"Clew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... asked himself where he had seen such an eye and brow and shambling walk as that; and he fell into a brown study and groped among many years for the clew. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... so, making sail with all possible speed, got clear away. Meantime a shot had brought the Norfolk to on the Falmouth's starboard bow, where she was immediately boarded. On her decks an ominous state of things prevailed. Her crew would not assist to clew up the sails, the anchor had been seized to the chain-plates and could not be let go, and when the gang from the Falmouth attempted to cut the buoy ropes with which it was secured, the "crew attacked them with hatchets ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... about, anyhow?" asked Jim Cranby. "I ain't heard nothing about it." He had stood in open-mouthed perplexity trying to catch a clew. Coming ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin's ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... sent the warning to me. I called on him, learned the plans of Bill and Jed, and we sent for the detectives. The latter, we learned, were about to make an arrest anyhow, but it was of the men who really printed the bogus tickets. They hadn't a clew, as yet, to Bill and Jed, who were the real backers of the game. The detectives came on, disguised themselves with us, and we caught the scoundrels in the very act. Now ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... signal was made for the grand fleet to anchor, All in the downs, that night for to sleep; Then stand by your stoppers, let go your shank-painters, Haul all your clew-garnets, stick out tacks and ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... characteristic of his touch, when he called his lyrics and romances dramatic. He became consciously sensitive later to slight variations effected by his manipulation in shape and shade which it yet takes a little thought to discern, even after his own redivision of his work has given the clew to ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... can't git no clew to him. He cleared about two months ago, and they hain't seen hide nor hair on him ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... don't you? Well, it depends only on you. There must be some one among you who knows something about this matter. Let him come forward and tell us what he has seen or heard. Remember that the smallest trifle may be a clew to the crime. You would be as bad as the incendiary himself, if you concealed him. Just ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... sails were gaping open and splitting in every direction. The mizzen-topsail, which was a comparatively new sail and close reefed, split from head to foot in the bunt; the foretopsail went in one rent from clew to earing, and was blowing to tatters; one of the chain bobstays parted; the spritsailyard sprung in the slings, the martingale had slued away off to leeward; and owing to the long dry weather the lee rigging hung in large bights at every lurch. One of the main-topgallant shrouds had parted; and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... at her, a smile under the trim mustaches. "You hope they will furnish a clew?" he ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... awkward. Neither hair, dress, nor conversation affords the slightest clew, and you are left to guess. By some mysterious law of nature you invariably guess wrong, and are thereupon regarded by all the relatives and friends as a mixture of fool and knave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe as "she" being ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... their whole college of swaddling teachers knocked into smidhereens. John Tuam, your sowl, has tuck his pasthoral staff in his hand and heathen them out o' Connaught as fast as ever Pathric druve the sarpints into Clew Bay. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... with delight. And he himself harnessed the ancient horse to the creaking carriage. In the meantime Porthos was curious to behold. He imagined he had discovered a clew to the secret, and he felt pleased, because a visit to Athos, in the first place, promised him much satisfaction, and, in the next, gave him the hope of finding at the same time a good bed and good supper. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Following this clew, we run back along the line of what may be called "our spiritual ancestry." Turning naturally to our own next of kin, a child of New England, going back from the teaching of his youth to his fathers and to their fathers, soon finds before him the Puritan. When we study the Puritan it appears ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... in hopes still of overtaking the marauding band that had ruined Bennett's ranch, murdered its owner, and borne away into the wilds two helpless little settlers for whom a half-crazed, heart-broken woman at Almy was wailing night and day. Turner, following another route and clew, was exploring the Sierra Ancha south of Tonto Creek, and Lieutenant Harris, in fever and torment, was occupying an airy room in the post surgeon's quarters, the object of Bentley's ceaseless care, and of deep solicitude on part ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... billowed out, full of wind, pulling hard at the clew-line, which was made fast to the gunwhale beside Hrolfur. The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... resigned the work he valued, put the seas between himself and Deena, only to be baffled at every turn. For two months he had used his utmost acumen in prosecuting the search without even finding a clew, and when finally he made his great discovery, it was by yielding to the impulse of the moment rather than ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... not a success. They slept with all the doors and windows open, an' one night a skunk came in an' got under the bed. Mrs. Bill discovered that they had company, an' Bill got up an' lit the lantern, an' followed the clew to its source. He threatened an' argued an' appealed to the skunk's better nature with a doughnut, but the little beast sat unmoved in his corner. The ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... Then following the clew that, in the hands of the Abbe Faria, had been so skilfully used to guide him through the Daedalian labyrinth of probabilities, he thought that the Cardinal Spada, anxious not to be watched, had entered the creek, concealed his little ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... be a well-lighted elevator, and was promptly lifted out of sight. All became dark again, and I was frankly puzzled. This was a situation beyond my ken. What it could mean I could not surmise, and in the hope of finding a clew to the mystery I groped about in the darkness for the card which the hurried individual had cast at me with his words of encouragement. Ultimately I found it, but was unable to decipher its inscription, if perchance ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... duty. When the fore-topmast staysail and jib were to be set, somebody had fouled the down-hauls, so that they could not be hoisted. There was a kink in the halyards of the main-top gallant-sail, so that it would not run through the block. Clewlines, clew-garnets, leachlines, and buntlines were in a snarl. The zeal of those who were striving to do their duty faithfully seemed to make the matter worse, and the officers found it difficult to determine who really made the mischief; for the malcontents pretended to be ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... surface of the snow with bare fingers for some trace of his footsteps. There was none. The firm crust had carried him without strain. There was no least abrasion of the frozen surface to afford him a clew to his own trail. He strove to reason concerning the direction of his movements, but quickly abandoned the attempt as altogether baffling. In his circling about the tree from which he had garnered fuel, he had neglected ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... The clew to the best available solution of the problem is supplied by a consideration of the precise manner, in which the advantages derived from the efficient exercise of liberties become inimical to a wholesome social condition. The hostility depends, not upon the existence of such advantageous discriminations ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... remarkable; it looks so ridiculous. I must get a cap to suit my rags; any old thing would be better than this horror. Hats like these are not worn; this one would be noticeable a verst[2] off; it would be remembered; people would think of it again some time after, and it might furnish a clew. I must attract as little attention as possible just now. Trifles become important, everything hinges ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... following scornful quotations: "Grammarians, go to your tailors and shoemakers, and learn from them the rational art of constructing your grammars!"