"Clew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Langton, after a short private conversation, had summoned the landlord, in the hope of obtaining some clew to the development of the mystery. But no young lady, nor any stranger answering to the description the doctor had received from Hugh Crombie (which was indeed a false one), had been seen to pass through the village since ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... together, using brief, sharp, and exciting sentences. Their words were not understood, and no clew to their future purposes could be obtained. Lean Bear spoke in tones even more savage than he had used before, and the steps of the Indians were heard ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... got into and out of is no part of my story; but one day something happened—things do happen as far back in lives as that—which gave Luclarion her clew to ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... somewhat modified, and was now accurately defined and fully developed in her mind, with a result of perfect certainty. In Lord Bacon's letters, on which she laid her finger as she spoke, she had discovered the key and clew to the whole mystery. There were definite and minute instructions how to find a will and other documents relating to the conclave of Elizabethan philosophers, which were concealed (when and by whom she did not inform me) in a hollow space in the under surface of Shakespeare's ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be gained from Edwards at this time, and it must be confessed was most important. Pearson's guilt was fully proven, and we had a strong clew as to the identity of the third man in the robbery. It is true that he had more than a month the start of us, but we did not despair of finding him at last. In the meantime, much was to be speedily ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... conquered herself as to be able to leave her own quiet room, and descend to that of her parents. There she would sit calmly for hours, listening attentively to the conversation, hoping to catch some word that might give her a clew. ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... the clouds began to huddle together in large groups; a sign had been given which the elements recognized. Next came a flash of fire from behind the accumulating masses, then a distant rumbling noise. It was a note of warning, and one that no vessel should let pass unheeded. "Clew up, and furl!" was the order. To hand all sail when these fierce visitors are out on a frolic over the seas, and entertain them under bare poles, is the safest plan, unless, indeed, the best storm sails are bent; even ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... revived hope, the boy started off on this new trail, which he blessed at first—oh, how he blessed it!—as if it had been a golden clew to lead him out of his difficulty. To be sure, it was not a blazed trail; there were no notches in the trees, but the ground showed distinct signs of being frequently and recently travelled over. Though footprints were not traceable, moss, earth, and in some places the ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... postmaster with delight. And he himself harnessed the ancient horse to the creaking carriage. In the meantime Porthos was curious to behold. He imagined he had discovered a clew to the secret, and he felt pleased, because a visit to Athos, in the first place, promised him much satisfaction, and, in the next, gave him the hope of finding at the same time a good bed and good supper. The master, having got the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the compass and the maps that were each day displayed in the captain's cabin, and they knew that they were headed south. Although that gave them little or no clew to their ultimate destination, they felt some comfort in the knowledge that the shore of America lay to the starboard, and away off somewhere beyond the dreary horizon was the country they all loved, and where their anxious friends ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... could have known from the young man's smiling face that he really had not recognized his visitor at first, and that his greeting was only an exhibition of one of those happy instincts for which he was remarkable. But, following the clew suggested by his visitor, he was able to say promptly ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... a medical chart with coloured pictures that was propped up against the wood box, father found the clew, and comprehended that Richard was giving himself a practical lesson in anatomy by trying to carve these organs from a huge mangel wurzel beet that he had rolled in from the root cellar. Did father scold him for mess-making, or laugh at his attempt that had little shape ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... bear themselves amid all circumstances (stare in dimidio rerum), and who are full of reason and of liberal philosophy, while still setting store by cardinals. A rare, precious, and never interrupted race of philosophers to whom wisdom, like another Ariadne, seems to have given a clew of thread which they have been walking along unwinding since the beginning of the world, through the labyrinth of human affairs. One finds them in all ages, ever the same; that is to say, always according to all times. And, without ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... it was made for the grand fleet to anchor, All in the Downs that night for to meet; Then stand by your stoppers, See clear your shank painters, Haul all your clew garnets, stick out ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... success of Coriolanus, the sixteenth of Shakespeare's plays to be put on in Kristiania, neither the newspapers nor the magazines give us any clew. If we may believe a little puff in Aftenposten for January 20, 1874, the staging was to be magnificent. Coriolanus was played in a translation by Hartvig Lassen for the first time on January 21, 1874. After thirteen ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... return to the quarter-deck. All this time Ithuel and his companions in the yawl were left to their own reflections, which were anything but agreeable. Matters had been conducted so quietly inboard, however, that they possessed no clew to what had actually occurred; though Ghita, in particular, was full of forebodings and apprehensions. The frigate towed them along at a rate which, as Raoul said, had brought them quite abreast of their landing and within a league of it; and yet she showed no signs of an intention to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a while the little fellow spoke. That utterance came with difficulty to his lips was obvious. He must always have been a silent, backward little fellow, and sad, as children rarely become at an age so tender. Of who or what he was he gave no clew. He seemed to have no real name, to remember no parents, to feel no confidence in anything save "Bruvver ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... the two obviously corrupt words in italics may contain a clew to the right reading, and this ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... he bellowed, though his mouth was but a few yards from my ear. 'Would ye come across my hawse without slacking weigh? Clew up, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... heretofore mostly escaped the survey of theologians and philosophers: classes that are supposed to be in pursuit of essential truth concerning both God and man. Its leading aim seems to be to present a reliable clew to those truths by an unusual interpretation of the Scriptures as a revelation of creative order. The author stands with a comparatively small class of ardent explorers who have come to see "the light of the world" under a new radiance; a radiance that actually ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... One clew only was vouchsafed her puzzling mind: Searle had actually gone to Glen at last, had been there at the hour of Van's arrival, and had written Glen's letter to herself. Some encounter between the men had doubtless transpired, she thought, and Van ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... yarn refused to follow her. She jerked at it in vain. She dared not let her clew break, because if she should lose the lover supposed to be holding its other end, she would die unmarried. "Let me see you! let me see you!" she cried, eagerly, and a figure drew near her in the darkness. An arm ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... theories which are not yet established. We found the most different problems—scientific, naturo-philosophical, metaphysical, religious and ethical—inextricably mixed, and were obliged, as one of our first tasks, to make an attempt at finding the clew and at examining and testing each single problem, together with attempts at its solution, separately, although keeping constantly in mind its connection with all other problems and their attempts at solution. We found ourselves led into the presence of a series ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... faced his problem. Except himself, of the hidden place of the will no one could possibly know. So, if even by an anonymous letter, or by telephone, he gave the information to his late lawyer or to the detectives, they at once would guess from where the clew came and that James Blagwin was still alive. So that plan was abandoned. Then he wondered if he might not convey the tip to some one who had access to his bedroom; his valet or a chambermaid who, ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... no further effort to enlighten him. She looked at him thoughtfully, and said, slowly, "I begin to hold the clew to your idiosyncrasy. You have attached yourself to the modern doctrine of a struggle for existence, and look on life as ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... said which afforded Dory a clew to the strange event in the woods. He fancied it had some connection with the money the farmer had received for his farm. The hungry boy was called into another room by Mrs. Brookbine to eat his supper. He found a plentiful meal on the table, and he did ample justice to it. While ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... now presented itself directly in front of them, and close to the briars. It was of a round shape, and looked like a large clew of hair or wool of a greyish colour, half-buried in the ground. Whether it had been there before, neither Basil, nor Lucien, nor Francois, could tell. It might have been without their noticing it, as their attention was so occupied with the hares and the lynx. Francois ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... Precisely the clew that he needed the sculptor had not given, but he was endeavoring to overcome his repugnance to disclosing his most secret feelings. Every word cost him an effort, but he went on with a savage sense of doing penance by ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... paper Kirk found something that relieved his mind a bit: evidently Williams had not died prior to the time of going to press, although he was reported in a critical condition. Kirk was interested to read that the police had a clew to the identity of the criminals and were confident of soon rounding them up. What mystified him most was the lack of detail. Evidently much had been printed previously, but he had no means of ascertaining ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... I shall not commence, till I have again seen some of old Louis's old-fashioned Galanteries at Versailles. Rosamond's bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth: but as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short, I both know, and don't know what it should be. I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... skipper were obeyed. The Languedocian made a third sailor. All bore a hand. Not satisfied with brailing up, they furled the sails, lashed the earrings, secured the clew-lines, bunt-lines, and leech-lines, and clapped preventer-shrouds on the block straps, which thus might serve as back-stays. They fished the mast. They battened down the ports and bulls'-eyes, which is a method of walling up a ship. These evolutions, though executed ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... care?" thinking I now had the clew to Ned's savage manner for the week past. "When did ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... answered. "They had not been married very long—I do not know how long—when he was killed. He went to New York on business by himself, and did not come back. They were searching for him days and days—ever so long, and they could find no clew. At last—it may have been a month afterwards—or perhaps it was more—it was found that he had been murdered. His body had been discovered, and was supposed to be that of somebody else, and had been buried in whatever place the authorities ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... from the sight of the V.A.D.'s pale face, I took to wandering about the decks and came suddenly on a man whom I had last seen at the tiller of a small boat in Clew Bay. I was beating windward across the steep waves of a tideway. His boat was running free with her mainsail boomed out; and he waved a hand to me as he passed. Once again we met at sea; but we were ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... says she discovered Christian Science in 1866. She studied the Scriptures and the sciences, she declares, in a search for the great curative Principle. She investigated allopathy, homoeopathy, and electricity, without finding a clew; and modern philosophy gave her no distinct statement of the Science of Mind-healing. After careful study she became convinced that the curative ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... the head yards braced forward to help her round more quickly. In the meantime the anchor was catted and fished ready for sea, and as the wind came abaft the beam, the head yards were squared, and the fore-clew-garnets being let run, the ponderous folds of the foresail were allowed to fall towards the deck, just as the wind was brought right aft. Both sheets were then hauled aft, and the increasing breeze no longer finding ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... be avenged. We must find out the incendiary; we must! You want it to be done, don't you? Well, it depends only on you. There must be some one among you who knows something about this matter. Let him come forward and tell us what he has seen or heard. Remember that the smallest trifle may be a clew to the crime. You would be as bad as the incendiary himself, if you concealed him. Just think ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... Zillah, and tried to be as frank and unconscious in one case as the other. I even made the acquaintance of Mr. Hearn's little girl—indeed, her father formally presented her to me as his daughter Adela. I knew nothing of his domestic history, and gained no clew as to the length of the widowhood which he now proposed to end ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... The best clew to guide the two Governments in their future proceedings may perhaps be obtained by an examination of the causes of past failure; and the most prominent amongst these causes has certainly been a want of correct information as to the topographical features ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... now found what appeared to her a clew to his whole plan. He was, or pretended to be, her guardian; he had been appointed, or pretended to have been appointed, by her father. It might have been so. Edith could well imagine how in previous years he had made this false friend his executor and the guardian of his child; and then, in the ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... Friday last at the house of Mrs. K, a well-known Union lady in Hagerstown. Now this could not be true, for he did not leave Keedysville until Saturday; but the name of the lady furnished a clew by which we could probably track him. A telegram was at once sent to Mrs. K, asking information. It was transmitted immediately, but when the answer would be received was uncertain, as the Government almost monopolized the line. I was, on the whole, so well satisfied that the Captain ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... empiric politicians use deceit, Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat; You boldly show that skill which they pretend, And work by means as noble as your end: 70 Which should you veil, we might unwind the clew, As men do nature, till we came to you. And as the Indies were not found, before Those rich perfumes, which, from the happy shore, The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd, Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd; So by your counsels we are brought to view A rich and undiscover'd ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Bridge, from which the best view of Croagh Patrick Mountain may be had. But an ascent of the mountain is best made from Murrisk Abbey, six miles outside Westport. From the mountain side the expansive country from island-set Clew Bay to Nephin and Slievemore, in Achill, spreads out to best advantage. The famous coach road from Clifden cuts into Westport from the south. The Quay and Mall and the Marquis of Sligo's demesne are the "sights" of the town. It is a convenient centre from which to visit Achill Island. ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... you will find that difficult. He has left no clew in this city where he once lived. He sold out all his property, ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... fear naught," said Piero haughtily. "But the times are perilous; and later, if thou would'st seek me, thou hast the clew. But of the mission, to which I am sworn in secrecy, let it not be known that I have so much as named it—it would argue ill for me and thee. And the clew is for thy using only. Meanwhile, forget that I have spoken. The Ave Maria will soon waken the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... the matter, Sir Bromley followed the clew thus given him, and behind the wall, in a secret chamber, came upon Garnet and his companion, Oldcorne, who, since the coming of the authorities, had been fed through the reed ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... found it but lightly guarded and what sentinels there were, were not upon the alert, and so it was an easy thing for him to enter after darkness had fallen and prowl about listening at the backs of tents, searching for some clew to the slayer of ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... are also met with in the manic-depressive group proper. So often a stupor begins with the same indefinite kind of upset as does another psychosis that the development may furnish no clew. Any condition where there is inactivity, scanty verbal productivity and poor intellectual performance resembles stupor. This triad of symptoms occurs in retarded depressions, in absorbed manic states and in perplexities. Negativism and catalepsy are never ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... of the cases of complaint made in this general way, and have felt mortified that our soldiers should do acts which are nothing more or less than stealing, but I was powerless without some clew whereby to reach the rightful party. I know that the great mass of our soldiers would scorn to steal or commit crime, and I will not therefore entertain vague and general complaints, but stand, prepared always to follow up any reasonable ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... dat pile up de water so de tide rise six or eight inches higher," continued Quimp, picking up the clew given him. "High tide in one hour from now, and de Reindeer was gwine out den for shore. Dat's de whole story, massa, ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... of Agassiz's correspondence with his European friends and colleagues during the winter and summer of 1847 give a clew to the occupations and interests of his new life, and keep up the ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... a measure from the astonishment produced by this discovery I inquired whether other shamans had such books. "Yes," said Swimmer, "we all have them." Here then was a clew to follow up. A bargain was made by which he was to have another blank book into which to copy the formulas, after which the original was bought. It is now deposited in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology. The remainder of the time until the return was occupied in getting an understanding ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... that is stone no more, Life at wound-pause lifts ear to woundless mind; Backward the ages their slow clew unwind, And step by step, and star by star, lead o'er The trail again, where eyeless passion tore Its red way to a soul. Mist-bound and blind No more, the thinker waits, and God grown kind Flashes a foot-print ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... Babylon became supreme it was usual to swear by Marduk and the local gods as well. The significance of these oaths for historical purposes is great, both as indicating political relationships, and as often affording by the name of the king the only clew to the date of the document. Mr. King, in his edition of the Chronicle,(141) and Dr. Lindl,(142) have made skilful use of ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... Cylinder I, is movable on a very small Needle, on the end of which is fixt a very light Index KL, all which are so pois'd on the Axis, or Needle, that no part is heavier then another: Then about this Cylinder is wound a small Clew of Silk, with two small steel Bullets at each end of it GH; one of these, which is somewhat the heavier, ought to be so big, as freely to move to and fro in the Pipe F; by means of which contrivance, every the least ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... of the greatest assistance to me during that most anxious day. But we found no clew, nor discovered any reason for the Vicomte's disappearance. I went back in the evening to the Hotel Clericy, and there found Madame de Clericy and Lucille awaiting me, with that calmness which is admirable when there is nothing else but waiting ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... side of pure theory we find the eager collection of experimental data to be submitted to the scrutiny of the ablest and brightest minds, to be examined and reasoned upon with the hope of finding some clew to satisfying explanations, and on the side of practice we find the search for new facts and relations no less diligent, though often stimulated by practical problems presented for solution. Indeed, the urgency for results is often the greater on the practical side, for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... attempt to enter the cottage, but hastened back to the hotel, in a state of agitation difficult to describe. I could not make up my mind to pass unnoticed such extraordinary coincidences; but how was any clew to be ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... to aid identification, and a stranger's grave had to be provided. In the meantime the friends and relatives of the missing girl had been making every effort to locate her, no idea having occurred to them that she was going South. A loving brother finally got hold of a clew, which he followed up so successfully that he at last solved the mystery. He arrived in New Orleans on November 1st, and when taken out to the grave that had been provided for the stranger who had died just outside the gates, he was astounded ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... of the commonest animals are lost in the dimness of antiquity, such as fox, weasel, sheep, dog, and baboon. Of the origin of these we have forever lost the clew. With camel we can go no farther back than the Latin word camelus, and elephant balks us with the old Hindoo word eleph, which means an ox. The old root of the word wolf meant one who tears or rends, and the application to this animal is obvious. In several English and German names of persons, ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... you the answer. I'm just slippin' you the proposition, with the side remark that now and then, when the jumble seems worse than ever, you can get a glimpse of what might be a clew, or might not. ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... in ancient days three warriors came from Green Ierne, to dwell in the wild glens of Cowal and Lochow,—how one of them, the swart Breachdan, all for the love of blue-eyed Eila, swam the Gulf, once with a clew of thread, then with a hempen rope, last with an iron chain, but this time, alas! the returning tide sucks down the over-tasked hero into its swirling vortex,—how Diarmid O' Duin, i.e. son of "the Brown," slew with his own hand the mighty boar, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... how his neighbours could be so fond of it; but a humble sort of acquiescence in what was held to be good, had become a strong habit of that new self which had been developed in him since he had found Eppie on his hearth: it had been the only clew his bewildered mind could hold by in cherishing this young life that had been sent to him out of the darkness into which his gold had departed. By seeking what was needful for Eppie, by sharing the effect that everything ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... with such assistance, a studding-sail-boom becomes as easy of identification as a marling-spike lashed to a forecastle spinaker-boom, close hauled aport under trysails, blowing out like flags from the grips of clew-lines and leech-lines towards the close of a second dog-watch! Shiver LINDLEY MURRAY'S timbers! but what can be finer than a bulkhead battened down with the scandalised main-sail of a top-gallant clipper-rigged halliard! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... New York City who was kidnapped on Saturday night on his way from New York to a week-end house party at Beechwood, N. J., not yet heard from. No clew to his whereabouts. Detectives out with bloodhounds searching country. Mother in a state of collapse. It is feared the bandits have fulfilled their threats and killed him. Father frantically offering any reward for news ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... conclusion. "The hack driver caught but a glimpse of her, and in the excitement of the moment failed to take the number of the car. But that the latter was a Maillard he is positive. There are several headquarter's men following up the clew as this goes to press; and startling developments are ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... it is most awkward. Neither hair, dress, nor conversation affords the slightest clew, and you are left to guess. By some mysterious law of nature you invariably guess wrong, and are thereupon regarded by all the relatives and friends as a mixture of fool and knave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe as ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... When Annie, however, reached the foot of the stair, her master was already up the first flight, and Annie's courage failing her, she, turning sharply round, almost ran against Hector, who was close behind her. The look of disappointment on her face, to the meaning of which he had no clew, quenching his courage next, he returned in silence to the dining room, where Annie was now hovering aimlessly about the table, until, upon his re-entrance, she settled herself behind Hector's chair. He turned half-round, and would have said something ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must always be, to a very large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clew from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash; but Doctor Watson has to have it taken out for him and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... that troubled Dave in those days was the question of his identity, and when one of his school rivals spoke of him as a "poor-house nobody" it disturbed him greatly. Receiving something of a clew, he went on a long voyage, as related in "Dave Porter in the South Seas," and located his uncle, Dunston Porter, and learned for the first time that his father, David Breslow Porter, was also living, and ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... found—a big slouch hat being the only tangible clew unearthed to a real personality. And this Walter dug out of a hole near a rear wheel ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... aloud, "to in-all-studding-sails! Down with them!" he added, scarcely giving his former words time to reach the ears of his subordinates. "Down with every rag of them, fore and aft the ship! Man the top-gallant clew-lines, Mr. Earing. Clew up, and clew down! In with every ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... 'Heroine's Lodge.' Quite a good idea, that," and picking up a piece of birch-bark, she painted the name on it in large letters and tacked it to the tent pole. "Now,", she continued, "we'll name your bed 'Rescuer's Roost' and Migwan's 'Clew-givers' Cradle,'" and she made two more signs, and hung them on the foot rails ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... a stranger thing to me," replied Uncle William. "I am dreadfully puzzled over the whole matter. We have now four detectives at work, but up to the present they have not got the slightest clew to ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... and misplaced ingenuity. But if he can bear to admit his ignorance, and is willing to examine these difficulties in order to correct his own errors, enlarge his own views, and learn something really new, he will often find here the clew to deeper insight and to ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... Standish, who, even in her excitement, could swallow the last of her cup of hot coffee,—"come, let us go upstairs and see if the foolish girl has not left some clew!" ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... and, hurrying upon deck, we found a large black cloud rolling on toward us from the southwest, and darkening the whole heavens. "Here comes Cape Horn!'' said the chief mate; and we had hardly time to haul down and clew up before it was upon us. In a few minutes a heavier sea was raised than I had ever seen, and as it was directly ahead, the little brig, which was no better than a bathing-machine, plunged into it, and all the forward part of her was under water; the sea pouring in through the bow-ports and hawse-holes ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... hand from the blue yonder Held out a scroll On which my life was writ, and I with wonder Beheld unroll To a long century's end its mystic clew— What should I do? ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... Miss Linden that I have a clew. I am almost surtin her cozen has got away with Dodger. He won't hurt him, but he will get him out of the city. Wen I hear more ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... have read "Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School" will remember the mysterious disappearance of the bazaar money and the untiring zeal with which Grace worked until she found a clew to the robbery, which led to the astonishing discovery that she made in an isolated house ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Earth as Vararuchi and Gunadhya and this runs through lib. i. Lib. ii. begins with the Story of Udayana to whom we must be truly grateful as our only guide: he and his son Naravahanadatta fill up the rest and end with lib. xviii. Thus the want of the clew or plot compels a division into books, which begin for instance with "We worship the elephantine proboscis of Ganesha" (lib. x. i.) a reverend and awful object to a Hindu but to Englishmen mainly suggesting ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... next sea. And, strangely enough, within the hour they fell in with and passed a small gun-boat, undoubtedly British. She was rigged as a barquentine. Her three topmasts were housed, and she was hove-to under the lee clew of her close-reefed topsail and a small storm-trysail. She was being flung about in a manner that was absolutely appalling to look at, at one moment standing almost upright, and anon thrown down on her ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... without antecedents. His history began with Walt and Madge. He had come up from the south, but never a clew did they get of the owner from whom he had evidently fled. Mrs. Johnson, their nearest neighbor and the one who supplied them with milk, proclaimed him a Klondike dog. Her brother was burrowing for frozen pay-streaks in that ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... Lieutenant Irvin, "and finding that I was really who I pretended to be, finally agreed to take me to Toombs. Riding down to Old-Town, in Jefferson County, we failed to find Toombs, but receiving a clew that he had passed through the David Dickson plantation in Hancock County, I accosted Mr. Worthen, the manager. 'Has an old man riding a gray horse passed this way,' Worthen was asked. He promptly answered, 'No.' Believing that he was deceiving me, ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... should be executed on his people, if they were not pardoned. And in the declaration, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book, he discovers an intimation, that that offending people should die short of the promised land! A discovery without a clew. This sin of Israel was pardoned. Sentence of death in the wilderness was occasioned by a subsequent act of rebellion, as will be shewn ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... "Ah ha! There's your clew," said Stella, turning to Ted. "The fellow who posted this notice was disguised in a wolfskin so that he could sneak up to the house unnoticed by the Chinaman, or, if seen, he would make ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... I met you," said Jim. Jim was a very proud fellow, too, in his own way. Alison's queer letter had pierced him to the quick. Not having the faintest clew to her reason for writing it, he was ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... to the packet inclosed, D'Avencourt continued—"The accompanying letters were found in Ferrari's breast-pocket, and on opening the first one, in the expectation of finding some clew as to his last wishes, we came to the conclusion that you, as the future husband of the lady whose signature and handwriting you will here recognize, should be made aware of the contents, not only for your own sake, but in justice to the deceased. If all the letters are ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... "when explanations become necessary, they become impossible," a paradox well worth the consideration of those who write letters to newspapers. But Lady Bernard understood him well enough, and was only unwinding the clew of her idea. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... college; but, as six hundred other boys were there at the same time, that gives no clew to his identity. Since those days, until he came to see me about the treasure, we had not met. All I knew of him was that he had succeeded his father in manufacturing unshrinkable flannels. Of course, the reader understands that is ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... exactly new; only this, that the deposit of Miss Lorton's funds and the withdrawal, which were all done by her in Miss Lorton's name and person, were managed so cleverly that there is not the slightest ghost of a clew by which either she or the money can be traced. She drew the funds from one banker and deposited them with another. I thought I should be able to find out the banker from whom they were drawn, but ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... clew that, in the hands of the Abbe Faria, had been so skilfully used to guide him through the Daedalian labyrinth of probabilities, he thought that the Cardinal Spada, anxious not to be watched, had entered the creek, concealed his little barque, followed the line marked by the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to win. His method of play varied. Expert after expert, in the jam about the table, scribbled down his bets and numbers in vain attempts to work out his system. They complained of their inability to get a clew to start with, and swore that it was pure luck, though the most colossal streak of it ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... light shone in her brilliant black eyes; and though that wild gleaming denoted powerful emotions, yet it shed no luster upon the depths of her soul—afforded no clew to the real nature of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... are all gone; the rest is everywhere similar to the sample found in B, and already figured. In some cases even the sills are gone. Windows I could not find, nor trap-doors or ladders; there was no trace of steps, and, unfortunately, no clew to any chimney or vent. Of furniture I secured pieces of new hearth-stones; of other articles, broken "metates," part of a fine maul of stone, flint chips, celts, stone skin-scrapers, and, of course, painted pottery and obsidian. But not one specimen ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... how little we gathered which could give a clew to her actual history or to his. The letters almost never gave the name of the place, only the day and year, many of them only the day. There was dearth of allusions to persons; it was as if these two had lived in a separate world of their own. When persons were mentioned at all, it was only by ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... obtained permission to attempt the capture of the escaped prisoner, Bute; but the murderer had disappeared, leaving no clew. Brandt learned that the slums of large cities and several mining camps had been searched in vain, also that the trains running east had been carefully watched. We need not try to follow his processes of thought, nor seek to learn how he ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... body was more than the garb of her spirit. It was an emanation of her spirit, a pure and gracious crystallization of her divine essence. This feeling of the divine startled him. It shocked him from his dreams to sober thought. No word, no clew, no hint, of the divine had ever reached him before. He had never believed in the divine. He had always been irreligious, scoffing good-naturedly at the sky-pilots and their immortality of the soul. There was no life beyond, he had contended; it was here and ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... she bent Over him, clasping his great matted head With those worn arms, all joyless; and the tears Fell hot upon his forehead from her eyes. For now in this dim gloaming their two souls Unfruited, by an instant insight wild, Delicious, found the full, mysterious clew Of individual being, each in each. But, tremulously, soon they drew themselves Away from that so sweet, so sad embrace, The first, the last that could be theirs. Then he, Summing his story in a word, a glance, Added, "But ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... been revealed to Peter, and he now thought he had the clew to the charm. The good dwarf, Glassmanikin, only helped people who were ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... assume that this was one of the things the professional "strong-arm man" would not do. But it was also evident that he must speedily lose his identity if he hoped to escape; and the lost identity must leave no clew ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... snapped and cracked loudly, and in a second more it carried away the club on the clew ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... beautiful beside even the Adam of Mabuse, betrayed the imperial touch of a great artist,—in short, everything about the strange old man seemed beyond the limits of human nature. The rich imagination of the youth fastened upon the one perceptible and clear clew to the mystery of this supernatural being,—the presence of the artistic nature, that wild impassioned nature to which such mighty powers have been confided, which too often abuses those powers, and drags cold reason and common souls, and even lovers of ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... anyhow?" asked Jim Cranby. "I ain't heard nothing about it." He had stood in open-mouthed perplexity trying to catch a clew. Coming late, he ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... that he SAW the disappearance, but there is nothing of this in his testimony given in court. None of the field hands working in the field to which Williamson was going had seen him at all, and the most rigorous search of the entire plantation and adjoining country failed to supply a clew. The most monstrous and grotesque fictions, originating with the blacks, were current in that part of the State for many years, and probably are to this day; but what has been here related is all that ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... adjusting itself to new conditions, and that is all. We may not be able to see exactly how conditions are changing; that is a detail; our descendants will see exactly; meanwhile the change in our conduct affords us some clew. And although certain nervous persons do get alarmed, and do preach, and do "take measures," the rest of us may remain placid in the sure faith that "measures" will avail nothing whatever. If there are two things set high above ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... exclaimed the general, triumphant in his clew. "No, he didn't tell. He never will tell now. I have learned from a picket boat that was captured last night by our patrols, that nothing was seen of the ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... large share of the strong, self-respecting pride of her ancestry. She would never have stooped to buy the silence of a low knave like this Alexander; and her clear truthfulness of soul indicated at once the single, straight, unerring clew which could lead out of this ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, buffeted and now and then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas, floundering below amidst a raffle of fallen gear, while the bitter spray lashed them, and the broken boom held up by the clew ring banged savagely to and fro. After that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast a curious quietness as Dampier jammed his helm up, and the schooner swung off before the sea. Then somebody ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word, you cannot wipe out the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and substances of nature,—water, snow, wind, gravitation,—become ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... autobiographical volume entitled "My Inner Life." The author is an English philosopher, who was born and lived until manhood in the backwoods of Canada. He tells us how as a young man groping about for some clew to the mystery of the world in which he found himself, he tried one great writer after another—Mill, Buckle, Carlyle, Emerson—all to no purpose, for he was not ready for them. At this period he read with great profit the "Recreations of a Country Parson," which, as he ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... captain, immediately catching at the clew: "Dringworth Brothers, America Square, ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... mark was gone. Not a vestige here remaining Of the sign that could be told, For old Mac had traveled swiftly And the trail was mixed and old. Two whole days Bill searched and waited, Hoping for some other clew, Weighing questions of direction, Undecided what to do. Till, one night, while cooking supper By the camp-fire's genial glow, He was startled by a stranger's Sudden presence ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... ingenuity and boldness which left no doubt that it had been effected by clever and practiced hands. The detective officers first employed having failed to discover the offenders, the threads of the imperfect and broken clew were placed in my hands, to see if my somewhat renowned dexterity, or luck, as many of my brother officers preferred calling it, would enable me to piece them out to a satisfactory conclusion. By the description obtained of a man who ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... hard reading the character of John Charles Fremont, calling it enigmatical and baffling. Not so with those who knew him best. "His unwritten history," writes one of these, "gives the clew ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... he had thrown it, but that the money was missing. I at once desired him to be seated, and proceeded to ask him certain questions, in a chatty way, about the habits of his household, the amount lost, and the like, expecting thus to get some clew which would enable me to make my spirits display the requisite share of sagacity in pointing out the thief. I learned readily that he was an old and wealthy man, a little close too, I suspected; and that he lived in a large house, with but two servants, and an only son about twenty-one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... language, an expression of thought as well as a condition of thought. Imagine a being free of a three-dimensional world trying to converse with a being still limited to a two-dimensional world, and we have a clew to what I think may have happened after the crucifixion of Jesus. The three-dimensional body would behave in a manner altogether unaccountable to the two-dimensional watcher. The latter, knowing only ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... heel, he left the apartment. By some means he obtained a clew to the retreat of Louise. Mounting his horse, accompanied by a single page, he galloped to the convent of Chaillot. As there had been no warning of his approach, the grating still remained closed. He arrived ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... property; he recalled having once seen Jimmie place some papers there by mistake; having done so once, the mistake might have occurred again. Taking out his partner's bunch of keys, he soon found one that fitted and opened the drawers. He had half completed his task, without finding any clew to the missing securities, when he was interrupted by the sound of the opening of the front door, and had but time to slam the drawers shut and pocket the keys when the night clerk of the hotel stepped inside the apartment and, closely followed by a sandy-haired man, ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... rouleau[obs3], column, rolling-pin, rundle. cone, conoid[obs3]; pear shape, egg shape, bell shape. sphere, globe, ball, boulder, bowlder[obs3]; spheroid, ellipsoid; oblong spheroid; oblate spheroid, prolate spheroid; drop, spherule, globule, vesicle, bulb, bullet, pellet, pelote[obs3], clew, pill, marble, pea, knob, pommel, horn; knot (convolution) 248. curved surface, hypersphere; hyperdimensional surface. V. render spherical &c. adj.; form into a sphere, sphere, roll into a ball; give rotundity &c. n.; round. Adj. rotund; round &c. (circular) 247; cylindric, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... be afraid of here," the girl replied. "But it will be awfully lonesome without you. But if you think you've got a real clew, I wouldn't ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... observant of even the smallest trifles. A speck of dust may be an important clew ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... before, when he had engaged the taxicab and had started in pursuit of the limousine Kate Gilbert had entered. Prale wondered what Farland had been doing, whether he had discovered anything concerning Kate Gilbert, whether he had found a clew that would lead to an unraveling of ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... day of his journey, he descried five or six men on horseback bearing up full in his teeth, upon which he threw his sails aback, and prepared for action; that he hailed them at a considerable distance, and bade them bring to; when they came alongside, notwithstanding his hail, he ordered them to clew up their courses, and furl their topsails, otherwise he would be foul of their quarters; that, hearing this salute, they luffed all at once, till their cloth shook in the wind; then he hallooed in a loud voice, that his sweetheart, Besselia Mizzen, were the broad pendant of beauty, to ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett |
