"Clue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fast, Bob," said Frank, stooping to pick up the garment. "Let's see what's in the pockets. There may be a clue as to ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... apparent attempt to dismiss the Mantell case. I was convinced now. The Godman Field affair must hold an important clue that I had overlooked. It might even be the key to the whole flying ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... very strange that you could not find us when you came to New York. We really troubled the post office very little, having after a while nothing to expect from it, and that was the only place where you could hope to get a clue.' Neither would Esther mention Mr. Dallas. With a woman's curious fine discernment, she had seen that all was not right in that quarter; indeed, had suspected it ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... study of his Paradise, in 1870, that I gave up this idea, finding the chiaroscuro, which I had thought exaggerated, was, in all original and undarkened passages, beautiful and most precious. And then at last I got hold of the true clue: "Il disegno di Michel Agnolo." And the moment I had dared to accuse that, it explained everything; and I saw that the betraying demons of Italian art, led on by Michael Angelo, had been, not pleasure, but knowledge; not indolence, but ambition; ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... cuttings, where he had chopped down trees for fire-wood, and found them. So, this was the place, but where was the tent? He was mystified. He searched up and down every corner of the grove, but found no clue. Could the Nascaupees have found his camp and carried his things away? There was no ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... any dealer. How 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
... they would have to make friends with any of the visitors. She hoped not, because that would spoil it, the adventure. People had a way of telling her their secrets, and Jane preferred not to be told. All she wanted was an inkling, a clue; the ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... lines this morning, and was even now, as he stood in the street and stared at the opposite house, repeating to himself a song he had just composed for his hero. It is worth quoting, for, with slight alteration, I know no better clue to the poet's mood at the time. The play has since been destroyed, for reasons of which some hint may be found in the next few chapters; but the unfinished song is still preserved among the author's notes, where ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Elector of Brandenburg, actuated by a fit of devotion, set out from his dominions in 1322 on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, leaving his brother John IV. to rule in his absence. He left no clue as to his intended route; but simply announcing his purpose of visiting the sacred shrines of Palestine, started on his journey accompanied by only two esquires. Four-and-twenty days after his departure his brother John sickened and died—not without suspicions of foul play—and ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... night," he reasoned. "And they won't start to search for me until some time to-morrow. When I don't show up at the game they'll think it's queer, and I suppose they'll fine me. I wouldn't mind that if they only come and find me. But how can they do it? There isn't a clue they could follow, as far as ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... the curate raised the paper from the table and re-read the passage that was evidently troubling him; and each time he did so the puckers deepened, and his expression became more and more careworn. It would have been difficult enough for a stranger to find any clue to the cause of his agitation in the portion of the Wabbleton Post and Grubley Advertiser which the clergyman held before him; and the wonder would certainly have been increased by the discovery that the passage to which the reverend gentleman's ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... soul. Life to them was a dim and mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary, and lost, guided by priests as bewildered as themselves, without knowing that at every step the Ariadne of reason offered them the long lost clue. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... John Lyly first saw light in the year 1553 or 1554[3]. Anthony a Wood, the 17th century author of Athenae Oxonienses, tells us that he was, like his contemporary Stephen Gosson, a Kentish man born[4]; and with this clue to help them both Mr Bond and Mr Baker are inclined to accept much of the story of Fidus as autobiographical[5]. If their inference be correct, our author would seem to have been the son of middle-class, but well-to-do, parents. ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... at last, by dint of a thousand sly and secret inquiries, Mrs. Logan found out where Lady Dalcastle had been on the night that the murder happened, and likewise what company she had kept, as well as some of the comers and goers; and she had hopes of having discovered a clue, which, if she could keep hold of the thread, would lead her through darkness to ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... a long and brooding silence. By this time, the reader will have got a clue to the nature of the secret that was discussed so much, and so often, between these two men. Daggett, finding himself sick, poor, and friendless, among strangers, had early cast about him for the means of obtaining ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... even now, care so much about Alice or her success, as she did about Frieda. She realized, too, that although a week had gone by, she was still hoping that the runaway would return. Every day she went to the library to read the advertisements and personals in the newspapers in search of a clue. And every day, too, she read about the crimes, fearful lest she might discover Frieda's name, or a description of her, among ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... feet below while we made us a cigarette apiece. We were just a mite discouraged. Beginning that first morning at the east end of the Writing-Stone we had worked west, conning the weather-worn face of it for a mark that would give a clue to the cache. Also we had scanned carefully the sandy soil patches along the boulder-strewn base, seeking the tell-tale footprints of horse or man. And we had found nothing. Each day the conviction ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... desperate struggle with the unfathomable nature of this duality, we demand why it is that the gods have failed, in spite of their love, to give us any clue to some ultimate reconciliation, the answer must be that such an ultimate reconciliation is as much beyond the reach of their vision as it is beyond the reach of ours. The attainment of such a reconciliation would seem to mean the absolute end of life as we know it ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... 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, and others that the words be these: Power, Knowledge, ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... said of the literature we have the clue also for the reconstruction of the nation's history. The naive assumption in the writing of all history had once been that one must begin with the beginning. But to Wellhausen, Stade, Eduard Meyer and Kittel and Cornill, it has been clear that the history of the earliest ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... were the only sounds that met their anxious ears. At daybreak they returned, sad and dispirited, to their homes, to snatch a morsel of food, endeavour to cheer the drooping hearts of the weeping mothers, and hurry off, taking different directions. But, unfortunately, they had little clue to the route which Hector and Louis had taken, there being many cattle-paths through the woods. Louis's want of truthfulness had caused this uncertainty, as he had left no intimation of the path he purposed taking when ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... their way back to the living room. In spite of the most painstaking examination of the floor, walls, and furniture of the entire bungalow, they were, so far, without a clue. The murderer had left not the slightest trace of his identity or his manner of entrance to ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... of her sensations—not wholly inconsistent with her figure—gave the clue to Mrs. Jablett's sufferings. Resisting a frivolous impulse to reassure her as to the elasticity of the human integument, I considered her case in exhaustive detail, coasting delicately round the subject of "unsweetened," ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... with him did I know him to exercise his power of making a man whom he disliked appear odious in his pages. But this particular person was so odious in reality that everybody felt that Black had only done him justice. Of course, Black was careful to give no clue to the identity of the disagreeable man which could be of the slightest use to the general reader. A few of us knew perfectly well who was meant, but that was all. Unfortunately, the particular story in which this person figured was first published serially in ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... fire, they traversed the land swift as the swallow glides through the sky, but of these things not a relic remains to us. What metal-work or wheels or bars of iron were left, and might have given us a clue, were all broken up and melted down for use in other ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... This was indeed a clue. Lecoq's hopes at once revived; so eagerly does a man welcome any supposition that is in accordance with his desires. Trembling with anxiety, he went to examine some other footprints a short distance from these; and an excited exclamation at once ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... appropriated, so as to enter decisively into a man's habit of thought, forming in that direction the fibre of his mind, they not only illuminate conditions apparently novel, by revealing the essential analogies between them and the past, but they supply the clue by which the intricacies of the present can best be threaded. Nothing could be more utterly superficial, for instance, than the remark of a popular writer that "the days of tacks and sheets"—of sailing ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... To wound or to tarnish you; Because you are neither sold nor bought, Because you have not the power to fail But live beyond our furthest thought, Strange Numbers, of infinite clue, Beyond fear, beyond ruth, You strengthen also me To be in my ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... class the flower-characters as the essential feature of Angiosperms supply the clue to phylogeny, but the uncertainty regarding the construction of the primitive angiospermous flower gives a fundamental point of divergence in attempts to construct progressive sequences of the families. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... thousand organic compounds have been formed artificially. Chemists have discovered the art of building them up from the simpler to the more complex, and do not doubt that they will eventually produce the most complex. Moreover, the phenomena attending isomeric change give a clue to those movements which are the only indications we have of life in its lowest forms. In various colloidal substances, including the albuminoid, isomeric change is accompanied by contraction or expansion, and consequent motion; and, in such primordial types as the Protogenes of Haeckel, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... play as a whole, and here only I come a long way behind Mr. Swinburne in his admiration of our dramatists. The Atheist's Tragedy is an inextricable imbroglio of tragic and comic scenes and characters, in which it is hardly possible to see or follow any clue; while the low extravagance of all the comedy and the frantic rant of not a little of the tragedy combine to stifle the real pathos of some of the characters. The Revenger's Tragedy is on a distinctly higher level; the ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... workers seemed greatly pleased with their shorter hours. And then, from the Listening-in-Service, came the rumour of the strike. The first report of the strike gave me no clue to the grievance and I asked for fuller reports. When these came the next day I was shocked beyond belief. If I had anticipated anything in that interval of terror it was that my workers were to strike because their communications had been shut off or that they were to strike in sympathy ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... quietly; 'but it's the name of a very dear school friend of mine. I've got the clue to-night that I've been waiting two years to get. Good-night, nurse, ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... was at that time at work with her needle; and as she had by her several clues of thread, she took up one, and presenting it to prince Ahmed, said, "First take this clue of thread, I will tell you presently the use of it. In the second place, you must have two horses; one you must ride yourself, and the other you must lead, which must be loaded with a sheep cut into four quarters, that must be killed to-day. In the third place, you must be provided with ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... I rode over to tell him that the boys was talkin' of huntin' up the canyon to see if they could get any clue of him. They knowed from Joe Cumberland that ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... now was the time to ask for Kate; nor was his agitation at all diminished by casting a glance at her, and seeing her cheeks crimson and her eyes downcast, as if she anticipated what was going on in his mind. It must be confessed, however, that had Rhoneland had no other clue to his wishes than that afforded by his words, he would have been very much in the dark; for although Ned attempted to speak out boldly, his lips trembled very much, and his voice was not as obedient as he could wish; and all that was distinctly ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... notice of his intention. Indeed, it was by mere accident that his departure was discovered, about a fortnight after it had taken place. My father had taken a great deal of pains to find out where he was residing; but although my uncle was traced to Cork, from that town all clue was lost, but still it was supposed, from inquiries, that he was not very far from thence. "Now," observed my father, in his letter, "I cannot help surmising, that my brother, in his anxiety to retain ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... guide the girl to the man who had deserted her. Perhaps in that last hour of struggle and fear, she had taken it from its hiding place for comfort or, perhaps, to destroy it when hope was past. But it gave no clue. It was merely a wet pulp in a ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... German gardener," went on Tom, "and Koku now recalls that our mysterious visitor had the same sort of speech. This ought to give us a clue." ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... way found the clue to the true genesis of the spectrum, Goethe could not fail to notice that it called for another - a 'negative' spectrum, its polar opposite - to make the half into a whole. For he who has once learnt that light and darkness are two equally essential factors in ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... clue to his hiding-place?" asked Lady Elverston. "I should much like to have some conversation with him, and I trust that I might soften any lingering ill feeling—should such exist in his ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... vessels out of sight as long as possible. Their absence from the arena would have been a mysterious element, whereas their apparition, especially as a segregated squadron in the Yang-tse River, furnished an unerring clue to ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... evidence of his connection with this gang of spies, it should be easy to get a clue to the rest of ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... a friendless 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 really ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Why he knew about your bull terrier, and the papers had it had just been given you the day before—darned clever little dog to give your folks the clue." ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... the faintest idea," replied Diana. "I actually never inquired to whom I was indebted for my life and the various other trifles which he rescued for me from the wreck of our compartment. The only clue I have is the handkerchief he bound round my arm. It's very bluggy ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... card, her mother said she had never known nor heard of such a man. The stranger had evidently sat within hearing distance of the girl and her schoolmate, and listening to their merry chatter all the way from Boston to Springfield, had given him the clue to names and localities that enabled him to play his sinister game. Only the faithfulness of the wise conductor saved her from possibilities too painful to ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... indisputable proof of the Semitic affinity, as Professor Adolf Erman showed years ago. The anatomical examination by Professor Elliot Smith of a large number of skeletons, dated by careful excavations, has given us a further clue. There is a prehistoric race found in the earliest cemeteries—neither Negroid nor Asiatic in characteristics. In the late predynastic and the early dynastic periods, when the great development began, ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner
... as that we have quoted is, in fact, so preposterous, so utterly incompatible with anything but absolute ignorance of some of the best established facts, that we should have passed it over in silence had it not appeared to afford some clue to M. Flourens' unhesitating, a priori, repudiation of all forms of the doctrine of progressive modification of living beings. He whose mind remains uninfluenced by an acquaintance with the phenomena of development, must indeed lack one of the chief motives towards the endeavour ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... few facts to guide us, we turn to the chronicles of Nuniz and Firishtah, trying in vain to obtain some points of contact between them as to the origin of the second dynasty — some clue which will enable us to reconcile differences and arrive at the real truth. If we are to be guided purely by probabilities, it would seem that the history given by Nuniz is likely to be the more accurate of the two. His chronicle was written ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... in the foreground, strolling unconcernedly over the turf and pausing now and again to snuff the air or follow up an odd clue of scent that led him a foot or so before it died away and came ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... of Prodicus or Antisthenes. They would have had more point, if we were acquainted with the writings against which Plato's humour is directed. Most of the jests appear to have a serious meaning; but we have lost the clue to some of them, and cannot determine whether, as in the Cratylus, Plato has or has not mixed up purely unmeaning fun ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... familiar recollections, and the more he heard him speak the more the sensation came over him which led to the demonstrations which we have already witnessed. And yet he could not recall aught that would serve him as a clue—the early injury to his brain seemed to have obliterated the connecting links that memory could not supply. The reason, probably, why the servant's voice and not the brother's thus recalled him was, that the former had been kind, and his voice ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... clue! We only need to know for what man of "transcendent genius, universal culture, world-wide philosophy . . . moving in Court circles," and so on, Ben "was working" about 1621-3, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... unfortunate mother had at first seemed not too difficult, but a search of the bag that she had left in her seat in the car revealed nothing that in any way offered a clue as to who she was or whence she had come. Daniel Holbrook had attended to the burial of the unknown mother and had taken the child home, thinking their relatives would soon appear to claim him. But no one had ever come ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... man! Yes, I had a plan, and a perfectly plain one, too, boy; But—I fear—for a moment—I've—lost the clue! Ah! I'm awfully sorry for you boy! You have been on your feet for a precious long time, and all this roundaboutation, Is "plusquam-Thucydidean," perhaps, and at any rate mean aggravation. But you'll please understand I'm a very "cool hand;" there's abundance ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... invaded and London occupied. If this were done, all else would be right. It was not done. France could not parry Pitt's blows. In Africa, in the West Indies, in India, the British won successes which meant the ruin of French power in three continents. French admirals like Conflans and La Clue were no match for Boscawen, Hawke, and Rodney, all seamen of the first rank, and made the stronger because ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... to the chief points of interest we have arranged an index map (Fig. 27) which will give a clue to the names of the several objects depicted upon the plate. The so-called seas are represented by capital letters; so that A is the Mare Crisium, and H the Oceanus Procellarum. The ranges of mountains are ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... ran, was committed while nearly all the officials were present at the festivities of the preceding day, and when the guard about the public offices, never very strict, was relaxed more than usual. But the clue stopped there, and, so far as the city could hear, it bade fair to remain at that point, as the crush of great affairs about to decide the fate of a nation would not permit a long search for such a secret spring, though the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... eliminative processes which go on in mankind, the suggestive value of his essay is undeniable, as is strikingly borne out by the fact that it gave to Alfred Russel Wallace also "the long-sought clue to the effective agent in the evolution of organic species." (A.R. Wallace, "My Life, A Record of Events and Opinions", London, 1905, Vol. 1. page 232.) One day in Ternate when he was resting between fits of fever, something brought to his recollection the work of Malthus ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... morning they searched the grounds and the neighbourhood; they ransacked Azalea's belongings in hope of some old letter or clue of some sort. But nothing gave so much as a hint of anything that could have happened to her, that ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... the Warricombe family, there had seemed no great likelihood of Christian's getting acquainted with the latter. She debated rapidly in her troubled mind how to meet this disclosure. Curiosity would, of course, impel her brother to follow up the clue; he would again encounter Warricombe, and must then learn all the facts of Peak's position. To what purpose should ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... this lecture, it has been needful to give so many details as to individual works, that my audience may at times have failed 'to see the wood for the trees,' and may have lost the clue of the lexicographical evolution. Let me then in conclusion recapitulate the stages which have been already indicated. These are: the glossing of difficult words in Latin manuscripts by easier Latin, and at length ...
— The evolution of English lexicography • James Augustus Henry Murray
... letter, and sent no telegram. My friend accompanied me down to the Boston and Albany station, where I waited in feverish impatience for the departure of the train. We talked over the matter until 11.30, in the vain hope of finding some clue to the mystery. Then I started on my journey. Mr. Gridley's curiosity was aroused, and I promised to send him an explanation immediately ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... find out this at once by the introduction of the word "Hubbard," but you can, of course, select more difficult lines (viz., those which give less clue to the ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... mounts were all fresh and strong, and in crossing the creek we allowed them a few swallows of water before continuing our ride. We halted again in crossing the trail, but it was so worn by recent use that it afforded no clue to guide us in our quest. But from the next vantage-point which afforded us a view, a sea of cattle greeted our vision, all of which seemed under herd. Wagon sheets were next sighted, and finally ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... the years of his absence from home he had never heard a word about his mother or uncle. Those who were his real friends on the border would have been the last to make inquiries, to write or receive letters that might give a clue to Duane's whereabouts. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... instead of Mzungu (European), has usually been applied to me; and no one, I am sure, would have discovered the difference, were it not that the tiresome pagazis, to increase their own dignity and importance, generally gave the clue by singing the song of "the White Man." The Arabs at Unyanyembe had advised my donning their habit for the trip, in order to attract less attention: a vain precaution, which I believe they suggested more to gratify their own vanity by seeing an Englishman lower himself ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... this verse which gave the critics and commentators some clue as to the probable date of the composition; the parrot, they reminded the public, was in high vogue as a type of elegance in the days of Hafiz of Shiraz; in the quatrains of Omar ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... words in Truc. 858 ff. is egregiously tiresome in the reading, but in action could have been made to produce a modicum of amusement if presented in the broad burlesque spirit that we believe was almost invariably employed. This gives us a clue to ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... Jew, named Garcia, settled at Dublin. He was very skilful at disguises. "He sometimes put on the mien of a priest, for he affected to be one, and thus worming himself into the good graces of some confiding Catholic got a clue to the whereabouts of the clergy." In 1718, Garcia succeeded in arresting seven unregistered priests, for whose detection he had a sum equal to two or three thousand dollars of American money. To such an excess was this ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... exclaimed Gomez Arias, darting a look full of wonder and well feigned surprise—"The duenna! By my sword, that must be our clue—I had almost forgotten that you had a duenna in your house, otherwise my astonishment would not have been so lively. Duennas are the soul of every intrigue, and you may indeed affirm, with a safe conscience, that yours has not ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... it and do not see its Front; we follow it, and do not see its Back. When we can lay hold of the Tao of old to direct the things of the present day, and are able to know it as it was of old in the beginning, this is called (unwinding) the clue of Tao. ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... other cities he had known—their homespun kindliness, their human gamut of rough charity, friendly curses, garrulous curiosity and easily estimated credulity or indifference. This city of Manhattan gave him no clue; it was walled against him. Like a river of adamant it flowed past him in the streets. Never an eye was turned upon him; no voice spoke to him. His heart yearned for the clap of Pittsburg's sooty hand on his shoulder; ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... mother," said Carl, after looking around and making certain that none of the other children were within earshot; "and he's struck what promises to be a clue that may explain the mystery we've been ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... of feature or countenance between the two; still, the first was to be found in both, and so distinctly, as to be easily traced, when placed in so close contact. Geoffrey Cleveland had the reputation of being like his mother; and, furnished with this clue, the fact suddenly flashed on Bluewater's mind, that the being whom Mildred so nearly and strikingly resembled, was a deceased sister of the Duchess, and a beloved cousin of his own. Miss Hedworth, the young lady in question, had long been ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... horse in the camp, had been stolen! The burly lumbermen came hurrying from all directions. There was no doubt about it—the horse was gone, and the snow had covered every trace. There was absolutely no clue to follow. Silently and sullenly the men filed in to breakfast. In a lumberman's eyes hardly a crime could exceed that of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... him. I wish you would run down these references for me, Sylvia. Don't trouble about those I have checked off. It can't be possible I am following a false clue. I'm sure I printed that article in the 'Popular Science Monthly,' for I recall perfectly that John Fiske wrote me a letter about it. Come home when you have finished and we'll take our usual ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... addresses of a practical blacksmith, some of them delivered in his shop to a few neighbors, but the audience becoming larger, the rest were given in an adjacent church building. To most persons, the title affords a slight clue to the drift of the book, which is to show the duty and the benefits of giving the tithe of a man's income to the Lord. The author's bottom thought is based on this statement in the preface: "God pledges himself for the success of that individual who renders obedience to the divine ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various
... pervaded the place when the Government analyst stood up to give his evidence. Madame Midas was present, with Kitty seated beside her, the latter looking pale and ill; and Kilsip, with a gratified smile on his face which seemed as though he had got a clue to the whole mystery, was seated next to Calton. Vandeloup, faultlessly dressed, and as cool and calm as possible, was also in Court; and Dr Gollipeck, as he awaited his turn to give evidence, could not help admiring the marvellous nerve and courage ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Jack. "We went to sea again the next morning, and have been absent ever since. I was thinking that I would call upon the Capitan-General, and ask him if any of his people had ever been able to find a clue to the identity of ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... allowance out of the scanty stock of bread which remained. Retaining only thirty men, he resolved with these to search every den and cavern of the mountains until he should find the two caciques. It was difficult, however, to trace them in such a wilderness. There was no one to give a clue to their retreat, for the whole country was abandoned. There were the habitations of men, but not a human being to be seen; or if, by chance, they caught some wretched Indian stealing forth from the mountains in quest of food, he always professed utter ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... containing the mortal remains of countless generations, each corpse awaiting, in mysterious embalmment, a future life; labyrinths of many hundred chambers and vaults, into which whoso entered without a clue never again escaped, but in the sameness and solitude of those endless windings found his sepulchre. It is impossible for us to appreciate the sentiment of religious awe with which the Mediterranean people looked upon ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... for the story of life, and may now trace the general lines of upward development. The first great principle to be recognised is the early division of these primitive organisms into two great classes, the moving and the stationary. The clue to this important divergence is found in diet. With exceptions on both sides, we find that the non-moving microbes generally feed on inorganic matter, which they convert into plasm; the moving microbes generally feed on ready-made plasm—on the living non-movers, ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... had said, plenty of trains to that unknown destination of hers, but he thought that that word sleep offered the true clue. She was a physician's daughter; there must be, somewhere in that house, a chest or cupboard that would supply what she needed. They'd find her in her own bed, in that room he had once cast a glance into on ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... is adrift again. He asks the meaning of it all—where the fault lies, if fault there be; he begs her to help him to discover it. The Campagna is around them, with its "endless fleece of feathery grasses," its "everlasting wash of air;" its wide suggestions of passion and of peace. The clue to the enigma seems to glance across him, in the form of a gossamer thread. He traces it from point to point, by the objects on which it rests. But just as he calls his love to help him to hold it fast, it breaks off, and floats into ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the mere word war; you must consider what is the probability of its occurrence. I have already stated publicly my certain knowledge how vulnerable Russia is; how weak she is internally. But the best clue to you as to what will be her future conduct, if you act decisively, will be gained by examining the extreme caution and timidity with which, in the late events, she felt her way, before she interposed ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... resolved to make as if he were asleep, and wait to see what the King would do. So, having tried many and found none that he deemed the culprit, the King came at last to the culprit himself, and marking the thumping of his heart, said to himself:—This is he. But being minded to afford no clue to his ulterior purpose, he did no more than with a pair of scissors which he had brought with him shear away on one side of the man's head a portion of his locks, which, as was then the fashion, he wore very long, that by this ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... God! What have I done? I have cast off the clue of this world's maze, And, like an idiot, let my boat adrift Above the waterfall!—I had ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... the light we did not fall asleep. We were discussing the cleverness of the detective and the folly of the thief who had left a clue behind, and it was actually two o'clock when we pulled our rugs up to our ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... the carefulness of the man's attire, but gained no clue as to his calling. To avoid stupid staring he turned to watch a game of faro. Its fascinations were rapidly engrossing his attentions and luring him onward toward a reckless desire to tempt the goddess of chance, when he presently beheld McCoppet turn away from his man and saunter ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... by the marquis du Quesne, consisting of four ships, namely, the Foudroyant, of eighty guns, the Orphee, of sixty-four, the Oriflamme, of fifty, and the Pleiade frigate, of twenty-four, in their passage from Toulon to reinforce M. de la Clue, who had for some time been blocked up by admiral Osborne in the harbour of Carthagena. The enemy no sooner perceived the English squadron than they dispersed, and steered different courses: then Mr. Osborne detached divers ships in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... at is extreme, but it is one for the solution of which the transmutation-theory gives no clue. It is inherent in the idea of the creation of beings, which are to reproduce their like by natural succession; for, in such a world, place the first beginning where you will, that beginning must contain ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... (50) Thus there is no doubt that this book was written by the same person as he who recounted the history of Daniel and Ezra, and who wrote Nehemiah, [Endnote 21], sometimes called the second book of Ezra. (51) We may, then, affirm that all these books are from one hand; but we have no clue whatever to the personality of the author. (52) However, in order to determine whence he, whoever he was, had gained a knowledge of the histories which he had, perchance, in great measure himself written, we may remark ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... nearer, he concluded that there must be some one of whom she reminded him—some one whom he had known long ago. Then, with a flash, came back to him the scene—never to be forgotten—on that long-ago May morning; and Tommy Dudgeon heaved a sigh, for he had obtained his clue. ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... as scoundrels. The law is like that double-formed, ill-begotten monster that was kept in an intricate labyrinth and fed with men's flesh, for it devours all that come within the mazes of it and have not a clue to find the way out again. He has as little kindness for the Statute Law as Catholics have for the Scripture, but adores the Common Law as they do tradition, and both for the very same reason; for the Statute Law being ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... before it and guess at the real woman within. Her step on the road as we would come to an unexpected meeting, her handling of a flower I might give her in a courtesy, her most indifferent word as we met or parted, became a precious clue I must ponder on for hours. And the more I weighed these things, the more confused thereafter I became in her presence. "If I were in love with the girl," I had to say to myself at last, "I could not be ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... with his wife in order to maintain himself in perfect physiological equilibrium? My results enable us to state definitely the minimum limits, and to reply that 37 embraces annually would be too few; but, unfortunately, they give us no clue to the maximum limit. It is obvious that the necessary frequency should be greater than 37 times annually,—possibly very considerably in excess thereof,—seeing that the spontaneous discharges, with which we are dealing, are due to over-pressure, and occur only when the system, being denied ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... thermometer. It is well known, however, that it is not the degree but the character of the cold which renders it obnoxious to men, and the climate of this country is quite as agreeable, if not more so, than the best part of Canada. The height of the latitude gives no clue whatever to the degree of cold or to the nature of ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... poet fellow, because he loved the starlit woods at night. She came to the famous fourteenth-century maze, where the cypress-trees had grown so high and dense that it was really a place to lose oneself in, did one not possess the clue to the intricate windings. She walked outside the maze, breathing in the fragrance of the sun-kissed cypress, and turned into the orangery, and here she lingered a while in the alleys of formally cut trees. Then she walked on, and finally gained the wilderness which ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... was found. On the river bank, however, were discovered her bonnet and shawl, mute witnesses to the fate that seemed to have overtaken her. Her father alone refused to believe that his daughter had ended her life tragically. He persisted in his search for her, and was soon rewarded by a clue which threw a different and more ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... The girl seemed to like them both equally. They never saw her except in each other's company. And it was not until one day when Grace Forrester was knitting a sweater that there seemed a chance of getting a clue to ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... any idea who the real culprit is?" asked her father, greatly troubled. In his heart he implicitly believed her, but he had to inquire into the matter without prejudice. "If you have a suspicion, do give me the clue, that you may be cleared. Of course ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... endeavoured to lead her out of morbid thought into interest in other than personal things; and, naturally enough, his own objects of interest came readiest to hand. She felt that he did her good, she did not know why or how; but after a talk with him, she always fancied that she had got the clue to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... easily be heard; and Smith and Brown, who had no more than the average of that creditable delicacy which hears nothing intended only for other ears, caught some words which will bear setting down here as affording an additional clue to the state ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the deed was as clear as day; but the evidence concerning the perpetrator was so scanty that, although all circumstances pointed strongly towards the "Blue Smocks," nothing but conjectures could be risked. One clue seemed to throw some light upon the matter; there were reasons, however, why but little dependence could be placed on it. The absence of the owner of the estate had made it necessary for the clerk of the court to start the case ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... very soon afterwards discovered her loss. It so happened that she had never noticed the sailor who sat next her, and consequently had not the smallest clue as to the time or the place where the purse was stolen. She had, indeed, never opened it since she had put the money given to her at the Bank of England into it, having enough small change for her immediate ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade |
