"Labyrinth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said: "If any man fancies that there is some easier way of gaining a dollar than by squarely earning it he has lost the clew to his way through this mortal labyrinth, and must henceforth wander as chance may dictate." Look about you; how many there are who are determined to share all the good things of this world without exchanging an equivalent. They go into business, but are not content to wait patiently, adding one dollar to another, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... did not stop but leaped upstairs and then down again into a little back court by means of a fire- escape. Through a sort of short alley we groped our way, or rather through an intricate maze of alleys and a labyrinth of blind recesses. We were apparently back of a store on ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... forest-clad plain was inundated. I have seen the ants at work by thousands, engaged in the work of erecting their hills in other districts suffering from inundation. What a wonderful system of cells these tiny insects construct! A perfect labyrinth—cell within cell, room within room, hall within hall—an exhibition of engineering talents and high architectural capacity—a model city, cunningly ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... of Hearing. The vibrations of the air no doubt play upon the drum of the ear, and the waves thus produced are conducted through a complex chain of small bones to the fenestra ovalis and so to the inner ear or labyrinth. But beyond this all is uncertainty. The labyrinth consists mainly of two parts (1) the cochlea, and (2) the semicircular canals, which are three in number, standing at right angles to one another. It has been supposed that they enable us to maintain the equilibrium of the body, but ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... his head from its pillow on the breast of the beloved corpse and stared vacantly at the royal speaker. His haggard face, tangled hair, and wild eyes gave him the appearance of one who had long wandered in a labyrinth of frightful visions from which there ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... political acts of our ancestors, we have a right to bring them to the standard of the political science of their age, but we have no right to bring them to the higher standard of our own. Montesquieu could give them but an imperfect clue to the labyrinth in which they found themselves involved; and yet no one had seen farther into the mysteries of social and political organization than Montesquieu. Hume had scattered brilliant rays on dark places, and started ideas which, once at work in the mind, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the didactic novel and the edifying lyric had treated—things valuable where knowledge of the world and human nature, intercourse and felicity are concerned—but he must become a seer again, an announcer of mysterious wisdom. "Whatever, unknown or unminded by others, wanders by night through the labyrinth of the heart"—that he must transmit to the hearer; he must allow the listener to share with him the gift of "being able to give expression to his suffering." Thus the chief task of the modern poet became "the reproduction of the objective world through ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... authority and jurisdiction of the Bishops of Arras. That a court with the power of life and death should thus exist by the side of a proper corporation of civil magistrates, is an illustration of the inextricable labyrinth of the French law and its administration on the eve of the Revolution. Robespierre did not hold his office long. Every one has heard the striking story, how the young judge, whose name was within half a dozen years to take a place in the popular mind of France and of Europe ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... for learning was in the air, and a belated wayfarer, wandering down the labyrinth of streets in the early hours of the morning, would hear the solemn stillness broken into by the voices of the students, as in their highest tones they repeated the writings of ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... through a very labyrinth of narrow, unpaved streets, roofed here and there with frayed and tattered palmetto-leaves that offer some protection, albeit a scanty one, against the blazing sun. At one of the corners where the beggars congregate and call for alms in the name of Mulai Abd el Kader Ijjilalli, ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... along an old trail, over sandy spaces shadowed by melancholy pines, beside stagnant lagoons, across sluggish streams, and into cypress swamps, the lurking-place of reptiles, the dreary haunt of bats and vultures. The road, at best, was an indifferent bridle path, and at worst, a blind labyrinth of seldom trodden ways in the woods. Arlington carried in his saddle-bags a supply of bread and cheese, and he kept ready primed, in holster at his pommel, a brace of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... is love compared to a labyrinth? A. Because the entry and coming in is easy, and the going out almost impossible ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... Into what labyrinth of fearful shapes My simple project has conducted you— Were but my wit as skilful to invent A clue to lead you forth!—I call to mind A letter, which your wife received from the Cape, Soon after you were married, with some circumstances Of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... remain a learned man on his Pegasus, however: he also remains a humorist, a serious fantastic. Humour and passion pursue each other through the labyrinth of his being, as we find in those two beautiful poems, The Relic and The Funeral, addressed to the lady who had given him a bracelet of her hair. In the former he foretells what will happen if ever his grave is broken up and his skeleton ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... had been growing trouble in his frame, An overshadowing of something dire. Arrived at home, the weary man and horse Forsook their load; the one went to his stall, The other sought the haven of his bed— There slept and moaned, cried out, and woke, and slept: Through all the netted labyrinth of his brain The fever shot its pent malignant fire. 'Twas evening when to passing consciousness He woke and saw his father by his side: His guardian form in every vision drear That followed, watching shone; ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... affair with duc de Choiseul. I had named to madame de l'Hopital the hour at which I could receive the duke. She had requested, in pursuance of her directions, no doubt, that the conversation between us should take place either amidst the groves of Versailles or in the labyrinth of Marly;—the self-love of M. de Choiseul inducing him to desire that this interview should be so contrived, as to wear the air of a mere chance rencontre. To this I would not consent; saying, that it did not suit ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... irregularly shaped and unsymmetrically disposed halls. If he had any idea of the points of the compass when he entered, he is completely confused in five minutes, and comes out at last with the sensation of having been walking in a labyrinth. He will find it hard to give anyone an impression of the sort of building in which he has been, and certainly he cannot have any knowledge of the topographical relations of its parts. Yet in his passage through the museums ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... against Spain— all these animated and inspired the glowing genius of Spenser. His rhythm is singularly sweet and beautiful. Hazlitt says: "His versification is at once the most smooth and the most sounding in the language. It is a labyrinth of sweet sounds." Nothing can exceed the wealth of Spenser's phrasing and expression; there seems to be no limit to its flow. He is very fond of the Old-English practice of alliteration or head-rhyme— "hunting the letter," as it was called. ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... an invention is so simply, cheaply, and easily secured, that there is no filching or ill-feeling. Talking with a very intelligent person, who was kindly trying to give me definite ideas in this labyrinth of cranks and wheels, by shewing and explaining to me the movements of a most singular machine for making carding implements—I said: 'How is it, that with these wonders, the American portion of the Crystal Palace in London ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... rain was over we wandered down to the little disencumbered space before the inn, through a small labyrinth of obliterated things. They took the form of narrow, precipitous streets, bordered by empty houses, with gaping windows and absent doors, through which we had glimpses of sculptured chimney-pieces and fragments of stately ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... then, and let me tell my story my own way. The getting into the labyrinth was a trifle in comparison to the getting out. Believe me, the tales of romance are nothing to the tremendous horrors of that march. Why do ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... solids, and are yet apprehended as extended. Mr Bailey alleges that we are "far more successful in involving ourselves in subtle speculations of our own, than in faithfully guiding our readers through the theories of other philosophers." Perhaps in the present case we shall be able to thread a labyrinth where our reviewer has lost his clue, and, in spite of the apparent contradiction by which Mr Bailey has been gravelled, we shall, perhaps, be more successful than he in "collecting Berkeley's meaning from the whole sum ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... studies, Charles has been plentifully blamed in after times. He was seeking evasions for plain duties, say his enemies. He was arming himself for intrigue in the school of Machiavel. But now turn to his history, and ask in what way any man could have extricated himself from that labyrinth which invested his path but by Casuistry. Cases the most difficult are offered for his decision: peace for a distracted nation in 1647, on terms which seemed fatal to the monarchy; peace for the same nation under the prospect of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... with green meadows, marshes, bogs, ponds, forests, and grovy park valleys, a favorite Indian hunting-ground, inhabited by elk, deer, beaver, etc. But far the greater part of the plateau is good sound desert, rocky, sandy, or fluffy with loose ashes and dust, dissected in some places into a labyrinth of stream-channel chasms like cracks in a dry clay-bed, or the narrow slit crevasses of glaciers,—blackened with lava-flows, dotted with volcanoes and beautiful buttes, and lined with long continuous escarpments,—a vast bed of sediments of an ancient sea-bottom, ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir
... heart of the forest where she had lost her way in the morning. She was so tired, there was nothing to do but to sit down and rest, but she had not given up. Of course, she would find her way out of this labyrinth of trees somehow. However, just for the ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... glamour nor beauty in the great burying-ground of North London; you must go to it at evening, in the first fall of the summer dusk, to feel the fascination of that labyrinth of low graves, crosses and headstones, urns and sarcophagi, crowded in the black-green of the grass; of marble columns, granite pyramids and obelisks, massed and reared and piled in the grey of the air. It is nothing if not fantastic. ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... it was more pleasantly effective where he found it than where (in his nervousness) he left it. A few hasty jerks snapped the elderly green cords by which it was suspended; then he laid the picture upon the floor and with his handkerchief made a curious labyrinth of avenues in the large oblong area of fine dust which this removal disclosed upon the wall. Pausing to wipe his hot brow with the same implement, he remembered that some one had made allusions to his collar and hair, whereupon he sprang to the ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... close. "Nothing good would come of doing wrong. I never loved you so much as now. I never saw duty so plainly. Dearest, in one way I suffer for you, but still I was never so happy. I have grasped the end of the clue that will surely lead us safely through the labyrinth, no matter what life brings. You will see, mamma dear, after a while you will see. Don't go back. Come into ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... of this labyrinth was a castle of the early promiscuous order of architecture—an order which was until recently much employed in the construction of powder-works, but is now entirely exploded. In this baronial hall lived an eligible single party—a giant so tall he used a step-ladder ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... buried in the crust of our globe. Further study has revealed relations between the animals of past time and those now living, and between the law of succession in the former and the laws of growth and distribution in the latter, so intimate and comprehensive that this labyrinth of organic life assumes the character of a connected history, which opens before us with greater clearness in proportion as our knowledge increases. But when the museums of the Old World were founded, these relations were not even suspected. The collections of natural ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... illustrious smith divine Amidst a pleasant grove a pasture form'd 730 Spacious, and sprinkled o'er with silver sheep Numerous, and stalls and huts and shepherds' tents. To these the glorious artist added next, With various skill delineated exact, A labyrinth for the dance, such as of old 735 In Crete's broad island Daedalus composed For bright-hair'd Ariadne.[13] There the youths And youth-alluring maidens, hand in hand, Danced jocund, every maiden neat-attired In finest linen, and the youths in vests 740 ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... whole right wing, lest the palace court should be commanded from thence. Whither now? Back—and whither then? Back, round endless galleries, vaulted halls, staircases, doorways, some fast, some open, up and down, trying this way and that, losing himself at whiles in that enormous silent labyrinth. And his breath failed him, his throat was parched, his face burned as with the simoom wind, his legs were trembling under him. His presence of mind, usually so perfect, failed him utterly. He was baffled, netted; there was a spell upon him. Was it a dream? Was it all one of those hideous nightmares ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... into her coat; eagerly she pulled her tam-o'-shanter over the curls that, even in the city slums, were full of sunshine. With her hands thrust staunchly into her pockets, she went out; out into the jungle of streets that met, as in the center of a labyrinth, in ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... make him uneasy in his mind just at present. But he was by no means so clear on this subject as could be desired—in fact, he spoke through his nose, put in and left out his hs in the wrong places, and involved his dialogue in a long labyrinth of parentheses whenever he expressed himself at any length. It was not until the entrance of his daughter Fanny (just arrived from London: nobody knew why or wherefore), that he grew more emphatic and intelligible. We now observed with pleasure that he gave his children ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... winter flowers; While I was planting green unfading bowers, And shrubs to hang upon the warm alcove, And sheltering wall; and still, as fancy wove The dream, to time and nature's blended powers I gave this paradise for winter hours, A labyrinth Lady! which your feet shall rove. Yes! when the sun of life more feebly shines, Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom Or of high gladness you shall hither bring; And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... the young god, Spring. And the ever-lasting youth of the oak trees contrasted wonderfully with the undying age of the firs. Then later, in the height of the summer, James found the pine wood cool and silent, fitting his humour. It was like the forest of life, the grey and sombre labyrinth where wandered the poet of Hell and Death. The tall trees rose straight and slender, like the barren masts of sailing ships; the gentle aromatic odour, the light subdued; the purple mist, so faint as to be scarcely discernible, a mere tinge of warmth ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... was very clear along the German line. We appeared to be using more shrapnel and the Germans more high explosives, but that may have been just the chance of the day. The Vimy Ridge was on our right, and before us was the old French position, with the labyrinth of terrible memories and the long hill of Lorette. When, last year, the French, in a three weeks' battle, fought their way up that hill, it was an exhibition of sustained courage which even their military annals ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the neck, in preparation for flight. The next instant an ominous hiss reverberated along the hollow passages; the mother vole, with her suckling, vanished in the darkness of the winding gallery; and the weasels descended into the labyrinth of tunnels hollowed out ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... among the vast and noble scenes of Nature,—we are there among the pitiful shifts of policy; we walk here in the light and open ways of the Divine Bounty,—we grope there in the dark and confused labyrinth of human malice." (2) ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... what they always were; they remain what the bulk of us 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 clew 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 sacrilege and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... habit of relapsing into fits of silence, broken by starts and interjections that went off like bombs. Outside of that he was the best of masters, intelligent, patient and faithful. Paul learned to find his way through the complicated labyrinth of books of account and resigned himself to the necessity ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... part of the wild dingle. How uneven the ground is! Surely these excavations, now so thoroughly clothed with vegetation, must originally have been huge gravel pits; there is no other way of accounting for the labyrinth, for they do dig gravel in such capricious meanders; but the quantity seems incredible. Well! there is no end of guessing! We are getting amongst the springs, and must turn back. Round this corner, where on ledges like fairy terraces ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... dozen oil-lamps; the former, though a palatial building of brick, with verandahs and good rooms, is left to darkness and the rats in the absence of travellers. Having groped our way for half an hour or so about a labyrinth of dark, narrow streets, we presently emerged on the dimly lit boulevard (three of the oil-lamps had gone out), and rode up to the melancholy looking hostelry at the end. Failing to obtain admission, we burst open the door, and made ourselves as comfortable ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... exchanged for broken down shacks in the forward area. Not many days after our men had taken Vimy Ridge, Divisional Headquarters had to move up to the Arras-Bethune road and occupy a chalk cave which was known as the Labyrinth. It had once been the scene of fierce fighting between the French and the Germans. Deep down, in passages scooped out of the chalk were the various offices of the division and the billets for the staff. The place was very much crowded, and I quickly perceived that the ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... each other's faculties by discussion, as on few points of common interest between them did their opinions agree: and that this difference had its root deep in the conformation of their respective minds, needs but a glance through the rich, glittering labyrinth of Shelley's ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... events to pass, And made him an attorney of an ass. No young divine, new beneficed, can be More pert, more proud, more positive than he. What further could I wish the fop to do, But turn a wit, and scribble verses too; Pierce the soft labyrinth of a lady's ear With rhymes of this per cent. and that per year? Or court a wife, spread out his wily parts, Like nets or lime-twigs, for rich widows' hearts; Call himself barrister to every wench, And woo in language ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... its way across a rocky barrier. Here is the great cataract of Itamaraca, which rushes down an inchned plane for 3 m. and then gives a final leap, called the fall of Itamaraca. Near its mouth, the Xingu expands into an immense lake, and its waters then mingle with those of the Amazon through a labyrinth of eanos (natural canals), winding in countless directions through a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... crutches—now becoming scarcely necessary to her—the young girl passed along the corridor, passing angles and turns innumerable on her way to her room. Some erratic architect certainly concocted the plan of the Hotel del Coronado. It is a very labyrinth of passages connecting; its nine hundred rooms, and one has to have a good bump of location to avoid getting ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... messenger boy, called with a letter at the "General's" office and asked to see him. He had, he insisted, orders to deliver the letter into nobody's hands but those of the "General" himself, and on this pretext in due course found himself, after being led through a labyrinth of passages and stairs, in the presence ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... this will be in winter, when all those waterways among the islands are frozen! It must be very difficult even for an Eskimo sledge driver to know his way through the snow-covered labyrinth on so large a scale, indeed almost impossible when the driving snow hides his landmarks. But He, to whom we are wont to commend our travellers by land and sea, cares also for those who traverse the ice-plains of Labrador, ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... to look back or to reason, he rushed into one of the little courts at the side of Fleet Street as a rabbit rushes into a hole. He had a vague idea, if this incomprehensible old Jack-in-the-box was really pursuing him, that in that labyrinth of little streets he could soon throw him off the scent. He dived in and out of those crooked lanes, which were more like cracks than thoroughfares; and by the time that he had completed about twenty alternate angles and described an ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... embassy to Minos and prevailed on him to make peace, on the condition that every nine years they should send him a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens. The most tragic of the legends states these poor children when they reached Crete were thrown into the Labyrinth, and there either were devoured by the Minotaur or else perished with hunger, being unable to find the way out. The Minotaur, as Euripides tells ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... an institution peculiar to Chicago. Every great city in America possesses one. It is the place through which recruits are won to the underworld. It is the entrance to the labyrinth where lost souls wander. Viewed from its portal it is the Palace of Pleasure; seen from behind, through those haggard eyes from which vice has torn away the illusions of innocence, it is the ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... gray walls yet rose about me, and ever the film of dissolution flowed along their glassy faces to the runnel below; still before me opened the depth of blue atmosphere, deepening as I went. After many windings, the path began to branch, and soon I was lost in a labyrinth of passages, of which I knew not why I should choose one rather than another. It was useless now to think of returning. Arbitrarily I chose the narrowest ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... library, where Pen had found books in old days. Round three sides of the hall ran a gallery, by which, and corresponding passages, the chief bedrooms were approached, and of which many were of stately proportions and exhibited marks of splendour. On the second story was a labyrinth of little discomfortable garrets, destined for the attendants of the great folks who inhabited the mansion in the days when it was first built: and I do not know any more cheering mark of the increased philanthropy of our own times, than to contrast our domestic ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is Peace. Not Peace through the medium of War; not Peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not Peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle in all parts of the empire; not Peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... stage a review on the table itself; while in the Music-room a hundred or so lorries could be parked without attracting observation too glaringly. Should the need arise, the Library could accommodate a battalion on parade, a rifle range or sufficient office room for Q branch of a division. A labyrinth of corridors and servants' bedrooms harbours the rank and file, and it is said that the number of kitchens, pantries and cellars in the north and east wings runs ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... night, the great foundry of a house, with its half a score of chimneys, marking its various epochs of growth, literally was stuffed with smilax, ferns, roses, orange blossoms, and daisy chains. In the mazes of these aisles of verdure, a labyrinth of Van Dorns and Satterthwaites and visiting statesmen with highly powdered womankind was packed securely. George Brotherton, who was born a drum major, wearing all of his glittering insignia of a long line of secret societies, moved as though ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... authentic clue to such a labyrinth and change of scene, do you offer me these two score words? these five bald prohibitions? For the moral precepts are no more than five; the first four deal rather with matters of observance than of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prayer, and in imitation of the illustrious, for the ennoblement of their own lives. No book has sold more largely than the Imitation of Christ. But was it not often a blind struggle in the dark, an attempt to reach a goal never clearly seen. Wandering in a labyrinth of fanaticism, agonizing in the effort to distort nature, the biographical record of religious aspiration serves to show how nearly multitudes may approach the boundary line of insanity in their protracted periods of causeless mental agony and in their fierce ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... cluster round me with smiling faces and eager eyes; they place the end of their rose-garland in my hand, and whisper, "FOLLOW!" Gladly I obey, and hasten onward. Guiding myself by the fragrant chain I hold, I pass through a labyrinth of trees, whose luxuriant branches quiver with the flight and song of birds. Then comes a sound of waters; the riotous rushing of a torrent unchecked, that leaps sheer down from rocks a thousand feet high, thundering forth the praise of its own beauty as it tosses in the air triumphant ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... our kind old host after breakfast, and set out for our own land. Our elegant researches carried us out of the high-road and through a labyrinth of intricate lanes,—which seem made on purpose to afford strangers the full benefit of a dark night and a drunk driver,—in order to visit Gill's Hill, famous for the murder ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... torrent, and his own danger. He thought only of that frantically clinging man. He reached the edge of the stream, leaped upon the nearest logs, and, with the agility of a wildcat, threaded his way through that terrible labyrinth ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... permanent character, fatuous or not. That Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have withered-up what little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in him: Life has become wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through long years, our Friend, flying from spectres, has to stumble about at random, and naturally with more ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... horse would bog down hopelessly. From a point on the main north-and-south ditch a man afoot left the bank to plunge directly into a jungle of reeds ten feet tall. Through them narrow passages led him winding and twisting and doubting in a labyrinth. He waded in knee-deep water, but confidently, for he knew the bottom to be solid beneath his feet. On either side, fairly touching his elbows, the reeds stood tall and dense, so that it seemed to him that he walked down a narrow and winding hallway. And every once in a while the ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... at last reconciled, entering into an agreement to send to Crete every nine years a tribute of seven young men and as many virgins, as most writers agree in stating; and the most poetical story adds that the Minotaur destroyed them, or that, wandering in the Labyrinth, and finding no possible means of getting out, they miserably ended their lives there, and that this Minotaur ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... when he undertook the perilous commission of his patroness, he had done so frankly, and with the unreserved resolution of serving her in the manner in which she most desired her affairs to be conducted. Yet he could not forbear some secret apprehension, when he felt himself engaged in the labyrinth of passages and galleries, which led to different obscure sets of apartments in the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... ever hankering after forbidden arts, and many have fallen the innocent victims to his diabolical intrigues. He hath become a great adept of late, too, as I am told, in this Rosicrucian philosophy; and if we have here a clue to our labyrinth, depend on it we'll get to the end speedily. To spite and frustrate that juggling cheat I will spare neither pains nor study; though of a surety we only use lawful and appointed means. Prayers and exorcisms must ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... what out-of-the-way corner of the park they were. To lose themselves in their capricious wanderings only served to amuse them as a rule; but that day they experienced anxious embarrassment. By degrees they quickened their pace, plunging more and more deeply into a labyrinth of bushes. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... arrested, but nothing decisive appearing against him, was in the end set at liberty. The police, however, kept a strict watch upon his movements, and thus discovered that he left home frequently, taking always the same road, and invariably giving his watchers the slip in the neighborhood of that labyrinth of narrow and crooked passages known by the flash name of the 'Dondergat.' Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced him to a garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called Flatzplatz,—and, coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they imagined, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... It was going to be very awkward, the whole thing. Viewed from the distance, it had looked quite fine. "Dedicating herself to the service of Humanity" was how it had presented itself to her in the garden at Meudon, the twinkling labyrinth of Paris at her feet, its sordid by-ways hidden beneath its myriad lights. She had not bargained for the dedication involving ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... without the apparatus of the Gnostics, but rather by the aid of simple and essentially Biblical ideas. Moreover, a few decades later, he and Melito, an author unfortunately so little known to us, were already credited with this merit. For the author of the so-called "Little Labyrinth" (Euseb., H. E. V. 28. 5) can indeed boast with regard to the works of Justin, Miltiades, Tatian, Clement, etc., that they declared Christ to be God, but then continues: [Greek: Ta Eirenaiou te kai ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... that explosion was for assaulting columns scattered through a labyrinth of ruins, and barricaded lanes, and fired at from all sides by an ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... perceived, led through the room at the back of the kitchen to a yard, and thence through a door not opened by the present occupiers of the old house, into a very labyrinth of narrow alleys running downward to the river and round the tall houses that ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... one slight difference between Me and my epic brethren gone before, And here the advantage is my own, I ween (Not that I have not several merits more, But this will more peculiarly be seen); They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore Their labyrinth of fables to thread through, Whereas this ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... indeed, a distinguished fellowship when one builds upon a hill, or on several hills, as Roman as well as Bostonian history testifies—can only be guessed by its tribute in the form of the Blue Hills Reservation. This State recreation park and forest reserve of about four thousand acres—a labyrinth of idyllic footpaths and leafy trails, of twisting drives and walks that open out upon superb vistas, is now the property of the people of Massachusetts. The granite quarry man—far more interested in the value of the stone that underlay the wooded slopes than in Ruskin's ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... strewn with rocks not large enough to shelter more than a man or two. But as the Infanterie Coloniale is habitually chosen for the roughest work, so the Serbs asked for nothing better than to climb the wall that shut them out from their own country. The labyrinth of trenches on the mountain-top was taken and retaken many times, until the Bulgars—inadequately supported by their Allies—had to retreat; and this, after further ferocious fighting, enabled the ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... a couple of school-boys, they zigzagged through the labyrinth of formal trees, and secured the cab as it ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... with your husband's death? He was once my master, and I grieve for his loss. But you might as well say that I killed the martyr Hossein (blessings on his memory!) as that I killed the hakim. Tell me what has happened; for I am walking round and round in the labyrinth of ignorance.' ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... change of fortunes. He had just stood and gaped and asked questions. After all, what the devil did it matter how she came to be here? He had anticipated a long and tedious search for her through the labyrinth of New York, and here Fate had brought her to his very door, and all he could do was to ask why, instead of being thankful. He perceived that he was ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... him after all; for a heavy sickening graveyard smell made his heart sink within him, and his stomach heave; and his weary body, and more weary soul, gave themselves up helplessly to the depressing influence of that doleful place. The black bank of dingy leathern leaves above his head, the endless labyrinth of stems and withes (for every bough had lowered its own living cord, to take fresh hold of the foul soil below); the web of roots, which stretched away inland till it was lost in the shades of evening—all ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... in Pamphylia— were reduced, and the prince himself met his death in the flames of his stronghold Olympus. A movement was next made against the Isaurians, who in the north-west corner of the Rough Cilicia, on the northern slope of Mount Taurus, inhabited a labyrinth of steep mountain ridges, jagged rocks, and deeply-cut valleys, covered with magnificent oak forests—a region which is even at the present day filled with reminiscences of the old robber times. To reduce these Isaurian ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... view of this lovely valley, you would desire to visit it. You would descend the long slope of Chumulari, and straggling through the labyrinth of rugged foot hills that surround it, you would reach the brow of the bounding precipice; but there you must come to a halt. No path leads downward; and if you are still determined to set foot on the shores of that smiling lake, you will have to make the descent of the cliffs by means of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... &c., such pleasant pieces of perspective, Indian pictures made of feathers, China works, frames, thaumaturgical motions, exotic toys, &c. Who is he that is now wholly overcome with idleness, or otherwise involved in a labyrinth of worldly cares, troubles and discontents, that will not be much lightened in his mind by reading of some enticing story, true or feigned, whereas in a glass he shall observe what our forefathers have done, the beginnings, ruins, falls, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... I grant you: if I thought it were a sin, I would not urge you. Should I offer this To some young Frenchman, or hot Tuscan blood That had read Aretine, conn'd all his prints, Knew every quirk within lust's labyrinth, And were professed critic in lechery; And I would look upon him, and applaud him, This were a sin: but here, 'tis contrary, A pious work, mere charity for physic, And honest polity, to ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... Ddalus, a famous Athenian architect, who designed the labyrinth at Crete in which ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... north-west coast of the continent, are evidently the mountain tops of a submerged land, separated from it by a mighty volcanic upheaval followed by the sinking of the earth's surface, and the inflowing of the waters of the ocean, forming the most remarkable labyrinth of inlets, sounds, straits, channels and passages on the face of the globe. A continuous range of mountains from 600 to 5,000 feet in height, extends the entire length of the islands nearest their western coast, reaching their maximum elevations on Moresby ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... or place to swim in, with most admirable baths in three stages, situated above one another, well furnished with all necessary accommodation, and store of myrtle-water. By the river-side was the fair garden of pleasure, and in the midst of that the glorious labyrinth. Between the two other towers were the courts for the tennis and the balloon. Towards the tower Criere stood the orchard full of all fruit-trees, set and ranged in a quincuncial order. At the end of that was the great park, abounding with all sort of venison. Betwixt the third ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... In this labyrinth of contradictory figures and statements, the deficit alone came out clearly. M. de Brienne promised important economies, the Assembly voted a loan: they were not willing to accept the responsibility of the important reforms demanded by the king. The speeches were long and vague, the objections ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... notice in all his works a careful study to meet the emergency then pressing upon society. We will not say that Herder wrote every work just as it should have been, and that he was evangelical throughout. This he was not, but he was greatly in advance of his predecessors. Amid the labyrinth of philosophical speculations it is interesting and refreshing to meet with an author who, though endowed with the mind of a philosopher, was content to pass for a poet, or even for an essayist. His ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... Italian, whose history (Conclavi de' Pontifici Romani, in 4to. 1667) has been continued since the reign of Alexander VII. The accidental form of the work furnishes a lesson, though not an antidote, to ambition. From a labyrinth of intrigues, we emerge to the adoration of the successful candidate; but the next page opens ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... surveying this fairy-like scene, but my brother declared he could smell our breakfast, which by this time must have been waiting for us below. Our exit was a little delayed, as we took a wrong turn in the rather bewildering labyrinth of arches and passages in the cathedral walls, and it was not without a feeling of relief that we reached the door we had so carefully locked behind us. We returned the key to the caretaker, and then went to our ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... was afrayd. But Robin had no Feares; soe tolde the Tale roundlie; onlie he forgot the End. Soe he found his Way backe to the Middle, and seemed likelie to make it last alle Night; onlie Mr. Milton sayd he seemed to have got into the Labyrinth of Crete, and he must for Pitie's Sake give him the Clew. Soe he finished Robin's Story, and then tolde another, a most lovelie one, of Ladies, and Princes, and Enchanters, and a brazen Horse, and he sayd the End of that Tale had been cut off ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... shadows, to the low archway by which the road leads out of the Hofgarten on the side of the city. For some minutes neither spoke, but Vjera could hear her companion's quickly drawn, irregular breath. His heart was beating fast and his thoughts were chasing each other through a labyrinth of dreams, inconsequent, unreasonable, but brilliant in the extreme. His head high, his shoulders thrown back, his eyes flashing, his lips tightly closed, the Count marched out with his companion into ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... with the powers of Hell. I know not if in regions yet unguessed Some gods may dwell, of nature fit to guide Us, the adventurers of an earthly fight. But I have seen with eyes that cannot lie That they reside not in this Devil's net— This heavenly trust, this labyrinth of peace, Which ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... that is taking place is the gradual adoption of the new agriculture. "Book-farmin'" is still decried, and many "perfessers" have a rocky road to travel in their attempts to guide the masses through the labyrinth of scientific knowledge that has been constructed during the last decade or two. This difficulty has not been wholly the farmer's fault—the scientist would often have been more persuasive had his wings been clipped. But there is a decided "getting together" nowadays—the farmer and the man of ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... produces the same excitement in the mind as strains of martial music. A railway traverses the beach for a mile from the ferry to the hotel. There are hundreds of cottages with their gardens scattered over the surface; there is a race-track, a museum, an ostrich farm, a labyrinth, good roads for driving, and a dozen other attractions for the ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... and lucid method of treating the subject, he has rendered what was before irksome and unprofitable, pleasing and instructive. In one word, the grammar of Mr. Kirkham furnishes a clew by which the youthful mind is guided through the intricate labyrinth of verbs, nouns and pronouns; and the path which has been heretofore so difficult and uninviting, as to dampen the ardor of youth, and waste their energies in fruitless attempts to surmount its obstacles, is cleared of these ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... in his own fashion. Many times since the days of Priestley real researchers after truth have proceeded without compass and uncovered most astonishing and remarkable results. They had the genuine research spirit and were driven forward by it. Priestley knew little of the labyrinth of analysis and cared less; indeed, he possessed little beyond an insatiable ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... whisked us in less than two hours to the foot of the Pyrenees. Here we had to alight, the road up the mountain being impracticable for vehicles. A boy guide was in waiting to show us over the border by the smuggler's path—a wild short-cut through a labyrinth of brushwood. The guide was a remarkable youth in his way; he understood not a syllable of French or Spanish, and spoke only Basque which none of us comprehended, so that our parley with him was somewhat uninteresting. Yet I was anxious to elicit the ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... at Pisa. Built, as it is said, in 1204 by Guidetto, much work remains in that beautiful frontispiece to one of the most beautiful churches in Italy that is far older than itself: the statue of S. Martino, the patron, for instance; that labyrinth, too, on the great pier to the right; and perhaps the acts of St. Martin carved between the doors, and below them three reliefs of the months, where in January you see man sitting beside the fire; in February, as is ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... relationships; these dark and musty by-ways and corners of sexual conduct want to be spring-cleaned and made decent. Never before have we needed so urgently to put our house in order. We must begin to tidy up and begin soon. If we cut out some parts of the labyrinth, we shall give the young a surer chance of finding their way out of the rest of ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... like an insect in such a labyrinth of a place. He forgot where he put things, and then, overcome by the vastness and number of rooms, forgot what he was looking for, losing himself in an abstracted and fruitless survey of the walls. He must buy things to ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... vast labyrinth of banks between Lynn and Wisbeach, of mud inside, brought down by the fen rivers; but outside (contrary to the usual rule) of shifting sand, which has come inward from the sea, and prevents the mud's escape—banks parted ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... great deliverance. There were six of these islands, exceedingly beautiful and pleasant in appearance, which altogether could not be less than thirty leagues in circumference. They were about twenty-five leagues west from Mischievous island, and the Dutch called them the Labyrinth,[2] having difficultly got clear ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Change like this? The subtlest Labyrinth Wit cou'd ere invent, affords not half so many Turnings ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... must choose between the neglect of duty and the wounding of the woman he loves. And alas! this is a choice that comes sooner or later, in one form or another, to all who love. The woman sometimes can find an invisible thread leading through the labyrinth of the feminine conscience which may help her to follow a middle course. The man never has any such subtle resource and he knows, from first to last, that he must do what is wrong if he does not do what ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... some of them, on the very spot where they now lie. For there are, I think, evidences of subsidence going on along this coast. Inside the Cocal, two hundred yards to the westward, stretches inland a labyrinth of lagoons and mangrove swamps, impassable to most creatures save alligators and boa-constrictors. But amid this labyrinth grow everywhere mighty trees—balatas in plenty among them, in every stage of decay; dying, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... Egbert stepped in with one of their followers, charging the others to remain at the hut until they received further instructions. The fisherman with a long pole took his place in the bow of the boat and pushed off. For some hours they made their way through the labyrinth of sluggish and narrow channels of the morass. It was a gloomy journey. The leafless trees frequently met overhead; the long rushes in the wetter parts of the swamp rustled as the cold breezes swept across them, and a slight ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... experience no real difficulty in finding a clew to the labyrinth of life, or, as our ancient brothers put it in regard to the Magnum Opus—"a key to the closed palace ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... where the Glacier des Bossons and the Glacier de Taconnaz are divided by the Montagne de la Cote. Here some underlying irregularity of the rocks, deep beneath the surface of the mighty river of ice, causes the formation of a labyrinth of fissures and crevasses, overhung with towering seracs, or ice turrets; and the ice descends between the Grands Mulets and the rock wall in front of the Gros Bechat in a sort of motionless cascade—motionless, that is to say, except when cracks break apart into yawning chasms, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... into the next, of two vowels without elision, nor, in general, of such kinds of carelessness as he would not allow himself in another style of poetry, but which are part and parcel, so to say, of this style. Too anxious a care in avoiding such would force a tale-writer into a labyrinth of shifts, into narratives as dull as they are grand, into straits that are utterly useless, and would make him disregard the pleasure of the heart in order to labour for the gratification of the ear. We must leave studied narrative ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... walked behind. Every now and then he had attempted a little conversation, but in that he had been immediately pulled up by the conscientious and energetic Mr. Trigger. As for asking for votes, he hardly knew, when he had been carried back into the main street through a labyrinth of alleys at the back of Petticoat Yard, whether he had asked any man for his vote or not. With the booking of the votes he had, of course, nothing to do. There were three men with books;—and three other men to open the doors, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... we will breathlessly follow the callowest youth and the silliest maiden through the most intricate labyrinth of love, never losing interest until they drop safely into one another's arms, and yet when two seasoned, mellowed human beings tried by life and found worthy of the prize of love, dare lift a sentimental lid or sigh a word of romance, we ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... glancing back toward the village, and up at the frowning front of rock, the tomb of the Natchez. Then silently, soberly, as befitted those who had witnessed an act of God, we pressed on into the labyrinth, shutting out forever that scene, except as a hideous memory. To me the change was like entering upon a new world; I was a prisoner released, breathing once again the clear air of hope and manhood. Burdened as we were, the passage through the tangled cedars to where the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... but One who held him in view and remembrance at this critical juncture. To Him Fred appealed again and again to lead him through the labyrinth of peril, and to permit him to return in safety to ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... beginning to pale: the stars seemed lucid as ever in the sky. There was a labyrinth of them, uncounted millions that gleamed and twinkled in every little rift between the spruce trees. Even the stars of lesser magnitude that through the smoke of her native city had never revealed themselves were out in full array to-night. And the icy air stabbed like ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... the table, making a labyrinth with the currants from a cake and listening intently. He stopped politely, feeling that he was talking too much. But, "Go on, please do," she commanded, and he told simply, seeing it more and more, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... overlooking the valley. The fog had spread until literally choked up between the bills and I could hardly persuade myself that it was not the sea that rolled below me. Even the signal lamps on the distant railway line rose out of the labyrinth like a lighthouse in mid-ocean, making ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... black pig which, more than half a century ago, was the unwilling representative of spiritual advantages not otherwise acknowledged by the grudging farmer or dairyman who parted with him. One enters on a fearful labyrinth in tracing compound interest backward, and such complications of thought have reduced the flavour of the ham; but since I have nevertheless eaten it, the chief effect has been to moderate the severity of my radicalism (which was not part of my paternal inheritance) and to raise ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... the police. While these sylvan rites were taking place, in a church packed with fashion and festooned with orchids, the representatives of the press were threading their way, note-book in hand, through the labyrinth of wedding presents, and the agent of a cinematograph syndicate was setting up his apparatus at the church door. It was the kind of scene in which Lily had often pictured herself as taking the principal ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... hot, as the men in blue tramped through the forest aisles of the vast Virginia jungle—a maze of trees, underbrush and dense foliage. A pall of ominous silence hung over this labyrinth of desolation, broken only by the chirp of bluebird or the ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... us help, we might have wandered a whole year in that labyrinth of rivers, ere we had found any way. I know all the earth does not yield the like confluence of streams and branches, the one crossing the other so many times, and all so fair and large, and so ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... world, no virtue can be safe, no honour be secure; while wanton desires, diffused into the hearts of men, corrupt the strictest watches and the closest retreats, which, though as intricate, and unknown as the labyrinth of Crete, are no security for chastity. Thus, that primitive innocence being vanished, the oppression daily prevailing, there was a necessity to oppose the torrent of violence; for which reason the order of knighthood errant was instituted, to ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... difficult to grasp. All that the first effort in thought denotes is taking a hold of that which is nearest and following it up. It is the old story of Theseus following his clue of thread, the slender thing in his hand, by which he was guided out of the labyrinth and to the ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks |
