"Confusing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said nothing about the religion of the Egyptians, because there were so many different deities worshipped in different places and at different periods that the subject is a very confusing one, and is indeed the most difficult problem ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... would be only the obedience of fear, and God does not desire such obedience. It would be impossible that testing could go on at all if at every instant the whole of the consequences of our actions were being realised. Such a condition of things is unthinkable, and would be as confusing, in the moral sphere, as if harvest weather and spring weather were going on together. Again, the great reason why sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily lies in God's own heart, and His desire to win us to Himself by benefits. He does not seek enforced obedience; ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... atmosphere, and very pretty indeed, lifting its nice, shapely head above the decrepit old ridge-pole of the ancient house.—I took my saw and went on a lovely wander, with a fell intent against all dead and confusing branches. How infinitely sweet it is to have access to this woodland virtue! It does me measureless good; and I am sure such air as we have on these fine days must be the effect of heroic and gentle deeds, and is a pledge that there are not tens only, but tens ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... that she was enjoying the chance of showing others the motley splendors of her garden. As if she had determined to make her guests giddy, she moved on faster and ever faster like the leader of a lively folk-dance. Then, quite suddenly, so that Casanova seemed to awaken from a confusing dream, they all found themselves in the parlor once more. On the other side of the grating, dim figures were moving. It was impossible to distinguish whether, behind the thick bars, three or five or twenty veiled women were flitting to and fro like startled ghosts. Indeed, none but ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... against your step-paw, Jason," the old woman broke in anxiously. "He was an awful good man. It seems queer to think it was the way it was. Dear me, it's all so kind of confusing!" ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... desert on a dark night is confusing to the most observant wayfarer. On either side, beyond the light of the car, illusory forest stands for mile upon mile. Up hill or down or across the level it is the same—a narrow, winding trail through dimly seen woods. The most familiar road grows ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... period, took shape in complete systems of religious and philosophic truth—Kant, Hegel, Spencer, Comte. They have been followed by a period of criticism which has left none of them whole, but on the other hand has produced a mass of contradictions and specialisms highly confusing and even hopeless to the public mind and veiling the more important and profound agreements which have been growing all the time beneath. There are now abundant signs of a reaction towards unity and construction of a broad and solid ...
— Progress and History • Various
... be assurance that an excessive number of compartments in organization will not create costly and confusing compartments in ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... half of irritation and positive pain. Stretched out on my bunk and delivered over to the tender mercies of these personages, I stiffen myself and submit to the million imperceptible pricks they inflict. When by chance a little blood flows, confusing the outline by a stream of red, one of the artists hastens to staunch it with his lips, and I make no objections, knowing that this is the Japanese manner, the method used by their doctors for the wounds of both man ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... however, that his writings being composed on the spur or excitement of the moment, often related circumstances which subsequently proved to be erroneous; that they were written without method or care, often confusing dates and events, so that they must be read with ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... the questioner remaining at the end rolled up in the repartees, gasping as a fly caught in a spider's web. The Court fool or buffoon had for his principal merit his clever knack of returning witty or confusing answers; the best of them were preserved; itinerant minstrels remembered and repeated them; clerks turned them into Latin, and gave them place in their collections of exempla. They afforded amusement for a king, an amusement of a ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... legitimate; it is a part of every one's heritage. But nonsense which is confused with reality is vicious,—the more so because its insinuations are subtle. So far as their content is concerned, it is chiefly as a protest against this confusing presentation of unreality, this substitution of excitement for legitimate interest, that these stories have been written. It is not that a child outgrows the familiar. It is rather that as he matures, he sees ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... familiarity touched her strangely. It spoke not of the years she had occupied it, the five years since she had left the nursery wing, but of the one night when she had prepared to leave it for ever. It would be part of her ordeal to have that painful and confusing memory brought before her whenever she entered it. She hated now to think of that night and of the day and night that had followed it. She flushed hotly as she turned again to her glass, and called herself a fool. Then she resolutely turned ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... is in connecting so closely as it does the capacity for feeling and the capacity for expression,—in thinking that capacity for the one implies capacity for the other, or incapacity for the one incapacity also for the other; in confusing the technical art of the man who sings with the unselfish tenderness of the man who feels! But the world does so connect them; and, consequently, those who express themselves badly are ashamed ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... by the turbulent irruption of this multitude of staring faces into her cell of years, by the confusing sensation of being in the air, and the yet more confusing sensation of being afoot, by the unexpected changes in half-remembered objects, and the want of likeness between the controllable pictures her imagination had often drawn of the life from which ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... no guiding the brute: in its insanity of madness it doubled many times upon its course, the windings of the streets confusing it. But by degrees we left the large palaces and pyramids behind, and got amongst the quarters of artisans, where weavers and smiths gaped at us from their doors as we thundered past. And then we came upon the merchants' quarters where ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... comments. After all, the whole thing, when brought down to the end, must fall to the function of science. When Hobart arrives, whatever my fate, he will find a complete and comprehensive record of my sensations. I shall keep it up to the end. Such notes being dry and sometimes confusing I have purposely omitted them from this narrative. But there are some things that must be given to the world. I shall pick out the salient parts and give ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... sudden the girl was so beset with confusing emotions that she hurriedly quitted her chair and vanished ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... never told anyone just what his thoughts were at that particular moment; probably because they were so many and so contradictory and confusing. Whether from this uncertainty of mind; from a habit of depending upon his young foreman, or because of that something, which Phil and the stranger seemed to have in common, he shifted the whole matter by saying, "It's up to Phil here. He's foreman of the Cross-Triangle. If he wants ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... beginning of my remarks I wish to protest, in a sentence, against confusing the issues about this question of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in that fashion which is popular nowadays, when we are told that miracle is impossible, and therefore there has been no Resurrection, or that death is the end of human existence, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... now. He doesn't see us, though. Possibly he doesn't know where his stateroom is. These boats are very confusing. I'll go fetch him." ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... often troubled because women suffrage and temperance were more and more linked together in the public mind, thus confusing the issues and arousing the hostility of those who might have been friendly toward woman suffrage had they not feared that women's votes would bring in prohibition. She did her best to make it clear to her audiences that she did not ask for the ballot ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... not know as I was greatly surprised. I was powerfully excited, as well as conscious of a certain whirl of thought, and an unsettling of old conclusions that was very confusing; but surprised? No. Mr. Gryce's manner ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... were at once called into requisition to assist in the preparation of the dinner for the boarders—four gentlemen—who, her mistress informed her, were "very particular," and liked everything nice. She received a confusing multiplicity of directions as to waiting at table, for Mrs. Williams rather prided herself on the "stylishness" of her establishment. She got through her task tolerably well, though somewhat bewildered between Mrs. Williams' quick, sharp reminders ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... splintered ice. There seemed a curious expression about all their outlines—a perpetual resemblance to living features, distorted and scornful. Myriads of deceitful shadows, and lurid lights, played and floated about and through the pale-blue pinnacles, dazzling and confusing the sight of the traveller; while his ears grew dull and his head giddy with the constant gush and roar of the concealed waters. These painful circumstances increased upon him as he advanced; the ice crashed and yawned into fresh chasms at his feet, tottering spires ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... eventually, after a most fatiguing and dangerous journey, reached the boat and shoved off into the stream. The gig was of course provided with a boat compass, and we knew the exact bearing of the spot where the other boats lay hidden; but we already knew also how complicated and confusing was the set of the currents in the river, and how hopeless would consequently be any attempt to find our friends in that thick fog. We therefore did not make the attempt, but, pushing off into the stream until we were clear of the mosquitoes and other winged plagues that ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... where it materialized again into conventional space-time, the Earthmen were retching violently, too sick to budge from the bunk room. It took over two weeks, with stops at half a dozen contract planets, before Jack and Tiger began to adjust themselves to the frightening and confusing sensations of conversion to star-drive. During this time Dal carried the load of the ship's work alone, while the others lay gasping and exhausted in their bunks, trying to rally strength for the ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... requires no appeal to general principles. It only requires that the charges against him be fairly investigated; that he be tried by documentary evidence, and by the testimony of competent witnesses. The mistake is made of confusing breaches of conventional decorum ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... crime and did not know whether he had committed it or not. And, trying to collect his thoughts, he took a cab and drove to her fiat. It was closed, but her address was given him; a bank in Cape Town. He had received his release. In his remorse and relief, so confusing and so poignant, he heard the driver of the cab asking where he wanted to go now. "Oh, back again!" But before they had gone a mile he corrected the address, in an impulse of which next moment he felt thoroughly ashamed. What he was doing indeed, was as indecent as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... pleasure," exclaimed the doctor, confusing himself by an inept attempt at gallantry. "He shall stay as long as you please. But"—here the doctor became grave again—"you cannot too strongly urge upon him the importance of hard work at the present ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... visit had taken M. de Bois aback, chiefly because he was confounded by a new proof of his own awkwardness (stupidity, he plainly termed it) in leaving his handkerchief behind him, as a witness of his presence at the chalet. But there was no such confusing testimony to destroy his composure when he received Maurice. Besides, he had ample time to collect himself; for he was walking in the park when his valet announced that the young viscount was awaiting him in the library. