"Baffled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are weak, and not permitted to perform public worship to God. When our first mother, who was not attended with those weaknesses, either sinful or natural, as our women now are, stept out of her place but to speak a good word for worship, you see how she was baffled, and befooled therein; she utterly failed in the performance, though she briskly attempted the thing. Yea she so failed thereabout, that at one clap she overthrew, not only, as to that, the reputation of women for ever, but her soul, her husband, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the forest, making a circle first to one side and then to the other. As they advanced they stirred up several birds and also two squirrels but did not fire at them. Thus an hour passed, and at last they came back to the spring utterly baffled. ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... Spartans led to fight, And made them conquer in the muse's right; So would our poet lead you on this day, Showing your tortured fathers in his play. To one well born the affront is worse, and more, When he's abused and baffled by a boor: With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do, They've both ill nature and ill manners too. Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation, For they were bred ere manners were in fashion, And their new commonwealth has set them free, Only from ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... resounding plunge the elephantine quarry struck the water and was gone. The tiger cat, forced to relinquish its hold or drown, swam hurriedly back to the bank below the encampment, where it roared and spat and squalled in a blood-chilling paroxysm of baffled fury. And though every man was awakened, not one left the flimsy shelter of his net. Nor did anyone so much as speak until Tim, wearying of the noise, announced his intention to "go bust that critter in the nose and give him somethin' ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... his last position on the heights near Saratoga; and hemmed in by the enemy, who refused any encounter, and baffled in all his attempts at finding a path of escape, he there lingered until famine compelled him to capitulate. The fortitude of the British army during this melancholy period has been justly eulogised by many native historians, but I prefer quoting the testimony of a foreign writer, as free from all ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... unceremoniously took a seat at the same table. This was just the opportunity which the piqued nobleman had desired. Maurice returned his salutation politely, but with an occupied air which seemed to forbid conversation. But Lord Linden was not to be baffled. He opened a periodical, and, after listlessly turning the leaves, closed it, and, leaning over the table in the direction of Maurice, said, with ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... And turned him from the opposing rock; Then, dashing down a darksome glen, Soon lost to hound and Hunter's ken, In the deep Trossachs' wildest nook 145 His solitary refuge took. There, while close couched, the thicket shed Cold dews and wild-flowers on his head, He heard the baffled dogs in vain Rave through the hollow pass amain, 150 Chiding the ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... September, 1733, as the books in Doctors' Commons show, letters of administration on his goods and chattels were granted to Mary Brooks, widow, a creditrix, after summoning in official form the next of kin to appear. Now, if Defoe had been driven from his home by imaginary fears, and had baffled with the cunning of insane suspicion the efforts of his family to bring him back, there is no apparent reason why they should not have claimed his effects after his death. He could not have died ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... is disconcerting. The actual refuses to make terms with the ideal. It is a vast storehouse of historical material, but the imagination is baffled in the attempt to ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... He had baffled with his bemuddled brain, to recall the conversation he had held with his wife since his return home to marry her, and every innocent word she had uttered in jest had seemed guilty and foul. "You've been nothing but a fool, Davy," he told himself. ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... witnesses before the committee of that year; nor are the proceedings of those of 1838, 1840, and 1844, less interesting. In the third of the four Gibbon Wakefield, under examination, tells the story of the New Zealand Association. In 1839 it became the New Zealand Land Company. Baffled in Parliament, as already described, the colonizers changed their ground, decided to propitiate the powers, and become a joint-stock company. Having done so, and subscribed a capital of L100,000, they tried to enlist the ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... "Baffled!" he exclaimed, with a slight vexed laugh, as the boat vanished from his sight. "By a woman, too! Who would have ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... communicate with me. In the first place, she must inform one of her attendants that she has been robbed. He must communicate the news to the functionary in charge of her residence, who will communicate with the Home Secretary, and from him will issue the orders to the police, who, baffled at every step, will finally address themselves to me. 'I'll give that side two weeks,' I said. On the other hand, the robber: will he allow himself to be lulled into a false sense of security by counting on this ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... it had made no difference at any time. He cared for neither praise nor blame. In his actions a materialist, in his mind he was a watcher of life, a baffled inquirer whose refuge was irony, and whose singular habits had in five years become a personal insult to the standards polite society and Puritan morality had set up. Perhaps the insult had been intended, for irregularities were ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... at him a look of perplexed and baffled wonder. That brown, indomitable face, back of which was so much strength of purpose and so much keenness of apprehension, began to fill him with alarm. This man let no obstacles stop him. He would ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... was the voice of revenge speaking loudly in his soul. That man, his instrument, now his master, Paul Lowther, must be brought down, and his time-serving sponsor with him. But how? There was but one way—by denouncing himself. Yes, that was the sole outlet for his outraged and baffled spirit. He must go to the proper quarter and say, "I have perjured myself, and sworn away my brother's liberty. The man who was condemned as Paul Drayton is Paul ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... non-committal eyes his own fell baffled. He was more irritated than he cared to own. Could she not see that he was prepared for anything, that his self-control was as great as her own? She treated him like a child; those professional reserves, necessary, doubtless, in the case of Peter ...
— In The Valley Of The Shadow • Josephine Daskam
... the dust, the Company and their fellow-sufferers, Jefferson Worth's cool, even tones and unruffled spirit helped them to a needed self-control and gave them a new and stronger grip on things. And many a baffled, discouraged and well-nigh beaten settler, ready to give up, found in the man whose gray, mask-like face seemed so incapable of expression, fresh inspiration and new courage; while the store continued its policy of helping the worthy, hard-pressed ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... perforce, obliged to let the matter rest. She went her way angry and vexed beyond measure, and somewhat baffled too. How is a mother to deal with a daughter who is so determined and so defiant as was Beatrice Miller? There is no known method in civilized life of reducing a young lady of twenty to submission in matters of the heart. She could not whip ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... about boils. I merely mentioned that Job had them. Yes, I agree with you, Aunt Dahlia, that things are not looking too oojah-cum-spiff at the moment, but be of good cheer. A Wooster is seldom baffled for more than ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... at his side. The two men's glances countered, held each other, one calm, dignified, unafraid; the other, murderous, searching, baffled. Presently, McTurpin turned and strode away. Windham looked after the departing gambler. "'Fraid I've spoiled his morning," he remarked ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... putrefactive stages which were to follow in the victory and decline of Puritanism. Old forms of belief and worship still lingered, all the more touching to Fancy, perhaps, that they were homeless and attainted; the light of sceptic day was baffled by depths of forest where superstitious shapes still cowered, creatures of immemorial wonder, the raw material of Imagination. The invention of printing, without yet vulgarizing letters, had made the thought and history of the entire past ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... safety. Two or three times Brun was on the point of being caught, but each time the dragoon or Swiss who had got up to him fell, struck by Francezet's unerring bullet. The chase lasted four hours, during which time five officers, thirty dragoons, and fifty Swiss were baffled by two men, one of whom Francezet was almost a boy, being only twenty years old! Then the two Camisards, having exhausted their ammunition, gave each other the name of a village as a rendezvous, and each taking a different direction, bounded away with the lightness of a stag. Francezet ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the utmost enjoyment from the report. He liked the substance of it, and above all, he was tickled by the bitter tone of frustration which characterized it. Oakes was baffled, and his knowledge of Oakes told him that the sensation of being baffled was gall and wormwood to that high-spirited young man. Whatever might be the result of this investigation, it would teach him the virtue ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... to follow the more regular procedure, but he "got the better of them" and refused.... Of course not long ago a governor might, in extreme cases.... But how could this be an extreme case? That's what baffled me. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in a terrific confusion, as baffled by certain inconsistencies displayed by her own nature as overwhelmed by her disgraceful predicament. For she was certainly sincere in her craving to be as debonairly "athletic" as Tess; yet, during that ghastly moment when ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... a sudden gust. The nor'wester came howling over the dark tree-tops, fell upon the clearing about the little wooden buildings—house, stable, barn—in' squalls and-wicked whirlwinds that sought to lift the roof and smote the walls like a battering-ram, before sweeping onward to the forest in a baffled fury. The house trembled from base to chimneytop, and swayed on its foundation in such a fashion that the inmates, feeling the onslaught, hearing the roar and shriek of the foe, were almost as sensible of the terrors of the ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... and the defense of it were equally fierce, bloody, and desperate. Again and again the buccaneers assaulted, and again and again they were beaten back. So the morning came, and it seemed as though the pirates had been baffled this time. But just at this juncture the thatch of palm leaves on the roofs of some of the buildings inside the fortifications took fire, a conflagration followed, which caused the explosion of one of the magazines, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... world of knowledge to which the men of his own generation were blind, and which they could not, even with his help, imagine a possible one, had now won the first step in that long and toilsome ascent to success in life, in which for fourteen years he had been baffled. He had made himself, for good and for evil, a servant of the Government of James I. He was prepared to discharge with zeal and care all his duties. He was prepared to perform all the services which that Government might claim from its ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... politicians, when they come to work for supplying the place of what they have destroyed. To make everything the reverse of what they have seen, is quite as easy as to destroy. No difficulties occur in what has never been tried. Criticism is almost baffled in discovering the defects of what has not existed; and eager enthusiasm and cheating hope have all the wide field of imagination, in which they may expatiate with little ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... all, from birth to death, from the cradle to the grave, I had felt myself doomed. All efforts I had previously made to secure my freedom had not only failed, but had seemed only to rivet my fetters the more firmly, and to render my escape more difficult. Baffled, entangled, and discouraged, I had at times asked myself the question, May not my condition after all be God's work, and ordered for a wise purpose, and if so, Is not submission my duty? A contest had in fact been going on in my mind for ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... bowled headlong into the visitor, in his effort to overtake the horseman, but found himself baffled and took out his wrath in foul vituperation that presently drove the stranger from ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... crashing ring at the doorbell that acted like an electric shock on the group. Karl and Olga came to their senses, dazed, trembling, thankful. Millar stepped down from the chair, baffled, and turned his ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... because she was not led away? His disposition was to praise her for a choice so wise, and to think that she had done very right in accepting Lord Tristram of Blent. Aye, Lord Tristram of Blent! Precisely! Deep despair settled on Mr Neeld's baffled mind. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... let go the line. The officer, unwilling to be carried off to New Jersey, where he was threatened with imprisonment in the penitentiary for interfering with the steamer, would at once jump ashore, or beg to be landed. This was kept up for two months, but the captain successfully baffled his enemies during the whole of that period. The opponents of Mr. Gibbons offered a larger and better boat than the one he commanded if he would enter their service, but he firmly declined all their offers, avowing his determination to remain ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... care, And deep-toned warning both our hearts have heard, Even as the old-time low-bell held each bird Suddenly trembling, nestling pair by pair Dark in the covert, till a blinding glare Of torchlight and a clamorous shouted word Dazed their bright eyes, and terrified wings upwhirred To baffled blundering in the ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... law. A certain course would be mapped, certain plans formed, a certain objective determined, and before the course could be finished, the plans executed, or the objective point attained the perverse, inexplicable movement of the ice baffled their determination and set at naught ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... elements of which the planets and satellites of our system are composed, we, however, find ourselves baffled, for the simple reason that these bodies emit no real light of their own. The light which reaches us from them, being merely reflected sunlight, gives only the ordinary solar spectrum when examined with the spectroscope. But in certain cases we find that ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... rice, and melon seeds. To supplement all this, Fong Wu recounted the news: the arrival of a consul in San Francisco, the raid on a slave—or gambling-den, the progress of a tong war under the very noses of the baffled police, and the growth of Coast feeling against the continued, quiet immigration of Chinese. But of the social or political affairs of the Flowery Kingdom—of his own land beyond the sea—Fong ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... and Lynch, crumpling the unheeded money in his hand, stepped aside with an expression of baffled fury and watched him stride along the side of the house ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... enfilading fire. Huntington changed front with his own battery and repelled the assault. The 110th Pennsylvania regiment, of Whipple's division, arrived in time to strengthen the cavalry support, and many of the Eleventh Corps men fell into line also. The last charge of the enemy was baffled by the opportune arrival of Birney's and ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... is not worth enduring"? And yet, does it also come to pass as certainly that these valiant, unselfish, loving ones will struggle, fight, climb, wade, creep on, on while the breath of life remains in them, and never surrender? It seemed as if Sister Benigna had arrived at a place where her baffled spirit stood still and felt its helplessness. Could she do nothing for Elise, the dear child for whose happiness she would cheerfully give her life, and not think ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... upon Mr. Pett. For the thousandth time he felt himself baffled by this calm, goggle-eyed boy who treated him ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and exhausted, she knew that she was unwinding the puzzle. Often as its intricacies baffled her, she kept her head, rectifying each mistake and pressing on, till the wider curve told her that she was very near the entrance. She came upon it finally quite suddenly, and found herself, to her astonishment, close to the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... answer for this," cried the baffled woman, and with that sort of weak ferocity which is so repulsive, she sat down and began ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Present at a Hanging A Cold Greeting A Wireless Message An Arrest Soldier-Folk A Man with Two Lives Three and One are One A Baffled Ambuscade Two Military Executions Some Haunted Houses The Isle of Pines A Fruitless Assignment A Vine on a House At Old Man Eckert's The Spook House The Other Lodgers The Thing at Nolan The Difficulty of Crossing a Field An Unfinished Race Charles ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... "Yes," said I, "they're baffled, they've given it up, they're on their way home. We will climb back to our roost again, and let ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... never spoken like that to her before, or used that tone of voice. His methods had been more fierce than tender. She glanced up swiftly at his face, but it baffled her. There was no love in his eyes or even desire, nothing but an unusual gentleness. "Perhaps you would prefer the diamonds and the pearls," he went on, pointing disdainfully at ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... impetuosity, as if he meant to bear me down by the sheer weight and rapidity of his strokes. His favorite attack was a cut aimed at my head. Six several times he repeated this manoeuvre, and six times I stopped the stroke with the usual guard. Baffled and furious, he tried it again, but—probably because of failing strength—less swiftly and adroitly. My opportunity had come. Quick as thought I ran under his guard, and, thrusting his right arm aside with my left hand, passed ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... been in the habit of playing with the rest of the girls, so thinking that Ling Kuan was like the others, he felt impelled to draw near her and to entreat her, with a forced smile, to get up and sing part of the "Niao Ch'ing Ssu." But his hopes were baffled; for as soon as Ling Kuan perceived him sit down, she impetuously raised herself and withdrew from his side. "I'm hoarse," she rejoined with a stern expression on her face. "The Empress the other day called us into the palace; but I couldn't sing ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... to have been at the head of a powerful faction, rose in rebellion at some place not named in the narrative, but in the rear of the army. The rapidity with which Ahmosis repulsed the Nubians, and turned upon his new enemy, completely baffled the latter's plans, and he and his followers were cut to pieces, but the danger had for the moment been serious.* It was, if not the last expedition undertaken in this reign, at least the last commanded by the Pharaoh in person. By his activity and courage Ahmosis had well earned the right to pass ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... had come with the otter-skins, Carry?" the elder sister said, laughing; and the younger one retired, baffled and chagrined, but none the less resolved that before Gertrude White completely gave herself up to this blind infatuation for a savage country and for one of its worthless inhabitants, she would have to run the gauntlet of many a sharp ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... down stairs feeling angry and baffled. All that she had done to retain her ascendency over Uncle Oliver had failed, and Mrs. Forbush and Philip seemed to have superseded herself and Alonzo in his regard. She conferred with Mr. Pitkin on his return from the store, ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... date-palms. One of our most inveterate relic-hunters had his hammer with him, and tried to break a fragment off the upright Needle and could not do it; he tried the prostrate one and failed; he borrowed a heavy sledge hammer from a mason and tried again. He tried Pompey's Pillar, and this baffled him. Scattered all about the mighty monolith were sphinxes of noble countenance, carved out of Egyptian granite as hard as blue steel, and whose shapely features the wear of five thousand years had failed to mark or mar. The relic-hunter ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... friends were seeking a building in Belfast where the baffled Minister could hold his meeting on the 8th of February, and in the course of the search the director of the Belfast Opera-house was offered a knighthood as well as a large sum of money for the use of his theatre,[20] a fact that possibly explains the statement made by ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... flowers have baffled me, and I have caused several friends much useless labour; though, Heaven knows, I have thrown away time enough on ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... commission for himself —before giving up his capture, O'Conor imprisoned the Earl in the keep of Castle-Ishin, but the White Knight, the Knight of Glynn, Fitzmaurice of Kerry, and Pierce Lacy, levying rapidly 2,000 men, speedily delivered him from confinement, while his baffled betrayer, crest-fallen and dishonoured, was compelled to quit the Province. The year following he was attacked while marching through Galway, and remorselessly put to death by Theobald Burke, usually called Theobald ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... word the baffled man turned away. But the look of savage hatred that gleamed in his fierce eyes told Challoner that he had made a dangerous enemy. And only a few days passed before he heard from the natives that Larmer said he would have his revenge—and ...
— The Brothers-In-Law: A Tale Of The Equatorial Islands; and The Brass Gun Of The Buccaneers - 1901 • Louis Becke
... letter which Swinnerton Loughburne received over the signature of Doctor Randall Byrne. It was such a strange letter that between paragraphs Swinnerton Loughburne paced up and down his Gramercy Park studio and stared, baffled, at the ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... understood. Hitherto she had been unable to answer him, even by a word, yet she believed that she was destined to become better acquainted, if only to show him that his power, of which the Burgravine had spoken, was baffled when directed against the heart of a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to re-establish the colony at Port Royal belongs to the history of Acadia rather than to the story of Champlain. But remembering the spirit in which he and De Monts strove, one feels glad that Lescarbot spoke his mind regarding the opponents who baffled their ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... and depressing feeling at my heart. The wreck of fortune, the thwarting of ambition, the failure in enterprise, great though they be, are endurable evils. The never-dying hope that youth is blessed with will find its resting-place still within the breast, and the baffled and beaten will struggle on unconquered; but for the death of friends, for the loss of those in whom our dearest affections were centred, there is no solace,—the terrible "never" of the grave knows no remorse, and even memory, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the power of his supporters, that he was permitted to depart from Oxf. and retire to Lutterworth, where, worn out by his labours and anxieties, he d. of a paralytic seizure on the last day of 1384. His enemies, baffled in their designs against him while living, consoled themselves by disinterring his bones in 1428 and throwing them into the river Swift, of which Thomas Fuller (q.v.) has said, "Thus this brook has conveyed his ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... light, welcome to him on his way in the distance, was likely to betray him when near; and he not unfrequently reckoned a wild night of wind and rain as a blessing, since it helped to conceal his coming, and proved to his mistress that he was ready to brave all for her sake. Of rivals met and baffled; of half-willing and half-unconsenting maidens, persuaded and won; of the light-hearted and the careless becoming affectionate and tender; and the coy, the proud, and the satiric being gained by "persuasive ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... marble columns, the very ruins, some insist, of the synagogue which the good centurion built for the city he loved. Here, then, may have been the home of our Lord during those earliest days of his public ministry, the happiest days of his earthly life, before baffled hate had begun to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... if I owed you some sort of apology; and yet, when I come to frame it, I find myself baffled. Of course I'm leaving for home as soon as possible—probably to-morrow. Of course if I had known the truth I should have left long ago, and that letter would never have had any occasion for being written. I'm assuming, Covington, that you will believe that without any question. You ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... society could not quite be baffled so: mornings brought carriage after carriage, and evenings a run upon the door. Mr. Falkirk had little peace of his life, unless it were a reposeful thing for him to sit by and ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... done, and yet perforce to wait hour after hour, day after day, week after week, in the same unrelieved anxiety,—this prolonged torture is not to be told in words. She schooled herself against further outcries, but the evidence of her suffering was no less in her settled look of baffled expectancy, her fits of mute abstraction, the start of her eyes at any sound of bell or knock. She clutched back hope as it was slipping away, and would not surrender uncertainty for its less harrowing follower, despair. She had resumed, as the probability of immediate news ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... prodigious constructive faculty, wielded with the strength of a huge Samson-like artificer in the material of mind, and welding together the substances it might not be able to fuse, puzzled all opponents who understood it not, and baffled the efforts of all who understood it well. He rarely took a position on any political question, which did not draw down upon him a whole battalion of adversaries, with ingenious array of argument and infinite noise of declamation; but after the smoke and dust and clamor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... his face was deathly white, and his eyes had the look of a baffled demon. But he was not destined to have the satisfaction of even seeing Mona, for he reached the pier just in season to see the noble steamer sailing with stately bearing slowly out into the harbor, and he knew that the fair ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... sigh almost buried the last word. Go when she would, she must leave Constantine behind, leave him without an expectation of beholding him more—without a hope of penetrating the thick cloud which involved him, and with which he had ever baffled any attempt she had heard to discover his birth or misfortunes. She wept over this refinement on delicacy, and "loved him dearer ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... pigs as the women of Spain, and our aristocratic damsels who affect, to imitate them, are of poodles. She is never without one, which she nurses with great care. She is now in great tribulation, having lost her last by a croup, which baffled the skill of the most eminent physicians. And so deep was her sympathy for it, that she had it buried in a corner of the garden, with a rose-bush planted to its memory." This so excited the swine driver's pity, that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... one extreme to the other. Crazed, tumultuous in his fury, and at first like a baffled tiger, he moderated his voice and manner until his companions wondered ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... made the African coast, the wind continued contrary, and they were baffled for many days; at last they espied a brig under the land, about sixteen miles off; her rig and appearance made Captain Wilson suspect that she was a privateer of some description or another, but it was calm, and they could not approach her. Nevertheless, Captain Wilson thought ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... joined them together. Could I but penetrate the mystery which lies at the heart of this fragile flower, I should possess the secret of the universe; I should understand the ancient miracle which has baffled wisdom from the beginning and will not discover itself to the ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Even more absorbing, and in her eyes, more urgently necessary, was the task of dissecting and appraising the characters of the two young men who were favouring her with their attentions. And herein lay cause for much thinking and some perturbation. Youghal, for example, might have baffled a more experienced observer of human nature. Elaine was too clever to confound his dandyism with foppishness or self- advertisement. He admired his own toilet effect in a mirror from a genuine sense of pleasure in a thing good to look upon, just as he would feel a sensuous ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... more. Baffled and sick at heart, I left her, wondering if some happy inspiration would come before it was too late, and help ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... toward him, her head pillowed on her hand, and regarded him intently, a smile playing about the corners of her mouth. Again he searched for the truth in her eyes, and again he was baffled. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... Let the trampled despot's fate Forewarn the rash, misguided band To sue for mercy, ere too late, Nor scatter ruin o'er the land. The baffled traitor, doomed to bear A people's hate, his colleagues' scorn, Defeated by his own despair, Will curse the hour ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... supremacy of the sea; and I hope the time is coming—I believe the hour is hastening—when we shall find that law and justice will guide the councils and will direct the policy of the Christian nations of the world. Nature will not be baffled because we are jealous of the United States—the decrees of Providence will not be overthrown by aught ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... herdsman with the staff in one hand and the book in the other. In the constituent Assembly of France was found a peasant whose sagacity was as distinguished as his integrity, whose blunt honesty over-awed and baffled the refinements of hypocritical patriots. The people of Paris followed him with acclamations, and the name of Pere Gerard will long be mentioned with admiration and ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... The baffled searchers had just reached the conclusion that he must have leaped from the train in spite of its speed and of Conductor Tobin's watchfulness, when Rod, who from his position in the doorway could look over the heads of the crowd surrounding the car ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... aided him to lose those pursuing vultures. The last of them fell off, baffled,—or afraid to go deeper into France. Now he emerged again into the clear air and the starlight. The land beneath him was a scudding blur, with a dark-green mass in its center, the ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... made before the attainders. The result was that a certain number of Irish estates were added to the possessions of a certain number of English families. But Munster was not planted. Burghley's policy, and Walsingham's resolution, and Ralegh's daring inventiveness were alike baffled by the conditions of a problem harder than the peopling of America or the conquest of India. Munster could not be made English. After all its desolation, it reverted in the main ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... which I have described, and in a fever besides. The favourable crisis must have occurred just about the time that I performed the magic touch; it certainly was a curious coincidence, yet I was not weak enough, even though a child, to suppose that I had baffled the evil chance by ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... that he felt I had supplied the clue which had baffled him, and asked me if I did not discover a chaos of a different sort in English life and literature since the armistice. I agreed that I did discover such a chaos, but that it seemed to me a chaos which was an end ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... first stroke of character to arrive without notice—having utterly baffled Peter at the Junction—and to be in complete possession of the manse on the return of Carmichael and his aunt from ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... had the courage to resist; the baffled foe can tell you a tale of constancy and firmness, which the bravest soldier might ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... lightning accompanied the darkness, and this time heavy rain. Baffled by the darkness, the multitude ran hither and thither, aimlessly, wildly, in search of their homes. Presently the vivid lightning flashes gave them fitful direction, and gradually ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... confronts us everywhere in nature, so we confess ourselves baffled when we attempt to explain the most wonderful of all the attributes of bird courtship—song. Birds have notes to call to one another, to warn of danger, to express anger and fear; but the highest development of their vocal efforts ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the rebuke she would not trust herself to utter, by stripping the glove from the hand he had touched and dropping it disdainfully as if unworthy of its place. Gilbert had not looked for such an answer, and while it baffled him it excited his man's spirit to rebel against her silent denial. With a bitter laugh he snatched up ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... were arrested and put to death. The researches of Comte Daru have brought to light some hitherto unknown contemporary documents; but even the inexhaustible diligence of that most laborious, accurate, and valuable writer has been baffled in the hope of obtaining certainty as its reward; and he has been compelled to content himself with the addition of one hypothesis more to those already proposed in explanation of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... the French that their adversaries were not to be despised. But Joinville and Baldwin of Rheims rendered their comrades good service. Hastily closing their ranks, they contrived not only to stay the rush, but to present so impenetrable a front, that the Saracens retired baffled to prepare for a ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... some persons grows out of benevolence disappointed, so there are certain natures—and Kenelm Chillingly's was perhaps one of them—in which indifferentism grows out of earnestness baffled. ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the old woman's effrontery, he wanted to crush her with angry eloquence; but her stolidity baffled him, and he went up to his room without a word. When he was alone, his anger soon cooled; but he found himself repeating those cruel words, and as he said them over, he began to fear that Florou was not so ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... a light has been found which can penetrate, so as to make a photographic record, through everything from a purse or a pocket to the walls of a room or a house, is news which cannot fail to startle everybody. That the eye of the physician or surgeon, long baffled by the skin, and vainly seeking to penetrate the unfortunate darkness of the human body, is now to be supplemented by a camera, making all the parts of the human body as visible, in a way, as the exterior, appears certainly to be a greater ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... thou leave the world, with powers Fresh, undiverted to the world without, Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings. ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... characters. They have known joys and sorrows, failures and successes. They have hoped and feared. All that Beethoven poured into this music from his experience of poverty, of conflict with physical weakness and the cruel limitations of Fate, of baffled desire, of loneliness, of strong resolution, of immortal courage and faith, these players in their measure and ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... were equal to the emergency. When the commissioners came to decide on the relative merits of Springfield and another site a few miles away, they led them through brake, through brier, by mud knee-deep and by water-courses so exasperating that the wearied and baffled officials declared they would seek no further, and Springfield became the county-seat for all time; and greater destinies were in store for it through means not wholly dissimilar. Nature had made it merely a pleasant hunting-ground; the craft and the industry of its first ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... broad-shouldered man, a giant of a fellow. He knew all the trappers on this part of the coast, and where their trapping grounds lay. One of his neighbors, whom he spoke of as "Si," trapped in the neighborhood where the baffled men now found themselves. ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... Kennedy appeared, but they had made their getaway. Baffled, he turned and retraced his steps to ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... sat down on the stairs, and drew the fair little head to his shoulder. In a minute he knew it all,—the sudden fear that had assailed her, the creeping flight across the ward, and the baffled attempt at hiding. As he listened, his eyes grew grave and tender, for in the broken little confession he comprehended the child's unspoken abhorrence of the life she had left behind when she had come to the ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... child-bearing might be regarded by an ignorant and forsaken girl. Her position as the reputable and capable mother of a family being unassailable, no one could consider that kindness to the girl implied any countenancing of her offence. Anne, puzzled and baffled by the things which she had seen, felt herself in a larger sphere which could consider the fact of birth as a small matter for everyday occurrence and preparation, happen however ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... grasping the details of an antagonist's position she combined all the other qualities of an astute politician; thus, upon the desired consummation of her plots she brought to bear a sagacity, finesse, and energy that baffled all her adversaries. With her, politics became a passion and a necessity; even while in exile, her zeal was unflagging and she intrigued over all Europe. Scorning peril as well as all petty restraints, and characterized ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... incidents were not viewed too seriously by people of fashion—here the captain would delicately take a pinch, and offer his snuff-box (with the Cranstoun arms: gules, three cranes argent) to the baffled attorney. ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... feel like a blind man groping in a strange place, or worse, like a bull in a china-shop. He was prepared enough to find differences in the American and English points of view. But this thing that baffled him did not seem to have to do with that; it was something deeper, something very definite, he was sure—and yet, what was it? The worst of it was that he had a curious feeling as if they were all—that is, Lady Sherwood and ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... he said; "this is good news indeed! We have been baffled for years, stopped by this hiding-place which no one knew of. Then, when I have taken the schooner I'll land you with a party, and you shall show ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... time he stood almost without movement. He was seeking, seeking in every direction. But the rosy twilight baffled him. Unaga buried her secrets deeply, and only was there the perfume in the air which she could not conceal. This was the key with which Steve meant to open the door ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... mysterious Sphinx—which has baffled all inquisitive inquirers for centuries without number, stands in the sand only a. short distance from Cheops. Imagine, if you can, with what feelings one gazes upon it. It is as old as the Pyramids, perhaps older, and there it still looks out upon the green and fertile ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... Baffled, exasperated almost beyond the power to restrain myself, I shook my fist in his face, notwithstanding I saw his hand fly to ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... mass (heralded over the desolate moor at uncertain times by uncanny bell-ringing), which the reprobate priest (who has been shot at the altar-steps before he could accomplish the Sacrifice of Reconciliation[452]) endeavours after his death to complete, being always baffled before the consecrating moment. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Jimmie's. They were in velveteen hunting costumes; we in the smartest of evening dress. Jimmie had given his fancy free rein in ordering the dinner, but, to his amazement and indignation, the little game being played by the rest of us so surprised and baffled our guests that Jimmie's delicacies were removed with course after course untasted. The officers searched the brilliant room with their eyes, hoping for a quiet nook, or balcony. There was none, and their disguise effectually prevented them from suggesting ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... America would disclose new sources of trade, promote many useful discoveries, and open a more direct communication with China and the English settlements in the East Indies, than that by the Cape of Good Hope or the Straits of Magellan. * This enterprising and intrepid traveller was twice baffled in individual efforts to accomplish this great journey. In 1774, he was joined in the scheme by Richard Whitworth, a member of Parliament, and a man of wealth. Their enterprise was projected on a broad and bold plan. ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... its foundations. She glanced in every direction, and then hurling the hateful green-and-white livery into the stage, she gathered up all traces of the shameful fray, and sweeping them into her gingham apron ran into the house in a storm of tears and baffled rage. ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... from the crowd into the shelter of the Piccadilly Tube. They had been walking the streets for an hour, and as much of their lives as they were able to tell one another had been told. Now they were both baffled and tired out. Of what had really happened to them they could say nothing, and their memories, disinterred in a kind of desperate haste ("Do you remember that row with Dickson about my hair, Robert?") had crumbled, after a moment's ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... was no other way to maintain this balance than by opposing armies. Nor did Richelieu seek to maintain the peace of Europe by force alone. Never was there a more astute and profound diplomatist. His emissaries were in every court, with intrigues very hard to be baffled. He equalled Metternich or Talleyrand in his profound dissimulation, for European diplomacy has ever been based on this. While he built up absolutism in France, he did not alienate other governments; so that, like Cromwell, he made his nation respected abroad. His conquest of Roussillon prepared ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... there was fighting of any serious kind. There has been no resistance on the part of the real people—nothing but sympathy for the President, I believe, if you except the natural mortification and disappointment of baffled parties. To judge from our own tradespeople: 'il a bien fait! c'est le vrai neveu de son oncle!' such phrases rung on every tone expressed the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... she was staring at her reflection in the mirror, while he was waiting below on the pavement for her to come to the window, and as he walked away, she began to talk to the angry, baffled girl she saw ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... often called a pessimist, for his "heavy sadness of disillusion"; but he is never bitter. Finding the universe incomprehensible, he stands baffled and passive, with a tender sympathy, almost an envy, for those who still have faith. He is above all interesting as a sane and characteristic product of the latest social conditions. His is the tolerant, somewhat negative point of view of the man ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... train for Chicago; but not before Podmore had third-degreed him into abject fear. No, Clayton had had no hand in it; that was certain, and with that once established, the identity of the arch-thief remained a mystery which baffled investigation—especially when the situation called for ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... wobble him—at that precise moment his conscience flares into function, and so finishes his business. First he sees difficulty, then he sees the danger, then he sees wrong. The result is that he slinks off in trepidation, and another vampire is baffled of her prey. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... disorder, the four Lhari clustering together in a furious babble, then hastily leaving the room. Bart stood waiting, feeling empty and cold. Vorongil's stare baffled ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... been particularly easy for either of us," returned Hawtrey, with grimness. "Anyway, it seems that I'm only distressing you." There was a baffled, puzzled look in his face. "Naturally, this is so unexpected that I don't know what to say. I'll come back when I feel I've grasped ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... partakes a little of the nature of battering, and danger may be apprehended when next they meet. It is difficult to give any account of this remarkable correspondence; it is too far away from us, and perhaps not yet far enough, in point of time and manner; the imagination is baffled by these stilted literary utterances, warming, in bravura passages, into downright truculent nonsense. Clarinda has one famous sentence in which she bids Sylvander connect the thought of his mistress with the changing phases of the year; it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... distinguished by the general with marks of particular regard, and became the admiration of all his comrades. Under the banners of this adventurous warrior did Tigranes toil with various fortunes during the space of many years; sometimes victorious in the fight, sometimes baffled; at one time crowned with conquest and glory, at another beset with dangers, covered with wounds, and hunted like a wild beast through rocks and forests; yet still the native courage of his temper sustained ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... its source. Philosophy was but another name for uncertainty; and after the mind had successively deified Nature and its own conceptions, without any practical result but toilsome occupation; when the reality it sought, without or within, seemed ever to elude its grasp, the intellect, baffled in its higher flights, sought advantage and repose in aiming at truth of a lower but more ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... lost neither yet," replied Wyvil, who had completely recovered his spirits, and joined in the general merriment occasioned by the foregoing occurrence. "I have been baffled, not defeated. What say you to an exchange of mistresses? I am so diverted with your adventure, that I am half inclined to give you the grocer's daughter for Disbrowe's wife. She is a superb creature—languid as a Circassian, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to effect a lodgement and maintain themselves for some years at the mouth of the Loire. Together they started upon an extensive campaign, the objective point of which was again Paris. But the powerful fortifications baffled the Norsemen, who possessed no machinery of destruction fit to cope with such defences. The siege had therefore to be abandoned. Dijon and Chartres also made a successful resistance. But a long chain of smaller cities surrendered, and the country was ravaged far and wide. The peasants took to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... she might feel humiliated at the baseness of such enjoyment, she clung to it from habit or from corruption, and each day she hungered after them the more, exhausting all felicity in wishing for too much of it. She accused Leon of her baffled hopes, as if he had betrayed her; and she even longed for some catastrophe that would bring about their separation, since she had not the courage to make up her mind to ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... replied, baffled and hopeless, "I've nothing more to say, except that, generally speaking, the man who ought to be avoided is just the sort of person that my own refractory nature clings to with the fellow-feeling which makes us wondrous ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Stephen (Vol. ii., p. 407.) asks for information respecting the "Gospel Oak Tree at Kentish Town." Permit me to connect with it another Query relative to the foundation of the old St. Pancras Church, as the period of its erection has hitherto baffled research. From the subjoined extracts, it appears to be of considerable antiquity. The first extract is from a MS. volume which I purchased at the sale of the library of the Rev. ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... baffled king cried out, in despair, "O maiden fair, for the sake of him whom thou ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... solitude growing louder each night, poverty growing louder, obstinacy growing louder, Mrs. Brigg growing louder. What an orchestra! Cuckoo had not seen Julian once. She had seen the doctor, to be told of his baffled efforts, of Julian's escape from all his friends, of Valentine's declaration of the stone going down in the sea, of utter deadlock, utter stagnation. For the doctor treated Cuckoo frankly as a brave woman, not deceitfully as a timid child ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... of food and water; the body would have crumbled. To have planned this for months, and then to be balked by something as visible yet as elusive as quicksilver! Born in the same mudhole, and still Boris Karlov the avenger could not understand Stefani Gregor the fiddler. Perhaps what baffled him was that so valiant a spirit should be housed in so weak a body. It was natural that he, Boris, with the body of a Carpathian bear, should have a soul to match. But that Stefani, with his paper body, should mock him! The ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... three P.M. the Confederates massed troops in two columns, one on each side the road, flanked by a line some eight hundred yards long, in the woods. An impetuous charge was made to within twenty yards of the abattis, but it was baffled ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... stared at him in baffled, unhappy silence, and in the pause, the door quickly and silently opened and Christine herself entered. She looked calm, almost Olympian, as she laid her hand on ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... the road, invisible because of the trees. Again and again his mind reviewed the strange events of the evening, unable to arrive at any definite conclusion. The harder he sought to delve into the mystery, the more obscure it became. The young woman herself thoroughly baffled him. If this was merely a test, it was certainly a most unusual one, and he hoped he had met the requirements to her entire satisfaction. He already frankly acknowledged to himself, at least, that she ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... But, on the other hand, as the gauger's object was to take them, if possible, by surprise, it frequently happened that his appearance was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. It was then that the prompt ingenuity of the people was fully seen, felt, and understood by the baffled exciseman, who too often had just grounds for bitterly cursing their talent ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... and over the child's face there came a puzzled expression, as if she were trying to recall something which baffled all her efforts. But she did not forget the name, and that evening Mrs. Crawford heard her singing ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... a sigh of relief, he continued: "I pursued my way home like a drunken man. Every attempt to approach the Queen or her attendants was baffled, but I learned from Charmian's clever Nubian that Cleopatra had been permitted, in Caesar's name, to choose the palace she desired to occupy, and had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
