"Unravel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bajazet, with a great number of Turks and Slavs, entered Bosnia." Stefan Ostoja was now King of Bosnia, but he too seems to have been more intent upon annexing Ragusa than in organizing defence against the Turk. Nor can we stop to unravel the complicated series of quarrels of one Slav prince with another, of their intrigues with Venice, with Hungary, with Ragusa, each playing for his own hand, though the Turks were now established ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... indifference was not altogether assumed to serve a peculiar purpose, it was nevertheless certain that he bestowed not the slightest attention upon any of his questioners, not even upon Doe, who had previously endeavoured to unravel the riddle by seeking the assistance of Ralph Stackpole,—assistance, however, which Ralph, waxing sagacious of a sudden, professed himself wholly unable to give. This faithful fellow, indeed, professed ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... accident (of Conde's death) had happened only in order to reveal in all its splendor the merits of the Admiral de Chatillon. The admiral had had during his entire life very difficult and complicated matters to unravel, and, nevertheless, he had never had any that were not far below his abilities, and in which, consequently, he had no need of exerting his full capacity. Thus those qualities that were rarest, and that exalted him most above others, remained hidden, through lack ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... dim hope that Mr. Corbin might in some way manage to unravel the mystery, and yet she could not see that he had anything more tangible to work upon than ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... than he cared to express at the misconstruction which had been put upon his conduct and motives. He at once sought Henry and the admiral, to whom he expressed his most earnest desire to aid in attempting to unravel the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... was no diplomat, though a good fellow, and wild about Margarita, so that poor little Alice had more than one bad quarter-hour, I'm afraid) and it took Roger a great deal of Bradley influence with the American consul and a lot of patient correspondence to unravel his unlucky brother-in-law. This gave Roger a good excuse for being in and near Germany; whether he would have stayed without it, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... between these two extremes; the fact being that the personal and social causes of poverty act and react upon each other, changing places as cause and as effect, until they form a tangle that no hasty, impatient jerking can unravel. The charity worker and the settlement worker have need of each other: neither one can afford to ignore the experience of the other. Friendly visitors and all who are trying to improve conditions in poor homes should welcome the experience ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... of the chairs recently occupied by the other two agents and tried to unravel thoughts. He said finally, "I suppose my question should be, why do Ross Metaxa and Sid Jakes send an agent of supervisor rank to act as assistant to a probationary agent? But that's not what I'm asking yet. First, Lippman just called ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... spent almost his whole life under its shadow, and knew the history of almost every stone or quarry of glass, was the best of lionisers, and gave her much attention when he perceived how intelligent and appreciative she was. He showed her the plan of the old conventual buildings, and she began to unravel the labyrinth through which she had been hurried. The Close and Deanery were modernised, but he valued the quaint old corner where he lived for its genuine age. The old house now divided between him and Mr. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this thunderous unnatural air legends of all sorts sprung up right and left; foremost, and including nearly all the rest, the legend of the Empire itself, which (like that of the French Revolution) we are only now beginning to unravel. The modern school of historians find in authentic documents, written and unwritten, the story of a continuous and able administration of the Empire through all those years by the permanent officials, and traces of a continuous personal policy of the Emperors themselves ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... You are a man now, twenty-one, and one day over. You can unravel this part." He sat with impenetrable face, waiting for ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... enjoined them for their punishment the working a web of cloth, in their chains as they were, which when they finished, they should be suffered to marry; but whatever they worked by day, Tarchetius commanded others to unravel in the night. In the meantime, the waiting-woman was delivered of two boys, whom Tarchetius gave into the hands of one Teratius, with command to destroy them; he, however, carried and laid them by the river side, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... in the case of miracles, as our inquiry is a question purely philosophical (namely, whether anything can happen which contravenes, or does not follow from the laws of Nature), I was not under any such necessity: I therefore thought it wiser to unravel the difficulty through premises ascertained and thoroughly known by the natural light of reason. I say I thought it wiser, for I could also easily have solved the problem merely from the doctrines ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... justify himself at Wenlock's expence, and to tell all he knew of his wickedness; at length, he promised to declare all he knew of Wenlock's conduct, as well in France as since their return, when he should be called upon; and, by him, Oswald was enabled to unravel the whole of his contrivances, against the honour, interest, and even ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... from being put upon their trial. Therefore, they had arranged this farce, for so it would seem to them, whereby both the offenders might escape the legal consequences of their offence, trusting, doubtless, to accident and the future to unravel this web of forced marriage, and to free Aziel from a priestly rank which he had not sought. It was only necessary that Elissa should formally choose him as her husband, and that Aziel should go through rite of throwing a few grains of incense upon an altar, and, the law satisfied, they would ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... the harder to unravel that Anglo-Saxon too had genders, equally arbitrary, which did not agree with the French ones. It is easy to conceive that among the various compromises effected between the two idioms, from which English was finally to emerge, the principal should be the suppression ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... causes has been made in exactly the same way as that which I have detailed to you. A person observing the occurrence of certain facts and phenomena asks, naturally enough, what process, what kind of operation known to occur in Nature applied to the particular case, will unravel and explain the mystery? Hence you have the scientific hypothesis; and its value will be proportionate to the care and completeness with which its basis had been tested and verified. It is in these matters as in the commonest affairs ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... arduous undertaking has been to unfold all the abstruse and sublime dogmas of Plato, as they are found dispersed in his works. Minutely to unravel the art which he employs in the composition of all his dialogues, and to do full justice to his meaning in every particular, must be the task of some one who has more leisure, and who is able to give the works of Plato to ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... Centre through the Seventh Gate I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; But not ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... each language had been more carefully elaborated, it was but too frequently forgotten that words have a history as well as a growth, and that the history of a word must be explored first, before an attempt is made to unravel its growth. Thus it was extremely tempting to derive