"Clue" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clue to the mystery. Amos opened the envelope and read the enclosure, which was also written in pencil, in a neat and thoroughly legible hand. ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... the chapter of Sze-ma Ch'ien on the K'ung family, when the digest of Chiang Yung, to which I have made frequent reference, attracted my attention. Conclusions to which I had come were confirmed, and a clue was furnished to difficulties which I was seeking to disentangle. I take the opportunity to acknowledge here my obligations to it. With a few notices of Confucius's habits and manners, I shall conclude this section. Very little can be gathered ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... white men added as much, for every one of them had distinctly heard the blast. Still neither could suggest any probable clue to the mystery. The Indians said nothing; but it was so much in conformity with their habits for red men to maintain silence, whenever any unusual events awakened feelings in others, that no one thought their deportment ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... calcareous matter is continually going on at the present time, and has probably taken place at all times, the stone thus formed, independent of the organized bodies which it envelopes, will afford no criterion of its date, nor give any very certain clue to the revolutions which have subsequently acted upon it. But as MARINE shells are found in the cemented masses, at heights above the sea, to which no ordinary natural operations could have conveyed them, the elevation ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... near an approach did not the Greeks and Romans already make to it? The old proverb: Mens sana in corpore sano, shows a recognition of the equal position of the world of sense and the world of spirit, as well as their reciprocal necessity. This saying is likewise the key to all philosophy; the clue to reconciliation between spirit and matter, consciousness and guilt, freedom and necessity, ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... that I have not hardly an hour, much less a few days to spare. This morning we marched off a Company of men, who had been enlisted to join the Battalion to be raised by Major Rogers, to the City of Philadelphia. We have an admirable clue of their abominable conspiracies, and (however late this undertaking has been) I hope by spirit and perseverance we may baffle their wretched Plots of occasioning a revolt in ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... the other continued. "I am working almost on your own lines, Mr. Ledsam, groping in the dark to find a clue, as it were, but I'm beginning to have ideas about Sir ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... upon printed matter, but in that I wandered far. The privilege was accorded me of free access to the alcoves of what was then the Astor Library, now, while keeping its name, incorporated with the New York Public Library; and I rummaged its well-stocked shelves, following up every clue, especially memoirs, pamphlets, and magazines, contemporary with my period. From the estimate I had formed of the effect of commerce upon the outcome of the hostilities, it was necessary to digest the statistics of the ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... re-read the passage that was evidently troubling him; and each time he did so the puckers deepened, and his expression became more and more careworn. It would have been difficult enough for a stranger to find any clue to the cause of his agitation in the portion of the Wabbleton Post and Grubley Advertiser which the clergyman held before him; and the wonder would certainly have been increased by the discovery that the passage to which the reverend gentleman's attention was directed ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... and so still that she did not seem to breathe. For several seconds he waited, but still she made no sign. He had not the remotest clue to guide him. He began to feel as if a door had unexpectedly closed against him, not violently, but ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... cold, lifeless statues. Whoever heard of statues dancing? Whoever heard of music without instruments? And yet this very sense of a lyrical movement imperfectly seen, and of a temporarily frozen music, is not only the very secret of all art: it is a slender guiding clue to the centre ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... Therefore, if by remote chance they still lived, the men must lie buried in the snow, perhaps within very few yards of the high-road. For two days scores of men searched every likely spot, but never a clue they found, except Goodfellow's hat, which lay in a peat-hag at no great distance from the post where the mail-bags ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... not that ripe knowledge takes away The charm that nature to my childhood wore For, with that insight cometh, day by day, A greater bliss than wonder was before: The real doth not clip the poet's wings; To win the secret of a weed's plain heart Reveals some clue to spiritual things, And stumbling guess becomes ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... you think?" demanded Jud Elderkin, as the group of lads stood ready for flight, only waiting to catch some definite clue, so that they might not start on a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... preliminaries, the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in front of one of the coffee-houses about the square. Tony counted himself lucky to have run across an English-speaking companion who was good-natured enough to give him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he had paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out again to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count Rialto, appeared to have ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... religionists appeared to reckon an indiscreet haste in any thing, among the more unmanly weaknesses. Nothing for the first half-hour of their visit escaped the guarded lips of men evidently well skilled in their present duty, which might lead to a clue of its purport. The morning meal passed almost without discourse, and one of the party had arisen with the professed object of looking to their steeds, before he, who seemed the chief, led the conversation to a subject, that by its political bearing might, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... pressed against the window-sill, Margery could scarcely believe her ears. Did he really think it was funny? And then she had it. Her father was pretending! But that, after all, was only half a clue. Why was ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... missals show Amid their rubrics' glow, But search the blazoned record's starry line, What halo's radiance fills the page like thine? Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find The way to all the hearts of all mankind, On thee, already canonized, enshrined, What more ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... practised by the disciples of Prodicus or Antisthenes. They would have had more point, if we were acquainted with the writings against which Plato's humour is directed. Most of the jests appear to have a serious meaning; but we have lost the clue to some of them, and cannot determine whether, as in the Cratylus, Plato has or has not mixed up purely ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... account for such elaborate preparations, and such an expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the cellar—something which took many hours a day for months on end. What could ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... 'There is no clue needed,' he returned impatiently. 'Miss Hamilton is in love with her cousin, and is sorry for ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... answer: "or rather, they are sinners whom Christ first loved, and taught to love Him back. My daughter, love is the great clue to lead thee out of labyrinths. Whom lovest thou—Jesu Christ, or ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... left unsolved, except by Bruno, who fancied that he guessed its meaning; but since the clue was one which he preferred not to pursue, he discreetly left matters to shape themselves, or rather, to be shaped by Providence, when ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... this morning, and I had breakfast in my room. The maid's name is Hetty Precious, and I could eat almost anything brought me by such a beautifully named person. A little parcel postmarked Bath was on my tray, but as the address was printed, I have no clue to the sender. It was a wee copy of Jane Austen's 'Persuasion,' which I have read before, but was glad to see again, because I had forgotten that the scene is partly laid in Bath, and now I can follow dear Anne and vain Sir Walter, hateful Elizabeth and scheming Mrs. Clay through Camden ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 'boundary conditions,' so to speak; we only know our little bit of the boundary, and we may err egregiously in inferring or attempting to infer the remainder. We may even make a mistake as to the form of function adapted to the case. Nevertheless there is no better clue, and the human mind is impelled to do the best it can with the confessedly imperfect data which it finds at its disposal. The result, therefore, in this region, is no system of definite and certain truth, as in Physics, but is either suspense of judgment altogether, or else a tentative scheme ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... this as soon as possible," declared the oldest Rover boy. "It may furnish the authorities with an important clue. If I were you, I would get into communication with one of your ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... and these buildings of Satan our (Portuguese) soldiers attacked with such vehemence that in a few years one stone was not left upon another...." And, worst of all, they left no inscriptions that might have given a clue to so much. Thanks to the fanaticism of Portuguese soldiers, the chronology of the Indian cave temples must remain for ever an enigma to the archaeological world, beginning with the Brah-mans, who say Elephanta is 374,000 years old, and ending with ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... them and him? Has he not insulted you often enough to make you let him alone? Can you so easily forgive his taunting you with'—He did not finish the sentence, but what I had learned on the previous evening from the old nurse gave me a clue to its meaning. A red flame flushed the face and neck of the octoroon woman—her eyes literally flashed fire, and her very breath seemed to come with pain; in a moment, however, this emotion passed away, and she quietly said, 'Let me settle that in my own way. He has served you ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Circus to Portman Square to convince her that there were many thousands of Robinsons in London and that the probability of the butcher's cart being a clue to Harry's whereabouts was ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Christianity has weaned the Indians from their idolatry, yet it has not banished their old superstitions. They still believe that they can hold communications with the spirits of their ancestors, and that they can obtain from them a clue to the treasures concealed in the huacas, or graves; hence the Indian name of ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... wood was rendered so valuable to the turner by its hardness that few people would be extravagant enough to use it for fuel. I assented, and felt the more certain that the Jesuit's remark contained a hidden meaning. The only other clue I had consisted in the apparent mistake the father had made as to the king's residence, and this might have been dropped from him in pure inadvertence. Yet I was inclined to think it intentional, and construed it as ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... through his confusion, a certain clue of meaning in his visitor's rapid utterance. The stranger spoke fluently, but in the dry, positive voice that ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... when they ran up, the thing would have been such a puzzle to them that you may be sure they would have suspected there must be some hidden way out of the clump. Besides, they would probably have hunted every inch of the ground to see if they could find anything that would give them a clue as to who had fired the shot. That is ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... given me any clue yet as to what the conversation was," Dick said quietly as we paced down ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... the camp, had been stolen! The burly lumbermen came hurrying from all directions. There was no doubt about it—the horse was gone, and the snow had covered every trace. There was absolutely no clue to follow. Silently and sullenly the men filed in to breakfast. In a lumberman's eyes hardly a crime could exceed that ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... before their publication. To Angstrom, indeed, belongs the great merit of having revived Euler's principle of the equivalence of emission and absorption; but he revived it in its original crude form, and without the qualifying proviso which alone gave it value as a clue to new truths. According to his statement, a body absorbs all the series of vibrations it is, under any circumstances, capable of emitting, as well as those connected with them by simple harmonic relations. This is far too wide. To render it either true ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... make herself understood by her friends in this her dire distress: and to acquaint them with her situation and injuries, by rolling a letter up in a clue of yarn, and dropping it out of her window to a confidential person below. Her family then interfered, and the wretched lady was released, by a legal separation, from her miseries. She retired to the house of her sister, and eventually to Edinburgh. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... of one thought in the scene (its "dramatization"), condensation is the most important and most characteristic feature of the dream work. We have as yet no clue as to the motive calling for such compression of ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... friends are still 'up a gum-tree.' I know now why the baron stayed on at the Chateau Larouge and why 'The Red Crawl' is preparing to pay him another visit to-night: He hoped, poor chap, to find a clue to the whereabouts of the fragment he had lost; and that thing is after the fragment he still retains. Well, it will be a long, long day before either of those two fragments falls ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... depression again. 'She never even asked my name!' he thought, bitterly. 'I risked my life for her—it was for her, and she knew it: but she has forgotten that already. I've lost her for ever this time; she may not even live in London, and if she did I've no clue to tell me where, and if I had I don't exactly see what use it would be; I won't think about her—yes, I will, she can't prevent me from doing ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... 1710, and Marlborough evidently hoped to get from St.-Omer documentary proof of the 'papistry' of his foe. The second Duchess of Hamilton came, I think, of a Catholic family, and may have thought she had a clue to these documents. The intrigue, however, failed, and Bromley was elected Speaker without opposition in ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... to engage him in a conversation on what he had learned in Germany; but we had not gone far till both found that we had lost ourselves in a dark mist; and we were glad to lay hold on an ordinary topic, as a clue back to the daylight. The young divine purposed returning to his native land, and spending his ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... his chair, his blue eyes blazing angrily behind the heavy lenses. "How often must I tell you that you cannot hurry scientific investigation? You have to try and try ... follow one tiny clue to another tiny clue. You have to be patient. You have to hope. But you cannot ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... prefaces, he has provided an elaborate commentary, containing, besides all the variorum readings, a great mass of bibliographical and critical matter; and, in addition, he has enabled the reader to obtain a clue through the labyrinth of Blake's mythology, by means of ample quotations from those passages in the Prophetic Books, which throw light upon the obscurities of the poems. The most important Blake document—the Rossetti MS.—has been freshly collated, with the generous aid of the owner, Mr. W.A. ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... investigation. Some one had entered this deserted house: for what? This, Haggerty must find out. He was fairly confident that the intruder did not know who had challenged him; on the other hand, there might be lying around some clue to the stranger's identity. ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... so," John Martin said. "The only people who have any clue as to how they are done are my two attendants—both as you know natives of Cashmere, and men who, I feel pretty certain, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... accordingly replied, with crisp deliberation, as he re-crossed the room; "yes, I will, Max. Here is the clue to what seems to be a rather remarkable fraud." He put the tetradrachm into his host's hand. "What do ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... there," said he. "By my view of it you're to disappear whatever. O, that's outside debate. The Advocate, who is not without some spunks of a remainder decency, has wrung your life-safe out of Simon and the Duke. He has refused to put you on your trial, and refused to have you killed; and there is the clue to their ill words together, for Simon and the Duke can keep faith with neither friend nor enemy. Ye're not to be tried then, and ye're not to be murdered; but I'm in bitter error if ye're not to be kidnapped and carried away like the Lady Grange. Bet me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the mysterious connection between Sir Cyril and Rosa, I had at present no clue to it; nor had there been much opportunity for conversation between Rosa and myself. We had not even spoken to each other alone, and, moreover, I was uncertain whether she would care to enlighten me on that particular matter; assuredly I ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... Diminishing Utility. Let us turn back, then, to the factor of utility, and see if we cannot put on a more satisfactory basis the relation between utility and price. The clue to the puzzle is to be found in a brief reflection on the implications of the second general law propounded in Chapter II. A rise in price, it was there stated, will sooner or later diminish the demand. This was asserted as a matter of fact, observed from and confirmed ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... a point different from that in which the wind appeared to be blowing when the boat was at rest, or when it was sailing in some different direction. Bradley's sagacity saw in this observation the clue to the Difficulty which had ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... departed, Ensal going home to live the evening over through the night, while Earl called upon Leroy Crutcher and engaged him to use Tiara Merlow as a clue to trace the ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... turn, now, to the Manuscript Troano, and examine the day columns, comparing them with these four groups as I have corrected them by this single transposition, I think we shall find one clue at least to the object of the arrangement we observe on this plate. As but few are likely to have the Manuscript at hand, I will refer to Chapter VII of my work (A Study of the Manuscript Troano), where a large number of these day ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... The sub-conscious mind works very rapidly, but it takes time to arrange the thought-material properly, and to shape it into the desired forms. In the majority of cases it is well to let the matter rest until the next day—a fact that gives us a clue to the old advice to "sleep over" an important proposition, before ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... mistakes during the course of that long dinner; her struggles with her strange multitude of table-ware, which had a propensity for disappearing decidedly odd, but to which Ross's own augmented supply might have given her a clue, had she looked more sharply near his plate, and the eating of dishes new to her and not always liked. For, new dishes or not, Arethusa partook with heartiness of everything that came her way; even to the tiny cup of coffee at the very ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... rewarded by the friends of the Chevalier as seducing a part of the regular army to his standard. For this purpose he opened the machinations with which the reader is already acquainted, and which form a clue to all the intricacies and obscurities of the narrative previous to Waverley's ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... signature, no clue to the identity of the writer. Fairfield had leapt at the chance to do something. Even if it were a hoax it would occupy his mind for a time, and take his thoughts away from the sinister shadow that overhung him. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... and Elector of Brandenburg, actuated by a fit of devotion, set out from his dominions in 1322 on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, leaving his brother John IV. to rule in his absence. He left no clue as to his intended route; but simply announcing his purpose of visiting the sacred shrines of Palestine, started on his journey accompanied by only two esquires. Four-and-twenty days after his departure his brother John sickened and died—not without suspicions of foul ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... as the torn packages, envelopes, and letters were thrown upon its embers. The goldsmith groped about, and examined the sand for the least vestige of paper which might form a clue to their crime, but when he was satisfied that everything had been picked up, he returned to the fire, and watched the bright ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... packing and found nothing, then he fastened it up with more care than was perhaps necessary. He looked at the address on the lid, but it told him nothing more than it had at first; neither that nor the name of the post-office from which it was sent gave any clue to the sender. And yet he felt as if Julia were at his elbow with that mute sympathy in her eyes which had been there when they talked of failure in ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... remarkable smallness of its size. After admiring it for some time, he returned to his house; but his thoughts reverted to the shoe with such intensity, that he reappeared at the stall the next day; but the cobbler could give him no other clue to the owner, than that it had been left in his absence, for the purpose of being repaired. Day after day did Thevenard return to his post to watch the re-integration of the slipper, which proceeded slowly; nor did the proprietor appear to claim it. Although he had completed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... "What a clue!" exclaimed Superintendent Galloway, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "You are quite certain the inn servant can swear that these marks were ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... personalities by puny analyses of moral influences and by a catalogue of their feelings and surroundings. They follow their destined course and raise our admiration or our fears and all the while they give us no real clue to the powers within their souls or the ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... The dramatist wished us to know the thoughts which were passing through Hamlet's mind, and it was the only way he could think of in which to do it. Of course a really good actor can often give a clue to the feelings of a character simply by facial expression. There are ways of shifting the eyebrows, distending the nostrils, and exploring the lower molars with the tongue by which it is possible to denote respectively Surprise, Defiance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... has been the clue to a great number of men for me. He was an illuminating extreme. I have learnt what not to expect from them through him, and to comprehend resentments and dangerous sudden antagonisms I should have found incomprehensible in their ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... aroused the servants. I was cunning, sir; and no one could trace my footprints on the turf and rock of Woeful Ness. The missing hand-bag, and the disarray I had been careful to make in the bed-room, provided them at once with a clue—but it did not lead them to the Quick-Boy. For two days they searched; at the end of that time it grew clear to them that grief was turning my brain. Your father, sir, was instant with his sympathy—at least ten times a day I had much ado to keep from laughing in his face. Finally ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... something which would explain it all. For this reason, the faces,—Helen's face, the nurse's, Terence's, the doctor's,—which occasionally forced themselves very close to her, were worrying because they distracted her attention and she might miss the clue. However, on the fourth afternoon she was suddenly unable to keep Helen's face distinct from the sights themselves; her lips widened as she bent down over the bed, and she began to gabble unintelligibly like the rest. The sights ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... from a poor lunatic who does not know whether it is now day or night?" The learned man said, "There is no telling what he may say to us. But you know that the most foolish as well as the most wise have ideas, and a sentence uttered at random has sometimes furnished a clue by which the desired object may be attained." Meanwhile a little boy also came up, and perceiving the lunatic stopped to see his tricks. The two friends explained their case to the lunatic, who then seemed immersed in thought for some time, after which he said, "He who took the root of that ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... I've gone through every incident of my stay, and I can't find a clue. I've been so careful about ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... have given all that can be known of Thomas Lincoln. I have written impartially and with a strict regard to facts which can be substantiated by many of the old settlers in this county. Thomas Lincoln was a harmless and honest man. Beyond this, one will search in vain for any ancestral clue to ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... this traveller's brief, lose time in conjectural answers to the questions which every step here will raise from the ravaged shrine. But this is a very solemn one; and must be kept in our hearts, till we may perhaps get clue to it. One thing only we are sure of,—that at least the due honour—alike by the sons of Kings and sons of Craftsmen—is given always to their fathers; and that apparently the chief honour of all is given here to Philip the ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... "An important clue is held by Constable Flanders as it is known that the parties came to Bailey's Harbor in a yacht named Hoppergrass and a search is being made for that yacht, Constable Flanders promising the yacht a warm reception if he finds her in the ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... apparent attempt to dismiss the Mantell case. I was convinced now. The Godman Field affair must hold an important clue that I had overlooked. It might even be the key to ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... Colonel Gaylord," I said, "tell him that you have been unsuccessful in finding any clue; that the bonds will almost certainly be marketed in the city, and that your only hope of tracing them is to work from the other end. Then pack your bag and go. A carriage will be ready to take you to the ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... in these long solitary interviews. Such infinite variety may appear crushing or distracting on a first view, but if faced with a courage that no mystery can appal, if sounded with a resolution that no length of time can abate, may give the clue to analogies, conformities, relations between our senses and our sentiments, and aid us in tracing the hidden links which bind apparent dissimilarities, identical oppositions and equivalent antitheses, and teach us the secrets of the chasms separating with narrow but impassable space, that which ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... he should do. He might shoot him dead as he slept, and there is little question but what Teddy would have done it had he not been restrained by the simple question of expediency. The hunter was alone, and, if slain, all clue to the whereabouts of Mrs. Richter would be irrecoverably lost. What tidings that might ever be received regarding her, must come from the lips of him who had abducted her. If he could desperately wound the man, he might frighten him into ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... sounds quite simple, but the writing of the ancient Egyptians had developed into a grammatical system so difficult that it was only the discovery of the Rosetta stone, which was written in both hieroglyph and Greek, that gave the scholars of the world their first clue as to its meaning, and many years elapsed before the most learned of them were finally able to determine the alphabet and grammar of the ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... subterranean abodes. The day passed on, and it grew late; but Marcellus remembered that there were many entrances to the Catacombs, and still he continued his search, hoping before the close of the day to find some clue. ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... account agreed so exactly with that which Captain Scarsdale had given his father, that Ronald had no doubt that he had found a clue which might lead to the solution of the mystery hanging over ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... me intrusive, gentlemen," he began in his sharp mode of speaking, "but you will understand I am very much upset and horribly perplexed by the terrible fate which has overtaken my poor brother. I am setting myself to search for a clue, if ever so slight, to the mystery, the double mystery, I may say, and it occurred to me that perhaps a talk with you gentlemen who are, so far, the last known persons who spoke with him, might possibly give ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... there was much discouragement among us. We found ourselves in a jungle of geographical and legal questions, with no clue in sight leading anywhither. The rights of Great Britain had been derived in 1815, from the Netherlands; the rights of Venezuela had been derived, about 1820, from Spain; but to find the boundary separating the two in that vast territory, mainly unsettled, between ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... take rest; not a Scaliger or Salmasius of them all will sooner solve the riddle of the simplest than of the subtlest melody. Least of all will the method of a scholiast be likely to serve him as a clue to the hidden things of Shakespeare. For all the counting up of numbers and casting up of figures that a whole university—nay, a whole universe of pedants could accomplish, no teacher and no learner will ever be a whit the nearer to the haven where they would ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... terrified, he returned to camp, roused some of his men, and at daybreak secured the body. An effort to gain a clue to the murderer was at once set on foot. It was not long before evidence was secured that led to the arrest of Jim Brown, and there was a hint that his responsibility for the crime was revealed through the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... these likely to cherish a local custom as rude and primitive as the long-stone circles on the tors above? But they were Cornish; and of that race it is unwise to judge rashly. For years I had never a clue: and then, by Sheba Farm, in a forsaken angle of the coast, surprised ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as eavesdroppers,—for they are known to the door-keeper, and rejected from the friendship of that stern officer,—they strive, with ear at keyhole, to catch a word or two which may give them a clue to the probable fate of "Jim," who is in the dock there, on his trial for homicide or some such light peccadillo; loitering round the dog-pit institutions, where the quadrupeds look so amazingly like men and the men like quadrupeds,—especially in that one where the eye of taste ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... we have a clue to the fact that the prophets perceived nearly everything in parables and allegories, and clothed spiritual truths in bodily forms, for such is the usual method of imagination. (122) We need no longer wonder that Scripture and the prophets speak ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... room revealed no clue to the missing men. Within the smaller, rear room Byrne heard the subdued hum of whispered conversation just as he was about to open the door. Like a graven image he stood in silence, his ear glued to the frail door. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... case even for a magistrate. Clues, which at such seasons are gathered by the police like blackberries off the hedges, were scanty and unripe. Inferior specimens were offered them by bushels, but there was not a good one among the lot. The police could not even manufacture a clue. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... on the part of Joel, cowering there at the window, and dodging the dense volume of smoke that poured forth as through a funnel. For Jack heard the call, and it gave him a clue as to where the window lay. So presently he arrived there, greatly ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... crossed the gravel in front of the house, his mind ran through all possible hypotheses. But he was entirely without a clue—except the clue of jealousy. He could not hide from himself that Doris had been jealous of Lady Dunstable, and had perhaps been hurt by his rather too numerous incursions into the great world without her, his apparent readiness to desert her for cleverer women. "Little goose!—as if I ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... of systematic theology is left us, when the perverted historical method is made the only clue to the labyrinth of Scripture? There is but one answer: No such thing as systematic theology is possible. Science is knowledge, and to have a system you must have unified knowledge. The historical method so called can see no unity in Scripture, because it does not carry with it ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... been expecting a letter from one, that afternoon, who always did address to his residence: and that letter, it appeared, had not arrived. However, that had nothing to do with this. Neither paper nor writing afforded any clue to the sender, and the latter ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the figures on p. 45. Although the subsoil lay fallow for a long time it produced no plant food but is just as poor as the subsoil that has been previously cropped. These observations give us a clue that must be followed up in answering our ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... The clue once found was illuminating. The President was like a Nonconformist minister, perhaps a Presbyterian. His thought and his temperament wore essentially theological not intellectual, with all the strength ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... room, the letter, the ring:—his hurried journey North—the arrival at the Langdale cottage, only to find on the table of the deserted parlour another letter from Phoebe, written before she left Westmoreland, in the prevision that he would come there in search of a clue, and urging him for both their sakes to make no scandal, no hue and cry, to accept the inevitable, and let her go in peace—his interview with the servant Daisy, who had waited with the child in an hotel close to Euston, while Phoebe went to Bernard ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the chief points of interest we have arranged an index map (Fig. 27) which will give a clue to the names of the several objects depicted upon the plate. The so-called seas are represented by capital letters; so that A is the Mare Crisium, and H the Oceanus Procellarum. The ranges of mountains are indicated by ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... a strong stress on the adverbs that precede their verbs, the type is D^2. Lessen the stress on the adverbs and increase it on the verbs, and we have E^1. The position of the adverbs furnishes no clue; for the order of words in Old English was governed not only by considerations of relative emphasis, but by syntactic ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... hundred times. So oppressive at last became the will-o'-the-wisp reminiscence, that the reviewer stopped, after an account of the Desert of Gobi, and deliberately read it through again, in search of a clue which might reawaken his memory. It was all in vain, and it was not till another hundred pages had been passed, always under the impression of that bewildering reminiscence, that he exclaimed to himself, "That's it! Robinson Crusoe has turned ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... by the middle of the seventeenth century the amalgamation was almost complete. It resulted in a product entirely new. As the invasion of England by the Normans produced the Anglo-Saxon, so the inundation of Russia by the Germans produced the Slav-Teuton. This is the clue to the study of the Haskalah, as ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... heads of the motley crowd into the still more motley street beyond. Two short rows of one-story buildings, distinctive by the brightness of new lumber on their sheltered side, bordered a narrow street, half clogged by the teams of visiting farmers. Not the faintest clue to a hostelry was visible, and the eyes of the man wandered back, interrupting by the way another pair ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the discovery, or what he held to be the discovery, which governed his whole future career. He laid down the principle which was to give the clue to all his investigations; and, as he thought, required only to be announced to secure universal acceptance. When Bentham revolted against the intellectual food provided at school and college, he naturally took up the philosophy which at that period represented the really ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Clifford.... Henry made for her a house of wonderfull working, so that no man or woman might come to her. This house was named "Labyrinthus," and was wrought like unto a knot, in a garden called a maze. But the queen came to her by a clue of thredde, and so dealt with her that she lived not long after. She was buried at Godstow, in a house of nunnes, with these verses upon ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... these are emu's feathers; but, whether they are or not, they look like a clue. Still, I think they are ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... induce them to accept it for its own recommendations. It is not a sign of one's thinking the boon one offers very attractive, when one allows only Hobson's choice, "that or none." And here, I believe, is the clue to the feelings of those men, who have a real antipathy to the equal freedom of women. I believe they are afraid, not lest women should be unwilling to marry, for I do not think that any one in reality has that apprehension; but lest they should insist that marriage should be on equal conditions; ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... when he saw that the carving was indeed delicate and costly, being both of admirable design and execution; containing withal many devices which seemed to embody some meaning to which he had no clue. This, naturally, in one of his tastes and temperament, increased the interest he felt in the old mirror; so much, indeed, that he now longed to possess it, in order to study its frame at his leisure. He ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... a key to the centuries-old mystery of the hieroglyphics. For two thousand years the secret of these strange markings had been forgotten. Nowhere in the world—quite as little in Egypt as elsewhere—had any man the slightest clue to their meaning; there were even those who doubted whether these droll picturings really had any specific meaning, questioning whether they were not merely vague symbols of esoteric religious import and nothing more. And it was ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... McLean unfeelingly. "Knocking a woman about the desert.... Not much chance of a clue after all these years," he concluded with a very British ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... clue we have to the kind of evidence bearing upon the charge of witchcraft that brought this recently bereaved widow to so cruel and shameful a death, is in a letter, written by a clergyman in Jamaica to Increase Mather in 1684, in which he says, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... of the hunter's careful scrutiny of leaves, they adopted that plan, but it gave them no clue. Whatever it was, it was in front of them, but they were unable to get ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... perhaps be taken as throwing light upon the intended personality of Ishbel, and supplying a possible clue to the identity of the mind of which she seems to ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... and smell, what remains to guide them in returning to the nest? The ribbon spun on the road. In the Cretan labyrinth, Theseus would have been lost but for the clue of thread with which Ariadne supplied him. The spreading maze of the pine-needles is, especially at night, as inextricable a labyrinth as that constructed for Minos. The Processionary finds his way through it, without the possibility of a mistake, by the aid of his bit of silk. At the ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... and to avoid betraying themselves in a state of drunkenness abstained from the use of brandy; but one man, tired and without food, took a glass. It made him drunk, and in his drunkenness he spoke to the man who had sold him spirits. He was arrested, and although he did not know all, gave enough clue for the police to follow up, and all the leaders and over a thousand persons were arrested. Two thousand others, who were affiliated to the society, were warned in time and escaped. You can guess the fate ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... back at Stoke Newington. He went immediately to the address in Pentonville which he found on the envelope, but was very shortly informed by Mrs Cork that 'she knew nothing whatever about them.' He walked round Myddelton Square, hopeless, for he had no clue whatever. ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... perplexities of this momentous period that we have now to follow him, and we shall do so to most advantage by taking as our clue his own avowed primary motive of action, the finding and destroying of the French fleet. A man dealing with Napoleon was bound to meet perplexities innumerable, to thread a winding and devious track, branching out often into false trails that led nowhere, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... performance. I was at it all the time I was West, between times on regular business, of course. I didn't make much out of my direct efforts—they cover things up well in those matters—but at last I got on a clue by sheer accident. There was one man behind ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... at his companion supplied no clue; P. Sybarite's face remained as uncommunicative as well-to-do relations by marriage; his shadowy, pale and wistful smile denoted, if anything, only an almost childlike pleasure in anticipation of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... letters were never sent. I fancy she wrote exactly as she felt, and often feared when she had done so that she had been too frank. How these two ever came to such an understanding I am at a loss to imagine, and I have searched in vain for any clue to the mystery. Only one thing is plain to me, that when at last Ideala understood her feeling for Lorrimer, she cherished it. After she found that her husband had broken every tie, disregarded every obligation, legal and moral, that bound her to him, she ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... twenty-three other "War Crys" published in different parts of the world. Specially prepared information in each case is sent to the local Officers of the Army when that is thought wise, or Special Enquiry Officers trained to their work are immediately set to work to follow up any clue which has been given ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... is of course least perceptible, and most effective, when the region of transition is graduated gently; and we have already seen that this is conspicuously so around the parkland margin of the northern grassland, where it faces on peninsular Europe. Let us follow this clue in detail. ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... race or a double race, and whether it might be purified and strengthened by artificial selection. Perhaps the determination of the hereditary percentage described when dealing with the tricotyls might give the clue to the acquisition of a higher specialized race. The variety is old and widely disseminated, but must be subjected to quite a number of additional experiments before it can be said ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... You surely don't want me to see that you're rather losing your temper and trying to cover it up by being dignified. You've been so careful with your effects, too! . . . I said 'Ah,' because you'd given me the clue I was looking for. You were a very clever journalist, ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... secret vocoder panel, and said: "The information you have just given me is to be regarded as top secret and not to be discussed except over this channel and by my direct order. Absolutely nothing that would give any one a clue to the fact that there is a method ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... travelling Usbeck, without his philosophy and his wit. From Marseilles he went to London, overwhelmed with debts, projecting new ones, and always accompanied by women and creditors. Colonel Warrington was long engaged in persevering researches, and at length succeeded in finding a clue to this horrible mystery. The Pasha, at his request, ordered the people who had made part of the Major's escort to be brought from Ghadames. The truth was at length on the point of being known; but this truth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... philosophical and metaphysical capacities of the period. In this light, the volumes here presented to the reader will be found of great value, for they give a picture of the popular mind at a time or great interest, and furnish a clue to many difficulties in the ecclesiastical affairs of that era. In the time of Calmet, cases of demoniacal possession, and instances of returns from the world of spirits, were reputed to be of no uncommon occurrence. The church was continually called on to exert her powers of exorcism; ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... dint of a thousand sly and secret inquiries, Mrs. Logan found out where Lady Dalcastle had been on the night that the murder happened, and likewise what company she had kept, as well as some of the comers and goers; and she had hopes of having discovered a clue, which, if she could keep hold of the thread, would lead her through darkness to the light ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... Sir John, "gives me no clue whatever to the reason why you are sitting here by my side and calmly eating my eggs and ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... the chick within the shell is unable to break away from its prison; for the white of the egg will occasionally harden in the air to the consistence of joiners' clue, when the poor chick is in a terrible fix. An able writer says, "Assistance in hatching must not be rendered prematurely, and thence unnecessarily, but only in the case of the chick being plainly unable to release itself; then, indeed, an addition ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... limits of the essentials of fundamental rights. To rely on a tidy formula for the easy determination of what is a fundamental right for purposes of legal enforcement may satisfy a longing for certainty but ignores the movements of a free society. * * * The real clue to the problem confronting the judiciary in the application of the Due Process Clause is not to ask where the line is once and for all to be drawn but to recognize that it is for the Court to draw it by the gradual and empiric process ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... friendless creature Clarissa Granger felt, as she pondered on this serious question! To her brother? Yes, he was the only friend she would care to trust in this emergency. But how was she to find him? Brussels was a large place, and she had no clue to his whereabouts there. Could she feel even sure that he had really gone ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... my best to solve the puzzle about those disappearing old coins, and tell you to-day," said his chum, breaking in. "Well, perhaps I may, though my most promising clue has turned out a bit of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... Falkner takes a French East Indiaman..... Prize taken in the West Indies..... Engagement between the Hercules and the Florissant..... Havre-de-Grace bombarded by Admiral Rodney..... Admiral Boscawen defeats M. de la Clue..... Preparations made by the French for invading England..... Account of Thurot..... French Fleet sails from Brest..... Admiral Hawke defeats M. de Conflans..... Proceedings of the Irish Parliament..... Loyalty of the Irish-Catholics..... ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... sacrificed all to the requirements of his renunciation, is a real Sannyasin and is really wise. And as communion with Brahma cannot be taught to us, even by our spiritual preceptor,—he only giving us a clue to the mystery—renunciation of the material world is called Yoga. We must not do harm to any creature and must live in terms of amity with all, and in this our present existence, we must not avenge ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... or two his lips are sure to be swollen pretty badly. Of course if you have no one in your mind's eye as being specially likely to make an attempt upon your life these little things will afford you no clue whatever, but if you have any sort of suspicion that one of three or four men might be likely to have a grudge against you, they may enable you to pick out the fellow who attempted my life. Of course I may be mistaken altogether and the fellow may have been only an ordinary street ruffian. ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... passages quoted from, or referred to in, Chaucer's translation of the Romance of the Rose, at the end of the first lecture, any reader who cares for a clue to the farther significances of the title, may find one to lead him safely through richer labyrinths of thought than mine: and ladder enough also,—if there be either any heavenly, or pure earthly, Love, in his own breast,—to guide him to a pretty ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... the mystery, and baffled by it, searched again perfunctorily. Uncle Dick hunted hither and yon with feverish activity, at first confidently, then doubtfully, finally in despair. He, in his turn, could find no further clue. He gave over his efforts eventually, and stood silent beside the marshal, staring bewilderedly. About the amphitheatre formed by the pool, pines grew in a half-circle, save where the narrow channel ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... more recurred to his last night's blunder, and proceeded very leisurely to catechise me as to my probable stay at Strasbourg, when I should go from there, &c. As I was still in doubt what or whom he took me for, I answered with the greatest circumspection—watching, the while, for any clue that might lead me to a discovery of myself. Thus, occasionally evading all pushing and home queries, and sometimes, when hard pressed, feigning drowsiness, I passed the long and anxious day—the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... actually pointed up to the ceiling. I thought him mad, or what he himself called "an ombog." "I know. You do not believe me; for why should I deceive you? I came but to propose a matter of business to you. I told you I could give you the clue to the mystery of the Two Children in Black, whom you met at Baden, and you came to see me. If I told you you would not believe, me. What for try and convinz you? Ha hey?" And he shook his hand once, twice, thrice, at me, and glared at me out of his ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... clump of white magnolias prevented me from seeing the girl—at the same time that it hid both myself and horse from her sight. The chirrup of the cicadas alone hindered me from hearing all of what was said; but many words reached my ear, and with sufficient distinctness, to give me a clue to the subject of the promised revelation. Delicacy would have prompted me to retire a little farther off; but the singular caution I had received from my companion, prevented ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Cloud nubo. Cloudy (not clear) malklara. Clove kariofilo. Clover trifolio. Clown sxercemulo. Cloy satigi. Club (thick stick) bastonego. Club (cards) trefo. Club (society) klubo. Clue postsigno. Clump (tuft) tufo. Clumsy mallerta. Cluster (of berries) beraro. Clutch kapti, ekkaptigi. Clyster klistero. Clyster-pipe tubeto. Coach veturilo. Coach-maker veturilfaristo. Coachman veturigisto. Coal karbo. Coalesce ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... reply to this, that it is frequently difficult to determine, where actual aggression begins. Even old aggressions, of long standing, have their bearings in these disputes. Not shall we find often any clue to a solution of the difficulty in the manifestoes of either party, for each makes his own case good in these; and if we were to decide on the merits of the question by the contents of these, we should often come to ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... seen and heard that day. He had already done much of what he had come to England to do; but what next? What was the path he ought to take now? He was in a labyrinth, where there were many false openings leading no-whither; and he had no clue to guide him. All these years he had lain as one dead in the coil he had wound about himself, but now he was living again. There was agony in the life that he had entered into, but it was better than the apathy of his ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... of the police. It had been asserted over and over again that in no other civilised country in the world could so great an amount of property have passed through the hands of thieves without leaving some clue by which the police would have made their way to the truth. Major Mackintosh had been declared to be altogether incompetent, and all the Bunfits and Gagers of the force had been spoken of as drones and moles and ostriches. They were ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... philosophical principles was attempted in two forms. He began in English. He began, in the shape of a personal account, a statement of a series of conclusions to which his thinking had brought him, which he called the "Clue of the Labyrinth," Filum Labyrinthi. But he laid this aside unfinished, and rewrote and completed it in Latin, with the title Cogitata et Visa. It gains by being in Latin; as Mr. Spedding says, "it must certainly be reckoned ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... Tiers-Etat, and it is not possible he could continue long to give satisfaction to the Noblesse. I have not hesitated to press on him to burn his instructions, and follow his conscience as the only sure clue, which will eternally guide a man clear of all doubts and inconsistencies. If he cannot effect a conciliatory plan, he will surely take his stand manfully at once with the Tiers-Etat. He will in that case be what he pleases with them, and I am in hopes that base ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... instead of two. From the knee-bend the sides ran up perpendicular; but at the level evidently intended to be the water-line they struck inward, so that the flat roof was smaller than the area below; the position of this water-line giving a definite clue to the intended displacement; and this again showing that the whole—roof, sides, bottom, and all—would be one wall of Simmons armour—steeling and backing—layer on layer—no less ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... better proof than Vanderbank's expression, on this, of his having mastered the secret of humouring without appearing to patronise. "I think you ought to give me a little more of a clue." ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... if he were getting some new sort of grip upon himself. I wonder what it is. He's not better, nor worse; it can't be his health, then. Bodily, he is just about holding his own; nervously, he is steadying. I believe I'll talk it up with Olive; he may have given her a clue." ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... with the greatest danger to his life as far as Khartum, but all was futile. The men who could have given any news died of smallpox, of starvation, or perished during the continual massacres, and of the children there was not the slightest clue. In the end both fathers lost all hope and lived only on recollections, in the deep conviction that here in life now nothing awaited them and that only death would unite them with those dearest beings who were everything for them ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a search for the hidden treasure, at much trouble and expense. This was clear to us, and we talked the matter over that night with eager interest. We surmised every possible case that might have furnished the strange visitors with a working clue to the discovery of the treasure. Speculation ran high. But there was one thing that we became agreed upon, and that was, to become, if possible, parties to the secret enterprise. We pondered with boys' shrewdness how this should be done. This we could not decide upon; but ...
— Money Island • Andrew Jackson Howell, Jr.
... the assent of the legal deputies. In the present instance, there are two negotiators, and I now ask permission to address a few questions to them, reversing the order of your own interrogatories; and the result may possibly furnish a clue to the quo animo, in a new light." Addressing the philosopher, I continued—"Did YOU, sir, in assenting to article 10, imagine that you were defeating justice, countenancing oppression, and succoring might ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper |
