Top secret

“ It was his contention, however, that there was not one thing that could not be proven; that the secret of life, while undoubtedly a secret in every sense of the word, is still very concrete, it could be proven! ”

“ So I began to wonder whether perhaps there are very few people in the world who know; whether the real secret is lost like the great city that was drowned in the sea and only seen by one or two. Perhaps it is more like those shining Isles that the saints sought for, where the deep apple orchards are, and all the delights of Paradise. ”

“ “Her secret? It is every artist’s secret,”—he waved his hand,—“passion. That is all. It is an open secret, and perfectly safe. Like heroism, it is inimitable in cheap materials.” ”

“ But who ever yet was offered a secret and declined it? ”

“ But a secret properly communicated only to those who are to be concerned in the thing in question, will probably be kept by them though they should be a good many. Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones are generally kept. ”

“ What country she came from, what port she was bound for, what cargo she carried, and what kind of tongue her crew spoke—all these things are dead secrets. And a dead secret is a secret that nobody knows. No other secrets are dead secrets. ”

“ Though the modern world may know a million secrets, the ancient world knew one--and that one was greater than the million; for the million secrets breed death, disaster, sorrow, selfishness, lust, and avarice, but the one secret confers life, light, and truth. The time will come when the secret wisdom shall again be the dominating religious and philosophical urge of the world. ”

“ To a mind so modelled, a secret was a dreadful burden, especially when compelled to hide it from one, whom love induced her to treat with peculiar confidence, and who often complained of her reserve, and asked the meaning of those embarrassed looks, that impatience to break from him, and those thousand mysterious contrivances upon petty occasions, which were so new to her character, and might have awakened jealousy in the most unsuspicious heart. ”

“ Tell me thy case; it may be God will give thee solace at my hands.” “O old man,” rejoined she, “if thou be a man of discretion, I will discover to thee my secret; but first tell me who thou art, that I may know whether thou art worthy of confidence or not; for the poet saith:
None keepeth secrets but the man who’s trusty and discreet: A secret’s ever safely placed with honest fold and leal;
For me, my secrets I preserve within a locked-up house, Whose key is lost and on whose door is set the Cadi’s seal.” ”

“ Such has been our progress of late years in the art of revealing to the world at large the hidden springs of every action and event around us that a secret is in reality the only thing now impossible. ”

“ the words seemed to carry her away, out of herself:—
“’Tis a secret: none knows how it comes, how it goes:
But the name of the secret is Love!” ”

“ And from secret to secret you might wander, always a new secret, till you went beyond the horizon, and then there was another horizon, and after that another, and you could go on and on, and on, and though you could walk for ever without weariness, because the air was so pure and delicious, still you could never, never, never get to the other side. ”

“ Suppose you had a secret, a real secret, something that nobody else knew and that you didn't want anybody else to know. And suppose you had the habit of talking to yourself. You might, without thinking, you know, tell that secret out loud to yourself, and some one might, just might happen to overhear! ”

“ And assuredly the secret man heareth many confessions. For who will open himself to a blab or a babbler? But if a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery; as the more close air sucketh in the more open; and as in confession the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a man's heart, so secret men come to the knowledge of many things in that kind; while men rather discharge their minds than impart their minds. ”

“ Well now, this, so far as I can tell it in a few words, is the great secret, or one secret out of the great mystery, or rather one mystery out of another, which exists in the minds of the people, that do not know it. How is it that this people, that are come up of so many parties, and tongues, and people, and creeds, are measurably become one in faith and spirit? ”

“ The secrets of other people were theirs to keep. His own secret was more wonderful by far. Alone, from amidst the tangle of his other emotions, he felt its survival—more than its survival, its absolute conquest of all other feelings and considerations. ”

“ Would any secret agent worth her salt invite suspicion by making such a conspicuously furtive embarkation, by such ostentatious avoidance of her fellow passengers, by surrounding herself with an atmosphere of such palpable mystery? Would such an one confess she had a "secret" to an utter stranger, as she had to Lanyard that first night out? Would she, under any conceivable circumstances, entrust to that same stranger that selfsame secret upon whose inviolate preservation so much depended? ”

“ I wander through the whole world, peep into all corners, inquire about the words and deeds of all men, see everything that is visible, spy out and discover everything that is secret; generally, nothing can befall without me. It is my duty to survey everything; and if thou comest with me, I shall lead thee to many secret places, whereto thou wouldst never have found thy way. ”

“ A direful secret hast thou in thy keeping,
Which, like a poison of terrific power,
Shivers the cup that holds it into atoms.
Guard every look of thine, nor let thy head
Guess at thy bosom's secret. Be thou like
The senseless speaking-trumpet that receives
And echoes back the voice, but hears it not.
Thou art a boy! Be ever so; continue
The pranks of youth. My correspondent chose
Her messenger of love with prudent skill!
The king will ne'er suspect a serpent here.
PAGE.
And I, my prince, shall feel right proud to know
I am one secret richer than the king. ”

“ I exclaimed excitedly. “Can I learn that which thou callest the Great Secret?”
“Alas! it is impossible,” she replied. “If thou wilt undertake this perilous journey, thou shalt carry with thee the Crescent of Glorious Wonders as my pledge that I do not deceive thee, and as a talisman which, if thou canst learn its secret, will make thee wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.” ”

“ The communication of the great secret is now the staple commodity with which he is to barter, and the grand talisman with which he is to conjure. It can be imparted only to a chosen few—to those among the opulent who merit it by their virtues, and can acquire it by their diligence, and the divine vengeance is threatened against its disclosure. ”

“ He informs you as a secret that he designs in a very short time to reveal you a secret; you must say nothing to any one. The next time you see him the secret is not yet ripened, he wants to learn a little more of it, and in a fortnight’s time he hopes to tell you everything about it. ”

“ While waiting, a woman—the woman you have seen—came up to me and told me that you had sent her—that you wished to see me in secret in connexion with your invention, but that you were in hiding because you feared that some spies intended to obtain knowledge of the truth. ”

“ A great secret—the character of which we knew not—was to be made known to us, and each time we cast our eyes about us, we glanced half in fear that some strange and extraordinary horror, of which we had not even dreamed, would be suddenly revealed. ”

“ To let any one into our secret, to reveal that hidden land to a gaping world, would be to destroy it. We should be followed, tracked by the newspapers, written up, judged eccentric—mad. And I do not wish to be judged at all. ”

“ The human spirit laid that secret bare, and drew it forth from the unseen into the visible world. There is, for example, the power of steam, and photography and the phonograph, and wireless telegraphy, and advances in mathematics: each and every one of these was once a mystery, a closely guarded secret, yet the human spirit unravelled these secrets and brought them out of the invisible into the light of day. ”

“ At first, seeming to feel that every passer-by, white or black, must fathom and divine his secret. he presently gained self-confidence once more. Even a pride, a sense of power now began to grow in him.
That he, just one of the army of underlings in a minor office, should by chance hold in his hands—skilled only to the typewriter and the reporter’s pencil—secrets of state, perhaps, matters of life, death, national fate, the destiny of nations, thrilled him with a sudden flare of joy. ”

“ The other smiled, gravely, and then replied, "The first ten steps you take from this door after supper, you will know; for the greatest folly any man commits, is to believe that a secret will be kept which is known to more than one person. ”

“ Doubtless there is a secret, an illuminating secret, hidden beneath all the surfaces of things; and perhaps the old alchemists were thinking of that secret when they spoke of the Powder of Projection, the Philosopher's Stone, that turned all it touched into gold.
There are many ways of the great quest of the secret. Some of them fill me with an immeasureable weariness. Not very long ago, there was a picture in a daily paper with an odd history attached to it. The picture was a head of the Christ. ”

“ Every risk must be avoided. The secret may be discovered by accident; the house may change hands and undergo repairs. A thousand things may happen. Oh, for the few words that lie between safety and possible ruin! I have read the paper over and over, and cannot form the slightest conception of its conclusion. But I will triumph! Yes, guard the secret as closely as you will, Carlos Conrad, I will accomplish my end in spite of you! ”

“ I am perfectly convinced that there is something especially exceptional in its inner construction, and that, if I took it to pieces, a secret would be revealed to me which I have long been seeking to discover, but—laugh at me if you like—this senseless thing which only gives signs of life and sound as I make it, often speaks to me in a strange way of itself. ”

“ The forcing of the secret from her by a group of people who have become suspicious of her inexplicable knowledge of their lives and affairs for generations back, lifts the play to its supreme climax, which is followed instantly by another course of mounting action, in the effort of these people to decide what to do with the secret once they have possessed it. ”

“ If there is here and there one that can make anything intelligible out of my talk about the Great Secret, and who has spelt out a syllable or two of it on some woman's face, dead or living, that is all I can expect. One should see the person with whom he converses about such matters. ”

“ All passionate seekers after undiscovered truth know that much mental toil, and probably years of wearisome watching, are demanded before any one can hope to snatch a new secret from the close keeping of the unknown. ”

“ Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of. Shouldst thou fail me in this, beware! His fame, his position, his life, will be in my hands. Beware!”
“I will keep thy secret, as I have his,” said Hester. ”

“ I intend to write constantly to you, or to my Lord, what comes to my knowledge, true or false, and when I may cite the authors of my news I will, and what I ought to keep secret I must, but I think that there will be no occasion for that; I desire to be trusted with no secrets myself. ”

“ You see that the secret once disclosed, all the steps which lead to the disclosure become, ipso facto, insignificant, or rather they become nothing at all, since their only significance and their only existence lay in the secret, and when the secret has ceased to be a secret, the signs and cyphers of it fall also into the world of nonentity. ”

“ If we look into the secret springs and motives that set people at work on these occasions, and put them upon asking advice, which they never intend to take; I look upon it to be none of the least, that they are incapable of keeping a secret which is so very pleasing to them. ”

“ In our times, when so much is said both pro and contra about secret societies, I believe that the history of a particular secret society, in which I was entangled, though but a short time, should not be passed over in this sketch of my life. ”

“ This, my dear Heltzendorff, has shown me that you may with advantage use a woman of whatever age as your catspaw, your secret agent, your bait when angling for important information, or your go-between in secret transactions; but never trust one with knowledge of your own personal affairs. ”

“ Most of us enjoy secrets for the sake of telling them. We spend our secrets as Lamb's spendthrift spent his money—while they are fresh. The joy of creating an emotion in other people is too much for us. We like to surprise them, or shock them, or please them as the case may be, and we give away the secret with which we have been entrusted with a liberal hand and a solemn request “to say nothing about it.” We relish the luxury of telling the secret, and leave the painful duty of keeping it to the other fellow. ”

“ "All that is speedful for us to learn and to know, full courteously will our Lord shew us"
OUR Lord God shewed two manner of secret things. One is this great Secret [Counsel] with all the privy points that belong thereto: and these secret things He willeth we should know [as being, but as] hid until the time that He will clearly shew them to us. The other are the secret things that He willeth to make open and known to us; for He would have us understand that it is His will that we should know them. ”

“ She’d run in to see a friend, she’d hint of something she knew—and then she’d ask for a loan of a few hundreds—or more, according to the importance of the secret.”
“How did she learn these things?”
“Oh, every woman knows her neighbors’ secrets—and they often hold them over each other’s heads, as a rod in pickle. But they rarely get money on them—they’d be afraid.”
“Maddy knew no such thing as fear.” ”