paradise from the Sanskrit parade{s}a. The compound para-de{s}a was supposed to mean the highest or a distant country, and all the rest seemed so evident as to require no further elucidation. Parade{s}a, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... we have got to unravel in this tangle. First off, there's your little girl, to find if she is still alive. Second, we must locate Dave Henderson or his grave. Third, there's something due the scoundrel who is responsible ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... was published at Dresden by M. I. F. Freyhere in which another endeavor was made to unravel the mystery. Mr. Freyhere's book was a pretty large one, and copiously illustrated by colored engravings. His supposition was that "a well-taught boy very thin and tall of his age (sufficiently so that he could be concealed in a drawer almost ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... an unprofitable task to attempt to unravel all the fine-spun intrigues, by which the marquis of Villena contrived to defeat every attempt at an ultimate accommodation between the parties, until he was very generally execrated as the real source of the disturbances in the kingdom. In the mean while, the singular spectacle ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... eyeglass, which are sufficient to give the most common-place person a startling resemblance to the Colonel at No. 80. Or he hurriedly affixes to his friend that large nose and that bald head which are all that is essential to an illusion of the presence of Professor Budger. I do not undertake to unravel these knots. I can only say that when I was a canvasser I was told by the little card, with every circumstance of seriousness and authority, that I was not to persuade anybody to personate a voter: and I can lay my hand upon my heart and ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... intemperance and the results of drunkenness, deplorable faults, especially to be regretted in one of his profession, where, added the turnkey proudly, one needs morality, reason, and vigilance especially, to unravel the plots of the prisoners confided to him, and to triumph over their detestable mania ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... 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 person who had ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the pope, to the emperor, and to other Christian lords, accusing each other of breach of faith, and treachery. The ambassador carrying the letters of the prince was the clever Mikolaj of Rzeniewa, a man of great ability who could unravel the thread which was woven by the artifice of the Knights of the Cross, convincingly demonstrating the great wrongs done to the ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... appears from the chronicles the most complicated to unravel of that of any of the kingly suburbs of old Paris, though in the days of the old locomotion a townlet twenty-six kilometres from the capital was hardly to be ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... Cowperwood, in spite of his various troubles, was in a complacent state of mind himself. He liked life—even its very difficult complications—perhaps its complications best of all. Nature was beautiful, tender at times, but difficulties, plans, plots, schemes to unravel and make smooth—these things were what made existence ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... vapour and obscurity; in moral phenomena, it is long hidden and intertwined with the links of ten thousand other chains, which ramify and cross each other in a confusion which it requires no common patience and sagacity to unravel. Therefore it is that the lessons of history, dearly as they have been purchased, are forgotten and thrown away—therefore it is that nations sow in folly and reap in affliction—that thrones are shaken, and empires ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... and the clime, and the changing moon have power over us—why not? Do they not have influence over the rest of nature? But we can only unravel their more august and hidden secrets, by giving full wing to the creative spirit which first taught us their elementary nature, and which, when released from earth, will have full range to wander over their brilliant fields. Know in one ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cold-blooded affair; and hence its solving must prove of vital importance to her and her future. Now, when the verdict of the coroner's jury had been suicide, and when only he, and the servant Sexton suspected otherwise, it was of the utmost importance that they endeavour to unravel the crime. For her sake he could do no less, thus serving and protecting her to ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... for my office, I found myself combating a strong impulse to call in at Ruth Schuyler's. I had no errand there, and I knew that if she required my services she would summon me. It was no longer incumbent on me to try to unravel the murder mystery. Fleming Stone had that matter in charge, and his master-mind needed ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... would thus dry them. My feet gave me the most trouble, as the moccasins were so easily soaked through in the snow. But I remembered the way in which the Lapps who tended our reindeer carried grass with them, to use in their boots in place of dry socks. As soon as I could sit down I began to unravel the ropes from the dogs' harnesses, and although by this time my fingers were more or less frozen, I managed to stuff the oakum ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... "Mais, monsieur, we are only human! Arrested him? No, not quite. But tracked out how he did it. That is already much—to unravel ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... to unravel them sacks till we've got enough to make a rope. This loft's a capital place to twist him. It's all right, sir, only help me work away, and to-night ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... she announced severely, when the figures had all been dabbed upon the paper, "You ought to have lost. It would be a lesson to you. I haven't quite figured all your winnings, these six-to-ones and ten-to-ones and—and all that, take time to unravel. But you, yourself, stood to lose just three hundred and sixty-five dollars. Gee! ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... I referred to Mrs. Stone or Nellie Mason. If the strange story was true, Nellie Mason was wonderfully remarkable. If it was untrue, then Mrs. Richard Stone was the most remarkable character I had ever met. I promised to call again in a day or so, and hastily withdrew to strengthen or unravel the nicely-woven fabric ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... it meant. She could not keep it nor use it. She could not unravel its message nor rest upon its strength. It was gone almost while it came, but it did something for the lady of the feathers. It gave to her the little seed of expectation that, quite alone in a weary ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... day—but he has one main theme to make clear to his hearers and must respect the modern canons of the Story-telling Art. Among the many things therefore he could tell, an he would, he selects that only which will unravel a particular thread of fate in the tangle of endless consequences; which will render plausible the growth of passions on which, in a continuous life-drama, is ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... India on a voyage of discovery—yes, as much a voyage of discovery as that of Vasco de Gama or of Drake—that I got from the Madras agent the clue which enabled me, at the cost of infinite patience and infinite labour, to unravel the mystery of my birth. There is no need to enter now upon the details of that story. I have overwhelming documentary evidence—a cloud of witnesses—to convince the most sceptical as to who and what I am. The ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Lucy,' said I, 'there seems to have been a mysterious reason why she would not clear herself; but it is of no use to try and unravel the mystery. She has no friends left to care about it; we can only do as she said, leave ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... take a lady with you to the play. It will please her, whatever the bother to you. Besides, you will then be talked to. If you make a mess of it in trying to unravel the plot, she will essentially aid you in that direction. Nothing like a woman for a plot—especially if you desire to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... TITO took full control upon German expulsion in 1945. Although Communist, his new government and its successors (he died in 1980) managed to steer their own path between the Warsaw Pact nations and the West for the next four and a half decades. In the early 1990s, post-TITO Yugoslavia began to unravel along ethnic lines: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina were recognized as independent states in 1992. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro declared a new "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... to lie undiscovered; but behold, the voice cries out, ADAM! and now he begins to tremble. 'Adam, where art thou?' says God; and now Adam is made to answer (Gen 3:7-11). But the voice of the Lord God doth not leave him here: no, it now begins to search, and to inquire after his doings, and to unravel what he had wrapt together and covered, until it made him bare and naked in his own sight before the face of God. Thus, therefore, doth the Word, when managed by the arm of God. It findeth out, it singleth out the sinner; the sinner finds it so; it finds out the sins of the sinner; it unravels ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... prepared the way, and that when thou didst go by chance to her, she was ready for thee. But if this is all she knows, it goes not far. Still it may help—it may help. In a tangled web, no one may say which will be the thread which patiently followed may unravel the skein." ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... our literary reviewer has expressed himself unable to unravel. We are in the same condition; all we can promise is some account of the scenes as they followed each other; of the characters, the sentiments, the poetry, and the rest of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the Zancigs I came to the conclusion that although the alleged transmission of thought might possibly depend on a code or codes which I was unable to unravel, yet their performance was of such a nature that it was worthy of serious scientific examination. On the assumption that they possessed genuine telepathic powers it would be a pity that the opportunity of investigating their claim should be missed. I therefore ...
— Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent • W. W. Baggally
... each width six inches longer than necessary. Then unravel the ends and tie the cords together. When the matting is taken up to be cleaned it cannot unravel and there ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... the memory of those shots that turned the scale. It was unlikely he would again become entangled with a man bearing a tongue and the other things—he had given up in despair the attempt to unravel the mystery of the tongue; it completely baffled him—but it was by no means unlikely that if he spent another night in the gallery looking on the hall he might not again become a target for Lord Emsworth's irresponsible firearm. Nothing, in fact, was more likely; for in the disturbed state ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... exactly like a mother to them, and yet not be one. He was in a state of bewilderment, in which he could neither believe nor disbelieve, and so he went to sleep with a weary sigh, and left the mystery to unravel itself. ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... his long rifle, the butt of which rested upon the ground. He held the piece near the muzzle, partially leaning upon it, while he appeared gazing intently into the barrel. This was one of his "ways" when endeavouring to unravel a knotty question; and Garey and I knowing this peculiarity on the part of the old trapper, remained silent—leaving him to the free development of ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... give. "A mild, meditative man, with a face full of virile melancholy, and a single white curl in the center of his forehead among the black hair, giving him an old appearance." He sought earnestly and sedulously for the secret meaning of life. He tried to reach and unravel its symbols and allegories; he tried to interpret the furtive gestures which he beheld in the shadows, and he passed into deeper shadows and more oppressive silences through the ghastly gates of suicide, while his idiotic sister remained to chatter and grimace. Jaconda remained gibbering ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the relations between the vital phenomena and those of the inorganic world. No portion of the science of chemistry was of greater interest or greater complexity than that which, bearing on the vital functions both of plants and of animals, endeavored to unravel the tangled skein of the chemistry of life, and to explain the principles according to which our bodies live, and move, and have their being. If, therefore, in the less complicated problems with which other portions of our science have to deal, we found ourselves often far from possessing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... little behind was Mary, winding one of Blanche's silks over the back of a chair, and so often looking up to revel in the contemplation of Harry's face, that her skein was in a wild tangle, which she studiously concealed lest the sight should compel Richard to come and unravel it with ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my fate, I rejoice to look once more on the face of that ominous and mysterious being to whom I can ascribe all the sufferings I have known. Here, then, thou shalt not palter with or elude me. Here, before we part, thou shalt unravel to me the dark enigma, if not of thy life, of ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... into disgrace here, he will strive to get to America, where he threatens, I hear, to do much mischief to me. However, he will not probably be permitted to depart, unless he slips off very privately. Should that be the case, or should he write letters, you have now a clue to unravel him and his proceedings. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... still! The Saviour, indeed, does not now lead us forth, amid the scene of our trial, as He did the bereft sisters, to unravel the mysteries of His providence, and to shew glory to God, redounding from the darkest of His dispensations. To us the grand sequel is reserved for eternity. The grand development of the divine plan will not ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... thought,—"To find no contradiction in the union of old and new; to contemplate the Ancient of Days and all his works with feelings as fresh as if all had then sprung forth at the first creative fiat, this characterizes the mind that feels the riddle of the world, and may help to unravel it. To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood; to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which everyday for perhaps forty years ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... for her. Should he not welcome change? Thinking that perhaps fruit-time is better than blossom-time, he foresaw a deeper love awaiting him, and a tenderness that he could not feel to-day might be his in years to come. Nor could habit blunt his perceptions or intimacy unravel the mystery of her sunny nature. So the bourne could never be reached; for when everything had been said, something would remain unspoken. The two rhythms out of which the music of life is made, intimacy and adventure, would meet, would merge, and become one; and she, who was ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... council some time after the rupture, produced his appointment, which, unlike certain others, was expressed in the legal form. Thus again all the previous proceedings were quashed; and the governor, unable to unravel the difficulty, dismissed the council, to await instructions from Downing-street, or a warrant for the nominees under the sign-manual of the Queen (July, 1847). Thus during 1847 there was no legislature sitting, but at length ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... impossible for me to use. If I were to attempt to unravel the strand of truth from the web of falsehood, it would end in your condemning me the more. The canons of conduct in France are so different from those in America that what is permissible in one country is heinous in the other. In the ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... Chayne, and now he spoke with suspense. Suspense, too, was visible in his quiet attitude. There was a mystery which for Sylvia's sake he wished to unravel. Why did Gabriel Strood now call himself Garratt Skinner? That was the mystery. But he must unravel it without doing any hurt to Sylvia. He could not go too warily—of that he had been sure, ever since Kenyon had refused to speak of it. There might be some hidden thing which for Sylvia's ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... make a fishing-line. To make a strong fine line, unravel a good silk handkerchief, and twist the threads into a whipcord. (See also "Substitutes ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... widower. Perhaps that accounted to some extent for his condition. That he should have a younger son—also named Duncan—a cross ne'er-do-weel like himself—was natural, but how he came to have such a sweet daughter as Elspie, and such a good elder son as Fergus, are mysteries which we do not attempt to unravel or explain. Perhaps these two took after their departed mother. We know not, for we never met her. Certain it is that they did not in the least resemble their undeparted father—except in looks, for McKay ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Thoas, who does not attempt to make any opposition till both are safe, and then he is appeased by one of the ordinary divine interpositions. This device has been so used and abused by Euripides, that in nine out of his eighteen tragedies, a divinity descends to unravel the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... was done, to preclude inconvenient revelations as to their own share in the crime. Maurice, notwithstanding these causes for perturbation, and despite his grief at his father's probable death, remained steadily by the body of the murderer. He was determined, if possible, to unravel the plot, and he waited to possess himself of all papers and other articles which might be found upon the person ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... stern Promethean revolt against the decrees of Fate. The second spirit deliberately allies itself in wanton, bitter glee, with the humorous provocation of humanity, by the cruel Powers of the Air. The psychology of all this is not hard to unravel. The same abnormal sensitiveness that makes him pity the victims of destiny makes him also not unaware of what may be sweet to the palate of the gods in such "merry jests." These two tendencies seem to have grown upon him as years went on and to have become more and more pronounced. Often, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... cool; his style chaste and beautiful, with but little ornament; he spoke only from the brain—there was nothing from the heart. In argument he was exceedingly cogent and lucid, and when the subject seemed most complicated, the acuteness of his analytical mind seemed to unravel and lay bare the true features of the case, with an ease and power that required scarce an effort. His powers of ratiocination were very great, and this was the forte of his mind; his conclusions were clearly deduced from ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... came general relaxation around the camp-fire. The men, who had all day been strung to a keen pitch of nervous energy, lounged in loose, picturesque uncouthness, while each began to unravel his own lively miscellany of information or invention. There was jest, laughter, spinning of yarns, singing of songs. As Peter lay in the fire-light, smoking his brier-wood, he noticed that the man ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... lost sight of, becomes invisible, amid the jostling activities of a national life like the American. Moreover, several causes were contributing to the same end and, had any one stopped to endeavour to do it, it would not have been at any time easy to unravel the threads and show what proportion of the fabric was woven by each; but if it had been possible to affix an intellect-meter to the aggregate brain of the American people during the last twenty years, of such ingenious ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... born detective—a regular Sherlock Holmes in real life. I have tested him several times with extraordinary results. I have given him the most difficult cases to unravel. He has found the ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... woman; but as the oldest among us, and their fathers before them, had always heard it spoken of in exactly the same terms, they were further puzzled to account for her preternatural longevity." A well-directed course of enquiry in England, speedily enabled the Khan to unravel the mystery; and he has enlightened his countrymen with full details on the composition of the venerable Begum, with the Court of Directors, the Board of Control, &c.; but in the prosecution of these researches, he was surprised by finding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... to unravel this mystery; but then, before she had gone far in her ruminations, she began to wonder if she wanted Nelson to change toward her? That question frightened her, and she would at once refuse to face the situation ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... he knew "all about" Coryndon; he knew at least, that the Government of India looked upon him as the best man they had to unravel the most intricate case that murder or forgery, coining or fraud of any sort, could tangle into mysterious knots. Coryndon had intuition and patience, and once he undertook a case he followed it through to the ultimate conclusion; ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... The more these Men began to consider, the more furiously these Plotters carry'd on their Extravagances; at last they made a General push at a thing in which they knew if the other High Men joyn'd, they must throw all into Confusion, bring a Foreign Enemy on their Backs, unravel all the Thread of the War, fight all their Victories back again, and involve the whole Nation ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... would not learn to unravel wool before the mast. I suppose your mother taught you when you were small—if you ever ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... phrenologists tells us, lies above caution, and has dangerous and active neighbors—wit, imagination, language, ideality—so the poor cottage is hung round with fancies, and the man exists to help his fellows. He may fail; but others take up his tangled thread, and unravel it, and carry on the great ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... great men with whom he must deal are the great men who are no longer great—mammoths and ichthyosauri kindly preserved to us, among the siftings of so many epochs, by the impartial benignity of Time. It is for him to unravel the jokes of Erasmus, and to be at home among the platitudes of Cicero. It is for him to sit up all night with the spectral heroes of Byron; it is for him to exchange innumerable alexandrines with the faded ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... whose wills are opposite to mine, Of men, great men, determined to resign) Let me, (with firmness, which becomes a king. Conscious from what a source my actions spring, Determined not by worlds to be withstood, When my grand object is my country's good) Unravel all low ministerial scenes, Destroy their jobs, lay bare their ways and means, 620 And track them step by step; let me well know How places, pensions, and preferments go; Why Guilt's provided for when Worth ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... matter. Their one frail little hold on the miracle that could make Blossom whole had snapped when the hotel mother and child went away. Where to turn next for information—what to do next—was a puzzle that would not unravel for any of them. In vain Uncle Jem wrestled with it, as he lay through long, patient ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... insulting mandate of the empress Sophia, "that he should leave to men the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hand of the eunuch." "I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily unravel!" is said to have been the reply which indignation and conscious virtue extorted from the hero. Instead of attending, a slave and a victim, at the gate of the Byzantine palace, he retired to Naples, from ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... July on which I must touch for a moment. It was evening. I was returning with Tom to Lizard Town from Dead Man's Rock, where we had been basking all the sunny afternoon, Tom reading, and I simply staring vacantly into the heavens and wondering when the time would come that should set me free to unravel the mystery of this ill-omened spot. Finally, after taking our fill of idleness, we bathed as the sun was setting; and I remember wondering, as I dived off the black ledge, whether beneath me there lay any relic of the Belle Fortune, any ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wast in the neighbourhood, and I would unravel a few arguments with thee; a few quiddities about thy profession. I know thou art skilful at thy trade, which, though a vocation having its basis in fraud, finding countenance through the weakness and credulity of mankind, doth yet hold the commonalty in thrall and terror—a restraint which none ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... on 'Obscure Diseases of the Brain and Nerves' {258} contains a passage so very descriptive of the case of Lord Byron, that it might seem to have been written for it. The sixth chapter of his work, on 'Anomalous and Masked Affections of the Mind,' contains, in our view, the only clue that can unravel the sad tragedy of Byron's ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... San Pasqual, and such was his perturbation that he sought to have "Doc" Taylor unravel the ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... Sherman, which, in the pursuit of his destiny, and for the furtherance of his education, he inhabited for two memorable weeks. He learned there more lessons than a few, and encountered more tangled skeins of destiny than he is ever likely to unravel. The matter has so direct a bearing, both on the subject of architecture and of democracy, that it is worth discussing ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... said, or I meant to say, I was troubled in it. That's all; and if you're a mite of a man you'll try and help me unravel this tangle and quit foolin'. Just step into that closet with me and maybe the tackers'll tell you themselves. I'd rather you heard it ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... he had recovered were things that at the moment did not exercise my mind—nor have I since been at any pains to unravel the mystery of it; but there he was, and for the moment that fact was all-sufficing. What complications would come of his presence Heaven ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... she urged gently. "I know what it means to you. You feel it your duty to unravel the secret of the percussion cap? You can't; no man can. No one knows the inventor more intimately than I, and even I couldn't get it from him. There are no plans for it in existence, and even if there were he would no more sell ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... twelve? It is not necessary to find a satisfactory answer to all the questions that may arise from the reading of the Bible, and the finite mind should not be discouraged if it fails to fathom the reasons of the Infinite Intelligence. If there are mysteries in the Bible that we cannot unravel they are not greater than the mysteries in nature with which we must deal whether we understand them ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... fled, and which he did reject when misfortunes had broken his heart, and disease had brought him to face the realities of the future life. So God raised up Pascal to expose the sophistries of the Jesuits and unravel that subtle casuistry which was undermining the morality of the age, and destroying the authority of Saint Augustine on some of the most vital principles which entered into the creed of the Catholic Church. Thus Jonathan Edwards, the ablest theologian which this country has seen, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... of the Stamp Act, all America was quiet; but in the following year you would go in pursuit of your peppercorn—you would collect from peppercorn to peppercorn—you would establish taxes as tests of obedience. Unravel the whole conduct of America; you will find out the fault is at home." Pownall, former Governor of Massachusetts and earnest advocate of American rights, said: "The dependence of the colonies is a part of the British Constitution. I hope, for the sake of this country, for the sake of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... took him away from me. Still, I hardly cried. All the way up in the train, whenever I was awake, an idea had been haunting me—a possible clue to this trickery of Lord Southminster's. Petty details cropped up and fell into their places. I began to unravel it all now. I had an inkling of a plan to ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... who forsook me not when I was forsaken by every one. You have had your reward. You live happy in the esteem and love of all who know you, and I drag on the life of a miserable impostor, indebted for the marks of regard I receive to a tissue of deceit and lies, which the slightest accident may unravel. He has produced me to his friends, since the estate opened to him, as a daughter of a Scotchman of rank, banished on account of the Viscount of Dundee's wars—that is, our Fr's old friend Clavers, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and now felt its first attacks. It had not been in his power to look upon the young lady without being dazzled; and the uneasiness he felt at following the muleteer at a distance, and the fear lest any accident might happen by the way that should deprive him of his conquest, taught him to unravel his thoughts. He was more than usually delighted, when, being arrived safe at home, he saw the chest unloaded. He dismissed the muleteer, and having caused a slave to shut the door of his house, opened the chest, helped the lady out, gave her his hand, and conducted her to his apartment, lamenting ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... is at once the delight and the despair of the amateur, who finds no greater pleasure than an evening spent in endeavouring to unravel the intricacies of chamber music, nor any keener disappointment than the realisation that it is capable ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... on the right track. He recalled that Jane Strong over the dictograph had heard old Hoff speak of something that he called the "wonder-worker." As soon as Carter returned with the other advertisements that had been appearing he felt positive that he would be able to unravel the cipher. Two words he was sure of—"passports" and "wonder-working." One footprint does not lead anywhere, but two do, and given three ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... does Pope apply his good sense to morality? His favourite doctrine about human nature is expressed in the theory of the 'ruling passion' which is to be found in all men, and which, once known, enables us to unravel the secret of every character. As he says in the 'Essay ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... regular employment in the palace, and he contrived to make a rough plan of the building. This plan, on which the dining-hall was marked with an ominous red cross, fell into the hands of the police, and they made what they considered a careful investigation; but they failed to unravel the plot and did not discover the dynamite concealed in the carpenters' sleeping quarters. Halturin showed wonderful coolness while the search was going on, and continued to sleep every night on the explosive, though it caused him excruciating ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... her book. "I was quite prepared to hear it," she said; "all the unpleasant complications since your Divorce—and Heaven only knows how many of them have presented themselves—have been left for me to unravel. It so happens—though I was too modest to mention it prematurely—that I have unraveled this complication. If one only has eyes to see it, there is a way out of every difficulty that can possibly happen." She pushed the book that she ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... and I looked forward to the fresh enterprise of new rivers and lower latitudes, that should unravel the mystery of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... existence of deaf relatives. It is unfortunate that in these returns it is impossible to distinguish between degrees of relationship, but in such an extensive compilation it was doubtless impracticable to attempt to unravel the intricacies of consanguinity. Judging from the returns of the Census of Ireland we may assume that about half of the cases returned ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... reproduced on earth, until a web of fiction and allegory was woven, partly by art and partly by the ignorance of error, which the wit of man, with his limited means of explanation, will never unravel. Even the Hebrew Theism became involved in symbolism and image-worship, borrowed probably from an older creed and remote regions of Asia,—the worship of the Great Semitic Nature-God AL or ELS and its symbolical ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... on. There is fear lest, in occupying the mind in the study of the details, and trying to pierce the mystery it partly unfolds, we should forget our own individual share in it. Better to burn in on our hearts the thought, 'I shall be there,' than to lose the solemn impression in efforts to unravel the difficulties of the passage. Difficulties there are, as is to be expected in even Christ's revelation of so unparalleled a scene. Many questions are raised by it which will never be solved till we stand there. Who can tell how much of the parabolic element enters ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... basis of many a double meaning. There is, in fact, no lyric song describing natural scenery that may not have beneath it some implied, often indelicate, allusion whose riddle it takes an adroit and practiced mind to unravel. ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... least form some idea? To say that God is the author of the phenomena that we see, is it not attributing them to an occult cause? What is God? What is a spirit? They are causes of which we have no idea. Sages! study nature and her laws; and when you can from them unravel the action of natural causes, do not go in search of supernatural causes, which, very far from enlightening your ideas, will but entangle them more and more and make it impossible ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... suppose, and the uneasiness of a heart that has lost its owner, and seeks and seeks again, turning for comfort like a poor lost dog to every face which may prove friendly. Just now things seem to be in such a dreadful tangle that I can not even find a thread of it that I can unravel. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... surprising than the discovery of a conspiracy to subvert the government, and to fix on the throne Arabella Stuart, a near relation of the king's by the family of Lenox, and descended equally from Henry VII. Every thing remains still mysterious in this conspiracy; and history can give us no clew to unravel it. Watson and Clarke, two Catholic priests, were accused of the plot; Lord Grey, a Puritan; Lord Cobham, a thoughtless man, of no fixed principle; and Sir Walter Raleigh, suspected to be of that philosophical sect who were then extremely rare ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... chieftains, 55 Our best, our noblest, are assembled around you, Their kinglike leader! On your nod they wait. The single threads, which here your prosperous fortune Hath woven together in one potent web Instinct with destiny, O let them not 60 Unravel of themselves. If you permit These chiefs to separate, so unanimous Bring you them not a second time together. 'Tis the high tide that heaves the stranded ship, And every individual's spirit waxes 65 In the great ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the denouement, the setting all to rights: and our poet, in the management of his moral, is certainly superior to his great ancient predecessors. The moral of their fables, if any they have, is so interwoven with the main body of their work, that in endeavouring to unravel it we should tear the whole. Our author has very properly preserved his whole and entire for the end of his poem, where he completes his main design, the reformation of ...
— English Satires • Various
... belief of victory, not for one single moment did a weak or yielding desire creep around his heart. Subtly as the scheme was varnished, and scarce a tithe of its comprehensive enormity unfolded, the strong and acute mind of one long accustomed to unravel sophistry and gaze on the loveliness of truth, saw at once that the scheme proposed was of the most unmingled treachery and baseness. Sick, chilled, withering at heart, Glendower leaned against the damp wall; as every word which the tempter fondly imagined ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be glad to learn what a bloater is, a mystery which I endeavoured to unravel when lately on the Norfolk coast. A bloater, I was informed, is a large, plump herring (as we say a bloated toad); and the genuine claimants of the title fall by their own weight from ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... to remark to married men that the era of prospective paternity is an era of sacrifice. Why, in this time-honored custom, so much depends on one's mother-in-law, is a mystery I never could unravel. I look upon it as one of the unaccountable fatalities of man, to be placed in the category of grievances with prickly heat. Let it not be understood that my conduct was absolutely lamb-like. It was not until solemnly assured the visit would ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... to-day, and although he could not be suffered to return to the school, he might at least be spared the shame of confronting his schoolmates after discovery. For he would leave no stone unturned, he said, emphatically, to unravel the mystery; and if nothing came to light before to-night, he should at once place the matter in ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... made a full confession of what had taken place, and had made honest restitution of the money he had taken. Under all the circumstances, therefore, I was inclined to think that Edwards and his companion had taken the gold, and that the capture of the remaining robber would unravel ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... account of their number and lamentable inexperience, of taking the sole lead in military affairs. Is there not some one either amongst them or in the background, who knows how to think, direct, and act? Is it Bergeret? Is it Cluseret? The future perhaps will unravel the mystery. In the meantime, and in spite of the reverses to which the Federals have had to submit during these last days, the whole of Paris unites in unanimous surprise at the extreme regularity ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... of plunder. They are very like their neighbors, however, in one respect; such among them as take any great interest in my extraordinary outfit find it entirely beyond their comprehension; the bicycle is a Gordian knot too intricate for their semi-civilized minds to unravel, and there are no Alexanders among them to think of cutting it. Before they recover from their first ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... refused to confess to you from any stubbornness, but from the simple reason that she has nothing to confess. I am firmly convinced that things are as she stated them, Mrs. Willis. There is a mystery here which we neither of us can explain, but which we must unravel." ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... could possibly be opposed to it, and good and sufficient transport to admit of its being kept together, with the definite object in view of rescuing our besieged countrymen and defeating Ayub Khan; instead of, as at Kabul, having to begin to unravel a difficult political problem after accomplishing the defeat of the tribesmen ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... drove to the police-office. It seemed to him now that she must have been foully dealt with in some way. He could think of no one but Potts; yet how Potts could manage it was a mystery. That mystery he himself could not hope to unravel. The police might. With that confidence in the police which is common to all Continentals he went and made known his troubles. The officials at once promised to make inquiries, and told him to call on the ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... and to the laws by which the offspring resembles the parents, I answer: Is not that a greater wonder still? A wonder which all the discoveries of the scalpel and the microscope have been as yet unable, and will be, I believe, to the last unable, to unravel, even to touch? A wonder which can be explained by no theories of vibratory atoms, vital forces, plastic powers of nature, or other such phrases, which are but metaphysical abstractions, having no counterpart in fact, and only hiding from us our ignorance of the vast ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... have been rather a dishonorable way in which to dispose of a rival! Ah, the evening is slow in coming. Thank God! the sun is setting, the night will soon fall; the moon will rise and I shall know my fate; the widow will tell me everything, I shall unravel all the profound mystery which is hidden from me now. Let me think over the sonnet which I have reserved for a grand effect—it is intended to describe the beauty of her eyes. Perhaps she has never heard a sonnet—possibly she will be sensible of its beauty and spirit; ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... do I wait, to hear some gray-hair'd king Unravel all his many-colour'd lore; Whose mind hath known all arts of governing, Mused much, loved life a little, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... be learned in a snowy field than volumes could tell. There is the tangle of footprints to unravel, the history of the pastimes and foragings and tragedies of the past night writ large and unmistakable. Though the sun now shines brightly, we can well imagine the cold darkness of six hours ago; we can reconstruct ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... found you in the twilit garden, Laid a lover's hand upon your shoulder, And we both were made aware of loving Past the reach of reason to unravel, Or the much desiring ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... great Albert Lake that we had so long striven to reach. No European foot had ever trod upon its sand, nor had the eyes of a white man ever scanned its vast expanse of water. We were the first; and this was the key to the great secret that even Julius Caesar yearned to unravel, but in vain! ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... which the observatory was situated. Other defects also existed, which seemed to preclude the likelihood that the future work of the instrument would be of a high class. I had also found that very difficult mathematical investigations were urgently needed to unravel one of the greatest mysteries of astronomy, that of the moon's motion. This was a much more important work than making observations, and I wished to try my hand at it. So in the autumn I made a formal application to the Secretary of the Navy to be ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... Bart, will not work, will not strip to the long, patient, delving drudgery necessary to unravel, separate, analyze, weigh, measure, estimate and count, and come to like work for work's sake, and so grow to do the best and most work. They deal a few heavy blows, scatter things, pick up a ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... shelter of the great woods. The trail was not a good one; but the snow among the trees was far from being the hindrance it was in the open; and though their progress was slow, on the whole it was steady. Except for forced halts to unravel the harness when it caught in the bushes, they did not stop for two hours, but pressed on until they reached an open space in the woods, which they crossed in a smother of blinding snow. On the other side of this break they came to a fresh ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... Who will unravel this tangle? Nature confutes the sceptics, and reason confutes the dogmatists. What then will you become, O men! who try to find out by your natural reason what is your true condition? You cannot avoid one of these sects, nor adhere to one ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... my cabin, Underneath the painted rafters, In this house renowned and ancient? Shall I now these boxes open, Boxes filled with wondrous stories? Shall I now the end unfasten Of this ball of ancient wisdom? These ancestral lays unravel? Let me sing an old-time legend, That shall echo forth the praises Of the beer that I have tasted, Of the sparkling beer of barley, Bring to me a foaming goblet Of the barley of my fathers, Lest my singing grow too weary, Singing from the water only. Bring me too a cup of strong beer; It will add ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... care, Gentlemen Members of Congress! look to your words and your Acts honestly and wisely in future! don't palter with Liberty again! it is not well that soldiers should get into the habit of thinking they are always to unravel the snarls and cut the knots twisted and tied by clumsy or crafty fingers. The traitor States already need the main de fer,—yes, and without the gant de velours. Let us beware, and keep ourselves worthy of the boon of self-government, man by man! I do not wish to hear, "Order arms!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... in a position to analyse and to deal with each in turn. You might be obscured by ophthalmia, crippled by gout or consumed to a spectre by phthisis, and I should be able, without haste, without anxiety, to unravel the coil, to reduce the nodosities, to make the fleshy instrument respond in melody to ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... Others again count only three kinds of foxes—the Field-fox, the Man-fox, and the Inari-fox. But many confound the Field- fox or wild fox with the Man-fox, and others identify the Inari-fox with the Man-fox. One cannot possibly unravel the confusion of these beliefs, especially among the peasantry. The beliefs vary, moreover, in different districts. I have only been able, after a residence of fourteen months in Izumo, where the superstition is especially strong, and marked by certain unique ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... comprehension. It could only have been by passing behind her very quietly while she was bumping with the iron. But this notion did not satisfy her: it was surely impossible that she should not have seen him come in through a room so small. She could not unravel the mystery, and felt very queer and uncomfortable about it. However, she would not disturb him to question him then, and went ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... is not scientific, facts are not "observed and noted with scrupulous care," and conclusions are drawn without warranted data to support them. On the whole then, one must say that this work fails to unravel some "knots in this tangled skein of human endeavor and error." When after a survey of the history of the Negro during the last fifty years an investigator concludes that the Negro has shown an incapacity for commerce and finance, and that he must not struggle to equip himself ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... post-office, that the names are disguised on purpose."—"Do you think then, that they amuse themselves at the post-office by opening and reading all the letters of business which pass through? They could not get through them. I have attempted to unravel the correspondence carried on under the disguise of banking transactions, but I could never succeed. The post-office is like the police, only fools are caught; yet think of any other method: I shall ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... judging that the discussion had gone far enough, the coroner intervened and said that Mr Inspector had done his best to unravel a very difficult case. That he had not succeeded was the fault of the case and not of Mr Inspector, and for his part, he thought that the thanks of the Beorminster citizens were due to the efforts of so zealous and intelligent ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... are two New Hampshire men who are believed in Exeter, and Newbury, and Newburyport, and Salem to be rascals; but we in Newmarket believe, in spite of all evidence against them, that they are the victims of some conspiracy. We think you are the man to unravel it, though it seems a good deal tangled even to us. Still we suppose that men whom we know to have been honest all their lives can't have become such desperate rogues all of a sudden." "But I cannot take the case," persisted Mr. Webster; "I am worn to death with over-work. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... my child! It is true, but only while he has had no reason to mistrust. Let him once perceive ground for dissatisfaction or suspicion, and his eye is keen as light itself to penetrate and unravel.' ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... will choke down the anger that inflames me, and hear all you have to say about your mission. I must unravel this confusion before I see my wife. Collect your senses, think well over what you say, and answer each question ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... translate for him such facts in the O'Donnel family history as I could unravel from the tangled web. The mystery of Angele de la Mole's Spanish-speaking Irish friends (which she must have refrained from explaining in order to play a joke upon Dick) was solved in a sentence. An O'Donnel grandfather had fought in Spain under Wellington in the Peninsular War, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... calumnies, new accusations arose. He had taken lands unjustly, owed men for imaginary wrongs, had relations with the tulisanes, by which his plantations and herds were unmolested. The affair became so complicated that no one could unravel it. Your father gave way under the strain, and died ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... in English style in honour of the discovery, but now that I looked down upon the great inland sea lying nestled in the very heart of Africa, and thought how vainly mankind had sought these sources throughout so many ages, and reflected that I had been the humble instrument permitted to unravel this portion of the great mystery when so many greater than I had failed, I felt too serious to vent my feelings in vain cheers for victory, and I sincerely thanked God for having guided and supported us through all dangers to the good end. I was about 1,500 feet above the lake, ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... But I would not seek to unravel it, Angelique," remarked Amelie, "I feel there is sin in it. Do not touch it: it will only bring mischief upon you if ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... a bit of difference; they are property for all that, subject to legal restraints. Your claim will be valid against it. You may have to play nicely over some intricate legal points. But, remember, nigger law is wonderfully elastic; it requires superhuman wisdom to unravel its social and political intricacies, and when I view it through the horoscope of an indefinite future it makes my very head ache. You may, however, let your claim revert to another, and traverse the case until such time as you can procure ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... biographers of Knox, have not taken the trouble to unravel this question of the treaty of July 24. But the behaviour of the Lords and of Knox seems ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... with in these courts. Is the criminal Negro justly dealt with in the courts of the South? is a question that I think is more frequently asked than words can answer, language describe, or man's wisdom unravel. Our woes have gone out to the ends of the earth and, the stagnant waters can no longer contain its contaminating germs, and now, even on the other side of the globe, we hear the re-echo of our cries from this damnable ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... when I had read a few pages more, I found that I had picked the wrong person. Then I accused another character on perfectly good circumstantial evidence, and he was not the man. After that I decided to withdraw from the detective business and let Miss SILBERRAD unravel her mystery for herself. If you are of the opinion that a woman cannot keep a secret read The Mystery of Barnard Hanson and become convinced that Miss SILBERRAD at least is an exception. If I have ever read a more perfectly sustained mystery novel I cannot recall it. There is just a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... growth. Men should be intelligent and earnest. They must also make us feel that they have a controlling happy future opening before them, whose early twilights already kindle in the passing hour. The hero is misconceived and misreported; he cannot therefore wait to unravel any man's blunders; he is again on his road, adding new powers and honors to his domain and new claims on your heart, which will bankrupt you if you have loitered about the old things and have not kept your relation to him by adding to your wealth. New actions are the ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... have happened under a Parliamentary government. But, then, many members of Parliament, the entire Opposition in Parliament, would have been active to unravel the matter. All the principles of finance would have been worked and propounded. The light would have come from above, not from below—it would have come from Parliament to the nation instead of from the nation to Parliament But exactly the reverse ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... under him without compunction or mercy. Eva cautioned him to be more than silent on the subject for the child's sake as well as for their own, and Anderson saw wisdom in her counselling. He even lagged in his avowed intention to unravel the mystery or die in the attempt. A sharp reminder in the shape of an item in the Banner restored his energies, and he again took up the case with a vigour that startled even himself. Anything in the shape of vigour startled ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... had found a treasure in his new acquaintance, returned to the charge; but I was not more docile. A few days after, I was surprised by an attack of the same kind from M. de Beauvilliers. How or when he had formed an intimacy with Maisons, I have never been able to unravel; but formed it, he had; and he importuned me so much, nay exerted his authority over me, that at last I found I must give way. Not to offend M. d'Orleans by yielding to another after having refused to yield to him, I waited until he should again speak to me on ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... we nevertheless parted in a wilderness of doubt. There was a mystery in the matter,—a surprise for the world or a surprise for ourselves,—which time, it would seem, with its busy thumb and finger, must be left to unravel at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... vice-consul had been willing to listen, and patient enough to calm the boy's excitement and unravel the story, its value would have been apparent. But his skeptical manner only threw Stuart more off his balance. The vice-consul was, by temperament, a man of routine, an efficient official but lacking in imagination. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... said; "then it is of no use troubling you further. I have got my book back; but I confess that this affords me but small gratification in comparison to that which I should feel if I could unravel this mystery." ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... such relations of Japheth and Shem in their own places. Would Noah, who was so much disgusted at his son Ham as to curse him, permit the children of his other sons, whom he blessed, to have any communication with his children? Bishop Cumberland, in the last century, took some pains to unravel this, and concluded that the marginal translation in our bibles is the right one—that in the text being, "Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh", &c.; that in the margin, "And he [Nimrod] went ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... Sometimes these were more or less cleared up after the assembled wit and wisdom of the community had frowned and bitten their nails over them for several hours. Others were of a nature which it passed the wit of man—Eskimo man at least—to unravel. A few of these, like the watch, had some light thrown on them by Nazinred, who had either seen something like them in use among the fur-traders, or whose sagacity led him to ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne |
