"Puzzling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... let me keep you," he said, as he saw she still looked at Gibson's retreating figure and that an expression of astonishment was puzzling ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... puzzling to the boys, when Nate, who was always on the job, broke in with a suggestion. "Why don't you fellows telephone down to 'Moose Boone' and ask him if the ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... way back to the station, each with his own thoughts—Stefens puzzling over the cause of the crash, Loring and Mason exchanging quick furtive glances and wondering how long their story would hold up, and Tom wondering how much Roger's changing the power circuits on the radar had to do with the crash of ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... it is so false that it needs no refutation. It is, for example, entirely false that New Testament theology is simple. It is far more true to say that, compared with the systematized theology of the Church, it is bewilderingly complex and puzzling, and how complex and puzzling it is, is indicated by the hundreds of creeds which Protestants have made out of it, each creed claiming, respectively, to be its one and only proper interpretation. Men have only come to think it "simple" in modern ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... said, "this is rather puzzling. A moment back you were a Mahajun of Puli, in Marwur, or a Delhi Pathan, or a Wali Dad, or something of that sort, and now you seem to have turned into an Irishman. Can you tell ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... also was succeeded by a puzzling silence. Gradually the tense muscles of the two frightened girls relaxed, and they ventured to exchange perplexed comments on the mysterious interruptions to the peace of the night. "It certainly was the screen," declared Amy. "Do you suppose ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... antiquity of the language that causes its difficulty, but the accumulated weight of artistically fantastic and puzzling requirements which the writer had laid upon himself in its composition. The nature of these I shall be enabled to show by printing the first twelve lines almost as they ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... a little alarmed by the approach of an Irish boy who came under the hotel to hunt chickens. While prowling around in the darkness he appeared to be making his way unconsciously to the very spot where Charles was reposing. How to meet the danger was to Charles' mind at first very puzzling, there was no time now to plan. As quick as thought he feigned the bark of a savage dog accompanied with a furious growl and snarl which he was confident would frighten the boy half out of his senses, and cause him ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and I understood whence the puzzling accent in his speech came. 'Thimla Dhula,' said he excitedly. 'To this hour ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... met by that blizzard. Those people who had not moved, or who had not had a puzzling disease in the family, or who had not been instrumental in founding a free kindergarten, could always fall back on the blizzard. I heard how their fathers could not get home on the train, of the awful prices the people charged for clearing away the snow, of the way ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... at some length that the puzzling situations which form the basis of our dramas of the day could not possibly occur in real life because five minutes of intelligent explanation between the persons concerned would destroy the silly mystery before anything at all could happen. ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... Britain's entry into the war, received much more attention than the spy waiter in Belfast who told the authorities that if Germany went to war many Irishmen would join England. Ireland, I admit, is very difficult and puzzling ground for spy work, but it was ground thoroughly covered by the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... from Fifth Avenue and its neighborhood into tenement-houses on the East and North Rivers. How Mrs. Smith, too, dressed as she did, and where Smith got the money to take her to Sharon every summer, and how Jones managed to entertain as he was doing, have often been puzzling problems, which "the crash" in the money market is at last going to solve. It is also highly gratifying to those who consider yachting a senseless amusement to reflect that the panic will probably diminish the number of yachts, and they even flatter themselves ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... instance of mirage that we ever witnessed; the haze had only commenced a few minutes before noon, whilst the observation for the latitude was in the act of being taken; and immediately after I was employed upon the chart for half an hour, puzzling myself in attempting to reconcile the observed latitude with the bearings of the land. This curious phenomenon was also witnessed by the French in Geographe Bay. During the time this magical appearance continued, we had very light ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... that is what has been puzzling me from that moment to this!' Her words appeared to almost stupefy Leonard. This view of the matter had not occurred to him, and now the puzzle of it ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... what a queer thing it was that at one time one was in India in the blazing sun, and then in the middle of the ocean, and then driving in a strange vehicle through strange streets where the day was as dark as the night. She found this so puzzling that she moved ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... days of puzzling over the matter Billy concluded that it was self-consciousness that caused all the trouble. With William she was self-conscious. If she could only forget that she was some day to be William's wife, the old delightful comradeship ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... it. We survivors will be privileged people, with a key to all the cities, everything free. Their sincerity is wonderful, but puzzling. Are they trying to atone for the thing they feel was a crime; that they allowed humanity to murder itself, and lost to the Galaxy the richness of a race? Is this why ...
— The Carnivore • G. A. Morris
... war without quarter sounded against the most hated man in America. That such would be the case he had known yesterday, but he also knew—or thought he did—that his directing hand would still be on the tiller and his uncannily shrewd brain would be puzzling, bewildering and deluding his enemies into unwittingly serving ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Eliza; and it is very puzzling to distinguish things in snow. But if it was not Pet, why, it must have been ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... on the kitchen wall in a frame of oak canopied with faded velvet—an ingenious and puzzling contrivance, somewhat like the calendar prefixed to the Book of Common Prayer, with the names of the Brethren inserted on movable cards worn greasy with handling. In system nothing could be fairer; but in practice, human nature being ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... then crossed his legs, extended on the ground as they were, shoved his sombrero back on his head, with his Winchester resting against the rock behind him, and smoked his pipe after the manner of a man who is pondering a puzzling question. The latter assumed much the same position, but, having said sufficient, was not disposed to speak until after the ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... falls through being unable to mark the run of [Page 366] the surface appearances of cracks, or where such cracks were covered with soft snow, they had never expected to find a hardened crust formed over a crack, and such a surface was as puzzling as ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... present volume are related the particulars of a most puzzling mystery which at one time threatened to bring disaster to the whole school. How the mystery was at last solved I leave for the pages ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... whispered vanity which told her that he would not be disappointed in it was not easily resisted. At last, however, a simple middle course—an easy way out of the difficulty—suggested itself, and, as it promised, too, to throw another puzzling veil of mystery over her identity, she seized it eagerly, and that very afternoon put it into execution. Seated on the rocks that overlooked the sea, gathering thoughts in long gazes toward the distant horizon, and allowing imagination to roam as freely as could her eyes over the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... to Design, I feel more inclined to show a white flag than to fire my usual long-range shot. I like to try and ask you a puzzling question, but when you return the compliment I have great doubts whether it is a fair way of arguing. If anything is designed, certainly man must be: one's "inner consciousness" (though a false guide) tells one so; yet I cannot admit that man's rudimentary mammae...were designed. If I was to say ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... little shoe with brass nails in it and brass clasps; she was making small murmuring sounds to herself, and chuckling now and then in perfect contentment. Mr Vallance stared at her in great perplexity; here was a puzzling thing! Where did the child come from, and who had left it there? Whoever it was must come and take it away at once. He would go and tell Priscilla about it—she would know what to do. But just as he let the creepers fall ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... too, but I wasn't a bit. They were such nice boys, so young, and having such a glorious time! I was glad they looked at me and not at Mrs. West, and I was sure they didn't mean to be rude. Probably they'd seen mother, or her photographs, and were puzzling over the resemblance which Sir S. and Basil both say is very strong, in spite of "marked differences." Whenever we speak of her, I feel as if I could hardly wait till Monday, though at other times the present seems so enchanting I can't bear to have it turn into ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin Cunningham's side puzzling two ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... not know when Gaudenzio's Journey to Calvary was dispersed, but it was some time, doubtless, between 1600 and 1644. It is puzzling to note that the Pieta appears in the plan of 1671 as situated rather in the part of the building now occupied by the Entombment than by the Pieta, while the 39 that should mark the site of the Entombment does not appear; but this is perhaps only an error ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... over the boy. In a dumb and misty way he was puzzling out one of life's mysteries—this long stripling with the eyes sprung somehow from that other long stripling with the eyes, whom he had followed from the pit-mouth fifty ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... his expression was that of one who after long puzzling has solved a troublesome problem, and has found the solution not that which he desired. The outlaws' statement that there was a party of Indians on their way from the Everglades ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... I think, are late developments in the evolution of the dragon-image. They leave one still puzzling as to what may be the aboriginal conception underlying this legendary beast of earth and clouds and waters. We must ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... has put a puzzling question," observed the sheikh, turning to the marabouts. They shook their heads, unable to reply, but still ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... light became totally obscured, and from Omar's lips there fell an expression of disappointment. His own fire-brand was burning but dimly, therefore, rushing to the embers, he drew another from the fire, blew upon it violently until it flamed, and then recommenced the puzzling signals, the system of which seemed very similar to those ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... into their somewhat puzzled faces, I turned on my heel and went into the house. One of the men laughed loud and deep, at this speech of mine, and a couple of the others seemed to sit puzzling over it. Yet two minutes after I was inside the shack that most uncivil civil engineer and Dinky-Dunk were at it again. Their language was more than I should care to repeat. The end of it was, however, that the six dusty pallbearers all stepped stiffly down out of ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... Fewer prisons, workhouses and hospitals would be required. The need for shelters and labour homes would not exist. The necessity for the activities of many charitable agencies whose constant appeals are so disturbing and puzzling, but whose work is now required, would pass ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... insomnia will find himself puzzling at night over questions which have no particular concern for him at other times. And one seems to be more wide awake, during those moments, than by day. Yet the promptings of the brain, which then ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... which he examined about three thousand graves. They all contained the same kinds of pottery and the same slate tablets mentioned above, and many other objects which did not seem to be Egyptian. It was plain that the newly found necropolis and the puzzling objects already in the museums belonged to the same period. Petrie assumed that they represented the art of a foreign people—perhaps the Libyans—who had temporarily resided in Egypt in the time ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... These are all puzzling queries which this story attempts to illuminate and solve by its pictures and observations of the life of such a modest and typical Teuton home in 1913 and 1914. Admittedly too much light, too much study, cannot be given ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... time back, as I was passing near Smithfield, I was surprised at observing the sign of 'The Cow and Snuffers;' and whilst I was endeavouring to throw some light upon this subject, and puzzling myself in endeavouring to discover how it was possible for a Cow to snuff a Candle, or even a farthing rushlight; nay, even how it could happen that so strange an association should take place, I was diverted from my study on turning round, to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... It was really very puzzling, but he felt sure his mamma would tell him what all the excitement meant, so he allowed Mary to bemoan herself without asking many questions. When he was dressed, he ran downstairs and went into the parlor. A tall, ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... puzzling questions and clever replies is still as favourite a mental exercise in the East as it was in middle-aged Europe. The riddle or conundrum began, as far as we know, with the Sphinx, through whose mouth the Greeks spoke: nothing less likely than that the grave and mysterious Scribes of Egypt should ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... us, ten miles, to see if it were true. This made us very anxious, but nothing could be done but to await the issue. It seemed as if a series of unfortunate mistakes had combined to bring about this result; and to make everything still more puzzling, Mr. Riggs, our superintendent, was away. He reached home that evening, and the next morning sent the steward to learn the fate of the little runaway. He went on until he found the little boy's cap and mittens, and the place where he had evidently lain all night. It was a bitter ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 9, September, 1889 • Various
... Elder's firm, sturdy downrightness, much as it had in Captain Melville's; and the Elder would have loved Reuben if he had not been Draxy's father. But to Draxy he seemed to draw no nearer. She was the same frank, affectionate, merry, puzzling woman-child that she had been at first; yet as he saw more and more how much she knew of books which he did not know, of people, and of affairs of which he had never heard—how fluently, graciously, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... mused. "It is as puzzling as anything that has happened at the Cedars unless the light we saw was some phosphorescent effect ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... lessened by the contents. There was simply a blank sheet of paper, and when this was unfolded a half-sovereign rolled out. The postmark was Houndsditch. After puzzling herself in vain, and examining at length the beautiful copy-book penmanship of the address, Esther gave up the enigma. But it reminded her that it would be advisable to apprise her publishers of her departure from the old address, and to ask ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the morning till Flora came home, full of the intended bazaar, and Ethel would fain have taken refuge in puzzling out her Spanish, had she not remembered her recent promise to ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... puzzling lights in her eyes. "Well, of all things! You want to get in again, do you? Say, wouldn't that beat the hot place a mile? You want to get in again? All right, Old-timer, I'll go out with you and after you've fed I'll cue you on to ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... there, and that ever since Adam lost the rib woman has been to man a bad pain in the side. He thinks that Dr. Butterfield, who sits opposite him at the tea-table, is something of a hypocrite, and asks him all sorts of puzzling questions. The fact is, it is vinegar-cruet against sugar-bowl in perpetual controversy. I do not blame Givemfits as much as many do. His digestion is poor. The chills and fever enlarged his spleen. He has frequent attacks ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... walked the deserted streets of the city, thinking and puzzling over the possibility of Gregory's being right. Sometime after midnight he went back to the office and to the filing room. There, for two hours, he sat reading closely old files of the paper, going through them methodically and making occasional ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... great pleasure to hear it," said Ridge, "for some of your recent actions have been, to say the least, very puzzling." ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... was no arguing with a boy like this. If there had been, there would have been no further opportunity that night, for as I stood by, puzzling in my mind what to say to bring home to the graceless youth a sense of his iniquity, he began picking up his brushes and shouldering ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... accurate weights, just completed by the ingenious Messrs. Lovell and Henry Edgeworth, partners: for Henry is now a junior partner, and grown an inch and a half upon the strength of it in two months. The use and ingenuity of these weights I do, or did, understand; it is great, but I am afraid of puzzling you and disgracing myself attempting to explain it; especially as, my mother says, I once sent you a receipt for purifying water with charcoal, which she avers to have been above, or below, the comprehension of any ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... the river, and Gage leading a strong advance guard across it, found no enemy on the other side, puzzling and also pleasing news. The foe, whom they had expected to find in this formidable position, seemed to have melted away. No trace of him could be found in the forest, and to many it appeared that the road to Fort Duquesne ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... threadworm neither knows nor cares that the point of intersection of two lines in his diagram represents a point in a space to which he is a stranger. The point is there, on his page: it is what he calls a fact. "Why raise" (he says) "these puzzling and merely academic questions? Why attempt to turn ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... came out with 'All right,' and a good deal besides which was of no consequence to me, and at last I am here 'all right.' But why on earth do they spell Londres, London; Glascow, Glasgow; and Cantorbery, Canterbury? It is exceedingly puzzling to strangers." My husband was greatly tickled, and rather encouraged this flow of impressions; he thought it extremely interesting in a cultivated and intelligent man who was far from untravelled, for he had ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... a good deal; but now in this crisis, when we have to begin life in earnest—when I am puzzling myself how to find food and clothing and shelter for you and me—I feel as if Mr. Dalzell's past attentions belonged to another world altogether, so I am putting them ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... I regret very much," he said humbly. "Westcott has told me a little, a very little, of what has occurred since I left New York so hurriedly two months ago. This is the first I knew about it, and the mystery of the whole affair is as puzzling as ever." ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... lay there, reading Shelley, or was it my Vergil that I was puzzling out line by line, with occasional glances at the great ship seeming to sail into me—myself poised outward ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... as I had often wished in such opportunities of recollection and of silence, for a complete barrier that might isolate the mind. With that wish came in a puzzling thought, very proper to a pilgrimage, which was: 'What do men mean by the desire to be dissolved and to enjoy the spirit free and without attachments?' That many men have so desired there can be no doubt, and the best men, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... unsolved. Tad did not believe it ever would be, though he never ceased puzzling over it for a moment. That day no one got a lion, though on the second day following Ned Rector shot a small cat. Tad did not try to shoot. He wandered with Chunky all over the peaks and through the Canyon in that vicinity trying to rope ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... minerals was chiefly a matter of size; and that the resemblances in form were very close. And so he concluded that if the structure of the minerals could be fully understood a clue might be found to the very puzzling question of the ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... infantry were still falling back. "I've lost Laneridge and my two horses," he added, shaking his head. "Laneridge missed me in the fog when I sent for him, and I'm half afraid he went towards the Hun lines. It was very puzzling to get your bearings up there this morning. I walked part of the way here and got a lift ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... it appears afterwards, that Saul prophesied badly, that is, he performed his part badly; for it is said that an "evil spirit from God [NOTE: As thos; men who call themselves divines and commentators are very fond of puzzling one another, I leave them to contest the meaning of the first part of the phrase, that of an evil spirit of God. I keep to my text. I keep to the meaning of the word prophesy.—Author.] came upon Saul, and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Agesander's "Laocoon" above them all. This, however, is a Roman view. What Hawthorne wrote in his diary should not always be taken literally. When he declares that he would like to have every artist that perpetrates an allegory put to death, he merely expresses the puzzling effects which such compositions frequently exercise on the weary-minded traveller; and when he wishes that all the frescos on Italian walls could be obliterated, he only repeats a sentiment of similar strain. Perhaps ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... should be obliged to continue a very moderate use of the drug during the remainder of my life. I saw, in dismal perspective, that small fractional part of the opium of years which was now represented by a single grain, looming up in endless distance, not unlike that puzzling metaphysical necessity in the perpetual subdivision of a unit, which, carried as far as it may be, always leaves a final half undisposed of. But in this I did myself injustice. I had really gained much in these few ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... to illness among her companions, she was detained for a month in the house of Madonna Orietta Scotta. Her prolonged absence seems to have been too much for the patience of Monna Lapa, who was always unable to understand in the least the actions of her puzzling though beloved child. Catherine, though lifted into the region of great anxieties and great triumphs, was yet always tenderly mindful of the claims of home. Very daughterly, very gently wise, is this little letter to the lonely and fretful mother, written when the saint ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... weary mile he trudged on. What might be in store for him he could not tell, but anything would be better than going back. Puzzling questions were often asked him, and he ran, on several occasions, great risk of being detected. His sun-burnt countenance and seaman's roll, which he had already ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... of men with so little intellectual or emotional interest in religion as Squire Riversdale or Marmaduke Lemarchant is something very puzzling to the Protestant critic who, for the reasons just insisted on, can have nothing corresponding to it in his own experience. It is a psychological state of which his own religious system takes no account. Where there is no intermediating Church, the soul is either in direct ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in the fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and partly from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in her desire to get at the truth of a very puzzling question. ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... possession of his mind; it was, at the same time, puzzling and attractive. It seemed to be surrounded by a cloud of mystery, and he determined to ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... upon the publication of the Folio of 1623 are undoubtedly puzzling. Shakespeare died in 1616, leaving behind him more than forty plays circulating in London and more or less associated with his name. His will, a most elaborate document, does not contain a single reference to his literary life or labours. Seven ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... about seventy years of age, but did not look more than forty-five. His easy assurance imposed upon most people. His reading was extensive, and his memory extraordinarily tenacious of the slightest circumstances. His pretension to have lived for so many centuries naturally exposed him to some puzzling questions, as to the appearance, life, and conversation of the great men of former days; but he was never at a loss for an answer. Many who questioned him for the purpose of scoffing at him, refrained in perplexity, quite bewildered by his presence of mind, his ready replies, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... A complete set of different endings, some of them puzzling in form and liable to confusion with other ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... dumb with a nameless fear. He knew the violent rage into which this father of his could fly, and he dreaded lest while in such a state McGee do that which he might always regret. And the giant in turn was puzzling his brain with the intricacies of the problem ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... her. Emma was reading his face; the characters had become all at once a little puzzling; her own fault, of course, but the significance she sought was ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... nothing to say upon the puzzling subject, not even to her best and closest friends. She was sorry indeed two hours later when they were at lunch on the porch of the Reef Harbor House with some of the Camerons' friends that Helen brought the conversation around again to the Beach Plum ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... absorbing her, a hasty remembrance of the night when he stooped over Lilian's hand came to her, and she remembered also how she herself had hated him. "The man has bewitched her," said Helen an hour afterward—an hour of watching and puzzling. "She is fond of John still: she cannot bear to break his heart—she would rather break her own—and she is dying of her attraction to the other." As she sat there, still observing them, wondering ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... could I when I don't understand myself. Who does? The wisest philosophers of all ages have been puzzling over their souls and never understood the wonder of it. Who shall describe the soul ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... in his manner was puzzling. The two had changed places. The struggle was at an end, but it was scarcely as a victim that Arnold ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we had had an explanation, and there no longer existed any reason for the fair girl's concealing her ardent attachment to me, many little puzzling peculiarities and contradictions, which I had before observed in her conduct, disappeared; and I found her society more charming and her conversation more frank and ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... the strong sweet affection of true sisters. Perhaps the little lady felt indignant as well as mystified at the strange preference thus given to her, in spite of her sister's superiority in age and wisdom. We do not know what reply was made to this puzzling inquiry, though it would have been easy enough to say that the little Princess was the daughter of an English royal Duke, therefore an English Princess, and the big Princess was German on both sides of the house, while these ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... puzzling over that, Mr. Barrington. I wanted in some way to have my family name connected with it, and yet not so distinctly as to be suggestive, either. There is the English of it—of course it's a free translation—that ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... old man's pride is hurt every time he sees me. He evidently thinks he is all the medical aid they need around here. But I do wish he would come with me to see this young Cowan; it's the most puzzling case I've ever met. There are times, Grantley, when I think I ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... store clothes, and from beneath the "heading" of the bunk he pulled a new pair of boots. All this was done with a rapidity and method that evinced some set purpose which the outfit could not fathom, a purpose become the more puzzling when, five minutes later, Circuit returned from the kitchen bearing the cook's wash-tub and a pail of warm water. The tub he deposited and filled in an obscure corner of the bunkroom, and shortly ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... the facts to me sufficiently often to make me as well acquainted with them as those worthy witnesses themselves. I fancy I see my father before me, in his dark-gray dressing-gown, and with his odd, half-sly, half-innocent twitch of the mouth, and peculiar puzzling look, from two quiet, abstracted, indolently handsome eyes, at the moment he agreed with Helvetius on the propriety of sending me to school as soon as I was born. Nobody knew exactly what to make of my father,—his wife excepted. The ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not be made to go when Mr. Bayley preached; but on week-days she would get the key from the schoolmistress, and hang over the old pews, puzzling out the window—or trying to decipher some of the other Popish fragments that the church contained. Sometimes she would sit rigid, in a dream that took all the young roundness from her face. But it was like the Oratory church, and Benediction. It brought ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... series of sediments laid down in inland seas of great extent, due to the subsidence over large areas of the vast land-surfaces of the Coal-measures. This view, at any rate, would explain some of the more puzzling physical characters of the formation, and would not be definitely negatived ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... conditions.(48) There are various other devices for fixing and perpetuating institutions or for expressing the laws embodied therein. Some of these are connected with thaumaturgy and shamanism, some are connected with the powers of nature, and the several devices overlap and interlace in puzzling fashion. ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... This was most puzzling and he did not like puzzles. Moreover, his situation was dangerous. If he left his tree, the man behind the other one—and he did not doubt now that he was an enemy—could probably take a ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... voices demanded, in a peremptory manner, to know what I was really doing. It was a case of bluff, so, busying myself with the heap, I snapped out, "Ach! go away, I have a lot to do." From the murmur that reached me it was obvious that this abrupt answer was puzzling them considerably. My position was still extremely unsafe, for border folk are usually of a very suspicious nature, which is intensified by the activities of war. At the best of times my excuse would have been feeble enough. Ordinary people don't usually ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... the poverty of his client, only charged $15, thus losing heavily on the books bought, to say nothing of his time. Years after, as he was passing through New York city, he was consulted by Aaron Burr on an important but puzzling case then pending before the Supreme Court. Webster saw in a moment that it was just like the blacksmith's case, an intricate question of title, which he had solved so thoroughly that it was to him simple as the multiplication table. Going ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... seemed difficult to mistake, the comedy of, negotiation was still rehearsing, and the principal actors were already familiar with their respective parts. There were the Earl of Derby, knight of the garter, and my Lord Cobham; and puzzling James Croft, and other Englishmen, actually believing that the farce was a solemn reality. There was Alexander of Parma thoroughly aware of the contrary. There was Andrew de Loo, more talkative, more credulous, more busy than ever, and more fully impressed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... own identical property, his mind is apt to be much disturbed by the complication of sensations arising from two parts of his person being at once acted upon, and from their reciprocal action; and false impressions are thus received, which, accurately enquired into, would afford a clew to many puzzling phenomena in the theory of dreams. This peculiarity of the organ of touch, as also that it is confined to no particular organ, but is diffused over the whole person of the man, is noticed ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... M. de Kercadiou was alone, purple in the face, puzzling out that last cryptic utterance, and not at all happy in his mind, either on the score of his godson or of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He was disposed to be angry with them both. He found these headstrong, wilful men who relentlessly ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... boat from the time she starts out in the spring-time Till she lays up in the summer, and then again in the winter; Wants to talk all about her and who is her captain and pilot; Then wants to slide away to that everlastingly puzzling Thing that happened to him that morning on the Kanawha When he lost his bearings and North and South had changed places— No, I don't call that living, whatever the rest of you call it." We were silent again till that woman spoke ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... together. But to read in that book, so as to discover all its beautiful meanings, you must have pure, clear eyes, and an humble, loving heart; otherwise you will complain, as some do, that it is dim and puzzling; or, as others that it ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... width, puzzling, and many of them bearing the name of the particular gate in the old walls of the city to which they lead. There were no such fine, ancient, stately houses as some of those in Shrewsbury were, nor such an aspect of antiquity as in Chester; ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for which they feel nothing but contempt, and on which they will be broken, is not a simple thing, like theirs. The words by which it is commonly expressed—democracy, parliamentarism, individual liberty, diversity, free development—are puzzling theoretic words, which make no instinctive appeal to the heart. Nevertheless, we stand for growth as against order; and for life as against death. If Germany wins this war, her system will have to be broken or ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... between the rectum and sacrum, give rise to difficulty in diagnosis, even with the help of the X-rays, and their nature is seldom recognised until the escape of the contents—particularly hairs—supplies the clue. The literature of dermoid cysts is full of accounts of puzzling tumours met with in all ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... to either a talkative mood or a silent one, always gentle in manner, and always unobtrusively melancholy, Saffren never took the initiative, though now and then he asked a question about some rather simple matter which might be puzzling him. Whatever the answer, he usually received it in silence, apparently turning the thing over and over and inside out in his mind. He was almost tremulously sensitive, yet not vain, for he was neither afraid nor ashamed to expose his ignorance, his amazing lack of experience. He had a greater ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... somewhat puzzling line, but which appears to convey the promise on the part of the penitent that if forgiven he will observe the rites demanded ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... that she could not consider any property which had been previous to ratification of the treaty removed on shipboard as "property forming a subject for a claim of restoration or indemnification." In spirit, these two declarations were contradictory. Besides they made the subject more difficult and puzzling. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... The puzzling statements were followed by some words unintelligible to Peleg, though he concluded that they were ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... a moon ago. Lloyd has written to me and names you. I think a letter from Maison Magnan (is that a person or a thing?) would gratify him. G. Dyer is in love with an Ideot who loves a Doctor, who is incapable of loving anything but himself. A puzzling circle of perverse Providences! A maze as un-get-out-again-able as the House which Jack built. Southey is Secretary to the Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer; L400 a year. Stoddart is turned Doctor of Civil Law, and dwells ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... evil in the same person is perhaps the most puzzling of all facts. What a shock it gives one to hear a woman who loves God, and spends both time and money on the betterment of her kind, call a pauper child a brat, and see her turn with disgust from the idea of treating any strange child, more especially one of low birth, as her own. "O Christ!" ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... for knowing his own business, Niece Louise. 'Tain't any of our consarn," was the most he would say about that puzzling circumstance. ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... Master Raymond was puzzling over the matter not being able to make out that any real offence had been committed, when who should walk up to the porch but Master Joseph Putnam. After a hearty hand-shaking between the two, they retired to Master ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson |
