"Baffle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chagrin. The sense of smell, so largely developed in many animals, becomes one of the trappers most serious obstacles, and seems at times to amount almost to positive reason, so perfectly do the creatures baffle the most ingenious attempts of man in his efforts to capture them. A little insight into the ways of these artful animals, however, and a little experience with their odd tricks soon enables one to cope with them successfully and overcome their whims. For the benefit of the amateur who has ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... that was on Bebee's face he would get what Scheffer had missed. For a time it eluded him. You shall paint a gold and glistening brocade, or a fan of peacock's feathers, to perfection, and yet, perhaps, the dewy whiteness of the humble little field daisy shall baffle and ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... of it. They were big powerful men, with not much capacity to weigh the consequences, with courage, with strength, even yet, though their skins were no longer glossy and their muscles no longer hard. And I saw that something restraining, one of those human secrets that baffle probability, had come into play there. I looked at them with a swift quickening of interest—not because it occurred to me I might be eaten by them before very long, though I own to you that just then I perceived—in a new light, as it were—how unwholesome the pilgrims ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... were to make history for American arms, exhibiting courage and fortitude and heroism, the stories of which are to embellish the annals of American martial exploits. They were destined, a handful of them here, a handful there, to successfully baffle the Bolshevik hordes in their ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... will be in a position to judge for yourself when you have finished this narrative. Our limited experience would lead us to believe that it was a phantom conjured up by some unusual condition of his own brain; but we are fain to confess that there certainly do exist in nature phenomena such as baffle human reason; and it is possible that, for some hidden purposes of Providence, permission may occasionally be granted to those who have passed from this life to assume again for a time the form of their earthly tabernacle. We must, I say, be content to suspend our ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... the paper circulation; and much has been said of its utility and its elegance. I mean the project for coining into money the bells of the suppressed churches. This is their alchemy. There are some follies which baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore I say no more ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... rolled out, the new-comer also made herself comfortable in her seat, which, being opposite to that of Ashby, gave her the opportunity of examining his face at her leisure, if she felt so inclined, while she herself was so closely veiled as to baffle recognition. Her dress, though very plain, was in the latest fashion, and she wore with inimitable grace that marvellous Spanish mantilla which is equally adapted to adorn and to conceal. Although ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... no less difficult or uncertain in criticisms than in law. Imagination, a licentious and vagrant faculty, unsusceptible of limitations, and impatient of restraint, has always endeavoured to baffle the logician, to perplex the confines of distinction, and burst the inclosures of regularity. There is therefore scarcely any species of writing, of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... "presents" are! These Gipsies can do anything with the earth, the ore, the sand. Snaffles, whose side-bars no brute can baffle, locks that would puzzle a locksmith, horseshoes that turn on a swivel, bells for the sheep . . . all these are good, but what they ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... a consultation next morning. Beric pointed out to the leaders that although it was necessary sometimes with an important object in view to take the offensive, they must as a rule stand on the defensive, and depend upon the depth of their morasses and their knowledge of the paths across them to baffle the attempts ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... from Edward's grasp, seemed at this moment to renounce his intention of pushing the conflict to a desperate end. 'I give it all up for life—dear life!' he cried, with a hoarse laugh. 'A reckless man has a dozen lives—see how I'll baffle ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... coming end. In his tender love he tried to protect Schmucke when he should be low in the grave. It was this father's thought that led him to fix his choice upon the leading lady of the ballet. Mlle. Brisetout should help him to baffle surrounding treachery, and those who in all probability would never forgive his innocent ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... which are so rapidly increasing among us, and which must add greatly to the food supply of the owls and other birds of prey, seek to baffle their enemies by roosting in the densest evergreens they can find, in the arbor-vitae, and in hemlock hedges. Soft-winged as the owl is, he cannot steal in upon such a retreat without ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... hand, which is also depicted on the following page. The fingers are short and corpulent, and the whole extremity seems more at variance with the abilities and temperament of the owner than any other represented in these casts, and, as a case which seems to completely baffle the reader of character, is one of the most ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... protect him, and no shelly home like that of the snail, the Octopus is an easy prey to large fish, Seals and Whales. So this trick of shooting backwards, hidden in a cloud of ink, must be of great use. Soldiers and sailors use clouds of smoke to baffle their enemy in battle. The ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... combine with the selfish, bethink you how many projects are doomed to disappointment! how many cross interests baffle the parties at the same time joined together without ever uniting. What a mockery is their love! but how deadly are their hatreds! All this great society, with whom so young an adventurer has trafficked, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Wars of Sulla and Marius having aided slavery to do its perfect work. In this way had perished that splendid rural population from which the Roman legionary infantry had been conscribed, and which had enabled the aristocratical republic to baffle the valor of Samnium, the skill of Pyrrhus, and the genius of Hannibal. Even so early as in the first of the Eastern wars of the Romans, immediately after the second defeat of Carthage, there were indications that the supply of Roman soldiers was giving out. An anecdote of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... between the committal and the trial of the prisoner, Lord Glenfallen seemed to suffer agonies of mind which baffle all description, he hardly ever slept, and when he did, his slumbers seemed but the instruments of new tortures, and his waking hours were, if possible, exceeded in intensity of terrors by the dreams which disturbed ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... whole, the situation of these people, inhabitants of Britain! is such as no language can describe, nor fancy conceive. If, with great labor and fatigue, the farmer raises a slender crop of oats and barley, the autumnal rains often baffle his utmost efforts, and frustrate all his expectations: and instead of being able to pay an exorbitant rent, he sees his family in danger of perishing during the ensuing winter, when he is precluded from any possibility of assistance elsewhere. ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... of Orange, Stadtholder and Captain General of the United Netherlands, in the war which England waged against them, for entering into a treaty of commerce with the United States, is known to all. As their Executive officer, charged with the conduct of the war, he contrived to baffle all the measures of the States General, to dislocate all their military plans, and played false into the hands of England against his own country, on every possible occasion, confident in her protection, and in that of the King ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... possible. In compliance with these instructions, the Ambassador alighted from his carriage at some distance from the Val de Grace, and proceeded on foot to the convent generally towards the dusk of the evening, believing that by these precautions he should be enabled to baffle the vigilance of the watchful minister. He was, however, soon destined to be undeceived, as Richelieu, having ascertained the fact, openly denounced these meetings in the Council, expatiating upon the fatal effects of which they might be productive to France; while Marie de Medicis boldly ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... rooms of the first floor, and the dinners in the Diana Gallery, were equally sumptuous. The Emperor, however, especially delighted in the masked balls, when, changing his Imperial robes for a simple domino, he whose police system was so perfect, who knew and saw everything, used to baffle the women, and tease or surprise their ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... a hard day's toil. Take it, sir, and may it make a better and a stronger man of you. Times are good and I spend my money free. I made it packin' grub to Linderman, four bits a pound, but—easy come, easy go. Now then, who's next? You've seen me work. I couldn't baffle a sore-eyed Siwash ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... had experienced for the safety of her friend. But when the malady remained obstinate to his prescriptions, and other insidious symptoms set in, pointing to a gradual decay of the vital energies, he divined that the ill was a mental one which would baffle his art unless he could ascertain its cause from the patient herself. Her confession of it would be half the cure. But he did not succeed in extracting this confession. Pauline did not know what ailed her. Beyond a great prostration she did not know ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... phenomenon. Here are his words, October 2d, when it is about to get consummated: "This is now the time for humbling the whole House of Bourbon: and if this opportunity is let slip, we shall never find another! Their united power, if suffered to gather strength, will baffle our most vigorous efforts, and possibly plunge us in the gulf of ruin. We must not allow them a moment to breathe. Self-preservation bids us crush them before they can combine or recollect themselves."—"No evidence that Spain means war; too many wars on our hands; let us at least wait!" urge ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that he may be led to just perceptions of the greatness of the Creator, and the goodness of his immutable laws. Soon he finds his perceptions dim, and is conscious of evil propensities, which baffle all his efforts at sinless perfection. He finds nothing in nature to solve the solemn inquiry how sin is to be pardoned, and evil thoughts and habits to be rooted out. The convinced sinner then feels the necessity of a direct revelation from God; and in the Bible alone he finds that astounding ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the matter needs management; for, though the savages are in the dark as to Chingachgook and the rock, they've eyes and legs, and will see in what direction we steer, and will be sartain to follow us. I shall strive to baffle 'em, howsever, by heading the scow in all manner of ways, first in one quarter and then in another, until they get to be a-leg-weary, and tired of tramping ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Jesuit Vieyra's mission to Maranham is as humiliating to human nature, as his sincere exertions in the cause of the suffering Indians is creditable to himself; but neither his exertions, nor the royal authority, could baffle the selfish cruelty and avarice of the people of that captaincy; they broke out into open rebellion in defence of their detestable practices, and even when they returned to obedience, there was a compromise between humanity and avarice, to which ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... indignation—the frightful yells now raised baffle description. A furious attack was made on Jonathan, who, though he defended himself like a lion, was desperately wounded, and would inevitably have perished if he had not been protected by the guards, who were obliged to use both swords and fire-arms upon the mob in ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... must be voluntary, and the flow of feeling, or of soul, as it has become a law to style it, is not to be forced, or commanded to come and go at will. This is the reason that all premeditated enjoyments connected with the intellect, are apt to baffle expectations, and why academies, literary clubs, coteries and dinners are commonly dull. It is true that a body of clever people may be brought together, and, if left to their own impulses, the characters of their mind will show ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... shared my grandfather's stupefaction at their unaccountable changes. It appeared almost as if my father had won them over to baffle him. The old man tried to insist on their sitting down again, but Janet perseveringly smiled and smiled until he stood up. She spoke to him softly. He was one black frown; displeased with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... if he could but rescue Alice? And what were life should he fail to rescue her? The old, old song hummed in his heart, every phrase of it distinct above the tumult of the storm. Could cold and hunger, swollen streams, ravenous wild beasts and scalp-hunting savages baffle him? No, there is no barrier that can hinder love. He said this over and over to himself after his rencounter with the four Indian scouts on the Wabash. He repeated it with every heart-beat until he fell in with some friendly red men, who took him to their camp, where to his great surprise ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... they held, and so lengthen out the war; others that they should harass the army of the Castillians with frequent skirmishes and assaults, and never give them battle power to power, thinking that in this manner they might baffle them till the winter came on. Don Rodrigo Frojaz was at this time recovering of the wounds which he had received at Agoa de Mayas, and he said unto the King that it behoved him above all things to put his kingdom upon the hazard of a battle; ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... negotiation; and, if you attend to it in that view, will qualify you for any. By the same means that you make a friend, guard against an enemy, or gain a mistress; you will make an advantageous treaty, baffle those who counteract you, and gain the court you are sent to. Make this use of all the company you keep, and your very pleasures will make you a successful negotiator. Please all who are worth pleasing; offend none. Keep ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Hon. Caleb Cushing, American minister at China, to Alexandra, whilst at anchor in Gibraltar bay, on the 26th ult., was entirely consumed by fire. The fire broke out in the night, and raged with such determined fury as to baffle all the efforts of the crew, as well as that of the assistance sent from her Majesty's ship Malabar, and from the garrison. The magazines were flooded soon after the commencement of the fire; and, although a great many shells burst, yet, very fortunately, ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... "product-of-the-circumstances" theories about race, climate, religion. But always sooner or later, and much more often sooner than later, the mocking demon of the individual, or, if a different phrase be preferred, the great and splendid mystery of the idiosyncrasy of the artist, will meet and baffle you. You will find that on the showing of this science falsely so called, there is no reason why Chapelain should not be a poet, and none why Shakespeare is. You will ask science in vain to tell you why ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... return!" Claude answered grimly. "Have no fear of that! The portcullis is down, and the only way to raise it, is up these stairs. But it will be hard if, armed as we are now, we cannot baffle them! Has ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... blast pipes 12 in. in diameter discharging into a hermetically closed ash-pit under the grate area. The air is supplied from fans (Schiele's patent) at a pressure of from 1 to 2 in. of water, and is controlled by means of baffle valves worked by handles on either side of the furnace, conveniently placed for the attendant. The forced draught tends to keep the bars cool and lessen wear and tear. The fumes from the charge drying on the hearth pass through the fire and over the red-hot fire-bridge, which is perforated ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... the line as he went; tugged at the anchor, which yielded readily; found it; and almost at the same moment heard the boat's nose grate softly on the pebbles. The beach shelved steeply, and her stern lay well afloat; nor was there any run of sea to baffle him by throwing her broadside-on to the stones. He hurried Tilda aboard. She clambered over the thwarts to the stern-sheets, 'Dolph sprang after her, and then with the lightest push the boy had her afloat—so easily indeed that she had almost slid away, leaving ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... your resolution may avail you for a time; but it cannot forever baffle the hardened nature of a man. I know my own sex, and I know my own ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... appear like meteors, few and far between, in the horizon of glory and intelligence, suddenly started up in the person of Tecumseh, who, possessed of a genius, as splendid in conception, as it was bold in execution, long continued to baffle the plans and defeat the measures of his most experienced enemies. Whether the warrior owed his original influence, or rather the opportunity for development of his extraordinary talents, both diplomatic and warlike, to the fact of his being the brother of the Prophet—a similar, and rather mean ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the beginning, GOD created the Heaven and the Earth:"—by which I understand, that, at some remote period,—which may or may not baffle human Arithmetic[272],—it was the pleasure of GOD the FATHER, GOD the SON, GOD the HOLY GHOST,—three Persons, coeternal and coequal,—one GOD,—out of nothing, to create the entire Universe. "All things that are in Heaven, and that are in Earth, visible and invisible, whether ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... two things—to make plans mentally or upon paper, and another thing to carry them out. A general lays down his plan of campaign, but a dozen hazards of the war may tend to baffle and spoil courses which seem as they are laid down sure ways leading ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... thou abuse our patience? How long shalt thou baffle justice in thy mad career? To what extreme wilt thou carry thy audacity? Art thou nothing daunted by the nightly watch, posted to secure the Palatium? Nothing, by the city guards! Nothing, by the rally of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... any rate, helped to baffle the police, who saw Silva living at the rate of twenty thousand a year, and were unable to trace the source of his income. That he had estates in Portugal was known; but they had been acquired, apparently, on the profits of the music-hall. He was not a speculator, though he was a shareholder ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... the abyss and roam about the earth; they penetrate everywhere carrying corruption, distress, {158} sickness and death. The celestial spirits and the supporters of piety are compelled constantly to baffle their ever renewed enterprises. The strife continues in the heart and conscience of man, the epitome of the universe, between the divine law of duty and the suggestions of the evil spirits. Life is a merciless war knowing no ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... and smoke might be observed. They then shut up the chest, replaced the padlocks and chains with those they had brought for the purpose, and renewed the seals with the queen's signet, which, bearing the royal arms, would baffle detection that the seals had been tampered with. They then took the crown into the chapel, where they found a red velvet cushion, so large that by taking out some of the stuffing a hiding-place was made in which the crown was ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... natural birth. If it is born black and into slavery, poor little thing, there it has to remain for life, and bear and suffer all the evils incident to its color and condition. If one is born with natural deformities which baffle all surgical skill; or with blindness or deafness past all remedy; we can but pity and weep. True, our sympathies are aroused, and but for such objects probably the very purest and noblest springs in our nature would remain ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... footstool. But then Molly came into play. At first she seemed to make the simple thing simpler. Amilcare was a strong man, but stiff. Grifone was sure he would bungle in his handling of Molly; this truth-telling beauty, this flawless jewel in a cup, would baffle him; he would neither see it the fine nor the delicate tool it was. He worked best with a bludgeon which, as it did brute's work, might be brutishly handled. So far well—he might trust Amilcare to wreck himself. ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Both for capacity and wit, And very docile: they will do My business, as I wish them to. And hawk—the hawk is a good fellow— And chanticleer, with cockscomb yellow; But all the ravens—they must go— Pry in futurities, you know. That will not do; to baffle all With truth, for the apocryphal. No; jays and pies will do far better,— They talk by ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... judge in chambers, Mr. Justice Stephen being the one who granted the writ. I remember roaming the Law Courts with Mr. Bradlaugh that morning. We went from office to office in the most perplexing manner. Everything seemed designed to baffle suitors who conduct their own cases. Obsolete technicalities, only half intelligible even to experts, met one at every turn, and when I left the Law Courts I felt that the thing was indeed done, but that it would almost puzzle omniscience to do ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... Let the wind baffle and drop in a heavy tide- way just as you are sailing your little sloop through a narrow draw-bridge. Behold your sails, upon which you are depending, flap with sudden emptiness, and then see the impish wind, with a haul ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... an exception to this feeling, it will be found chiefly with a peculiar class. It is a sorry fact, that the "mercantile interest," in unpardonable selfishness, twice in English history, frowned upon endeavors to suppress the atrocity of Algerine Slavery, that it sought to baffle Wilberforce's great effort for the abolition of the African slave-trade, and that, by a sordid compromise, at the formation of our Constitution, it exempted the same detested, Heaven-defying traffic from American judgment. And now ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... 360 For the earth-not a use to which they don't turn it, The ore that grows in the mountain's womb, Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb, They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it— Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle With side-bars never a brute can baffle; Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards; Or, if your colt's fore-foot inclines to curve inwards, Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. 370 Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle That keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle; ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... of ingenuity has this system of adulterating food arrived, that spurious articles of various kinds are every where to be found, made up so skilfully as to baffle the discrimination of the most ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... mysterious cradle of so many doctrines which still rule mankind in different shapes, though it has long forgotten their source. There I saw Syria with its hundred cities, every city a nation, and every nation with an empire's might. Baalbec, with its gigantic temples, the very ruins of which baffle the imagination of man, as they stand like mountains of carved rocks in the desert where for hundreds of miles not a stone is to be found, and no river flows, offering its tolerant back to carry a mountain's weight upon, and yet there they stand, those gigantic ruins; and as we glance ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... packs from the beginning of the disease, there will be cases when water-treatment can neither prevent such an event or even save the life of the patient afflicted by scarlet-fever. There will be a case, now and then, to baffle any mode of treatment, and the physician must not be blamed for losing a patient of scarlatina occasionally, but it is not necessary that people should continue to die of this disease in such numbers, as they have been destroyed ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... it for much kindness and assistance. Just now indeed, when the smugglers are returned to this coast, what with the open assistance he receives from them, and the underhand support and connivance he meets with from the country people, he contrives effectually to baffle the pursuit of ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... in the great ones, there exists a third element, preeminently vital. This third element the master plotters have either overlooked or else have not had the genius to construct. They plan with rare cunning to baffle the victim. They plan with vast wisdom, almost genius, to baffle the trailer. But they fail utterly to provide any plan for baffling the punisher. Ergo, their plots are fatally defective and often result in ruin. Hence the vital ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... reached, to call his household around him, represent the terrible sufferings and fate that awaited them, which he believed was owing to the influence of an evil spirit who desired to extirpate the race, and incited them to baffle death with all its horrors by at once killing themselves—at the same time offering to perform the deed of mercy with his own hand if ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... among their opponents, an event which was inevitable, considering the different shades of opinion prevailing amongst them, though they hope to reconcile all their differences by the time Parliament meets, which they will probably do, in order to baffle their common enemy. It is, however, a good thing that these differences should arise amongst them. I wish I could see a party formed upon really Conservative principles, determined to maintain the Constitution ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... of being able to hold communication with the habitants of an older and a wiser world,—some race of beings more highly evolved than we, both intellectually and morally, and able to interpret a thousand mysteries that still baffle our science. Perhaps, in such event, we should not find ourselves able to comprehend the methods, even could we borrow the results, of wisdom older than all our civilization by myriads or hundreds of myriads ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... behind Farfrae's chair, watching his dexterity in clearing up the numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard's books as almost to baffle even the Scotchman's perspicacity. The corn-factor's mien was half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash of pity for the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically unfit for grubbing subtleties from ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... produces their motions, and from combined motions result the phenomena; but, in the principle of organic life, and in the duration and final purpose of the powers of vegetables and animals, there are mysteries which baffle the penetration of limited observation and reason. I behold VEGETABLES with roots fixed in the ground, and through them raising fluids mechanically; but my understanding is overpowered with unsatisfied wonder, when I consider the animating principle of the meanest vegetable, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... the district. It seems that the malady in question attacks, for the most part, the female population, and the patients are confidently styled, and asserted to be, possessed. It 'produces all the effects of madness, without having its character,' and is said to baffle all the resources of medical science, which is ignorant of its nature. There had been an intermission of the convulsions for some time, but they have now reappeared with greater violence than ever.—The Times newspaper, June ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... had opened the letter and joyfully exhibited the check to her mother and father; "he'll have some trouble opening that box. It was the strongest box I have ever seen of the kind, made of iron reinforced with steel bands, with a combination lock that would baffle even your friend, Richards, Grace, who appeared to be a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... carriage next day, enabled her with more ease to deck her lips with smiles. She felt that the penetrating eyes of Mr. Somerset were never withdrawn from her face. Offended with his perverseness, and their scrutiny, she tried to baffle their inspection. She attempted gayety, when she gladly would have wept. But when the coach mounted the top of Highgate Hill, and she had a last view of that city which contained the being whose happiness ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... schools and establish rabbinical seminaries, Jews looked upon these, too, as the sugared poison with which he intended to extirpate Judaism? Or can we blame them for being determined to the last to baffle him? Nicholas did not understand the great lesson taught by the history of the Jews and inculcated in the ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... fell into a terrible rage, and massacred Uluhoomoe on the spot. The gods avenged the death of the priest by sending a distressing famine, first on the island of Maui, then on Hawaii. Hua, thinking to baffle the divine vengeance, went to Hawaii to escape the scourge; but a famine more terrible yet pursued him there. The chief vainly traversed every quarter of the islands; he starved to death in the temple of Makeanehu (Kohala). His bones, after death, dried and ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... girl. He had liked her the instant she favored him with her friendly smile, and so, trusting fatuously to his masculine powers of observation, he tried to analyze her. He could not guess her age, for an expensive ladies' tailor can baffle the most discriminating eye. Certainly, however, she was not too old— he had an idea that she would tell him her exact age if he asked her. While he could not call her beautiful, she was something immensely better—she was alive, human, interesting, and interested. The fact that she did not ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... with Arthur, but with O'Hara. For days, weeks, months, she had been blindly groping toward the knowledge; and now, in a flash of intuition, it had come to her like one of those discoveries of science, which baffle investigators for years, and then miraculously reveal themselves in a moment of insight. Her first antagonism, her injustice, her unreasonable resentments and suspicions, she recognized now, in the piercing light of this discovery, as the inexplicable ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... through together has, I hope, enabled you to draw with fair success either rounded and simple masses, like stones, or complicated arrangements of form, like those of leaves; provided only these masses or complexities will stay quiet for you to copy, and do not extend into quantity so great as to baffle your patience. But if we are now to go out to the fields, and to draw anything like a complete landscape, neither of these conditions will any more be observed for us. The clouds will not wait while we copy their heaps or clefts; ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... the reason? To baffle the traitor by preventing him from acquiring previous knowledge of the place. He was watching for some quiet hour in Jerusalem to take Jesus. So Christ does not eat the passover at the house of any well-known disciple ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... have been rid of Gregorio, she would have felt almost sure of victory; but as it was, she believed the man absolutely meant to baffle her, partly out of a spiteful rivalry, partly because his master's torpid indolence could be used to his own advantage. She was absolutely certain that his sneering tone of remark made her husband doubly disinclined to let any religious ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to you. Without doubt, the preparations of this enterprise have not been so secret that William of Orange has not been kept posted by spies who gained entrance into the cabinet at Versailles, and even into the inner circle of the lesser court at Saint Germain. In order to baffle the projects which rest entirely upon your highness, the usurper has given to Colonel Rutler the mission which came so near being fatal to you, your highness. You see, then, in all this Father Griffen has been perfectly innocent. Some one has abused his confidence most ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... Jeremy Taylor and his compeers made on the religious part of the community by their controversial writings during the life of Charles I is to be found in their undue predilection for Patristic learning and authority. This originated in the wish to baffle the Papists at their own weapons; but it could not escape notice, that the latter, though regularly beaten, were yet not so beaten, but that they always kept the field: and when the same mode of warfare was employed against the ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... demeanour, every action, was stamped with this purpose. It puzzled White Fang. Never had he seen such a dog. It had no hair protection. It was soft, and bled easily. There was no thick mat of fur to baffle White Fang's teeth as they were often baffled by dogs of his own breed. Each time that his teeth struck they sank easily into the yielding flesh, while the animal did not seem able to defend itself. Another disconcerting ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... thee," the soldier said. "But in truth I think thee something more than fool to let thyself be thus caught doddering by the way. To escape once, and baffle all the great lord Eudemius's searchers, and then be stumbled upon like any sheep—faugh! I expected ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... subject of circumstances to fancy that the Scud was anywhere in the vicinity of a port so long established and so well known on the frontiers as Frontenac. The islands might not have been literally a thousand in number, but they were so numerous and small as to baffle calculation, though occasionally one of larger size than common was passed. Jasper had quitted what might have been termed the main channel, and was winding his way, with a good stiff breeze and a favorable ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... way towards her, with strong steps and sturdy shoulders fighting with the wind, which seemed determined to baffle his attempts to reach Valmai before the periodical recurring inrush of opposite streams should once more meet, and rise in towering strife together. Thoroughly frightened and trembling, Valmai looked in horror at the two opposing streams of water approaching her on either ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... member Close by the hinges of a block of timber. We then no more shall Master, master, whoot, The swagger, who th' alarum bell holds out; Could one seize on the dagger which he bears, Heads would be free from tingling in the ears, To baffle the whole storehouse of abuses. The thus farewell Apollo ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the canoes could be seen from his boat, and he was glad to get within the cover of his little haven. Once there, the different crafts were quite concealed from the view of persons outside, and it now remained to be proved whether their cover was not so complete as effectually to baffle a hostile attempt to ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... become a vehicle of vituperation, respecting Messrs. A.T. STEWART, RIDLEY, and other leading merchants of this city. To this query we reply that the spots on the Sun are increasing so in number and magnitude as to baffle our telescopic investigations. A suggestion in the case is furnished, however, by the fact that the columns of the Sun are not lighted up with advertisements from any of the establishments against which it has been discharging its meteoric sneezes. And this may ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... the cap placed on first, the steps being covered one after the other, until they reached the bottom (Note 21). In the inside all was arranged so as to hide the exact place of the sarcophagus, and to baffle any spoilers whom chance or perseverance had led aright. The first point was to discover the entrance under the casing, which masked it. It was nearly in the middle of the north face (fig. 136), but at the level of the eighteenth ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... are alarming to inexperience, and those in the way of the two lovers were very like the bonds by which the population of Lilliput throttled Gulliver, a multiplicity of nothings, which made all movement impossible, and baffle the most vehement desires. Mme. de Bargeton, for instance, must always be visible. If she had denied herself to visitors when Lucien was with her, it would have been all over with her; she might as well have run away with him ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... the time when I should be a man, and do as I saw others do. I longed for the days when I should be able to drink and be idle; and, in the mean time, I set all my wits to work to baffle and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... State could be spread out before us in open view, it would be a wonder to this convention that tile drainage has wrought out such favorable results as it has. We would see tile laid on the siphon plan, good and poor joints, faulty connections, ditches crooked enough to baffle the sagacious mole should he attempt to follow the line. Patience would scarcely hold out to enumerate the exasperating defects of much of our drainage work. Nothing can overcome the egotism and self-confidence of the average ditcher except the constant supervision of the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... all men sweet is, Death to all must bitter be; Wherefore thus, oh, mother Thetis! None can baffle Jove's decree? I am ready, I am willing, To resign my stormy life; Weary of this long blood-spilling, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... Power to fulfil the glorious task; Willing the spirit, may the flesh Strength for the day receive afresh. May burning sun or deadly wind Prevail not o'er an earnest mind; May torments strange or direst death Nor trample truth, nor baffle faith. Though such blood-drops should fall from me As fell in old Gethsemane, Welcome the anguish, so it gave More strength to work—more skill to save. And, oh! if brief must be my time, If hostile hand or fatal clime Cut short my course—still o'er my grave, Lord, may ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... secrecy she told of Elise's masquerade the night before, and of A.O.'s wild curiosity about the lady in black. She had persecuted them all morning with questions, and they were almost worn out trying to evade them and to baffle her. Ethelinda appreciated being taken into her confidence, for she had been more lonely than her pride would allow her to admit. Her patronizing airs and ill-guarded speech about being exclusive in the choice of friends had offended most of ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... grew again in the casket, as he had many a time proved. On this wise he crossed all the people of Certaldo, to his no small profit, and thus, by his ready wit and presence of mind, he baffled those who, by taking the feather from him, had thought to baffle him and who, being present at his preachment and hearing the rare shift employed by him and from how far he had taken it and with what words, had so laughed that they thought to have cracked their jaws. Then, after the common folk had departed, they went up to him ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... custom, break a law, break a habit, break a usage, break a custom, violate a law, violate a habit, violate a usage, violate a custom; drive a coach and six through; stretch a point; have no business there; baffle all description, beggar all description. Adj. uncomformable, exceptional; abnormal, abnormous^; anomalous, anomalistic; out of order, out of place, out of keeping, out of tune, out of one's element; irregular, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... hesitating and tentative action which results from knowledge that is still so imperfect as to be actively self-conscious; nor yet that it should grow or vary perceptibly unless under such changed conditions as shall baffle memory, and present the alternative of either invention—that ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Scottish retainers, to the shelter of Aharlow. Sir John Perrott, having by this time no further sieges to prosecute, drew his toils closer and closer round the Geraldine's retreat. For a whole year, the fidelity of his adherents and the natural strength of the place enabled him to baffle all the President's efforts. But his faithful Scottish guards being at length surprised and cut off almost to a man, Fitzmaurice, with his son, his kinsman, the Seneschal of Imokilly, and the son of Richard Burke, surrendered to the President at Kilmallock, suing ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... pipes that constitute the disposal fields. From the moment household wastes enter the tank, fermentation begins its work of reducing them from noisome sewage to harmless water. Both intake and outlet pipes extend below the level of the contents, with a baffle plate across the center which prevents direct outward flow. The heavy solids sink to the bottom and anaerobic bacteria, which develop only where there is no oxygen, breed rapidly and break these up so that they rise to the top and provide the ever present scum which excludes all air and stimulates ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... that his soul was baffled—or did it mean that his soul would not suffer him to baffle it, try as he might? Was that girl of the old days to greet him with her wondering eyes at the end of every high path? These and many other questions he ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... "Onward: the steps, behold! are near; and now Th' ascent is without difficulty gain'd." A scanty few are they, who when they hear Such tidings, hasten. O ye race of men Though born to soar, why suffer ye a wind So slight to baffle ye? He led us on Where the rock parted; here against my front Did beat his wings, then promis'd I should fare In safety on my way. As to ascend That steep, upon whose brow the chapel stands (O'er Rubaconte, looking lordly down On the well-guided city,) up the right Th' impetuous ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... a man among children, and was raised above his opponents, as much by the justness of his understanding, and the extent of his penetration, as he was by the manly fortitude and disinterestedness with which he strove to baffle the designs of a vain and childish ambition, that was operating to the ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... that she had drawn very often lately in her idle moods, half unconsciously sometimes—a bold handsome face, that offered none of those difficulties by which some countenances baffle the skill of a painter. It was the face of a man of whom she had told herself it was a sin even to think; but the face haunted her somehow, and it seemed as if her pencil reproduced it in spite ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... with such a snow-storm in his imagination, when telling the shepherds to be kind to their helpless charge, addressed them in language which, in an ordinary mood, would have been bombast. "Shepherds," says he, "baffle the raging year!" How? Why merely by filling their pens with food. But the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... which at the same time is the most difficult to be translated. Who would believe that a work which paints in such lively and natural colours the several foibles and follies of mankind, and where we meet with more sentiments than words, should baffle the endeavours of the ablest translator? But the reason of this is, almost every part of it alludes to particular incidents. The clergy are there made the principal object of ridicule, which is understood but by few among the laity. ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... controversy will no longer serve their purpose, we see the same men without warmth or energy, cold, languid, and unequal to the conflict; like those little animals, which are brisk in narrow places, and by their agility baffle their pursuers, but in the open field are soon overpowered. Haec pars dialectica, sive illam dicere malimus disputatricem, ut est utilis saepe et finitionibus, et comprehensionibus, et separandis quae sunt differentia, et resolvenda ambiguitate, et distinguendo, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... when the deaths were less numerous, a hope began to be entertained that the distemper was abating, and confidence was for a moment restored; but these anticipations were speedily checked by the reappearance of the scourge, which seemed to baffle and deride ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... soon as possible. The odds, of course, will be so great to contend against, that, humanly speaking, you will be bound to retreat across the Orange River. Still I trust that you will not follow our example, but will find the Colony quite large enough to baffle the enemy in their attempts to capture you. And as the British have already exerted themselves in vain for over three months to oust you, we entertain the hope that you will maintain your ground ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... were as easily gotten rid of myself," said Charles; "but as that cannot be, we must endeavour to baffle them in the best way ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest |
