"Unravel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... closed her book. "I was quite prepared to hear it," she said; "all the unpleasant complications since your Divorce—and Heaven only knows how many of them have presented themselves—have been left for me to unravel. It so happens—though I was too modest to mention it prematurely—that I have unraveled this complication. If one only has eyes to see it, there is a way out of every difficulty that can possibly happen." She pushed the book that she had been reading across the table to Catherine. "Turn ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... Resolved to unravel by himself the tangled thread of this mystery, the detective determined to keep his conjectures to himself; for the same reason he was silent as to the interview which he had overheard between Madeleine ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... apprehend the meaning of the whole, or to follow the links of the connection between its several parts. I am myself as little able to understand where the difficulty lies, or to detect any lurking obscurity, as those critics found themselves to unravel my logic. Possibly I may not be an indifferent and neutral judge in such a case. I will therefore sketch a brief abstract of the little paper according to my own original design, and then leave the reader to judge how far this design is kept in ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... second volume, or Geoffrey would be sure to run away with it. If Edward was in a hurry to go out, Geoffrey would hide his cap, and keep him a quarter of an hour hunting for it. The girls dared not leave their worsted-work within his reach for a moment; for he would unravel the canvass, or chop up the wool, or go on with the work after a pattern of his own composing, so that they would be obliged to spend half an hour ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... blessing, or more grandly drawing St. Peter's in fire upon the wild gloom of a March night, and in vast procession of two or three thousand marching down the narrow Corso singing a national song to the Pope—all this, if you can unravel it, paints for the eye what can never be seen at home. "I pack my trunk and wake up in Naples," and find myself, for which I am grateful; but I also find Italian beauty, which is like American as oranges are ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... was immersed during his last years are difficult to unravel and still more difficult to illuminate, for they had their dim origin in the secret thoughts and wavering purposes of ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... through the book is so disjointedly arranged, mixed up with doctrinal parts, and repeated, that it is not easy to unravel it. The following summary of it is contained in a letter to Colonel John Wentworth of Chicago, signed by Joseph Smith, Jr., which was printed in Wentworth's Chicago newspaper and also in the Mormon Times and Seasons of March ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... resort to dream analysis instead of taking the history of the case in the usual way. In all cases the patient should be permitted to tell her story in her own way. This method of procedure, with cross questioning, may and should indeed be sufficient to unravel the case for us in most cases. But if we find that we have not gained the confidence of the patient and have not that condition of being en rapport with the patient which is essential for progress and success in the analysis, one may resort to dream analysis, ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... witness's mind, but only a conventional symbol of that impression. Written documents, then, are not, as material documents are, valuable by themselves; they are only valuable as signs of psychological operations, which are often complicated and hard to unravel. The immense majority of the documents which furnish the historian with starting-points for his reasonings are nothing else than traces ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... him to fail, in the case of the King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler photograph; but when I looked back to the weird business of the Sign of Four, and the extraordinary circumstances connected with the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel. ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... never try to read it," said Sir Norman. "I am about tired of this labyrinth of mysteries, and shall save time and La Masque to unravel them at their leisure." ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... was completed; and I looked forward to the fresh enterprise of new rivers and lower latitudes, that should unravel the ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... seems essential that the St. Petersburg Cabinet, whose desire to unravel this crisis peacefully is manifest, should immediately give their adherence to the British proposal. This proposal must be strongly supported at Berlin in order to decide [Secretary of State] Von Jagow to take real action at Vienna capable of stopping ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... fate first to attempt to unravel the tangles of this attractive web. In the course of our readings, in 1865, our attention had been drawn to a passage in the life of Nelson by the Laureate of England, Robert Southey, [132] and enlarged on by Lamartine in the pleasant sketch he gave of the naval hero. Our investigations ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... 1880, and are suitably exposed in the illustrated catalogue of this interesting collection.” “Banded mail,” as it is called, has been one of the archæological difficulties “of the past and present generations, and the late Mr. Burges took great trouble in endeavouring to unravel the mystery of its construction . . . having casts made from the only four then known . . . effigies (with it) at Tewkesbury, Tollard Royal, Bedford, and Newton Solney; but . . . he had to confess, in the end, that he ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... up before he reached the valley. He could not unravel the warp and woof of his life. The gossamer threads of the webs he had begun to weave about himself so lightly in the heyday of his youth and prosperity and happiness had thickened into cables and petrified; it was impossible to break through the ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... upon their trial. Therefore, they had arranged this farce, for so it would seem to them, whereby both the offenders might escape the legal consequences of their offence, trusting, doubtless, to accident and the future to unravel this web of forced marriage, and to free Aziel from a priestly rank which he had not sought. It was only necessary that Elissa should formally choose him as her husband, and that Aziel should go through rite of throwing a few grains of incense upon ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... related to me, during the long winter days and evenings spent of necessity by the fire, stories drawn from his campaigns in the Netherlands and France and Scotland, speaking freely and most instructively. But he had never helped me to unravel the mystery why he, so unlike other soldiers in habits and tastes, should have chosen the profession ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... will be your engaging task to unravel, and to this end will be your opportunity of closely watching Fuh-sang's unsuspecting movements in my ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... golden age was dawning: the human mind seemed to be awakening from the slumber of centuries to con the world, to unravel the mysteries of life, and to discover the secrets of the universe. Confident that only a little thought would be necessary to free the world from vice, ignorance, and superstition, thinkers now turned boldly to attack the vexing problems ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... winding one of Blanche's silks over the back of a chair, and so often looking up to revel in the contemplation of Harry's face, that her skein was in a wild tangle, which she studiously concealed lest the sight should compel Richard to come and unravel it with those ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... defend 'penny dreadfuls.' Chesterton assumes this role. He defends them on their remarkable powers of imagination. One has only to study Sexton Blake to discover the intricate psychology of that wondrous personality who can solve the foulest murder or unravel stories that the divorce ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... and power to charm—she gave no hint. She was still absorbing, sifting and digesting the welter of impressions. She had been overpowered, smothered by the innovation; and she now found her thoughts a tangled jumble, which she strove incessantly to unravel and classify according to their content of reality, as judged by ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... return, it has not so much as appeared that he remembers anything of what he has done; and I acknowledge I have a curiosity to know what it is has changed him so: it would not be very difficult for me to unravel this affair," added she; "the Viscount de Chartres, his intimate friend, is in love with a lady with whom I have some power, and I'll know by that means the occasion of this alteration." The Queen-Dauphin spoke with an air of sincerity ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... Breslau. A more incongruous collection I never saw, and I am sure that had it not been for the train of thought I was pursuing when the director called upon me, I should have returned the papers to him without troubling my head with any attempt to unravel the man's story. ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... Things to him, that might (if Love had not made him blind) have reclaimed him from the Pursuit of his Ruin. But whatever they trusted him with, she had the Art to wind herself about his Heart, and make him unravel all his Secrets; and then knew as well, by feign'd Sighs and Tears, to make him disbelieve all; so that he had no Faith but for her; and was wholly inchanted and bewitch'd by her. At last, in spite of all that would have opposed it, he marry'd this famous Woman, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... some supper, too, Louisa Helen," said Everett quickly, and a smile lifted the corners of his mouth as the situation began to unravel itself to his sympathetic concern. "I guess I could take the bouquet and veil, too," he added to himself ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... dinner-table is set diagonally in the long dining-room, and to-morrow, at least, the guests will have to take two turns at filling its twenty seats, while the children go through the same manoeuvre in the pantry. Where they will all sleep to-night is a mystery which none can unravel save the busy, hospitable "lady of the manor;" but it makes little difference, for there will be little sleeping done. The day passes in riding-parties and rowing-parties and similar amusements, as each ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... though well aware that I can only imperfectly and unworthily do so. To treat the subject in the detail it merits would be a task beyond my opportunities; for, in spite of every endeavour, I have not been able to see several works and documents, without which it is useless to try and unravel the earlier history of the sanctuary. The book by Caccia, for example, published by Sessali at Novara in 1565, and reprinted at Brescia in 1576, is sure to turn up some day, but I have failed to find it at Varallo, Novara ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... as handsome men have on good women: they would like to touch them. Well! if fear had not kept her back, Gervaise would have liked to have handled death, to see what it was like. She became so peculiar at times, holding her breath, listening attentively, expecting to unravel the secret through one of Bazouge's movements, that Coupeau would ask her with a chuckle if she had a fancy for that gravedigger next door. She got angry and talked of moving, the close proximity of this neighbor was so distasteful to her; and yet, in spite of herself, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... of the student of human evolution to unravel the tangled threads of human histories. The task is relatively simple when it is concerned with recent times where the aid of written history may be summoned but when the events of remote and prehistoric ages are ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... If the great mass of people only knew how strong is the net woven by the theologians, how difficult it is to break the threads of it, how much erudition has been spent upon it, and what a power of criticism is required to unravel it all.... I have noticed that some men of talent who have set themselves too late in life the task have been taken in the toils and have not been able ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... That will be best; send him back to the Brothers and to the wise Bishops. They can unravel this tangle. I cannot; I cannot be sure of ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... It is a book among books. It is a phenomenon among phenomena. Its origin and growth in this world can be studied as those of any other natural object can be studied. The old apple-tree growing in my garden is the witness to me of some transcendent truths, the shrine of mysteries that I cannot unravel. What the life is that was hidden in the seed from which it sprang, and that has shaped all its growth, coordinating the forces of nature, and producing this individual form and this particular variety ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... conception, the big, tall man contemplating thus reverently, with bared head, the tender epitome of life. The dog, with head upraised, points a comprehending nose in the direction of his poet-master's find, and looks as if he longed to help him unravel the mystery. MacDowell would adore this piece of sculpture, for he sought the secret of life in flower and brook and landscape, in mountain and ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... experienced adversary, who had the advantage of knowing in advance just what his witness would testify. It was for him to lead a stubborn and unwilling witness through the mazes of a well-prepared story, to unravel, if possible, some of its well-planned knots and convince the jury if he could that the witness was not reliable and ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... have detailed to you. A person observing the occurrence of certain facts and phenomena asks, naturally enough, what process, what kind of operation known to occur in Nature applied to the particular case, will unravel and explain the mystery? Hence you have the scientific hypothesis; and its value will be proportionate to the care and completeness with which its basis had been tested and verified. It is in these matters as in the commonest affairs of practical life: the guess ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... time, his essais and his omelettes. In his seclusions the Vin de Bourgogne had its allotted hour, and there were appropriate moments for the Cotes du Rhone. With him Sauterne was to Medoc what Catullus was to Homer. He would sport with a syllogism in sipping St. Peray, but unravel an argument over Clos de Vougeot, and upset a theory in a torrent of Chambertin. Well had it been if the same quick sense of propriety had attended him in the peddling propensity to which I have formerly ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... for Christians to "test" where they cannot understand? "Ye are my friends," said the blessed Lord, "if ye do whatsoever I command you." Obedience will solve difficulties that reasoning cannot unravel. ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... soldiers and the citizens, nearly a third part of the city was consumed to ashes. A few incendiaries fell a sacrifice to the rage of the soldiers, and many individuals were arrested on suspicion, but no clue was found to unravel the mystery, though no doubt can exist that the fearful deed was committed by order of the American general. The act has been applauded as one emanating from stern patriotism and self-devotion, but it appears rather to have proceeded ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... the ideal modern life, even when one is anxious to conform to it, began tugging at all the strands of difficulty at once, not seeing them very clearly, but still with no notion but that if he set his strength to it, he could unravel them all in the half-hour's walk that lay between him ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... meant nothing, and only bodily suffering obtruded on a still partially clouded mind. Fragmentary waves of thought, disconnected and transitory, passed through his brain, leaving no permanent impression, and he made no effort to unravel them. Effort of any kind, mental or physical, seemed for the moment beyond him. He was too tired even to open his eyes, and lay with them closed, wondering feebly at the pain and discomfort of his whole body. He had the sensation of having been battered, ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... revealed in the insulting mandate of the empress Sophia, "that he should leave to men the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hand of the eunuch." "I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily unravel!" is said to have been the reply which indignation and conscious virtue extorted from the hero. Instead of attending, a slave and a victim, at the gate of the Byzantine palace, he retired to Naples, from whence (if any credit is due to the belief of the times) Narses invited ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... companion so uncommunicative, Elfric remained silent, trusting that a few minutes would unravel the mystery. ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... secrets, Lady Penwether, which people do like to unravel, but which the owners of them sometimes won't abandon." Then there was nothing more said on the subject. Lady Penwether did not smile again, and left him to go about the room on her business as hostess, as soon as the dance was over. But she was ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... envoy into Arcadia to dissuade her from a proposed alliance with Athens, and there had to contend with the Athenian orator Callistratus. The complicated relations of the different Grecian States now became so complicated, that it is useless, in a book like this, to attempt to unravel them. Negotiations between Athens and Persia, the efforts of Corinth and other cities to secure peace, the ambition of Athens to maintain ascendency on the sea, the creation of a Theban navy—these and other events must ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... to sum up our conclusions respecting the origin and development of this literary phase. Difficult as it is to unravel the tangled network of obscure influences which surrounded its birth, I venture to think that a sufficiently complete disproof of that extreme theory, which would ascribe it entirely to Guevara's influence, has been offered. Guevara, in the translation of Berners, undoubtedly took the field early, ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... with the same eye and in the same spirit the happenings of his youth. All this is only too certain: when he wrote, it was as a Christian he judged himself, and not as a cold historian who refuses to go beyond the brutal fact. He tried to unravel the origin and to trace the consequences of the humblest of his actions, because this is of the highest importance for salvation. But however severe his judgment may be, it does not impair the reality of the fact itself. Moreover, in natures like his, acts which others would hardly think ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... her condition. And now there was nothing to prevent their living together, and Nekhludoff had not prepared himself for that. And, besides, what of her relations to Simonson? What was the meaning of her words yesterday? If she consented to a union with Simonson, would it be well? He could not unravel all these questions, and gave up thinking about it. "It will all clear itself up later on," he thought; "I must not think about it now, but convey the glad news to her as soon as possible, and set her free." He thought that the copy of the document he had received would suffice, so when he ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... might have brought her a heavier cross than marrying a handsome millionaire, even though considerably her senior. I'm probably a conceited fool for thinking it any very great burden at all. But how, then, can I account—? Well, well, time alone can unravel this snarl. One thing is certain: she will do nothing that she does not believe right; and after what Mrs. Yocomb said I would not dare to wish ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... covers, 8 will be a good number, and use double wool. Make 1 by passing the wool round, seam 2 together, repeat; both rows are done in this manner: when sufficient fringe is done, cast off 4 stitches, take out the other pin, and unravel ...
— Exercises in Knitting • Cornelia Mee
... contradiction in the union of old and new, to contemplate the Ancient of Days and all His works With feelings as fresh as if all had then sprung forth at the first creative fiat, characterises the mind that feels the riddle of the world, and may help to unravel it. To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood, to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every day for perhaps forty years had rendered familiar—this is the character and privilege of genius. And it is the prime ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... what it meant. She could not keep it nor use it. She could not unravel its message nor rest upon its strength. It was gone almost while it came, but it did something for the lady of the feathers. It gave to her the little seed of expectation that, quite alone in a weary desert, yet makes of that desert ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... been in his power to look upon the young lady without being dazzled; and the uneasiness he felt at following the muleteer at a distance, and the fear lest any accident might happen by the way that should deprive him of his conquest, taught him to unravel his thoughts. He was more than usually delighted, when, being arrived safe at home, he saw the chest unloaded. He dismissed the muleteer, and having caused a slave to shut the door of his house, opened the chest, helped the lady out, gave her his hand, and conducted her to his apartment, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... one of the twelve? It is not necessary to find a satisfactory answer to all the questions that may arise from the reading of the Bible, and the finite mind should not be discouraged if it fails to fathom the reasons of the Infinite Intelligence. If there are mysteries in the Bible that we cannot unravel they are not greater than the mysteries in nature with which we must deal whether we ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... or less changed in the manner described, the beds may become tangled together like the rumpled leaves of a book, or even with the complexity of snarled thread. All these changes of condition makes it difficult for the geologist to unravel the succession of strata so that he may know the true order of the rocks, and read from them the story of the successive geological periods. This task, though incomplete, has by the labours of many thousand men been so far advanced that we are now able to divide the record ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... murder. Unfortunately, when I had read a few pages more, I found that I had picked the wrong person. Then I accused another character on perfectly good circumstantial evidence, and he was not the man. After that I decided to withdraw from the detective business and let Miss SILBERRAD unravel her mystery for herself. If you are of the opinion that a woman cannot keep a secret read The Mystery of Barnard Hanson and become convinced that Miss SILBERRAD at least is an exception. If I have ever read a more perfectly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... these were more or less cleared up after the assembled wit and wisdom of the community had frowned and bitten their nails over them for several hours. Others were of a nature which it passed the wit of man—Eskimo man at least—to unravel. A few of these, like the watch, had some light thrown on them by Nazinred, who had either seen something like them in use among the fur-traders, or whose sagacity led him to make a shrewd ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... to look back on the time that followed, all is confusion. I cannot unravel the threat of events clearly in my own mind, and can only describe a few scenes that detach themselves, as it were, from a back-ground of reports, true and false, of alarms, of messages to and fro, and a horrible mob surging backwards and ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her religions as far as any Englishman dare say he knows anything about that unfathomable country—yes! Mam! religions—Hinduism—Brahminism—Buddhism—why, I've passed the best part of my life trying to unravel certain physical and psychical threads knotted up in India; but the years are slipping by, and time is getting shorter and shorter, and but a tithe done out of all there is to do; but thanks be, my boy has inherited my love for this work, and will carry ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... But I would not seek to unravel it, Angelique," remarked Amelie, "I feel there is sin in it. Do not touch it: it will only bring mischief upon you ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... hope that Mr. Corbin might in some way manage to unravel the mystery, and yet she could not see that he had anything more tangible to work ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... a mystery," said De Skirlaw. "I will not be the one to try to unravel it. Let us away to the king and say what ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... Padre does not know how to unravel the thread. How fast he talks to the Colonel Sahib!' Mahbub Ali chuckled. 'By Allah!' the keen eyes swept the veranda for an Instant—'thy lama has sent what to me looks like a note of hand. I have had some few dealings in hoondis. The Colonel ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... with great eyes, but agreed at once, and they appointed time and place. He then bade her good night, and the moment she left him lay down on the bed to think. But he did not trouble himself yet to unravel the plot against him, or determine whether the violence he had suffered had the same origin with the poisoning. Nor was the question merely how to continue to serve his sister without danger to his life; for he had just learned what rendered it absolutely ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... am trenching upon debatable ground, and have no desire to enter an argument upon the subject. It is doubtless better to believe the tenets taught us in our childhood, than to seek at mature age to unravel a mystery which it is self-evident the Great Creator never intended that man in this state of existence should become acquainted with. However, I'll say no more on such a subject, it is quite foreign to the matter of my travels, and does not ease my fever in any way—in ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... passage of time to the next period of darkness, when it was fitting and right for Guineveres to seek their small meed of sustenance, to grow to frog's full estate, and to fulfil as well as might be what destiny the jungle offered. To unravel the meaning of it all is beyond even attempting. The breath of mist ever clouds the mirror, and only as regards a tiny segment of the life-history of Guinevere can I say, "There is no need to wipe ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... circumstance, but by her own deliberate preference; and yet he was certain that she was glad that he loved her. What did that mean? He had so seen her life that he knew she was incapable of vanity or selfish satisfaction; when she was glad it was because it was right to be glad. Caius could not unravel this, and yet, deep within him, he knew that there was consistency in it. Had she not said that love in itself was good? it must be good, then, both to the giver and receiver. He felt a certain awe at finding his own poor love embraced in such a doctrine; he felt ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... to find out where the buried treasure lays hid—I mean hidden," said Roy. "We're going to unravel the mystery, as Pee-wee would say. 'Twas on a dark and ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... nearer, or very little nearer, to our goal. So carefully had my friend Nayland Smith excluded the matter from the press that, whilst public interest was much engaged with some of the events in the skein of mystery which he had come from Burma to unravel, outside the Secret Service and the special department of Scotland Yard few people recognized that the several murders, robberies and disappearances formed each a link in a chain; fewer still were aware that a baneful presence was in our midst, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... doubt, this might have happened under a Parliamentary government. But, then, many members of Parliament, the entire Opposition in Parliament, would have been active to unravel the matter. All the principles of finance would have been worked and propounded. The light would have come from above, not from below—it would have come from Parliament to the nation instead of from the nation to Parliament But exactly the reverse happened in America. ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... the hands of any other Arab. Luck had helped Ahmed Ben Hassan even as she herself had unknowingly played into his hands when he had captured her first. Fate was with him. It was useless to try and struggle against him any more. Her brain was a confused medley of thoughts that she was too tired to unravel, strange, conflicting ideas chasing wildly through her mind. She did not understand them, she did not try. The effort of thinking made her head ache agonisingly. She was conscious of a great unrest, a dull aching in her heart and a terrible depression that was altogether ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... His memory was clear and comprehensive. While governor—he was elected by the Republicans in 1868—and before his impeachment and removal from office by the Democratic legislature of 1870, he sought to unravel the mysteries of the Kuklux brotherhoods; and tried in every way to discover the perpetrators of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... heart. Sire, those who are in favor of a timid and vacillating policy, who would like to negotiate and compromise, who still believe in the possibility of a reconciliation with France, who still think that the pen should smoothen the rugged path before us, or unravel the knot of our difficulties—those cowardly, grovelling hearts are the real enemies of our cause, and more dangerous than Napoleon with all his armies. For they are weighing down our courage, paralyzing ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... past. At this moment I stand in imminent peril of becoming again the wretched thing I was when I fled from that den of all the devils. It is to guard me against this that I have come to you. I want you to unravel the tangled thread which threatens to drag me to my doom,—and, when unravelled to sunder it—for ever, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Jacques is the victim of an abominable intrigue; and we must unravel it. We have cried ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... unfriended, With sophistry blended, Deep science in Chaos had slept; Its limits were fettered, Its voters unlettered, Its students in movements but crept. Till, despite of great foes, Great WALSH first arose, And with logical might did unravel Those mazes of knowledge, Ne'er known in a college, Though sought for with unceasing travail. With cheers we now hail him, May success never fail him, In Polar Geometrical mining; Till his foes be as tamed As his works are far-famed ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... as a rule, people do not recognize that every place-name has a meaning or reference to some outstanding peculiarity or characteristic of the place, and that much history can be gathered from interpretation. In cycling, it is one of the many interests to unravel these derivations; merely as an instance, I may mention that in Dorset and Wilts the name of Winterbourne, with a prefix or suffix, often occurs; of course, "bourne" means a stream, but until one knows that a "winterbourne" is a stream that appears in winter only, and does not exist ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... Maria's category of sins dancing, card playing and theatre-going rank side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed. What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... it is true, a woman with a wounded heart to nurse, an aching misery to bear; but she left her with a sanity of purpose which can take up the tangled threads and, however blinded be the eyes with weeping, with fingers feeling their way, can unravel the knotted ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... the quadrangle is a small cabinet containing the inevitable relics of the Prophet. Three separate guides have accumulated at my heels since entering the gate, and now a fourth, ancient and hopeful, appears to unravel, for the Sahib's benefit, the mysteries of the little cabinet. Unlocking the door, he steps out of his slippers into the entrance, stooping beneath an iron rail that further ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... biographers of Knox, have not taken the trouble to unravel this question of the treaty of July 24. But the behaviour of the Lords and of Knox seems characteristic, and ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... could say "with what words." Some had been baptized by a woman, some by a fisherman. Painful it was to witness, or be certified of, such complications and irregularities, more so to be in any degree answerable for them, most of all to be expected to unravel and rectify them in one visit of a few hours' duration, knowing too that they must all be renewed and repeated. This is the only harbour in White Bay where there are any French, and these, it is worthy of notice, have come here within the last five years, since the ...
— Extracts from a Journal of a Voyage of Visitation in the "Hawk," 1859 • Edward Feild
... blame him. He probably has something more important to do than to unravel the meaning of a flag in ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... distracted Jew was no longer visible. It seemed plain that the person or the event he had awaited with such obvious nervousness had arrived and passed; one more of the problems, anxieties or crises that join and unravel moment by moment in the human ant-hill of London, had perhaps closed for good or ill within the past half-hour; ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... Illinois. This last is like a "shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia." There is, too, a memorial of the Greek Revolution which tells its own story, —Scio-and-Webster! We could hardly wish the awkward partnership dissolved. But who will unravel the mysteries of New-Design and New-Faul? and can any one tell us whether the fine Norman name of Sanilac is really the euphonious substitute for Bloody-Pond? If there be in America that excellent institution, "Notes and Queries," here is matter for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... of forty, sirs, a native of East Haddam, And have some reason to surmise that I descend from Adam; But what's my pedigree to you? That I will soon unravel; I've sucked my Haddam-Eden dry, therefore desire to travel, And, as a natural consequence, presume I needn't say, I wish to write some letters home and have those letters p—— [I spare the word suggestive ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... in the intelligent inventor, we nevertheless parted in a wilderness of doubt. There was a mystery in the matter,—a surprise for the world or a surprise for ourselves,—which time, it would seem, with its busy thumb and finger, must be left to unravel at its leisure. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... took him away from me. Still, I hardly cried. All the way up in the train, whenever I was awake, an idea had been haunting me—a possible clue to this trickery of Lord Southminster's. Petty details cropped up and fell into their places. I began to unravel it all now. I had an inkling of a plan ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... cut from a bundle. But there are a thousand ways! Now we proceed with this. Later we probe down gas jets, water spouts and outlets, empty lamp reservoirs, unscrew the backs of mirrors, search key holes, unravel carpets——" ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... the knot of these difficulties save only thy Wazir Haykar; and now that none shall offer an answer save Nadan, the son of his sister, whom he hath informed with all his subtilty and his science. Therefore, do thou summon him and haply he shall unravel for thee a tangled skein so hard to untwist." Sankharib did as they advised, and when Nadan appeared in the presence said to him, "Look thou upon this writ and comprehend its contents." But when the youth read it he said to the Sovran, "O my lord the King, leave alone this folk for ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... ceased to be a pupil. Students bring their books of selections from English authors to the missionary, and ask him to clear up their difficulties. But a long and involved paragraph, with several obsolete words and obscure satire, is a tangle which it is almost hopeless to unravel satisfactorily, when you are dealing with a language so unlike in construction and modes of expression to that of the learner. Nor are some of the allusions in the selected passages particularly edifying to the Hindu mind, ready to scent evil even where it does ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... body on the soul and of the soul on the body. It came upon me with a shock of surprise that while these things are the most serious realities in the world, and undoubtedly more important than any other thing, little attempt is made by humanity to unravel or classify them. I cannot here enter into the details of these instructions, which indeed would be unintelligible, but they showed me at first what I had not at all apprehended, namely the proportionate importance and unimportance of ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... any thing, a little commonplace—in fact, "he never seemed to have any diffeeculties in his discoorses: an' if he had, he aye got ower them by sayin' plump oot that they were mysteries he did na pretend to unravel!" ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... by my kind friend, whose memory I have always held, and ever shall hold, in the highest veneration, Mr. Evans slightly apologized for having asserted that he had proof of my guilt; saying in excuse that it was his duty to do every thing in his power to unravel the mystery. "You may go Master Hunt," said Mrs. Evans; and in the kindest possible manner she endeavoured to console me for the injustice I had suffered, by telling me that the thief would certainly be found out, and then those that had accused ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... so logical and nothing appears so absurd as the ocean. Self-dispersion is the essence of its sovereignty, and is one of the elements of its redundance. The sea is ever for and against. It knots that it may unravel itself; one of its slopes attacks, the other relieves. No apparition is so wonderful as the waves. Who can paint the alternating hollows and promontories, the valleys, the melting bosoms, the sketches? How render the thickets of foam, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... d'Architecture Musulmane," after attempting to unravel the influences which went to the making of the mosque of Kairouan, the walls of Marrakech, the Medersas of Fez—influences that lead him back to Chaldaean branch-huts, to the walls of Babylon and the embroideries of Coptic Egypt—somewhat despairingly sums up the result: "The principal elements ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... of this people is just as strange as they are themselves. It is based on euphony, from which cause it is very complex, the more especially so as it requires one to be possessed of a negro's turn of mind to appreciate the system, and unravel the secret of its euphonic concord. A Kisuahili grammar, written by Dr. Krapf, will exemplify what I mean. There is one peculiarity, however, to which I would direct the attention of the reader most particularly, which is, that Wa prefixed to the ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Vernee, and her confession. It was like the revolving whirl of a pinwheel, this series of events: continuous and mystifying, but without beginning or end. Surely, somewhere in the procession of horrors, there would be a loose end to cling to. Some loose end that would eventually unravel the pinwheel! ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... swallow. It is the great boast of eloquence and philosophy, that they first congregated men dispersed, united them into societies, and built up the houses and the walls of cities. I wish they could unravel all they had woven; that we might have our woods and our innocence again instead of our castles and our policies. They have assembled many thousands of scattered people into one body: it is true, they have done so, they have brought them together into ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... soft-spoken frontiersman. All Arizona knew not only the daredevil spirit that fired his gentleness, but the competence with which he set about any task he assigned himself. She did not see how he could unravel this mystery. She had left no clues behind her, she felt sure of that, and yet was troubled lest he guessed at her secret behind that mask of innocence he wore. He did not even remotely guess it as yet, but he was far closer to the truth than he pretended. The girl knew she ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... time, but there was no room in his brain for an impure thought. Notwithstanding he was still a young man, being but fifty years of age, nevertheless he had attained distinct success and fame as a musician, composer, scientist, inventor, architect, and athlete. He endeavored to unravel all the mysteries of nature which attracted his attention. One of the many occult forces he experimented with was human magnetism. It was his belief that man could preserve himself indefinitely, either in a state ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... 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 ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul": this tells it all. The spring of heart to heart that we call affinity, the knitting no hand can ever afterward unravel—these experiences have been granted to us all through our work together, and ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael |
