"Riddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of sin and doubt, Whose feet are set in ways amiss— Who cannot read Thy riddle out, Just plead, and ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... "Shall I read your riddle?" said the Earl. "Go where love calls you—I will make an excuse to my mother—only, most grave anchorite, be hereafter more indulgent to the failings of others than you have been hitherto, and blaspheme not the power ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... deal. But "From Papa" caught my eye on a little parcel. I seized it and unfolded. From papa, and he so far away! But I guessed the riddle before I could get to the last of the folds of paper that wrapped and enwrapped a little morocco case. Papa and mamma, leaving me alone, had made provision beforehand, that when this time came I might miss nothing except themselves. They had thought and cared and arranged for ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... night, torturing my sleepless brain for a solution of the riddle, and being forever haunted by the nun's dark eyes. It was late when ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... over the complication. He saw that until further investigation disproved it there could be but one solution of this intricate riddle. Billy Cass, the maker of the bet, was a race track frequenter; David Cass was not. They must be separate personalities; but they resembled each other; they were of the same name—they might be brothers. Billy Cass had been in possession of the ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... redeem their promises, while the Entente States would have boycotted her as faithless and false-hearted. As a dilemma for Italy the position in which she was placed must have delighted the wily Buelow. How it can have satisfied an Italian statesman is a psychological riddle. ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... with light, seems almost resembled be an ethereal existence. The dark-blue eyes had an expression of soul and feeling which attracted even the simple domestics at the hall. The physician assured them that her chest was sound, and that her malady was to him a riddle. A beautiful summer, he thought, would ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... removed from our own huts and built here round her, in order to weep over her grave." From some of the people he received great kindness; others were quite different. Their character, in short, was a riddle, and would need to be studied more. But the prevalent aspect of things was both distressing and depressing. If he had thought of it continually, he would have become the victim of melancholy. It was a characteristic of his large and buoyant nature, that, besides having the resource of spiritual ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... re-issued with an appendix of sixteen more pieces under the head of "Sylva." A third edition of the "Poetical Blossoms" was printed in 1637—the year of Milton's "Lycidas" and of Ben Johnson's death. Cowley had written a five-act pastoral comedy, "Love's Riddle," while yet at school, and this was published in 1638. In the same year, 1638, when Cowley's age was twenty, a Latin comedy of his, "Naufragium Joculare," was acted by men of his College, and in the same year printed, with a dedication to Dr. Comber, Dean of ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... carry on his various professions, I never found anything in Melchior's conduct which could be considered as criminal. On the contrary, he was kind, generous, and upright in his private dealings, and in many points, proved that he had a good heart. He was a riddle of inconsistency it was certain; professionally he would cheat anybody, and disregard all truth and honesty; but, in his private character, he was scrupulously honest, and, with the exception of the assertion relative ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... The riddle of his surroundings was confusing but his mind was quite clear—evidently his sleep had benefited him. He was not in a bed at all as he understood the word, but lying naked on a very soft and yielding mattress, ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... she set herself, as a student of philosophy, to study the teaching of Jesus. What had He said? Never mind whether He had founded this Church or that, what had He said? And what had been His science of life, His reading of the riddle? ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a great many things which before were all mystery and riddle. ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... traces of man-like things—but, suddenly, man appears, far too much developed to be the "next step" in a well-linked chain of evolutionary evidence. Perhaps something like the events of this story furnishes the answer to the riddle. ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... lived at Corrivarlich a noted sheep-stealer named Alastair Bane. Little is known of his boyhood. He was supposed to have been brought to the district by Highlanders who were in the habit of bringing to Crieff cartloads of split pine from Rannoch Forest, which they sold to riddle-makers to make riddle rims. During one of those visits the child is supposed to have been left. He was called Alastair, owing to his supposed Highland descent, and Bane, because of his white hair. As he grew up to manhood he showed symptoms ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... something that is his by rights, and I'm going to turn my talents to account so as to see that he gets all that's coming to him. What relation could Aleck bear a youngster like Owen but that of grandpa, eh? Why, it promises to be about as good as a play. But I mustn't let on that I've guessed the riddle, for I don't understand why they're at daggers' points—what has Owen done—why did he skip down the river without even his gun? H'm, there's lots to unravel even here, and perhaps I'd better get Chum Owen to confide in me before ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... utter confusion, and he gave vent to his merriment, which by no means relieved me. "Shall I give you some good advice?" continued Gulab-Sing, changing his tone for a more serious one. "Don't trouble your head with such vain speculations. The day when this riddle yields its solution, the Rajput Sphinx will not seek destruction in the waves of the sea; but, believe me, it won't bring any profit to the Russian Oedipus either. You already know every detail you ever will learn. So leave the rest to our ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... heart, and cast resentment upon everything in him whereon it would hang. She had not yet, however, come to ask herself any questions; she had only begun to fear that a woman to whom a person from the stables could be interesting, even in the form of an unexplained riddle, must be herself a person of low tastes; and that, for all her pride in coming of honest people, there must be a drop of bad blood in ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... not so bad a man as perhaps I seem; I am a riddle that you may not read. The time is near when I shall trouble the world no more, and it will be but a poor wounded name I shall leave behind me, will it not? Greta, would it be a mockery to ask you to ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... figure—what might be the charm which excited amongst his chosen circle a faith approaching to superstition, and a love rising to enthusiasm, towards a man whose demeanour was so inanimate, if not austere:—it was a riddle of which neither Gall nor Lavater ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... voice was like the snap of a whip. "Try it. Try it. I'll hunt you down like a wolf and riddle ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... exploit, any way," Quest declared. "If we could answer your question, Laura, we could solve the whole riddle. We are up against something, and ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Elliot spoke, Camilla stared in breathless agony at her cousin. She seemed to hope to read in his pale face the explanation of this incomprehensible riddle; she expected him to command her husband to be silent, and to offer him some new insult. But Kindar did not speak, and Camilla came to a desperate resolution. She was determined to know why he stood so pale and ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... smooth, and even spreading Every figure has its plaidings, As if made for angels' treading; Tufted circles touching ever, Inwrought figures fading never; Brighter form and softer shadings; Each illumined,—what a riddle From a cross ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... me. My interviewing days are over. I believe if I keep on getting better at the rate I've been going the last week, I shall be able to write a play this summer, besides doing my work for the Abstract. If I could do that, and it succeeded, the riddle ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Fairfield County and part is in Chester County. In dat corner I first see de light of day; 'twas on de 29th of February, 1852. Though I is eighty-five years old, I's had only twenty-one birthdays. I ketches a heap of folks wid dat riddle. They ask me: 'How old is you Uncle John?' I say: 'I is had twenty-one birthdays and won't have another till 1940. Now figure it out yourself, sir, if you is so curious to know my age!' One time a smart aleck, jack-leg, Methodist ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... but it doesn't matter. You took them into the drift pile and put them into a hole there. The next thing you know of them I have them on my feet, and I assure you I haven't been inside the drift pile since you entered it. Solve that riddle in any way you choose. I blocked up the entrance, and this morning I have let you out. Not one of the boys knows anything about this affair, and not one of them shall know, unless you choose to tell them, which ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... 'A clothier, O Noorna, control the Vizier! and demand of him his daughter in marriage! and a clothier influence the King against his Vizier!'—tis, wullahy! a riddle.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... duties, yet leave this difficulty unfaced, in that they look for all the pleasure of their life outside home, and within that home allow themselves to live in an atmosphere of friction and peevishness. The girl who does that has left the riddle of home life unsolved: she was meant to wrestle with that difficulty till she wrung from it the blessing, the peace which comes only from self-conquest and acceptance of all ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... riddles," agreed Laddie. "I guess I could make up a riddle about this old storm—if only the thunder wouldn't make so much noise. I can't think ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... picture that had haunted my brain for two days and as many nights, while I wandered forlorn through house and playground, or lay awake on my little bed. I had said farewell to one pupil after another till all were gone, and the riddle which I had been putting to myself continually for the last forty-eight hours had now been solved for me by Mrs. Whitehead, and I had been told that I too was ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... ALBERT G. RIDDLE believed that the question of universal franchise would be tried before the grand tribunal of the world, and, if not victorious, it would appeal and appeal again. The question ought to be met squarely by the "masculines" as well as by the women. He ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... this, not because it is the final or the highest word justifying the ways of God to man—for it has not proved to be so: but because it indicated, once for all, in what direction the real solution of the riddle of man was to be sought: a riddle never to be fully solved, but forever approximately guessed. Quakerism has not maintained its relative position in religious thought; but it was the finest perception of its day, and in the turmoil of ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... little exception, perhaps. All wine deposits lees in the cask in the course of time. Orange furnishes her still better entertainment, and is a perpetual riddle. He has got the credit of harbouring some secret design; and she studies his brow to discover his thoughts, and his steps, to learn in ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the Colonel, pale and amazed, with a dark shadow fallen upon his face from the door near by him—or perhaps from some door opening in his own breast—seemed no more able than the others to read the riddle. Indeed, he was the first to ask the explanation that ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... Glendower, slowly, "and I believe my senses cannot be clear; but a minute since, and you spoke at length, and with a terrible distinctness, words which it polluted my very ear to catch, and now you speak as if you loved me. Will it please you to solve the riddle?" ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have done when they stopped and consulted in the morning? It was not until passing Incidentamba, as I casually happened to look round and survey the scene of the fight from the enemy's point of view, that I discovered the simple answer to the riddle. There on the smooth yellow slope of the veldt just south of the drift was a brownish-red streak, as plain as the Long Man of Wilmington on the dear old Sussex downs, which positively shrieked ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... rational explanation of the universe is covered, although it does not offer an explanation of the "ultimate," or "the riddle of the universe," does insist that any view held be one that shall be based on truth and conformity to reality. It further maintains that if a view be propagated it should be held in the same position ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... when we realize that in this play the sea is not only her birthplace, but is the {198} symbol throughout of Fortune and Romance. From the polluted coast of Antioch, where Pericles reads the vile King his riddle and escapes, past Tarsus, where he assists Creon, the governor of a helpless city, to Pentapolis, where, shipwrecked and a stranger, he wins the tournament and the hand of the Princess Thaisa, the waves ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... the clews to guide him which they had received, and, moreover, rather astonished that the former had not come to greet him, according to her usual custom, when he entered the house after an absence of some hours, had his tale to tell and his riddle ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... Pericles, Prince of Tyre, comes to Antioch to guess a riddle propounded by the King. If he guess rightly, he will be rewarded by the hand of the Princess in marriage. If he guess wrongly, he will be put to death. The riddle teaches him that the Princess is living incestuously with her ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... eerie wind whined and sighed over us. We spoke little, having no breath to spare, for the ground was growing more steep and broken towards the second rise, up which we clambered, sliding and falling, grasping frozen heather till we reached the top. The hill was now a riddle of peat hags and binks, like a bee's skep, a place of treachery and slimy death, although the frost would have most of the sinking pools in its iron hand; but we never stopped the long stride that seemed so slow to me at first. Dan bent and twisted ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... is not a riddle, neither inconsistent with itself; but if you take off one leg of a pair of compasses ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... my albumess will be catechised on this subject; and how can I prompt her? Lake Leman, I know, and Lemon Lake (in a punch bowl) I have swum in, though those lymphs be long since dry. But Maggiore may be in the moon. Unsphinx this riddle for me, for my shelves have no gazetteer. And mayest thou never murder thy father-in-law in the Trivia of Lincoln's Inn New Square Passage, where Searl Street and the Street of Portugal embrace, nor afterwards make absurd proposals to the Widow M. But I know you abhor ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... wouldst wend with me, To leave both tower and town, Thou first must guess what life lead we That dwell by dale and down. And if thou canst that riddle read, As read full well you may, Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed As blithe as Queen of May." Yet sung she "Brignall banks are fair, And Greta woods are green; I'd rather rove with Edmund there ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... moment the half-formed question found its answer, though the answer seemed rather to ask a new riddle than to answer the old one. A door at the other end of the passage opened a little way, and a melodious voice called softly, "Papa, papa!" The cat ran towards the speaker, the door was opened wide, and for an instant Dieppe had the vision of a beautiful young woman, ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... work fall, and brooded. She spoke sometimes sharply to Mr. Hazel, and sometimes with strained civility. She wandered away from him and from his labors for her comfort, and passed hours at Telegraph Point, eying the illimitable ocean. She was a riddle. All sweetness at times, but at others irritable, moody, and scarce mistress of herself. Hazel was sorry and perplexed, and often expressed a fear she was ill. The answer was always in the negative. He did not press her, but worked on for ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... riddle of the Sphinx! Angelique's life, as she had projected it, depended upon the answer to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... to puzzle the readers of our day, are also considered by some as his: one of the riddles is said to contain a charade on his name, but there are doubts; ample discussions have taken place, and authorities disagree: "The eighty-sixth riddle, which concerns a wolf and a sheep, was related," said Dietrich, "to Cynewulf;" but Professor Morley considers that this same riddle "means the overcoming of the Devil by the hand of God." Stopford Brooke, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the gospel, Eph. iii. 9, 10. His mercy pardoning poor sinners, justice being satisfied, cannot be cleared by nature. Nature cannot unfold that mystery of justice and mercy, concurring to the salvation of a sinner—only the gospel can clear that riddle. ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... The riddle was not solved even when the scout of the Missouri train, crowded ahead by the steady rush of the shouting and laughing savages, raised his voice as though in warning and shouted some word, unintelligible, which ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... A riddle is it still unto me, this dream; the meaning is hidden in it and encaged, and doth not yet fly ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... at his counting-house. When he came home, his wife said to him, "Cassim, I know you think yourself rich, but Ali Baba is infinitely richer than you. He does not count his money, but measures it." Cassim desired her to explain the riddle, which she did, by telling him the stratagem she had used to make the discovery, and showed him the piece of money, which was so old that they could not tell in what prince's reign ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... The riddle of the young stranger's peculiarity did not seem likely to find any very speedy solution. Every new suggestion furnished talk for the gossips of the village and the babble of the many tongues in the two educational ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... prattling of two lovers in a summer's evening," whose soft cadences are breathed through strains of music,—all is a rapid succession of hope, fear, terror, and gladness; exciting our sympathies now for the result of the merchant's danger; now for the solution of a riddle on which hangs the fate of the wealthy heiress; and now for the fugitive Jessica, who resigns her creed at the shrine ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... the rest. It'll be of the same quality, devil a doubt, and it doesn't help us to solve the riddle ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... after all these weeks of watchful observation and puzzled surmises, suddenly, like the long-sought solution of a riddle that suggests itself to the mind in a flash. Not with the same authority, however. Great heavens! Could it be that? And after remaining thunderstruck for a few seconds he tried to shake it off with self-contumely, as though it had been the product of an unhealthy ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... interpretation of this riddle? What is the character of this felucca? Who and what is her skipper? ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... the years of exile. For, mark you, I was always the victor. Here, too, are coloured prints from Epinal. It was on them that I began to spell out those signs which to the learned reveal a few faint traces of the Mighty Riddle. Yes, the sorriest little coloured daub that ever came out of a village in the Vosges consists of print and pictures, and what is the sum and substance of Science after all but just ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... Spaniards discovered the approach of the Merrimac, in the darkness, they opened upon her with their batteries from both shores, and she was subjected to a fire which it would seem must riddle her like a sieve and kill every man. But under the direction of the cool-headed and daring Lieutenant the collier was swung into the right position, and, but for the shooting away of the rudder, would have been sunk directly ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... organized October 12, 1868, with Mr. John M. Langston[519] as professor and dean. In December of the same year, A. G. Riddle was associated with him on the faculty and the school began actual instruction on January 6, 1869.[520] During the years of the financial difficulties of the University, however, the Law School passed through a distressing experience. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... whose conduct will doubtless seem strange to the reader, is sometimes taunted with being an abolitionist, in consequence of the interest he manifests towards the colored people. If to any his character appear like a riddle, they should remember that, men, like other things, have "two sides," and often a top ...
— The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. • Lunsford Lane
... as if there was some treachery at work to ruin their happiness; but Sir William racked his brain in vain to solve the riddle. ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... spoils all the former, for these farthingales take up all the room now-a-days; 'tis not a woman, questionless. Shall I be put down with a riddle? Sirrah Heuresis, search the corners of your conceit, and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... an unsolved riddle. In the century prior to 1872 (See the digest of Dagonet's publication in Chapter XV) French psychiatrists wrote some good descriptions of stupor and offered brilliant, though sketchy generalizations about the condition. Two years ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... riddles," she whispered to Nancy Glover, who sat on the bench beside her. "I can make up riddles just as easy! There's something in this room, in Miss Parker's watch-pocket, goes tick—tick. Now guess that:—that's a riddle." ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... topper over in his hands, it occurred to P. Sybarite to wonder if he did not, in it, hold a valuable clue to this riddle of identity. Promptly he took the hat indoors to find out, investigating it most thoroughly by the flickering, bluish glare of the lonely gas-jet that burned in ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... marked her fire, and read her riddle well, And watched her from the flushing to the fading of the spell, He sprang forgetful, from his seat, and caught ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... withdraw yourselves from the Multitude! Loneliness is written for your word. Alone shall ye strive to solve the riddle of Creation. ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... you damned Yankee," shrieked the crackers, "or we'll riddle you with bullets." Then they gave ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... rang'd thro' the Circle of the Sciences to fetch their Ideas from thence. But as the Resemblances of such Ideas to the Subject must necessarily lie very much out of the common Way, and every piece of Wit appear a Riddle to the Vulgar; This, that should have taught them the forced, quaint, unnatural Tract they were in, (and induce them to follow a more natural One,) was the very Thing that kept them attach'd to it. The ostentatious ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... let his head sink forward on his breast, wearied by the oft-repeated endeavor to solve that which was fast becoming a riddle, a chimera to him, and he probably would have fallen asleep had he not been startled suddenly into a consciousness of his surroundings by a low whinny; soft and plaintive as a child's voice. Looking up, he saw Starlight standing before him with ears ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... barrier of decorum with which she managed to surround herself. There was something about her as cold and as pure as blue ice, and she gave the same impression of crystal clarity. All in all, hers was a baffling personality and Phillips fell asleep with the riddle of it unanswered. He awoke in the morning with it still upon ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... receive my heartiest congratulations on the good state of your health. Your letter has joyfully surprised me, and, to my greatest delight, has made me feel ashamed of my intrusive anxiety about you. Your organisation is a perfect riddle to me, and I hope that you will always solve that riddle in as satisfactory a manner as this time, when I looked on with real anxiety. Heaven grant that your profession of good health may not ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... riddle to Malcolm, but his reverence for her made him lay them up deeply, as he watched her kneeling at the Mass, her upturned face beaming ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and God be with him! as surely He will be, if the simple, faithful prayers of fair, sad Hepsy Ann are heard. Thus will he, thus only can any, solve that sphinx-riddle of life which is propounded to each passer to-day, as of old in fable-lands,—failing to read which, he dies the death of rusting discontent,—solving whose mysteries, he has revealed to him the deep secret of his life, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... down. Now, O my Gul Bahar"—and he took her hand, and carried it to his cheek, and pressed it softly there—"deal me no riddle. What is it you say? One may do ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... to put me to bed, and was more than commonly officious: —something hung upon his lips to say to me, or ask me, which he could not get off: I could not conceive what it was, and indeed gave myself little trouble to find it out, as I had another riddle so much more interesting upon my mind, which was that of the man's asking charity before the door of the hotel.—I would have given anything to have got to the bottom of it; and that, not out of ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... puzzling again over the mystery of their suspicion of him. He tried to recall some careless act, some imprudent question, an ill-considered remark. He was giving up the riddle again when that trained memory of his flashed before him a picture that, trivial as it was in itself, yet was as enlightening as the white paper of the ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... one of its fatal experiments. The element by which only the heart lives is sucked out of her crystalline prison. Watch her through its transparent walls;—her bosom is heaving; but it is in a vacuum. Death is no riddle, compared to this. I remember a poor girl's story in the "Book of Martyrs." The "dry-pan and the gradual fire" were the images that frightened her most. How many have withered and wasted under as slow a torment in the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... young lady was in black, and so it's possible that your mother may have died, and that she took you to see your father, to whom, for some reason or other, she wanted to introduce you. That's how I read the riddle, ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... you have guessed the riddle!" I exclaimed, liking and understanding the girl better than I had liked or understood her yet. "I believe that's the secret of the Sphinx. The king who had this stupendous idea, and caused it to be carried out, said to some inspired ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... what she herself knows of it is but a part of what it really is. Complete frankness seems to be impossible to her, and complete self-knowledge seems to be forbidden her. If she is a sphinx to us, it is because she is a riddle of doubtful meaning even to herself. She has no need of perfidy, for she is mystery itself. A woman is something fugitive, irrational, indeterminable, illogical, and contradictory. A great deal of forbearance ought to be shown ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... arm] Do you know this riddle? On four legs in the morning; on two legs at noon; and on ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... brooking no more suspense, she adjured Ricciardo, by the love he bore the lady whom most he loved, to expound to her what he had said touching Filippello. He answered thus:—"You have adjured me by her to whom I dare not deny aught that you may ask of me; my riddle therefore I will presently read you, provided you promise me that neither to him nor to any one else will you impart aught of what I shall relate to you, until you shall have ocular evidence of its truth; which, so you desire ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Thus Wyndham breathing thickly, with his eyes Dilating in the darkness, "Darrell—he! I set my springe for other game than this; Of hare or rabbit dreamed I, not of wolf. His frequent visitations have of late Perplexed me; now the riddle reads itself. A proper man, a very proper man! A fellow that burns Trinidado leaf And sends smoke through his nostril like a flue! A fop, a hanger-on of willing skirts— A murrain on him! Would Elizabeth In some mad ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... a long silence, while the train sped through the darkness of the Simplon tunnel, Peter retraced the steps by which he had been enabled to solve the riddle of ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... DECEMBER, 1740 [day after his Majesty left]. Everybody here is on tiptoe for the Event; of which both origin and end are a riddle to the most. I am charmed to see a part of your Majesty's Dominions in a state of Pyrrhonism; the disease is epidemical here at present. Those who, in the style of theologians, consider themselves entitled to be certain, maintain That your Majesty is expected ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... "Pilgrim's Progress," &c. It is quite true that in all these there is much the child does not understand, but where there is something vividly apprehended, there is an additional pleasure procured, and an admirable stimulant, in the endeavour to penetrate the rest. There is all the charm of a riddle combined with all the fascination of a story. Besides, do we not throughout our boyhood and our youth, read with intense interest, and to our great improvement, books which we but partly understand? How much was lost to us of our Milton and our Shakspeare at an age when nevertheless ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... perversely, in my mind, now at the end, I know not whether I mean the Thought for the Fancy—or the Fancy for the Thought, or why the book trails off to playing, rather than standing strong on unanswering fact. But this is alway—is it not?—the Riddle of Life. ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... comes from the use of the Bible as a riddle-book, nor do the "Bible games" tend to develop a natural appreciation of the book. There is no new light but rather a confusing shadow thrown on the character of Joseph by the foolish conundrum concerning Pharaoh making a ruler out ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... greater mystery in life than in death. We talk as though the riddle of life only need engage us; this is not so; death is just as great a miracle as life; the one is two and two making five, the other is five splitting into two and two. Solve either, and we have solved the other; they should be ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... look beyond them we might read the Riddle of the Universe. I think we could—I think so!" Here was the undercurrent of sadness again, sounding through an odd intensity of tone. "Surely, there is something beyond them. There must be! ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... real and hitherto unsolved riddle of Tibet, Petrie," he replied—"a mystery concealed from the world behind the veil of Lamaism." He stood up abruptly, glancing at a scrap of paper which he took from his pocket—"Suite Number 14a," he said. "Come along! We have not a moment to waste. Let us make our presence known to Sir ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... as having called it into existence, enhanced just in proportion to the power and knowledge of the one and the weakness and ignorance of the other,—these are the "sentiments" that have kept our soulless systems from driving men off to die in holes like those that riddle the sides of the hill opposite the Monastery of St. Saba, where the miserable victims of a falsely-interpreted religion starved and withered in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... has various meanings (see Richardson in v.). As used by Ben Jonson and Swift, it is expressive of contempt. In Holland's translation of Pliny it signifies a snail. There is likewise a nursery rhyme or riddle: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... would have occurred to me. I do not suspect you now. Were you to tell me that you were guilty of it, I should have difficulty in believing you. But it did occur to me that possibly your uncle may have cast that blame on you. I saw no other solution of the riddle. It could have been no light cause to induce Mr. Verner to deprive you of Verner's Pride. He was not ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... heard—if you'd stood out on the piazza looking in, and happened to have the key to the riddle—a hint in verse of every Madigan escapade, of every Madigan failing, of all the Madigan jokes, on Old Mother Gibson nights. You would have seen even Kate—young-lady Kate, who had once substituted in a school—join in this mad revel, with an appetite for fun that showed ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... And here we come to an intricate puzzle in reconciling the indisputable need for untrammelled individual expression on the one hand with public ownership on the other, and also with the difficult riddle how authors may be supported under Socialist conditions. It is not within the design of this book to do more than indicate a possible solution. These are problems the Socialist has still to work out. At present ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... be that Science will solve the riddle by casting aside the works and improvements of a thousand years,—the "wave line," the spar, the sail, and all,—and with them the men of the sea. It may be that "Leviathans" will march unheedingly through the mountain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... girlhood dream of love, she could not see. And Kenny was passionately glad that his words were a riddle. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... end of the riddle," Sophie whispered, when he saw her that evening. "Read her note. The English write ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... of her the graver seemed the mystery; and the more deeply he wondered. But he no longer dreaded the answer to the riddle; nor did he fear to meet at some turn or corner a Megaera head that should freeze his soul. Wickedness there might be, cruelty there might be, and shame; but the blood ran too briskly in his veins and he had looked too often into the girl's candid eyes—reading ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... the ballet corps was now raised to $5 a week, and all set to work to try to solve the riddle of how a girl was to pay her board bill, her basket bill, her washing bill, and all the small expenses of the theater—powder, paint, soap, hair-pins, etc.—to say nothing of shoes and clothing, out of her ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... widening his horizon on Schubert and Mendelssohn. And there were also several others, who, having been dragged forward by Schwarz, from inefficient beginnings, now left him, to write their acquired skill to Schrievers' credit. Furst was the greatest riddle of all. It was he who, on subsequent concert-tours, was to have extended the fame of the Conservatorium; he was the show pupil of the institution, and, in the coming PRUFUNGEN, was to have distinguished himself, and his master with him, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the Clotho, the Labyrinth Spider and many others confront us with the same riddle: they move, yet do not eat. At any period of the nursery stage, even in the heart of winter, on the bleak days of January, I tear the pockets of the one and the tabernacle of the other, expecting to find the swarm of youngsters lying in a state of complete ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... tendency which has hurried him into some of those ridiculous errors, which he has made so frequently. The explanation of it all, is that curious figure that sits so silent, remote, and friendless on the front Opposition bench. Lord Randolph is still the riddle which nobody can read. Whenever Mr. Balfour appears Lord Randolph does his best to efface himself, even in the places which men select on the front bench. Here is a hint of that eternal conflict and play of ferocious appetites ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... Totemism occupied us next, and the views of Mr. Max Muller and Mr. J. G. Frazer were criticised. Then I defended anthropological and criticised philological evidence. Our method of universal comparison was next justified in the matter of Fetishism. The Riddle Theory of Mr. Max Muller was presently discussed. Then followed a review of our contending methods in the explanation of Artemis, of the Fire-walk, of Death Myths, and of the Fire-stealer. Thus a number of points in mythological interpretation have been tested ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... winning grew the first of the encounters which culminated in the destruction of the temple of Dagon, when "the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life." So his yielding to the pleadings of his wife when she betrayed the answer to his riddle and his succumbing to the wheedling arts of Delilah when he betrayed the secret of his strength (acts incompatible with the character of an ordinary strong and wise man) were of the type essential to the machinery ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a riddle! neither good nor bad! What need'st thou run so many miles about, When thou mayest tell thy tale the nearest way? ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... this evil. How to put the unemployed millions to work is the problem of the day. The salvation of the country depends upon its solution. The nation stands before each public man demanding that he shall read the riddle or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... American Indians, and though sensuous still, a step far in advance of the black void of ancient philosophy, has always run through the higher mythologies of the Negro. So notorious, indeed, was the fact among early Christians, that that ubiquitous riddle, "Prestor John," was, by believers, regarded as having a locale in Central Africa; while Henry of Portugal actually despatched two ambassadors, Corvilla and Payvan, to a rumored Christian court, south of the Sahara.—Edin. ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... I must own! Already fire and eddying smoke I view; The impetuous millions to the devil ride; Full many a riddle will be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... While that gate is open let no one bar the one you guard. While the flag flies over the public school, keep it aloft over Ellis Island and have no misgivings. The school has the answer to your riddle. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... a face-about seemed to dumbfound our men. They stood staring at each other like those amazed, and seeking explanation. But the key to the riddle was given, not by one of them, but by Paolo, whom I now found at my elbow, his usually placid face all aglow ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... from a visit to a poor sick soul inside the tenement, he became deeply moved by the ragged children playing in the gutters and reaching into garbage barrels for crusts of bread. He said: "Ah! here's the riddle of civilization. I wish I could help to solve ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... been epochs of my life when I too might have asked of this prophet the master word that should solve me the riddle of the universe; but now, being happy, I felt as if there were no question to be put, and therefore admired Emerson as a poet of deep beauty and austere tenderness, but sought nothing from him as a philosopher. It was ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... lost to me forever. I could not call her back, and I could not hope that she would return. Philosopher that I was I could not explain the sinking and the fear that took possession of me. The philosopher did not know himself. All his thought and all his reasoning could not solve the simple riddle the quick intuition of ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... necessary to bring you 'broad-side to' before the door of the house where you are going. The country houses here are very like those upon the Thames between Richmond and Kingston (this, particularly), with grounds all round. At Mr. Cerjat's we were obliged to be carried, like the child's riddle, round the house and round the house, without touching the house; and we were presented in the most alarming manner, three of a row, first to all the people in the kitchen, then to the governess who was dressing in her bedroom, then to the drawing-room where the company were waiting ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... dead, the Nazarene came and seized his seat beneath the sun, The votary of the Riddle-god, whose one is ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... more for Liddell Or Scott; and Smith, and White, And Lewis, Short, and Riddle Are 'emptied of delight.' Todhunter and Colenso (Alas, that friendships end so!) He curses in extenso Through ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... tears open the answer, after two sleepless nights. She simply replies that the young Lady of Lagunitas will be delivered to him on the appointed day. He cannot read this riddle. Is it a surrender in hopes of golden terms? He knows not ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... Commercial Journal was the leading Whig paper of western Pennsylvania, Robert M. Riddle, its editor and proprietor. His mother was a member of our church, and I thought somewhere in his veins must stir anti-slavery blood. So I wrote a letter to the Journal, which appeared with an editorial disclaimer, "but the fair writer ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... development; its unfoldment, etc. What is known as "Bhakti Yoga" deals with the Love of the Absolute—God. What is known as "Gnani Yoga" deals with the scientific and intellectual knowing of the great questions regarding Life and what lies back of Life—the Riddle of the Universe. ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... strange riddle. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what it was. I cannot tell any one what it was. I undertook to find the answer. From France the riddle took me far away to another country—and there, after a year's work, I found half the answer. ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... may have some quite simple solution. I saw two children, attired like little princes, taken from their mother and consigned to other care; and a fortnight afterwards, one of them barefooted and like a beggar. Who will read this riddle of The ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... evidently obsessed by a train of thought which I was glad to have provoked. From time to time, he uttered a sentence which showed me the thread of his reflections; and I was able to see that the riddle remained as much a mystery to him ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... bestows on him a dog and a dart, which Diana had once given her. The dog is turned into stone, while hunting a wild beast, which Themis has sent to ravage the territories of Thebes, after the interpretation of the riddle ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... curiously-carved figures and foliage. Melusine, with her serpent's or fish's tail, and her glass and comb, appears amongst them—that inexplicable figure so frequently recurring in almost every part of France, and even yet requiring her riddle to be solved. As we knew that this part of the world was her head-quarters, we resolved to visit her at her own castle of Lusignan, which would be in our way when we left Poitiers. In this we were confirmed when we went to the Bibliotheque, for the gentleman to whom we were indebted ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... and of the old, who lived on their memories. It was the song in all men's hearts, and the God in the inmost soul of all; the roving-ground of life's surplus, the home of all that was inexplicable and mystical. The sea had drunk the blood of thousands, but its color knew no change; the riddle of life brooded in ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... wretched poet was interrupted by a general laugh, in the midst of which he modestly retired to the background, and left the Fifth to solve the riddle in ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... spoke his eyes began To shiver the heart of the grey old man; And the old man stuttered, And "Sir," he muttered, "The words you speak are the merest riddle, But-five pounds down, and you own the fiddle! And I'll choose for your hand, while the pounds you dole out, A bow with which you may pick ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... that under existing entanglements, the girl's speedy death would prove the most felicitous solution of this devouring riddle, which so unexpectedly crossed his smooth path; then what meant the vehement protest of his throbbing heart, the passionate longing to snatch her from disease, and disgrace, and keep her safe forever in the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... you term it, and as hell will always term it, is alike the riddle and the masterword of the universe," ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... her for some seconds as if trying to read some riddle in her countenance. "You are a very remarkable young woman," he said at last. "I wouldn't part with you for a king's ransom. So you think I might turn that very unreasonable hatred of ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... disappeared, as on previous occasions, Jalaladdeen rolled about for some time on his couch, sleepless and perplexed with care. It appeared to him like an unsolvable riddle. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... Trautmann. Wyatt (Boston, 1912, Belles Lettres edition) used as a basis for these translations. His numbering is always one lower than the other editions, since he rejects one riddle. ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... anything which had sharper collisions than an elaborate notion of Gog and Magog: it was as free from interruption as a plan for threading the stars together. And Dorothea had so often had to check her weariness and impatience over this questionable riddle-guessing, as it revealed itself to her instead of the fellowship in high knowledge which was to make life worthier! She could understand well enough now why her husband had come to cling to her, as possibly the only hope left that his labors would ever take a shape in which they ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... darkness of the landing, and presently, by the light from the bedroom, could distinguish the vague boundaries of it. The chair, invisible, was on the left. He opened the door wider to the nocturnal riddle of the house. His hand clasped the notes in his pocket. No sound! He listened for the ticking of the lobby clock and could not catch it. He listened more intently. It was impossible that he should not hear the ticking of the lobby clock. Was he dreaming? Was he under some delusion? Then it ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... "A horse and a fool flying," she muttered. "Even what the cards showed. The fool seeking the duke!" A puzzled look crossed her face. "But the duke is here?" she continued to herself. "A strange riddle! All the signs show devilment, but what ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... trying for some time to solve this riddle, I concluded that I must be the victim of my own imagination; and I turned my attention to making the best possible use of my sudden fortune. On the same day, I took a little room in the Faubourg St. Denis; and I bought myself a sewing-machine. Before the week was over, I had work ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... of moons, of fluttering handkerchiefs, Of flying leaves, of parasols, A riddle made to break my heart; The lightest impulse To her was more dear than the deep-toned temple bell. She fluttered to my sword-hilt an instant, And then flew away; But who will spend all ...
— Japanese Prints • John Gould Fletcher
... presently (after I had had leisure to meditate on the foregoing philosophical dialogue), "mate, I'll give you a riddle!" ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... again, with the poets; and most of all I found no interest (fancy!) in Plato and Aristotle. They were presented to me as merely school books; not as the great effort of the cultivated heathen mind to solve the riddle of man's being; and I, in those days, never thought of comparing the heathen and Christian ethics, and the great writers had ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 'nothing'; it is used in mainstream Japanese in that sense, but native speakers do not recognize the Discordian question-denying use. It almost certainly derives from overgeneralization of the answer in the following well-known Rinzei Zen teaching riddle: ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... grow as you draw the bow O'er the yielding strings with a practised hand! And the music's flow never loud but low Is the concert note of a fairy band. Oh, your dainty songs are a misty riddle To the simple sweets of the ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... If Samson's riddle was so puzzling, what shall we think of this? and though the angel hath intimated, that this sealed matter shall be opened towards the time of the end (Dan 12:9); yet 'tis evident, some have either been so hasty, or presumed too much upon their own ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 'The riddle that has worried me three weeks he has solved in a way which is simplicity itself. He has got it, and ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... nor of the fossil lilies was understood, but it was nevertheless an important step to have found that there was a relation between them. A century passed away, and Guettard's specimen, preserved at the Jardin des Plantes, waited with Sphinx-like patience for the man who should solve its riddle. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... lips to speak it, And silly doves are better mates than we? And yet our love is Jesus' due,—and all things Which share with Him divided empery Are snares and idols—'To love, to cherish, and to obey!' . . . . . O deadly riddle! Rent and twofold life! O cruel troth! To keep thee or to break thee Alike seems ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... even by violence and bloodshed, is not necessarily a crime—is not necessarily robbery and murder. It is the case of Samson when he had to give thirty changes of raiment to those who had expounded his riddle. It is said: "And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Askelon and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle." Now, notice this particularly, that Samson ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... confidently, and I do think justly. "For supposing I were on his job in Germany and an entire stranger suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, hailed me in excellent English, and then (even if he didn't know the particular riddle I used as pass-word) conducted himself like a confederate, made no attempt to arrest me or interfere with me, and spoke German with a distinct English ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... ever organized and utilized into beneficence, the name of the institution is the Sanitary Commission. It is a standing answer to Samson's riddle, "Out of the strong came forth sweetness." Out of the very depths of the agony of this cruel and bloody war springs this beautiful system, built of the noblest and divinest attributes of the human soul. Amidst ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... She wondered if Lord Mountclere could be really going to Cherbourg: if so, why had he said nothing about the trip to her when she spoke of her own approaching voyage thither? The yacht changed its character in her eyes; losing the indefinite interest of the unknown, it acquired the charm of a riddle on motives, of which the alternatives were, had Lord Mountclere's journey anything to do with her own, or had it not? Common probability pointed to the latter supposition; but the time of starting, the course of the yacht, and recollections of Lord Mountclere's homage, suggested ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... the less imperfect years, When human frailty shall have died, When the vexed riddle of the spheres, Interpreted and glorified, Shall be as nothing to the tide Of light in which Thy hidden ways Will be revealed: I may abide Thy meanest instrument of praise, And from the broad calm ocean of Thy truth And wisdom drinking, ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... whisper and to act in the dark recesses of our life? Are we in regard to it the terrified hive invaded by a huge and inexplicable hand, the maddened ant-hill trampled by a colossal and incomprehensible foot? Let us not venture yet to solve the strange riddle with the aid of the little that we know. Let us confine ourselves, for the moment, to noting on the way some other, rather easier questions which we can ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Sphinx, oh, answer me, That riddle strange unloosing! For many, many thousand years Have I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... answer, and he got stiffly to his feet. He was hot and more tired than he had been since he had left the hospital. Because he was just as sure as Ricky that the key to their riddle must be directly before them at that moment, he was ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... The question has, however, never been answered why this distinction was abandoned by Mr. Wilson at Versailles. Without wishing in any way either to accuse or defend him I consider the answer to this riddle to be that the President allowed himself to be convinced of the complicity of the German people by the statesmen of the Entente. He was at the time in a mood with regard to us which predisposed him to such influences. Mr. Wilson was by origin, up-bringing and training a pacifist. When it ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... cord sufficient to make an ear for a tub, bulrush sufficient to hang the sieve and the riddle?" Rabbi Judah said, "sufficient to take from it the measure of a child's shoe; paper sufficient to write on it the signature of the taxgatherers; erased paper sufficient to wrap round a small bottle of ...
— Hebrew Literature
... Britling had never faced before the war. They came to him now, and they came only to be rejected by the inherent quality of his mind. For weeks, consciously and subconsciously, his mind had been grappling with this riddle. He had thought of it during his lonely prowlings as a special constable; it had flung itself in monstrous symbols across the dark canvas of his dreams. "Is there indeed a devil of pure cruelty? Does ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... run, and it was madness to stay and confront the thing. What, then, could he do? The sun had slid down the sky and the red of another swift dusk was heralding the short night before he shook his head somberly and gave the fatal riddle up. ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst
... swell little guesser, you are not. You couldn't get inside a riddle with a can-opener. 'Cause you're stuck ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... riddle me right, Where was I last Sat'rday night? I seed a chimp-champ champin' at his bridle, I seed an ould fox workin' hissel' idle. The trees did shever, an' I did shake, To see what a ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