—Neef's Method of Education, p. 62. "From a labyrinth without a clew, in which the most enlightened scholars of Europe have mazed themselves and misguided others, the author ventures to turn aside."—Cardell's Gram., 12mo, p. 15. Again: "The nations of unlettered men so adapted their language to ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... man who had dealt him a blow from which he began to fear he would never recover. He was too morbid to be just to any one, even himself, and he felt that she had deserted and turned against him also, forgetting that he had given her no clew to his present place of abode, and had sent a message indicating that he would regard any effort to discover him as officious and intrusive. He quite honestly believed that by this time she had come to share in the general contempt and hostility which is ever cherished ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... possession of a powerful instrument, though he could not be said to have placed the handle very securely within his grasp. But if he had not really told him the secret, he had at least given him the clew to it—a clew of which that queer old Mrs. Bread held the other end. Mrs. Bread had always looked to Newman as if she knew secrets; and as he apparently enjoyed her esteem, he suspected she might be induced to share her knowledge with him. So long as there was only ...
— The American • Henry James
... D'Harmental unquestionably had there, ready to his hand, all the means necessary to the happy completion of his plot, but he had, in killing the captain, broken with his own hand the thread which should have served him as a clew to them, and, the center link broken, the whole chain had ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... gave him the first: I robd myself, for it was justly mine. The labourinthes of pollicie I have trod To find the clew of safetie, for my Cuntrie Requird a head more knowing and a courage As bold as his,—though I must say 'tis great. His stile of Excellencie was my guift; Money, the strength and fortune of the war, The help of England ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... read "Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School" will remember the mysterious disappearance of the bazaar money and the untiring zeal with which Grace worked until she found a clew to the robbery, which led to the astonishing discovery that she made in an isolated house ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... leap, the doubtful progeny, The lower part a beast, a man above, The monument of their polluted love. Not far from thence he grav'd the wondrous maze, A thousand doors, a thousand winding ways: Here dwells the monster, hid from human view, Not to be found, but by the faithful clew; Till the kind artist, mov'd with pious grief, Lent to the loving maid this last relief, And all those erring paths describ'd so well That Theseus conquer'd and the monster fell. Here hapless Icarus had found his part, Had not the father's grief restrain'd his art. He twice assay'd to ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... journey, But the guiding mark was gone. Not a vestige here remaining Of the sign that could be told, For old Mac had traveled swiftly And the trail was mixed and old. Two whole days Bill searched and waited, Hoping for some other clew, Weighing questions of direction, Undecided what to do. Till, one night, while cooking supper By the camp-fire's genial glow, He was startled by a stranger's Sudden ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... successively all the theatres in town—Booth's, Wallack's, Daly's Fifth Avenue (not burned down then), and the Grand Opera House. Even the shabby homes of the drama over in the Bowery, where the Germanic Thespis has not taken out his naturalization papers, underwent rigid exploration. But no clew was found to Van Twiller's mysterious attachment. The opera bouffe, which promised the widest field for investigation, produced absolutely nothing, not even a crop of suspicions. One night, after several weeks of this, Delaney and I fancied that we caught ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... no attempt to enter the cottage, but hastened back to the hotel, in a state of agitation difficult to describe. I could not make up my mind to pass unnoticed such extraordinary coincidences; but how was any clew to be obtained to the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... avoid the error of a Second; and even the sharpest sight will not be able to perceive it, except it be assisted with an Instrument of a prodigious bigness. For to mark Seconds, though Lines were drawn as subtil as the single threds of a Silk-worms Clew, (which are the smallest spaces to be discerned by the sharpest Eye) by the Calculation made by this Author there would need an Instrument of 48. feet Radius, since Experience shews, that there needs no more at most, than ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... the functions of a professor may appear obscure and exaggerated to one who has not studied at a German university. But it gives the clew to the entire German system of university education, and accounts in great part for the high standard of scholarship. Only in part, for the innate proneness of the German mind to research must be credited with some share in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... so well, none enjoyed so much as themselves. As the homeward-bound crew was the same as the outward-bound, and Mr. Dodge had come abroad quite as green as he was now going home ripe, this traveller of six months' finish did not escape diver commentaries that literally cut him up "from clew to ear-ring," and which flew about in the rigging much as active birds flutter from branch to branch in a tree. The subject of all this wit, however, remained profoundly, not to say happily, ignorant of the sensation he had produced, being occupied in disposing ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... which he had never felt before. He did not know what was the matter with him. He could not find his way out of the dark and out of the turmoil that wheeled around him. He had had no experience with women. There was no precedent to guide him. How was he to get out of this? What was the clew that would set ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... hunted for some wild fruit to stay his appetite—he had nothing to eat since the night before—and settled down for the rest of the afternoon to try and dig out the meaning of his father's papers, some of which seemed so clear, while to others he had no clew. It was characteristic of the boy that, once this idea of menace to the United States had got into his head, the thought of personal danger never crossed his mind. The slightly built boy, small even for his age, ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... not till I was a young man, at college, that I got any clew to the significance of my dreams, and to the cause of them. Up to that time they had been meaningless and without apparent causation. But at college I discovered evolution and psychology, and learned the explanation of various strange mental states and experiences. For instance, there was the ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... the phenomenon; and I put myself to studying it out, as an interesting problem. At last, I came to the conclusion—to which I still adhere—that their so long wearing only one epaulet (for to only one does their rank entitle them) was the infallible clew to this mystery. And when any one reflects upon so well-known a fact, that many sea Lieutenants grow decrepit from age, without attaining a Captaincy and wearing two epaulets, which would strike the balance between their ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... self-development and our families, so they have been in regard to limited circles of friends. If the fulfilment of these claims were all that a righteous life required, the hunger and thirst would be stilled for many good men and women, and the clew of right living would ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... my room. The drizzle and the monotony of a dreary, eventless Southern town had made me tired and listless. I remember that just before I went to bed I mentally disposed of the mysterious dollar bill (which might have formed the clew to a tremendously fine detective story of San Francisco) by saying to myself sleepily: "Seems as if a lot of people here own stock in the Hack-Driver's Trust. Pays dividends promptly, too. Wonder if—" ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... If chirography gives any clew to the character of a writer, the person who penned that letter was certainly plain, hard, and angular, while the composition of the epistle indicated the author was in the habit of bluntly freeing her mind. She began by telling her brother he was shiftless, progressed by referring ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... you very little about them, for I do not wish to give you any clew to my home at present; they are a mother and two daughters in reduced circumstances, but having unmistakably the stamp of gentlewomen; both mother and daughter, for the second is only a child, have high, cultured natures. The mother—forgive me, Margaret, ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... course," replied the boatswain, "but he couldn't leave the wheel, for 'twas pipin' up a freshish breeze on our port quarter, and we was doin' about seven, or seven and a half knots, with topmast and lower stunsails set to port, and of course we had to take 'em in, clew up the royal and to'ga'ntsail, and haul down the gaff- tops'l before we could round to; and that took us so long that at last, when we'd brought the hooker to the wind, hove her to, and had got the jolly-boat ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... not "know how to deal with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence" had puzzled Congress and the country. The debates show the keenest curiosity as to what the President had in mind. The newspapers turned the matter over and over, without obtaining any clew to the mystery. Some thought that the President had planned to intervene in Mexico, and that the tolls legislation was the consideration demanded by Great Britain for a free hand in this matter. But this correspondence ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... it was necessary for some time to ride with great precaution, in order to avoid the pitfalls, snares, and similar contrivances which were placed for the annoyance of strangers. The Gascon was, however, completely possessed of the clew to this labyrinth, and in a quarter of an hour's riding they found themselves beyond the limits of Plessis le Parc, and not far distant ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... laughed the Chemist. "No, I had no particular theory at this time—I had too many other things to think of. But I do remember noticing one thing which gave me the clew to a fairly complete understanding of this universe. From it I formed a definite explanation, which I found was the belief ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... he had engaged the taxicab and had started in pursuit of the limousine Kate Gilbert had entered. Prale wondered what Farland had been doing, whether he had discovered anything concerning Kate Gilbert, whether he had found a clew that would lead to an unraveling of ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... sought the ground giving up the problem. Others continued to gaze at him either with wonder, or hopeful of extracting from his face some clew to his involved and incomprehensible moral attitude. They suddenly felt as if he had confessed himself of an alien species, a creature as remote from them and their ideals as ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... to open the drawers. The search was continued for four hours without success. Every private drawer was rummaged, every paper opened, and many a curious glance was cast at the contents of the latter, in order to get some clew to the probable amount of the assets of the deceased. Consternation and uneasiness very evidently increased among most of the spectators as the fruitless examination proceeded; and when the notary ended, declaring that no will was to be found, nor any evidence of credits, every eye was fastened on ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and sought refuge with O'Donnell of Tir-Connell. O'Flaherty, who had always been hostile to Felim, joined the English, and, by the help of his boats, they were able to lay waste the islands of Clew Bay. Nearly all the inhabitants were killed or carried off. The victorious forces now laid siege to a castle[326] on the Rock of Lough Key, in Roscommon, which was held for O'Connor by Mac Dermod. They succeeded in taking it, but soon lost their possession by the quick-witted ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Mr. Robert spots me comin' out of the 23d-st. candy shop with the package under my arm. You wouldn't think he'd notice a little clew like that, or pick me up on it; ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... days few of our cavalry wore, when on Indian campaign, the forage-cap with its crossed sabres and distinguishing letters. Nothing in the dress or accoutrements of the two men thus advancing to meet the Indian emissaries would give to the latter any clew as to the troop or regiment to which they belonged. Could they see the horses, however, the matter would be settled at once. The U. S. brand, with that of the number of the regiment and letter of the troop showed on every ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... disposal of my property at the death of my father; but that was so vested as to preclude it from immediate use, and I even doubted whether it would not be found better ultimately to resign it, than, by claiming it, to risk the furnishing a clew to what I most of all dreaded, the persecution of Mr. Falkland. There was nothing I so ardently desired as the annihilation of all future intercourse between us, that he should not know there was such a person on the earth as myself, and that I should never ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the compass and the maps that were each day displayed in the captain's cabin, and they knew that they were headed south. Although that gave them little or no clew to their ultimate destination, they felt some comfort in the knowledge that the shore of America lay to the starboard, and away off somewhere beyond the dreary horizon was the country they all loved, and where their anxious friends and families were ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... to believe him capable of any blind infatuation, and this must suffice for the present. No one must suspect what we are to each other; no one here or round the neighborhood must have the slightest clew to our plans. An awful personage will soon make his appearance among us. His violent temper, his inveterate obstinacy, (according to all that one hears of him,) are well calculated to confirm in her a well-founded aversion. But family arrangements ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... proceeding on the part of the chasseur was to procure a small quantity of dead moss, which was easily obtained from the trunks of the surrounding trees; and this, mixed with a handful or two of dry grass, he rolled up into a sort of irregular clew. ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... besides incurring the additional risk of being intercepted and captured by some of the inshore cruisers. I began to edge away therefore, and in two or three hours enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing our pursuer clew up and furl his sails. The breeze was still blowing as fresh as in the morning, but we were now running directly away from it, and the cruiser was going literally as fast as the wind, causing the sails to be rather a hindrance than a help. But she was still gaining on us. A happy ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... vast load of scientific facts. Hence the many eminent observers who have been the most illogical of reasoners. What a contrast between Hugh Miller and his friend Francia; the mind of the latter, as Miller describes it, 'a labyrinth without a clew, in whose recesses was a vast amount of book-knowledge that never could be used, and was of no use to himself or any one else;' the former wielding all his stores as he swung his sledge. What is wanted is the comprehensive hand, and ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... a clew; for, when she went over for the soda, though she knocked several times, and heard voices up-stairs, and altogether unseemly laughter for a house where there had just been a funeral, not a soul came to the door! ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... experienced religion. "I got it in New Orleans in '59," said Mr. Thompson, with the general suggestion of referring to an epidemic. "Enter ye the narrer gate. Parse me the beans." Perhaps this practical quality upheld him in his apparently hopeless search. He had no clew to the whereabouts of his runaway son; indeed, scarcely a proof of his present existence. From his indifferent recollection of the boy of twelve, he now expected to identify the man ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... followed immediately behind him, thinking it barely possible that his actions might prove a clew to my whereabouts and had witnessed my short but decisive battle with him. This encounter, together with my set-to with the Martian warrior on the previous day and my feats of jumping placed me upon a high pinnacle in their regard. Evidently devoid of all the finer sentiments ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... those magnificent savages was terrifying. How could it be? What was the secret of his rule? More and more I puzzled as the days went by, and though I observed perpetual examples of his undisputed sovereignty, never a clew was there ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... Another turn ran it up to the bows. The foretopsail was next sheeted home and hoisted, and the head yards braced forward to help her round more quickly. In the meantime the anchor was catted and fished ready for sea, and as the wind came abaft the beam, the head yards were squared, and the fore-clew-garnets being let run, the ponderous folds of the foresail were allowed to fall towards the deck, just as the wind was brought right aft. Both sheets were then hauled aft, and the increasing breeze no longer finding escape ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... any mountain region a glance over the surface of the country will give the reader a clew to the principal factor which has determined the existence of these elevations. Wherever the bed rocks are revealed he will recognise the fact that they have been much disturbed. Almost everywhere the strata are turned at high angles; ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... the captain, immediately catching at the clew: "Dringworth Brothers, America Square, ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... this cub came from headquarters a detective was sent down to the Bowery, and by this time it is known pretty well what we looked like. The afternoon papers say the police are following a good clew, but you know what ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... earnest contents, convinced me that I now held the clew of that mystery which had baffled me so long, and that the missing letter said to have been lost at Le Noir's Landing was at last in my possession. It needed not this additional proof of treachery to convince me that my suspicions had ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... rather never recover the miniature than get Basil into trouble. My conviction is that he is concealing some knowledge which has come to him for the sake of another. He is making a mistake, of course, but his motives are good. If you can help him, Maggie, if you have any clew by which we can get at the real truth, use it, and ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... from an ancient noble family, as he says on several occasions, it is possible that some particulars relating to the Schweidlers might be discovered in the family records of the seventeenth century which would give a clew to his native country; but I have sought for that name in all the sources of information accessible to me, in vain, and am led to suspect that our author, like many of his contemporaries, laid aside his nobility and changed his name when he ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... night-walkers also, and the record they leave upon the snow is the main clew one has to their life and doings. The hare is nocturnal in his habits, and though a very lively creature at night, with regular courses and run-ways through the wood, is entirely quiet by day. Timid as he is, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... inclosed, D'Avencourt continued—"The accompanying letters were found in Ferrari's breast-pocket, and on opening the first one, in the expectation of finding some clew as to his last wishes, we came to the conclusion that you, as the future husband of the lady whose signature and handwriting you will here recognize, should be made aware of the contents, not only for your own sake, but in justice ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Garroch Head, with a cluster of Clyde Trust Hoppers, glides abaft the beam, and the blue Cock o' Arran shows up across the opening water. All is haste and bustle. Aloft, spider-like figures, black against the tracery of the rigging, cast down sheets and clew lines in the one place where they must go. Shouts and hails—"Fore cross-trees, there! Royal buntline inside th' crin'line, in-side, ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... ingenuity and boldness which left no doubt that it had been effected by clever and practiced hands. The detective officers first employed having failed to discover the offenders, the threads of the imperfect and broken clew were placed in my hands, to see if my somewhat renowned dexterity, or luck, as many of my brother officers preferred calling it, would enable me to piece them out to a satisfactory conclusion. By the description obtained of a man who had been seen lurking about the house a few days previous ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... was illegible. Besides this, was a prayer-meeting topic-card, soiled and worn, and a small testament, dog-eared, with much fingering, but no money. A cheap Christian Endeavor pin was fastened to the ragged vest. There was nothing to identify him, or furnish a clew as to where he was from. The face and form was that of a young man, and though thin and careworn, showed no mark of dissipation. The right hand was marked by a long scar across the back and the loss of the little finger. The clothing was ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... the intricate labyrinths of Ann street, (in the hope of obtaining some clew to the fate of Fanny Aubry,) thou wilt have the kindness, gentle reader, to accompany us into one of the squalid dens of that great sewer of vice and crime. But first we pause to read and admire the sign which decorates the exterior of a "crib" ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... history shall have fulfilled itself. But the one indwelling life of nature lives in all the manifold forms; the same laws rule in the human body as in the universe; that which works secretly in the former lies open to the view in the latter, and the world gives the clew to the knowledge of man. Natural becoming is brought about by the chemical separation and coming together of substances; the ultimate constituents revealed by analysis are the three fundamental substances or primitive essences, quicksilver, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... perceived the possibility of puzzling us by letting us only dimly surmise what had past behind the closed doors that shut in the ill-fated lovers, and of leaving us in a maze of uncertainty and a mist of doubt, peering pitifully, and groping blindly for a clew to ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... skipper were obeyed. The Languedocian made a third sailor. All bore a hand. Not satisfied with brailing up, they furled the sails, lashed the earrings, secured the clew-lines, bunt-lines, and leech-lines, and clapped preventer-shrouds on the block straps, which thus might serve as back-stays. They fished the mast. They battened down the ports and bulls'-eyes, which is a method of walling up a ship. These evolutions, though executed in a lubberly fashion, were, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... may have been written by some person I know, but I have no suspicion and no clew ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... were destined to disappointment; Wilson nosed in every corner like a terrier and examined the roof almost in the posture of a fly, but half an hour afterward they had to confess that they were still without a clew. Sir Walter's private secretary seemed more and more threatened with inappropriate slumber, and, having been the last to climb up the ladder, seemed now to lack the energy even ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... let go our small bower. At 6 A.M. perceived the Investigator attempting to weigh, on which we (after some difficulty) weighed and began to work to windward. Observed the Investigator to drop her anchor again and clew down her sail. Came to in 6 fathoms with the small bower. Answered signal "I want to see you." Immediately went on board the Investigator and Lieutenant Fowler informed me they had parted a Bower Cable, that, their Stream not bringing her up, a second Bower was gone and that they were in 1/2 ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... and in spite of the efforts that were being made to discover him, no clew had been obtained by Herbert's friends, either as to his whereabouts, or as to the identity of the party or parties hat had abducted him. It is needless to say that Grant heartily sympathized with the afflicted father, and was sad on his own account, for he had become warmly attached to the little ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... in the hillside was called in the north Clough, also spelt Clow, Cleugh (Clim o' the Cleugh), and Clew. The compound Fairclough is found corrupted into Faircloth. Another obscure northern name for a glen was Hope, whence Allsop, Blenkinsop, the first element in each being perhaps the name of the first settler, and Burnup, Hartopp, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the latter case the canines have an advantage at the start; they are put upon the track or directed to hunt for it where it is known to exist; they are given a clew in ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... signal was made for the grand fleet to anchor, All in the Downs that night for to meet; So cast off your shank-painter, let go your cat's-topper, Hawl up your clew-garnets, let ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... is he now, then," said Dalgetty, "that he thinks it fitting to lie upon the lowest step of the stairs, and clew'd up like a hurchin, that honourable cavaliers, who chance to be in trouble, may break their noses ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... standing on guard whilst the other two take their turn to rest, and thus no living thing hath power to pass by them. Yet will I make known to thee the means whereby thou mayest win thy wish without any hurt or harm befalling thee from the furious beasts." Thus saying she drew from an ivory box a clew of thread and, by means of a needle one of those wherewith she had been plying her work, made thereof a ball. This she placed in the hands of her husband, and said, "First, be thou careful that thou keep about thee with all diligence this ball, whose use I shall presently explain to thee. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... whole conduct; and of Alvarez, that the little he has to say and do, is so said and done, as not to disgrace his common-place character of the possessor of the secret on which the plot depends; for it may be casually observed, that the depositary of such a clew to the catastrophe, though of the last importance to the plot, is seldom himself of any interest whatever. The haughty and high-spirited Almeyda is designed by the author as the counterpart of Sebastian. She breaks out with the same violence, I had almost said fury, and frequently discovers a sort ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Morgan the instant the boat was alongside. "Swing the mainyard and get the canvas off her. Aloft, topmen, settle away the halliards! Clew down! Lively, now!" ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... provided. In the meantime the friends and relatives of the missing girl had been making every effort to locate her, no idea having occurred to them that she was going South. A loving brother finally got hold of a clew, which he followed up so successfully that he at last solved the mystery. He arrived in New Orleans on November 1st, and when taken out to the grave that had been provided for the stranger who had died just outside the gates, he was astounded to find ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... commence, till I have again seen some of old Louis's old-fashioned Galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth: but as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short, I both know, and don't know what it should be. I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... he remained in such close proximity to the bank. It was safe to assume that this was one of the things the professional "strong-arm man" would not do. But it was also evident that he must speedily lose his identity if he hoped to escape; and the lost identity must leave no clew ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... proceeding is thoroughly characteristic of the servile class; they conscientiously conceal everything from the master till he finds a clew; after which they tell him everything ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... how our expedition had proved to be a total failure. It was best, we thought, not to mince matters with her; and we stated minutely how time after time the anchorage of the schooner had been precisely located, and then in a little while had been unlocated again. She saw, as we did, that as a clew Old Jacob was not much of a success, and also that he was about the only thing in the least like a clew that we possessed. Realizing this latter fact, and knowing that his great age made his death probable at any moment, Susan strongly advised me, in her clear-sighted ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... has already gathered round his name during his lifetime. He has been so written about, so talked about, so riddled with praise or blame, that, to those who have never seen him in the flesh, he has become almost a tradition, a myth—and one runs the risk of losing all clew to ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... to the mastering of the sum of the angles. Geometry was the bane of her existence and she was only cheered into digging away at it by the thought of the money lying in her name in the bank, which she had received for giving the clew leading to little Raymond Bartlett's discovery the summer before, and which would pay her way to college for one year ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... Leenane is Errig Bridge, from which the best view of Croagh Patrick Mountain may be had. But an ascent of the mountain is best made from Murrisk Abbey, six miles outside Westport. From the mountain side the expansive country from island-set Clew Bay to Nephin and Slievemore, in Achill, spreads out to best advantage. The famous coach road from Clifden cuts into Westport from the south. The Quay and Mall and the Marquis of Sligo's demesne are the "sights" of the town. It ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... into many of the cases of complaint made in this general way, and have felt mortified that our soldiers should do acts which are nothing more or less than stealing, but I was powerless without some clew whereby to reach the rightful party. I know that the great mass of our soldiers would scorn to steal or commit crime, and I will not therefore entertain vague and general complaints, but stand, prepared always to follow up any reasonable complaint when the charge is definite ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... I met you," said Jim. Jim was a very proud fellow, too, in his own way. Alison's queer letter had pierced him to the quick. Not having the faintest clew to her reason for writing it, he was feeling ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... Silas did not highly enjoy smoking, and often wondered how his neighbours could be so fond of it; but a humble sort of acquiescence in what was held to be good, had become a strong habit of that new self which had been developed in him since he had found Eppie on his hearth: it had been the only clew his bewildered mind could hold by in cherishing this young life that had been sent to him out of the darkness into which his gold had departed. By seeking what was needful for Eppie, by sharing the effect ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... lumber yards—an unpromising region, surely, in which to look for Master Quinton Edge's particular retreat. And yet it would have marked the subtlety of the man to have set his secret here, where it would have been at once so easily seen and overlooked. Every labyrinth has its clew, but the fugitive walks safely in ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... able to walk then, any more than now, else I would have ranged London all round, day and night, for my darling. As it was, a kind city missionary made inquiries at all the police-offices, and everywhere else he could think of, but no clew could be gained as to what had become of her. At last he got wearied out and gave it up. No wonder; he had never seen Edie, and could not love her as I did. Once he thought he had discovered her. The body of a poor girl had been found in the ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... appearance of the citizens, too, gave no clew to the country to which the place belonged; there were as many Egyptians among them as Greeks, Syrians, and negroes. Asiatics appeared in the majority only in the market place, where the dealers were just leaving their stands to secure ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... night, Smoke continued to win. His method of play varied. Expert after expert, in the jam about the table, scribbled down his bets and numbers in vain attempts to work out his system. They complained of their inability to get a clew to start with, and swore that it was pure luck, though the most colossal streak of it ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... indication of extraordinary preoccupation; and the concierge, on taking up the provisions, had found the poor mother half mad, running from one room to another, looking for a note from the child, for any clew, however unimportant, that would enable her at least to form ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... return to the quarter-deck. All this time Ithuel and his companions in the yawl were left to their own reflections, which were anything but agreeable. Matters had been conducted so quietly inboard, however, that they possessed no clew to what had actually occurred; though Ghita, in particular, was full of forebodings and apprehensions. The frigate towed them along at a rate which, as Raoul said, had brought them quite abreast of ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... connection with a very remarkable person whom the third evangelist describes as his cousin, and who seems, from his mode of life, to have been in some way connected with or influenced by the Hellenizing sect of Essenes. Here we obtain our first clew to guide us in forming a consecutive theory of the development of Jesus' opinions. The sect of Essenes took its rise in the time of the Maccabees, about B. C. 170. Upon the fundamental doctrines of Judaism it had ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... it must have been many seconds that I sat up thus in bed staring about, without being able to regain the clew to my personal identity. I was no more able to distinguish myself from pure being during those moments than we may suppose a soul in the rough to be before it has received the ear-marks, the individualizing touches which make it a person. Strange that the ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... Bar men went part way with him—to a point beyond the south corral. It was here that Mrs. Thomas had found the body of her murdered husband. There seemed to be no clew as to who had performed the deliberate killing. Before The Kid left, however, he did a little scouting around. In the sand behind a mesquite, fifty yards from the spot where the body had been ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... been reported will give a clew to the different characters of the two boys, who, after less than a day's acquaintance, have become roommates. Henry Martin was about Sam's age, but much more thoughtful and sedate. He had begun to think of the future, and to provide for it. This is always an encouraging sign, and an augury of ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... gingerly up to the hatchway that led down to the forecastle. If disease had smitten the Minnie B they hoped to get some clew from the taint of the sailors' quarters. Greer stuck a nose down the ladder first. Beyond the usual close ship smells there seemed to be nothing wrong. Then ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... bethought himself of the two or three important papers to which Mr. Gammon had referred; and, with tremulous eagerness, read them over once or twice, but without being able to extract from them the slightest clew to their real character and bearing. Then he folded them up in a half sheet of writing-paper, which he proceeded to stitch carefully beneath the lining of his waistcoat; after which he blew out his slim candle, and with a heavy sigh ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... told me it was now called the pleasure-ground. What a dissonant idea of pleasure! those groves, those all'ees, where I have passed so many charming moments, are now stripped up or over-grown—many fond paths I could not unravel, though with a very exact clew in my memory: I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you will think, perhaps, it is far from being out of tune yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... force—the poor girl was crazy! Her father, a wealthy Burlington real estate broker, had mysteriously disappeared some months before, and it was supposed that he had met with foul play. Despite the efforts of Dyke Darrel and other detectives, no clew had yet been found of the missing man. The detective had met Sibyl at her father's house, and had regarded her as one both beautiful and accomplished. To meet her as now ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... and misgivings and fears in which Ferris had lived was suddenly without a clew; he could not look upon the pallid visage of the priest lest he should now at last find there that subtle expression of deceit; the whirl of his thoughts kept him silent; Don ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... hired advocate could only vindicate his client's heart at the expense of his head. Pope tells us, that to form a just estimate of any one's character, we must study his ruling passion; and by adopting this rule, we shall soon obtain a satisfactory clew both to the exquisite count's penchant for the prize-ring, and his aversion to the hells. Some persons exhibit an inexplicable union of avarice and extravagance, of parsimony and prodigality—something of this kind is observable in the gentleman in question. But self predominates with him ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... round my head, and raising it above the hammock I caught sight of numberless dark creatures with huge wings which kept sweeping round and round here and there through the verandah. Presently one of them pitched on the clew of my hammock. There was sufficient light from the bright stars to see its shape, and I beheld a creature with large ears standing out from the sides and top of its head, a spear-shaped appendage on the tip of its nose, while a pair of glittering black eyes and a grinning mouth gave ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... discovered that there were others, enemies, anxious to get mademoiselle to Paris. Rouzet had been followed. Mercier, with a friend, had immediately ridden after him, only, alas! to find him dead upon the roadside and the star gone. They continued their journey toward Beauvais, with only one clew to the scoundrel who had murdered and robbed the faithful Rouzet. He was not a Frenchman. Even now Mercier did not know his name, but he and his friend had distanced the foreigner and his companion on the road and arrived first in Beauvais. Lodgings were scarce owing to the ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... at Henry's Bar. Well, he just disappeared, that is all. He dropped completely out of sight between two days, and though the family has had a small army of detectives on his trail they've not discovered the smallest clew. It's deuced odd altogether. You might think it easy to disappear like ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Variant spellings, particularly bowlder (boulder), clew (clue) and vail (veil), have been retained. Also, the Table of Contents was missing ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... for a different answer—one which might throw some light upon the situation—but the girl was again quiet and introspective, without affording the slightest clew to her thoughts. How did it happen that he had proved so entirely satisfactory? Perhaps, then, after all, the original Henley was not so important a personage as he had imagined. But Paul scarcely hoped that his identity would ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... invite, No dulcet sounds the ravish'd ear delight; 50 No tender cares:—- But in their place appear, Sullen Complaint, and cloy'd Disgust, and Fear; There, fever'd Jealousy with livid hue, And falt'ring steps unwinds Suspicion's clew; Arm'd with the blood-stain'd instruments of death, There, Rage and Hatred spread their poison'd breath; 55 While Malice, brooding over secret guile, Repays their labour with a treach'rous smile; Remorse, that never sleeps, brings up the rear, Hates ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... to which is attached a piece of cloth. It shows, therefore, that before the crime there was a struggle between the victim and the assassin. As this button has certain letters and marks, it is a valuable clew ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and, looking up, Maggie saw approaching her the bent figure of the old woman, who seemed unusually excited. Her first impulse was to fly, but knowing how improbable it was that Hagar should seek to do her harm, and thinking she might discover some clew to the mystery if she remained, she sat still, while, kneeling on Hester's grave, old Hagar wept bitterly, talking the while, but so incoherently that Maggie could distinguish nothing save the words, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... when he recommends one to go straight on past the Craven Arms, and then bear round by the Dog and Duck till the great house comes in sight. Tiernaur, I gathered, was about fifteen miles to the north-west along Clew Bay towards Ballycroy. It is called Newfield Chapel on the Ordnance map, but is always spoken of here by its native name. It is invested with more than the mere transient interest attaching to the place of an open-air meeting, for it is the centre of a district ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... sought a clew to the mystery and found none. What had come to Timar? His countenance betrayed something like happiness; what was he concealing under his care for Timea? In company he was bright and cheerful, unconstrained and at ease with Athalie, sometimes even ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... down Carefully my address, and gave me his. Then to my lodgings driving with me back, He left me with a Benedicite! He's rich: has he been sending money, then? What means it all? Conjecture finds no clew. ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... After a whispered consultation with Mr. Brock, the surgeon personally superintended the patient's removal to a quiet bedroom at the back of the house. Shortly afterward his clothes and his carpet-bag were sent downstairs, and were searched, on the chance of finding a clew by which to communicate with his friends, in ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... pony, apparently tireless, shot on like an arrow driven into the teeth of the wind, sending up behind a cloud of dust that stretched backward toward the baffled pursuers, a long wavering ribbon like a clew left to guide the band into the mysterious depths of ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... Hutton's hypothesis. Through what agency has the ooze of the ocean-bed been transformed into solid rock? and through what agency has this rock been lifted above the surface of the water to form new continents? Hutton looks about him for a clew, and soon he finds it. Everywhere about us there are outcropping rocks that are not stratified, but which give evidence to the observant eye of having once been in a molten state. Different minerals are mixed together; pebbles are scattered through ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... now no further clew to guide his search. It was destined that the last he was to know of her should be that she was thrown on the tender mercies of the world—her last friend gone, her last penny expended. She was buried out of his sight, not in the peaceful grave, with its tender associations, but ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... his ear. Standing at the moment with my knee on Madame de Bruhl's stool, and remembering very well the meeting on the stairs, I conceived in a flash that the man was jealous; but whether he had yet heard my name, or had any clew to link me with the person who had rescued Mademoiselle de la Vire from his clutches, I could not tell. Nevertheless his presence led my thoughts into a new channel. The determination to punish him began to take form in my mind, and very quickly I regained my composure. Still I was for giving ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... again and again in the tidy, empty little stateroom, as if it must give some sign, some clew to the missing man. There were his travelling bags strapped and piled where the porter had dumped them. The steward who had shown Mr. Mayo his stateroom remembered that he had come on board early, more than an hour before sailing time. Oh, yes, the ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... Captain Jenkinson," said Captain Bird, "and you, Captain Burress, clew him up for'ard. You can stay in the bow, Captain Sanderson, and take the sheet-lines. ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... but no address. The baggage train had been destroyed by fire at the time of the accident, so there were no trunks to give evidence. The small traveling bag she had carried with her bore neither initial nor geographical designation, and contained nothing which gave any clew as to its owner's identity save that she was presumably a person of wealth, for her possessions were exquisite and obviously costly. A small jewel box contained various valuable rings, one or two pendants and a string of matched pearls which even to uninitiated eyes spelled a ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... well this man unfolded to our view The world's beliefs of Death and Heaven and Hell— This man whose own convictions none could tell, Nor if his maze of reason had a clew. Dogmas he wrote for daily bread, but knew The fair philosophies of doubt so well That while we listened to his words there fell Some that were strangely comforting, though true. Marking how wise we grew upon his doubt, We said: "If so, by groping in the night, He ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... connection with my son-in-law's extravagant expenditure—whether the clew to the mystery might not haply be the forging of bank-notes on the other side of the baize door. My mind was prepared for anything by this time. We descended again into the dining-room. Felicia saw how my spirits were dashed, ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... from the earth, the power of life and action. She had already so conquered herself as to be able to leave her own quiet room, and descend to that of her parents. There she would sit calmly for hours, listening attentively to the conversation, hoping to catch some word that might give her a clew. ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... address than an address at a post-office. Now he suspected her reasons of being excuses, for the first time. He had hitherto resolved, on reaching London, to inquire at the only place he knew of at which a clew to her could be found—the address she had given him as the address at which "her mother" lived. Now (with a motive which he was afraid to define even to himself, but which was strong enough to overbear every other consideration in his mind) ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... my hearty, you jest belay a bit up there; clew down your hatches ship-shape, git everythin' all trig, an' lay to. Why, my Christian friend, I intend to post you up thoroughly. Your edication's been neglected. Facts? Facts? Bless your noddle, there's plenty on 'em, ef a man knows ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... don't mistake," thought he, "I have a clew to this same mysterious gentleman in the inn. He has seen and become acquainted with Lucy in Paris, under sanction of her weak-minded and foolish mother. The girl herself admitted that her engagement to him was with her consent. Dunroe, already aware of his attentions to her, becomes jealous, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... escape, he soon turned around—he was in the front seat—and paid no more attention to him. Just outside of Suffern, he looked back—to find Cavalier had disappeared. He advertised, and made all possible efforts to locate the dog. But he could get no clew to him, until to-day. Seeing this dog of yours in the show ring, he recognized him ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... names of the commonest animals are lost in the dimness of antiquity, such as fox, weasel, sheep, dog, and baboon. Of the origin of these we have forever lost the clew. With camel we can go no farther back than the Latin word camelus, and elephant balks us with the old Hindoo word eleph, which means an ox. The old root of the word wolf meant one who tears or rends, and the application to this animal is obvious. In several ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... a wondrous hand from the blue yonder Held out a scroll On which my life was writ, and I with wonder Beheld unroll To a long century's end its mystic clew— What should I do? ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... were busily engaged in examining old family ambrotypes, papers, and various articles that, carefully hidden in the uncle's secretary, had been saved all these years in the hope that they might furnish a clew to Dorry's parentage, or perhaps prove that she was, as Mr. Reed trusted, the daughter of his brother Wolcott. To Donald each article was full of interest and hopeful possibilities; but his uncle looked ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... rebuilding and improvement. Further inquiry elicited the fact that the small leases had been bought up by some capitalist, and that Mr. Callender, with the others, had benefited thereby. But there was no trace nor clew to his present locality. He and his daughter seemed to have again vanished with this ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... prize-fighter, doesn't he? But the steward tells me that he was educated for the priesthood, and fell by the wayside. That one close to the hatch—the one with the red head and hang-dog jib—is Seldom Helward. He was shot off the cro'-jack yard; he fell into the lee clew of the cro'-jack, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... the breeze veered a point or two, I thought she must have jibed, for the clew of the sail almost swung ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... shore of the lake was twinkling with lights borne high in the hands of men who were searching. Two boats were rowing back and forth on the lake, with bright lights at stern and prow; and loud shouts filled the air. No answer; no clew: at last, from the island, came a pistol shot,—the signal agreed on. Every man stood still and listened. Slowly the boats came back to shore, drawing behind them Hetty's boat; bringing one of the oars, and also Hetty's shawl, which they had found, just where Raby had told them they ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... Malyavan who live on Earth as Vararuchi and Gunadhya and this runs through lib. i. Lib. ii. begins with the Story of Udayana to whom we must be truly grateful as our only guide: he and his son Naravahanadatta fill up the rest and end with lib. xviii. Thus the want of the clew or plot compels a division into books, which begin for instance with "We worship the elephantine proboscis of Ganesha" (lib. x. i.) a reverend and awful object to a Hindu but to Englishmen mainly suggesting the "Zoo." The "Bismillah" of The Nights ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... moved away a few yards to be sure of the mother-bird, charging my friend not to stir from his tracks. When I returned, he had moved two paces, he said (he had really moved four), and we spent a half hour stooping over the daisies and the buttercups, looking for the lost clew. We grew desperate, and fairly felt the ground all over with our hands, but without avail. I marked the spot with a bush, and came the next day, and with the bush as a centre, moved about it in slowly increasing circles, covering, I thought, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... prisoners made the guilt of the Cross-Roads appear doubtful in the minds of many. As the morning waned, the advocates of the theory that the gamblers had made away with Harkless grew in number. There came a telegram from the Rouen chief of police that he had a clew to their whereabouts; he thought they had succeeded in reaching Rouen, and it began to be generally believed that they had escaped by the one-o'clock freight, which had stopped to take on some empty cars at a side-track ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... as follows: On the January date the store of Simeon J. Rudberg, of Baltimore, was entered by four men who secured the property in question. For a long time nothing was heard of the goods, but, eventually, they were traced to this city, and, following the same clew, Mr. Rudberg proceeded to Buffalo, where he had the pleasure of confronting two of the thieves, who were held in that lake city on a charge of shop-lifting. He identified them, and saw, moreover, in their company a very handsome woman who had ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... her face on her palms and considered the matter. Even with her habit of dealing with facts rather than fancies, she still found life a most perplexing and complex affair. The only help she gained toward understanding it was that clew taught her by her mother of matching the days and the events as one matches a fascinating puzzle. Out of this thought she spoke at last, though quite to the bewilderment of ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... seen the birth of many miracles in my time; which, although they were abortive, yet have we not failed to foresee what they would have come to, had they lived their full age. 'Tis but finding the end of the clew, and a man may wind off as much as he will; and there is a greater distance betwixt nothing and the least thing in the world than there is betwixt this and the greatest. Now the first that are imbued with this beginning of novelty, when ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Japanese actor, Sessue Hayakawa, who takes the leading part with Blanche Sweet in The Clew, and is the hero in the film version of The Typhoon. He looks like all the actors in the old Japanese prints. He has a general dramatic equipment which enables him to force through the stubborn screen such stagy plays as these, that are more worth while in the speaking theatre. But ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... of blocks and the tramp of the crew, Hisses the rain of the rushing squall; The sails are aback from clew to clew, And now is the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... live comfortably in Italy for the rest of my days as the Conte Ferraro. I was alone with him when he died, poor fellow, in the marsh of Zembin, and I shall slip into his skin.... Mille diables! the woman who is to follow after me might give them a clew! Think of an old campaigner like me infatuated enough to tie myself to a petticoat tail!... Why take her? I must leave her behind. Yes, I could make up my mind to it; but—I know myself—I should be ass enough to go back for her. Still, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne |
