"Perplexed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... These words, gentlemen, perplexed me much. "How," thought I, "shall I get rid of this cursed barber? If I persist in contradicting him, we shall ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of this debtor were perplexed by a partnership, of which he knew no more than that he had invested money in it; by legal matters of assignment and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance there, suspicion of unlawful preference of creditors in this direction, and of mysterious spiriting away of property ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... sight of her. He had been walking up and down, with an exceedingly surprised and perplexed face; and now he stood with his great, Saxon-blue eyes piercingly fixed upon the young person in velveteen, whose jacket and trousers told one story, and whose streaming dark hair told ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... melancholy surprise; her innocent boasting only made their poverty more glaring. He could see that Ellen was desperately perplexed, and he followed her into ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... somewhere in the island. The old servant, she whom they called 'Mother Meg,' came into my room in great haste to tell me to get up. When I was dressed my husband entered and laughingly said that we must go on board the yacht at once. I was perplexed and a little cross about it; but when we were rowed out to the ship, I found that all the white people were leaving the island in boats and being rowed to those rocks which lie upon the northward side. Edmond tells me that there are dangerous seasons in this ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... Kilmeny," the standing miner said sourly. He was undecided what to do, perplexed and angry at this ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... second gun, and he stood scratching his ear with a curiously perplexed look on his droll countenance. Then he brightened up, and shook his head at the poor wretches who were crawling from among the injured horses to get into shelter of the houses ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... accusingly as he stood beside the buxom, sullen woman, who in a slum version of the emotion of embarrassment was sucking and gnawing one of her fingers, and she found shining in his face the light of love; true love that keeps faith and does service even when it is used despitefully. Perplexed, she doubted all judgment. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... preach the next day after he came, in the new meeting-house over against Libberton's wynd. This he was most averse to, being a stranger to the transactions for the most part in Scotland for upwards of 30 years. But his reasons not being heard, he was so perplexed what to do, that till 8 o'clock, he could not find a text: but at length falling upon Psal. cxix. 18. Thou hast trod down all that err from thy statutes, &c. he was taken up the whole night in thinking on it without going to bed. When he came to the pulpit, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... as he was—even he, with all his smartness, felt that he was overcome, and that this woman was too much for him. He was altogether perplexed, as he could not perceive whether in all her tirade about the little property she had really misunderstood him, and had in truth thought that he had been talking about his uncle, or whether the whole thing was cunning on her ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... phases of Napoleon, the sailor was never perplexed in coming to conclusions as to the right and wrong of his (Napoleon's) actions. Their quotations and manner of using them were at times amazingly tempestuous and erratic. Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon, was generally believed to have behaved with ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... not answer. She was gazing at the signature of the letter with perplexed eyes. She was wondering why the name Denton seemed so familiar. Remembrance came suddenly—Ruth, of course. With that recollection came a sudden startling train of thought. Ruth's father had gone west, had been heard from in Nevada, then disappeared. Jean's friend had lost his ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... wealth poured in on the discovery of the New World. The invention of gunpowder put a new face upon warfare, and that of printing made possible the cheap and wide dissemination of long-smouldering ideas. Economic problems perplexed every country, and on all sides methods of solving them were put in action. Sully, who found in Henry IV. of France an ardent supporter of his wishes for her prosperity, had altered and systematized taxes, and introduced a multitude ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... kind questions. I am getting ready a fifth and last volume of Our Village as fast as I can, though with pain and difficulty, having hurt my left hand so much by a fall from an open carriage that it affects the right, and makes writing very uncomfortable to me. And I am in a most perplexed state about my opera, not knowing whether it will be produced this season or not, in consequence of Captain Polhill and his singers having parted. This would not have happened had my coadjutor the composer kept to his time. And I have still hopes that when the opera be [shall, omitted probably] ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... and looked at him, perplexed, hesitating, a little mortified, like one who has encountered an unlooked-for rebuff. "Forgive me," she ventured rather shyly, "but do you think it would be possible for you to—to keep an incog here—where you must have so many friends? If you want to do that—to try ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... environment, he confessed that in it she would be quite out of place. The house in which he had found her, though only a hired shelter, was neat and comfortable and home-like. He felt irritated, perplexed; and this irritation and perplexity made him quite silent during the meal. They ate, indeed, without exchanging a single word, though the old man enjoyed the fragrant tea, the sweet, home-made bread, and firm, wholesome butter, and ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... perplexed dance, Ye WOES, and young-eyed JOYS, advance! By Time's wild harp, and by the Hand Whose indefatigable Sweep Forbids its fateful strings to sleep, I bid you haste, a mixt tumultuous band! From every private bower, And each domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour; And with a loud and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Professor Hanky that a man had been seen between the statues and Sunch'ston wearing the old Erewhonian dress, she was disquieted and perplexed. The excuse he had evidently made to the Professors aggravated her uneasiness, for it was an obvious attempt to escape from an unexpected difficulty. There could be no truth in it. Her son would as soon think of wearing ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... little perplexed. How to take Julia up-stairs? Mrs. Wehle and Wilhelmina and the doctor went in regularly, not by the rope-ladder, but by a more secure wooden one which he had planted against the outside of the house. But Andrew had suddenly conceived so exalted an opinion of ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... minx, to play tricks with me. One—two—three." And lifting the axe in the air, he was about to send it crashing into the trunk of the elm, when the mysterious murmur which heralded the coming of the King of the Trees sounded through the wood. Perplexed and frightened again, the chief wood-cutter let fall his axe. Presently he perceived two beings coming toward him through the solemn forest. Uttering a howl of fear, the rogue would have fled, but, lifting his wand, the elder ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... How? Why? Jack could make nothing of it, and he stared at the paper with pale face and perplexed eyes. It was so contrary to his every idea of his father, this extraordinary disappearance. Thomas Haydon was the last man in the world to set tongues wagging and to give anxiety to friends by such a trick. ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... brain-scorched bigots thus appeal? Can heavenly Mercy dwell with earthly Zeal? For times of fire and faggot let them hope! Times dear alike to puritan or Pope. As pious Calvin saw Servetus blaze, So would new sects on newer victims gaze. E'en now the songs of Solyma begin; Faith cants, perplexed apologist of Sin! 380 While the Lord's servant chastens whom he loves, And Simeon kicks, [40] where Baxter ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... manner he was to present himself before Henry, and obtain his forgiveness for his rash communications to Simon Glover. No one answered to his first knock, and, perhaps, as these reflections arose in the momentary pause of recollection which circumstances permitted, the perplexed bonnet maker might have flinched from his purpose, and made his retreat to his own premises, without venturing upon the interview which he had purposed. But a distant strain of minstrelsy revived his apprehensions of falling once more into the hands of the gay maskers from whom he had escaped, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... equality of rank between these different functionaries did not prevent their functions being, even in their origin, distinct; they became subsequently still more so. See Plank, Geschichte der Christ. Kirch. Verfassung., vol. i. p. 24.—G. On this extremely obscure subject, which has been so much perplexed by passion and interest, it is impossible to justify any opinion without entering into long and controversial details.——It must be admitted, in opposition to Plank, that in the New Testament, several ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... in silent and curious expectation, Alexander closely examined the knot, looking in vain for some beginning or end to its complexity. The thing perplexed him. Was he who had never yet failed in any undertaking to be baffled by this piece of rope, this twisted obstacle in the way of success? At length, with that angry impatience which was a leading element in ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... longer; think, should we be observed. I am ashamed to think of it. I am ashamed to look the moon in the face, ashamed to look into yours. Oh, sir, what have I done? What have you said? How have I answered? for I am perplexed. Away, yet come again; come fifty times; but stay no longer now; begone;—return though when you choose; do not wait for an invitation.—Listen, I hear it again; begone, begone; did you not hear something?—it was nothing, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... Don Filipo stood perplexed, staring after the old man. "Resign!" he muttered as he made his way toward the church. "Resign! Yes, if this office were an honor and not a burden, yes, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... with this theme—so immersed in it—that it consumed him like a fever. Three lectures were given, but at the third, without warning, the man's nerves snapped—he stopped, sat down, and the audience filed out perplexed, thinking they had merely seen an exhibition of one of the eccentricities of genius. The philosopher's mind was a blank, and kind friends sent ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... they gathered rich gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Great sacks of precious stuffs were loaded upon the backs of the camels which were to bear them on their journey. Everything was in readiness, but one of the wise men seemed perplexed and would not come at once to join his two companions who were eager and impatient to be on their way in the direction ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... to every duty, so ready for every service, so determined not to commit every sin, that the great Christian Church shall be the stronger for your living in it, and the problem of the world be answered, and a certain great peace come into this poor, perplexed phase of our humanity as it sees that new revelation of what Christianity is. Yes, Christ can give the world the thing it needs in unknown ways and methods that we have not yet begun to suspect. Christianity has not yet been tried. My friends, no man dares to condemn the Christian ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... Perplexed by the storm they had raised, the ministers summoned to the bar of the House of Commons, Benjamin Franklin, the agent for Pennsylvania, who was in London. "Do you think it right," asked Grenville, "that America should be protected by this country and pay no part of the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... ready. When can we begin? As your sister is an invalid and cannot come to my studio with you, perhaps you will allow me to make my sketch at your own house," said Mr. Vane, as pleased with his success as only a perplexed ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... it was for many years, is, nevertheless, often misunderstood, and even intelligent persons are sometimes perplexed by dates so written. The explanation, however, is very simple, for the lower or last figure always indicates the year ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... they must come, and rush into this hazard and live as they list. At Rome and in Italy this word is now at length fulfilled, and they who come thence, bring such errors also forth with them; for just as they have a long time perplexed themselves therein, so, also, must they perplex the people by the same means. And even though the last day were now before the door, such people must come abroad. So shall be fulfilled that which Christ says, Mat. xxiv.: "Just as it was in the time of Noah, so shall it also be at the coming of ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... Lady Ashton was greatly perplexed as to how to procure a beau for Mary, and, as a last resource, pressed Sir John into service; but as he was a very quiet, stately old gentleman, the ride, to poor Mary's great chagrin, was a ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... England I thought much of Strickland. I tried to set in order what I had to tell his wife. It was unsatisfactory, and I could not imagine that she would be content with me; I was not content with myself. Strickland perplexed me. I could not understand his motives. When I had asked him what first gave him the idea of being a painter, he was unable or unwilling to tell me. I could make nothing of it. I tried to persuade myself than an obscure feeling of revolt ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... to his place, the letters were erased and the lesson was resumed. I was greatly perplexed; I had acquiesced in a cowardly falsehood. Carrots was a great friend of mine, and I could not bear to feel that he was humbugged, so when we were outside I went up to Carpenter and told him he was an infernal sneak, and we had a desperate fight, and I licked him, and blacked ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... none to intercept or frighten them; and entering the sepulchre they saw a young man, emblem of the immortal youth of God's angels, sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted. Presently, as they were much perplexed, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments; and as they were afraid and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, "Be not affrighted, ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... anxiety to bring things to a finish, Pierre wished to begin his campaign on the very next day. But on whom should he first call if he were to steer clear of blunders in that intricate and conceited ecclesiastical world? The question greatly perplexed him; however, on opening his door that morning he luckily perceived Don Vigilio in the passage, and with a sudden inspiration asked him to step inside. He realised that this thin little man with the saffron face, who always trembled with fever ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... tell me," he added, after a pause, handing to the perplexed author a pencil drawing he had made of the dark countenance that had appeared to him during the night on Putney Hill—"tell me if you ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the mayor said. He took them, read them, reread, returned them, and then said: "Search him;" so they searched him, but found nothing, and the Mayor seemed perplexed, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... and wiped the table, I departed more perplexed than ever. He did not quit the house again that afternoon, and no one intruded on his solitude till at eight o'clock I deemed it proper, though unsummoned, to carry a candle ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... she wore, but the manner in which she wore them, that was so remarkable. As she entered the parlour at the back of the shop, where the pork-butcher's lady and daughters were sitting, they thought that they had never seen their cousin look so well dressed. She had lost the pinched, perplexed, down-trodden air which had overcast her later years; there was in her face a serenity and content which communicated itself in some mysterious way even ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... unfogged, and his brain open, like that of a maiden the day after her marriage. The procureur and the captain, taking these sayings for gospel prophecies, made their bow and went out from the house, quite perplexed at the absurd designs of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Poor Cartier is perplexed. He can but read aloud from the Gospel of St. John and pray Christ heal these supplicants. Then he showers presents on the Indians, gleeful as children—knives and hatchets and beads and tin mirrors ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... wound. When, after an hour's weary drag to a remote end of the town, she had arrived at the pawnshop where was preserved the handsome clock of the distressed lady, and had confidently presented the ticket and the necessary money, the man had looked awhile perplexed. They had no such clock, he said. And then, as he further examined the ticket, a light broke in ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... exceedingly valuable; but the marquis was neither the one nor the other, and did not in the least mind parting with them. As little did he doubt a propitiation through their means, was utterly unprepared for a refusal of his gift, and was nearly as much perplexed as annoyed thereat. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... and more grows from the hazy mass, one sees that this remarkable place has a crowded and much embattled loneliness. Two round towers, sturdy and boldly machicolated, appear straight ahead, but oddly enough the wall between them has no opening of any sort, and the stranger is perplexed at the inhospitable curtain-wall that seems to refuse him admittance to the mediaeval delights within. It almost heightens the impression that the place belongs altogether to dreamland, for in that shadowy world all ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... that led me onwards, was that glorious faith of Mademoiselle de Villenoix's which the good priest had told me of. Had she in the course of time been infected with her lover's madness, or had she so completely entered into his soul that she could understand all its thoughts, even the most perplexed? I lost myself in the wonderful problem of feeling, passing the highest inspirations of passion and the most beautiful instances of self-sacrifice. That one should die for the other is an almost vulgar form of devotion. ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... Anna, the nurse, had put Victoria to bed, and now came through the door that divided our rooms and proposed to assist me in my undressing. I was wilful and defiant; I refused most flatly to go to bed. Anna was perplexed; unquestionably a new and reverential air was perceptible in Anna; the detection of it was fuel to my fires of rebellion. Anna sent for Krak; in the interval before the governess's arrival I grew uneasy. I half wished I had gone ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... from Rome. Everything is permitted in Rome except to be an honest man.' He had no thought of leaving the Roman Church. To a poor monk like him, to talk of leaving the Church was like talking of leaping off the planet. But perplexed and troubled he returned to Saxony; and his friend Staupitz, seeing clearly that a monastery was no place for him, recommended him to the Elector as Professor of Philosophy ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... his watchful parents. Onward he trotted, mile after mile, towards where the horizon seemed nearest; and it was a long while before he found that the sky receded the further he went. At last he sank down from sheer exhaustion, hungry and thirsty, and utterly perplexed as to where he should go. Some labourers in the fields, commiserating the forlorn little wanderer, gave him a crust of bread, and started him on his home journey. It was late at night when he returned to Helpston, where he found his parents in the greatest anxiety, and ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... the light of conscience is in nations often clouded, or misguided, by passion or by interest. But what of that? Does a man discard his allegiance to conscience because he knows that, itself in harmony with right, its message to him is perplexed and obscured by his own infirmities? Not so. Fidelity to conscience implies not only obedience to its dictates, but earnest heart-searching, the use of every means, to ascertain its true command; yet withal, whatever the mistrust of the message, the supremacy of the conscience is not ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... when, having bade the strange pair adieu, I was put ashore by the two sailors who had rowed me out and drove home along the sea-front, puzzled and perplexed. ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... of years before I was born; for those who had writ in our days, I thought (but I desire them now to pardon me) that they had writ only that which others felt; or else had, through the strength of their wits and parts, studied to answer such objections as they perceived others were perplexed with, without going down themselves into the deep. Well, after many such longings in my mind, the God, in Whose hands are all our days and ways, did cast into my hand (one day) a book of Martin Luther's; it was his Comment on the Galatians; it also was so old, that it was ready ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... finished Nyoda thought it was time to go and get the Glow-worm, which should be finished by that time. But when we got out into the sun again Margery began to feel dizzy and sick. We were perplexed what to do. This little country town was not like the big city where there are rest rooms in every big store. We finally decided to get a room at the hotel, which was near-by. But here as everywhere, that miserable Jinx had raised an obstacle ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... home Fleur found an atmosphere so peculiar that it penetrated even the perplexed aura of her own private life. Her mother was inaccessibly entrenched in a brown study; her father contemplating fate in the vinery. Neither of them had a word to throw to a dog. 'Is it because of me?' thought Fleur. 'Or because of Profond?' To ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a minute at me in a perplexed way—my mud-baked clothes, unshaven face, and general unkempt condition evidently rendering me a stranger in their eyes. Then one of them screamed: "Golly! Mass' Douw's ghost!" and the nimble cowards were on their feet and ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... boulders and bushes for dear life! Suddenly a dozen scouts file down the hill, two hundred yards off. I wave my hat and beckon them to follow. They halt, perplexed. Then a few bullets whistle by, and we see the scouts come dashing after us. But the bushes are high and the boulders loose; we are down the hill now, over the flats and away! Down to the river—the bridge is destroyed! Never mind, through we go, and then ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... doubts already expressed by the old and prudent during the stage of growth are now better appreciated and gradually increase in weight. Many become indifferent, the present younger generation becomes perplexed and ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... had disappeared, but the toadstools still remained. "Is it possible we did not see them?" gasped Ayrault. "We must inadvertently have walked some distance since we saw them," said Cortlandt. "They were what I looked forward to for lunch," exclaimed Bearwarden. They were greatly perplexed. The mushrooms were all about them when they shot the birds, which still lay where they had fallen. "We must be very absent-minded," said the doctor, "or perchance our brains are affected by the air. We must analyze it to see if it contains our own proportion of ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... the evidence which the counsel for the prosecution has urged with so much effect: I admit it is true. I was worried and perplexed that night. I did not utter the words which he has mentioned, but I do remember walking along a lane at no great distance from Howden Clough. I was troubled about a personal matter, and, if I may so put it, a secret matter, a matter which I cannot ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... of the virtue, and at others of the utility, of each of these different employments. What profession should a man of principle, who is anxiously desirous to promote individual and general happiness, chuse for his son? The question has perplexed many parents, and certainly deserves a serious examination. Is a novel a good mode for discussing it, or a proper vehicle for moral truth? Of this some perhaps will be inclined to doubt. Others, whose intellectual powers were ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... companie, how many times in all his life he had bin drunke in Germanie during the time of his abode there, about the necessarie affaires of our King; who tooke it even as I meant it, and answered three times, telling the time and manner how. I know some, who for want of that qualitie, have been much perplexed when they have had occasion to converse with that nation. I have often noted with great admiration, that wonderfull nature of Alcibiades, to see how easilie he could sute himselfe to so divers fashions and different humors, without prejudice ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... of this mission has been perplexed and darkened by many controversies. But the general verdict of historians seems now to be, that Charles I., whose many good qualities as a man and a ruler are cheerfully admitted on all hands, was yet utterly deficient in downright good faith; that duplicity was his besetting sin; and that ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... satisfaction cannot any where be more fully enjoyed than where a settlement of civilized people is fixing itself upon a newly discovered or savage coast. The wild appearance of land entirely untouched by cultivation, the close and perplexed growing of trees, interrupted now and then by barren spots, bare rocks, or spaces overgrown with weeds, flowers, flowering shrubs, or underwood, scattered and intermingled in the most promiscuous manner, are the first objects that present themselves; afterwards, the irregular placing of the ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... none of these plans was Fred entirely satisfied. The question deeply perplexed him. How best could a naked man clothe himself? And as he sat pondering that point, from the bushes a naked man emerged. He was not entirely undraped. For around his nakedness he had drawn a canvas awning. Fred recognized it as having been torn from one of the row-boats in ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... DEAR BOY,—The tailor behaved very well; but as thy profound retrospective glance led thee to forbode, the cravats, the hats, and the silk hosen perplexed our souls, for there was nothing in our purse to be perplexed thereby. As said Blondet, so say we; there is a fortune awaiting the establishment which will supply young men with inexpensive articles on credit; for when we do not pay in the beginning, we pay dear in the end. And ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... would tell me!" exclaimed Jack Barnes, with a perplexed frown. "The beastly jays shot at us and all that. You'd think I was an outlaw. And they blazed away at Marjory, too, ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... Gerbois? To defend me against them? You are too kind! Pray don't trouble. Besides, I assure you they are more perplexed than I." And he continued, reflectively: "What do they know, when all is said? That you are here ... and, perhaps, that Mlle. Gerbois is here too, for they must have seen her come with an unknown lady. But they have no idea that I am here. How could I have entered a house which ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... Arius was condemned, but that other things were decreed, with a view to settle the affairs of the Church. In particular, the controversy respecting the time of celebrating Easter, which had long perplexed Christians, was terminated; the jurisdiction of the greater bishops was defined, and several other matters of a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Perplexed by dissensions in parliament, and the manifest growth of sympathy for the Americans in his metropolis, the king was desirous of making honorable concessions. Foolish ministers and ignorant and knavish politicians prated ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... later Ben Sperry found him in the same position, his head bent in perplexed reverie. Sperry had been travelling for Gresham and Jones, a wholesale drug-house in Elmira, more years than I can remember. His friendship for Sam Graham, contracted during the days when Graham's was the drug-store ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... the Pedlar of Swaffam Market is in substance this: That dreaming one night, if he went to London, he should certainly meet with man upon London Bridge which should tell him good news; he was so perplexed in his mind that till he set upon his journey he could have no rest. To London therefore he hastes, and walked upon the Bridge for some hours, where being espied by a shopkeeper and asked what he wanted, he answered, 'You may well ask me that question, for truly (quoth he) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... counted upon seeing Dave during her stay in Brownsville, and her failure to do so was a grave disappointment. The news of his resignation from the Force had at first perplexed her; then she had thrilled at the thought that his action must have something to do with her; that doubtless he, too, was busied in making plans for their new life. She told herself that it was brave of him to obey her injunctions ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... After a certain interval those bodies reappeared; but Galileo's glass was not sufficiently powerful to enable him to ascertain their nature nor solve the mystery, which for upwards of half a century perplexed ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... be a splindid rider, sir," said John, perplexed, "or else he has the divil's own luck, the ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... supposed to be the right direction. Judge of my astonishment when, after an hour or more of hard walking, I found myself at precisely the same spot again! So much time had been lost, that I now could hear the bloodhounds once more. I was perplexed beyond measure. A few steps further brought me to the same river I had crossed hours before. In sheer desperation I took the first road I came to, and followed it a long time, almost regardless of where it should lead, or whom I ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... General for the Dutch West India Company in their colony of New Netherlands, walked up and down the Governor's chamber in the fort at New Amsterdam woefully perplexed. The Heer Governor was not a patient man, and a combination of annoyances was hedging him about and making his government of his island province ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... out of her memories to take up the letter that had so perplexed her. It bore the postmark, Flagstaff, Arizona. She reread it with slow ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... examining the new-born baby (the new Reform Bill) through an eye-glass, while Lord John, its parent, stands by and hears the dry verdict that it is "not quite so fine a child as the last." This eye-glass perplexed John Bright a good deal, because, said he, he had "never worn such a thing in his life." He did not see that the glass had here, no doubt, not so much reference to him, as to the smallness of the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... change in her manner, from the extreme of flighty gayety to the extreme of quiet sadness, would have looked theatrical in a woman of any other nation. It seemed, however, perfectly natural and appropriate in her. I went back to my drawing, rather perplexed. Who was "Sister Rose"? Not one of the Lanfray family, apparently. The composure of the young ladies when the name was mentioned showed plainly enough that the original of the miniature had been no relation ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... inarticulate way, and there's nothing he wouldn't do for me. But I'm a novelty to him. His pale blue eyes look frightened and he blushes when I speak to him. And he studies me secretly, as though I were a dromedary, or an archangel, or a mechanical toy whose inner mechanism perplexed him. But yesterday I found out through Dinky-Dunk what the probable secret of Olie's mystification was. It was my hat. "It ban so dam' ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... would the eyeball have to be pushed backwards in adaptation for distant objects? (470/4. Darwin seems to have misunderstood a remark of Donders.) If so, can the wrinkling of the lower eyelids, which has often perplexed me, act ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... territory and were equally aggrieved at the magnitude of their own injuries and of their neighbours' benefits. The troops in Germany were proud of their recent victory, indignant at their treatment and perplexed by a nervous consciousness that they had supported the wrong side: a very dangerous state for so strong a force to be in. They had been slow to desert Nero, and Verginius[20] did not immediately declare for Galba. Whether he really did not want the throne is doubtful: without question his soldiers ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... to feel any of the same amusement. His countenance was perplexed and anxious. He certainly obeyed Toussaint's wishes as to not being in haste: for he read the papers (which were few and short) again and again. He had not laid them down when Toussaint re-appeared from within—no longer glittering in his uniform and polished arms, but dressed in his old plantation ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... qualification. The mystery that enwrapped the orders from the Conference which suddenly arrested the march of the Rumanian and Allied troops, when they were nearing Budapest for the purpose of overthrowing Bela Kuhn, never perplexed those who claimed to possess trustworthy information about the goings-on between certain enterprising officers belonging some to the Allied Army of Occupation and others to the Hungarian forces. One of these transactions is alleged to have taken place between Kuhn himself, who is naturally ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... least distressed of us all. I thought of Paul last night when I saw him, 'troubled on every side, yet not distressed, perplexed but not in despair.' We must think of some way in which we can help him quietly—so quietly he may not know it himself. Who ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... sense a play, it owed its popularity at the time partly to the truth of its portraitures, partly to its choice of a native subject and the truly German feeling which pervades it. It was a new departure in German literature, and perplexed the critics as much as it delighted the general public. It anticipated by a quarter of a century what is ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... Caleb? Have you never found that the difficulties of the broad day melt away beneath the influences of the quiet lovely night? Have you never been perplexed in the bustle and tumult of the day, and has not truth revealed itself when all was dark and still? This is my night, and in sickness I have seen the eye of God upon me, and heard his words, as I have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... This difficulty perplexed Sir Isaac Newton all his life, and he never discovered the mode of making a refracting telescope which would obviate it. But M. Dolland, an optician, reflecting that the very same difficulty must have presented itself to the Maker of the eye, determined to ascertain how ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... propriety in stating the points at issue; but if the question concerns the best chemical name for iron-rust, or the largest possible per cent. of carbon in steel, the practical metallurgist should not be perplexed with problems in analytical chemistry which the best chemists have not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... twelve-o'clock mail, of which Lord Stapledean had spoken. But before that he had a difficult task to perform. He had no friend to consult, no one of whom he could ask advice, nothing to rely on but his own head and his own heart. That suggestion as to simony perplexed him. Had he the right, or could he have it, to appropriate the income of the living according to terms laid down by the lay impropriator? At one time he thought of calling on the old clergyman of the parish and asking him; but then he remembered what the marquis had said ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Somewhat perplexed by Pickley's strange manner, the boy continued on his way, and a few minutes later found himself in the thriving town for which he ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... the doorway. She looked perplexed and troubled. John noticed, for the first time, that she was wearing her ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... belief which leads to right conduct. Some of the noblest and sweetest souls on earth have given way to chill hopelessness, and only a very bold or a very thick-sighted man could blame them; we must be tender towards all who are perplexed, especially when we see how terrible are the reasons for perplexity. Nevertheless, dark as the outlook may be in many directions, men are slowly coming to see that the service of God is the destruction of enmity, and that the religion of tenderness and pity alone can give happiness ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... leaders of Canada was in good part deferred till the next year, and though the number of persons to be immediately embarked was reduced by the desertion of many French soldiers who had married Canadian wives, yet the English authorities were sorely perplexed to find vessels enough for the motley crowd of passengers. When at last they were all on their way, a succession of furious autumnal storms fell upon them. The ship that carried Levis barely escaped wreck, and that which bore Vaudreuil ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... whole room, but could find nothing to account for the noise. I now left the candle burning, though I never sleep comfortably with a light in my room; I got into bed, but felt, it must be acknowledged, not a little perplexed at not being able to detect the cause of the noise, nor to account for its cessation when the candle was lighted. While ruminating on these things I fell asleep, and began to dream about murders and secret burials and all sorts of horrible things; and just as I fancied myself knocked down by ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... grand success; the elite of the whole country round were gathered together to welcome the beautiful, peerless hostess of Whitestone Hall. Pluma moved among her guests like a queen, yet in all that vast throng her eyes eagerly sought one face. "Where was Rex?" was the question which constantly perplexed her. After the first waltz he had suddenly disappeared. Only the evening before handsome Rex Lyon had held her jeweled hand long at parting, whispering, in his graceful, charming way, he had something to tell her on the morrow. ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... promise. Every thing stands by itself, and comes and goes in its turn, like the shifting scenes of a show, which leave the spectator where he was. Perhaps you are near such a man on a particular occasion, and expect him to be shocked or perplexed at something which occurs; but one thing is much the same to him as another, or, if he is perplexed, it is as not knowing what to say, whether it is right to admire, or to ridicule, or to disapprove, while conscious that some expression of opinion is expected from him; for in fact he has ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... take such comfort in it, poor old thing! You see, the rooms came wrong in our house, for it fronted north, and I had to give the girls sunny rooms or else give them front rooms, so that it was as broad as it was long. I declare, I was perplexed about it the whole time we lived there, it seemed ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... wrath Son of the Czar. I took it as a jest, And with a blow avenged it at the time. All this now flashed like lightning on my soul, And told with dazzling certainty that I Was the Czar's son, so long reputed dead. With this one word the clouds that had perplexed My strange and troubled life were cleared away. Nor merely by these signs, for such deceive; But in my soul, in my proud, throbbing heart I felt within me coursed the blood of kings; And sooner will I drain it drop by drop Than bate one jot my ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Tories on the Black Mingo. Following this up with some smaller successes of the kind, he again attracted the attention of Tarleton, who issued out of Charleston in force for his capture, and when he was fairly on his heels, wearied out and perplexed by the windings of his foe, gave up the chase, it is said, with the exclamation, "Come, my boys! let us go back. We will soon find the Game Cock [Marion's brother partisan, Sumter], but as for this damned Swamp-fox, the devil himself ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... of three or four thousand years, between the date ascribed to the Chaturanga, and its reappearance as the Chatrang in Persia, and the Shatranj in Arabia, has perplexed all writers, for none can offer a vestige of trace of evidence, either of the conversion of Chaturanga into Chatrang or Shatranj; or that the game ever continued to be practiced in its old form either with or without the dice, it is conjectured merely, ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... high relief on a flat background, but, though having correct form, it still lacks colour. How to colour plaster satisfactorily is a puzzle which has perplexed more persons than taxidermists. Speaking for myself, I say that, having coloured the cast, when wet and when dry, with water-colours, used paper varnish when dry, with water-colours and varnished and painted, and painted and varnished the cast in oils, having used "mediums," tempera ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... contempt, but in vain. Absorbed in that dark discontent, I believed myself wantonly trifled with, deceived, despised, and I spent half an hour silent and gloomy, staring at C—— C——, who scarcely dared to breathe, perplexed, confused, and not knowing in whose presence she was, for she could only know me as the Pierrot whom she had ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... was what Corthell called "home," Whenever he went away, he left it exactly as it was, in the charge of the faithful Evans; and no mater how long he was absent, he never returned thither without a sense of welcome and relief. Even now, perplexed as he was, he was conscious of a feeling of comfort and pleasure as he settled ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... wear a brass collar, by way of ornament and distinction. All other respectable dogs bore upon their necks this badge of ownership, and he thought it highly important that Tiger should be on a good footing with his canine friends. But how to get the collar, was the question that perplexed him. He had asked his father to buy it, and met with a flat refusal. He had even called at several shops, and inquired the price of the coveted article, but it was hopelessly beyond his means. The subject lay heavily upon his mind for several days, for when he ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... was at times much given to retiring within herself, and trying to search out the hidden meanings of the deep things that make the puzzle and pathos of human existence, and in all the ages have baffled the inquirer and mocked him. As a little child aged seven, she was oppressed and perplexed by the maddening repetition of the stock incidents of our race's fleeting sojourn here, just as the same thing has oppressed and perplexed maturer minds from the beginning of time. A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle for bread; they squabble and scold and fight; ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... house: in revenge for that deed another crime is this moment about to stain further the polluted dwelling, a brave hero falling at the hands of a coward, and by a plot his monster of a wife has contrived.—The Chorus still perplexed, Cassandra NAMES Agamemnon, the Chorus essaying vainly to stop the ill-fated utterance.—Then Cassandra goes on to describe how she herself must be sacrificed with her new lord, a victim to the jealous murderess; bitterly ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... pleasing. For two weeks now he had had to content himself with chance interviews with Eleanor, meager diet for a person with an omnivorous appetite; but to-night there was the prospect for a long, uninterrupted evening. Since the day of Miss Enid's wedding he had found her perplexed and absent-minded; but the fact that she always had a smile for him, and that nothing was seen or heard of Harold Phipps, sufficed to ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice |
