"Confuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not satisfied himself with depriving the enemy of all information as to his advance. He took steps to confuse and alarm them by false news. By means of large bribes he prevailed upon two peasants to carry each a copy of the same letter to Colonel Jones, who commanded in San Matteo. He took the further step of insuring their loyalty by arresting their families as hostages, and, ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... that the enthusiasts over everything German confuse one with. The German's fondness—gobbling-down fondness—for food does not prove that he is a gourmet. The Teuton sentimentality is like mush. It's principally for children. As Fritz keeps a good deal of his childishness about him ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... arguing," said the Major, "and I can't answer you when you confuse things in the way you do. But I know perfectly ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... pointed at one pole and squared off at the other, closely resemble those of the Field Crioceris and, like these, usually stand up on the supporting surface, to which they are fastened by the square end. It would be easy to confuse the two if we had not the position which they occupy to guide us. The Field Crioceris fastens her eggs to the leaves and the thin sprays; the other plants them exclusively on the still green fruit of the asparagus, globules the size of ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... historical anarchy, tilts the figure of Mr. Lloyd George into a salience so conspicuous that for a moment one is tempted to confuse prominence with eminence, and to mistake the slagheap of upheaval for ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... feel a single angle of an individual; and this, once ascertained, tells us the class of the person whom we are addressing, unless indeed he belongs to the higher sections of the nobility. There the difficulty is much greater. Even a Master of Arts in our University of Wentbridge has been known to confuse a ten-sided with a twelve-sided Polygon; and there is hardly a Doctor of Science in or out of that famous University who could pretend to decide promptly and unhesitatingly between a twenty-sided and a twenty-four sided member of ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... act upon her independent impulses, she seized a hooded waterproof cloak, and slipped out of the house unperceived. The rain was falling steadily along the descending trail where she walked, but beyond, scarcely a mile across the chasm, the wintry distance began to confuse her brain with the inextricable swarming of snow. Hurrying down with feverish excitement, she at last came in sight of the arching granite portals of their domain. But her first glance through the gateway showed it closed as if with a white portcullis. Kate ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... crystal clear—his thought efficient. Perhaps he was dying—most probably he was. If so this was a lucid interval before death, and in it his mind was playing him no tricks. The supposed friend loomed in an unmasked and traitorous light which even the preconceived idea could not confuse or mitigate. Maggard did not want to give credence to the certainty that was shaping itself—and yet the conviction had been born and could not be thrust back into the womb of the unborn. All of Rowlett's friendliness and loyalty had been only an alibi! It had ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... to the second kind of classification. I appreciate men less by the special affection which they show to me than by their personal excellence, and I cannot confuse gratitude with esteem. It is a happy thing for us when the two feelings can be combined; and nothing is more painful than to owe gratitude where yet we can feel neither respect ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with a body lacerated by the acutest pains, and with a mind distracted by a thousand avocations and obliged for immediate supply to produce almost extempore a farce, a pamphlet, or a newspaper." Murphy's careless pen seems here to confuse the student years with those of assiduous effort at the Bar; and the extempore farces are, judging by the dates of Fielding's collected plays, no more than a rhetorical flourish: but there seems no reason to doubt ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... of our nation's journey hither. We can at best only hope to notice the more prominent lines of advance. To carefully trace the growth of all the departments would not only greatly exceed the limited time at our command this evening, but would also confuse us by the multiplicity ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... written in Scots. There is also a very great point made of the difference between Scots and English, which seems to have been very slight indeed, a difference of spelling more than anything else, nothing that could confuse any but the most ignorant reader. The following sentences from Buchanan's "Admonition direct to the Trew Lordis, maintaineris of justice" will throw some light on the latter question, the difference between the written speech of ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... Finding that he was hotly pursued, Keona had taken advantage of the first rocky ground he reached to diverge abruptly from the route he had hitherto followed in his flight; and, the farther to confuse his pursuers, he had taken the almost exhausted child up in his arms and carried her a considerable distance, so that if his enemies should fall again on his track the absence of the little footprints might induce ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... stand by his own soul, his own responsibility as the creative vanguard of life. And he must also have the courage to go home to his woman and become a perfect answer to her deep sexual call. But he must never confuse his two issues. Primarily and supremely man is always the pioneer of life, adventuring onward into the unknown, alone with his own temerarious, dauntless soul. Woman for him exists only in the twilight, by the camp fire, when day has departed. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... hypogaea, or hypocarpogea).—This very singular plant has frequently been confounded with others, partly through the carelessness of travellers, and by the improper use of names, which tended to mislead and confuse. Its common appellative, the earth-nut, has led to the conclusion that it was a species of nut, such as is known in England under the name of "pig nut," "hawk nut," and "ground nut." This, as well as the "earth chesnut," belongs to a totally different genera. On the Continent and in the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... and few are fools enough to deny. Many people, however, confuse this organic distinction of sex with its time-worn conventional symbols; just as religion is commonly confused with its external rites and ceremonies. The comparison naturally continues itself further; for, as in religion, so soon as some traditional garment of the faith has become ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... Philadelphia lawyer is a proud and vaulting ambition. Philadelphia lawyers are exceedingly astute, and are able to confuse the simplest propositions, thus hopelessly befogging judge and jury. On the banks of the Schuylkill all jurors are provided with dice so as to decide the cases with perfect justice—small dice for little cases and large dice ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... for the changes are great and the speech of Florentines would sound as a riddle in your ears. Or, if you go, mingle with no politicians on the marmi, or elsewhere; ask no questions about trade in the Calimara; confuse yourself with no inquiries into scholarship, official or monastic. Only look at the sunlight and shadows on the grand walls that were built solidly, and have endured in their grandeur; look at the faces of the little children, making another sunlight amid the shadows of age; look, if you will, into ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... is no oppressive misgovernment, there is no land question in the sense in which Nitti applies the term, there is no poverty to account for a declining birth-rate or to confuse the problem. There is prosperity on every hand, and want is almost unknown. And yet, fewer and fewer children, in proportion to the population, and in proportion to the number of marriages, are born into the colony every year. The only reason that can ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... collar, and rushing out, put him over the garden gate and shut both that and the door. Mary, afraid that the old lady was going to have a fit, went up to her with soothing apologies, but the unwonted sight seemed to confuse her the more, and she began crying. Lizzie, however, came to the rescue. She evidently had all her wits about her. First she called out: "Order, children. Don't you see the ladies? Sit down, Jem Hewlett, or I'll after you with the stick!" Then, as the children ranged ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with no less truthfulness she might have done, that what had induced a slight access of confusion in her had been the sudden and unexpected possession of eleven golden sovereigns. But she had a feeling, somewhat obscure, that such a happening should not confuse a red Deeping; therefore she did not say anything ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... to confuse the two forms of memory which Bergson distinguishes in the second chapter of his "Matter and Memory," namely the sort that consists of habit, and the sort that consists of independent recollection. ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... TANNER. That's because you confuse construction and destruction with creation and murder. They're quite different: I adore creation and abhor murder. Yes: I adore it in tree and flower, in bird and beast, even in you. [A flush of interest ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... he said. "A well-directed blow on the head would confuse a man's thoughts. It is time to depart. When thou art free, Philip, as, if possessing courage, thou art sure soon to be, forget not the friend who ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... in an enlightened, intelligent, almost methodical fashion. He does not confuse issues, and complain indiscriminately. Even when in the hands of others, he remains the man who had the courage to cut off his own foot, and finish the work of the shrapnel. He is too modest and respectful to give advice to the surgeon, but he ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... confuse elasticity with action and reaction. But the differences between them are very clear. Action and reaction happen at the same time; your body goes up at the same time that you pull down on a bar to chin yourself; while in elasticity ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... Horvendile, "if Queen Helen were the woman whom we had loved in vain. For the woman whom when we were young we loved in vain is the one woman that we can never see quite clearly, whatever happens. So we might easily, I suppose, confuse ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... sanglots la confuse harmonie N'veille dj plus notre esprit endormi, Aux lvres du mourant coll dans l'agonie, Comme un ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... side of it a flash of majesty. Wherever in His history there is some gleaming out from the veil of flesh of the hidden glory of divinity, there is immediately some drawing of the veil across the glory. And the two things do not contradict nor confuse, but we stand before that double picture of a Christ betrayed and of a Christ commanding His betrayer, and using his treason, and we say, 'The Word was made flesh, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... not until the night was completely set in that he intimated his apprehensions whether he was in the right road. The increasing snow rendered this intimation rather alarming, for as it drove full in the lad's face, and lay whitening all around him, it served in two different ways to confuse his knowledge of the count and to diminish the chance of his recovering the right track. Brown then himself got out and looked round, not, it may be well imagined, from any better hope than that of seeing ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... you, madam," said the stranger. "I am certainly John McAllister; but I am no captain, neither have I been at sea. Good God! is it my grandfather whom you confuse me with?" cried he. "He was Jack McAllister, and was lost at sea more than seventy years ago, while my own father was a baby. I am told that I am wonderfully like his portrait; but he was a younger man than I when he died. ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... the Constitution and the Union strive also to confuse the public mind with constitutional questions as to the end or purpose of the war. What has the Constitution to do with that? What constitutional object is there for the nation or the Government to have now in view? This, and this only: the extinction of the rebellion by force ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... fragments of stone from every rock between here and Wales, teeth of elephants, skulls of ox and musk ox; while icebergs, breaking away from the glaciers of the Welsh Alps, sailed down over the spot where we now are, dropping their imbedded stones and silt, to confuse more utterly than before the records of a world rocking and throbbing above the shocks ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... extraordinary promptness and accuracy, his topographical glance has discerned "the best direction for the projected canal, the best site for the construction of a factory, a harbor, or a dike."[4140] To the difficulties which confuse the best brains in the country, to much debated, seemingly insoluble, questions, he at once presents the sole practical solution; there it is, ready at hand, and the members of the local council had not seen it; he ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... accelerator.' 'But suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now we'll let her rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot-brake after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a ditch. The advice I give to every young man starting life is: 'Never confuse the unusual and the impossible.' Take the present case. If you had only realised the possibility of somebody some day collaring your study, you might have thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing with the matter. As it is, ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... Three men with magazine rifles extended in this manner, opposed to a hostile patrol collected in one party, should be able to deal with the latter without much difficulty. Their fire would be converging, and coming from different directions would confuse the hostile patrol, especially if the advance was made from a flank. The men of the patrol when creeping up the hill should avoid exposing themselves in the direction of the ground behind the hill, if possible, because they want to examine that ground ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... first place, we must be careful never to confuse the terms vocation and avocation, for their meaning is ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... capitalist class lacks this cohesion or solidarity, chief among which is the optimism bred of past success. And, again, the capitalist class is divided; it has within itself a class struggle of no mean proportions, which tends to irritate and harass it and to confuse the situation. The small capitalist and the large capitalist are grappled with each other, struggling over what Achille Loria calls the "bi-partition of the revenues." Such a struggle, though not precisely ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... a cheque for no less a sum than six thousand pounds to "self or bearer." Had the brothers, then, been deliberately and nefariously engaged in a deep-laid scheme—the cashier asked himself, much puzzled—to confuse one another's identity with great care beforehand, with a distinct view to the projected murder? For as yet, of course, nobody on earth except Guy Waring himself on the waters of Biscay knew or suspected anything at all about ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... to find you ready to set off for Mansfield. My father wishes you to invite Susan to go with you for a few months. Settle it as you like; say what is proper; I am sure you will feel such an instance of his kindness at such a moment! Do justice to his meaning, however I may confuse it. You may imagine something of my present state. There is no end of the evil let loose upon us. You will see me ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... must be up there in the lofty gallery! For there he was, still at work on his picture. The artist is the only really happy man. He need fear no exile; every land is his home. No foreign tongue can confuse him; his thoughts find a medium of expression intelligible to all. Wars have no terror for him; he paints them, but takes no part in them. Storms and tempests, by land or sea, speak to him not of danger, but are ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... is," said Tom; "we must agree on something, or we shall both get left. All we're doing now is to confuse the poor girl. She evidently likes us both the same. What I mean is, we're both so alike that she can't possibly make a choice unless one of us chucks it. You don't feel like chucking ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... my fortune. I am new, like the Empire; there is, therefore, a perfect homogeneity between the Empire and myself."—"However," says Metternich, "I have often thought that Napoleon, by talking in this way, merely sought to study the opinion of others, or to confuse it, and the direct advance which he made to Louis XVIII., in 1804 seemed to confirm this suspicion. Speaking to me one day of this advance he said, 'Monsieur's reply was grand; it was full of fine traditions. There is something in legitimate rights ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... door, a massive thing of solid brassy metal, such as interested the doctor immensely but only served to confuse the explorer. A little farther on, and the corridor became pretty dark. She passed another brass door, and approached the end of the pavement. There was one more door there; and she noted with ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... thus to banish forever the man whose presence was hateful to her, and make it impossible for him any longer to desire her as his wife? Had this child of solitude no idea of the etiquette which demands that such feelings should be concealed in a maiden's breast? Or did she confuse love with the gratitude she could not help feeling toward the man who had freed her and her mother from anxiety, and won for their lifelong enjoyment the possession of this little paradise? Perhaps she was alarmed when she saw her tormentor ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... use these terms in somewhat of a popular sense, for to attempt in a little book like this to define everything with strict scientific accuracy would simply confuse and mislead. ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... tramp brought us to the bush-veld where I feared that our troubles might begin, since if the Amahagger were cunning, they would take advantage of it to confuse or hide their spoor. As it chanced, however, they had done nothing of the sort and a child could have followed their march. Just before nightfall we came to their first halting-place where they had made a fire and eaten one of the herd of farm goats which they had driven away with them, although ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Perhaps Constant knew something of the affair. The prisoner knew the two were in not infrequent communication. It is possible—my lord and gentlemen of the jury, I do not wish to follow the methods of the prosecution and confuse theory with fact, so I say it is possible—that Mr. Constant had supplied her with the L25 to leave the country. He was like a brother to her, perhaps even acted imprudently in calling upon her, though neither dreamed of evil. It is possible that he may have encouraged ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... social reform which threatened to interfere with your own business methods. But no matter how you disapprove of socialism on general principles, as a leader of the capitalist class you should understand what socialism is, and not confuse one of the most important movements in modern world-history with the crazy theories of irresponsible cranks. The anarchists are the natural enemies of the entire human family, and would destroy it were their dangerous doctrines permitted to prevail; the socialists, on the ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... subjects which partisanship should not disturb or confuse. Let us survey the ground calmly and moderately; and having put aside other means of settlement, if we enter upon the policy of retaliation let us pursue it firmly, with a determination only to subserve the interests of our people and maintain the high ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... object of the discussion concerns the meaning of terms, and it deals throughout with the relation of words to other words. It is an acute philological argument. We feel ourselves to be arguing about forms, and not about substances. Now, such arguments may confuse, but they cannot convince. We do not know, perhaps, what to say in reply; but we remain unsatisfied. One not used to logic may listen to an argument which shall conclusively prove that white is black; that nothing is greater than something; ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... his arm, and he is seized by the proprietor and his assistants, who shout "stop thief!" and charge him with stealing the coat. Their noise, and the dread of being arrested upon a charge of theft, will frequently so confuse and frighten the victim that he will comply with their demand, which is that he shall buy the coat. This done, he is suffered to depart. A refusal to yield would not injure him, for the scoundrels would seldom dare to call in the police, for fear of getting themselves into trouble, as their ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... appointed supervisor of the school), a man of strong athletic build, with long waving hair, bearing a faint resemblance to the well-groomed tail of an Orlov race courser, quite forgetting his vocal powers, gave forth such a volume of sound as to confuse himself and frighten everybody else. Soon after this ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... lantern in the engulfing dark. You see, I hid its struggling light so long Under too small a bushel, and I fear It may go out forever. In the noon Of life's brief day, I could not see the need As now I see it, when the night shuts down. I was afraid, perhaps, it might confuse The lights that guide us for the souls ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... of brevity this may be called the "economic boycott," but it is really very much more than simply economic pressure. It is a common habit in political discussions to confuse very different things, to which the same name is given, and the term "economic boycott" is being used to cover three proposals of very different character. (a) It may mean a permanent exclusion of Germany from the markets of the world to punish its people for supporting the crimes of its rulers ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... hate sailing under false colours—not that I ever did sail under any colours, never having become a sailor—and yet I shouldn't say that, either, for that's the very point round which all the mystery hangs. I did go to sea! I'm rather apt to wander, I find, from my point, and to confuse my own mind, (I trust not the reader's). Perhaps the shortest way to let you understand how it was is to tell you ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... marble blue, Round him his men, full twenty thousand, stood. Called he forth then his counts, also his dukes: "My Lords, give ear to our impending doom: That Emperour, Charles of France the Douce, Into this land is come, us to confuse. I have no host in battle him to prove, Nor have I strength his forces to undo. Counsel me then, ye that are wise and true; Can ye ward off this present death and dule?" What word to say no pagan of them knew, Save Blancandrin, of th' Castle ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... at the expense of ultimate service, upon present productivity at the cost of ultimate power. The artist must learn, therefore, to bar his door against the public until he has so matured his own strength and determined his own methods that neither crowds nor applause nor demands can confuse or disturb him. The great spirits who have nourished the best life of the race have not turned to their fellows for their aims and habits of work; they have taken counsel of that ancient oracle which speaks ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... no significance in the selection of the day, and there is little if anything associated with the events of Sunday at the Front to distinguish it from any other day. Yet it is strange that though men may frequently confuse the days between Monday and Saturday, they instinctively seem to know when Sunday has come. Whether by chance or convenience, I know not, some of the biggest 'stunts' have been initiated on the Lord's ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... to hammer in his breast and throb in his throat, closing it with a sudden spasm that seemed to confuse his vision for a moment and turn the distant passing regiment to a glittering stream of steel ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... in the would-be assassin that betokened cooperation and an organized plan. He had availed himself of the thunderstorm, the flash and long reverberating roll of sound—an artifice not unknown to border ambush—to confuse discovery at the instant. Yet the attack might be only an isolated one; or it might be the beginning of a general raid upon the Syndicate's freedmen. If the former he could protect Cato from its repetition by guarding him in the office until he could ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... lord, like not manna for meat as a Judahn; I, thy master, drink, and red wine, plenty, and when I thirst. Eat meat, and full, when I hunger. I, thy King, teach you and leave you, when I list. No woman in all Persia sets out strange action To confuse Persia's lord— Love is but desire and thy purpose fulfillment; I, ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... must have a separate head—it follows that chronology, as a pre-Christian chronology, will, like the Imperial eagle, be two-headed. Now this accident of chronology, on a first glance, seems but too likely to confuse and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... sighed. "So many ask for that," he said. "They all confuse the end with the means. What they really want is joy, but ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... this transept contains much interesting Norman work, which has been re-used in a very clever way. The square flanking towers, with their later spires, the arcading over the head of the window, and the graceful curve in the battlement are all worthy of attention, and will serve to confuse visitors before they realise that the Norman architecture is concealed under a later casing, and that there is a great deal of old ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... African growth known locally, from its catching qualities, as the Wait-a-bit-thorn, and as rapidly as they could go Dickenson led his men to that, finding, as he expected, just enough cover in the midst of a perfectly bare plain, if not to shelter lying-down men, at least to blur and confuse the enemy's marksmen. Here he gave the order, "Dismount!" Lennox was laid flat upon his back, to lie without motion, and each man took the best shelter he could; while the ponies, not being trained like the ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... example, the chronological tables of the 14th century and the later mentions of clocks in E. Zinner, Aus der Fruehzeit der Raederuhr, Munich, 1954, p. 29 ff. Unfortunately this very complete treatment tends to confuse the factual and legendary sources prior to the clock of de Dondi; it also accepts the very doubtful evidence of the "escapement" drawn by Villard of Honnecourt (see p. 107). An excellent and fully illustrated account of monumental astronomical clocks throughout the world ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... the domain of fancy was so complete at times as to cause him to confuse it with the outside world. It is related that Jules Sandeau, returning once from a journey, spoke to him of his sister's illness. Balzac listened to him abstractedly for a while, and then interrupted him: "All that, my friend, is very well," he said to the astonished Jules, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... distinction between the laws of the Production of Wealth—which are laws of nature, dependent on the properties of objects—and the modes of its Distribution, which, subject to certain conditions, depend on human will. The commom run of political economists confuse these together, under the designation of economic laws, which they deem incapable of being defeated or modified by human effort; ascribing the same necessity to things dependent on the unchangeable conditions ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... glancing at the crudely splotched canvas from which his ideal of her was presently to emerge, he had thought better of it, soothing her with caresses as if she were a child, and like a child dismissing her. She felt that she never wanted to see again the man who could so confuse and humiliate her. But this mood did not last. As the days went on, and she feverishly recapitulated the circumstances of the episode, she began to feel that it was she who had failed to respond to the beautiful opportunity of that hour. She had inspired the soul of an artist with a great concept ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... brother's loyalty and the straightforward intentions of the estates, he felt that the whole force of the Macchiavelli system of policy would be brought to bear with great effect. He felt that the object of the King's party was to temporize, to confuse, and to deceive. He did not believe them capable of conceding the real object in dispute, but he feared lest they might obscure the judgment of the plain and well meaning people with whom they had to deal. Alluding to the constant attempts made to poison ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... imagined it was lighter already over yonder in the east. With the first dawn those watchful Indians, creeping cautiously closer, would discover the stage deserted, and would be on their trail. And they had left a trail easily followed. Perhaps the hard, dry ground might confuse those savage trackers, but they would scour the open country between bluff and river, and find the dead warrior in the gully. That would tell the story. To go west, along the edge of the river, wading in the water, ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... that gazed upon him were those of the three giants of the law whom he had now to oppose. They stared at him mercilessly—no doubt with the intention of staring him down. But they did not even confuse him; for the simple reason that he did not look towards them. They might stare themselves stone blind, but they would have no magnetic influence upon that ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... they were derived from one or the other the prevailing type would be different. And therefore the mixture of persons of different race in the same commonwealth, unless one race had a complete ascendancy, tended to confuse all the relations of human life, and all men's notions of right and wrong; or by compelling men to tolerate in so near a relation as that of fellow-citizens differences upon the main points of human life, led to a general ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... topic Paul addresses also the Galatians (ch. 6, 17): Henceforth let no one confuse me, say nothing to me about the doctrine that friendship is rewarded on earth; for I bear branded on my body the marks of my Lord Jesus Christ. His reference is to the signs in ancient paintings of Christ, where the Savior was represented as bearing his cross upon his shoulders, with ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... to keep her promise to Terence?—the Hill Terence, she called him now, when she thought of him, so as not to confuse him with Terence Sullivan. She went to the pool again and again and tried to find the door in the rocks open and the water so that she could walk on it, but she never found them so. Yet she could not think of any other way to get into the hill again. ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... reservoirs the pools of Solomon, nor is there any reason to doubt the tradition. Tradition, perhaps often more faithful than written documents, is a sure and almost infallible guide in the minds of the people where there has been no complicated variety of historic incidents to confuse and break the chain of memory; where their rare revolutions have consisted of an eruption once in a thousand years into the cultivated world; where society has never been broken up, but their domestic manners have remained the same; where, too, they ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... his right fist for want of a pulpit, "If you ask me whether I believe any child of any race is born incapable of improvement, and beyond benefit from the charities we owe to each other, I should deny my faith if I could say yes. I shall not, madam, confuse the end of your connection with him with the end of your training in him, even if he runs away, or fancy that I see the one because I see the other. I do not pretend to know how much evil he inherits from his forefathers ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... of Taurus, Aldebaran (alpha), is celebrated for its reddish color. The precise hue is rather uncertain, but Aldebaran is not orange as Betelgeuse in Orion is, and no correct eye can for an instant confuse the colors of these two stars, although many persons seem to be unable to detect the very plain difference between them in this respect. Aldebaran has been called "rose-red," and it would be an interesting occupation for an ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... and she has produced a work of which it is in one sense the merit, but in another the defect, that it sweeps over a far wider field than might be expected from its title. It is seldom, I think, a judicious thing to confuse the provinces of history and biography by turning the life of an individual into an elaborate history of his time; and in the few cases in which this method has been successfully pursued, the biographer has selected as his subject some ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... seek to understand it. Acquaintance with the structure of the eye does not help seeing. To determine beforehand just how polite we should be would not facilitate human intercourse. And possibly a completed scheme of goodness would rather confuse than ease our daily actions. Science does not readily connect with life. For most of us all the time, and for all of us most of the time, instinct is the better prompter. But if we mean to be ethical students and to examine conduct scientifically, ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... here, for example. Certain letters get habitually mixed up in typewriting; c and v stand next one another on the keyboard of the machine, and the person who typed this draft sometimes strikes a c instead of a v, or vice versa. I never do that. The letters I tend to confuse are s and w, or else e and r, which also come very near one another in the arbitrary arrangement. Besides, when I type-wrote the original of this will, I made no errors at all; I took such very great pains ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... Watkinson voices now began to clamor violently at the obstinate child—"Speak a speech! speak a speech! speak a speech!" But they had no more effect than the reiterated exhortations with which nurses confuse the poor heads of babies, when they require them to "shake ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... is—rubbish. Science is sound, and agriculture always an honest art; but the mixture, not uncommonly, is bad,—no fair marriage, but a monstrous concubinage, with a monstrous progeny of muddy treatises and disquisitions which confuse more than they instruct. In contrast with such, it is no wonder that the observations of such a man as Cato, whose energies had been kept alive by service in the field, and whose tongue had been educated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... Fletcher's The Sea Voyage, which he called A Commonwealth of Women. Shortly after she appears to have retired from the stage. Dame Mary Slingsby, widow, from St. Mary's parish, was buried in old St. Pancras graveyard, 1 March, 1694. Careless historians and critics even now continually confuse Mrs. Mary Lee, Lady Slingsby, with Mrs. Elizabeth Leigh, the wife of the celebrated comedian, Antony Leigh. The two actresses must be carefully distinguished. Geneste curiously enough gives a very incomplete list of Lady Slingsby's roles, a selection only, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... out. We want to encourage them to go on doing it. We'll arrange to send true stuff that don't matter, so as they'll continue to trust him, and a few selected falsehoods that'll matter like hell. It's a game you can't play for ever, but with luck I propose to play it long enough to confuse Fritz's ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... deal sharpened up, here, in some ways, and that is one of them. Numbers and sizes and distances are so great, here, that we have to be made so we can FEEL them—our old ways of counting and measuring and ciphering wouldn't ever give us an idea of them, but would only confuse us and oppress us and ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... was just this support that Steptoe strangely clung to in his designs for the future, and a wild idea seized him. The surveyor was really the only disinterested witness between the two parties. If Steptoe could confuse his mind before the actual fighting—from which he would, of course, escape as a non-combatant—it would go far afterwards to rehabilitate Steptoe's party. "Very well, then," he said to Marshall, "I shall call this gentleman ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... pictures would undeniably be a less precious heritage to American art than they now are, if he had not been great enough to perceive that academic skill becomes weak by just so much as it is magnified, and is strong only when viewed in its just relation, as the means to an end. We perplex and confuse ourselves in studying his work, and are naturally a little irritated that he keeps his secret of power so well; yet we cannot help feeling that his style is wonderfully adapted to the end in view, and perhaps the only appropriate ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... head, with that rather tumid outline of features which one often sees in a Roman in middle life, when easy living and habits of sensual indulgence begin to reveal their signs in the countenance, and to broaden and confuse the clear-cut, statuesque lines of early youth. Evidently, that is the head of an easy-going, pleasure-loving man, who has waxed warm with good living, and performs the duties of his office with an unctuous grace as something becoming and decorous to be gone through with. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... replied Alka, "to the alarm sounded by the statue, because you have entered the town. There will be a great meeting held to-morrow, where all the wise men will assemble, to attempt to discover the whereabouts of the intruder; but by God's help, I will guide them wrong, and confuse their counsels. Go to our neighbour the fisherman," added she to her daughter, "and see what he has caught." She went, and brought news that he had taken a large fish, of the size of a man. "Take this piece of gold," said her mother, "and bring us the fish;" and when she did so, she told ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... Britishers at the right moment, the disguises assumed, and the train held up as already told. Of course the dynamite cartridge was only a blind, and the letters had been thrown about the car merely to confuse the clerk. Then while Frederic Cullen, with the letters, had stolen back to the car, the two Englishmen had crept back to where they had stood. Here, as had been arranged, they opened fire, which Albert Cullen duly returned, and then joined them. "I don't ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... terrapin," replied Mrs. Birtwell, in a voice out of which she could hardly keep the contempt she felt for her husband's weak rejoinder, "don't confuse the head, dethrone the reason, brutalize, debase and ruin men in soul and body as do wine and brandy. The difference lies there, and all men see and feel it, make what excuses they will for self-indulgence and deference to custom. The curse of drink is too widely felt. There is scarcely a family ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... divide and subdivide the birds into a great many orders, families, genera, species etc., which, at first sight, are apt to confuse and discourage the reader. But any interested person can acquaint himself with most of our song-birds by keeping in mind a few general divisions, and observing the characteristics of each. By far ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... weak and unsteady," said he, "perhaps they may question and confuse her, and thus may ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... nor in its Divine Founder. His favourite books are metaphysical works by Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza. I have discovered him reading those pernicious writings whose chief tendency is to make us question the most blessed truths our Church has taught us, or to confuse the mind by leading us to doubt even of our own existence. I was curious to know what there could be in books that so interested a man of his intelligence, and asked to be allowed to read them; but the perusal only served to make me unhappy. This daring attempt to reduce all the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... characteristics, its interests, and its organization, is to study sociology in the most natural way and to obtain the necessary data for generalization. To attempt to study sociological principles without this preliminary investigation is to confuse the student and leave him in a sea ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... element to confuse the issue. One other great autocracy, the Government of the Russian Czar, had long been hostile to free institutions; it had been a stronghold of tyrannies reaching far back into the past, and its presence among the Allies had seemed to be in disaccord with ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... sweeping, the formation of opposition to it was tentative and slow in the central and southern counties, where, among Whigs of Southern birth, it proceeded rather upon party feeling than upon moral conviction. The new question struck through party lines in such a manner as to confuse and perplex the masses. But the issue would not be postponed. The Congressional elections were to be held in the autumn, and the succession of events rather than the leadership of politicians ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... for the second time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened corridor; but now with the difference that she did what she did in full command of all her wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills to hinder and confuse her, and with a definite object clearly visioned—a goal no less distant ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... art we know anything about—were chiefly concerned with form, and that the ideas behind their perfection of form were very simple and elementary ideas, not at all comparable in complexity and elaborateness with those that confuse and distinguish the modern world. When one comes to French art it is still more difficult for us to realize that the ideas underlying its expression are ideas of import, validity, and attachment. The truth is largely ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... saints, Count Corti, thou dost confuse me the more! With such odds against thee, what preparations were ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... and a just prejudice. So you think on the whole that to do a young lady—for I suppose the second is in your own class—a real, an unspeakable injury would be better than to shock her prejudices? If that is how you of the new generation confuse what's right ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Croiset remarks of Sappho (Histoire de la Litterature Grecque, vol. ii, ch. v), "to discuss the exact quality of this friendship or this love, or to seek to determine with precision the frontiers, which language itself often seems to seek to confuse, of a friendship more or less esthetic and sensual, of a love more or less Platonic." (See also J.M. Edmonds, Sappho in the Added Light of the New Fragments, 1912). Iwan Bloch similarly concludes (Ursprung der Syphilis, vol. ii, 1911, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Manassas, when he digged mud and graves for our soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the Times was extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan—and at that epoch the Times powerfully contributed to confuse the public opinion. ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... spirit hinders men with all his powers. Oh, how often will he here prevent the desire to pray, not allow us to find time and place, nay, often also raise doubts, whether a man is worthy to ask anything of such a Majesty as God is, and so confuse us that a man himself does not know whether it is really true that he prays or not; whether it is possible that his prayer is acceptable, and other such strange thoughts. For the evil spirit knows ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... difficulties of a gigantic conception were not completely conquered by the writer's genius, not then fully matured; that lack of entire mastery over the material has frequently caused the two interests of the poem, the psychological and the historical, to clash; the background to intrude on and confuse the middle distance, if not even the foreground itself. Every one of these faults is the outcome of a merit: altogether they betray a growing nature of extraordinary power, largeness and richness, not as yet to be bound or contained within any ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... more: you know very well Chopin's Nocturne in E flat, and have played it, among other things, for the last four weeks. Suddenly you are called upon to play in company. You choose this Nocturne because you have played it nearly every day for four weeks. But alas! the piano fiends have come to confuse you! You strike a false bass note, and at the modulation the weak little finger touches too feebly: bah! the fundamental tone is wanting. You are frightened, and grow still more so; your musical aunt is frightened also; the blood rushes ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... it in an unexpected quarter of the room and much nearer the bed-head than where his body was found. This, which might seem to confuse matters, served, on the contrary to remove from the case one of its most serious difficulties. Standing here, he was within reach of the pillow under which his pistol lay hidden, and if startled, as his wife believed him to have been by a noise at the other ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... thought to a certainty that we were sinking. What a horrible noise there was!—wrenching and tearing, and the roar and dashing sound of the waves, and the howling of the wind! All contributed to confuse my senses, so that I forgot altogether where I was. I had an idea, I believe, that the end of the world was come. Still my shipmates did not shriek out, and I was very much surprised to find the brig rise again out of the water, and to see them standing where they ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... India had served to confuse his perception of the conduct of affairs at home. He did not in the least appreciate the men with whom he had to deal. If he gauged pretty closely the malignity of Francis, he may have fancied that the malignity was not very likely to prove dangerous. But he ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... history of the Province of Louisiana is so complicated by rapid changes in government as to confuse the student, rendering it extremely difficult to comprehend correctly the varied and conflicting interests—aristocratic, official, and commercial—actuating her pioneer colonists. The written records, so far as translated and published, afford only a faint reflection of the varied characteristics ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... outcroppings the horses slipped. Frequently to get his bearings, Laramie felt his way forward by reaching for trees and scraped his knees against them as he pushed his horse close. And in spite of everything to confuse, intimidate and hold them back, they slipped and floundered on their way, until quite suddenly a new roar from out of the impenetrable ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... barbarians. Indeed, it is only within recent years that we are beginning to recognize that the civilizations of China, Japan, and India have qualities worth studying and that they may have something worth while in life that the Western civilization has not. Also there has been a tendency to confuse the terms Christian and heathen with civilized and uncivilized. This idea arose in England, where, in the early history of Christianity, the people of the towns were more cultured than the people ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... movement, the significance of this great historical cataclysm. To keep the outline clear I have deliberately avoided mentioning the names of many subordinate actors; thinking that if nothing essential was connected with them the mention of their names would only tend to confuse matters. Similarly with incidents, I have omitted a few, such as the troubles at Avignon, and changed the emphasis on others, judging freely their importance and not following the footsteps of my ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... larger proportion of their offspring; but the chances are against the preservation of any one "sport" (i.e., sudden marked variation) in a numerous tribe. The vague use of an imperfectly-understood doctrine of chance, has led Darwinian supporters, first, to confuse the two cases above distinguished, and secondly, to imagine that a very slight balance in favour of some individual sport must lead to its perpetuation. All that can be said is that in the above example the favoured sport ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... could see what real usefulness there was in a preface to a work of this kind, and never wrote one without a misgiving that it would do more to confuse than ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... were more worried than they cared to admit. The highway was a state road and automobiles ran in both directions, two fairly steady streams. It was dark by now and the glare of the headlights might easily confuse an old, enfeebled horse and a little girl whose driving skill was ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence |
