"Clew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Precisely the clew that he needed the sculptor had not given, but he was endeavoring to overcome his repugnance to disclosing his most secret feelings. Every word cost him an effort, but he went on with a savage sense of doing penance ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... why Mr. Adams is not here," went on the young man. "Perhaps he has found some important clew and is following it up," he ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... twinkling with lights borne high in the hands of men who were searching. Two boats were rowing back and forth on the lake, with bright lights at stern and prow; and loud shouts filled the air. No answer; no clew: at last, from the island, came a pistol shot,—the signal agreed on. Every man stood still and listened. Slowly the boats came back to shore, drawing behind them Hetty's boat; bringing one of the oars, and also Hetty's shawl, which they had found, just where Raby had told them ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... doubting diffidence. The Mundurucu, although repeatedly appealed to, had taken small part in the discussion, remaining silent, his eyes moodily wandering over the water, seeking through the fog for some clew to their escape ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... this, was a prayer-meeting topic-card, soiled and worn, and a small testament, dog-eared, with much fingering, but no money. A cheap Christian Endeavor pin was fastened to the ragged vest. There was nothing to identify him, or furnish a clew as to where he was from. The face and form was that of a young man, and though thin and careworn, showed no mark of dissipation. The right hand was marked by a long scar across the back and the loss of the little finger. The ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... awkward. Neither hair, dress, nor conversation affords the slightest clew, and you are left to guess. By some mysterious law of nature you invariably guess wrong, and are thereupon regarded by all the relatives and friends as a mixture of fool and knave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe as "she" being only equaled by the atrocity of referring to a female infant ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... 1692 demand an explanation. The question arises, Why should the attention of the accusing girls have been led to this aged and most respectable woman, living at such a distance, beyond the Merrimac? A critical scrutiny of the papers in the case affords a clew leading to the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... strange rushing noise round my head, and raising it above the hammock I caught sight of numberless dark creatures with huge wings which kept sweeping round and round here and there through the verandah. Presently one of them pitched on the clew of my hammock. There was sufficient light from the bright stars to see its shape, and I beheld a creature with large ears standing out from the sides and top of its head, a spear-shaped appendage on the tip of its nose, while a pair of glittering black ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the packet inclosed, D'Avencourt continued—"The accompanying letters were found in Ferrari's breast-pocket, and on opening the first one, in the expectation of finding some clew as to his last wishes, we came to the conclusion that you, as the future husband of the lady whose signature and handwriting you will here recognize, should be made aware of the contents, not only for ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... story of the fast upon the mountain. It was on the height ever since called Cruachan Patrick, which looks to the north upon Clew Bay, and to the west on the waters of the Atlantic. It was Shrove Saturday, a year and a little more from the apostle's first landing in Ireland. Already he had carried the gospel from the eastern to the western sea. But his spirit longed for the souls ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... enough, and it gave me a clew, somehow, to what Melford's nightmare was about. She was calling out, 'Help! help! help! Burglars!' till I thought she would raise ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... more insight into character than I had given her credit for. She had hit upon the most likely person to follow out a clew, however slight, in a case that seemed becoming more and more complicated. I inwardly resolved that I would have it out with Miss Derrick that very evening. Lady Mary now came in, and servants followed shortly afterwards with ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... him the first: I robd myself, for it was justly mine. The labourinthes of pollicie I have trod To find the clew of safetie, for my Cuntrie Requird a head more knowing and a courage As bold as his,—though I must say 'tis great. His stile of Excellencie was my guift; Money, the strength and fortune of the war, ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... person whithersoever he went. Next he bethought himself of the two or three important papers to which Mr. Gammon had referred; and, with tremulous eagerness, read them over once or twice, but without being able to extract from them the slightest clew to their real character and bearing. Then he folded them up in a half sheet of writing-paper, which he proceeded to stitch carefully beneath the lining of his waistcoat; after which he blew out his slim candle, and with a heavy sigh got into bed. For some moments after he had blown out the candle ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... of yarn refused to follow her. She jerked at it in vain. She dared not let her clew break, because if she should lose the lover supposed to be holding its other end, she would die unmarried. "Let me see you! let me see you!" she cried, eagerly, and a figure drew near her in the darkness. An arm covered with dark cloth was almost round her. She drew ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... squared, more sail was set, faster and faster she flew onwards, yet fast as she went, it seemed as if the masses of ice would catch her ere she could escape them in their deadly embrace. Every man and boy was at his station, ready to clew up and haul down directly the ship should be free, and again exposed to the fury of the gale. No one could tell but that other bergs might be ahead, or in what direction it might be necessary to steer. Archy, as he held on to a rope he had been ordered to tend, looked up at the vast ice-cliffs ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... matted head With those worn arms, all joyless; and the tears Fell hot upon his forehead from her eyes. For now in this dim gloaming their two souls Unfruited, by an instant insight wild, Delicious, found the full, mysterious clew Of individual being, each in each. But, tremulously, soon they drew themselves Away from that so sweet, so sad embrace, The first, the last that could be theirs. Then he, Summing his story in a word, a glance, Added, "But though you see me broken down And poor enough, ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... were scattered, some aloft to "lay out" on the topsail yard, some to the clew-lines, and some to clear the anchor, which latter had not been disturbed since the Roving Bess left ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... to deny his identity, but the Americans had been furnished with his photograph, and a wart on his forehead proved a clew that was conclusive. At once his effects were searched, and under his pillow was found a leather bag containing fifty thousand dollars in gold ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... his revenge is wanting for yourself. The police have not hunted him out: how can you? Accident has made me acquainted with one of his haunts. Give me a single promise, and I will put you at least upon that clew,—weak, perhaps, but as yet the sole one to be followed. Promise me that, only in defence of your own life, not for mere jealousy, you will avail yourself of the knowledge, and you shall know all ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the same as the outward-bound, and Mr. Dodge had come abroad quite as green as he was now going home ripe, this traveller of six months' finish did not escape diver commentaries that literally cut him up "from clew to ear-ring," and which flew about in the rigging much as active birds flutter from branch to branch in a tree. The subject of all this wit, however, remained profoundly, not to say happily, ignorant of the sensation he had produced, being occupied in disposing ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... done, don't you? Well, it depends only on you. There must be some one among you who knows something about this matter. Let him come forward and tell us what he has seen or heard. Remember that the smallest trifle may be a clew to the crime. You would be as bad as the incendiary himself, if you concealed him. Just ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... higher chayani. The fever coincided with the rainy season. As soon as this was over it subsided. Natural as this was, both women attributed it to a mysterious cause; and Shotaye, suspicious and vindictive even, thought she had discovered a clew to the ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... could she approach him after their last interview? The friendly face 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; ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... abstracted all day, but it was not till after dinner, when we were taking our coffee on the verandah, that she gave me any clew to her thoughts. Then ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... few of our cavalry wore, when on Indian campaign, the forage-cap with its crossed sabres and distinguishing letters. Nothing in the dress or accoutrements of the two men thus advancing to meet the Indian emissaries would give to the latter any clew as to the troop or regiment to which they belonged. Could they see the horses, however, the matter would be settled at once. The U. S. brand, with that of the number of the regiment and letter of the troop showed on every cavalry mount in the service, and the Ogallallas knew the earmarks of two, ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... But supposing it true, how could we be expected to believe it like them that saw him with their own eyes? I couldn't be required to believe just as if I could have no doubt about it. It wouldn't be fair. Only—perhaps we haven't got the clew by ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... the important clew was discovered, for at the very door of the little room, where the fire had raged, was found a piece of glass with ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... youth you knew and loved Alice (though in innocence and honour)? Your tender age, the difference of rank, forbade your union. Her father, discovering your clandestine correspondence, suddenly removed her from the country, and destroyed all clew for your inquiries. You lost sight of each other,—each was taught to believe the other dead. Alice was compelled by her father to marry Mr. Cameron; and after his death, her poverty and her love for her only ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... oblong box would furnish a clew to the man's real personality, Cleggett, assisted by Lady Agatha and Dr. Farnsworth, opened ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... upon the bank at the rustic seat. Their search up and down the river revealed no other clew. They returned greatly shocked. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... no further clew to guide his search. It was destined that the last he was to know of her should be that she was thrown on the tender mercies of the world—her last friend gone, her last penny expended. She was buried out of his sight, not in the peaceful grave, with ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... sent there for the express purpose of preventing anything of the kind did not improve matters. He hated to put the news on the wire—to admit to headquarters that the ranchers apparently had caught him napping. But, having dispatched his telegram, he set his energies to finding some clew to the perpetrators of ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... clew that, in the hands of the Abbe Faria, had been so skilfully used to guide him through the Daedalian labyrinth of probabilities, he thought that the Cardinal Spada, anxious not to be watched, had entered the creek, concealed his little barque, followed the line marked by the notches ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was made for the grand fleet to anchor, All in the Downs that night for to meet; So cast off your shank-painter, let go your cat's-topper, Hawl up your clew-garnets, let fly ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... struck Roland. He had heard it before. It had a happy memory, an air of prosperity about it. Lanhearne! It was a Cornish name! That circumstance gave him the clew. When he was a boy at Eton, he remembered a Mr. Lanhearne who stayed with his father. "By Jove!" he cried, starting to his feet, "he was an American. What a piece of luck it would be if it should be the same ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... there are, therefore, few points of distinction more remarkable between the seamanship of an old and a young officer, than their power of judging of this matter. To a man quite inexperienced, a squall may look in the highest degree threatening; he will order the top-gallant clew-lines to be manned, place hands by the topsail haulyards, and lay along the main clew-garnets. His more experienced captain, however, being apprised of the squall's approach, steps on deck, takes a hasty look ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... For mercy's sake, my dear fellow, don't seem to get a clew if you haven't it. It's more than I can bear.' He rises, and desperately confronts Willis in his promenade. 'If you ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... sure indication of extraordinary preoccupation; and the concierge, on taking up the provisions, had found the poor mother half mad, running from one room to another, looking for a note from the child, for any clew, however unimportant, that would enable her at least ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... To-day, by inadvertence, I left my wallet, containing a considerable sum of money, on the bureau in my chamber. An hour later, discovering my loss, I went upstairs, but the wallet was gone. It had mysteriously disappeared. I was at a loss to understand this at first, but I soon found a clew. I ascertained that a boy—a boy who is presently one of the pupils of Smith Institute—had entered my chamber, had appropriated the wallet, had carried it to his dormitory, and there had slyly concealed it in the pocket of a pair of pants. Doubtless, he thought his theft would not be ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... be judged from the fact that the trunk of the tree attains a height of from 50 to 100 feet clear of the branches; moreover, it yields a gum resin like copal, which exudes from the trunk, and which is sometimes found below ground in the vicinity of the trees, thus giving the clew to the real nature of amber ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... Langton, after a short private conversation, had summoned the landlord, in the hope of obtaining some clew to the development of the mystery. But no young lady, nor any stranger answering to the description the doctor had received from Hugh Crombie (which was indeed a false one), had been seen to pass through the village since daybreak. Here, therefore, the friends were entirely at a loss in ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... suppose there ain't nothin' new—no clew—nothin' you can work on?" The speaker felt assured there was not, but it might be an encouragement to suggest ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in a measure from the astonishment produced by this discovery I inquired whether other shamans had such books. "Yes," said Swimmer, "we all have them." Here then was a clew to follow up. A bargain was made by which he was to have another blank book into which to copy the formulas, after which the original was bought. It is now deposited in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology. The remainder of ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... found—a big slouch hat being the only tangible clew unearthed to a real personality. And this Walter dug out of a hole near a rear wheel ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... came to me and entreated me to leave the city the next morning. She said her house was watched, and it was possible that some clew to me might be obtained. I refused to take her advice. She pleaded with an earnest tenderness, that ought to have moved me; but I was in a bitter, disheartened mood. I was weary of flying from pillar to post. I had been chased during ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... him how in ancient days three warriors came from Green Ierne, to dwell in the wild glens of Cowal and Lochow,—how one of them, the swart Breachdan, all for the love of blue-eyed Eila, swam the Gulf, once with a clew of thread, then with a hempen rope, last with an iron chain, but this time, alas! the returning tide sucks down the over-tasked hero into its swirling vortex,—how Diarmid O' Duin, i.e. son of "the Brown," slew with his own hand the mighty boar, whose head still scowls over the escutcheon ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... her arrival her husband, after meeting her with reproaches, had fled from the house, leaving no clew to his destination, and giving no reason for ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... but Judson Eells was too shocked to make any proper response. His world was tumbling about him, all his plans had come to naught—and Lynch was gone. He longed to question further, to seek out some clew, but he dared not, for his hands were not clean. He had hired this Apache whose grisly scalp-lock now lay before him, and the others who had been with Lynch; and if it ever became known——He shuddered ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... hope of this. He had not told any one that he intended to retire to the circus cars earlier than usual. The chances were that he would not be missed till the circus company had reached the next town on their route, ten miles away. Then there would be no clew to his whereabouts, and even if there were he might be killed before any help could come to him. So far as he had been able to observe, the miners were—a portion of them, at least—a lawless set ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... at that moment in California, the former home of Virgie, and could perhaps ascertain what mystery overshadowed her former life that had made it necessary to conceal her true name. This would perhaps give a clew how to proceed further, and, as we know, her letter was written at once, and brought an immediate reply. Further correspondence elicited information which only tended to strengthen Lady Linton in her evil designs, ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word,[135] you cannot wipe out the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and substances of nature—water, snow, wind, gravitation—become penalties to ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... York City who was kidnapped on Saturday night on his way from New York to a week-end house party at Beechwood, N. J., not yet heard from. No clew to his whereabouts. Detectives out with bloodhounds searching country. Mother in a state of collapse. It is feared the bandits have fulfilled their threats and killed him. Father frantically offering any ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... mourning for lost kindred whom slavery had scattered. Like the ancient prophets also, his heart was ever burdened by the waywardness of the people whom he exhorted and warned. In young Waldo appeared a joyousness which nothing could quench. From the moment she obtained a clew to his unexpected behavior, everything in his manner accorded with the surgeon's explanation. In his boyish face and expression there was not a trace of the fanatical or abnormal. He seemed to think of Heaven ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... captain myself. I lost her, too, but it's no reflection on my seamanship. We were drifting four days outside there in dead calms. Then the nor'wester caught us and drove us on the lee shore. We made sail and tried to clew off, when the rotten work of the Tahiti shipwrights became manifest. Our jib-boom and all our head- stays carried away. Our only chance was to turn and run through the passage between Florida and Ysabel. And when we were ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... Branching like sea-weed, whirl'd in dazzling rings; Subtle and variable as flickering flames, Sight could not trace their evanescent changes, Nor comprehend their motions, till minute And curious observation caught the clew To this live labyrinth,—where every one, By instinct taught, perform'd its little task; —To build its dwelling and its sepulchre, From its own essence exquisitely modell'd; There breed, and die, and leave a progeny, Still multiplied beyond the reach of numbers. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... are not yet established. We found the most different problems—scientific, naturo-philosophical, metaphysical, religious and ethical—inextricably mixed, and were obliged, as one of our first tasks, to make an attempt at finding the clew and at examining and testing each single problem, together with attempts at its solution, separately, although keeping constantly in mind its connection with all other problems and their attempts at solution. ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... discovered that there were others, enemies, anxious to get mademoiselle to Paris. Rouzet had been followed. Mercier, with a friend, had immediately ridden after him, only, alas! to find him dead upon the roadside and the star gone. They continued their journey toward Beauvais, with only one clew to the scoundrel who had murdered and robbed the faithful Rouzet. He was not a Frenchman. Even now Mercier did not know his name, but he and his friend had distanced the foreigner and his companion on the road and arrived first in Beauvais. Lodgings were scarce owing to the ball, and Mercier ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... they obtained at the police station was meagre enough, but it furnished them a clew. A little girl had been found wandering about, and could be located on a certain street at such a number. The name of the family was not known. With this slender clew they began their search for the street and house. The map of streets which they had hastily sketched ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... up and down the quarterdeck; "we must catch the two prahus if we can. At present we don't know whether they have gone up or down the river, and it would be absolutely useless for us to wait until we get some clew to their whereabouts. After we have finished with them, we will go up the other branch, and try to find the two we know to be up there. I should not like to ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... a different answer—one which might throw some light upon the situation—but the girl was again quiet and introspective, without affording the slightest clew to her thoughts. How did it happen that he had proved so entirely satisfactory? Perhaps, then, after all, the original Henley was not so important a personage as he had imagined. But Paul scarcely hoped that his identity would remain undiscovered after arriving ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... prickly-pear, also bruised from the same causes, helped a little to guide us; so inch by inch we moved along. Often we lost the trail altogether, and then would recover it again, but late in the afternoon we found ourselves totally at fault. We stood alone without clew to guide us. The broken plain expanded for league after league around us, and in front the long dark ridge of mountains was stretching from north to south. Mount Laramie, a little on our right, towered high above the rest ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... "All this is quite simple. Mrs. Hartley opened and read your note and, following up the clew, simply did some neat trick-writing ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... garb of her spirit. It was an emanation of her spirit, a pure and gracious crystallization of her divine essence. This feeling of the divine startled him. It shocked him from his dreams to sober thought. No word, no clew, no hint, of the divine had ever reached him before. He had never believed in the divine. He had always been irreligious, scoffing good-naturedly at the sky-pilots and their immortality of the soul. There was no life beyond, he had contended; it ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... not go on indefinitely as they were now. Something must happen to relieve the tension. She had reached a point where any word, any action that might give her a clew to the trader's intentions, was welcome. She began to long intensely that he might do something which would give her an excuse to use the revolver she ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... tower the mighty gateways of Egypt—the homestead of the nations—beneath which the rites of religion and the blessings of civilization have passed out into the world; and with grateful respect we confess that on the banks of the Nile stands the true Daleth of the Nations.' This idea forms the clew to the whole book, and from hence is derived its title, Daleth. We heartily recommend it to our readers. It merits attention. We quote the last sentence of the short preface: 'That these fragments of the past may reflect for the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... met you," said Jim. Jim was a very proud fellow, too, in his own way. Alison's queer letter had pierced him to the quick. Not having the faintest clew to her reason for writing it, he was feeling ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... closer to the ground to see if I could get a clew to the mystery, and found that the dust all about the large spider was alive with little ones that she had just shaken off. What a load! And how did they ever get up on her back? Did they run up her slender legs, and crowd and ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... gone is a mystery," said Merriwell, "but I think Blunt and his cowboy friends offer a more promising clew to the prof's whereabouts. We'll forget about Porter for the present, and give ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... performed by lowering the yard or gaff a little, then rolling up a small portion of the sail at the peak or upper corner, and lashing it about one-fifth down towards the mast. A boom main-sail is balanced by rolling up a portion of the clew, or lower aftermost corner, and fastening it strongly to the boom.—N.B. It is requisite in both cases to wrap a piece of old canvas round the sail, under the lashing, to prevent its being ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Limited demanded that for the minimum. There was a chap, a Frenchman, I forget his name, who succeeded in making three hundred; but the thing was risky, too risky for conservative persons. But he was on the right clew, and he would have managed it if it hadn't been for the Great Plague. When I was a boy, there were men alive who remembered the coming of the first aeroplanes, and now I have lived to see the last of them, ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... a letter, and did not tell me before? Perhaps it contains the clew to the mystery. Give it ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... to say and do, is so said and done, as not to disgrace his common-place character of the possessor of the secret on which the plot depends; for it may be casually observed, that the depositary of such a clew to the catastrophe, though of the last importance to the plot, is seldom himself of any interest whatever. The haughty and high-spirited Almeyda is designed by the author as the counterpart of Sebastian. She breaks out with the same violence, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... misrepresentations Girl, age 19 years. in home circle. Mental influences: Contagion from long continued untruthfulness at home. Mystery of antecedents. Mental conflict about the above. Heredity and developmental conditions (?) Hutchinsonian teeth only clew. Delinquencies: Mentality: Lying. Fair ability with Running away. poor educational ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... distribution of animals, and their combination into distinct zooelogical provinces called faunae, with definite limits, are very imperfectly understood as yet; but so closely are all things linked together from the beginning till to-day, that I am convinced we shall never find the clew to their meaning till we carry on our investigations in the past and the present simultaneously. The same principle according to which animal and vegetable life is distributed over the surface of the earth now, prevailed in the earliest geological periods. The geological deposits of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Canon Farrar give the probable clew to the interpretation of the book. It is a dramatic poem, celebrating the story of a beautiful peasant girl, a native of the northern village of Shunem, who was carried away by Solomon's officers and confined in his harem at Jerusalem. But in ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... message came from our Philadelphia friend, saying that he was seen on Friday last at the house of Mrs. K, a well-known Union lady in Hagerstown. Now this could not be true, for he did not leave Keedysville until Saturday; but the name of the lady furnished a clew by which we could probably track him. A telegram was at once sent to Mrs. K, asking information. It was transmitted immediately, but when the answer would be received was uncertain, as the Government almost monopolized the line. ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... doubtful in the minds of many. As the morning waned, the advocates of the theory that the gamblers had made away with Harkless grew in number. There came a telegram from the Rouen chief of police that he had a clew to their whereabouts; he thought they had succeeded in reaching Rouen, and it began to be generally believed that they had escaped by the one-o'clock freight, which had stopped to take on some empty cars at a side-track ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... smashed to pieces, and their whole college of swaddling teachers knocked into smidhereens. John Tuam, your sowl, has tuck his pasthoral staff in his hand and heathen them out o' Connaught as fast as ever Pathric druve the sarpints into Clew Bay. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... he called aloud, "to in-all-studding-sails! Down with them!" he added, scarcely giving his former words time to reach the ears of his subordinates. "Down with every rag of them, fore and aft the ship! Man the top-gallant clew-lines, Mr. Earing. Clew up, and clew down! In with ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... strolled out over the rocks behind the town,—wondering all the while at the strangeness of the human fancy and its power on the will; and I reflected, too, and remembered that, in the explanation of the satisfying character of the life which my new-found friend was leading, there had been no clew given to the first great motive which had destined such a finely organized and altogether splendid man to such a career. Was he exempt from the lot of other mortals, or must he too own, like all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... remarked Colonel Whimpers, as soon as the tale was finished, "that you two boys get the first clew to where the robbers are hiding. Didn't you beat the wonderful Chief out before, and doesn't history have a habit of repeating itself? Oh; if only I was ten years younger, how I'd love to be along, when all these glorious things are happening. I hate to think I'm ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... its white dress, with a bag of red, white, and blue hanging from her dimpled elbow, a fancy of Dorris, enhanced by the red and white roses and blue forget-me-nots in her hair,—flowers which she found on her spinning-wheel, with no clew to the giver. ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... two men within him that warred against each other, the appetites of our brute nature and the God-given yearning for a higher life,—when did this grand conception ever have so much significance as now? When have we ever before held such a clew to the meaning of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount? "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." In the cruel strife of centuries has it not often seemed as if the earth were to be rather the prize of the ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... reproach from the staff, whose opinion was the only god he knew, was a dagger thrust to Bouchard. At night he had lain awake worrying about the leak; by day he had sought to trace it, only to find every clew leading back to the staff. Now he was as confused in his shame as a sensitive schoolboy. Vaguely, in his distress, he heard Westerling asking a question, while he saw all those eyes staring ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, buffeted and now and then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas, floundering below amidst a raffle of fallen gear, while the bitter spray lashed them, and the broken boom held up by the clew ring banged savagely to and fro. After that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast a curious quietness as Dampier jammed his helm up, and the schooner swung off before the sea. Then somebody lighted a lantern, and Charly stooped over Wyllard, who lay limp ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... the request was made its fulfilment meant a description covering everything which could be detected by the eye or surmised from any available clew. ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... anything, for him, but a labyrinth of dismal streets, in one or another of which the lost girl had disappeared. He was haunted with the idea that some circumstance, most important to be known, and perhaps easily discoverable, had hitherto been overlooked, and that, if he could lay hold of this one clew, it would guide him directly in the track of Hilda's footsteps. With this purpose in view, he went, every morning, to the Via Portoghese, and made it the starting-point of fresh investigations. After nightfall, too, he invariably returned ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew, Hisses the rain of the rushing squall; The sails are aback from clew to clew, And now is the moment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the doubtful progeny, The lower part a beast, a man above, The monument of their polluted love. Not far from thence he grav'd the wondrous maze, A thousand doors, a thousand winding ways: Here dwells the monster, hid from human view, Not to be found, but by the faithful clew; Till the kind artist, mov'd with pious grief, Lent to the loving maid this last relief, And all those erring paths describ'd so well That Theseus conquer'd and the monster fell. Here hapless Icarus had found his part, Had not the father's ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... power. Now listen to me. The first thing to do is to discover Nancy's whereabouts. The second is to get at the bottom of the Marquis's plot and the secret of the torn scrap of paper. We will find the clew to both, I think, if we can discover the meaning of the signals between the Marquis and the lady in the House ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... reception, as generosity in communication. The references to the "land of Havilah" for gold, and to "Mount Calybe" for iron, are characteristic of monkish geographical science; the recipe for the making of Spanish gold is interesting, as affording us a clew to the meaning of the mediaeval traditions respecting the basilisk. Pliny says nothing about the hatching of this chimera from cocks' eggs, and ascribes the power of killing at sight to a different animal, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... buyer its application or its use? And if I should say so, might I not as well say, that no Quaker can be in trade? I fear that to say this, would be to get into a labyrinth, out of which there would be no clew to ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... of the cases of complaint made in this general way, and have felt mortified that our soldiers should do acts which are nothing more or less than stealing, but I was powerless without some clew whereby to reach the rightful party. I know that the great mass of our soldiers would scorn to steal or commit crime, and I will not therefore entertain vague and general complaints, but stand, prepared always to follow up any ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... considered this important information. If the twenty dollar bill, thus marked, should ever appear in the village, it might furnish a clew by which to trace ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... billowed out, full of wind, pulling hard at the clew-line, which was made fast to the gunwhale beside Hrolfur. The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... had quite set her heart on the romance that had commenced in dots and dashes culminating in orange blossoms—a Wired Love. But now, to her vexation, she saw her anticipations liable to be set at naught, and herself unable to obtain even a clew to the trouble. Like the "line man," who goes up and down to find why the wires will not work, she could not find the "break" anywhere, and decided that romances, whether "wired" or taken in the ordinary way, were certainly very ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... cub came from headquarters a detective was sent down to the Bowery, and by this time it is known pretty well what we looked like. The afternoon papers say the police are following a good clew, but you know what ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... to have remained for Dr. T.J. Hussey, of Hayes, England, to suggest the actual discovery of the unknown planet by following the clew of the disturbance produced by its presence in a certain field of space. Dr. Hussey, in 1834, wrote to Sir George Biddell Airy, astronomer royal at Greenwich, suggesting that the perturbation of the orbit of Uranus might be used as the clew for the discovery ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... development. St. John, the disciple of love, teaches very plainly that he who says he loves God must prove it by also loving man. If the whole of our training here is to be in loving and in living out our love, we certainly have the clew to the heavenly life. We shall continue in the doing of the things we have here learned to do. Life in glory will be earth's Christian life intensified and perfected. Heaven will not be a place of idle repose. Inaction ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... skipper. "In studdingsails, Mr Adair; clew up and furl your royals and topgallantsails; in flying-jib; and then haul your wind, if you please. The fellow will surely not ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... done it, but how could I? All I know is that he was a delicately brought up young Englishman, and the only clew I have is a watch with a London maker's name on it and a girl's photograph. I've a very curious notion that I shall ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... is," interrupted Miss Robinson, handing the sheet to her assistant. "What a pity that it gives no clew to the writer—no address!" ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... himself doggedly to the task of finding a way back. To this end, he knelt down, and felt the smooth surface of the snow with bare fingers for some trace of his footsteps. There was none. The firm crust had carried him without strain. There was no least abrasion of the frozen surface to afford him a clew to his own trail. He strove to reason concerning the direction of his movements, but quickly abandoned the attempt as altogether baffling. In his circling about the tree from which he had garnered fuel, he had neglected ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... poor clew at the best. But I put a good face on it, and promised her I would find him if he could be found. And I spared no pains. I wrote to the postmaster at Tuckahoe, and to a minister I heard of there. I inquired of the Swedish consuls in ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... father has exhausted every known means of finding her, and I thought you might, at least, give him a clew." ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... nothing on the other side of the Mississippi which could afford the faintest clew, and he began the study of Louisiana, so far as it was open to his vision. His altitude gave him an extended survey toward every point of the compass. As it was impossible that any of his enemies should be to the west of him, he did ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... the nut would marry a widow or a widower; but if the nut were an empty shell, he or she would remain unwed. Again, a girl would take a clue of worsted, go to a lime kiln in the gloaming, and throw the clew into the kiln in the devil's name, while she held fast the other end of the thread. Then she would rewind the thread and ask, "Who holds my clue?" and the name of her future husband would come up from the depth of the kiln. Another way was to take a rake, go to ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... spent by Thaddeus in the "noble pastime of snooping," as he called it. The house was searched by him in a casual sort of way from top to bottom for a clew to the mystery, but without avail. Several times he went below to the cellar, ostensibly to inspect his coal supply, really to observe the demeanor of Margaret, the cook. Barring an unusual pallor upon her cheek, ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... fatal piece should appear in the hands of the people whom of all others he most esteemed and with whom his own fortunes were most intimately bound up, was a terrible shock. This, then, was the clew to the catalogue of Holbrook's misfortunes. What surpassing crime could the old man have committed to be so signally marked out for vengeance? But the question of most vital interest was what could be done to save the family so dear to him ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... of nature lives in all the manifold forms; the same laws rule in the human body as in the universe; that which works secretly in the former lies open to the view in the latter, and the world gives the clew to the knowledge of man. Natural becoming is brought about by the chemical separation and coming together of substances; the ultimate constituents revealed by analysis are the three fundamental substances or primitive essences, quicksilver, sulphur, and ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... mostly night-walkers also, and the record they leave upon the snow is the main clew one has to their life and doings. The hare is nocturnal in its habits, and though a very lively creature at night, with regular courses and run-ways through the wood, is entirely quiet by day. Timid as he is, he makes little effort to conceal himself, usually ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... gleam of gold, and was a foreign coin of some sort, possibly of Austrian coinage; but the letters which it had borne, and the figures, had been worn much away; and one side was worn quite smooth, so as to give no clew to what ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... hero the art of keeping young, of keeping the mind fresh and vigorous and open to whatever is good and true, no matter how novel a form it may take, they might, like him, preserve their youth indefinitely. And I think that his life gives us one clew to the secret,—to keep as close as we can to nature, for nature is always young; to sing and to whistle when we would rather weep; to cheer and comfort when we would rather crush and dishearten; often to dare something just for ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... present when this story was told to me by a Mohammedan Kahayan, maintained that it is Dayak and said that it is also known in Pasir (on the east coast). Although the fact that the scene is laid in a region at present strongly Malay does not necessarily give a clew to the origin of the tale, still its contents are not such as to favour ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... going to bed, after hanging the garment before the bedroom fire, will see the apparition of his or her object of affection turn the sleeve to dry the other side. To find the name of one's future spouse, one has nothing more to do than to go on Hallow-e'en to a barn or kiln, throw into it a clew of blue thread, which the person begins to wind up into another clew, having of course kept hold of one end of the thread. Before the winding operation is completed, some one will take hold of the thread, and on the question being asked, "Who holds?" an answer will be returned, in which will ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Mr. Thornton. On the other hand, it is claimed by Mr. Barry that there was nothing of that kind expressed in Mr. Thornton's note, but in reading the book when he got it an hour or so later, the thought struck him for the first time that the clew had been found to the precious book which had been lost so long. He at once repaired to Charles Deane, then and ever since, down to his death, as President Eliot felicitously styled him, "the master of historical investigators in this country." Mr. Deane saw the importance of the discovery. ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... his presence with a nod. Assisted by the young girl, whose energy and enthusiasm evidently delighted him, Hornsby raised the body for a more careful examination. The dead man's pockets were carefully searched. A few coins, a silver pencil, knife, and tobacco-box were all they found. It gave no clew to his identity. Suddenly the young girl, who had, with unabashed curiosity, knelt beside the exploring official hands of the Red Chief, uttered a ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... was granted, and I began the search. I have been six months at it without success; it is like pursuing an ignis fatuus. A clew would take me to Russia, whence I would fly to Persia, then to Turkey, and next to London. In Paris I felt sure of success, but the lady I was tracking turned out to be a grandmother, and there was a lively scene in her house when I ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... clew as to his whereabouts; he had been lost in that wallow of vapor, unable to distinguish north from south. He retreated from the wall and stooped as he ran along behind the screen of the wayside alders. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... these villages were able to swim as soon as they could walk; rowed and sailed boats before they could guide a plow; could give the location of every bank, the sort of fish that frequented it, and the season for taking them. They could name every rope and clew, every brace and stay on a pink or Chebacco boat before they reached words of two syllables in Webster's blue-backed spelling-book; the mysteries of trawls and handlines, of baits and hooks were unraveled to them while still in the nursery, and the songs that lulled them to sleep were often doleful ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... hard reading the character of John Charles Fremont, calling it enigmatical and baffling. Not so with those who knew him best. "His unwritten history," writes one of these, "gives the clew ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... expatriated himself, resigned the work he valued, put the seas between himself and Deena, only to be baffled at every turn. For two months he had used his utmost acumen in prosecuting the search without even finding a clew, and when finally he made his great discovery, it was by yielding to the impulse of the moment rather than ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... remain, it is supposed for a year or two, concealed thus, until at length the queen discovered the secret. The story is that the king found his way in and out the labyrinth by means of a clew of floss silk, and that the queen one day, when riding with the king in the park, observed this clew, a part of which had, in some way or other, become attached to his spur. She said nothing, but, watching a private opportunity, ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Mr. Roscorla at this moment, and he smiled: "I think I have got a clew to Mr. Barnes's disinterested anxiety about my affairs. The widower would like to protect the solitary and unfriended widow, but the young man is in the way. The young man would be very much in the way if he married Wenna Rosewarne; the widower's fears ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... of the week, however, there was no news of Anna. She had not returned to the mill. Rudolph's friend on the detective force had found no clew, and old Herman had advanced from brooding by the fire to long and furious wanderings about ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... imagine what that household was like; and again he found himself wondering why she had not consented to his proposal. And the ever-recurring question presented itself—was he prepared to go that length? He didn't know. She was beyond him, he had no clew to her, she was to him as mysterious as a symphony. Certain strains of her moved him intensely—the rest was beyond his grasp.... At supper, while his children talked and laughed boisterously, he sat silent, restless, and in spite of their presence ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the youth of Grande Anse should be any finer than the youth of other places; and it seemed to me that the baker's own statement of his never having been there might possibly furnish a clew.... Out of the thirty-five thousand inhabitants of St. Pierre and its suburbs, there are at least twenty thousand who never have been there, and most probably never will be. Few dwellers of the west coast visit the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... whistle, after his fashion, and he walked away from the females, with the air of a man who wanted room to think in. Half a minute later, he called out—"Stand by to shorten sail, boys. Man fore-clew-garnets, flying jib down haul, topgallant sheets, and gaff-topsail gear. In with 'em all, my lads—in ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... shake the long sticks out of her, and the sails were gaping open and splitting in every direction. The mizzen-topsail, which was a comparatively new sail and close reefed, split from head to foot in the bunt; the foretopsail went in one rent from clew to earing, and was blowing to tatters; one of the chain bobstays parted; the spritsailyard sprung in the slings, the martingale had slued away off to leeward; and owing to the long dry weather the lee rigging hung in large bights at ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various |
