"Clew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the little fellow spoke. That utterance came with difficulty to his lips was obvious. He must always have been a silent, backward little fellow, and sad, as children rarely become at an age so tender. Of who or what he was he gave no clew. He seemed to have no real name, to remember no parents, to feel no confidence in anything ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... must! You want it to be 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
... couldn't have arrived in Goldfield with a burro train in less than six weeks. You say this man uses double negatives. There's a clew. Who, among your acquaintances, Miss ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... Whoever got the ring would be married first; whoever got 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, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... traveling two or three hours, and still Mercer and Anina gave us no clew to what we were about to see. It began to snow. Huge, soft flakes soon lay thick ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... alarm; and, in an incredibly short time, the whole shore of the lake was 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, ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... beyond the Castle, it was necessary for some time to ride with great precaution, in order to avoid the pitfalls, snares, and similar contrivances which were placed for the annoyance of strangers. The Gascon was, however, completely possessed of the clew to this labyrinth, and in a quarter of an hour's riding they found themselves beyond the limits of Plessis le Parc, and not far distant from the ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... conclusion. "The hack driver caught but a glimpse of her, and in the excitement of the moment failed to take the number of the car. But that the latter was a Maillard he is positive. There are several headquarter's men following up the clew as this goes to press; and startling developments are ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... ear. Standing at the moment with my knee on Madame de Bruhl's stool, and remembering very well the meeting on the stairs, I conceived in a flash that the man was jealous; but whether he had yet heard my name, or had any clew to link me with the person who had rescued Mademoiselle de la Vire from his clutches, I could not tell. Nevertheless his presence led my thoughts into a new channel. The determination to punish him began to take form in my mind, and very quickly I regained my composure. Still I was for ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... Mr. Robert spots me comin' out of the 23d-st. candy shop with the package under my arm. You wouldn't think he'd notice a little clew like that, or pick me up on ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... her arrest and condemnation in 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
... not yet two and a half. The story upon which his father maintained so deep a silence was not, could not, be a very old one. His behavior gave me no clew as to whether it had been a joyful or a sorrowful one. Mere silence could tell me nothing. Some men are silent about their griefs; some about their joys. I knew not in which ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... of their ore. While empiric politicians use deceit, Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat; You boldly show that skill which they pretend, And work by means as noble as your end: 70 Which should you veil, we might unwind the clew, As men do nature, till we came to you. And as the Indies were not found, before Those rich perfumes, which, from the happy shore, The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd, Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd; So by your counsels we are brought to view A ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... he mused. "Well, Mr. Grafton, in spite of the well known reputation you bear, I think you will stand a little watching. I must not neglect the smallest clew in a case like this. Yes, decidedly, I think you ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... of citizen policemen, led by three or four uniformed members of the regular force, began a canvass of the neighborhood to discover information that might suggest a clew as to the whereabouts of the missing girls. Half an hour later a woman informed one of the canvassers that she had seen eight or ten girls enter the yard of the old Buckholz place between 3 and 4 o'clock, but had ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... as though she would 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 caring, 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 ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... sort and more fastidious than one thinks; he saw he'd be forced to venture on rather awkward ground, and there was some doubt. He wanted us to weigh the story and judge if the clew he gave us ought to be followed. This was not Vernon's job, although I ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... answer to his master's letter, but wished particularly to see its writer. On inquiring, to their mutual surprise they were told, that the gentleman had left there early in the morning, having discharged his lodgings, and that they were unable to say whither he had gone. To hunt for a man without a clew, in the city of London, is usually time misspent Of this Moseley was perfectly sensible, and disregarding a proposition of Peter's, he returned to his own lodgings. The proposal of the steward, if it did not do much credit to his sagacity, was much in favor of his perseverance and enterprise. ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... even he fell out of range. The Indian pony, apparently tireless, shot on like an arrow driven into the teeth of the wind, sending up behind a cloud of dust that stretched backward toward the baffled pursuers, a long wavering ribbon like a clew left to guide the band into the mysterious depths ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... father has exhausted every known means of finding her, and I thought you might, at least, give him a clew." ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... signal it was made for the grand fleet to anchor, All in the Downs that night for to meet; Then stand by your stoppers, See clear your shank painters, Hawl all your clew garnets, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... field of thought that has heretofore mostly escaped the survey of theologians and philosophers: classes that are supposed to be in pursuit of essential truth concerning both God and man. Its leading aim seems to be to present a reliable clew to those truths by an unusual interpretation of the Scriptures as a revelation of creative order. The author stands with a comparatively small class of ardent explorers who have come to see "the light of the world" under a new radiance; a radiance that actually gives it the breadth and power ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... think I can steer to it. Then, as to working the vessel, it is true I cannot hoist the sails single-handed, but luckily we have enough of sail set already, and if it should come on to blow a squall, I could at least drop the peaks of the main and fore sails, and clew them up partially without help, and throw her head close into the wind, so as to keep her all shaking till the violence of the squall is past. And if we have continued light breezes, I'll rig up a complication of blocks and fix them to the top-sail ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... as Redfield Lyttoun. He had been devoted for a long time to my wretched wife. Their flight was so secret and so skillfully managed that I could gain no clew whatever to it—and, indeed, it was better so—perhaps—yes—better so." Lord Chetwynde drew a long breath. "Yes, better so," he continued—"for if I had been able to track the scoundrel and take his life, my ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... upon the whole, he felt satisfied with its effect upon his host. The latter had not surprised him (except by his frankness) in his disclosure respecting the rich promise of the mine. Richard's own observation, aided by the clew which Parson Whymper's few chance sentences had given him, had convinced him that Wheal Danes was a most coveted object in the landlord's eyes; and had it happened to have fallen into his own hands, he did really suspect enough to have had it searched for ore from top to bottom. Trevethick had ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... also met with in the manic-depressive group proper. So often a stupor begins with the same indefinite kind of upset as does another psychosis that the development may furnish no clew. Any condition where there is inactivity, scanty verbal productivity and poor intellectual performance resembles stupor. This triad of symptoms occurs in retarded depressions, in absorbed manic states and in perplexities. Negativism and catalepsy are never ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... in such close proximity to the bank. It was safe to assume that this was one of the things the professional "strong-arm man" would not do. But it was also evident that he must speedily lose his identity if he hoped to escape; and the lost identity must leave no clew to itself. ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... with the poetic beauty of the Orient, are taken from the last spoken words of the great founder of Buddhism and the Book of the Great Decease. They give a clew to the cult of that religion and breathe the spirit of Nirvana in every scintillating sentence. As nearly as may be the translation is a literal one, done by Rhys-Davids, the world's greatest living ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Captain Jenkinson," said Captain Bird, "and you, Captain Burress, clew him up for'ard. You can stay in the bow, Captain Sanderson, and take ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... Still later, another 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 ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... saw another Femboering, with a full crew, and four clews in the sail, just like his own. It lay on the same course, and he thought it rather odd that he had not noticed it before. It made as if it would race him, and when Elias perceived that, he could not for the life of him help letting out a clew again. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... We'll go and take another look around there. Some man was evidently hurt there, and was taken away. We may get a clew. The lights on the runabout will give us a better chance to look around than we had by the little pocket lamp. We'll try there, and, if we don't find anything, then ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... The only clew left by the assassin was the "dog." At the inquest, the policeman on the beat swore that when he passed the house on his rounds at half-past four A.M., he tried both front doors, and that they were fastened, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... its violent fluctuations for a week while he vainly sought to ferret out the motive that was causing them. And on this particular morning, though he sent his secretary, Harvey West, to talk to Wing, he had little idea that the young fellow would get hold of a clew. ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... Following this clew, we run back along the line of what may be called "our spiritual ancestry." Turning naturally to our own next of kin, a child of New England, going back from the teaching of his youth to his fathers and to their fathers, soon finds before him ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... declared the valet, "and your lordship has surely hit the right clew. For"—he glanced cautiously around him and lowered his voice—"whenever I put on my master's armour I always feel how he is trembling—yes, trembling, your lordship. His face is livid, and the drops of perspiration on his brow are not due ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... subject, the earnest contents, convinced me that I now held the clew of that mystery which had baffled me so long, and that the missing letter said to have been lost at Le Noir's Landing was at last in my possession. It needed not this additional proof of treachery to convince me that my suspicions had been correct, and that, next to the arch-fiend Bainrothe, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... a moment's examination of her travelling sac,—her portfolio in the trunk contained the letter of the aunt whom she came to visit, giving her her address in the city. To this address she had no other clew but that her aunt was Mrs. Mary Mason, had married a few years before a merchant named Mason, whom Miss Jones had never seen, and of whose name and business this was all she knew. They lived in a numbered street, but whether it was Fourth Street, or Fifty-fourth, or ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... replied the postmaster with delight. And he himself harnessed the ancient horse to the creaking carriage. In the meantime Porthos was curious to behold. He imagined he had discovered a clew to the secret, and he felt pleased, because a visit to Athos, in the first place, promised him much satisfaction, and, in the next, gave him the hope of finding at the same time a good bed and good supper. The master, having got the carriage ready, ordered one ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... so was powerless to head off conversation upon subjects into which he knew he had no right to enter, for Patricia possessed the faculty of keeping herself well informed as to family matters. It was through this that he secured the first clew upon which to start a real investigation, so he considered the information Heaven-sent, ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... two other men, one of whom was John Major, an ordinary seaman, standing a short distance from me. Suddenly I heard a dull thud as if a heavy blow had been struck, followed by a piercing shriek. The clew of the mainsail was lashing about wildly in the gale. I saw a body lifted from the deck and carried over the bulwarks. It was but a momentary glimpse. I could scarcely have told whether or not it was a human ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... across the crowded avenue to Broadway. "Who is she? where did she come from? I never saw her before. I wonder if Mrs. Russell knows her, or Clara, or anybody! I will know where she lives, or where she is going at least,—that will be some clew! There! she is stopping that stage. I'll help her in! no, I won't,—she will think I am chasing her. Nonsense! do you suppose she saw you at the window? Of course! No, she didn't; don't be a fool! There! I'll get into the next stage. Now I'll ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... between Nattie and Clem. For she 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 ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... plans, and involve Nancy in some harm. She is probably in that old villain's 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 on ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... you: first, with what parting of plume, and what soft pressure and rhythmic beating of divided air, she reaches that miraculous swiftness of undubious motion, compared with which the tempest is slow, and the arrow uncertain; and secondly, what clew there is, visible, or conceivable to thought of man, by which, to her living conscience and errorless pointing of magnetic soul, her distant home is felt afar beyond the horizon, and the straight path, through concealing clouds, and over trackless ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... to reiterate the fact that the predominant use of each room in a house gives the clew to the best rules of treatment in decoration and furniture. For instance, the hall, being an intermediate space between in and out of doors, should be coloured and furnished in direct reference to this, and to its ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... never 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 meet ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... impossible. The wind came aft. The yards were 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
... evidently meant to put him in possession of a powerful instrument, though he could not be said to have placed the handle very securely within his grasp. But if he had not really told him the secret, he had at least given him the clew to it—a clew of which that queer old Mrs. Bread held the other end. Mrs. Bread had always looked to Newman as if she knew secrets; and as he apparently enjoyed her esteem, he suspected she might be induced to ...
— The American • Henry James
... repeated my explanation again and again, nor, indeed, until I had recounted all the circumstances of my last night's adventure, that the poor Pere could be brought to see his way through a mystery that had almost become equally embarrassing to myself. When he did, however, detect the clew, and when he had perceived the different tracks on which our minds were traveling, his grief burst all bounds. He inveighed against the armies of the Republic as hordes of pillagers and bandits, the sworn enemies of the church, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Alvarez, that the little he has 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, I had almost said ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... a clean job. They had got away with the plates. We didn't have a clew. We thought, naturally, that they'd make for Mexico or some South American country to start their printing press. And we had the ports and border netted up. Nothing could have gone out across the border or, through any port. All the customs officers were, working with us, and every agent of ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... temporarily at least, could not be gainsaid. Her captors had not seen fit to bind her and she now stood absolutely untouched by anyone. The shooting, the fighting, had confused her. She had only seen Marteau as an accomplice and friend of her assailants, she had no clew to his apparent change of heart. She did not know whether she had merely exchanged masters or what had happened. Smiling ironically at her bewilderment, which he somehow resented in his heart, ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished window in ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... but how 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. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... however, Captain Blyth proved to be reckoning without his host; for as the morning wore on the breeze freshened considerably, obliging him to clew up and furl his skysails one after the other, and then his royals, which seemed to give the leading ship an advantage. For, whilst by noon the distance between the two vessels had been reduced to about seven miles, after that hour the stranger was, by ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... 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 not bestow so much ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... sea,—he suddenly experienced religion. "I got it in New Orleans in '59," said Mr. Thompson, with the general suggestion of referring to an epidemic. "Enter ye the narrer gate. Parse me the beans." Perhaps this practical quality upheld him in his apparently hopeless search. He had no clew to the whereabouts of his runaway son; indeed, scarcely a proof of his present existence. From his indifferent recollection of the boy of twelve, he now expected to ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... course. After a march of three quarters of an hour the blazed trees ceased, and we concluded we were near the point at which we had parted with the guide. So we built a fire, laid down our loads, and cast about on all sides for some clew as to our exact locality. Nearly an hour was consumed in this manner and without any result. I came upon a brood of young grouse, which diverted me for a moment. The old one blustered about at a furious rate, trying to draw all attention to herself, while the ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... in America at the same time as had the insignia, but Hines and Stetson would not let him show himself in Stillwater. They were afraid if all three conspirators foregathered they might inadvertently drop some clew that would lead to suspicion ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... we gathered which could give a clew to her actual history or to his. The letters almost never gave the name of the place, only the day and year, many of them only the day. There was dearth of allusions to persons; it was as if these two had lived in a separate ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... The clew to the best available solution of the problem is supplied by a consideration of the precise manner, in which the advantages derived from the efficient exercise of liberties become inimical to a wholesome social condition. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... out a little greasy notebook and examined it. "Eleventh of November," said he, "then I almost think I have got a clew, sir; but I shall know more when I have had a word with two parties." With ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... Graydon Muir was a truth for life. If he could learn to love her from what she had sought to be, from what she simply was, he should have the chance. Her own deep experience had taught her much and given her the clew to many things. She had studied life, not only in books, but in its actual manifestations. Mrs. Wayland was a social mine in herself, and could recall from the past, volumes of dispassionate gossip, free from malice. In two years Madge had learned to ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... 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 time until the return was occupied ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... 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 ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... me, then, if I remind you that time is pressing? Even a half-hour gained to-night by the authorities may be invaluable. If you are able to supply any clew, the least hint of motive, the most shadowy of guesses at a personality behind this beastly crime, you will be rendering a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... 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
... from the port in the Slave Trade, who did not deserve long ago to be hanged. Hence I should get into a labyrinth of expense, and difficulty, and uneasiness of mind, from whence I should not easily find a clew to guide me. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... stranger thing to me," replied Uncle William. "I am dreadfully puzzled over the whole matter. We have now four detectives at work, but up to the present they have not got the slightest clew ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... closeted with Mr. Damsel all day, but so shrewdly and cunningly had the express robber covered his tracks, that nothing but the bare description of the man could be used as a clew. ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... ships of the squadron, which had hitherto kept us company, notwithstanding the violence of the preceding storms. Neither was this our sole misfortune, for next morning, while endeavouring to hand the top-sails, the clew-lines and bunt-lines broke, and the sheets being half flown, every seam in the top-sails was soon split from top to bottom. The main top-sail shook so violently in the wind, that it carried away the top lanthorn, and even endangered the head of the mast. At length, however, some of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... troubled Dave in those days was the question of his identity, and when one of his school rivals spoke of him as a "poor-house nobody" it disturbed him greatly. Receiving something of a clew, he went on a long voyage, as related in "Dave Porter in the South Seas," and located his uncle, Dunston Porter, and learned for the first time that his father, David Breslow Porter, was also living, and likewise a ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... the names of the commonest animals are lost in the dimness of antiquity, such as fox, weasel, sheep, dog, and baboon. Of the origin of these we have forever lost the clew. With camel we can go no farther back than the Latin word camelus, and elephant balks us with the old Hindoo word eleph, which means an ox. The old root of the word wolf meant one who tears or rends, and the application to this animal is obvious. In several English and German names ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... incessantly at work. At the worst, there was one mitigating factor in it all. He had no need to think of her. Whatever the ruin and disaster that faced him in the next few hours, she in any case was safe. There was no clew to HER identity in the letter; and where he, for months on end, with even more to work upon, had failed at every turn to trace her, there was little fear that any one else would have any better success. She was safe. As for himself—that was different. The Gray Seal would be referred ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... hatchway, and, hurrying upon deck, we found a large black cloud rolling on toward us from the southwest, and darkening the whole heavens. "Here comes Cape Horn!'' said the chief mate; and we had hardly time to haul down and clew up before it was upon us. In a few minutes a heavier sea was raised than I had ever seen, and as it was directly ahead, the little brig, which was no better than a bathing-machine, plunged into it, and all the forward part of her was ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Griffith," cried the pilot aloud; "clew up and furl everything but your three topsails, and let them be double-reefed. Now is the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dat pile up de water so de tide rise six or eight inches higher," continued Quimp, picking up the clew given him. "High tide in one hour from now, and de Reindeer was gwine out den for shore. Dat's de whole story, massa, ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... for a number of years. He was in an asylum over at Dayton, Ohio. There you see I have let it slip out! All of this took place in Ohio, right here in Ohio. There is a clew if you ever get the ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... we were small boys in Virginia. This is the only thing by which I could identify my brother William." Nothing more was said upon the matter, and it dropped out of my mind. I did not realize how important were the words of this man. It never occurred to me that he held the clew that might bring ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... a puzzled look. Then, as her eyes rested for the first time upon the handkerchief she had used, its appearance at once suggested a clew by which she was enabled to account for ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... accursed ambition? But, if the laboring earth does not expand her jaws; if the air you breathe is not commissioned to be the minister of death; yet hear it, and tremble! the eye of Heaven penetrates the darkest chambers of the soul; traces the leading clew through all the labyrinths which your industrious folly has devised; and you, however you may have screened yourselves from human eyes, must be arraigned, must lift your hands, red with the blood of those whose deaths you have procured, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a case of violent sensitivity came to light and was recognized as such. Two or three cases there had been which the old scientist discovered while searching the archives of ancient medicine and these gave him the clew he needed. ...
— The Sword and the Atopen • Taylor H. Greenfield
... was said to Nellie about the clew to her father's whereabouts, but Mrs. Bobbsey and Aunt Emily were quite excited over it, for they were very fond of Nellie, and besides, had visited her mother and knew of the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... it all about, anyhow?" asked Jim Cranby. "I ain't heard nothing about it." He had stood in open-mouthed perplexity trying to catch a clew. Coming late, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... so forth—or given a knowledge of the molecular constitution, together with the general physical and chemical properties of compounds—in other words, given such knowledge of the element or compound as may be learned in a laboratory—does such knowledge afford us any clew whereby to predicate the probable action of the element or of the compound respectively on the living body? The researches of Blake, Rabuteau, Richet, Bouchardat, Fraser, and Crum-Brown were discussed, the results of their observations being ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... heard his father's soothing questions, and the mother's answers. She had been out at work all day; when she returned, Jenny was gone. Some one had seen her going up the road to the Munroes' that morning about ten o'clock. That was her only clew. ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... he speaks that is of interest; he might have been taught another, and it would have been the same; but it is the tone. In this case, too, the articulation gives an easier clew to the meaning the bird seeks to express, having a meaning according to the manner of pronouncing it, than any isolated, simply musical sound, like the song of the nightingale, canary bird, and warbler. This became evident to me, not from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... nursing. She is doing splendid work, and has become the cheerful, efficient, sane woman that she was meant to be—though still never forgetting her lost nephew, and never leaving unfollowed any possible clew that might lead to ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... aside. The dark figure disappeared into what seemed to be a well-lighted elevator, and was promptly lifted out of sight. All became dark again, and I was frankly puzzled. This was a situation beyond my ken. What it could mean I could not surmise, and in the hope of finding a clew to the mystery I groped about in the darkness for the card which the hurried individual had cast at me with his words of encouragement. Ultimately I found it, but was unable to decipher its inscription, if perchance it had one. Nevertheless, I managed to keep my spirits up. This, I think, ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... thus far recovered, which are beyond a doubt referable to this period, are too fragmentary to base such important conclusions upon. This is the view of Boyd Dawkins, who thinks "we can not refer them to any branch of the human race now alive." "We are without a clew," continues he, "to the ethnology of the River Drift man, who most probably is as completely extinct as the woolly rhinoceros or the cave bear." Future discoveries will probably settle ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... days afterward fate overtook them, and their stores in turn became the prey of another swarm in the vicinity, which also tempted Providence and were overwhelmed. The first-mentioned swarm I had lined from several points, and was following up the clew over rocks and through gullies, when I came to where a large hemlock had been felled a few years before, and a swarm taken from a cavity near the top of it; fragments of the old comb were yet to be seen. A few yards away stood another ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... had been at all introspective she might have found a clew as to her feeling for Hugh in the unusual care with which she arranged her hair, and her decision at the last moment to discard the pale-green gown lying in state on the bed for a white satin one embroidered at long intervals with rose-colored carnations. The gown was a ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... trace that might lead him on the right track; nowhere a clew that might conduct him through ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... 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
... sight will not be able to perceive it, except it be assisted with an Instrument of a prodigious bigness. For to mark Seconds, though Lines were drawn as subtil as the single threds of a Silk-worms Clew, (which are the smallest spaces to be discerned by the sharpest Eye) by the Calculation made by this Author there would need an Instrument of 48. feet Radius, since Experience shews, that there needs no more at most, than 3600. threds ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... 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 man!" He fixed the address in his mind ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... put on the track of the affair," Edge pursued, "by the disappearance of the money. I had little difficulty in guessing that there had been something queer, but what it was did not cross my mind for a long while. Even after I had a clew, I found Migratz a tough customer, and for a long time I totally failed to identify Madame Valfier. When, thanks to a series of chances, I did so, it was a shock to me. She was the wife of a man of high ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... 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 can never be ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... question terrified her. Feeling sure that she now had the clew in her hand, Mrs. Crayford deliberately repeated her question, in another form of words. Instead of answering, Clara suddenly looked up. At the same moment a faint flush of color appeared in her face for ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... specific properties and heterogeneous nature of matter come into play; it is to be feared that, by persisting in the pursuit of laws, we may find our course suddenly arrested by an impassible chasm. The principle of unity is lost sight of, and the guiding clew is rent asunder whenever any specific and peculiar kind of action manifests itself amid the active forces of nature. The law of equivalents and the numerical proportions of composition, so happily recognized by modern chemists, ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... 