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the showy properties of magic, easily materialised, even by beginners, at will. It must be confusing for such an orderly animal as the cat to exist in this intermittent way, never knowing, so to speak, whether it is there or not there, from one ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... historical sense. The distinction between cognition and fancy does not exist among objects, but only in the intending experience; hence, for me to attach my own distinction to any individual case of belief, viewed apart from the believer, is an utterly confusing projection of my own personality into the field of ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... The sort of autobiography Gilbert's wife will write when she has time. It reminds me very much of her letters, and is, I am sure, still more like the diary which she no doubt keeps. Poor Gilbert...." Grandmama seemed to be confusing Gilbert momentarily with the Cabinet Minister. "I remember," she went on, "meeting this young woman at Oxford, in the year of the first Jubilee.... A very bright talker. They can so ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... chill struck with full force upon the heart of Barlow. Kassim's story of Kumari revivified itself with startling remembrance. Was this the priest that, to save Kumari's sacrifice, had wafted her by occult or drug method from one embodied form into another, from Kumari to Bootea? It was so confusing, so overpowering in its clutch that he did not speak ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... hurriedly, with a great many vague fears in his mind. Mr Wodehouse's sudden illness seemed to him a kind of repetition and echo of the Squire's, and in the troubled and uncertain state of his thoughts, he got to confusing them together in the centre of this whirl of unknown disaster and perplexity. Perhaps even thus it was not all bitterness to the young man to feel his family united with that of Lucy Wodehouse. He went down Grange Lane in the summer darkness under the faint stars, full of anxiety and alarm, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... be too confusing to follow all these grants and charters, or all the attempts at settlements made by Mason and Gorges and others. The land granted to them was often very vaguely outlined, the fact being that the people who applied for the land, and those ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... objects of pilgrimages, and their temples places of prayer. In the galleries, as is obvious, the pictures are at their smallest, their glory pressed back into themselves or overlapped or smudged by the confusing glory of others. Out in the wide world, enshrined in temples, these pictures would become living hearts, they would have arms dealing out blessings, they would outgrow again till their influence was as wide as the little kingdoms in which they were enshrined. Pictures would again ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... voices is loud and incessant. Sometimes there is an explosion of laughter, sometimes a burst of rage or exultation; but over all prevails a sharp, prolonged rattle, at first somewhat confusing to the non-familiar. If we approach the tables, however, the mystery solves itself. The company is at the favorite games, draughts and dice, singly or together, and the rattle is merely of the tesserae, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... ultimately on money, therefore (said Dundas) the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to control its operations and act virtually as Secretary of State for War. Then why not also as First Lord of the Admiralty? No sooner is the question formulated than we see that Dundas is confusing two very different things, namely, general financial control and the administration of military affairs. In fact, Dundas still clung to the old customs which allotted to the Secretaries of State wide and often overlapping duties. He did not see the need of a specialized ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... all the drives and walks would be both difficult and confusing. As all the roads and paths are free, the tourist may ramble in whatever direction he pleases, either through the orchards or up the lonely but beautifully-wooded valleys and mountains. The only sound heard is the occasional report of a gun, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... fortunes of the Percies, though they still held their Yorkshire estates, were linked permanently with the little town on the Aln, and the fortress which alike commanded and defended it. The fourth Henry Percy began to build the castle as we see it now; but to call him "the fourth" is a little confusing, as he was the second Henry Percy, Lord of Alnwick. On the whole, it will be clearer to begin the enumerations of the various Henry Percies from the time they became Lords of Alnwick. It was, then, Henry Percy the ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... and wishing, with a sudden scare, all the more to keep her emotion down. She maintained her fixed smile a moment and turned her eyes over the peopled darkness, unconfused now, because there was something much more confusing. This, with a fatal great rush, was simply the fact that they were thus together. They were near, near, and all she had imagined of that had only become more true, more dreadful and overwhelming. She stared straight away in silence till she felt she looked an idiot; then, to say something, ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... Either conception, if consistently worked out, might have sufficed for the groundwork of a good historical tragedy. What Schiller did, however, was to vacillate between the two, to blend them in a confusing way, and finally to let the interest of his play turn largely upon the hero's mental struggle between selfish ambition ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... the skipper made a gesture. The Plumie regarded Baird with interested eyes. And Baird led the way for a tour of the Niccola. It was confusing even to him, with right hand converted to up and left hand to down, and sidewise now almost vertical. On the way the Plumie made more clear, flutelike sounds, and more gestures. ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... confusing the trail. Possibly he hoped to suggest that he'd escaped by the fire-escape. Presumably he was on the balcony when Mrs. Hale came ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... besides a seemliness of speech and countenance[732]." Dr. Johnson's method of conversation was certainly calculated to excite attention, and to amuse and instruct, (as it happened,) without wearying or confusing his company. He was always most perfectly clear and perspicuous; and his language was so accurate, and his sentences so neatly constructed, that his conversation might have been all printed without any correction. At the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... in the water were very confusing. I can't pretend to say exactly what I did or didn't do. I had to think ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... duck's head that Ne-geek had shot for the purpose, Oo-koo-hoo scattered a few feathers about. Some of these, as well as the pan of the trap, had been previously daubed with a most stinking concoction called "fox bait"—hereafter called "mixed bait" to prevent confusing this with other baits. ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... for remaining neutral and taking no part whatever in the struggle, either for or against the Crown. Among the Backvelders there appeared to have been some misunderstanding as to whether the South Africans were subjects or merely friends of the British Government. This bewilderment became more confusing during the interval between the outbreak of the war and the meeting of the Union Parliament. All kinds of ideas were expressed in the Press. The progressive section, mainly English, urged not only that South Africa had no alternative but to join the struggle, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... the Boston steamboat line. Of merchant, banker, broker, every shade Am I; in fact, a Jack of every trade. More varied than the hues of the Chameleon; Far heavier than Ossa piled on Pelion Are all my duties! Really it's confusing, At times, to a degree that's quite amusing. When am I this, when that, when which, when what? And am I always FISK, or am I not? Thus, constantly I get into a fix, And one thing with another sadly ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... marble-topped table, the cabinet organ, and the enlarged family portraits on the walls, for of such quality were his mother's adornments in the old home at Circle Bend. Something vaguely intimate and a little confusing filled his mind as he listened to the voice of the woman before him. Only by an effort could he connect her with the cabin in the high valley. She was becoming each moment more alien, more aloof, but at the same time more desirable, like the girls he used ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... to the different qualities of bricks in various parts of Great Britain are most confusing, but the following ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... laid his whole hand bare, and yet there may be cards up his sleeve still. Besides, his plan he told me about seems so bald. And I don't understand why he should think he is so sure of what I—I mean, of what Rupert—it's a bit confusing to have a double identity—is going to do. He says he is sure Rupert Dunsmore is to be at the Brook Bourne Spring tomorrow at four. He says his information is certain, and that he has full knowledge of what Rupert Dunsmore is going to do, which is ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... the moonlight were very confusing," remarked Josephine; "and then O'Shea made the two sailors stand in the same way, and they were real. I never knew a man like O'Shea for thinking of things that are half serious and half funny. I never knew him yet fail to find a way to do the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... difficult than in large plants, partly because of the delicacy, minuteness, and fragility of the single parts, particularly the greater part of the mycelia, partly because of the resemblance of the latter in different species, and therefore follows the danger of confusing them with different kinds, and finally, partly in consequence of the presence of different kinds in the same substratum, and therefore the mixture not only of different sorts of mycelia, but also that different kinds of spores are sown. With some care and patience, these difficulties are in no ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... station-house, trying to take it all in at one glance of her brilliant eyes. She had never been here before, but she had had countless photographs made, and supposed herself thoroughly acquainted with the spot. But, to some minds, photographs are confusing things, jumbling up the points of compass in an unreliable manner. Joyce found that it was almost as strange as if never pictured out before her, and a great deal uglier than she had supposed. She shivered as she gazed around upon the bleakness everywhere, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... startled the world. But, you will notice that he does not attempt to give any other than purely physical laws the credit for the ordinary phenomena of telepathy. And he was thoroughly right in this, as we have seen. He escaped the common error of confusing physical-sense phenomena with the phenomena of the astral-senses. Each plane has its own phenomena—and each class is surely wonderful enough. And, again, remember that both physical and astral phenomena are purely natural; ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... sometimes by knowing that anything that's different is ridiculous; and sometimes by looking for tangent truths out of professorial ruts," Hugo observed with a sort of erudite discursiveness which was the rank dissimulation of a hypocrite to Pilzer and wholly confusing to Peterkin, not to say a draught on mental effort for many of the others. "For instance, I got a good one from two fellows of the Browns whom I met on the road the first day we arrived. They were reservists. We were soon talking together and so ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... seaworthy and as they had no cable, the horses must swim. I dreaded to see them enter this chill, gray stream, for not only was it wide and swift, but the two currents coming together made the landing confusing to the horses as well as to ourselves. Rain was at hand and we had ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... attitude—that is, in his treatment of her—was in the direction of bolder passion. of complete casting aside of all the restraint a conventional respecter of conventional womanhood feels toward a woman whom he respects. So, naturally, Susan, eager to love and to be loved, and easily confusing the not easily distinguished spiritual and physical, was reassured. Once in a while a look or a phrase from him gave her vague uneasiness; but on the whole she felt that, in addition to clear conscience from straightforwardness, she had a further reason for ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... truth in the words—in the tone. The chairman let fall the hand which had been raised to his face, holding on his eye-glasses; and a sort of self-condemning fear arose, confusing his brain. His son, proved innocent of one part, might be proved innocent of the other; and then—how would his own harsh conduct show out! West Lynne, in its charity, the justice in his, had cast more odium to Richard, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Bengal and the Bombay texts are confusing here. I follow the text as settled by the Burdwan Pundits. If the erudition of the Burdwan Pundits be rejected, 28 would read as, "Virata, at the head of his forces, encountered Jayadratha supported by his own troops, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... crossed the deep, And stood with thee on deck, to gaze On waves that rose in threatening heap, While stagnant lay a heavy haze, Dimly confusing sea with sky, And baffling, even, the pilot's eye, Intent to thread ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... differently situated; yet she can only take advantage of circumstances which yet depend upon the caprice of a subtle-minded husband. Over both these friends of the unfortunate, slavery has stretched its giant arms, confusing the social system, uprooting the integrity of men, weakening respect for law, violating the best precepts of nature, substituting passion for principle, confounding reason, and ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... reapers and harvest-women at dinner. Here, said he, are the true Arcadians; and advanced courteously towards them, as afraid of confusing them by the dignity of his presence. They acknowledged his superiority by no other token than that of asking him for something to drink. He imagined that he had now purchased the privilege of discourse, and began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... it, anyway? Teeny-bits, still looking upward, suddenly realized that the room into which Snubby had broken was Tracey Campbell's; confusing thoughts were still sweeping through his mind when he became aware that some one who was stepping swiftly along the walk that passed close behind the hall was almost upon him. Teeny-bits never knew just ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... making life hard. Pliny said that the latifundia destroyed Italy. The saying has been often quoted in modern times as if it had some unquestionable authority. It is a case of the common error of confusing cause and consequence. The latifundia were a consequence and a symptom. Heisterbergk[827] thinks that the latifundia were not produced by economic causes, but by vanity and ostentation. The owners did not look ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... upon the scheme of teaching illiterate Negroes the principles of Christianity by memory training or the teaching of religion without letters. This the clergy were wont to call religious instruction. The word instruction, however, as used in various documents, is rather confusing. Before the reactionary period all instruction of the colored people included the teaching of the rudiments of education as a means to convey Christian thought. But with the exception of a few Christians the southerners thereafter used the word ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... the new wisdom, the new points of view, and the new interests must, of course, be from time to time bewildering and confusing. Today those who have a voice in the body politic have expressed their wishes and sufferings. The result has been a smaller or greater balancing of their conflicting interests. The appearance of new interests and ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... and the darkness crushed Bobby, taking his breath. Yellow flames, the response of his eyes to the disappearance of the candle, tore across the blackness, confusing him. He felt his way to the wall near the open window. He sat down ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... He will reveal to us if we will listen. If we wait for God's voice. If we did not heed so much the confusing clamor of the world's voices about us. Emulation, envy, anger, strife, jealousy; if we turned our heads away from these discords, and in the silence which is God's temple, listened, listened, — who knows the secrets He ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... park, the grand slopes, the lovely peeps of distance, the exquisite taste displayed in the grounds and gardens about the house, drew little attention from our party. Within, the succession of big rooms became confusing. One or two bits in certain pictures were pronounced by the farmers "as natteral as life;" the "stattys" rather scandalized them, and the historical legends attached by the housekeeper to various pieces of furniture fell upon ears too little educated to be interested. But when we got to the big ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... concerning the varieties which they represent. The testimony given is sometimes contradictory, either from want of proper observation on the part of the writers quoted, or from differences in the seeds sold under the same name. This is necessarily somewhat confusing to one who is looking up the merits of a variety, but it will form a better basis for judgment than would a mere descriptive list, without reference to dates or authorities. It is practically impossible to make a satisfactory classification which ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... just two in the morning when I reached the alarm-post. Brussels by this time was full of the rolling of drums and screaming of pipes; and the regiment formed up in darkness rendered tenfold more confusing by a mob of citizens, some wildly excited, others paralysed by terror, and all intractable. We had, moreover, no small trouble to disengage from our ranks the wives and families who had most unwisely followed many officers ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... fitness of the modes of study adopted in those schools, to the end specially intended, judgment is hardly yet possible; only, it seems to me, that we are all too much in the habit of confusing art as applied to manufacture, with manufacture itself. For instance, the skill by which an inventive workman designs and moulds a beautiful cup, is skill of true art; but the skill by which that cup is copied and afterwards multiplied a thousandfold, is skill of manufacture: and the faculties ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... acquaintance of an accidental American (no "magnate" or "captain of industry" but an ordinary business man) to learn that though he is no more than the manufacturer of some matter-of-fact article, his operations are on a confusing scale and that, with branch offices in three or four towns and agents in a dozen more, his daily dealings are transacted over an area reaching three thousand miles from his home office, in which the interposition of prairies, mountain ranges, and chains ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... of the way in which the animal is cut to produce the different pieces that she sees in the butcher shop and the names that are given to the various cuts. The cutting of the animal, as well as the naming of the pieces, varies in different localities, but the difference is not sufficient to be confusing. Therefore, if the information here given is thoroughly mastered, the housewife will be able to select meat intelligently in whatever section of the country she may reside. An important point for her to remember concerning meat of any kind is that the cheaper cuts are found near the neck, ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... truth, and so did the confusing and conflicting powers of deceit throng about her, and more than ever preclude the possibility of a happy solution ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... the problem in both is substantially the same, the solution also is the same. David and Asaph both point onwards to a period when this confusing distribution of earthly good shall have ceased, though the one regards that period chiefly in its bearing upon himself as the time when he shall see God and be at rest, while the other thinks of it rather with reference to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... words which I can't quite understand,' Charlie replied, for the cookery-book was an extraordinary work. The writing was bad, the spelling was worse, and the abbreviations were confusing. But the cook went right through the book ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Ester, because she was utterly unused to confessing her Savior; and though not exactly ashamed of him, at least she would have indignantly denied the charge, yet it was much less confusing to keep silence, and let others think as they would—this had been her rule, she followed it ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... car, in which Carmen lay deep in the soft cushions, sped through the dusk like a fell spirit. A confused jumble of shadows flew past, and strange, unfamiliar noises rose from the animated streets. The lights shimmered on the moist glass. It was confusing. The girl ceased trying to read any meaning in it. It all fused into a blur; and she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the novel sensations stimulated by her first ride in a carriage ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... villas." [Footnote: Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliae, chap. cxxiv.] By using the general word villas ("vills") he evaded one of the greatest difficulties in the description of English local government in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the confusing and conflicting use of terms for the smallest subdivision of civil government. Shall we use parish, town, township, manor, or tithing when we speak of a neighborhood organized for the affairs of petty government? All these terms are used abundantly in the records of the time ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... was indicated by a trail of burnt jungle and camping grounds strewn with picked bones and various remnants. But after the lapse of five days they came upon a vast expanse of burnt steppe, on which the wind had carried the fire in all directions. The trails became deceptive and confusing, as, apparently, Smain had divided his detachment into ten or more small divisions, in order to facilitate the surrounding of the game and the capture of provisions. Gebhr did not know in which direction to go, and often it happened that the caravan, after moving long in a circle, ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... also lasts a fortnight; it is arranged as an opportunity for lady 'bus-conductors to recuperate after the rigours (the more remunerative rigours) of service on a single 'bus. These statements of mine are open to extensive correction. Jay's hours always struck me as so very confusing that it is unlikely I should be able to retail the information correctly. However, it ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... untruth, the death be averted. If from testimony either way, the alternative of the death of the plaintiff or defendant must ensue, the witness should maintain silence, the monarch assenting. In case the monarch do not assent, the testimony may be rendered of no avail by confusing the witness: if this cannot be effected, then let the truth be spoken; for by so doing one fault only is incurred, viz. causing the death, whereas from untruth would arise the sin of it as well ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... instruments that interested me. What most attracted my attention was the captain's private collection of fishing tackle and his armoury. There were some fine landing nets and rods with bright brass rings and reels, and the artificial flies were quite confusing in their number and variety. In the armoury were several six shooters of different patterns, and many double-barrelled guns and ornamented rifles. Captain Gordon allowed me to handle some of these, and he ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... confusing to these young minds; it served to increase a dangerous hostility, which had arisen in the last five years among the working class, against the intellectuals. No doubt the latter had richly deserved it; how far away seemed the time when men of thought marched at the head ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... before E and I; but from the silence of all the grammarians on the subject, from the transcriptions of C in Greek by kappa, not sigma or tau, and from the inscriptions and MSS. of the best ages not confusing CI with TI, we conclude that at any rate until 200 A.D. C and G were sounded hard before all vowels. The change operated quickly enough afterwards, and to a great extent through the influence of the Umbrian which had used d or c ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... jealousy, several of the worst additions and interruptions are wanting in the LXX, especially the first throwing of the javelin (xviii. 9-11) and the betrothal to Merab (xviii. 17-19). The insertions are most varied and confusing in the account of the outbreak of the hostility of Saul and of David's flight (chapters xix. xx). Chapter xix. 1-7, a pointless and artificial passage, betrays its later origin by its acquaintance with ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... break badly at the same time that his flanks were being doubled back. The foregoing is only the repetition of principles which cannot be changed by the length of line and masses of troops and incredible volumes of artillery fire; which makes the European war the more confusing to the average reader as he receives his information in ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... defined theology. For they had not progressed beyond the stage of magic as far as any concept of religion, that is of praying for intercession to any power greater than themselves; whereas the mental state of the Wongolo was half-way between magic and religion, mixing and confusing the two as exemplified in the Rain-making ceremony of employing magic and alternately invoking the god and threatening him with dire penalties if he did not behave. There seemed to be no royal family ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... quickly, and visibly disturbed. "No, no, of course I don't. I really don't know what I meant. It's all too confusing for simple people like you and me. Let's talk about something else." Lucy, to whom the matter was distasteful, agreed; but the thought persisted. Mistaken ... ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... was large, with a good north window, and scattered about were the numberless objects that go to the confusing make-up of an artist's workshop. At last Miss Linderham threw down her crayon, went to the end of the room where a telephone hung, and rang ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... pain in the back of his father's head had become so great that he had begun to reel about, overthrowing one of the parrots on its perch. The parrot flew at master, thinking he had done it—— Never mind the parrot, Joseph replied angrily, confusing the messenger, who told him that the master had entered the house on Tobias' arm, and had sat down to supper but had eaten nothing to speak of. None of us dared to go to bed that night, the messenger continued. We sat up, expecting every moment somebody to come down from the room overhead ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... murmured. I seemed to feel myself on the edge of something very big and cloudy and confusing, but very necessary, somehow, to be understood. The trap he had led me into so neatly had fastened softly, but with almost ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... purposes of life. The oratory of those who denounce the physiological theories as lacking idealism in reality undermines true moral philosophy. There is no idealism which can really flourish merely by ignoring the progress of science and confusing the issues. The true values of the higher life cannot be safely protected by that thoughtless idealism which draws its life from vagueness and which therefore has to be afraid of every new discovery in scientific psychology. Our real ideals do not lie at all in ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... fell kindly upon them, and the scene was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie thought, only she hoped they would soon set out the teacups. Everything would be quite charming when she had taught the gypsies to use a washing basin, and to feel an interest in books. It was a little confusing, though, that the young woman began to speak to the old one in a language which Maggie did not understand, while the tall girl, who was feeding the donkey, sat up and stared at her without offering any salutation. At ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... four galliasses loses her rudder, and drifts helpless to and fro, hindering and confusing. The duke, having (so the Spaniards say) weighed his anchor deliberately instead of leaving it behind him, runs in again after awhile, and fires a signal for return: but his truant sheep are deaf to the shepherd's pipe, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... a very confusing game of contraries for five players. Four of them hold each the corner of a handkerchief. The other, who stands by to give orders, then shouts either "Let go!" or "Hold fast!" When "Let go!" is called, the handkerchief ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... so often, Justine: you're the only clever person I'm not afraid of, because your cleverness always used to make things clear instead of confusing them. I've asked so many people about you—but I never heard a word till just the other day—wasn't it odd?—when our new doctor at Rushton happened to say that he knew you. I've been rather unwell lately—nervous and tired, and sleeping badly—and he told me I ought to ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... poor, and if everybody's to be treated the same, no matter how they behave, it's very hard on them. I don't believe in that sort o' thing. If you do wrong you must bear the consequences, or what's the good of keeping honest. It's confusing to young people to get such ideas, and it does a lot of harm, Miss Hilton. You never had any young people to bring up. It's that that alters your mind about those things. There's our William. He's not one for saying much. He's one of the old-fashioned kind. He's a kind of serious ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... cautious experiments may also be made in analyzing any composition which the student may chance to be studying, especially if not too elaborate. The necessary safeguard consists in simply passing over every confusing point, limiting the analysis to those phrases that are self defining, for the present,—until greater experience and fuller information shall have ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... condition of the drama. What the future may bring forth it is difficult to determine. The histrionic kaleidoscope revolves more rapidly than of yore and the fantastic shapes that it exhibits are brilliant and confusing; but under all circumstances I should be loath to believe that any conditions will render the appearance of frivolous novices more potent than the ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... imaginary critical and nattery college professor standing over their shoulder. Older books are often far better than new ones, especially if you'll forgive them an occasional error in point of fact. We are not always discovering newer, better, and improved. Often we are forgetting and obscuring and confusing what was once known, clear and simple. Many of these extraordinary old books are not in print and not available at your local library. However, a simple inquiry at the Interlibrary Loan desk of most libraries will show ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... and locked. Had the handkerchief been left there then? He sat for a long time in the deserted library, trying to hit upon some reasonable theory to explain the matter, but his efforts resulted in failure. Not the least confusing feature of the affair was the fact that the woman, Marcia Ford, was not the woman he was seeking. He had seen her at the studio that morning, and knew that she was not the one who had escaped from the cab the night before. ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... exclaimed Zaidee. "Papa talked it into the box, and the man writed it down when he talked," confusing the telephone at home with the cablegram, which, directed to Miss Eunice Ward, as the eldest representative, had been the occasion of much excitement on ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... our fixed point. Besides, a moon of two hundred feet diameter did not seem quite unmanageable. Yet it was evident that a smaller moon would be of no use, unless we meant to have them near the world, when there would be so many that they would be confusing, and eclipsed most of the time. And four thousand miles is a good way off to see a moon even two hundred feet ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... however, have been of more importance than Vergil's brother. On the other hand, certain details in the poem—the sorrow of the mother, for instance—preclude the conjecture that it was Caesar, unless the poet is here confusing his details more than we need assume in ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... his own that were going, and that they should certainly await us upon our arrival. In one respect it was well for us that we thus rid ourselves of the trouble of looking after them, for I never saw such blind, confusing arrangements as these ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... in a confusing way to mean different things. Thus in the same sentence we see it refers to a single touch of the brush,—which is not a tone, but a paint spot,—and then we read that the "tone of the canvas is golden." This cannot mean that each paint spot is the color of gold, but is intended to suggest that ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... abounded in the Mosaic system and sustained by a multitude of analogies. Compulsory service on the other hand, could have harmonized with nothing, and would have been the solitary disturbing force, marring its design, counteracting its tendencies, and confusing and falsifying its types. The directions given to regulate the performance of service for the public, lay great stress on the willingness of those employed to perform it. For the spirit and usages that obtained under the Mosaic system in this respect, see 1 Chron. xxviii. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... consciousness. It was the elemental instinct, the everlasting human impulse. The boys, hobbledehoys, both of them, grew shy and turned red at unexpected moments. The girls developed a certain condescension of manner, which was very confusing and irritating to the boys. Elizabeth, as unaware of herself as the bud that has not opened to the bee, sighed a good deal, and repeated poetry to any one who would listen to her. She said boys were awfully rough, and their boots ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... will not put it that way," and the other seemed to sweep some confusing thought from before his mental vision. "Let us say that the reward will be commensurate with the deed. We do not forget, we Fenshawes, do we, Irene? Good day, Mr. King. I hope to make your better acquaintance. We shall see much ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy |
