"Unravel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prominence. Not, however, without abandoning the soul of the gospel; for the soul of the gospel, though expressed in the language of Messianic hopes, is really post-rational. It was not to marry and be given in marriage, or to sit on thrones, or to unravel metaphysical mysteries, or to enjoy any of the natural delights renounced in this life, that Christ summoned his disciples to abandon all they had and to follow him. There was surely a deeper peace in his self-surrender. It was not a new thing even among ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... dreads them, for many a longer day—but he has one main theme to make clear to his hearers and must respect the modern canons of the Story-telling Art. Among the many things therefore he could tell, an he would, he selects that only which will unravel a particular thread of fate in the tangle of endless consequences; which will render plausible the growth of passions on which, in a continuous life-drama, is based one ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... judging that the discussion had gone far enough, the coroner intervened and said that Mr Inspector had done his best to unravel a very difficult case. That he had not succeeded was the fault of the case and not of Mr Inspector, and for his part, he thought that the thanks of the Beorminster citizens were due to the efforts of so zealous and intelligent an officer as Tinkler. This sapient ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... for Dryads, to haunt the woods again; More welcome were the presence of hungering, thirst- ing men, Whose doubts we could unravel, whose hopes we could fulfil, Our wisdom tracing backward, the river to the rill; Were such beloved forerunners one summer day restored, Then, then we might ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... needed only the sixteenth of a hint to rush armed with full fervour into the mysteries of his system. Mrs. Gunilla took up a packet of old gold thread, which she set herself to unravel, whilst the Candidate ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... cried. All the way up in the train, whenever I was awake, an idea had been haunting me—a possible clue to this trickery of Lord Southminster's. Petty details cropped up and fell into their places. I began to unravel it all now. I had an inkling of a plan to ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... is all very well to write an "absorbing" story, in which the excitement and expectation are sustained up to the very last scene, but be sure that the theme is essentially such that in the last scenes, if not before, your action will unravel the knot that has become so tantalizingly tangled as the play proceeded. No matter how promising a theme may be in other respects, it is foredoomed to failure if from it comes a plot of which the spectator will ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... between these two extremes; the fact being that the personal and social causes of poverty act and react upon each other, changing places as cause and as effect, until they form a tangle that no hasty, impatient jerking can unravel. The charity worker and the settlement worker have need of each other: neither one can afford to ignore the experience of the other. Friendly visitors and all who are trying to improve conditions in poor homes should welcome the experience of those who are studying ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... the two secretaries, lords Townshend and Carteret, who were counted able negotiators. The affairs of the continent had begun to take a new turn. The interests and connexions of the different princes were become perplexed and embarrassed; and king George resolved to unravel them by dint of negotiation. Understanding that a treaty was on the carpet between the czar and the king of Sweden, favourable to the duke of Holstein's pretensions to Sleswick, the possession of which the elector of Hanover had guaranteed to Denmark, his majesty ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... "that he should leave to men the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hand of the eunuch." "I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily unravel!" is said to have been the reply which indignation and conscious virtue extorted from the hero. Instead of attending, a slave and a victim, at the gate of the Byzantine palace, he retired to Naples, from whence (if any credit is due to the belief of the times) Narses invited the Lombards ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... like myself? or is she disguised, and perilling her life to save mine? or can she be—Patience! To-night may unravel the mystery. ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... toward the window. "I am not very wise," Matthiette said, looking out upon the gardens, "and it appears that God has given me an exceedingly tangled matter to unravel. Yet if I decide it wrongly I think the Eternal Father will understand it is because ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... to unravel wool before the mast. I suppose your mother taught you when you were small—if you ever ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... treasure in his new acquaintance, returned to the charge; but I was not more docile. A few days after, I was surprised by an attack of the same kind from M. de Beauvilliers. How or when he had formed an intimacy with Maisons, I have never been able to unravel; but formed it, he had; and he importuned me so much, nay exerted his authority over me, that at last I found I must give way. Not to offend M. d'Orleans by yielding to another after having refused to yield to him, I waited until he should again speak ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... to Selim. Outwardly he abandoned scepticism and heresy; he professed himself a Mussulman. At heart he was anxious that Selim should be set aside; that Khuzru, the eldest son of Selim, should succeed him to the throne. It is impossible to unravel the intrigues that filled the court at Agra. At last Akbar was smitten with mortal disease. For some days Selim was refused admittance to his father's chamber. In the end there was a compromise. Selim swore to maintain the Mussulman religion. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... back of a chair, and so often looking up to revel in the contemplation of Harry's face, that her skein was in a wild tangle, which she studiously concealed lest the sight should compel Richard to come and unravel it with those wonderful fingers ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... request, and she made such a cunning knot in the garment as only she could unravel. For his part Gugemar gave the Queen a wonderfully fashioned girdle which only he could unclasp, and he begged her that she would never grant her love to any man who could not free her from it. Each promised the other solemnly to respect the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... true, a woman with a wounded heart to nurse, an aching misery to bear; but she left her with a sanity of purpose which can take up the tangled threads and, however blinded be the eyes with weeping, with fingers feeling their way, can unravel the knotted mass that ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... I shall tell them, that in this case the Messiah announced by the Jewish prophets was destined for the Jews, and that he ought to have been their liberator, instead of destroying their worship and their religion. If it be possible to unravel any thing in these obscure, enigmatical, and symbolical oracles of the prophets of Judea, as we find them in the Bible,—if there be any means of guessing the meaning of the obscure riddles, which have been decorated with the pompous name of prophecies, we shall ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... and now felt its first attacks. It had not been in his power to look upon the young lady without being dazzled; and the uneasiness he felt at following the muleteer at a distance, and the fear lest any accident might happen by the way that should deprive him of his conquest, taught him to unravel his thoughts. He was more than usually delighted, when, being arrived safe at home, he saw the chest unloaded. He dismissed the muleteer, and having caused a slave to shut the door of his house, opened the chest, helped the lady out, gave her his hand, and conducted her to his apartment, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... plot,' said Nicholas, with the same violent rapidity with which she spoke, 'a plot, not yet laid bare by me, but which, with time, I might unravel; if you were (not knowing it) entitled to fortune of your own, which, being recovered, would do all that this marriage can ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... observe phenomena under varied circumstances, and endeavour to deduce the laws of their relations. Every natural phenomenon is, to our minds, the result of an infinitely complex system of conditions. What we set ourselves to do is to unravel these conditions, and by viewing the phenomenon in a way which is in itself partial and imperfect, to piece out its features one by one, beginning with that which strikes us first, and thus gradually learning how to look at the whole ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... are early; several are historical in subject and are probably of later date, though one may be as early as 1348; there are others of a religions nature which belong to the author's later years. The allusions in these poems are so obscure that it would in most cases be hopeless to seek to unravel the meaning had not the author left us a key in a letter to Martino da Signa, prior of the Augustinians. Many of the subjects are purely conventional, such as those of the early poems on the loves of the shepherds, the historical panegyrics and laments, and the satire ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... frigid indifference was not altogether assumed to serve a peculiar purpose, it was nevertheless certain that he bestowed not the slightest attention upon any of his questioners, not even upon Doe, who had previously endeavoured to unravel the riddle by seeking the assistance of Ralph Stackpole,—assistance, however, which Ralph, waxing sagacious of a sudden, professed himself wholly unable to give. This faithful fellow, indeed, professed to be just as ignorant of the person and character of the young Virginian; swearing, with a magnanimous ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... as the same or different, the best test to take is the plot. Identity exists where the Complication and Unravelling are the same. Many poets tie the knot well, but unravel it ill. Both arts, however, ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... quiet, soft-spoken frontiersman. All Arizona knew not only the daredevil spirit that fired his gentleness, but the competence with which he set about any task he assigned himself. She did not see how he could unravel this mystery. She had left no clues behind her, she felt sure of that, and yet was troubled lest he guessed at her secret behind that mask of innocence he wore. He did not even remotely guess it as yet, but he was far closer to the truth than he pretended. The girl knew she should ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... in which Marvell was immersed during his last years are difficult to unravel and still more difficult to illuminate, for they had their dim origin in the secret thoughts and wavering purposes ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... returned to the buoy we had left at the end of the six-wire cable, and after much trouble from a series of tangles, got a fair start at noon. You will easily believe a tangle of iron rope inch and a half diameter is not easy to unravel, especially with a ton or so hanging to the ends. It is now eight o'clock, and we have about six and a half miles safe: it becomes very exciting, however, for the kinks are coming ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unravel this mystery; but then, before she had gone far in her ruminations, she began to wonder if she wanted Nelson to change toward her? That question frightened her, and she would at once refuse to ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... friend, whose memory I have always held, and ever shall hold, in the highest veneration, Mr. Evans slightly apologized for having asserted that he had proof of my guilt; saying in excuse that it was his duty to do every thing in his power to unravel the mystery. "You may go Master Hunt," said Mrs. Evans; and in the kindest possible manner she endeavoured to console me for the injustice I had suffered, by telling me that the thief would certainly be ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... challenges, we must never give in to the belief that America is in decline, or that our culture is doomed to unravel. The American people know better than that. We have proven the pessimists wrong before — and we will do ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... things than give dinners. By the by William Ramsay [his brother the admiral] made a capital speech." On March 5, 1841, it is noted, Bishop Walker died—"a good man. His mind cast in a limited mould of strong prejudices; but a fair man, strictly honest in all his ways. He was not fitted to unravel difficulties in his episcopate, and scarcely suited to these times. He had been a furious opponent of the old evangelicals. A constant and kind friend to me. May his memory be honoured. Bishop Terrot elected bishop. I am very grateful to think that in all this business I can look with satisfaction ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... But in the case of miracles, as our inquiry is a question purely philosophical (namely, whether anything can happen which contravenes, or does not follow from the laws of Nature), I was not under any such necessity: I therefore thought it wiser to unravel the difficulty through premises ascertained and thoroughly known by the natural light of reason. I say I thought it wiser, for I could also easily have solved the problem merely from the doctrines and fundamental ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... called for another glass, and then set himself to the consideration of how far the disappearance of the boy would interfere with his obtaining payment of the various sums due by the Insurance Offices. This point was either more knotty and difficult to unravel than the previous one, or the grog began to render his intellect less capable of grappling with it. At all events it cost him an hour to determine his course of action, and required another glass of grog to enable him to put the whole matter fairly before his ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... communicated to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and sometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from the throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before company, seems extravagance or affectation; and on the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our being at every turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it (otherwise the end is not answered) is a task to which few are competent. We must "give it an understanding, but no tongue." My old friend C——, however, could do both. He could go on in the most delightful ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... recollections bound up with the memory of this intelligent and original woman. Most of them are associated in my mind with my father's stories about her. He could always catch and unravel any interesting psychological trait, and these traits, which he would mention incidentally, stuck firmly in my mind. He used to tell, for instance, how Agafya Mikhailovna ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... entry of Mr. Giles Henderson of Kingston into the gubernatorial contest preceded, by ten days or so, the actual event. It is difficult for the historian to unravel the precise circumstances which led to this candidacy. Conservative citizens throughout the State, it was understood, had become greatly concerned over the trend political affairs were taking; the radical doctrines of one candidate—propounded for very obvious reasons—they turned ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "No," she returned gently. "You are the chief one. Just as soon as your thought is surely right, don't you know that your heavenly Father is going to show you how to unravel this little snarl? You remember there isn't any personality to error, whether it tries to fasten on Ada, or ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... we have got to unravel in this tangle. First off, there's your little girl, to find if she is still alive. Second, we must locate Dave Henderson or his grave. Third, there's something due the scoundrel who is responsible for this. Fourthly, brethren, there's that ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... other, and called himself all kinds of a fool, but it did not the slightest particle of good. Underneath all the reasoning, he knew he was glad that he had found her once, and he determined to find her again, and to unravel the mystery. Then he sat looking long and earnestly into the depths of the beautiful white stone she had given to him, as if he might there read the way ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... sort of Universal Providence, exercising an authority and a discretion over matters upon which in any progressive community the people must decide for themselves. However near to the appearances such an impression might be, nothing could be further from the facts. If I have helped the reader to unravel the tangled skein of our national life, if I have sufficiently revealed the mind of the new movement to show that there is in it 'a scheme of things entire,' it should be quite clear that the deliberate intentions both of Mr. Gerald Balfour ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... arbitration is able to unravel the tangled skein of crime and hypocrisy among individuals can it be extended to communities and nations, as nations are only man in the aggregate, they are the aggregate of his crimes and deception and depravity, and so long as these constitute the basis of ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... but the poet's work remains, inviting a more intimate and a more extended scrutiny than it has hitherto received in this country. The reader who cares to make himself acquainted with the method of Byron's workmanship, to unravel his allusions, and to follow the tenour of his verse, will, it is hoped, find some assistance ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... was published at Dresden by M. I. F. Freyhere in which another endeavor was made to unravel the mystery. Mr. Freyhere's book was a pretty large one, and copiously illustrated by colored engravings. His supposition was that "a well-taught boy very thin and tall of his age (sufficiently so that he could be concealed in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to add these to the instances cited by Mr. Walcott, hoping that the slightly varied form may furnish a clue by which some of your readers may be able to unravel the meaning of such allusions more satisfactorily than any ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... Although Communist, his new government successfully steered its own path between the Warsaw Pact nations and the West for the next four and a half decades. In the early 1990s, post-TITO Yugoslavia began to unravel along ethnic lines: Slovenia, Croatia, and The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia all declared their independence in 1991; Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro declared ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... times less than an exceptionally delicate chemical balance will turn to" (Soddy, 1912). May not man be the radium of the Universe? At any rate let us not worry about his size. For us he is a very potent creature, full of interest, whose mundane story we are only beginning to unravel. ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... inductive generalisation is either a law of nature, or a result from one, the problem of inductive logic is to unravel the web of nature, tracing each thread separately, with the view, 1, of ascertaining what are the several laws of nature, and, 2, of following them into their results. But it is impossible to frame a scientific method of induction, or test ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... house blazed over their heads? where for Kari's dash and gallantry, the man who dealt his blows straightforward, even in the Earl's hall, and never thought twice about them? where for Njal himself, the man who never dipped his hands in blood, who could unravel all the knotty points of the law; who foresaw all that was coming, whether for good or ill, for friend or for foe; who knew what his own end would be, though quite powerless to avert it; and when it came, laid him down to his rest, and never uttered ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... malkuragxigi. Unoccupied neokupata, senokupa. Unpack elpaki. Unpardonable nepardonebla. Unpleasant malplacxa. Unpolished (surface) malglata. Unpretending neafektema, simpla. Unprincipled malhonesta, senprincipa. Unproductive senfrukta. Unpublished neeldonita. Unquiet malkvieta. Unravel maltordi. Unrecognisable nerekonebla. Unremitting sencxesa. Unreserved nerezerva. Unrestrained nedetena, libera. Unroll malruli, malfaldi. Unroof maltegmenti. Unruffled trankvila, nemaltrankvila. Unruly malgxentila. Unsaddle senseligi. Unsafe dangxerhava. Unsalable ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... more mal-apropos than usual, as if on purpose to appear at her ease. At last, just before her bed-time, when the tea was coming in, Mrs. Edmonstone engaged with that, Laura reading, Amy clearing Charles's little table, and Philip helping Mr. Edmonstone to unravel the confused accounts of the late cheating bailiff, Guy suddenly found her standing by him, perusing his face with all the power of her great blue eyes. She started as he looked up, and put her face into Amabel's ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... skein was too tangled for us to attempt to unravel it. They had seen vessels evidently, both sailing ships and steamers, but whether it was yesterday, or ten years back, there were no means of ascertaining; but to make certain that we were not being deceived, we instituted a strict overhaul of the gunyahs, in hopes of finding something that might ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... extensively developed. In particular, that potent instrument called the infinitesimal calculus, which Newton had invented for the investigation of nature, had become so far perfected that Laplace, when he attempted to unravel the movements of the heavenly bodies, found himself provided with a calculus far more efficient than that which had been available to Newton. The purely geometrical methods which Newton employed, though they are admirably adapted for demonstrating in a general ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... so perfectly natural, and yet of a kind so very difficult to unravel and explain, that if the story was invented by man, as poems or novels are, it must have been invented very late indeed in the history of the Jews; at a time when they had grown to be a far more civilised people, far more experienced in the cunning tricks of the human heart than they ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... retiring, secluded men, he had his vanity in pronounced degree. He saw himself now, the dominant figure in this city of thirty thousand people, the man who had been selected by the chief of police as the one able to unravel the web of mystery surrounding this startling murder. The thought pleased him, and he smiled. He began to think about himself and about life as a ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... told me he thought his men could unravel that message and that I should wait a while," panted Roy, breathless from running up the stairs. "And they did get it. It's what they call a transposition cipher. ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... Mr. Holmes," she said, "because you once enabled my employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester, to unravel a little domestic complication. She was much impressed by ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... trade with the Vikings, and ran away because they were frightened at the bellowing of the cattle which Thorfin had brought with him in the ships. But what in the world could a Greek slave know of that affair? I wandered up and down among the streets trying to unravel the mystery, and the more I considered it, the more baffling it grew. One thing only seemed certain and that certainty took away my breath for the moment. If I came to full knowledge of anything at all, it would not be one life of the soul in Charlie Mears's body, but half a dozen—half ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... essais and his omelettes. In his seclusions the Vin de Bourgogne had its allotted hour, and there were appropriate moments for the Cotes du Rhone. With him Sauterne was to Medoc what Catullus was to Homer. He would sport with a syllogism in sipping St. Peray, but unravel an argument over Clos de Vougeot, and upset a theory in a torrent of Chambertin. Well had it been if the same quick sense of propriety had attended him in the peddling propensity to which I have formerly ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as little comprehended the cause of the Prince's fury as all the rest they had seen, were at a loss to unravel this new circumstance. The young peasant himself was still more astonished, not conceiving how he had offended the Prince. Yet recollecting himself, with a mixture of grace and humility, he disengaged himself from Manfred's grip, ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... whole soul, had done it and must therefore be to blame. Then he would read her letter over, burning every word of it upon his brain, until the piteous minor appeal would torture him once more and he would begin again to try to get hold of some thread of thought that would unravel this ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Bohemia and the Irene Adler photograph, but when I looked back to the weird business of the "Sign of the Four," and the extraordinary circumstances connected with the "Study in Scarlet," I felt that it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... said Lydia, meditatively. "But I think their dissimilarity owes its emphasis to some lurking likeness. Otherwise how could he have reminded me of her?" Lydia, as she spoke, sat down with a troubled expression, as if trying to unravel her thoughts. "And yet," she added, presently, "my theatrical associations are so complex that—" A long silence ensued, during which Alice, conscious of some unusual stir in her patroness, watched her furtively and wondered ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... present volumes may be thought worthy of attention. They are the result at least of severe and conscientious labour at the original sources of history, but the subject is so complicated and difficult that it may well be feared that the ability to depict and unravel is unequal to the earnestness with which the attempt has ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... undertaking, as an architect or engineer would obtain data and apply his devices to a task in his art, a fallacy is included which is radical and mischievous beyond measure. We have, as yet, no calculus for the variable elements which enter into social problems and no analysis which can unravel their complications. The discussions always reveal the dominion of the prepossessions in the minds of the disputants which are in the mores. We know that an observer of nature always has to know his own personal equation. The mores are a societal ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... lies the mystery!" cried Elfreda, pointing toward the northern end of the campus, where considerable headway had been made in digging what appeared to be the cellar of a house. "But Sherlock will unravel the tangled skein!" ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... could unravel the mystery of my unknown assailant! Have you any idea who watches your movements and revenges himself on ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... terminate in the second Empire. The letters constituted a sort of concise journal, narrating events as they occurred, and drawing hopes and suggestions from each of them. Eugene was full of faith. He described Prince Louis Bonaparte to his father as the predestined necessary man who alone could unravel the situation. He had believed in him prior even to his return to France, at a time when Bonapartism was treated as a ridiculous chimera. Felicite understood that her son had been a very active secret agent since 1848. Although he did not clearly explain his position ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... old conventional designs then in use have, with very little modification, persisted up to the present day. Probably the playing cards in common use were printed by the same crude method as were the images, and unfortunately history has failed to unravel just what that method was. They may possibly have been stenciled. All we have been able to learn is that cards, images (which were in reality religious pictures), and stenciled altar cloths—the first primitive printing on cloth—all appeared very early in southern ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... well as hindrance) to the human understanding; to attempt to refer every question to abstract truth and precise definition, without allowing for the frailty of prejudice, which is the unavoidable consequence of the frailty and imperfection of reason, would be to unravel the whole web and texture of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... first seen by white men, will make it impossible hereafter for anyone whose reasoning powers exceed a native Australian's to maintain that it was the whites who corrupted these savages. It takes an exceptionally shrewd white man even to unravel the customs of voluntary or obligatory wife sharing or lending which prevail in all parts of Australia, and which must have required not only hundreds but thousands of years to assume their present ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Myers and many others of his associates, had not engaged in psychical research from the hope that the truths of the Bible might thereby be demonstrated. His motive was that of the detective eager to unravel mysteries. From his boyhood he had had a singular fondness for solving tricks and puzzles of all sorts; and when, in 1878, he came to England to complete his education at Cambridge, he naturally ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... Think of the number of stays that could be furnished from the whalebone plates of one whale! It is true, they were not exactly designed for this purpose originally. At the tips and on the edges of these plates, the elastic fibres of which they are composed unravel and peel off, and hang down from the lip like tufts of horsehair. The Arctic seas, which the whale inhabits, are, like other seas, full of innumerable troops of various little sea-animals, and it is these which ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... as Hal lay on the grass, whiling away the time by alternately playing with Watch and trying to unravel the mysteries of a flower of golden-rod, until the hermit should have finished his prayers and be ready to attend to him, Piers came through the wood, evidently sent on a message, and made him understand that he was immediately ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... knows not. And next, that he hath taken money for several bargains that have been made with the Crown; and did instance one that is already complained of: but there are so many more involved in it, that, should they unravel things of this sort, every body almost will be more or less concerned. But these are the two great points which he thinks they will insist on, and prove against him. Thence I to the Chapel, and there heard the sermon and a pretty ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... will set a knot, and make this covenant with you, that never will you put your love on dame or maiden, save only on her who shall first unfasten this knot. Then you will ever keep faith with me, for so cunning shall be my craft, that no woman may hope to unravel that coil, either by force or guile, or even ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... completed, and I looked forward to the fresh enterprise of exploring new rivers and lower latitudes, that should unravel the mystery ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... Sabeism was, as its etymology indicates,[6] baptism—that is to say, the religion of many baptisms—the origin of the sect still existing called "Christians of St. John," or Mendaites, which the Arabs call el-Mogtasila, "the Baptists."[7] It is difficult to unravel these vague analogies. The sects floating between Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabeism, which we find in the region beyond the Jordan during the first centuries of our era,[8] present to criticism the most singular problem, in consequence of the confused accounts of them which have ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... to say so, we admit it," I told him. "Go ahead with your story. What do you want us to do? Light a camp-fire so you can unravel your yarn?" ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... it should end in disappointment! But the plan was ever before him. Why should he look for an elderly lady for his housekeeper? There was Bessie Allison! With Bessie's strong heart and capable hand the tangles of his home-life would unravel, and all would go well. Besides, ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... every darkness in what is revealed to them. In the present day it is not easy to find a well-meaning man among our more earnest thinkers, who will not take upon himself to dispute the whole system of redemption, because he cannot unravel the mystery of the punishment of sin. But can he unravel the mystery of the punishment of NO sin? Can he entirely account for all that happens to a cab-horse? Has he ever looked fairly at the fate of one of those beasts as it is dying,—measured the work it has done, and the reward ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Company; and spoke several Things to him, that might (if Love had not made him blind) have reclaimed him from the Pursuit of his Ruin. But whatever they trusted him with, she had the Art to wind herself about his Heart, and make him unravel all his Secrets; and then knew as well, by feign'd Sighs and Tears, to make him disbelieve all; so that he had no Faith but for her; and was wholly inchanted and bewitch'd by her. At last, in spite of all that would have opposed it, he marry'd this famous Woman, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... ignorant. The first edition, on the failure of his attempt to raise a Catholic crusade against his country, had been withdrawn from circulation; the world had not received it favourably, and there was a mystery about the publication which it is difficult to unravel. In the interval between the first despatch of the book into England as a private letter in the summer of 1536, and the appearance of it in print at Rome in the winter of 1538-9, it was re-written, as I have already stated, enlarged, and divided into parts. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... I met you. But always since that moment I could stake my life on this, that any—any mystery that might seem to exist was not of your making or choosing. And I want to assure you of something, to make you believe it if necessary; and that is, dear, dear Marcia, if you never choose to unravel the tangle I shall ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... sleep, and found that the neck-band of his shirt had become entangled with the cord by which he kept his precious emerald and a written charm suspended round his neck. He tried to disentangle the knot, but in vain, so he left the complication as it was, purposing to unravel it by daylight. He did not fall asleep; but, after lying quiet for a little, he determined to attempt once more whether he could undo the knot, when he found that everything was clear, and the stone under his armpit. "This sign showed me an unhoped-for solution of certain weighty ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... without many words,—far more than Mr. Jowett's sentences commonly deserve.—Sometimes he strings together several heads of thought; of which enumeration the kindest thing which can be said is that it betrays an utter want of intellectual perspective. To unravel even a part of this tangled web so as to expose its argumentative worthlessness, soon fills a page.... But there is another kind of fallacy which the same gentleman wields with immense effect, and in the use of which he is a great master; which, because ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... and giving the watchman a quarter to look out for his skiff until morning, Billy Brackett, weary and disheartened, sought such accommodation as the only hotel of the little town afforded. All night he tossed sleeplessly on his uncomfortable bed, striving in vain to unravel the mystery in which the fate of his nephew and of Major Caspar's raft had ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... the producer hears what the consumer paid, and then somebody gets to thinking and talking. Discussions lead to investigations, and investigations lead to conferences. Just lately a large conference was held in Chicago, and certain plans were formulated to attempt to unravel some of the evils that exist in marketing. So much has been said that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has begun certain investigations, and we hope that the workers will find ways to solve some of the troubles in a logical and, we hope, ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... enough to wish to go out and unravel the mystery of the west now walked in chains from a Spanish ship to a Spanish prison! It was monstrous ingratitude, all declared; and they did not hesitate to show their sympathy. The story of his disgrace ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... dim hope that Mr. Corbin might in some way manage to unravel the mystery, and yet she could not see that he had anything more tangible to work upon than she ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... owe our knowledge of hieroglyphics. The Greeks of Alexandria, and after them the Romans, who might have learned how to read this kind of writing if they had wished, seem never to have taken the trouble: it fell into disuse on the rise of Christianity in Egypt; and it was left for an Englishman to unravel the hidden meaning after it had been forgotten for nearly ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... who can loose the knot of these difficulties save only thy Wazir Haykar; and now that none shall offer an answer save Nadan, the son of his sister, whom he hath informed with all his subtilty and his science. Therefore, do thou summon him and haply he shall unravel for thee a tangled skein so hard to untwist." Sankharib did as they advised, and when Nadan appeared in the presence said to him, "Look thou upon this writ and comprehend its contents." But when the youth read it he said to the Sovran, "O ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the Ancient of Days and all his works with feelings as fresh as if all had then sprung forth at the first creative fiat, this characterizes the mind that feels the riddle of the world, and may help to unravel it. To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood; to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which everyday for perhaps forty years had ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Brooklyn have another | |murder mystery to unravel through the | |finding early today of the body of Peter | |Barilla on Lincoln road, near Nostrand | |avenue, Flatbush. There were two bullet | |wounds in the body and four stab wounds | |in the ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... still! The Saviour, indeed, does not now lead us forth, amid the scene of our trial, as He did the bereft sisters, to unravel the mysteries of His providence, and to shew glory to God, redounding from the darkest of His dispensations. To us the grand sequel is reserved for eternity. The grand development of the divine plan will not be fully accomplished till then; faith must meanwhile rest satisfied with what is ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... girl inquire recently, as she fingered a scrap of pink gingham of which her mother was making "rompers" for the baby of the family, "why are the threads of this cloth pink when you unravel it one way, and white when you ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... thought much about the murder and had tried to unravel the mystery connected with it. Who was there in the place likely to commit such a cowardly deed, and what would be his motive? Old David had not an enemy, as far as she knew, and he had injured no one. It was necessary for her ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... bore to each other, and tried to understand the meaning of the designs. At first the maze of these designs seemed a very difficult riddle to solve. Yet, we believed that if a human intelligence had devised it, another human intelligence would certainly be able to unravel it. It was not, however, until we had nearly completed the tracing and study of the mural paintings, still extant in the funeral chamber of Chaacmol, or room built on the top of the eastern wall of the gymnasium at Chichen-Itza, at its southern end, that Stephens mistook for ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... easy for us to criticise the man," remarked Beth, "and he may be sorry, now, that he did not act differently. But I think, in his place, I should have made the same attempt he did to unravel the mystery of his lost identity. So much ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... politely assisted his egress, he passed onward with a graceful gesture of acknowledgment. He had taken but a few steps, when the thought occurred to me that he must have come from within the perplexing structure by some secret door, and that he could unravel its mystery. I was impelled to follow him, and proceeded hastily to do so, when the indelicacy of my intrusion on one evidently connected with the grief which the monument was designed to commemorate, flashed upon me, and I suddenly paused. He probably observed ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... back to San Pasqual, and such was his perturbation that he sought to have "Doc" Taylor unravel the puzzle ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... mercy. Eva cautioned him to be more than silent on the subject for the child's sake as well as for their own, and Anderson saw wisdom in her counselling. He even lagged in his avowed intention to unravel the mystery or die in the attempt. A sharp reminder in the shape of an item in the Banner restored his energies, and he again took up the case with a vigour that startled even himself. Anything in the shape of ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... soil of the hill on which the observatory was situated. Other defects also existed, which seemed to preclude the likelihood that the future work of the instrument would be of a high class. I had also found that very difficult mathematical investigations were urgently needed to unravel one of the greatest mysteries of astronomy, that of the moon's motion. This was a much more important work than making observations, and I wished to try my hand at it. So in the autumn I made a formal application to the Secretary of the Navy to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... his mind the secret that had been partly revealed to him, through the words of Grannie Thornton, could not make up his mind just what to do about it. He had almost decided to entrust what he knew to Lawyer Estes, for him to unravel, when the lawyer was called out of town for several weeks, on an important case. Again, another event intervened to cause delay. Miss Matilda Burns made a visit to her home in Massachusetts, and took Henry Burns with her; and it was well into ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... remembered an interesting fact about Diana's Grove—there is, I have long understood, some strange mystery about that house. It may be of some interest, or it may be trivial, in such a tangled skein as we are trying to unravel." ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... escape; and adds, that he had reason to believe him to have embarked for America. He describes him in general terms, as the most incomprehensible and formidable among men; as engaged in schemes, reasonably suspected to be, in the highest degree, criminal, but such as no human intelligence is able to unravel: that his ends are pursued by means which leave it in doubt whether he be not in league with some infernal spirit: that his crimes have hitherto been perpetrated with the aid of some unknown but desperate accomplices: ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... him nothing but a little gratitude for having delivered her from the men in black, who wished to carry her off, and that she had promised him nothing. He considered himself an outraged, betrayed, and ridiculed lover. Blood and anger mounted to his face; he was resolved to unravel the mystery. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... illustrations which are after all only rough diagrams, the warp weights appear to hang from a single thread only, but this can not have been correct. The warp threads must have been bunched, because a single suspended thread with a tension weight immediately begins to unravel, and so loses the advantage of its having been spun, as any one can ascertain for oneself. As regards the same point on the Lake Dwellers looms, Cohausen was the first to surmise that the warp threads were bunched ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... this," I said to myself—"it was to hear such propositions as this that I came to Sicily! That Polizzi is simply a scoundrel, and his son another; and they made a plan together to ruin me." But what was their scheme? I could not unravel it. Meanwhile, it may be imagined how discouraged and ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... to prevent their utterance," cried Richmond, with a somewhat jealous look at his friend, "for I have determined to know more of this mystery, and shall require the earl's assistance to unravel it. I think I remember Morgan Fenwolf, the keeper, and will send for him to the castle, and question him. But in any case, I and Surrey ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a very active-minded girl. It was not her way to sit wondering and puzzling over anything she could not understand. She had a knack of setting herself to unravel problems which required explanation in the most common-sense way. After giving her uncle time to leave the house—intuition told her that he would do so—she rose and rang the bell. Then she moved to the window while she waited ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... a century since Liebig and Lehmann and their pupils began to unravel the mystery of food. In recent years no subject has received more assiduous attention from scientific men, and none has been made the object of more constant or more profound research than the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... chieftains, 55 Our best, our noblest, are assembled around you, Their kinglike leader! On your nod they wait. The single threads, which here your prosperous fortune Hath woven together in one potent web Instinct with destiny, O let them not 60 Unravel of themselves. If you permit These chiefs to separate, so unanimous Bring you them not a second time together. 'Tis the high tide that heaves the stranded ship, And every individual's spirit waxes 65 In the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... for him such facts in the O'Donnel family history as I could unravel from the tangled web. The mystery of Angele de la Mole's Spanish-speaking Irish friends (which she must have refrained from explaining in order to play a joke upon Dick) was solved in a sentence. An O'Donnel grandfather had fought ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the balls. Put shucks around the spindle to slip it off easy. I have seen big balls this big (2 ft. in diameter) down on the floor and mama, knitting off of it right on. When the feet wore out on socks and stockings, they would unravel them, save the good thread, and reknit the foot or toe ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... a sigh, and when her aunt still pressed her on the subject, she begged to be spared, as she felt nervous and excited. So, leaving the sitting room, she retired to her own apartment, to gather up, and unravel, if possible, the tangled thread ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... found that I had picked the wrong person. Then I accused another character on perfectly good circumstantial evidence, and he was not the man. After that I decided to withdraw from the detective business and let Miss SILBERRAD unravel her mystery for herself. If you are of the opinion that a woman cannot keep a secret read The Mystery of Barnard Hanson and become convinced that Miss SILBERRAD at least is an exception. If I have ever read a more perfectly sustained mystery novel I cannot recall it. There is just a chance that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... questions of national finance and foreign policy. No account of him could be complete without reviewing his actions and estimating the results of his work in all these directions. But the difficulty of describing and judging him goes deeper. His was a singularly complex nature, a character hard to unravel. His individuality was extremely strong; all that he said or did bore its impress. Yet it was an individuality so far from being self-consistent as sometimes to seem a bundle of opposite qualities capriciously united in a single person. He might with ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... accumulations are not surprising under the operation of compound interest on sums of money loaned; but when effected by purchases of unproductive lands, they constitute a puzzle which the most intimate of Mr. McDonogh's friends have found it difficult to unravel. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... cares to know just how ridiculous and inconsistent the judicial system of the Philippines then was would do well to try to unravel the mixed details of the half dozen charges, ranging from cruelty through theft to murder, which were made against Mrs. Rizal without a shadow of evidence. One case was trumped up as soon as another ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... fish—and you get into a rowboat that you undertake to pull yourself and that starts out by weighing half a ton and gets half a ton heavier at each stroke. You pull and pull until your spine begins to unravel at both ends, and your palms get so full of water blisters you feel as though you were carrying a bunch of hothouse grapes in each hand. And after going about nine miles you unwittingly anchor off the mouth of a popular garbage dump and everything you catch is second-hand. The sun beats ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... we have done, even already, for Ireland, by giving her the blessings of a strong and honest Government; what a blow we have aimed at absenteeism, in a particular provision of our income-tax! Nil desperandum, gentlemen, give us a little time to unravel your long tissue of misgovernment; and, in the mean time, make haste, and go about in quest of a grievance, if you can find one, against the ensuing session. Depend upon it, we will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... wishes to make a purchase. Talk about diplomacy!—there's not a man in any court in Europe who knows his position, his fulcrum, and his lever, and the use he can make of them, as this man knows. He can unravel any combination, penetrate any disguise, surmount any obstacle. Beyond all other men, he knows when to talk, and when to refrain from talking,—how to throw the burden of negotiation on the seller,—how to get the goods ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... librarian had brought him close up to the good in the other side of the cleft too. He had settled down to his shoemaking again and refused to be roused by the others' impatience; but he looked as if he had an eternity in which to unravel his affairs. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... up the floor-boards in the barn and Mr. O'Neill's digging up the lilac bush for the third time. And that's enough. It beats me how Mr. O'Neill can go on rememberin' so much now he's got his memory started. He just seems to unravel things out of it overnight. It keeps me all worked up. I feel as if I ought to whisper when I speak and every night the minute I get to sleep I find myself diggin' in first one outlandish place and then another. And if I'm not diggin' in my sleep, your father is, with jerks and starts ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... the hall a great loom, and day by day she wrought there at the web, for she was a marvellous spinner, patient as Arachne, but dear to Athena. All day long she would weave, but every night in secret she would unravel what she had wrought in the daytime, so that the web might never be done. For although she believed her dear husband to be dead, yet her hope would put forth buds again and again, just as spring, that seems to die each year, will come again. So she ever looked ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... to unravel them sacks till we've got enough to make a rope. This loft's a capital place to twist him. It's all right, sir, only help me work away, and to-night we'll ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... own account and could afford to go to India on a voyage of discovery—yes, as much a voyage of discovery as that of Vasco de Gama or of Drake—that I got from the Madras agent the clue which enabled me, at the cost of infinite patience and infinite labour, to unravel the mystery of my birth. There is no need to enter now upon the details of that story. I have overwhelming documentary evidence—a cloud of witnesses—to convince the most sceptical as to who and what ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... was doing his utmost—it must be acknowledged, with indifferent success—to recall the lessons of his school-days. He would plunge into the wildest speculations in his endeavors to unravel the difficulties of the new situation, and struggled into a kind of conviction that if there had been a change of manner in the earth's rotation on her axis, there would be a corresponding change in her revolution round the sun, which would involve the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... these circumstances it seems essential that the St. Petersburg Cabinet, whose desire to unravel this crisis peacefully is manifest, should immediately give their adherence to the British proposal. This proposal must be strongly supported at Berlin in order to decide [Secretary of State] Von Jagow to take real action at Vienna capable of stopping Austria and preventing her ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... symbols and parables, resulting in Chaldea in the highly artificial system which has been sketched above—(see Chapters V. and VI.)—a system singularly beautiful and deeply significant, but of which the mass of the people did not care to unravel the subtle intricacies, being quite content to accept it entire, in the most literal spirit, elementary nature-gods, astronomical abstractions, cosmogonical fables and all—questioning nothing, at peace in their mind and righteously self-conscious if they ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... Mrs. Massingberd, see 'Letters', vol. i. p. 100, at end of 'note' 3 [Footnote 1 of Letter 52]. Byron's pecuniary transactions, though not unimportant in their influence on his career, are difficult to unravel. The following statement, in his own handwriting, with regard to the Annuities was apparently prepared for some legal proceedings, and is dated ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... It is true that this recurrence may be in part due to the very potency of the personality of the first reformer and to the magic of the memory which he left behind him. Party-cries tend to become shibboleths and it is difficult to unravel the web that has been spun by the hand of a master. Even the hated cry for the Italian franchise, which had proved the undoing of Caius Gracchus, became acceptable to party leaders and to an ever-growing section of their followers, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... ill-adapted to the movements of a dancer. Nor were the attitudes and movements of her companion so much those of the dance as of the pantomime. There was evidently a meaning in them, though Madame de Hell could not unravel it. The young figurante frequently extended her arms and threw herself on her knees, as if in ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... low or too high), or hitting some other note that chords, so as to produce the effect of a marvellous complication and variety, and yet with the most perfect time, and rarely with any discord. And what makes it all the harder to unravel a thread of melody out of this strange network is that, like birds, they seem not infrequently to strike sounds that cannot be precisely represented by the gamut, and abound in 'slides from one note to another, and turns and cadences not ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... men had not been less in a condition to mistake, so some others might not have been here to find fault. But it is better late than never; when the inquiry is set about heartily, it may be useful on several accounts, both to unravel past errors and to prevent new. For my part, as we have for many years past groaned for want of justice upon wilful mistakes, yet, in hopes some of the careful and mischievous designing gentlemen may come in for a share, I am glad the ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... to the theme. It had indeed perplexed her, and she was glad to unravel her impressions to this understanding listener. 'No, that's just what it wasn't; it might have been if one hadn't felt her a person so easily affected. She had—how can I put it?—it seems brutal when she is such a dear—but she had so little stuff in her; it was as if she ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... travail That groans for the light Till dayspring unravel The weft of the night, At the sound of the strings of the music of ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... who carry their niceties to an excess. It would be wrong to hold Rashi responsible for the abuse later made of controversy; while, on the other hand, praise is owing to him for the happy efforts he made to unravel the texts, not only for the purpose of explaining their meaning, but also to indicate possible objections and reply to them in a few words. One must marvel at the clearsighted intelligence, the sureness, the mastery ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... respectfully. Care and hard work had already imprinted their insignia upon his fresh young face; for evidently he had not been in the Service for nothing. As a matter of fact, his greatest joy was to labour at a tangled case, and successfully to unravel it. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... do hear of your having misled me in this matter——" He did not finish the sentence in words, but playfully producing a revolver, he departed. The next moment he was dashing across the lawn, the mud flying in every direction, and himself thinking how useless it was to try to unravel a love quarrel. ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... eyes and began to unravel the tangle of the day's events. He could remember voices which had circled around him, babbling endlessly; two negroes who had taken off his wet clothes, put him in dry things and wrapped him in blankets; and Matty, the cook, who had soothed him and given him ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop |
