"Labyrinth" Quotes from Famous Books
... end of the bridge where the cables are anchored is a labyrinth of trails crossing and recrossing. The Chief explained that Bright Angel, the little wild burro, had made those at a time when high water had marooned him on that small area. While the bridge was being built he hung around constantly, ... — I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... of the evening, with the pale stars shining dimly in the twilight of the summer sky; pondering, brooding over what he had seen and heard that day. He had already done much of what he had come to England to do; but what next? What was the path he ought to take now? He was in a labyrinth, where there were many false openings leading no-whither; and he had no clue to guide him. All these years he had lain as one dead in the coil he had wound about himself, but now he was living again. There was agony in the life that he had entered into, but it was better than ... — Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... dim groups of drooping foliage, the shadows of the upper boughs running in gray network down the glossy stems, and resting in quiet checkers upon the glittering earth; but all penetrable and transparent, and, in proportion, inextricable and incomprehensible, except where across the labyrinth and the mystery of the dazzling light and dream-like shadow, falls, close to us, some solitary spray, some wreath of two or three motionless large leaves, the type and embodying of all that in the rest we feel and imagine, ... — Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... disposed. It is composed of three walks, which are lined with orange and acacia trees, and vases of roses. At the end is a tower mounted on a rock, temples, and rustic bridges; and on each side of the walks, are little labyrinth bowers. On the side next to the Boulevard, is a terrace which commands the whole scene, is lined on each side with beautiful vases of flowers, and is terminated at each end by alcoves, which are lined with mirrors. Here in the course of an hour, the astonished, ... — The Stranger in France • John Carr
... were pushed back, in Crete an unknown world was brought to light. Its romantic interest was intensified by the establishment of an historic foundation for one of the most celebrated legends of the ancient world. How the Minotaur devoured the tribute of youths and maidens in the labyrinth, how Ariadne, daughter of Minos, fell in love with Theseus and gave him a sword to slay the Minotaur and a thread to retrace his steps, was known to every Greek child and has thrilled the imagination of the centuries. The exploration of the city called by Homer 'Great Knossus' was among the ... — Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... slight difference between Me and my epic brethren gone before, And here the advantage is my own, I ween (Not that I have not several merits more, But this will more peculiarly be seen); They so embellish, that 't is quite a bore Their labyrinth of fables to thread through, Whereas this story's ... — The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the procession, then came Effie and Grace, dragging a box-sled in which the baby was comfortably stowed, and Kitty, the nurse, brought up the rear, leading little Harry. The two boys met them at some distance from the snow palace, and told them they must go through the labyrinth before they could reach the place ... — Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... captain to his study, where he saw him safely bestowed upon the sofa; Gilberte moved lightly off about her business, no more disconcerted by her rebuff than is the bird that shakes its wings in gay defiance of the shower; while the handmaid to whom Jean had been intrusted led him by a very labyrinth of passages and staircases through the ... — The Downfall • Emile Zola
... three things man is destined never to solve—perpetual motion, the square of the circle, and the heart of a woman. Yet he may go a little way into the labyrinth with the thread of love, which his Ariadne will gladly give him at ... — The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... have to be fended off by the intervention of the police. While these sylvan rites were taking place, in a church packed with fashion and festooned with orchids, the representatives of the press were threading their way, note-book in hand, through the labyrinth of wedding presents, and the agent of a cinematograph syndicate was setting up his apparatus at the church door. It was the kind of scene in which Lily had often pictured herself as taking the principal part, and on this occasion the fact that ... — House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... might die of this fever and wound in twenty-four hours. There could be nothing surprising in it;" and as he cogitated the demon entered his soul. He sat down and pressed his hands to his burning temples, as he rested his elbows on the table many minutes, perplexed in a chaotic labyrinth of evil thoughts, till the fiend pointed out the ... — The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... will concern ourselves no more with the unravelling of this tissue of imposition; we will wander no longer in this labyrinth of fraud, of low and vile intrigue, of dark crime of which the clue disappears in the night, and of which the trace is lost in a doubtful mixture of blood and mire; we will listen no longer to the cry of the widow and her four children reduced to beggary, to the groans of obscure victims, ... — Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... human actions than the accidental combination of the kaleidoscope does this living and breathing world. We want a key, and a key has not been found. So men go stumbling on through the inextricable labyrinth, and exhaust more ingenuity in vain speculations than would suffice to bring a variety ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... too good natured and tell my story in that way; besides, it would be a very difficult matter to tell it; and why should an author, merely to oblige people, get himself involved in a labyrinth of difficulties, and rack his unfortunate brain to pick and choose words properly to tell his story, yet at the same time to lead his readers through the mazes of this very ticklish adventure, without a single thorn scratching their delicate feelings, or ... — Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... the room before the clergyman, and took his arm to walk. Bayham then fell to Mr. Pendennis's lot, and they went together. Through Hill Street and Berkeley Square their course was straight enough; but at Hay Hill, Mr. Bayham made an abrupt tack larboard, engaging in a labyrinth of stables, and walking a long way round from Clifford Street, whither we were bound. He hinted at a cab, but Pendennis refused to ride, being, in truth, anxious to see which way his eccentric companion would steer. "There are reasons," growled Bayham, "which ... — The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... far from being the simple creatures he had believed them to be. The heart of woman was a labyrinth of mystery. Mrs. Congdon, altogether lovely and bearing all the marks of breeding, had lied quite as convincingly as Sally Walker. The ways of Isabel were beyond all human understanding; and yet her contradictions only added to her charm. Isabel's agitation over the affairs ... — Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... sat in the rear seat. Two small lamps served to light the way through the Stygian labyrinth of trees and rocks. O'Dowd had an electric pocket torch with which to pick his way ... — Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... amusing the men of business, and ignorant, with hard words, or employing the ingenious and idle in intricate disputes about unintelligible terms, and holding them perpetually entangled in that endless labyrinth. Besides, there is no such way to gain admittance, or give defence to strange and absurd doctrines, as to guard them round about with legions of obscure, doubtful, and undefined words. Which yet make these ... — An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... consequently, comfortable billets have to be exchanged for broken down shacks in the forward area. Not many days after our men had taken Vimy Ridge, Divisional Headquarters had to move up to the Arras-Bethune road and occupy a chalk cave which was known as the Labyrinth. It had once been the scene of fierce fighting between the French and the Germans. Deep down, in passages scooped out of the chalk were the various offices of the division and the billets for the staff. The place was very ... — The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... by some considered the preliminary for the overthrow of the Mussulman power of Ghadames, I am the scout, the spy into "the nakedness of the land;" others think I pollute the sacred city of Ghadames with my infidel carcass. Yesterday I got also entangled in the labyrinth of dark streets, some of which are often turned into mosques at certain hours of the day. Of this the people complained to the Rais, who sent me word to be careful. I replied, I was an utter stranger, and did not know what I was about; in fact, the ... — Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... this chapter was one of the sources of his regrets. It is in fact a mere tangle. The Second and the Third Crusades are so jumbled together, that it is only a reader who knows the subject very well who can find his way through the labyrinth. Gibbon seems at this point, a thing very unusual with him, to have become impatient with his subject, and to have wished to hurry over it. "A brief parallel," he says, "may save the repetition of a tedious narrative." The result of this ... — Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... was lost he knew! A single glance at his judges made him certain of it, and from this moment his features wore a calm and contemptuous smile, an unchangeable expression of scorn. With an ironic curiosity he followed his judges through the labyrinth of artfully contrived captious questions by which they hoped to entangle him; occasionally he gave himself, as it were for his own amusement, the appearance of voluntarily being caught in their nets, until he finally by a side spring tore their whole web to pieces and laughingly ... — The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... sought to bewilder the youth with an exuberance of words, so he went on speaking of laws and decrees, and talked so much that instead of confusing the youth, he came very near to entangling himself in a labyrinth of citations. ... — The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... must, perforce, retrace my steps at this point to many other matters, which I have left far behind me in going on at once to the end of this financial labyrinth. And first let me tell what happened to that monstrous personage, Alberoni, how he fell from the lofty pinnacle of dower on which he had placed himself, and lost all consideration and all importance in the fall. The story is mightily ... — The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... but this new sound was different from either, though somewhat like both. There it was again. He must go and see what it could mean. In a moment, he was flitting beneath the trees, threading his way through the leafy labyrinth, in the direction of the strange noise. As he alighted on a tall rock, which reared itself abruptly from the hurly-burly of broken ground, before him he saw two strange objects, the like of which he had never seen, and of which his ... — The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... There were thousands of discrete thoughts, of course. Millions of them, collected over a lifetime. But all at once he did not know his way through that labyrinth and his thoughts kept whirling back to the one Margot Dennison wanted as if, somehow, she could pluck it from ... — Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... we made up our minds to hurry on, thinking to come upon a stream; a vain hope!—the rocks soon came to an end, and were succeeded by a perfect labyrinth of trees. If there had only been a little grass, we should have set to work to construct our hut; for the dry heat, blown up by the south wind, rendered exertion ... — Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... appointed Pedro de Margarite his captain-general, he put again to sea. After following the southern shore of Cuba for some days, he steered southward, and discovered the Island of Jamaica, which he named Santiago. He then resumed his exploration of the Cuban coast, threading his way through a labyrinth of islets supposed to be the Morant Keys, which he named the Garden of the Queen, and after coasting westward for many days he became convinced that he had discovered the mainland, and called Perez de Luna, the notary, to draw up a document ... — Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... self-willed persons fairly pitted against each other in practical questions; the logic may indeed be ridiculous, but such people as our Hero and Leander find no cases under the sun where something is to be done, yet where little can be said. And these wretched wranglings, this interminable labyrinth of petty disputes, waste and crumble away that high ideal of truth and tenderness, which the real, deep sympathies and actual worth of their characters entitled them to form. Their married life is not what they ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... wake this dear bedfellow merely because he himself could not sleep. He clasped his hands behind his head, and by a prolonged effort of will remained motionless. But insomnia was exciting every nerve in his body; each memory seemed to light up the entire labyrinth of his brain; each sense-message came inward like a bomb-shell, reaching with its explosion the highest as well as the deepest centers, discharging circuits of swift fire through every area of associated ideas, and so completely shattering the ... — The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... again and continued on her errand; crossed Tottenham Court Road, plunged into a labyrinth of blocked alleys, of dark courts, and, ... — The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... two hours to wait before going aboard the boat for Re. So I made a tour of the town. It is certainly a queer city, La Rochelle, with strong characteristics of its own streets tangled like a labyrinth, sidewalks running under endless arcaded galleries like those of the Rue de Rivoli, but low, mysterious, built as if to form a suitable setting for conspirators and making a striking background for those old-time wars, the savage heroic wars of religion. It is indeed the typical ... — Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... several others, place Clement next to Peter. Irenaeus and Eusebius set Anacletus before him; Epiphanius and Optatus, both Anacletus and Cletus; Augustinus and Damasus, with others, make Anacletus, Cletus, and Linus all to precede him. What way shall we find to extricate ourselves out of this labyrinth?" [65:1] The different lists preserved attest that there was no such continuous and homogeneous line of bishops as the doctrine of the apostolical succession implies. When Irenaeus speaks of Polycarp as having "received his appointment ... — The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... just within the folding doors upon a huge mat of bison skins. In front of them lay a great square court, paved with many-coloured marbles laid out in a labyrinth of arabesque design. In the centre a high fountain of carved jade shot five thin feathers of spray into the air, four of which curved towards each corner of the court to descend into broad marble basins, while the fifth mounted straight up to an immense height, ... — The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Chargeboeuf had left her. Thus, the overwhelming temptation which commonly causes women to sin had hitherto been absent. For if there are, after all, some women who make straight for unfaithfulness, are there not many more who cling to hope, and do not fall till they have wandered long in a labyrinth of ... — The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... on few points of common interest between them did their opinions agree: and that this difference had its root deep in the conformation of their respective minds, needs but a glance through the rich, glittering labyrinth of ... — My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... is the only fundamental rule that can be established, for the attempt to prescribe for such a commander a special course of conduct in every case that may arise, when these cases may be infinitely varied, would involve him in an inextricable labyrinth of instructions. As the object and limits of this Summary do not allow me to enter upon the consideration of such details, I can only refer my readers to the best works which do treat ... — The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... that is taking place is the gradual adoption of the new agriculture. "Book-farmin'" is still decried, and many "perfessers" have a rocky road to travel in their attempts to guide the masses through the labyrinth of scientific knowledge that has been constructed during the last decade or two. This difficulty has not been wholly the farmer's fault—the scientist would often have been more persuasive had his wings been clipped. But there is ... — Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... set about this important operation so slowly, with so little skill, and with so much effort, as to move more experienced workers to mirth or pity, according to their disposition. Those who find amusement in watching novices stumble and strain and waste their time in the labyrinth of catalogues, neglecting those which are valuable, and thoroughly exploring those which are useless, remember that they also have passed through similar experiences: let every one have his turn. Those who observe with ... — Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... could she not put her hand in mine, any night, and let me take her away from this haunted place? Why, at least, not come to me in the light, and let me see her face to face? I was a man groping in a labyrinth while outside something precious ... — The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... incline to where their sleepy black chairmen lay on the grass, waiting; and presently the two double chairs wheeled away toward that amusing maze of jungle pathways cut through the impenetrable hammock, and popularly known as the labyrinth. ... — The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... had been all-powerful, I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her with any attributes save those she possessed. I mention this in this place, of a fixed purpose, because it is the clew by which I am to be followed into my poor labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional notion of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her ... — Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... torrent, and his own danger. He thought only of that frantically clinging man. He reached the edge of the stream, leaped upon the nearest logs, and, with the agility of a wildcat, threaded his way through that terrible labyrinth of grinding, ... — The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... X. had a more legitimate occupation we know, for it was that flippant man whose outrageous comment on the Home Office Administration is popularly supposed to have sent one Home Secretary to his grave, who traced the Deptford murderers through a labyrinth of perjury and who brought to book Sir Julius Waglite though he had covered his trail of defalcation through the balance ... — The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... Bernese Oberland range, and further to the northeast the long range of the Tyrolean Alps, are recognized with their white snow-caps glittering in the bright sunlight. The forest of pinnacles beneath our feet, mingled with a labyrinth of ornamented spires, statues, flying buttresses, and Gothic fretwork, piled all about the roof, is seen through a gauze-like ... — Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... hall. The cellars underneath this palace, where the wine and the grain and the olive-oil were stored, had been so vast and had so greatly impressed the first Greek visitors, that they had given rise to the story of the "labyrinth," the name which we give to a structure with so many complicated passages that it is almost impossible to find our way out, once the front door has closed ... — The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... nature of their work. Alas! their clear and powerful intellects had been trained early in the severest exercises; they could not be misled by any of the sophistries of their opponents; but, on the other hand, never having been misled they knew not the thread of the labyrinth as one who ... — The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... pain and torture that so mysteriously has fallen upon him,—whose causes do not, so far as he can discern, lie in his own conduct, but in some impenetrable mystery of misapprehensions and misunderstandings; a tangled labyrinth to which he is denied the clue? Can he, indeed, facing all this torture and tragedy, with all that made the joy and light of life withdrawn,—can he encounter this form of tribulation with serene poise, with unfaltering purpose, with an intense and exalted faith? It is "not ... — The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... knowledge.' At his throne the lines of all science terminate; above all, the science that has man for its subject. Of all history, for example, rightly read, how is He the burden and the glory! Otherwise taken, it is a more than Cretan labyrinth. The Christian spirit, besides, raising the soul to the loftiest planes of thought, giving it the highest communions, bringing before it the grandest objects, and securing to all its machinery the most harmonious ... — The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... you so much as now. I never saw duty so plainly. Dearest, in one way I suffer for you, but still I was never so happy. I have grasped the end of the clue that will surely lead us safely through the labyrinth, no matter what life brings. You will see, mamma dear, after a while you will see. Don't go back. ... — Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... threshold of a new epoch is especially poignant. Inevitably those forty years before the fire of 1914 will go down in her history as a period apart. Already for her freshmen the old college hall is a mythical labyrinth of memory and custom to which they have no clue. New happiness will come to the hill above the lake, new beauty will crown it, new memories will hallow it, but—they will all be new. And if the coming generations of students are to realize that ... — The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... his own camp, and the tents of the very regiment from which he had sent an officer to test the wagon-master's report. All the scouts had been so deceived by the tangle of wooded hills and circling roads that they fully believed they were still miles from our position; and, bewildered in the labyrinth, they were sure the tents they saw were the enemy's and not ours. The march had been through rain and mist, through dripping thickets and on muddy roads, and the first impulse was wrath at the erring scouts; but the ludicrous side soon prevailed, and officers and men joined in hearty ... — Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... learn—and I have no doubt that we have a great deal to learn, about the composition, the structure, the authorship, the date of these ancient books—I take leave to say that the unlearned reader, who recognises that they all converge on Jesus Christ, has hold of the clue of the labyrinth, and has come nearer to the marrow of the books than the most learned investigators, who see all manner of things besides in them, and do not see that 'they that went before cried, saying, Hosanna! Blessed be He that cometh in the ... — Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... the nearness to danger, the chances one way or the other—would have intoxicated me. I used to feel as though I was dancing on a volcano and daring it to explode. The more twistings and turnings there were to the labyrinth, the greater glory it was to get out. Maggie darlin', you have before you a mournful spectacle—the degeneration of Nancy Olden. It isn't that she's lost courage. It's only that she used to be able to think of only one thing, and now—What do you suppose ... — In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... subject was investigated, the more perplexed it would appear, and was on the point of forming a resolution to go to heaven in my own way, without meddling or involving myself in the inextricable labyrinth of controversial dispute, when I received and perused this excellent treatise, which finally cleared up the mists which my ignorance had conjured around me, and clearly ... — The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... are dark and nocturnal. If they are to be easy, they must be able to hide, to be hidden in lairs and caves of darkness. Going through these tiny chaotic backways of the village was like venturing through the labyrinth made by furtive creatures, who watched from out of another element. And I was pale, and clear, and evanescent, like the light, and they were dark, and close, and constant, like ... — Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... races to divide the whole world into Greeks and Barbarians is so deeply engrained in human nature that not even Christianity has been able altogether to remove it. Thus when we cast our first glance into the labyrinth of the religions of the world, all seems to us darkness, self-deceit, and vanity. It sounds like a degradation of the very name of religion to apply it to the wild ravings of Hindu Yogins or the blank blasphemies of Chinese Buddhists. But as we slowly and patiently wend ... — Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... edge of a tract in her life, in which the real meaning of Taking Thought had never been known. It was the last hour of experience she ever enjoyed with a mind entirely free from a knowledge of that labyrinth into which she stepped immediately afterwards—to continue a perplexed course along its mazes for the greater portion of ... — Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... the dark eyes had brightened. Elsie had the happy temperament which is charmed with every little bit of novelty that it can find. She loved, as she had often said, to investigate things, and always caught eagerly at the slightest clue which might lead to a delightful labyrinth of mystery. ... — A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... a labyrinth. Stephen Knight abandoned all attempt at keeping a mental clue before he had reached the drawing-room. Nevill led him there by way of many tile-paved corridors, lit by hanging Arab lamps suspended from roofs of arabesqued ... — The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... uncrossed his arms, and shook his head slowly. The narrative of the events in Sambir, related from the point of view of the astute statesman, the sense of which had been caught here and there by his inattentive ears, had been yet like a thread to guide him out of the sombre labyrinth of his thoughts; and now he had come to the end of it, out of the tangled past into the pressing necessities of the present. With the palms of his hands on his knees, his elbows squared out, he looked down on Babalatchi who ... — An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... in which we slept was remarkably large, although it could not easily be perceived amidst the labyrinth of rocks where it was pitched; yet our host was kept awake ... — Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... principal residence of our sovereigns, and often said that it was a pity that the great fire had not spared the old portico of St. Paul's and the stately arcades of Gresham's Bourse, and taken in exchange that ugly old labyrinth of dingy brick and plastered timber. It might now be hoped that we should have a Louvre. Before the ashes of the old palace were cold, plans for a new palace were circulated and discussed. But William, who ... — The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... into the pigmies' little camp towards evening and see how my patient is. Mak evidently thinks we mean him to go there now." It proved that they were some distance beyond where they had entered the woody labyrinth on the previous day, but their guide was at no loss, and after about an hour's walking the black set up a long, low, penetrating, owl-like cry, which before long was answered from apparently a great distance, but which must have been close at hand, for before ... — Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... through the labyrinth of Soho and on the brink of Oxford Street. Mr. Ricardo stopped again with his hand spread out flat upon his breast in a gesture not ... — The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... all that was, or is, or is to be— 230 The only thing common to all mankind, So different in their births, tongues, sexes, natures, Hues, features, climes, times, feelings, intellects,[ao] Without one point of union save in this— To which we tend, for which we're born, and thread The labyrinth of mystery, called life. ... — The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... infinite patience slowly disentangled the chaotic labyrinth of threads again, and then exclaimed ... — The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... Whatever were his feelings, his desperate position suffered no halting. The storm was ready to break at any moment. In an instant he might be a wretched fugitive, with terror before him and infamy howling behind. But one way led out of this labyrinth. He had resolutely planted his feet in that way, determined to tread it to the end. He did tread it to the end, and he came ... — Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... which is seen from the Piazza di Spagna, is a bare, massive corner pile between two streets. And Pierre, hampered by his faulty Italian, quite lost himself in it, climbing to floors whence he had to descend again, and finding himself in a perfect labyrinth of stairs, passages, and halls. At last he luckily came across the Cardinal's secretary, an amiable young priest, whom he had already seen at the Boccanera mansion. "Why, yes," said the secretary, "I think that his Eminence will receive you. You did well to come at this hour, ... — The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... their leaders in the Empire State. "After living a dozen years in New York," wrote Oliver Wolcott, who had been one of Washington's Cabinet, and was afterwards governor of Connecticut, "I don't pretend to comprehend their politics. It is a labyrinth of wheels within wheels, and it is understood only by the managers." Wolcott referred to the early decades of the last century, when Clintonian and Bucktail, gradually absorbing the Federalists, severed the old Republican party into warring factions. In later years, ... — A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... humble! I fancied that Bull-headed Minotaur—BUMBLE, Would fall to my hand like Pasiphae's monster To Theseus. But oh! every step that I on stir Bemuddles me more. I did think myself clever, But fear from the Centre I'm farther than ever, Oh, this is a Labyrinth! Worse than the Cretan! Yet shall the new Theseus admit himself beaten? Forbid it, great Progress! Your votary I, Ma'am, But in this Big Maze it seems small use to try, Ma'am. Mere roundaboutation's not Progress. Get forward? Why eastward, and westward and southward, and nor'ward, Big barriers stop ... — Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... tells us that the ruins "consist of a wilderness of walls, forming great inclosures, each containing a labyrinth of ruined dwellings and other edifices." As our space is limited, we will describe but one of these inclosed spaces. This is a view of what is usually called a palace, but this certainly is an absurd ... — The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... him that it was an island, although no man had ever seen the end of it; but Columbus did not believe them, and sailed westward in the belief that he would presently come upon the country and city of Cathay. Soon he found himself in the wonderful labyrinth of islets and sandbanks off the south coast; and because of the wonderful colours of their flowers and climbing plants he called them Jardin de la Reina or Queen's Garden. Dangerous as the navigation through these islands was, he ... — Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... of man, began to draw her as with cords. The pillar of smoke was now risen into some stream of moving air; it began to lean out sideways in a pennon; and thereupon, as though the change had been a summons, Seraphina plunged once more into the labyrinth ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The story the three boys told of their two encounters with the Germans had a quieting effect upon Pierre and Jean. They realized that perhaps all the enemy had not been cleared from this great labyrinth ... — Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... that they would not ride through the canon in daylight. The natural trail through the Agua Fria was along the western wall; a trail that he had avoided, working his toilsome way down the eastern side through a labyrinth of brush and rock that had concealed him from view. A few hundred yards below his hasty camp a sandy arroyo ... — Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... had succeeded the myriad sounds that go up from the noisiest city in the world. Charles of Durazzo, quickly walking away from the square of the Correggi, first casting one last look of vengeance at the Castel Nuovo, plunged into the labyrinth of dark streets that twist and turn, cross and recross one another, in this ancient city, and after a quarter of an hour's walking, that was first slow, then very rapid, arrived at his ducal palace near the church of San Giovanni ... — CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... eastward, ran the swift and shallow Platte, dotted with green-garbed islands. This river Washington Irving called "the most magnificent and the most useless of streams" "The islands," he wrote, "have the appearance of a labyrinth of groves floating on the waters. Their extraordinary position gives an air of youth and loveliness to the whole scene. If to this be added the undulations of the river, the waving of the verdure, the alternations of light and shade, and the purity of the atmosphere, some idea ... — Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... the inside of their dress, and then walked quietly out, pulled the door to, but did not attempt to close it, walked quietly down the lane, took the first turning, turned again four or five times, and then quickened their pace to a fast walk, and in ten minutes emerged from the labyrinth of lanes they had been traversing. Up to this time not a word had been spoken from the moment they ... — At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... useful for some days on their way north by river and lake, their journey being through a labyrinth of waterways, where again and again they made halts in likely places to try for the object ... — To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... from the land of their captivity and death. My friend, the Rev. Mr. Walker, told me, that being once upon a tour in the south of Scotland, probably about forty years since, he had the bad luck to involve himself in the labyrinth of passages and tracks which cross, in every direction, the extensive waste called Lochar Moss, near Dumfries, out of which it is scarcely possible for a stranger to extricate himself; and there was no small difficulty in procuring a ... — Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... room we go down some ladders and over a bridge, and then we enter what is called the "Labyrinth," where the passage turns and twists on itself in a very abrupt manner, and where the roof is so low that all of us, except those who are very short indeed, must stoop very low. When we get through this passage, which ... — Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... leisurely gloom. A dim starlight pervaded rather than shone in the sky; Nature seemed somnolent and gravely meditative. It brooded as broods a man who is seeking his way through a labyrinth of ideas to a conclusion still evading him. This sense of cogitation enveloped land and sea, and was as tangible ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is Peace. Not Peace through the medium of War; not Peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not Peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle in all parts of the empire; not Peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing ... — Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... outranks every other state, except Colorado, in the facility and directness with which its mountain recesses may be reached. Upwards of 50,000 miles have been already completed, presenting altogether a labyrinth of broad thorofares, boulevards, and country highways. The most important highways built and maintained at state expense are the Pacific, the Sunset, the Inland Empire, the Olympic ... — The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... step was, alas! irretrievable, but for that very reason his research undeniably disinterested) had discovered himself to have quarrelled with received opinions only to embrace errors, to have left the direction tracked out for him on the high road of honourable exertion, only to deviate into a labyrinth, where when he had wandered till his head was giddy, his best good fortune was finally to have found his way out again, too late for prudence though not too late for conscience or for truth! Time spent in such delay is time won: for manhood in the meantime is ... — Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... find the way in this church, which resembles a labyrinth. Now we are obliged to ascend a flight of stairs, now again to descend. The architect certainly deserves great praise for having managed so cleverly to unite all these holy places under one roof; and St. Helena has performed a ... — A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... as the times of the Pharaohs? Let us, then, be thankful for what we have, and take the beginnings of history in the mixed form of truth and fiction, following the lead of learned historians who are and long have been trying to trace the true clue of fact in the labyrinth of poetic story ... — The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... authority, and obedience was obligatory. The word rendered 'statutes' means something engraved, or written, and recalls the tables inscribed by God's finger. 'Judgments' are the divine decisions or sentences as to what is right, and therefore the infallible clue to the else bewildering labyrinth. To obey these commandments, to read that solemn writing, and to accept these decisions as our guides, is man's perfection and blessedness; and for that God's felt presence ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the voice of their rhapsodists together with their poets and romancers, kings became gods and their adventures of gallantry were transformed into immortal allegories. According to M. Chompre, licentiate in law, the classic author of the Dictionary of Mythology, the labyrinth was 'an enclosure planted with trees and adorned with buildings arranged in such a way that when a young man once entered, he could no more find his way out.' Here and there flowery thickets were presented ... — The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... into dark and untried paths, and the commodiousness of that road which had at first been taken, were sufficient reasons for having hitherto suspended my examination of the different branches of this labyrinth. Now my customary road was no longer practicable, and another was to be carefully explored. For this end, on my next journey to the mountain, I determined to take with me a lamp, and unravel this darksome maze: this project I resolved to execute ... — Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... thought upon the odd sensation with which I hesitated over his unopened letter; and now, remembering how the breaking of that seal resembled, in my life, the breaking open of a portal through which I entered a labyrinth, or rather a catacomb, where for many days I groped and stumbled, looking for light, and was, in a manner, lost, hearing strange sounds, witnessing imperfectly strange sights, and, at last, arriving at a dreadful chamber—a sad sort ... — Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... in typical western orthodoxy and in typical western politics: but both depend on the idea of a divinity transcendent, different from ourselves, a deity that disappears. Certainly the most sagacious creeds may suggest that we should pursue God into deeper and deeper rings of the labyrinth of our own ego. But only we of Christendom have said that we should hunt God like an eagle upon the mountains: and we have killed all monsters ... — Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... choice. Fortuitously initiated development is a condition sine qua non of Darwinism and Weismannism. For any one, who has studied the work of Eimer and still adheres to this fundamental error of Darwinism, there is no possible escape from the labyrinth into which he has allowed the hand of Darwinism ... — At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... expressions as "immortal," "imperishable," and in flowery tributes. This one shall not indulge in them, although to no one could they more fittingly be applied than to Leopold Zunz, a pioneer in the labyrinth of science, and the architect of many a stately palace adorning the path but lately discovered by himself. Surely, such an one deserves the cordial recognition and ... — Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... turning over the leaves till I came to Don Juan, I read it through, and began Childe Harold, but the candle expired. I struck out my hands through the palpable darkness, to find the bed without disturbing mother, whose soul was calmly threading the labyrinth of sleep. I finished Childe Harold early in the morning, though, and went down to breakfast, ... — The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... magistrate, was a prey at that moment to the most cruel perplexity. M. Galpin was utterly overcome by consternation. He sat at the little table, on which he had been writing, his head resting on his hands, thinking, apparently, how he could find a way out of this labyrinth. ... — Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... ever after discovered, nor was anything certain respecting her mysterious wooer detected or even suspected; no clue whereby to trace the intricacies of the labyrinth and to arrive at a distinct conclusion was to be found. But an incident occurred, which, though it will not be received by our rational readers as at all approaching to evidence upon the matter, nevertheless produced a strong and a lasting impression ... — The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... dwelt. Still, even as she went on, she began to be doubtful whether she had taken the right one; and when she came out by a small temple, which she certainly had not seen before, she knew not which way to go, for the streets here crossed each other in a perfect labyrinth, and she was soon obliged to confess to her companion that she had lost her road. In the morning she had trusted herself to Andreas's knowledge of the town, and while talking eagerly to him had paid no heed to ... — Uarda • Georg Ebers
... crusted with golden lichens; its front, long and low, is picturesquely diversified with oriel windows, gable ends, and shadowy angles. Behind is a steep, craggy range of woody hills; in front, a terraced garden of great extent; full of old-fashioned bowers, and labyrinth-like walks, and sloping down to a noble park, whose oaks and beeches are of wonderful beauty, and whose turf is soft as velvet and greener than any artist ... — The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... diaphanous mist that seemed to suffuse all objects. The gnarled and twisted branches of pear-trees, gouty with old age, bent so low as to impede any progress under their formal avenues; out of a tangled labyrinth of figtrees, here and there a single plume of feathery palm swam in a drowsy upper radiance. The shrubbery around him, of some unknown variety, exhaled a faint perfume; he put out his hand to grasp what appeared to be a young catalpa, and found it the trunk of an enormous ... — The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... of the rooms of the building, hidden under a blanket. I entered the corral through the back door of the house, caught and saddled my horse, and then led him out to the street. This was a very laughable manner of leave-taking. The house was cut up into a labyrinth of small rooms, just large enough for a horse to turn around in, and the doors were low and narrow. As I could not find the outer door, I led my horse successively into every room in ... — Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... was the style of procedure with which he was familiar and in full sympathy. Here was action supplanting stagnation—something definite succeeding the long nerve-wracking period of conjecture which appeared to lead nowhere save into a labyrinth of endless discussion. ... — Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... prove that no Northeast Passage existed by way of the Straits of Fuca, Vancouver headed inland, close to the south shore, where craggy heights offered some guidance through the labyrinth of islands and fog. Eight miles inside the straits he anchored for the night. The next morning the sun rose over one of the fairest scenes of the Pacific coast—an arm of the sea placid as a lake, gemmed by countless craggy ... — Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... indications of a truer individual judgment, (discoverable throughout by one who knows the author's private worth, and is himself happily in possession of the clue by which to escape from this tangled labyrinth:)—these escape the common reader. To him, all is ... — Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... of her chamber. Six boats attended filled with her retinue, habited in russet damask and blue embroidered satin, tasseled and spangled with silver; their bonnets cloth of silver with green feathers. The queen received her in a sumptuous pavilion in the labyrinth of the gardens. This pavilion, which was of cloth of gold and purple velvet, was made in the form of a castle, probably in allusion to the kingdom of Castile; its sides were divided in compartments, which bore alternately the fleur de lis in silver, and the pomegranate, the bearing ... — Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... gently an inch further across the car. Each was run by two white Americans, or at least what would prove such when they reached the shower-bath in their quarters—the craneman far out on the shovel arm, the engineer within the machine itself with a labyrinth of levers demanding his unbroken attention. Then there was of course a gang of negroes, firemen and the ... — Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... their treatment of Eric from their attitude toward other Chief Magistrates, from Washington down. Realizing that Eric was an honorable man trying to do the right thing by the people, no editor or cartoonist dreamed of accusing him of an unworthy motive or an unwise act. As for the tariff labyrinth, a matter of some trouble to certain Presidents pulled in all directions at once by warring constituencies, Eric settled that in a jiffy. And the best of it was that everybody was satisfied, importers and exporters; East, West, and Middle; farmers, manufacturers, ... — In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... He had now gained a spot in which improvement had altered the landmarks. The superb broad thoroughfare continued where once it had vanished abrupt in a labyrinth of courts and alleys. But the way was not hard to find. He turned a little towards the left, recognizing, with admiring interest, in the gay, white, would-be Grecian edifice, with its French grille, bronzed, gilded, the transformed Museum, in ... — What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... are the others? I hate this house. It is a regular labyrinth. Every one is always scattered through the twenty-six enormous rooms; one never can find a soul. [Rings] Ask my wife and ... — Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... long labyrinth had run,[s] Nor made atonement when he did amiss, Had sighed to many though he loved but one,[t][24] And that loved one, alas! could ne'er be his. Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss Had been pollution unto aught so chaste; Who soon had left her charms for vulgar ... — The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... that since the final perfection of this translator's power, all the men of finest patience and finest hand have stayed content with it;—the subtlest draughtsmanship has perished from the canvas,[Z] and sought more popular praise in this labyrinth of disciplined language, and more or less dulled or degraded thought. And, in sum, I know no cause more direct or fatal, in the destruction of the great schools of European art, than the ... — Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... slowly elaborating their toils, much as the ant-lion excavates its funnel in the sand and lies in wait at the bottom for its victim. Suppose that no one strays, after all, into that carefully constructed labyrinth? Suppose that the ant-lion dies of hunger and thirst in her pit? Such things may be, but if any heedless creature once enters in, it never comes out. All the wires which could be pulled to induce action on the captain's part were tried; appeals were made to the secret interested motives that ... — Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... At a stroke the despairing wish for a martyr's death had vanished. He no longer wished to die; he wanted to live and be free. Freedom was awaiting him, there in the forest towards which his hurrying feet were carrying him. How would they ever be able to find him in that thick labyrinth of young pine-trees? He would break through the undergrowth at the forest's edge and take a lateral direction; then he would lie crouching on the ground and let the bullets whistle ... — 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... lonesome cavern, with the sea beating upon its roof and the air coming salt and humid to the tongue, and the echo of distant breakers in your ears, and always the night and the doubt of it? Can you follow me from grotto to grotto and labyrinth to labyrinth, stumbling often by the way, catching at the lantern's dancing rays, calling one to the other, "All's well—lead on"? Aye, I doubt that you can. These things must be seen with a man's own eyes, heard with his own ears, ... — The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... of light, such as the comet darts when it is apparent. He divided it, and said to me, 'Take thou this thread, and bind it strongly on the thumb of thy right hand, and by this I will lead thee through the infernal labyrinth of punishments.' ... — Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... the leading facts of this narrative, Waverley was easily enabled to apply the clue which they afforded to other mazes of the labyrinth in which he had been engaged. To Rose Bradwardine, then, he owed the life which he now thought he could willingly have laid down to serve her. A little reflection convinced him, however, that to live for her sake was more convenient and agreeable, and that, ... — Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... that Fletcher Monk had been assigned before the descent on Mars was a little tight-fitting for his comfort. He wondered what life would be like in this eternal bulky costume. But he was comforted by the picture of the Mars Colony he had received back on Earth; a labyrinth of airtight interiors, burrowing their way over and into the planet, served by gigantic oxygen tanks. The network of buildings had been expanding every year, until now it covered some hundred miles ... — Heart • Henry Slesar
... soon," answered Lord Evandale, "and we may experience the same disappointment as Belzoni, when he believed himself to be the first to enter the tomb of Menephtha Seti, and found, after he had traversed a labyrinth of passages, walls, and chambers, an empty sarcophagus with a broken cover; for the treasure-seekers had reached the royal tomb through one of their soundings driven in at another ... — The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... in the silent charnel-house of oblivion. We peruse the past, like a map of pleasing or melancholy recollections, and observe lines crossing and re-crossing each other in a thousand directions; some spots are almost blank; others faintly traced; and the rest a confused and perplexed labyrinth. A thousand feelings that, in their day and hour, agitated our bosoms, are now forgotten; a thousand hopes, and joys, and apprehensions, and fears, are vanished without a trace. Schemes, which cost us ... — The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... an exercise that brought her nothing but a feeling of bewilderment. Having no sense of locality for this kind of labyrinth, she could only turn round and round confusedly. All she could do, when from the drooping of her father's lids she feared he was falling off to sleep, leaving the question unsettled, was ... — The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... the Princess, "and all the western side of the castle. 'Tis there the search must be making by Manfred and the strangers; but hie thee to the opposite quarter. Yonder behind that forest to the east is a chain of rocks, hollowed into a labyrinth of caverns that reach to the sea coast. There thou mayst lie concealed, till thou canst make signs to some vessel to put on shore, and take thee off. Go! heaven be thy guide!—and sometimes ... — The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... unable to agree with a recently made statement published in The Labyrinth, Gerzeh and Marghuneh, by Prof. Flinders Petrie, E. A. Wainwright and E. Mackey, p. 6, which runs: "The fact of the weft not being at right angles to the warp, if one may conclude by the fabrics, does not, I think, ... — Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... felt that the scene accorded with her present state of mind. It was the last glimmering of twilight, with a full moon, over which clouds continually flitted. Where am I wandering, God of Mercy! she thought; she alluded to the wanderings of her mind. In what a labyrinth am I lost! What miseries have I already encountered—and what a ... — Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... need for me to repeat what every one knows, the fact that our epoch is extremely complex, agitated and disturbed. In the midst of this labyrinth in which we are feeling our way with such difficulty, who does not look back regretfully to the days when life was more simple, when it was possible to walk towards a goal, mysterious and unknown though it might be, by ... — George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... back, by these reefs, which closed in behind us so near together that they seemed to form a single chain of rocks. At the same time the hurricane was so broken by the rocks in our rear that the further we sailed through this ever-changing labyrinth of projecting rocks, the calmer the sea became, until at last the vessel's progress was perfectly smooth and quiet as we entered one of those long sea- roads running through a giant ravine—for such the Norwegian fjords ... — My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the right were all negative. She neglected the gift of God. She would abandon it, always in a safe and shady spot and always with its covers smoothly tucked in, its wabbly parasol adjusted at the proper angle, and always with a large piece of wood tied to the perambulator's handle by a labyrinth of elastic strings. These Mary had drawn from abandoned garters, sling shots, and other mysterious sources, and they allowed the wood to jerk unsteadily up and down, and to soothe the unsuspecting Theodora with a spasmodic rhythm very like the ministrations ... — New Faces • Myra Kelly
... with the fishmonger, saw the master at first refusing, then gradually giving reluctant assent to some demand. Next Phormio was half leading, half carrying the fugitive aboard the ship, guiding him through a labyrinth of bales, jars, and cordage, and pointing to a hatchway ladder, illumined by a ... — A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... it. Only when, after his death, the headstone had been brought forth with shouting, Grace unto it, this following legend was written, recording all who had part or lot in the labour, within the middle of the labyrinth then inlaid in the pavement of the nave. You must read it trippingly on the tongue: it was rhymed gaily for you by pure French gaiety, not the least like that of ... — Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... drew him aside to a place opposite to where the conspirators had just disappeared. The notary mechanically followed through a labyrinth of dark corridors and secret staircases, quite at a loss how to account for the sudden change that had come over his master—crossing one of the ante-chambers in the castle, they came upon Andre, who joyfully accosted them; grasping the hand of his cousin Duras in his affectionate ... — CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... beasts that dwelt therein? According to tradition, these men surveyed the territory, and then crossed over (those of them at least whom the beasts had spared) to the lower peninsula, where, the pleasing variety of swamps being added to the labyrinth of pines and sand-hills, they soon lost themselves, and to this day have never found what they lost. As the gleam of a camp-fire is occasionally seen, and now and then a distant shout heard by the hunter passing along ... — Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson |