"Solve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... open her arms to receive her wandering child. Thus did her infallible wisdom, as expressed through her zealous agents in Seville, essay to solve the perplexing problems of this agitated little mind, and whisper to its confused throbbing, "Peace, be still." The final disposition came to the boy not without some measure of relief, despite, his protest. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... soul, eye speaks to eye, And mind by mind is read; The heart bounds in sweet ecstasy Whene'er a light is shed, That shines to illume a cherished thought That seemed to dwell alone, But on through years has nobly sought To solve some truth unknown. ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... will be no more than mere facts, on which we can predicate nothing but that, when they are imitated,—that is, when similar combinations of quantities, &c., are repeated in a work of art,—they will produce the same effect. But why they should is a mystery which the reflective faculties do not solve; and never can, because it refers to a living Power that is above the understanding. In the human figure, for instance, we can give no reason why eight heads to the stature please us better than six, or why three or twelve heads ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as eggs or seed, or as full grown? To this it is sufficient to reply, was your primordial organism, or were your four or five progenitors created as egg, seed, or full grown? Neither theory attempts to solve this riddle, nor yet the riddle of the Omphalos." The latter point, which Mr. Darwin refuses to give up, is at page 483 of the "Origin," "and, in the case of mammals, were they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's womb?" In the third edition of the "Origin," ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... similar position. My instincts told me that it was vain to hope that they would relent. Their objections were baseless, but none the less I knew that they would prove insuperable. I found myself face to face with a dilemma fraught with unhappiness whichever way I should solve it. What was there to allege against Mr. Dale? Nothing. He was poor. But what of that? My father had money enough for us both. Why need he mar by cruel suspicions and prejudices this great joy of my life? I remember to ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... likely, when the ship returned, it would find an empty base. The first-string team simply wasn't set up for exhaustive work; its job was to survey the field in general and mark out the problems for the complete team to solve. ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... efforts. A Bulgarian had providentially written a book in which he showed, beyond doubt, that persons fed on brown bread, potatoes, and margarine, gave the most satisfactory results of all. It was a discovery of the first value as a topic for her dinner-table—seeming to solve the whole vexed problem of the laborers almost at one stroke. If they could only be got to feed themselves on this perfect programme, what a saving of the situation! On those three edibles, the Bulgarian said—and he had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... returned his money to his purse and put it in the pocket of his blouse. There was an air of mystery about the stranger which puzzled the landlord, and he stood gazing at him, his brow gathered into a knot of wrinkles as if trying to solve some intricate problem. The man was sparing of his words; but when he did speak there was something terrible in his voice; it was deep and heavy like the roar of a cannon. While the landlord was gazing at him, lost in a sort ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... I have made this attempt because, in the first place, I believe that theoretical ethics is seriously embarrassed by its present emphasis on the history and criticism of doctrines; by its failure to resort to experience, where without more ado it may solve its problems on their merits. But, in the second place, I hope that by appealing to experience and neglecting scholastic technicalities, I may connect ethical theory with every-day reflection on practical matters. Morality is, without doubt, the most human ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... thick clothing indispensable. This is the objective point, to reach which we have voyaged thousands of miles from another hemisphere. We look about us in silent wonder and awe. To the northward is that unknown region to solve whose mystery so many gallant lives have been sacrificed. Far to the eastward is Asia; in the distant west lies America; and southward are Europe and Africa. Such an experience may occur once in a lifetime, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... my ear drum," said Jack, and inwardly resolved to devote some time to trying to solve the problem of avoiding such "collisions" in the future. It occurred to him that some sort of a circuit breaker might be devised to cut off, temporarily, the telephone talk by automatic means when a cross-wave of high ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... mentioned in the papers, and Rosmore went slowly across the stone floor, the feeble light of the candle casting weird shadows about him. For the first time the eeriness of the place forced itself upon him. These stone walls must have sheltered many a secret besides the one he had come to solve. Unholy deeds might well have happened here, and into his memory came crowding many a legend he had heard of Aylingford Abbey. Phantoms of the past might yet haunt these dark places, and to the man breaking into this silence alone ghosts were easy to believe in. Phantoms of the present might ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association. The great problem which association undertakes to solve is, Why does just this particular field of consciousness, constituted in this particular way, now appear before my mind? It may be a field of objects imagined; it may be of objects remembered or of objects perceived; it may include an action resolved on. In either case, when the field is analyzed ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... for father indeed, as there was another mouth to be fed then, a very serious problem for a poor parson to solve. ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... skies your mounting soul shall go, Swift as an arrow soaring from the bow! 290 Provided still, you moderate your joy, Nor in your pleasures all your might employ; Let reason's rule your strong desires abate, Nor please too lavishly your gentle mate Old wives there are, of judgment most acute, Who solve these questions beyond all dispute; Consult with those, and be of better cheer; Marry, do ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... for a moment," profoundly remarks Professor Sedgwick, "suppose that there are some religious difficulties in the conclusions of geology. How, then, are we to solve them? Not by making a world after a pattern of our own—not by shifting and shuffling the solid strata of the earth, and then dealing them out in such a way as to play the game of an ignorant or dishonest hypothesis—not ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... were in possession of a secret that none of the Pleasant Valley folk can solve, though they waste much time and energy trying to guess it. Even to this day it is doubtful if anyone other than Kiddie himself really knows what Katy did! But his friends are a curious lot and they ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... schemes, the architect and client of to-day work out these problems with excellent results. Practical needs are considered just as worthy of the architect as artistic achievements. He is a poor excuse for his profession if he cannot solve the problems of utility and beauty, and work out the ultimate harmony ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... tomb by the palm-trees. There, standing by the dead casket from which the jewel had been rifled, I would feel her sweet presence, and would whisper to her that I would rejoin her if mortal wit could solve the riddle. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that all boys and girls will enjoy reading. How the members of the club fixed up a clubroom in the Larue barn, and how they, later on, helped solve a most mysterious happening, and how one of the members won a valuable prize, is told in a manner to ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... the village intending to communicate this information to Rushbrook, but on calling, he found that Rushbrook had gone out in search of the boy. Furness then resolved to go up at once to the keeper's lodge, and solve the mystery. He took the high road, and met ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... executive, and judicial functions. One of the great questions of our time is how to secure economy and efficiency in city government; and, as our cities are growing with great rapidity, the problem is daily becoming more difficult to solve. ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... healthy routine of outdoor work, and a most effective system administered by a scientific penologist does wonders with its inmates. Nothing but the will and the organized effort of women will ever solve the most terrible of all problems, or remove from society the reproach of ruined womanhood ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... has been pointed out, it will readily be seen that a correct knowledge of cookery and all that it implies is of extreme importance to those who must prepare food for others; indeed, it is for just such persons—the housewife who must solve cookery problems from day to day, as well as girls and women who must prepare themselves to perform the duties with which they will be confronted when they take up the management of a household and its affairs—that these ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... finally decided to gain an intimate knowledge of plantation life in war-time. Whether we succeeded or failed, we would learn more about the freedmen than we had hitherto known, and would assist, in some degree, to solve the great problem before the country. Success would be personally profitable, while failure could not ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... Mr. Wharton. "If there is anything he hates, it is to raise plants and not have them used. He always has to start more slips than he needs in case some of them do not root; when they do, he is swamped. Evidently you have helped him solve his problem for no sooner did the owners of the other bungalows see Stevens's boxes than everybody wanted them. They all are pestering the carpenter for boards. It made old Mr. Fernald chuckle, for he likes flowers and is delighted to have the cottages on the place ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... ceased to be put out by my asking strange unchildish questions which he was not always able to answer. He often said, "We will ask Mr. Andrewes what he thinks;" and for my own part, I respected him none the less that he often honestly confessed that he could not, off-hand, solve all the problems that exercised my brain. He was not a good general naturalist but he was fond of geology, and was kind enough to take me out with him on "chipping" expeditions, and to start me with a "collection" of fossils. ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to talk about Springfield at all,—indeed I could not understand her. She seemed as though she had a great problem to solve, and was unable to see ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... vision of a white lace-edged surface upon which was spread out a lovely disorder of red copper hair. She so worked upon him that his emotions and his duties became inextricably mixed. Somehow he must secure that paper and solve the baffling problem of the wonderful widow who appeared to be French, and yet was not French. His brain by itself could not have conceived of a means, but Madame assisted to stimulate its imagination as she had done the beating of his heart. "It was wrong of you, mon ami" she said, in gentle ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... and laid open to me the real Principle of that great wicked Man. I can now reconcile the Bravest and most Gallant of his Atchievements, with his vilest and the most treacherous of his Actions; and tracing every Thing, he did, from one and the same Motive, I can solve several Difficulties concerning his Character, that would be inexplicable, if that vast Genius had been govern'd by any Thing but his Ambition; and, if following the common Opinion, we suppose him to have been a Compound of a daring ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... royal road to wealth." But I think there is a royal road to both. The road to learning is a royal one; the road that enables the student to expand his intellect and add every day to his stock of knowledge, until, in the pleasant process of intellectual growth, he is able to solve the most profound problems, to count the stars, to analyze every atom of the globe, and to measure the firmament this is a regal highway, and it is the only ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum
... resumed Arbaces, after a short pause, in which he seemed absorbed in thought—'You ask me, or would do so, the mightiest secrets which the soul of man is fitted to receive; it is the enigma of life itself that you desire me to solve. Placed like children in the dark, and but for a little while, in this dim and confined existence, we shape our spectres in the obscurity; our thoughts now sink back into ourselves in terror, now wildly ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... and safety. I am sorry it is so; but it is too true, and while it stigmatizes the system, it works against ourselves. The evil is in the defects of the system, but the remedy is a problem with diverse and intricate workings, which, I own, are beyond my comprehension to solve. The reason why I spoke to you as I did when you cut the pinions from the man's hands, was to give you a word of precaution. That is a bad man. Negroes would rather be sold to a sugar plantation in Louisiana any time than be sold to him. He ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... I am not acquainted with the technical language of either painter or musician, I can attempt to describe these effects only in common language. I speak for myself only, and am anything but dogmatic on the subject of poetry. The symbolism of Poe's verse we must solve, each for himself. To me, for myself, the solution seems not difficult—and so no doubt says another; but on comparison these solutions would no ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... is a problem for wiser heads than ours to solve. Each system has its grievances; if human nature had not suffered so severely from the original transgression I ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... a town-site, which would mean more to him than any one could know. If it went through, he would, for an investment of ten thousand dollars, have a hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and that would solve an everlasting ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... present to be valued and cherished more than life itself. He could hardly believe his senses. Far too bewildered to solve the knotty point of cipher versus monogram, he muttered some incoherent syllables, and only began to recover when he had stared blankly for a good five minutes at the off-horse's ears, from the ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... possible efficient cause, that is a cause determining the will. There must here be a total absence of springs; unless this idea of an intelligible world is itself the spring, or that in which reason primarily takes an interest; but to make this intelligible is precisely the problem that we cannot solve. ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... difficulty in distinguishing town influences from specific trade influences confronted Dr. Arlidge in his investigation into diseases of employments. "It is a most difficult problem to solve, especially in the case of an industrial town population, how far the diseases met with are town-made and how far trade-made; the former almost always predominates." (Diseases of ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... the schooner now that she had brought him safely to his destination was a problem that Bob had not been able to solve. The vessel was not his, and it was plainly his duty to find her owner and deliver the schooner to him, but how to go about it he did not know. That evening when the candles were lighted and all were gathered around the stove, he put the ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... from our dominating position at Kandahar, she had approached considerably nearer to Afghanistan, and in a direction infinitely more advantageous than before for a further onward move. Up to 1881 a Russian army advancing on Afghanistan would have had to solve the difficult problem of the formidable Hindu Kush barrier, or if it took the Herat line it must have faced the deserts of Khiva and Bokhara. But all this was changed by Skobeloff's victories over the Tekke Turkomans, which gave Merv ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... form an opinion that those who bought lots of them must in the end be ruined; even their right to sell these lands at all was at the time much questioned. This being the case, the difficulty any Governor must have to contend with, who should attempt to solve the intricate problem involved in the land-question, was apparent, and it will be evident also that those who pretend to form a judgment on the conduct of Captain R. Fitzroy, must take into consideration the character of the people, both white and coloured, with ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... almost in an instant the results of the most complicated calculations is a psychological problem of great interest, which has never been investigated. No more promising subject for the investigation could ever have been found than Safford, and I greatly regret having lost all opportunities to solve the problem. What was of interest in Safford's case was the connection of this faculty with other remarkable mental powers of an analogous but yet different kind. He had a remarkable faculty for acquiring, using, and reading languages, and would have been an accomplished ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... of this case that if we could locate this Paoli we could solve the kidnapping of little Adelina Gennaro very quickly. That's ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... captivity. The Portuguese prince now