the self-possession of a cunning old soldier-"think ye I cumbered my house with such cattle after pretty lasses like you had given me the inkling of what they were? No wizard shall fly away with the sign of the Talbot, if I can help it. They skulked off I can promise ye, and did not even mount a couple of broomsticks which I handsomely offered for ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... description of a scientist of any sort—as much unlike a scientist as his sport roadster looked unlike a scientist's customary means of transit—and ordinarily he acted quite unlike one. As a matter of fact, most of the people Tommy associated with had no faintest inkling of his taste for science as an avocation. There was Peter Dalzell, for instance, who would have held up his hands in holy horror at the idea of Tommy Reames being the author of that article. "On the Mass and Inertia of the Tesseract," which in the Philosophical ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... most of the nations of the world; which we found to be true, considering they had the languages of Europe, and knew much of our state and business; and yet we in Europe, (notwithstanding all the remote discoveries and navigations of this last age), never heard of the least inkling or glimpse of this island. This we found wonderful strange; for that all nations have inter-knowledge one of another, either by voyage into foreign parts, or by strangers that come to them: and though the traveller into a foreign country, doth commonly know more by the eye, than he ...
— The New Atlantis • Francis Bacon
... Merna informed us that the display was about to commence, adding that he had purposely refrained from giving us any inkling of its nature, as he thought the unexpected would afford us ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... If I had the slightest inkling of your address, yes, even your present name, I should not have missed to announce to you the ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... evening, but each time his discretion prevailed. "If she is willing to listen to any love-making, she has tact enough to give me a chance," he thought, "and unless she is, I'd better keep still." Which would show he had at least a faint inkling of woman's ways. The evening was one to tempt Cupid, for the moonlight fell checkered through the half-naked elms along the roadway, and where here and there a group of maples stood was a bit of shadow. ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... French Foreign-office to Benedetti, a report on France by Magne, and a letter from a prefect to Pietri. From the few papers of any importance which have been discovered in the Imperial palaces, our friend Badinguet must have had an inkling when he last left Paris that he might not return, and must have put his papers in ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Phyllis all the summer. She was languid and off her feed in London, and did not pick up at home as they expected. My belief is that it is too much governess and too little play, and that a fortnight here would set her up again. Rotherwood himself thinks so, and Victoria has some such inkling. At any rate, they are urgent to have Mysie with the child, ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sister. If he was to be rightly influenced, and led back to her, he must have no suspicion aroused that her life was any different from what it had been before he left home. Besides if Keith hoped to gain any inkling of what Hawley's purpose could be, he must win the confidence of Willoughby. This could not be done by telling him of Hope's present life. These considerations flashed through his mind, and ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... (grudgingly) he had now given the unit some faint inkling of his feelings on the matter. If at any time in the future a long hair was found on a man in his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... in the right direction—a long step. He would be "on the square" with her—she liked the way he phrased it. Already her mind was busy with air-castles for Smith, which would have made that person stare, had he known of them. An inkling of their nature may be had from ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... pry into the machinery and try to learn the ways of it. Certain odd possibilities of the negro mind brought into abrupt contact with the crown of our civilisation Holroyd never fully realised, though just at the end he got some inkling of them. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... almost forgot George Colfax. Yet once in a while it would occur to her that it would be very pleasant if he should drop in for a cup of tea, and she would wonder what he was doing. Did she, perchance, at the same time exert herself with an ardor born of an acknowledged inkling that these might be the last months of her service? However that may have been, she certainly was very busy, and responded eagerly to every call upon ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... better. If it became necessary, he could be moved. But he shouldn't be allowed to have an inkling that his mind ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... the tunnel up on a long slant. The tunnel should be four feet high and about three wide; the earth I'd throw into the sewer, the water would wash it away. There's no risk in digging the tunnel, as no one would get an inkling of what's afoot until the last shove, when we made direct for the money. On that point let me ask: How long can we count on being undisturbed after we've got to the gold? Now if it was a bank, we'd time the play for Saturday ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... suggestion and imitation and social pressure are being brought to bear, to vitiate the young girl's natural judgment, deceiving her into the supposition that these things which seem to make other people so happy are the first that must be sought by her. If only she had the merest inkling of what the doctor and the lawyer and the priest could tell her about the inner life of many of the owners of these well-groomed and massaged faces! We hear much of the failure of marriage, but surely the amazing ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Rios, for I want to get a new house put up; the present one isn't of much account"—this was his modified way of saying that there was no house there at all, it having been reduced to ashes, but he did not wish her to have the faintest inkling of any of his misfortunes, for fear that she would then refuse to add to his troubles and expenses by becoming a charge upon him. "And I have already bought some decent furniture, which I will take round with me in one of the pearlers. I do hope you will like the place, but you will look upon ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... a little wary play at first, while each sought an inkling of the other's method. Then some livelier work, in which they warmed themselves and got their muscles into complete facility, followed upon Phil's pretending to lose his guard. All this was but overture, ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... led to this queer talk, as none of us on board had heard anything on the lower deck about any row being imminent; for, of course, sick of our stagnant life for the last few months, as all of us were, the inkling of any fight being in the air would have been as welcome to us ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... could have observed and noticed these things. Wardle's fondness for his daughters is really charming, and displayed without affectation. He connected them with the image of his lost wife. There is no more natural, truly affecting passage than his display of fretfulness when he got some inkling that his second daughter was about to make a rather improvident marriage with young Snodgrass. The first had followed her inclinations in wedding Trundle—a not very good match—but he did not lose her as the pair lived beside him. He thought Emily, however, a pretty girl who ought to do ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... you took just now, to keep a secret that isn't only mine. Another's life depends on the secret being kept. To save that life I was forced to do what I hate to think of. And it's no concern of yours, but it would be Roger's if he had the faintest inkling! Now, I'm going to tell you one or two things, and you must use your brains to explain the mystery. You're clever, and true as steel. You've proved that! Suppose a case; suppose you'd undertaken a dangerous mission. You have in your charge some documents ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... train we saw a queer old pawn shop, filled with wonderful antiques. Some of the party claim that the shop was bought out, so some of our San Francisco relatives will get an inkling from this where Santa Claus may have gotten some ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... merely a rhetorical turn, but positively, he didn't. At first I could not believe it. He had not had the beginning of the inkling of an idea. This astonishing little man had been working on purely theoretical grounds the whole time! When he said it was "the most important" research the world had ever seen, he simply meant it squared up so ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... terrible policy was to be inaugurated in secret; a trial was to be made of the idea in New York State; neither the state nor federal governments had the faintest suspicion of what impended; not a single newspaper had any inkling. ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... "If you give a piece of bread to a child, tell its mother about it." God, likewise, wanted Israel to know the great miracles He had accomplished for their sake, for they had no inkling of the attack the heathens had planned to make upon them. God therefore bade the well that had reappeared since their stay in Beeroth to flow past the caves and wash out parts of the corpses in great numbers. When Israel not turned to look upon the well, they perceived it in the valley of ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... composed in French a "Chateau d'Amour," an allegorical poem, with keeps, castles, and turrets, "les quatre tureles en haut," which are the four cardinal virtues, a sort of pious Romaunt of the Rose. William of Wadington had likewise written in French his "Manuel des Pechiez," not without an inkling that his grammar and prosody might give cause for laughter. He excused himself in advance: "For my French and my rhymes no one must blame me, for in England was I born, and there bred and brought up ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... understand why a child is not to be mentally educated. Some must have a faint inkling of the processes of consciousness during the first fourteen years. Some must know what a child beholds, when it looks at a horse, and what it means when it says, "Why is grass green?" The answer to this question, by the way, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... of the domestic table talk. And yet, in other moments, he realized acutely that that same heritage was in his nature, too. The village gossips had been exceedingly benevolent, in that they had spared him any inkling of the sources whence had come certain other strains which set his blood to tingling every now ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... order to insure even perfunctory understanding of the procedure under which Bob McGraw planned to acquire his lands, and to give an inkling of the difficulties confronting him, it is necessary that the reader take a five-minute course in land law. This is regrettable, for it is a dry subject, even in the matter of swamp and overflow lands, so we shall endeavor to make the course as ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... proceeded to smoke, with much gravity and in perfect silence. It struck me that possibly they might be waiting for someone, whose appearance upon the scene would, I hoped, throw some light upon the cause of this extraordinary outrage, and give me an inkling as to what sort of an end I might expect to the adventure. Meanwhile, having nothing else to do, I proceeded to take stock of the place, or at least as much of it as I could command in ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... have broken loose from your dreams earlier. But calm yourself! Your life is still ahead of you. The past has been a school—hard, to be sure, but all the more wholesome. Hitherto you have given your life to whims and follies. Now you have some inkling of what reality demands of you. Outside that door your creditors are waiting with their claims. Here are their bills. The clergy of the young Church demand that you live to finish what you have begun so splendidly. The City Corporation demands its secretary for the Council. The ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... for a moment and then spoke into the tube, nothing that he said giving the others any inkling of the information which had reached him. This had come from the Chief of the Detective Police, and was to the effect that Salvat's whereabouts in the Bois de Boulogne had been discovered, and that he would ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... to a punishment which was apparently little more than residence in a rather disreputable but by no means constrained boarding-house, and no omnipotent pope would have let Ludivico loose with a clear inkling of his murderous designs. But when these criticisms and others are made, The White Devil remains one of the most glorious works of the period. Vittoria is perfect throughout; and in the justly-lauded trial scene she has no superior ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... however, the man's heavy, studied indifference to all about him was ruffled. During the afternoon something had gone wrong and no one yet, save "Cookie" Wilson, had an inkling of what had plunged the foreman into one ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... was ready to jump at anything and she diagnosed my case with marvelous penetration. Really, Comly, it was staggering! She said I faced life with the soul of a coward; she'd got an inkling, I suppose, of my father's freakishness and injustice; and she told me I lacked assurance and initiative. Suggested that I go armed and shoot any one who stepped on my toes. All this with a laugh, of course; but nevertheless I felt that she really meant it. She said a man can do anything ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... morning, when the commanding officer made his usual rounds of the ship and inspected the men. So far nothing had officially been said about the new regime; but, in some mysterious way, the ship's company had an inkling of the happy days in store for them, while, through a lavish distribution of tracts, literature which, I am sorry to relate, they solemnly burnt in the galley fire, they were fully aware of their new captain's notions on the engrossing subject of drink. Accordingly, ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... was, she had seen enough of life to have some inkling of what being very unfortunate might ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Moreover, any animal, however fierce, would turn its eyes away at times; but these remained staring. What were they? He had seen fungus glow like that in the forest, but never so many together. And then he strained his ears to gather from any sound an inkling of their nature, but, beyond the bellowings and the sullen roar, he could hear nothing. How long could he stand the suspense? Already he felt a strong impulse to jump up, to shout, to break up that fixed regard, to come to ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... no inkling of his meaning,—and, apparently, judging from his next words, I looked something of ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... that his secret consisted in the flux which he employed to make the metal melt more readily; and it leaked out amongst the workmen that he used broken bottles for the purpose. Some of the manufacturers, who by prying and bribing got an inkling of the process, followed Huntsman implicitly in this respect; and they would not allow their own workmen to flux the pots lest they also should obtain possession of the secret. But it turned out eventually that ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... family, however, being more or less smart, spry men, were doubtless sharp enough to detect some inkling of this sort of feeling, and consequently they thought it better to silence any such cavillings by eschewing as far as they could public life, and contenting themselves with being brothers of a big man and sharing a ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... off for the middle pasture, where they were engaged in repairing a fence which had all but fallen flat. Quite by accident, and without any inkling of what was to come of his carelessness, Buck left his hammer and pliers beside the corral gate instead of sticking them into his saddle-pockets. Before they had gone a quarter of a mile he discovered the omission and pulled up, explaining what ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... faith of Calvin, thou didst confess it, before all this goodly company! Wilt thou deny thine own words, knave, in the very face of justice? Thou canst read—thou hast it in thy countenance, and I would go nigh to swear, too, that thou hast some inkling of the quill, were the truth honestly said. Signor Grimaldi, I know not how you find this affair on the other side of the Alps, but with us, our greatest troubles come from these well-taught knaves, who, picking up knowledge fraudulently, use it with felonious intent, without thought of ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... art to compass this thing myself, having occupied my mind in exile more with memories of Nais than in study of those uppermost recesses of the Higher Mysteries in which Zaemon was so prodigiously wise, still I had some inkling of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... already. You have gone to see your cousin of Beauseant, and you have had an inkling of luxury; you have been to Mme. de Restaud's house, and in Father Goriot's daughter you have seen a glimpse of the Parisienne for the first time. That day you came back with a word written on your forehead. ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac |
