"Mystery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... literature is our subject, we begin and end with good books; and that we stand aside while the great writers speak their own message to our pupils. In studying each successive period, let the student begin by reading the best that the age produced; let him feel in his own way the power and mystery of Beowulf, the broad charity of Shakespeare, the sublimity of Milton, the romantic enthusiasm of Scott; and then, when his own taste is pleased and satisfied, a new one will arise,—to know something about the author, the times in which he lived, and finally of criticism, which, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the lady in a rather strident voice, but with much composure, addressed us in English. Her knowledge of our language, however, proved to be extremely limited, being confined to such expressions as "How are you, sir?" "I am very well," "Yes, sir," "No, sir," and "I know New York." She was a mystery to the town, where she was commonly ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... whole system of taking sights for chronometers had been satisfactorily explained that the lady recovered her good-humour. While the captain was thus employed with Mrs Ferguson, Newton, although it was not necessary, explained the mystery to Miss Revel, who, with Mrs Ferguson, soon after quitted ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... mystery! That I should be so closely bound With neither terror nor constraint Without a murmur of complaint, And lose ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... horses over their fences, I cannot help thinking that if they lifted themselves off their backs they would see how much better horses are able to jump without their assistance. Many of my readers doubtless saw the Grand National of 1900, and how poor Hidden Mystery, who, after he had fallen and had unshipped his rider, jumped the fences with safety to himself and the field. Such sights must show how necessary it is for us to interfere as little as possible with our horses ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... invasion of that pure, dim world before them; and the serene mystery of the distance came like a thought, drawn from a state remote and immortal, to clasp the hand of There in ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... most dismal day. The dear and most suffering king was extremely ill, the queen very wretched, poor Mrs. Schwellenberg all spasm and horror, Miss Planta all restlessness, the house all mystery, and my only informant ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... silkworm draws its exquisite stuff from dowdy leaves, so youth finds beauty and mystery in stupid days. Carl went out unreservedly to practise with the football squad; he had a joy of martyrdom in tackling the dummy and peeling his nose on the frozen ground. He knew a sacred aspiration when Mr. Bjorken, the coach, a former University ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... continent being now known, and the mystery of the interior solved, there remained little more for the explorers of later years to do, but follow up the course of some tributary, stream or river, the origin of which, though, perhaps, guessed at, had never been finally ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... prejudices, and to speak of the Catholics in more charitable language, and with more reconciling expressions. From this foundation a panic fear of Popery was easily raised; and every new ceremony or ornament introduced into divine service, was part of that great mystery of iniquity, which, from the encouragement of the king and the bishops, was to overspread the nation.[*] The few innovations which James had made, were considered as preparatives to this grand design; and the further alterations attempted by Charles, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... dear child, we have arrived at the explanation of that great mystery, WHY we breathe. Keep on the alert, for we are now entering into a region where everything will be ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... but never was rivalry friendlier, or mutually more helpful. Our parts were strangely complementary; if I could understand for the life of me the secret of collaboration, which has always been a mystery to me, I should say that I might have collaborated with Pharazyn almost ideally. I had the better of him in point of education, and would have turned single sentences against him for all he was worth; and I don't mind saying so, for there my superiority ended. When ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "Why, he's even stumped at the start by the mystery of there being no bullet. I'm glad you said nothing about the cartridge, although I can't see for the life of me what good it is ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... to snuff the candles, and, seeing the prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed his perturbed face, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissed him on the shoulder and left the room without snuffing the candles or saying why he had entered. The most solemn mystery in the world continued its course. Evening passed, night came, and the feeling of suspense and softening of heart in the presence of the unfathomable did not lessen but increased. No ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... understand why men went to Japan and Canada instead of coming to India on better terms. It was a mystery to him. He thought it was either sheer ignorance or the spread ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... not even give herself airs of mystery among the girls, which was an act of creditable self-denial. The rest of the school never doubted that, on the death of Miss Shields' father, she had been removed by one of her friends. As for Maitland, ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... and looked out over the bay. A dying gleam of sunset broke through a cloud and fell across her hair. For a moment she seemed the spirit of the shore personified—all its mystery, all its ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... irresponsible and replied that he was giving his valet instructions to show the Bishop the garments in question, whenever it suited him to inspect them. The Bishop was equally amazed, but took exactly the same view about the Duke as the latter had decided upon concerning the Bishop. No doubt the mystery was eventually cleared up, and Bishop and Duke must have both enjoyed ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... aptitude for the things of the spirit enabled him intuitively to realise this, to understand it, to use it. And there was no mystery, no secret, no subterfuge on the part of Jesus as to the source of his power. In clear and unmistakable words he made it known—and why should he not? It was the truth, the truth of this inner kingdom that ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... log nearest to him, when a thunderbolt appeared to have exploded before him. He started back as though he had received an electric shock. A perfect battery of howls was leveled against him, and for a moment his ears were stunned with the deafening uproar. He determined, however, to solve the mystery. Giving the structure a push that brought it tumbling to the ground, he sprung back and held his rifle prepared for any foe, were he a four-footed or a two-footed one. Instead of either, what was his amazement to see ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... I stepped with a world of mystery ahead of me. I remember now it took no slight effort to leave, but though the call away was unmistakable, I knew the reply was the hardest task in my experience. But I set my teeth and trudged down the track till I reached the bend, then I looked back. ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... put an end to the present conversation. I stood beside her, affecting to listen and admire, but truly whirled away by my own thoughts. I have always found this young lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly this first interview made a mystery that was beyond my plummet. One thing I learned long after: the hours of Sunday had been well employed, the bank-porter had been found and examined, my visit to Charles Stewart was discovered, and the deduction made that I was pretty ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nuts, damson plums! And those fish! Dry salmon from the Danube, sturgeon, Venetian and Turkish caviare, pikes and pickerel a cubit long, flounders, and capon carp, and noble carp! Finally a culinary mystery: an uncut fish, fried at the head, baked in the middle, and with its tail in a ragout ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... had spread from Kent to Suffolk, Norfolk, Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire, and Cambridgeshire, and a great deal of very valuable property had been destroyed. A mystery enveloped these proceedings that indicated organization, and it became suspected that they had a political object. Threatening letters were sent to individuals signed 'Swing,' and beacon fires communicated ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... few Spaniards at St. Augustine, and a few Englishmen at Jamestown. The first attempt of the English, under the inspiration of the great Raleigh, to establish a colony in the fine country to the north of Spanish Florida, then known as Virginia, is only remembered for the mystery which must always surround the fate of Virginia Dare and the little band of colonists who were left on the island of Roanoke. Adventurous Englishmen, Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth, had even explored the coast of the present United States as far as the Kennebec before the voyages ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... in the house, which was a great mystery to Honey when it first came. She could hear voices talking back to mama, yet could not see a person. Was some one hidden away in the horn her mother put to her ear, or was ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... examined it, they saw that it was made of ebony and ivory; whereat they laughed to each other, saying, 'Was it of the like of this horse that the youth spoke? Surely, he must be mad; but we shall soon see the truth of his case. Belike, there hangs some great mystery by him.' Then they lifted up the horse and carrying it to the King, set it down before him, and all the people flocked round it, staring at it and marvelling at the beauty of its fashion and the richness of its saddle and bridle. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... "A mystery is set before us to unriddle; at the end the author turns round and asks us what is the good of solving it. That the impression of emptiness and un-meaningness thus produced is in itself a blemish to the work no one can deny. Mr. Hawthorne really ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... "The Phantom," which was in the outskirts of the park, sheltered by a thatched roof. Sidonie thought that a charming episode. In the evening she must invent some story, a pretext of some sort for going to "The Phantom" alone. The shadow of the trees across the path, the mystery of the night, the rapid walk, the excitement, made her heart beat deliciously. She would find the letter saturated with dew, with the intense cold of the spring, and so white in the moonlight that she would hide it quickly for ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... by the duties upon what is carried. It is, perhaps, the only mercantile project which has been successfully managed by, I believe, every sort of government. The capital to be advanced is not very considerable. There is no mystery in the business. The returns are not only ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... fancy," interposed Gertie, breaking the pause, "that I'm the best one to explain." She was standing beside old Mrs. Douglass, and as she spoke she gripped at the back of the wicker chair. "I don't like this mystery where I am concerned. Lady Douglass came to the door of the billiard-room whilst Mr. Langham and me—Mr. Langham and I were there. The door was locked. ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... moved, at the close of the civil war, from Georgia to Texas, is to this good hour a mystery to me. While we did not exactly belong to the poor whites, we classed with them in poverty, being renters; but I am inclined to think my parents were intellectually superior to that common type of the South. Both were foreign born, my mother being Scotch ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... desolate, like a desert, only without sand, and led to nowhere except the still more desolate sea-coast; nobody ever crossed it. Whatever mystery there was about the tower, it and the sky and the plain kept ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... allusion to a passage in 'King Victor and King Charles' which I think more than rivals the famous utterance of Valence, revealing as it does the same grasp of non-conventional truth, while its occasion lends itself to a far deeper recognition of the mystery, the frequent hopeless dilemma of our moral life. It is that in which Polixena, the wife of Charles, entreats him for duty's sake to retain the crown, though he will earn, by so doing, neither the credit of a virtuous deed nor the sure, persistent ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... problem of their revolutions—the cause of their impulsion[7] as well as of their creation. Baffled in my scrutiny of the sublime puzzle which is domed over the globe at nightfall, dizzy with the contemplation of such abysses of mystery, my thoughts have reverted to this earth, in which pleasure sparkles but to evaporate. No solace in the investigation of those infinitudes, which are only fathomable by a system revolting to my judgment—the system of a theocratic philosophy; no consolation in the dreamings evoked by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... "expression." And she had the oddest complex sensation; she could, through her tightly closed eyes, vision herself kneeling there; while, at the same time, she could feel her spirit floating away, mingling with the air, melting into the night, fusing with all the divine mystery of heaven and earth. And her soul yearned for more mystery, for more divinity, with an ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... not seen Mrs Askerton since that interview between them which was described some few chapters back. Then everything had been told between them, so that there was no longer any mystery either on the one side or on the other. Then Clara had assured her friend of her loving friendship in spite of any edicts to the contrary which might come from Aylmer Park; and after that what could be more natural than that Mrs Askerton should come ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... Latch both disliked him. Had it not been for his influence Mrs. Barfield felt sure her husband would never have returned to his vice. Had it not been for Mr. Leopold Mrs. Latch felt that her husband would never have taken to betting. Legends and mystery had formed around Mr. Leopold and his pantry, and in Esther's unsophisticated mind this little room, with its tobacco smoke and glasses on the table, became a symbol of all that was wicked and dangerous; and when she ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... or I had half what he has spent upon it, you and I would be rich bourgeois. If Madame la comtesse goes there—ha! I tell you what! no more ease and comfort for the Moreaus," said the valet, with an air of mystery. ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... April 10. Felix Woyrsch's Mystery for soli, chorus, orchestra and organ, "Toedtentanz" given by the Apollo Musical ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... (white) lay dead, his right arm extended to the full length, and firmly clenched in his hand was a piece of fancy soap. A bullet had entered his forehead, the blood from the wound was trickling down his face, but the hue of health was still on his cheek. How he came to be there is to me a mystery, as that part of the line was forced by colored troops. Swinging by the right flank we kept our way along the Boydton road. A Confederate light battery in position alongside of a cottage, which stood in a hollow, shelled the column as it advanced, and so accurate had the gunners ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... the mastery that he had achieved not for the mere pleasure of practicing or exhibiting it, but to give fitting and adequate expression to feelings and to thoughts. The domestic affections, the love of country, and the mystery of death had the deepest hold upon him, and whenever he approaches these themes he is almost sure to be genuine and sincere. His pity for the poor and unfortunate was very tender, and was the real spring of a great deal of his democracy, and he had a fine gift ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... bacon, that's all," replied the other calmly; but this explanation only increased the mystery; so far as Steve ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... to see what it meant. His suspicions were aroused. There was some design in that suspended meat, evidently. It was a trap to catch him. He surveyed it from every near branch. He peeked and pried, and was bent on penetrating the mystery. He flew to the ground, and walked about and surveyed it from all sides. Then he took a long walk down about the vineyard as if in hope of hitting upon some clew. Then he came to the tree again, and tried first one eye, then the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... pack-camels, mules, and attendants on horseback, forming altogether the most imposing cavalcade I have met on a Persian road. How they manage to get the heavily loaded forgans and the Governor's carriage over such places as the pass near Lasgird is something of a mystery—but there may be another route—at any rate, hundreds of villagers would be ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... words, "Alas! madam," said he, in a melancholy tone, "I have just saved your life, and this writing is my death! I do not comprehend all the mystery; but it convinces me I am the most unfortunate of men. Pardon, madam, the liberty I take, but it was impossible for me to see you without giving you my heart. You are not ignorant yourself, that it was not in my power to refuse it you, and that makes my presumption ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... then pass to the rear, and so on till all had seen "Jehovah's rain" far below. It was somewhat comical, yet far more pathetic, to stand by and watch their faces, as man after man peered down into the mystery, and then looked up at me in blank bewilderment! When all had seen it with their own very eyes, and were "weak with wonder," the ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... put it in a nutshell," said Donnegan. "I was tired; dead beat; needed a handout, and rapped at your door. Along comes a mystery in the shape of an ugly-looking woman and opens the door to me. Tries to shut me out; I decided to come in. She insists on keeping me outside; all at once I see that I have to get into the house. I am brought in; your daughter ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... This was soon after the Revolution of 1830, and the mayor had him decently interred at night. The clergy purchased the whole of his library at a nominal price and made away with it. No papers were found which served to elucidate the mystery which had always surrounded him, but in the corner of one drawer was found a packet containing some faded flowers tied up with a tricoloured ribbon. At first this was supposed to be some love-token, and several people built upon this foundation a romantic ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... The mystery of it thrilled the boy: the blind night, the moving waters, the wind in his hair, the crash of spray upon the deck—old friends all, he recognised them as such, and found ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Spider drew a newspaper clipping from his pocket. The El Paso paper stated that there was one chance in a thousand of Pete recovering. The paper also stated that there had been money involved—a considerable sum in gold—which had not been found. The entire affair was more or less of a mystery. It was hinted that the money might not have been honestly come by in the first place, and—sententiously—that crime breeds crime, in proof of which, the article went on to say; "the man who had been shot by the police was none other than Pete Annersley, ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... hills; and she was conscious—how she could not explain—that the sunset was different from any other sunset that she had ever seen. She had always loved nature with an intense love; but now there seemed a richer gold in the parting sunbeams—a sweeter mystery behind the far-off hills—because of that Figure in the east window. It was as if she saw again a land which she had always loved, and now learned for the first time that it belonged to some one who was dear to her; a new sense of ownership mingled with ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... in that sound, He having prayer, and Ave vainly made, Because he knew not how to swim, was drowned. Others report a Saint bestowed his aid, And dragged him with a visible hand aground. Whichever be the reading of this mystery, Of him I speak no further ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... exclude the strangers, the atheists, the epicureans, and the Christians! The mystery of the basket is unveiled, ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... But another mystery about the loved and lost master, which I longed to have revealed, would not let me leave the city. In the afternoon I sought Boehner, and asked him to walk with me. As soon as we had alluded to the one subject that bound us together, I requested him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Anyway, the mystery was not very comforting. The column were forbidden to talk; they rode on, northward, through the long grass of the rich bottoms; the two scouts led, Scout Gruard every now and again halting, to scan about from the ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... had taken place, and the young officer's words came like a bombshell upon this steady-going and rather dull officer. If it were true, all the mystery of the last few weeks was cleared up. But he could not believe it. Waterman was regarded as one of the most capable and trustworthy of the staff officers. He had shown zeal beyond the ordinary, and his intelligence and quickness of perception ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... the Renaissance. Humanity occupied the attention of poets and painters; and the age was yet far distant when the pantheistic feeling for the world should produce the art of Wordsworth and of Turner. Yet a few great natures even then began to comprehend the charm and mystery which the Greeks had imaged in their Pan, the sense of an all-pervasive spirit in wild places, the feeling of a hidden want, the invisible tie which makes man a part of rocks and woods and streams around him. Petrarch had already ascended the summit of Mont Ventoux, to meditate, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... rifts Of their huge crags, and made small darker spots Upon their wrinkled sides; the jaded horse Stumbled upon loose, rattling, fallen stones, Amidst the gathering dusk, and blindly fared Through the weird, perilous pass. As darkness waxed, And an oppressive mystery enwrapped The roadstead and the rocks, Sir Tannhauser Fancied he saw upon the mountain-side The fluttering of white raiment. With a sense Of wild joy and horror, he gave pause, For his sagacious horse that ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... wonder that we hover about the dark mystery, and find in our researches room for absorbing study, even though we cannot reach absolute certainty? Could you have seen the excitement which prevailed among the half-dozen settlers, I had employed in digging the mound on Rainy River, in August last, when the perfect pottery cup figured ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... earliest infancy and had seen no indications of any error of the sort. But we had not long to wait for confirmation of our view of the case, as they were soon caught in the act, to which it was found that they were greatly addicted, and the mystery was wholly solved. ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... The mystery lay on a plate in the middle of the table. In colour it resembled scrambled eggs, except that it was tinted a more brownish, or coppery, gold—rather like a first-class Yorkshire pudding. He suspected for an instant that it might be a Yorkshire pudding according to ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... inarticulate anguish, sympathy with a half-idiotic peasant-boy stammering out his hopeless love, that first stirred the poet within him and led him to compose. The music of defeat, the insistent cry of the world's pain, sound out of his music because the Russian folk has always known the great mystery and reality and good of suffering, has known that only the humble, only those who have borne defeat and pain and misfortune can see the face of life, that sorrow and agony can hallow human existence, and that while in the days of his triumph and well-being ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... was as cruel and insulting as ever, Miss Amelia was as peevish, and the servants were as vulgar. Sara was sent on errands, and scolded, and driven hither and thither, but somehow it seemed as if she could bear it all. The delightful sense of romance and mystery lifted her above the cook's temper and malice. The comfort she enjoyed and could always look forward to was making her stronger. If she came home from her errands wet and tired, she knew she would soon be warm, after she had climbed the stairs. In ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... me to conclude something. Eh! has that Robin been chirping out her fancies? And do you mean to say that you are struck all of a heap by the awful discovery of a boarding-school mystery?' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dismiss him as a rascal, for having practised a sharping trick at play; but, as he is a cunning fellow, he perceived the Duke's love for Mademoiselle de Ligneville, although he pretended to make a great mystery of it. About this time Madame de Lenoncourt, my daughter's dame d'atour, happened to die. The Duke managed to have Mademoiselle de Ligneville appointed in her room; and Craon, who is rich, offered ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Elsewhere it is the blue of the stachys and the spiked veronica that rules. Deeper in the herbage other races of flowers shine in the fair groves of this grassy paradise, and every blossom, however small, is a mystery, a miracle. Here is the star of Bethlehem, wide open in the sunshine and showing so purely white amidst the green, and yonder is the purple fringe-like tuft of the weird muscari. Along the banks of the stream tall lilac-purple, ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... of Horncastle! is the popular account of the birth of the great captain of Hungary, as related by Florentius of Buda. There are other accounts of his birth, which is, indeed, involved in much mystery, and of the reason of his being called Corvinus, but as this is the most pleasing, and is, upon the whole, founded on quite as good evidence as the others, I have selected it ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... the mystery of immortality is so untroubled that it now seemed almost natural to be passing to the portal of death from an ice-pan. Quite unbidden, the words of the old hymn ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... to be a very fairyland of tempting mystery, waiting to be explored; and till the trees hid the towering eminences from his sight, he went on planning endless excursions for ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... not impose on me in the least. I was too much accustomed to analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined to probe the mystery to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... he kept the gun in his possession, with the hammer pulled back, ready for business. And constantly did he maintain a close watch along the nearer border of the undergrowth that lay there, so dense and filled with mystery. ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... in heaven that can be represented as a pair, coursing across the sky, looking down upon the sea, and having other related properties. My readers will make a shrewd guess, but I prefer to let the texts themselves unfold the transparent mystery. The Veda of the Katha school (xxxvii. 14) says: "These two dogs of Yama, verily, are day and night," and the Br[a]hmana of the K[a]ush[i]takins (ii. 9) argues in Talmudic strain: "At eve, when the sun has ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
... through the wonder of that vision, she heard the coming of the vast procession. It was like a dream, and yet it was wholly real. As yet lost in distance, veiled in mystery, she heard the tread of the ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... showed the merchant flag and steered for shore. Shortly afterward a second one was reported. This time it proved to be the French torpedo boat Mousquet. It comes straight toward us. That's always remained a mystery to me, for it must have heard the shooting. An officer whom we fished up afterward explained to me that they had only recognized we were a German warship when they were quite close to us. The Frenchman behaved well, accepted ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that there was some mystery or other, and my imagination conjured up all sorts of romantic stories. "And that young lady," thought I, "is Miss Alice Marlow." "Alice Marlow—Alice Marlow; what a very pretty name," I kept repeating to myself, while my arms were aching with the exertion of ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... months later, made more extended reference to this variety and while its bona-fides as a "split" is established its use as a half stamp is as much a mystery as ever. We cannot do better than give ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... called "the 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
... forgiuenesse: So wee'l liue, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded Butterflies: and heere (poore Rogues) Talke of Court newes, and wee'l talke with them too, Who looses, and who wins; who's in, who's out; And take vpon's the mystery of things, As if we were Gods spies: And wee'l weare out In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones, That ebbe and flow ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... under torture that you know your father, or that your father had any name than Dick (which wasn't his name, though he was never known by any other), or that he had kith or kin or chick or child. Perhaps the attraction of this mystery, combined with your father's having a damp compartment, to himself, behind a leaky cistern, at the Dust-Bin,—a sort of a cellar compartment, with a sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, and a bottle-rack, ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... These two turned the hues of a dying dolphin, and then laughed. It was Joe. He held a newspaper in his hand. "I reckon ye woz right, Mr. North, about my takin' these yar papers reg'lar. For I allow here's suthin' that may clar up the mystery o' that baby's parents." With the hesitation of a slowly grappling intellect, Joe sat down on the table and read from the San Francisco "Herald" as follows: "'It is now ascertained beyond doubt that the wreck reported by the Aeolus was the American brig Pomare bound hence to Tahiti. The worst ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... and mistress only old David, who, in spite of his eighty-two years, suffices to wait on his mistress. Some of our Jarvis people tell wonderful tales about her. These have a certain weight in a land so essentially conducive to mystery as ours; and I am now studying the treatise on Incantations by Jean Wier and other works relating to demonology, where pretended supernatural events are recorded, hoping to find facts analogous to those which are attributed ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... third part of the city was consumed to ashes. A few incendiaries fell a sacrifice to the rage of the soldiers, and many individuals were arrested on suspicion, but no clue was found to unravel the mystery, though no doubt can exist that the fearful deed was committed by order of the American general. The act has been applauded as one emanating from stern patriotism and self-devotion, but it appears rather to have proceeded from sheer ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... indeed to me that I had my Ann for a friend, and could pour out to her all that filled my young soul with fears. How our cheeks would burn when many a time we spoke of the love which was the bond between Gotz and his fair Gertrude. To us, indeed, it was as yet a mystery, but that it was sweet and full of joy we deemed a certainty. We would have been fain to cry out to the Emperor and the world to take arms against the ruthless parents who were minded to tread so holy a blossom in the dust; but since this was not in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... difficulties, and is their most complete solution; his gospel; the singularity of his mysterious being; his appearance, his empire, his progress through all centuries and kingdoms,—all this is to me a prodigy, an unfathomable mystery. I defy you to cite another life like that of Christ." It has well been said that "Christ is the God who is man, and ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... beast in the guise of an angel—the singing of chansonettes with such a devil in the body—and at the same time a complexion, a look, a smile, which scatters a kind of mystic, lily perfume. This is precisely that dissonance, that snap, that mystery with which she has conquered Europe. This rouses curiosity; it excites; it is opposed to rules, to harmony—do ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... over a green plain unbroken by elevations. The hills which inclose the Nile valley have level tops, and sides that are bare of trees, or shrubs, or flowers, or even mosses. The sky is generally cloudless. No fog or mist enwraps the distance in mystery; no rainstorm sweeps across the scene; no rainbow spans the empyrean; no shadows chase each other over the landscape. There is an entire absence of picturesque scenery. A single broad river, unbroken within the limits of ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... it became intense when the inhabitants saw a procession of twenty females, with veiled faces, proceeding arm in arm, and two by two, to the house of the Governor, who received them in state and provided them with suitable lodgings. What did it mean? The next morning, which was Sunday, the mystery was cleared by the officiating priest reading from the pulpit, after mass, and for the general information, the following communication from the ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... never stretched the pia mater<11> of mine. Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith: the deepest mysteries our contains have not only been illustrated, but maintained, by syllogism and the rule of reason. I love to lose myself in a mystery; to pursue my reason to an O altitudo! 'Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved enigmas and riddles of the Trinity—with incarnation and resurrec- tion. I can answer all the objections of Satan ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... magic in his lays which few even of his professed enemies have been able to resist. To the young, the gay, and the enthusiastic his verses are ever welcome, and the sage discovers in them a hidden mystery which reconciles him to their subjects. His tomb, near Shiraz, is visited as a sacred spot by pilgrims of all ages. The place of his birth is held in veneration, and there is not a Persian whose heart does not ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... with its immensity, its mystery, its moods, the danger in it, and the man's work in mastering it, was almost irresistibly attractive ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... wanted to marry me, and has asked me every week since. I have told him that I love him, but I have not said I would marry him. I don't think it would be right for me to do so, unless I could clear up this mystery. I believe he is going to be great and rich and famous, and there might come a time when he would be ashamed of me. I don't say that I shall never marry him; for I have hoped—I have a presentiment that in some strange way ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... and sailed away. These men did not talk English, but they had money and quickly made their way to Yokohama. From that day the Japanese village folk never heard anything more about them, and they are still a much-talked-of mystery. As the Russian government never said anything about the incident, the United States is still ignorant of the whereabouts of the lost poacher, nor has she ever heard, officially, of the way in which some of her citizens "shanghaied" ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... mystic, wondrous hope in me, That, when no star from out the darkness bore Gives promise of the coming of the morn, When all life seems a pathless mystery Through which tear-blinded eyes no way can see; When illness comes, and life grows most forlorn, Still dares to laugh the last dread threat to scorn, And proudly cries, Death is not, shall not be? I wonder at myself! Tell me, O ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... Though no mystery was now made concerning the faith in which she died, the duke, from motives of prudence, continued to preserve the secret of his having embraced the same religion. He still publicly attended service on Sundays with the king, but ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... and October 1768 is compelling evidence for dating the pamphlet, in spite of Mr. Griffin, 1768. Walpole once more proves himself a reliable source. Why the publication was delayed for over a year will probably remain a mystery. ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... which the work was intended. It is now ascertained that the unknown patron was a Count Walsegg, an amateur desirous of being thought a great composer. It was his intention to have performed the work as his own. Mozart was now in low spirits, worn out with work, late hours and financial worry. The mystery of the "Requiem" preyed on his imagination none the less that he felt that in it he was writing some of his noblest and best thoughts. He said: "I am sure that this will be my own requiem." Nothing could dissuade him from the idea. It returned again ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... attempted by the voyageurs, a roll of bedding with a coat tied to it was seen floating in the current. It was supposed that somewhere up the river an accident had occurred, but, as it was impossible to tell when or where, no attempt was made to solve the mystery, and the labor of advancing the brigade northward ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... to get across, apparently just as much as if there were no one present to help; although no doubt the presence of the shepherd had a good effect upon their exertions. It is beyond our reach to explain the metaphysical mystery ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... suspected any mystery. She chatted on happily for the rest of the evening, brought down a great collection of old ball-cards, and with a sort of loving recollection described each very minutely, just as some old nurses have a way of doing with the funeral ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Bonaparte had little right to complain, as they did, that the real state of his disorder was purposely concealed from the world by the English Government. It is more than probable that the constant attempts observed to throw mystery and secrecy around them must have tended to create the suspicion of escape, and to increase the consequent rigour of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... often, he would cast a timorous hook into its depths and tremble lest he should lure from the pallid waters some portentous and dreadful prey. He never captured, however, anything more terrifying than catfish; but these were clad in no small measure of mystery, for the white waters of the Perdu had bleached their scales to a ghastly pallor, and the opalescence of their eyes was apt to haunt their captor's reveries. He might have said, also, that it was his playmate, little Celia Hansen,—whose hook he would bait whenever she wished to fish, ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... mystery in this subject. During our whole past history, as well as during our recent one year's experience as a new Confederacy, the militia 'have been called forth to repel invasion' in numerous instances, and they never came otherwise ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... were received at the office by the man who professed to love her. How could she hesitate to believe it when it was confirmed by his avoidance of Eccleston Square and of herself? The cause of it all was a mystery which no amount of speculation could clear up. Sometimes the poor girl would blame herself, as is the way of women in such cases. "I have not seen enough of the world," she would say to herself. "I have none of the charms of these women whom I read of in the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Hinge returned, with a face and voice of mystery—"do you think, sir, as you'll be able to get about to-morrow? If you can, I'll ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... more than two months in England, and still his intentions were covered with a veil of mystery, which no ingenuity, either of the royalists or of the republicans, could penetrate. Sir John Grenville, with whom the reader is already acquainted, paid frequent visits to him at St. James's; but the object of the Cavalier was suspected, and his attempts[a] to obtain ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc |
