Mystery fiction

“ In Literature the same truth might be exhibited in the manifold effects of the primitive mystery-play, not only as originating the modern drama, but as affecting through it other kinds of poetry and fiction ”

“ Such stories readily fall into two classes, with as many sub-sorts as the invention of man may compass—those which are soluble and those which are not. Of the former, the detective story is the more common, followed at no very great distance by the tale which seems to involve the supernatural, but whose mystery transpires quite plainly in the end. Of the latter are all those inexplicable wonder-fictions dealing with shapes that haunt the dream-dusk, the whole shadow-land of wraiths and spirits and presences and immaterialities which cross the borders of experience at the call of fantasy. ”

“ What more lurid than the depths of desire, what more mysterious than the hinterlands of conscience? And what event is so great a mystery as life itself? I believe that every tale should be a mystery tale. ”

“ Those are just a few of the questions you will ask yourself, as you rush through this baffling tale of mystery piled upon mystery. It's a breathless book—a story in which action never ceases for a moment, and whose outcome you never suspect until the last big moment of struggle when mystery ceases to be mystery, and you breathe the contented sigh that comes at the end of a good story well told—and thoroughly enjoyed. ”

“ It is the rule that everything beautiful and precious in this world should have mystery attached to it. There is the enduring mystery of art, the mystery that endows plain flesh and blood with genius. ”

“ THE CHURCHYARD.
As the world has ever been governed by mysteries—by mysteries amazed—by mysteries amused—by mysteries excited, subdued, and kept in awe—he, who could be, by his hopes of immortality, prompted to grapple with, to open, and to spread completely out, the philosophy of mystery, would be, beyond all dispute, hailed by the mysterious as a benefactor to his species. ”

“ All who are accustomed to novel reading or writing, are aware of the fascinating power of mystery. They even consider it a principal test of a good story that the plot should be impenetrable, and the final result concealed up to the last page. ”

“ Those who love a mystery with plenty of ‘go,’ and a story which is not devoid of a certain amount of realism, cannot do better than pick up ‘Fellow-Passengers.’ The characters are real men and women, and not the sentimental and artificial puppets to which we have been so long accustomed by our sensationalists. ”

“ Comment. This, then, is a narrative the mystery of which must be explained by each reader to his own satisfaction. If the reader “believes” in the supernatural, he will take the whole thing, ghostly scene and all, as somehow occurring. If he does not “believe,” he will then accept the scene as the obsession of a sick man—with a few details left in mystery. I should class it as a story of the supernatural, wherein the appearance is visible to the sick or the clairvoyant mind. ”

“ When, on the other hand, the thing, or the person, falls within the world of supernormal experience, when they strike the imagination as wonderful and wonder-working, then there is much more reason why he should seek to account to himself for the mystery in, or behind, the strange appearance. ”

“ Can mystery be separable from sublime or profound greatness, when viewed through human powers? Are not height, and depth, and space, and air, all mysterious [Pg 186] to your minds, when beyond the reach of the eye? Is not darkness alone profoundly mysterious? ”

“ When you have come to the end, you will be sadly disappointed, and will find that all the mystery evaporates, and leaves a dull, commonplace residuum. It is best that the few mysteries which remain to us unexplained should still remain mysteries, or we shall disbelieve in supernatural agencies altogether. We have searched out the arcana of nature, and exposed all her secrets to the garish eye of day, and we find, in despair, that the poetry and romance of life are gone. Are we the happier for knowing that there are no ghosts, no fairies, no witches, no mermaids, no wood spirits? ”

“ Now to me there is no study half so delightful as that of these little creatures, with hearts fresh from the gardens of the sky, in their first and fairest and most unintentional disclosures, while they are indeed a mystery, a fragrant, luminous, and beautiful mystery. ”

“ Authors, publishers, editors, dramatists, writers of motion pictures tell us that never before has there been such an intense and wide interest in mystery stories as there is to-day. That in itself explains the interest in the super-mystery story of the ghost and ghostly doings.
Another element of mystery lies in such stories. Deeper and further back, is the supreme mystery of life—after death—what?
"Impossible," scorns the non-psychic as he listens to some ghost story. ”

“ There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. ”

“ MARIONETTA My cousin Scythrop has of late had an air of mystery about him, which gives me great uneasiness.
MR FLOSKY That is strange: nothing is so becoming to a man as an air of mystery. Mystery is the very key-stone of all that is beautiful in poetry, all that is sacred in faith, and all that is recondite in transcendental psychology. I am writing a ballad which is all mystery; it is 'such stuff as dreams are made of,' and is, indeed, stuff made of a dream; for, last night I fell asleep as usual over my book, and had a vision of pure reason. ”

“ When that is explored, there are new and wonderful possibilities beyond the hills, then beyond the seas, beyond the known world, in the everyday chances and movements of the unknown life in which we are circumstanced. [292]
“Surely we should all perish through sheer inanity, or die desperately by suicide if no mystery remained in the world. Mystery takes a thousand beautiful shapes; it lurks even in the handiwork of man, in a stone god, or in some mighty, intricate machine, incomprehensibly deliberate and determined. ”

“ Nay, thou wilt attempt laughter; whoso recognises the unfathomable, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is everywhere under our feet and among our hands; to whom the Universe is an Oracle and Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall,—he shall be a delirious Mystic ”

“ They stood still to listen. A mystery that was more than the mystery of night closed about their hearts—a mystery that is beyond life and death, that only great awe and terror can summon from the deeps of the soul. ”

“ Then she would insist on his going to rest, when he was all eagerness to finish a book or unravel a mystery—not the transparent mystery of a novel, but the mystery of some mighty worker in the business of life; some giant amongst men, who achieved greatness though born in obscurity; some artist, whose fame towered toward the heavens, like the tree produced by the grain of mustard-seed ”

“ We also maintain—again with perfect truth—that mystery is more than half of beauty, the element of strangeness that stirs the senses through the imagination. ”

“ Still, a mystery, inscrutable under the ordinary operations of nature, appears to hang over the whole proceeding, and though a legend only, yet the events bear a wonderful semblance and affinity to truth, even in their wildest details. ”

“ And let the whole world’s gladness be complete.{126}
Come with the face that hushed the heavens of old—
Come with Thy maidens in a mist of light;
Haste for the night falls and the shadows fold,
And voices cry and wander on the height.
{127} The Flying Mist
I watch afar the moving Mystery,
The wool-shod, formless terror of the sea—
The Mystery whose lightest touch can change
The world God made to phantasy, death-strange.
Under its spell all things grow old and gray
As they will be beyond the Judgment Day. ”

“ I have a sneaking impression that the mystery, wonder, and the urge of their pure beauty are going to force me to picture and paint our moths and put them into a book for all the world to see and know. ”

“ This falsely inspired man, entirely devoted to mystical compositions, vaguely painted—philosophical and critical, as he said—this thinker, whose brush painted obscure subjects as it might have produced signs, did not dream that the girl growing up beside him was also in love with chimeras, and drawn toward the abyss, not however to learn the mysteries hidden by the clouds, but the mystery of life, the secret of the visions that haunted her, of the disquieting temptations that filled her with such feverish excitement. ”

“ For though to you, for instance, it may seem impossible to worship Mystery with one lobe of the brain, and with the other to explain it, the thought that this may not seem impossible to others should not discourage you; it is but another little piece of that Mystery which makes life so wonderful and sweet. ”

“ Could one lift the impenetrable veil of mystery that hides the future from our curious eyes, what secrets would often be revealed, what shadows would fall upon hearts now light and thoughtless—shadows of grief, of horror, and despair! ”

“ He does not prepare the reader’s belief by creating the atmosphere of mystery required for illusion. In the midst of the fashionable, real life where they are set, his supernatural incidents lose their effect, and have no vraisemblance. ”

“ Mystery has an indescribable charm, which is the thing that makes me so fond of riddles; and so I determined to have a hero or a heroine, I did not care which, of a most unexampled kind. But how to invent an unexampled hero, I could not imagine. ”

“ The fascination of it, however, admits of no denial, even on the part of those newly making its acquaintance; while those who in childhood or youth roam over its wild fells, and feel the spell of its brooding mystery, retain in their hearts for all time an unfading remembrance of its magic charm. ”

“ He felt the fascination and repulsion of its impenetrable mystery, of its stark and desolate wastes, whose spell is yet so potent in the imagination of man, that many have found in its barren horror the very heart of beauty. ”

“ A story of romance, mystery, and adventure, in which, as in many mystery stories, there is the adventuress, with whom, for some reason, the peer, notwithstanding his breeding and social position, becomes entangled, until he is mysteriously put out of the way. From this point on complication and adventure succeed each other in rapid succession, holding the reader in rapt fascination until the end of the story is reached, where the plots of love and mysterious disappearances are surprisingly unfolded. ”

“ The characters will be found interesting, and they are real people, every one of them. The incidents are full of action and color. The plot has mystery, surprise, interplay of mind and motive—had a novelist invented it, the reader might declare it improbable. ”

“ The little mysteries are all embraced in the big Mystery, which would not be mysterious if we had the power to understand it. I was always that kind of a sceptic which believes in there being a reason for everything. When I was a girl I saw ghosts—unmistakably visible ghosts—and even in their presence, certain that they could not be flesh and blood creatures, and paralysed with horror to know it, I was able to keep this attitude of mind. ”

“ The solution of the mystery, which is revealed in an intensely dramatic court scene, is the most astonishing feature of the book. In addition to the attraction of the mystery, there is a fascinating love-story. ”

“ Mystery revealed itself within mystery, and this was indeed a labyrinth, to the heart of which I sometimes despaired of penetrating. Who was this woman whose elusive figure appeared at every turn in the case? ”

“ Mystery intervened in every event, envelopes and bound every existence; and the supernatural life dominated, concealed, and absorbed the ordinary life by creating innumerable and indestructible phantoms, which peopled the fields, inhabited the houses, encumbered the heavens, troubled the eyes. ”

“ There the skies are bright, the trees are always green. There the golden sandhills stretch away, the palm trees wave, the Nile sweeps majestic. There the cold winds scarcely ever blow, and the people's hearts are warm."
"I suppose so."
"There are mysteries there, as in Temple Hall, Mr. Blake; but mysteries are sometimes of human origin." ”

“ I ask you: where has the mystery been hiding all these years?"
"That is a question I shall not try to answer, Mr. Rhodes. It is my belief. however, that the mystery has never been hiding,—using the word, that is, in its literal signification." ”

“ Mystery is not young, not pretty, though still of an average candle-light passability; but she does such miracles in her own behalf, that, one of these days, when she dies, they'll be amazed to find an old woman in her bed, distantly like her. She was an actress once, I shouldn't wonder, and had a Mystery attendant on herself. Perhaps, Compact Enchantress will live to be a Mystery, and to wait with a shawl at the side-scenes, and to sit opposite to Mademoiselle in railway carriages, and smile and talk subserviently, as Mystery does now. ”

“ They played like children, defying the tide of mystery that this haunted land pours against the modern human soul, while yet the wonder and the mystery added to their enjoyment, deepening their happiness by contrast. ”