"Clue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... offered his help, earnestly, as did his niece, with a certain reserve. The dog Thor had disappeared with Starke, and they hoped that would afford some clue. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... rising from his chair. "I agree with you, Senor Ramon. Tabor is a liar. What troubled me was that I had no clue as to why he should lie. You have given me it, and with all my heart ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... conversation could 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 ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... forcing you to marry him," said the King. "I don't know why it has even been mentioned." And, seeking a clue, he cast a troubled glance at ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... mind. No human power could have hindered some chance word dropped by Martha, or by Josette, from enlightening her as to the real reasons for the condition of her home during the last four years. Notwithstanding Madame Claes's reserve, Marguerite discovered slowly, thread by thread, the clue to the domestic drama. She was soon to be her mother's active confidante, and later, under other circumstances, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... a man give himself his end, or stays to receive it by some other means; whether he pays before his day, or stay till his day of payment come; from whencesoever it comes, it is still his; in what part soever the thread breaks, there's the end of the clue. The most voluntary death is the finest. Life depends upon the pleasure of others; death upon our own. We ought not to accommodate ourselves to our own humour in anything so much as in this. Reputation ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... from an ancient noble family, as he says on several occasions, it is possible that some particulars relating to the Schweidlers might be discovered in the family records of the seventeenth century, which would give a clue to his native country; but I have sought for that name in all the sources of information accessible to me in vain, and am led to suspect that our author, like many of his contemporaries, laid aside his nobility and changed his name when he ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Ensal going home to live the evening over through the night, while Earl called upon Leroy Crutcher and engaged him to use Tiara Merlow as a clue to ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... I cried, wildly, beseechingly, 'surely, you cannot be so cruel; surely, you must give me some hope! If Jeanette is not here now, surely, you have heard from her, seen her, can give me some clue to her present whereabouts!' ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... 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
... the night there and the next night and the night after that. And, when three whole days and three nights had elapsed, not only had he failed to discover the elusive Lupin and his no less elusive companion, but he had not even observed the slightest clue upon which to found ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... borne in mind that in a certain proportion of men and in a larger proportion of women, the patient has no knowledge of having suffered from syphilis. Certain slight but important signs may give the clue in a number of cases, such as irregularity of the pupils or failure to react to light, abnormality of the reflexes, and the discovery of patches of leucoplakia on the tongue, cheek, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... in getting to England, I am sure my friends, in gratitude to you, will put you in the way of making your fortune," I replied. "But I own I cannot see how this will enable you to find your parents, without any clue to guide you." ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... do s'pose you's right. I's a born ijit altogidder. But, you know, when a man gits off de scent ob a t'ing, anyt'ing dat looks de least bit like a clue should be follered up. An' dere's no sayin' what might come ob seein' de fadder—for we's off de scent ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... labyrinth of Gnossos. Far within its thousand twisted alleys was his den, where he waited for his prey, as they were brought each along the winding paths. But Ariadne talked in secret with Theseus in the still evening time, and she gave him a clue of thread, so that he might know how to come back out of the mazes of the labyrinth after he had slain the Minotauros; and when the moon looked down from heaven, she led him to a hidden gate, and bade him go forth ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of general abandonment or adoption. Probably we may see in these various changes, when put side by side, similar characteristics—may find in them a common tendency; and so, by inference, may get a clue to the direction in which experience is leading us, and gather hints how we may achieve yet further improvements. Let us then, as a preliminary to a deeper consideration of the matter, glance at the leading contrasts between the education of the past and ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... slightest imprint here and there on the earth of a moccasined foot which was the clue. Her brothers and sisters came to see her occasionally; but what purpose could one of them have in stealing her child? No hostile Indians any longer, thanks to the fear Powhatan's might and the English guns ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... Harl. MS. 1544. fo. 25., appears the marriage of Barbara, second daughter of Sir Richard Pexsall, of Beaurepaire, in co. Southampton, by Ellinor his wife, daughter of William Pawlett, Marquis of Winchester, to "Anthony Bridges." That Sir Richard Pexsall died in 1571, is the only clue I have to the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... authorities of the districts in which they reside, to secure protection. The friends and relatives of the victims, perhaps a thousand miles off, never surmise their fate till a period has elapsed when all inquiry would be fruitless, or, at least, extremely difficult. They have no clue to the assassins, and very often impute to the wild beasts of the jungles the slaughter committed by ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the wife of Gabriel, he would have protected her with a brother's care and tenderness. But his first thought was for Rosalie,—the young, the beloved, the deceived, the fugitive Rosalie, of whose flight no clue could be discovered, no trace be found. The servants could throw no light on the mystery, for she had left in the darkness and silence of night. They only knew that Peggy disappeared at the same time, and was probably her companion. This ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... of wonder did the hesitation mean? Surely the offer of the post of agent was infinitely preferable to that of under-gardener? If the latter had been accepted, why on earth should there be hesitation regarding the former? So marvelled Nicholas, having, of course, no clue to the inner workings of Antony's mind. And even if he had had, the workings would have appeared to him illogical and unreasonable. It is truly not fully certain whether Antony understood them himself. He only knew that whereas it would be possible, though ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... recur, almost every day; and Pierre seemed to bring them on with a word, as if he had the clue to her strange and new disorder. He would discern in her face a lucid interval of peace and with the willingness of a torturer would, with a word, revive the anguish that had been ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... 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
... a flowery wilderness! Some in thy "slip-boxes" and "honey-moons" Complain of—want of order, I confess, But not of system in its highest sense. Who asks a guiding clue through this wide mind, In love of Nature such will surely find. In tropic climes, live like the tropic bird, Whene'er a spice-fraught grove may tempt thy stay; Nor be by cares of colder climes disturbed— No frost the summer's ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... it was enough to tell me that the great malignant brain was there, as the gentlest tremors of the edges of the web remind one of the foul spider which lurks in the centre. Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage—to the man who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole. To the scientific student of the higher criminal world no capital in Europe offered the advantages which London then possessed. But now——" He shrugged his shoulders in humorous deprecation of the state ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... at this game of ex-parte definition. The more unsympathetic type of historian, relentlessly pursuing the clue afforded by this distinction between control and conciliation, professes himself able to discover plenty of magic even in the higher forms of religion. The rite as such—say, churchgoing as such—appears to be reckoned by some of the devout as not without ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... laid bare her life and exposed her present methods nicely; but neither afforded a grip which might shake her, except inasmuch as it gave him an unexpected clue to the Claire labyrinth. Her history showed that she had often played two parts in the same drama. Without doubt a similar trick served her now, not only to indulge her riotous passions, but to glean advantages from her enemies and useful criticism from ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... 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 solved ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... a generation these characteristics are softened or disappear, and there is produced a type which seems remote from all its origins. As yet the process of amalgamation is incomplete, and it is impossible to say in what this hubble-shubble of mixed races will result. Nor have we any clue of historical experience which we may follow. The Roman Empire included within its borders many lands and unnumbered nationalities, but the dominant race kept its blood pure. In New York and the other great cities of America the soil is the sole common factor. Though all the citizens ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... object of securing any reward or blessing, who has sacrificed all to the requirements of his renunciation, is a real Sannyasin and is really wise. And as communion with Brahma cannot be taught to us, even by our spiritual preceptor,—he only giving us a clue to the mystery—renunciation of the material world is called Yoga. We must not do harm to any creature and must live in terms of amity with all, and in this our present existence, we must not avenge ourselves on any creature. Self-abnegation, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his head with a jerk and stared at the wall in front of him fixedly. He made no answer, nor could Fielding distinguish upon his face any expression which gave a clue to his thoughts. He got up from his chair, and Drake turned to him. 'I gather from your tone,' he said in an indifferent voice, 'that Mrs. Willoughby ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... village, lights were glancing and windows grating as they were opened. Years after, I heard the story of such a midnight cry borne past sleeping houses with the quick rattle of wheels; but no one who heard it could give the right clue to its explanation, and it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... without reflecting that he was, as effectually as possible, giving his father a clue to his hare-brained expedition with Humbert. It was well for him that the baron was too well satisfied with the information to inquire how it had been obtained; for, incapable of deceiving his parent, he would have been compelled, very reluctantly, to submit a brief account of his connection ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... "There's no clue as to what to look for," said Petrelli, somewhat less bitingly. "The poison might be present in microscopic amounts. Do you know how much botulin toxin it takes to kill a man? A ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Nothing worse could befall him than to go to Far Harbor with Drew, where our words concerning his identity would be taken. And what an advertisement this would be for the great author. The Sybarites, now selling by thousands, would increase its sales to ten thousands. Ah, there was the rub. The clue to his remaining in the cave was this very kink in the Celebrity's character. There was nothing Bohemian in that character; it yearned after the eminently respectable. Its very eccentricities were within the limits of good form. The Celebrity shunned the biscuits and beer of the literary ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... out of the room, and ran across country, in part to save time, in part to save his own courage from growing cold; for he now hated the notion of the cottage or the Admiral, and if he did not hate, at least feared to think of Esther. He had no clue to her reflections; but he could not conceal from his own heart that he must have sunk in her esteem, and the spectacle of her infatuation galled ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... its author, and the speculative, analytic turn of his mind is represented in many passages of the letters of the imaginary hero. Had he been writing in his own name, he could not have uttered his inmost conviction more distinctly, or have given the clue to his intellectual life more openly than in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... with anxiety. What I liked was just that cheap bustle, that bare prose. On this occasion the jostling of the streets irritated me more than ever, I could not make out what was wrong with me, I could not find the clue, something seemed rising up continually in my soul, painfully, and refusing to be appeased. I returned home completely upset, it was just as though some crime were lying ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... But her goodness did not end here. 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 ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... not long after the letter came, however, that I was very much frightened by receiving a telegram, which must have cost several francs to send all that distance. By this he told me that he had no clue to the whereabouts of the Liras, and he implored me to make inquiries and discover where they had gone. He added that he had appeared in Faust successfully. Of course he would succeed. If a singer can please ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... decided to attempt to solve the problem by selecting small animals (the rat was used) and experiment with mixtures consisting of purified proteins from different sources, combined with fats, carbohydrates and mineral salts until a clue was obtained to the nature of the deficiencies. His early results in this direction confirmed the results of other investigators, animals lived no longer on these diets than when allowed to fast. What was missing? Up to 1911 the main result of these experiments had been to call attention to the ...
— The Vitamine Manual • Walter H. Eddy
... illustrated in the whizgig. There is the harsh astringent, attractive compression; the bitter compunction, repulsive expansion; and the stinging anguish, duplex motion. The author hints that he has written other works, to which he gives no clue. I have heard that Behmen was pillaged by Newton, and Swedenborg[583] by Laplace,[584] and Pythagoras by Copernicus,[585] and Epicurus by Dalton,[586] &c. I do not think this mention will revive Behmen; but it may the whizgig, a very pretty toy, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... crossed the gravel 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 ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... was the card which was to 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 thin ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... disable him for a few days, but they feared nothing worse than these. As quickly as the slippery ground would permit, they descended the winding path leading to the meadow, but when they reached it, the boy was nowhere to be seen. Hours passed in vain and anxious quest; no track, no sound, no clue assisted the seekers, and the shouts of the guide, if they reached, as doubtless they did, the spot where the lost boy lay, fell on ears as dull and deadened as those of a corpse. Nor could the boy, if crippled by his fall, and unable to show himself, give evidence of his whereabouts by so much ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... If it is true that certain odours suggest certain colours, one would have described this as a brown smell, preferably a reddish-brown smell. Certain it was that the enemy left it behind him wherever he had been, as sure a clue to his passing as ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... What clue shall I give the reader to my heart, that shall lead him into its recesses; and enable him to conceive its entire sensations? That Turl, from whom I imagined I had met so much discouragement, whose scrutinizing eye led him to examine with such severity, and whose firm understanding possessed such ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and at last, on Tuesday night, a man was discovered who understood him. This man was taken into the boat, and Alarcon, always true his trust, asked him whether he had seen or heard of any people in the country like himself, hoping to secure some clue to Coronado. "He answered me no, saying that he had some time heard of old men that very far from that country, there were other white men, and with beards like us, and that he knew nothing else. I asked him also whether he knew a place called Cibola and a river called Totonteac, and ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... clue to the mystery of prayer. It is all-important that the Church on earth should be in accord with its Head in His petitions before the Throne. Of what avail is it for a client and advocate to enter an earthly court of justice unless they are in agreement? Of what use is it ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... nearly overpowered by her curiosity—curiosity to discover how Constance obtained the locket, and how she lost her most admired tress. Yet, to neither of these perplexities had she the slightest clue. Intimate as they had been from childhood; superior as was her rank to that of Sir Robert Cecil's daughter; yet was there no one of her acquaintance with whom she would not sooner have taken a liberty than with Constance Cecil. In the course of the day she ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... heard Atta's singing and seen how he fell. Long afterwards some errand took this man to Lemnos, and in the evening, speaking with the Elders, he told his tale and repeated something of the song. There was that in the words which gave the Lemnians a clue, the mention, I think, of the olive-wood Hermes and the snows of Samothrace. So Atta came to great honour among his own people, and his memory and his words were handed down to the generations. The song became a favourite island lay, and for centuries throughout the Aegean seafaring ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... to the King. The scheme to enlist his help had evidently been carefully considered and prepared, with the result that he had pledged himself to some hazardous task of the nature of which he was entirely ignorant. Not a clue had been given him, and were he desirous of turning traitor, he realized that it was not within his power to do so. Not a word of information could he speak, and who would believe that alone, and apparently unattended, ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... that can be known of Thomas Lincoln. I have written impartially and with a strict regard to facts which can be substantiated by many of the old settlers in this county. Thomas Lincoln was a harmless and honest man. Beyond this, one will search in vain for any ancestral clue to the greatness of ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... I had been set upon the clue at home in England. Among the places and conditions where this link had been first established in the flesh, must surely come a fuller revelation. Beauty, the channel of my inspiration, but this time the old sweet English beauty, so intimate, so woven through with ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... was a clue to the mystery. Amos opened the envelope and read the enclosure, which was also written in pencil, in a neat and thoroughly ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... towards the realisation of this plan runs through Hungary, and while without Hungary we can do nothing, with her aid we can do everything. Hungary is for Germany the clue to Turkey and the Near East, and at the same time a bulwark against a superior ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... wish to remember? I not wish to remember you?" he exclaimed in a ringing tone. "Why—it was because I have never ceased to remember that I came here to-night. Your name was mentioned at Waroona—it was the only clue you gave me when we parted, the only clue I had to follow when I tried to find you, tried to trace you every day since then. I have never ceased to seek for you, never ceased to think of you, nor to remember the day I met you. Had you not been here to-night, had I ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... notice on these afternoons the different aspects of the three classes represented in the bazaar. Shopkeepers and the officials by the gate display no interest at all in the proceedings: they might be miles from the scene, so far as their attitude is a clue. The dilals, on the other hand, are in furious earnest. They run up and down the narrow gangway proclaiming the last price at the top of their voices, thrusting the goods eagerly into the hands of possible purchasers, and always remembering the face and position of the ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... dye-stuffs are not colouring matters 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
... will. He evidently believed that to turn State's evidence would render him more culpable than to be guilty of the act which he had allowed to be committed. He might have been forced to make a confession, or at least been compelled to give the prosecution a clue to the real criminal or criminals if the prosecution had been in charge of persons who could not be suspected of being the political beneficiaries of the methods by which it was possible for him to be placed ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... education. We who have wandered in the wastes so long, and lost so much of our lives in our wandering, may at least offer warnings to younger wayfarers, as men who in thorny paths have borne the heat and burden of the day might give a clue to their journey to those who have yet a morning and a noon. As I look back and think of those cataracts of printed stuff which honest compositors set up, meaning, let us trust, no harm, and which at least found them in daily bread,—printed stuff which I and the rest of us, to our infinitely ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... 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, the ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... 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, ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... found Barney Custer pacing up and down his apartments in the palace. No clue as to the whereabouts of Coblich, Maenck or the king had been discovered. One by one his troopers had returned to Butzow empty-handed, and as much at a loss as to the hiding-place of their quarry as when they had ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had just passed by. Here and there a freshly grubbed-up Spaniard showed where he had paused for a snack; but at length we dropped down on the river bed, with its wide expanse of shingle, and there we lost all clue to ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... this traveller's brief, lose time in conjectural answers to the questions which every step here will raise from the ravaged shrine. But this is a very solemn one; and must be kept in our hearts, till we may perhaps get clue to it. One thing only we are sure of,—that at least the due honour—alike by the sons of Kings and sons of Craftsmen—is given always to their fathers; and that apparently the chief honour of ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... midst of a maze of events there may sometimes be found one which serves as a clue, revealing hidden paths, connecting ways which seem far apart, and leading to a clear issue. Such was the attempted flight of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to the eastern frontier of France at midsummer 1791, which may be termed the central event of the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... is to speak, it is the person principally concerned. The most amusing thing is, that every one (to me) attributes the abuse to the man they personally most dislike!—some say C * * r, some C * * e, others F * * d, &c. &c. &c. I do not know, and have no clue but conjecture. If discovered, and he turns out a hireling, he must be left to his wages; if a cavalier, he must 'wink, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... in the punishment was imaginable, without setting up Fear, instead of Love, as the ruling 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 blessedness. When I asked whether I had been guilty of this selfishness, I remembered ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... you make a remark?—Oh, what mountains? You must really pardon me; I cannot give you such a clue as that to the identity of my dear Consul, just now, for excellent and sufficient reasons. But if you have paid your money for the sight of this Number, you may take your choice of all the mountain ranges on the continent, from the Rocky to the White, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Frank, stooping to pick up the garment. "Let's see what's in the pockets. There may be a clue as to the ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... said I did not, and neither did I then; but may I never die in sin, but I think I have a clue to him now." ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... speak, but only succeeded in uttering an inarticulate sound. The minutes dragged. The suspense was dreadful. They all realized that he was fast sinking, but in every heart was a hope that he would speak, would say one word which might give some clue to what ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... common. Dead bodies were found in the wood, in the field, in the fold, in the barn. In an extraordinary number of cases the judges' records of a little later time tell of houses broken into by night and robbed, and every living thing within them slain, and no clue was ever found to the plunderers. There were stories in Henry's days of a new crime-of men wearing religious dress who joined themselves to wayfarers, and in such a case the traveller was never seen again alive. Tales of Robin Hood began to take shape. The by-ways and thickets were peopled ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... effects of his spree, Bob had returned to the city to find his home deserted, and for twenty- four sleepless hours now he had been hunting for his wife. He had called up Lorelei's family, but they could give him no clue; nor could he find trace of her in any other quarter. So, as a last resort before calling in the police, he had come to Pope. When he had finished his somewhat muddled tale he stared at the critic with a look ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... familiar with my heart as you were with your own? This is the first time that the slightest shadow has fallen upon your mind against me, yet there you stand, separated from me by some fearful sorrow, to which I can obtain no clue." ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... in McLean unfeelingly. "Knocking a woman about the desert.... Not much chance of a clue after all these years," he concluded with a very British ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... had made a clean breast of the whole affair to her father, and he in his turn had put the minions of the law in full possession of all the facts; and since M. le Comte de Naquet had vanished, leaving no manner of trace or clue of his person behind him, the police, needing a victim, fell back on an innocent man. Fortunately, Sir, that innocence clear as crystal soon shines through every calumny. But this was not before I had suffered terrible indignities and all ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... important observation: it affords a clue to the causes of the unpopularity of the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... sentences are uttered in perfect English, and his hands tell it, too. As I have said, there isn't a letter or a paper about him, but around his neck on a silver chain we found the coin which I enclose. I know your fancy for odd coins, and so I send it, thinking perhaps you may give us some clue to ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... whether the multi-millionaire was really dead was prevalent everywhere, and a search for some clue to his reported South American exploring expedition was undertaken in several quarters. Various rumors concerning the expedition appeared immediately, but none of them seemed to have any really solid foundation. Interviews with the great ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... town (Halifax, of course), over so lonely a mountain moor—bearing in mind also that this moor overlooked the river, and that the river was deep and strong enough to carry the child down the current—I know only one place where such an accident could have occurred. The clue is ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... a generous sentiment as one would avoid an infected locality, and usually walked with head tilted and body bent as if engaged in following a clue or intent upon the search of ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... the bell and sought vainly on both floors for anything that would give him a clue to the sound. There was nothing. The only thing he heard was the echoing of his own creaking footsteps and the unceasing tune that dinned in his spirit, ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... the purposes of an uniform plan, and general occurrence, to which every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene, by ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... and they walked on ahead to the clearing in front of my. cottage, talking earnestly together. I had no clue to the meaning of those first few sentences which had passed between them. And needless to say, I now lingered far enough behind to be out of earshot. When they reached the turn in the path they halted ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had hoped to make the little town of Gerton for the night, but the road was so bad that Wampus was obliged to drive slowly and carefully, and so could not make very good time. Accidents began to happen, too, doubtless clue to the hard usage the machine had received. First a spring broke, and Wampus was obliged to halt long enough to clamp it together with stout steel braces. An hour later the front tire was punctured by cactus spines, which were thick upon the road. Such delays seriously ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... he paused and rested, striving vainly to garner some clue to his bearings. Inexorably the blackness forbade that. He might have failed ere dawn to grope a way out of that trap had not the disappearance of the submarine been discovered ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... clue," an evening paper added to the criminal's identity.... The police were blamed, of course.... Such a thing must never be allowed to occur again. It was reported that the Queen had in no way suffered from the shock—was in ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... caricatures, and spoke particularly of the designs of George Cruikshank. Scarcely had she mentioned the name of this artist, than I was seized with a strange shuddering. In one moment I called to mind his illustrations of Punch and Judy, at which we had been looking, before coming down to supper. A clue was now given to the otherwise unaccountable train of feelings, which had possessed me ever since I saw Miss Snooks. From the moment when I first set my eyes upon her, I fancied I had seen her before; but where, when, and upon what occasion I found ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... the whole," &c. I have translated [Greek: to ti en einai] by "formal cause," as Thomas Taylor has done, and according to the explanation of Trendelenburg, in his edition of Aristotle On the Soul, i. 1, Sec. 2. It is not my business to explain Aristotle, but to give some clue ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... interested 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 without ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... was roused, and his stern glance softened as he asked kindly whence he came and what had brought him to Tanis; for the rescued youth's features gave no clue to his race. He might readily have declared himself an Egyptian, but he frankly admitted that he was a grandson of Nun. He had just attained his eighteenth year, his name was Ephraim, like that of his forefather, the son of Joseph, and he had come to visit his grandfather. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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, Forgetting, ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... we have a clue to the fact that the prophets perceived nearly everything in parables and allegories, and clothed spiritual truths in bodily forms, for such is the usual method of imagination. (122) We need no longer wonder that ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... filled our pockets with provisions, we set out, and, as we took our wearisome way toward the Sasassa Valley, I frequently attempted to elicit from my companion some clue as to his intentions. But his only answer was: "Let us hurry on, Jack. Who knows how many have heard of Wharton's adventure by this time! Let us hurry on, or we may not be ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... lawyer whom we have consulted, has had an interview with Ray, and he has a clue now of some kind that is ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... the idea, at the same time, and they gazed speculatively at each other. There was more recrimination between the stutterer and his tormentor, and the boys listened attentively, hoping to get some clue to the whereabouts of the afflicted one's station. But they could get no hint of this, and finally the voice ceased, leaving them full of hope but with little that was definite to ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... guard chain during his struggle with the girl. He was a confederate of Argetti. He was a would-be assassin. Alas! he had no cheerful news for poor Alice Frewen, but he was verging toward a startling discovery, leading up to a clue to the solution of ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey
... of Edgar A. Poe, who was then elaborating those complex tales into whose labyrinths he leads the trembling reader, until, when he almost feels himself lost, the clue suddenly brings him to daylight and to upper air. Poe founded upon this terrible tragedy the tale of Marie Roget, in which he effects a plausible solution of the question of guilt. Why did he not also solve that question, equally perplexing, as to who murdered Ellen Jewett? The deed was ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hundred pages and consider a paragraph there: by itself it seems to say little; but gradually you recognize in it a part of the inwoven strand which disappears in one part of the knot and emerges in another. Though you cannot solve the genial riddle to-day, you may to-morrow. The only clue is sympathy. This man hides his heart for him who has the mate to it; and beneath the whimsical, indifferent, proud, and cold exterior, how it heaves and fears and loves and wonders! This is a wild, unprecedented, eloquent, mysterious, artistic yet artless book; it is alive; it tells ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... I have no such thing. Now, let me be a warning! Let no man,' he cried, looking haggardly about, 'fail to preserve at least that little of the times of his prosperity and respect. Let his children have that clue to what he was. Unless my face, when I am dead, subsides into the long departed look—they say such things happen, I don't know—my children will have ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... answered Jucundus: "but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... rock near his tent and ponders for hours. He seeks in the stars, as it were, a clue to the love of this woman, which he first thought to be unfathomable. There it is, the stars seem to say. And he looks into the sand-grave near him, where little Najib practises how to die. Yes; ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... 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
... of the man's low-muttered, broken sentences, nor of his wildest ravings, ever gave Auntie Sue a clue to his identity. She searched his clothes, but there was not a thing to give ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... romance. Her cousins, who were so much her elders, and who shuddered in their very souls at the thought of poor Mrs. Copperhead, and who were talking earnestly about the children they expected next morning, and what was to be done with them, had no clue to Ursula's thoughts. They did not think much of them, one way or another, but took great care not to lose her from their side, and that she should not be frightened by the crowding, which, after all, was the great matter. And they were very glad ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... writing was no less great in the East, first among the Semitic peoples, and through them among other peoples still more remote. The carrying of the alphabet to the Greeks by the Phoenicians at an early period affords no clue to the period when Semitic ingenuity constructed an alphabet out of a heterogeneous multitude of signs. If it be possible to assign to some of the monuments discovered in Arabia by Glaser a date not later than 1500 B.C., the origin of the alphabet and its dissemination ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... appearance gave no sign of any connection with subterranean abodes. The day passed on, and it grew late; but Marcellus remembered that there were many entrances to the Catacombs, and still he continued his search, hoping before the close of the day to find some clue. ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... night. He knew the road well, and the ways of the carters, and that they rarely stopped anywhere else between Frascati and Rome. Again and again he had been on the point of tramping up from the seashore to the place, to see whether he could not find some clue to Marcello's accident there, but something had prevented him, some old dislike of returning to the neighbourhood after such a long absence. He knew why he had not gone, but he had not confided the reason even to Nino, who was told most things. ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... darkness so suddenly that between five and six thousand negroes had been baptized in a few days. I confess I was at first much surprised at this statement. I knew not how to comprehend it; but all of a sudden light broke in upon my darkness also. I found that there was a clue to this most surprising story, and that these wonderful conversions were brought about, not by a miracle, as the good man seems himself to have really imagined, and would almost make us believe, but by a premium of a dollar a head paid to this worthy curate for each ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... confounded the accusers. The persecuted minister obtained both a complete acquittal, and a signal revenge. Circumstances were discovered which seemed to indicate that Duncombe himself was not blameless. The clue was followed; he was severely cross-examined; he lost his head; made one unguarded admission after another, and was at length compelled to confess, on the floor of the House, that he had been guilty of an infamous fraud, which, but for his own confession, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... unprejudiced from his own mind. His obscurity of expression and his involved style are serious defects in much of his work; and to most readers his thoroughly dramatic manner is puzzling. He gives but faint clue to the situation in his monologues, little explanation of the person, time or place. All is to be discovered from the obscurest allusions and hints. Defective as this method is in Browning's treatment, it is the true psychologic method, wherein motive and character are developed ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... this a good idea, for they immediately started a search of the interior of the cabin, their idea being to find some clue that might tell just who the late mysterious inmates were, and why they ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... 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 draw ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... explanation of the presence of the snake there was without any foundation in truth. Griffin Leeds had discovered by listening to the conversation of the mate and myself, that we were investigating the matter, and had a clue to Cobbington. Then Cornwood had sent a note to the saloon-keeper to this effect, and Captain Boomsby had bribed the invalid with a dollar to lie ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... to report this as soon as possible," declared the oldest Rover boy. "It may furnish the authorities with an important clue. If I were you, I would get into communication with one of your ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... it. The determination of three unknown elements, viz.: the moon's mass, the inclination of the axis of the vortex, and the right ascension of that axis, is a more difficult problem than at first sight appears, owing to the nature of the phenomena, which affords the only clue for its solution. There are six principal vortices ever in operation on the surface of the earth, and their disturbing influence extends from 200 to 400 miles. To find the precise centre, by one observer confined to one place, is difficult; and to separate ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... he had first grasped the clue-line of his life, to the day when his father had encouraged him to "turn Protestant," that he might the better exploit his Papist neighbours, ay, and forward to this day on which, at the bidding of a woman, he had given the lie to his instincts, his training, and his education—from ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... passed on; the fugitive was once more alone with his thoughts. If they had been wild, turbulent before, what were they now? His hands closed; at the moment he did not bemoan his own probable fate, only the fact that the clue bringing him here had ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... of the situation, recognizing that he if anyone must suffer, and take the hard place which soils the clothes and shocks the feelings, gives the clue to the average labourer's temper. It is really very curious to think of. Rarely can a labourer afford the luxury of a "change." Wet through though his clothes may be, or blood-stained, or smothered with mud or dust, he must wear them until he goes to bed, and must put them on ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... differently. She is either entirely innocent, or she had an accomplice, whose voice she recognized; and this clue should be investigated." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of fortune, I had been a witness to. What was the basis on which my friend, with two sets of names, founded his dream of inexhaustible wealth, this mission he had intrusted to Pepito? What the mission which the agent laughed at, and which to gain a clue to, others were tempting him with glittering bribes? And again, why the deceit practiced on Pepito, by assuming the guise of a doctor? Each of these facts was a text on which I piled a mountain ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... race or a double race, and whether it might be purified and strengthened by artificial selection. Perhaps the determination of the hereditary percentage described when dealing with the tricotyls might give the clue to the acquisition of a higher specialized race. The variety is old and widely disseminated, but must be subjected to quite a number of additional experiments before it can be said ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... appeared before the magistrate at Greenwich Police Court he was not described by name—he had refused to give any—but as a half-caste about sixty years of age, of repellant aspect. He was remanded for a week. The first clue to the identity of their prisoner was afforded by a letter which Peace, unable apparently to endure the loneliness and suspense of prison any longer, wrote to his co-inventor Mr. Brion. It is dated November 2, and is signed "John Ward." Peace was disturbed at the absence ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... discovered a handkerchief on the floor and snatched it, hoping to find a clue, but it was not hers. Just then a page ran in to say that the Duchess was ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon |
