"Clue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one more thing I can suggest," said the deep, clear voice, "and that is that you go over to Egypt yourself. Who knows if you might not pick up a clue. Detectives have failed, though I think we made a mistake in employing English ones, they hardly seem tactful or subtle enough ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... clue to the ability of the small workshop to survive— its superior flexibility from the point ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... commissioner of excise "one of the lowest of all human beings." This violence of language seems so little reasonable, that the editor was induced to suspect some cause of personal animosity; this mention of the trade in parchment (an excisable article) afforded a clue, which has led to the confirmation of that suspicion. In the records of the Excise Board is to be found the following letter, addressed to the supervisor of excise at Lichfield:—"July 27, 1725—The commissioners received yours of the 22nd instant; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... Holding fast this clue, we have next to take into consideration another fact of not less importance,—that over the whole of the rounded banks of lower mountain, wherever they have been in anywise protected from the injuries ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... have said something," insisted Berry jocosely. "Give a fellow some little clue, and I can piece it out for myself. What did she say? I don't ask which she was? but I have my suspicions. All I want to know is what she said. Anything like beautiful middle distance, or splendid chiaroscuro, or fine perspective, or exquisite modelling? Come now! Try to think, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... in front of S. His Express was at his shoulder on the instant; he fired, and a tremendous spurt of blood shewed a hit, a hit, a palpable hit. The tiger was nowhere visible, and not a cry or a motion could we hear or see, to give us any clue to the whereabouts of the wounded animal. We followed up however, quickly but cautiously, expecting every instant ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... enactments, which we are denied the power of defending. Would to Heaven! that they would quit France. Is it not enough to cause us to despise both the Assembly and the people of Paris, when we see that the clue of this is, that the supreme control was on the point of eluding the grasp of Lameth and La Fayette, and that Duport and Barnave would not be ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... there was nothing valuable to be found; in fact there was nothing at all to be found that could lead to identification—no letters, no papers, nothing. It was plain that whoever had struck the dead man down had subsequently stripped him of whatever was on him. The only clue to possible identity lay in the fact that a soft cap of grey cloth appeared to have been newly purchased at a fashionable shop in the ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... this Great Man theory gave no scientific clue to history. If the Great Man was a supernatural phenomenon, a gift from Olympus, then of course History had no scientific basis, but was dependent upon the arbitrary caprices of the Gods, and Homer's Iliad was a specimen of accurate descriptive ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... my trouble to find out about Ethelberta, here comes the clue unasked for,' said the musician to his sister ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... you make a remark?—Oh, what mountains? You must really pardon me; I cannot give you such a clue as that to the identity of my dear Consul, just now, for excellent and sufficient reasons. But if you have paid your money for the sight of this Number, you may take your choice of all the mountain ranges on the continent, from the Rocky to the White, and settle him just ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... promise, even when originally inspected, of furnishing a key to the centuries-old mystery of the hieroglyphics. For two thousand years the secret of these strange markings had been forgotten. Nowhere in the world—quite as little in Egypt as elsewhere—had any man the slightest clue to their meaning; there were even those who doubted whether these droll picturings really had any specific meaning, questioning whether they were not merely vague symbols of esoteric religious import and nothing more. And it was the Rosetta Stone that gave the answer to these doubters, and ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... Brabam, for Jaques Huguetan, I found the following copy of verses written on the fly-leaf. They are written in a hand which I am inclined to assign to a date {569} not much later than that of the book. There is no clue to the author. If they are thought worthy of insertion in "N. & Q.," I beg to inquire, through the medium of your columns, whether they are to be found in any collection of early English poems? and whether the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... the poor boy so ill," she said. "We have all been very anxious indeed about poor Mr. Peter. We had tried every clue but could hear nothing of him. We were especially eager to find him because Miss Monogue had some good news for him about his book. There is a gentleman—a friend of Mr. Peter's—who has been doing everything to find him—who is with Miss Monogue now. He will be delighted. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... mystery which time must elucidate, for it baffled all conjecture. He did little more than echo me, and I pretended I would have ridden half over the world to recover his sister, had there been but the least clue; but there was not, and I found myself obliged to sit still in ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... borrowing from other races and religions those ideas useful for their purpose has always been the custom of the Jews. The Cabala, as we have seen, was made up of these heterogeneous elements. And it is here we find the principal progenitor of Gnosticism. The Freemason Ragon gives the clue in the words: "The Cabala is the key of the occult sciences. The Gnostics ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... and removing only the firearms from their glass case. At the last minute, he had a presentiment, which has been justified to-day, that the discovery of the telescope which had played so great a part in the preparation of his crime might serve as a clue to an enquiry; and he threw it into the clock-case, where, as luck would have it, it interrupted the swing of the pendulum. This unreflecting action, one of those which every criminal inevitably commits, was to betray him twenty years later. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... his tea in silence, and during the evening continued absorbed in reflection; and, notwithstanding the various ill-natured remarks of his wife upon his strange conduct retired without giving her the slightest clue to its cause. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... life, would not have desired it. For in leaving her millstones she would have lost a world whose boundaries she had never touched, and a life whose sweetness she had never exhausted. And she would have lost her clue to knowledge of him who was to her always the boy in the old jersey who had knocked at her door so ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... and professions, none of which seemed to suit the part, until I made him a quaint old Dutchman, a nursery-man who loved his garden and perennials—the flowers that pass away and return season after season. This gave a clue to his character; gave him the right to found his belief in immortality on the lessons learned ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... he pulled the window to behind him, still with his eyes upon her. In that moment he was complete master of himself. He stood aloof, shrouded, as it were, in an icy calm. She had no clue to his thoughts. She only knew that by some means, inexplicable and irresistible, he bound her even ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the cellar—something which took many hours a day for months on end. What ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... draws me on to talk; she surrounds me with love and care. And in the midst of it all I sit, in dry misery, hating myself for my feebleness and cowardice, keeping as far as possible my pain to myself, brooding, feverishly straining, struggling hopelessly to recover the clue. The savour has gone out of life; I feel widowed, frozen, desolate. How often have I tranquilly and good-humouredly contemplated the time when I need write no more, when my work should be done, when I should have said all I had to say, ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... gentle soldiers, some short time allow! [To GAZ. and RED. My father has repented him ere now; Or will repent him, when he finds me dead. My clue of life is twined ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... columns of a newspaper, even though it were as old as the times of the Pharaohs? Let us, then, be thankful for what we have, and take the beginnings of history in the mixed form of truth and fiction, following the lead of learned historians who are and long have been trying to trace the true clue of fact in the labyrinth of poetic story with which it ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... wonder if you would help me. You were the first to find the body last night. Would you mind lying down in the position in which it lay? It may give me an important clue. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... No bird ever sang in these gardens of the dead. The entire want of poetry in so transcendent a mind betokens the disease, and like a hoarse voice in a beautiful person, is a kind of warning." Yet Emerson says of him that "He lived to purpose: he gave a verdict. He elected goodness as the clue to which the soul must cling in this labyrinth ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... subterranean abodes. The day passed on, and it grew late; but Marcellus remembered that there were many entrances to the Catacombs, and still he continued his search, hoping before the close of the day to find some clue. ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... how I could have been so unobservant as to overlook this. Here was a clue worth having. Poirot delicately dipped his finger into liquid, and tasted it gingerly. ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... and no fresh clue. Once or twice they had heard of the pale young gentleman and the little boy, but always vaguely, as a fleeting vision which had been ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... ceased storming. He sent for a retired detective-inspector who lived in the neighbouring town. The inspector stayed with him for a whole week. He found neither old Trainard nor the least clue that could give them any hope of finding ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... years had there been a trace of Daddy. Through a silk-merchant acquaintance of his, having relations with Lyons and other foreign centres, David had once come across a rumour which had seemed to promise a clue. He had himself gone across to Lyons at once, and had done all he could. But the clue broke in his hand, and the tanned, long-faced lunatic from Manchester, whereof report had spoken, could be only doubtfully identified ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the former Archbishop and the Countess Matilda gave me a clue. You have discovered a document proving my right to the town of Linz on ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... experience that is there portrayed, both present and prospective. What we as individuals, and nations are now going through in our efforts for betterment, is told in the story of Genesis. More than this, the clue to assured betterment is found there also. This experience is on two lines which are always distinct but never separate—the male and the female. These are indissolubly bound together "from the beginning," the same principles, necessitating the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... only when in the nature appealed to there remains the capability to recognise that right is greater than success or joy, and the moral power of will to act on that recognition. In the fact that Harold's nature does respond to these appeals we have the clue to the apparent anomaly his character presents. We see that, howsoever overlaid by temperament and restrained by circumstance, the noblest capability in man still survives and is active in him. He can choose the right which imperils his ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... with the question: "Did she expect to find a clue to the identity of the person who had stolen her scenario before she left the Red Mill?" she could have made no confident answer. She did not know what she would find when she sat down at Mr. Hammond's desk for the purpose of ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... a boundless curiosity about both men and events. His eyes are the clue to his character. Boardman Robinson, with the caricaturist's gift for catching that feature which exhibits character, said to me one day during the War, "I just passed Colonel House on the street. The most wonderful ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... that wealth which is the only thing the village has ever taught him to desire though it is unable to gratify his desires itself; and in both the youth, turned man, finds himself sickening with his prize in his hands and looks about him for some clue to the meaning of the mad world in which he has succeeded without satisfaction. Sam McPherson, after a futile excursion through the proletariat in search of the peace which he has heard accompanies honest toil, settles down to the task of bringing up some children he has adopted and thus of ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... burglary was effected without noise, not a sound disturbing Miss Wardour, or any of her servants, some of whom are light sleepers, and they have not a single clue by which to trace ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was carrying it to his wife's mother, and sullen as he looked and was, and thief as he was, love for his own swayed him, and made him determined to hold it fast. Von Rosen made all possible inquiries. He employed detectives but he never obtained the least clue to the whereabouts of the little child. He, however, although he grieved absurdly, almost as absurdly as Jane, had a curious sense of joy over the whole. Life in Fairbridge had, before birth and death entered his home, ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fisherman was seen going towards the river, but as he never returned search was made for him. No clue to his whereabouts being found, the credulous Teutons finally reported that the Lorelei had dragged him down to her coral caves that she might ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... This was indeed a clue. Lecoq's hopes at once revived; so eagerly does a man welcome any supposition that is in accordance with his desires. Trembling with anxiety, he went to examine some other footprints a short distance from these; and an excited exclamation at once ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... dejection. The contention in the breast of the lady was equally painful; for, while she divined the nature of Ferguson's melancholy, and was aware that the young doctor's attentions to her would lead her taciturn lover to imagine she was gratified with and encouraged them, she could give him no clue to her own feelings; while her devotion to parental authority deterred her from slighting her more voluble admirer, and her kind and amiable disposition shrank from assuming a state of feelings foreign to her ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... in the Park, the audacious wretch! All these were questions which the infuriate Zuleika put to herself, her confidential maid, her child's nurse, and two or three of her particular friends; and of course she determined that there was but one clue to the mystery of the necklace, which was that her husband had purchased it with the six hundred pounds which he had won at the Derby, which he denied having won even to her, which he had spent in this shameful manner. Nothing ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... Tweed, The spot they ca'd it Linkumdoddie; Willie was a wabster gude, Could stown a clue wi' ony body: He had a wife was dour and din, O Tinkler Maidgie was her mither; Sic a wife as Willie had, I wad na gie a button ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... be innutritious and beef tea nutritious to the sick, is a secret yet undiscovered, but it clearly shows that careful observation of the sick is the only clue to ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... which Lord Cairnforth asked himself continually, in an agony of doubt, no answer came—no clue whatsoever, though, from even the first week, Helen's letters reached the Manse as regularly as clock work. But they were merely outside letters—very sweet and loving —telling her father every thing that could interest him about foreign ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... shield some one. That shows your kind heart, of course, but it won't quite do for the law. At any rate you will tell us what aroused your suspicions. It's very important, you know, for the slightest clue may be of service. And then, of course, there is ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... breath, yet, like that, fraught with incalculable values. All this Silverthorn must have felt to the full, judging from the tender way in which he held the flowers, even while absorbed in talk with his friend. His fingers seemed conscious that they were touching the clue to a finer life. In Vibbard's warm, tough fist, the lilacs would have faded within ten minutes. Vibbard was stocky and muscular, and his feet went down at each step as if they never meant to come up again. He wore stylish clothes, kept ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... drew from his pocket a clue of small cord, and, having carefully uncoiled it, attached one end to an arrow. He then rode up to within thirty yards of the house, and dismounted—not directly opposite the entrance, but a little to one side—so ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... emancipated by Santhonax in the North, we have nothing to communicate. They were made free for military purposes only; and we have no clue whereby we can find out ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... listlessly upon the "queer doin's" at the farm, and never get anywhere near the truth. Indeed, the strange occurrences she had just heard were nearly forgotten in the community, and soon would be forgotten altogether—unless the quick ear of a young girl had caught the clue so ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... at the order, and turned it round, and examined the back of it, but there was no clue to the mystery. ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... ascertain their adaptations and their relations to the forces of Nature, to realize what the world appears to them; these constitute, as it seems to me at least, the true interest of natural history, and may even give us the clue to senses and perceptions of which at present we ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... his characteristic dress, standing apart on the poop steps. But perhaps I turned on the whole with the greatest curiosity to the figure labelled "E. Goddedaal, 1st off." He whom I had never seen, he might be the identical; he might be the clue and spring of all this mystery; and I scanned his features with the eye of a detective. He was of great stature, seemingly blonde as a viking, his hair clustering round his head in frowsy curls, and two enormous whiskers, like the tusks of some strange animal, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... possible, from some of the young man's intimates in the regiment, whether Wickham has any relations or connections who would be likely to know in what part of town he has now concealed himself. If there were anyone that one could apply to with a probability of gaining such a clue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do everything in his power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thoughts, perhaps, Lizzy could tell us what relations he has now living, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... worthy of her bow. Having nothing to distract her, she considered the problem exhaustively from morning till night, and, if she were not in love with him before, she had got him into her head now, if not into her heart. His being so much with Cecil did not strike her as any clue to the mystery. They were relations, of course, or nearly the same thing; there was no flirting ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... ought not to receive too minute an interpretation. In all such allegories there is a great deal which is merely ornamental, and the interpreter has to separate the important from the unimportant. Socrates himself has given the right clue when, in using his own discourse afterwards as the text for his examination of rhetoric, he characterizes it as a 'partly true and tolerably credible mythus,' in which amid poetical figures, order and ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... letter from his wife's hand and excitedly read it over to himself, going over each word with his blunt forefinger. He turned it over and examined the seal, he looked at the stamp and inside of the envelope, and failing to find any clue to the mystery ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... course, proscribed and suppressed. She had heard her husband occasionally hum a stanza or two of them, and he had once written out a single one for her which she found in her work-basket. This she transmitted to his mother in Germany, and with this clue alone the mother obtained the rest; and eloquent outbreakings they are of a spirit ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... at once," I said. "I cannot afford to let anything pass without examining it. Any little thing might give a clue ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... with the mystery, and baffled by it, searched again perfunctorily. Uncle Dick hunted hither and yon with feverish activity, at first confidently, then doubtfully, finally in despair. He, in his turn, could find no further clue. He gave over his efforts eventually, and stood silent beside the marshal, staring bewilderedly. About the amphitheatre formed by the pool, pines grew in a half-circle, save where the narrow channel of the stream descended. But between the barricade of the trees and the basin of water lay ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... followed soon by guns and troops, governed the issue of the fight. The general's manner was "the manner of a man enlivened by the progress of a great undertaking without being robbed of his leisure. He spoke to me, I remember, about his horse. He seemed like a man who had a clue of his own and knew his way through the battle." When the last gun was fired Kinglake followed the Chief back, witnessed the wild burst of cheering accorded to him by the whole British army, a manifestation, Lord Burghersh tells us, which greatly ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... in M. Fortunat's office at two o'clock on the Tuesday afternoon, he felt that he held every possible clue to the shameful intrigue which would ruin the viscount as soon ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Quixote, for example, must, in order to appreciate in full measure any section of this long work, have a fairly close acquaintance with Cervantes' book—whether derived from an analytical programme or from personal reading: there are neither words nor acting to give a clue, nor does the printed music itself give the slightest assistance, except in so far that a couple of themes are labelled with the names of the 'Knight of the sorrowful countenance' himself and Sancho Panza. Sometimes, no doubt, a composer helps at any rate the purchaser of his music ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... him that my half-dollar, though it was not current money, was worth much more than an English sixpence, valued as old silver. He evidently regarded me as an improper character, and refused to deal with me. I detained the first man I met, and explained my situation, but as I could give him no clue to the whereabouts of the hotel, he could furnish me no assistance. As nearly as I could conjecture, it was within half a mile of the spot where I was standing, but I could not indicate the direction, 'There are fifty hotels,' he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... I left you at the hotel for a short time, after our arrival? I accompanied my friend hither, and received from him the clue to these magic apartments. This is a bathing-room," said he, opening one, where a marble bath and ewer, and every luxurious appliance reminded one of Eastern luxury. Even the air had a soft languor in it, as if perfumed ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... shuttered place was in charge of a caretaker, whose offspring were in temporary possession of its grounds. Laurie inspected other houses, dozens of them. He made his way into strange, new roads. Nowhere was there the slightest clue leading ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... look into every hole and corner, peer into every hole and corner, pry into every hole and corner; nose; trace up; search out, hunt down, hunt out, fish out, ferret out; unearth; leave no stone unturned. seek a clue, seek a clew; hunt, track, trail, mouse, dodge, trace; follow the trail, follow the scent; pursue &c 662; beat up one's quarters; fish for; feel for &c (experiment) 463. investigate; take up an ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of the middle one, then, of the three secret cities, into which at all costs some one must find his way, is Kroten, and the telephone number which is all the clue I have been able to get, up to the present, to the London end of the ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... king. Our minstrel author may have had rather confused historical ideas, and so mixed up certain passages in De la Mare's history with this squabble; and we are strongly inclined to suspect that such is the case, and that it will be found the real clue to the story. Vide Hume's History of England, chap. XVII. A.D. 1398. Lyle acknowledges that he has taken some liberties with the oral version, but does not state what they were, beyond that they consisted merely in 'smoothing down.' Would that he had left it 'in the ROUGH!' The last ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... many theories. Some believed it to be a case of abduction pure and simple, some of revenge; a few recommended the doctors to follow the poison clue and to ascertain if the child had been drugged before she was put into ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... beyond. Two short rows of one-story buildings, distinctive by the brightness of new lumber on their sheltered side, bordered a narrow street, half clogged by the teams of visiting farmers. Not the faintest clue to a hostelry was visible, and the eyes of the man wandered back, interrupting by the way another pair ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... America or Europe rests on two outstanding facts: the substantial unity of its architectural scheme, and its harmony of color, keyed to Nature's coloring of the landscape in which it is placed. The site furnished the clue to the plan; co-operation made possible the great success with which ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... to add these to the instances cited by Mr. Walcott, hoping that the slightly varied form may furnish a clue by which some of your readers may be able to unravel the meaning of such allusions more satisfactorily than any ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... a clue to the fact that the prophets perceived nearly everything in parables and allegories, and clothed spiritual truths in bodily forms, for such is the usual method of imagination. We need no longer wonder that Scripture and the prophets speak so strangely and obscurely of God's Spirit or ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... it was possible for any human speed to accomplish even half of the distance, the report of the other shot came upon his ears, and he even fancied he heard the bullet whistle past his head in tolerably close proximity. This supposition gave him a clue to the direction at all events from whence the shots proceeded, otherwise he knew not from which window they were fired, because it had not occurred to him, previous to leaving home, to inquire in ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... would begin remarks with an air of animation and drop them without a struggle. Her common appearance was of one who has forgotten something and is trying to remember; and when she overhauled, one after another, the worthless and touching mementoes of her youth, she might have been seeking the clue to that lost thought. During this period, she gave many gifts to the neighbours and house lasses, giving them with a manner of ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... certainly share my view that the explanation of the mystery is far too involved and unintelligible. I shall, of course, not anticipate this for you. It has been said that the works of HOMER were not written by HOMER himself, but by another man of the same name. This may, or may not, give you a clue to the murder of Godfrey Pavely. I wish the crime were more worthy of such an artist in creeps as Mrs. LOWNDES has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... beseechingly, 'surely, you cannot be so cruel; surely, you must give me some hope! If Jeanette is not here now, surely, you have heard from her, seen her, can give me some clue to her present whereabouts!' ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... "thirteen-year-old girl, in a brown linen dress, dark curly hair, brown eyes, and—'Oh! just too stylish for words!'" which was the description his daughter had given him. Indeed, he felt that this very "stylishness" might be a clue to the right person; since denizens of that locality, girls or women, are not apt to ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... it, but how could I? All I know is that he was a delicately brought up young Englishman, and the only clue I have is a watch with a London maker's name on it and a girl's photograph. I've a very curious notion that I shall ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... entrance into the house through a window during the night; that he being awake at the moment, and becoming alarmed, hid himself, and, unperceived, beheld his father and mother, his brother and sister, thus foully murdered. A thorough and extensive search was made, but no clue could be obtained that would warrant ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... discovered that my original guess was right and that Lady Moyne's party was definitely political. I found this out when I arrived in the drawing-room before dinner. I was a little too early and there was no one in the room except Moyne. He shook hands with me apologetically and this gave me a clue to the nature of the entertainment before me. He dislikes politics greatly, and would be much happier than he is if he were allowed to hunt and fish instead of attending to such business as is carried on in the House of Lords. But a man cannot ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... us to inform you of. The armies on both sides have been inactive, and our attention is turned on what passes in Europe. Here we are lost in the wide field of expectation and conjecture without a clue to lead us. I must again press you to think of appointing some agent here to receive your salary, which will be paid upon the spot; and may be vested in bills to great advantage. Two quarters' salary have been transmitted by me, but as I am unauthorised in this business, I shall inform Mr Morris ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... foxhound could have kept them in sight. I saw their pursuer laboring up the side of the mountain; saw his white shirtsleeves gleam as he entered the woods; but he returned a few hours afterward without any clue as to the particular tree in which they had taken refuge out of the ten thousand that covered the ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... accident that might account for it. I walked the streets day after day, hoping some acquaintance would accost me. I waited patiently for some impulse to direct me to my former haunts. I searched the newspapers persistently for a clue; but nothing rewarded me. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... Black and Buyers. The details given by Flinders were supplied by William Campbell, master of the Harrington, who, in March 1802, found a quantity of wreckage there. Nothing remained to show the name of the lost vessel, nor was any clue subsequently discovered by which she could be identified. The Harrington lay at anchor at New Year's Isles for over two months, but could not trace the nationality of the vessel or her crew except in the language of the Harrington's captain, "one dead English ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... encouragement given to it, make such relatively meager progress? There are several reasons for its backwardness. The long winters, which developed in the habitant an inveterate disposition to idleness, afford the clue to one of them. A general aversion to unremitting manual toil was one of the colony's besetting sins. Notwithstanding the small per capita acreage, accordingly, there was a continual complaint that not ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... How often, in this climate, should a man have sexual connection with his wife in order to maintain himself in perfect physiological equilibrium? My results enable us to state definitely the minimum limits, and to reply that 37 embraces annually would be too few; but, unfortunately, they give us no clue to the maximum limit. It is obvious that the necessary frequency should be greater than 37 times annually,—possibly very considerably in excess thereof,—seeing that the spontaneous discharges, with which we are dealing, are due to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... passed the last house in the village, lights were glancing and windows grating as they were opened. Years after, I heard the story of such a midnight cry borne past sleeping houses with the quick rattle of wheels; but no one who heard it could give the right clue to its explanation, and it dried ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... valuable correspondents give me the correct date, or any clue to it, of the above dance. There is little doubt of its great antiquity. The dance is begun by a single person (either a woman or man), who {518} dances about the room with a cushion in his hand, and at the end of the tune ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... of even the leading Netherland provinces, during the five centuries which we have thus rapidly sought to characterize, is foreign to our purpose. By holding the clue of Holland's history, the general maze of dynastic transformations throughout the country may, however, be swiftly threaded. From the time of the first Dirk to the close of the thirteenth century ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... too. But I knew I had some clue to it, so I looked through some books by Rudyard Kipling, and found that Chela meant 'Disciple.' What you have told me just now about 'Guru' being 'teacher,' seems to piece the whole ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... cryptic!" murmured Sir Francis, as he folded up the letter and put it by. "There's no clue to anything anywhere. What does he mean by a bad speculation?—a loss 'on the whole gamble'? I know—or at least I thought I knew—every number on which he had put his money. It won't affect his financial position, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... themselves about in this way, some in earnest, some rejoicing in the unwonted license, lifting off for a little while that enormous Sabbath-day pressure which weighs like forty atmospheres on every true-born Puritan, two young men had been since Friday in search of the lost girl, each following a clue of his own, and determined to find her if she ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... afloat in society. The sub-commandant of the Bastille from 1749 to 1787, Chevalier, declared, obviously on the evidence of tradition, that all the Mask's furniture and clothes were destroyed at his death, lest they might yield a clue to his identity. Louis XV. is said to have told Madame de Pompadour that the Mask was 'the minister of an Italian prince.' Louis XVI. told Marie Antoinette (according to Madame de Campan) that the Mask was a Mantuan intriguer, the same person as Louis XV. indicated. Perhaps he was, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... state outside and independent of the body, and in that state received impressions and exercised perceptive powers. For this extraordinary theory I had no other evidence than the fact of my knowledge in the moment of awaking that President Byxbee was coming up the stairs. But slight as this clue was, it seemed to me unmistakable in its significance. That knowledge was certainly in my mind on the instant of arousing from the swoon. It certainly could not have been there before I fell into the swoon. ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... wives governed them, as the Emperor governs us; and if they were not loved, they were at least respected. I like secrets—especially those which concern women—well enough to have amused myself by seeking the clue to the riddle. Well, my sweet child, those worthy women had the gift of analyzing their husbands' nature; instead of taking fright, like you, at their superiority, they very acutely noted the qualities they lacked, and either by possessing those qualities, ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... religious and moral truth, from a free handling, in a becoming spirit, of subjects peculiarly liable to suffer by the repetition of conventional language, and from traditional methods of treatment[132]." We proceed therefore to examine his labours by the aid of the clue which he has himself supplied. For when nine editions of a book appear in quick succession, prefaced by a description of the spirit in which "it is hoped that the volume will he received,"—it seems a pity that the author should not be ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... mysterious look which makes summer starlight so fascinating. White dresses, shadowy faces, suggestive outlines of form and head, now and then the glimmer of an ornament: after one had looked long enough it was even possible to tell who was who, but at first the voices were the only clue to recognition. Behind the group rose the house, with light streaming from its lace-draped windows, the pictures and globe-like lamps of the deserted drawing-room making ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... witness to. What was the basis on which my friend, with two sets of names, founded his dream of inexhaustible wealth, this mission he had intrusted to Pepito? What the mission which the agent laughed at, and which to gain a clue to, others were tempting him with glittering bribes? And again, why the deceit practiced on Pepito, by assuming the guise of a doctor? Each of these facts was a text on which I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... enough the three of them are operating together somewhere. We made a careful search for them and have sent out descriptions of them to the police of all the important cities in the United States. But this clue of yours is the only one we have, and it may prove a most important one. I'll see that the Federal radio authorities are notified at once. Keep in touch with me and let me know if you come across anything else that seems to point to Cassey. His escape is a sore point with me, and I'd be glad ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... 'tis so;—for, look, thy cheeks Confess it, one to the other; and thine eyes See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours, That in their kind they speak it; only sin And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue, That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so? If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue; If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee, As heaven shall work in me for thine avail, ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... about it," added Chichoy in a whisper, "but you must keep it a secret. This afternoon I met a friend, a clerk in an office, and in talking about the affair, he gave me the clue to the mystery—he had it from some government employees. Who do you suppose put the sacks of ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... hardly believe it," replied the Warden. "I remember, some dozen or fifteen years ago, it was given out that some clue had been found to the only piece of evidence that was wanting. It had been said that there was an emigration to your own country, above a hundred years ago, and on account of some family feud; the true heir had gone thither and never returned. Now, the point was to prove the extinction of this branch ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Malthus should have been needed to give him the clue, when in the Note Book of 1837 there should occur—however obscurely expressed—the following forecast{13} of the importance of the survival of the fittest. "With respect to extinction, we can easily see that a variety of the ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... with crystallization. He had probably entered these labyrinths alone, either from rash curiosity or to escape from pursuit; lost his way and perished from hunger. Indeed to find the way back to the entrance of the cave is nearly impossible, without some clue to guide the steps amongst these winding galleries, halls, and issues and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca |
