"Clue in" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... favoured, who had turned aside by the way? Had I not, after all, stood for far more than I had thought; was I not filching from that dear great city of my birth and life, some vitally necessary thing, a key, a link, a reconciling clue in her political development, that now she might seek vaguely for in vain? What is one life against the State? Ought I not to have sacrificed Isabel and all my passion and sorrow for Isabel, and held to my thing—stuck to ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... brother ministers, that they might wrestle with Satan before delivering her up to the civil power. He spoke well, for he spoke from the heart of a father seeing his children exposed to dreadful and mysterious suffering, and firmly believing that he now held the clue in his hand which should ultimately release them and their fellow-sufferers. And the congregation moaned themselves into unsatisfied submission, and listened to his long, passionate prayer, which he uplifted even while the hapless Hota stood ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... I want to make a suggestion. I'm not looking for any personal glory out of this, but I declare I think I am the logical person to go. You know I am the only one of us who can talk French and understand it, and as we have already had one clue in that manner, there's every chance that others may follow in the same way, so I move that ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... have blood spots made on the portieres at the house of Phelps by the man who removed the needle, probably the unknown himself, possibly his—or her—agent. In any case it is a clue and—THE ONLY DIRECT AND INFALLIBLE CLUE IN EXISTENCE TO THE CRIMINAL! Also I have the evidence of the snake venom and of the botulin toxin here. Sooner or later the person who killed Werner because he suspected things will wake up to the fact that we possess tangible proof ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... sailors. Our mode of life in the cabin was as follows: in the morning, at seven o'clock, we took coffee, but whence this coffee came, heaven knows! I drank it for eleven days, and could never discover any thing which might serve as a clue in my attempt to discover the country of its growth. At ten o'clock we had a meal consisting of bread and butter and cheese, with cold beef or pork, all excellent dishes for those in health; the second course of this morning meal was "tea-water." ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... captors looked on him with respect—they did not laugh at him nor evince any anger. It was impossible for him to read any clue in their stolid ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... than, parts of high physiological importance. Rudimentary organs may be compared with the letters in a word, still retained in the spelling, but become useless in the pronunciation, but which serve as a clue in seeking for its derivation. On the view of descent with modification, we may conclude that the existence of organs in a rudimentary, imperfect, and useless condition, or quite aborted, far from presenting a strange difficulty, as they assuredly ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... plan will be to cut some branches of the broom that is so abundant about here, and as thou goest to lay them at intervals until thou hast come out upon the plain; these will serve thee, after the fashion of the clue in the labyrinth of Theseus, as marks and signs for ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Historical Novels (Stevenson, Marion Crawford, Conan Doyle, Weyman, Mason, and a number of more or less capable romancists having come forward in the last twenty years), but, also, that more than ever was there a need for some sort of clue in the search for such books. In the last year or two there has been an almost alarming influx in this department of Fiction, and teachers in schools, besides readers in general, may be glad to be saved a somewhat ...
— A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales • Jonathan Nield
... true. Eh! It leaves the mystery deeper than ever, unless monsieur can find some clue in those parts of ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... It seems to me, at least in the latter case, that the very nicety of the handiwork must often serve as a clue in itself. The trained hand leaves the peculiar mark characteristic of its training. No matter how shrewdly the deed is planned, the execution of it is daily becoming a more and more difficult feat, thanks to our increasing ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... beginning to understand, and snatching fiercely at the one clue in his speech. 'A gold token? They have been decoyed away then! There is no time to be lost. I ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... my suggestion, and said quickly, "You correspond, of course: how are her letters?" Now I was sure of my safest clue in finding her out. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... always find moored under their lee, safe from the monsoon that prevails on the open sea of the Avenue. Inwardly, they are labyrinths, through whose gloomy mazes it is impossible to thread your way without the assistance of an Ariadne's clue in the shape of an Irishman panting under a trunk. So obscure and involved are the hotel-interiors, that it would be madness for a stranger to venture in search of his room without the guidance of some one far more familiar with the devious course of the narrow clearings through the forest of apartments ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... days"—from his great author? Is it not unreasonable to suppose that the author of man's being took no delight in him? Without this the first man could never have commanded the use of words. Here we have the "Arriere pensee" clue, that is, the clue in mental reservation; and here we meet the axiom. The clear is the true, and the "Ariadne," the clue that leads us out of the labyrinth. Language at the first must have been specific. This, in the ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... and round. It was the drumstick bone of a chicken's leg. Detective Gubb threw it away. Even an un-burglar would not have chosen a chicken's leg bone as a weapon. Evidently Billy Getz had not left any clue in the pansy-bed. ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... ever must be, when abandoned to our vulgar propensities, without guide, leader, or control; that is, made to be full of a blind elevation in prosperity; to despise untried dangers; to be overpowered with unexpected reverses; to find no clue in a labyrinth of difficulties, to get out of a present inconvenience with any risk of future ruin; to follow and to bow to fortune; to admire successful though wicked enterprise, and to imitate what we admire; to contemn the government which announces danger from ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... a valuable clue in that last line. Great art is born of feeling, and the heart of Rubens was never touched by tragedy, nor the rocky fastnesses of his tears broken in upon by grief. In many ways his was the spirit of a child: he had troubles, but ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard |
