"Perplexing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the hill, they despised him as being beaten, on which Sertorius, whether in passion or not wishing to appear to be flying from the enemy, at daybreak rode up to the place and examined it. But he found the mountain unassailable on all sides; and while he was perplexing himself to no purpose and uttering idle threats, he saw a great quantity of dust from this light earth carried by the wind against the barbarians; for the caves are turned, as I have said, to the north, and the wind which blows from ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... forehead on the window-sill. The moonlight fell on the heavy coils of her brown hair. The scent of the magnolia blooms rose in fragrance around her. The song of a nightingale purled and thrilled in an adjacent wood. The lonely years of the past, the perplexing moments of the present, the uncertain vistas of the future, all rolled away. She sailed with Garth upon a golden ocean far removed from the shores of time. For love is eternal; and the birth of love frees the spirit from all limitations of ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... with that look, mingled of feeling and irony, which was very perplexing. The tone in which he spoke was really so full of tenderness for the girl, that Hope, who heard every word and felt every tone, was sure that Lawrence Newt ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... at once the most important and, if not rightly understood, the most perplexing traces of the survival of the old Roman municipal system, is in this matter of territorial boundaries. According to the Roman system, as we have seen, the city was the important administrative unit, and each city was surrounded by a belt of rural lands, more or less large according ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... difficult and in many cases practically impossible to fix the limits of species, it is still more so to fix those of genera; and those of tribes and families are still less susceptible of exact natural circumscription. Intermediate forms occur, connecting one group with another in a manner sadly perplexing to systematists, except to those who have ceased to expect absolute limitations in Nature. All this blending could hardly fail to suggest a former material connection among allied forms, such as that which ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... from the fumes of his terrible tobacco. I look with delight upon the huge man, who, with an air of the utmost good humour, and a twinkle in his eye as he thinks he is twisting me about his finger, vainly endeavours to obtain a hint regarding whatever case is perplexing him at that moment. I baffle him with the ease that an active greyhound eludes the pursuit of a heavy mastiff, then at last I say ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... but the woman, that was perplexing him. Not often had the lure of gold failed so signally. And why was she so manifestly startled at the last moment? Had he gone too far? Was he mistaken in the assumption that Millicent Jaques had said little or nothing concerning him to her friend? ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... disapproved it for the reason, Franklin said, that it had "too much weight in the democratic part of the constitution." Though the Albany union failed, the document is still worthy of study because it forecast many of the perplexing problems that were not solved until thirty-three years afterward, when another convention of which also Franklin was a member drafted the Constitution of ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... that strange unusual gaiety, still continuing, which on the following day began by perplexing and ended by terrifying the Countess. She could not doubt that he had missed the packet on which so much hung and of which he had indicated the importance. But if he had missed it, why, she asked herself, did he not speak? ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... produce, but as you joyfully gaze out over the quiet beauty of these fair Ohio hills and vales clothed in magnificent stretches of golden harvest field and green forest, through which lead winding roads and sinuous streams, you ask yourself this perplexing question: Where have I ever beheld a more lovely or more quiet landscape than this? To be sure it is not thrilling, but sweet and soothing, like the view you get at Intervale, above North Conway in New Hampshire. This fair picture brought to our memory the scenery among the hills and ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... instructions, I said very little, never asking any questions, only telling her a few of the unimportant happenings of the town. She seemed uninterested and lay apathetically quiescent except when some apparently perplexing question corrugated her brows. They told her of Jim's death early in the week, but far from being shocked, she had appeared almost indifferent, showing only too plainly how little he meant in her life. Woods ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... that escape from their careless owners have a weary, perplexing time of it in seeking suitable homes. Most of them make their way to the foot-hills of the mountains, or to the trees that line the banks of the rivers, where some hollow log or trunk may be found. A friend of mine, ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... pronounced with exact reference to the spelling, produced such a mysterious result that it was some time before I recognised the real name buried up in strange sounds. Miss Yonge's references to churches were often particularly perplexing, and a boy asking what was meant by "the chancel," his master wisely advised his pupil to pay a visit to a Christian church and see for himself. Quite a number of young students at this period came and asked to be shown over the church, and to have its various ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... Church, whose centre has been first New Zealand, then Norfolk Island, never to enter upon any islands pre-occupied by Christian teachers of any denomination, since there is no lack of wholly unoccupied ground, without perplexing the spirit of the natives with the spectacle of "our unhappy divisions;" and thus while Melanesia is for the most part left to the Church, Polynesia is in the hands of the London Mission. Much good has been effected. The difficulty is that, for want of supervision, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Mr. Keeley were the lady and gentleman who were placed in the peculiarly perplexing predicament of making a second-hand French interlude supportable to an English Opera audience. In this they more than succeeded—for they caused it to be amusing; they made the most of what they had to do, which was not much, and of what they had to say, which was a great deal too much; for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... broken; his expression became sombre and savage; he sank back in his chair motionless, a stranger