"Perplex" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... me how, by three-fold scoff, When cares of life perplex us, To smoke, or sleep, or fiddle them off, And scorn the ills that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... 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
... 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 say I had ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... 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
... 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 this remarkable ...
— 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
... 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
... 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 from ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... 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
... perplex me! I begin to doubt if you have any principles. One moment you take one side and ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... 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
... 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 lov'd her much. But a trouble weigh'd upon her, And perplex'd her, night and morn, With the burden of an honor Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter, As she murmur'd, "O, 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 ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... 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
... 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 ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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, ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... 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
... "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 a flurry may precipitate a general panic that will shake and waste the nation like a fever ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... 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
... "Never perplex her mind with an idea that may disturb, but cannot reform"—were his latest words; and Dorriforth's ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... 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 |
