"Solve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "political economy," (for the words seem now to be used in a larger sense), bore the mark of their origin in the eighteenth century. Here, as elsewhere, it was the belief of Frenchmen of that age that the application of a few simple rules derived from natural laws would solve the difficulties of a complicated subject. The principles of political economy were conceived as forming "a true science, which does not yield to geometry itself in the conviction which it carries to the soul, and which certainly surpasses all others in its object, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... sacred rites and those Whom thou ador'st, and by thy own dear life, And by the lives of these thy mariners I beg true answer; hide not what I ask. 320 Who art thou? whence? where born? and sprung from whom? To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. I will inform thee, stranger! and will solve Thy questions with much truth. I am by birth Ithacan, and Ulysses was my sire. But he hath perish'd by a woeful death, And I, believing it, with these have plow'd The ocean hither, int'rested to learn A father's fate long absent from his home. Then answer'd godlike ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Who can solve the equation of womanhood? Colonel Joseph is effusive in his cheery greeting. "My dear madame, I am glad to be in Paris once more." He would charm this sphinx into ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... word 'inconsiderate' imply? The ladies were unable to summon an idea to solve it. They were sure that no daughters could be more perfectly considerate and ready to sacrifice everything to their father. In the end, they deputed the volunteering Adela to sit with him in the library, and put the question of Besworth decisively, in the name of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... systems, must forever remain arbitrary divisions, as they have been hitherto. A retrospective glance at the progress of our science during the past century, in this connection, may perhaps help us to solve the difficulty. Linnaeus, in his System of Nature, does not admit Families; he has only four kinds of groups,—Classes, Orders, Genera, and Species. It was among plants that naturalists first perceived those general traits of resemblance which exist everywhere among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... at her. She whispered something, and his lewd old eyes Fastened upon her own. He knelt by her. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'your woman's wit has found A better way to solve this bitter business.' Her head moved on the pillow with little tossings. He touched her hand. It leapt quickly away. She hugged that strange white bundle to her breast, And writhed back, smiling ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... fully conscious of every movement, determined, if possible, to solve this mystery. His pistols were in readiness, and, had violence been attempted, he would have sprung to his feet and defended himself. He waited awhile, then turned, stretched, yawned, and finally rose up. He drew out his watch, the hand pointed to two. He wound it up, and drawing his cap ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... made in the following work to solve the questions as to the identity of the Sarah, Maria, Sofka, Constance-Victoire, Louise, Caroline, and the Helene of Balzac's dedications, and to show the role each played, no attempt has here been made to lift the tightly drawn veil which has so long enveloped one ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... telephone business, it had passed from infancy to childhood. It was well shaped but not fully grown. Its pioneering days were over. It was self-supporting and had a little money in the bank. But it could not then have carried the load of traffic that it carries to-day. It had still too many problems to solve and too much general inertia to overcome. It needed to be conserved, drilled, educated, popularized. And the man who was finally chosen to replace Vail was in many respects the appropriate leader for such a ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... enthusiastically shared. The spirit in which the two soldier-admirals put to sea in May 1666 we see reflected in the hitherto unknown 'Additional Instructions for Fighting' given below. For the knowledge of these remarkable orders, which go far to solve the mystery that has clouded the subject, we are again indebted to Lord Dartmouth. They are entered like the others in Sir Edward Spragge's 'Sea Book.' They bear no date, but as they are signed 'Rupert' ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... on the means by which aboriginal races, as well as a peculiar fauna and flora, were planted in distant lands, whether islands or remote continents, on which they have been found established by colonists and navigators, from the earliest to the latest times. Ethnologists have laboured to solve the difficulties surrounding the subject; with what success, those who have studied their works ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... resemblances in detail would prove a laborious task. But while the similarity to which I refer is far too close and remarkable to be accounted for by mere coincidence, its explanation is by no means easy. Some would solve the difficulty by referring to the unquestionable fact that many of the ceremonies practised in the Christian Church are adaptations of ancient heathen rites: a leading captive of captivity of which, as it seems to me, Christianity has far more reason to be proud than ashamed. But though ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... morality disappears for lack of any criterion between good and evil. If good is to be discriminated from evil, it must be by some other means than by describing the whole conscious activity of man as a reproduction of the divine. Instead of doing anything to solve the problem of the meaning of goodness, Green simply brings forward a new difficulty—that of understanding how the temporal process in which human morality is developed can be related to a reality which is defined as out of time or ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... Where in nature was the analogue of the breeder to be found? How could that operation of selection, which is his essential function, be carried out by mere natural agencies? Lamarck did not value this problem; neither did he admit his impotence to solve it; but he guessed a solution. Now, guessing in science is a very hazardous proceeding, and Lamarck's reputation has suffered woefully for the absurdities into which his ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... on vermin that have plagued us during the night! We daily solve the riddle of the fishermen's answer to "What luck?" the question ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... others do not, but does not know what others know. Hence the belli causa, for he cannot serve two masters, the God of his own inward light and the Mammon of common sense, at one and the same time. How can a man think apart and not apart? But if he is a genius this is the riddle he must solve. The uncommon sense of genius and the common sense of the rest of the world are thus as husband and wife to one another; they are always quarrelling, and common sense, who must be taken to be the husband, always fancies himself the master—nevertheless ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... containing either mercury or lead are very dangerous. But why should women dye their hair? Goodness only knows. One might as well ask why women fib about their age, or why women shop three hours just to buy a pair of dress shields. There are some questions of life which we are destined never to solve. There is nothing lovelier than white hair. Combine with it a fine complexion and a pair of animated brown eyes and you have as picturesque a beauty as ever awakened emotions in the heart of man. But, nevertheless, women ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... "To say that he had not the expression of great intellect was uncalled for" Alas! far from it; it was an observation that rose inevitably on knowing something of the task before Pius IX., and the hopes he had excited. The problem he had to solve was one of such difficulty, that only one of those minds, the rare product of ages for the redemption of mankind, could be equal to its solution. The question that inevitably rose on seeing him ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... beauty, a woman is under no necessity to bolster up her conscience, or to be reasonable, or to think.—Think? God forbid! There are plain women enough for that. We don't ask our Lady of Milo to be witty for us, or to solve us problems. Believe me, there is more thought, more eloquence, in the corners of a beautiful mouth—the upward look of two dark eyes—than in all women have said or done from Sappho down. Springy colour, light, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... transmits to our mentality a vision of external objects! Tell me how thought conceives and where it resides, and of what nature is cerebral activity! Tell me...! But no! I could question you for ten years, without the greatest among you being able to solve the least ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... The next letter from Bonnoeil to Soyer contained this sentence: "Put the small curtains on the window of the place where I told you to bury the nail...." We can imagine Licquet with his head in his hands trying to solve this enigma. The muslin fichu, the little curtains, the nail—was this a cipher decided on in advance between the prisoners? And all these precautions seemed to be taken for the mysterious d'Ache whose ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... into the Beyond, should be made their sole channel of reunion with their bereaved and sorrowing adorers? In all his harangues, I had never heard my Father attack anything but the actual DRINKING of liquor. This form of communication seemed to me to solve so many problems. And it was in this way that I ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... understand, and to some extent formulate, the problem which we would have girls trained to solve, we must of necessity study homes. What must girls know in order ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... the old grave-yard he seated himself upon a stone that had fallen from the wall, and took up again resolutely the problem that he had to solve. There in the perfect peace and stillness, with only the dead about him for witnesses, the great battle of his life was fought and won. His own faith in his manhood came back to him and gave him strength; the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... to form another cross of another kind? Why, among the ornamental accessories, do certain species of stars form several crosses, entangled or isolated? Why, at the base of the cross is the V duplicated?" All these are problems which it would be exceedingly difficult to solve with satisfaction. We do not propose offering any kind of explanation for these singular marks; but it will not be without interest to point out that among the more interesting examples are those used by Berthold Rembolt, Andr Bocard or Boucard, Georges Mittelhus, ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... sure as you are, Billie, that there's something funny about it," she said. "But if we really had wanted to solve the mystery, we should have stayed at Three Towers. The first thing they do in detective stories is to shadow the people they suspect. And how can we do that, I'd like to know, when we're ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... in his bed-chamber. Mr Furness returned to the village intending to communicate this information to Rushbrook, but on calling, he found that Rushbrook had gone out in search of the boy. Furness then resolved to go up at once to the keeper's lodge, and solve the mystery. He took the high road, and met ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... sequence, The plaintive notes dissolve Divinely tender secrets That none but he can solve. Oh, Khristna, I am coming, I can no more delay. "My heart has flown to join thee," ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... sure of that," I replied. "On the contrary, I should recommend you in your present state of mind to look out your old Plato as quickly as possible, and see if he and his master Socrates cannot give you, if not altogether a solution for your puzzle, at least a method whereby you may solve it yourself. But tell me first-What has all this to do with your evident sympathy for a man so ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... specie can be supplied by paper credit: I will not ask if a poor man can be made a rich one, by compelling him to buy a service of plate, instead of the delf ware which served his turn. These are questions I am not adequate to solve. But I beg leave to consider the question in a practical point of view, and to refer myself ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... everything that keeps me back, or retards me. But the disfavour of Fortune, who always looks at me with the same face, has been the reason why I have not been able to get clear of those vexations. So I returned to France with the purpose, if I cannot solve them, at any rate of ridding myself of them in one way or another. After that I shall devote myself, with all my heart, to the divinae literae, to give up the remainder of my life to them.' If only he can find the means to work for some months entirely ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... heroic, but Mrs. Crow headed them off; the sewing circle got ready to take charge of affairs, but Mrs. Crow punctured the project; figuratively, the churches ached for a chance to handle the infant, but Mrs. Crow stood between. And all Tinkletown called upon Anderson Crow to solve the mystery before it ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... solve the difficult problem of Mrs. Piozzi's conduct and character, it should be kept in view that the highest testimony to her worth has been volunteered by those with whom she passed the last years of her life ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... also not. Possibly enough there may be no call for any such exceptional solution; for, after all, there may be nothing to solve—no dignus vindice nodus. As regards the sudden interchange of characters on the scaffold,—the constitutionally brave man all at once becoming timid, and the timid man becoming brave,—it must be remembered, that the particular sort of courage applicable to duelling, when the danger ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... wiped out the stain, and brought his college into proper relations with the world again. Whether his teaching, during that first year, of English Literature was made any the better by the impending examination in a different subject, is a question which I will not try to solve. ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... would do much to originate and confirm the animistic opinions. Meanwhile, the extraordinary similarity of savage and classical spiritualistic rites, with the corresponding similarity of alleged modern phenomena, raises problems which it is more easy to state than to solve. For example, such occurrences as 'rappings,' as the movement of untouched objects, as the lights of the seance room, are all easily feigned. But that ignorant modern knaves should feign precisely the same raps, lights, and movements as the most ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... was a commodity little at the command of the inhabitants of Lidcote Hall. Tressilian was himself poor; the revenues of good Sir Hugh Robsart were consumed, and even anticipated, in his hospitable mode of living; and it was finally necessary that the herald who started the doubt should himself solve it. Master Michael Mumblazen did so by producing a bag of money, containing nearly three hundred pounds in gold and silver of various coinage, the savings of twenty years, which he now, without speaking a syllable upon the subject, dedicated to the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... paused a moment; then the anxious look returned and he spoke slowly as if he were trying to solve the puzzle even while ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... low limit, the holding of forest land for a second crop of timber is impracticable or nearly prohibitive. This condition has prevailed in many other States where now the problem of taxation is a difficult one to solve. ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... been called upon to solve many difficult problems in the higher mathematics, but it is doubtful whether he ever encountered a more ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... on all kinds of problems, though I can't solve 'em," said Captain Jim. "My father held that we should never talk of things we couldn't understand, but if we didn't, doctor, the subjects for conversation would be mighty few. I reckon the gods laugh many a time to hear us, but what ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his ingenuity and penetration in endeavoring to solve this mystery, when at last, on a foot-path which crosses the waste, a ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... of the greatest desires of the Government. There are a number of bears around as well, but they have lost their viciousness, and enjoy life very hugely under somewhat changed conditions. They seldom hurt any one, but prowl around the hotels at night, and by eating up the scraps and leavings solve the garbage ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... morning stars died out. But still they glistened dimly in the twilight of the sky to which she raised her questioning, believing eyes. Life was always beautiful to her loving soul; for when the shadows held a meaning deeper than she could solve, her answer was faith; and now, that her new joy was to grow out of a deep solitariness for the father so tenderly beloved, it was ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... faith, in spite of the warning of its greatest philosophers, including Herbert Spencer, that faith of some sort is necessary to a satisfactory existence in a universe full of problems which science admits it can never solve. None were humbler than the foremost scientists about the narrowness of the field of knowledge, as compared with the immeasurability of the field of faith. But the warning has been ignored, as warnings nearly always are. Faith is at a discount. And the qualities which go with faith are at ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... appearance of Cawood's edition. Possibly the original reading may be a typographical blunder, for Cawood is extremely sparing of correction, and appears to have made none which he did not consider absolutely necessary. This is one of the literary puzzles which remain for bibliography to solve. (See below, p. lxxix.) ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... version of Blue Beard that would turn that venerable gentleman gray, could he read it. Uncle will be sure to. I dare him to solve the puzzle of my fancy writing. But I made Sada San know the Prince Red Head was coming to her rescue, if the engine did not ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... gazed at my friend as the little village practitioner looks at the Harley Street specialist who by a word can solve the difficulties that ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... first book I told you about the six little Bunkers when on a visit to Grandma Bell, in Maine, and how they helped solve a mystery and find some valuable real estate papers that an old tramp lumberman had carried off ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's • Laura Lee Hope
... hundred pages and consider a paragraph there: by itself it seems to say little; but gradually you recognize in it a part of the inwoven strand which disappears in one part of the knot and emerges in another. Though you cannot solve the genial riddle to-day, you may to-morrow. The only clue is sympathy. This man hides his heart for him who has the mate to it; and beneath the whimsical, indifferent, proud, and cold exterior, how it heaves and fears and loves and wonders! ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... at issue are still unsettled, and that Burke offers in their highest and most comprehensive form all the considerations that belong to one side of the dispute. He was not of those, of whom Coleridge said that they proceeded with much solemnity to solve the riddle of the French Revolution by anecdotes. He suspended it in the same light of great social ideas and wide principles, in which its authors and champions professed to represent it. Unhappily he ...
— Burke • John Morley
... you or any of your antiquarian readers solve me the following. It is stated in vol. i. p. 100. of Lewis Dwnn's Heraldic Visitation into Wales, &c., art. "Williames of Ystradffin in the county ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... beautiful, or glorious—why should you fetter your free-born will? There is a cunning mystery about it, Constance" (Constance shuddered, and hid her face, lest its expression should betray something of her secret); "a mystery I cannot solve: confide it to me, and solemnly I swear, not only never to divulge, but to peril, with my good sword, my heart's richest and warmest blood, in any cause that can free you from this bad man. Nor do I expect aught of you in return, nor any thing ask, save that you may be happy, with ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... and the instantaneous result seemed wonderful. After supper, at our request, he told us his history, and when we realized that this man had gained for himself all his knowledge, we looked on him as one coming from wonderland. It was hardly credible that he should have power to solve the most difficult mathematical problems, calculate eclipses, as well as do all that could be required in civil or hydraulic engineering, and that he had accomplished this by his own will, which, pushing aside all obstacles, ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... solve the riddle for you, Sir: he thought to serve you," said De Gondomar; "and he has done so, and most effectually, though you are now unwilling to admit it. I have good reason to ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Black Peter, the Scoorge of Hell Canyon. A've no soort o' use for the new kind o' stoory—the love-stoories aboot mooney. Ye ken the soort: Harild is feelin' fine an' anxious aboot Lady Gwendoline's bairthmark: is she the rechtfu' heir? Oh, Heaven help me to solve the meestry! (To be continued in oor next.) A'm all for bluid an' fine laddies wi' a six-shooter in every hand an' a bowie-knife in their teeth—it's no' so intellectual, but, mon, ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... there not be, in the difficulty we have thus endeavoured to solve, a probable significance of the responsible, as well as distinct, position which the Human being holds in the world of life? Are there no shadowings, in that reciprocal influence between soul and soul, of some mysterious chain which links together ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... had been the result, for the mass of humanity, of attempting to solve the problem of maintenance from the individual standpoint, but no sooner had the nation become the sole capitalist and employer than not alone did plenty replace poverty, but the last vestige of the serfdom of man to man disappeared from earth. Human slavery, so often vainly ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... the real barrier that had kept him inactive for ten months. Here was the problem he had to solve. This was how he had been left out of active things, a prey to distractions, excitements, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... left alive. And, to him who had been wont to spend them so indifferently, men had suddenly become precious, since he could get no more. Every dead or wounded man was now unreplaceable, and each loss made his problem harder to solve. Since those two first battles he had been forced back, step by step, mile by mile, league by league, everywhere; and all his lieutenants likewise. Now Schwarzenberg, with one hundred and thirty thousand men, ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... certain moral apathy, an indisposition to attack the evil with the sharp weapons which its nature demanded. Consequently, there developed steadily, irresistibly, a vast social problem, which required two centuries and a half for a nation of trained European stock and boasted moral fibre to solve. ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... represent Ships, armies, battles in the firmament; Till steady eyes the exhalations solve, And all to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... exchange my inverted nature for a normal one. I suspect that the sexual emotions and even inverted ones have a more subtle significance than is generally attributed to them; but modern moralists either fight shy of transcendental interpretations or see none, and I am ignorant and unable to solve the mystery these feelings ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... he imagined the man he had seen was Driscoll, who lived alone in a log shack near the bank. But, if this were so, what was Driscoll's object for wading among the reefs, and why had he stolen away when he thought he was watched? Thirlwell could not solve the puzzle, but he could find out if the fellow were Driscoll or not, because the trail ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... problem which Jackson would have to solve was of the utmost importance to all the region from Georgia to northwestern Louisiana, for in that region lived the ambitious and prosperous cotton planters, who were bent on getting possession of all the fertile lands of their section, and the legislatures of Alabama and ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... affected me, and I am as well satisfied as I am of the best-grounded matter of fact. And why we should dispute matter of fact, because we cannot solve things of which we can have no certain or demonstrative notions, seems strange to me; Mrs. Bargrave's authority and sincerity alone would have been undoubted in any ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... solve the problem that now confronted me, which was, in brief, what Bragdon meant by bodily lifting stanzas from the poets and making them over into mosaics of his own, I turned from the poems and cast my eyes over some of the bound volumes in ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... plow used in cultivating the surface-soil must be decided by the kind of soil. This question the practical, observing farmer will be able to solve. ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... had returned to every face except the foxy features of the ex-Churchman, who for once had no adequate retort ready. Curly Saunders nodded appreciation, and helped to solve the momentary dilemma prevailing. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... neighborhood. Gaston always met her at Manerville whenever he was obliged to go thither. These various personages being to each other as the terms of a proportion sum, the following letter will throw light on the appalling problem which Mme. de Beauseant had been trying for the past month to solve:— ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... good mother, I mean to rule it," replied the soldier; for he had heard of the mystery at the palace, and of the reward the King offered to him who should solve it. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... wind that by daylight had been no more than a melancholy adjunct to the poetry of wet blossoms, became suddenly sinister and tragic and irresistibly atmospheric. Kenny stared with new vision at the dreadful old man in the bathrobe. One by one Kenny was fated to solve his mysteries when he wanted to keep them. He knew now in a flare of intuition why the old rooms had been abandoned, why Joan ferried folk from the village in the valley to the village across the river, why her gown of the morning and the rags of the runaway had been pitifully patched ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... French farmers' class solve to us the riddle of the general elections of December 20 and 21, that led the second Bonaparte to the top of Sinai, not to ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... neuralgic pains increased in severity, no doubt aggravated by his exposure at the unveiling. When the paroxysms were upon him he walked the floor in agony, pressing his hands to his temples; but these seizures were, mercifully, not continuous, and he still wrote voluminous letters, and tried to solve the problems which were thrust upon ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Very likely, when the ship returned, it would find an empty base. The first-string team simply wasn't set up for exhaustive work; its job was to survey the field in general and mark out the problems for the complete team to solve. ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... antiquaries, and has made them imagine that an earl was superior to an alderman. The weregild, or the price of an earl's blood, is there fixed at fifteen thousand thrimsas, equal to that of an archbishop; whereas that of a bishop and alderman is only eight thousand thrimsas. To solve this difficulty we must have recourse to Selden's conjecture, (see his Titles of Honour, chap. v. p. 603, 604,) that the term of earl was in the age of Athelstan just beginning to be in use in England, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... system, and not on an arrangement of a capricious kind, can be interpreted by an expert, a title to which he lays no claim. The book was meant perhaps for use in the Civil War, as was the system of Wilkins' friend, Dr Wallis, who could both invent and solve such puzzles, and distinguished himself by deciphering the letters of the king which fell into the hands of the Parliamentarians at Naseby. There is also among the "Tracts of Bishop Wilkins," a treatise dated 1648, entitled 'Mathematical ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... older woman that the sudden summoning of her well known sternness against herself took her breath, and she sat awkwardly like the school girl that she was waiting for Miss Smith to speak. She felt suddenly very young and very helpless—she who had so jauntily set out to solve this mighty problem by a waving of her wand. She saw with a swelling of pity the drawn and stricken face of her old friend ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... our nature! I loved her not the less! And yet my passion was pure, and I do not believe that my heart was wicked. Mystery of our nature! He who reads all hearts alone can solve thee! ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... of air upon her face. Her face, which in the first place he had so well looked over, he now looked into with something more personal in his quest, as if under the low brows and crowding lashes there was a puzzle to solve in the timid, unassured ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... of girlish vanity. She would be quite calm and serene, would not in any way pose as a martyr or seem to expect any expression of distress, but she could not—could not bring herself to go away without making this one innocent little effort to solve the mystery which meant so much to her happiness and peace ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... an uninformed mind, but who should adopt the doctrine of the influence of the Spirit, would place among signs, and wonders, and divine notices, which others, acquainted with the philosophy of nature, would almost instantly solve. Thus again there may be occasions, which persons, carrying the same doctrine to an undue extent, might interpret into warning or prophetic voices, but which a due exercise of the intellect, where such exercise has been properly encouraged, would easily explain. This reminds me of a singular ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... over again," he said to himself; "but why such a fellow as that should be allowed to do so much mischief is a problem I can't solve. A tall idiot, who could not even care for her like ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... cerebral cells coincide with the modifications of the consciousness; how, for instance, do luminous vibrations falling upon the retina excite the modification of consciousness called visual sensation? These are problems we cannot solve. We may succeed in determining the exact nature of the molecular changes which take place in the cerebral cells when a sensation is felt, but this will not bring us an inch nearer to the explanation of the fundamental nature ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... Japan of 1915 respecting South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia giving that power special rights and privileges in those regions has given rise to many knotty problems for the diplomatists of the two countries to solve. Two of ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... beady eyes, filmed with death,—he moved a mutilated body with painful jerks, but there was nothing to show the girl that he felt her presence. The silent awful pulsating of the toad manifested its dumb suffering. A candle flickered as she sought to solve the problem. The night wind flapped the dirty curtain and Tessibel turned her head slowly toward it. A bird's cry from somewhere in the weeping willow, came in through the window. With silent intensity, she dragged her body slowly across the floor toward ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... equally fatal to his successors. Hitherto we have been discussing the purely dramatic aspect of classical tragedy; we must not forget that this drama was also literary. The problem that Racine had to solve was complicated by the fact that he was working, not only with a restricted dramatic system, but with a restricted language. His vocabulary was an incredibly small one—the smallest, beyond a doubt, that ever a great poet had to deal ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... feet, the surface never having been able to emerge and become land. It is by no means improbable that the annual removal of an average thickness of half an inch of rock might counteract the ordinary upheaval which large submarine areas are undergoing; and the real enigma which the geologist has to solve is not the extensive denudation of the white chalk or of our tertiary sands and clays, but the fact that such incoherent materials have ever succeeded in lifting up their heads above water in an open sea. Why were they not swept ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... the volume—What I want to know is whether the missionary is making good and whether Christianity is making good in meeting the spiritual needs of the heathen. If ever I should become greatly interested in missions it would be because I should feel that Christianity could solve the spiritual problem for the heathen better than anything else. What are the facts about that ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... He was at the mercy now of Wolf's instinct and Silvermane's endurance. Resignation brought him a certain calmness of soul, cold as the touch of an icy hand on fevered cheek. He remembered the desert secret in Mescal's eyes; he was about to solve it. He remembered August Naab's words: "It's a man's deed!" If so, he had achieved the spirit of it, if not the letter. He remembered Eschtah's tribute to the wilderness of painted wastes: "There is the grave of the Navajo, and no one knows the trail to the place of his sleep!" ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... the dryness of the atmosphere, we learned that the person who had wanted the basin and pitcher was the man of our party. He begged us not to inquire into the mysteries of his toilet, and refused to help us solve the riddle of the guests' cleanliness when the hotel was full. I assume, on reflection, however, that they were expected to take Russian or plain baths every two or three days, to rid themselves of the odor of the kumys, which exudes copiously through the pores of ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... the boy's shoulder. "It is not as simple as that. I know, boy. But you are young, and these things grow less with time. You need not see her. She will be forbidden to visit Otto or to go to the riding-school. You see, I know about the riding-school! And, in a short time now, the marriage will solve many difficulties." ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... are said to be, they might find a good excuse, if they knew my mission, not only for their superstition, but for ridding themselves of one on such an awful errand. Awful indeed! and how to be accomplished? Heaven alone, with perseverance on my part, can solve the mystery. And Philip's thoughts reverted to his Amine. He folded his arms and, entranced in meditation, with his eyes raised to the firmament, he appeared to watch ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... companion. As a last resort I determined to walk straight up to him and say: "You haven't forgotten me, Mr. Bing, have you?" If I had changed so as to need proof of my identity Alcorn would furnish it. Whatever his answer, his voice would solve my mystery. ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... sins? Those who lived in the days of our Savior had no share in the murder of Abel, or of many others who had died by wicked hands. Those dire events had been accomplished before they had existence. How then could they be answerable for them? To solve this mystery we must consider man in a twofold view—as an individual and as the member of ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... regenerating Ireland must necessarily be done by Irishmen in Ireland. The result has been that many Irishmen, both Unionists and Nationalists, without in any way abandoning their opposition to, or support of, the attempt to solve the political problem from without, have been trying—not without success—to solve some part of the Irish Question from within. The Report of the Recess Committee, on which I shall dwell later, was the first great fruit ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... little trouble to solve. I at length hit upon the following plan. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs of five gallons each and ranged securely around the interior of the car. I unfastened one of these and, taking two ropes, tied them tightly across the rim of ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... solve the question forthwith, I whipped out my knife and carefully cut through the suspicious-looking stitches, thus separating the two thicknesses of leather along their upper edges for a length of about six inches; then, forcing the two edges apart, I peered into the pocket-like recess; and ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... man I want, Bell," he cried. "Sit down; I have a great deal to say to you. There is a mystery of a very grave nature which I hope you may solve for me. It is in connection with a house said ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... natural to such intimate knowledge of the relation of the two persons. But he was so entirely unaccustomed to confide in any body, or to speak of his feelings, that he could not utter a word. He merely looked at Aunt Martha as if he expected her to answer all her own questions, and solve every difficulty ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... exceedingly," replied Thorwald, "to lose you just as we are becoming well acquainted, but I have no criticism to make on the excuse you offer for wanting to revisit your home. I must say, however, that you present to us too hard a problem to solve. With all our attainments in astronomy and in the navigation of the air, you went one point beyond us when you took passage from the earth to Mars, for we have no means by which to express passengers from one planet ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... remembered that good grapes may be grown in vineyards exposed to any point of the compass, but that slight advantages may sometimes come, depending on the particular environment of the plantation, and then solve the problem according to conditions. The following are theories as to exposure: A southern exposure is warmer and hence earlier than a northern, and is, therefore, the best slope for early grapes as well as ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... Roncesvalles, but says he was laughing in all the rest of his poem; while a fifth candidly gives up the question, as one of those puzzles occasioned by the caprices of the human mind, which it is impossible for reasonable people to solve. Even Sismondi, who was well acquainted with the age in which Pulci wrote, and who, if not a profound, is generally an acute and liberal critic, confesses himself to be thus confounded. "Pulci," he says, "commences all his cantos by a ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... and that his three wives were living; the second, that having carried off the queen, this violence might cause to be regarded as null the alliance which she should contract with him: the first of these objections was attended to, to begin with, as the one most difficult to solve. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... fill us with horror and questioning. How do they come about? Can they be prevented? These are the deepest problems of life, and our psychology is still impotent to solve them. We can detect and measure the dross in metals or the poison in drugs; but we have no solvent that will reduce a complex nature like David's into its original elements and enable us to differentiate a son's responsibility from that ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... Sphinx could complete his statement of the case he was politely asked if he would care to inter his talents in the Canadian Senate, and he suavely answered that such a thing might be a good way to solve the conundrum, even though it would make a thoroughly stupid last ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... important event is in embryo. If Lee's army can be fed—as long as it can be fed—Richmond is safe. Its abandonment will be the loss of Virginia, and perhaps the cause. To save it, therefore, is the problem for those in authority to solve. If we had had competent and honest men always directing the affairs of the Confederacy, Richmond never would have been in danger, and long ere this independence would have been achieved. But passports have been sold, political enemies have been persecuted, conscription has been converted ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... Ernest Wilton, with a laugh, "I must treat it as a conundrum, and give it up. I am certain that I cannot solve it." ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... "in the eyes of a statesman there are no petites gens, and in those of a philosopher no petites choses. We in Germany have too many difficult problems affecting our working classes to solve, not to have induced me to glean all the information I can as to the ouvriers of Paris. They have among them men of aspirations as noble as can animate the souls of philosophers and poets, perhaps not the less noble because common-sense ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... abruptly, and she stopped in her thoughts as if a light had flashed suddenly before her eyes. Here, at last, was the explanation of happiness, she felt, and yet she felt also, that it presented itself to her mind in an enigma which she could not solve—for Adams, she recognised, had mastered, not escaped, his personality. The poison of bitterness was gone, but the effectiveness of power was still as great; and his temperament, in passing through the fiery waters of experience, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... political point of view, has always been how to secure concerted action among men on a great scale without sacrificing local independence. The ancient history of Europe shows that it is not possible to solve this problem without the aid of the principle of representation. Greece, until overcome by external force, sacredly maintained local self-government, but in securing permanent concert of action it was conspicuously unsuccessful. ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... own interests and safety. I am sorry it is so; but it is too true, and while it stigmatizes the system, it works against ourselves. The evil is in the defects of the system, but the remedy is a problem with diverse and intricate workings, which, I own, are beyond my comprehension to solve. The reason why I spoke to you as I did when you cut the pinions from the man's hands, was to give you a word of precaution. That is a bad man. Negroes would rather be sold to a sugar plantation in Louisiana any time than be sold to him. He soon works them down; in two years, fine, healthy ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... at Great Hedge. It has been going on for some time, and at last I thought I would come on here, see you, have a talk with Mr. Ripley, and then see if we could not clear up the mystery. In fact, I hope you'll go back with me and help me solve the riddle. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... Michigan and other Felonies." They grappled with the cipher, and several of them leaned up against something and thought for a long time, but they could make neither head nor tail to it. Ignatius Donnelly took a powerful dose of kumiss, and under its maddening influence sought to solve the great problem which threatened to engulf the national surplus. All was in vain. Cowed and defeated, the able conservators of coin, who require a man to be identified before he can draw on his overshoes at sight, had to acknowledge ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... we can breed a biplane dragonfly in sufficient numbers, we might solve the mosquito ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... well, but if he does not attempt to do the two things on the same days, as it were, but in blocks of time devoted to each separately and respectively, he will only find, as I have found, that public life the conflict of it, the accompanying attrition of mind, the searching for the things which will solve the problems of national life, the multitudinous variations of character with which one comes in contact, the big issues suddenly sprung upon the congregation of responsible politicians, all are stimulating to the imagination, invigorating to the mind, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the green butterfly," I called it; but it was really all too sad even for a mental joke, though a little timely laughter is often the best weapon to meet trouble with, sometimes having an effect like that of a gay sunshade suddenly opened in the face of an angry bull. Unable to solve the riddle, I retired to my room to sleep my last ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... as to hope to satisfy its reading with the scanty harvest of a soil effete; this license of writing up to measure shall not show me sterile, any more than that emancipation shall, by indulgence of thought, be disenchanted. And now to solve the problem: not to think, for my mind is in a regimen of truancy; not to fail in pleasing, if it be possible, the great world's implacable palate, therefore to eschew dilution of good liquor; and yet to render up in fair array the fitting tale ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