falls in love with Bell'-Imperia, and has her brother's full consent to the match. But that lady has already transferred her affections to young Horatio. Lorenzo encourages Balthazar to solve the difficulty by the young man's death. While Bell'-Imperia and Horatio are making love together by night in a garden-bower, Lorenzo, Balthazar and two servants (Serberine and Pedringano) surprise them and hang Horatio to a tree beside the entrance. They then decamp with the ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... and the big train, where I went with a fatigue party, is the headquarters of my friend, the general, whom I was with in 1912. I can't tell you more than that. It will be an interesting little puzzle for you to solve. I will despatch this letter now. It is rumoured that we shall see Joffre in a few days or so, but it is ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... companions. "Have you ever seen during your rambles the remains of a log cabin about two miles down the Miami Canal? I recollect it well, but there is a mystery attached to those ruins which no one living can solve. The oldest settlers found that cabin there; and it then appeared in such a dilapidated state as to justify the belief that it had been built many years previous." "Do you know anything about it?" I eagerly ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... papers were taken from Woolwich. There were seven in the pocket of Cadogan West. The three most essential are gone—stolen, vanished. You must drop everything, Sherlock. Never mind your usual petty puzzles of the police-court. It's a vital international problem that you have to solve. Why did Cadogan West take the papers, where are the missing ones, how did he die, how came his body where it was found, how can the evil be set right? Find an answer to all these questions, and you will have done good service for ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... alone with her friend, she asked her the question which had perplexed herself, and which she had never been able to solve: "Ulrica, why are ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... Frenchmen from England. No doubt the explanation seemed impossible to Roland, for he had replied with his eyes, and a shrug of the shoulders: "I find it quite as extraordinary as you; but if you, mathematician as you are, can't solve ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... then dropped down on the sofa beside her, and took tea as serenely as though there were no such things in the world as murder and swindling and puzzling police-riddles to solve. ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... detective, and let it go at that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they did not require him to solve mysteries which had baffled the police. He had never measured a footprint in his life, and what he did not know about bloodstains would have filled a library. The sort of job they gave Henry was to stand outside a restaurant in the rain, and note what time ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Notwithstanding the incomparable sagacity of its author, the 'Principia' contained merely a rough outline of planetary perturbations, though not through any lack of ardor or perseverance. The efforts of the great philosopher were always superhuman, and the questions which he did not solve were simply incapable of solution in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the question was too deep a one for him to solve. He called the sachems of the Wampanoags together, and talked the matter over with them. Several meetings were held, and every member expressed himself ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... flowed northwards or eastwards. In each case fine loam would be accumulated during subsidence and removed during the upheaval of the land. Changes, therefore, of level analogous to those on which we have been led to speculate when endeavouring to solve the various problems presented by the glacial phenomena, are equally available to account for the nature and geological distribution of the loess. But we must suppose that the amount of depression and re-elevation in ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... Scotty had said—that the real reason for his uneasiness was inactivity. He admitted that the problem of the stricken team members intrigued him. He made no claim to being any great shakes as a detective, but trying to solve mysteries, whether scientific or real, was a ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... like shifting sands. Jim never knew whether he would wake to find ten or a hundred men in the camp. He tried for a long time to solve the problem. Iron Skull considered it unsolvable. He had a low opinion of the rough-neck. At last he disappeared for a couple of weeks and returned with twenty-five Indians. They were Apaches and Mohaves under the leadership of a fine austere ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Greek philosopher who was born in Sicily about 450 B.C. He is best remembered from the tradition that he threw himself down Etna in despair at his incapacity to solve the ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... American people will sign for more wildernesses to conquer. But there is here a physico-political problem presented for our solution. Were it was purely physical—your past triumphs would leave but little doubt of your capacity to solve it. ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... problems that confront us which we can only solve by the exercise of our utmost courage and wisdom. I do not want anything I say here this evening to have in the least degree the complexion of a political talk. I am like a friend of mine down in Virginia who told me that he never could talk politics with a man, "Because," he says, "I ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... we are engaged. Engaged in handling this little problem that has presented itself to you. Do you see? And I will help you to solve it in the right way. For you need help. Reginald dear, I didn't mean to treat your proposal so lightly. I am sorry. There, give me your hand. We're just awfully good friends, aren't we? And I do love you, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... necessary to be done, to supply the wants of the army in the immediate present. But the future was what demanded the greatest thought and most careful planning. The problem that gave Buell the greatest trouble to solve—the protection of his lines of communication and supplies—was now forced upon Rosecrans. The enemy with more than one-half of his cavalry force absent during the battle of Stone's River, under Morgan in Kentucky and Forrest in West Tennessee, outnumbered ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... for boys! Jerry Todd and his trusty pals solve many a baffling mystery in their home town, much to the amusement of all who read ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the conversation was reported to the other girls, it troubled them a good deal, and they longed to solve the mystery. And when Will came he refused to be of any help whatever, keeping almost entirely to himself, and answering questions put to him vaguely, if at all. His actions became more and more mysterious, and it was absolutely impossible to make ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... is also deserving of compassion who is expected to be funny whether he will or no. As I grew older, and learned to look on the two heads as types, they gave rise to many reflections, raising a question perhaps impossible to solve: whether the vices and follies of men were to be washed away, or exploded by a broadside of honest laughter. I believe it is Southwell who says that Mary Magdalene went to Heaven by water, and it is certain that the tears that people shed for themselves are apt to be sincere; but I doubt ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... escape from his wire-cage was a difficulty he could not solve, for the lamp had been extinguished, and the entanglement of his line and air-pipe rendered signalling impossible. He continued to struggle helplessly, therefore, in total darkness. That the air-tube ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... geographical world outside of Europe. There was not enough organized geographical knowledge for that. They were simply conceived as remote places beyond Greenland, inhabited by inferior but dangerous people. The accidental finding of such places served neither to solve any great commercial problem nor to gratify and provoke scientific curiosity. It was, therefore, not at all strange that it bore ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... been a mere sentiment, and in an ordinary man a vague and occasional reflection, expanded in his mind into a general and practical view of life. Observing that the things we covet are not only difficult of attainment, but unsatisfactory in possession, he thought to solve the problem of life by substituting contempt for admiration. He was, probably, somewhat influenced by his own condition in this vain attempt to draw sweetness from sour grapes. He was poor, and we find that ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... dealt with unconsciously, by methods of trial and error, of perpetual experiment, which has often proved costly, but has all the more clearly brought out the real course of natural progress. We cannot solve problems so ancient and deeply rooted as those of sex by merely rational methods which are only of yesterday. To be of value our rational methods must be the revelation in deliberate consciousness of unconscious ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... long it would take a greyhound to overtake a fox or a hare if the spring of each was so and so, and the poor fugitive had such and such a start. That was perhaps well, but we have forgotten how to bound Connecticut, and how to solve the equation of the field and thicket; but up out of the far-off years come all the blessed lessons in virtue and righteousness which those reading books taught; and when we now remember, how even these moral memories have faded I cannot but wish the teachers had made us bound the States ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... singing bird That feeds on puny garden seed! My songs are stronger than those heard In ev'ry wind-full, shallow reed! My pipes are jungle-grown and need A strong man's breath to blow them well; A strong soul's sense to solve their spell And be by their ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... to attempt to specify such resemblances in detail would prove a laborious task. But while the similarity to which I refer is far too close and remarkable to be accounted for by mere coincidence, its explanation is by no means easy. Some would solve the difficulty by referring to the unquestionable fact that many of the ceremonies practised in the Christian Church are adaptations of ancient heathen rites: a leading captive of captivity of which, as it seems to me, Christianity has far more reason to be proud than ashamed. But though ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... before. "My abused daughter," said he, "can you give me no farther light in this miraculous affair?" "Sir," replied she, "I can give you no other account than I have done already. Here are my husband's clothes, which he put off last night; perhaps you may find something among them that may solve your doubt." She then shewed him Buddir ad Deen's turban, which he examined narrowly on all sides, saying, "I should take this to be a vizier's turban, if it were not made after the Bussorah fashion." But perceiving ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... replied the surgeon hastily. "I may NOT have it. This weak yet amiable priest is content to take for granted what every rational mind rejects without fair proofs. He receives as a postulate that which I must have demonstrated. I try to solve the problem, and the first links of the argument ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... conclusively that the old-fashioned system of bringing up children on the three R's and a spanking did not work so well as some persons seem to think. I could prove that the problem has grown past the point where instinct and tradition may be held as sufficient to solve it. Everyone, seeing these letters, would be obliged to confess, "Yes, indeed, here is plain need of training for parents." Yet, at the same time, these same persons would be tempted to inquire, "But can any training meet such ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... of the unsophisticated mind is found to be in more substantial agreement with the last results of reflex philosophical thought, than those early philosophizings which halt between the affirmation and denial of bodily attributes, unable to prescind from the difficulty and unable to solve it. The history of the Jews, nay, the history of our own mind proves to demonstration that the thought of God is a far easier thought and a far earlier, than that of a spirit. Our mind, oar heart, our conscience, affirm the former instinctively, while the latter does continual violence to our ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... passed from infancy to childhood. It was well shaped but not fully grown. Its pioneering days were over. It was self-supporting and had a little money in the bank. But it could not then have carried the load of traffic that it carries to-day. It had still too many problems to solve and too much general inertia to overcome. It needed to be conserved, drilled, educated, popularized. And the man who was finally chosen to replace Vail was in many respects the appropriate leader ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... interest in Cosette, Thenardier had divined his purpose. He had caught the old man's deep glances returning constantly to the child. Who was this man? Why this interest? Why this hideous costume, when he had so much money in his purse? Questions which he put to himself without being able to solve them, and which irritated him. He had pondered it all night long. He could not be Cosette's father. Was he her grandfather? Then why not make himself known at once? When one has a right, one asserts it. This man ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... to every face except the foxy features of the ex-Churchman, who for once had no adequate retort ready. Curly Saunders nodded appreciation, and helped to solve the momentary dilemma prevailing. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... be found, they had got a clue to its locality. A vigorous policy of exploration was inaugurated, but after many weeks of toil the operations were abandoned without the mystery having been penetrated. It was thought that time and opportunity would solve the problem, but how it was to be solved no one knew. There was, indeed, great speculation as to what might happen should another landing be attempted, but month after month passed without any indication of this, and the little population ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Difficult problems agitated the human mind. On what, for instance, did the solid earth rest, and what prevented the vaulted heaven from falling in upon men and crushing them out of existence? Fantastic myths sprang from the vain attempts to solve these riddles. The Hindoos, for example, imagined the earth as supported by four elephants which stood upon the back of a gigantic tortoise, which, in its turn, floated on the surface of an elemental ocean. The early Western civilisations conceived the fable of the Titan Atlas, ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... conjecture whether the dark, shadowy inequalities which terminated the horizon, and penetrated, methought, into the very skies far beyond the lake, were mountains or clouds: a dark problem, which to this day I have not been able to solve. Nay, I was taken twice, despite of the most virtuous efforts to the contrary, from a Salve Regina, to watch a little skiff, which shone with its snowy sail spread before the radiant evening sun, and glided over the waters, like an angel sent on some ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... is older, richer and wiser, since the Brook Farm experiment began. It is more tolerant of one another's opinions, more enterprising, progressive and liberal, and surely a few weak trials made half a century ago, are not enough to solve the majestic problem of right living and how to shape the outward forms of society, so that within their environments all interests may be harmonized, and the golden rule begin to be, in a practical way, the measure of ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... perfect enigma; with a heart so capable of loving devotedly, and yet so steeled against her own child, and so lovely and winning a little creature as Agnes. It was a puzzle which she had often tried to solve, in vain. ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... all," Nigel replied. "He must have come to the conclusion that the key to the riddle he was trying to solve was in China, and gone on there. Look here, Maggie," he continued, after a moment's hesitation, "do you think anything could be done for ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... way of driving sin out of the world is to make known the Saviour. Reader, can you solve Mr. Bunyan's riddle? When fierce persecution rages—when the saints are tormented with burning, hanging, and imprisonment—then, like Stephen, to fix our eyes upon Jesus, and the gates of heaven open to receive us, submitting with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... soberly estimated. Politics has receded into the region of blind impulse and factional interests, and would need to be reconstituted before it could approach again that scientific problem which Socrates and his great disciples would have wished it to solve. Meantime it may not be premature to say something about another factor in practical philosophy, namely, the ultimate interests by which industrial arts and their products have to be estimated. Even before we know the exact effects of an institution we ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... are still unsettled, and that Burke offers in their highest and most comprehensive form all the considerations that belong to one side of the dispute. He was not of those, of whom Coleridge said that they proceeded with much solemnity to solve the riddle of the French Revolution by anecdotes. He suspended it in the same light of great social ideas and wide principles, in which its authors and champions professed to represent it. Unhappily he advanced from ...
— Burke • John Morley
... the process of embalming, as described by the authors just quoted, we find a few problems of more or less difficulty, and which none of them appear inclined to solve; and I do not wonder at this, as the attempt, in my own case, in one or two instances, has involved days of study and references to dozens of medical and other works with but a meagre result. However, to take them seriatim, we can assume, I think, with some show of evidence, that the Ethiopian ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... sound like, yet unlike, distant thunder came faintly down upon the breeze. In a few seconds the sound increased to a roar in which was mingled the wild cries of men. Neither Dick nor Crusoe moved, for the sounds came from behind the heights in front of them, and they felt that the only way to solve the question, "What can the sounds be?" was to wait till the sounds ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... presence of the Crown Prince, his cheerful and kindly manners, his known attachment to liberal ideas, his strong national feeling, the success with which he had borne himself on the uncongenial field of battle, all had made him the hope of the generation to which he belonged. Who was so well suited to solve the difficulties of internal policy with which Bismarck had struggled so long? Hopes never to be fulfilled! Absent from his father's deathbed, he returned to Berlin a crippled and dying man, and when a few ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... means," said Bonnie. "Behold Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson about to solve the Mystery of the ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... even for a mental joke, though a little timely laughter is often the best weapon to meet trouble with, sometimes having an effect like that of a gay sunshade suddenly opened in the face of an angry bull. Unable to solve the riddle, I retired to my room to sleep my last ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... upon the question before me, I must say a word of the road that I shall traverse. When Pascal approached a geometrical problem, he invented a method of solution; to solve a problem in philosophy a method is equally necessary. Well, by how much do the problems of which philosophy treats surpass in the gravity of their results those discussed by geometry! How much more imperatively, then, do they demand for ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Miller did not know. Blessed with an uncommon degree of curiosity, which increased each time she saw old Hagar, she resolved to solve the mystery, which she felt sure was connected with herself, though in what manner she could not guess. "But I will know," she would say to herself when returning from a fruitless quizzing of old Hagar, whose hiding-place she had at last discovered; "I will know what 'tis about ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... struggled to solve the huge military problem, and make the sum of smaller numbers equal to that of greater numbers.... His thoughts ever turned upon the soldiers of his army, the ragged gallant fellows around him—whose pinched cheeks told hunger was their portion, and whose ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... asked, cheeringly, the rumble of the traffic destroying the carrying-power of their voices. He leaned toward her, very anxious to solve any difficulty which might confront her, perfectly willing to ensnare her by kindness. "Isn't there something I can do? We're going now for a long ride to the pavilion in Jackson Park, and then, after dinner, we'll come back by moonlight. Won't that ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the present time the circumstance has puzzled wiser heads than his, and there have been various attempts to solve the mystery. A tradition is said to be current in the Colonial Office that the appointment was the result of a singular misapprehension of identity, and the late Mr. Roebuck assured Sir Francis Hincks ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... her own emotions of chagrin and astonishment, that she heard not one word of what Miss Harding was saying. She felt well assured that if Mr. Murray were cognizant of her visit to the "Egyptian museum," he intended her to know it, and she knew that his countenance would solve her ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... though the thing conveyed nothing to me. But some time later I mentioned it casually, and Hilliard, who has a mania for puzzles, overheard. He suggested my joining him on his trip, and calling to see if we could solve it. You, Mr. Coburn, said another thing to your friends—that though I might have noticed about the lorry, you were certain neither Hilliard nor I had seen anything suspicious at the clearing. There, sir, you were wrong. Though at that ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... the young man, half-absently. "I am up against one of them, right now, and I don't know how to solve it." ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... the whole problem, Randolph went on to present the Virginia plan. To make the federal government operate directly upon individuals, one provision was absolutely necessary. It did not solve the whole problem, but it was an indispensable beginning. This was the proposal that there should be a national legislature, in which the American people instead of the American states should be represented. For the purposes of federal legislation, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... we have no record; while we are usually without any information as to the habits and general life-history even of those of which we possess some fragmentary remains; so that the truest and most complete theory would not enable us to solve all the difficult problems which the whole course of the development of life upon our globe presents ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... that having carried off the queen, this violence might cause to be regarded as null the alliance which she should contract with him: the first of these objections was attended to, to begin with, as the one most difficult to solve. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... solve the problems of the air, The secrets of the deep, Are all intrinsic subjects And worthy ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite |
