"Clew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had been seen four weeks before from the coast of Candia, and were then steering southeast. This intelligence was corroborated by a vessel spoken the same day. Southeast, being nearly dead before the prevailing wind, was an almost certain clew to the destination of an unwieldy body which could never regain ground lost to leeward; so, although Nelson now learned that some of his missing frigates had also been seen recently off Candia, he would waste no time looking for them. It may be ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, buffeted and now and then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas, floundering below amidst a raffle of fallen gear, while the bitter spray lashed them, and the broken boom held up by the clew ring banged savagely to and fro. After that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast a curious quietness as Dampier jammed his helm up, and the schooner swung off before the sea. Then somebody lighted a lantern, ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... appeared before us, and mentioned the name of the dwarf, I could not have been more astonished. My steward was ignorant of my acquaintance with him, and Forrester had left England before it began. By what means, then, could Forrester have obtained a clew to him? It really looked like a stroke ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... assume that this was one of the things the professional "strong-arm man" would not do. But it was also evident that he must speedily lose his identity if he hoped to escape; and the lost identity must leave no clew to itself. ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Indian pony, apparently tireless, shot on like an arrow driven into the teeth of the wind, sending up behind a cloud of dust that stretched backward toward the baffled pursuers, a long wavering ribbon like a clew left to guide the band into the mysterious depths of ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the house was quite unaltered, and I knew every leaf in the garden. The flush in the sky had turned to gold and the air throbbed with light as I hid my portmanteau under the rosebush by the gate and stole up to the study-door. I would not give so palpable a clew to my identity as that: I wished to appear like one who had dropped in for a moment to ask the hour or the loan of a late journal. I rapped at the shutters that enclosed the outer door, and waited in a tremor of expectation: there was no response. Again I rapped, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... will speak to the hearts of thousands of women all through the country, and particularly to the women "out West," as they have already to my own. This problem has been revolved in my mind again and again, but no clew has appeared by which to solve it; and I have laid it down hopelessly, feeling that there is no alternative but to submit and carry the burden as long as strength endures, and seeing no outlook for the future but in a brief period of old age, when ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... pitiable: D'Harmental unquestionably had there, ready to his hand, all the means necessary to the happy completion of his plot, but he had, in killing the captain, broken with his own hand the thread which should have served him as a clew to them, and, the center link broken, the whole chain had ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... ahoy!'' was sounded down the fore scuttle and the after hatchway, and, hurrying upon deck, we found a large black cloud rolling on toward us from the southwest, and darkening the whole heavens. "Here comes Cape Horn!'' said the chief mate; and we had hardly time to haul down and clew up before it was upon us. In a few minutes a heavier sea was raised than I had ever seen, and as it was directly ahead, the little brig, which was no better than a bathing-machine, plunged into it, and all the forward part of her was under water; the sea pouring in through ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... functions of a professor may appear obscure and exaggerated to one who has not studied at a German university. But it gives the clew to the entire German system of university education, and accounts in great part for the high standard of scholarship. Only in part, for the innate proneness of the German mind to research must be credited with some share in the result. It is safe to say ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... your clew," said Stella, turning to Ted. "The fellow who posted this notice was disguised in a wolfskin so that he could sneak up to the house unnoticed by the Chinaman, or, if seen, he would make a ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... refused to follow her. She jerked at it in vain. She dared not let her clew break, because if she should lose the lover supposed to be holding its other end, she would die unmarried. "Let me see you! let me see you!" she cried, eagerly, and a figure drew near her in the darkness. An arm covered with ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Chic-a-dee-dee! I think old Caesar must have heard In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, And, echoed in some frosty wold, Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. And I will write our annals new, And thank thee for a better clew, I, who dreamed not when I came here To find the antidote of fear, Now hear thee say in Roman key, Paean! Veni, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... simply presenting the God of the Bible! I can never thank you enough, Miss Marsden, for your strong good sense that has dissipated my fog-bank of words. I think I see the way into light. You have placed a clew in my hands which I trust will lead, not only me, but others into peace. I fear I did present to you a calm, unimpassioned, inflexible Being this morning,—a God of purposes and decrees and remorseless will; and I have felt before that this was ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... try the directory first go-off. If I didn't find him there I'd write to some of his folks, if I knew any of 'em, and get a clew. If I didn't succeed then I'd try the police. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... as he and Lennox gripped each other's hands hard and in silence, a soft, rustling movement was heard. For the men were springing to their feet and arranging their pouches and belts, before giving their rifles a thorough rub to get rid of the clinging clew. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... glasses. All Nihilists wear glasses when traveling. And then I had a good clew. A minute before the departure from Paris I had a friend go into the corridor of the sleeping-car, a reporter who would do anything I said without even wanting to know why. I said, 'You call out suddenly and very loud, "Hello, here is Rouletabille."' So he called, 'Hello, here is ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... no clew to the source of this great and sudden change of climate. Various suggestions have been made—among others, that formerly the inclination of the earth's axis was greater, or that a submersion of the ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... questioning glance. It was almost as if she were asking "Have we known each other before?" Irene could not help looking at her, and ransacking the side cupboards of her memory to try to light upon some forgotten clew as to why the face should ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... made for the grand fleet to anchor, All in the Downs that night for to meet; So cast off your shank-painter, let go your cat's-topper, Hawl up your clew-garnets, let fly tack ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... explanation which a friend was pouring into his ear. Standing at the moment with my knee on Madame de Bruhl's stool, and remembering very well the meeting on the stairs, I conceived in a flash that the man was jealous; but whether he had yet heard my name, or had any clew to link me with the person who had rescued Mademoiselle de la Vire from his clutches, I could not tell. Nevertheless his presence led my thoughts into a new channel. The determination to punish him began to take form in my mind, and very quickly I regained my composure. Still I was for ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... making sail with all possible speed, got clear away. Meantime a shot had brought the Norfolk to on the Falmouth's starboard bow, where she was immediately boarded. On her decks an ominous state of things prevailed. Her crew would not assist to clew up the sails, the anchor had been seized to the chain-plates and could not be let go, and when the gang from the Falmouth attempted to cut the buoy ropes with which it was secured, the "crew attacked them with hatchets and treenails, made sail and obliged them to quit the ship." ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... spectroscopic character, and so forth—or given a knowledge of the molecular constitution, together with the general physical and chemical properties of compounds—in other words, given such knowledge of the element or compound as may be learned in a laboratory—does such knowledge afford us any clew whereby to predicate the probable action of the element or of the compound respectively on the living body? The researches of Blake, Rabuteau, Richet, Bouchardat, Fraser, and Crum-Brown were discussed, the results of their observations ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... each other with the sly curiosity of a police officer on the lookout for a clew, when they are quite convinced of the newness of each other's gloves, of each other's waistcoat and of the taste with which their cravats are tied; when they are pretty certain that neither of them is down in the world, they link arms and if they start from the Theater des Varietes, they have ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... the matter. Parker had disappeared; he had gone to New York and there drawn heavily on his father. The journey which Colonel Hitchcock had made with his daughter had been largely for the purpose of finding Parker, and had failed. The boy was ashamed to come back. Now there was a clew, but it seemed unwise for the father to follow it ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... amazement. That she was free temporarily at least, could not be gainsaid. Her captors had not seen fit to bind her and she now stood absolutely untouched by anyone. The shooting, the fighting, had confused her. She had only seen Marteau as an accomplice and friend of her assailants, she had no clew to his apparent change of heart. She did not know whether she had merely exchanged masters or what had happened. Smiling ironically at her bewilderment, which he somehow resented in his heart, ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... stranger's grave had to be provided. In the meantime the friends and relatives of the missing girl had been making every effort to locate her, no idea having occurred to them that she was going South. A loving brother finally got hold of a clew, which he followed up so successfully that he at last solved the mystery. He arrived in New Orleans on November 1st, and when taken out to the grave that had been provided for the stranger who had died just ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... D——, at Vienna once, did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give him a clew. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... farm-house that no one had seen a man with a boy in his arms or walking by him pass that way, he proceeded down a long and not much frequented grassy lane at a jog-trot, but with small expectation of finding any clew that might guide him to the discovery of the lost child. He had ridden on thus about half a mile, when he paused at a place where another grassy lane crossed at right angles the one down which he ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... rolling-pin, rundle. cone, conoid[obs3]; pear shape, egg shape, bell shape. sphere, globe, ball, boulder, bowlder[obs3]; spheroid, ellipsoid; oblong spheroid; oblate spheroid, prolate spheroid; drop, spherule, globule, vesicle, bulb, bullet, pellet, pelote[obs3], clew, pill, marble, pea, knob, pommel, horn; knot (convolution) 248. curved surface, hypersphere; hyperdimensional surface. V. render spherical &c.adj.; form into a sphere, sphere, roll into a ball; give rotundity &c. n.; round. Adj. rotund; round &c. (circular) 247; cylindric, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... proved to be a total failure. It was best, we thought, not to mince matters with her; and we stated minutely how time after time the anchorage of the schooner had been precisely located, and then in a little while had been unlocated again. She saw, as we did, that as a clew Old Jacob was not much of a success, and also that he was about the only thing in the least like a clew that we possessed. Realizing this latter fact, and knowing that his great age made his death probable at any moment, Susan ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... been found in a tomb, with their six faces marked with words instead of pips. He showed that these words were identical with the first six digits in the Altaic branch of the Turanian family of speech. Guided by this clew, it was easy to prove that the grammar and vocabulary of the 3000 Etruscan inscriptions were also Altaic. The words denoting kindred, the pronouns, the conjugations, and the declensions, corresponded closely to those ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... smitten down with cruel falsehood, and even her father is convinced of her guilt, he is the first to suspect that "the practice of it lies in John the bastard." With his just faith in the honour of the Prince and of Claudio, his quick judgment and native sagacity forthwith hit upon the right clew to the mystery. Much the same, all through, is to be said of Beatrice; who approves herself a thoroughly brave and generous character. The swiftness and brilliancy of wit upon which she so much prides herself are at once forgotten in resentment and vindication of her injured kinswoman. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... optimistic. Day by day crept by without a clew to the missing girl being discovered; without development of any sort. The Inspector informed Mr. Merrick that "it began to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... ancient prophets also, his heart was ever burdened by the waywardness of the people whom he exhorted and warned. In young Waldo appeared a joyousness which nothing could quench. From the moment she obtained a clew to his unexpected behavior, everything in his manner accorded with the surgeon's explanation. In his boyish face and expression there was not a trace of the fanatical or abnormal. He seemed to think of Heaven as he did of his own home, and the thought of going to the one ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... dog," Leigh said, filling an impressive pause with the first chance comment that came to him. Afterward he wondered at the obstinate torpidity of his mind, for not even the reference to her deliberate look and fine eyes gave him the clew. All this talk of early hardship and of street-cars had put the narrator for the time on another level from that he now occupied in the world, and made his past seem his present. The very confession, and the manner of it, belittled the confessor, and ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... the violence of the attack and to the particular form of disease with which the animal is affected. In the superficial, or cutaneous, form the presence of a swollen tongue, throat, and dewlap, or even of the lower portion of the legs, gives us a clew to the trouble. An entire loss of appetite occurs, and in milk cows there is a diminution of the milk secretion. The temperature may be only slightly elevated, but it is usually very high. Salivation is set up by the inflammation of the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... stone, while they crowded for a closer peep at the mysterious dancers in a hand-organ. From that day to this the whereabouts of the dollships has remained a solemn secret from the knowledge of all but the Midgetts. And it was to them Bunch had gone for a clew ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... locality of that little domicile where his plainly clad mate is evidently sitting, it is all we will ask of him. But this he seems in no wise disposed to do. Here and there, and up and down; we follow him, often losing him, and as often refinding him by his song; but the clew to his nest, how shall we get it? Does he never go home to see how things are getting on, or to see if his presence is not needed, or to take madam a morsel of food? No doubt he keeps within earshot, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... owe you for anything, Mr. Webb?" she suddenly asked, groping for some clew to this ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... well our position just now, I think I can steer to it. Then, as to working the vessel, it is true I cannot hoist the sails single-handed, but luckily we have enough of sail set already; and if it should come on to blow a squall, I could at least drop the peaks of the main and fore sails, and clew them up partially without help, and throw her head close into the wind, so as to keep her all shaking till the violence of the squall is past. And if we have continued light breezes, I'll rig up a complication of blocks and fix them to the top-sail halyards, so that I shall be able to hoist the sails ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... been insane for a number of years. He was in an asylum over at Dayton, Ohio. There you see I have let it slip out! All of this took place in Ohio, right here in Ohio. There is a clew if you ever get the notion of looking ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... though wrought of the intertwining strands of each. Again she saw the dark face in the gateway. It was a mere picture in a frame, set for an artist's joy. Then it seemed a summons, calling her to unfamiliar paths,—a prophecy, a clew. Again she heard his voice,—an echo made of all these things, and more. She tried to force herself to think of him merely as an artist would think; how the lines of the shoulders and the throat flowed upward, like dark ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... inquest. Soon after the inspector came from Banff. And the next morning a skillful detective arrived from London. And the investigation commenced in earnest. Many witnesses were examined; extensive searches were made, and all measures taken to find out some clew to the murderer, but in vain. The police held possession of the premises for nearly a week, and the coroner's jury sat day after day; but all to no purpose, as far as the discovery of the perpetrator of the crime was concerned. This seemed one of the obstinate murders that, in spite ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... had been revealed to Peter, and he now thought he had the clew to the charm. The good dwarf, Glassmanikin, only helped people who were ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... time there came on a squall with rain, which almost blinded us; the sail was taken in very neatly, the clew-lines, chock-a-block, bunt-lines and leech-lines well up, reef-tackles overhauled, rolling-tackles taut, and all as it should be. The men lied out on the yard, the squall wore worse and worse, but they were handing ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fished, played upon the beach, or explored the neighborhood. When it rained, which was seldom, they cleaned up the house, read books and old letters, ransacking trunks and drawers trying to discover the secret of the departed owner. But in vain. The departed owner had been careful to leave no clew to his identity or of his reason for abiding there. They did find, however, between the leaves of a book, a little chart of the point done by his own hand apparently, and ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... closeted with Mr. Damsel all day, but so shrewdly and cunningly had the express robber covered his tracks, that nothing but the bare description of the man could be used as a clew. ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... that boiling, seething world of Rome, now more than ever disturbed by the inroads of strangers eagerly looking forward to the excitements of the amphitheatre, it would be in vain to make even deliberate and careful search for a lost slave, unless some clew should be left behind. Yes, she must surely have that clew; and doubtless she purposed to use it as soon as daylight came. Let her go now, therefore. It were idle to call her back only for new flight ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the express purpose of preventing anything of the kind did not improve matters. He hated to put the news on the wire—to admit to headquarters that the ranchers apparently had caught him napping. But, having dispatched his telegram, he set his energies to finding some clew to the perpetrators of ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... six men on horseback bearing up full in his teeth, upon which he threw his sails aback, and prepared for action; that he hailed them at a considerable distance, and bade them bring to; when they came alongside, notwithstanding his hail, he ordered them to clew up their courses, and furl their topsails, otherwise he would be foul of their quarters; that, hearing this salute, they luffed all at once, till their cloth shook in the wind; then he hallooed in a loud voice, that his sweetheart, Besselia Mizzen, were the broad pendant ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... he had a clew to her interest, and followed it deftly. In a few minutes he had come about into her seat. He talked of sales of clothing, his travels, Chicago, and ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... understood what had taken place. That which he supposed to be the head of an Indian was some object presented by the crouching warrior with the purpose of drawing his fire, and it succeeded in doing so. The flash of the negro's rifle revealed where he stood, and the Shawanoe, who was watching for that clew, lost no time in firing, missing by a hair's-breadth a fatal result. Thus it came about that not the least execution was done on ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... also had the honor locally to represent. Years before, Smith had once visited Schuyler, and at that time had met the small, grizzled individual who now stood before him. He had not, however, the slightest idea of the identity of his visitor, and waited a brief moment for a clew to ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... to bed, after hanging the garment before the bedroom fire, will see the apparition of his or her object of affection turn the sleeve to dry the other side. To find the name of one's future spouse, one has nothing more to do than to go on Hallow-e'en to a barn or kiln, throw into it a clew of blue thread, which the person begins to wind up into another clew, having of course kept hold of one end of the thread. Before the winding operation is completed, some one will take hold of the thread, and on the question being asked, "Who holds?" an answer will be returned, in which ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... the earnest contents, convinced me that I now held the clew of that mystery which had baffled me so long, and that the missing letter said to have been lost at Le Noir's Landing was at last in my possession. It needed not this additional proof of treachery to convince me that my suspicions had been correct, and that, next to ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... except in the discharge of his professional duties. Various and conflicting opinions were expressed as to whither he had gone, in testing which I had visited no less than twenty cities, making careful inquiries, especially among medical men. Occasionally I struck what seemed to be a promising clew, which only increased my confusion and left me more hopelessly in the dark. I had reported my movements to Mr. Earl as often as once a week and I received letters from him frequently, encouraging me to continue the search and enclosing money with which to do so. But although ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... onely in a wearye body, to conteine a minde distraught through troublesome thoughts, breathing out hollow and deepe sighes, desiring helpe of the pittifull Cretensian Ariadne, who for the destroying of hir monstrous brother the Mynotaur[A] gaue vnto the deceitfull Theseus a clew of thred, to conduct him foorth of the intricate laborinth, that I also by some such meanes might be deliuered ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... the long sticks out of her, and the sails were gaping open and splitting in every direction. The mizzen-topsail, which was a comparatively new sail and close reefed, split from head to foot in the bunt; the foretopsail went in one rent from clew to caring, and was blowing to tatters; one of the chain bobstays parted; the spritsailyard sprung in the slings, the martingale had slued away off to leeward; and owing to the long dry weather the lee rigging ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... found her eyes searching the shape beside her for a clew to the answer of this lamentable mystery. In her covert scrutiny there was no morbid desire to spy upon another's hidden miseries—our Miss Smith was too well-bred for that—only was there a sudden quickened pity and with that pity a yearning to offer, if opportunity served, any small ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... officers who should be fully responsible for their actions. Indeed, it ought to be simpler to detect and punish offenders than in the case of mere individuals unincorporated, for the very fact that a corporation keeps books and acts under an elaborate set of by-laws and regulations gives a clew to its proceedings, and indicates a source of information as to all its acts. One clerk may therefore reveal, and properly reveal, books and letters which shall incriminate "those above"; one employee may show ten thousand ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... consecrated crew Some more seraphic shade Lend me a favourable clew, Now mists my eyes invade. Why, having filled the world with fame, Left you so little of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... effort to learn who the mysterious interloper was, but he wholly failed to obtain any clew to his identity. He had jumped to the conclusion that Dorothy's mysterious lover was a man of low degree. He had taken for granted that he was an adventurer whose station and person precluded him from openly wooing his daughter. He did not know that the heir to Rutland ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... with an interest inspired by all I had been hearing of the poor priest, and turned over the little volumes of his humble library to trace, if I might, some clew to his habits in his readings. They were all, however, of one cast and character—religious tracts and offices, covered with annotations and remarks, and showing, by many signs the most careful and frequent perusal. It was easy to see that ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... our sailing-master. "Clew up the topsails! Let the flying jib run down! Back the jib over to windward and run down the foresail!" And so was our schooner Sophie Sutherland hove to off the Japan coast, near Cape ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... a Godward development. St. John, the disciple of love, teaches very plainly that he who says he loves God must prove it by also loving man. If the whole of our training here is to be in loving and in living out our love, we certainly have the clew to the heavenly life. We shall continue in the doing of the things we have here learned to do. Life in glory will be earth's Christian life intensified and perfected. Heaven will not be a place of idle repose. Inaction can never ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... she sought a clew to the mystery and found none. What had come to Timar? His countenance betrayed something like happiness; what was he concealing under his care for Timea? In company he was bright and cheerful, unconstrained and ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... moment in California, the former home of Virgie, and could perhaps ascertain what mystery overshadowed her former life that had made it necessary to conceal her true name. This would perhaps give a clew how to proceed further, and, as we know, her letter was written at once, and brought an immediate reply. Further correspondence elicited information which only tended to strengthen Lady Linton in her evil designs, and Mrs. Farnum was advised to proceed directly to New ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... [p 22] For the more I consider, the more I'm perplex'd: However, thus much I will venture to tell; A female alone could have written so well." Sir Argus believ'd the Dame might have guess'd right; Yet, entre-nous, thought her not very polite: But that was a trifle; he now had a clew To assist his research; and more satisfied grew: Since the OWL'S well-known wisdom, and vast penetration, From time ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... few of our cavalry wore, when on Indian campaign, the forage-cap with its crossed sabres and distinguishing letters. Nothing in the dress or accoutrements of the two men thus advancing to meet the Indian emissaries would give to the latter any clew as to the troop or regiment to which they belonged. Could they see the horses, however, the matter would be settled at once. The U. S. brand, with that of the number of the regiment and letter of the troop showed on every ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... minor (op. 31, No. 2) meant, he received for an answer only the enigmatical remark: 'Read Shakespeare's "Tempest."' Many a student and commentator has since read the 'Tempest' in the hope of finding a clew to the emotional contents which Beethoven believed to be in the two works, so singularly associated, only to find himself baffled. It is a fancy, which rests, perhaps, too much on outward things, but still one full of suggestion, that had Beethoven said: 'Hear my C minor symphony,' he would ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... care?" thinking I now had the clew to Ned's savage manner for the week past. "When did ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... America are still an unsolved riddle. Those of Babylon have been slowly pieced together like a puzzle, a puzzle to which the learned world has given its most able thought. Yet they are not fully understood. In Egypt we have had the luck to stumble on a clew, the Rosetta Stone, which makes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... archway in the Strand. Such a man, under such misfortunes, may have a house, but he is never in his house; and has an address where letters may be left; but only simpletons go with the hopes of seeing him. Only a few of the faithful know where he is to be found, and have the clew to his hiding-place. So, after the disputes with his wife, and the misfortunes consequent thereon, to find Sir Francis Clavering at home was impossible. "Ever since I hast him for my book, which is fourteen pound, he don't come home till three o'clock, and purtends ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... language, an expression of thought as well as a condition of thought. Imagine a being free of a three-dimensional world trying to converse with a being still limited to a two-dimensional world, and we have a clew to what I think may have happened after the crucifixion of Jesus. The three-dimensional body would behave in a manner altogether unaccountable to the two-dimensional watcher. The latter, knowing only length and breadth, and nothing of up or down, would see his three-dimensional ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... when they again met, Byrne could give him no definite information; he did not even tell him that he thought he had a slight clew which he ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... sought the ground giving up the problem. Others continued to gaze at him either with wonder, or hopeful of extracting from his face some clew to his involved and incomprehensible moral attitude. They suddenly felt as if he had confessed himself of an alien species, a creature as remote from them and their ideals as a ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... step-mother might not behave well to them, and perhaps would do them some mischief, he took them to a lonely castle standing in the middle of a wood. There they remained hidden, for the road to it was so hard to find that the king himself could not have found it, had it not been for a clew of yarn, possessing wonderful properties, that a wise woman had given him; when he threw it down before him, it unrolled itself and showed him the way. And the king went so often to see his dear children, that the queen was displeased at his absence; and she became curious ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... surprised. She had had an idea that Mildred was not answerable for that postscript, but Mildred herself had no clew to the mystery, never having been told of Milly's written communication of a year ago. She sickened at the possibility that in some moment of aberration she might have written words meant for another on the ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... her face on her palms and considered the matter. Even with her habit of dealing with facts rather than fancies, she still found life a most perplexing and complex affair. The only help she gained toward understanding it was that clew taught her by her mother of matching the days and the events as one matches a fascinating puzzle. Out of this thought she spoke at last, though quite to the bewilderment of ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... the necessary clew to the castaway's identity in this preliminary search, she went on resolutely, dragging the two suit-cases over to the lighted corner and unlocking them with the keys taken from ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... while he might fear for his friend some chance repute of insanity, he had greater terrors than that. As to their nature I had no clew; nor was it my affair to be guessing; but whatever they were, the days of security at Les Trois Pigeons had somewhat eased Professor Keredec's mind in regard to them. At least, his anxiety was sufficiently assuaged to risk dining ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... sparkled merrily through the stringent air; the small, round moon shone like silver; little breaths of dreaming wind wandered across the pointed fir-tops, as the pilgrims toiled bravely onward, following their clew of light through ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... chemical combination because we have no experience upon which to found it. It is so fundamentally unlike a mechanical mixture that even our imagination can give us no clew to it. It is thinkable that the particles of two or more substances however fine, mechanically mixed, could be seen and recognized if sufficiently magnified; but in a chemical combination, say like ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... of her fair hair suggested weariness—sleep, perhaps. But as the young man hesitated on the threshold the sound of a muffled sob escaped the quiet figure. He turned noiselessly and went away, sorry and ashamed, because unwittingly he had stumbled upon the clew ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... one was in sight except his schoolmates returning from Lincoln Hall. To these he reported his loss, and a dozen of the Ridgleyites made a hurried search of the campus; they investigated all the shaded corners and unlighted doorways but found nothing that in any way offered a clew to the identity of ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... not found—a big slouch hat being the only tangible clew unearthed to a real personality. And this Walter dug out of a hole near a rear ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... "Dutchy" Mack and the "Black Diamond," and then he read carefully how "Abe" Hubbard, alias "Jimmie the Gent," a burglar, had broken jail in New Jersey, and had been traced to New York. There was a description of the man, and Van Bibber breathed quickly as he read it. "The detectives have a clew of his whereabouts," the account said; "if he is still in the city they are confident of recapturing him. But they fear that the same friends who helped him to break jail will probably assist him from the country or to get ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... of this. He had not told any one that he intended to retire to the circus cars earlier than usual. The chances were that he would not be missed till the circus company had reached the next town on their route, ten miles away. Then there would be no clew to his whereabouts, and even if there were he might be killed before any help could come to him. So far as he had been able to observe, the miners were—a portion of them, at least—a lawless set of men, who were not likely ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... overwhelmed a very worthy but very impetuous nobleman, Baron Jasto Dangloss, chief of police in Edelweiss. He could only sputter his excuses and withdraw, swearing to catch the arch-conspirator or to die in the attempt. Not a soul in the castle, not a being in all Graustark could offer the faintest clew to the identity of the man or explain his motive. No one knew a Michael, who might have been inadvertently addressed as "your" possible "Highness." The greatest wonder reigned; vexation, uneasiness and ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the helm!" cried Morgan the instant the boat was alongside. "Swing the mainyard and get the canvas off her. Aloft, topmen, settle away the halliards! Clew ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... It is a great source of strength to know our weakness, to make ourselves, if not the masters, the pilots of the soul of the race to which we are bound, which bears us like a vessel upon its waters,—to make fate our instrument, to use it as a sail which we furl or clew up according to the wind. When Grazia closed her eyes, she could hear within herself more than one disturbing voice, of a tone familiar to her. But in her healthy soul even the dissonances were blended to form a profound, soft ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... just see what we can learn. The doctor's sure to hold an audience with Appleby and Sam in the big front office, and he always has a window open, for Merry is a fresh air fiend, you know. Some of the talk will leak out and it may give us a clew." ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... whole college of swaddling teachers knocked into smidhereens. John Tuam, your sowl, has tuck his pasthoral staff in his hand and heathen them out o' Connaught as fast as ever Pathric druve the sarpints into Clew Bay. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... wrote George E. Ellis in the "Memorial History of Boston,"[2] "who attempts to trace the springs, the occasions, and the directing forces of the revolt ... cannot find his clew a year short of the date when the former self-governed Colony of Massachusetts Bay became a Royal Province." He is right in pointing out that in 1692 the struggle took open form. Yet even then the controversy ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... found that had long been sought for by a thousand restless yearnings and vague desires, less of the heart than mind; not as when youth discovers the one to be beloved, but rather as when the student, long wandering after the clew to some truth in science, sees it glimmer dimly before him, to beckon, to recede, to allure, and to wane again. She fell at last into unquiet slumber, vexed by deformed, fleeting, shapeless phantoms; and, waking, as the sun, through a veil of hazy cloud, glinted with a ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... geologist."[365] In fact, no truly scientific geologist pretends that it stands on the same level with any authentic history, much less with the Bible record; inasmuch as the discovery of a single new fact may overturn the whole theory. "It furnishes us with no clew by which to unravel the unapproachable mysteries of creation. These mysteries belong to the wondrous Creator, and to him only. We attempt to theorize upon them, and to reduce them to law, and all nature rises ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... to Miss Price, who murmured something about Julian's being so badly ventilated, but gave him no clew as to her particular branch of the profession. Miss Snell, however, supplied all details. It seemed Miss Price was sharing Miss Snell's studio, having been sent over by the Lynxville, Massachusetts, Sumner Prize Fund, for which she had successfully competed, ...
— Different Girls • Various
... she was drowned," said the Chevalier gravely. "Someone must have been about, to save her. Do not be discouraged, Mademoiselle, if our search for Louise takes several days. We are without a clew—groping, like her, in the dark. But we shall find ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... clew to the character of a nation is gained by a study of the nature of the gods it worships, no less valuable an insight is gained by a study of its heroes. Such a study confirms the impression that the emotional life is fundamental in the Japanese temperament. ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... itself directly in front of them, and close to the briars. It was of a round shape, and looked like a large clew of hair or wool of a greyish colour, half-buried in the ground. Whether it had been there before, neither Basil, nor Lucien, nor Francois, could tell. It might have been without their noticing it, as their attention was so occupied with the hares and the lynx. Francois said he had noticed it ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... as they might lead. He set off at a round pace, stopping now and then to assure himself, and presently stood perplexed near the Spouting Cave, for there they ceased. As he was looking about for some clew that might set him right once more, a faint movement behind him caused him to turn, and he saw a figure slinking along from rock to rock, bending low, as if seeking to be concealed: Oponui! Why should he be alone? Why should he hide like that? Why was he trying to escape? The truth flashed upon ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... the citizens, too, gave no clew to the country to which the place belonged; there were as many Egyptians among them as Greeks, Syrians, and negroes. Asiatics appeared in the majority only in the market place, where the dealers were just leaving their stands to secure their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Compton or not. Yet why should he? The old man would become excited, and feel all sorts of wild hopes about discovering his wife and son. Could it be possible that the Italian after so many years could now afford any clew whatever? Certainly it was not ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... permission to attempt the capture of the escaped prisoner, Bute; but the murderer had disappeared, leaving no clew. Brandt learned that the slums of large cities and several mining camps had been searched in vain, also that the trains running east had been carefully watched. We need not try to follow his processes of thought, nor seek to learn how he soon came to the ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... by a boom. The operation of balancing the mizen is performed by lowering the yard or gaff a little, then rolling up a small portion of the sail at the peak or upper corner, and lashing it about one-fifth down towards the mast. A boom main-sail is balanced by rolling up a portion of the clew, or lower aftermost corner, and fastening it strongly to the boom.—N.B. It is requisite in both cases to wrap a piece of old canvas round the sail, under the lashing, to prevent its ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... whole shore of the lake was twinkling with lights borne high in the hands of men who were searching. Two boats were rowing back and forth on the lake, with bright lights at stern and prow; and loud shouts filled the air. No answer; no clew: at last, from the island, came a pistol shot,—the signal agreed on. Every man stood still and listened. Slowly the boats came back to shore, drawing behind them Hetty's boat; bringing one of the oars, and also Hetty's ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... to ascertain by careful looking how the planks had come to give way under the hoofs of his steed. But there was no clew that he could discover. The bridge was not a carefully made one, and it would have been an easy matter for any one to so loosen a couple of the planks that the least motion would send ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... been heard from, and search as he would, Richard could find no trace of her whatever. She had effectually covered her tracks, so that not even a clew to her whereabouts was found. No one had seen her, or any person like her, and the suspense and anxiety of those three—Richard, Aunt Barbara, and Andy—who loved her so well, was getting to be terrible, when there came to Andy a letter—a letter in the dear, familiar ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... dinner I took a chopper, and, going on to the forecastle, lay out upon the bowsprit, and after beating the spritsail-yard block clear of the ice, cut away the gaskets that confined the sail to the yard, heartily beating the canvas, that was like iron, till a clew of it fell. I then came in and braced the yard square, and the wind, presently catching the exposed part of the sail, blew more of it out, and yet more, until there was a good surface showing; then to a sudden hard blast of wind the whole sail flew open with a mighty ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... supplying reasons for her departure—and the very first held him spellbound. Was it another move in her perpetual game? Was she on the track of someone's secret? Was her scheming mind now following some new clew that must lead to the discovery of a hidden or forgotten crime—the burial place of some well entombed family ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... tell us a' he could hae tell'd us, if he had liked, about the application for pardon, neighbours,' said Saddletree; 'there is aye a wimple in a lawyer's clew; but it's a wee bit o' a secret.'"—Heart ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... luck," he muttered in reply, but the girl could see that he trembled slightly with nervousness. Neither realized at the time the fatal folly of the act, for they were unaware that the Germans were seeking just such a clew to direct them ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... man unfolded to our view The world's beliefs of Death and Heaven and Hell— This man whose own convictions none could tell, Nor if his maze of reason had a clew. Dogmas he wrote for daily bread, but knew The fair philosophies of doubt so well That while we listened to his words there fell Some that were strangely comforting, though true. Marking how wise we grew ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... reach the place where Mary was stalled by the accident to her machine. Soon he was hovering over a level field, one of several that lined the country highways in that section. A small crowd on the turnpike gathered about an evidently disabled automobile gave Tom the clew he needed, and presently he made a landing. Instantly the throng of country people who had gathered to look at the automobile crash deserted that for a view of something more ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... in regard to our self-development and our families, so they have been in regard to limited circles of friends. If the fulfilment of these claims were all that a righteous life required, the hunger and thirst would be stilled for many good men and women, and the clew of right living would lie easily in ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... go off?"—and cheer after cheer went up as the battery passed through. Vain efforts were made to check this vociferous clamor, which was plainly audible to the enemy, less than 1500 yards away. The bullets of the enemy began to drop lower. The cheering had furnished them the clew they needed. They had located our position, and the 71st atoned for this thoughtlessness by the loss of nearly eighty men, as it lay cowering in the ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... sail billowed out, full of wind, pulling hard at the clew-line, which was made fast to the gunwhale beside Hrolfur. The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... it, but how could I? All I know is that he was a delicately brought up young Englishman, and the only clew I have is a watch with a London maker's name on it and a girl's photograph. I've a very curious notion that I shall ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... connection with my son-in-law's extravagant expenditure—whether the clew to the mystery might not haply be the forging of bank-notes on the other side of the baize door. My mind was prepared for anything by this time. We descended again into the dining-room. Felicia saw how ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... exclaimed the general, triumphant in his clew. "No, he didn't tell. He never will tell now. I have learned from a picket boat that was captured last night by our patrols, that nothing was seen of the ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... to meet you," he said. "I am on my way to C—— in search of my mother. I want to see the person who sold her last, and, if possible, get some clew to the direction in which ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... pleasures form'd in playful groupes invite, No dulcet sounds the ravish'd ear delight; 50 No tender cares:—- But in their place appear, Sullen Complaint, and cloy'd Disgust, and Fear; There, fever'd Jealousy with livid hue, And falt'ring steps unwinds Suspicion's clew; Arm'd with the blood-stain'd instruments of death, There, Rage and Hatred spread their poison'd breath; 55 While Malice, brooding over secret guile, Repays their labour with a treach'rous smile; Remorse, that never sleeps, brings up the rear, Hates his own deed, and ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... love, and rejoiced to see him growing before the Lord. How long she did this, we are not told. We have searched in vain for a word or hint that she lived to see the excellence and greatness of the son whom she "asked of God." The only clew which we can find is, that Samuel's house was in Ramah, the house of his parents; and we wish to think he lived there to be with them; and we hope his mother's eyes looked on the altar which he built there unto the Lord, and that her heart was gladdened by witnessing the proofs ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... in a measure from the astonishment produced by this discovery I inquired whether other shamans had such books. "Yes," said Swimmer, "we all have them." Here then was a clew to follow up. A bargain was made by which he was to have another blank book into which to copy the formulas, after which the original was bought. It is now deposited in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology. The remainder of the time until the return ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... have had diligent search made for you. All the houses of bad repute have been examined and their inhabitants questioned. But there are so many camp-followers and other rabble at present in the town that a hundred men might disappear without our being able to obtain a clew. I doubted not indeed that your body had been thrown in the river, and that we should never hear more of you. I am right glad that you have been restored; not indeed from any fear of the threats of the king your master, but because, from what the Earl of Evesham ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... no measure of the time, no clew to the old dates, nothing whatever, beyond such considerations as I have stated, to warrant even a vague hypothesis. It can be seen clearly that the beginning of this old civilization was much older than the earliest great cities, and, also, that ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... the clothing there was nothing by which the woman could be identified, excepting the dealers' names in the shoe, and the murder or murderers had left no other clew behind by which they could be identified. Without the head, the mystery seemed unsolvable, and every effort was made to find it in ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... moment, Mr. Griffith," cried the pilot aloud; "clew up and furl everything but your three topsails, and let them be double-reefed. Now is the time to ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... anticipate a thief, John Mullins whispers, "Take my handkerchief." "Thank you," cries Pat; "but one won't make a line." "Take mine," cries Wilson; and cries Stokes, "Take mine." A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties, Where Spitalfields with real India vies. Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted clew, Starred, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue, Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new. George Green below, with palpitating hand Loops the last 'kerchief to the beaver's band— Up soars the prize! The youth, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... foolish across the register and do the wonderin' act all day, though. Besides, I wanted to follow a clew. It ain't a very likely one, but it's better'n nothing. So I slides out and boards a Columbus Avenue surface car, and inside of twenty minutes I'm at Auntie's apartments, interviewin' Helma, her ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... we were small boys in Virginia. This is the only thing by which I could identify my brother William." Nothing more was said upon the matter, and it dropped out of my mind. I did not realize how important were the words of this man. It never occurred to me that he held the clew that might bring ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... particularly bowlder (boulder), clew (clue) and vail (veil), have been retained. Also, the Table of Contents was missing so ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Donald were busily engaged in examining old family ambrotypes, papers, and various articles that, carefully hidden in the uncle's secretary, had been saved all these years in the hope that they might furnish a clew to Dorry's parentage, or perhaps prove that she was, as Mr. Reed trusted, the daughter of his brother Wolcott. To Donald each article was full of interest and hopeful possibilities; but his uncle looked ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... named Peter Colburn, and his wife; and they, together with a traveller, who had obtained lodging there for the night, were all burned with the house. The stranger's horse and saddle were found in the barn, some little distance from the house, but there was no clew to his identity. There were only a few people then who had settled in this bleak region, and there was no funeral other than the assembling of a half dozen together, who dug a grave within fifty ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... as the man. It is all things to all men; it lends itself to a multitude of interpretations. Every earnest reader of it will find some clew or suggestion by the aid of which he fancies he can unlock the whole book, but in the end he will be pretty sure to discover that one key is not enough. To one critic, his book is the "hoarse song of a man," its manly and masculine element ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... belonged to a man whose own hired advocate could only vindicate his client's heart at the expense of his head. Pope tells us, that to form a just estimate of any one's character, we must study his ruling passion; and by adopting this rule, we shall soon obtain a satisfactory clew both to the exquisite count's penchant for the prize-ring, and his aversion to the hells. Some persons exhibit an inexplicable union of avarice and extravagance, of parsimony and prodigality—something of this kind is observable ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... its inspiration from the very skies? Where, we repeat, are these bioplasts now? They are all quietly and industriously at work as before. The occupant of the song-mansion is gone, but not one of these bioplasts has dropped a clew, thrown down a shuttle, abandoned a loom, or fled in dismay to the core of its cell. They still pulsate, throb, throw off tissue. No chemical change has yet intervened to break down their cell-walls, ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... addition to all his other eccentricities, "Old Man Wheeler" had the habit of disappearing from his home at intervals, leaving no clew behind him. He had attacks of a morbid unwillingness to see a human face: during tkese attacks, he would hide himself, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another. He had old warehouses, old deserted mills and factories, and uninhabited ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... not destroy these children of his. No doubt they've all been rejected; but he couldn't throw them overboard. I suspect he has a bit of vanity. I'll tell you what. I'll leave these out, and to-morrow you can read them through. Somewhere you may stumble upon a clew to his identity. To-morrow I'll wire Cook's and the American Express in Hong-Kong to see if there is any mail. Taber is the name. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... he tried to deny his identity, but the Americans had been furnished with his photograph, and a wart on his forehead proved a clew that was conclusive. At once his effects were searched, and under his pillow was found a leather bag containing fifty thousand dollars in gold and ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... experiment was not a success. They slept with all the doors and windows open, an' one night a skunk came in an' got under the bed. Mrs. Bill discovered that they had company, an' Bill got up an' lit the lantern, an' followed the clew to its source. He threatened an' argued an' appealed to the skunk's better nature with a doughnut, but the little beast sat unmoved in his corner. The place seemed to ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... looked at each other and shook their heads. She might have to wait longer than for the morning paper to have news of Mary Rose. They felt so helpless. They had followed every clew, they had the assistance of the entire police force, but they had discovered nothing. They knew no more about Mary Rose than they knew when they had first discovered that she ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... of Percy's father," said the Colonel, "the poor woman would give me no clew to him,—but he may be living,—he may some time trace and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... of the week, however, there was no news of Anna. She had not returned to the mill. Rudolph's friend on the detective force had found no clew, and old Herman had advanced from brooding by the fire to long and furious wanderings about the ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... up flew the sail with a thundering flap, loud as the report of a cannon—shot, through which, however, I could distinctly hear a heavy smash, as the large and ponderous blocks at the clew of the sail struck the doomed sailor under the ear, and whirled him off the booms over the fore—yard—arm into the sea, where he perished, as heaving—to was impossible, and useless if practicable, as his head must ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... is thoroughly characteristic of the servile class; they conscientiously conceal everything from the master till he finds a clew; after which they tell ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... executed on his people, if they were not pardoned. And in the declaration, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book, he discovers an intimation, that that offending people should die short of the promised land! A discovery without a clew. This sin of Israel was pardoned. Sentence of death in the wilderness was occasioned by a subsequent act of rebellion, as will be shewn ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... attractive, well-cut features had fulfilled the promise of youth. But for six wretched months, after that bitter night when Diane fled from him, he had suffered acutely. In vain his friends, none of whom could give him any clew to his betrayer, sought to comfort him; in vain he searched for trace of tidings of his wife, for her faithlessness had not utterly crushed his love, and the recollections of the first months of his marriage were very sweet to him. The chains with which the dancer of the Folies Bergere bound him ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... I offered, a proper person was immediately set to work to open the drawers. The search was continued for four hours without success. Every private drawer was rummaged, every paper opened, and many a curious glance was cast at the contents of the latter, in order to get some clew to the probable amount of the assets of the deceased. Consternation and uneasiness very evidently increased among most of the spectators as the fruitless examination proceeded; and when the notary ended, declaring that no will was to be found, nor ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... had any hands aboard, you'd think they'd have sense enough to clew up her courses," ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... As the homeward-bound crew was the same as the outward-bound, and Mr. Dodge had come abroad quite as green as he was now going home ripe, this traveller of six months' finish did not escape diver commentaries that literally cut him up "from clew to ear-ring," and which flew about in the rigging much as active birds flutter from branch to branch in a tree. The subject of all this wit, however, remained profoundly, not to say happily, ignorant of the sensation he had produced, being occupied in disposing of the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... sowing, to rise again in the spring; thus does a faithful heart pine during absence till it is reunited to the beloved one; thus do we mourn our dead till our soul is assured of their resurrection: and this belief is the end and clew to the mystery. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... said Captain Bird, "and you, Captain Burress, clew him up for'ard. You can stay in the bow, Captain Sanderson, and take the ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... packet inclosed, D'Avencourt continued—"The accompanying letters were found in Ferrari's breast-pocket, and on opening the first one, in the expectation of finding some clew as to his last wishes, we came to the conclusion that you, as the future husband of the lady whose signature and handwriting you will here recognize, should be made aware of the contents, not only for your own ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Werper sought for the party that had accompanied him from the camp to the barrier cliffs; but not until late in the afternoon of the second day did he find clew to its whereabouts, and then in such gruesome form that he was totally unnerved ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in the dark as to what the title of that book was, and, although we ransacked the British Museum and even appealed to the learned Frognall Dibdin, we could not get a clew to the identity of the volume. To be wholly frank with you, I will say that both the Judge and I had wearied of the occupation; moreover, it involved great expense, since we were content with nothing but India proofs (those before ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... no further clew to guide his search. It was destined that the last he was to know of her should be that she was thrown on the tender mercies of the world—her last friend gone, her last penny expended. She was buried out of his sight, not in the peaceful grave, with ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... awkward. Neither hair, dress, nor conversation affords the slightest clew, and you are left to guess. By some mysterious law of nature you invariably guess wrong, and are thereupon regarded by all the relatives and friends as a mixture of fool and knave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe as "she" being only equaled by the atrocity of referring to a female ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... read my grandfather, following the paragraph with his forefinger; "'escaped from the bridewell, leaving no clew to their identity, except the letter H, cut on one of the benches.' 'Five dollars reward offered for the apprehension of the perpetrators.' Sho! I ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Langton, after a short private conversation, had summoned the landlord, in the hope of obtaining some clew to the development of the mystery. But no young lady, nor any stranger answering to the description the doctor had received from Hugh Crombie (which was indeed a false one), had been seen to pass through the village since daybreak. Here, therefore, the friends were entirely at a loss ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the merry-hearted kanaka crew ranged the cable, and others ran aloft to clew-up the sails, Packenham steered the brig between a narrow reef-bound passage till she brought up abreast a sweeping curve of sandy beach, shining white under the wooded spurs of a mountain peak two thousand feet above. Back from the beach and showing golden-brown ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... can't git no clew to him. He cleared about two months ago, and they hain't seen hide nor hair on him sence. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... and dat pile up de water so de tide rise six or eight inches higher," continued Quimp, picking up the clew given him. "High tide in one hour from now, and de Reindeer was gwine out den for shore. Dat's de whole story, massa, and not ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... that character which the story of her sin and suffering had made him in his immaturity, misinterpret and despise! He did not comprehend that tragic story when she told it; it was impossible that he should, for he had no knowledge or experience adequate to furnish him the clew. Nothing is more inconceivable and impossible to a child than the possibility of his parents dying or doing wrong. When he awakens to consciousness he finds around him eternal things,—rocks, hills, rivers, stars, parents! They all seem to belong to the same order of indestructible existence, ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss |
