"Riddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which she said were sure marks of high blood, and never found in the lower ranks! With a scornful expression on her face, old Hagar would listen to these remarks, and then, when sure that no one heard her, she would mutter: "Marks of blood! What nonsense! I'm almost glad I've solved the riddle, and know 'taint blood that makes the difference. Just tell her the truth once, and she'd quickly change her mind. Hester's blue, pinched nose, which makes one think of fits, would be the very essence of aristocracy, while Maggie's lip would ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... went through the garden gap, Whom should I meet but Dick Red-cap! A stick in his hand, a stone in his throat: If you'll tell me this riddle, I'll give you ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... riddle, the second, the third, all in one corner of the card, then turned it round impatiently to look at another. Before he could begin reading the riddles printed here the sound of the church clock ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... was committed by his electioneering speeches and addresses, and that you all, half generosity and half prudence, resolved to stand by him rather than break up the Government, which his resignation would have done. That's my solution of the greatest political riddle I ever encountered. ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... give, escaped an appreciative and full, almost overfull, recognition which startled me. For she had understood me—understood me almost better than I had understood myself. It seemed to me that while I had labored to interpret, partially, a psychological riddle, she, coming after, had comprehended its bearings better than I had, though confining herself strictly to my own words and emphasis. The scene ended (and it ended rather suddenly), she dropped her eyes, and moved her hand nervously ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... the name of reason, could this somebody be except her husband? Yet the maid had spoken of him as "one of the best men in the world," and it was impossible to doubt the tearful sincerity of her voice. Well, the riddle was too much for me. I gave it up at last with a sigh—dreading the hour that would call the downstairs to meet Mr. Vanderbridge. I felt in every nerve and fibre of my body that I should hate him the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... her quick ride, and as Odo lifted her from the saddle her loosened hair brushed his face like a kiss. For a moment she seemed like life's answer to the dreary riddle of his fate. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... he established the Spanish power here thirty-five years ago, cut a similar knot with the executioner's sword; but, my-de'-seh, you are here to establish a free government; and how can you make it freer than the people wish it? There is your riddle! They hold off and say, 'Make your government as free as you can, but do not ask us to help you;' and before you know it you have no retainers but a gang of shameless mercenaries, who will desert you whenever the indignation of this people overbalances their indolence; ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... must confess that I have not gone; you have a perfect right to drive me out of Europe; I promised to go to America, and you can compel me to fulfil my promise; be clement, do not overpower me with ridicule; do not riddle me with the fire of your mocking artillery; my sorrow, even though I remain in the old world, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... gamester, must have been what it was. There is something to be set against each of these assertions. For it was not the goddess of Fortune which pursued Bismarck in the ungainly shape of his former friend, that spiteful Prince Gortschakoff. The Frankfort assembly had left the Austrian riddle unsolved, and apparently insoluble. There was no hand in the country firm or skilful enough, no brain sufficiently hard or enlightened as to the needs of the day—not the king's, not Count Arnim's, nor certainly that of any other known to his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... differently these past months,—no, from his birth and from hers, too,—if every circumstance of society had not conspired to put them apart, who knows! They might have solved a riddle or two together and been happy. But it was all foolish speculation now, and it was well that their differences should be emphasized at this last chance meeting; that she should be hostile to him. He summed the matter up thus, and, as if answering ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the Chinese had been derived, like that of most Americans, from books and chance observation of the handful of Kwangtung men who are earning their living among us by washing our clothes. Silent, inscrutable, they flit through the American scene, alien to the last. What lies behind the riddle of their impassive faces? Perhaps I could find an answer. Then, too, it was clear, even to the most unintelligent, that a change was coming over the East, though few realized how speedily. I longed to see the old China before I made ready to welcome the new. But not ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... herself any one complicated physical and psychological human being really and truly 'conveys' to another by means of the simple contract known as the "plighted troth" or that of a larger deed called the called the "solemnization of matrimony", is a riddle difficult of solution; and as to how much one may claim on the strength of one or other of these indentures, that is a ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... putting your name in a list with some of the most eminent persons in the United States. So true is it that your letters are really of consequence to me. I now allude to that of the 19th instant, covering a fable and riddle. If the whole performance was your own, which I am inclined to hope and believe, it indicates an improvement in style, in knowledge of the French, and in your handwriting. I have therefore not only read it several times, but shown it to several persons ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... eyes twinkled. "Forty years ago Ah was laying by a pool just as Ah seen ye this morning, looking and trying hard to read the riddle of the spring Peeper. Ah lay there all day, aye, and mony anither day, yes, it was nigh onto three years before Ah found it oot. Ah'll be glad to save ye seeking as long as Ah did, if that's yer mind. Ah'll show ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... "secrecy" upon any man's house, and you at once make him a riddle for the cunning, envious, and crafty to try to solve; and this has been the case with the Gipsies for generations, and the consequence has been, they have trotted out kings, queens, princes, bishops, nobles, ladies and gentlemen of all grades, wise men, fools, and fanatics, to fill their ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... will do. Yes, there are precedents for that. A riddle would be quite in accordance with Court etiquette. Ask him a ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Lydia the reservation as the Indians knew it. If Lydia was a little puzzled by his eagerness to make her understand conditions on the reservation, she gave little thought to the riddle. This adventure was affecting her deeply. There was the sudden freedom and relaxation from home responsibilities. There was the daily and intimate companionship with young people, than whom none were better dressed than she!—and there were ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... which that prolific tree, the cocoanut palm, is propagated was a curious and interesting study for a leisure hour, the germination having been with us heretofore an unsolved riddle. Within the hard shell of the nut, among the mass of rich creamy substance, near the large end, is a small white lump like the stalk of a young mushroom, called the ovule. This little finger-like germ of the future tree gradually forces itself through one of the ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... dear Lucy," he replied, smiling, "you shall have cleared up along with all my other mysteries. Like every riddle, although it may seem difficult now, it will ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to find with these tactics. On the contrary. But I rather think that in the first Act an incident was introduced (no doubt in the spirit of the little girl's explanation a propos of her riddle, "That was just put in to make it more difficult"), which was not quite cricket as it is played by the best people in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... the Marquis's meaning is as great a riddle as his manuscript. He is really in much need of Wit's Interpreter, or the Complete Letter-Writer, and were I you, I would send him a copy by the bearer. He writes you very kindly to remain wasting your time and your money in this ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... each man was a master of his own especial art, had done most of their work in cities, and when it came to matters of the fields and woods they were not to be trusted. But when David found Roger a little inclined to vaunt his superior woodcraft he set him a riddle to answer: ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... but he makes up for size in quality," declared the detective, while Jack blushed. "He is the youngster who solved the 'ghost' riddle and spoiled this same gang's ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... Rutherford's voice was like the snap of a whip. "Try it. Try it. I'll hunt you down like a wolf and riddle yore carcass." ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... as are sold at three for two cuartos. Her chin rested in the palm of her hand while she gazed at the weak yellow glow peculiar to the cane, which burns rapidly and leaves embers that quickly grow pale. A sad smile lighted up her face as she recalled a funny riddle about the pot and the fire which Crispin had once propounded to her. The boy said: "The black man sat down and the red man looked at him, a moment passed, and ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... is the abode of these shadows. Where are they from, and whither going—these women without beauty, who walk the streets without handkerchiefs, but blubbering with too much or too little drink? What is the terrible riddle? Why, even as they blubber, are there women whose bodies have the quality of cream, ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... witnessed to by innumerable men in all ages and times, as the natural lot of their kind? Much more so when suffering falls upon us, as it does inevitably on all, and forces upon us an attempt to solve the riddle ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... thoughts," said he, "it is the other street we must reconnoiter; and, if we don't see her there, we will enter the shop, and by dint of this purse we shall soon untie the knot of the Woffington riddle." ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... speech of yours, mon cher,' yawned Cyril. 'Lady Sinfi is going to strike up with the Welsh riddle unless you get ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... should find all matter to be one substance; and could we appreciate the worth of every art and every landscape and man, they would be identical. As I am a better man, the more soluble is the great outspreading riddle of nature, and the more distinct and full the delicate grace of art. As an old, quaint divine said of fate and free-will, they are two converging lines which of necessity must somewhere unite, though ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... the Constitution, Ministers, Worship, Discipline, and Customs of the Early Church; with an Introduction, containing a Complete and Chronological Analysis of the Works of the Antenicene Fathers. Compiled from the Works of Augusti, and other sources. By the Rev. J. E. RIDDLE, M.A., Author of an English-Latin and Latin-English Dictionary, Luther and his Times, &c. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... the Phaestos disk have been put forward. The first is by Professor George Hempl, of Stanford University, U.S.A., and appeared in Harper's Magazine for January, 1911, under the title, 'The Solving of an Ancient Riddle.' The second, by Miss F. Melian Stawell, of Newnham College, appeared in the Burlington Magazine of April, 1911, under the title, 'An Interpretation of the ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... in fancy, as in books A man may see the naiads of the brooks;— As one entranced by potions aptly given May see the angels where they walk in Heaven, And may not greet them in their high estate. For who shall guess the riddle wrought of Fate Till he be dead? And who that lives a span Shall thwart the Future where it lies ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... the age of mystification—religious, political, scientific and artistic," suggested Gouache. "The people of that day will guess the Sphynx's riddle." ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... simple and convenient solution of the riddle if the work of analysis made it at all possible for us to trace the meaningless and intricate dreams of adults back to the infantile type, to the realization of some intensely experienced desire of the ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... condition," decided Pike. "Disclose the whole of this from first to last, and then we may part friends. But try to palm off one lie upon me, and I'll riddle you through. To begin with: what brought you locked ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... still held secrets for both, but they intended to solve them that day, to see which way the riddle ran, and the Wilderness itself was as dark, as calm and as somber as ever. It had been torn by cannon balls, pierced by rifle bullets and scorched by fire; but the two armies were yet buried in it and it gave no sign to the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... special form of man's arrogant assumption of divinity. Only when we have abandoned this untenable illusion, and taken up the correct cosmological perspective, can we hope to reach the solution of the Riddle of the Universe. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... monster called the Sphinx had taken up its station on one of the principal roads leading to the town, and would allow no one to pass who could not answer a riddle which it asked. This creature had the head of a woman, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle; and, as it ate up all those who could not guess its riddle, the ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... inquirers are intended to ascertain. We read, at that season of the year, articles upon "What Scientists do not know" and "The Bankruptcy of Science," in which it is pretended that the purpose of science is to solve the mystery, or, as it has been called, the "riddle," of the universe, and it is pointed out, with something like malicious satisfaction, that, to judge by the proceedings of the congress of scientific investigators just concluded, we are no nearer a solution of that mystery than men were in the days of Aristotle: and ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... were upon them. But afterwards, on their opening the sacks and counting it, the quantity of the silver differed from what the writing expressed; and the matter causing some perplexity to the magistrates, Gylippus's servant tells them in a riddle, that under the tiles lay many owls; for, as it seems, the greatest part of the money then current, bore the Athenian stamp of the owl. Gylippus having committed so foul and base a deed, after such great and distinguished exploits before, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... of complaint. I do thank Heaven that the Godhead who rules in it for us does not forbid the recognition of the ludicrous! C—— was telling me how long ago, in her own dull Protestant household, she heard a riddle propounded by some indiscreet soul who did not understand the prudish piety which reigned there: and saw such shocked eyes opening all round on the sound of it. "What is it," was asked, "that a common man can see every day but that God never sees?" "His equal" is the correct answer: but ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... have heard—if you'd stood out on the piazza looking in, and happened to have the key to the riddle—a hint in verse of every Madigan escapade, of every Madigan failing, of all the Madigan jokes, on Old Mother Gibson nights. You would have seen even Kate—young-lady Kate, who had once substituted in a school—join in this mad revel, with an appetite for fun that showed ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... roan cob had attacked and defeated the fourteen Irish miles with superfluous zeal, and there were still several minutes before the hounds could be reasonably expected on the scene. The soda was bad, the whisky was worse. The sound of a riddle came in with the sunshine through the open door, and our friends strolled out into the street to see what was going on. In the centre of a ring of onlookers an old man was playing, and was, moreover, dancing to his own music, and dancing ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... 'It's no riddle, sir,—it's a solution of all the riddles. I will tell you. While I was convalescing, I went to a Y.M.C.A. camp. I had never been to one of these places before; I don't know why I went then, except that the time hung a bit heavy on my hands. You see, every man was up to his neck ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... the way, you damned Yankee," shrieked the crackers, "or we'll riddle you with bullets." Then they gave the far-reaching, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... in every living thing, And all things are thy script and chart, Who rid'st upon the eagle's wing, And yearnest in the human heart; O Riddle with a single clue, Love, deathless, protean, secure, The ever old, the ever new, O ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... Here's a ridiculous riddle for you: How many o's are there in Woolloomooloo? Two for the W, two for the m, Four for the l's, and that's ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... accepted, no proof is offered to us of the actual existence, as a vera causa, of the process by which a saying. 'Apollo pursues Daphne,' remains in language, while the meaning of the words is forgotten. This process is essential, but undemonstrated. See the chapter here on 'The Riddle Theory.' ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... certain complicated pieces of machinery; the description was not so lucid as it might have been, owing to lack of words, but it manifested the completest understanding of things which to his companion were as hard as the riddle of the universe. His modesty, withal, was excessive; to Wilfrid's humane culture he deferred at all times; for all the learning which lay outside his own sphere he had boundless reverence. Wilfrid's gain by him was not only ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... perchance My saying, dark as Themis or as Sphinx, Fail to persuade thee, (since like them it foils The intellect with blindness) yet ere long Events shall be the Naiads, that will solve This knotty riddle, and no damage light On flock or field. Take heed; and as these words By me are utter'd, teach them even so To those who live that life, which is a race To death: and when thou writ'st them, keep in mind Not to conceal how thou hast seen the plant, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the canal, ever and anon we see some empty returning boat (called "light boat" in the technical canal phrase) rounding a curve before us, It comes nearer: the horses walk the same tow-path: how are the boats to pass without confusion? Ah, the riddle is solved. Our captain (who holds the helm while the boy, his assistant, is down in the cabin preparing supper) calls out suddenly, at the last moment, "Whoa!" The well-trained horses instantly stop; the momentum of the boat carries ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... nearly a week later before she had a clue to the riddle. Then Sir Joseph came home to luncheon unexpectedly. He had an envelope with him, sealed with great red buttons of wax. He asked Marie Louise into his office and said, with an ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... enough that man should want to travel on the road he knows and likes best. The philosopher uses his logic and analysis and synthesis. The introspectionist wants to get at the riddle of the universe by crawling into the innermost depth of his own self-scrutiny, even at the risk—to use a homely phrase—of drawing the hole in after him and losing all connection with the objective world. The physicist follows the reverse course. He gives us the appreciation of the objective world ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... said that the facts of life seem often to us, and are felt often by some of us, to shatter it to atoms; to riddle it through and through with shot. But, if we bring the Pattern-life to bear upon the illumination of all life, and if we learn the lessons of the Cradle and the Cross, and rise to the view of human life which emerges from the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... put the students to sleep, for every thing became quite still; and at last the riddle was silent. The evening breeze stirred gently, and the stars climbed silently up into the sky one after the other, until they were shining brightly in ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... might be aware of a gathering storm, though the brain received as yet no clear message. She felt, struggling with that diffused kindness and young vanity, something like discomfort and fear. So her mood was complex enough, unharmonized, parted between opposing currents. She was a riddle to herself. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... the Guise, but yet those termes might have beene spar'd of the guiserd. Companion! He's jealous, by this light. Are you blind of that side, Duke? Ile to her againe for that. Forth, princely mistresse, 125 for the honour of courtship. Another riddle. ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... beside them, one cannot help speculating, for there is a kind of fatality that concerns the disposition of matter in Nature. Oil fields and rubber trees existed, one might say, as enigmas, until the internal combustion engine and motor cars dawned on the world and explained their riddle. This was their fate. And of Mesopotamia, who shall say that it may not be concerned with a yet unborn attitude in us Europeans when we will turn wholly to ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... a word, return, my dear Amadis; the adventure of the Solway-nets is not reserved for your worship. Come back, and I will be your faithful Sancho Panza upon a more hopeful quest. We will beat about together, in search of this Urganda, the Unknown She of the Green Mantle, who can read this, the riddle of thy fate, better than wise Eppie of Buckhaven, [Well known in the Chap-Book, called the History of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... a fact so obvious to us that we are inclined to attach no importance to it, seemed, itself, to be something wonderful. Here in Geometry and Arithmetic, here was order and harmony unsurpassed and unsurpassable. What wonder then that Pythagoras concluded that the solution of the mighty riddle of the Universe was contained in the mysteries of Geometry? What wonder that he read mystic meanings into the laws of Arithmetic, and believed Number to be the explanation and origin of ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... trouble in the household solve the riddle of his clearance, For his bride was now in heaven, and the issue of the match Was a patient drudge whose virtues were as plain as her appearance— Just the sort whereto no scandal ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... farce. There must be a spiritual function intended, a design to build up strong and true moral character, to develop sweet and holy life, otherwise history is a despair, and experience a hopeless riddle. All truly great human life has been lived with a spiritual outlook, and on a high level. Men have felt instinctively that there is no justification for all the pain, and strife, and failure, and sorrow of the world, if these do not serve a higher purpose ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... side a man who had fought for a cause he did not approve rather than be taunted with having espoused one of the fundamental principles of her belief. To laugh at locksmiths was an easy thing compared with the reading of this riddle! ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... little or nothing, princess. But I confess to thee, that the two gold talents of Jerusalem were much. Still, neither they, nor what profit I made in the streets of Ecbatana, and even out of that new Solomon the hospitable Levi, clearly explained the riddle. I have been in darkness till of late. And how, think you, the darkness ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... Shrope!" commanded the queen sharply. "Thy wits are addled. Who is there who will read the riddle clearly? Thou, ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... my riddle," said Charles Osmond, quietly. "No awakened spirit could ever mistake the one for the other. It is impossible! How impossible you ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... homeward. Nevertheless, with this trifling exception, he was a pattern of filial duty; and now the time was come that his father must die—his mother was dead long before; and he was left alone in the world with his riddle. The whole house, board, trade—what there was of it—all was his. When he came to take stock, and make an inventory—in his head—of what he was worth, it was by no means such as to endanger his entrance into heaven ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Nevers (if her riddle I read) Was a woman of genius: whose genius, indeed, With her life was at war. Once, but once, in that life The chance had been hers to escape from this strife In herself; finding peace in the life of ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... ascended up to Heaven, but he that came down,' is intelligible as a free comment near the end of the first century; but has no meaning in our Lord's mouth at a time when the Ascension had not been heard of." (p. 84.)—"The Apocalypse" in like manner, to "cease to be a riddle," must be "taken as a series of poetical visions which represent the outpouring of the vials of wrath upon the City where our LORD was slain." (p. 84.) ... (Is it possible that a Minister of the Gospel of CHRIST can speak thus concerning the Divine record?) ... "The second of the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... adorned with horns and a crescent, and another of brass, containing an image of Baal—a human face on the head of an ox, with the horns surrounded by stars. However, I am very ignorant of these things, and you must refer the riddle of the ring to some one more astute and learned in such matters than your humble 'yokefellow' in Hebrew. ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... and love dearly, that your Dian Was both herself and love; O, then, give pity To her whose state is such that cannot choose But lend and give where she is sure to lose; That seeks not to find that her search implies, But, riddle-like, ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... destroyer signaled she was almost abreast of them, but about two miles away to the north. Her message then could be read by all the boys. The words it spelled out, however, were a complete riddle: ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... a riddle you can expect nothing but a riddle. There's my instruction and the moral of ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... eyes wavered. "A horse and a fool flying," she muttered. "Even what the cards showed. The fool seeking the duke!" A puzzled look crossed her face. "But the duke is here?" she continued to herself. "A strange riddle! All the signs show devilment, but ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... riddle, then. You are a widow, rich; as women go, you are not so unpleasant to look at as most of 'em. If it became a clergyman to dwell upon such matters, I would say that your fleshly habitation is too fine for its tenant, since I know you to be a good-for-nothing jilt. However, you are God's ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... in mock despair. "Frieda has made us explain all the old jokes we knew this summer, and I don't see how that one was overlooked. Did you ever hear the riddle about when a door is not ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... a vision in my sleep last night between sleeping and waking. A figure standing beside me, thin, miserable, sad and sorrowful; the shadow of night upon his face, the tracks of the tears down his cheeks. His ribs were bending like the bottom of a riddle; his nose thin that it would go through a cambric needle; his shoulders hard and sharp that they would cut tobacco; his head dark and bushy like the top of a hill; and there is nothing I can liken his fingers to. His poor bones without any kind of covering; a withered rod in his hand, ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... at his counting-house. When he came home, his wife said to him, "Cassim, I know you think yourself rich, but Ali Baba is infinitely richer than you. He does not count his money, but measures it." Cassim desired her to explain the riddle, which she did, by telling him the stratagem she had used to make the discovery, and showed him the piece of money, which was so old that they could not tell in what prince's ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... a crowded circus once: The fool was in the middle. Loud laughed contemptuous Common-sense At every frisk and riddle. ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... good deal. But "From Papa" caught my eye on a little parcel. I seized it and unfolded. From papa, and he so far away! But I guessed the riddle before I could get to the last of the folds of paper that wrapped and enwrapped a little morocco case. Papa and mamma, leaving me alone, had made provision beforehand, that when this time came I might ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Pope's Notary hath set up a great picture in the marketplace, and the gapers say it relates to Rome; so they are melting their brains out, this hot day, to guess at the riddle." ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... going through what we all of us go through," I said, assuming a cheerful tone. "He has suddenly discovered that life is a great riddle, and that the things he has accepted in blind faith are, after all, not ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... said the driver, and Bob had solved the riddle. He then told Mr. Waterman how he had tried to think what "Gi-may" meant, thinking at first that it meant something like "Allons" but that he had found out ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... riddle of Time Is, That offers choice of glory and of gloom; The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his.— But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb Grates its slow hinge and calls from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... he said. He looked deep into her eyes for seconds, and then she felt him drawing her irresistibly to him. She yielded herself as driftwood yields to a racing flood, no longer caring for the interpretation of the riddle, scarcely remembering its existence; heard him laugh above her head—a brief, exultant laugh—as he clasped her. And then came his lips upon ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... my head, for the riddle seemed quite unreadable, and as we had already sat up until long past midnight I begged for my candle, and proposed to defer our conversation until the morning. Jack, declaring that none of the beds in the damp ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... any money, he borrowed the five francs from Courfeyrac. It was the first time in his life that he had ever borrowed money. These periodical five francs were a double riddle to Courfeyrac who lent and to Thenardier who received them. "To whom can they go?" thought Courfeyrac. "Whence can this come to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... And Genoa lost a world. Sir Advocate! I understand your meaning; it were hard Fame drafts upon the Future should be paid Ere present recognition! 'Twere unjust That hope unhazarded in act, were crowned With the same coronal that crowns success. The starving mariner upon your shore— The riddle of the West unsolved—stood not In the same light to set his worthiness, As when an unimagined Future streamed All over him in glory. Yet he stood In that light lonely, as in the old dark, Lonely, but looking to that light for life. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... scroll and joined Him. Happiness here, and happiness there with Him. The quest for Eternal Happiness, which was always His Own Divine Thought. Why, then, did He create ugliness and evil? Why write those upon the scroll? Ah, this perhaps is the Eternal Riddle! But, in 2930, they told me that there could be no beauty without ugliness with which to compare it; no truth without a lie; no consciousness of happiness without unhappiness to make ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... come across the following little poser in an old book. I wonder how many readers will see the author's intended solution to the riddle. ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much: Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd; Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd: Created, half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all: Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd; The glory, jest, and riddle of ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... rows of perforations; they have the usual handle on one side and three feet on the other; also three large vases with perforations right round, on all sides, from the bottom to the top; their use is a riddle to me; can they have served as bee-hives? Also a vessel in the form of a pig, with four feet, which are, however, shorter than the belly, so that the vessel can not stand upon them; the neck of the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... distracting torture. Mine eyes sought him every where, but he was not granted them; and I hated all places, for that they had not him; nor could they now tell me, "he is coming," as when he was alive and absent. I became a great riddle to myself, and I asked my soul, why she was so sad, and why she disquieted me sorely: but she knew not what to answer me. And if I said, Trust in God, she very rightly obeyed me not; because that most dear friend, whom she had lost, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... the idea that the natives might have learnt pottery from the Spaniards lacks all probability, as the Spaniards never visited the west coast of Santo. The two entirely different methods offer another riddle. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... wanted the heaps of ten to grow into a square, and then into a larger square; and every added guinea, while it was itself a satisfaction, bred a new desire. In this strange world, made a hopeless riddle to him, he might, if he had had a less intense nature, have sat weaving, weaving—looking towards the end of his pattern, or towards the end of his web, till he forgot the riddle, and everything else but his immediate ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... remarkable a change in his demeanor; I have for some time past resigned my former place in his confidence. It was, therefore, with the utmost impatience that I awaited the return of Biondello to explain this riddle to me. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... O my Gul Bahar"—and he took her hand, and carried it to his cheek, and pressed it softly there—"deal me no riddle. What is it you say? One may do well, yet ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... musical scale the voices of these dogs ranged, they seeming to spare no pains to give varied entertainment. How these creatures work so hard, eat and sleep so little, howl so much, and keep in good condition, is ever an unsolvable riddle; but they are usually docile, pleasant of disposition, and ready for ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... not cross, although it is hard for any one who has read The Riddle of the Sands to refrain. Had we been there in the nesting season I might have wandered in search of the sea birds' and the plovers' eggs, just for old sake's sake, as I have in the island of Coll, but we were too late, and The Helder had depressed ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... The riddle of the young stranger's peculiarity did not seem likely to find any very speedy solution. Every new suggestion furnished talk for the gossips of the village and the babble of the many tongues in the two educational institutions. Naturally, the discussion was ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the kitchen and hurried back to his guests. There was the riddle of the Quantocks to solve: there were the tableaux vivants imminent: there was the little red-haired boy coming in soon. What a ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... by that?" inquired Chillingworth; "you are a complete riddle to-night, Jack; what is ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... had a familiar intercourse with men who were esteemed the wisest of their day. Doubtless, with your capacious understanding, you have treasured up many an invaluable lesson of wisdom. You certainly have had time enough to guess the riddle of life. Tell us, poor mortals, then, how ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... argued and said that for men who did, intend that the people of the Territory should have the right to exclude slavery absolutely and unconditionally, the voting down of Chase's amendment is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle, a riddle. But I have said, that with men who did look forward to such a decision, or who had it in contemplation that such a decision of the Supreme Court would or might be made, the voting down of that amendment would be perfectly rational and intelligible. It would keep Congress ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... knowing the good and bad, he solved the riddle of human passions, and with mind, tongue and pen unpurchased, he flashed his matchless philosophy on an admiring world, lifting the curtain of deceit and obscurity from the stage of falsehood, giving to the beholder a sight of Nature in her ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... a greater puzzle than now, when we are all busily engaged in killing each other. And at every stage there have been those who have cried, "Lo, here!" and "Lo, there!" and have called men to witness that they have read the riddle and have torn the secret from the heart of ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... that, which if it be not, It were a shame for modest lips to speak it, And silly doves are better mates than we? And yet our love is Jesus' due,—and all things Which share with Him divided empery Are snares and idols—'To love, to cherish, and to obey!' . . . . . O deadly riddle! Rent and twofold life! O cruel troth! To keep thee or to break thee Alike seems ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... supposed that I mean to dogmatise upon a subject concerning which all men are equally ignorant, or that I think the Gordian knot of the origin of evil can be disentangled by that or any similar assertions.... That there is a true solution of the riddle, and that in our present state that solution is unattainable by us, are propositions which may be regarded as equally certain: meanwhile, as it is the province of the poet to attach himself to those ideas which exalt and ennoble humanity, let him be permitted to have conjectured the ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... of writing, to find out what they desire. But above all, that which gives them the greatest room to play in, is the obscure, ambiguous, and fantastic gibberish of the prophetic canting, where their authors deliver nothing of clear sense, but shroud all in riddle, to the end that posterity may interpret and apply it according ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... "They will riddle him with their spears when he comes up; we shall have nothing to do but to avenge him. To your stations, comrades! It is our turn now, and we have no time to lose, for the other two Turks will be up in twenty minutes, and I had orders not to fight if it could be avoided: but we must ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... a riddle to him, but you would never have guessed it from his tone. As for me, I began to have an inkling. Ben Gunn's last words came back to my mind. I began to suppose that he had paid the buccaneers a visit, while they all lay ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that woman has done—from fitting out ships for Columbus, to sharing the toils of the great exposition—without a place of honor in the republic for the living, or a statue to the memory of the dead. Hon. A. G. Riddle and Francis Miller spoke ably and eloquently as usual; the former on the sixteenth amendment and the presidential aspect, modestly suggesting that if twenty million women had voted, they might have ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... did not mean a passive patience. He meant that the method of social reconstruction was still a riddle, that no effectual rearrangement was possible until this riddle in all its tangled aspects was solved. 'I tried to talk to those discontented men,' he wrote, 'but it was hard for them to see things as I saw them. When I talked of patience and the larger scheme, ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... a mere man woman always will be an everlastin' puzzle and a riddle; but even a man kin appreciate, in a poor, faint way, the depths of mother love. It's ez though he looked through a break in the clouds and ketched a vision of the glories of heaven. But you ain't told me yit how you come to be in possession ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... moreover what she herself knows of it is but a part of what it really is. Complete frankness seems to be impossible to her, and complete self-knowledge seems to be forbidden her. If she is a sphinx to us, it is because she is a riddle of doubtful meaning even to herself. She has no need of perfidy, for she is mystery itself. A woman is something fugitive, irrational, indeterminable, illogical, and contradictory. A great deal of forbearance ought to be shown her, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... imitation of the Greek tragedians; of this kind are the expressions, vat vind, diskivered, I be kim, and for to know. But what strikes me most is, the solemn, mournful, and pathetic beauty of the chorus, Tol lol de rol de riddle iddle ido. The [Greek: Ai, an,] and [Greek: pheu, pheu], of Euripides and Sophocles, the [Greek: e e e e] and [Greek: oto to toi] [Greek: totoi] of AEschylus, are comparatively frigid and tasteless. Yes; this Tol lol de rol de riddle iddle ido is so exquisitely tender, and so musically ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... provinces; the same, not to say a growing, number of beardless, ambitious boys, who advance, head erect, and the heart that Princess Tourandocte of the Mille et un Jours—each one of them fain to be her Prince Calaf. But never a one of them reads the riddle. One by one they drop, some into the trench where failures lie, some into the mire of journalism, some again into ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... word 'about' lies the solution of this riddle; and a simple enough solution it is when frankly looked at. A quotation from a too seldom quoted book, the Exploratio Philosophica of John Grote (London, 1865), p. 60, will form the best introduction ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... hour, early in the afternoon, his intention was to return much earlier. It would have been folly for him to make for any point near that from which he departed when he set out from the Kentucky shore. Such a proceeding would be seen by his enemies, and would invite them to riddle him ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... moral, from these comparisons. Life is deeper and wider than any particular lesson to be learned from it; and just when we think that we have at last guessed its best meanings, it laughs in our face with some paradox which turns our solution into a new riddle. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... buzzed and his body became exhausted from the exciting brain-work, he would cry out to himself, "Her last hope shall not be disappointed!" Then he stretched his limbs, and a new impulse of energy flashed into his brain, and on and on he went, working restlessly till the iron riddle solved itself harmoniously, till each lever was transformed into a muscle, each tube into an artery, contrived on the wisest plans, like a human body by the spirit ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... my friend? Why a 'misfortune,' pray? Do you think the riddle you have brought is beyond ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... gentleness as the matter admits of. Meantime, I will myself ride to the Abbey of Saint Bride, and in person examine the young prisoner; and as you say he has the power, so I pray to Heaven he may have the will, to read this riddle, which seems to throw us all into confusion." So saying, he ordered his horse, and while it was getting ready, he perused with great composure the minstrel's ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... readers of our day, are also considered by some as his: one of the riddles is said to contain a charade on his name, but there are doubts; ample discussions have taken place, and authorities disagree: "The eighty-sixth riddle, which concerns a wolf and a sheep, was related," said Dietrich, "to Cynewulf;" but Professor Morley considers that this same riddle "means the overcoming of the Devil by the hand of God." Stopford Brooke, "Early English ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... he gave vent to his merriment, which by no means relieved me. "Shall I give you some good advice?" continued Gulab-Sing, changing his tone for a more serious one. "Don't trouble your head with such vain speculations. The day when this riddle yields its solution, the Rajput Sphinx will not seek destruction in the waves of the sea; but, believe me, it won't bring any profit to the Russian Oedipus either. You already know every detail you ever will learn. So leave the rest to our ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... a string of amber beads with a queer gold clasp, and with the initials 'A. A. to M. A. J.' engraved on the back of it. Now, do you think that Christian Science could solve such a riddle as that?" demanded ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... declaration was no riddle to me. I knew at once that Francis must be on secret service in the enemy's country and that country Germany. My brother's extraordinary knowledge of the Germans, their customs, life and dialects, rendered him ideally suitable for any such perilous mission. ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... this is my dark lantern, and I am not ashamed to inquire of a Dalilah to resolve a riddle; for in my studies of divinity I have gleaned up this maxim, 'licet uti alieno peccato';—though the Devil make her a sinner, I may make good use of her sin.' Prince, merrily, 'Do you deal in such ware?' 'In good faith, Sir,' says the Keeper, 'I never saw ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... what's the use of telling you what good things you have written, or—I hope I may add—that I know them to be good? A propos, when I first opened upon the just-mentioned poem, in a careless tone I said to Mary, as if putting a riddle, "What is good for a bootless bene?" [3] To which, with infinite presence of mind (as the jest-book has it) she answered, "A shoeless pea." It was the first joke she ever made. Joke the second I make. You ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... sham plot' as it is styled by Sir John Hawles, belongs to our story only so far as the cross machinations involved Ralegh. His slender relation to it is as hard to fix as a cobweb or a nightmare. Even in his own age his part in it was, as obsolete Echard says, 'all riddle and mystery.' Cobham had an old acquaintance with the Count of Arenberg, Minister to the Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabel, joint sovereigns of the Low Countries. The Infanta was that daughter of Philip II whose claims to the English throne Jesuits had asserted, and Essex ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... reproachful to Hetty during her whole visit to the Hall Farm; she had talked to her a great deal in a serious way, but Hetty didn't mind that much, for she never listened: whatever Dinah might say, she almost always stroked Hetty's cheek after it, and wanted to do some mending for her. Dinah was a riddle to her; Hetty looked at her much in the same way as one might imagine a little perching bird that could only flutter from bough to bough, to look at the swoop of the swallow or the mounting of the lark; but she did not care to solve such riddles, any more than she cared to know what ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, 235 Where the blind million rush impetuously To meet the evil ones; there might I solve Many a riddle ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... infinite unknown, and by the petty cares and low passions of the finite mortal life which they knew but too well, had determined to renounce the latter, that they might give themselves up to solving the riddle of the former; and be at peace; and free, at least, from the tyranny of their own selves. Eight hundred years before St. Antony fled into the desert, that young Hindoo rajah, whom men call Buddha now, had fled into ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... RIDDLE. A question-mark gone mad. A foolish member of the Interrogation family whose most fiendish offspring is "How old is Ann?" ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... and noble of the Greek gods, Apollo; now he is Odin, with a single eye; now he is Hercules, the hero, with his twelve great labours for the good of men; now he is Oedipus, who met the Sphinx and solved her riddle. In the early times men saw how everything in the world about them drew its strength and beauty from the sun; how the sun warmed the earth and made the crops grow; how it brought gladness and hope and inspiration to men; and they made it the centre of the great world story, ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... were the ostensible object proposed in planting the colonies, were not sufficient: if we could obtain it, we must share in their profits likewise. But this was a question which time only could solve; a riddle, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... go, then; and God be with him! as surely He will be, if the simple, faithful prayers of fair, sad Hepsy Ann are heard. Thus will he, thus only can any, solve that sphinx-riddle of life which is propounded to each passer to-day, as of old in fable-lands,—failing to read which, he dies the death of rusting discontent,—solving whose mysteries, he has revealed to him the deep secret of his life, and sees and knows what best he may do ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... it all is peacock's folly," he said; "who knoweth? Life and Living, Love and Hate, and Honor the bubble, and Shame the Nessus-robe, and Death, which, when all's done, may have no answer to the riddle!—Where is the fixed star, and who knoweth depth from shallow, or himself, or anything?" He struck the lute again, drawing from it a lingering and ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... of All-hallow-even last, shee was accompanied as well with the persons aforesaid, as also with a great many other witches, to the number of two-hundredth; and that all they together went to sea, each one in a riddle or sive, and went into the same very substantially, with flaggons of wine, making merrie, and drinking by the way, in the same riddle or sives, to the Kirk of North Barrick in Lowthian; and that after {278} they had landed, tooke handes ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... will get your wish," said the Calico Clown. "And I think we all have the same wish—that we will have kind boys and girls to own us when we go from here. But now let us be jolly. I'll tell you a funny riddle." ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope
... conscience, the inviolable rights of private judgment, Tennyson has sung of an "honest doubt" wherein there "lives more faith" than "in half the creeds" and councils of ecclesiasticism. Browning has faced the riddle of the universe, the bewildering mystery of a world of pain and sorrow, with unconquerable courage and hope. His musician, Abt Vogler, believes in eternal harmony, with ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... quite different. He inquired for Rincer and the cold in his nose, told Mrs. Rincer a riddle, asked Miss Rincer when she would be ready to marry him, and paid his compliments to Miss Brett, the other young lady in the bar, all in a minute of time, and with a liveliness and facetiousness ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... John was the riddle that I could not read. Among my last actions of this day was one that had been almost my earliest, and bedtime found me staring at his letter, as I stood, half undressed, by my table. The calm moon brought back Udolpho and what had been said there, as it now ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Images, such as are immediately fetch'd from Nature, and rang'd thro' the Circle of the Sciences to fetch their Ideas from thence. But as the Resemblances of such Ideas to the Subject must necessarily lie very much out of the common Way, and every Piece of Wit appear a Riddle to the Vulgar; This, that should have taught them the forced, quaint, unnatural Tract they were in (and induce them to follow a more natural One), was the very Thing that kept them attach'd to it. The ostentatious Affectation of abstruse Learning, peculiar to that Time, the Love that ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... she should have died before she had spent her money. That seemed to him a dark and pitiable mystery; and he looked from the coins in his hand to the dead woman, and back again to the coins, shaking his head over the riddle of man's life. Henry V. of England, dying at Vincennes just after he had conquered France, and this poor jade cut off by a cold draught in a great man's doorway, before she had time to spend her couple of whites—it seemed a cruel way to carry on the world. Two whites would have taken such a ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various |
