"Mystery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the matter over at some length, but could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion regarding Squire Paget's bitter enmity. Time must solve the mystery ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... his only crime was his dislike of the foreigners who were lording it over his countrymen, and that he had fallen a victim to the machinations of Portland, whom he was known to dislike, and whom he had not very politely described as a wooden fellow. The mystery, which from the first overhung the story of Marlborough's disgrace, was darkened, after the lapse of fifty years, by the shameless mendacity of his widow. The concise narrative of James dispels the mystery, and makes ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Dennis drifted away to some distant range, and before he was seen again Tom Barker had appeared. Why Tom, a big, brutal lumberman, desired to marry Mamie, no longer young, never pretty, penniless, and admittedly fond of Dennis, must remain a mystery. Why Mamie married Tom is a question easily answered. Tom was "boss" of a logging-camp, and none had ever denied his Caesarean attributes. He had the qualities and vices conspicuously absent in Dennis. He was Barker, of Barker's Inlet. The mere mention of his name ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... precision.[26] There is no evidence that Avalokita was first worshipped on this Potalaka, though he is often associated with mountains such as Kapota in Magadha and Valavati in Kataha.[27] In fact the connection of Potala with Avalokita remains a mystery. ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... beauty, who by a succession of discourses convinces him of the vanity of regret for the lost gifts of fortune, raises his mind once more to the contemplation of the true good, and makes clear to him the mystery of the ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... fate are stilled for ever— Thy little generous life is done. And all its wistful wonderings cease! Thou traveller to the tideless sea, Where light and dark, and change and peace, Are One—Come, little soul, to MYSTERY! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the inflection of the voice that secretly delights Marcia. She has a taste for mystery and intrigue, but she is not secretive, she has too ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... 'tis a greater mystery in the art Of painting, to foreshorten any part, Than draw it out; so 'tis in books the chief Of all perfections to be ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... they saw with growing amazement that the hand of time and of this maddening mystery had laid its ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... rope from his saddle and leaped to the ground. In two leaps more he had Sombrero about the neck. They fell together, rolling and fighting, while Sombrero's horse reared and plowed the soil with them. Dragoons and Cossacks heaped themselves on all three. It was quite an energetic mystery altogether. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the hut to the cubicle opposite one arrives at the somewhat congested space in which Cherry-Garrard was housed, with Bowers above him. In their corner were store lists, books, and mystery bags which contained material for the "South Polar Times," toys and frivolous presents to liven us up at the midwinter and other festivities. Bowers and Cherry-Garrard were, in a way, worse off than the others, for they had the darkest part of the hut, yet in this gloomy tenement ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... glittering, and august; while, within, its tortuous policy was twisted into murky and inextricable labyrinths, of which Necessity, Secresy, and Suspicion, formed the keystone; where Danger lurked at every winding, and whose darkling portals were watched by Mystery, and Stratagem, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... under partial observation for three years, was during all this time a great mystery. Brought at first to us by her family as being insane because she was such a great liar and unreliable in other ways, we never could find the slightest evidence of aberration. No satisfactory explanation was forthcoming ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... branch, and Miss Balch and Harney were once more hidden. But to Charity the vision of their two faces had blotted out everything. In a flash they had shown her the bare reality of her situation. Behind the frail screen of her lover's caresses was the whole inscrutable mystery of his life: his relations with other people—with other women—his opinions, his prejudices, his principles, the net of influences and interests and ambitions in which every man's life is entangled. Of all these she ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... could never understand, and yet the knowledge of this intensified rather than diminished her love. The mere physical attraction, which she had glorified into passion, was invested with the beauty and the mystery ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... proud and adventurous story, is almost wholly a tale of the sea, full of mystery, cruelty, and beauty, a legend of sea power, a romance of ships. It is a narrative in which sailors, half merchants, half pirates, adventurers every one, put out from the city and return laden with all sorts of spoil,—gold from Africa, slaves from Tunis or ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... well considered it? A sublime and divine mystery is accomplished. Such a being costs nature the most vigilant maternal care; yet man, who would cure you, can think of nothing better than to offer you lips which belong to him in order to teach you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the public of their devotion to the church, join hands with the Oklahoma saloonkeepers, who never fail to declare that the church is a fanatical obstacle to personal liberty. A queer union it is, but some day the world will discover the mystery which has consummated it! ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... extreme difficulty of following them, and the absolute impossibility of forecasting their attacks. Without warning, and unseen until the moment they dealt the death stroke, they emerged from their forest fastnesses, the horror they caused being heightened no less by the mystery that shrouded them than by the dreadful nature of their ravages. Wrapped in the mantle of the unknown, appalling by their craft, their ferocity, their fiendish cruelty, they seemed to the white settlers devils ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the next morning when Aunt Maria appeared at the early breakfast with a pompadour. Her thin frizzes were carefully puffed over a mystery which she had purchased the ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... so long that they no longer appreciate its marvels. You ask me if I tried to get the secret. I saw the whole apparatus and the more I studied it, the more I was convinced that its storage battery contained heat energy. So I concluded to solve the mystery. I learned that there was a certain element found only in combination. When this element is set loose by chemical process, it will rise at once toward a large planet that revolves around this sun. This planet draws that particular element with six times more force ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... he explained briefly to her of his reasons for disliking this man and of the veil of suspicion and of mystery with which he was surrounded. He did not think him a suitable companion for her, and wished for her own good that she would see ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... reticent about his domestic sorrows while in exile, but when his thoughts were far off, reviewing the great mystery of human destiny, he broke the rule, and with a sort of languid frankness spoke the thoughts that crowded his mind, and it was during these spasmodic periods that he opened his soul by declaring that it was his "having married a princess of Austria that ruined him, and that his marriage ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... result of a conspiracy in which Farmer Weeks, from Bessie's home town, Hedgeville, was mixed up with a Mr. Holmes, a rich merchant of the city. The reason for the persecution of the two girls and of Zara's father was a mystery, but Jamieson had made up his mind ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... wherein they have been brought up; It is, therefore, for remedy of the premises, and for the avoiding of a great number of inconveniences which may grow if in time it be not foreseen, ordained and enacted by authority of this present parliament, that no person using the feat or mystery of cloth-making, and dwelling out of a city, borough, market-town, or corporate town, shall keep, or retain, or have in his or their houses or possession, any more than one woollen loom at a time; nor shall ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... mother it is necessary to be cautious. It is true that she has no right to oppose my marriage with Nora; but yet she would oppose it, even to death! Therefore, to save trouble and secure peace, I would marry my dear Nora quietly. Mystery, Hannah, is not necessarily guilt; it is often wisdom and mercy. Do not object to a little harmless mystery, that is besides to secure peace! ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Free Mason's Vindication, being an answer to a scandalous libel entitled (sic) The Grand Mystery of the Free Masons discover'd, etc. (Dublin, 1725). It is curious that this reply is to be found in the British Museum (Press mark 8145, h. I. 44), but not the book itself. Yet Mr. Waite thinks it sufficiently ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... arrangement with the 'goodman of the house'? Most probably the latter; for he was in so far a disciple that he recognised Jesus as 'the Master,' and was glad to have Him in his house, and the chamber on the roof was ready 'furnished' when they came. Why this mystery about the place? The verses before ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... from the first been a haunting mystery for Win, was in the toy department. Her name was Lily Leavitt, and—as Sadie had already told Win—she was "chucking herself" at Earl Usher's head. At first Miss Leavitt "lamped" Miss Child "something awful." ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... the garden, on the empty house, and on the empty room that she had peopled already with her innocent dream. It seemed to him that in that remote gaze of her woman's eyes, abstracted from her lover, unconsciously desirous of the end beyond desire, he saw revealed the mystery, the sanctity, the purity of wedded love. And seeing it he ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... believed in the soundness of the bank and in the character of its directors. Investing my own funds so largely in its stock proves how I trusted it. But I was mistaken. It is a mystery which I cannot solve. Perhaps, when the examination of its affairs is completed, light may be thrown on the subject. I hope that no more of your relations or friends have stock ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... She also carries a small market-basket, and a gold-headed cane. Her stockings are scarlet, her low black shoes have gold buckles. She is, withal, arrestingly picturesque, and there hangs about her a slight air of mystery, that is well in accordance with her profession, which is ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... this same principle of suspense that holds you in a Sherlock Holmes story—you wait to see how the mystery is solved, and if it is solved too soon you throw down the tale unfinished. Wilkie Collins' receipt for fiction writing well applies to public speech: "Make 'em laugh; make 'em weep; make 'em wait." Above all else make them wait; ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... evidences of architectural skill. These sombre stones, unworked, rude as they came from cliff or seashore, are not embellished by man's handiwork like the rich temples of the Nile. But there is about this stone-littered moor a mystery, an atmosphere no less intense than that surrounding the most solemn ruins of antiquity. Deeper even than the depths of Egypt must we sound if we are to discover the secret of Carnac. What mean these stones? What means faith? What signifies belief? What is the answer ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... words 'that the night cometh when no man can work,' yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it—at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... alone is visible. Thought was rare. It seemed to be an effort; its seat was in the heart more than in the head; it led to acts rather than ideas. But, examining that grand old man with sustained observation, one could penetrate the mystery of this strange contradiction to the spirit of the century. He had faiths, sentiments, inborn so to speak, which allowed him to dispense with thought. His duty, life had taught him. Institutions and religion thought for him. He reserved his mind, he and his ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... him off to sleep, but he did not even try, to read it. He had no wish to sleep. The waking dream in which he lost himself was more interesting than any vision of slumber could have been, and he had no desire to end it. In that he could still be talking with the girl whose mystery appealed to him so pleasingly. It was none the less pleasing because, at what might be called her first blushes, she did not strike him as altogether ingenuous, but only able to discipline herself into a final sincerity from a consciousness ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... indistinctly, of course, but as each event was recalled it evoked a corresponding picture in his brain. Many things suddenly became clear which had been hitherto shrouded in mystery. The secret of his birth, concerning which he had so often questioned Countess Drentell without receiving a satisfactory reply, the indistinct recollection of strange events, and, finally, the familiarity of the ritual in the synagogue. When Mendel had ceased speaking, ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... continued, after a pause. Her voice had fallen still another tone. "'Yes,' she said, as if musing, 'dead—dead! A man is as his mother has made him. He is with her from the moment she loves his father. She is evermore thinking of him; he is precious to her before the mystery of his birth is revealed to her. He grows up by her side, and loves her because he knows that she understands him. She does understand him, and she understands his father better by understanding her son.' She said that, Mr. Courtland, and I felt that she had spoken ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... scared-looking woman, with a deep scar across one of her wrists. Her antecedents were full of mystery, and Pip suspected her of being Estella's mother.—C. Dickens, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... is such a mystery about her marriage! She will really be quite an acquisition, and we'll have her ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... which she had looked upon as a costly and invaluable treasure, should be pronounced of little value, seemed to grieve her, and that these clothes were to be worn in America, and ridiculed there, almost bewildered her. And, anyway, what was the meaning of this talk about America? This mystery was soon cleared up, when Farmer Rodel's wife came, and with her, Black ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... pursued Diana. She was conscious of an intense curiosity concerning Errington, quite apart from the personal episodes which had linked them together. The man of mystery invariably exerts a peculiar fascination over the feminine mind. Hence the unmerited popularity not infrequently enjoyed by the dark, saturnine, brooding individual whose conversation savours of ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... baptism through which memory was to be quickened to recall the words He had spoken—the baptism which was to explain sentences which, at the moment of their utterance, were full of perplexing and affrighting mystery to such as heard. Almost His very last words on earth concerned their mission. Then came Pentecost, the gift of power, the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the waiting company in the Upper Room. Signs ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... about Mr. Fortescue, and wondering who he could be. The study of physiognomy is one of my fads, and his face had deeply impressed me; in great wealth, moreover, there is always something that strikes the imagination, and this man was evidently very rich, and the mystery that surrounded him piqued ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... overgrown tea kettle. Water for all other uses had to come out of the barrel. To keep both vessels filled was a heavy task, and waste of water was regarded as little short of a crime. The sacredness of the barrel and its contents was a mystery to Keith until he grew old enough to do some of the carrying. Then ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... Kennedy, ignoring what to me seemed to be the most important feature of the case, the mystery of the silent bullet. "Didn't you see ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... possible that the spirit of Raphael should enter into the man and obtain the mastery of his mind and eye and hand, it would be entirely possible that he should paint this masterpiece; for it would simply be Raphael reproducing Raphael. And this in a mystery is what is true of the disciple filled with the Holy Ghost. Christ, who is "the image of the invisible God," is set before him as his divine pattern, and Christ by the Spirit dwells within him as a divine life, ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... enormous piles, Which no rude censure of familiar time Nor record of our puny race defiles, In dateless mystery ye stand sublime, Memorials of an age of which we see Only the types in things that ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... been duly noted by Monsieur Popinot, by Bibi-Lupin, who stayed there a day to examine every detail, by the public prosecutor himself, and by the sergeant of the gendarmerie at Nanterre, this murder became an agitating mystery, in which the Law ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... saving three-fifths of that. By slow degrees he had made himself rich, but in so doing he had denied himself all but the barest necessaries. What he expected to do with his money, as he was a bachelor with no near relatives, was a mystery, and he had probably formed no definite ideas himself. But it was his great enjoyment to see his hoards annually increasing, and he had no mercy for needy or unfortunate tenants who found themselves unable ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... but barren victory. That she was alienated and resentful he could hardly doubt, while the riddle he had rather meanly used to procure her discomfiture remained unanswered as ever, dipped indeed only deeper in mystery. He was hoist with his own petard, in short; and stood there nonplussed, vexed alike at himself and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... among other enthusiasts: , a dispassionate judgment must deny that its site has as yet been proven. Even Sir W. Fraser is not convincing. The event happened less than a century ago, but the spot is almost as phantasmal in its elusive mystery as towered Camelot, the palace of Priam, or the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... the great city was but a house of many rooms, all for his use, his sport, his life. He did not know much of what lay within the houses; but that only added the joy of mystery to possession: they were jewel-closets, treasure-caves, indeed, with secret fountains of life; and every street was a ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... be kind to all Eternity. Thou hast one Virtue more, I pay thee Homage for; I heard from the Alcove how great a Mistress thou art in the dear Mystery of Jilting. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... mystery about it," said the mate warmly. "Yes, I can see you nodding and winking, Dellow, and making signs to the men. Here you, Tom Jinks, you said I came on ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... of shock; it seemed incredible to me that a man of so much intelligence could hold such a view. So far am I from feeling satisfied with any explanation, scientific or other, of myself and of the world about me, that not a day goes by but I fall a-marvelling before the mystery of the universe. To trumpet the triumphs of human knowledge seems to me worse than childishness; now, as of old, we know but one thing—that we know nothing. What! Can I pluck the flower by the wayside, and, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... showing himself that he is God. [2:5]Do you not remember that when I was with you I told you of these things? [2:6]And now you know what hinders him from being revealed in his time. [2:7]For the mystery of wickedness already works, [God] only restrains it just now, till it shall be out of the way; [2:8]and then shall the wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his ...
— The New Testament • Various
... opened it, and to my astonishment it was a five-dollar gold piece, the identical pocket-piece I had parted with but a few days before. I knew it was the same, for I had made a mark upon it; how this had been brought about was a mystery, but that the hand of the Lord was in it I could not doubt. 'See,' said I to my wife; 'I thought I gave that money, but I only lent it; how soon has the Lord returned it! Never again will ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... no other eye ever to read it but his own, perplex their brains unnecessarily. Pepys was not the first human being to make his confession in an empty confessional. Criminals, lovers and other egoists, for lack of a priest, will make their confessions to a stone wall or a tree. There is no more mystery in it than in the singing of birds. The motive may be either to obtain discharge from the sense of guilt or a desire to save and store up the very echoes and last drops of pleasure. Human beings keep diaries for as many different reasons as they write lyric poems. With Pepys, I fancy, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... it? the secret which makes one little hand the dearest of all? Whoever can unriddle that mystery? Here she was, her son by his side, his dear boy. Here she was, weeping and happy. She took his hand in both hers; he felt her tears. It was a rapture ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at an all-encircling mystery. Not so the Greek Childe Roland who set the slug-horn to his lips and blew a challenge. Neither Shakespeare nor Browning tells us what happened, and the old legend, Childe Roland, is the incarnation of the Greek spirit, the young, light-hearted master of the modern world, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... your words have a weird sepulchral tone that echoes far and near through the spacious halls and avenues that makes the black pall of mystery all the more uncanny. As you first enter on your journey on this stream of inky blackness you are appalled by the awful darkness, and the stillness so intense is like that of some vast primeval forest at midnight. The ceiling ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... not so old but that Christmas Eve with its little plans for the morrow held yet a certain shade of that delightful suspense and mystery which perhaps never hangs about the greater and graver joys of life. I fancy we drink it to the full, in the hanging up of stockings, the peering out into the dark to see Santa Claus come down the ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... state of our relations with Mexico has involved this subject in much mystery. The first information in an authentic form from the agent of the United States, appointed under the Administration of my predecessor, was received at the State Department on the 9th of November last. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... north. Indications of proximity of the sea. Warm winds. What wind temperatures tell. The missing yak herd. Mystery of the turning water wheel. The mill and workshop. Their home. "Baby" learning civilized ways. The noise in the night. The return of the yaks. The need for keeping correct time. Shoe leather necessary. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... if Starr could have sent them, but that was impossible of course, for she knew nothing of his work, and they were always postmarked New York. He discovered that such thin foreign-looking envelopes could be had in New York, and after that he abandoned all idea of trying to solve the mystery. It was probably some queer, kind person who did not wish to be known. He accepted the help gladly and broadened his plans ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... mystery, Mrs. Dr. dear. In my opinion the Government would do well to keep an eye on that man if it does not want us to be all murdered in our beds some night. Now I shall just look over the papers a minute before going to write a letter to little Jem. Two things ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... unamiable and cross to one another, and unamiable and cross to old Hammond, yet always with a certain respect; and the result seemed to be such as treated the old man well enough. And thus he moved about among them, a mystery; the histories of the others, in the general outline, were well enough known, and perhaps not very uncommon; this old man's history was known to none, except, of course, to the trustees of the charity, and to the Master of the Hospital, to whom it had necessarily been revealed, ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... slow and measured grace, Among the lowly takes its place: Nor dreams its future yet shall be A wondrous thing of mystery. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... hardly demand that his confidence should have a basis in external facts; such confidence, we know, is something less coarse and materialistic: it is a comfortable disposition leading us to expect that the wisdom of providence or the folly of our friends, the mysteries of luck or the still greater mystery of our high individual value in the universe, will bring about agreeable issues, such as are consistent with our good taste in costume, and our general preference for the best style of thing. Fred felt ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot say more than I have said." It is no wonder, then, that Holt, driven to desperation by such treatment, wrote to Speed:—"Your forbearance towards Andrew Johnson, of whose dishonorable conduct you have been so well advised, is a great mystery to me. With the stench of his baseness in your nostrils you have been all tenderness for him, while for me ... you have been as implacable ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... of His death. No Unitarian, no unbeliever, will deny that Jesus died as a good man, choosing rather the shame of the Cross than the deeper shame of treason to the truth. And thus far Christ is an example to all who follow Him. In one sense His cross-bearing was all His own, a mystery of suffering and death into which no man can enter. But in another sense, as St. Peter tells us, He has left us by His sufferings an example that we should follow His steps. It is surely a significant fact that the words ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... are!" said Will. "The case is closed. The Boy Scouts may as well go back to Chicago now. There's one more mystery. Who built the ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... advancement. He had given 'hostages to fortune,' and dreaded the result. He was thus persistently silent on the subject; and, as time went on, it became more and more difficult for him to avow the marriage he had from the first made so much a matter of mystery. And then, too, the prosperous unions of other artists, his contemporaries, excited his jealousy and increased his apprehensions. He began to think it indispensable to the success of a painter that he should marry well. Nathaniel Dance had been united to Mrs. Drummer, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... attachments, he had never imagined anything of the kind apart from loveliness of feature in the chosen object; his instincts were, in fact, revolted by the idea of love for such a person as Janet Moxey. Christian seemed to be degraded by such a suggestion. In his endeavour to solve the mystery, Godwin grew half unconscious of ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... opened, thank God, and no one will rejoice at it more sincerely than M. de Tocqueville—he who is so generous, and whose abolition sentiments are certainly no mystery to any of his colleagues of the Chamber. But his opinion remains in his book, and every one repeats after him, that the blacks and the whites cannot live together on the same soil, unless the latter be subject to ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... the leg of the kitchen table and says to me: 'Friend, thee can just set there while I go to get an officer!' Gave me no chance to explain. Took it all for granted; whereas if he would have listened to me I could have cleared up the whole mystery in ...
— Frictional Electricity - From "The Saturday Evening Post." • Max Adeler
... growing desperate over the mystery. He seized Newt Elkey by the arm and said, "What ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... deeply for the Unitarians in this place; we sometimes think the way may open for us to help them a little. Their great stumbling-stones are, the want of clearness in the mystery of the oneness in the Godhead, and of faith in the practical influences of the Holy Spirit, as operating on the heart of man. Our morning reading opens a suitable door of communication for those whose curiosity prompts ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... different in kind from those of inorganic matter? The philosophy of the present day negatives the question. It is the compounding, in the organic world, of forces belonging equally to the inorganic, that constitutes the mystery and the miracle of vitality. Every portion of every animal body may be reduced to purely inorganic matter. A perfect reversal of this process of reduction would carry us from the inorganic to the organic; and such a reversal is at least conceivable. The tendency, indeed, of modern science ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... tell in this accursed, unhallowed, godless country. The honour and honesty of one man did not, in these days, prompt another to abstain from vice. The only heroism left in the country was the heroism of mystery, of secret bloodshed and ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... the King claimed an absolute right to, and a perfect estate in, all the lands within his dominions; but, how he came by this absolute right and perfect estate, is a mystery which we have never seen unravelled, nor is it our business or design, at present, to inquire. He granted parts or parcels of it to his friends, the great men, and they granted lesser parcels to their tenants. ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... in the room when he uttered this name or title, for The Parson had always been more or less a mystery, and one that was much envied by thieves generally. He was a confidence man of the higher type; the sort of man who would go into strange cities or villages or communities, and represent himself ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... this mystery of intermediate being, entirely subordinate to us, with which we can deal as we choose, having just the greater power as we have the less responsibility for our treatment of the unsuffering creature, most of the pleasures which ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... lay perfectly still for a few moments casting up the strange situation he found himself in. Why the men should have acted as they had, was all a mystery, but thieves or outlaws they evidently were, and outlaws in this country he already well knew were men ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... with a superstitious horror, as a fiendish mystery, and compared it to a fiery dragon with a tail as long as a lance; but it did not actually cause many deaths, and they met with no serious disaster till they came to the canal of Aschmoum, which flowed between them and Mansourah. They ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the face of a happy child. Before his mental vision rose the little mistress of the garden of Epicurus. He saw the sparkle of her large blue eyes, which never ceased to question, yet appeared to contain the mystery of the world. He fancied he heard once more the silvery cadence of her voice and the bewitching magic of her pure, childlike laughter, and it was hard to remember what she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... into poverty and evil ways, as in the Pyncheon family of Hawthorne's romance. In the preface to the Marble Faun Hawthorne wrote: "No author without a trial can conceive of the difficulty of writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor any thing but a commonplace prosperity in broad and simple daylight." And yet it may be doubted whether any environment could have been found more fitted to his peculiar genius than this of his native town, or any preparation better calculated ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... and Jerry wagged his head solemnly. "I never killed a tiger yet. I've killed whales, though, aye, and tiger sharks! Think of the mystery of the sea, lads—wave after wave, with the fish down below and us up here above! Fish tell no tales, lads, fish tell no tales. There's strange things out where we be ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... Jewish mob pronounced as if by chance, in accusing Jesus Christ before Pilate, afforded Pilate a reason for sending Jesus Christ to Herod. And thereby the mystery was accomplished, that He should be judged by Jews and Gentiles. Chance was apparently the cause of the ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... sent off on the swiftest pony to the ranch house to report to Rhoda's father, and to bring back a wagon in which to carry away the heavier ornaments and vessels that Lobarto had stolen from the churches in his own country. How the bandit had ever brought such a weight of treasure so far was a mystery. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... drew her into the study, and shut the door. The expression of mystery and amusement gave way to sadness and gravity as he sat down in his arm-chair, and sighed as if much fatigued. She was checked and alarmed, but she could not ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... The mystery was not lessened by the contents. There was simply a blank sheet of paper, and when this was unfolded a half-sovereign rolled out. The postmark was Houndsditch. After puzzling herself in vain, and examining at length the beautiful copy-book penmanship of the address, Esther gave up ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... still a mystery," said the chief. "We have ascertained who the girl is, where she lives. Her actions have been watched and recorded for every hour in the twenty-four for the last three days, and yet we don't know what she does with these ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... to the tannery house and received his orders—orders of which he made a great mystery afterward at the store, although they consisted simply of directions to be prepared to drive Jethro to Brampton the next morning. But the look of the man had frightened Jake. He had never seen vengeance so indelibly written ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... what some poet calls "a tangled trinity," and I am not going to disentangle it. Whatever those three things mean, how or why they co-exist; whether they can be reconciled or perhaps are reconciled already; the three sounds I heard then by an accident all at once make up the French mystery. For the brass band in the Casino gardens behind me was playing with a sort of passionate levity some ramping tune from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was going on I heard also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible loyalties and men always arming ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... a mystery, undeveloped to all save Barbara's aunt, Percival, and the worthy magistrate,—by whose advice, indeed, it was concealed from the minister; who, to his dying day, confidently believed that the paper he had found in his Bible had been placed there by supernatural ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... acquaintance. On this subject he chose to exhibit an unusual—and as Norma felt, unnecessary, degree of curiosity. He cross-questioned the girl vigorously, and failing to elicit satisfactory replies, laughingly accused her of an attempt to earn a cheap notoriety by the elaboration of a petty mystery. ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... them, and consequently nothing came of them. In 1814, Koenig and Bauer, two German printers, conceived the idea of printing by steam, and the younger Walter, now by his father's death permitted to do as he liked, entered warmly into their project. The greatest silence and mystery was observed, but the employes of The Times somehow or other obtained an inkling of what was going on, and, foreseeing a reduction in their numbers, vowed the most terrible vengeance upon everybody connected with the newfangled invention. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... room stood a rose-bush, the first buds formed themselves, and opened their red lips—as pure and tender as these leaves was Sophie's cheek: he bent over the flower, smiled and read there sweet thoughts which were related to his love. A rose-bud is a sweet mystery. ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... don't know!" Francis declared, a little impatiently. "The woman is the mystery, of course. Probably my brain was a little over-excited when I came out of Court, and what I imagined to be an epic was nothing more than a tissue of exaggerations from a disappointed wife. I'm sure ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Certainly not the least strange part of his wondrous career is this mystery which persists in clouding his close. I feel as if he would be like Enoch or Moses—that we shall never be permitted to know more than that—having walked with GOD—he "was not—for GOD took him," and that his ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... it. We may presume that some mystery is hidden under it. This secret of captivating everybody is not an ordinary effect of nature; the Thessalian art must be mixed up in it, and, doubtless, some one has given to her a charm by which she makes ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... what mysterious power is it that millions and millions are drawn from all parts of the world to gaze upon Niagara Falls? There is no mystery about the thing itself. Every effect is just as any intelligent man, knowing the causes, would anticipate without seeing it. If the water moving onward in a great river reaches a point where there is a perpendicular jog of a hundred feet in descent in the bottom of the river, it ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... The fulness of that knowledge. It can bless, Only the eager souls, that willing, press Along the mountain passes, to the peak. Not to the dull, the doubting, or the weak, Will Truth explain, or Mystery confess. ...
— New Thought Pastels • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... solve this mystery, Olinto," I said fiercely, for I was in no trifling mood. "I'll fathom it if it costs me ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... toward ideality is quite strongly indicated; they are painted with a more hesitating and lingering touch than his portraits of men, and with a certain seeming lack of confidence, which throws about them a thin fold of that veil of etherialism and mystery which so enwraps nearly all his pictures of the last eight years. This treatment, however, seems to have been at that time more the result of experiment than conviction; later in life he wrought its suggestions ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... did. His house was a tiny dwelling, too. Just how he and his many children contrived to find places to sleep is a mystery. Some of the youngsters were tucked away in trundle beds, you may be sure. Out behind the kitchen was a sort of woodshed, and it was in this primitive location that Mr. Willard ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... that has seemed a dark mystery is finally explained, it often looks so easy and simple that all of us wonder how we ever could have bothered our heads over such a puzzle. And so it was in this case. Why did it come that no one had guessed the true explanation before, when it was ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... unsuccessful, and that they will be written down Fogies as requested, and duly found guilty, in terms of their own confession. The greater number of Fogies, however, with that modesty which often attends merit, are wholly unconscious of their real proficiency in this great mystery, and are not likely to give us their countenance of their own accord. This consideration will lead to a peculiarity in the constitution of the Club, which is intended to embrace not only the Fogies who apply for admission, but all of any note who possess the qualification, whether they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... live, I can't! I start them just as mild and proper as can be, but before I get half-way through, a murder, or death, or mystery crops in, and I can't ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... the whole art and mystery, the true free-mason secret, of the profession of soucaring; by which a few innocent, inexperienced young Englishmen, such as Mr. Paul Benfield, for instance, without property upon which any one would lend to themselves a single shilling, are enabled at once to take provinces ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Embankment. The lights of Parliament House gleam from a hundred windows, and in the dark shadows by the banks thousands of coloured discs of light twinkle and dance and glow like fairy lamps, and are reflected in the silver surface of the river. That river, as full of mystery and contrast in its course as London itself—where is such another? It has ever been a river of pageants, a river of sighs; a river into whose placid depths kings and queens, princes and cardinals, ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... weary, and awoke to see Dr. Pearsall about to leave my room. He was giving directions to my two anxious daughters. To my surprise my son-in-law remarked, "Mother is so much better, I will return home." Here was a mystery I was unable to solve, and I insisted on knowing why the doctor was there, now nearly 2 o'clock in the morning. I was informed that I had suffered an attack of apoplexy. I was not the least startled, but told them if I had had a fit of that character, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... put into his hands was "Amadis de Gaul," in four parts; and the priest said: "There seems to be some mystery in this, for I have heard say that this was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain, and that all the rest had their foundation and rise from it; I think, therefore, as head of so pernicious a sect, we ought to condemn him ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the Parent of the Parallelogram, is of great Harmony as a Mystery. Indeed all other Methods of reading fortune in Cards are incomparable ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... the Ducal Palace of Venice owes its complete loveliness in distant effect to the finishing of its cusps. The extremity of the cusp is a mere ball of Istrian marble; and consider how subtle the faculty of sight must be, since it recognizes at any distance, and is gratified by, the mystery of the termination of cusp obtained by the gradated light on ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... The whispers of curious men, the mystery of the thing, were to Lingard a source of never-ending delight. The common talk of ignorance exaggerated the profits of his queer monopoly, and, although strictly truthful in general, he liked, on that matter, to mislead speculation still further ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... mystery of that little cabin down the slope, from which sounded so much boylike laughter of an evening. She watched and waited till she was positive the coast was clear, then clapped an old hat of J. G.'s upon her head and ran ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... only the unattainable horizon round about, and awakened in harbour in a strange land that was warm and lovely and full of sunshine. She closed her eyes again, so that nothing might disturb the contemplation of the mystery. She folded her round arms as a pillow behind her head, her limbs dropped back of their own weight, and her mouth broke into a happy smile. Oh, miracle of miracles! The whole ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... most sublime passages in all literature,— silencing the arguments of his friends, sweeping away all the reasonings which have preceded, explaining nothing, but only affirming his own infinite power and wisdom. Before this august manifestation Job bows with submission; the mystery of evil is not explained; he is only convinced that it cannot be explained, and is content to be silent and wait. The teaching of the book is well summarized in ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... did not seek further to fathom the mystery attending this birth of the artist. He went off carrying his astonishment along with him. But before he left, he again gazed at the canvases and ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... private life the habits of the animal differ most materially according to its sex. The male sometimes keeps an academy and a kit fiddle, but the domestic relations of the female remain a profound mystery; and although Professors Tom Duncombe, Count D'Orsay, Chesterfield, and several other eminent Italian-operatic natural historians, have spent immense fortunes in an ardent pursuit of knowledge in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... covert and startling poem, a doctrine embodied in a character; then two beautiful little Pisgah-Sights, a dainty experiment in metre, and in substance the expression of Browning's favourite lesson, the worth of earth and the need of the mystery of life; Appearances, a couple of stanzas whose telling simplicity recalls the lovely earlier lilt, Misconceptions; Natural Magic and Magical Nature, two magical snatches, as perfect as the "first fine careless rapture" of the earlier lyrics. ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... real and hitherto unsolved riddle of Tibet, Petrie," he replied—"a mystery concealed from the world behind the veil of Lamaism." He stood up abruptly, glancing at a scrap of paper which he took from his pocket—"Suite Number 14a," he said. "Come along! We have not a moment to waste. Let us make our presence known to Sir ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... different way. A leopard, so it is said, prefers a dog to any other food and will take daring chances in an effort to secure one for breakfast, dinner, or supper. Therefore, how little Mosina escaped so long is a mystery yet unsolved. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... might have ripened into rare qualities and great virtues. But perhaps as Goethe has somewhere said, "Experience, after all, is the best teacher." He kept a constant guard on his vehement temper—his wayward will; he would not have vexed his mother for the world. But, strange to say (it was a great mystery in the woman's heart), in proportion as he became more amiable, it seemed that his mother loved him less. Perhaps she did not, in that change, recognise so closely the darling of the old time; perhaps the very weaknesses and importunities of Sidney, the hourly sacrifices the child entailed ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ten fallow years in the life of Tennyson." But fallow years are not all fallow. The dark brooding night is as necessary for our life as the garish day. Great crops of wheat that feed the nations grow only where the winter's snow covers all as with a garment. And ever behind the mystery of sleep, and beneath the silence of the snow, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... reasoned until his brain was on fire, and still no solution of the mystery was presented to ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner
... really what they called it. "Montague Nevitt" was written in plain letters on the leather flap; within lay half-a-dozen engraved visiting-cards, a Foreign Office passport in Nevitt's name, and thirty Bank of England notes for one hundred pounds apiece. This was, indeed, a mystery! ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Inland Sea! Still seems its outlet, as of yore, The anteroom of Mystery, As, through its westward-facing door, I see the vast Atlantic lie In splendor ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... in 1905 Director Reinhardt engaged him as an actor and he married the actress Tilly Niemann-Newes, with whom he has since lived happily, the father of a son, his troubled spirit in safe harbour at last, but not in the least changed, to judge from his play, Franziska, a Modern Mystery. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery, after imparting this confidence to me, one Wednesday; 'who's the man that hides near our ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... little time, however, she hoped would unravel this mystery; in two days, the entertainment which Mr Harrel had planned, to deceive the world by an appearance of affluence to which he had lost all title, was to take place; young Delvile, in common with every other ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... come forward and make his identity known? G—— is a city, it is true, but it is not a very large city, and any man being on terms of intimate acquaintance with one who was murdered would be apt to come forward in the hope of throwing some light on the mystery." ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... to this momentous mystery since, and I have seen no reason to repent of my unwillingness to hear it. The threatened blow has not been struck yet, and I do not greatly fear it. At present I am pleased with Arthur: he has not positively disgraced himself for upwards of a fortnight, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... rounds that Jim Robinson, the heavyweight, who goes against Sailor Clancy in the principal event at the Garden tonight, is not Robinson at all, but a well-known society man and millionaire. From the hour when this match was made in May last there has been a mystery attached to the personality of this fighter never before heard of in Fistiana in New York. Flynn, his backer and trainer, could not be found to deny or affirm the rumor, and his sparring partners at Flynn's Gymnasium, of course, denied it, but every circumstance, including the size of the purse, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... Till I have it, your conduct is a perfect mystery. To Margaret, or to me for her, you must explain yourself, and that immediately. In the mean time, I do not know how to address you— how to ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... Priests unridling make more intricate: They said that he should reign, and so he did, Which lasted not above a pair of Hours. But I my self will be his Oracle now, And speak his kinder Fate, And I will have no other Priest but thee, [To Vallentio. Who shall unfold the Mystery ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... in the following year, bettered his health, and brought him the anecdote of a mystery of the sea which was the germ of "The Wrecker." He saw Samoa, and bought land there—Vailima—the last and best of his resting-places; and here he was joined, in 1891, by his intrepid mother. He was now a lord ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old town, of charming gray-shingle houses, which, to escape loneliness, crowded close to the edge of the elm-shaded road) we crossed the Housatonic. The shores stretched away into mystery, so broad was the river; and the moment we were out of a town, in the country, the scene was like a dream of Indian days, just interrupted by waking now and then at sight of some houses grouped round a common. There was Milford, for instance, ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel) |
