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More "Perplex" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me how, by three-fold scoff, When cares of life perplex us, To smoke, or sleep, or fiddle them off, And scorn the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... doubt, by her youth and beauty, and still more, very probably, by the desire to annex her kingdom to their dominions. Mary, wishing to please Elizabeth, communicated often with her, to ask her advice and counsel in regard to her marriage. Elizabeth's policy was to embarrass and perplex the whole subject by making difficulties in respect to every plan proposed. Finally, she recommended a gentleman of her own court to Mary—Robert Dudley, whom she afterward made Earl of Leicester—one of her special favorites. The position of Dudley, and the circumstances of the case, were ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... whole romantic scene 660 Immediate vanish'd; rocks, and woods, and rills, The mantling tent, and each mysterious form Flew like the pictures of a morning dream, When sunshine fills the bed. Awhile I stood Perplex'd and giddy; till the radiant power Who bade the visionary landscape rise, As up to him I turn'd, with gentlest looks ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... "Never perplex her mind with an idea that may disturb, but cannot reform"—were his latest words; and Dorriforth's reply gave him ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... PHILEBUS: Do not perplex us, and keep asking questions of us to which we have not as yet any sufficient answer to give; let us not imagine that a general puzzling of us all is to be the end of our discussion, but if we are unable to answer, ...
— Philebus • Plato
... Frank Jones told the story of that day's hunting. To his father's ears it sounded as being very ominous. He did not care much for hunting himself, nor would it much perplex him if the Landleaguers would confine themselves to this mode of operations. But as he heard of the crowds surrounding the coverts through the county, he thought also of his many acres still under water, by the operation of a man who had ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... giving him a light tap with her wing to send him home.] Afraid of nothing but dogs. And since you put me in mind of it, I think I must go and perplex their noses, by tangling my tracks all among ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... in a simply practical view, which is the only view in which it ought to concern or perplex any one, we consider that it can have legitimately no effect whatever in leading us from England to Rome. We do not say no legitimate tendency in itself to move us, but no legitimate influence with serious men, who wish to know how their duty lies. For this reason—because ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... made all the blacker by the fact that it is thus but a drop in an infinite ocean of moral imperfection. When, therefore, Professor Flint goes on to say, "We ought to be content if we can show that what God has done is wise and right, and not perplex ourselves as to why He has not done an infinity of other things," I answer, Most certainly; but can we show that what God has done is wise and right? Unquestionably not. That what he has done may be wise and right, could we see his whole ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low, To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe. Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex Him in dealing with an issue—to the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... traditional way of thinking about the Bible had not proved satisfactory. The more free-minded were conscious of its contradictions; they could not reconcile its earlier and later moral idealisms; they found in it as much to perplex as to help them. Some of them, therefore, disowned it altogether and because it was tied up in one bundle with religion, as they knew religion, they disowned religion at the same time. Others who accepted its authority ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... distance, the old hunter comes to a halt, stopping by the side of a cypress "knee"; one of those vegetable monstrosities that perplex the botanist—to this hour scientifically unexplained. In shape resembling a ham, with the shank end upwards; indeed so like to this, that the Yankee bacon-curers have been accused, by their southern customers, of covering them with canvas, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Trees of every form and stature. I have omitted a long list of trees, the names of which, conveying no notion to an English ear, and wanting the characteristic epithets of Ovid's or of Spenser's well-known and picturesque forest description, would only perplex the reader with several lines of unintelligible words. To the Indian ear these names, pregnant with pleasing associations, and descriptive in their etymological meaning, would no doubt convey the same delight as those of the ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... does that strange fancy roll Which makes the present (while the flash doth last) Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past, Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul Self-questioned in her sleep: and some have said We lived ere yet this robe ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... a step she started from a true belief that Girard had ceased to care much for Cadiere. But she might have guessed that he had other things to perplex him in Toulon. He was disturbed by an affair no longer turning upon a young girl, but on a lady of ripe age, easy circumstances, and good standing; on his wisest penitent, Mdlle. Gravier. Her forty years failed to protect her. He would have no self-governed sheep in his fold. One ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... unfinished little room, and the vales of Persia and the scented glades of the tropics were mine to wander through. Yes, a dreamer's Paradise, for I was only sixteen then, and untroubled by any thoughts of Love; yet sometimes Its shadow would enter and vaguely perplex me, a strange shape, waiting always beyond, in the midst of my glowing gardens, and I sighed with a prescient pain. How have I known Love since those days? As yet it has brought me but two things—Sorrow and Expectation. In that fragmentary ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... beautiful thing that one sees. After the heat of the day, when the sun has seemed a destroyer rather than a fructifier, the slender crescent rising over the plain is like a girl dressed in silver. This poverty in nature must perplex the Mesopotamian artist. The only objects that the native jewellers etch into their silver work are Ezra's tomb, the native boat, the jackal, the palm tree and the camel. And that is about all the material the country yields. It is this simplicity ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... conclude, that I ought to pass all the days of my life without a thought of trying to learn what is to befall me hereafter. Perhaps in my doubts I might find some enlightenment; but I am unwilling to take the trouble, or go a single step in search of it; and, treating with contempt those who perplex themselves with such solicitude, my purpose is to go forward without forethought and without fear to try the great event, and passively to approach death in uncertainty of the eternity ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... intricacies intervene, No artful wildness to perplex the scene; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects the other. The suffering eye inverted Nature sees, Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees, With here a fountain never to be played, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... hours spent, not in presumptuous decisions, but modest inquiries; not in dogmatical limitations of omnipotence, but in humble acquiescence, and fervent adoration. Old age will show him, that much of the book, now before us, has no other use than to perplex the scrupulous, and to shake the weak, to encourage impious presumption, or stimulate ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... children in the States. He would build a fine house on the opposite hillside, if she would consent to it, unless she preferred, for the children's sake, to live in San Francisco. A sense of a loss of independence—of a change of circumstances that left him no longer his own master—began to perplex him, in the midst of his brightest projects. Certain other relations with other members of his family, which had lapsed by absence and his insignificance, must now be taken up anew. He must do something for his sister Jane, for his brother ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... No longer then perplex the breast— When thoughts torment, the first are best; 'Tis mad to go, 'tis death to stay! Away, to Orra, haste away. ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Sleep, in triumph, closed hath all eyes, And birds and beasts a silence sweet do keep, And Proteus' monstrous people in the deep,— The winds and waves, hush'd up, to rest entice,— I wake, I turn, I weep, oppress'd with pain, Perplex'd in the meanders of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... highest friendship as well as relation." There is the noteworthy declaration that the "greatest, noblest, and rarest of all the talents which constitute a genius" is the gift of "a deep and profound discernment of all the mazes, windings, and labyrinths which perplex the heart of man." The utterance concerning style, by so great a master of English, is memorable—"a good style as well as a good hand in writing is chiefly learned by practice." And a delightful reference should ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... I will keep a knowledge of. Did business, though not much, at the office; because of the horrible crowd and lamentable moan of the poor seamen that lie starving in the streets for lack of money. Which do trouble and perplex me to the heart; and more at noon when we were to go through them, for then a whole hundred of them followed us; some cursing, some swearing, and some praying to us. And that that made me more troubled was a letter come this afternoon from the Duke of Albemarle, signifying ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... breath as he thought to what a pass things had come. His brother's daughter waiting on an old Huguenot bourgeois, making sugar-cakes, selling her hair! And what next? Here was she alive after all, alive and disgracing herself; alive—yes, both she and her husband—to perplex the Chevalier, and force him either to new crimes or to beggar his son! Why could not the one have really died on the St. Bartholomew, or the other at La Sablerie, instead of putting the poor Chevalier in the wrong by ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with joy that I knew not whether I was asleep or awake; but being persuaded that I was not asleep, I recited the following words in Arabic aloud: 'Call upon the Almighty, he will help thee; thou needest not perplex thyself about anything else; shut thy eyes, and while thou art asleep, God will change thy bad fortune ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... composed and high exploit; But all was false and hollow, though his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels." ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Marathi. Again this Roman hand bewitched may have its use in purely scientific and literary works; but it would be wholly out of place in one whose purpose is that of the novel, to amuse rather than to instruct. Moreover the devices perplex the simple and teach nothing to the learned. Either the reader knows Arabic, in which case Greek letters, italics and "upper case," diacritical points and similar typographic oddities are, as a rule with some exceptions, unnecessary; or he does not know Arabic, when none of these expedients will ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... turbulent from being compressed within more narrow limits, was here less than two hundred paces in width; a distance, however, not inconsiderable. Directions had been given to collect materials in large quantities in the neighbourhood of this spot as soon as possible; and at the same time, in order to perplex the enemy and compel him to divide his forces, should he be disposed to resist, materials in smaller quantities were assembled on three other points of the river. The officer stationed in the neighbourhood of Cotapampa was instructed not to begin to lay the bridge, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... the father of all Christians. As the French King did not mind this relationship in the least, and also refused to admit a claim King Henry made to certain lands in France, war was declared between the two countries. Not to perplex this story with an account of the tricks and designs of all the sovereigns who were engaged in it, it is enough to say that England made a blundering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken in by that country; which made its own terms ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... With all these blessings, which we seldom find Lavish'd by Nature on one happy mind, 140 A motley figure, of the Fribble tribe, Which heart can scarce conceive, or pen describe, Came simpering on—to ascertain whose sex Twelve sage impannell'd matrons would perplex. Nor male, nor female; neither, and yet both; Of neuter gender, though of Irish growth; A six-foot suckling, mincing in Its gait; Affected, peevish, prim, and delicate; Fearful It seem'd, though of athletic make, Lest brutal breezes should too ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the cross, and observe whether he repeats it, (as on Whitsunday [15] he surely ought to do.) Look! he does repeat it; but these driving April showers perplex the images, and that, perhaps, it is which gives him the air of one who acts reluctantly or evasively. Now, again, the sun shines more brightly, and the showers have all swept off like squadrons of cavalry to the rear. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... at the map, you will see that there are numerous chains of mountains in the countries lying west of China, especially in Tibet, while China proper has but few of them. The land generally slopes from the several ranges to the sea, but I will not perplex you with the names of them. The rivers, of course, flow from the mountains, and you can see that they have space for a long course. They are generally called ho in the north, and chiang or kiang in the south. The Ho, Hoang-ho, or Yellow ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... 828; plunge into sorrow, grieve, fash[obs3], afflict, distress; cut up, cut to the heart. displease, annoy, incommode, discompose, trouble, disquiet; faze, feaze[obs3], feeze (U[obs3].S.); disturb, cross, perplex, molest, tease, tire, irk, vex, mortify, wherret|, worry, plague, bother, pester, bore, pother, harass, harry, badger, heckle, bait, beset, infest, persecute, importune. wring, harrow, torment, torture; bullyrag; put to the rack, put to the question; break on the wheel, rack, scarify; cruciate[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... . And here, dear Cure, you shall have my justification for writing you two letters in one week, though I should make the accident a habit if I were sure it would more please you than perplex you. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... not perplex her with her embryo lord on that same evening, thinking that she would allow her a few hours to make herself at home; but on the following morning Mr Arabin arrived. 'And now,' said Miss Thorne to herself,' ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... was much mortified. The very next day he summoned his old bootmaker, Lambertin, and ordered him to put extra heels two inches high to his shoes. Madame having told this piece of childish folly to the King, he was greatly amused, and with a view to perplex his brother, he had his own shoe-heels heightened, so that, beside his Majesty, Monsieur still ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... I do not allow it," and his tone implied, "You city gentlemen may think to surprise and perplex us, but we in Eastern Siberia also know what the law is, and may even teach it you." The copy of a document straight from the Emperor's own office did not have any effect on the prison inspector either. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... a feather to cure disease. Or again, high prices and low wages, high wages creating high prices, resented conditions leading to strikes, strikes bringing confusion to both wages and prices alike—these things perplex the most clear-sighted among us, compelling us to wonder as to what new troubles we are heaping up. Or again, taxes crippling incomes and gnawing at the heart of industry vex us each year with a sense of the futility of all man's efforts for the common good, and the uselessness ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... can reach to Heaven, On Heaven let it dwell, For fear thy Thought be given Like power to reach to Hell. For fear the desolation And darkness of thy mind Perplex an habitation Which thou ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... her son simply, her son did not perplex himself with shameful speculations, but was glad that St. Tugdual went back home so that the women of Brittany were able ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... am bound to go further, and to admit that you possess a higher than any human warrant for the faith that is in you. The one object which I have it at heart to attain is to induce you to free yourself from the paralyzing fatalism of the heathen and the savage, and to look at the mysteries that perplex, and the portents that daunt you, from the Christian's point of view. If I can succeed in this, I shall clear your mind of the ghastly doubts that now oppress it, and I shall reunite you to your friend, never to be parted from ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... am the unseen spirit thou hast sought, I woke those shadowy questionings that vex Thy young mind, lost in its own cloud of thought, And rouse the soul they trouble and perplex; I filled thy days with visions, and thy nights Blessed with all ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... separate head—it follows that chronology, as a pre-Christian chronology, will, like the Imperial eagle, be two-headed. Now this accident of chronology, on a first glance, seems but too likely to confuse and perplex ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... is of course to Battle, whither a company of discreetly satisfied Normans—Le Souvenir Normande—recently travelled, to view with tactfully chastened enthusiasm the scene of the triumph of 1066; to erect a memorial; and to perplex the old ladies of Battle who provide tea. Except on one day of the week visitors to Battle must content themselves with tea (of which there is no stint) and a view of the gateway, for the rule of showing the Abbey only on Tuesdays is strictly enforced by the American gentleman who ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... my friend as the little village practitioner looks at the Harley Street specialist who by a word can solve the difficulties that perplex him. ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... must tell you how I helped Vetranio to make a satire on him! When I was staying with him at Rome, I used often to see a woman in a veil taken across the garden to his study; so, to perplex him, I asked him who she was. And he frowned and stammered, and said at first that I was disrespectful; but he told me afterwards that she was an Arian whom he was labouring to convert. So I thought I should like to see how this conversion went on, and I hid myself behind a bookcase. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... he shall strive with diligence to bring unto his memory again those faces which he was wont to know—and where he faileth he shall hold his peace, neither betraying by semblance of surprise or other sign that he hath forgot; that upon occasions of state, whensoever any matter shall perplex him as to the thing he should do or the utterance he should make, he shall show nought of unrest to the curious that look on, but take advice in that matter of the Lord Hertford, or my humble self, which are commanded of the King to be upon this service and close at call, till this commandment ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... when the question of the Test and the question of the Comprehension became complicated together in a manner which might well perplex an enlightened and honest politician, both questions became complicated with a third question ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cauld or simmer's heat; They've nae sair wark to craze their banes. [hard] An' fill auld age wi' grips an' granes: [gripes, groans] But human bodies are sic fools. For a' their colleges and schools, That when nae real ills perplex them, They make enow themselves to vex them, An' aye the less they hae to sturt them, [fret] In like proportion less will hurt them. A country fellow at the pleugh, His acres till'd, he's right eneugh; A country lassie at her wheel, Her dizzens done, she's unco ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... past twenty years, have served their terms and been released? and yet what does the public know of the real inside of prisons? This used to perplex me at first. My fellow prisoners with whom I talked were bitter and voluble enough in denouncing the conditions; but no sooner had they passed the gates to freedom than they became strangely silent. Some of them even were quoted in the local papers as praising and upholding ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... quality of inspired imagination. Though there is probably no single evil which exists for which a solution has not been devised in the wonderful laboratory of visioning, the perversity of the subtle and mysterious thing called life is such that many great and grave evils continue to challenge, perplex, ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... great, when means were small, Will not perplex me any more at all A few short years at most (it may be less), I shall have done with earthly ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn
... I've had to do with, and about business and social problems, and with and about the things which worry and perplex the man or woman in the business as well as ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... shovels, hurdles, and slaves, having come to build a fort and custom-house at the Kongone. As we had no good reason to hide the harbour, but many for its being made known, we supplied him with a chart of the tortuous branches, which, running among the mangroves, perplex the search; and with such directions as would enable him to find his way down to the river. He had brought the relics of our fugitive mail, and it was a disappointment to find that all had been lost, with the exception ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... costume did not in the least perplex Mr. Maltboy, as he lay on the sofa digesting his dinner, and puffing out smoke rings by the dozen. His thoughts were mildly fixed on that delightful Miss Whedell. Five times he had been graciously permitted to visit ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... worse for them. It is not encouraging or inspiring to have the meanness and pettiness of human nature brought before one, and to feel conscious of one's own weakness and feebleness as well. Some sorrows and losses purge, brace, and strengthen. Such trials as these stain, perplex, enfeeble. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... I could find Him!" she exclaimed, passionately. "On the right hand and on the left I grope, but touch Him not. Why dost Thou fight against me?—why dost Thou scare and perplex me, O First and Only Fair? I have Thee not, and I need Thee." She added, "I am no Christian, you see, or I should have found Him; or at least I should ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Bertha, looking hastily away, and again blushing—as a matter of course! "I am no reader of riddles; and I hate riddles—they perplex me so. Besides, I never could find them out. But, Hake, ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... cannot be amended, confirmed or diminished by ten thousand resolutions. Is not that the guide and rule of this legislature. A multiplicity of laws is reprobated in any society, and tend but to confound and perplex. How strange would a law appear which was to confirm a law; and how much more strange must it appear for this body to pass resolutions to confirm the constitution under which they sit! This is the case with others of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... interesting, and are fully developed in his Holy War. The capabilities of the soul to entertain vast armies of thoughts, strong and feeble, represented as men, women, and children, are so great as almost to perplex the strongest understanding. All these multitudes of warriors are the innumerable thoughts—the strife—in ONE soul. Upon such a subject an interesting volume might be written. But we must fix our attention upon the poor tinker who was the subject ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... would be no one to tell that the natives had killed the rest of our crew. I told him that the people on board the schooner knew there were two alive, and if they killed us, the crew of the vessel would kill all the natives. This appeared to perplex his mind, and he shortly left me, and ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... two! Now, able to understand it; for, how am I to pay you? after all, this was the question of the poor, and the Boy. Give you change, your whole weight of the change honor. would fall upon them. Let the rich by all means have Member. Ah! but how? Where's permission to perplex your ready-reckoner? themselves by any division of a pound they pleased; but do Boy. I sells a better sort not let them, by any nor them. Mine's real Cheyny. experiment like this, impose difficulties ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... "You perplex me," admitted the elder financier shortly. "You make great pretense of open frankness; brazen defiance even, and yet you choose to cloak every attack and to move by stealth. You know that just now such ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... but in this, her prototype, there was nothing shy or solemn; all was cold, hard, and glittering, and the brooding eyes were full of a dull, dusky fire. She looked as hard and cold and bitter, as she was beautiful; and Sir Norman began to perplex himself inwardly as to what had brought her here. Surely not sympathy, for nothing wearing that face of stone, could even know the meaning of such a word. While he looked at her, half wonderingly, half pityingly, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... in my mind what this should mean, And why that lovely lady plained so; Perplex'd in thought at that mysterious scene, And doubting if 'twere best to stay or go, I cast mine eyes in wistful gaze around, When from the shades came slow ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the English language be Dutch{199}, yet it may be said to have been inoculated afterwards on a French stock". He may know that the Dutch is a sister language or dialect to our own; but this that it is the mother or root of it will certainly perplex him, and he will hardly know what to make of the assertion; perhaps he ascribes it to an error in his author, who is thereby unduly lowered in his esteem. But presently in the course of his reading he meets with the following statement, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... a resolution of the unadjusted; it corresponds to that inner compulsion which operates upon the imperfect consciousness of the dreamer, or upon the mentality of any person seeking the solution of a problem or "perplex," either asleep, or awake—as I trust you all still remain. The present demand for the resolution of the unadjusted must be met without going deeper into the theory of ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... in tribe or people: thus, Uganga, Mganga, Waganga; or, Unyamuezi, Myamuezi, Wanyamuezi. The composition of this latter name is worthy of remark, as it differs from the former, and therefore must tend to perplex. For instance, Uganga is composed of U, place, house, church, or country, and ganga, magic; whilst Unyamuezi is a triple word, divided into U country—ya, of—and muezi, moon. Then, the language being euphonious, an accidental n is ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... this thought through the dark night he stealeth, A captive victor that hath lost in gain; Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth, The scar that will, despite of cure, remain; Leaving his spoil perplex'd in greater pain. She hears the load of lust he left behind, And he the burthen of a ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... receive the Holy Communion as she desired with tears. Thus weakened by long captivity and ill usage, she, an untaught girl, was questioned repeatedly for three months, by the most cunning and learned doctors in law of the Paris University. Often many spoke at once, to perplex her mind. But Joan always showed a wisdom which confounded them, and which is at least as extraordinary as her skill in war. She would never swear an oath to answer all their questions. About herself, and all matters bearing on her own conduct, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... was skilful in asking questions, Diana was equally skilful in baffling them, and Miss Barbar learned nothing more than her pupil chose to tell her, and that was little enough. To perplex her still further, Lucian departed for London the next day, with a rather disconsolate look on his handsome face, and gave his adviser no ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... for democracy and world freedom; "Tosh," they say to our dead in the trenches, "you died for a mistake"; they jeer at this idea of a League of Nations making an end to war, an idea that has inspired countless brave lads to face death and such pains and hardships as outdo even death itself; they perplex and irritate our Allies by propounding schemes for some precious economic league of the British Empire—that is to treat all "foreigners" with a common base selfishness and stupid hatred—and they intrigue with the most reactionary forces ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... a very mysterious one, and of a nature to perplex even the philosophic observer. Certain bodies, such as the metals, convey it, and are called conductors; certain others, such as glass and porcelain, arrest it, and are called insulators. It is for this reason that the wires of the telegraph are supported by a non-conductor, ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... importance in the government. Two of the Pope's nephews were promoted to the Cardinalate with provisions of about 10,000 crowns apiece. His old brother abode in retirement at Bologna under strict orders not to seek fortune or to perplex the Papal purity ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... fixed his quarters in Cambridge; exerted great severity towards that university which zealously adhered to the royal party; and showed himself a man who would go all lengths in favor of that cause which he had espoused. He would not allow his soldiers to perplex their heads with those subtleties of fighting by the king's authority against his person, and of obeying his majesty's commands signified by both houses of parliament: he plainly told them, that if he met the king in battle, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... that the world-old iniquity of enslaving men must at length come to an end. The Abolitionists may have regarded this beautiful building as the fruit of a contrite heart, or they may have scorned it as an attempt to magnify the goodness of a slave trader and thus perplex the doubting citizens of Bristol in regard ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... Eternal as the chorus of their wail, And the dim isthmus of that middle space, Where the compassioned soul may purge its sins In pious expiation. Then advance Ye children of all sorrows, and all sins, Doubts that perplex, and hopes that tantalize, All the wild forms the fiend Temptation takes To tamper with the soul! Come with the care That eats your daily life; come with the thought That is conceived in the noon of night, And makes us stare around ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... and here, perhaps is no occasion for regret. To the new spirit, which perhaps is to dominate the future, this longing for truth, not for what she gives us in the profit that the ledgers reckon, but for what she is herself—this high ambition to solve the mysteries that perplex and elude us, the world may yet owe discoveries that shall revolutionize existence, and make the coming era infinitely more glorious in beneficent achievement than the one whose final record History ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... the Baroness. "Did not Adam live near a thousand years, and was not Eve beautiful all the time? I used to perplex Mr. Tusher with that—poor creature! What have we done since, that our lives are so much lessened, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the war to sound! This stillness doth perplex and harass me; An inward impulse drives me from repose, It still impels me to achieve my work, And sternly beckons me ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... with impatience the return of his betrothed. He chided himself that he had allowed her father to persuade him against following her to the cabin of her mother. Then doubt began to perplex him; then suspicion. A bird croaked significantly as it flew above his head. He could not longer endure inaction. Kaala's footprints were still traceable in the sand. He would go as far as they might lead. He set off at a round pace, stopping now and then to assure himself, and presently ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... Perplex'd, I hoped my heart was pure of guile, But judged me weak in wit, to disagree; But now, I see that men are mad awhile, 'Tis the old history—Truth without a home, Despised and slain, ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... honour of your presence here; and yet I perplex myself with the fear of appearing so unworthy in your eye when near you, as to suffer in your opinion; but I promise myself, that however this may be the case on your first visit, I shall be so much improved by the benefits I shall reap from your ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... and untwist the rings of little Leslie's fair hair, and dress and undress her as she had done her doll; better examine the shell cracked by the yellow-hammer, and count the spots on the broad, brown leaf of the plane, than perplex herself with so uncongenial a difficulty. But the difficulty pursued her nevertheless, and baffled and bewitched her as it has done ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... undertake to represent upon the stage any great action or theatrical subject, he must begin by making an extract from it, of all the most picturesque situations. No other parts beside these can enter into his plan; all the others are defective or useless, they can only embarras, perplex, confound, and render ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... then, to a reign of pure custom is this: Meaningless injunctions abound, since the value of a traditional practice does not depend on its consequences, but simply on the fact that it is the practice; and this element of irrationality is enough to perplex, till it utterly confounds, the mind capable of rising above routine and reflecting on the true aims and ends of the social life. How to break through "the cake of custom," as Bagehot has called it, is the hardest lesson that ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... "I think that nature and an angry God Produced thee to the world, thou wicked sex, To be to man a plague, a chastening rod; Happy, wert thou not present to perplex. So serpent creeps along the grassy sod; So bear and ravening wolf the forest vex; Wasp, fly, and gad-fly buzz in liquid air, And the rich grain lies tangled with ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... he sang,—"Who goes with me? Who is it wills King Richard free? He who bravely toils and dares, Pain and danger with me shares,— He whose heart is true and warm, Though the night perplex with storm Forest, plain, and dark morass, Hanging-rock and mountain-pass, And the thunder bursts ablaze,— Is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... and when the deacon had not been over to perplex him, and wake up the worldly spirit in him, he was as well inclined to preparation as any sick person I ever waited on. To be sure it was different arter the deacon had ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... very poorly all night long. Uneasy thoughts seemed to haunt and perplex her brain, and she neither slept nor woke, but was restless and uneasy in her talk ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... inquisitive spirit for any length of time from reaching out toward the unfathomable mysteries of life. But great care has been taken not to lead her thoughts prematurely to the consideration of subjects which perplex and confuse all minds. Children ask profound questions, but they often receive shallow answers, or, to speak more correctly, they ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... schemes he recommends, And courts his foes-and hardly courts his friends; Is fond of power, and yet concerned for fame- >From different parties would dependents claim Declares for war, but in an awkward way, Loves peace at heart, which he's afraid to say; His head perplex'd, altho' his hands are pure- An honest man,-but not ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... thy lot was mine! Thou wilt stand here, in a green youth, a century after I am laid low. No fears perplex thee, no sorrows eat away thy strength. Willingly would ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... Purgatory]. It narrates the adventures of Don Juan de Marana, immortalised by Mozart and Lord Byron. Grabbe has also turned his poetical attention towards this mauvais sujet, and gives him as a companion to Faust, which might perplex ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... were innumerable, were never spared me, nor did she stint herself of a smile that could allure, nor of a glance that could arouse or perplex. ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... perplex all minds, it has often happened in history that many men by different lines of thought arrive at the same conclusion. No complete record has yet been published of the telegrams which passed between the Government ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... the Swedes, the Germans, or the Scotch, although the latter are possessed of more intelligence, and are more readily trained to habits of order and system. The warm heart and the confused brain, the want of truth, of the average Irish servant will perplex and annoy while it touches the sympathies of a ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... parts of the story, when they might make it imprudently close in its reflection of facts or resemblance in portraiture. A feature is shown, a manifest allusion made, and then the poet starts off in other directions, to confuse and perplex all attempts at interpretation, which might be too particular and too certain. This was no doubt merely according to the fashion of the time, and the habits of mind into which the poet had grown. But there were often reasons for it, in an age so suspicious, and so dangerous ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... like the Cathedral, are elaborate and artificial piles. The stones of which they are built are absurd doctrines, burdensome rites, and meaningless ceremonies. In beautiful contrast to their complexity and inconsistency, the Gospel presents to the world one simple and grand idea. They perplex and weary their votaries, who lose themselves amid the tangled paths and intricate labyrinths with which they abound. The Gospel, on the other hand, offers a plain and straight path to the enquirer, which, once found, can never be lost. These ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... shall wipe, at need, The place where swelling piles do breed; May every ill that bites or smarts Perplex him ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... his tour of the cities. He had taken some books along, whether to perplex or make clear his brains, he hardly knew. He pored over pages of Adam Smith, he turned to Ruskin for comfort, he picked up Brassey's figures and experience, and Stuart Mill's strong, kindly reasoning, and digested them in his own slow, practical, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... kings cannot err. Hence their contradictions never perplex us. In approving always, one is sure to be always right—which is pleasant. Louis XIV. would not have liked to see at Versailles either an officer acting the cock, or a prince acting the turkey. That which raised the royal and ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... moment changes peace and rest to horror and affright, and then passes again to the dim and ghostly Dreamland, whose frontier crowds our daily life on every hand, and whence forever peep and beckon the mysteries that perplex and haunt ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... up by telling the jury that their duty was plain: yet, as three points had arisen which might perplex their views of the case, he would first dispose of these. The prisoner had intimated that he was indicted by a false name. But, as it had sufficiently appeared in evidence that he was generally known by this name, that was no matter for their inquiry. He had also alleged that ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... (Madam) that your self, Who are all Excellence, should become so wretched, To think on such a Wretch as Grief hath made me! Seldome despairing men look up to Heaven, Although it still speak to 'em in its Glories; For when sad thoughts perplex the mind of man, There is a Plummet in the heart that weighs, And pulls us (living) to the dust we came from; Did you but see the miseries you pursue, (As I the happiness that I avoid That doubles my afflictions) you would flye Unto some Wilderness, or to your Grave, And there find better Comforts ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... of Shelburne would have raised this country to a state of great material prosperity, and removed or avoided many of those anomalies which now perplex us; but he was not destined for ordinary times; and though his capacity was vast and his spirit lofty, he had not that passionate and creative genius required by an age of revolution. The French outbreak was his evil daemon: he had not the means of calculating its effects upon Europe. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... that something in Bridget's manner, very soon after the Carton visit, had begun to perplex and worry the younger sister. Why was Bridget always insisting on the lessons?—always ready to scold Nelly if one was missed—and always practising airs and graces with Sir William that she wasted on no one else? Why was she so ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to him; does not want explanations, translations, limitations, as Professor Godwin does when you make an assertion; up to anything, down to everything, —whatever sapit hominem. A perfect man. All this farrago, which must perplex you to read, and has put me to a little trouble to select, only proves how impossible it is to describe a pleasant hand. You must see Rickman to know him, for he is a species in one,—a new class; an exotic, any slip of which ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... because the black profile in the drawing is quite stable, and does not shake, and is not confused by sparkles of lustre on the leaves,) you may try the extremities of the real trees, only not doing much at a time, for the brightness of the sky will dazzle and perplex your sight. And this brightness causes, I believe, some loss of the outline itself; at least the chemical action of the light in a photograph extends much within the edges of the leaves, and, as ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... have known how this would vex and perplex me. I could not bear to hinder him in his work—as important as any to be done by man for man—and yet it was beyond my power to go home and leave him there, and wonder what it was that he had been so afraid to tell. So ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... dear, don't perplex yourself," she whispered anxiously, noting my bewilderment. "There's plenty of time, and it makes no difference—not ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... fois on Breeds no such prodigious poison, Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite—— Nay, rather, Plant divine of rarest virtue: Blisters on the tongue would hurt you. 'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee; None e'er prospered who defamed thee; Irony all, and feigned abuse, Such as perplex'd lovers use, At a need, when in despair, To paint forth their fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... dancing Mountains witness'd Orpheus near; Nor Lute nor Lyre his feeble Pow'rs attend, Nor sweeter Musick of a virtuous Friend, But everlasting Dictates croud his Tongue, Perversely grave, or positively wrong. The still returning Tale, and ling'ring Jest, Perplex the fawning Niece and pamper'd Guest, While growing Hopes scarce awe the gath'ring Sneer, And scarce a Legacy can bribe to hear; The watchful Guests still hint the last Offence, The Daughter's Petulance, the Son's Expence, Improve his heady Rage with treach'rous Skill, And mould his ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... lion in the flesh, our first care must be to determine upon the position and attitude it is to ultimately assume. Not to perplex the student too much, we determine that it shall take the attitude of our last example (Plate IV), or else that shown in Plate III. Accordingly, we arrange it on a platform just raised from the floor of ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... the shadow which for converse seem'd Most earnest, I addressed me, and began, As one by over-eagerness perplex'd: "O spirit, born for joy! who in the rays Of life eternal, of that sweetness know'st The flavour, which, not tasted, passes far All apprehension, me it well would please, If thou wouldst tell me of thy name, and this Your station ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... It requires a great deal of reading, or a wide range of information, to warrant us in putting forth our opinions on any serious subject; and without such learning the most original mind may be able indeed to dazzle, to amuse, to refute, to perplex, but not to come to any useful result or any trustworthy conclusion. There are indeed persons who profess a different view of the matter, and even act upon it. Every now and then you will find a person of vigorous or fertile mind, who relies upon his own resources, despises all former ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... I would be, Full of mischievous glee; If aught came to vex thee, I'd plague and perplex thee. An ape I would be, Full of ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... Her poor old father's in despair, For China's throne is now without an heir; He longs for her to wed some prince or other, And not perplex him with continual bother. He's of an age to live in peace and quiet, And not be plagued with wars and civil riot; He's tried all means his daughter's mind to soften, Has often sternly threatened—coaxed as often; Used prayers for such a monarch infra ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... to which attention was called, and interest about their etymology awakened, only after they had been long in popular use—for that such should often give scope to idle guesses, should altogether refuse to give up their secret, is nothing strange—but words will not seldom perplex and baffle the inquirer even where an investigation of their origin has been undertaken almost as soon as they have come into existence. Their rise is mysterious; like almost all acts of becoming, it veils itself in deepest ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... perplexity of the teacher's life are, as was explained in the last chapter, almost proverbial. There are other pressing and exhausting pursuits, which wear away the spirit by the ceaseless care which they impose, or perplex and bewilder the intellect by the multiplicity and intricacy of their details. But the business of teaching, by a pre-eminence not very enviable, stands, almost by common consent, at ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... who has been instrumental in giving such a boon to suffering humanity, or criticise any act which, in her God-given wisdom, she is led to do? But, I am sure, I have talked enough for now, although I am at your service at any time if other questions arise to perplex," she concluded, as she arose, and the little company, after a few moments spent in social converse, separated ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... soft Maeander plays, Here refluent, flowing there with dubious course; Meeting himself, his wandering stream he sees: And urges now to whence he first arose; Now to the open outlet of the main. Thus Daedalus the numerous paths perplex'd With puzzlings intricate, so much entwin'd, Himself could scarce the outer threshold gain. Here was the double monster, man and bull Inclos'd; till by the third allotted tribe, The ninth year, vanquish'd; with Athenian blood Twice gorg'd before. Then was the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... theatres to see the masked balls only to remain in a box with their party, and from thence to view the motley group; there are however some females even of rank who cannot resist the charm of going entirely incognito, to puzzle and perplex different persons whom they know will be there, only confiding to one or two dearest friends their little enterprise, to whom they recount ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... has always revolted me. Why should there be workers to feed idlers, why sweated to keep sweaters in luxury? Why should so many admirable lives be sacrificed to the greater prosperity of brigandage? These hateful discords amid the general harmony perplex the thinker, all the more as we shall see the cruel vampire become a model of devotion where ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... was on the scent of a secret that had begun to perplex him, and as few are so inherently humane as to prefer the advantage of another to their own success, he heard both the announcement and the declaration of the noble ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... opposed to accounts,—balances now on the one side, now on the other,—now debtor becomes creditor, and creditor debtor,—until the proceedings were grown to the size of volumes, and the whole well fitted to perplex the most simple facts, and to darken the meridian sunshine of public notoriety. They prepared a report for the Governor-General and Council suitable to the whole tenor of their proceedings. Here the man whom they had employed and betrayed appeared in a new ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... looking at the book of Bible Pictures, and it came out that Dolly knew nothing at all about Joshua and the walls of Jericho, nor Gideon and the lamps in the pitchers, nor anything else. Then, when I was surprised, she said that it was not the present system to perplex children with the myths ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... disestablished and unsexed.'" Thus she spake, and I endeavoured to console the weeping Muse: "Dry your tears, beloved Clio, drive away this fit of blues. Cease your soul with gloomy fancies and forebodings to perplex; You are doing gross injustice to the merits of your sex. Know you not that things are changing, that the Earth regains her youth, Since Philosophers have brought to light the one primeval truth? Long have all things been misgoverned by the foolish race of men, Who've monopolized sword, sceptre, ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... who were so far beyond him on the heavenly road. He was a poet without knowing it, and his gifts only served to perplex him further. His speculations assumed bodily forms which he supposed to be actual visions. He saw his poor friends sitting on the sunny side of a high mountain refreshing themselves in the warmth, while he was ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... secret prepare for war, and when God reveals His order to you, declare yourself. It will be well, when the Envoy of your enemy wants to enter the country, if you send an able emissary, possessing the tongue of a serpent and full of deceit, to the enemy's country, so that he may with sweet words perplex the enemy's mind, and induce him to give up the intention of ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... equal. garer (s'), to stray, gorger, to butcher, slay. Egypte, f., Egypt. lancer (s'), to dart forth. lever, to raise, rear. loigner, to remove, far away; s'—, to depart. embarras, m. pl; many cares. embarrasser, to perplex. embraser, to set fire to; s'—, to be kindled. embrasser, to embrace, espouse. minent en, eminent for. emmener, to lead away. empoisonner, to poison, taint. emporter, to carry away; l'—, to win the ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... the royalists; and the best method of determining the succession to the protectorate. But among the nine were two who, aware of his increasing infirmities, began to cherish projects of their own aggrandizement, and who, therefore, made it their care to perplex and to prolong the deliberations. The committee sat three weeks. On the two first questions they came to no conclusion; with respect to the third, they voted, on a division, that the choice between an elective and an hereditary succession was ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... build a fine house on the opposite hillside, if she would consent to it, unless she preferred, for the children's sake, to live in San Francisco. A sense of a loss of independence—of a change of circumstances that left him no longer his own master—began to perplex him, in the midst of his brightest projects. Certain other relations with other members of his family, which had lapsed by absence and his insignificance, must now be taken up anew. He must do something for his sister Jane, for his brother William, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... experiments, and was fond of governing his province after the simplest manner; but then he contrived to keep it in better order than did the erudite Kieft,[51] tho he had all the philosophers, ancient and modern, to assist and perplex him. I must likewise own that he made but very few laws; but then again he took care that those few were rigidly and impartially enforced: and I do not know but justice on the whole was as well administered as if there had been volumes of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... was before the making of any act of parliament concerning that matter, as also how far forth former statutes had provided remedy for former mischiefs, and defects discovered by experience; then should very few questions in law arise, and the learned should not so often and so much perplex their heads to make atonement and peace, by construction of law, between insensible and disagreeing words, sentences, and provisoes, as they now do." And if this inconvenience was so heavily felt in the reign of queen ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... monks than journeying like merry cavaliers. For my part, the dissensions of Christendom weary me, and I prefer to leave to the holy men vowed to the service of the altar, the labor of unloosing the knots of controversy, rather than perplex my brains with them. Come, Master Arundel, hast never a song wherewith to waken the echoes of the virgin forest and shorten the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... person lost not heav'n; he seem'd For dignity compos'd, and high exploit, But all was false and hollow, tho' his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels, for his thoughts were low, To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds Tim'rous and slothful; yet ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... find it out. If, sudden, he suspects her wiles, And hears her forging chain and trap, And looks, she sits in simple smiles, Her two hands lying in her lap. Her secret (privilege of the Bard, Whose fancy is of either sex), Is mine; but let the darkness guard Myst'ries that light would more perplex! ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... repose?) limits the quantity of variety, novelty, and contrast which it will bear;—these are, therefore, liable to excesses. Hence arise certain rules of art, that in a composition objects must not be too scattered and divided into many equal parts, that perplex and fatigue the eye, at a loss where to find the principal action. Nor must there be that "absolute unity," "which, consisting of one group or mass of light only, would be as defective as an heroic poem without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... understanding of the complex nature of Causes and Effects helps us to overcome some other difficulties that perplex the use of these words. We have seen that the true cause is an immediate antecedent; but if the cause is confounded with one of its constituent conditions, it may seem to have long preceded the event which is regarded as its effect. Thus, if one man's death ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... would have satisfied us in all the questions we had thought proper to ask; and as the objects were before us, we could not well have misunderstood each other. It happened unluckily that Oedidee was not with us in the morning; for Tee, who was the only man we could depend on, served only to perplex us. Matters being thus cleared up, and mutual presents having passed between Otoo and me, we took ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... he could not endure to hear my mother talk in a religious strain. He would say, "Woman, have done—you confound, you perplex me, when you talk of these matters, and for one day at least unfit me ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... was viewed, and to our being seldom within a mile of it. The geologist would here have a most interesting field for research, and would doubtless be enabled to account for those natural phenomena, which, from their defiance of all rule, perplex us so greatly. These mountains abound with coal and slate. The dip of the rocks on this side (the north) of the glen, is about ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... Pennsylvania or New York is, into counties, and try to lead them to amuse themselves by putting together so large a number, many of which must inevitably very closely resemble each other, and it is ten to one but you bewilder, and even perplex and discourage them. The same results would follow from cutting up even the whole of a large county, or a small state, into towns. I have usually begun with little children, by requiring them to put together ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... require toys to amuse them, not sighs and kisses and bold, brown eyes to frighten and perplex them. Have you any toys to amuse me if I give you ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... returned to her routine of household duties, one of which was teaching Arthur and Letitia—not the pleasantest of tasks—the peace of his words remained in her heart, comforting her throughout the day. She ceased to trouble or perplex herself about what was to come; it seemed, indeed, as if nothing would ever trouble her any more. She rested in a deep dream of tranquility, so perfect that it beautified and glorified her whole appearance. Arthur more than ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again, stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee, and after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments, looked round at us and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... the Book of Revelation; by labored calculations based upon arithmetical principles, and algebraic formulae until then unknown, but which appeared mystical and appalling from the fact that they were incomprehensible. The book was written in a style well calculated to perplex, astonish, or terrify the readers, especially those who were not well stocked with intelligence. It is therefore not remarkable that it caused a commotion wherever it was circulated. The judgment day was the topic of discourse and persons of ungodly lives and conversation ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... practical, and gives in simple language the why and wherefore of the many colour phenomena which perplex the dyer and ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... seen any other animal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is either an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and see what its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... something in Bridget's manner, very soon after the Carton visit, had begun to perplex and worry the younger sister. Why was Bridget always insisting on the lessons?—always ready to scold Nelly if one was missed—and always practising airs and graces with Sir William that she wasted on no one else? Why was she so frequently away on the days when ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not much, at the office; because of the horrible crowd and lamentable moan of the poor seamen that lie starving in the streets for lack of money. Which do trouble and perplex me to the heart; and more at noon when we were to go through them, for then above a whole hundred of them followed us; some cursing, some swearing, and some praying to us. At night come two waggons from Rochester with more goods from Captain Cocke; and in housing them come two ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... interpreting it. Thus, our "unfinished feeling" represents in itself an obscure demand for a resolution of the unadjusted; it corresponds to that inner compulsion which operates upon the imperfect consciousness of the dreamer, or upon the mentality of any person seeking the solution of a problem or "perplex," either asleep, or awake—as I trust you all still remain. The present demand for the resolution of the unadjusted must be met without going deeper into ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... analogy the true basis of a common structure, not only between Greek and Latin, but among all the languages of the Indo-European class. Nevertheless, the Roman grammarians deserve great praise for their elaborate results in the sphere of correct writing. No defects of syntax perplex the reader of the classical authors. Imperfect and unpliable the language is, but never inexact. And though the meaning is often hard to settle, this is owing rather to the inadequacy of the material than ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... I rage, in vain I rouse my powers; But I shall wake again, I shall, to better hours. Even in slumber will I vex him; Still perplex him, Still incumber: Know, you that have adored him, And sovereign power afford him, We'll reap the gains Of all your pains, And seem to have ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... in this kingdom the number of executions; yet I cannot but think, that they who destroy the confidence of society, weaken the credit of intelligence, and interrupt the security of life; harass the delicate with shame, and perplex the timorous with alarms; might very properly be awakened to a sense of their crimes, by denunciations of a whipping-post or pillory: since many are so insensible of right and wrong, that they have no standard of action but the law; nor feel guilt, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... creature was subjected had disturbed her costume not a little. Her shawl came nearly off, and, holding on by one pin, fluttered like a flag of defiance. Her slippers, which were of the carpet pattern, were left behind on the prairie to perplex the wolves, and her voluminous hair—once a rich auburn, but now a pearly grey—having escaped its cap and fastenings, was streaming out gaily in the breeze, as if to tempt the fingers ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... weakness, Tho' at times her spirits sank: Shaped her heart with woman's meekness To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he, And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady, And the people loved her much. But a trouble weigh'd upon her, And perplex'd her, night and morn, With the burthen of an honour Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter, As she murmur'd, 'Oh, that he Were once more that landscape-painter, Which did win my heart from me!' So she droop'd and droop'd before him, Fading slowly from his side: Three fair ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... the universal agent is love, by whose power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady, and a rival into the fable; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with oppositions of interest, and harrass them with violence of desires inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in rapture, and part in agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and outrageous ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... powers cannot be amended, confirmed or diminished by ten thousand resolutions. Is not that the guide and rule of this legislature. A multiplicity of laws is reprobated in any society, and tend but to confound and perplex. How strange would a law appear which was to confirm a law; and how much more strange must it appear for this body to pass resolutions to confirm the constitution under which they sit! This is the case ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Nature in particular and practical problems of curing babies or cutting up rabbits. This power of the modern metaphor must be understood, by way of an introduction, if we are to understand one of the chief errors, at once evasive and pervasive, which perplex the problem ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... unconsciousness, supply his political needs? It is not easy to answer these questions. We begin now upon the views of a Pennsylvania Oppositionist; and quicksilver defied not more utterly the skill of Raymond Lullius than the doctrines of the Philadelphia school perplex the inquiries of sharply defined New England minds. The rudimentary state of Republican principles may nowhere else be so clearly seen as in Pennsylvania. Four years of the Democratic administration of her "favorite son" have done much to make her less favored sons into good Republicans; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... indiscretions serve us best—we must either be cowards or fools. We have a perception of infinite goodness, just sufficient to make us conclude that we are "arrant knaves, all of us," and just enough belief in immortality "to perplex our wills." There is nothing but disagreement and disproportion—a constant missing of the mark, a stretching of the hand for that which is not. How is it possible to take seriously such a life if you pause ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... ordinary tone of every-day life, but to excite the stronger and more powerful faculties—to melt with sorrow, overpower with terror, astonish with the marvellous, or convulse with irresistible laughter:—all these wonders stamp indelible impressions on the memory. Those mixed feelings, also, which perplex us between a sense that the scene is but a plaything, and an interest which ever and anon surprises us into a transient belief that that which so strongly affects us cannot be fictitious; those mixed and puzzling feelings, also, are exciting ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Tabernacle?'" As a punishment for this pert reply, which must have distressed and confounded his master, Joshua's power of brain was immediately weakened, so that he forgot three hundred Halachahs, and seven hundred doubts sprang up to perplex him. All Israel then rose up to murder him, but the Holy One—blessed be He!—said unto him, "To teach thee the Halachahs and their explanation is impossible, but go and trouble them with work; as it is said (Josh. i. 1), 'Now after the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... think they do not like it; in either case with the same result. The rhythm annoys them (little wonder, since they usually read it as prose), the rhyme seems needless, the inversions, the compressions perplex their minds to no valuable end. Speaking honestly, they do not like poetry. And if their reason is the ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... were but a short period of time when compared to the years that lay before him. From the description I had of her, the Van Wyck girl was not at all the kind of female that I thought Jerry would like. She was an exotic, and was redolent, I am sure, of faint sweet odors which would perplex Jerry, who had known nothing but the smell of the forest balsams. She was effete and oriental, Jerry clean ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... mystifications, with even more startling results. Incredible as it may seem to those who have not looked into the subject, it is a fact that there are boys and girls—especially girls—who take a morbid delight in playing pranks that will astound and perplex their elders. The mere suggestion that Satan or a discarnate spirit is at the bottom of the mischief will then act as a powerful stimulus to the elaboration of even more sensational performances, ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... existence her reason acquiesced, her heart turned away, oppressed and disquieted, as from other mysterious actualities common enough to human observation, such as illness, disease, deformity, old age, the pains of birth and of death. Such matters might perplex and sadden, or arouse her indignant pity; but, being strong with the confidence of untouched youth and innocence, they were powerless, in and by themselves, to terrify her to the contemptible extremity of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... asking questions. And you tell him any old thing and he goes and writes it down in his room upstairs, and afterwards asks you another like it in order to perplex himself by the variety of your answers. He regards the whole world with a methodical distrust. He wants to document it and pin it down. He suspects it only too justly of disorderly impulses, and a capacity for self-contradiction. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... second party, and conceive that we must cease speaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations a spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which tends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine ourselves to the consideration of organised matter—its forms—its changes—and its aberrations ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... your admiration call On every side you look, behold the wall! No pleasing intricacies intervene, No artful wildness to perplex the scene; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, And half the ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... mathematical research, exploring the mines of science, which have of late been worked very persistently, but often, like the black diamond mines, at a loss. Concurrently with these researches, I have speculated on the great social problems which perplex the minds of men, both individually and collectively. And I have come to the conclusion that the same laws hold good in both spheres of work; that methods of mathematical procedure are applicable to the grand social problems of the ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... succeeded by a calm of several hours. The atmosphere is heavy and oppressive, and the body, weakened by perspiration, becomes languid; the appetite fails, and the mosquitos, buzzing about the ears by day and night, perplex and annoy by their stings, while the fevers of the tropics attack Europeans with sudden and irresistible violence. This is the most sickly season for the European. The thermometer frequently exceeds 90 deg. The clouds exhibit a menacing appearance, portending the approach of the heavy autumnal ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... who were very frequently confounded with each other in mine host's political hemisphere, and whose realms formed the great pandemonium whence issued all that was dire and disastrous to plague and perplex unhappy England. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... designs. He discussed, in fact, the very plan Wolfe adopted, but dismissed it by saying, "We need not suppose that the enemy have wings." The British ships were kept moving up and down the river front for several days, so as to distract and perplex the enemy. On September 12 Wolfe's plans were complete, and he issued his final orders. One sentence in them curiously anticipates Nelson's famous signal at Trafalgar. "Officers and men," wrote Wolfe, "will remember what their country expects of them." ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... accounts for what we call the circularity of her course. Her flight from home is direct and precipitate; but on her way back, when she has gained a little time for consideration and stratagem, she describes a curious labyrinth of short turnings and windings as if to perplex the dogs by the intricacy of ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... of the war to sound! This stillness doth perplex and harass me; An inward impulse drives me from repose, It still impels me to achieve my work, And sternly beckons me to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... God is Good, the belief in a Devil proceeds from a conviction that, 324-u. God Is, if a self-existent Force and its Intelligence are admitted, 100-m. God is Illimitable Time in the Zend-Avesta, 256-l. God is inconceivable; to investigate Him is but to perplex ourselves, 650-u. God is life itself, eternal and perfect, 681-u. God is not the Universe, though everywhere present in spirit and truth, 707-l. God is Omnipotent, but effects without causes are impossible, 846-m. God is one, a part of the Masonic old doctrine, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... shore Changeless as heaven, where never fog-cloud drifts Over its windless wood, nor mirage lifts The steadfast hills; where never birds of doubt Sing to mislead, and every dream dies out, And the dark riddles which perplex us here In the sharp solvent of its light are clear? Thou knowest how vain our quest; how, soon or late, The baffling tides and circles of debate Swept back our bark unto its starting-place, Where, looking forth upon the blank, gray space, And round ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the Bible, but of the right critical use of it. It has been used critically in building our theologies, but, to a large extent, amiss. Out of this wrong use of it has come the misconceptions in theology which to-day perplex our minds and bar the progress of religion. If we must use the Bible critically, let us by all means try to employ a true and thorough criticism. Let us not think to close every controversy by the phrase—The ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... light and make more plain His rugged oracle. I long to know How my dear mistress fares, and be inform'd What hand she now holds on the troubled blood Of her incensed lord. Methought the spirit (When he had utter'd his perplex'd presage) Threw his changed countenance headlong into clouds, His forehead bent, as it would hide his face, He knock'd his chin against his darken'd breast, And struck a churlish silence through his powers. Terror of darkness! O, thou king of flames! That with thy music-footed horse dost ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... pensum hang pendulum, appendix Pendo, pensum weigh compendium, expense Pes, pedis foot expedite, biped Peto seek impetus, compete *Plaudo, plausum clap, applaud explode, plausible *Plecto, plexum braid perplex, complexion *Pleo, pletum fill complement, expletive *Plus, pluris more surplus, plural Plico, plicatum fold reply, implicate Pono, positum place opponent, deposit Porto carry report, porter Potens, potentis ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... equanimity was that he always had the full command of all the resources of one of the most fertile minds that ever existed. Accordingly no complication of perils and embarrassments could perplex him. For every difficulty he had a contrivance ready; and, whatever may be thought of the justice and humanity of some of his contrivances, it is certain that they seldom failed to serve the purpose for which they ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... message as that of the day before. The caliph soon afterwards made his appearance at the divan, and immediately recognised Yussuf in his partial disguise. He observed to Giaffar, "Do you see there our friend Yussuf? I have him at last, and now I will perplex him not a little before he escapes me." The chief of the beeldars being called, stepped forward and made his obeisance. "What is the number of your corps?" inquired ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... youth and beauty, and still more, very probably, by the desire to annex her kingdom to their dominions. Mary, wishing to please Elizabeth, communicated often with her, to ask her advice and counsel in regard to her marriage. Elizabeth's policy was to embarrass and perplex the whole subject by making difficulties in respect to every plan proposed. Finally, she recommended a gentleman of her own court to Mary—Robert Dudley, whom she afterward made Earl of Leicester—one of her special favorites. The position of Dudley, and the circumstances ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and goldfish were put in the thin outer tank which extended all around the inner one. The fish, of course, swam about as they were in the habit of doing. The fact that they were in a much more restricted space did not seem to perplex or ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... through a chain of various complicated effects, an examination not properly conducted upon accurate analytical principles, instead of giving light upon a subject in which there had been obscurity and doubt, may only serve to perplex the understanding, and bring confusion into a subject which was before sufficiently distinct. To redress that evil, then, must require more labour and some address; and this is an inconveniency that may be looked for, more or less, in every ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... this blending of the human and divine does not weaken or perplex our affection for the friend we see; it intensifies and sublimates it. So, in the sense of communion with the unseen friend, it disturbs us not that we cannot say how much is there of the remembered personality, how much of the one eternal deity. The essence of what ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... world's Karma and was subject to its laws. As a God, He would not have felt the temptation any more than a man would feel the temptation of the earthworm. But as a man He was subject to the desires and ambitions that perplex and "devil" the race. And according to the rule that the greater the mental development the greater the power of such temptation toward self-aggrandizement (because of the mind being able to see more clearly the opportunities), Jesus was subjected ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... real, I am so," said he; "a spirit, too, I may claim to be, made thin by fantasy. Again, do not perplex yourself with such things. To-morrow you may find denser substance in me. Drink this composing draught, and close your eyes to those ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not disliking the antient arrangement of its interior, and perhaps unreasonably prejudiced against many of its modern innovations. The innovation that has long given me uneasiness, and which now seems most seriously to perplex the Irish Government, was the fatal institution of an Irish Cabinet, which has worked itself into being, considered almost as a component part of that deputed authority. A Government composed of Lords Justices, natives of that country, as a permanent establishment, absurd as such an expedient ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... weakened by long captivity and ill usage, she, an untaught girl, was questioned repeatedly for three months, by the most cunning and learned doctors in law of the Paris University. Often many spoke at once, to perplex her mind. But Joan always showed a wisdom which confounded them, and which is at least as extraordinary as her skill in war. She would never swear an oath to answer all their questions. About herself, and all matters bearing on ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... in some Degree a Solution of that Question that has perplex'd the Minds of so many serious Persons, viz. In what Manner will God deal with those benighted Parts of the World where the Gospel of Jesus Christ hath never reach'd? Now it appears from the Experience of ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
... rejoiced in it, as though he had found at last what he was seeking for; and, by the time that long vacation came round again, to which we are compelled to hurry him, he was filled full of a set of contradictory notions and beliefs, which were destined to astonish and perplex the mind of that worthy J. P. for the county of Berks, Brown the elder, whatever other effect they might have on ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... could find Him!" she exclaimed, passionately. "On the right hand and on the left I grope, but touch Him not. Why dost Thou fight against me?—why dost Thou scare and perplex me, O First and Only Fair? I have Thee not, and I need Thee." She added, "I am no Christian, you see, or I should have found Him; or at least I should ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... by three-fold scoff, When cares of life perplex us, To smoke, or sleep, or fiddle them off, And scorn ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... (literally, twisted together); complex'ion; complex'ity; perplex' (literally, to twist thoroughly—per: hence, to ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... before him. Up the crystal steps that lie beyond Omrazu he must go, and any that follow, though the howling of all the meteors that ride the sky; for in that part of the crystal space go many meteors up and down all squealing in the dark, which greatly perplex all travellers. And, if he may see though the gleaming of the meteors and in spite of their uproar come safely through, he shall come to the star Omrund at the edge of the Track of Stars. And from star to star along the Track of Stars the soul of a man may travel with more ease, and ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... when he showed you that the artifice of contrast was founded but on one principle. And I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing science, of clearing the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but perplex and puzzle the student when he compares them, or misguide him if he gives himself up to their authority; but bringing them under one general head can alone give rest and satisfaction ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... shoulder-blade, and, as slowly and silently I continued my course, he still stood gazing at me in utter astonishment. Bill and Flam were now slipped by the natives, and in another moment they were barking around him. I shouted loudly to encourage the dogs and perplex the elephant, who seemed puzzled to know what to think of us, and, shrilly trumpeting, charged headlong after the dogs. Retreating, he backed into the thicket, then charged once more, and made clean away, holding the course I wanted. When I tried to fire, "Sunday" was very fidgety, and destroyed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... such talk as I wanted to hear, for a man's wife can hold him devilish uneasy if she begins to scold and fret, and perplex him, at a time when he has a full load for a railroad car on his mind already. And so, you see, I determined not to break full-handed, but thought it better to keep a good conscience with an empty purse, than to get a bad ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... healing sense of comfort. She really did not know from where they were taken, but she found herself repeating them, and she knew that if she really agreed to marry Dent, she would give up far more than her life for Will. No questionings as to the right or the wrong of this action came to perplex her—she never for an instant supposed it possible that Will could prefer prison with the thought of her waiting for him at the end, to liberty with her lost to him forever. No, no; sailors, of all men, must be free—free as the wind or the air. Will must once ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... hinted at within! Did they not in this state of things, and with these circumstances, did not Governor Strong, and the federal party generally, seize hold of this alarming state of our affairs, to call the Convention at Hartford, and that not merely to perplex the government, but to be the organ of communication between the enemy and the malcontents? Did they not then talk loudly of our worm eaten Constitution; and did they not call the Union "a rope of sand," that could no longer hold together? ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... is proper for whoever hath power to think. Why shouldst not a woman think if by so doing she can find answer to some question that doth perplex ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... a hope of hitting the mark as any philosopher whatever can promise himself. Nay, it is almost more sure of doing so, because the philosopher cannot have any other principle, while he may easily perplex his judgement by a multitude of considerations foreign to the matter, and so turn aside from the right way. Would it not therefore be wiser in moral concerns to acquiesce in the judgement of common reason, or at most only to call in philosophy for the purpose of rendering the ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... 2. If thou lose thy soul, it is thou also that must bear the blame. It made Cain stark mad to consider that he had not looked to his brother Abel's soul. How much more will it perplex thee, to think, that thou hadst not a care of thy own? And if this will not provoke thee ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... themselves to the domination of the few? We believe that the days of this ignominious subjection are already numbered. Signs in heaven and on earth tell us that one of those movements has begun to be felt in the Northern mind, which perplex tyrannies everywhere with the fear of change. The insults and wrongs so long heaped upon the North by the South begin to be felt. The torpid giant moves uneasily beneath his mountain-load of indignities. The people of the North begin ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... stronger than time and far above beauty. It was the spell of a spirit and body planned for fascination and excelling in this indefinable power. Had she been born to ruin men? thought Sara. Had she been given a glamour and certain gifts merely to perplex, deceive, and destroy all those who came within the magic of her glance? History had its long, terrible catalogue of such women whose words are now forgotten, whose portraits leave us cold, yet ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... we have a lion in the flesh, our first care must be to determine upon the position and attitude it is to ultimately assume. Not to perplex the student too much, we determine that it shall take the attitude of our last example (Plate IV), or else that shown in Plate III. Accordingly, we arrange it on a platform just raised from the floor of the studio, when by propping and judicious ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... with our Moon, does prove the conformity of our Earth with those Planets, which carrying away their Moons with themselves, do turn about the Sun, and very probably make their Moons turn about them in turning themselves about their Axis; and also, that there is no cause to invent perplex'd and incredible Hypotheses, for the receding from this Analogie since (saith he) if this be truth, the Prohibitions of publishing this doctrine, which formerly were caused by the offence of Novelty, will be laid aside, as one of the most zealous Doctors of the contrary Opinion hath given ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... it and make it talk, relieve you of the whole thing, and make it indifferent to you for all time and accept no thanks for it. And you—you will go home relieved, cooled, and clarified, and wonder what there was in the matter that only a moment before could perplex you with so sweet a tumult. And would you seriously stand up for this cold and vain charlatan? What is uttered, so runs his confession of faith, is settled. If the whole world is put into speech, it is settled, redeemed, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... absorb all the energies of the colonists for many years to come, whatever may be the increase in their numbers. To mention, therefore, the endless less important productions to which the climate and soil of this colony are equally congenial, would only be to perplex their choice, and to divert, perhaps, their industry into less productive channels. It would be superfluous to dwell upon the happy results that would attend the general introduction and culture of these two productions, both with reference to them as articles ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... fragments of the photograph in the grate. In a corner of the room an old-fashioned clock ticked wheezily. A lump of coal fell out on the hearth, which she replaced mechanically with her foot. His silence seemed to irritate and perplex her. She looked away from him, drew her chair a little closer to the fire, and sat with her head resting upon her hands. Her ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... often great, when means were small, Will not perplex me any more at all A few short years at most (it may be less), I shall have done with earthly ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn
... brilliant, had appeared in English poetry for nearly two centuries. The reader was hurried along through scenes of rapid action, whose effect was heightened by wild landscapes and picturesque manners. The pleasure was a passive one. There was no deep thinking to perplex, no subtler beauties to pause upon; the feelings were stirred pleasantly, but not deeply; the effect was on the surface. The spell employed was novelty—or, at most, wonder—and the chief emotion aroused was breathless ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... even by bodily likenesses, as happened to Balthasar (Dan. 5:5), such a man is not to be considered a prophet, unless his mind be enlightened for the purpose of judgment; and such an apparition is something imperfect in the genus of prophecy. Wherefore some [*Rabbi Moyses, Doct. Perplex. II, xxxvi] have called this "prophetic ecstasy," and such is divination by dreams. And yet a man will be a prophet, if his intellect be enlightened merely for the purpose of judging of things seen in imagination by others, as in the case of Joseph who ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Their eager haste; then o'er the fallowed ground How leisurely they work, and many a pause Th' harmonious concert breaks; till more assured With joy redoubled the low valleys ring. What artful labyrinths perplex their way! Ah! there she lies; how close! she pants, she doubts If now she lives; she trembles as she sits, With horror seized. The withered grass that clings Around her head of the same russet hue ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... than you fancy. It may further your game with the agent Itzig; for, generally speaking, the effect of a search is to make the parties uncomfortable. And though I am not quite sure how Hippus will take it, I am inclined to believe it will perplex him. That may help you on. I will see, too, that the first search be clumsily and ostentatiously made. Fortunately, he has now a settled abode again; for some time he has had a respite from us, and has grown bold. I hear, too, that he is getting old and ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... People, and now 'tis riveted too fast for the Devil himself to remove it if he was disposed to try; but as I said above, 'tis none of his Business to solve Doubts or remove Difficulties out of our Heads, but to perplex us with more, as much as ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... distress were so great as to make her utterances only half coherent; and Ailsa, realizing that this sort of thing must only perplex Cleek, and leave him in the dark regarding the matter upon which they had come to ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... set resolve before him, and having done with it, he went his way. His plan was long since laid, and was simple enough. Demetri Agryopoulo was not the man to perplex himself with details until the time came for them to be useful. When that time came he could rely upon himself for invention. And so his plan was simply to take James Leland alone, and then and there to put an end to him. He had taken a room in a river-side ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... of actions; and, in the latter case, it may even have as good a hope of hitting the mark as any philosopher whatever can promise himself. Nay, it is almost more sure of doing so, because the philosopher cannot have any other principle, while he may easily perplex his judgment by a multitude of considerations foreign to the matter, and so turn aside from the right way. Would it not therefore be wiser in moral concerns to acquiesce in the judgment of common reason or at most only to call in philosophy for the purpose of rendering the system of morals more ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... probably no single evil which exists for which a solution has not been devised in the wonderful laboratory of visioning, the perversity of the subtle and mysterious thing called life is such that many great and grave evils continue to challenge, perplex, ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... crosses perplex me, and perils surround, Repose in my Saviour, my foes shall confound; No weapon shall prosper, or cause me to fear, But all shall be well, while His presence ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... out of him, and out of Aristotle, which Dubravius often quotes in his Discourse of Fishes: but it might rather perplex than satisfy you; and therefore I shall rather choose to direct you how to catch, than spend more time in discoursing either of the nature or the breeding of this Carp, or of any more circumstances concerning him. But yet I shall remember you of what I told you before, that ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... where we had found at Addison's, 87 Prince's Street, the most comfortable hotel in Great Britain, and went to Melrose, where we put up at the George. This is all travelled ground with me, so that I need not much perplex myself with further description, especially as it is impossible, by any repetition of attempts, to describe Melrose Abbey. We went thither immediately after tea, and were shown over the ruins by a ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... God," said Austin, "that I have learned to know him. I do not know what I should do if I did not have him to comfort me, for many things perplex me." "I gather from what your brother says of your home-life that your father is not ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... use of wrapping things up in mystery? But women delight in it! The more they can mystify and mislead and perplex you, and leave their real or their possible meaning doubtful and involved, the greater the pleasure they have. They will carry on a conversation for hours by hints, suggestions, ambiguous terms, allusions, phrases that may mean anything or nothing, and then leave at the end, in obscurity, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... announced with a sufficient parade of technical verbiage; nor is it so easy as might be thought, even for those who are acquainted with the facts, to disprove either a hoax or a paradox. Nothing, indeed, can much more thoroughly perplex and confound a student of science than to be asked to prove, for example, that the earth is not flat, or the moon not inhabited by creatures like ourselves; for the circumstance that such a question is asked implies ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... 'be kind to me, and don't perplex me like this.—Oh, my poor old boy, are you in love with ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... out of hand with neatness and precision. It was easy to make points, not easy to sum up and settle. It was not easy to find a clear issue for the dispute, and still less by a logical process to decide it in favour of Anglicanism. This difficulty, however, had no tendency whatever to harass or perplex me: it was a matter which bore not on ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... are real, I am so," said he; "a spirit, too, I may claim to be, made thin by fantasy. Again, do not perplex yourself with such things. To-morrow you may find denser substance in me. Drink this composing draught, and close your eyes to those things ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 136-254.] The pupil has been kept ignorant of all religion to the age of eighteen, "for if he learns it earlier than he should, he runs the risk of never knowing it." Without stopping to consider the dangers of this course, let us see what answer Rousseau gives to the greatest questions that perplex mankind. We may expect much sublime feeling, some ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... tenderness, won the young girl's hearty good-will. The only drawback was his inclination to pet her furtively even more. She wished that Webb was preparing the flower-beds, for then there would be nothing to perplex or worry her. But he, with his father and Leonard, was more prosaically employed, for they were at work in the main or vegetable garden. It was with a sense of immense relief that she heard Mrs. Clifford, after she had given her final directions, and gloated over ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... its distance Valancourt could not assist him to judge, for he had never been so far along this chain of Alps before. There was, however, a road to guide them; and there could be little doubt that it was the right one; for, since they had left Beaujeu, there had been no variety of tracks to perplex or mislead. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... as many as possible of the states concerned will rather tend to facilitate and simplify a rational scheme for preserving Spain (if that were our sole, as I think it ought to be our principal object) than to delay and perplex it. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... question. I envied my fellows their assurance; I, too, craved assurance, but I had to get it in my own way, and I was plunged into investigations, and beset by doubts that did not seem to occupy or perplex them. The question was, where could I find a point to start from; not what was the whole truth, but what was the truth I could be immediately sure of,—what was light that I could not question (or, at least, reasonably question)? ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... not what is justice, but, what is law? Do they not triumph most, and acquire most fame, when they can gain a cause in the very teeth of the law they profess to support and revere? Who is the greatest lawyer? Not he who can most enlighten, but he who can most perplex and confound the understanding of his hearers! He who can best brow-beat and confuse witnesses; and embroil and mislead the intellect of judge and jury. Yet the mischiefs I have mentioned are but the sprouts and branches of this tree of evil; ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... spirit thou hast sought, I woke those shadowy questionings that vex Thy young mind, lost in its own cloud of thought, And rouse the soul they trouble and perplex; I filled thy days with visions, and thy nights Blessed with all sweetest sounds ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... with double energy, and called Constable to the rescue; and, after some pause, the author very reluctantly consented to cancel and re-write about twenty-four pages, which was enough to obliterate, to a certain extent, the dreaded scandal—and, in a similar degree, as he always persisted, to perplex and weaken the course of his narrative, and the dark effect of ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... these things were matter of great Grief to him, and when he had perplex'd himself very much with the thoughts of them, and was now near seven Years Old, he despair'd utterly of having those things grow upon him, the want of which made him so uneasy. He therefore resolv'd to help himself, and thereupon gets him some Broad Leaves of Trees, of which he made two Coverings, ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... does it correspond with what he sees in others. Often and often the unlearned and untrained by sheer goodness of life attain to wonderful perception of spiritual truth, and the holiness of the unlettered peasant reveals to his conscience the law of right conduct in circumstances which perplex the disciplined and well informed. As the human race has learnt the highest spiritual truth by direct communication from God, so too on communion with God far more than on intellectual power, depends the progress of spiritual knowledge ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... die than humble himself. Jeremiah curses him and calls him the murderer of his people. The soldiers wish to throw him from the wall. Zedekiah restrains them. His calm, his forbearance, perplex Jeremiah, who lets the king depart without making any further effort to save him. The decisive moment has been lost. Jeremiah accuses himself of weakness; he feels himself impotent, and he despairs; he knows only how to cry aloud and to utter ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... Eraste, be satisfied with what I do now, and leave the future alone. Do not perplex me in my duty, by speaking of sad expedients to which we may not be obliged to have recourse. Allow me to be led by the ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere
... impulse strong Impels me, and its sacred lore, With honest purpose to explore, And render into my loved German tongue. (He opens a volume, and applies himself to it.) 'Tis writ, "In the beginning was the Word!" I pause, perplex'd! Who now will help afford? I cannot the mere Word so highly prize; I must translate it otherwise, If by the spirit guided as I read. "In the beginning was the Sense!" Take heed, The import of this primal sentence ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... two generations the traditional way of thinking about the Bible had not proved satisfactory. The more free-minded were conscious of its contradictions; they could not reconcile its earlier and later moral idealisms; they found in it as much to perplex as to help them. Some of them, therefore, disowned it altogether and because it was tied up in one bundle with religion, as they knew religion, they disowned religion at the same time. Others who accepted its authority but were unsatisfied with current interpretations ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... great severity towards that university which zealously adhered to the royal party; and showed himself a man who would go all lengths in favor of that cause which he had espoused. He would not allow his soldiers to perplex their heads with those subtleties of fighting by the king's authority against his person, and of obeying his majesty's commands signified by both houses of parliament: he plainly told them, that if he met the king in battle, he would fire a pistol ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... body, or new perception of our mind. This impression, like the preceding ones of pride and humility, love and hatred, it is impossible to define, and needless to describe any farther; for which reason we shall cut off all those definitions and distinctions, with which philosophers are wont to perplex rather than dear up this question; and entering at first upon the subject, shall examine that long disputed question concerning liberty and necessity; which occurs so naturally in treating of ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... grade. One competent to judge asserts that peace, not war, was the normal intertribal habit. They held frequent intercourse, gave feasts and presents, and practised unbounded hospitality. Through this traffic objects travelled far from home, and now come forth out of the tombs to perplex archaeologists. Remembering the organization of the tribe everywhere prevalent, it is not difficult to understand that the army, or horde, that stands for the idea, was assembled on the clan basis. The number of men arrayed under one banner, the time during which they might cohere, the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... indeed, a study for deep contemplation. A study to perplex the ordinary thinker, and task to the utmost the analysis of more profound reflection. William Gawtrey had possessed no common talents; he had discovered that his life had been one mistake; Lord Lilburne's ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wrote were intercepted, as well as those she wrote to him. She finds herself every Day perplex'd with the Addresses of the Prince she hated; he was ever sighing at her Feet. In vain were all her reproaches, and all her Coldness, he was on the surer Side; for what he found Love would not do, Force ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... dusky shape of the small vessel, hearing the ripple of the flood tide against the stone piers, and scarcely conscious of the bridge or the ship or the gray dimness of the sea, so profound was the concentration of his mind on this problem. It did not perplex him; it maddened him. He whispered a defiant protest to himself and walked on. He was able to think more calmly when he reached his room. There were the facts, the simple, undeniable facts, to be faced without shrinking,—and ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... moment she was as detached and disinterested as if she had no longer any lot in life, and she thought that she could now accept anything that came to her without being perplexed by the form in which it appeared. What was there to frighten or to perplex in the prospect of life? Why should this insight ever again desert her? The world was in truth so large, so hospitable, and after all it was so simple. "Love," St. John had said, "that seems to explain it all." Yes, but it was not the love of man ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... thought of pursuit or capture had arisen to perplex him. He had seemed such a tiny thing out there amidst the vastness of rolling hills, of woods, and plain that there had been induced within him an unconscious assurance that no one could find him even though ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were all children again, with no hearts to perplex us and no great temptations to try us," she said to herself as she rested a minute in a quiet nook while her partner went to get a glass of water. Right in the midst of this half-sad, half-sentimental reverie, she heard a familiar voice behind her say earnestly: "And allophite is the new hydrous ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... poor Poe, all whose opportunities were wasted, spoiled, or flung away. It is the most difficult thing in the world to arrive at anything like a complete idea of the identity of so fantastic a man as the author of the "Raven." The faults, inconsistencies, and contradictions of his character perplex and dismay one the more closely one looks into his letters and the minor incidents of his career. Mr. Woodbury has, however, acquitted himself well in this difficult task, and has in many cases separated truth from long-accepted fiction and given us a clear picture ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... nephew of Bishop Kennedy, Patrick Graham, Kennedy's successor as Bishop of St Andrews, now perplex the historian. Graham dealt for himself with the Pope, obtained the rank of Archbishop for the Bishop of St Andrews (1472), and thus offended the king and country, always jealous of interference from Rome. But he was ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... whom Saul and his servant had resolved to consult is very common in all lands at a certain stage of knowledge and civilization,—a personage who, without much reliance on Divine aid, could amuse the curiosity of a rustic and perplex his ignorance with an ambiguous answer. But the age of Samuel required more solid qualifications in the prophets, and hence the term seer had already given way to that of expounder or master of eloquence and wisdom. The expedient suggested by the attendant of the son of ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... knew a maid, A young enthusiast ... Her eye was not the mistress of her heart; Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste Or barren, intermeddling subtleties, Perplex her mind; but wise as women are When genial circumstance hath favoured them, She welcomed what was given, and craved no more, Whate'er the scene presented to her view. That was the best, to that she was attuned By her benign simplicity of life, ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... power. It is not surprising that the true worth of such a nature was not accurately apprehended. Minds that are self-poised, stately, irresponsive to human weakness, unconventional and self-liberated from allegiance to the commonplace are not fully and instantly discernible, and may well perplex the smiling glance of frivolity; but they are permanent forces in the education of the human race. Mary Anderson retired from the stage, under the pressure of extreme fatigue, in the beginning of 1889 and entered upon a matrimonial life on June 17, 1890. It is believed that her retirement is permanent. ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... he burst into his house, and flung himself into his own chair by the chimney corner, whence he gazed on what was calculated to alarm as well as to perplex him. This was the spectacle of his own wife taking tea in floods of tears, and being encouraged in her difficult task by Mrs Penrose and a few ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... pride that was perpetually taking offence at trifling failures in etiquette, of which Lord Oldborough, intent upon great objects, was sometimes guilty. There is a class of politicians who err by looking for causes in too high a sphere, and by attributing the changes which perplex states and monarchs to great passions and large motives. Lord Oldborough was one of this class, and with all his talents would have failed in every attempt to comprehend and conciliate the Duke of Greenwich, had he not been assisted by the inferior genius ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the sake of argument, the constitutionality of the bank to be one of those difficult and complicated questions about which men's minds may always be divided, and that there are reasons on either side, sufficient, if not to convince, to perplex and bewilder, and to afford pretexts for those who seek some sinister or selfish ends—and of such character are most constitutional questions—we would ask, if this is never to have a termination? ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... giving Wilfrid her history in the garden, the ladies of Brookfield were holding consultation over a matter which was well calculated to perplex and irritate them excessively. Mr. Pole had received a curious short epistle from Mrs. Chump, informing him of the atrocious treatment she had met with at the hands of his daughter; and instead of reviewing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... uncle the bishop!—I must tell you how I helped Vetranio to make a satire on him! When I was staying with him at Rome, I used often to see a woman in a veil taken across the garden to his study; so, to perplex him, I asked him who she was. And he frowned and stammered, and said at first that I was disrespectful; but he told me afterwards that she was an Arian whom he was labouring to convert. So I thought I should like to see how this conversion went on, and I hid myself behind a bookcase. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the phrase goes) is not the only advantage which Corinne possesses over its forerunner. Delphine is almost avowedly autobiographical; and though Madame de Stael had the wit and the prudence to mix and perplex her portraits and her reminiscences so that it was nearly impossible to fit definite caps on the personages, there could be no doubt that Delphine was herself—as she at least would have liked to be—drawn as close as she dared. These personalities have in the hands of the really great ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... climbed the hill. By that time they were well beyond the farthest point toward the mountains which any one else believed the child could have reached, and there were no footprints of previous searchers to perplex their eyes or blot out such traces as they might find. From the top of the hill they saw the great body of men again scattering out over the mesa, and knew that ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... of a more important kind, which, it may be hoped, will now no longer perplex the ignorant, or furnish matter of cavil to the ill-intentioned. After the great discovery, or at least the full confirmation of the great discovery, of the vicinity of the two continents of Asia and America, we trust that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... course, he was wrong in thinking you can multiply money by money. The multiplier must be regarded as an abstract number. It is true that two feet multiplied by two feet will make four square feet. Similarly, two pence multiplied by two pence will produce four square pence! And it will perplex the reader to say what a "square penny" is. But we will assume for the purposes of our puzzle that twopence multiplied by twopence is fourpence. Now, what two amounts of money will produce the next smallest possible result, the same in both cases, when ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... winter's cauld or simmer's heat; They've nae sair wark to craze their banes. [hard] An' fill auld age wi' grips an' granes: [gripes, groans] But human bodies are sic fools. For a' their colleges and schools, That when nae real ills perplex them, They make enow themselves to vex them, An' aye the less they hae to sturt them, [fret] In like proportion less will hurt them. A country fellow at the pleugh, His acres till'd, he's right eneugh; A country lassie at her ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... return of his betrothed. He chided himself that he had allowed her father to persuade him against following her to the cabin of her mother. Then doubt began to perplex him; then suspicion. A bird croaked significantly as it flew above his head. He could not longer endure inaction. Kaala's footprints were still traceable in the sand. He would go as far as they might lead. He set ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... what our father oft has told us: The ways of Heav'n are dark and intricate, Puzzled in mazes, and perplex'd with errors; Our understanding traces them in vain, Lost and bewilder'd in the fruitless search; Nor sees with how much art the windings run, Nor where the regular ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... sought to perplex her by asking why, since God had willed that France should be delivered through her, she had need ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... night, always guarded by five English soldiers. Weakened by long captivity and ill usage, she, an untaught girl, was questioned repeatedly for three months by the most cunning and learned doctors of law of the Paris University. Often many spoke at once, to perplex her mind. But Joan always showed a wisdom which confounded them, and which is at least as extraordinary as her skill in war. She would never swear an oath to answer all their questions. About herself, and all matters bearing on her own conduct, she would answer. About the king, and the secrets ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... mistaken his man. He had never happened before to see him in one of his violent moods, and fancied that his apathetic manner indicated a person more easily bullied. There was something, too, in the tone and look of Captain Lake which went a good way to confound and perplex his suspicions, and he half fancied that the masterstroke he had hazarded was a rank and irreparable blunder. Something of this, I am sure, appeared in his countenance, and Captain Lake looked awfully savage, and each gentleman ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... third with candour interfer'd; She thought that oft the god of love appear'd, Good husbands playfully to fret and vex, Sometimes to rally couples: then perplex; But warmer as the conversation grew, She, anxious that each disputant might view Herself victorious, (or believe it so,) Exclaim'd, if either of you wish to show Who's in the right, with argument have done, And let us practise some new scheme of fun, To ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... away, oppressed and disquieted, as from other mysterious actualities common enough to human observation, such as illness, disease, deformity, old age, the pains of birth and of death. Such matters might perplex and sadden, or arouse her indignant pity; but, being strong with the confidence of untouched youth and innocence, they were powerless, in and by themselves, to terrify her to the contemptible extremity of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... kennels' absent odours she regrets, And stops her nose at beds of violets. Is stormy life preferr'd to the serene? Or is the public to the private scene? Retir'd, we tread a smooth and open way; Through briers and brambles in the world we stray; Stiff opposition, and perplex'd debate, And thorny care, and rank and stinging hate, Which choke our passage, our career control, And wound the firmest temper of our soul. O sacred solitude! divine retreat! Choice of the prudent! envy of the ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... the softness of her sex, Her face had all the sweetness of the devil When he put on the cherub to perplex Eve, and to pave, Heaven knows how, ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... to tell that the natives had killed the rest of our crew. I told him that the people on board the schooner knew there were two alive, and if they killed us, the crew of the vessel would kill all the natives. This appeared to perplex his mind, and he shortly left me, and retired ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... think somewhat less of men's opinions, When you are following the will of Heaven. Shall petty fear of what the world may think Prevent the doing of a noble deed? No!—let us always do as Heaven commands, And not perplex ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... let the thoughts of death perplex thy fancy; But answer me to what I shall demand, With a firm ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... and the scented glades of the tropics were mine to wander through. Yes, a dreamer's Paradise, for I was only sixteen then, and untroubled by any thoughts of Love; yet sometimes Its shadow would enter and vaguely perplex me, a strange shape, waiting always beyond, in the midst of my glowing gardens, and I sighed with a prescient pain. How have I known Love since those days? As yet it has brought me but two things—Sorrow and Expectation. In that fragmentary love-time that was mine, I well remember one ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... plants and goldfish were put in the thin outer tank which extended all around the inner one. The fish, of course, swam about as they were in the habit of doing. The fact that they were in a much more restricted space did not seem to perplex or vex them. ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... to know me; weak, as I am, and in the weeds of this time; only with eyes which seek out labour, and with a faith, not learned, yet jealous of prayer. Do this; so shall thy soul stand before thee always, and perplex thee ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again, stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee, and after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments, looked round at us and said ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... ugliness. Or did their eyes see it, and did they disdain it? Do they owe their art to a wise festheticism, or to a fortunate limitation of sight? These are questions that none may answer, but which rise up in our mind and perplex us when we enter the New Gallery; for verily it would seem, from the dream pictures there, that a time once existed upon earth when the world was fair as a garden, and life was a happy aspiration. In the fifteenth century the world seems to have been made of gold, jewellery, pictures, ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... interval ... during which I have been doing a good many things, my greatest enjoyment and pleasure being the receipt at last of two sets of letters from home.... I have a great heap of despatches, some of which seem rather likely to perplex me. I daresay, however, that I shall see my way through the mist in a day or two.... I had a levee last evening, which was largely attended. The course which I am about to follow does not square with the views of the merchants, but I gave an answer to their ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... based upon arithmetical principles, and algebraic formulae until then unknown, but which appeared mystical and appalling from the fact that they were incomprehensible. The book was written in a style well calculated to perplex, astonish, or terrify the readers, especially those who were not well stocked with intelligence. It is therefore not remarkable that it caused a commotion wherever it was circulated. The judgment day was the topic of discourse and persons of ungodly lives and conversation ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... goes with me? Who is it wills King Richard free? He who bravely toils and dares, Pain and danger with me shares,— He whose heart is true and warm, Though the night perplex with storm Forest, plain, and dark morass, Hanging-rock and mountain-pass, And the thunder bursts ablaze,— Is the lover ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... and interrogatories,—accounts opposed to accounts,—balances now on the one side, now on the other,—now debtor becomes creditor, and creditor debtor,—until the proceedings were grown to the size of volumes, and the whole well fitted to perplex the most simple facts, and to darken the meridian sunshine of public notoriety. They prepared a report for the Governor-General and Council suitable to the whole tenor of their proceedings. Here the man whom they had employed and betrayed appeared in a new character. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Member. Here boy, two! Now, able to understand it; for, how am I to pay you? after all, this was the question of the poor, and the Boy. Give you change, your whole weight of the change honor. would fall upon them. Let the rich by all means have Member. Ah! but how? Where's permission to perplex your ready-reckoner? themselves by any division of a pound they pleased; but do Boy. I sells a better sort not let them, by any nor them. Mine's real Cheyny. experiment like this, impose difficulties upon the poor and Member. But ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... the spheres, He lighten'd in their eyes, and thunder'd in their ears. The assembly felt the shock, the immortal sound, His Attic rival's fainter accents drown'd. But now so many candidates for fame In countless crowds and gay confusion came, That Memory seem'd her province to resign, Perplex'd and lost amid the lengthen'd line. Yet Solon there I spied, for laws renown'd, Salubrious plants in clean and cultured ground; But noxious, if malignant hands infuse In their transmuted stems a baneful juice Amongst the ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... English language be Dutch{199}, yet it may be said to have been inoculated afterwards on a French stock". He may know that the Dutch is a sister language or dialect to our own; but this that it is the mother or root of it will certainly perplex him, and he will hardly know what to make of the assertion; perhaps he ascribes it to an error in his author, who is thereby unduly lowered in his esteem. But presently in the course of his reading he meets with the following statement, this time in Fuller's Holy War, being a history of ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... mind what this should mean, And why that lovely lady plained so; Perplex'd in thought at that mysterious scene, And doubting if 'twere best to stay or go, I cast mine eyes in wistful gaze around, When from the shades came slow a small and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... who would have satisfied us in all the questions we had thought proper to ask; and as the objects were before us, we could not well have misunderstood each other. It happened unluckily that Oedidee was not with us in the morning; for Tee, who was the only man we could depend on, served only to perplex us. Matters being thus cleared up, and mutual presents having passed between Otoo and me, we took leave and returned ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... Sicard at Mazaro with picks, shovels, hurdles, and slaves, having come to build a fort and custom-house at the Kongone. As we had no good reason to hide the harbour, but many for its being made known, we supplied him with a chart of the tortuous branches, which, running among the mangroves, perplex the search; and with such directions as would enable him to find his way down to the river. He had brought the relics of our fugitive mail, and it was a disappointment to find that all had been lost, with the exception of a bundle of old newspapers, two photographs, and three letters, which had ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... tell them?—about the execution of my father? It wouldn't be funny. Better be a disguised Russian prince and make them swallow a lot of stuff about the Emperor Alexander. Or I might be Cousin, and talk philosophy; oh, couldn't I perplex 'em! But no, that shabby fellow with the tousled head looks to me as if he had jogged his way through the Sorbonne. What a pity! I can mimic an Englishman so perfectly I might have pretended to be Lord Byron, travelling incognito. Sapristi! I'll ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... use to congress. The powers of that body are already defined, and those powers cannot be amended, confirmed or diminished by ten thousand resolutions. Is not that the guide and rule of this legislature. A multiplicity of laws is reprobated in any society, and tend but to confound and perplex. How strange would a law appear which was to confirm a law; and how much more strange must it appear for this body to pass resolutions to confirm the constitution under which they sit! This is the case with others of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Lucie; "but I was most unwilling to involve you in my difficulties, and expose you to my uncle's displeasure; in time, all would have been known to you; I should have taken no important step without your advice; and why should I perplex you, with what could now be ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... father spoke. When she returned, she had a demure, secretive expression on her face which made Harry stare at her in bewilderment. All his life Harry Edgham had been helpless and bewildered before womenkind, and now his little daughter was beginning to perplex him. She sat down and took up a piece of fancy-work, and her father continued to glance at her furtively over his paper. Presently he spoke of ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... me in a difficulty. I know not what I would have done. I don't know even what I ought to do under these circumstances. Difficulties may perplex me, and the force of circumstances might tempt me to do what I believed to be wrong. I am a sinner, Jacques, like other mortals, I know; but one thing I am quite sure of—namely, that when men speak it should always ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... court; yea, before the records thereof were perfected, themselves came down and told it in Universe. At last it came to the ears, as I said, of Diabolus, to his no little discontent; for you must think it would perplex him to hear of such a design against him. Well, but after a few casts in his mind, he concluded upon these ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... before him. He holds out his hand; she gives her own and meets his parting kiss in the matter-of-course way of a ten years' matrimony, and forth goes the middle-aged Mr. Wakefield, almost resolved to perplex his good lady by a whole week's absence. After the door has closed behind him, she perceives it thrust partly open and a vision of her husband's face through the aperture, smiling on her and gone in a moment. For the time this little ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Maynooth college, every thing is done to irritate and perplex—every thing is done to efface the slightest impression of gratitude from the Catholic mind; the very hay made upon the lawn, the fat and tallow of the beef and mutton allowed, must be paid for and accounted upon oath. It is true, this economy in miniature ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... viewed, and to our being seldom within a mile of it. The geologist would here have a most interesting field for research, and would doubtless be enabled to account for those natural phenomena, which, from their defiance of all rule, perplex us so greatly. These mountains abound with coal and slate. The dip of the rocks on this side (the north) of the glen, is about twenty degrees ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... steaming pot and ran back to the cupboard in all haste. A single little bowl was on the shelf. That did not perplex Heidi though, for she saw two glasses standing behind. With those three things ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... workshops, and thus was the North inoculated with the Renaissance, and thus began the second phase of the supreme excellency of Flemish tapestries. It was the Renaissance expressing itself in the wondrous textile art. The weavers were already perfect in their work, no change of drawing could perplex them. But to their deftness with their medium was now added the rich invention of the Italian artists of the Renaissance, at the period of perfection when restraint and delicacy ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... so false a step she started from a true belief that Girard had ceased to care much for Cadiere. But she might have guessed that he had other things to perplex him in Toulon. He was disturbed by an affair no longer turning upon a young girl, but on a lady of ripe age, easy circumstances, and good standing; on his wisest penitent, Mdlle. Gravier. Her forty years failed to protect ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... finally destroyed; "the flesh is always lusting against the spirit,'" Gal. v. 17; "for they are contrary one to the other." So that though, to our sense, it may sometimes appear as sleeping, in regard that it doth not by some particular lust so molest and perplex the soul as formerly it did: yet it is restless, and may be more active in another lust, and so by changing weapons on us, deceive us. Here then is much spiritual wisdom and vigilancy required. When they think they have gotten one lust subdued, they must not think the war ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... cheerfulness, his energetic manner, and his fine fresh complexion gave him the looks of one between thirty and thirty-five. On the contrary, although Hiram Meeker was scarcely twenty, and had never had a care nor a thought to perplex him, he at the same time possessed a certain experienced look which made you doubtful of his age. If one had said he was twenty, you would assent to the proposition; if pronounced to be thirty, you would consider it near the mark. So, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... spoke of the new novel in high tones of praise, the public read it with avidity. The authorship, for a time, continued to perplex people. In spite of the masculine pseudonym, certain feminine qualities, niceties of perception and tenderness, were plainly recognized in the work, but the possibility that so vigorous and well-executed a composition could come from a feminine hand was one then reckoned scarcely admissible. ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... which the poor old creature was subjected had disturbed her costume not a little. Her shawl came nearly off, and, holding on by one pin, fluttered like a flag of defiance. Her slippers, which were of the carpet pattern, were left behind on the prairie to perplex the wolves, and her voluminous hair—once a rich auburn, but now a pearly grey—having escaped its cap and fastenings, was streaming out gaily in the breeze, as if to tempt the fingers and knife ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... sense of decent comfort. Rose always knew very well what it was she wanted, and she knew very well what was the right way to do to get everything she wanted, and she never had any kind of trouble to perplex her. And so the subtle intelligent attractive half white girl Melanctha Herbert loved and did for, and demeaned herself in service to this coarse, decent, sullen, ordinary, black, childish Rose and now this unmoral promiscuous shiftless Rose was to be married to a good man of the negroes, ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... did not occur to me that the thing might be so well known, that a mere hint of the feelings concerned, would enable any older person to classify the consciousness. I said to myself I should merely perplex my uncle. And in truth I believe that love, in every mind in which it arises, will vary in colour and form—will always partake of that mind's individual isolation in difference. This, however, is ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... sit as commodiously as possible, and place yourself opposite to him, on a seat a little more elevated, in such a manner that his knees may be betwixt yours, and your feet at the side of his. First, request him to resign himself; to think of nothing; not to perplex himself by examining the effects which may be produced; to banish all fear; to surrender himself to hope, and not to be disturbed or discouraged if the action of magnetism should cause in him momentary pains. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... by the first projection; and every age has, or imagines it has, its own circumstances, which render past experience no longer applicable to the present case; that there will never be wanting answers, and explanations, and specious flatteries of hope, to persuade and perplex its government, that the history of the past is inapplicable to their case. And no wonder, if we read history for the facts, instead of reading it for the sake of the general principles, which are to the facts as the root and sap of a tree to its leaves: and no wonder if history so read should ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... upon which to purchase the original edition! The reviewer has illustrated his position by a model of the Pigot diamond; and intimates that this model does not "lessen the public desire to possess the original." Lord Mansfield once observed that nothing more frequently tended to perplex an argument than a simile—(the remark is somewhere in Burrows's Reports); and the judge's dictum seems here a little verified. If the glass or crystal model could reflect all the lustre of the original, it would be of equal utility; but it cannot. Now the reprint does ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of a strenuous and pure soul in a rationalistic atmosphere. In the day of scientific test and of skepticism, of the readjustment of conventions and the overthrow of sacrosanct traditions, one whose life is that of thought rather than of action finds much to perplex, to weary, and to sadden. So it was with the Swiss professor. He was always in the sanctum sanctorum of his spirit, striving to attain the truth; with Hamlet-like irresolution he poised in mind before the antinomies of the universe, alert to see around a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that of high forest trees, the vineyards being short cut, and supported by white sticks, the size of those which in our flower gardens support a favourite carnation; and these placed close together by thousands on a hill rather perplex than please a spectator of the country, who must wait till he recollects the superiority of their produce, before he prefers them to a Herefordshire orchard or a ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... come off quite scatheless, however," said Redding, rubbing the top of his head tenderly, "for here is a bump that would perplex the ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tomb-stone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate—as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport—there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which may serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... boughs of the dense forest that lined the adjacent shores to their very junction with the water. The darkness of the night, moreover, while it promised to shield them from the observation of the savages, contributed greatly to perplex their movements; for such was the abruptness with which the river wound itself round in various directions, that it required a man constantly on the alert at the bows to apprise the helmsman of the course he should steer, to avoid collision with the shores. Canopies of weaving branches met in ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... that I knew not whether I was asleep or awake; but being persuaded that I was not asleep, I recited the following words in Arabic aloud: "Call upon the Almighty, he will help thee; thou needest not perplex thyself about any thing else: shut thy eyes, and while thou art asleep, God will change thy bad fortune ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... at first, than the real trees, because the black profile in the drawing is quite stable, and does not shake, and is not confused by sparkles of luster on the leaves,) you may try the extremities of the real trees, only not doing much at a time, for the brightness of the sky will dazzle and perplex your sight. And this brightness causes, I believe, some loss of the outline itself; at least the chemical action of the light in a photograph extends much within the edges of the leaves, and, as it were, eats them away, so that ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... at Paris, to determine the disputes between the two crowns, relating to the boundaries of Nova Scotia; and we took notice in general of the little arts of evasion practised by the French commissaries, to darken and perplex the dispute, and elude the pretensions of his Britannic majesty. They persisted in employing these arts of chicanery and cavil with such perseverance, that the negotiation proved abortive, the conferences ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... walk, for fear of interview, the weakling's walk * Who sees two lion whelps the fount draw nigh: My cloak acts sword, my heart's perplex'd with fright, * Lest jealous hostile eyes th' approach descry: Till sudden hapt I on a delicate maid * Like desert-doe that fails her fawns ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... gave as much of his conversation with the wizard as sufficed to utterly perplex his mother's mind without enlightening it much. When he had finished, or rather had come to an abrupt stop, she looked at ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... Nature on one happy mind, 140 A motley figure, of the Fribble tribe, Which heart can scarce conceive, or pen describe, Came simpering on—to ascertain whose sex Twelve sage impannell'd matrons would perplex. Nor male, nor female; neither, and yet both; Of neuter gender, though of Irish growth; A six-foot suckling, mincing in Its gait; Affected, peevish, prim, and delicate; Fearful It seem'd, though of athletic make, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... which they intimidate some and encourage others, you shall take measures, immediately upon receipt of this, to inform the superiors of those religious, so that they may be warned and advise their subordinates of it, so that they may not perplex themselves or meddle in any case of these secular judicial proceedings, or with claims of third parties. For their occupation does not consist in this, but in the contemplative life, and in the exercise of the spiritual ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... frolicsome young goat. Peter kindly takes the goat into custody, but it escapes into the wood, and the apostle is so much fatigued by his efforts to recover the animal that he is led to this conclusion: "If I am not competent to keep even one young goat in my care, it cannot be my proper business to perplex myself about the management of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... information in reference to both books may be found in Dr. S. Davidson's Introd. to the Old Testament (1862), vol. ii. p. 174 seq., 352 seq. It is deeply interesting to observe, not merely that the difficulties concerning Providence felt by Job refer to the very subjects which painfully perplex the modern mind, but also that the friends of Job exhibit the instinctive tendency which is observed in modern times to denounce his doubt as sin, not less than to attribute his trials to evil as the direct cause. These two books of Scripture, together with ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... and shadows are wonderfully rendered, and the work is characterized by a softness, a beauty, and a finish only to be observed in work which took the artist's fancy. This etching is entitled, Rougemont's Device to Perplex Auriol; and Ainsworth's story which it illustrates—a peculiarly unsatisfactory one—commenced, I think, in "Ainsworth's Magazine," passed into the "New Monthly," when its author purchased that periodical in 1845, and (whether the novelist got himself ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... the danger vanishes, and resolution rises upon this subject. For this reason I shall talk very freely on a custom which all men wish exploded, though no man has courage enough to resist it. But there is one unintelligible word which I fear will extremely perplex my dissertation, and I confess to you I find very hard to explain, which is, the term "satisfaction." An honest country gentleman had the misfortune to fall into company with two or three modern men of honour, where he happened to be very ill-treated; and one of the company being ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... blood upon such testimony: an English judge and Crown advocate would never have acted as these Frenchmen have done; the latter inflaming the public mind by exaggerated appeals to their passions: the former seeking, in every way, to draw confessions from the prisoner, to perplex and confound him, to do away, by fierce cross-questioning and bitter remarks from the bench, with any effect that his testimony might have on the jury. I don't mean to say that judges and lawyers ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thoughts, blind angers, and fierce hands, That keep this restless world at strife, Mean passions that, like choking sands, Perplex ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... haud awa' frae me, kind sir, I pray don't me perplex, For I'll na lie in your bed till ye answer questions six: Questions six ye maun answer me, and that is four and twa, Before I lie in your bed, at either ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... Napoleon and Jomini, "that fortifications should always be constructed on important strategic points," is undoubtedly the correct one: but how to determine these points is a question that will often perplex the patience and try the skill of the engineer; yet determine them he must, or his fortifications will be worse than useless; for a fort improperly located, like a cannon with its fire reversed on its own artillerists, will be sure to effect the destruction of the very forces it was ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... may be much to try and perplex. Sense and sight may stagger, and stumble, and fall; we may be able to see no break in the clouds; "deep may be calling to deep," and wave responding to wave, "yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... For the low rote of waves upon a shore Changeless as heaven, where never fog-cloud drifts Over its windless wood, nor mirage lifts The steadfast hills; where never birds of doubt Sing to mislead, and every dream dies out, And the dark riddles which perplex us here In the sharp solvent of its light are clear? Thou knowest how vain our quest; how, soon or late, The baffling tides and circles of debate Swept back our bark unto its starting-place, Where, looking forth upon the blank, gray space, And round about us seeing, with sad eyes, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
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