to all that surrounded him, and gave himself up to some mysterious thought against which resistance seemed powerless. Suddenly he appeared to wake from some perplexing dream, and by another powerful effort aroused himself and joined in the conversation with sharp, cutting speeches; he encouraged the noisy humor of his guests, inciting them to drunkenness by setting the example himself; then the same mysterious ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... proportion to the value of their lands. It was proposed to amend this provision of the Constitution, and for lands substitute population, exclusive of Indians not taxed, as the basis for taxation. But here arose at once a new and perplexing question. There were, chiefly in one portion of the country, about 750,000 "persons held to service or labor,"—the euphuism for negro slaves which, evolved from some tender and sentimental conscience, came into use at this period. Should these, recognized only as property ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... have been made at a very early period 'to rectify' ([Greek: diorthoun]) the text thus unintentionally corrupted; and so, what began in inadvertence is sometimes found in the end to exhibit traces of design, and often becomes in a high degree perplexing. Thus, to cite a favourite example, it is clear to me that in the earliest age of all (A.D. 100?) some copyist of St. Luke ii. 14 (call him X) inadvertently omitted the second [Greek: en] in the Angelic Hymn. Now if the persons (call them ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... to deal with many novel and perplexing problems of construction, but none seemed so difficult to handle as were those which grew out of the presence of African slavery, as an industrial system, in several of the States. At the threshold of national existence these men were constrained by circumstances to make an ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke
... called to solve are therefore exceedingly intricate and perplexing. The Generalizations of Chemistry, conducted, as they must be, on our present basis of Knowledge, by the Inductive Method, are involved in a degree of uncertainty, not only on account of the complexity of their Phenomena, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... varied and extended business he needed a man of Mr. Fox's stamp to deal with the legal questions that came up, look after the intricacies of the revenue laws, and manage the immaculate saints of the custom- house. As far as the firm had dirty, disagreeable, perplexing work to do, Mr. Fox was to do it. Whenever it came in contact with the majesty of the law and government, Mr. Fox was to represent it. Whenever some Israelite in whom was guile sought, on varied pretext, to wriggle out of the whole or part ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... something Juicy wrong with 'em," said he—once even aloud. But what it was he could not imagine. He recapitulated the facts. "Miss Beaumont—brother and sister—and the stoppage to quarrel and weep—" it was perplexing material for a young man of small experience. There was no exertion he hated so much as inference, and after a time he gave up any attempt to get at the realities of the case, and let his imagination go free. Should ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... scattered through elaborate and expensive works, might thereby be lost to some portion of our readers. In short, popular discoveries in science, or all such new facts as bear on the happiness of society will be the objects of our choice; neither perplexing our readers with abstract research, nor verging into the puerile amusements of a certain ingenious but almost useless class of reasoners; it not being our object to "ring the changes" on words. Our selections will occasionally be illustrated with engravings; for by no means ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... here, indeed, of that gorgeous fever-dream in which Miss Heth with lovely courtesy informed Miss Garland that she had been a lady all the time. But consider the Dream-Maker's difficulties with such far-flown fancies as this: difficulties the more perplexing in a world where men's opinions differ, and some do say that she in the finest skirt is not always ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... tired of it; keeping company for duty's sake, when it would be a great joy to us to be by ourselves; besides all the trifling untoward accidents of life; bodily pain and weakness long continued, and perplexing us often when it does not amount to illness; losing what we value, missing what we desire; disappointment in other persons, wilfulness, unkindness, ingratitude, folly, in cases where ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... saying, "this restored gospel answers so many of life's perplexing questions. It is broad, full of common sense, and mercy. Father, as you well know, was not a religious man. When he died, Pastor Tonset gave it as his opinion that ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... with his being! The intimacy with a beautiful, sprightly girl had been a holiday diversion to him after arduous brain-labor, recreation sought conscientiously and systematically, that his mental powers might be clearer and fresher for the next day's toil in court and among perplexing records; in hunting up titles and disputed property, and proving their validity. He had gained the cause that had brought him to the capital, and cost him so much fatigue and anxiety, and was proud of ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... aboriginals of this country long before the advent of the white men, if we may judge from the traces and traditions of ancient populousness in regions which were silent and deserted at the time of the discovery; and from the mysterious and perplexing vestiges of unknown races, predecessors of those found in actual possession, and who must long since have become gradually extinguished or been destroyed. The whole history of the aboriginal population of this country, however, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... electing the president a perplexing question. b. The constitution of the electoral college, with illustrations. c. Qualifications for serving as an elector. d. The method of choosing electors. e. The time of choosing electors. f. When and where the electors vote. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... perplexing," said Bice, shaking her head, but with a smile in her eyes which somewhat belied her air of simplicity. "What may that be—the real thing? Shall I find it in the dictionary?" she asked; and then their eyes met and there was another burst of laughter, somewhat boisterous on his part, but on hers ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... of the past, should not misapply their talents by employing them in establishing the dry distinction of forms, would find here much that calls for research, and their efforts would clear up many a perplexing obscurity. ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... Wanstead, and there he commenced a most diligent scrutiny of the apparent places of several stars which passed at different distances from the zenith. He found in the course of this research that other stars exhibited movements of a similar description to those which had already proved so perplexing. For a long time the cause of these apparent movements seemed a mystery. At last, however, the explanation of these remarkable phenomena dawned upon him, and his ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... circumstance, out of circles totally different and unlike. Why it was that Mr. May, so good a Churchman, permitted two people so entirely out of his sphere to become his habitual guests and the companions of his children was very perplexing to the outside world, who half in mere surprise, and a little in despite, wondered and commented till they were tired, or till they had become so familiar with the strange spectacle that it ceased to strike them. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... but indifferently satisfied; wherever the boy turned he found himself surrounded by a wonderful and would-be learned activity, to which the garish theatres presented a ridiculous contrast, and the entrancing strains of music a perplexing one. Now, to the observer who sees things relatively, it must seem strange that the modern man who happens to be gifted with exceptional talent should as a child and a youth so seldom be blessed with the quality of ingenuousness and of simple individuality, that he is so little ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... my limbs, and the blood began to burn in my cheeks. The beautiful image which had so bewitched me faded gradually from my imagination, and I returned to the still perplexing mysteries of my little ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... wandering habits without molestation, satisfied with such service on their part as the interests of the empire require. The Turcomans would have the same permission, and would hardly be sensible of the change of masters. It is a more perplexing question how England or France, did they on the other hand become their masters, would be able to tolerate them in their reckless desolation of a rich country. Rather, such barbarians, unless they could be placed where they would answer some political purpose, would eventually share the fate of the ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... by mistake, his neighbour's bottle. However well the system may work among the regular members of the "domestic circle," and I am assured that it does succeed extremely —to the newly arrived guest, or uninitiated visitor, the affair is perplexing, and leads occasionally to ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... men who lived and glorified the practice of art in those days, were the fruit of the old, not the seed of the new order of things: but a stirring and hopeful time it was, and many things were newborn then which have since brought forth fruit enough: and it is strange and perplexing that from those days forward the lapse of time, which, through plenteous confusion and failure, has on the whole been steadily destroying privilege and exclusiveness in other matters, has delivered up art to be the exclusive ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... is not love that steals the heart from love: 'Tis the hard world, and its perplexing cares; Its petrifying selfishness, its pride, its low ambition, ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... gestures divide the long bar in half, and explain its value to the hautboys, without perplexing the violas, who maintain the brisk movement, on account of the little gesture which also divides in half their ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... responsibilities; but the better the man and the nobler his purposes, the more will he be tempted to regret the extinction of his powers and the deletion of his personality. To have lived a generation is not only to have grown at home in that perplexing medium, but to have assumed innumerable duties. To die at such an age has, for all but the entirely base, something of the air of ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the anteroom. Not even a telephone could sound its insistent note in this place where the doctor gained, in a reclining chair, his few brief moments of rest, or where he worked out the intricacies of perplexing problems. Now and then he saw a patient there, but rarely. Usually he shut his door against all distracting influences, and gave his attention to the things ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... elements. In the city they work under shelter and in accordance with definite regulations. Hence it is that the problem of securing workingmen and servant girls in the country is every day becoming more and more perplexing. ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... Tropics and has propagated its kind, though it has abated some of the vigorous qualities which characterized it in its temperate fatherland. In the real Tropics like India, Cochin China, the Malay Archipelago, and Central Africa, the whole perplexing and urgent problem of European colonization turns on the difficulty or impossibility of acclimatization; and this in turn affects the whole economic, ethnic and political destiny of present colonial holdings. If acclimatization is impossible, the alternative is an imported ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... god; yea, I sit in the seat of God.' I will not say here that there is impiety in the last of these ideas; but do we not have in them the same combination which we found in the Great Learning,— a combination of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the plain and the vague, which is very perplexing to the mind, and renders the Book unfit for the purposes of mental and moral discipline? And here I may inquire whether we do right in calling the Treatise by any of the names which foreigners have hitherto used ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... has eradicated the monarchy,—expelled the proprietary, persecuted religion, and trampled upon law,—you may call this France if you please: but of the ancient France nothing remains but its central geography; its iron frontier; its spirit of ambition; its audacity of enterprise; its perplexing intrigue. These, and these alone, remain: and they remain heightened in their principle and augmented in their means. All the former correctives, whether of virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old monarchy, are gone. No single new corrective is to be found ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... has fully grasped all that is comprehended in what has already been said, we do not yet understand half the complexity of the problem; for besides all these new forms of physical matter we have to deal with the still more numerous and perplexing subdivisions of astral matter. We must note first that every material object, every particle even, has its astral counterpart; and this counterpart is itself not a simple body, but is usually extremely complex, being composed of various kinds of astral matter. In addition to this each ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... one of the most luculent testimonies for that blending of fact and fancy in strictly historical times which people find it so difficult to believe, but which offers the key, and the only true key, for many of the most perplexing problems, both of ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... more than any other, is the missing body a mystery. It has been perplexing, troubling him, throughout all the afternoon, even when his blood was up, and nerves strung with excitement. Now, at night, in the dark, silent hours, as he dwells ponderingly upon it, it more than perplexes, more ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Perplexum means perplexing; so called because it is quite difficult to distinguish it from H. sublateritium, also from H. fascicularis. From the latter it may be known by its redder cap, its whitish flesh, purple-brown tint of the mature gills and mild flavor. Its smaller size, the greenish and purplish tint ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... sailed, L1400 had been expended; for present liabilities at least L700 more were instantly required: and, at any rate, as large a sum to pay her way and meet expenses of next trip to the Islands. Having laid our perplexing circumstances before our dear Lord Jesus, having "spread out" all the details in His sympathetic presence, pleading that the Ship itself and the new Missionaries were all His own, not mine, I told Him that this money was needed to do His ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... crowds flitted to the mountains or the town, and the island and sea resumed the air of free-hearted peace which was theirs by right. Clayton worked still more out of doors on marines, attempting to grasp the perplexing brilliancy that ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... 21. This may be only the reflection of later Jewish piety on so perplexing a disaster; ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... civil war. In such cases there always is a main question; but in this case that question is a perplexing compound—Union and slavery. It thus becomes a question not of two sides merely, but of at least four sides, even among those who are for the Union, saying nothing of those who are against it. Thus, ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... no longer in doubt concerning the place to which he had been conveyed; and the more he reflected on his situation, the more he was overwhelmed with the most perplexing chagrin. He could not conceive by whose means he had been immured in a madhouse; but he heartily repented of his knight-errantry, as a frolic which might have very serious consequences, with respect to his future life and fortune. After mature ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... last few years would shew that much is still to be learned in the art of criminal discipline; and indeed the whole question of what is to be done with our criminal population is becoming daily more perplexing. Mere confinement is found to be of small avail. Transportation is exploded; for it improves the circumstances of criminals instead of making them worse. Capital punishment has also had its day, and, excepting for a very few offences, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... perplexing, was this unique state of matters—wholly without precedent. For instance, Mr. Rouncival and his stud-groom could almost have sworn to the big slashing brown mare, the image of the long-lost celebrity Termagant, with the same crooked blaze down the face, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... and arrogance of his order and his race. He lived on the continent and was known to many men in many cities. It has been argued that foreigners are insensible to his defects as a writer, and that this may account for an astonishing and perplexing preference. The cause is rather to be sought in the quality of his art. It was as the creator of new types, "forms more real than living man," that Byron appealed to the artistic sense and to the imagination of Latin, Teuton or Slav. That "he taught us little" of the things of the spirit, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... perplexing business. Sit down and I'll read it to you—but don't mention the matter ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... perplexing individuals is afraid to approach the Mediator. He feels it to be a kind of presumption. It is difficult to argue with him. It is better to introduce him to Robert Murray McCheyne. McCheyne had the same feeling. 'I am ashamed to go to Christ,' he says. 'I feel, ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... public rights, for those Jews who either cannot or will not be assimilated in the country of their adoption."[3] Zionism, in a word, is not the last truism in a weary debate, nor a new verse to an old song; it is, on the contrary, a definite answer to a perplexing and imperative question. What are these Jews who cannot or will not be assimilated, and why cannot or will not they be assimilated? This question constitutes what is known as the Jewish problem, or, for those ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... was perplexing, there being many candidates who received only a few votes each. Many persons thought that it would be fitting that Samuel Adams, the father of the Revolution, should be chosen to serve with Washington, the father of his country; but too many remembered that he had been ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... the dim light as she stepped through the doorway—it was the man who at intervals had been strongly in her thoughts all day, for whom she had unconsciously kept a lookout, impelled by an inexplicable desire to see him again and remove that perplexing, haunting sense of ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Lost in perplexing debate, I saw little of the scenery of the bay; but the remembrance of Prue and the gentle influence of the day plunged me into a mood of pensive reverie which nothing tended to destroy, until we suddenly ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... body of Christ for the good thereof, (which is directly repugnant to the Scriptures, Eph. iv. 8, 11-13;) but rather for them that are without. How shall the men, who maintain the principle's of the Independents, clearly help themselves out of these perplexing absurdities? ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... I could not make it out at all. In fact, the more I tried, the more perplexing it grew, and while I was trying to get my head to think properly, everything grew dull and misty, and I went off to sleep ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... sphere by the laws of necessity, and through the complex relations of artificial existence. In the strong language of Carlyle, I would say that 'Here is a lie standing up in the midst of society.' I would say 'Down with it, even to the ground;' for while this perplexing and barbarous anomaly exists, fretting like an ulcer at the very heart of society, all new specifics and palliatives are in vain. The question must be settled one way or another; either let the man in all the relations of life be held the natural guardian of the woman, constrained to fulfil that ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... students were diligently at work, Sarah in the role of preceptress, hearing Amanda's French verbs, or helping to discover the perplexing value of X in an algebraic equation. Only occasionally did the thoughts of ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... cannon, for battering the British fortifications, were much wanted. There was but a small quantity of powder and ball, few tools to build intrenchments with, and a great deficiency of provisions and clothes for the soldiers. Yet, in spite of these perplexing difficulties, the eyes of the whole people were fixed on General Washington, expecting him to undertake some great enterprise against ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to hide the crime. On the other hand, let the guilty man or woman be a resolute and intelligent person, capable of setting his (or her) wits fairly against the wits of the police—in other words, let the mystery really be a mystery—and cite me a case if you can (a really difficult and perplexing case) in which the criminal has not escaped. Mind! I don't charge the police with neglecting their work. No doubt they do their best, and take the greatest pains in following the routine to which they have been trained. It is their misfortune, not their fault, that there is no man of superior ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... ever is, but laboring under an anxiety and an inward sorrow, that imprint themselves deeply upon her countenance, and reveal themselves in a greater reserve of manner. While she is not engaged in some active service she is buried in thought, and seems like one revolving difficult and perplexing questions. Sometimes she breaks from these moments of reverie with some sudden question to one or another of those around her, from which we can obscurely conjecture the subjects of her meditations. With Longinus, Otho, and Gracchus she passes many of her hours ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... In truth, I have been on the verge of saying a final farewell to every one. Ah, my poor mother! I passed three or four days at least, of which I recollect almost nothing, as though I had been in a dark and perplexing dream. I thought I beheld at my bedside my kind schoolmistress of the upper primary, who was trying to stifle her cough in her handkerchief in order not to disturb me. In the same manner I confusedly recall my master, who bent ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... materialistic notions, unhesitatingly cut this Gordian knot by asserting that our first parent bore within him the undeveloped germ of all mankind, so that sinfulness and souls were propagated together. 5 Thus the perplexing query, "how souls are held in the chain of original sin," was answered. As Neander says, illustrating Tertullian's view, "The soul of the first man was the fountain head of all human souls: all the varieties of individual human nature are but modifications of that ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... word she had spoken, every passing shade of thought reflected on her face, and while these reveries occupied his mind, there was a tender look in the deep black eyes and a smile on his lips. But these pleasant memories were apparently often followed by more perplexing thoughts. One afternoon he had been standing for some time lost in a dream, while he looked with eyes that saw nothing over the heaving waters to the distant horizon, when the captain's voice at his elbow recalled him ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... dropping languages. The way in which languages are taken up or dropped is also perplexing. Keane[268] gives a list of peoples who have dropped one language and taken up another; he also gives a list of those who have changed physical type but have retained the same language. Holub[269] mentions the Makololo, who have almost entirely disappeared, but their ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... perplexing business. First, she fell down out of the tree—she and the blanket; and the bear caught her and fondled her—her and the blanket; then she fell up into the tree again—leaving the blanket; meantime the lover goes war-whooping home and comes ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... course, it could not be otherwise. The plausible rascal must have conned them over until this essential was secured. Grant even went so far as to give them a grudging professional tribute. They held a canker of doubt, too, which it was difficult to dissect. Their veiled threats were perplexing. While their effect, as apart from literal significance, was fresh in his mind, he made a few notes ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... invited all persons who had been robbed by him to repair to Newgate and to see whether they could identify him. To identify him should have been easy; for he had a wound in the face, and had lost a thumb. [340] He, however, in the hope of perplexing the witnesses for the Crown, expended a hundred pounds in procuring a sumptuous embroidered suit against the day of trial. This ingenious device was frustrated by his hardhearted keepers. He was put to the bar in his ordinary clothes, convicted and sentenced to death. [341] He had previously tried ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and his horse, and waft him away; They and his foot, with a tir'd proud flow, Tatter'd escapers and givers of woe. Open, ye cities! Hats off! hold breath! To see the man who has been with Death; To see the man who determineth right By the virtue-perplexing virtue of might. Sudden before him have ceas'd the drums, And lo! in the air of ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... demanded to examine Lord Temple: when that was granted, he asked for Lord Sandwich and Lord March. As the first had not been refused, the others could not. The Lords were adjourned till to-day @ , and, I suppose, are now sitting on this perplexing demand. If Lord Temple desires to go to the bar of the Commons, and the others desire to be excused, it will be difficult for the Lords to know what to do. Sandwich is frightened out of his senses,(1055) and March does not like it. Well! this will cure ministers and great ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... not now? So it is when you play at Life! When you will not go straight To know that you are in England, breathing the same air with me We are, in short, a civilized people We have now looked into the hazy interior of their systems What was this tale of Emilia, that grew more and more perplexing ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... report, passed through Wilmington just as I left the sick woman's house, and stopped a moment just to give me a "How d'ye" and to drop some railleries founded on my visits to Miss Secker, a single and solitary lady. On reaching Philadelphia, she amused herself with perplexing Jane by jesting exaggerations on the same subject, in a way that seemed to argue somewhat of malignity; yet I thought nothing of ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... where it had originated, in the town of Somerset East; and on the following day I found myself face to face with the exceedingly perplexing problem of the future. I was, it must be remembered, not yet quite eighteen years of age. I was therefore still young enough to be able to start life afresh; but I was without a single relative in the world, and my worldly ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Byron wrote his note to the third edition of Childe Harold, Gropius must have been barely of age, and the statement "that he has for years assumed the name of his (a noble Lord's) agent" is somewhat perplexing.] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... "it will happen as it must, I cannot change it." For a moment there was some comfort in the fatalism of this thought, and after blowing out the candle, she turned her face to the wall and fell at last into a troubled sleep. But her sleep even was filled with perplexing questions, which she continued to ask herself with the same piercing mental clearness that tormented her when she was awake; and she passed presently into a vivid dream, in which she rescued the letter with burned hands, from the fire, and carried it to Kemper, who laughed and kissed her ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... English Parliament, but of the progress of civilization in the earth for the whole period of his public life. With the life of Mr. Gladstone in his hand, the student of history or the young statesman has a light to guide him and to help him solve those intricate problems now perplexing the nations, and upon the right solution of which depends Christian civilization—the liberties, progress, prosperity and ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... created a very perplexing condition of things. The state legislature elected under the constitution met on the first Wednesday of December, before the constitution was recognized by congress, and while the territorial government was in full force. It passed a book full of laws, all of which ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... very fine carriage. Smith, resplendent in uniform and seated upon a very fine charger, rode in his capacity of Commander-in-Chief. Several other men whom she had known first in homespun, and latterly in cloth, were also riding in bedizened uniforms. The scene was very perplexing to Susannah. Elvira, with great display of dress and equipage, was not far from her, and waved her hand with patronising encouragement. The coach in which were Emma and her children presented also a very smart appearance. All the town drove to the scene of the review in what splendour ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... of Canada labored without ceasing in their perplexing task of engrossing the fur-trade of the West and controlling the western tribes to the exclusion of the English. Every day made it clearer that to these ends the western wilderness must be held by forts and trading-posts; and this policy of extension prevailed more and more, in spite of the league ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... vessels that traded between Leith and Amsterdam. Happily Eustace always had a tongue that could readily catch the trick of dialects, and this excellent pedlar guarded him like his own brother, and took care to help him through all pressing and perplexing circumstances. Providentially, it was the height of summer, and the days were at their longest and warmest, or I know not how he could have gone through it at all; but at last he safely reached Leith, passing through Edinburgh with a pack on his back the very day that the ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... granted that the greater security she would enjoy as his wife would appeal to her, though there was a certain satisfaction in the reflection that to leave her dependent upon Mrs. Hastings caused him concern. For another thing, his reserve had been at least perplexing, and it was borne in upon her that it would have cost her a more determined effort to withstand him had he spoken with fire and passion. The restraint, however, had been evident, and he could not have practised it unless there had been ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... has helped to throw light on one of the most perplexing puzzles which those most perplexing of all the heavenly bodies, comets, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... secret that the President wanted Admiral Dewey, if it was not in his opinion inconsistent with his sense of duty, to go to Washington. Naturally the President would have a profound respect for the Admiral's opinion as to the perplexing problem of the Philippines. The Admiral did not think he should leave his post. He could cover the points of chief interest in writing, and preferred very much to do so, and stay right where he was "until this thing is settled." The opinion of the ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... Foreign Minister, and being what he was, and swayed by the considerations I have imperfectly described, his foreign policy was necessarily tortuous and perplexing. As Ranke says, "Charles was capable of proposing offensive alliances to the three neighbouring powers, to the Dutch against France, to the French against Spain and Holland, to the Spaniards against France to the detriment of Holland, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... standing beyond the moat, with the iron gate leading to the castle courtyard grimly closed upon her. It was a perplexing moment; she knew not whither she might seek shelter, and she wished to avoid scandal as far as possible. The Duke had gone to Urach to inspect the coverts for the autumn hunting, and he would not return for several days. Madame de Ruth was ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... the Eternal City clothed us with brilliant but false colors. Endless were the questions put to us about the health and looks of the Holy Father, whom they believed to be kept in a dungeon and fed on bread and water—a diet, however, turned into heavenly food by the angels. Perhaps the most perplexing question of all was, whether the Herr Baron Flinkenhorn, who had been born in exactly the same year as the Holy Father, bore the faintest resemblance to that saintly martyr. We could but shake our heads as the old nobleman was pointed out to us on the morning of the festival. Decrepit and bent with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... not been for one specification of my, outfit which the circular that accompanied my appointment demanded. This requirement was a pair of "Monroe shoes." Now, out in Ohio, what "Monroe shoes" were was a mystery—not a shoemaker in my section having so much as an inkling of the construction of the perplexing things, until finally my eldest brother brought an idea of them from Baltimore, when it was found that they were a familiar pattern ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the milder nights, when Frank and Rastus were on watch, their first intimation that a strange and mysterious presence shared their lonely vigil was made manifest. It was Rastus who called Frank's attention to what was eventually to prove a perplexing ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... again the sprite ascends, Where'er he walks his ear attends; Insinuates that beauty's frail, That perseverance must prevail; With jealousies his brain inflames, And whispers all her lovers' names. In other hours she represents His household charge, his annual rents, 30 Increasing debts, perplexing duns, And nothing for his younger sons. Straight all his thought to gain he turns, And with the thirst of lucre burns. But when possessed of fortune's store, The spectre haunts him more and more; Sets want and misery in view, Bold thieves, and all the ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... right side and which the wrong. Then shall our understandings receive their light from the face of God, as the full moon from the open sun when there is no earth to interpose betwixt them. It is a perfect rest from perplexing doubts and fear, from all sense of God's displeasure, from all the temptations of Satan, the world, and the flesh. And it is an eternal rest. This is the crown of our crown. Mortality is the disgrace of all sublunary delights. But, O blessed eternity, where ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... advantage over another. The purchase of supplies and the sale of produce were carried on through a cooeperative store, the profits of which went to the common good. Encountering for the first time in the history of the Anglo-Saxon race the problem of aridity, the Mormons surmounted the most perplexing obstacles with astounding skill. They built irrigation works by cooeperative labor and granted water rights to all families ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... "The —— typewriter is founded on an idea." When I saw this phrase I secured it for my collection, for I felt that, without jest, it contained the kernel of a true philosophy of Nature. The forms, the phainomena, of Nature are innumerable, multifarious, interwoven, and infinitely perplexing, and you may spend a happy life in unravelling their relations and devising their evolutions; but until you have looked through them and seen the ideas that are behind them you are a mere materialist and a blind worker. The soul of Nature is ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... be no corruption in the passage of Pericles, the meaning can only be (as Steevens explained) "thy safe arrival at the port of life." Our author's use of the word "portage" is even more perplexing than Shakespeare's; "Thy portion" would give excellent sense; but, with the passage of Pericles before us, we cannot suppose that there is a printer's error. [In Henry V. 3, i, we ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... entered the mind of the truthful maiden, or of her lover. Death even was more endurable than the thought of dishonor—if they had thought of the matter at all. But as I have said, they never even thought of a such thing. And therefore how to manage the affair was a very perplexing question. ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... is now better, and I ride about again. My office here is no sinecure, so many parties and difficulties of every kind; but I will do what I can. Prince Mavrocordato is an excellent person, and does all in his power, but his situation is perplexing in the extreme. Still we have great hopes of the success of the contest. You will hear, however, more of public news from plenty of quarters; for I have ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... do, and I must even say that I do not think I have anything to learn of the principles or maxims or the practice of Liberal doctrines even from my hon. friend. You are bound to look at the whole mass of the difficulties and perplexing problems connected with India, from a common-sense plane, and it is not common sense, if I may say so without discourtesy, to talk of Imperial Dumas. I have not had a word of thanks from that quarter, in the midst of a shower of reproach, for what I regard, in all its ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... a brief outline of the principal facts known with regard to these interesting but perplexing bodies. We must be content with the recital of what we know, rather than hazard guesses about matters beyond our reach. We see that they are obedient to the great laws of gravitation, and afford a striking illustration of their truth. We have seen how modern science has dissipated ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... that too. Mon Dieu! It might be expected that one would feel cold, buried up in ice; but such was not the case. I was hot. The snow burned my face, as it came in contact with it. As to the ride, it was pleasant enough, but rather rapid and perplexing to the breath. It was like sinking into a pit of quicksand, where everything gives way below one, as though the bottom of the world had fallen out. There was the struggle of a moment to keep the fine snow out of my mouth and nostrils, as I drew in my breath, and the next instant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Minister became "The Primisther," the Chief Secretary the "Cheesesecry," and all this impotence was made the more manifest by thundering on the box with his open hand—in short, it was all inarticulate, painful, perplexing emptiness, weakened and not fortified by prolific tub-thumping. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... discipline should not be forgotten. I invited the officers to drink in a private room, and sent the subalterns into the main hall of the restaurant. Then the soldiers were thirsty, too, and I had drinks served to them out in the courtyard. Then, my word, there was a perplexing business, for now the horses whinnied. The brave horses, Feodor Feodorovitch, who also wished to drink the health of the Emperor. I was bothered about the discipline. Hall, court, all were full. And I could not put the horses in private ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... on you is that our troubles are by no means over. The authorities, not content with driving us out of the United States, are preparing to order us out of Canada as well, and the question of where we are to go is decidedly perplexing." ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... was Lucretia Clavering in outward appearance at the age of twenty,—striking to the most careless eye; interesting and perplexing the student in that dark language never yet deciphered,—the human countenance. The reader must have observed that the effect every face that he remarks for the first time produces is different from the impression it leaves upon him ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... indulging in a long lament over the social decadence of the rising male generation. "When I was a girl," she said, "all the young men in London were at my feet." "My dear lady," said Lord Houghton, "were all the young men of your generation chiropodists?" Mr. C. Milnes Gaskell of Thornes told me of a perplexing situation in which he had once found himself, and of how he sought counsel about it from Lord Houghton, his kinsman. Gaskell's difficulty was this. A friend for whom he was acting as trustee had, without imposing on him any legal obligations in the matter, begged him with ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... is no analogy—there is Continuity. In either case, the first step in peopling these worlds with the appropriate living forms is virtually miracle. Nor in one case is there less of mystery in the act than in the other. The second birth is scarcely less perplexing to the theologian than the first ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... gave him time to bring any shadow of judgment which he possessed to council on his own situation and prospects, which would have appeared to any reasonable person in the highest degree dangerous and perplexing. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... was perfectly absorbed in amazement at the richness and splendour of the furniture. The softest and most elegant carpets, the most exquisite pictures, the costliest mirrors; articles of richest ornament, quite dazzling from their beauty and perplexing from the prodigality with which they were scattered around; encountered her on every side. The very staircase nearly down to the hall-door, was crammed with beautiful and luxurious things, as though the house were brimful of riches, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Coleridge raises (and is backed by Mr. Gillman in raising) a distinction perfectly perplexing to us, between himself and the author of the Opium Confessions upon the question—Why they severally began the practice of opium-eating? In himself, it seems, this motive was to relieve pain, whereas the Confessor ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... describe one of them to which the personality of its founder lends exceptional importance. This is the society of "The Servants of India," founded by Mr. Gokhale at Poona. Mr. Gokhale's career itself exemplifies the cross-currents that are often so perplexing a feature of Indian unrest. He is chiefly known in England as one of the leading and certainly most interesting figures in Indian politics. A Chitpavan Brahman by birth, with the blood of the old dominant caste of Maharashtra in his veins, he has often been, both in the Viceroy's Legislative Council ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... the effect, a little, of confounding, or at least of perplexing her comrade, who was touched, who was always touched, by something helpless in her grace and abrupt in her turns, and yet actually half made out in her a sort of mocking light. ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... hour to spare," said the professor, pulling out his watch: "perhaps, if you will bring me your book and slate, I can elucidate the rule which is perplexing you." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... examination. Elsewhere George Pelham says, "We have an astral facsimile—the words are his—of our physical body, a facsimile which persists after the dissolution of the physical body." This would seem to be the astral body of the Theosophists. But the term "facsimile" is perplexing, as I have always believed that the particular form which Humanity actually has was entirely determined by the laws of our physical universe, that it was an adaptation to its surroundings, and that if a modification, however slight, were made in, for instance, the laws of gravity, ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... have been in a very unsettled condition during the past year, in consequence of the embarrassment and distress produced by the ratification of the treaty, and their uncertainty as to the best course to be pursued by them in their trying and perplexing circumstances. They still cling to the hope that they shall be able to ward off the calamity which threatens them, either through the favorable disposition of the new Administration and Senate, to give their case a re-hearing, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... little scene he had just witnessed. Another moonlit courtyard came to his remembrance, a gleaming, rushing river, a background of shadowy hills, and a little coy, wilful, chattering girl, with curly hair and great brown eyes—those very eyes that had been perplexing ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... afford more elaborate summer places; camps of all descriptions and colours, with queer names that made her smile: "The Cranny," "The Nook," "Snug Harbour," "Buena Vista,"—of course,—which she thought pretty, though she did not know its meaning; and another, in German, equally perplexing, "Klein aber Mein." Though the windows of these places were now boarded up, though the mosquito netting still clung rather dismally to the porches, they were mutely suggestive of contentment ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... seen. This was not to be borne. It was setting him at defiance. Should he call in the assistance of a brother in the line? No, that would be to acknowledge himself beaten, and the disgrace he could not bear—his honor was concerned, and he would achieve it single handed; but, then, it was very perplexing. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... meditatively down the passage to Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's room. For a moment she thought of omitting this last visit altogether; she was afraid lest the Fraeulein should be in some unlooked-for and perplexing condition of mind. Discouraged? Oh no; she was surely not discouraged already. How had the word come into her head? She quickened her steps. When she reached the door she remembered the cup and the ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... time, and although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean time. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... friend, who and what thou art," said the boy, "and how comes it that thou seekest shelter here, and that thou knowest more of Chad than we its owners do. That is the thing which has been perplexing me this long while. I would fain hear from thy story how it ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... phantom stood before him, With jealousies and fears to bore him. Her smiles to others he resents, Looks to the charges and the rents, Increasing debts, perplexing duns, And nothing for the ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay |
