"Puzzle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impractical?" the Marquis went on. "I am not impractical. My plan is altogether feasible. I do not merely think this. I know. My intuition tells me so. I pride myself on having a natural intuition. It takes me only a few seconds to understand a situation that other men have to puzzle over for hours. I seem to see every side of a question at once. I assure you, I am gifted in this way. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... from all. Puzzles containing obsolete words will be received. Write contributions on one side of the paper and apart from all communications. Address 'Puzzle Editor,' ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... the villain was only crushed for the moment, and that he would shortly be revenging himself upon them. No, the only way every to get any peace and quiet was to render the Tanuki harmless for ever. Long did the old man and the hare puzzle together how this was to be done, and at last they decided that they would make two boats, a small one of wood and a large one of clay. Then they fell to work at once, and when the boats were ready and properly painted, the ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... personal history and characteristics—mental and moral—of enemy commanders. Some one else noted that the supposed speciality of the General immediately opposite us was that of making fierce attacks across impassable marshes. "Good," put in a third some one. "Let's puzzle the German staff by persuading him that we have an Etonian General in this part of the line, a very celebrated 'wet-bob.'" Which sprightly suggestion made the Brigadier-General smile. But it was my good fortune to go one better. I had to partner him at bridge, ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... men, who were filling it, and a tall thin old man who stood with his head bare, leaning upon his cane with an air of reverence. Beneath the coffin lid below Sarah Mosely lay with her hands folded, faintly smiling like a little withered girl who has done something, left a curious deed which was to puzzle those who were still awake when they discovered what she had ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... two special temptation prayers to make. The one is: "Lead us not into temptation."[66] That petition has been a practical puzzle to many of us, and the explanations not always quite clear. Would God lead us into temptation? we instinctively ask. And the answer seems to ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... never bothered with mental analysis; his effort to untangle his ideas in this case merely added to his puzzlement; it was like one of those patent trick things which he had picked up in idle moments, allowing the puzzle to bedevil attention and time, intriguing his interest, to his disgust. He had felt particularly lonely and helpless when he came away from Comas headquarters; instinctively he was seeking friendly companionship—opening ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... is Roscoe? I didn't see as much of him as you did, but I liked him. Take my tip for it, that woman will make trouble for him some day. She is the biggest puzzle I ever met. I never could tell whether she liked him or hated him; but it seems to me that either would be the ruin of any "Christom man." I know she saw something of him while she was in London, because her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... who knew Turkish, what they would be glad to do with us. As we sat eating our lunch in the shelter of a hovel by the roadside, while the horses were baiting, a party of the fanatics watched us with growing malignity and a truculent interchange of sentiments of an evidently unfriendly nature. To puzzle them as to our status, I took the pains to repeat in conversation with my colleague the formula of adherence to the faith as it is in Islam, a scrap of Arabic I had learned in Crete, the repetition of which, according to the rite, is equivalent to the recognition of Mahomet and his teachings. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... house that attracted him most, for it was full of toys of the most fascinating kind. A rocking-horse as big as a pony, the finest dolls' house you ever saw, boxes of tea-things, boxes of bricks—both the wooden and the terra-cotta sorts—puzzle maps, dominoes, chessmen, draughts, every kind of toy or game that you have ever had or ever ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... came the almanacs and the puzzle went to the astrophysicist. Venus was on a bearing of 300 degrees from the Duluth Municipal Airport at 5:20P.M. on March 23rd. But Venus was just below the horizon at that time and the observers said the ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... that must be quite enough for you, Mr. Ashburn! And Mabel Langton is always such a puzzle to me. I never can quite make up my mind if she is really as sweet as she seems. Sometimes I fancy I have noticed—and yet I can't be sure—I've heard people say that she's just the least bit, not exactly conceited, perhaps, but too inclined to trust her own opinion about things and ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... I know. It isn't worth while till the gentlemen come in," she said. "I know that—now. It used to puzzle me at first; but I know now. You English are so—funny! In America a girl is quite content to sing to her lady friends; but here—well, only men count as audience. They will all wake up when the men appear. I have learned that. Or perhaps you ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... slowly dying everywhere. Social idealism is growing everywhere. People who want to persuade us that social idealism depends on religion are puzzled by this. It is only because they are obstinately determined to connect everything with Christianity, in spite of its historical record. There is no puzzle. We have transferred our emotions from God to man, from heaven ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... Salt it here, and sauce it there, Saying nothing, since none care To make question, taking pay, Yes, and praise upon your way, For—well, ere the thing is through, What is what and who is who, It might puzzle you to tell; Still you "think it right"! Ah, well! This philosophy peripatetic Strikes a chord that's sympathetic In the breast of secular scribe; Nothing, it is true, would bribe Him to play the pious prig, But—he heaves ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various
... how it was, but about this time an unaccountable, almost an imperceptible, coolness seemed to spring up between our hero and the Lady Aphrodite. If we were to puzzle our brains for ever, we could not give you the reason. Nothing happened, nothing had been said or done, which could indicate its origin. Perhaps this was the origin; perhaps the Duke's conduct had become, though unexceptionable, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... duty. The route taken by the party was a trail, which leads direct to Rayado, and on which, just before reaching the last-named place, there are many curious piles of stones, which are scattered over the side of a mountain, and have formed a puzzle to many an inquiring mind. By some they are supposed to be Indian graves; but, by others, they are thought to have been made as a sort of landmark by the older inhabitants of the plains, when they started into New Mexico on some marauding ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Jack and another dark-skinned potentate of South Africa. "By particular request" each of these coffins were provided with four padlocks, two outside and two inside, though how to use the latter must have been a puzzle even for a dead king. The Patent Metallic Air-tight Coffin Co., whose name pretty accurately describes their productions, in 1861 introduced hermetically-sealed coffins with plate glass panels in the lid, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... that Molder would have danced better two hours earlier; but still he danced beautifully. Their bodies fitted like two parts of a jigsaw puzzle that have discovered each other. She realised that G.J. was middle-aged, and regret tinctured the ecstasy of the dance. Then suddenly she heard a loud, ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Pete jammed his hands into his pockets. "Do you realize where we're standing in this thing? We're out on a limb—way out. We're fighting for time—time for Charlie and his gang to crack the puzzle, time for the Grdznth girls to gestate. But what ...
— PRoblem • Alan Edward Nourse
... pass their luncheon hour in this discussion of incomes and economies. As the dentist came to know his little woman better she grew to be more and more of a puzzle and a joy to him. She would suddenly interrupt a grave discourse upon the rents of rooms and the cost of light and fuel with a brusque outburst of affection that set him all a-tremble with delight. All at once she would set down her chocolate, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... run everywhere in this paper and especially on this page. As I have said, the whole business of actually putting a paper together is a new game for me to play, to amuse my second childhood; and it combines some of the characters of a jigsaw and a crossword puzzle. But at least I am called upon to do a great many different sorts of things; and am not tied down to that trivial specialism of the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... The prototypical computer adventure game, first designed by Will Crowther on the {PDP-10} in the mid-1970s as an attempt at computer-refereed fantasy gaming, and expanded into a puzzle-oriented game by Don Woods at Stanford in 1976. Now better known as Adventure, but the {{TOPS-10}} operating system permitted only six-letter filenames. See ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... can't puzzle it out, sir, unless there's some other Amphitryon to manage your business, no matter if you are away, and to do your job for you when you have gone. I tell you what, that sham Sosia was monstrous surprising, but this second ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... on the peaceful waters below, taking in the slow approach of the fog that was soon to envelop the land. Neither spoke for many minutes: inscrutable thinkers, each a prey to thoughts that leaped backward to the beginning and took up the puzzle ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... letters—if these marks are letters—are incomprehensible to me. But what have these small pieces of metal to do with the question of your garments? You puzzle me." ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... "'Don't puzzle me,' said I. 'But it is an indubitable verity,' I continued, addressing myself to the commissary, changing only the form of my asseveration,' that I owe the King of France nothing but my good-will, for he is a very honest ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... advice. Elizabeth had no close confidant. John was the nearest, but there were so few things John understood. Then one never dared tell Mary anything. Mary did not mean to be a tell-tale, but somehow everything she knew always oozed out sooner or later. Yes, this was a puzzle Elizabeth must ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... day! Here's the puzzle. Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain? He's so busied! If I could but muzzle People's foolish ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... fissures ran down in this rock at intervals. Some were dark and crooked, and the bottom could not be seen. Between these cracks, the rock rounded like elephants backs sloping steeply on either side. Some could be crossed, some could not. Others resembled a "maze," the puzzle being how to get from one point to another a few away. The rock was a sandstone and presented a rough surface affording a good hold, so there was little danger of slipping. We usually sat down and "inched" way to the edge of the cracks, jumping across ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... enigmatic pipe, whose end was laid before begun, That lengthens, broadens, shrinks and breaks; —puzzle, machine, automaton; ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... the puzzle for the future and called for more cases. The next two yielded projectile type handguns for ten men, with ammunition, and standard Planeteer space knives. The space knives had hidden blades which were driven forth violently when ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... persuasiveness of its comforts. Nay, pardon me, my friend," he went on, as the Vicar's either cheekbone showed a red flush, "I did not mean to speak offensively; but, Englishman though I am, in matters of religion my countrymen are ever a puzzle to me. At a great price you won your freedom from the Bishop of Rome and his dictation. I admire the price and I love liberty; yet liberty has its drawbacks, as you have for a long while been discovering; of which the first is that every man with a maggot in his head ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... follow such subtle elusive creatures of mood and fancy. We will suppose now that it is a summer evening, that Daddy is seated smoking in his chair, that the Lady is listening somewhere near, and that the three are in a tumbled heap upon the bear-skin before the empty fireplace trying to puzzle out the little problems of their tiny lives. When three children play with a new thought it is like three kittens with a ball, one giving it a pat and another a pat, as they chase it from point to point. Daddy would interfere ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... strip, and another. Some went on very well, some with heavy travail, and with results that made me grateful for our pictures and furniture. Yet it became fascinating work; it was like piecing out some vast picture-puzzle, one that might be of some use when finished. I improved, too. I was several days finishing the up-stairs, and by the time I got it done I had got back some of the dash I started off with. I could slap on the paste and swing the strip to the wall ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... childless; whose interest one would have thought should be naturally concentrated on her adopted daughter, her sister's orphan child? In conjectures such as these, I completely lost myself. Let me hear what your ingenuity can make of the puzzle; and let me return to Mr. Farnaby's dinner, waiting ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... troubled. The various pieces of the puzzle which he had fitted into places to his satisfaction suddenly seemed inadequate to fill the places he had assigned to them. To-night he had discovered a depth in Frina Mavrodin the existence of which he had never suspected. She had fenced ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... you allow me to show you this little novelty, Sir? 'Ave you seen the noo perfume sprinkler? Do come and try this noo puzzle—no 'arm in lookin', Sir. Very nice little novelties 'ere, Sir! 'Eard the noo French Worltz, Sir? every article is really very ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... inquired innocently. Her mind was occupied with the puzzle of the income which, womanlike, engrossed her ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... esteem for him," she went on; "I want him to think well of me. If I am a puzzle to him, do me a little service. ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... the giant, gravely. "He has seen so much to puzzle him since he went away, that he ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... the friends around her, but the bare best room of the old yellow farm-house, and the man lying lonely and ill before the blazing fire. Doctor Danton sat down beside her and talked to her; but Rose answered at random, and was so absorbed, and silent, and preoccupied, as to puzzle every one. Her father asked her to sing. Rose begged to be excused—she could not sing to-night. Kate looked at ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... are unreal, and that all movement and change is a mere "seeming"—not a reality. What men call motion is only a name given to a series of conditions, each of which, considered separately, is rest. "Rest is force resistant; motion is force triumphant."[457] The famous puzzle of "Achilles and the Tortoise," by which he endeavored to prove the unreality of motion, has been rendered familiar to the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... said gravely, "it is—well, you shall!—at least a part of it. A woman always keeps a little back," she said, looking at him with a smile. "As soon as she ceases to be a puzzle she ceases to interest." ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... in such matters. It is your soft and silken mollusc type of woman whose mind pursues a slimy and labyrinthine trail. But it is useless to say that she did not feel something of the intense personal attraction of the man. Often it used to puzzle and annoy her to find that as they sat arguing in the brisk, everyday atmosphere of office or merchandise room the air between them would suddenly become electric, vibrant. They met each other's eyes with effort. When their hands touched, accidentally, over papers or samples they snatched ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... the medical fraternity for brief and passing periods, this pernicious craze too, has about run its course. The causes from which this peculiar lust for operation emanates would be perhaps a difficult psychological puzzle to determine; the malign impulse, as regards some special function, seems to spring, as it were, by intuition, unbidden into being from the illusive depths of some perverted intellect, to rage for a while ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... saw a tall young man emerge from the tent, jump on a charger held by a soldier, and ride off at a fast pace toward the house of Las Flores, which stood in a large garden on the slope of a neighboring hill. His appearance seemed to puzzle her momentarily. His attire was that of Brazil, but neither his manner nor horsemanship was typical of the Brasileiro. In walking, he moved with an air of purposeful concentration that differed ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... support them by grubbing in dusty parish registers. It is most necessary to defend you from your friends—from such friends as the veteran and inveterate M. Arsene Houssaye, or the industrious but puzzle-headed M. Loiseleur. Truly they seek the living among the dead, and the immortal Moliere among the sweepings of attorneys' offices. As I regard them (for I have tarried in their tents) and as I behold their trivialities—the exercises of men who neglect Moliere's ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... a little talk of this, it was plain that all the town could not be told to say that the fisher was drowned on such a night, and Hodulf would leave naught undone to find the truth of the matter. So the puzzle became greater, and the one thing that was clear was that Grim was in sore danger, and ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... consideration of his patient's tenderness of brain. "We both of us fought a good fight; for though you struck no actual stroke, you took them as unflinchingly as ever I saw a man, and so turned the fortune of the battle better than if you smote with a sledge-hammer. Two things puzzle me in the affair. First, whence came my assailants, all in that moment of time, unless Satan let loose out of the infernal regions a synod of fiends, hoping thus to get a triumph over me. And secondly, whence came you, my preserver, unless you are an angel, and dropped ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the right-hand side of the fireplace was Mrs. 139Coleman, apparently absorbed in the manufacture of some mysterious article of knitting, which constantly required propitiating by the repetition of a short arithmetical puzzle, without which it would by no means allow itself to be created. At her feet, engaged in the Sisyphian labour of remedying the effects of "a great fall" in worsteds, scissors, and other "articles for the work-table," knelt Lucy Markham, looking so piquante and pretty, that ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... said the other night, as soon as they have dammed up the river and made the lake, they then build their houses; and how they manage to work under water and fix the posts in the ground is a puzzle to me, but they do fix six posts in the ground, and very firmly, and then they build their house, which is very curious; it is in the form of a large oven, and made of clay and fat earth, mixed up with branches ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... present quite an interesting pitching problem, the puzzle being to find out which of the above pitchers did the best work in the box in every respect, not only in pitching, but by his batting, fielding and base running. In percentage of victories pitched in, Meekin took the lead. In the number of batsmen struck ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... loose top-boots, scarlet coats, lace and periwigs of the cavaliers of the Cromwellian period, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was assembled on the banks of a deep pond within sight of Jamestown, Va. A curious machine, one which at the present day would puzzle the beholder to guess its use, had been constructed near the edge of the water. It was a simple contrivance and rude in structure; but the freshly hewn timbers were proof of its virgin newness. This machine ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... powerful telescopes, and only at the times of opposition. Their diameters are estimated at six or seven miles. It was soon found that the first, Deimos, completes its orbit in 30h. 18m. But the other, Phobos, at first was a puzzle, owing to its incredible velocity being unsuspected. Later it was found that the period of revolution was only 7h. 39m. 22s. Since the Martian day is twenty-four and a half hours, this leads to remarkable ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... think, must be manifest even to the foreign offices most concerned. They must see already ahead of them a terrible puzzle of arrangement, a puzzle their own bad traditions will certainly never permit them to solve. "God save us," they may very well pray, "from our own cleverness and sharp dealing," and they may even welcome the promise of an enlarged outlook that ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... far as he dares) whatsoever seemeth good in his own eyes, to the subversion of Common-wealth. Their Logique which should bee the Method of Reasoning, is nothing else but Captions of Words, and Inventions how to puzzle such as should goe about to pose them. To conclude there is nothing so absurd, that the old Philosophers (as Cicero saith, who was one of them) have not some of them maintained. And I beleeve that scarce any thing can be more ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... perch on the family bed, when that full-flavoured Elysium is not on the floor. I saw an interior which contained one black cow, one black calf, some hens, some ducks, two black-and-white pigs, a mother, and eleven children. Where they all slept was a puzzle, as only one bed was visible. The hens went whir-r-r-up, and perched on the bedstead, when the lady smiled and wished me Good Evening. She looked strong and in good going order. The Achilese say Good Evening all day long. A young girl was ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... knew him, he held the master criminal in awe and admiration. The Sparrow, whatever he was, never did a mean action and never took advantage of youth or inexperience. To his finger-tips he was a sportsman, whose chief delight in life was to outwit and puzzle the police of Europe. In the underworld he was believed to be fabulously wealthy, as no doubt he was. To the outside world he was a very rich old gentleman, who contributed generously to charities, kept two fine cars, and, as well as his town house, had a pretty place down in Gloucestershire, ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... Flavia apparently did not hear. It seemed as if she were grappling in her mind with some worrying puzzle, the solution of which lay hidden up there behind that brilliant bit of blue sky which glimmered through the square ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... enjoy it hugely. 'Twill be fine sport to so puzzle the King, and when he sees me as I am—" and Mistress Penwick turned proudly to a mirror—"he ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... turned the bend in the tortuous mountain road, both drew up sharply, with a gasp of astonishment. For a long time neither spoke, their bewildered minds struggling to comprehend the vast puzzle that confronted them. Even the fagged horse pricked up his ears and looked ahead with interest. Not three hundred yards beyond the bend stood the ruins ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... house at Ivie Bridge to devide the two parishes of St. Martin's in the Fields and St. Clement's Danes in that place." I gave up theorizing until I could see the registers of St. Clement's Danes, and from various causes three years passed before I had an opportunity of clearing up the puzzle. These registers prove that in London, as in Stratford-on-Avon, I had been confused by double entries, and that there was another John Shakespeare. The St. Martin's John lost his wife Dorothy in 1608; the ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... had the youngest in his arms, and looked very much as if he had only just scrambled up from the floor; his wife was really sitting on the ground, helping two little ones to put up a puzzle of wild beasts; and there was a little herd of girls at the farther corner, all very busy over something, towards which Kate's longing eyes at once turned—even in the midst of Lord de la Poer's very kind greeting, and his wife's no less ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... evening, not unfrequently wrote down next day many of the peculiarities of my music, adopting them as his own [for instance, the Abbe Gelinek]. Concluding, therefore, that some of these things would soon appear, I resolved to anticipate this. Another reason also was to puzzle some of the pianoforte teachers here, many of whom are my mortal foes; so I wished to revenge myself on them in this way, knowing that they would occasionally be asked to play the variations, when these gentlemen would ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... a great deal to understand in you," she replied. "You are a puzzle to me often. You seem so frank, and yet one knows so little about you after all. For instance," Lucia went on, "who would imagine that you ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in the figures and figuring of statistics. We admit honestly that we know no more to-day than when Paul de Decker discussed Quetelet's labors in statistics of morality in the Brussels Academy of Science, and confessed what a puzzle it was that human conduct, even in its smallest manifestations, obeyed in their totality constant and immutable laws. Concerning this curious fact Adolf Wagner says: "If a traveler had told us something about some people where a statute determines exactly how many persons per year shall ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... of them tackled Fred. He went into battle very promptly, the wagon jumping and rattling until it turned bottom up. Re-enforced by Uncle Eb's cane he soon saw the heels of his aggressor and stood growling savagely. He was like the goal in a puzzle maze all wound and tangled in his harness and it took some time to get his face before him ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... you should have said yes, we do own this, that Christ hath a body that is now in glory, ascended from his disciples, according to the scripture (Acts 1:3 compared with verses 9-11). But thou dost only fling up a few words into the air, that thou mightest thereby puzzle thy simple reader. But I bless God, for my part I do see thee, that thou dost, like a beguiled man, seek by all means to beguile others. And whereas thou sayest, It is sufficient to salvation, to know Christ Jesus as head in us, and over us. To this I answer, whatsoever ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to which of the two men Bok was the more attracted, and when it came, each quarter, to figuring how many articles could go into the Review without exceeding the cost limit fixed by the house, it was always a puzzle to Doctor Briggs why the majority of the articles left out were invariably those that he had brought in, while many of those which Doctor Patton handed in somehow found their place, upon the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... light on his puzzle, Ben turned into the stone gateway, and strode up to the east porch to let himself in as usual, with his latch key. As he was fitting it absently, all the while his mind more intent on Pickering and his changed demeanor than on his own affairs, he heard a little rustling noise ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... from one time to another time, demand explanations which repel the attention; one should also avoid leaving, in the midst of a plot, gaps which prevent the different parts of the drama from adhering closely to one another, and which, moreover, puzzle the spectator because he does not know what there may be in those gaps." But these are precisely the difficulties which art has to meet. These are some of the obstacles peculiar to one subject or another, as to which it would be impossible to pass judgment once for all. It is for genius to ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... guess the word, you go into the parlor, take part in a discussion, and return at the call of a smiling young lady. They have selected a word that may be applied to the most enigmatical replies. Everybody knows that, in order to puzzle the strongest heads, the best way is to choose a very ordinary word, and to invent phrases that will send the parlor Oedipus a thousand leagues from each of ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... sulphureted hydrogen!—we would dive into another tunnel and out again—gasping—on a breathtaking panorama of mountains. Some of them would be standing up against the sky like the jagged top of a half-finished cutout puzzle, and some would be buried so deeply in clouds that only their peaked blue noses showed sharp above the featherbed mattresses of mist in which they were snuggled, as befitted mountains of Teutonic extraction. And nearly every eminence was crowned with a ruined castle or a hotel. It was ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... stupid speeches. I'm going to bed. Come, Peggy," said Jo, unfolding herself like an animated puzzle. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... future, "it strikes me you're not doing much good up here. You're always fooling about with those precious juniors of yours, instead of sticking to cricket and tennis and your books. Here's young Aspinall here, ahead of you, by long chalks, in classics, and getting a break on at tennis that'll puzzle you to pick up unless you wake up. You can do as you like; only don't blame me if you get stuck among ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... not understand!" she cried. "You are so very much perplexed. It is enough for me that you are perplexed. I am content. I am the puzzle you will never solve. So! La la! You will never cease ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... hot, to-night, and I'm too tired and sleepy to try and puzzle out your conundrums, so if you want me to understand what you're about you had better speak out. What a rum ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... which they suspected to be a nursery for a popish army, and seemed disinclined to maintain it any longer. The king consequently, in 1683, sent Lord Dartmouth to bring home the troops, and destroy the works; which he performed so effectually, that it would puzzle all our engineers to restore the harbour. It were idle to speculate on the benefits which might have accrued to England, by its preservation and retention; Tangier fell into the hands of the Moors, its importance having ceased, with the demolition of the mole. Many ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... unnoticed. At this very moment there might be a pair of eyes somewhere in that hurrying throng on La Salle Street ready to follow his every move. However much they might suspect him, his exact status in the case was probably still a puzzle to them. He did not believe it safe as yet to betray his connection with the Government. The problem then was to reach the Federal ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... or galvanism in Catholic, or Protestant, or Presbyterian Colleges, or in all of them at once; and we should have no practical controversy with philosophers who, after the fashion of the author I have been quoting, are so smart in proving that we, who differ from them, must needs be so bigotted and puzzle-headed. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... to be able to sue B, since performance or readiness to perform was all that was necessary to give him that right, and conversely the same might be said of B. On the other hand, considering either B or A as defendant, the same facts would be a complete defence. The puzzle is largely one ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... totally different literary conventions, has difficulty in bringing himself to regard Japanese verse as a literary form or in thinking of it otherwise than as an exercise in ingenuity, an Oriental puzzle; and this notion is heightened by the prevalence of the couplet-composing contests, which did much to heighten ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the discarnin' eye in yer head—ye an' the skipper," he said. "However the skipper kep' himself away from Chance Along for t'ree entire days, wid herself a-singin' an' a-flashin' her eyes right in his own house, bes a puzzle to me. Aye, sure it do, for didn't I see her put the spell o' women on to him the very first minute she opened her eyes at him on the fore-top o' ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... "They will puzzle it out soon. Get your floating mines ready," ordered Captain Blaise. That was my work, and in anticipation of it I had knocked together two small rafts loaded with explosives and a large one with explosives and combustible stuff ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... never could conceive how it came about that he ever wedded the Lady Alianora. One of the enemies of her own husband, and she herself set prisoner in his kinsman's keeping, and to wed her gaoler's cousin, all against the King's pleasure and without his licence—canst solve the puzzle?" ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... PUTTING IT.—Mrs. R. thinks she has an excellent memory for riddles. She was delighted with that somewhat old conundrum about "What is more wonderful than JONAH in the whale?" to which the answer is, "Two men in a fly," and determined to puzzle her nephew with it the very next time she met him. "Such a capital riddle I've got for you, JOHN!" she exclaimed, "Let me see. Oh, yes—I remember—yes, that's it;" and then, having settled the form ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... in writing, is to me an intellectual puzzle. The strength, affluence and terseness may easily be accounted for, because the style of a man is the man; but how are we to account for that rare polish in his style of writing, which, most critically examined, seems the result of careful early ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... Perhaps. He might have gained courage regarding the girl's attitude toward him had he known that, on the nights he was at home, she sat in her darkened, upper room and watched the lamp he burned until it was extinguished. On the other hand, Tunis Latham's brotherly manner and cheerful kindness were a puzzle to Sheila. She knew that he had been kinder to her than any other man she had ever met. But what was the ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Parisian way. Army officers, whose pay is infinitesimal, all live like Russian Grand Dukes. How they are able to manage this on the official Servian army salaries of 65 cents a day would naturally puzzle an outsider. The answer is, Russian gold. It buys anything and everything south of Budapest. It cannot buy in Montenegro where patriotism is supreme, nor can it buy what it wants among the Osmans. To be sure it can buy the Turk; but there is a vast difference between ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... which he had parted from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? Where were we going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant was a formidable man—a man who might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair, and set the matter aside until night should ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... some spree and keep it up till dawn. How we used to dance and flirt, and drink, too! Or sometimes we would sit and chatter and discuss everything under the sun until we almost wagged our tongues off. But now—[He waves his hand] Boys are a puzzle to me. They are not willing either to give a candle to God or a pitchfork to the devil! There is only one young fellow in the country who is worth a penny, and he is married. [Sighs] They say, too, that ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... tunnel through a mountain, but ignorant of how near he was to the pleasant valley on the other side; and, above all, ignorant how rapidly he was being met by a much more mighty excavation from the other side. To use what is perhaps a more exact simile: he was like a child with half the pieces of a puzzle-map, slowly linking them together as far as they would fit, and quite ignorant that presently the remaining half would suddenly be given him, and with almost no trouble would at once fit into the gaps he had necessarily left, and transform a meaningless pattern into ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... here—and how shall I proceed to enunciate the conception which I have ventured to form of what may prove to be its proper solution! It is an idea by no means calculated to impress by its greatness, or to puzzle by its profoundness. It is an idea more marked by simplicity than perhaps any other of those which have explained the great secrets of nature. But in this lies, perhaps, one of its strongest claims ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... are mistaken, Jasper. I am not cunning. If people think I am, it is because, being made up of art themselves, simplicity of character is a puzzle to them. Your women are certainly ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... have been a sad puzzle to the hunters, who hardly knew how to come at so valuable a piece of game. Some described the horn as movable at the will of the animal, a kind of small sword, in short, with which no hunter who was not exceedingly cunning in fence could have a chance. Others ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... round so as not to see the keys; I will strike two keys, one after the other; now which is the highest (the sharpest), the first or the second? (I go on in this way, gradually touching keys nearer and nearer together; sometimes, in order to puzzle her and to excite close attention, I strike the lower one gently and the higher one stronger, and keep on sounding them, lower and lower towards the bass, according to the capacity of the pupil.) I suppose ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... show preference for the earlier cups and drinking vessels of commoner materials, and for those eccentricities of the table found in curious hunting cups, vessels which had to be emptied at a draught, or to be drunk under the most difficult conditions like the puzzle cups of Staffordshire make. The peg tankards of ancient date, a very fine example originally belonging to the Abbey of Glastonbury, afterwards in the possession of Lord Arundel of Wardour, held two quarts, the pegs dividing its contents into half-pints according to the Winchester ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... and drank, hacked at his ham-bone and ate. "By the Lord," he went on commenting, "they've not had bite or sup. Too busy with their match-making? Too delicate to feast without invitation? Which?" He pondered the puzzle. He had invited Manuela, he was sure: had he included her swain? If not, the thing was clear. She wouldn't eat without him, and he couldn't eat without his host. It was the best thing he ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... 'mystic dream.'—The interior of the house has been modernized: so that a beam covered with small carvings is the only remaining object of curiosity. On the top, a bunch of leaden thistles has been a sad puzzle to antiquaries, who would fain find some connection between the building and Scotland; but neither record nor tradition throw any light upon their researches. Montfaucon, copying from a manuscript written by the Abbe Noel, says, 'I have more than once been told, that Francis I. on his way ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... "but what shall we do, Enos, about bringing her home? Mr. Freeman truly says that, while Rose is eager to take Anne to Boston, we may feel that it would not be right for her to go. It is indeed a puzzle, is it not? Whatever possessed Anne to turn upon Amanda in such fashion, and then to run off?" and the good woman ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... a sparkle to her eyes; she could not rest when he was out of her sight. His appeal, unconscious on his part, struck to the very core of her being. To discover that she lacked a similar appeal for him roused the girl to desperation; she lay awake nights, trying to puzzle out the reason, for this was a new experience to her. Recalling their meeting and the incidents of that first night at White Horse, she realized that here was a baffling secret and that she did not ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... softly out, leaving Tom bent over the paper. Again he smoothed it out carefully on the table, bringing the two candles nearer, and tried to puzzle out ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold |