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 the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... As the piece was too short for this purpose, Schiller hastily amplified it to a sufficient size and wrote for it a noble prologue, which ranks among the best of his poems. When played at Weimar, in October, 1798, the 'Camp' was well received as a picturesque novelty, but that was all. It gave no clew to what was coming, and there was nothing in it to stir the depths of ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... directory first go-off. If I didn't find him there I'd write to some of his folks, if I knew any of 'em, and get a clew. If I didn't succeed then I'd try the police. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... Through a rift in the foliage, nearly opposite the canoe, peered a swarthy, sinister countenance and I recognized the features of Cuthbert Mackenzie. I took aim at him, but before I could fire he was gone. My brain seemed in a whirl. I had found the clew—the fiendish clew—to the attack that threatened to cost us our lives. Bent on revenge, Mackenzie had traveled up country to intercept us on the way to the fort—to kill me, and to capture Flora. He had bribed the savages to help ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... comfortably in Italy for the rest of my days as the Conte Ferraro. I was alone with him when he died, poor fellow, in the marsh of Zembin, and I shall slip into his skin.... Mille diables! the woman who is to follow after me might give them a clew! Think of an old campaigner like me infatuated enough to tie myself to a petticoat tail!... Why take her? I must leave her behind. Yes, I could make up my mind to it; but—I know myself—I should be ass enough to go back for ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... 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 to hold his bearings in relation to the camp. ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... the other vessels of the squadron, which had been previously directed to keep, though still within signal, at long distances from each other during the day, closing up at night, in order to spread a broad clew and give greater ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... from the rail, and ran aft a few steps. I followed him, and, together, we stared upwards to see what had gone. Indistinctly, I made out that the weather sheet of the fore t'gallant had carried away, and the clew of the sail was whirling and banging about in the air, and, every few moments, hitting the steel yard a blow, like the thump of a great ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... puzzling us by letting us only dimly surmise what had past behind the closed doors that shut in the ill-fated lovers, and of leaving us in a maze of uncertainty and a mist of doubt, peering pitifully, and groping blindly for a clew to tangled ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... 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 the ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... imagination,—which imperatively demands a something more, or at least different. And yet we often find that the very objects from which these copies are made do satisfy us. How and why is this? A question more easily put than answered. We may suggest, however, what appears to us a clew, that in abler hands may possibly lead to its solution; namely, the fact, that, among the innumerable emotions of a pleasurable kind derived from the actual, there is not one, perhaps, which is strictly confined to the objects before us, and which we do not, either ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... wouldn't care to go back to Texas, so the chances were that he was either in San Francisco or England. I didn't know anything about England, so I went to Frisco. I prowled around for a couple o' days exactly like a story-detective; an' by jinks, I turned up a clew. That feller, Piker, was the clew, an' when I spied him in a low gamblin' room I made some little stir until I got him alone so I could talk to him. I hadn't hurt him none; but I had been tol'able firm, ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... said nothing: she sought a clew to the mystery and found none. What had come to Timar? His countenance betrayed something like happiness; what was he concealing under his care for Timea? In company he was bright and cheerful, unconstrained and at ease with Athalie, sometimes even taking her for ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... "Man the main clew-garnets and buntlines!" shouted the first lieutenant; and the hands sprang to their several stations. ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... jest belay a bit up there; clew down your hatches ship-shape, git everythin' all trig, an' lay to. Why, my Christian friend, I intend to post you up thoroughly. Your edication's been neglected. Facts? Facts? Bless your noddle, there's plenty on 'em, ef a man knows beans. Now I'm jest a-goin' to let daylight into that little knowledge-box ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... woodpeckers go off?"—and cheer after cheer went up as the battery passed through. Vain efforts were made to check this vociferous clamor, which was plainly audible to the enemy, less than 1500 yards away. The bullets of the enemy began to drop lower. The cheering had furnished them the clew they needed. They had located our position, and the 71st atoned for this thoughtlessness by the loss of nearly eighty men, as it lay cowering in the underbrush near ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... writes me word that he has reason to believe she has obtained a situation as pupil-teacher at a school in the suburbs of London; and I am going back (among other things) to try if I can follow the clew myself. Good-by, my friend. I ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... your father was shot from ambush a good many years ago. It was north of Medicine Bend, on a ranch near the Peace River; that you never found out who killed him, and that one reason why you came up into this country was to keep an eye out for a clew." ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... wife; and they, together with a traveller, who had obtained lodging there for the night, were all burned with the house. The stranger's horse and saddle were found in the barn, some little distance from the house, but there was no clew to his identity. There were only a few people then who had settled in this bleak region, and there was no funeral other than the assembling of a half dozen together, who dug a grave within fifty feet from the elms, and there laid the charred remains of the unfortunate victims. I had seen a ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... the matter, Sir Bromley followed the clew thus given him, and behind the wall, in a secret chamber, came upon Garnet and his companion, Oldcorne, who, since the coming of the authorities, had been fed through the reed with broths ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... 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 ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IX • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... search for Anthony Harrington, Jr., the little son of Anthony Harrington, banker, of New York. The child, aged about ten, disappeared about a week ago and since then an exhaustive search privately made has failed to yield any clew of the ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... 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 its tender associations, but buried alive ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... sees the terms mismatched, the intended connection doubtful, the sense obscured, and wishes the author could have valued his own meaning enough to have made it intelligible;—that is, (to speak technically,) enough to have made it a certain clew to his syntax. We can neither parse nor correct what we do not understand. Did the writer mean, "Proper seasons should be allotted to retirement?"—or, "Proper seasons for retirement should be allotted?"—or, "Seasons proper for retirement should be alloted?" [sic—KTH] Every expression ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... 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 in movement, like the ivory sails on the ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence" had puzzled Congress and the country. The debates show the keenest curiosity as to what the President had in mind. The newspapers turned the matter over and over, without obtaining any clew to the mystery. Some thought that the President had planned to intervene in Mexico, and that the tolls legislation was the consideration demanded by Great Britain for a free hand in this matter. But this correspondence has already demolished that theory. Others thought that Japan was ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... portentous light shone in her brilliant black eyes; and though that wild gleaming denoted powerful emotions, yet it shed no luster upon the depths of her soul—afforded no clew to the real nature of these ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... of yellow silk, embroidered in white, a costly garment from a fashionable maker; but there was nothing to indicate the wearer. The bag was a luxurious trifle in Brazilian lizard skin, with solid-gold mountings; but again there was no clew to the owner, no name, no cards, only some samples of dress goods, a little ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... The only clew that seems important, so far, is that Scott spent fifteen minutes in Hardy's room, alone, on ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... Paris and at the Olympia and at Longchamps and at Henry's Bar. Well, he just disappeared, that is all. He dropped completely out of sight between two days, and though the family has had a small army of detectives on his trail they've not discovered the smallest clew. It's deuced odd altogether. You might think it easy to disappear ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... spangles are strung on a thread which, if once broken, allows them to drop away one by one, till you can almost follow a woman so arrayed by the sequins that fall from her. Perhaps it was the delicate nature of the clew thus offered that pleased him, perhaps it was a recognition of the irony of fate in thus making a trap for unwary mortals out of their vanities. Whatever it was, the smile with which he turned his eye upon the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... wheel, for 'twas pipin' up a freshish breeze on our port quarter, and we was doin' about seven, or seven and a half knots, with topmast and lower stunsails set to port, and of course we had to take 'em in, clew up the royal and to'ga'ntsail, and haul down the gaff- tops'l before we could round to; and that took us so long that at last, when we'd brought the hooker to the wind, hove her to, and had got the jolly-boat over the side, we knowed that it'd be no earthly use to look for ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... a report to me every evening," remarked Kenneth; "and Mr. Burke says this is the most mystifying case he has ever encountered. So far there isn't a clew to follow. But you may rest assured that what any man can ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... a long, low 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 with ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... easy to prove an accident,—or a murder, either,—when there's practically no clew to be found. Therefore, it's our duty to question any one who can give any material evidence, especially one who was presumably the last one to ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... or little, did not affect in the least the more that was left unsaid. There was nobody in Spenersberg to whom he could say as much as he was saying to Marten. Any Spenersberger would immediately proceed with the clew to the end. "My employer," he continued, "was a very cautious man, and I believe he thought me crazy when I told him what I was going to do, and asked him to lend me the money. Not a dollar would he lend, and I thank him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... raised immediately and sent to William Scott. He next went to New York, where he spent day after day and night after night in searching for the lost girl, but with a sad heart he had to give it up, for not the remotest clew could he get. He resolved to go back to Cincinnati and see if he could find out anything more about her in the neighborhood where she spent the two weeks. He learned nothing new and had almost lost all hope. One night ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... theories which 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. We found ourselves led into ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... Archibald took up the clew Thus kindly supplied, and eager he grew; "Yes, yes; Archie promised he would; I have brought you a valentine, Valentine Brown," (Here he smoothed his gray beard, and looked helplessly down), "He's so good to poor Archie, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... once more, inspecting the water-colors on the wall one by one, in search of some clew to her personality. The first sketch was of a nun in a convent garden—the background vaguely French, and yet with a difference. The next was of a trapper, or voyageur, pushing a canoe into the waters of a wild northern lake. The next was a group of wigwams with squaws and children ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... ascertain by careful looking how the planks had come to give way under the hoofs of his steed. But there was no clew that he could discover. The bridge was not a carefully made one, and it would have been an easy matter for any one to so loosen a couple of the planks that the least motion would send them into ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... lay between. Waiting became a species of heroism. Each morning he reread his manuscript and each evening found him at the theatre, partly to while away the time, but mainly in order that he might catch some clew to the real woman behind the shining mask. His brain was filled with the light of ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... 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 ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... advocate could only vindicate his client's heart at the expense of his head. Pope tells us, that to form a just estimate of any one's character, we must study his ruling passion; and by adopting this rule, we shall soon obtain a satisfactory clew both to the exquisite count's penchant for the prize-ring, and his aversion to the hells. Some persons exhibit an inexplicable union of avarice and extravagance, of parsimony and prodigality—something of this kind is ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... but slight acquaintance with his New York owner, he says but very little about him. He was moved to leave simply because he had got tired of working for the "white people for nothing." Fled from Richmond, Va. Jack went to Canada direct. The following letter furnishes a clew to his ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... it is important to refer in considerable detail to a few physiological matters. Physiology serves to disclose the cause, and explain the modus operandi, of these ills, and offers the only rational clew to their prevention and relief. The order in which the physiological data are presented that bear upon this discussion is not essential; their relation to the subject matter of it will be obvious ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... his head slowly. Yet he was vaguely reminded of someone he knew. Glancing up, he found instantly the clew to what had puzzled him. The young man in the picture was like Kate Cullison, like her father too ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... of sight as no man ever before. Truly I would not even for his death make so great sorrow, had he fallen among his fellows in the land of the Trojans, or in the arms of his friends when he had wound up the clew of war. Then would the whole Achaean host have builded him a barrow, and even for his son would he have won great glory in the after days. But now the spirits of the storm have swept him away inglorious. He is gone, lost to sight ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... why Mr. Adams is not here," went on the young man. "Perhaps he has found some important clew and is following it up," ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... furious Queen, At Woodstock builded such a bower, As never yet was seen. Most curiously that bower was built, Of stone and timber strong; An hundred and fifty doors Did to this bower belong; And they so cunningly contrived, With turnings round about, That none but with a clew of thread Could enter in or out. BALLAD OF ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... us a' he could hae tell'd us, if he had liked, about the application for pardon, neighbours,' said Saddletree; 'there is aye a wimple in a lawyer's clew; but it's a wee bit o' a ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... Caroline fainted in her mother's arms and was instantly conveyed to her room, where we attended her until consciousness was restored and misery with it. The Admiral employed himself in the library, in questioning the men and women, with a view to discover some more certain clew to pursuit, or possibly some accomplice, his experience as president of courts-martial standing him in such good stead that he terrified them all, and I feel certain, had any been a party to the flight, it must have been known. So valuable is manly presence of mind in ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... curious questioning glance. It was almost as if she were asking "Have we known each other before?" Irene could not help looking at her, and ransacking the side cupboards of her memory to try to light upon some forgotten clew as to why the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil |
