"Puzzling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Queen Dido, which were scattered to the four winds of Heaven, I fear; nor could I discover a reasonably good bust of Homer; but respectable substitutes are provided, and some of them have the great merit of puzzling all beholders to tell to whom they belong, which I believe was the great characteristic of ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... words two or three times, "there goes two white horses;" but he could not find out what was wrong, and after puzzling for a long while, he was obliged to give it up, and his papa said,—"Suppose you had been talking about those horses before you saw them go by, should you have said, 'there they goes?'" "No," ...
— More Seeds of Knowledge; Or, Another Peep at Charles. • Julia Corner
... pleasant to think of one's puzzling the organised wisdom of so superior a planet as this Utopia, this moral monster State my Frankenstein of reasoning has made, and to that pitch we have come. When we are next in the presence of our Lucerne official, he has the bearing of a man who faces a mystification beyond his ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... much which you found there, relating to the right conduct of life, you had already found scattered through the books of the Greek and Roman moralists. You would be startled by no strange or appalling truth. You would turn over their leaves in vain in search of such dark and puzzling ingenuities as try the wits of those who resort to the pages of the Timaeus. A child can understand the essential truths of Christ. And the value of Christianity consists not in this, that it puts forth a new, ingenious, and intricate system of philosophy, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... a puzzling question to decide just where to draw the line in separating foreign from what we may call current American folk-lore. The traditions and superstitions that a mother as a child or girl heard in a foreign land, ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... an unusual circumstance, oral tradition takes the place of writings, charters, and puzzling trifles. One of the four sons of Bernard Guynemer, Auguste, lived to be ninety-three, retaining all his faculties. Toward the end he resembled Voltaire, not only in face, but in his irony and skepticism. He had all sorts of memories of the Revolution, the Empire, and ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... proceed at once to test our conclusion by introspection. If we are sitting at our study table puzzling over a difficult problem in geometry, reasoning forms the wave in the stream of consciousness—the center of the field. It is the chief thing in our thinking. The fringe of our consciousness is made up of various sensations of the light from the lamp, the contact ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... their acquaintance Morgan had been as puzzling as a page in an unknown language—altogether different from the obvious little Anglo-Saxons who had misrepresented childhood to Pemberton. Indeed the whole mystic volume in which the boy had been amateurishly bound demanded some practice in translation. To-day, after a ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... woman had he known that you lived. The Mounted Police, the Riders of the Plains, travel far and wide. But now, there has come from the farther West a new detachment to Fort Cypress, and they may be able to help us. But listen. There is something more. The man Pretty Pierre, did he not speak puzzling words concerning himself and Shon McGann? And did he not say to you at the last that they were even now? Well, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "He's very puzzling to me," said Miss Graham. "Sometimes you think he's nothing but an old cynic, from his talk, and then something so sweet and fresh comes out that you don't know what to do. Don't you think he has really a very poetical mind, and that he's putting ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... me you've got yourself into some fix," she said to herself. "What's puzzling me is that I can't believe the evidence of my own eyes. Did I dream I saw Loveday go downstairs and take a roll of papers out of Hilary's desk? Goodness, I was only too horribly awake! The queerness of the thing bothers me. It doesn't fit in, somehow. Loveday! Loveday's ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... of time rather puzzling as recorded in the "Study of Italian Made Easy," I devoted twenty-four hours to learning how to say the time from one o'clock at noon to midnight, or thirteen to twenty-three o'clock. My soul revolted at the task, for a foreign ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... approached the river, and Gage leading a strong advance guard across it, found no enemy on the other side, puzzling and also pleasing news. The foe, whom they had expected to find in this formidable position, seemed to have melted away. No trace of him could be found in the forest, and to many it appeared that the road to Fort ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... co-ordinating, on a vast scale, individual achievements, resources and labour, and directing them to a common end. The allied peoples were meanwhile content to muddle through in the old way. This difference explains much that seems puzzling in the outcome of ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... far away from your command?" the officer inquired with real curiosity. His tone was so puzzling that Harry hesitated an instant—but in that instant a detachment of Forrest's troopers came around the bend in ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... found in connection with changes which take place in the child at the age of adolescence or puberty. This age has never been so carefully and systematically studied as at the present time, and it is proving an unsuspected key for solving many puzzling problems of racial evolution as well as of individual development. Personally it is a time of tremendous stress,—physical, mental, and moral; the young person who escapes turmoil being ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... epic story of Finn which is alluded to at some length in Beowulf (vv. 1068-1159). The saga can be reconstructed in its broad outlines, though it is impossible to be sure of details. One of the most puzzling of these details is the position in which the "Fight" occurs. In the story are two fights, either one of which may be the one described in the fragment. The weight of opinion seems to favor the first conflict, that in which Hnaef is killed. As summarized by Moeller, the Finn story ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... itself into the belief that it can conceive a beginning of things. The earth stands on an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, and it is going too far to ask what the tortoise stands on. In the same way the world's beginning seems to become more intelligible or less puzzling when it is thrown back into a series of beginnings and endings. This method also was in harmony with those vague ideas of evolution and of the survival of the fittest which we have detected in myth. The various tentative human races ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... incident really took place, it is scarcely possible that Rogers would not have made some mention of it. On the other hand, it is equally incredible that the Indians would have invented the tale of their own defeat. I am indebted for Pennoyer's puzzling narrative to the kindness of R.A. Ramsay, Esq., of Montreal. It was printed, in 1869, in the History of the Eastern Townships, by Mrs. C.M. Day. All things ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... girl. It was not her way to sit wondering and puzzling over anything she could not understand. She had a knack of setting herself to unravel problems which required explanation in the most common-sense way. After giving her uncle time to leave the house—intuition told ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... do you know," said Ready, stopping after they had walked twenty yards, "by what means we may find our way back again; for you see this forest of trees is rather puzzling, and there is no path ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... her for nothing. If only her cap had been in it, why of course she would have left it in mother's bedroom. But here it was in her lap, with her two hands folded tight over it, as if it contained something precious! How very puzzling ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Western Papuo-Melanesians have extended their dispersal as far as the Mekeo district, where they came into contact with other peoples. It has been shown that the true Papuans are a narrow-headed people, but there are some puzzling exceptions, the explanation of which is not yet ascertained. The Papuo-Melanesians contain a somewhat broad-headed element, and there is a slightly broad-headed population in the central range of the south-east peninsula, the extent of which has not yet been determined. The ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... father's face came something closer to blank astonishment than I had ever seen there. Something in the situation was puzzling him, and for the moment he seemed unable ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... hut fast asleep, instead of keeping a watch for me, as he ought to have been doing. This last thought caused me to look particularly for the huts, and then I understood another thing that had been puzzling me: the huts ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Hill as usual in the middle of the morning but had found no reference to the performance of Tosca the night before. John had spent a good part of the day fretting over the absence of any news as to how Paula's venture had succeeded and puzzling over the lack of it in the papers. Then the obvious explanation had struck one of the boys, that the papers that came out to Hickory Hill on Sunday were an ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... "Oh, Daisy, I'm not a brute. I am so sorry you feel upset. But you know you are very happy; you have told me so. I should like to be immensely sympathetic, but you do change so quickly, I can't quite keep up. It must be very puzzling. Do you suppose everybody is like you when she ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... stopped further mention of the subject. He stood at one end of the apartment in a paroxysm of laughter. Tears filled his eyes. He pointed to another director, who, at the other extremity of the room, was also puzzling over a coat. "There's Stuart with my mackintosh! He's trying to put it on—and here am I with his coat trying to put that on. I—I said to myself, 'This is pretty large for a slim man like you.'—Great God, Stuart, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... Bourbons which had been arranged by a Madame de Pompadour and which had contributed to the disasters and disgrace of the Seven Years' War [Footnote: See above, pp. 358 ff]. While grave ministers of finance were puzzling their heads over the deficit, gay Marie Antoinette was buying new dresses and jewelry, making presents to her friends, giving private theatricals, attending horse-races and masked balls. The light- hearted girl-queen had little serious interest in politics, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... made a vague, purring noise, which seemed to imply that she found material consideration too puzzling for discussion, and commanded the porter with one of those slow, imperative gestures that Richard made when he wanted people to do things. Walking down the platform, Ellen wondered why Richard always called her a little thing. His mother was far smaller than she was, and broad-shouldered ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... find him. We know now what causes the mark of the Zayat Kiss. Therefore science is richer for our first brush with the enemy, and the enemy is poorer—unless he has any more unclassified centipedes. I understand now something that has been puzzling me since I heard of it—Sir Crichton's stifled cry. When we remember that he was almost past speech, it is reasonable to suppose that his cry was not 'The red hand!' but 'The red ANT!' Petrie, to think that I failed, by less than an hour, to save ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... a puzzling question as to these Arians and other Christian heretics. I cannot be hard on them so long as they cling faithfully to the One Lord who is necessary to all. If we are in the right—and I firmly believe that we are—and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fairyland and enchanted isles, than with any distinct consciousness that one was occupied with poetry. Next to Scott, with me, came Longfellow, who pleased one as more reflective and tenderly sentimental, while the reflections were not so deep as to be puzzling. I remember how "Hiawatha" came out, when one was a boy, and how delightful was the free forest life, and Minnehaha, and Paupukkeewis, and Nokomis. One did not then know that the same charm, with a yet fresher dew upon it, was to meet ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... roundabouts rule the scene; the roundabouts take the money. The supreme desire of the revellers is to describe circles, either on horseback or in yachts, either simple circles or complex circles, either up and down or straight along, but always circles. And it is as though inventors had sat up at nights puzzling their brains how best to make revellers seasick while keeping them equidistant from a steam-orchestra.... Then the crowd solidly lurches, and you find yourself up against a dentist, or a firm of wrestlers, or a roundabout, or an ice-cream refectory, and you take what comes. ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... had fairly descended, Mickey O'Rooney, handling a small torch with great care, made his way once more to the puzzling outlet of the underground stream. The inspection satisfied him of the accuracy of his theory. Not the slightest tinge of light relieved the impenetrable gloom. Mickey considered this strong proof that it was but a short distance to the free air outside, and his courage rose very nearly ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... didn't know which I blamed the more, Devore for his malignant, cold disdain of the major, or the major for his blatant stupidity. And right then and there, all of a sudden, there came to me an understanding of a thing that had been puzzling me all these weeks. Often I had wondered how the major had endured Devore's contempt. I had decided in my own mind that he must be blind to it, else he would have shown resentment. But now I knew the answer. The major wasn't blind, he was afraid; as the saying goes, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... explorations. He is undoubtedly the most magistral theorist of the day. The fact that he could write at the head of his treatise on harmony, "What I have here set down I have learned from my pupils," independently proves him a great teacher. It is probable that his later music, the music of his puzzling "third period," will shortly come to be considered as simply a part of his unique course ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... of a document, or the veracity of a conversation, would take place between the two young men; Kearney not having the vaguest suspicion that the author of the point in debate was then sitting opposite to him, sometimes seeming to share the very doubts and difficulties that were then puzzling himself. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Spaniard, the Pope, and the Devil' in the same category, then we shall understand very little about Raleigh; though, of course, we shall save ourselves the trouble of pronouncing as to whether the Spaniard and the Pope were really in the same category as the devil; or, indeed, which might be equally puzzling to a good many historians of the last century and a half, whether there ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... alimentary food-canal had to be carried, often by a most roundabout course, to and through the liver, before it could reach any part of the general system. Here was the largest and most striking organ in the body, and it was as puzzling as it was large. We knew in some crude way that it "made blood," that it prepared the food-products for use by the body-cells, and that it secreted the bile; but this latter secretion had little real digestive value, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... spoken were accompanied with such an air, and such a look, as to make him believe that it was Venus with all her graces who had addressed him. He was near her when she sat down to cards, and as he was puzzling himself to devise by what means he should get this answer, she desired him to lay her gloves and fan down somewhere: he took them, and with them the billet in question; and as he had perceived nothing severe or angry in the conversation ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... How I lay puzzling my brains as to where the cartridges could be! I recalled how Walters had stolen them, and he must have carried them forward, where the main portion would be stowed somewhere; but all the same I felt that Jarette would, for certain, have some in this ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... that process, display more sobriety, we most humbly offer to Mr. B. our modest judgment upon his selection (not upon his choice, but upon the thing chosen). That it is a landscape we gloomily admit; but that it represents "Evening" we steadily deny. The exact period of the day, after much puzzling and deliberation, we cannot arrive at; one thing yet we are assured of—that it has been painted in company with a clock that was either too fast or too slow. The composition, which has very much the appearance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... at fault, somehow," Brant explained in answer to a grunt of inquiry from Uncle Dick. "Something puzzling him ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... It was a good thing, they thought, that people could not see into the future. Time-travelling was certainly best done backwards. And yet—who would want to wipe out the record of the Anzacs? Life was a fairly puzzling job, when ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... console myself with thinking that the people—the American people, at least —is about as wise collectively as less numerous collections of individuals, and that the people has really declared emancipation, and is only puzzling how to carry it into effect. After all, it seems to be a law of Providence, that progress should be by a spiral movement; so that when it seems most tortuous, we may perhaps be going ahead. I am firm in the faith ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of Blanche's which mentioned her visit to Shepherd's Inn. "Another disappointment—only the Chevalier Strong and a friend of his in the room." This was all that Blanche had said. "But she was bound to keep her father's secret, Pen," Laura added. "And yet, and yet—it is very puzzling." ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... parts; and certainly that is well and politic. But why the Government does not think it well and politic that our diplomats should be able to do us like credit abroad is one of those mysterious inconsistencies which have been puzzling me ever since I stopped trying to understand baseball and took up ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... whose youth and courage are at their zenith, and whose brain is tuned to concert pitch, is thrown neck and crop out of squalid isolation into the melting pot of Manhattan, puzzling problems of readjustment must follow. Samson's half-starved mind was reaching out squid-like tentacles in every direction. He was saying little, seeing much, not yet coordinating or tabulating, but grimly bolting every ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... received in Europe was chilled by stories that some portions of the expeditionary corps had been guilty of crimes only to be paralleled in the history of European wars in the seventeenth century. After the war a difficult diplomatic question remained, all the more puzzling because the ambitions of the powers prevented any hearty agreement among them. These questions were only in appearance settled by the signing of the protocol in January, 1901. Attention was fixed upon Russia, supported by ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... is improbable that hybrids sufficiently fertile to be worth cultivation will ever be thus produced. This fact is surprising, as these forms structurally are not widely distinct, and are sometimes connected in the districts where they grow wild, as I hear from Professor Asa Gray, by puzzling intermediate forms. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... turned and faced the puzzling "employer" with a half defiant question: "And when shall I know the real nature of my duties?" as he carefully folded up the welcome bundle of notes, without even ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... pride is hurt every time he sees me. He evidently thinks he is all the medical aid they need around here. But I do wish he would come with me to see this young Cowan; it's the most puzzling case I've ever met. There are times, Grantley, when I think I should be ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... was there, O'er which the morning's earliest beam Was wandering fresh and fair. No architect of classic school Had pondered there with line and rule— The buildings in strange order lay, As if the streets had lost their way; Fantastic, puzzling, narrow, muddy, Excess of toil from lack of study. Where Fashion's very latest fangles Had no conception of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... was puzzling himself as to how it had been managed, he grasped the fact that some one was gliding down the smooth trunk of a palm-tree which grew close to the house, and to which one of the bamboo rafters had ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... had been taught about the importance of prayer, and again the words, "looking unto Jesus," rushed with greater power than ever upon his memory, so that, despite his anxiety as to the fate of his affianced bride and the perilous nature of the enterprise in hand, he kept puzzling his inquiring brain with such difficulties as the absolute dependence of man on the will and leading of God, coupled with the fact of his being required to go into vigorous, decisive, and apparently independent action, trusting entirely to ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... green curtain of foliage, and, looking over the fair girl's shoulder, gaze sadly into my eyes. It was the face of Paquita. Ah, sweet wife, never let the green-eyed monster trouble the peace of your heart! Know that the practical Saxon mind of your husband is puzzling itself over a purely scientific problem, that this surpassingly fair child interests me only because her fairness seems to upset all physiological laws. I was, in fact, just sinking to sleep at this moment when the shrill note of a trumpet blown close ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... I'll admit this prolonged absence of Miss Jones is puzzling. But perhaps she has gone to call on an old friend and will presently return and apologize. I remember her mother— a remarkable woman, sir—who used to live at the Voltaire. She had a lot of friends in Chicago, did Mrs. Antoinette ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... the garden. The gate gave no trouble. He walked fast, and long before Marianne came back to her sweeping he had gained the woods, which were near, and enclosed the house on two sides in a shady half-circle. They were pretty woods, full of flowers and squirrels and winding, puzzling paths. Archie had never been allowed to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... "Well, after puzzling for some time, a bright thought struck him. It was entirely owing to that stupid nose affair, which his mother was so silly about. Of course that was it! He had done everything else she recommended, but he could not keep his head down at the same time, so people ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... this passed into her mind and soul, brightening there, like the morning. It seemed, in that glimpse, so clear and gracious,—the truth that had been puzzling her. ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... questions, ever Rippling like a restless river, Puzzling many an older brain Dost thou hour by hour increase thy store Of marvelous lore. Thus a squirrel, darting deftly, Up and down autumnal trees, Sees its hoard of chestnuts growing swiftly In a heap ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... went out into the streets, and tried to forget his enemy in the jostling of the crowds, and the roar and clatter of the traffic; but presently he would find himself stealing quietly aside and pacing some deserted byway, vainly puzzling his brains, and trying to fix some meaning to phrases that were meaningless. It was a positive relief when Thursday came, and he remembered that he had made an appointment to go and see Dyson; the flimsy reveries ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... agitation was not observed by either Reuben or Hannah, whose heads were again bent over the puzzling letter. While he was still in that half-stunned, half-excited and wholly-confused state of feeling, Reuben went slowly on with ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... But here is one puzzling point:—how is it that the mediums are always of the, so-called, educated class, such as Kaptchitch and Marya Ignatievna? If there were such a special force, would it not be met with also among ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... scouts crowded in front to peer through the puzzling fog to see the questionable boulder, but IT unexpectedly got upon its clumsy feet and started for the girls. In the fog it loomed up ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... plied his humble trade, And used his tricks and talents to persuade; The fellow barely read, but chanced to look Among the fragments of a tatter'd book; Where, after many efforts made to spell One puzzling word, he found it—oxymel; A potent thing, 'twas said to cure the ills Of ailing lungs—the oxymel of squills: Squills he procured, but found the bitter strong And most unpleasant; none would take it long; But the pure acid and the sweet would make A med'cine numbers would for pleasure ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... too soon begin the study,—providing you, as it will do, at once with materials for the deepest thought, and laying a safe foundation for all future ethical studies; it is at the same time so clearly expressed, that you will have no perplexity in puzzling out the mere external form of the idea, instead of fixing all your attention on solving the difficulties of the thoughts and arguments themselves. Locke on the Human Understanding is a work that has probably ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... frowning face, back and forwards across the room, there was something more puzzling still that had to be thought about. Why did they quarrel about such tiny things? In novels, in good, reliable novels, it was always the big things about which people fought. Whoever heard of two people ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... out of the inlet and paddled on down the creek. Hardly a word was spoken. The mysterious stranger's warning had taken a deep hold upon both lads, and they were so deeply engrossed in puzzling over it that they failed to see the dam until it was close to them. The falling water made but little noise since the breastwork ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... of puzzling, technical terms. Every woman who cares for ideal health should purchase this book, and help to inaugurate the 'new era' for her ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... severe mutilation at the hands of the foreigners by whom it was transmitted, conveyed a very confusing idea of the facts that were intended, but the puzzling over it by the whole party, and the gradual, though not perfect, elucidation of its meaning, had perhaps the effect of softening the joyful intelligence ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... world it is all a matter of luck. When I did everything I could to please people, they wanted to shoot me; and when I did nothing except run away, they brought me back and treated me better than the most valuable prize-winner in the kennels. It was puzzling at first, but one day I heard the boss talking to a friend who had come ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... is to-day! How puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh, dear, I shall never get to twenty at that rate!" But presently on looking down at her hands, she was surprised ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of the porch was rebuilt in the fifteenth century. The inner one, with a finely moulded arch with angle shafts and the vault with simple diagonal ribs carried on shafts, is of the early thirteenth century. It is to be regretted that this fine porch is not better seen. Signs of the puzzling reconstructions that have occurred in this part are visible in the aisle wall. Two lancet windows high up are of the same date as the porch, and are blocked by the chamber since constructed above St. Thomas's ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... long time Deucalion and Pyrrha wondered over the puzzling words of the goddess. Pyrrha was the first to break the silence. "Pardon me, O noble goddess," she said, "if I do not obey you and cannot consent to scatter the bones ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... himself, and nearer and yet nearer until he was within three feet of a loud peeper in the floating grass. He located the spot within a few inches and yet could see nothing. He was utterly baffled, and lay there puzzling over it, when suddenly all the near Peepers stopped, and Yan was startled by a footfall; and looking around, he saw a man within a few feet, ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the end of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century was borrowed from Spain, and had to do with a multiplication of trap doors, dark lanterns, intrigues, and puzzling disguises, until Moliere, in his "Precieuses Ridicules" successfully attacked ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... Nevertheless—he found himself puzzling over certain other incidents in his recent ken, of a different character. The hospital at Carton was mainly for privates, with a certain amount of accommodation for officers. He had done his best during the summer to be useful to some poor fellows, especially of his own ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and unexpected was his appearance at the moment, that I really felt but half awake, and kept puzzling myself for an explanation of the scene, rather than thinking of a reply to his question; perceiving which, and auguring but badly from my silence, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... Crossing, Maine, to this self-possessed, carefully finished young woman, was unbelievable. Tall and finished in detail, from the delicate hands and fine ears to the sharply moulded chin, she presented a puzzling contrast to the short, thick, sturdy figure of her mother. And her quick appropriation of the blessings of wealth, her immediate enjoyment of the aristocratic assurances that the Hitchcock position had given her in Chicago, showed markedly in contrast with the tentativeness of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... The puzzling fact about the American labor movement is, after all, its limited objective. As we saw before, the social order which the typical American trade unionist considers ideal is one in which organized labor ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... character was locked up, Sandy started back for Oak Farm, puzzling over the mysterious man ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... marks may be cut in a new set of blocks, very puzzling errors occasionally arise while printing, especially if the planks are of ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... Eastlake) in 1860. Mrs. Jameson had an imperfect knowledge of technique, and her work was descriptive rather than critical. But it probably did more to enlist the interest of the general reader in Christian art than Lord Lindsay's more learned volumes; or possibly even than the brilliant but puzzling ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... indication of nameless terrors, if it were only in the starts and crackings of the timbers of the old place. To the turbid spirits of that generation the midnight heaven itself was by no means a restful companion; and many were the hours wasted by those young astrophiles in puzzling out the threats, or the enigmatic promises, of a ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... least six or seven players who win great sums, whose gains are talked about and watched at the tables, and who go away with from ten to fifty thousand pounds. But it was the combination of personality with great and persistent good luck which made Mary Grant remarkable, and her behaviour was puzzling and piquantly mysterious to those who had no clue to her past. Everybody talked about her: the croupiers who spun her numbers or put on her stakes, and received her generous tips: the shopkeepers with whom she spent the money ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... query—why a lady-bird is called Bishop Barnaby? Probably there will be less difficulty in answering another entomological question—Why do the country-people in the south of Scotland call an earwig a "coach-bell?" The name "earwig" itself is sufficiently puzzling, but "coach-bell" seems, if ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... of her own within her own borders, on too large a scale to be called "bushwhacking," and yet with a strong flavor of that irregular style of conflict. The President interested himself a good deal in the early efforts of the loyalists, and amid a puzzling snarl of angry "personal politics" he tried to extend to them aid and countenance, though with imperfect success. It was fortunate that Missouri was away on the outskirts, for she was the most vexatious and perplexing part of the country. Her population had little feeling of state allegiance, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... was a puzzling one. Flossie thought a nice doll would be the right thing, while Freddie thought an automobile that could be wound up and made to run around the floor would be better. At last ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... none other than Solomon Prower. Dr. Young, in his "Chronicles," speaking of Martin, says, "he brought his wife and two children." If this means Martin's children, it is evidently an error. It may refer to age only. His case is puzzling, for Bradford makes him both "servant" and "son." If of sufficient age and account to be cited before the Archdeacon for discipline, it seems strange that he should not have signed the "Compact." Even if a "servant" ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... a very remarkable and, in some respects, puzzling incident. It is tempting to bring it into connection with the immediately preceding narrative as to Apollos. The same stage of spiritual development is presented in these twelve men and in that eloquent Alexandrian. They and he were alike in knowing only of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... course that would end the argument in a gale of laughter. When the elder Macintyre entered the discussion, all the rest of the company moved forthwith to Thyrsis' side, and there were six Socialists confronting one business-man. And this was a very puzzling and alarming thing to the old gentleman—his son and his magazine were getting away from him, and he did not know what ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... showed her mental independence by puzzling questions upon religion. The eloquent Massillon attempted to win her to orthodoxy. But he soon gave up the task, told the Sisters to buy her a catechism, and went off declaring her charming. The inefficacy of the catechism was proved later, when the precocious girl ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... the fire and flame ejections of burning mountains, with their other attendant phenomena, in occurring at definite periods of time, and being of equally definite durations. It is this life-like periodicity in the geyser's mode of action which makes it as awe-inspiring to behold as it is puzzling to explain. ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... It was rather puzzling, and the young officer did not anticipate finding the old hall without some trouble; but he had an idea that it lay to the east of the smugglers' landing-place, as well as some ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... emphasis and cadence, according to the nature and importance of the terms, and according to the requirements of rhythm, with no reference to this factitious principle, no conformity thereto but what is accidental, it cannot but be a puzzling exercise, when these difficulties come to be summed up, to attempt the application of a doctrine so vainly conceived to be "the easiest and simplest rule in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... involved in a grand campaign was in many respects new to him, but doing his own thinking in silence, instead of puzzling himself with the contradictory opinions of other men, Grant reached a more accurate conclusion in regard to the war than any of his predecessors. In the first place, he saw that the various campaigns which had been conducted in different parts of the country would have been ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... folks are taught to scent Jesuitry, especially when it involved an inductive law, and not a mere red-tape precedent, and, therefore, could not see that Lancelot was arguing for him. 'All very fine, Smith,' said the squire; 'it's a pity you won't leave off puzzling your head with books, and stick to fox- hunting. All you young gentlemen will do is to turn the heads of the poor with your cursed education.' The national oath followed, of course. 'Pictures and chanting! Why, when I was a boy, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... Groom mused. "It is as puzzling as anything that has happened at the Cedars unless the light we saw was some phosphorescent effect of decaying wood ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... a little puzzling to Isabel. However, she accepted it in the course of things. Men were made freakish and unreasonable. Therefore, when Maurice was going out to France for the second time, she felt that, for her husband's sake, she must discontinue her friendship with Bertie. ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... and your manner convict you, my boy. I jumped you with that name purposely. I am no fool when it comes to examining a witness. When I first laid eyes on you I thought I had seen you, yourself, somewhere, and I have been puzzling my brains. Then it occurred to me that I had known in my youth a fellow who looked like you. You're the son of your father, all right. Don't stultify yourself by lying to me. You ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... the speech centre. If this should be injured or destroyed, the power of speech is entirely lost. This, curiously enough, lies upon the left side of the brain, and is the only one-sided centre in the body. Why this is so is somewhat puzzling, except that as speech is made up both of sound and of gesture, and our gestures are usually made with the right hand, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the speech centre should have grown up on that ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... says Dr. Hoff, "is sometimes the cause of barrenness; this is usually puzzling to the interested parties, inasmuch as the practices which, in their opinion, should be the source of a numerous progeny, have the very opposite effect. By greatly moderating their ardor, this defect may ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... This was a puzzling, disagreeing question; Grating like arsenic on his host's digestion: A kind of question to the man of cask, That not ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... farm and mine lie side by side, And nothing should our mutual trust divide; But they who made th' original survey Were guided by the stars, the records say, So that the line that marks out our domain Is indistinct, and puzzling ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant |
