"Puzzle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Edna went on busily thinking, "I am at school five days out of the seven. It's almost like a puzzle, isn't it? I think I shall take Ada with me and leave her there. She is used to it, and won't mind as much as some of the other dolls, for she was there all last year and besides, Aunt Elizabeth gave her to me. Aunt Elizabeth is ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... not puzzle long over these questions, for he had determined on a course of action. He spoke to the life-saver, who appeared to be listening to the droning conversation which ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... that he did not know her at all. He had once talked to a girl who resembled her, but that was long ago. He could understand a Gomez-Dep and appreciate a brisk sports-suit, but this girl was of a world unintelligible to him. Her hair, in its dips and convolutions, was altogether a puzzle. "How did she ever fix it like that?" Her low evening dress—"what was it made of—some white stuff, but was it silk or muslin or what?" Her shoulders were startling in their bare powdery smoothness—"how dare that young pup dance with her?" And her face, that had ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... its voice after the screams of "brain-fever." The next cuckoo is not one whit less vociferous than the last. It is known as the Indian koel (Eudynamis honorata). This noble fowl has three calls, and it would puzzle anyone to say which is the most powerful. The usual cry is a crescendo ku-il, ku-il, ku-il, which to Indian ears is very sweet-sounding. Most Europeans are agreed that it is a sound of which one can have too much. The second note is a mighty avalanche of yells and screams, which Cunningham ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... brief, her parents succeeded in baffling nature's promise, but failed of the fulfillment of their own. At twenty, Jemima was a puzzle to every body, and a weariness to herself. Conscious of her powers, but not knowing how to spend them, she gave in to every imaginable caprice. Having made the discovery of her superiority, she despised the opinions of others, while ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... than my former mode of life—that of a locum tenens, or minder of other men's practices—which had, when I was following it, seemed intolerably irksome, now appeared to possess many desirable features; and I found myself occasionally hankering to sit once more by the bedside, to puzzle out the perplexing train of symptoms, and to wield that power—the greatest, after all, possessed by man—the power to banish suffering and ward off the approach ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... quickly," he said. His voice had become brusque, the politeness had gone from his address. He carried the card and the fragments of paper to the round table. There he sat down and, with infinite patience, gummed the fragments on to the card, fitting them together like the pieces of a Chinese puzzle. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... was not entirely theoretical, proposed a visit to Rose's apartment, or, as he termed it, her troisieme etage. Waverley was accordingly conducted through one or two of those long awkward passages with which ancient architects studied to puzzle the inhabitants of the houses which they planned, at the end of which Mr. Bradwardine began to ascend, by two steps at once, a very steep, narrow, and winding stair, leaving Mr. Rubrick and Waverley to follow at more leisure, while he should ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... extremely small, but the walls, as well as those of a little garden that surrounded it, were constructed with an ambitious degree of solidity, being composed of layers of large stones and turf; and some of the corner stones were so weighty, as to puzzle the spectators how such a person as the architect could possibly have raised them. In fact, David received from passengers, or those who came attracted by curiosity, a good deal of assistance; and as no one knew how much aid had been given by others, the wonder of each ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... it?" smiled the man opposite. "Well, I'll own those initials have been something of a puzzle to people. One man declares they're 'Merely Jokes'; but another, not so friendly, says they stand for 'Mostly Jealousy' of more fortunate chaps who have real names for a handle. My small brothers and sisters, discovering, with the usual perspicacity of one's family on such matters, ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... Gerrit. She realized, of course, that he must have had the past of any healthy honorable man of his age, and that it would have included at least one woman. However, when even the present was an almost complete puzzle his past had been so lost to her that she had ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of chivalry?' she retorted; and no one seemed to have an answer ready, but the crowd fell silent, like people determined to puzzle ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... about the room for a few minutes. Apparently he was glancing at the numerous college pennants and other things that were upon the walls; but in reality he found himself wrestling with the strange puzzle that was giving his chum ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... Browning, the worst of all the boys Who had a sure-nuff cannon that made all kinds of noise; And when the cannon wouldn't go he blew into the muzzle, But what became of Willie's teeth has always been a puzzle. ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... on the previous day, and the Major read among the presentations that of Lady Clavering by Lady Rockminster, and of Miss Amory by her mother Lady Clavering,—and in a further part of the paper their dresses were described, with a precision and in a jargon which will puzzle and amuse the antiquary of future generations. The sight of these names carried Pendennis back to the country. "How long have the Claverings been in London?" he asked; "pray, Morgan, have you seen ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would soon be almost automatic. In some plants most of the work is on one uniform grade or blend. But coffees which vary greatly in moisture-content, in flinty or spongy nature, and in various other characteristics, will puzzle the operator until he establishes a personal acquaintance with them in various combinations in repeated roasting operations. The roasterman therefore must be able to observe closely, to draw sensible conclusions, and to remember what he learns. Roasting coffee ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the destruction of the ancient cloister a covered way of some kind was erected here. Marks can also be seen, in the masonry, which indicate that the building once had three gables. Two of the Norman buttresses of the south nave aisle have very curious terminations, which might well puzzle any observer. They are fireplaces for the use of plumbers. Passing through the Norman doorway at the north-western corner of the Laurel Court, we come into a narrow passage ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... after that rough tumble he felt bruised from crown to heel, and his head was aching dully. For a few moments his mind was in a puzzle as returning consciousness began slowly to array before him the last things he remembered. Then he came to himself with a start, and looked round eagerly to see where he was and what had ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... knew just what "striding" meant. What fun it was to feel what a word meant! Then when you used it, you could feel it lie down flat in the sentence, and fit into the other words, like a piece in a jig-saw puzzle when you got it into the right place. Gracious! How fast you could "stride" down those rocks into Aunt ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... not trustworthy witnesses, Goethe and Coleridge—and nothing more in three centuries. The mere fact may well give us pause, pointing as it does to a truth which is still insufficiently understood. It is the puzzle of criticism, at once the despair and wonder of readers, that the greatest men of letters usually pass through life without being remarked or understood by their contemporaries. The men of Elizabeth's time were more interested in Jonson than ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... "Strange!—Ay, I puzzle you, as I have done, and shall do, many. You cannot read me as easily as I can read you. Come, shall I guess at your character and circumstances? You are a gentleman, or something like it, by birth;—that the tone of your voice tells me. You are poor, devilish ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... rendering of a subject was incomprehensible to me, and in fact in that kind of work there is little difference, for it is but copying, and requires only a correct eye and infinite patience, both of which I had; and it was a puzzle to me rather than a compliment when the veteran Durand said to me of one of my studies, that it was a subject he would not have dared attack on account of the difficulty of the effect of light, for to me it was simply a question of time and sticking to it. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... to the difficulty the Foxites and Pittites had in passing over to join each other in attacking the Addington Ministry (forgetting at the moment how easily he had himself overcome a like difficulty in joining that Ministry), alluded to the puzzle of the Fox and the Goose, and did not clearly expound his idea. Whereupon, Mr. Dudley North said, "It's himself he means,—who left the Fox to go over to the Goose, and put the bag of ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... might be a private dwelling on a large scale, to be sure; yet, instead of chambers above, there was one very large apartment with two or three smaller rooms off, that were being fitted up as a kitchen and dressing-rooms. This building proved a puzzle to these work-people. They could not find any use for it, as they strolled by twos and fours through its unfinished expanse. Nate Tierney suggested that young Early was coming here to live, and that this great upper chamber was to be his ball-room, where he could have ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... because he must rest for a week or a month or a year. I know that there must be anxious times, especially when idleness means dependence, and when it brings hardship to those who need our help. But the invalid must not try constantly to puzzle the matter out. If we do not make ourselves sick with worry, we shall be able sometime to approach active life with sufficient frankness and force. It is the constant effort of the poor, tired mind to solve its ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... I can supply something new: I can furnish the key to the puzzle. There is always a certain mystery about these adventures: I can dispel it. I reprint articles that have been read over and over again; I copy out old interviews: but all these things I rearrange and ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... plunge with me head over heels in the brushwood; in scrambling out of that thicket, I certainly turned wrong, and have missed my road—how to regain it? 'sdeath! I could as soon compose an almanac as and a clue to this puzzle. Well, I was found in a wood when a baby, and have just lived to years of discretion to be lost in a wood again! Fortune! Fortune! thou spiteful gipsy! was this an honest trick to pass upon a faithful ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... "It do puzzle me, Mas'r Harry," said Tom, as we sat in the chains one bright, sunny day, when the storm was over, but a fine stiff breeze was helping the toiling engines to send the steamer along at ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... to George as he studied over the puzzle that Thede might not have been as innocent and loyal as he had pretended to be. He might have been merely an instrument in the hands of a ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... a high value. The defendant confessed he had killed the ass, but pleaded a set-off, insisting that the loss he had sustained by the ravage in his corn was equal to the sum demanded for the animal. To ascertain this fact was the point at issue, and the learned advocates contrived to puzzle the cause in such a manner, that, after a hearing of three days, the court broke up without coming to any determination upon it; and a second palaver was, I suppose, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... Monsieur. I see that you are in great puzzle. Let me solve the puzzle for you. I have always been a man of quick and violent temper, and sometimes this temper has been that of the fool. The wisest of us make mistakes. I have made a grievous one. In a moment of ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. In collecting their vocabularies I found one alleged to have been obtained from them, but differing completely from the Algonquian dialects. It had been partly printed by Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton,[12-3] but remained a puzzle. My article (21) proves that it belongs to the Mandingo language of western Africa. It was doubtless obtained from some ...
— A Record of Study in Aboriginal American Languages • Daniel G. Brinton
... But I must live. . . . Well, at least, there is some old college nonsense of mine, written three years ago, when I believed, like you, that all heaven and earth was put together out of separate bits, like a child's puzzle, and that each topic ought to have its private little pigeon-hole all to itself in a man's brain, like drugs in a chemist's shop. Perhaps it will suit you, friends; perhaps it will be system-frozen, and narrow, and dogmatic, and cowardly, and godless ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... of me! Another cup of tea, with a thin slice of lemon in it, and then, dear Mr. Fortescue, please explain my absurd little puzzle. One can't help believing gentlemen with Roman noses, even if one meets ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... smitten it with the son of Amram's rod, has made it open, and cloven a path through it, yet other and more fearful nebulae may loom in sight, (if further improvements should be effected in the telescope,) that may puzzle even Lord Rosse. And when he tells his famulus—'Fire a shot at that strange fellow, and make him show his colors,' possibly the mighty stranger may disdain the summons. That would be vexatious: we should all be incensed at that. But no matter. What's a nebula, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the present time, about 600,000 aliens are coming to America yearly. What is the result? I was invited to meet a distinguished German visiting in New York last month, and at the dinner a young lady who sat by my side said to me, "I wish I could puzzle him." "Why?" I asked, in amazement. "Oh," was her reply, "he looks so cram full of knowledge; I would like to take him down." "Ah," I said. "Ask him which is the third largest German city in the ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... Corny; she could not stand that. "Are you aware, Lady Isabel, that an order such as that would only puzzle the butcher? Shall I give the necessary orders for to-day? The fishmonger will be ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the knot of logic, yet for the ear he still leaves the tissue of the sentence floating somewhat loose. In prose, the sentence turns upon a pivot, nicely balanced, and fits into itself with an obtrusive neatness like a puzzle. The ear remarks and is singly gratified by this return and balance; while in verse it is all diverted to the measure. To find comparable passages is hard; for either the versifier is hugely the superior of the rival, or, if he ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vicinity became a constant terror to this unfortunate, who knew not how to avoid them. He soon learned to distinguish the shriek of a coming shell, and would race off in one direction, looking fearfully back over his shoulder, until a similar sound in another quarter would so puzzle and terrify him that he would stand still awhile until the noise of an explosion utterly demoralized him, when he would frantically dig up the ground, as ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... described in my "Pilgrimage." Between this point and Ras Za'farnah, higher up, the wind seems to split: a strong southerly gale will be blowing, whilst a norther of equal pressure prevails at the Gulf-head, and vice vers. Suez, indeed, appears to be, in more ways than one, a hydrographical puzzle. When it is low water in and near the harbour, the flow is high between the Straits of Jobal and the Daedalus Light; and the ebb tide runs out about two points across the narrows, whilst the flood runs in on a line parallel with it. Finally, when we returned, hardly making ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... ambition of France and the cautious reactionary despotism of Spain, remained suspended. Students are left, face to face with the sixteenth century, to decipher an inscription that lacks its leading verb, to puzzle over a riddle whereof the solution is hidden from us by the ruin of a people. It must ever be an undecided question whether the Italians, undisturbed by foreign interference, could have passed beyond ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... deviation from the rules of inferences, be denominated a gang of desperate robbers. But it seldom happens that robbers in the vicinity of a rich and populous city are to be found in a state of such utter destitution; and if such were really the case, it might puzzle the beholder to discover what possible inducement they could have to continue in so ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... that of a big ranch near by, and to over-brand the cattle. For instance, a big ranch with thousands of cattle owns the brand Cross-Bar (X—). The rustler adopts the brand Cross L (XL) and by the addition of a vertical mark to the bar in the first brand completely changes the brand. It was always a puzzle for the ranchers to find brands that would not be easily changed. Rustlers engaged in this work invariably took grave chances, for a good puncher could tell a changed brand in an instant, and often knew every cow belonging to his ranch by sight, without looking ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... come here? I scarcely know myself. It's everything or nothing. The key to the puzzle. I tell you, M. Fuselier, things are becoming increasingly ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... pump'i, -ilo. pumice-stone : pumiko. pupil : lernanto; (of eye) pupilo. pure : pura, virta. purple : purpura. purpose : cel'i, -o; intenci. push : pusxi; (along) sxovi. put : meti. —"off", prokrasti. —"aside", apartigi. putrid : putra. puzzle : enigmo. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... to go coursing in these shoes, I assure you, Susy. This is an evening dress. I have a shooting-jacket and all thereunto belonging in the britschka, which will not puzzle either Harebell or Hector, because it's just what they have been used to see ...
— Town Versus Country • Mary Russell Mitford
... years to master the English printed and written language, but in a few days can read and write in Cherokee. They do the latter, in fact, as soon as they learn to shape letters. As soon as they master the alphabet they have got rid of all the perplexing questions in orthography that puzzle the brains of our children. Is it not too much to say that a child will learn in a month, by the same effort, as thoroughly, in the language of Se-quo-yah, that which in ours consumes the time of our children for ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... thinking man of this tribe, at this epoch, the new thought—Who made the world? he will be sorely puzzled. The conception of a world has never crossed his mind before. He never pictured to himself anything beyond the nearest ridge of mountains; and as for a Maker, that will be a greater puzzle still. What makers or builders more cunning than those wasps of whom his foolish head is full? Of course, he sees it now. A Wasp made the world; which to him entirely new guess might become an integral part of his tribe's creed. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... an excuse for retiring. She must think the puzzle out in solitude. Matters were really going too far. She allowed it to be understood that she was indisposed. Mr Bittenger was full of sorrow and sympathy. But did Stephen show the slightest concern? Stephen did not. She went upstairs, and she meditated, ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... of my judgment and belief; and if in any of those opinions I have erred, I have not the least shadow of doubt upon my mind that a wise, just and beneficent Creator and father of all, will pardon my errors. I do not feel the least disposed now to investigate, or puzzle myself, in my last moments, in a vain endeavour to enquire whether I have been right or wrong; the Lord's will be done, say I, and may he in his goodness assist you to continue an honest and an upright man amongst ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... considering deeply on any subject, or trying to understand any puzzle, does he frown, or wrinkle the ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... dissected a melolontha as exquisitely as Strauss Durckheim himself ever did it? So the Master, recalling these studies of his and certain difficult and disputed points at which he had labored in one of his entomological paroxysms, put a question which there can be little doubt was intended to puzzle the Scarabee, and perhaps,—for the best of us is human (I am beginning to love the old Master, but he has his little weaknesses, thank Heaven, like the rest of us),—I say perhaps, was meant to show that some folks knew as much about some things ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... think of it, Iberville?" said De Troyes. "A juggler's puzzle—let us ask Perrot," ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Salisbury at his house at Ivie Bridge to devide the two parishes of St. Martin's in the Fields and St. Clement's Danes in that place." I gave up theorizing until I could see the registers of St. Clement's Danes, and from various causes three years passed before I had an opportunity of clearing up the puzzle. These registers prove that in London, as in Stratford-on-Avon, I had been confused by double entries, and that there was another John Shakespeare. The St. Martin's John lost his wife Dorothy in 1608; the St. Clement's John married his wife Mary in 1605. ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... seasons of the year at the home in Hartford. Like other children, she was blithe and happy, fond of play; unlike the average of children, she was at times much given to retiring within herself, and trying to search out the hidden meanings of the deep things that make the puzzle and pathos of human existence, and in all the ages have baffled the inquirer and mocked him. As a little child aged seven, she was oppressed and perplexed by the maddening repetition of the stock incidents of our race's fleeting sojourn here, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... not yield to it, although he could not repel it. He cried upon Jesu in his heart, and then set the puzzle by. ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... "Lilas, you puzzle me," confessed Lorelei, doubtfully. "You say things that make me think you don't care for him at all; then again you seem to be crazy about him. How DO you feel? How far would you ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... a queer puzzle when a person has time to figure it out. We make things hard for each other. Here we were, Ted and I, lying all day inactive, not because we wanted to, but because we had to, to save our lives. Lying in a patch of scrub, stiff, cold, and hungry, when we might ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... a puzzle to me sometimes,' I said, 'when it is best to keep silent and when to speak. One's life ought to tell most amongst unconverted people, and yet that tempts one sometimes to hide one's light. It is easy to ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... course, systems of opening which deviate absolutely from those which have been proved sound and are in general use, and it is those openings that puzzle the beginner most of all. He says: What is the good of learning correct openings, if my opponent plays incorrectly and wins all the same? This line of thought is wrong from its inception. The student is not supposed to "learn" openings by heart, but ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... extremely interesting, and, with the exception of those coined at Newark, are all rare. They may be known by their shape from every other English coin, as well as by their legends. Those of Newark are of a diamond or lozenge form, some are octangular, and others of a shape that would puzzle a geometrician. Some have the rude representation of a castle; others, a crown; and many have the initials, C.R., and the legend DVM. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... Buckthorn of our hedges and woods has spinous thorny branchlets, from which its name, Rhamnus, is thought to be derived, because the shrub is set with thorns like as the ram. At one time this Buckthorn was a botanical puzzle, even to Royalty, as ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... Will you allow me to show you this little novelty, Sir? 'Ave you seen the noo perfume sprinkler? Do come and try this noo puzzle—no 'arm in lookin', Sir. Very nice little novelties 'ere, Sir! 'Eard the noo French Worltz, Sir? every article is really ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... dreamed, and told long stories which showed her to be a child of great imagination. But all these dreams and continuations of dreams Aunt Frances wrote down the first thing the next morning, and, with frequent references to a thick book full of hard words, she tried her best to puzzle out from them exactly what kind of little girl Elizabeth ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... occasionally (though not invariably) creates a gentle swirl in Brammo Bay, a swirl so placid as to be imperceptible in default of such indices as driftwood. Under such a condition Neptune makes playthings which possibly in some future age may puzzle men who happen to ponder seriously on first causes. I recall an afternoon when such playthings were being manufactured abundantly. Globular, oval, and sausage-shaped dollops of dark-grey mud were twirling and rolling on the fringe ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... in mind of 'The Leavenworth Case,' and all that sort of thing," said Felix, whose reading was of the lightest description. "Awfully exciting, like putting a Chinese puzzle together. Gad, I wouldn't mind being a ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... upon the Actions of Men, is a Question I am not yet come to, nor indeed does it so particularly belong to the Devil's History, it seems rather a Polemick, so it may pass at School among the Metaphysicks, and puzzle the Heads of our Masters; wherefore I think to write to the learned Dr. B—— about it, imploring his most sublime Haughtiness, that when his other more momentous Avocations of Pedantry and Pedagogism will give him an Interval from Wrath and Contention, he will set apart a Moment to consider ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... ruffling it above the door at the corner of the Rue de la Bourse and the Rue de Richelieu, with a message to deliver urbi et orbi, "Here I reign more tranquilly than at Lahore"? Perhaps but for this immortal analytical study, archaeologists might begin to puzzle their heads about him five hundred years hence, and set about writing quartos with plates (like M. Quatremere's work on Olympian Jove) to prove that Napoleon was something of a Sofi in the East before he became "Emperor of the ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac
... white house in which Mrs. Patterson managed by ingenuity to fit in a husband, a mother-in-law, an aged father, seven children of her own, the Conroy orphan, and a constantly changing number of cats. Nobody could have done it but Mrs. Patterson. The house resembled one of those puzzle boxes containing a number of curiously sawn pieces of wood, which, once removed, can be returned and fitted into place again only by some one who ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... get a great cold, we are apt to puzzle ourselves to find out when it began, or how we got it; and when that is accounted for, down we sit contented, and let it have its course; or, if it be very troublesome, take a sweat, or use other means to get rid ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... not easy to tell you," he said, "without entering into the legal aspect of the case. I shall only puzzle you if I do that. Suppose we look at the matter in its social bearings—I mean, as it may possibly affect you and Blanche, ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... out her arms to receive it with a cry of delight. Bab seized the games, and Ben was lost in admiration of the little Arab chief prancing on the white horse,—all saddled and bridled and fit for the fight. Thorny poked about to find a certain curious puzzle which he could put together without a mistake after long study. Even Sancho found something to interest him; and, standing on his hind-legs, thrust his head between the boys to paw at several red and blue ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... where Oliver, by the side of his friend Wraysford, was sitting. Wraysford's face was beaming as he clapped his friend on the back. Oliver looked as unconcerned and indifferent as ever. The fellow was a puzzle, certainly. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... he came again, not paying the least attention to my scolding. I went back with the raft, which drifted a good way down stream, and caught the rascal and started him over again, but when I got half way across he jumped and played the same joke on me again. I began to think of the old puzzle of the story of the man with the fox, the goose and a peck of corn, but I solved it by making a basswood rope to which I tied a stone and threw across, then sending the pony over with the other end. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... of that?" laughed Rachel. "Is it so wonderful to find one leg in a collection of arms? However, not to puzzle you, I may as well acknowledge that it was brought to me from Rome by a learned Italian, and is a curious antique. The Romans made flutes of the leg-bones of their enemies, and this is ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... have therefore degenerated BECAUSE THEY WERE OF NO FURTHER VALUE TO THE INSECT. But if selection did not influence the setting aside of these parts because they were neither of advantage nor of disadvantage to the species, then the Darwinian factor of selection is here confronted with a puzzle which it cannot solve alone, but which at once becomes clear when germinal selection is added. For the determinants of organs that have no further value for the organism, must, as we have already explained, embark on a gradual ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... obvious difficulty that if it is the nature of all phenomenal things to return to God, from whom they proceeded, the process which he calls the birth of the Son ought logically to occur in every conscious individual, for all have a like phenomenal existence. He attempts to solve this puzzle by the hypothesis of a double aspect of the new birth (see below). But I fear there is some justice in Professor Pearson's comment, "Thus his phenomenology is ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... plain man the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is something of a puzzle—on the face of it an arithmetical paradox; suggestive, moreover, of the abstract subtleties of speculation rather than of the concrete realities of religious life. But the doctrine did not have its origin, as a matter of historical fact, in any ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... dismal, wretched, man-forsaken stretch of country it beats anything I ever saw," Walter exclaimed in disgust. "The river itself is about a half mile wide, but it twists, turns, and forks every few yards so as to puzzle a corporation lawyer. The shores for half a mile back from the water are nothing but boggy marsh, with here and there a wooded island. Ugh, the sight of it is enough ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... physically so ill and weak, while yet her mind worked so clearly and quickly, she set herself to solve a painful puzzle. Why had Varick tried to do her to death? She admitted to herself that she had never liked him, but she had never done him any harm. And they had been on ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... mean. In the beginning a star, when drawn with a nail into a brick looked as follows: {illust.} This sign however was too cumbersome and after a short while when the meaning of "heaven" was added to that of star the picture was simplified in this way {illust.} which made it even more of a puzzle. In the same way an ox changed from {illust} into {illust.} and a fish changed from {illust.} into {illust.} The sun was originally a plain circle {illust.} and became {illust.} If we were using the Sumerian script today we would make ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... has not attempted a great variety in the use of dialect, for she has avoided unfamiliar words, and has made use of no expressions which would puzzle her readers in the attempt to understand them. The words not to be found in the dictionary are those which may in almost every instance be heard in the speech of the uncultured wherever the English ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Gravitation remains a puzzle to science. The tendency of modern physics is to explain all material phenomena in terms of electrons and the ether, but the attempt to account for gravitation in this way is attended with difficulties. In order to cope with these, it seems ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... and they wouldn't be flattered by our comparison. They are yelling what, in United States, would be 'extra!' I'll get a paper and see if I can puzzle out some of the French," and he strolled down to intercept one of the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... "I have another great puzzle come to me. The Queen of Sicily has sent her son, Prince Leopold, to Gibraltar to propose himself to be regent of Spain. It appears to me to be extreme want of knowledge of the state of Spain. The Duke of Orleans came down with him, and on the 13th of August I discussed ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... child's head with that nonsense," he said, and, perhaps, afterwards gave his friend a hint; for Madelon heard no more about the saints, and was left to puzzle out meanings and stories for the pictures for herself—and queer enough ones she often made, very likely. On the other hand, the American, who liked to talk to her in his own tongue, and to make her ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... exhaustless. Further, assuming this luciferous element to be not equally diffused through space, we find a reason why in some ages of the earth's history the heat should have been greater than at others, why stars have been seen to vary in brightness, and why there was that puzzle to geologists—a glacial period. During that period, according to Mr Nasmyth, with whose words I finish this part of my communication, 'an arctic climate spread from the poles towards the equator, and left the record of such a condition in glacial handwriting on the mountain walls ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... think to puzzle me with your fine phrases; but I'm not to be caught in that way. Just listen to me. Some of your band of black-gowns stole my cross; you returned it to me. Some of the same band carried off these children; you brought them back. It is also true that ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... his courteousness, he is an antagonistic observer of his conquerors; he pushes his questions farther than the need for them; his Minister the same; apparently to retain the discountenanced people in their state of exposure. Up to the time of the explanation of the puzzle on board the departing vessel (on the road to Windsor, at the Premier's reception, in the cell of the Police, in the presence of the Magistrate-whose crack of a totally inverse decision upon their case, when he becomes acquainted with the titles and station of these imputedly peccant, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... recital of its aims and purposes—and, indeed, the whole organization, as formidable as it was in numbers, was soon in the most terrible condition, and died in great agony. The complications of the disease of which the order came to its death, would puzzle the most profound pathologist. It might, perhaps, be set down as a disease of the heart, induced by corrupt morals, with the following complications: Softening of the brain from the study of State sovereignty; extreme ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... few yards distant, a little stream of water pouring from the end of a pipe or trough raised about a foot and a half from the ground; and a well- worn path leading to it, left no doubt of its being "the spout." But when she had reached it, Ellen was in no small puzzle as to how she should manage. The water was clear and bright, and poured very fast into a shallow wooden trough underneath, whence it ran off into ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... well-known dealer, by whom it was pronounced a cheat; and on inquiry it was discovered that the seller had had a copy made of the original, and, while he offered the latter for sale, delivered the former, which was so carefully and perfectly copied as to puzzle the eye even ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... cast no light upon the present puzzle. In the rambling years that had led him to this spot upon the old Virginia, he had lost touch with the science that had interested him during his college days. He had heard nothing of the results of the Hunter expedition. But this island ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... money enough to last three or four years. It's all she'll ever get, for she hasn't a soul now to look to for help. That's the way we human beings arrange things,—we, or the Lord, or the Evil One, or whoever it is; we bring a puzzle into the world, and then leave it for other people to work out—if they can! Who'll work out this one? Who'll work out this one? Perhaps she'll die before the money's gone; let's ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... those doors up and down the hall, which would be hers? There was no reasoning which could help him in the midst of that puzzle. He walked to what he judged to be the middle of the hall, turned to his right, and opened the first door. A hinge creaked, but it was no louder than the rustle of ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Like our huge earth itself, which, to ordinary scansion, is full of vulgar contradictions and offence, man, viewed in the lump, displeases, and is a constant puzzle and affront to the merely educated classes. The rare, cosmical, artist-mind, lit with the Infinite, alone confronts his manifold and oceanic qualities—but taste, intelligence and culture, (so-called,) have been against the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... austere piety with remorseless efficiency in the world of facts. After all the materials for an accurate judgment of Cromwell which have been collected by the malice of his libellers and the veneration of his partisans, he is still a puzzle to psychologists; for no one, so far, has bridged the space which separates the seeming anarchy of his mind from the executive decision of his conduct. A coarse, strong, massive English nature, thoroughly impregnated with Hebrew thought and Hebrew ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... literature. It is clear that the task of its preparation was immense, and more time must have been spent in merely collecting authorities than has been bestowed altogether on more pretentious histories. Where Mr. MacMaster found all these authorities is a puzzle, for even such libraries as those in Boston and Cambridge have not all the materials for such an undertaking. Yet even he leaves many points untouched, or cursorily disposed of. Among the subjects referred to, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... to puzzle her a little, and though she certainly did not like him, there was a sort of strange attraction for her in his voice, appearance and manner. I wonder if men can know what ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... was still the puzzle of the ages to him—he'd used it half his life, and still found it impossible to guess why such a building had been chosen. But eventually, he found the periodical room, and managed to get through ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... plant are a puzzle; botanically it is a Primrose, but it is never so called. It has many names, but its most common are Paigle and Cowslip. Paigle has never been satisfactorily explained, nor has Cowslip. Our great etymologists, Cockayne and Dr. Prior and Wedgwood, are all at variance on the name; ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... there is no structural division between chancel and nave, is at Tansor in Northants. The perplexity which arises here is due to the plentiful re-use of old work by the builders, the presence of which in unexpected places makes the history of the building a nearly insoluble puzzle. The church reached its present length about 1140, when probably the Saxon nave was left as the west part of a church, which was now of the same width the whole way through, and had no chancel arch. Some forty years later, narrow aisles of three bays were ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... apparent that by that time the young lady had completely recovered her spirits; but she carefully avoided all reference to the little scene that had occurred earlier in the day, so Leslie thought it best to let the matter drop, although he continued to puzzle over it ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... become ready to act, these responses become the controlling ones in play. So it is that for a time play is controlled largely by the instinct of manipulation, at another time physical activity combined with competition is most prominent, at another period imagination controls, still later the puzzle-solving tendency comes to the point followed by all the games involving an intellectual factor. This being true, it is not surprising to find certain types of play characterizing certain ages and to find that though the particular games may vary, ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... present of fifty thousand francs to Nicolas Dugrival's wife! Do you call that uninteresting? And what about the way in which you solved the puzzle of the ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... moorland, the well-called Windy Brae; sloping gently down in mile on mile of heather from the Mere Marches on the top to the fringe of the Silver Mere below. In all that waste of moor the only break is the quaint-shaped Giant's Chair, puzzle of geologists, looking as though plumped down by accident in the heathery wild. The ground rises suddenly from the uniform grade of the Brae; up it goes, ever growing steeper, until at length it ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... said gravely, "it is—well, you shall!—at least a part of it. A woman always keeps a little back," she said, looking at him with a smile. "As soon as she ceases to be a puzzle she ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... the puzzle, I could only give my unstinted attention to the boy and girl. If only our armor of love ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... time his resentment wholly drowned itself in wonder at the puzzle of the engines, the mechanism of the dump-cars, the wondrous working of the small steam crane which lifted rails from flat-cars, and, as a strong man guided them, dropped them with precision at the time and place decided on beforehand. He noted how the men worked in great gangs, subject to the ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... say to which of the two men Bok was the more attracted, and when it came, each quarter, to figuring how many articles could go into the Review without exceeding the cost limit fixed by the house, it was always a puzzle to Doctor Briggs why the majority of the articles left out were invariably those that he had brought in, while many of those which Doctor Patton handed in somehow found their place, upon the final assembling, among ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... and fantastic hand-made studies of Chinese and Japanese artists would puzzle the Celestials, especially in the coloring and finish. Professional critics are often deceived as to the materials employed, so fine a ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... I glanced back, and there was that yellow livid face watching us out of the upper window. What link could there be between that creature and my wife? Or how could the coarse, rough woman whom I had seen the day before be connected with her? It was a strange puzzle, and yet I knew that my mind could never know ease again until ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... which we must not look down upon for so doing: for God dwells therein. I should have to come back to this at every turn, if I wanted to fathom everything I have to tell you about. Each tip of hair which you grow, is an incomprehensible prodigy which would puzzle us for ever, if we did not call to our aid those eternal laws which have made us what we are, and to which it is very just our spirits should submit, since we could not exist for one second were they to cease from making themselves ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... time he began to notice the words that showed dimly through the stain, began to read them, to puzzle them out, as if ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... to puzzle out his philosophy. For the ordinary French philosophy of the war is very simple. They have no high-falutin, altruistic ideas of improving the Boche. They don't care a tinker's curse what happens to ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... he lay thinking, and gradually finding in the mist the pieces of the puzzle of his past adventure, till he seemed to have ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... themselves as to what in the world he can be. The sun mounts and the breeze presses till we are at the bay of the Somme with its shifting sands, its incomprehensible currents, and its low and treacherous coast, buoyed and beaconed enough to puzzle you right into the shoals. The yacht, with my friend S—- in her, bound for Paris, has just been wrecked on that bank near Cayeux—unpleasant news now—and there is St. Valery, from whence King William the Conqueror sailed ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... high pass of the Sierras on which I live and of which I am probably the sole stationary inhabitant. I keep a rudimentary tavern, rather ruder than a hut, on the very top of this specially steep and threatening pass. My name is Louis Hara, and the very name may puzzle you about my nationality. Well, it puzzles me a great deal. When one has been for fifteen years without society it is hard to have patriotism; and where there is not even a hamlet it is difficult to invent a nation. My father was an Irishman of the fiercest and most ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... persist in thinking me seriously ill? I am too weary to puzzle my brains in the effort to understand my dear old surgeon. It is one o'clock in the morning; and I have still to write the story of all that happened later in the day. My eyes are beginning to ache; and, strange to say, I have hardly been able to see the last two or three lines ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Lucy, what can she pretend to—But I will not puzzle myself about her—Yet she pretend to give disturbance to such a man! You will find her mentioned in Dr. Bartlett's next letter; or she would not have been named ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... may well suppose, was not without influence in suggesting to his mind the probable shape of the earth. The Milky Way, which doubtless had puzzled astronomers from the beginnings of history and which was to continue to puzzle them for many centuries after the day of Anaxagoras, was explained by the Clazomenaean philosopher on a theory obviously suggested by the theory of the moon's phases. Since the earth-like moon shines by reflected light at ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... expected him to do—to all of which he listened gravely and with an astonishing air of comprehending what was said to him—seemed to enter into the spirit of the situation, and to try his very best to meet its requirements. It is a puzzle to me to this day how El Sabio managed to shrink himself so that we got him through that narrow hole; but he certainly did manage it—and then went down the stone stair-way backward, as though he had been trained to be a trick donkey from his youth up. When the feat was accomplished, and he ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Mrs. Pope nor Miss Gabriel made further allusion to it. Their silence, for which at first he was merely thankful, began to puzzle ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... which Amos Opie himself is to superintend. I wish I could fathom the ins and outs of the matter, which are not at present clear, but probably I shall know in time. Meanwhile, I have Maria for a winter companion, and a mystery to solve and puzzle about; is not this ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... with that thrown in maybe the answer to the puzzle isn't so easy, eh?" responded ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... could begin to puzzle his brains about the meaning of this departure, another pigeon came flying in from the ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... and women, and drew them to her as if by a spell. But her talk and manner in conversation were so unlike her singing, so little accorded with the look that often came into her eyes while she sang, that she was a perpetual puzzle to such elderly men as Sir Donald Ulford, to such young men as Robin Pierce, and even to some women. They came about her like beggars who have heard a chink of gold, and she showed them a purse that seemed to ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... veneration for written documents, red tape, and sealing-wax. Master Pothier's acuteness in picking holes in the actes of a rival notary was only surpassed by the elaborate intricacy of his own, which he boasted, not without reason, would puzzle the Parliament of Paris, and confound the ingenuity of the sharpest advocates of Rouen. Master Pothier's actes were as full of embryo disputes as a fig is full of seeds, and usually kept all parties in hot water and litigation for the rest of their days. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... tell me, quoth Cleodemus, what difference there is between these riddles and those of Eumetis, which she frames and invents to recreate herself with as much pleasure as other virgins make nets and girdles? They may be fit to offer and puzzle women withal; but for men to beat their brains to find out their mystery would be mighty ridiculous. Eumetis looked like one that had a great mind to reply; but her modesty would not permit her, for her face was filled with blushes. But Aesop in her vindication asked: Is it ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Hampden," he began, looking at me through his half closed eye-lids, "you are beginning to puzzle me strangely. Did any one ever tell you you are an ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... should explore every hut upon the moor until I lighted upon the right one. If this man were inside it I should find out from his own lips, at the point of my revolver if necessary, who he was and why he had dogged us so long. He might slip away from us in the crowd of Regent Street, but it would puzzle him to do so upon the lonely moor. On the other hand, if I should find the hut and its tenant should not be within it I must remain there, however long the vigil, until he returned. Holmes had missed him in London. It would indeed be a triumph for me if I could run him to earth ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... plenty of room when you get there; in the other, you have half a dozen men holding horses and carriages, screaming in all directions, and more time is wasted in embarking than a Yankee boat would employ to deposit you safely on the other side; and it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to decide which is the more abominable, the exit or the entry. Nevertheless, the traveller will find himself compensated for all his troubles—especially if the horse and carriage be a friend's—by the lovely drive which takes him to the Chaudiere Falls, a trip I had the pleasure ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the novices. They often say: "You have an answer for everything. This time I thought I should puzzle you. Where do you find all that you teach us?" Some are even simple enough to think I can read their souls, because at times it happens I discover to them—without revelation—the subject of their thoughts. The senior novice had determined to hide ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... blocks which could only have been carried by ice, and which are called "erratic blocks," some of them as big as cottages, have been left scattered over all the northern part of Europe. These blocks were a great puzzle to scientific men till, in 1840, Professor Agassiz showed that they must have been brought by ice all the way from ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... simply can't puzzle out," confessed Joyce. "The Lovely Lady must have locked it, or the disgraceful relative may have done it, or some one entirely different. I can't make ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... that the reef is continued, at the various heights where special kinds die out, by those that prosper at shallower depths; otherwise it would be impossible to understand how this variety of building material, as it were, is introduced wherever it is needed. This point, formerly a puzzle to naturalists, has become quite clear since it has been found that myriads of these little germs are poured into the water surrounding a reef. There they swim about till they find a genial spot on which to establish themselves, when they become attached to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... went to Paris for a year? No, no!—too many of the Englishmen who went to Paris lost their individuality and became third-rate Frenchmen. He would puzzle out things for himself—stick to his ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Church Catechism and the Articles. Bunyan found his in the theology of his sect, appealing more strongly than orthodoxy to a nature more bellicose than Izaak's. Men like him, with his indomitable courage, will never lack a solution of the puzzle of the earth. At worst they will live by law, whether they dare to speak of it as God's law, or dare not. They will always be our leaders, our Captain Greathearts, in the pilgrimage to the city where, ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... pleasantly affirm I came home laughing from Egypt, never propounded a darker puzzle to any of its victims than you have to me. From last week's Spectator I learn, for the first time, that I was at a Protection meeting at Wallingford on some particular day, and that I wept at the prices of 1845. Allow me to assure ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... P. Sybarite sat pondering with vacant eyes; and the wounded boy stared upward with a frown, as though endeavouring to puzzle the answer to this riddle out of the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... herself into Tai-yue's apartments. Contrary to her expectation Tai-yue was not at this time in her own room, but in Pao-yue's; where they were amusing themselves in trying to solve the "nine strung rings" puzzle. On entering Mrs. Chou put on a smile. "'Aunt' Hsueeh," she explained, "has told me to bring these flowers and present them to you to wear in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... I'm afraid. Those big beech woods are rather a puzzle to anybody who is not familiar with the country. No wonder she became ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... man's shoulder. "My boy," he cried, laughing and crying at the same time, "forgive me—forgive me. I was hasty. I should have let you speak, first. God be praised, everything is well. De Grissac—think of it—they will puzzle their brains over that cipher for weeks and weeks and they will discover nothing—nothing! Is it not splendid!" He grasped the Ambassador's hand and embraced him ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... three rousing hurras filled the air, bringing tears to our eyes, through which we took our last look at the beautiful ship Archer. Then we turned with curiosity to see these islands, so new and strange. I was in quite a puzzle to know how we were going through the surf without upsetting our boat, but there was a break in the coral reef which afforded us a safe entrance. On the wharf were a good many people watching our approach, and we recognized the familiar faces of some ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... is a puzzle—you say that "No. 2 would have been still more like if the paper had been exactly the same shade—but I'd no more at hand of the darker colour." Had I given you the impression that I was in a hurry, and was willing ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... salvation to innumerable wild hordes of Americans? to clothe the naked? to encourage the repenting sinner? to aid the dying Christian? The fathers of the Society of Jesus did all this. And for this their zeal is pronounced to be the most fanatical, directed by the coolest policy. It will puzzle many a clear brain to comprehend how it is possible, in the nature of things, that zeal the most fanatical should be directed by the coolest policy. Ah, Mr. Laureate, Mr. Laureate, that "quidlibet audendi" of yours may now and then gild the poet at ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... turn to the left," Dick said, "for our natural line leads to the right. However, it does not make much difference, for they will be able to track us; still, it may puzzle them. It will be dark in a couple of hours, and if we can keep ahead till then ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... air by itself. One would think that by adding water vapor which, while light, still has weight, the total weight would be the sum of both. It really is so, notwithstanding the above figures, and the explanation of the puzzle is that there was an increase in pressure with expansion, so that the volume of the air and saturated vapor was greater than one cubic meter. Since then a cubic meter of air and saturated vapor weighs less than a cubic meter of dry air at freezing temperature, speaking generally, ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... among the sheaves, or under the hedgerows, full of laughter, and full of droll anecdotes of all the country round? Should I not hear of the farmer who never wrote but one letter in his life, and that was to a gentleman forty miles off; who, on opening it, and not being able to puzzle out more than the name and address of his correspondent, mounted his horse in his vexation, and rode all the way to ask the farmer to read the letter himself; and he could not do it—could not read his own writing? Should I not hear ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Grammont not doubt but that she was possessed of every other qualification. Her mind was a proper companion for such a form: she did not endeavour to shine in conversation by those sprightly sallies which only puzzle; and with still greater care she avoided that affected solemnity in her discourse, which produces stupidity; but, without any eagerness to talk, she just said what she ought, and no more. She had an admirable discernment in distinguishing between solid and false wit; and far from making an ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... indistinct that the first two men he asked did not hear. The third man frowned and pointed to a policeman. The fourth snapped: "Take the elevated for Charlestown or the trolley-cars, either;" all of which served but to puzzle Hezekiah ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... world talk if thou wilt,' answered the gladiator, gaily; 'but not till thou art a slave no more. Beneath thy own roof, my father, thou shalt puzzle this dull brain all day long, ay, and all night too, if it give thee pleasure. Oh, such a spot as I have chalked out for thee!—it is one of the nine hundred and ninety-nine shops of old Julia Felix, in the sunny ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... (my dear boy!), is that you?" said Betto; "there's glad I am! You are late to-night, and I was beginning to puzzle." ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... and sin not," had always been a puzzle to Malcolm, who had, as I have said, inherited a certain Celtic fierceness; but now, even while he knew himself the object of the anger, he understood the word. It tried him sorely, however, that such gentleness ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go on? Where were we going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant was a formidable man—a man who might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair, and set the matter aside until night should bring ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... streets, was probably the very savour of each of my chance feasts. Which stirs in me at the same time some wonder at the liberty of range and opportunity of adventure allowed to my tender age; though the puzzle may very well drop, after all, as I ruefully reflect that I couldn't have been judged at home reckless or adventurous. What I look back to as my infant license can only have had for its ground some timely conviction on the part of my elders that the only form of riot ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... told of an undergraduate who united the hind wings of a butterfly to the body and fore wings of one of a different species, and, thinking to puzzle Professor Westwood, then the entomological authority at Oxford, asked if the Professor could tell him "what kind of a bug" it was. "Yes," ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... water became deeper, and Captain Dick's pole would not reach the bottom; still, owing to some mysterious influence, their curious boat drifted merrily on, and the children did not puzzle themselves in the least as to the cause of their progress. It was quite enough for them to notice how strange and unnatural the gardens and all the familiar surroundings appeared in their present inundated state. The rosebushes and hedges ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... returned home, striving to find a meaning in the connection of these three persons,—Ida, Ferragus, and Madame Jules; an occupation equivalent to that of trying to arrange the many-cornered bits of a Chinese puzzle without possessing the key to the game. But Madame Jules had seen him, Madame Jules went there, Madame Jules had lied to him. Maulincour determined to go and see her the next day. She could not refuse his visit, ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... myself tacklin this hopeless puzzle from every angle I could think of. I tried 'phonin' to Claire's old street number. Nothin' doin'. They didn't know ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... find "a family grave to be sold, unused for nearly 50 years at that period, but partly occupied. To save trouble, price 25l." Another advertisement—"to small capitalists" is a perfect puzzle; for the advertiser will not describe the "ready-money concern" to be disposed of, but says, "the principal article of sale is what is consumed, either in a greater or less degree, by almost every individual." Next is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... tell you that where these things are found among mica, quartz and granite, there gold is to be found if men have the wit, the patience and the skill to look for it. I can't tell you why; the laws of gold puzzle deeper heads than mine, but so it is. I seem to smell gold all round me here." And Robinson flushed all over, so powerfully did the great idea of gold seated here on his native throne grapple and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... these, If your judgment agrees That he did not embark Like an ignorant spark, Or a troublesome lout, To puzzle and bother, and blunder about, Give him a shout, At his first setting out! And all pull away With a hearty huzza For success to the play! Send him away, Smiling and gay, Shining and florid, With ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... at his companion's side, thinking. He was trying to fit together a great many things; he felt as a child feels who is presented with a puzzle in many pieces and ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... the expense. I am going to take the case largely because it has interested me, and it will be a pleasure to work it out, not only on your daughter's account, but on my own. You know, to me, such matters are of absorbing interest, like the solving of some complex and baffling puzzle." ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... the grass and parallel to it, there was an indentation a little over an inch wide and about the same depth. It extended in a straight line for perhaps nine inches, and what could have caused it was a puzzle to Gimblet. The turf was unbroken, and it looked as if an oblong, narrow, heavy object had rested there, sinking a little into the ground so as to leave this strange mark. Gimblet rubbed his forehead pensively, as he looked ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce |
