"Clue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... No definite clue, however, could be obtained to the perpetrators of the kidnaping scheme, although both sufferers from it had put private detectives at work upon the affair. But, like many startling public events, the midnight ride of the two candidates was a "nine days' wonder" and then the public ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... as it stands, there are really very few. I am confident that the chairman must be quite alone in too modestly applying to his great work that description of London itself, with which the paper (Section A, pp. 104-107) opens, since his volumes offer really our first effective clue to the labyrinth, and his method of intensive and specialised regional survey, the intensest searchlight yet brought to bear ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... sobering he has grown exalted. A man might almost say," mused my father, "that the imp in him had shed itself off and taken flesh in that Master Fett I left snoring with his head on my dining-table. An earthy spirit, that Master Fett; earthy and yet somewhat inhuman. Your Nat Fiennes has the clue of life—if only Atropos do not ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... are you crazed? You cannot go! The woods are full of creatures wild and fierce, And wolves prowl round about. No path is blazed, No underbrush is cleared, no clue exists Of any kind to guide your feet. A man Could scarce get through, how then ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... of Pavlicheff? And who may this son of Pavlicheff be?" asked General Epanchin with surprise; and looking curiously around him, he discovered that he alone had no clue to the mystery. Expectation and suspense were on every face, with the exception of that of the prince, who stood gravely wondering how an affair so entirely personal could have awakened such lively and widespread interest in so short ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... became acquainted in his seventeenth year, when he came to England, in 1149, to dispute the crown with Stephen. He lodged her at Woodstock, in the tower built, according to ballad lore, "most curiously of stone and timber strong," and with such a labyrinth leading to it that "none, but with a clue of thread, could enter in or out." There Rosamond remained while he returned to France to receive Normandy and Anjou, on the death of his father, and on going to pay homage to Louis VII., ingratiated himself with Queen Eleanor, whose divorce was then impending. Eleanor ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... had no right to intrust any one with a secret which involved his father's life. No, that would not do; yet, to leave him and Mrs McShane after all their kindness, and without a word, this would be too ungrateful. After much cogitation, he resolved that he would run away, so that all clue to him should be lost; that he would write a letter for McShane, and leave it. He wrote ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... newspapers had been loud in their condemnation of the police. It had been asserted over and over again that in no other civilised country in the world could so great an amount of property have passed through the hands of thieves without leaving some clue by which the police would have made their way to the truth. Major Mackintosh had been declared to be altogether incompetent, and all the Bunfits and Gagers of the force had been spoken of as drones and moles ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... without the excuse of serious business," Palford explained to him. "A great deal of careful research and inquiry has finally led me here. I am compelled to believe I have followed the right clue, but I must ask you a few questions. Your name is not really Tembarom, ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Harper, "I shall not seek any further to find the owner, though the initials P. and H. intertwined on the title page might possibly give me a clue. The girl to whom it belongs will find her own conscience her severest judge; she will surely feel, without further remark from me, how contemptible is her conduct. I scarcely know what to do with this book," she continued, holding up the translation as if she did not like to touch ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... you say? How accomplish it, and feel so sure about it, when I had neither seen the robbers' faces, nor heard their natural voices, nor had any idea who they might be? Nevertheless, I WAS sure— quite sure, quite confident. I had a clue—a clue which you would not have valued—a clue which would not have greatly helped even a detective, since he would lack the secret of how to apply it. I shall come to that, presently—you shall see. Let us go on, now, taking things in their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... motives of such activity will be alike misconstrued by the aristocracy he deserts and the people he joins. It seems so unnatural in a man to fly in the face of his own order, that the world is willing to suppose any clue to the mystery save that of honest conviction or lofty patriotism. "Ambition!" says one. "Disappointment!" cries another. "Some private grudge!" hints a third. "Mob-courting vanity!" sneers a fourth. The people admire at first, but suspect afterwards. The moment he thwarts a popular wish, there ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... clause, but from the assent of the legal deputies. In the present instance, there are two negotiators, and I now ask permission to address a few questions to them, reversing the order of your own interrogatories; and the result may possibly furnish a clue to the quo animo, in a new light." Addressing the philosopher, I continued—"Did YOU, sir, in assenting to article 10, imagine that you were defeating justice, countenancing oppression, and succoring might to the injury ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... tourmaline. That same year Brewster discovered those magnificent bands of colour that surround the axes of biaxal crystals. In 1814 Wollaston discovered the rings of Iceland spar. All these effects, which, without a theoretic clue, would leave the human mind in a jungle of phenomena without harmony or relation, were organically connected ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... had his uncle, who was openly engaged to Phyllis Harriman, married her surreptitiously and kept that marriage a secret? It was not in character, and he could see no reason for it. Foster had sent him to Golden on the tacit hint that there was some clue in the license register to the mystery of James Cunningham's death. What bearing had this marriage on it, ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... been his luck, for he shouldn't have liked to write to Mrs. Worthingham for guidance—that he felt, though too impatient just now to analyze the reluctance. There was nobody else he could have approached for a clue, and with this reflection he was already aware of how it testified to their rare little position, his and Cornelia's—position as conscious, ironic, pathetic survivors together of a dead and buried society—that there would have been, in all the town, ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... seeking for a helpful clue, Welcoming no matter what suggestion, I have lately sounded one or two Leading doctors on this vital question; But they think I'll have to be trepanned If I wish effectively to modify the structure of my pineal gland Or of my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... Molyneux with her little troop crossed F Street, they met the gentlemen all coming toward them. They broke up into groups, and Tom and Matty got their first real chance for talk since they had parted the night before. No! Tom had found no clue at the Navy Department. And although Eben Ricketts had been good as gold, and had stayed and worked with Tom till long after midnight, Eben had only worked to show good-will, for Eben had not the least faith that there was any clue there. Eben had ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... extraordinary composure. Even to the most expert eye the electors' demeanour gave no indication of their sentiments: the olive-twig had very curiously withered out of sight. Nor did the behaviour of the voters in the last three years afford any clue to the use they would make of their present opportunity. Greeks are past masters of simulation and dissimulation. Openly some might have pretended friendship to the Venizelist regime from hopes of favour, others ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... impossible. He added privately that we were now approaching the door of the unknown country, and that the fewer whom we took into our confidence the better it would be. To this end also he made each of us give our word of honor that we would publish or say nothing which would give any exact clue as to the whereabouts of our travels, while the servants were all solemnly sworn to the same effect. It is for this reason that I am compelled to be vague in my narrative, and I would warn my readers that in any map or diagram which I may give the ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in Barney, may have passed between the President-elect and Bryant, or Chase. Indeed, Lincoln confessed to Weed that he had received telegrams and visits from prominent Republicans, warning him against the Albany editor's efforts to forestall important state appointments, but no clue is left to identify them. The mystery deepens, too, since, whatever was done, came ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of notes and prefaces, he has provided an elaborate commentary, containing, besides all the variorum readings, a great mass of bibliographical and critical matter; and, in addition, he has enabled the reader to obtain a clue through the labyrinth of Blake's mythology, by means of ample quotations from those passages in the Prophetic Books, which throw light upon the obscurities of the poems. The most important Blake document—the Rossetti MS.—has been freshly collated, with the ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... secret meetings; clinging about the doors of the Court of Sessions, where, as eavesdroppers,—for they are known to the door-keeper, and rejected from the friendship of that stern officer,—they strive, with ear at keyhole, to catch a word or two which may give them a clue to the probable fate of "Jim," who is in the dock there, on his trial for homicide or some such light peccadillo; loitering round the dog-pit institutions, where the quadrupeds look so amazingly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... man shall rise From this illumination, from this clue To perfect knowledge that this Power exists, And what man is to this Power, even as you Have left Neanderthal lost in the mists And ignorance of centuries untold. What would you say if learned geologists Out of the rocks and caverns should unfold ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... and shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of helplessness. Again he could only suggest expert help from the police—but this time he added to his suggestion the remark that he understood there was nothing for the police to take hold of—no clue, no signs ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... was a baker, and the "Short of weight" gives the clue to the nature of his dealings, and also to the right ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... his chair. Of the plot which he had been so anxious to discover, and of which he had but a vague knowledge, he was now at last to obtain a clue. In a tone exhibiting the most lively curiosity, he bade the man go on. The mask took a seat; he felt that henceforth he might treat with M. H—— as ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... principle in the blessed. And what was the moral tendency of the doctrine? I had never borne to dwell upon it: but I before long suspected that it promoted malignity and selfishness, and was the real clue to the cruelties perpetrated under the name of religion. For he who does dwell on it, must comfort himself under the prospect of his brethren's eternal misery, by the selfish expectation of personal ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... that man was the end to the last clue we came across regarding the meaning of this sudden quiet. The shadows gradually lengthened and night suddenly fell, and around us were nothing but these strangely silent ruins. There was barricade for barricade, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... receipt of this letter, and I had almost given up the expectation (I will not say hope) of seeing Dannevig, when one morning the door to my office was opened, and a tall, blonde-haired man entered. With a certain reckless grace, which ought to have given me the clue to his identity, he sauntered up to my desk and extended his ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... people in their own homes that I feel such sympathy for them as paupers. They have known the comfort and independence of their own surroundings, and if by reason of old age or sickness—through no fault of their own—they become paupers, they should at least be treated with clue consideration and nursed with all tenderness. I am entering no plea for the lazy and idle and intemperate class who seek the refuge of an almshouse, and for whom, as Dr. Banks says, the work-house is the proper place; but I do say that old or sick people, ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... to be One of the strong-winged Hierarchy, To burn with Seraphs, or to shine With Cherubs, deathlessly divine; Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod, Could I forget myself in God, Could I but find my nature's clue Simply as birds and blossoms do, And but for one rapt moment know 'Tis Heaven must come, not we must go, Should win my place as near the throne As the pearl-angel of its zone. And God would listen mid the throng For my one breath of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... part of the missing property not forthcoming. Nothing else was found for some time, till one of the men, of an inquisitive turn of mind, happened to poke his head into one of the pigsties, where, in the farthest corner, his eye fell on several bales piled up one above the other to the roof. The clue to the sort of place in which the well-known ingenuity of the Greeks had taught them to conceal their booty once being discovered, a considerable amount more was brought to light. Still much was missing. Just then Adair and his men ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... of themselves, i.e., they will not dye wool or other fibres by themselves. Some are coloured bodies, such as fustic, logwood, Persian berries, Anthracene yellow, etc., but many are not so, and some possess but little colour, which, moreover, gives no clue to the colours that can ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... professions of sorrow, and so softened and explained away, that they were ready to receive each fresh accusation as an exaggeration of a fault long past, and deeply regretted, and only admired their injured Mark the more. Lady Elizabeth wrote to beg Violet to give her the clue which she had said Arthur possessed to Mark's actual ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the pleasant upland—its continued absence vexes the learned. They scan ancient texts for an improper syllable and mark the time upon their brown old fingers, if possibly a jolting measure may offer them a clue. Although it must appear that the digamma—if it yet rambles alive somewhere beneath the moon—has by this time grown a beard and is lost beyond recognition, still old gentlemen meet weekly and read papers to one another on the progress ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... working in his secret laboratory at the sublimation of the deadly poison, accidentally dropped the mask of glass which protected his face. He inhaled the noxious fumes and fell dead by the side of his crucibles. This event gave Desgrais, captain of the police of Paris, a clue to the horrors which had so long baffled ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the record shows, then there should be some weak spot that could be attacked. There may be men yet alive conversant with the circumstances; they may know whether duress or fraud was exercised, supposing the sale was not honest. Some of the old Mexicans may remember Weir, and could give a clue; they have good memories for things of those days. Of course, if the transaction was all right, then I'm ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... During a severely cold winter, in which I went out in a very thin great-coat, I received quite unexpectedly one trimmed with fur. From whom it came I could not for some time discover, till chance gave me a clue which led me to the Chamberlain's lady. But could I thank her for it? No; she became regularly angry and scolded me if I spoke of the gratitude which I felt and always shall feel for ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... and from the man, a spontaneity, a reflection, light for light, shade for shade, color for color, of his entire being; and with this effect his will has little to do. Therefore, unless he be an impostor, he need give himself no trouble regarding his future. His works shall serve as a clue, produced century after century, along which posterity shall feel its way back to his studio and heart. No need of thought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... if the sextet (the last six lines) followed the Italian or the best accepted English forms: this done, it is easy to determine upon a style,—which would be the one adopted at the present time by the best English and American printers (as far as recent books of both countries give any clue), as follows:— ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... to make herself understood by her friends in this her dire distress: and to acquaint them with her situation and injuries, by rolling a letter up in a clue of yarn, and dropping it out of her window to a confidential person below. Her family then interfered, and the wretched lady was released, by a legal separation, from her miseries. She retired to the house of her sister, and eventually to Edinburgh. When, in after times, her grand nephews ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... Flattery's praise, With unmoved indifference view: Learn to tread Life's dangerous maze With unerring Virtue's clue. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... being denied. The way in which this man tracked the stories of families through the few lines of a newspaper advertisement was positively marvellous. Whatever was wanting in the way of evidence of this, or clue to that, came at ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... appearance—for his lordship justly concludes that "It must be confessed, however, that knowledge of this kind is very entertaining; and here and there among the rubbish we find hints that may give the philosopher a clue to important facts, and afford to the moralist a better analysis of the human mind than a whole library of metaphysics!" The philosopher may well abhor all intercourse with wits! because the faculty of judgment is usually quiescent with them; and in their ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... sermon, as if their comrades had not left them. The minister thought he must have been mistaken and took up the broken thread once more, or tried to, but he had hopelessly lost the place in his manuscript, and the only clue that offered was a quotation of a poem about the devil; to be sure, the connection was somewhat abrupt, but he clutched it with his eye gratefully and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... for at the time my story opens, my father had been two years "missing." He sailed from Canton with the first cargo of the new season's teas, and from the moment that the good ship disappeared seaward she had never been heard of; not the faintest trace of a clue to the mystery of her fate having, so ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... help it; they'll miss their chief; they'll run across that horse of his and that'll give 'em the clue." ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... flash as well as of muffling the report, the murderer had covered his weapon with a double thickness of heavy cloth. No doubt it had admirably achieved its purpose, and Willis seized it eagerly in the hope that it might furnish him with a clue as to its owner. ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... changes were produced, these included neither the physiologic exhaustion nor the alterations in the brain-cells which are characteristic of the effects of trauma. On turning to the study of trauma, we at once found in the behavior of individuals as a whole under deep and under light anesthesia the clue to the cause of the discharge of energy, of the consequent physiologic exhaustion, and of the morphologic ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... William was questioned again and again, till at length some clue was obtained of his father's place of residence. The horse was harnessed, and William, with lame and blistered feet, was placed in the wagon. About noon he safely reached home, and was clasped once more to his mother's heart. The father had not returned from ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... its own way so quietly and furtively that we miss much of it unless we cultivate an interest in it. A person must be interested in it, to paraphrase a line of Wordsworth's, ere to him it will seem worthy of his interest. One thing is linked to another or gives a clue to another. There is no surer way to find birds' nests than to go berrying or fishing. In the blackberry or raspberry bushes you may find the bush sparrow's nest or the indigobird's nest. Once while fishing a trout-stream I missed my fish, and my hook caught on a branch over my ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... the bailiff left the two ladies with Joseph and the horses, and returned to the wild garden of the open. They went down the bank to the pond; looked everywhere along the slope, but found no clue. Blondet jumped back first, and as he did so he saw, in a thicket which stood on higher ground, one of those trees he had noticed in the morning with withered heads. He showed it to Michaud, and proposed to go to it. The two sprang forward in a straight line across the forest, avoiding ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... knowledge of human nature. Mind is One and at the same time, Many. Subjectively, it is ONE. Objectively; many. So by looking impartially into "yourself" in the calm light of the intellect and through silent introspection, you will always find a clue to the working bases of other minds. Each man is a puzzle and most of all are YOU a puzzle unto yourself. Solve either and you have ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... the urgent advice of Von Tirpitz. But unfortunately High Command intervened with the expectation (of securing from the prisoner) further information (concerning others who, like himself, might possibly have become possessed in some measure of a clue to ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... enough to make it profitable for some one to organise the supply on a commercial basis. What interests us in the present case is the fact that its existence in the woman's club affords an instant clue to the state of mind of many of its members. They have this in common with the plagiarising pupil, clergyman, or statesman—they are called upon to do something in which they have only a secondary interest. The minister who reads ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... messages by you from distant stars to us? what Sirius'? what Capella's? What central heart—and you the pulse—vivifies all? what boundless aggregate of all? What subtle indirection and significance in you? what clue to all in you? what fluid, vast identity, Holding the universe with all its parts as one—as sailing ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Colonel S. of Baltimore, who determined to make an effort to recover his money. His first step was a visit to Halifax. His endeavors there to find Keith's whereabouts were for some time fruitless. But at last a clue was found. A girl, who had accompanied Keith in his flight, had written a letter to a relative in Halifax, and Colonel S. by some means obtained a sight of the envelope. The post-mark, plainly legible, ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... as much by curiosity as by humanity. A few shots were exchanged and the robbers put to flight, with the exception of one man belonging to their band who was taken prisoner, and another who lay wounded on the paving-stones. This latter died next day without having spoken, and left no clue behind as to who he was. His identity was, however, at length made clear. He was the son of a high dignitary named de Laubardemont, who in 1634, as royal commissioner, condemned Urbain Grandier, a poor, priest of Loudun, to be ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... their quick action, which had undoubtedly saved the flagship, and very probably some of the other vessels of the squadron. He also questioned the lads closely, in order to ascertain whether they had heard or seen anything which would furnish a clue to the nationality of the occupants of the launches, but they could tell him nothing; and the Admiral was at length driven to the conclusion that his assailants must have come down the coast from Antofagasta, and must have consisted of a couple of the ancient torpedo-launches which the Bolivians ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... the century, a conception of the animal kingdom prevailed which was entirely different from our modern ideas. We know now that all animals are bound together by the bond of a common descent, and we seek in anatomy a clue to the degrees of relationship existing among the different animals we know. We regard the animal kingdom as a thicket of branches all springing from a common root. Some of these spring straight up from the common root unconnected with their fellows. Others branch repeatedly, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... eternal cities, with those whose names are immortal—and there I have seen the humble pipe! the sole evidence of luxury or enjoyment; when his daily task was suspended, it can never end, for he must weave and weave the fibres of his brain into the clue that leads him to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... way the police do in your country; in mine too, for that matter. Yes, that's often enough seen. The police, furious because they can't hit a clue in some case that interests them, arrest a reporter who knows more than they do, in order to make him talk. But—nothing of that sort with me, monsieur. You might have me taken to your famous 'Terrible Section,' I'd not open my mouth, not even in the famous rocking-chair, not ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... are you to know the difference between genuine old books that are worth money, and trash whose only merit is that it is falling to pieces? You are reduced to taking the worms and moths into your confidence; their activity is your sole clue to the value of a book; as to the accuracy and fidelity of the copyist, that is quite ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... miles of Barnriff when his mind suddenly lurched into a fresh channel of thought. With that roving, groping after a clue to the crime of which he was morally accused, Eve suddenly grew into his focus. He thought with a shudder what it would have meant to her had she married him instead of Will. He tried to picture her brave face, while she writhed under the taunts of her sex, and the meaning glances ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... which has been reclaimed by the Word of God, from those regions that have been justly styled "the dark places of the earth." We will not mention its name; we will not even indicate its whereabout, lest we should furnish a clue to the unromantic myrmidons of the law, whose inflexible justice is only equalled by their pertinacity in tracking the ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... themselves. And as the meaning of reality reveals itself the more we pass along the mysterious transition from sensation to concept, so a further meaning of reality is revealed when concepts search for a depth beyond themselves. This is the clue to Eucken's teaching in regard to spiritual life. It is a further development of the nature of man—a development beyond the empirical and the mental. And the object of the following chapters will be to show this ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... personalities by puny analyses of moral influences and by a catalogue of their feelings and surroundings. They follow their destined course and raise our admiration or our fears and all the while they give us no real clue to the powers within their souls ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... the mystery of Severac Bablon. He had interviewed this man and that, endeavouring to obtain some coherent story of the great "hold up," but with little success. Everything was a mysterious maze, and Scotland Yard was without any clue that might lead to the solution. All the Fleet Street crime specialists had advanced theories, and now, on the night of the third day after the audacious robbery, Sheard was contributing his theory to the Sunday ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... was nowhere to be seen, nor, on the wet wall, could Tom find any signs of a scuffle, or any other sign that gave him a clue. ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... letter was received from him, and when it came, its contents were discouraging. The Indian Agent said he had caused diligent search to be made, and he was convinced there was no white child among the tribes in that region. Uncle George persevered in efforts to obtain some clue to the report which had induced him to travel so far. But after several weeks, he was obliged to return ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... mountains, we know, running through South America. Perhaps a pun was intended; or possibly it might, in the age of Elizabeth, have been a vulgar term for HANGING, although we find no trace of the expression in other books. We have no clue to guide us here. It might be suggested that Shakspeare, who shines little in geographical knowledge, fancied the Cordilleras to extend into North America, had convicts in his time been transported to those colonies. Certainly, many adventurers and ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... they crept from their galleons and stole over Pegana's silent threshold it boded ill for the gods. There in Pegana lay the gods asleep, and in a corner lay the Power of the gods alone upon the floor, a thing wrought of black rock and four words graven upon it, whereof I might not give thee any clue, if even I should find it—four words of which none knoweth. Some say they tell of the opening of a flower towards dawn, and others say they concern earthquakes among hills, and others that they tell of the death of fishes, ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... through this old-time partner of her father's she might pick up some clue to the truth about the lost money. The firm of Grimes & Morrell had been on the point of paying several heavy bills and notes. The money for this purpose, as well as the working capital of the firm, had been in two banks. Either partner could ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... madness," said Lord Evandale, "or there is some strange villainy afloat. Jenny, attend your lady to her chamber, while I endeavour to find a clue to all this." ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the clue. As soon as the medical officer could be spared from the care of the Englishwoman for a few moments he was ordered to ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... surrounded at the wrist by clouds. This may be taken to represent the pointing out of the beloved Son, in whom the Father is well pleased, or we may suppose that the hand has been extended downwards in answer to the words "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Some clue to the date is given by a drawing in a manuscript in the British Museum—the homilies of Archbishop AElfric (about 994)—in which a crucifix almost identical with this may be seen. By the side of the figure is a rectangular ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... predictions of what the pressures would be. A further check was afforded from the readings obtained by the measuring instruments which were dropped by parachute at each atomic attack. The peak pressure figures gave a direct clue to the equivalent T.N.T. tonnage of the atomic bombs, since the pressures developed by any given amount of ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... judge of the propriety of that name, you must ascertain when, and by whom, the name was first coined. Now, if to the specific name C.D., I append the name A.B., of its first describer, I at once furnish you with the clue to the dates when, and the book in which, this description was given, and I thus assist you in determining whether C.D. be really the oldest, and therefore ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... in front of the house, his mind ran through all possible hypotheses. But he was entirely without a clue—except the clue of jealousy. He could not hide from himself that Doris had been jealous of Lady Dunstable, and had perhaps been hurt by his rather too numerous incursions into the great world without her, his apparent readiness to desert her for cleverer women. "Little goose!—as ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... another world upon the business of this one; that I am among you, but not of you; that your motives and aims to me are utterly unintelligible; that you can give no account of them to which I can attach any sense; that I have no clue to the enigma you seem so lightly to solve by your religion, your philosophy, your science; that your hopes are not mine, your ambitions not mine, your principles not mine; that I am shipwrecked, and see around me none but are shipwrecked too; yet, that these, as they cling to ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... went by. Nobody was found able to break Malvolia's spell, and the clue to its undoing had been carried away by the wind. ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... in the gloom. Marks of blood, however, gave evidence that he had been hit by the gun when it had discharged. At the same time, a fragment of blue cloth, torn from the mantle, was obtained, and afforded a clue towards the identification of the ravisher ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... herself in conjectures upon the particular course of accident which could have brought the trunk and papers into the situation where she had been fortunate enough to find them. And, with the clue already in her possession, she was not long in making another discovery. She had previously felt some dim sense of recognition, as her eyes wandered over the room, but had explained it away into some resemblance to one or other of the many strange scenes which she had passed ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... galere? To answer these questions plausibly, to answer them as under cross-examination in the witness-box by counsel for the prosecution, in other words satisfactorily to account for Strether and for his "peculiar tone," was to possess myself of the entire fabric. At the same time the clue to its whereabouts would lie in a certain principle of probability: he wouldn't have indulged in his peculiar tone without a reason; it would take a felt predicament or a false position to give him so ironic an accent. One hadn't been noting "tones" ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... not throw, and the rabbit escaped. He did not relax his efforts, but swept the tangle of bushes and brambles from right to left and back to the right, always eagerly trying to find something, if only a footprint to act as a clue that he might follow, but there was ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... have learned little more than the fact, that a child was made to take a false character, without possessing any other clue to the circumstances than is given in the names of the parties, all of whom are evidently obscure, and one of the most material of whom, we are plainly told, must have borne a fictitious name. Even poor Monday, in possession of so much collateral testimony that ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... incidents, often intimate subjective experiences, as the quickening impulse to his imagination. We know from his own words that, while composing, he generally had some mental picture before him. Very often we are not given the clue to his thoughts, but the titles, familiar to every one, which he did use, such as the Heroic and Pastoral Symphonies, the Coriolanus and Egmont Overtures, those to several of the Sonatas, are full ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... a clue to the extent of the persecution from what we know to have been its effect on a single sect. The Quakers had excited alarm by their extravagances of manner as well as by their refusal to bear arms or to take oaths, and a special Act was ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... they must have been freed from their pains and sorrows here more than a week since," replied the other, fastening his horse to a tree, and proceeding to search the clothes of the unfortunates for letters or anything that might afford a clue to their identity. "We must stay here an hour or two, Tom, and ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... reperused the notes of the case. He had again questioned the concierge of the Imperial Hotel and other persons. Since he had become Counsellor to the Court, he had indicated to his successor what he believed to be a clue; a robbery committed by a carefully made-up Englishman had led him to believe the thief to be identical with the pretended Rochdale. ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... adequate clue to the historic mystery of that thing which the human race has come to call "beauty," and that other thing—the re-creation of this through individual human minds—which we have come to call "art"—is found, if the complex vision is to be trusted at all, in the contact of the emotion of love ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... waylaid, thus, by one designing to rob him; and his peaceful and amiable character excluded the hypothesis that he had aroused such enmity as could have led to the bloody deed. The whole affair was a profound mystery—no clue could be discovered to the perpetrator, or the motive of the crime—and the body was borne to "Five Forks," where it was laid in state to await burial ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... movements secret from the Portuguese—and so must you; they seize everything they see in the newspapers. Who are my imprudent friends that publish everything? I suspect Mr. ——, of ——, but no one gives me a name or a clue. Some expected me to feel sweet at being jewed by a false philanthropist, and bamboozled by a silly R. N. I did not, and could not, seem so; but I shall ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... and watchfulness with you Attend and wind the clue; No sleep nor sloth assails you, but poor man Still either sleeps, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Moliere, Lucian, Cervantes, and Swift, he condemns Rabelais and Aristophanes, although in the invocation already quoted from Tom Jones, he had included both these authors among the models he admired. Another paper in the Covent-Garden Journal is especially interesting because it affords a clue to a project of Fielding's which unfortunately remained a project. This was a Translation of the works of Lucian, to be undertaken in conjunction with his old colleague, the Rev. William Young. ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... Archie Weil emerged, sure of but one thing. He must use his eyes. If Millicent loved Roseleaf, she could not hide it successfully from him, now that he had this clue. ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... be sinful, in such a question, to follow the clue of profane philosophy," said Mr. Wilson. "Better to fast and pray upon it; and still better, it may be, to leave the mystery as we find it, unless Providence reveal it of its own accord. Thereby, every good Christian ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not refer to anything which appears on the surface. Instead, it seeks to find the hidden and the unknown by following up one clue after another. When the astronomer, Leverrier, found that the planets Saturn and Uranus did not come to time, he asked himself how that could be. Meanwhile, the answer to any number of "hows" must have been previously demonstrated by him and by ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... disowning his production. His American editor—a fact which is little known—selected, from among the mass of periodical writings in the various magazines for which De Quincey wrote, those which, having no other clue to guide him than, their peculiar style, he judged to have proceeded from De Quincey's pen. In one instance,—as to the "Traditions of the Rabbins,"—after considerable examination, he still hesitated, and finally ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the part of certain tropical fish are easy enough to explain by the fashionable clue of 'adaptation to environment.' Ponds are always very likely to dry up, and so the animals that frequent ponds are usually capable of bearing a very long deprivation of water. Indeed, our evolutionists generally hold that land animals have in every case sprung ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the change is a base of numbers which are in the ratio of 4:3; and this when combined with a figure of five gives two harmonies; he means when the number of this figure becomes solid.') Some further clue may be gathered from the appearance of the Pythagorean triangle, which is denoted by the numbers 3, 4, 5, and in which, as in every right-angled triangle, the squares of the two lesser sides equal the square of the hypotenuse ...
— The Republic • Plato
... eloquent eyes once or twice raised to mine, then instantly withdrawn again—and so long as I could look at her, I cared not what I listened to. She was only speaking what she had been educated to speak; it was not in her words that I sought the clue to her thoughts and sensations; but in the tone of her voice, in the language of her eyes, in the whole expression of her face. All these contained indications which reassured me. I tried everything that respect, that the persuasion of love could urge, to win her consent ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... slyly besieged by the curious, but they went away empty; for Justine, if very simple and single-minded, was yet too much concerned for both Galt Roscoe and Mrs. Falchion to give the inquiring the slightest clue. She knew, indeed, little herself, whatever she may have guessed. As for Hungerford, he was dumb. He refused to consider the matter. But he roundly maintained once or twice, without any apparent relevance, that a woman was like a repeating decimal—you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Edwards, with a quartermaster, Timmins, the bo's'n's mate, and a crew, was heading a straight course toward his first command, with instructions to "keep company and watch for signals"; and intention to break into the brass-bound chest and ferret out what clue lay there, if it took dynamite. As he boarded, Barnett and Trendon, with both of whom the lad was a favourite, ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of cantankerous self-righteousness, whom nobody could please or satisfy, but indeed when he was most pitiless about the faults of his race or nation he was really reproaching himself, and when he seemed more egotistical and introspective and self-centred he was really ransacking himself for a clue to that same confusion of purposes that waste the hope and strength of humanity. And now through the busy distresses of the night it would have perplexed a watching angel to have drawn the line and shown when Mr. Britling, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... what is called a cryptogram, or cipher," he said, "in which letters are purposely thrown in confusion, which if properly arranged would reveal their sense. Only think that under this jargon there may lie concealed the clue to ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... offer any suggestion, or supply any information, which might throw light on the subject, or might give a clue to the lost manuscript? The treatise referred to {67} might possibly still exist, and, even if without Ridley's name, or in an imperfect state, might yet be identified, either from the handwriting or some other circumstance. Do any of your correspondents possess or know of any MS. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... light swallow with her airy brood Skims the green meadow, and the dimpled flood; 475 Loud shrieks the lone thrush from his leafless thorn, Th' alarmed beetle sounds his bugle horn; Each pendant spider winds with fingers fine His ravel'd clue, and climbs along the line; Gay Gnomes in glittering circles stand aloof 480 Beneath a spreading mushroom's fretted roof; Swift bees returning seek their waxen cells, And Sylphs cling quivering in the lily's bells. Through the still air descend the ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... fast, Bob," said Frank, stooping to pick up the garment. "Let's see what's in the pockets. There may be a clue ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... creature Clarissa Granger felt, as she pondered on this serious question! To her brother? Yes, he was the only friend she would care to trust in this emergency. But how was she to find him? Brussels was a large place, and she had no clue to his whereabouts there. Could she feel even sure that he had ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... of the Amphitruo is not now thought to have been a work of the Middle Comedy but of the New Comedy, very possibly Philemon's Nyx makra. A clue to the Greek play's date is found in the description of Amphitryon's battle with the Teloboians,[2] a battle fought after the manner of those of the Diadochi who came into prominence at the death of Alexander the Great. The date of the Plautine ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... move the Roman) tries to get him off by reminding the people that they have, by custom, the right to have a prisoner released at that time, and suggests that he should release Jesus. But they insist on his releasing a prisoner named Barabbas instead, and on having Jesus crucified. Matthew gives no clue to the popularity of Barabbas, describing him simply as "a notable prisoner." The later gospels make it clear, very significantly, that his offence was sedition and insurrection; that he was an advocate of physical force; and that he had killed ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... clue," he said, quietly, and held to the light an object which, as I sprang to my feet, I saw to ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... slight clue to guide him, it was determined that Mr. Weller should start next morning on an expedition of discovery; it was also arranged that Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle, who were less confident of their powers, should parade the town meanwhile, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... been proof against Malvina, he had resisted the Barons de Nucingen and de Rastignac; though both of them had set him galloping at the rate of seventy-five leagues a day, with outriders, regardless of expense, through mazes of their cunning devices—and with never a clue of thread. ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... revealed the latent heroism of her character, she seems to have kept her sweet serenity unbroken, bending to the passing storms with the grace of a facile nature, but never murmuring at the inevitable. One may find in this inflexible strength and gentleness of temper a clue to the subtle fascination which held the devoted friendship of so many gifted men and women, long after the fresh charm of ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... "She is good, sweet and wholesome. I have taught her what she knows—I mean by that that I have helped her to pick up a clue here and there to take her by some means to the heart of our mystery. She has had a dreadful mauling by the world; but her brain is sound. I intend to make her happy, but not here. We go to Baden a-painting. She vows she will keep the door of my tent like a Bedouin's wife. It's a great ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... his pocket a clue of small cord, and, having carefully uncoiled it, attached one end to an arrow. He then rode up to within thirty yards of the house, and dismounted—not directly opposite the entrance, but a little to one side—so that the face of the wooden door, which was fortunately but three-quarters ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Laughing Bill a tingling sensation along his spine. Having discovered the modus operandi of the pair, and having read their cards, so to speak, he next set himself to discover where they banked their swag. But this was by no means easy. His utmost vigilance went unrewarded by so much as a single clue. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... well be repelled from participation in this embroiled struggle, where it was hard to find any satisfactory clue which might lead to settlement. To satisfy all was impossible; and it was almost as difficult to suggest any principle or set of principles which could be uniformly applied. Every case varied; every claim was supported or opposed by evidence, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... "The clue to this mystery has been the blessed influence of my sainted mother;" and a flush of satisfaction mantled his cheek as he referred ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... to the recital, and at its close, said, "I think I can find a clue to this mystery, but to obtain it I must go alone. Meet me here at midnight to-morrow, and I doubt not we shall be able to ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... had the clue to the mystery of Cold Feet. As a matter of fact John Gaspar had never grown up. He was still a weak, ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... that Merthyr hearing these soft epithets, should disbelieve in the implied self-conquest of her preceding words. He had no clue to make him guess that these were simply old exclamations of hers brought to her lips by the sorrowful contrast in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... called, may possibly differ as to just what, or what not, cathedrals of France should be included in this term. The French proverb known of all guide-book makers should give a clue as to those which at least may not be ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... someone? It seemed to her that any woman should be proud to win the love of such a man. Was there one? What sort of girl would he admire, she wondered. She had noticed that in their talks he had never mentioned any of her sex or given her a clue to his likes and dislikes. She knew little of men. Her brother was the only one of whose inner life and ideas she had any knowledge, and he was no help to ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... night watchman! The editor felt relieved; here was a clue to some explanation. He instantly sat down on ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... tould her to put out her tongue, but the divvle a bit of her tongue saw we! Nor would she say a worrd as to her ailment, to give us a clue, though I believe on me oath, colonel, we mintioned ivery complaint known in the Pharmacopaia, Terence even axin' civilly if she had chilblames in the throat, for it was the depth of winter at the ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... of Egypt, as you fancied, but the Pyramid of the Sun, Tonatiuh, at Teohuacan. To the problem connected with this mysterious structure, infinitely older than the empire of Montezuma, which Cortes destroyed, he fancied he had a clue ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... is," continued Mr. Smith, "the only clue to identity which we have is this watch, which it appears was purchased by you some twenty-three years ago at Mr. Turnwell's ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... Chaudfontaine, and there was her name, "Madeleine Linders," that of the donor, the date, and below, "Hotel des Bains, Chaudfontaine." It was a revelation to Horace. Of course he understood it all now. Here was the clue to his confused recollections, to the strange little scene he had just witnessed. Another moonlit courtyard came to his remembrance, a gleaming, rushing river, a background of shadowy hills, and a little coy, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... he is a human bloodhound when once the lure of the trail has caught him. He scarcely eats or sleeps when the chase is on, he does not seem to know human weakness nor fatigue, in spite of his frail body. Once put on a case his mind delves and delves until it finds a clue, then something awakes within him, a spirit akin to that which holds the bloodhound nose to trail, and he will accomplish the apparently impossible, he will track down his victim when the entire machinery of a great police department seems ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner |
