"At a loss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... despondence, spoken an unkind word to her. During the evening he had not failed to notice that she was ill at ease, and he rightly divined that something in himself had been the cause; nor was he at a loss to guess what that something was. Yet he had not allowed the thought to trouble him overmuch; at all events it had made no perceptible difference in his manner, his elation at the thought of the fifty pounds he was going to receive causing ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... absorbed in watching the conduct and demeanour of the men whom popular favour had raised to the leadership of such unions. It was quite evident that events had passed beyond the control of these persons; more particularly were they utterly at a loss as to how to deal with that peculiar terrorism exerted by the lower classes which is always so ready to react upon the representatives of democratic theories. On every side I heard a medley of wild proposals and hesitating ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... dissolute seigneurs and gallants of fashion about town—men of great wants and great extravagance, just the class so quaintly described by Charlevoix, a quarter of a century previous, as "gentlemen thoroughly versed in the most elegant and agreeable modes of spending money, but greatly at a loss how to obtain it." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... I was what you call at a loss twenty years ago, when your grandfather died. The meaning was gone out of life, you see. I was sixty-four. For two years I was cut adrift from everything, and did nothing but brood and find trivial occupations ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... fell to the ground, Mac was at a loss to account for my consternation. "What's gone wrong?" he exclaimed in concern. Mac ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... acquaintance did fall away and declined in love one towards another. Some of them turned to Presbytery, and some turned Independents; others fell to be Ranters, and some fell to be mere Atheists. So that our Puritan people were so divided and scattered in our religion, that I was altogether at a loss; for all the zeal we formerly had was quite worn out. For I had seen the utmost perfection and satisfaction that could be found in that way, except I would do it for loaves, but ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... laughter, with wondrous little mirth in the tones, and the other miscreants were obviously disconcerted and disconsolate, while the small schemer, whose craft had failed midway, looked affrighted and marvelling from one to another, at a loss ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... of this choice proverb Mr Cargrim beat a hasty retreat. Altogether Miss Whichello was too much for him; and for once in his life he was at a loss how to gloss over his defeat. Not until he was in Tinkler's office did he recover his feeling of superiority. With a man—especially with a social inferior—he felt that he could deal; but who can contend ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Leonard was at a loss to know why they were placed on the hither side of the pool, but presently he saw the reason. In front of the chairs to be occupied by Juanna and Otter, an open space of rock was left, semicircular ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... at a loss to determine whether the pleasure I took in reading of the joyous, perfumed life of that other stigmatized saint, the blessed Catherine of Siena, was not a sensuous pleasure rather than the soul-ecstasy I supposed it at ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... sat down to their Christmas dinner. What the repast lacked in linen and garnishment, it made up in stability, graced by a cheerfulness and contentment which made its partakers at peace with the world. Sargent was almost as resourceful in travel and story as Quince Forrest, and never at a loss for the fitting incident ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... too much demand on me for physical action. My heart and head have not their share of time. But when I consider, I am at a loss to know how we can possibly diminish our business in any way without a still greater demand on us for physical labor in consequence of ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... which one would be for you the foremost among women?" "She who should bear the most children, madame," was the icy rejoinder, as the harried and disgusted soldier turned on his heel. Somewhat later she said to Lucien in a melting voice, "I am but a fool in my desire to please your brother. I am at a loss when I wish to converse with him. I choose my language and modify my expressions; I want to make him think of me and occupy himself with me. It ends in my being and feeling as silly as a goose." When the complacent Lucien reported the language ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... of Lord Wellington, he said he had heard he was a large, strong man, grand chasseur, and asked if he liked Paris. I said I should think not, and mentioned Lord Wellington having said that he should find himself much at a loss what to do in peace time, and I thought scarcely liked ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... that so much perplexed the illustrious Cook, in his intercourse with the South Sea islanders, as their sacred rites. Although this prince of navigators was in many instances assisted by interpreters in the prosecution of his researches, he still frankly acknowledges that he was at a loss to obtain anything like a clear insight into the puzzling arcana of their faith. A similar admission has been made by other eminent voyagers: by Carteret, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... behind him and the porter as absent as on the day she had peeped in; he had just come out—was in town, in a tweed suit and a pot hat, but between two journeys—duly bored over his evening and at a loss what to do with it. Then it was that she was glad she had never met him in that way before: she reaped with such ecstasy the benefit of his not being able to think she passed often. She jumped in two seconds to the determination that he should even suppose it to be ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... rule. She was left in very moderate circumstances, with six children to support; but the widow of an old campaigner, who had partaken the sufferings of many a long and dreary march with her husband, was neither disheartened by the calamity, nor at a loss for thrifty expedients to educate her younger offspring. Accordingly, I was kept at school, studying geography, arithmetic, history and the languages, until near twelve years old, when it was thought time for me to choose ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... indeed the Black Visor were a knight) was a most extraordinary thing to have happened. Gaston, who knew little enough of his brother's past history in detail, and had no idea that he had called down upon himself any particular enmity, was utterly at a loss to understand the story, nor was Roger in a condition to give any farther explanation. He tottered as he stood, and Gaston ordered his servants to mount him upon one of their horses and bring him quietly along, whilst ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... little notice of anything until he saw the fire, and this appeared to occupy his attention very much. Biscuit was given him, which as soon, as he tasted it he spat out, but some sugared water being offered to him he drank the whole, and upon sugar being placed before him in a saucer, he was at a loss how to use it, until one of the boys fed him with his fingers, and when the saucer was emptied he showed his taste for this food by licking it ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... moral and physical nature of man, a conclusion was easily formed, that a radical removal of the corrupted blood, and a complete renovation of the entire mass by substitution was both practicable and effectual. The speculative mind of man was not at a loss to devise expedients, to effect this desirable purpose; and undoubtedly one of the boldest, most extraordinary, and most ingenious attempts ever made to lengthen the period of human life was made at this time. We allude here to the famous scheme of transfusion, or of introducing ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... he always spoke most openly about them to me, and he never let drop a word as to the mortgage or as to any difficulty in which he had involved himself, or any investment he had thought of making; and I am, therefore, entirely at a loss to understand how he could have required such a sum ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... astonishment, and quite at a loss what steps he should take. He laid Suwarrow's extraordinary dispatch before the Empress, and requested her orders as to the manner in which he should act. Catharine lost ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... told you everything, she warns me, and I am, therefore, somewhat at a loss to know what I ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... will probably catch the Blue Disease," said Sir Robert, suavely. "At present there are cases reported all over London, and we are at a loss to ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... awhile like a man utterly at a loss. Then he began to move, not quietly or with any display of stealth. He was no longer the self-contained trapper, but a man suddenly bereft of that which he holds most dear. He ran noisily from point to point, prying here, there, and everywhere for some sign which could tell him whither she ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... have so good an excuse for visiting the familiar room, though its usual occupant was not there to welcome her. Very quietly and joyfully happy, she trod slowly along the path through the woods where she last walked with Mr. Clerron. She was, indeed, at a loss to know why she was so calm. Always before, a sudden influx of joy testified itself by very active demonstrations. She was quite sure that she had never in her life been so happy as now; yet she never had felt less disposed to leap and dance and sing. The non-solution of the problem, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... in her pacing, and stared straight before her. For the first time in her life she was quite at a loss as to what a man, of whom she was seeing a great deal, really ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... the house door, where Osric lay, it was guarded, and the guards asked me my business. I said I would see the sheriff and then they demanded name and errand. Now, I could give neither, and was at a loss for a moment. Then I said that I was one of the bearers of the war arrow, and though that was but a chance shot, as it were, it passed me in at once, for often a bearer would return to give account of some thane ill, or absent, or ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... was utterly prostrated by the fear of his pitiless animosity. But what could she do? Not prevent the revival of his dreadful newspaper, certainly, but—well, she could send for Mr. Mortimer. That ingenious gentleman was not long at a loss for an expedient that would accomplish what was possible. He shut Rochefort out of London by forestalling him. At the very time when Mortimer was asking me to suggest a suitable name for the new satirical journal he had already ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... to show to all that you are our beloved and beloving Queen of May. Accept, oh, Queen, this crown and sceptre, and with them the assurance of our alleged loyalty, our humble submission, and our majestic royalty! I am a little at a loss for any thing further to say, as I can't think of any more highfalutin words, so you may as well put on your crown, ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... but feel flattered at the idea that he had been a subject of conversation—as this implied—in the little circle at Miss Chancellor's; but he was at a loss, for the moment, to perceive what he had done up to this time to gratify the senior member of the group. "I hope she will find me an acquisition after I have been here a few days," he ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... which the girls had just begun was the painting of their paddles with their symbols. Gladys, having neither paddle nor symbol, was at a loss what to do. "Here, take the symbol book," said Migwan, "and begin working on your symbol." Gladys took the book and began idly turning the pages. Symbolism was an entirely new thing to her, and she was unable to decide on any of the queerly shaped things ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... am quite ready, sir;" and then he proceeded to give us details of his life upon Mars. It is too long a story to tell exactly as he told it—and sometimes he was at a loss to express himself appropriately in English—but, shortly, it was ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... at a loss to discern this in women about forty; for as such grave, serious, and experienced ladies well know their own meaning, so it is always very easy for a man of the least sagacity to discover it with ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of the chicken quite finished (including two beady black paint eyes) Chet was momentarily at a loss. Miss Kate had not told him to stop painting when the chicken was completed. Miss Kate was at the other end of the sunny garden walk, bending over a wheel-chair. So Chet went on painting, placidly. One by one, with meticulous nicety, he painted all his finger nails a bright and cheery yellow. ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... have often kindly pressed me to let you know what would satisfy me for the two plans, MS. &c. connected with them. I really have never made a charge of this kind, and am at a loss how to calculate, much less to make a demand; but those who can perceive the labour, time, difficulties and contrivance, which the awkwardness of the ground created, may better be able to say, if L.250 for every thing, is unreasonable. ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... the Critic, giving a specimen of 'the puff direct' in regard to a new play, says: 'As to the scenery, the miraculous powers of Mr. De Loutherbourg are universally acknowledged. In short, we are at a loss which to admire most, the unrivalled genius of the author, the great attention and liberality of the managers, the wonderful abilities of the painter, or the incredible exertions ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... should go and uphold the word of a miserable, abandoned, improper adventuress against his own brother Herbert! Atrocious, perfectly atrocious! Where on earth he can have picked up such a woman I'm positively at a loss to imagine. But it's exactly like his poor dear father: I remember once when we were stationed at Moozuffernugger, in the North-West Provinces, with the 14th Bengal, poor Owen absolutely insisted on taking up the case of some Eurasian waman, who ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... finding Shiner present, was at a loss how to proceed, and retired under a tree to collect ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... fan, and gave her brilliant laugh. "It is a risk to look so close!" she exclaimed. "My uncle has some peccadilloes on his conscience." Mr. Wentworth looked at her, painfully at a loss; and in so far as the signs of a pure and abstinent life were visible in his face they were then probably peculiarly manifest. "You are a beau vieillard, dear uncle," said Madame M; auunster, smiling ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... ground; that instead of "spinsters and widows," the demand should be for "all duly qualified women." After the reading of one of the resolutions Miss Jessie Craigen arose and proposed such an amendment. Mr. Woodhall, M. P., in the chair, seemed quite at a loss what to do. She was finally, after much debate and prolonged confusion, suppressed, whether in a parliamentary manner or not I am unable to say. Here we should have discussed the matter at length if it had taken us until midnight, or adjourned ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... von Funkelstein? I am at a loss to understand you," replied Mr. Arnold, who resented any such allusion, being subversive of the honour of his house, almost as much as if it had been depreciative ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... the influence of strong emotion her thoughts lost their customary discipline. In attempting to fathom Father Benwell, she was conscious of having undertaken a task which required more pliable moral qualities than she possessed. To her own unutterable annoyance, she was at a loss what to say next. ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... powerful influence of these assemblages, government issued an act prohibiting them after the 1st of August. The act was evaded by convoking the meetings before that day, and keeping them alive indefinitely. Gage was at a loss how to act. It would not do to disperse these assemblages by force of arms; for, the people who composed them mingled the soldier with the polemic; and, like their prototypes, the covenanters of yore, if prone to argue, were as ready to fight. So the meetings ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... unarmed in the neighbourhood of Dublin, especially at night, has always been accounted dangerous. I had about me the usual instruments of defence. I was desirous of rescuing this person from the danger which surrounded her, but was somewhat at a loss how to effect my purpose. My single strength was insufficient to contend with three ruffians. After a moment's debate, an expedient was suggested, ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... gratify her enormously,' he said, and eyed the complacent clerical gentleman with transparent jealousy of his claims to decent treatment. 'Otherwise, I must confess,' he added, 'I am at a loss. My wits are in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I am at a loss to understand your lordship, and I invite you to explain yourself. At present I can only see in your account of George Mason, a very common exhibition of Christian logic, and Christian temper. Your lordship's ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... newer buildings commenced is told us; but here the chronicler has carried his attempt at accuracy too far. The point of junction is, as stated above, at the third pillar beyond the medallion of Venice; and I am much at a loss to understand what could have been the disposition of these three pillars where they joined the Ziani Palace, and how they were connected with the arcade of the inner cortile. But with these difficulties, as they do ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... sat at that table and received other wedding parties, nevertheless he appeared at a loss, or perhaps he disapproved of matrimony. At any rate he was not going to acquiesce in the proceedings until he had dwelt, as elderly people will, on the serious nature of the duties the young people were proposing to undertake. He went so far as to put clearly ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... since the conquest." It is probable that I colored, or showed some mark of discomposure, with which, however, the king was not displeased, for he smiled, and said, "How do you know that?" Here I was at a loss for a moment how to answer; for I was sensible that it did not become me to occupy the king's attention with any long stories or traditions about a subject so unimportant as my own family; and yet it was necessary that I should say ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the columns of a few English organs, there may be occasional lapses from good taste and right feeling, such sweeping charges against the Anglo-Indian Press as a whole are absolutely grotesque, and its most malevolent critics would be at a loss to quote anything, however remotely, resembling the exhortations to hatred and violence which have been the stock-in-trade not only of the most popular newspapers in the vernaculars, but of some even of the leading newspapers published in English, ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... to know how the sea impressed me, though, and again I find myself wholly at a loss for words to express my feelings. It was so overwhelming in its grandeur and far-stretching expanse; so beautiful in its never-ending procession of colors; so terrible in its might, when aroused. I have seen it asleep as peacefully as one of my babies (all the hospital ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... right is the play called Henry IV? Practically nothing is left of the historical setting, and the spectator is at a loss to know just what the whole thing is about. Certainly the whole emphasis is shifted, for the king, instead of being an important character is overshadowed by Prince Hal. The Falstaff scenes, on the other hand, are left almost in their original fulness, and thus constitute a much more important ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... she tells the funniest stories, and her house is ever so pretty," said Candace, rather at a loss to know what ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "On which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Marlborough Street, where his people had lived before he left England. But when he came to the house he found it shut up. He had been away for five years, and had not heard a word from home all that time, therefore he was at a loss to know what to do for a few minutes until he remembered a linen draper's shop near by which his family had used. He drove there, and told them who he was. They paid his coachman for him, and told ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... It is a very difficult thing for any man to apply the generalities of moral law and righteousness to the individual cases in his life. The stars are very bright, but they do not show me which street to turn up when I am at a loss; but Christ's example comes very near to us, and guides us, not indeed in regard to questions of prudence or expediency, but in regard to all questions of right or wrong. It is superior, in the help it gives to a soul struggling with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... that she should never see her friends and neighbors inside her doors at all. She may feel that she has neither the taste nor the talent for constant small reunions. Such things, she may feel, require a social tact which she has not. She would be utterly at a loss how to conduct them. Each one would cost her as much anxiety and thought as her annual gathering, and prove a failure after all; whereas the annual demonstration can be put wholly into the hands of the caterer, who comes in force, with flowers, silver, china, servants, and, taking the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... also she was at a loss what to do. The Wittenberg theologian, Erasmus Eckhart, found that his own songs, when she sang them to him, seemed entirely new, and the gratitude he felt merged into ardent love, the first which had taken possession of his young soul. But Barbara resolutely refused to receive his visits, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... part of the night, during the early hours of which Chris grew more and more sleepy; but as they approached "night's dull noon," he grew more wakeful and relieved the tedium by talking to first one and then the other cheerfully enough, and never at a loss ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... made for San Francisco. There, at a loss, I disposed of the remainder of the term of the lease on the yacht, and we took the first train for ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... the crowded streets in the sunshine. He was rather at a loss as to what his next move should be. Now that his mental freshness was somewhat restored, his thoughts began to busy themselves again with the disappearance of Barbara Mackwayte. He was conscious of a guilty feeling towards Barbara. It was not so much the blame he laid upon himself for not ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... a dread of physical evil—and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own—yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own—that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me had been heightened by one of the merest chimeras it would be possible to conceive. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... misfortune) to know for certain who it is I lament. I knew Zara and Selima (Selima, was it? or Fatima?), or rather I knew them both together; for I cannot justly say which was which. Then as to your handsome Cat, the name you distinguish her by, I am no less at a loss, as well knowing one's handsome cat is always the cat one likes best; or if one be alive and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is the handsomest. Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you do not think me so ill-bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all my interest in the survivor; ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... cunningly pretended that it pained him much. Ignorant as we were of the facts, it was impossible to come to a definite conclusion. There were certainly many proofs of an invasion by a hostile people, so that the Admiral was at a loss what to do; he with many others thought, however, that for the present, and until they could ascertain the truth, they ought to conceal their distrust; for after ascertaining it, they would be able to claim whatever indemnity they thought proper. That ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... many hundred feet of lumber to make as much as the cheapest sort of laborer gets for a day's pay. The fact is, young man, that far from profiteering on that lumber, I am selling it at a smaller profit than I ever sold any lumber before in my life. Some lumber I am handling at a loss. But in these critical days, with factories closing everywhere, and men by the thousands being thrown out of work, the best thing a man can do, either for himself or for his country, is to keep business moving. That's why I am selling ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... this knowledge of the goods, he is at a loss in the buying part, and is liable to be cheated and imposed upon in the most notorious manner by the sharp-sighted world, for his want of judgment is a thing that cannot be hid; the merchants or manufacturers of whom he buys, presently discover him; the very boys ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... asked no questions. Instead he took me to supper and then to a moving picture, the first I had seen in the West. His kindness so melted my exasperation with the press that I was at a loss to know how to begin the fighting talk I had come to make. But the film ended with a woman driving sheepmen off her claim, and with that example to fortify my ebbing courage, I asked for a new printing press. And I ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... distress; then, with a face of peerless scorn, she seemed to put some horrid scene from before her with her hand. "The dear God would rather I would drown myself," she said; "it would at least be"—she hesitated for a word, as if at a loss in her English—"at ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... was at a loss to understand his meaning. I had forgotten Hephzy's "fib" concerning my going away. Fortunately he did ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of the Pilgrim could possibly have to do with the murder of Colin Lothian I was at a loss to know. But their importance in the issue of the case will ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... distance travelled this day to be eighteen miles. Being rather late, we were much at a loss to find a place dry enough to sleep on: the north end of Arbuthnot's ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... onward movement? It may be remarked that he now speaks of science more respectfully than of old. I suppose this Essay was of later date than "Beauty," or "Illusions." But accidental circumstances made such confusion in the strata of Emerson's published thought that one is often at a loss to know whether a sentence came from the ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... without his knowing it, but his sleep had a rude awakening. He woke with the echo of a dreadful cry in his ears. For a moment he looked stupidly about, utterly at a loss to discover where he was. Then the cry came again—a horrible, screaming cry—and he sat up, with his heart ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... it is worth in itself, though the price paid be not more than it is worth to the owner. Yet if the one man derive a great advantage by becoming possessed of the other man's property, and the seller be not at a loss through being without that thing, the latter ought not to raise the price, because the advantage accruing to the buyer, is not due to the seller, but to a circumstance affecting the buyer. Now no man should sell what is not his, though he ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... up into pieces and threw his hands and feet far away, and thought he would not come to life again. Nevertheless, next morning he came to life just the same, and he walked along all the paths and by-ways to intercept his enemies. The Synteng king was in great trouble on his account, and was at a loss for a plan how to overcome him, because, having been killed once or twice, ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... a seamstress in the plain but elegant garb and appointments of the young girl, and Mrs. Merlin was at a loss as to the proper establishment ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... his appearance on the preceding evening in amazing tweeds and a grey flannel shirt. He explained casually that for a fifteen-mile walk flannels were absolutely necessary, and that he was rather pleased to find that he had come from door to door in four hours and two minutes exactly. His host was at a loss for words, because he was comparing this unconventional youth with the fathers, who wore large white stocks and ambled along at about two and a half miles an hour, clearing their throats also in a very impressive way, and ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... came out my side disarranging a net. I got into the ditch, hastily reset the net, and put the ferret to an adjacent hole, lifting up the corner of the net there for it to creep in. Unlike the weasel, a ferret once outside a hole seems at a loss, and wanders slowly about, till chance brings him to a second. The weasel used to hunting is no sooner out of one hole than he darts away to the next. But this power the ferret has ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... at Castle Blanch was one of the most irksome periods of Honora's life, disappointing, fretting, and tedious. There was a grievous dearth of books and of reasonable conversation, and both she and Owen were exceedingly at a loss for occupation, and used to sit in the boat on the river, and heartily wish themselves at home. He had no companion of his own age, and was just too young and too enterprising to be welcome to gentlemen ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... figure, a clever billiard-player, a passable amateur actor, he danced well, and excelled in most physical exercises; he could, moreover, sing a ballad and applaud a witticism. Supple, envious, never at a loss, there was nothing that he did not know—nothing that he really knew. He knew nothing, for instance, of music, but he could sit down to the piano and accompany, after a fashion, a woman who consented after much pressing to sing a ballad learned by ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... High Schools strongly objected to because they made the girls so full of gossip, about what this or that teacher said, or what some girl did, till their people hated the very name of school. If school friends talk much school gossip, they must weaken their minds and feel at a loss when out of their school set. It is very "provincial" to have no conversation except the small gossip which would bore a stranger, and yet I fear many friends confine themselves to a kind of talk which unfits them for general society. ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... said the Postal Department was run at a loss at present, and if they further reduced the tariff things would go very ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... I am quite at a loss to comprehend your meaning," she said at last. "I have no near neighbour whom I can call my friend, unless you mean Mrs. Patterly, the doctor's wife, who has taken such a warm interest in my clothing-club, and who has such a beautiful ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... line and parallel with the ecliptic; two of them were situated to the east, and one to the west of Jupiter. On the following night he was surprised to find all three to the west of the planet, and nearer to each other. This caused him considerable perplexity, and he was at a loss to understand how Jupiter could be east of the three stars, when on the preceding night he was observed to the west of two of them. Galileo was unable to reconcile the altered positions of those bodies with the apparent motion of Jupiter among the fixed stars ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... why Little Moccasin was always so full of mischief, and always inventing tricks to play upon the other boys. He was a precocious and observing youngster, full of quaint and original ideas—never at a loss ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... the few helpless individuals within its power. Embarrassments accumulate and if Mr. Pitt's agents did not most obligingly write letters, and these letters happen to be intercepted just when they are most necessary, the Comite de Salut Publique would be at a loss how to account ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Dear Ryland,—Till I took my pen in my hand I thought I had a great deal to say to you, and now I am mostly at a loss for a subject. * * * We have remained very quiet; whatever is going on is silently. I have no reason to think, however, that any change has taken place in the public mind; that I believe remains in the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... article in Ole Miss' entitled "Manuscripts and Silver" as "mercenary", is the summit of injustice, for it was nothing more or less than the absolutely gratuitous offer to the United of what is now the Symphony Literary Service. We are rather at a loss to divine Mr. Macauley's precise notion of amateur journalism. He speaks of it as a "tarn", but we cannot believe he would have it so stagnant a thing as that name implies. Surely, the United is something greater than a superficial ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... rather by surprise. But, nevertheless, I am very glad to hear such news. I shall approve, of course, dear Tamsie. Who can it be? I am quite at a loss to guess. No I am not—'tis the old doctor!—not that I mean to call him old, for he is not very old after all. Ah—I noticed when he ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... too; perhaps," and she laughed a little apologetically, "I've fitted my religion to my life. At any rate it's better than fitting other peoples' lives to one's religion. But it seems to me that God," she hesitated, as if at a loss for words to express herself—"that God—and one's surroundings—make one what one is. . . . And unless one is very certain that either God or the surroundings are wrong, it's asking for trouble to go on one's own beaten track. . . . ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... shore; running out to sea before every southeaster; landing in a high surf; with a little dark-looking town, a mile from the beach; and not a sound to be heard, nor anything to be seen, but Kanakas, hides, and tallow-bags. Add to this the gale off Point Conception, and no one can be at a loss to account for our agreeable disappointment in Monterey. Besides, we soon learned, which was of no small importance to us, that there was little or no surf here, and this afternoon the beach was as smooth as ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Townsend, in two octavos. In the Times of the second of January we find a reviewal of it, characteristically pungent. "Why Mr. Townsend conceived it necessary to dignify his collection with the above solemn title," says the critic, "we are at a loss to conjecture. Madame Tussaud does not invite a curiosity-seeking public to her museum of horrors by disguising the naked hideousness of her groups, or by lending them a factitious grace which it is hardly their interest to borrow. The publication is essentially popular, was ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... by the cessation of the pestilence. Numa displayed the target to the artificers and bade them show their skill in making others like it; all despaired, until at length one Mamurius Veturius, an excellent workman, happily hit upon it, and made all so exactly the same that Numa himself was at a loss, and could not distinguish. The keeping of these targets was committed to the charge of certain priests, called Salii, who did not receive their name, as some tell the story, from Salius, a dancing-master born in Samothrace, or at ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... suspected of being a French spy. I proposed to submit my papers to the nearest Justice of Peace, who was immediately applied to, and came to the inn where I was. He seemed to be greatly agitated, and quite at a loss how to proceed. The complaint preferred against me was "that I had examined the Longships Lighthouse with the most minute attention, and was no less particular in my inquiries at the keepers of the lighthouse regarding the sunk rocks lying off the Land's End, with the sets of ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... after another fitted into the framework she made, and Miss Pritchard grasped the situation fully. Stunned and wholly at a loss, she glanced at Elsie. The girl sat like a statue, white with downcast eyes. Miss Pritchard went to the window and stood ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... tumultuously after her kind, and in the free air of the fields I would not have changed one of my pretty sweethearts against Monna Vittoria. But somehow in that fantastic palace of hers, with its enchanted atmosphere and its opulent surroundings, my cool reason of the meadows and the open air seemed at a loss, and I found myself ready, as it were, to surrender to Circe like any hog ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... madame: I only inquire. For my part, I see no legitimate motive for this proscription of madame du Barry." "A woman without character!" "Character! Why, madame, who has any in these days? M. de Crebillon the younger would be at a loss to tell us where to find it." This reply made the duke and his sister smile again. The chancellor went on thus: "It appears to me that persons were less difficult in the times of madame de Pompadour." "But a creature who has been so low in society!" ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... his mystification, she got out of the chaise, and, basket in hand, opened the wicket, and softly went up the path. The neat little shoes and spotless white dress were close beside the poor creature grubbing there in the ground before she knew it, and there they stood still; Daisy was a good deal at a loss how to speak. She was not immediately perceived; the head of the cripple had a three-cornered handkerchief thrown over it to defend it from the sun, and she was earnestly grubbing at the roots of her balsam; the earth- ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... their homes, therefore, if not wealthier, at least happier; flattered by assurances and condescensions, confiding in hope as in certainties. Within three months, however, it is supposed that they would willingly have disposed both of promises and expectations at a loss of fifty per cent. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... brief, we embarked, and in the course of a few days arrived at Baffa, where it was so ordered by the providence of God, who perchance took pity on me, that in the very hour of our disembarkation I, not knowing a soul and being at a loss how to answer the gentlemen, who would fain have discharged the trust laid upon them by the reverend abbess and restored me to my father, fell in, on the shore, with Antigono, whom I forthwith called, and in our language, that I might ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... between the violins and the 'cellos and basses. It shows, furthermore, that peculiar quality in Franck's style which comes from his elusive modulations. In measures 109-110 we are at a loss to tell just what direction the music will take when almost miraculously, in measure 111, we find ourselves in D-flat major—in which key the whole theme is now repeated. Some stimulating modulations bring us, in measure 129, to a most energetic and ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... the edition in 1732, has altered canary to "sherry" for what reason I am at a loss to discover, and have consequently restored the reading of the first edition. Venner gives the following description of this favourite liquor. "Canarie-wine, which beareth the name of the islands from whence it is brought, is of some termed a sacke, with this adjunct, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... Ashe was at a loss. It was a crisis that called for swift action, and it was a little hard to know exactly what to do. It had been his intention to carry the paint-splashed shoe back to his own room, there to clean it at his leisure; but it appeared that his strategic line of retreat was ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Universe, and the environment of existence, must needs move in circles of harmonious unity, making loveliness out of commonness, and poetry out of prose. The devotee of what is mistakenly called 'pleasure,'—enervated or satiated with the sickly moral exhalations of a corrupt society,—would be quite at a loss to understand what possible enjoyment could be obtained by sitting placidly under an apple-tree with a well-thumbed volume of the wisdom of the inspired pagan Slave, Epictetus, in the hand, and the eyes fixed, not on any printed ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... was a scene. The wife went back to her friends. F. also gave up, went off to Ekaterinoslaff, learned the tailor's trade, and married again!" How he managed this second marriage without committing bigamy, in view of the laws of Russia on that point, I am at a loss ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... sunk into anxious silence, and gave me leisure to ruminate on this inexplicable event. I am at a loss to describe the sensations that affected me. I am not fearful of shadows. The tales of apparitions and enchantments did not possess that power over my belief which could even render them interesting. I saw nothing in them but ignorance and folly, and was a stranger even to ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... and the story of the five imprisoned kings we must go back a little bit to the place where the leadership of Moses had been transferred to Joshua. God is never at a loss for a man; his plans are never frustrated. If Moses is to be set aside Joshua is in preparation for his position. Doubtless Joshua may have felt somewhat restrained, as he was kept in a position of not very great prominence, but he certainly realized when he stood as the leader of the children ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... about town all the morning, Manuel found himself at noon on the Ronda de Toledo, leaning against the wall of Las Americas, at a loss to know what to do with himself. To one side, likewise seated upon the turf, was a loathsome, terribly ugly, flat-nosed gamin, with a clouded eye, bare feet, and a tattered jacket through whose rents could be glimpsed his dark skin, which had been tanned by the sun and wind. Hanging from ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... Moreover, she gave him a treasury of money and advanced him from dignity to dignity, till she made him treasurer and committed to his charge all the treasures of the state; nor did she leave day by day to increase his allowances and afford him fresh marks of her favour. As for Kemerezzeman, he was at a loss for the reason of all the honour and favour she showed him and gave gifts and largesse out of the abundance of the wealth he owed to her munificence, devoting himself in particular to the service ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... drawing-room astronomers professed to explain the charred aspect of the moon— a disaster which they attributed to the intensity of the solar heat; only, on being reminded that comets have an atmosphere, and that the moon has little or none, they were fairly at a loss for ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... and yet is not so beautiful; a cloud may look more like a castle than a cloud, and be the more beautiful on that account. The mirage of the desert is fairer than its sands; the false image of the under heaven fairer than the sea. I am at a loss to know how any so untenable a position could ever have been advanced; but it may, perhaps, have arisen from some confusion of the beauty of art with the beauty of nature, and from an illogical expansion of the very certain truth, that nothing is beautiful in art, which, professing to ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... at her, evidently at a loss for words to express his disapproval. Drusilla watched him, waiting for him to speak; and then, finding that he was ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... whole poem (appalling in its length), but to no purpose. The transcendental literature of Germany absorbs all that, at first glance, arrests the attention. Without learning, imagination, or the attraction of a beautiful metre (like that of Tennyson's 'Princess'), I am at a loss to know what has given this poem its notoriety. Not its daring speculation, surely, for it is but a timid compromise between Orthodoxy ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... of the necklace in Nyoda's pocket and the flight in the rain were all jumbled together. She sat down on a stone by the roadside to think things over, and let down her damp hair to fly in the wind. For once in her life Sahwah was at a loss what to do next. So she sat still and waited for inspiration. The sun dried her hair and her coat and the mud on her shoes. The wild asters along the road craned their necks to get a look at this great muddy ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... be at the very heavy expense, after 1840, of taking a labourer to convey the communications. Knowing the stated day for receiving and transmitting letters, no one in (p. 056) the most distant parts could ever be at a loss; and every one, more especially on estates, would benefit ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen
... anyone until a match will be struck. Of one you will say, "that's good; I'm glad to find such a trait in that person," but directly another match will flare up and you will find another trait as disappointing as the other was commendable, and you are at a loss to know what "manner of man" you ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... Howard?" she protested, rising and fairly compelling him to stop and speak to her. Then: "For pity's sake! what have you been doing to yourself to make you look so hollow-eyed and anxious?" After which, since Lidgerwood seemed at a loss for an answer to the half-solicitous query, she presented her companion of the "S"-shaped chair. "Possibly you will shake hands a little less abstractedly with Mr. Van Lew. Herbert, this is Mr. Howard Lidgerwood, my cousin, several times removed. He is the tyrant of the Red Butte Western, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... him, wondering. What under the sun could he mean? Why should she read a letter written to him? She smiled, shook the hand he offered, but was still at a loss to understand his words. The directors came up to say good-bye. Mr. Mertzheimer bowed very politely but refrained from meeting her eyes as he said, "Good-afternoon." The other men did not bow but they added to their good-bye, "I'm going to ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... terribly at a loss for similies: you have lilies of the valley for comparisons; we nothing but what with the idea of whiteness gives that of ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... choice of what varieties should compose these ornaments, one can hardly be at a loss. Flanking the cottage, and near the kitchen garden, should be the fruit trees. The elm, maples, oak, and hickory, in all their varieties, black-walnut, butternut—the last all the better for its rich kernel—are every one appropriate for shade, as ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... being a member of it, but not the head. When various persons were named as possible heads, Lord Aberdeen was distinctly approved, Graham was distinctly rejected, Newcastle was mentioned without any distinct opinion expressed. We [Aberdeen and Gladstone] were both alike at a loss to know whether Lord John had changed his mind, or had all along since his resignation been acting with this view. All his proceedings certainly seem to require an opposite construction, and to contemplate ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... these were soon seized with a suppression of urine, accompanied with inflammation of the kidneys, which shortly after proved fatal to one of the company. The Doctor was consulted; but not knowing exactly the cause of the complaint, of course was at a loss to apply a remedy in time. But another circumstance of the like nature having come under his notice, and being apprized of it, by a well applied corrective medicine he recovered the patient. It should, therefore, be made a general observation, under such circumstances, and those are not the ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... quite impossible. I should be very happy if you were here to give me some advice; but I have nobody to consult with. They have sent to me more than twenty French officers; I do not know what to do with them; I beg you will acquaint me the line of conduct you advise me to follow on every point. I am at a loss how to act, and indeed I do not know what I am here for myself. However, as being the eldest officer, (after General Arnold has desired me to take the command,) I think it is my duty to mind the business ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... coffee, while an architect carved the turkey; and sometimes banker Hutchinson was permitted to aid in distributing plates and spoons, but always Zulime Taft was one of the hostesses, and no one added more to the distinction and the charm of the company. She was never out of character, never at a loss in an effort to entertain her guests, and yet she did this so effectively that her absence was instantly felt—I, at least, always resented the action of those wealthy guests who occasionally hurried away with her to the Thomas Concert at eight-fifteen. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... and I felt embarrassed, and a little at a loss what to say next. But a girl approaching sixteen, and who is with a youth who possesses her entire confidence, is not apt to be long silent. Something she will say; and how often is that something warm with natural feeling, instinct ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... preaching, and soon after returned to England to take orders, provideed with powerful recommendations. To his great disappointment, the Bishop of London refused him ordination, and the reader of Peter Pindar will not be at a loss to guess the reason of the refusal. Wolcott now established himself in Truro, and continued in the successful practice of medicine there ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Nehemiah was at a loss. There is a peculiar glutinous quality in the resolve of a certain type of character which is not allied to steadfastness of purpose, nor has it the enlightened persistence of obstinacy. In view of his earlier account of his purpose he could not avow his errand; it bereft him of naught to ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... from me, and burst into tears. He stood quite near me. I thought I hated him, but my obtuse, blundering, idiotic self more than him. I waved my hand in token either of his silence or withdrawal, for in all my life long I, with a whole dictionary in my mind of abusive epithets, was never more at a loss for a word. My token ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... Calais catastrophe. It may be easily understood that Medina Sidonia, while flying round the Orkneys had not much opportunity for despatching couriers to Spain, and as Farnese had not written since the 10th August, Philip was quite at a loss whether to consider himself triumphant or defeated. From the reports by way of Calais, Dunkerk, and Rouen, he supposed that the Armada, had inflicted much damage on the enemy. He suggested accordingly, on the 3rd September, to the Duke of Parma, that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... writes a magnificent hand. It was nevertheless true that at present poor Roderick gave unprecedented tokens of moral stagnation, and as for genius being held by the precarious tenure he had sketched, Rowland was at a loss to see whence he could borrow the authority to contradict him. He sighed to himself, and wished that his companion had a trifle more of little Sam Singleton's evenness of impulse. But then, was Singleton ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... was done. With no slight trouble, Monica persuaded her sister to undress, and got her into a recumbent position, Virginia all the time protesting that she had perfect command of her faculties, that she needed no help whatever, and was utterly at a loss to comprehend the insults directed ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... they had been dragged through a river, the Princess still thought of nothing but the ambassador, and just at this moment he appeared before her, with the King, and there was a great blowing of trumpets, and all the people shouted louder than ever. Fanfaronade was not generally at a loss for something to say, but when he saw the Princess, she was so much more beautiful and majestic than he had expected that he could only stammer out a few words, and entirely forgot the harangue which he had been learning for months, and knew well enough to have repeated it in ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... Assize Courts for their condemnation. From time to time the wall left off, and then we got down, perforce, and walked to the next piece of it. In these pieces we made the most of the old gates, especially Walmgate Bar, which has a barbican. I should be at a loss to say why the barbican should have commended it so; perhaps it was because we there realized, for the first time, what a barbican was; I doubt if the reader knows, now. Otherwise, I should have preferred Monk Bar or Micklegate Bar, as being ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... hypnotism, and illustrate it in a peculiar way, or whether it is merely illustrating Hamlet's wise remark that, "There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy," the Baron is at a loss to determine. It is psychological, it is materialistic, it is idealistic, it is philosophical, it is ... French. The Vacuus Viator may have a worse companion on a long journey than ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... even more at a loss concerning her contemporary, John Brooks, of whom I have no other record than the following letter, which appears in the autobiography of the famous author-actor-manager, Thomas Dibdin, of the Theaters Royal, Covent Garden, Drury ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... to be presumed, forms of exercise which are not judicious from their very nature; but I find myself at a loss to name any one which girls desire, or in which they indulge, that would properly fall under this class, unless it be sewing and washing. Whenever our girls have been injured by physical exercise of muscle or ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... peculiar disadvantage, which is not found in natural, that in collecting its experiments, it cannot make them purposely, with premeditation, and after such a manner as to satisfy itself concerning every particular difficulty which may be. When I am at a loss to know the effects of one body upon another in any situation, I need only put them in that situation, and observe what results from it. But should I endeavour to clear up after the same manner any doubt in moral philosophy, by placing myself in the same case with that which I ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... I kept it, saying nothing to anybody. I examined the glove privately, saw it was really yours, and, of course, I drew my own conclusions—that it was you who had been in the quarrel, though what cause of dispute you could have with Rachel, I was at a loss to divine. Next came the inquest, and the medical men's revelation at it: and that cleared up the mystery, 'Ho, ho,' I said to myself, 'so Master Lionel can do a bit of courting on his own account, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... which the people are never at a loss in America, any more than in France, we sallied forth to see the town, and were exceedingly pleased with its appearance. Nothing could be brighter or fresher than it looked, and the flags and streamers across the street, and general ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... characterizes her feelings toward Bonaparte just before marriage. "I discovered in him a tone of assurance and exaggerated pretension, which injured him greatly in my estimation. The more I studied his character, the more I discovered the oddities for which I was at a loss to account; and at length he inspired me with so much aversion that I ceased to frequent the house of Mad. Chat*** Ren***, where he spent his evenings." Notwithstanding the excessive affection professed, a large portion of the period ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... they? This one or that one? Mother Tesson would most surely have been at a loss to name the lad who returned from his furlough bringing two hens and a rooster to start her barnyard. She vaguely remembered that he was from the south, on account of his accent, and that he must have travelled across all France with his cage of ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... think you understand my father, Mr. Chubble," said Dick with a gentle remonstrance in his voice which Mr. Chubble was at a loss whether to take ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... the announcement that we were to have second period with the German, Reinhardt, was as good as promising us a holiday. Nay, it was rather better; for, in an unexpected holiday, we might have been at a loss what to do, whereas under Reinhardt we had no doubt—we ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... "Why, whenever the Society papers are at a loss for a paragraph, they report a few more offers of marriage to the ever-beautiful ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... always strongly objected. The x of science and the x of genesis are two different x's, and for any sake don't let us confuse them together. Maurice has sent me his book. I have read it, but I find myself utterly at a loss to comprehend ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... stranger. But with so modest an attire he feels as well-dressed as anybody. I think that this elegant article of fashion must have originated as a sanitary precaution, in order to prevent insects of all kinds, and particularly carrapatos, penetrating within—or else I was really at a loss to understand of what other use it could be. They themselves would not say, and only replied that all Bororo Indian men wore it. The Indians who had assembled all ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... heiress to immense estates, was to take the black veil. Invitations had been issued in grand form, by her aunt and guardian, the Countess Brigitte de Rupelmonde, canoness of Mauberge. The circumstance caused great talk and wonder in the fashionable circles of Paris; everybody was at a loss to imagine why a young girl, beautiful and rich, in the very springtime of her charms, should renounce a world which she was so eminently qualified to embellish ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... but unfortunately, you are only passing through, and I also am not here for long. Nevertheless, if for one cause or another you should have need of anyone ... you understand ... a young girl might find herself at a loss in a huge town ... you will enquire for the ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... presence of his last work, so overwhelming, so stupendous, we lesser men are left at a loss. Its magnitude demands the perspective that time only can lend it. Its dignity and austerity and its pitiless truth impose upon us that honest and intelligent silence which even the quickest minds concede is ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the pirate with a red ensign; but they did not hail each other. At night they left the Muscat ships, and sailed after the fleet. About four next morning, the pirates were in the midst of the fleet, but seeing their vast superiority, were greatly at a loss what method to adopt. The Victory had become leaky, and their hands were so few in number, that it only remained for them to deceive, if possible, the English squadron. They were unsuccessful in gaining any thing out ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... this new measure in their conduct, which it seems they consulted together upon, viz., to leave three men in the boat, and the rest to go on shore, and go up into the country to look for their fellows. This was a great disappointment to us, for now we were at a loss what to do, as our seizing those seven men on shore would be no advantage to us if we let the boat escape; because they would row away to the ship, and then the rest of them would be sure to weigh and set sail, and so our recovering the ship would be lost. However, we had no remedy but to wait ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... much which appears irreparable today may not be accessible either to psychotherapeutic or to physical therapeutic means to-morrow. If we were carelessly to identify the reparable troubles with those which we cannot recognize visibly, we should be at a loss to understand why, for instance, many forms of insanity are entirely beyond our psychotherapeutic influences. On the other hand, every physician who uses psychotherapeutic means is surprised to see the effective bodily ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... To tell the truth, on the whole, that was my attitude too. But if anyone had asked me for the smallest reason for this attitude, for this feeling of superiority, pride, hauteur, and prejudice, I should, like any other 'respectable' young man, have been entirely at a loss, and could ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had been ordered by the autocratic Bill. Some were anxious to get their breakfast at Sugar Pine, but others were not averse to linger for the daylight that promised greater safety on the road. The Expressman, knowing the real cause of Bill's delay, was nevertheless at a loss to understand the object of it. The passengers were all well known; any idea of complicity with the road agents was wild and impossible, and, even if there was a confederate of the gang among them, he would have been more likely to precipitate ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... for a few moments seemed at a loss for words in which to reply. But he recovered himself very quickly, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... eight, or even nine shillings a week—and it will, therefore not surprise him to learn that there is no daily newspaper published out of London. It is, however, somewhat extraordinary that in that city, there should be, as has recently been stated, but a single one that is not "published at a loss." That one circulates 40,000 copies, or more than twice the number of all the other daily papers united. This is a most unfavourable sign, for centralization and progress have never gone hand in ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... interrupting concerns that they might possibly wish to consider private. Using the precaution, therefore, to make a little noise, as the best means of announcing my approach, the door was gently opened, and I presented myself to view. At first I was a little at a loss in what manner to address the strangers; but believing that a people who spoke a language so difficult of utterance and so rich as that I had just heard, like those who use dialects derived from the Slavonian root, were most probably the masters ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in his new- found immunity from the horrors of mal de mer. Here he had found Dick, a born sailor, walking the heaving and plunging deck and chatting animatedly with Mr Sutcliffe, who, honest man, felt somewhat at a loss to determine precisely the manner of his behaviour toward the youngster whom he had so recently patronised and ordered about, but who was now translated aft to the quarterdeck upon an equal footing with himself. Dick had just about succeeded in putting to flight ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... inland districts, who may never have seen a precipice upon a grander scale than is presented by the sides of some deep chalk-pit, would be at a loss to imagine wherein consisted the BEAUTY and the INTEREST of such seemingly monotonous scenes; especially when informed that they are indebted to no borrowed ornament from either tree or shrub: and indeed it would ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon |
