"Labyrinth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which might illuminate this truth, none is so instructive as the large question of PAGAN ORACLES. Every part, indeed, of the Pagan religion, the course, geographically or ethnographically, of its traditions, the vast labyrinth of its mythology, the deductions of its contradictory genealogies, the disputed meaning of its many secret "mysteries" [teletai— symbolic rites or initiations], all these have been submitted of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... vertical. The rapids here are many and violent, the total fall being about 450 feet. At its head is the mouth of the Grand River. The altitude of the junction is 3860 feet.* Following up the Green, we have first Stillwater, then Labyrinth Canyon, much alike, the first 42 3/4 and the second 62 1/2 miles in length. The walls of sandstone are 1300 feet. Their names well describe them, though the stillwater of the first is very swift ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... their fantastic ridges of gable along the busy quay (now fronted by as formal a range of hotels and offices as that of the West Cliff of Brighton). All was at unity with itself, and the city lay under its guarding hills, one labyrinth of delight, its gray and fretted towers, misty in their magnificence of height, letting the sky like blue enamel through the foiled spaces of their crowns of open work; the walls and gates of its countless churches wardered ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... huge as a mountain, and yet carved with the nicety of a cameo; and then Babylon, with its wonderful walls; and Jerusalem, with its unequalled temple; Tyrus, with its countless fleets; Arad, with its wharves; and Sidon, with its labyrinth of work-shops and factories; and Ascalon, and Gaza, and Beyrout, and farther off Persepolis, with ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... Fountain-head and source of rivers, Dew-cloth, dream drapery, And napkin spread by fays; Drifting meadow of the air, Where bloom the daisied banks and violets, And in whose fenny labyrinth The bittern booms and heron wades; Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers, Bear only perfumes and the scent Of healing herbs to just ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Place, but do not venture to expect it. My mother hankers after the Square dreadfully, and it is but natural to suppose that my uncle will take her part. It would be very pleasant to be near Sydney Gardens; we might go into the labyrinth every day. ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... the buildings completely shut out the woods and fields. Large as Bristol might then appear, it occupied but a very small portion of the area on which it now stands. A few churches of eminent beauty rose out of a labyrinth of narrow lanes built upon vaults of no great solidity. If a coach or a cart entered those alleys, there was danger that it would be wedged between the houses, and danger also that it would break in the cellars. Goods were therefore conveyed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... on. Emily and Agnes headed the procession, then came Effie and Grace, dragging a box-sled in which the baby was comfortably stowed, and Kitty, the nurse, brought up the rear, leading little Harry. The two boys met them at some distance from the snow palace, and told them they must go through the labyrinth before they could reach the ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... unhappy Voelund himself, he was led captive to a neighbouring island, where, after being hamstrung, in order that he should not escape, the king put him to the incessant task of forging weapons and ornaments for his use. He also compelled him to build an intricate labyrinth, and to this day a maze in Iceland is known as ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... with the wits of the reign of Queen Anne. Poor Francie was at bottom a kindly and honest man; but the more intimately one knew him, the more did the weakness and brokenness of his intellect appear. His mind was a labyrinth without a clue, in whose recesses there lay stored up a vast amount of book-knowledge, that could never be found when wanted, and was of no sort of use to himself, or any one else. I got sufficiently into his confidence ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... and the hundred minor channels and outlets of the Delta, breaking up the land into a labyrinth of hundreds of islets, are then blended together in one watery surface, out of which only the crests of these islets emerge with isolated villages, with log-huts and long whitewashed buildings, and high-domed churches, all dammed and diked up like the town itself—Tartar villages, Calmuck villages, ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... curtain of a reddish hue depended in front of them. They reminded one of the berths in a ship or of the repositories of the dead in the Roman Catacombs. Two hundred and twenty-five persons were lodged in this dark, mysterious labyrinth. In another house there were five hundred and fifty people lodged in seventy-five rooms. Possibly the owners of tenement houses in our large cities, who crowd men and women into a narrow space and through unpitying agents reap a rich harvest ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... time the steamship "Hungarian," on which the wretched pair had embarked, was ploughing the waters of Lake St. Louis. After a time they passed through the Beauharnois and Cornwall canals, and entered the labyrinth of beautiful patches known as the "Thousands Islands." As they emerged from this lovely spot the saloon became suddenly filled with smoke, and in a few minutes cries of "Fire! Fire!" were heard on every hand. A rush was made for life preservers, while the crew of five or six men vainly endeavored ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... It's a plan of a house, my boy, and, what's more, of this very house we're in! That's a find, and no mistake! These are the descriptions and explanations—these bits of writing. It's a perfect labyrinth of Crete! Udolpho was nothing ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... the fishmonger, saw the master at first refusing, then gradually giving reluctant assent to some demand. Next Phormio was half leading, half carrying the fugitive aboard the ship, guiding him through a labyrinth of bales, jars, and cordage, and pointing to a hatchway ladder, illumined ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... breathless haste). I belong to thee, am thine, my Ganem! Ask me not now how this has come to pass: This is the centre of a labyrinth, But now we stand here. Wilt thou not behold me! He gave me freedom, he himself, my husband ... Why does thy countenance ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Finally he turned wholly to himself and his own difficulties, which had reached possibly the worst crisis of his life. He had never been in such a hard place as this. He had heretofore seen a loop-hole out, into another labyrinth in the end, it is true, still a way out. Now he saw none except one; that was into a fiery torture, and whether it was or was not the torture of beneficial sacrifice ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Emily Hastings was not more joyous, more full of pure delight, than when, in a gay and sparkling mood, she moved her father's wonder at what he thought light frivolity. But now it was all bitter: the labyrinth was dark as well as intricate, and the thorns tore her as she groped for some path across ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... with Old Rye, vaunt so loudly his own sagacity and courage, that I conceived certain misgivings as to how far either were to be relied on. That night, however, he fully maintained part of his character by leading us safety and surely through a perfect labyrinth of tracks, sometimes diverging across the open country, and occasionally plunging into woodland where there was no ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Touched up afterwards, made larger or smaller, lengthened or shortened, intersected with a network of crossings by the numerous generations that had succeeded one another in the same city, they formed an inextricable labyrinth. ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... built, for King Minos of Crete, a wonderful Labyrinth of winding ways so cunningly tangled up and twisted around that, once inside, you could never find your way out again without a magic clue. But the king's favor veered with the wind, and one day he had his master architect imprisoned in a tower. Daedalus ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... management of foreign affairs Jefferson displayed great abilities, which Washington appreciated as much as he did the financial genius of Hamilton. In one thing the President and his Secretary of State were in full accord,—in keeping aloof from the labyrinth of European politics, and maintaining friendly intercourse with all nations. With a peace policy only would commerce thrive and industries be developed, Both Washington and Jefferson were broad-minded ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... pressing upon society. We will not say that Herder wrote every work just as it should have been, and that he was evangelical throughout. This he was not, but he was greatly in advance of his predecessors. Amid the labyrinth of philosophical speculations it is interesting and refreshing to meet with an author who, though endowed with the mind of a philosopher, was content to pass for a poet, or even for an essayist. His was a mind of ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... all; for a heavy sickening graveyard smell made his heart sink within him, and his stomach heave; and his weary body, and more weary soul, gave themselves up helplessly to the depressing influence of that doleful place. The black bank of dingy leathern leaves above his head, the endless labyrinth of stems and withes (for every bough had lowered its own living cord, to take fresh hold of the foul soil below); the web of roots, which stretched away inland till it was lost in the shades of evening—all ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... disgusted. Neither Taug nor Teeka saw him as he swung through the trees into the glade. He paused a moment, looking at them; then, with a sorrowful grimace, he turned and faded away into the labyrinth of leafy boughs and festooned moss out of which ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... our left, as we rode eastward, ran the swift and shallow Platte, dotted with green-garbed islands. This river Washington Irving called "the most magnificent and the most useless of streams" "The islands," he wrote, "have the appearance of a labyrinth of groves floating on the waters. Their extraordinary position gives an air of youth and loveliness to the whole scene. If to this be added the undulations of the river, the waving of the verdure, the alternations of light and shade, and the purity of the atmosphere, ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... white, unsullied beauties on the bank of the murmuring stream, and its turrets rose from out a sea of green foliage that almost hid them from sight. Led by curiosity, or rather by his destiny, he approached the building by a winding walk, that seemed almost a labyrinth, now bringing him near, and anon carrying him to a distance, until tired at last, he stopped, and rested himself under the shade of a stately beech, that spread its broad arms afar, and afforded a delightful canopy. Here, gazing ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... sides of the gate, and in the gateway itself; no regard having been paid to keeping within the stone rows. To the right of the gate, within the Kala, rises the octagonal minaret of the mosque, from which is obtained a fine view of the ruinous interior, with its labyrinth of dilapidated houses, as well as of the whole village. From here four roads can be seen diverging from Khanyunis, namely the El Harish road, the road leading to Suez via Akaba, the Benishaela road, and lastly, the Gaza road. At the entrances ...
— The Caravan Route between Egypt and Syria • Ludwig Salvator
... fronted with gratings that can be raised or lowered at will, overlooks the principal court. It was erected to enable the inmates of the harem to watch, unseen, the martial exercises that were practised there. The prospect from the terrace, embracing a bird's-eye view of the labyrinth of buildings, gardens, and other enclosures, is very lovely. It includes a panorama of the town as it rises, tier upon tier, against the background of the sloping hills. The various voices of the town collected and reverberated ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... and cordial kindness of Dr. Asbury flashed upon her memory, and she resolved to confide her doubts and difficulties to him, hoping to obtain from his clear and matured judgment some clew which might enable her to emerge from the labyrinth that involved her. She knelt and tried to pray. To what did she, on bended knees, send up passionate supplications? To nature? to heroes? These were the new deities. She could not pray; all grew dark; she pressed her hands to her throbbing brain, striving to clear away ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... these two earlier subtle enigmas in "El Jaridiah's" characteristics when he heard the Arab's unfeigned pleasure at the statement that it was not the lady actually rescued, but a friend of hers, whom the thievish dogs aforesaid meant to carry off. Abdullah then saw a path out of the thorny labyrinth which beset him. It was evident that in serving Miss Fenshawe he had displayed his fidelity to Mrs. Haxton! The notion was so gratifying that he made a suggestion which assuredly would not otherwise have occurred to him. When they reached the camp-fire where they were supplied ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... was the debatable ground of the United States. So late as 1756 the State of Virginia extended no further than the crests of the Blue Ridge. Two hundred miles westward forts flying French colours dominated the valley of the Ohio, and the wild and inhospitable tract, a very labyrinth of mountains, which lay between, was held by the fierce tribes of the "Six Nations" and the Leni-Lenape. Two years later the French had been driven back to Canada; but it was not till near the close of the century that the savage was finally ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Religion could not help him, he had killed his father, estranged the girl he might have loved, outraged the world, and at a single breath blighted the fine innate purity of his early years. It was as if he had entered into his life in the world as into some vast labyrinth, wandering on aimlessly, flinging from him one by one the threads, the clues, that might have led him again to a safe exit, going down deeper and deeper until, when near the centre, he had suddenly felt the presence of the brute, had heard its loathsome muttering growl, had at last seen it ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... be, in what does its nature differ from love founded in long observation and slow growth? Perhaps its effects are not so permanent; but they are, while they last, as violent and intense. We walk the pathless mazes of society, vacant of joy, till we hold this clue, leading us through that labyrinth to paradise. Our nature dim, like to an unlighted torch, sleeps in formless blank till the fire attain it; this life of life, this light to moon, and glory to the sun. What does it matter, whether the fire be struck from flint and steel, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... and speech, so that one guessed, under the rapid dispersal of words, an undisturbed steadiness of perception. She was lavishly but not indiscriminately interested in the evidences of her host's industry, and as the other guests assembled, straying with vague ejaculations through the labyrinth of scale drawings and blue prints, Mrs. Peyton noted that Miss Verney alone knew what these ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... mazes of the tropical forest, over the broken stony road, leading through a brilliant labyrinth of wild fig and acacia, plume-like palms, white shafts of silk and cotton, and lance-wood, mahogany, and ebony, parasitical plants in green and red, with endless varieties of gay flowers strung and laced in superb ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... And punish truth with more than mortal pain,— Unfold at last thy cope! that man may see The mines of mischief he has drawn from thee. —Wide gapes the porch with hieroglyphics hung, And mimic zodiacs o'er its arches flung; Close labyrinth'd here the feign'd Omniscient dwells, Dupes from all nations seek the sacred cells; Inquiring strangers, with astonish'd eyes, Dive deep to read these subterranean skies, To taste that holiness which faith bestows, And fear promulgates thro its world of woes. The bold Initiate ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles, How he outruns the wind, and with what care He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles: The many musets through the which he goes Are like a labyrinth ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... broken into numerous creeks and bays, there are but few places where vessels, even of small dimensions, dare to approach them, or indeed where it is possible to effect a landing. A long experience of the coast, and of the adjacent labyrinth of islands which block up the gulf of Carnero, is necessary in order to accomplish in safety the navigation of the shallow rocky sea; and even when the mariner succeeds in setting foot on land, he not unfrequently finds his progress ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... is to copy Theseus, get dame Ariadne to give us a skein, and go into one labyrinth after another, with the certainty of getting out by ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... of the Pyrenees. Here we had to alight, the road up the mountain being impracticable for vehicles. A boy guide was in waiting to show us over the border by the smuggler's path—a wild short-cut through a labyrinth of brushwood. The guide was a remarkable youth in his way; he understood not a syllable of French or Spanish, and spoke only Basque which none of us comprehended, so that our parley with him was somewhat uninteresting. Yet I was anxious to elicit ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton, Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state and being forgets— Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain. Beyond this flood a frozen continent Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land Thaws not, but gathers ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... noisily, slipped unostentatiously behind one of the tiers of lighters. To my untrained eyes it was incredible that in the labyrinth of craft, amid the darkness, we should be able to pick our way. Yet deftly, unerringly, the inspector moved the tiller, while two constables kept keen eyes on the motley assembly ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... of Parma at the commencement of the siege. Sluys was built upon the only piece of solid ground in the district, and it was surrounded by such a labyrinth of canals, ditches, and swamps, that it was said that it was almost as difficult to find Sluys as it was to capture it. Consequently, it was impossible to find ground solid enough for a camp to be pitched upon, and ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... were crowded with defenders, in every quarter the alarm-bells called the citizens to their duty, new barricades rose in the streets, mines were sunk in the open spaces, and the internal passages from house to house were increased until the whole city formed a vast labyrinth, throughout which the defenders could move ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... more than 100 by Water; and I think the most difficult Way I ever saw, occasion'd by Reason of the multitude of Creeks lying along the Main, keeping their Course thro' the Marshes, turning and winding like a Labyrinth, having the Tide of Ebb and Flood twenty Times in less ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... in secret, felt a disrespect for a priest. To the poor multitude the earth was a kind of enchanted forest, full of demons ready to devour, and theological serpents lurking, with infinite power, to fascinate and torture the unhappy and impotent soul. Life to them was a dim and mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary, and lost, guided by priests as bewildered as themselves, without knowing that at every step the Ariadne of reason offered them the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... streaks of gold far off to the east on the hills and the black fir-woods, all was cold and grey about our onward path. An infinity of little country by-roads led hither and thither among the fields. It was the most pointless labyrinth. I could see my destination overhead, or rather the peak that dominates it, but choose as I pleased, the roads always ended by turning away from it, and sneaking back towards the valley, or northward along the margin of the hills. The failing light, the waning colour, the naked, unhomely, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The pillared woods, Where silence breathes sweet breath:— O labyrinth, O sunless gloom, The other side ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... to chronology. The Roman poet brings Dido and AEneas together,—the historian parts them far asunder. Homer may or may not have been the contemporary of Laertes. Nothing is idler or more dangerous than to enter a labyrinth without a clew." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... like an enchantment out of the desert sand; bereft of the voices and footsteps of men, but teeming with hoarded treasure and graven images of gods that gaze down, inscrutable and sternly resplendent, upon the wanderer who, stumbling fearfully through a labyrinth of silent halls, suddenly encounters, in demon-guarded chamber, some ensorcelled ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... The interminable labyrinth of passages threaded, the warm, comfortable housekeeper's room, with its red curtains, oak presses and a delicious smell of spice pervading it, was a real haven of rest. To this very day, nearly sixty years afterwards, it still looks just the same, and keeps its ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... LUCY Into what labyrinth of fearful shapes My simple project has conducted you— Were but my wit as skilful to invent A clue to lead you forth!—I call to mind A letter, which your wife received from the Cape, Soon after you were married, with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the wall of heaven. Only once or twice in life is it permitted to a man thus to see the very universe from outside, and feel existence itself as an adorable adventure not yet begun. As they found this shining escape out of that hellish labyrinth they both had simultaneously the sensation of being babes unborn, of being asked by God if they would like to live upon the earth. They were looking in at one of the seven gates ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... eyes: a sheet of swamp, sinking slowly into the sea; for there stood trees, still rooted below high-water mark, and killed by the waves; while inland huge trees stood dying, or dead, from the water at their roots. But what a scene—a labyrinth of narrow creeks, so narrow that a canoe could not pass up, haunted with alligators and boa-constrictors, parrots and white herons, amid an inextricable confusion of vegetable mud, roots of the alder-like mangroves, ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... sincerely of that historic emotion which is satisfied in the eternal cities of the Mediterranean. I felt in America what many Americans suppose can only be felt in Europe. I have seldom had that sentiment stirred more simply and directly than when I saw from afar off, above that vast grey labyrinth of Philadelphia, great Penn upon his pinnacle like the graven figure of a god who had fashioned a new world; and remembered that his body lay buried in a field at the turning of a lane, a league from my ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... north of the lake lies the Ramble, which covers an area of about thirty-six acres, and is a labyrinth of wooded walks, abounding in the prettiest rustic nooks, with tiny bridges over little brooks, wild flowers and vines, and bits of lawn, and rock work, all so naturally and simply arranged that it is hard to believe it is not the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... been to announce their identity, and invite him to deliver them at St. Ursula's door, but Patty was incapable of approaching any matter by the direct route when a labyrinth was also available. She drew a deep breath, and to Conny's consternation, ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... and the distance which separates us from the remotest stars is not more incomprehensible than a hand's breadth. Science is the widening thought of man, working on the hypothesis of universal intelligibility toward universal intelligence; and religion is the soul, escaping from the labyrinth of matter to the light and love of the Infinite; and on the heights they meet and are ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... through each Thicket Dank or Dry, Like a black Mist, low creeping, he held on His Midnight Search, where soonest he might find The Serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found In Labyrinth of many a Round self-roll'd, His Head the midst, well stor'd ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... holding her close. "Nothing good would come of doing wrong. I never loved you so much as now. I never saw duty so plainly. Dearest, in one way I suffer for you, but still I was never so happy. I have grasped the end of the clue that will surely lead us safely through the labyrinth, no matter what life brings. You will see, mamma dear, after a while you will see. Don't go ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... one—I must go now to visit the Catacombs, a huge charnelhouse which is said to contain the remains of nearly three million persons, consisting of a labyrinth of galleries lined with bones and rows of skulls through which visitors are escorted on the first and third Saturday of each month at 2 P. M. I long to hold you in my arms. ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... authors who have written on usury, or, to use the gentler expression which some prefer, lendingat interest. The theologians always have opposed usury; but, since they have admitted always the legitimacy of rent, and since rent is evidently identical with interest, they have lost themselves in a labyrinth of subtle distinctions, and have finally reached a pass where they do not know what to think of usury. The Church—the teacher of morality, so jealous and so proud of the purity of her doctrine—has always been ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... of reply to her question, in the tone the usher of a fashionable church would use to a stranger obviously not in the same set as the habitues. She heard the tone, but not the words; she turned away to seek the street again. She wandered on—through the labyrinth of streets, through the crowds on ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... arrive at any clear conclusion within himself. Though he knows how to speak much and well about everything, it is all mere bel esprit, a display of glittering words, hollow verbiage, which only lands us in a labyrinth of contradictions, from which we seek an issue as vainly as the author himself. Striving, through all his life, to arrive at a knowledge of himself, he at last lays down his arms, considering the attempt a fruitless and impossible ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... currency, a subject which when given a right survey presents no difficulty. Mankind has been taught that in the essence of things fiscal your question of currency is as intricate and involved as was the labyrinth of Minos. And then, to add ill-doing to ill-teaching, our own crazy-patch system of finance has been in every one of its patches cut and basted and stitched with an interest of politics or of private ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... world as a circular and unending journey, an ocean without shore, a shadow play without even a plot. He feels more strongly than the European that change is in itself an evil and he finds small satisfaction in action for its own sake. All his higher aspirations bid him extricate himself from this labyrinth of repeated births, this phantasmagoria of fleeting, unsubstantial visions and he has generally the conviction that this can be done by knowledge, for since the whole Samsara is illusion, it collapses and ceases so soon as the soul knows its own real nature and its independence of phenomena. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... just within the folding doors upon a huge mat of bison skins. In front of them lay a great square court, paved with many-coloured marbles laid out in a labyrinth of arabesque design. In the centre a high fountain of carved jade shot five thin feathers of spray into the air, four of which curved towards each corner of the court to descend into broad marble basins, while the fifth mounted ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... silver ribbons. I calculated how to cut off one stream after another, but I could not shirk the main stream, dodge it how I might; and when on the level of the river, I lost all my landmarks in the labyrinth of streams, and determined to cross each just above the first rapid I came to. The river was very milky, and the stones at the bottom could not be seen, except just at the edges: I do not know how I got over. I remember going in, and thinking that ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... are discouraging and forbidding by their immensity and labyrinth of scientific technical terms. They are fine for teachers, but ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... is something anyone can be. O white negation of the thing it is! O golden-haired moon-cold loveliness! Too cold! too cold! and love as cold as he. Love wanders through the memories of his vice As through a labyrinth, in sad madness glad, And now calls on his name and bids him rise, And now is smiling at his imaged coming That is i'th'heart like faces in the gloaming— Mere shining shadows of the forms ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa
... Australia and the southern extremity of New Guinea, about ninety miles wide, lies Torres Strait, discovered by a Spaniard in 1606, and not visited again by whites till Captain Cook sailed through in 1770. This strait has been called a "labyrinth of islands, rocks, and coral reefs," so complicated and dangerous that Torres, the original discoverer, required two months to ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... most ineffable nonsense. There is no certainty that men will not believe to the end of time the doctrines which imposed upon so able a man as Sir Thomas More. Not only, that is, have men been hitherto wandering in a labyrinth without a clue, but there is no chance that any clue will ever be found. The doctrine, so familiar to our generation, of laws of intellectual development, never even occurs to him. The collective thought of generations marks time without advancing. A guess of Sir Thomas More is as good or as bad ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... love with Timpany—though it seemed incredible that anyone could be in love with Timpany—suppose her life depended on Timpany, suppose she couldn't live without him? He was fumbling his way along this clueless labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck twelve. On the last stroke, like an automaton released by the turning clockwork, a little maid, holding a large covered tray, popped out of the door that led from the kitchen regions into the ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... vitam, and an initiate of Lucifer. The doctor has explored these caverns, has seen the factory in full working order, has exhaustively described the way in, has returned from the gulf like Dante, and has given away the whole mystery. Possessed of his key to the labyrinth the wayfaring man shall not err therein, and it will, no doubt, be a new curiosity for the more daring among Cook's tourists. The workshops are supplied with mechanics by a simple expedient; hopeless ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... secondary, curiosity of this ocean-labyrinth is, that it is the habitat of a multitude of marine creatures, not to be seen at home in many other places. Except twice a month, at the neaptides, the lower chambers are filled with the sea; and here live and flourish thousands, upon thousands of those mollusks and zoophytes which can exist ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... composed of bathing-halls furnished with basins. The heat was provided by a furnace placed in an underground chamber. The Thermae in a Roman city were what the gymnasium was in a Greek city—a rendezvous for the idle. Much more than the gymnasium it was a labyrinth of halls of every sort: there were a cool hall, warm apartments, a robing-room, a hall where the body was anointed with oil, parlors, halls for exercise, gardens, and the whole surrounded by an enormous wall. Thus the Thermae of ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... Bon chien chasse de race is a proverb which applies to horses, cattle, and men, as well as to dogs; and in this man, who was a noble type of the Aryan race, the qualities which have made that race dominant were developed in the highest degree. The sequel, indeed, might lead the ethnographer into a labyrinth of conjecture, but the story is too tempting a one for me to forego telling it, although the said ethnographer should lose his wits in striving ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... on the shield a choir appear'd to move, Whose flying feet the tuneful labyrinth wove; Youths and fair girls there, hand in hand, advanced, Timed to the song their steps, and gayly danced. Round every maid light robes of linen flowed; Round every youth a glossy tunic glowed; Those wreathed with flowers, while from their partners hung Swords that, all ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... them, they fixed their eyes upon the kingly and apocalyptic prophecies. Regarding all scriptures as equally authoritative, they attempted the impossible task of blending these fundamentally different types of prophecy. The result was that their beliefs became, indeed, a complex labyrinth with paths leading in opposite directions. Later events have proved beyond question that these popular types were the dreams of religious enthusiasts rather than true pictures of the way in which the divine purpose was to be perfected ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... at this time, was one of their great heroes. And you must read about his slaying the Minotaur in Crete, and about the beautiful Ariadne who fell in love with him, and gave him the clue to the labyrinth where her father, Minos, kept the monster hid. These things about the classic little island have an ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... endwise expansion of the spindle and cylinder, the baffling rings in the low-pressure balance piston are so made as to allow for this difference. The high-pressure end of the spindle being held by the collar bearing, the difference in expansion manifests itself at the low-pressure end. The labyrinth packing of the high-pressure and intermediate pistons has a small axial and large radial clearance, whereas the labyrinth packing of the piston Z has, vice versa, a small radial and large axial clearance. Elimination of causes of trouble ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... towers, crags and pinnacles. I thought I had found my pipe organ, and began to climb toward a narrow opening in the rim. But I lost it. The extraordinarily cut-up condition of the wall made holding to one direction impossible. Soon I realized I was lost in a labyrinth. I tried to find my way down again, but the best I could do was to reach the verge of a cliff, from which I could see the canyon. Then I knew where I was, yet I did not know, so I plodded wearily back. Many a blind cleft did ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... other's faculties by discussion, as on few points of common interest between them did their opinions agree: and that this difference had its root deep in the conformation of their respective minds, needs but a glance through the rich, glittering labyrinth of ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... is the best tunny-fishing. It is practised quite differently from the Mediterranean style; here the labyrinth of nets is supplanted by the line of 300 fathoms. At night the bright fires on board the fishing-canoes make travellers suspect that spears, grains, or harpoons are used. This, however, is not the case; line-fishing is universal, and the lights ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... by any detail; he is overwhelmed by the ensemble of a stupendous panorama, a thousand square miles in extent, that lies wholly beneath the eye, as if he stood upon a mountain peak instead of the level brink of a fearful chasm in the plateau whose opposite shore is thirteen miles away. A labyrinth of huge architectural forms, endlessly varied in design, fretted with ornamental devices, festooned with lace-like webs formed of talus from the upper cliffs, and painted with every color known to the palette in pure transparent tones of marvellous delicacy. Never was picture more harmonious, ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... the shades and colours on the mountains and the sea were a labyrinth of delight. Yes, the eye and the mind lost themselves again and again, to start back again to the consciousness of an enchanted existence. The mountains rising from the coast were in full view of my window, shaded with all sorts of green from the different woods and ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... some poor relation of Madame Jules, and that strange rendezvous, which he had witnessed by chance, the mere necessity of a charitable effort. But could that old pauper have seduced this Ida? There was something impossible in the very idea. Wandering in this labyrinth of reflections, which crossed, recrossed, and obliterated one another, the baron reached the rue Pagevin, and saw a hackney-coach standing at the end of the rue des Vieux-Augustins where it enters the rue Montmartre. All waiting hackney-coaches now ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... him; but in a moment he twisted up a narrow alley. Andrea shot by, unable to check himself; and the pursuers soon found themselves in a labyrinth in which it was vain to pursue a quickfooted fugitive who knew every inch of it, and could now only be followed by ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... view of the exterior of the cathedral was what we wanted, and to this end we dived down strange, evil-smelling alleys, and went round and round a labyrinth of streets, always expecting to see, and never arriving at, the cathedral's facade. At last we realised that the quest was hopeless, since the building is so surrounded and deformed by commonplace, ugly houses that nothing of it but roof and towers can be seen from outside. ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... reduce all these riches to dust, through means which I shall then, before I die, disclose to you. I will not have any human creature, and certainly neither Madelon nor you, come into possession of this blood-bought treasure-store.' Entangled in this labyrinth of crime, and with my heart lacerated by love and abhorrence, by rapture and horror, I might be compared to the condemned mortal whom a lovely angel is beckoning upwards with a gentle smile, whilst on the other hand Satan is holding him fast in his burning ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... who had known of the thing should come to misfortune by his means. If the King would pardon these poor gentlemen, he would tell him everything. For the rest, begged Seckendorf to help him in this labyrinth;—nothing could ever so oblige him as help now;" and more of the like sort. These things he said, at Bonn, to Seckendorf, the fountain of all his woes. [Ibid.] What Seckendorf's reflections on this his sad handiwork now were, we do not know. Probably he made none, being a strong-minded case-hardened ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... numerous, and the intermediate convolutions proportionately more complicated in their meanderings, until, in the Elephant, the Porpoise, the higher Apes, and Man, the cerebral surface appears a perfect labyrinth of tortuous foldings. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... with a ring in his voice as of one who knew—"the labyrinth cannot appal the man who has found a clue to its windings. A mind that has attained to thought lives in itself, and the world becomes its slave. Its formerly distracted powers rally home; it is central, possessing, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... himself descending into deep, dark holes in the ground. The roadway was occupied by lorries, and John had to turn and cross, and cross and turn many times before he could extricate himself from the labyrinth into which he had so carelessly intruded. While he was crossing the street at one point, and passing between two lorries, he found himself in front of a coffee-house, and again aware of his hunger, he entered it. He passed to the back of the L-shaped shop, and sat down at ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... the Brigade Headquarters about midnight and, after some trouble in securing guides, moved off through a labyrinth of streets in the warm dark. Our guides were local men, and we did not take long to get to Warquignies, in the main street of which we met the Headquarters of the 13th Brigade, minus their Brigadier. Here also were the K.O.S.B.'s in bivouac, acting as Brigade Reserve to their ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... spoilt by the meddlesome bad taste of Capability Brown, have been somewhat too resolutely robbed of the formal avenues, clipped hedges, and other topiarian adjuncts which comport so well with the starch prudery of things Elizabethan; but they are still replete with grotto, fountain, labyrinth, and alcove—a very paradise for the more court-bred rank of sylphs, and the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... skilful artificer, in which sense it is still used by the Icelanders; he is a famous workman—a Wayland—in iron; and they very appropriately term a labyrinth ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... push a rock gently an inch further across the car. Each was run by two white Americans, or at least what would prove such when they reached the shower-bath in their quarters—the craneman far out on the shovel arm, the engineer within the machine itself with a labyrinth of levers demanding his unbroken attention. Then there was of course a gang of negroes, firemen and the like, ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks, built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one hundred thousand men worked on this monument ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... cling about thy neck, Seem made of sunbeams, caught upon their way To earth, by some creative hand, and woven Into a fairy web, of light and life, Conscious of its high source, and proud to be A part of aught so beautiful as thou. I have seen many full, bright mortal eyes, That were a labyrinth of witching charms, In which the heart of him who looked was lost; But none like thine; their light is not of earth; Their loveliness not like what man calls lovely. Beside the smoothness of thy brow and cheek, The ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... itself is neat, clean and dull, like all Dutch towns. The fortifications are strong and well worth inspection. The most remarkable thing in the neighbourhood of Maastricht is the Montagne de St Pierre, which from having been much excavated for the purpose of procuring stone, forms a labyrinth of a most intricate nature. I advise every traveller to visit it, and if he has a classical imagination he may fancy himself in ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... in his American Dictionary of the English Language, is derived from "Religo, to bind anew;" and, in this History of a False Religion, our author has shown how easily its votaries were insnared, deceived, and mentally bound in a labyrinth of falsehood and error, by a designing knave, who established a new religion and a new order of priesthood by imposing on their ignorance ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... for wonder, most dapper of garcons! 'Tis not the first time, by many, that we have tabled our Napoleons on your damask napery. Schooled by indigestion, like Dido by misfortune, we have learned to order our dinner, even at Paris; and are no more to be led astray in the labyrinth of your interminable carte, than you, versed in the currency of Albion, are to be deluded by a Brummagem sovereign, or a note of the Bank of Elegance. So, presto, to work! our blessing and a double pourboire your promised reward. And, verily, he earns them well. The potage a la bisque ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... bereft of this Vorstellungs-Kraft of which you speak, nor am I, like so many of my brethren, a mere vacuum as regards scientific knowledge. I can follow a particle of musk until it reaches the olfactory nerve; I can follow the waves of sound until their tremors reach the water of the labyrinth, and set the otoliths and Corti's fibres in motion; I can also visualise the waves of aether as they cross the eye and hit the retina. Nay more, I am able to pursue to the central organ the motion thus imparted at the periphery, and to see in idea the very molecules of the brain thrown into ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the torturing mile of street I mark him come and go, Thread in and out with tireless feet The crossings to and fro; A soul that treads without retreat A labyrinth ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... monster lurking in the labyrinth of Crete, which devoured the tribute of seven youths and seven maidens sent by Athens every ninth year. It ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... past, like a map of pleasing or melancholy recollections, and observe lines crossing and re-crossing each other in a thousand directions; some spots are almost blank; others faintly traced; and the rest a confused and perplexed labyrinth. A thousand feelings that, in their day and hour, agitated our bosoms, are now forgotten; a thousand hopes, and joys, and apprehensions, and fears, are vanished without a trace. Schemes, which cost us ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... who sits in the House of Lords between the Earl of Jersey and the Earl of Greenwich, has a hundred thousand a year. To his lordship belongs the palace of Grantham Terrace, built all of marble and famous for what is called the labyrinth of passages—a curiosity which contains the scarlet corridor in marble of Sarancolin, the brown corridor in lumachel of Astracan, the white corridor in marble of Lani, the black corridor in marble of Alabanda, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... is the "Maelstroem," a dry pit or well, one hundred and seventy-five feet deep, and about twenty in diameter; and from the bottom of this shaft may be seen the openings to three other avenues, which lead farther into this Plutonian labyrinth than mortal foot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... were, upon the extreme posterior edge of a tract in her life, in which the real meaning of Taking Thought had never been known. It was the last hour of experience she ever enjoyed with a mind entirely free from a knowledge of that labyrinth into which she stepped immediately afterwards—to continue a perplexed course along its mazes for the greater portion ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... and grounded faith, strong in despite of oppositions. Happy was the man in whom temper, and religion, and the love of the sweet country and an angler's pastime so conveniently combined; happy the long life which held in its hand that threefold clue through the labyrinth of human fortunes! Around thee Church and State might fall in ruins, and might be rebuilded, and thy tears would not be bitter, nor thy ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... of Comenius's works: Labirynt swieta a rag srdce, i.e. the World's Labyrinth and the Heart's Paradise, reminds us strongly of Bunyan's celebrated Pilgrim's Progress. It was first published at Prague, 1631, in 4to; and after several editions in other places, it was last printed at the same city in 1809, 12mo. His Latin works were printed at Amsterdam in 1657, ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... Chesterfield and Leicester, by their Lordships' Most Obliged, Obedient, and Obsequious Servant, John Gary, 1798." Also a green pamphlet, with a motto from Virgil, and an intricate coat of arms on the cover, looking like a diagram of the Labyrinth of Crete, entitled, "A Description of York, its Antiquities and Public Buildings, particularly the Cathedral; compiled with great pains from the most authentic records." Also a small scholastic-looking volume, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... performance of a fit and matchable conversation no less essential to the prime scope of marriage than the gift of bodily conjunction, or else to have an equal plea of divorce as well as for that corporal deficiency; he that can but lend us the clue that winds out this labyrinth of servitude to such a reasonable and expedient liberty as this—deserves to be reckoned among the public benefactors of civil and human life, above the inventors of wine and oil." [Footnote: This passage is from the first edition; it is not nearly so full ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... the true sources of their difficulties, and to maintain their confidence undiminished in the wisdom and integrity of their functionaries. Macte virtute therefore. Continue to go straight forward, pursuing always that which is right, as the only clue which can lead us out of the labyrinth. Let nothing be spared of either reason or passion, to preserve the public confidence entire, as the only rock of our safety. In times of peace the people look most to their representatives; but in war, to the executive solely. It is visible that their confidence is even ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... had found himself forced, in a manner, to descry the direction and catch the character of his homage. Slow in remarking, he was logical in reasoning: having once seized the thread, it had guided him through a long labyrinth. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... given a charming little bedroom of her own in the European wing of the Saito mansion. The house stood on a high hill; and Asako, seated at the window, could watch the multiplex activity of the streets below, the jolting tramcars, the wagons, the barrows and the rickshaws. To the left was a labyrinth of little houses of clean white wood, bright and new, like toys, with toy evergreens and pine-trees bursting out of their narrow gardens. This was a geisha quarter, whence the sound of samisen music and quavering songs resounded all day long. To the right was ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Mabel. "Oh, it is awful! We have been lost a long time—it seems a month, but of course it isn't. We can't find our way out of this wilderness. It is a labyrinth, and we dare not go far from this hut for fear we shall never find it again. It has been terrible. But if you are lost you cannot help us. What ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... course of my wanderings about the labyrinth of life it has been my good fortune to find awaiting me around every corner some new adventure. If these have generally lacked that vividness of action which to the eye of youth is the very test of adventure, they have been rich in a kind of experience which to a mature and reflective ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... enjoy a peanut hunt, or a spider party where they follow a twine through a labyrinth of loopings and find a small prize at the end, or a book party, where each guest represents the title of some book. Thus Ouida's "Under Two Flags" could be very easily represented. Young folks always enjoy "dressing up," and any hostess can either find directions for some form of fancy dress, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... mineralogical, and botanical galleries, all warmed in winter and summer, if necessary, by hot water, and capable of receiving the tallest tropical plants. Between the conservatories there are two beautiful mounds—one a labyrinth, and the other a collection of fir-trees. The labyrinth is one of the best and most beautiful I ever saw, far surpassing the celebrated one at Hampton court. The mound is of a conical shape, and is completely ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... had not possessed the insolent twist of the past fortnight. To receive the cut direct from a man whose pomposity and mental density had excited her wit and amusement, surprised her even if it did not hurt. It had rudely awakened her to the fact that her independence might be leading her into a labyrinth. She was compelled to admit that at home she would have avoided Warrington, no matter how deeply sorry she might have been. His insistent warning against himself, however, served to arouse nothing more than a subtle obstinacy to do just as she pleased. And it pleased ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... in a labyrinth of control panels which reached almost to the ceiling, but did not entirely shut out the light. This light was like skimmed milk diffused in shadow. He reasoned that it came from windows, but when he tried to remember ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... days. Round three sides of the hall ran a gallery, by which, and corresponding passages, the chief bedrooms were approached, and of which many were of stately proportions and exhibited marks of splendour. On the second story was a labyrinth of little discomfortable garrets, destined for the attendants of the great folks who inhabited the mansion in the days when it was first built: and I do not know any more cheering mark of the increased philanthropy of our own times, than to contrast ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... or, indeed, with all natural objects known to the ancients, the Ivy was the subject of a myth or religious allegory, and in investigating this myth, we find ourselves in a labyrinth of strange mystery. The ordinary works on mythology, indeed, inform the reader that it was the plant sacred to Bacchus, the god of wine, because, as Loudon states, 'this wine is found at Nyssa, the reputed birthplace of Bacchus, and in no other part ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... my life through the very heart of Nagasaki, I cast an inquiring look outside, at the risk of receiving a drenching: we were trotting along through a mean, narrow, little back street (there are thousands like it, a labyrinth of them), the rain falling in cascades from the tops of the roofs on the gleaming flagstones below, rendering everything indistinct and vague through the misty atmosphere. At times we passed a woman struggling with her skirts, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... this incident bridging the preliminaries, the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in front of one of the coffee-houses about the square. Tony counted himself lucky to have run across an English-speaking companion who was good-natured enough to give him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he had paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out again to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count Rialto, appeared to have a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to point out to Tony all the chief dignitaries ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... 'A labyrinth! a flowery wilderness! Some in thy "slip-boxes" and "honey-moons" Complain of—want of order, I confess, But not of system in its highest sense. Who asks a guiding clue through this wide mind, In love of Nature such will surely find. In ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Sprot through the labyrinth of his confessions and evasions, as attested by the authentic reports of his private examinations between July 5 and the day of his death. It will be observed that, while insisting on his own guilt, and on that ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... once finished the leading facts of this narrative, Waverley was easily enabled to apply the clue which they afforded, to other mazes of the labyrinth in which he had been engaged. To Rose Bradwardine, then, he owed the life which he now thought he could willingly have laid down to serve her. A little reflection convinced him, however, that to live for her sake was more convenient and agreeable, and that, being possessed of independence, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... way across that tangle to the outer edges of it—where only was it possible that ships on which were provisions fit for eating would be found. The very fact that the Wasp had settled into her position more than fourscore years back made it certain that she was deep in the labyrinth; and the strange old-fashioned look of the craft surrounding her showed me that I should have to go far before finding a ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... the festival, the inhabitants danced before their houses; and at one we saw the figure which is said to have been first used by the youths and virgins of Delos, at the happy return of Theseus from the expedition of the Cretan Labyrinth. It has now lost much of that intricacy which was supposed to allude to the windings of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... to him as naturally as fruit comes to a tree. He lived in a labyrinth of plans, and he rejoiced to involve some one in the perplexities which his magic touch could alone unravel. Fakredeen had no principle of any kind; he had not a prejudice; a little superstition, perhaps, like his ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Palace to the door which leads to the Bridge of Sighs: it was the old road to destruction,—the mysterious process, made familiar by novelists and poets, by which the ancient and sinister republic made more fearful the vengeance of government. As the unfortunate youth passed through a labyrinth of gloomy corridors, he recognized the haunts of the ancient Inquisition; the atmosphere was clogged with damp; moisture dripped from the stones. A dungeon, lighted only by a lamp suspended from the vault, and narrow, humid, and unfurnished, except with a pile of straw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... footsteps that at the moment of his experiment are tormenting the surface of the globe; and amongst them all, at a distance of six thousand miles, playing in the streets of Bagdad, he distinguishes the peculiar steps of the child Aladdin. Through this mighty labyrinth of sounds, which Archimedes, aided by his arenarius, could not sum or disentangle, one solitary infant's feet are distinctly recognized on the banks of the Tigris, distant by four hundred and forty days' march of an army or a caravan. These feet, these steps, the sorcerer knows, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... into it. The going was not very hard at first as the trees lay scattered on the edge of the windfall. But, as he wormed into the labyrinth, the heaped up logs gave more and more resistance to progress, and it soon became apparent that he could never win through to the higher slopes which were free of ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... all these dwellings stand in gardens planted with mulberry-trees, some of them not separated from each other at all, and the rest merely by little sand-hills. Flowers and vegetables are nowhere to be seen, nor is the suburb divided into regular streets; so that I wandered in an endless labyrinth of trees and houses. I met none but Arabs, whose language I did not understand, and who could, therefore, give me no information. So I rushed to and fro, until at length, after a long and fatiguing pilgrimage, ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... into the ice-field as long as the light lasted, following the lanes of blue water till they closed, then drifting idly till others appeared; worming out into leagues of open sea, again creeping into the shifting labyrinth ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... the little mine-lamp has guided us quietly and securely, without much flickering or flaring, through the labyrinth of shafts and stulms. We ascend out of the gloomy mountain-night—sunlight flashes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... The narrative of the events in Sambir, related from the point of view of the astute statesman, the sense of which had been caught here and there by his inattentive ears, had been yet like a thread to guide him out of the sombre labyrinth of his thoughts; and now he had come to the end of it, out of the tangled past into the pressing necessities of the present. With the palms of his hands on his knees, his elbows squared out, he looked down on Babalatchi who sat in a stiff attitude, inexpressive and mute ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... shadows of the upper boughs running in gray network down the glossy stems, and resting in quiet checkers upon the glittering earth; but all penetrable and transparent, and, in proportion, inextricable and incomprehensible, except where across the labyrinth and the mystery of the dazzling light and dream-like shadow, falls, close to us, some solitary spray, some wreath of two or three motionless large leaves, the type and embodying of all that in the rest we feel and ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... we will live, Bourrienne," he said, suddenly, as if the latter had followed him through the mental labyrinth in which he wandered, following the thread of Ariadne which we call thought. "Yes, we will lodge here; the Third Consul can have the Pavilion of Flora, and Cambaceres will remain at ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... therefore, of the usage he had received; but, turning amongst the labyrinth of tents, he led the knight in silence to the opposite side of the pavilion, which thus screened them from the observation of the warders, who seemed either too negligent or too sleepy to discharge their duty with much accuracy. Arrived there, the dwarf raised the under part of the canvas ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... Mitylene: the reason of the persecution endured by Psammetichus is, according to him, not the fear of seeing the prediction fulfilled, but jealousy of the wealth the Saite prince had acquired by his commerce with the Greeks. I have separated the narrative of Herodotus from his account of the Labyrinth which did not originally belong to it, but was connected with a different cycle of legends. The original romance was part of the cycle which grew up around the oracle of Buto, so celebrated in Egypt at the Persian ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero |
