"Open secret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this suggestion about the supreme importance of Brussels because it has for years been an open secret among military men that the only hope of the famous attaque brusque of the German armies being successful would be by violating Belgian neutrality and swarming in like wasps near Lige and Namur, and surprising ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... waited until her lover had made his apologies to Charley for being late, and, from the way they met, she might have been no more to him than Kitty was. Whatever might be thought, whatever might be known, by these onlookers, Hortense set the pace of how the open secret was to be taken. She made it, for all of us, as smooth and smiling as the waters of Kings Port were this fine day. How much did they each know? I asked myself how much they had shared in common. To these Replacers Kings Port had opened no doors; they and their automobile had skirted ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... womanhood, undermine health and produce a brazen countenance that can be read by all men. The harlot may commit her sins in the dark, but her countenance reveals her character and her immorality is an open secret. ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... to the point of white heat on the morrow. The cause of the old mare's behavior, and the interview which had led to the practical joke, soon became an open secret, and while it convulsed the town with laughter, it also gave the impression that young Haldane was in ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... have much kindred of meaning. Fundamentally indeed they are still the same; in this most important respect especially, That they have penetrated both of them into the sacred mystery of the Universe; what Goethe calls 'the open secret'. 'Which is the great secret?' asks one.—'The open secret,'—open to all, seen by almost none! That divine mystery, which lies everywhere in all Beings, 'the Divine Idea of the World, that which lies at the bottom of Appearance,' ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the very door-sill of the Gallery of Men and Women is surely not accidental, even if Browning's habit of plotting his groups of poems symmetrically by opening with a prologue-poem sounding the right key, and rounding the theme with an epilogue, did not tend to prove it intentional. It is an open secret that the last poem in "Men and Women," for instance, is an epilogue of autobiographical interest, gathering up the foregoing strains of his lyre, for a few last chords, in so intimate a way that the actual fall of the fingers may be felt, the pausing ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... except on the question of the ballot. 'There has been a meeting between Bright and Lord John,' was Lord Houghton's comment, 'but I don't know that it has led to anything except a more temperate tone in Bright's last speeches.' Mr. Cobden, it is an open secret, would not have refused to serve under Lord John, but his hostility to Lord Palmerston's policy was too pronounced for him now to accept the offer of a seat in the new Cabinet. He assured Lord John that if he had been at the head of the Administration ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... You say it is the first chapter of something greater. I call it rather the Foundation and Ground-plan on which you may build whatsoever of great and true has been given you to build. It is the true Apocalypse, this when the 'Open Secret' becomes revealed to a man. I rejoice much in the glad serenity of soul with which you look out on this wondrous Dwelling-place of yours and mine,—with an ear for the Ewigen Melodien, which pipe in the winds round us, and utter themselves ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... unable to hold the open secret any longer, told the Pet about Grump's operation in dust. Great was the astonishment of the young man, and puzzling miners gained sympathy from the weak eyes and open mouth of the Pet as he meandered homeward, evidently as much at ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Cristo. Here are stories which powerfully affect the reader, which can be reperused at any age, and where the characters are no more than puppets. The bony fist of the showman visibly propels them; their springs are an open secret; their faces are of wood, their bellies filled with bran; and yet we thrillingly partake of their adventures. And the point may be illustrated still further. The last interview between Lucy and Richard Feveril[21] is pure drama; more than that, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... four separate editions, it was praised by a contemporary poet, George Whetstone, himself a friend of Spenser's, as the "reputed work of Sir Philip Sidney." But if it was officially a secret, it was an open secret, known to every one who cared to be well informed. It is possible that the free language used in it about ecclesiastical abuses was too much in sympathy with the growing fierceness and insolence of ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... excluded from Germany, and Berlin has added truthless to meatless days. But the Germans have long since found a substitute for veracity as well as for leather and butter and rubber and bread. They are said to have found a substitute for International Law, and it is an open secret that they are even now in search of a substitute for victory. We might even suggest a few more substitutes which have not yet been utilised. As, for example, a substitute for Verdun with the German flag flying over ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... is said to have determined Yoritomo. He disclosed all his ambitions to Hojo Tokimasa, and found in him an able coadjutor. Yoritomo now began to open secret communications with several of the military families in Izu and the neighbouring provinces. In making these selections and approaches, the Minamoto exile was guided and assisted by Tokimasa. Confidences were not by any means confined to men of Minamoto ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... gown because Lawrence had come home, and she was anxious to wear it to meeting in the hope that he might admire her in it. Should she betray this artless preening and trimming of her maiden plumage, which, though, like a bird's, an open secret of nature, must nevertheless be kept sacred by an impulse of modest concealment and deceit towards the one for whose sake it ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... drove me here," continued the father, "told me a curious story. It seems that Mr. Crisp here has toiled and moiled for many years, keeping you in comparative luxury and idleness. Not a word, sir. It's an open secret. For some occult reason he likes to pay this price for your company. Having supported you so long, I presume he is prepared to support ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... look that is the sign of perpetual crowds. It is the London expression, and, in its way, the Paris expression. It is the quickly caught, though not interested, look, the dull but ready glance of those who do not know of their forfeited place apart; who have neither the open secret nor the close; no reserve, no need of refuge, no flight nor impulse of flight; no moods but what they may brave out in the street, no hope of news ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... open secret that the house of mirth lacks every convenience demanded of a permanent residence, and that those who breathlessly pursue pleasure are seldom pleased. Nor do men, when they stop to think, want their lives ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... to the business of working it up, Kicker consented, but he consented reluctantly. He thought Maxwell was better for better things; he knew he was a ravenous reader of philosophy and sociology, and he had been early in the secret of his being a poet; it had since become an open secret among his fellow-reporters, for which he ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... church of the Blancs Manteaux, and as he drew nigh, exclaiming against the foul murder, blood is said to have issued from the wounds. At the funeral he held a corner of the pall, but his guilt was an open secret, and though he braved it out for a time he was forced to flee to his lands in Flanders for safety. In a few months, however, Jean was back in force at Paris, and a doctor of the Sorbonne pleaded an elaborate justification of the deed before the assembled princes, nobles, clergy and citizens at ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... almost an open secret that it's into the mountains he goes," said Sacconi. "He has hardly taken the trouble to deny that he is still in relations with the smugglers he got to know in the Savigno affair, and it's quite natural ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... briefly, and Michael knew he would do his best. It might be that Sam's change of viewpoint would have more effect upon Buck than anything Michael could say. For it was an open secret between Sam and Michael now that Sam stood for a new order of things and that the old life, so far as he was concerned, he ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... have unduly influenced me. But General Grant did not think this was his duty. I do not criticise his action, but only state the facts, He would only maintain the peace. He would not recognize Packard as governor, but I know, what is now an open secret, the strong bent of his mind, and at one time his decision was to withdraw the troops, to recognize Nichols and thus end this dangerous contest. He did not do this, but kept ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... is absolutely known against her. On the contrary, she occupies a rather high position in society. It is a sort of open secret that Baron Arnheim left her the greater portion of his immense fortune. Beyond that I ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... Kitty Sharston gave a correct reply, the furore and excitement in the breasts of several of the spectators rose to the highest pitch, for Kitty's soft voice, her gentle answers, her correct and lady-like utterances impressed everyone favorably. Then, too, it was an open secret that she was Sir John's favorite; it had been whispered by more than one visitor to another that it was on account of Kitty Sharston that this great fuss had been made, that the Scholarship had been opened to the competition of the school, ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... 1897), a noble monument to the energy and courage of the grand marchand whose name it bears, is a good deal more than even a bookseller's advertising medium on a large or the largest scale. It is, in fact, a literary performance; and it is an open secret to whom we owe it. The collector, apart from the question of purchase, will find it replete with useful, instructive, and trustworthy information, so far ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... reviewers were mere literary hacks whose names would have given no weight to the critique and hence could be omitted without much loss. The authorship of important Edinburgh and Quarterly[E] articles in the days of their greatness was usually an open secret. Later periodicals, like the Fortnightly and the Academy found it a profitable advertisement to publish the signatures of their eminent critics. The tendency of the present day is largely in favor of anonymity; no longer as a cover for the dispensation of malicious vituperation, but ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... outline of a biographical review. I shall not undertake to analyze, nor, save incidentally, even to refer to, the influences and inheritances that wrought in the mind and upon the life of your late friend and teacher. I shall still less attempt to discover the open secret of his rare and unique charm and attractiveness as a man; and I shall least of all endeavor to forecast the place which history will give to him among the leaders and builders of our age. Brief as was his ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... the other, with a heavy gasp of breath. "Retief knows it, and the others with him. Those cattle could not have been herded over single-handed. Now to me it seems plain that the crossing is a very open secret ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... something analogous to the famous action of Commodore Tatnall when with the cry, "Blood is thicker than water" he took a part of his crew to the aid of British vessels sorely pressed by the fire of certain Chinese forts on the Yellow River. As it was it is an open secret that one commander appealed by wireless to Washington for authority to intervene. He did not get it of course. No possible construction of international law could give us rights beyond the three-mile limit. He had at least ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... of which Mr. STANLEY LUPINO bore the brunt, was here and there a little thin, and it is time that somebody let the Management of Drury Lane into the open secret that the pun, as an instrument of mirth, has long been a portion of the dreadful past. Mr. WILL EVANS, as the Baroness Beauxchamps, seldom let himself go, being no doubt held in restraint by a consciousness of his resemblance to Miss ELLEN TERRY. Not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... failed to touch her. Those initiated to the inner gossip of the film world, like myself, were under no illusions. The relations between Stella and Manton were an open secret. Yet the picture fans, in their blind worship, believed her to be as they saw her upon the screen. To them the wide and wistful innocence of her remarkably large eyes could not be anything but genuine. ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... its way. He worked like a horse, did Walker—huge consulting practice—hours a day in the clinical wards—constant original investigations. And then he enjoyed himself also. 'De mortuis,' of course, but still it's an open secret among all who knew him. If he died at forty-five, he crammed eighty years into it. The marvel was that he could have held on so long at the pace at which he was going. But he took ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... these "nesters" were practically rustlers preying upon larger interests passing through the country to the Indian reservations. Year by year the feeling had grown more bitter, That Snaith and McRobert backed the river settlers was an open secret. A night herder had been shot from the mesquite not a month before. The blame had been laid upon a band of bronco Mescaleros, but the story was whispered that a "bad man" in the employ of the Lazy S M people, a man known as "Mysterious ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... of fame Gilbert Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap; but his sons had scarce less glory out of the business. Their savage haste, the skill with which Dand had found and followed the trail, the barbarity to the wounded Dickieson (which was like an open secret in the county), and the doom which it was currently supposed they had intended for the others, struck and stirred popular imagination. Some century earlier the last of the minstrels might have fashioned the last of the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his to till, the man was honestly ambitious to trace a straighter furrow than his ploughshare had ever turned. But his past and the insistent present seemed to hamper every forward step. It was an open secret that the disciplining of the man he hoped to succeed had issued directly from his refusal to stand with his colleagues in this question, and Shelby in his heart approved his course. He did not anticipate ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... the little Harlem flat had long ceased to have more than a semblance of being professional, and it was an open secret that he wished to make Margaret his wife. Margaret said no, though with a heightened color and a quickened breath—which told at least herself how easily the "no" might have been ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... His hand closed firmly over the one on his arm. "Call it 'The Man With the Glove,'" he said quietly. "It is the open secret that remains unguessed." ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... Prophet and Poet, well understood, have much kindred of meaning. Fundamentally indeed they are still the same; in this most important respect especially, That they have penetrated both of them into the sacred mystery of the Universe; what Goethe calls 'the open secret.' "Which is the great secret?" asks one.—"The open secret,"—open to all, seen by almost none! That divine mystery, which lies everywhere in all Beings, 'the Divine Idea of the World, that which lies at the bottom of Appearance,' as Fichte styles ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... oath upon his conscience or his fears, and also of alienating his affections, as he is expected to pay down two shillings on each occasion. Once a member, he contributes a penny a week to the general fund. It seems also to be an open secret who the disbursing treasurers are of this fund, from whom the members, detailed to do the dark bidding of the "organisation," receive their wage. "A stout gentleman with sandy hair and wearing glasses" ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... a high German official, but if I had been talking as man to man, I could have reminded him that the spy panic which seized Paris at the outbreak of the war was entirely the fault of Germany herself, for it is an open secret that her spy system is her pet weapon of offense; her enemies therefore, naturally, see a spy in every Teuton. It is also well understood that, spy or no spy, every German man, woman, and child is admonished, when traveling in foreign countries, to "watch, record, and report anything ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood |
