"Cryptical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... can only announce the project as a stimulus to unemployed aspirants, and as a hint to fortunate collectors, to prepare for an exhibition of their cryptic treasures.—On a future occasion I shall describe the plan of construction which seems more eligible—shall briefly notice the scattered materials which it may be expedient to consult, whether in public depositories, or in private hands—and shall make ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... ugly, little, crosseyed commercial traveler; she was a pretty, little creature who looked as innocent and was as merry as a child; we all vied in paying her attentions and waiting on her like slaves, the husband always smiling a cryptic smile. After they had left it was hinted they were not married at all; the oldest hands had been taken in.... One afternoon I met Dolly, the commercial traveler's wife, and she stopped and spoke to me. I remembered what I had heard and ventured on some pleasantry at which she laughed, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... troops to Hunter-Weston as I am bound to do. Old Oyama cooled his brain during the battle of the Shaho by shooting pigeons sitting on Chinese chimneys. King Richard before Bosworth saw ghosts. My own dark hours pass more easily as I make my cryptic jottings in pedlar's French. The detachment of the writer comes over me; calms down the tumult of the mind and paves a path towards the refuge of sleep. No order is to be issued until I get reports and requests. I can't ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... the same limestone plain add something to the mystery that overhangs all the rest. The first, at Lennan in Monaghan, is marked with a curious cryptic design, suggesting a clue, yet yielding none. There is a like script on the cromlech at Castlederg in Tyrone, if indeed the markings were ever the record of some thought to be remembered, and not mere ornament. The chambered cromlech of Lisbellaw ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... of the Gnosis has selected the former." It is possibly showing gratitude for small mercies, because our friend has saved his reason, but is blood-guilty in the matter of common sense. Meanwhile, the widowed Gnosis illuminates its Ichabod in the cryptic quartiers of Paris, Lyons, and ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... on the Drama." This cryptic passage refers, I imagine, to a translation by John Black, afterwards the editor of the Morning Chronicle, of August Von Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, 2 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... observed, "that is impossible to a man who tries to be one," and then, oblivious of any construction she might choose to put upon this cryptic utterance, he strolled moodily ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... another. They repeated vaguely this most commonplace of messages. As the final result of their strenuous enterprise, these cryptic words seemed pitifully inadequate. Quest's face darkened. He crumpled the paper in ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cowardice I mean all superstitions, premonitions, and other forms of mental paralysis or panic caused by what is vague. To heed signs, omens, cryptic sayings, and all talk of fate and luck, is nothing but mental dirt. I have seen many bright minds sullied by it. It is worthy only of the ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... other. No reek of alcohol met his nostrils, as with the boatswain, but, none the less Little Billy's cryptic jargon confirmed his suspicions. Also drunk, he reflected. The revered and gentle old mate of the brig Cohasset would have cause for grief when his two ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the house she gave me that arrow she used to wear in her hair to hand over to you as a keepsake and also to prevent you, she said, from dreaming of her. This message sounds rather cryptic." ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... and stared before him—his thoughts were on Val. "He's got to look after his mother," he said, "he's got no time for drilling and that, with that father of his." This cryptic saying produced ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Henry Fenn's bibulous habits became accepted matters to a wider and wider circle and Tom Van Dorn still had his way with the girls while the town grinned at the two young men in gay reproval. But Amos Adams through his familiar spirits got solemn, cryptic messages for the young men—from Tom's mother and Henry's father. Amos, abashed, but never afraid, used to deliver these messages with incidental admonitions of his own—kind, gentle and gorgeously ineffective. Then he would return to his office ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... But the cryptic threat contained in the last words was never carried out. The dinner was perfect, and Owen was back in his old position as something between a brother and a lover, full of admiring great laughs for Sandy and boyish confidences. There was not ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... In 1531 Gerard Calvin died and his son, in 1532, published his first work, a commentary on Seneca's de Clementia. His purpose has been construed by the light of his late career; and some have seen in the book a veiled defence of the Huguenot martyrs, others a cryptic censure of Francis I, and yet others a prophetic dissociation of himself from Stoicism. But there is no mystery in the matter; the work is that of a scholar who has no special interest in either theology or the Bible. This may be statistically illustrated: Calvin cites ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... Marguerite," he said softly, "and I'm not such a ditherer as you think. Now, you watch old Bones." And, with that cryptic remark, he stalked ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... asked. But even as she spoke, her face paled a little. "Your language has become quite cryptic—the result, I suppose, of your work ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... message in the Rathskeller the night before had been cryptic to the others but plain enough to Joe. Uncle Buzz was in trouble again. Trial balance, maybe. There was no telling. As Joe finished footing up a long column of figures he smiled. It meant another trip to Bloomfield on Saturday. And Saturday was the day ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... to save the striking of a second match, which occasions so many burned fingers, and such picturesque language. And again, there is the desire to compress a telegraphic message into the minimum sixpennyworth, and so send an ambiguous and cryptic sentence, when sevenpence would have made it as clear as light. We all tend to be stylists in ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... hour and twenty minutes. There was still at least an hour before it would be possible for her to plead weariness and escape. And opposite, in the shadows of the distant box, the mock Prince Shan seemed always to be gazing at her with that cryptic smile ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ante-room should cringe like a cold monkey, more or less, as soon as he was out of his private jungle. "Oh, Tallerman," cried the Sunday editor, "here's this Arctic man come to arrange about his illustration. I wish you'd go and talk it over with him." By chance he picked up the scrap of paper with its cryptic word. " Oh," he said, scowling at the office boy. "Pity you can't remember that fellow. If you can't remember faces any better than that you should be a detective. Get out now and tell him to go to the devil." The wilted slave turned at once, but Coleman hailed him. " Hold ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... direct sort that springs from frank and insouciant spontaneity. Since the revelation was not intended, the process is tortuous in the extreme. It is a revelation that comes by the way, made manifest in the effort to conceal it, overlaid by all sorts of cryptic sentences and self-deprecatory phrases, half hidden by the protective coloring taken on by a sensitive mind commonly employing paradox and delighting in perverse and teasing mystification. One can never be sure what the book means; but taken at its face value the Education seems to ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... would say nothing to further illuminate his cryptic remark, and Haynerd soon switched to the grim topic of the industrial ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... her desk in high school, alternately staring out of the window, gazing intently across the room at Joyce, and scowling at the blackboard where the cryptic symbols ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... alone among his levers, wheels, switches, buttons, cranks, gauges, lights, bells, buzzers, horns, ticker-tapes, creeping scrolls, barking loudspeakers and cryptic dials. Dewforth saw him sharply silhouetted against a long window through which bluish-gray light poured but through which nothing could be clearly seen from where he stood. The Operator sat on a high, one-legged stool. His head was drawn into his shoulders, which were crumpled things of birdlike ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... cryptic utterances mean? At first, both in his novel and in his letters, they are obscure; but before long, in each, they become very definite. In 1856, we find these sentences among ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... mind that, sir. We rather look forward to it. It means one day less of waiting for the trains." It was rather cryptic, but Leslie was too deeply absorbed in self-pity to take account of the pathos in ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Mrs. Goring, and—oh, everything, old scout," Little began. "You saw her face last night. Is she stuck on you, or me, think? Or why the interchange of cryptic eyes between her and ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... natural impulses. Of the half dozen or so of colored women writing creditable verse, Anne Spencer is the most modern and least obvious in her methods. Her lines are at times involved and turgid and almost cryptic, but she shows an originality which does not depend upon eccentricities. In her "Before the Feast of Shushan" she displays an opulence, the love of which has long been charged against the Negro as one ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... Something must be done about Helen. She must be assured that it is not a criminal offence to love at first sight. A telegram to this effect would be cold and cryptic, a personal visit seemed each moment more impossible. Now the doctor arrived, and said that Tibby was quite bad. Might it really be best to accept Aunt Juley's kind offer, and to send her down to Howards End with ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... leisure for wondering how Cynthia's mother came to be in the grounds of Sanstead House, for her companion, almost before the car had stopped, jumped out and clutched me by the arm, at the same time uttering this cryptic speech: 'Whatever he ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... I marveled at these cryptic utterances. They shadowed a modern Black Art, of which I had had no conception—a recrudescence in other language of the age-old dualism of good and evil. It was a ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... in mild surprise. Doubtless he would have asked the meaning of this cryptic utterance; but at this moment the two seamen from the Milo issued forth from the gateway up the road; and, descending a few paces, turned to call back farewell to Mrs. Treacher, who, having escorted them so far, halted under the arch and stood, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and just that I should give to the last of my race the chance to be a credit to it." There was something cryptic in the remark, but naturally it escaped Braden's notice. "You are the only one of the Thorpes left, my boy. I was an only son and, strange as it may appear, I was singularly without avuncular relatives. It is not surprising, therefore, that ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... alone," he answered, contriving to give some special meaning to the ordinary words which made them almost cryptic. "But I think he will be free before long, if you care to wait, madame, and I will ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... not be hampered in their duties at the farm; they have only to carry the babies there in the morning, and fetch them away again in the evening, and can feel that they are safe and well looked after. But many of them, for some reason too cryptic to fathom, prefer to lock them up in their room, exposed to all the perils that surround an inquiring child just able to walk, and last winter one little creature was burnt to death, sacrificed to her mother's stupidity. ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... moments, and flashes of elephantine jocularity enlivened the proceedings of the Club. I picked up some useful items of knowledge from them, for I regret to admit that up to that time I had no idea what a bill of lading was, or a ship's manifest; after a while, even such cryptic expressions, too, as f.o.b. and c.i.f. ceased to have any mysteries for me. Let the inexperienced beware of "Swedish Punch," a sickly, highly-scented preparation of arrack. I do not speak from personal experience, for I detest ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... any reply to this cryptic utterance, she stepped swiftly round behind the carriage again, waved her hand from the door-step and then swung away, with lazy, long-limbed grace, past the waiting men-servants and through to the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Roy, aware of some cryptic message given and understood. "I take it they all know what he's ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... remarkable of those by which he gives elasticity to his theme, is to be found in the tradition that he adopts with regard to the later history of the fallen angels. A misunderstanding of four verses in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, and some cryptic allusions in the Book of Revelations are the chief Scriptural authorities for the Miltonic account of the Fall of the Angels, which is not borrowed from the Fathers, but corresponds rather with the later version popularised in England by the ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... Orleans was awaited by friends and foes, with bated breath. The conspirators had as yet no intimation of his intentions: Governor Claiborne was torn by suspicion of this would-be savior, for at the very time he was reading Wilkinson's gasconade he received a cryptic letter from Andrew Jackson which ran, "keep a watchful eye on our General and beware of an attack as well from your own country as Spain!" If Claiborne could not trust "our General," ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... them to look for hieroglyphics on a barn which he said was a veritable palimpsest of cryptic ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... "Cryptic, but with quite a nice sort of sound about it," she observed, smiling. "Tell me honestly, though, aren't you surprised to find ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... might figger it out that way and mebbe not so far wrong," said the cryptic Mr. Searle. "But if you think you'd like to buy or rent her place I'm fully empowered to act. Got the keys right here and a car standing outside—take you right on out there in a jiffy if ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... find my own natural intelligence again, the common sense that I was born with. Then I saw that the whole thing went wrong from the place where that Knox legal note came in. Congressmen in the backwoods quoted cryptic passages from it, thought they were saying something, and proceeded to make their audiences believe that somehow England had hit us with a club—or would have hit us but for Knox. That pure discourtesy kept us apart from English sympathy ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... which ensued Dr. Fooss suddenly made several Futurist observations through his nose with monotonous but authoritative regularity. I tried to catch his meaning and his eye. The one remained cryptic, ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... become attached to its rough skin by attrition. The downway must have been easy work, but the ascent was different, and when the monster came to view in the upper world, it would be fresh from contact with the white clay. Hence the name, which has no cryptic significance, but only fact. Now, if that surmise be true—and I do not see why not—there must be a deposit of valuable clay—possibly of ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... a remark of Pauvre Lilian's friend and confrere, the cryptic Stephane," Peter answered. "You will remember it. 'L'ame d'un poete dans le corps d'un—' I—I forget ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... Beyond the sunlight and the storm, Appears that lightning-laden form, That toothful smile, that cryptic face. ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... method of his providence; directing the opera- tions of individual and single essences: this we call fortune; that serpentine and crooked line, whereby he draws those actions his wisdom intends in a more un- known and secret way; this cryptic and involved method of his providence have I ever admired; nor can I relate the history of my life, the occurrences of my days, the escapes, or dangers, and hits of chance, with a bezo las manos to Fortune, or a bare gramercy to my good stars. Abraham might have thought the ram in the thicket ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... as a stroke of wit, the way Hansch takes to indicate Kepler's birthplace. Disdaining to use any but mathematical symbols for so great a mathematician, he writes that he was born on the 21st of December, 1571, in longitude 29 7', latitude 48 54'! It may be worth mentioning, that on this cryptic spot stood the little town of Weil in the Duchy of Wrtemberg. His birth was cast at a time when his parents were reduced to great poverty, and he received very little early schooling. He was, however, sent to Tbingen, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... a man who was once a king and, having done no wrong, ought not now to be insulted. If he had in his composition one marble grain of humour, he might... but no, a joke against oneself is always cryptic. Fat men are not always the best drivers of fat oxen; and cryptic statues cannot be depended on to see ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... drawing-room, singing with Sophia, or dreaming and speculating with her on all sorts of mysteries, were, in their way, equally charmful. He liked to walk slowly up and down, and to talk to her softly of things obscure, cryptic, cabalistic. The plashing rain, the moaning wind, made just the monotonous accompaniment that seemed fitting; and the lovely girl, listening, with needle half-drawn, and sensitive, sensuous face lifted to his own, made a situation in which he knew ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... This cryptic remark was not encouraging, but Shorthouse did not pause to decipher it. He paid the man, and then pushed open the rickety old gate swinging on a single hinge, and proceeded to walk up the drive that ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Guido looked cryptic. "That is for father Folco to settle," he said. "And father Folco is a man that loves his fellow-men, but would have his children obey him even to the death, like ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... inculcated fasting, and his disciples fasted a great deal ("pykna", Luke 5:33); and once, Mark tells us, when they were actually fasting, they asked Jesus why his disciples did not do the same? Jesus' answer is a little cryptic at first sight. "Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?" Who fasts at the wedding feast, in the hour of gladness? And then he passes on to speak about the new patch ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... to all animals, is absolutely essential to some; and it is wonderful in what different ways it is attained. In cases of "cryptic resemblance to surroundings" the shape, colouration, or markings are such as to conceal an animal by rendering it difficult to distinguish from its immediate environment. In most cases the effect is PROTECTIVE; but in snakes, spiders, mantids, and ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with cream," was his cryptic remark. "What would you say if I told you that in an hour's time we, will have every drop of water out of the yacht, and that following that we will have her ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... wondered drowsily how long Herr Van de Greutz's visitor would stay. He was a German, a very great scientist; the chemist looked upon him as a friend and an equal, a brother in arms; they talked together freely in the cryptic language of science, and in German, which is the tongue best fitted to help out the other. Julia heard them when she went to and from with the dishes at dinner time. She did not understand chemistry, a fact she much regretted; had she known even half ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... Harris for supplying a consistent and relatively believable motivation for the main action. In both A Cure for a Cuckold and The City Bride, Clare (Clara) begins the action by giving her suitor, Lessingham (Friendly), a cryptic message: he is to determine who his best friend is and kill him. In A Cure for a Cuckold, it is never made clear whether the victim should have been Bonvile or Clare herself (she apparently intended to trick Lessingham ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... of Father Brown at the corner of the road, with some random apologies for any rudeness they might have shown. Both their faces were tragic, but also cryptic. ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... about it. Between these orbs were dotted lines and arrow-heads of the oldest form pointing in all directions, while all the intervening spaces were filled up with woven characters half-way in appearance between Runes and Cryptic-Sanskrit. Round the borders these characters ran into a wild maze, a perfect jungle of an alphabet through which none but a wizard could have forced a ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... puzzled, as he gazed at the face still moist with its recent tears and now rather cryptic in its expression, "are your laws of judgment different for me than for ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... begins in the mood of the early Allegro; a wistful melody of the clarinet plays more slowly between cryptic reminders of the first theme of the symphony. In sudden Allegro risoluto over rumbling bass of strings, a mystic call of horns, harking far back, spreads its echoing ripples all about till it rises in united tones, with a clear, descending answer, much like the original first ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... through the Sporting Page, he would come across a cryptic Reference to MacFearson of Drumtochtie being 3 up and 2 to play on Hargis of Sunset Ho, whereupon he would experience a sense of annoyance and do ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... and the twins, their eyes bright with the unholy light of mischief, never looked at her. They sometimes looked heavenward with a sublime contentment that drove Connie nearly frantic. Occasionally they uttered cryptic words about the morrow,—and the older members of the family smiled pleasantly, but Connie shuddered. She remembered so many ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... interpretation. The rulers of Japan to-day, if they were interrogated on the subject, would probably reply that the record of Japan for over thirty-eight years past is the practical interpretation of the Emperor's cryptic utterance. Be that as it may, the ink was hardly dry on the Imperial edict before Japan laid herself out with earnestness, not to say enthusiasm, to carry into effect the principles enunciated in the edict. The whole ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... first stages of one of her expeditions into another's territory, Jimmie's first letter arrived. It was mailed at Honolulu, and consisted obediently of the cryptic statement: "There is no girl on the boat. She is a widow, but lots of fun." And it changed the character of the invasion from a harmless survey of the land to a determined attack upon its fortresses. ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... for Jefferson Creede! Deep and devious as was his knowledge of men in the rough, the ways of a woman in love were as cryptic to him as the poems of Browning. The first day that Miss Kitty rode forth to be a cowboy it was the rodeo boss, indulgent, but aware of the tenderfoot's ability to make trouble, who soberly assigned his fair disciple to guard a pass over which no cow could possibly come. And Kitty, ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... cryptic utterance Mr. Killick sank into a corner of the cab, where he remained, evidently lost in thought, until, nearly an hour later, they pulled up at the door of the police-station. Within five minutes they were closeted with the chief men there—amongst whom were ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... could be either blunt or cryptic in speech at will. In one mood he was the straightforward, outspoken official; in another the potential lawyer. P.C. Robinson, though unable to describe his chief's erratic qualities, was unpleasantly aware of them. He was not quite sure, for instance, whether the ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... little mystified by Merkle's cryptic message, for she could imagine no possible way in which she or the writer himself could be connected discreditably with Jarvis Hammon's affair. She gained some light, however, when that evening she read the ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... "Why cryptic after your really admirable frankness? But there's always a point beyond which women never will go when confessing their souls. . . . I suppose you think you're as hard as nails. Do you really imagine that you will ever be able to fall in love and ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume.' And again, 'There is another way of God's providence full of meanders and labyrinths and obscure methods: that serpentine and crooked line: that cryptic and involved method of His providence which I have ever admired. Surely there are in every man's life certain rubs, and doublings, and wrenches, which, well examined, do prove the pure hand of God. And to ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... Phosphorescent glow. Catching fireflies. Scaling the heights. The spot where the Walter note was found. A skull with mysterious characters on it. The mark on the skull and the mark in the message. The star. Cryptic signs. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... of many cryptic exclamations, this bride of his. Presently she said: "Indeed, Monsieur Bulmer, I entreat you to leave Poictesme. I have informed Louis of everything, and he is ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... continued to finger her gloves. They had been cleaned and the cryptic marks of the shopkeeper were visible along the inner side of the wrist hem. This was, to the woman, the first subterfuge of decaying smartness. When a woman began to send her gloves to the laundry she was on her way down. Other ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... OBJECTS.—A number of splintered pieces of bone, without showing any other evidence of workmanship, have linear incisions, like those on some of the stones, which suggest some kind of cryptic writing like ogams. There are also a few water-worn shells, like those seen on a sandy beach, having round holes bored through them and sharply-cut scratches on their pearly inner surface. But on the whole the edible molluscs ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... useful," Tish replied in her cryptic manner. "Forearmed is forewarned, Mr. Burton. What is ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... secrets of life are written in script so cryptic and obscure that none but the wise and greatly skilled may decipher it, and they only, when aided by the special equipment which science supplies. In this case the firm but facile miracle is recorded in words that he that runs ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... made a joke took rather a liberty with him, his tendency to be jocular, even about himself and the estate of Temple Barholm, was irritating and somewhat disrespectful. Mr. Palford did not easily comprehend jokes of any sort; especially was he annoyed by cryptic phraseology and mammoth exaggeration. For instance, be could not in the least compass Mr. Temple Barholm's meaning when he casually remarked that something or other was "all to the merry"; or again, quite as though he believed that he was using reasonable English figures of speech, "The ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... from his lips with a faint, far echo which he found vaguely but unidentifiably familiar. But into the group around the long table the utterance fell with cryptic, crucial solemnity. Only Mr. Green, stubbornly contentious to the last, and thinking anxiously of both horns of the dilemma at once, found voice ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... making the round of his outposts, a somewhat cryptic despatch from Grouchy reached headquarters. The Marshal reported from Gembloux, at 10 p.m. of the 17th, that part of the Prussians had retired towards Wavre, seemingly with a view to joining Wellington; that their centre, led by Bluecher, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... dread. He set it down to his suspicions of Mrs. Marteen's departure. Then why this fibril anxiety never to be long beyond call? Surely, and the demon in his brain laughed with amusement, he did not expect her to send him a cryptic wireless—"Everything arranged; operation a success; appendix removed without opposition," or "Patient unmanageable; ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... about her. He looked intently at her wide, flushed face, freckled nose, fierce little mouth, and her delicate, tender chin—the one soft touch in her hard little Scandinavian face, as if some fairy godmother had caressed her there and left a cryptic promise. Her brows were usually drawn together defiantly, but never when she was with Dr. Archie. Her affection for him was prettier than most of the things that went to make up the ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... This, of course, could not possibly be a mordant. Muenz discusses it (op. cit., vol. 2, p. 14) and concludes that with the addition of mastic, this could be a kind of stop-out varnish. We are not likely to come closer to an answer for this cryptic inscription. ...
— Rembrandt's Etching Technique: An Example • Peter Morse
... the heart, The Golden Archer and the Scarlet too? Then bitter anomalies annul her choir Of puissant and subtle instincts, rended through By gorgeous dualisms of vain-desire. For Love outrages Art's clear disciplines, And Art lures Love to guilt of cryptic treason: The spirit of imagination pines, Captive in webs of exquisite unreason. Alas for this translated soul of hers, The rose's, that must be ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... the impatient man of affairs as he turned to the 'phone. He called a cryptic sentence or two into the transmitter and slapped the receiver back ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... far," he cried. "That was not the exact reason. No, my dear Miss Maxwell, I begin to exercise a new-born discretion. I shall not elucidate that cryptic remark until after New Year's Day. But I don't mind telling you why I have hit on a definite date. If all goes well with us—and we have had so many escapes that Providence may well send us a few more—the Kansas should steam out of our little bay of Good Hope about that ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... to her seat. "I don't see any sense to it," she pondered, studying the cryptic message with puzzled eyes. "It must be right, or Grandpa wouldn't have said so. Sounds like 'pickle,' but it's spelled with a 't.' It must be ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... it, inexorably questioning it in the dumb language his fingers spoke so deftly. And in his ear the click and whir and thump of shifting wards and tumblers murmured articulate response in the terms of their cryptic code. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... perforce. She kissed him again before going slowly to her own room, her perplexity evidently not dispersed; but the subject was not renewed between them the next day or subsequently. Nor did Fanny make any allusion to the cryptic approbation she had bestowed upon her nephew after the Major's "not very successful little dinner"; though she annoyed George by looking at him oftener and longer than he cared to be looked at by an aunt. He could ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... their scientific equipment, their astonishing technique, and their intellectualism, mark the end of one era, do they not rumour the coming of another? Certainly to-day there is stress in the cryptic laboratory of Time. A great thing is dead; but, as that ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... of Cliffe leads northwards to South Malling; here is a conventicle named "Jireh" erected by J. Jenkyns, W.A. These cryptic initials mean "Welsh ambassador." In the cemetery behind is the tomb of William Huntingdon, the evangelist, whose ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... on his spectacles again and read slowly. Indeed Mark had never seen a letter read so slowly before. It might have been in some cryptic tongue which Mr. Ganns could only with difficulty translate. Having finished he handed the communication back to Brendon and indicated a desire for silence. Mark lit a cigarette and sat surveying the other from the ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... the Jews of central Europe, who were not trained in secular science and philosophy, Ibn Ezra was not prepared to shock the sensibilities of his readers by his novel and, to them, heretical views; and hence he expressed himself in cryptic phrases and allusions, which often make his meaning difficult if not impossible to decipher. This, taken together with the fact that his views are not laid down anywhere systematically and in connected fashion, but are thrown out briefly, often enigmatically, in connection with the ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... city by the storied shores Where the bright summit of Olympus soars, A cryptic statue mounted towards the light— Heel-winged, tip-toed, ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris |
