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Baffled   /bˈæfəld/   Listen
Baffled

noun
1.
People who are frustrated and perplexed.






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"Baffled" Quotes from Famous Books



... completely baffled, and hoping against hope to find Imbrie returned. But Clare still sat huddled in the chair where he had left her, and looked to him eagerly for news. He ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... I had been counting. Nay, I saw that for my very life I had only my friend the cutler and my own prudence to thank, seeing that these rogues would certainly have murdered me without scruple had they succeeded in finding the bulk of my money. Baffled in this, while still persuaded that I had other resources, they had stopped short of that villany—or this memoir had never been written. They had kindly permitted me to live until a more favourable opportunity of enriching ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... puzzled. A gentleman in the audience called out, "Tell him to give the half of twenty-seven." Poor Minos looked quite bewildered for a moment; but he was not to be baffled so. He ran off, and brought back the card with the figure on ...
— The Nursery, No. 107, November, 1875, Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... though not abandoned it, and Heaven was on their side. The saints vouchsafed their aid, and the offended Virgin, relenting, held before them her protecting shield. In the form of beasts and other shapes abominably and unutterably hideous, the brood of hell, howling in baffled fury, tore at the branches of the sylvan dwelling; but a celestial hand was ever interposed, and there was a viewless barrier which they might not pass. Marguerite became pregnant. Here was a double prize—two souls in one, mother and child. The fiends grew frantic, but all in vain. She ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... take them, if possible, by surprise, it frequently happened that his appearance was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. It was then that the prompt ingenuity of the people was fully seen, felt, and understood by the baffled exciseman, who too often had just grounds for bitterly cursing their ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... gives examples of Nasik squares constructed with primes for all orders from the 4th to the 10th, with the exception of the 3rd (which is clearly impossible) and the 9th, which, up to the time of writing, has baffled ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... answer for this," cried the baffled woman, and with that sort of weak ferocity which is so repulsive, she sat down and began ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... Henry Bradner turned on his heel and strode off, a look of baffled rage in his eyes. Instantly ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield

... the wild sierra was generally at hand, which, with its winding paths, its caves, its frowning precipices, and ragged thickets, would offer to them a secure refuge where they might laugh to scorn the rage of their baffled pursuers, and from which they might emerge either to fresh districts or to those which they had left, to repeat their ravages when ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... the diver, Wrestled all night with the North-Wind, Wrestled naked on the moorlands With the fierce Kabibonokka, Till his panting breath grew fainter, Till his frozen grasp grew feebler, Till he reeled and staggered backward, And retreated, baffled, beaten, To the kingdom of Wabasso, To the land of the White Rabbit, Hearing still the gusty laughter, Hearing Shingebis, the diver, Singing, "O Kabibonokka, You ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow

... goodness to take yourself out of this town before you are an hour older, else you will have to take the consequences." Having said this, he proceeded to unfasten the cord which bound the degraded and spirit-broken wretch. When this had been accomplished, the baffled stroller rose, and, with head hanging down, and without a ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... eyes his own fell baffled. He was more irritated than he cared to own. Could she not see that he was prepared for anything, that his self-control was as great as her own? She treated him like a child; those professional reserves, necessary, doubtless, in the case of ...
— In The Valley Of The Shadow • Josephine Daskam

... were little curves at the corners which hinted at amusement—grim amusement. His eyes, too, were different; the mockery had departed from them. They were steady and unwavering, as before, and though they still baffled her, she was certain that she saw a slumbering devil in them—as though he possessed some mysterious knowledge and purposed to confound Sheila and her father with it, though in his own way and to suit his convenience. Yet behind it all there lurked ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... hardly call to mind a single English play, written before the civil war, in which the character of a seducer of married women is represented in a favourable light. We remember many plays in which such persons are baffled, exposed, covered with derision, and insulted by triumphant husbands. Such is the fate of Falstaff, with all his wit and knowledge of the world. Such is the fate of Brisac in Fletcher's Elder Brother, and of Ricardo and Ubaldo in Massinger's Picture. Sometimes, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... balance than by opposing armies. Nor did Richelieu seek to maintain the peace of Europe by force alone. Never was there a more astute and profound diplomatist. His emissaries were in every court, with intrigues very hard to be baffled. He equalled Metternich or Talleyrand in his profound dissimulation, for European diplomacy has ever been based on this. While he built up absolutism in France, he did not alienate other governments; so that, like Cromwell, he made his nation respected abroad. His conquest of Roussillon prepared ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... his hair uneasily. This shallow, inconsequent creature baffled him. Her shame, her grief, her misery, were all mere straws eddying on the pool of her discomfort It was not her sin that crushed her, it was the consequence of it; hers was not a sorrow, it was a petulant unhappiness. If her lot had been prosperous outwardly, ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... "the great merchant," but before the year was ended, the sharp-seeing eyes of the Ghetto saw that Ephraim had "a lucky hand." Whatever he undertook he followed up with a calmness and tact which often baffled the restless activity of many a big dealer, with all his cuteness and trickery. Whenever Ephraim, with his pale, sad fnce, made his appearance at a farmstead, to negotiate for the purchase of wool, or some such matter, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various

... must be regarded as in some occult manner, which as yet has baffled detection, influencing the perfection of sporidia[P] In Rhytisma, found on the leaves of maple and willow, black pitchy spots at first appear, which contain within them a golden pulp, in which very slender corpuscles are mixed with an abundant mucilage. These corpuscles ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... discipline, its literature and art, all the teachings and self-sacrifice of its noblest teachers, have been for this. But the harmony of contrary forces, which give their rhythm to all creation, has not yet been perfected by man in his civilisation, and the Creator in him is baffled over and over again. He comes back to his work, however, and makes himself busy, building his world in the midst of desolation and ruins. His history is the history of his aspiration interrupted and renewed. And one truth of which he must be reminded, therefore, is ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... contemplate with positive pleasure the prospect of discharging the butler. That, at least, was action, something that he could do; wherever else he thought to move he found himself baffled by the blank darkness of mystery, or by his fear ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... Momentarily baffled here, the huge elephant wheeled and bore down upon the hapless priests who had now scattered, terror-stricken, in every direction. The nearest he gored and threw high among the branches of a tree. One he seized ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... gloomily. "Hark you, Caroline, she may refuse me if she pleases. But I am not a man to be baffled. Have her I will, by one means or another; revenge urges me to it almost as much as ambition. That girl's thread of life has been the dark line in my woof; she has robbed me of fortune, she now thwarts me in my career, she humbles me in my vanity. But, like a hound that has tasted ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... companionship of a man of domestic tastes, accustomed to the society of superior women. There was nothing to fall back upon, nothing to make a home, she was listless and weary whenever gaiety failed her—and he, disappointed and baffled, too unbending to draw her out, too much occupied to watch over her, yielded to her tastes, and let her pursue ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... has not had the courage to resist; the baffled foe can tell you a tale of constancy and firmness, which the bravest soldier might be ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... right and left, a good few had glazed lights above; some however must have led merely into lumber rooms or such like, because when I brought myself to try one or two I was disconcerted to find that they were locked. I stood there irresolute and uneasy like a baffled thief. The confounded basement was as still as a grave and I became aware of my heart beats. Very uncomfortable sensation. Never happened to me before or since. A bigger door to the left of me, with a large brass handle looked as if it might lead into the Shipping ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... up a hundred thousand Disputants on each Side, and convince one another by Dint of Sword. A certain Grand Monarch [5] was so sensible of his Strength in this way of Reasoning, that he writ upon his Great Guns—Ratio ultima Regum, The Logick of Kings; but, God be thanked, he is now pretty well baffled at his own Weapons. When one was to do with a Philosopher of this kind, one should remember the old Gentleman's Saying, who had been engaged in an Argument with one of the Roman Emperors. [6] Upon his Friends telling him, That he wonder'd he would give up ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... cultivation, except of asparagus (of which there are two excellent beds), having been abandoned, as the bird monopoly of peas, caused every shilling's worth that came to table to cost five, and the ingenuity of the slugs and snails having completely baffled all amateur gardening schemes of defence against their slimy invasions. [Picture: Rustic bench] Among many experiments I may mention one. Some vegetables were protected by a circumvallum of salt; but, notwithstanding, ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... battalions of the soldiers then in Ireland to reinforce the Duke of Cumberland. He discouraged jobs, kept down expenses. . . . When some savage Ascendency Protestant would come to him with tales of alarm, he usually turned the conversation into a tone of light badinage which perplexed and baffled the man. One came to seriously put his lordship on his guard by acquainting him with the fact that his own coachman was in the habit of going to mass. 'Is it possible?' cried Chesterfield: 'then I will take care the fellow shall not drive me there.' ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... baffled by this conflict between the aims of the eighteenth century and the accomplishments of the twentieth. The facts they admit. For explanation, either they may say, "It was the war," implying that with the ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... to pass her with that monosyllable, but Perrote was not to be thus baffled. She laid a ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... is trying to do work for which he is unfitted feels repressed, baffled and defeated. He may not even guess his unfitness, but he does feel its manifold effect. He lacks interest in his work and, therefore, that most vital factor in personal efficiency—incentive. He cannot throw himself into his ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... left the city of —— on a similar message. I thanked him, and we walked to the office. Before arriving there, I had merely informed him that I desired his services in the investigation of a forgery that baffled our art. He demanded all the papers. I produced the forged notes, several genuine checks and letters of Mr. Temple and Mr. Conway, and several specimens of the handwriting of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... heart to play this time. I have called it, 'The Baffled Quest of Love'. I have taken the music of the song of Alsace, 'Le Jardin d'Amour', and I have made variations on it, keeping the last verse of the song in my mind. You know the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... a stupid log at the moment that she was going away? He would never be able to forgive himself for that. Was there any connection between her departure and her meeting with Alistair Ramsey? Bobby tried to concentrate his mind on the problem, but it baffled him. ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... sickness which has occurred, being almost entirely the result of accidental wounds, or the bites of musquitos and sand-flies; the latter, being irritated by rubbing, have produced, in some instances, very serious sores, which have baffled the greatest attention of our surgeons: one feature in these ulcers is, that frequent changes of applications are required, no individual remedy appearing to agree, at farthest, for more than five days; generally, but three or four; nor has any kindly disposition to heal shewn itself, until ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... to place guards in such a manner as should prevent the garrison in the castle marching out to surprise him, but his exertions were baffled by the want of judgment and incompetency of those beneath him in command. The guard was placed near the weigh-house at the foot of the Castle-rock, so that the battery of the half-moon, as it was termed, near the Castle-gate, bore upon it, and many of the guard within ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... direction. How is it possible to help seeing that the soul is not here in its proper element, in its native air? How is it possible to escape the conviction that all its unsatisfied yearnings, its baffled aims, its restless, agonizing aspirings after a something, clearly perceived to exist, but to be here unattainable—that all these things point to another life, the only true life of the soul? There is such ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... suspended their mutual love. Dumfries was four miles fully from our Torthorwald home; but the tradition is that during all these forty years my father was only thrice prevented from attending the worship of God—once by snow, so deep that he was baffled and had to return; once by ice on the road, so dangerous that he was forced to crawl back up the Roucan Brae on his hands and knees, after having descended it so far with many falls; and once by the terrible outbreak ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... bodies have banded together and travelled down to Chihuahua to make their complaints, and have always been helped out—for the time being. The efforts of the Government to enlighten the Indians by establishing schools are baffled by the difficulty in finding honest and intelligent teachers with a knowledge of ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... watchful eyes, to detect a grave, and, if successful in discovering it, would unearth the body in order to get the scalp, directions were given to prepare the grave after nightfall; and the spot selected would have baffled any one but an Indian. The grave was dug under the picket line to which the seventy or eighty horses of the troop would be tethered during the night, so that their constant tramping and pawing should completely ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... to follow their trail, for, during the night, a herd of several thousand buffaloes had crossed and recrossed it, quite trampling it out of sight. Still the sagacity of Carson triumphed, and after being baffled for a short time, he again ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... acquainted with Pee-wee Harris. These stories record the true facts concerning his size (what there is of it) and his heroism (such as it is), his voice, his clothes, his appetite, his friends, his enemies, his victims. Together with the thrilling narrative of how he foiled, baffled, circumvented and triumphed over everything and everybody (except where he failed) and how even when he failed he succeeded. The whole recorded in a series of screams and told ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... Mothe, impressed in spite of himself and falling back upon the last resort of baffled argument. "It is all very plausible, but I do not ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... Baffled in his frantic contest to keep hold of that railroad—a hold that he would have turned into many millions of dollars of immediate loot by fraudulently watering the stock, and then bribing the Legislature to legalize it as Gould did—Vanderbilt ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... would keep close to his text, and yet would write like himself, very beautifully, but not with an Homeric swiftness and strength. Who is to imitate him? As to Mr. William Morris, he might be fabled to render [Greek text] "niddering wights," but beyond that, conjecture is baffled. {91} Or is this the kind ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... Baffled in his attempts to capture the city of Ypres, the Hun began systematically to destroy it, turning his heaviest guns on the two most prominent structures: The Halles (Cloth Hall), and St. Martin's Cathedral, ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... influence they would have on the regions beyond. He spoke also of the help which Livingstone had derived as an explorer from his influence as a missionary. The journey he had performed successfully had hitherto baffled the best-furnished travelers. In 1834, an expedition under Dr. Andrew Smith, the largest and best-appointed that ever left Cape Town, had gone as far as 23 deg. south latitude; but that proved to be the utmost distance they could reach, and they ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... far the courtesies of fiction. But for those who prefer historical fact, it may be interesting to learn the authentic details of the interment of one whose posthumous destinies seemed to share the incompleteness of his baffled life. In order to avoid the contestations arising from the transit of a corpse through a foreign state, Nignio di Zuniga (who was charged by Philip with the duty of conveying it to Spain, under sanction of a passport from Henri III.) caused it to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... straight, from where he had entered it beneath the side of the rock furthest from the unscaleable cliffs, toward the mighty barrier that had baffled him so long. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... as she had done, and yet perforce to wait hour after hour, day after day, week after week, in the same unrelieved anxiety,—this prolonged torture is not to be told in words. She schooled herself against further outcries, but the evidence of her suffering was no less in her settled look of baffled expectancy, her fits of mute abstraction, the start of her eyes at any sound of bell or knock. She clutched back hope as it was slipping away, and would not surrender uncertainty for its less harrowing follower, ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... good number owed their lives to that mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, that unknown Englishman who had snatched scores of victims from the clutches of Tinville the Prosecutor, and sent M. Chauvelin, baffled, back to France. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... were white men, for the negroes thought that black baptism would not stick; but they were fortune-hunters, like the rest of the colony, mere agents of the official will, and seekers of their pleasures in the huts of the negro-quarter.[I] The curates declared that the innate stupidity of the African baffled all their efforts to instil a truth or rectify an error. The secret practice of serpent-worship was punishable, as the stolen gatherings for dancing were, because it unfitted them for the next day's toil, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... has most of grief and pain, Which is the worse to bear: The joy we crave and never have, Or the curse of the granted prayer? The baffled wish or the bitter rue— Could our hearts choose between ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... of despair or at the summit and crown of happiness. People who had been used to discover a great many of old Mr Bury's personal peculiarities in his sermons, and who, of recent days, had found many allusions which it was easy to interpret in the discourses of Mr Morgan, retired altogether baffled from the clear and succinct brevity of the Curate of St Roque's. He was that day in particular so terse as to be almost epigrammatic, not using a word more than was necessary, and displaying that power of saying a great deal more than at the first ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... toward the ships; uprais'd, the dust 175 Stood o'er them; universal was the cry, "Now clear the passages, strike down the props, Set every vessel free, launch, and away!" Heaven rang with exclamation of the host All homeward bent, and launching glad the fleet. 180 Then baffled Fate had the Achaians seen Returning premature, but Juno thus, With admonition quick to Pallas spake. Unconquer'd daughter of Jove AEgis-arm'd! Ah foul dishonor! Is it thus at last 185 That the Achaians on the ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... impregnable citadel. Loop-holes guarded every approach. The Indians could not show themselves without exposure to certain death. They were too well acquainted with the unerring aim of Boone's rifle to venture within its range. Keeping the log cabin between them and their redoubtable foe, the baffled Indians fled into ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... very likely," he said. There was no hint of elation in his voice nor any annoyance. If he felt either, why, he was on guard no less than she. Mrs. Repton was inclined to throw up her hands in despair. She was baffled and she was little likely, as she ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... small kingdom of Jinbala, I was not able to collect much information. The soil is said to be remarkably fertile, and the whole country so full of creeks and swamps, that the Moors have hitherto been baffled in every attempt to subdue it. The inhabitants are Negroes, and some of them are said to live in considerable affluence, particularly those near the capital, which is a resting-place for such merchants as transport goods from Tombuctoo ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... The ready wits which had been sharpened at so many different grindstones proved keen enough for the occasion. Valentine Hawkehurst had had little to do with genealogies or baptismal registers during his past career; but his experiences were of such a manifold nature that he was not easily to be baffled or mystified by any new experience. He showed himself almost as quick at tracing up the intricacies of a family tree as Mr. Sheldon, the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... am baffled," he confessed. "We have three alternate possibilities here, and we dare not disregard any of them. Either this man who calls himself Altamont is truly He, or he is merely what we are asked to believe, one of a community like ours, with more of the old knowledge ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

... her nephew and the Marquise with the rage of one of the Furies. She learned through Vautrot that M. de Camors had been in the chamber of Madame de Campvallon the night of the General's death. On this foundation of truth she did not fear to frame the most odious suspicions; and Vautrot, baffled like her in his vengeance and in his envy, had aided her. A few sinister rumors, escaping apparently from this source, had even crept at this ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Nicholas Udall, the first English comedy, about 1534. It contains nine male and four female characters. Ralph is a vain, thoughtless, blustering fellow, who is in pursuit of a rich widow named Custance, but he is baffled in his intention. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... Hatteras was baffled. The doctor gazed and shook his head. Shandon said nothing, but an attentive observer would have noticed a ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... baffled for an explanation; but with the tarag gone I lost no time in hastening to Dian's side. With a little cry of delight she threw herself into my arms. So lost were we in the ecstasy of reunion that neither of us—to this day—can tell ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... joy, met his only and dearly beloved sister, from whom he had so long been separated. This virtuous, amiable, but unhappy princess, had long been striving to join her wandering brothers and share their fate. Thus far she had been baffled in every endeavor, and two of them had sadly gone down into the grave, unsustained by those consolations which a sister's love and attentions might have afforded them. The princess had finally succeeded in tracing her only surviving brother from Sicily to Gibraltar, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason—the walls of privacy shall not stifle its voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret counsels clear as noon-day, what canst thou now have in view? Proceed, plot, conspire, as thou wilt; there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can propose, nothing you can attempt which I shall not know, hear, and promptly ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... putting the finishing touches to a witty drama which would settle the whole question. In this play, which, he could tell them on the best authority in the world, his own, was a work of surpassing genius, the Irish Question, which had baffled statesmen and philosophers for centuries, is settled once and for all by the wisdom and presence of mind of ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various

... frantic boy now endeavored to open the windows and spring out, but being foiled in this attempt likewise, as they were securely fastened, he threw himself upon the floor as he had been in the habit of doing when crossed, ever since his baby-hood, and screamed with all the strength of baffled rage. ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... Primrose Hill murder—a particularly exciting and underground affair. It was he who had been intimately associated with the bringing to justice of the Camden Town Gang—a group of daring and successful criminals which had baffled the London police for two years. Neale had read all about Starmidge's activities in both cases, and of the hairbreadth escape he had gone through in connection with the second. And he had formed an idea of him—which he now saw to be ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... Under these circumstances Paul made his way to Rome, and, having secured the support of the Pope, reappeared in Constantinople as the rightful bishop of the see. But the emperor, again in Syria, was not to be baffled. More angry than ever, he sent peremptory orders to Philip, the prefect of Constantinople, to expel Paul and to recognize Macedonius. By skilful arrangements Paul was quietly removed from the scene. But to install Macedonius ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... more likely to kill the lad so cunningly held in his arms. Thus it was that the captor made off with his prize, and no one was able to check him, although the hearts of the whites were burning with rage and with the desire to shoot the Apache who had baffled ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... not wanting eminent expounders of the Spiritualistic Faith who assert that this is as it should be, and that if in the attempt to apply the laws of the material world to Spiritual manifestations we are baffled, the fault lies in us, and not in the Mediums. If this be so, we must accept our fate and enlarge the adage that 'poets are born, not made,' ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... dashed at the pace of a hunter through the intricacies of the way he presently discovered that he was following nothing but the summer breeze rustling the willow leaves and wafting into his face the breath of new-cut hay, the aftermath of late July. He stopped at length and stared about him, baffled and half angry. ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond

... tried desperately once again to comprehend what it was in her that piqued him. And he could not. He fell back from the attempt. Was she the most wondrous? Or was she commonplace? Was she deceiving him? Or did he alone possess the true insight? ... Useless! He was baffled. Far from piercing her soul, he could scarcely even see her at all; that is, with intelligence. And it was always so when he was with her: he was in a dream, a vapour; he had no helm, his faculties were not under control. She robbed him ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... elements of caloric appear to sympathize with the prevailing state of the atmosphere, and to contribute to render that which is already too cold for comfort, even colder. So it was now; notwithstanding the preparations that had been made. Baffled twice in his expectations of procuring a blaze, Stephen stopped and took a drink of the hot coffee. As he swallowed the beverage, it struck him that it was fast losing ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... humanity, for towns and cities; and that was a big sawmill and cotton-gin town ahead of him, silhouetted along the top of a high bank. He headed straight for it, and found his boat inexplicably slowed up and rebuffed. Strangers on the river always do find themselves baffled by the big New Madrid eddy, which even power boats engage with difficulty of management. He landed at last against a floating dock, and found that it ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... the big thing all right, but that's not everything. You managed the big thing so well that the police are utterly baffled and don't know which way to look. But the stones, carissima, the sparkling stones. What ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... through lanes until he was well out of the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of Cardiff Hill, and the schoolhouse was hardly distinguishable away off in the valley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... says St. John Damscene, "is the will of God, by which all things are fitly and harmoniously governed,"(96) and such is its power that nothing can elude or deceive it, neither can it be hindered or baffled in any way. "For God will not except any man's person, neither will He stand in awe of any man's greatness; for He made the little and the great, and He hath equally ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... their united strength did that which had baffled the single efforts of the scholar. The package rolled to the gangway, and the German, frenzied with excitement, shouted aloud! The bark lurched, and the bale went over the side, as if the lifeless mass were suddenly possessed with the desire to perform the evolution which its inert ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... dizzy height even for a grown hunter, but the boy never looked down. He went on until he came to a place about ten feet below the nest, where there was a long, bare space on the trunk, with no limbs or knots to cling to. He was baffled then. He looked up at the nest many times, tried to find some place to catch hold of the rough bark and sought closely for some rest higher up to put his foot on. But there was none. An eagle's nest was a rare thing ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... do, Tony? Won't you marry me ever?" Alan's tone was helpless, desolate. He had run up against a power stronger than any he had ever wielded, a force which left him baffled. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... Clara were, except for the brief and troubled intervals during which the Amidon personality had been brought uppermost, strangers,—until she could once more bring him within the magic ring of her occult power. Brought within it he must be, but how? The judge felt beaten and baffled. Yet he would try one ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... time he stood almost without movement. He was seeking, seeking in every direction. But the rosy twilight baffled him. Unaga buried her secrets deeply, and only was there the perfume in the air which she could not conceal. This was the key with which Steve meant to open the door ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... hastening from rock to rock and ridge to ridge, as intervening obstacles hid them from view, until she saw the stratagem, just referred to, practised by Keona. Then, feeling that she had no power of voice to let the pursuers know what had occurred, and seeing that they would certainly turn back on being baffled, she resolved to keep up the chase herself—trusting to accident to afford her an opportunity of rendering aid to Alice; or, rather, trusting to God to help her in her great difficulty; for the poor child had been well trained in the missionary's ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... the pastime of a half hour that we have given to the flower odors, when an ever-widening field for speculation lies before us. But imagination droops exhausted, baffled by the innumerable enchanting riddles still to solve. And this must ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... at a pleasant conceit. The wit that had baffled Father Muro was ready for Evasio Mon. A woman will take her stand before her own heart and defy the world. Juanita's eyes flashed across the man's ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... is sometimes exceedingly difficult to find the relation between structure and form in Families, and I remember a case which I had taken as a test of the accuracy of the views I entertained upon this subject, and which perplexed and baffled me for years. It was that of our fresh-water Mussels, the Family of Unios. There is a great variety of outline among them,—some being oblong and very slender, others broad with seemingly square outlines, others having a nearly triangular form, while others again are almost ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... inscribed her name and address in a heavy rustic scrawl, with pothooks and hangers tumbling over one another. When at last she made it all out, after being repeatedly baffled by the extraordinary style and spelling, she could not but smile again. It was a letter from Rosalie's aunt, introducing Zephyrin Lacour, who had fallen a victim to the conscription, "in spite of two masses having been said by his reverence." However, as Zephyrin was Rosalie's ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... you?" exclaimed the mate, waxing warmer and warmer, as he: fancied himself baffled by the other's powers of endurance. "Take that, and let us see if ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... common person they would have rapidly succeeded. But Latimer was in no haste to be a martyr; he would be martyred patiently when the time was come for martyrdom; but he felt that no one ought "to consent to die," as long as he could honestly live;[129] and he baffled the episcopal inquisitors with their own weapons. He has left a most curious account of one of his ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... sons of sires that baffled Crown'd and mitred tyranny: They defied the field and scaffold, For ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... faltered the baffled magicians, knowing their reputation gone for ever, while the Governor, addressing the people, announced that since none but God, the Great Spirit, could really make rain, any one who professed to do so henceforward would be promptly 'eaten up'—that is to say, deprived of his property by the 'father's' ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... many ways, with that brain of yours, but it was given to you for another purpose, and you'd end by leaving her. You'd come home like a sick dog to its kennel—and become a hack. Your genius would have shrivelled to the roots. If you give her up now your very unhappiness and baffled longings will make you do greater and greater things. Talent needs the pleasant pastures of content to browse on but they sicken genius. If you married her you wouldn't even have the pastures after the first dream was over and you certainly would have neither the independence of ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... twentieth of the same month. The Convention, with barbarous folly, obeyed; and the enlightened Parisians, accustomed to think with contempt on the ignorance of the Vendeans, believed that a war, which had baffled the efforts of government for so many months, was to end on a precise day—which Barrere had fixed with as much assurance as though he had only been ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... hands—all this is novel-matter of almost the first class as regards incident, with no lack of character-openings to boot. Nor could anybody want a better "curtain" than the falling back of the scorned and baffled false lover, the concert of the minstrels, and Katherine's stately stepping down the dais to complete the insult ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... examined it carefully, to find more traces of Mr Brazier having been there and stopping. So they shouted and whistled again and again, but there was no response, and trying to pick up the trail they started again—now utterly baffled and ready to return, now gathering fresh hope on suddenly coming upon a scrap of orchid or a bunch of woodland flowers, which had been carefully gathered and thrown down, apparently by some one wearied out. Then Rob uttered a cry of excitement, ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... roused her sense of humor and a laugh bubbled up instead of the tears, and Hannah, watching, cat-like, could only see eyes dancing with fun though the cheeks were charmingly red. By Hannah's expression Marcia knew she was baffled, but Marcia could not get away from the disagreeable suggestion ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... its slip, backing into the river. Ropes had been cast off, and an ever widening strip of water appeared between the vessel and the shore. It was now that the man on the dock sighted the girl. She gesticulated at him. He gesticulated at her. She appeared helpless and baffled, but he showed himself a person of resource of the stuff of which great generals are made. Foch is just like that, a bird at changing pre-conceived plans to suit the ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... a careful Master for I oblige him to clean the Tub with a Hand-brush, Ashes, or Sand every Brewing, and so that I cannot scrape any Dirt up under my Nail. However as the Cure of this Disease has baffled the Efforts of many, I have been tempted to endeavour the finding out a Remedy for the great Malignity, and shall deliver the best I ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous

... up to the old African and stood at his knee. The sorrows and perplexities of nearly a hundred years lay between them; and now, as always, the baffled eyes of age gazed into the Sphinx-like face of youth, as if by this means to unravel the mysteries of the past and solve the problems ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... him, bind him, threaten him, beat him, rack him, would he—granted he knew—reveal its whereabouts? Writ large in his face was every manner of roguery, but not one iota of cowardice. He might very well hold us baffled, hour on hour, while the papers went to Mayenne. Even should he tell, we had the business to begin again from the very beginning, with some other knave ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... re-translated from my idiom where there seemed a need for it. And I am not much afraid of being ever guessed at—except by those Oedipuses who astounded me once for a moment and were after all, I hope, baffled by the Sphinx—or ever betrayed; because besides the black Stygian oaths and indubitable honour of the editor, he has some interest, even as I have the greatest, in being silent and secret. And nothing ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... what these practicers thought of their own arts. Certainly some of them accomplished cures. Mental troubles that baffled the ordinary physician would offer the "good witch" a rare field for successful endeavor. Such would be able not only to persuade a community of their good offices, but to deceive themselves. Not all of them, however, by any means, were self-deceived. Conscious fraud played ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... in a penumbra of darkness the white comely face of a woman. She saw the beleaguered men sway back and the door close in the faces of the horde. She saw bullets go crashing into the door, heard screams of baffled fury, and presently the crash of axes into the panels of the barrier that held them back. It seemed to fade away before her gaze, and instead of it she saw a doorway ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... me, than I to him. After a silent meal, he would ride through the dark forest on a fresh mount. How and where he passed those sleepless nights, I do not know. Thus had a month slipped away; and we had done everything and accomplished nothing. Baffled, I had gone to confer with Mr. Jack MacKenzie and had, as usual, exasperated him with the reiterated conviction that Adderly and the Citadel writing paper and Louis Laplante had some connection with the malign influence that was ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... temper, and they would not notice it. The inner meaning of things concerned them very little. Their conception of cause and effect, or of the constancy of nature, was rudimentary. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred," said an old bricklayer of the village, baffled by some error in his work—"ninety-nine times out of a hundred it'll come right same as you sets it out, but not always." Puzzles were allowed to be puzzling, and left so; or the first explanation was accepted as final. The "mistis in March" sufficiently accounted ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... vain regrets be stilled; Now rest in Him who is the complement Of whatsoe'er transcends our mortal doom, Of baffled hope and unfulfilled intent; In the clear vision and aspect of whom All longings and all hopes ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... her there, and could not have returned to Coombe Tracey until the early hours of the morning. Such an excursion could not be kept secret. The probability was, therefore, that she was telling the truth, or, at least, a part of the truth. I came away baffled and disheartened. Once again I had reached that dead wall which seemed to be built across every path by which I tried to get at the object of my mission. And yet the more I thought of the lady's face and of her manner the more I felt that something was being held back from me. Why should she turn ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle

... the drawn forces of Night and of Morning, Strange visions steal down to the slumbers of men, From heaven's bright stronghold once issued a warning, Which baffled all scorning, when brought to ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... the ambuscades and nocturnal sallies of his wily foe. At length, however, El Zagal, having been foiled in a well-concerted attempt to surprise the Christian quarters by night, was driven across the mountains by the marquis of Cadiz, and compelled to retreat on his capital, completely baffled in his enterprise. There the tidings of his disaster had preceded him. The fickle populace, with whom misfortune passes for misconduct, unmindful of his former successes, now hastened to transfer their allegiance to his rival, Abdallah, and closed the gates against him; and the unfortunate ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... unconsciously for what belonged to her life and growth; being taught one thing more than all, that her duty must be followed eagerly and reverently in spite of the adverse reasons which tempted and sometimes baffled her. As she grew older she was to understand more clearly that indecision is but another name for cowardice and weakness; a habit of mind that quickly increases its power of hindrance. She had the ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... unbroken even by a knowledge of a higher, a supernatural destiny that has never been given. Dante's Limbo, on the other hand, represents the souls in sadness brought about by their constant desire and hope never realizable, of seeing God. They suffer no pain of sense, but they are baffled in their endless yearning for the Beatific ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... but to accept his defeat as graciously as possible. For baffled he was, caught at every turn, and puzzled, ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... flitted through his mind at the moment. "O Kunopes!" ("thou dog-faced one!") he caught himself muttering, but negro diplomacy was too much for him, and the innocence in the face of Ananias would have baffled a man far more suspicious. Cram was a fellow who loved his battery and his profession as few men loved before. He was full of big ideas in one way and little oddities in another. Undoubted ability had been at the bottom of his selection over the head of many a senior to command one of the light ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King

... from the boulevards. Thursday was the only day in which there was fighting of any serious kind. There has been no resistance on the part of the real people—nothing but sympathy for the President, I believe, if you except the natural mortification and disappointment of baffled parties. To judge from our own tradespeople: 'il a bien fait! c'est le vrai neveu de son oncle!' such phrases rung on every tone ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... containing Adams & Co.'s treasure, the Tamalpais' first officer, and a crew of four men was lost on the rocks shortly after leaving the ill-fated vessel. None of the bodies were ever recovered, and the treasure itself completely baffled the search of divers and salvers. A lidless box bearing the mark of Adams & Co., of the kind in which their treasure was usually shipped, was yesterday found in the woods behind the chapel, half buried ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... shot at him a look of perplexed and baffled wonder. That brown, indomitable face, back of which was so much strength of purpose and so much keenness of apprehension, began to fill him with alarm. This man let no obstacles stop him. He would go on till he had uncovered the ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... so long as Vernon was a check on Clara; but the moment Clara, thus baffled, moved to quit the library, Dr. Middleton felt the horror of having ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... notable attributes and shocking manners—is as easily lost in Paris as anywhere; it is a city of many shadows. At the end of some weeks, during which his work had suffered from his new preoccupation, Rufin saw himself baffled. His man had vanished effectually, carrying with him to his obscurity the great picture. It was the memory of that consummate thing that held Rufin to his task of finding the author; he pictured it to himself, housed in some garret, ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... come up with them. All at once the clamour grew hideous, and I saw them. They were gathered round a tree, in a clearing just like that I had left, and were madly leaping against it, but ever falling back baffled. I looked up: in the top of the tree sat the little girl, her white face looking down upon them with a smile. All the terror had vanished from it. It was still white as the snow, but like the snow was radiating a white light through the dark foliage of the ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... Kangwe and ask Mme. Jacot, of the Mission Evangelique, if she will take me in. The air is stiff with mosquitoes, and saying a few suitable words to them, I dash under the mosquito bar and sleep, lulled by their shrill yells of baffled rage. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... even in summer measure their strength against it. But Napoleon III inspired this road, and it emerges, quickly rejuvenated, from tempest and torrent, to laugh unconquered. Of the undertakings of the Bonaparte family, only two were ever baffled by ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... imagined, the infirmities of man, and even graver evils, were permitted in order to afford amusement to superior intelligences, and make the angels laugh, few things could afford them better sport than the perplexities of this child of clay engaged in the study of himself. 'Alas,' exclaims at last the baffled spirit of this babe in intellect, as he surveys his shattered toys—his broken theories of metaphysics, 'I know that I am; but what I am—where I am—even how I act—not only what is my essence, but what even my mode of operation,—of all this I know nothing; ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... employed by the diagnostician when he is baffled in the matter of definitely locating the cause of lameness; when he has by exclusion and otherwise arrived at a decision that lameness is "high up." Shoulder lameness may be caused by any one or several of a ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... brig returned, having been baffled and beat about, and nearly lost at sea, unable to weather Tanjong Datu. The crew say she was one hour under water. She now remains here to wait the change of the monsoon, and her intriguing Pangerans return ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... the signing away of Malta at the peace of Amiens, they doubtless were not without effect, when the ambition of Buonaparte had given a full and final answer to the grand question: can we remain at peace with France? I have likewise reason to believe that Sir Alexander Ball, baffled, by exposing an insidious proposal of the French Government, during the negotiations that preceded the recommencement of the war—that the fortifications of Malta should be entirely dismantled, and the island left to its inhabitants. Without dwelling on the obvious inhumanity and flagitious ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... question of the Jews being admitted to stand for Parliament and having seats in the House, and party spirit ran extremely high upon the subject. Theodore Hook shrugged his shoulders and made a discontented grimace, as if baffled by his theme, the Jews. However, he went to the piano, threw back his head, and began strumming a galloping country-dance tune, to which he presently poured forth the most inconceivable string of witty, comical, humorous, absurd ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... some minutes without much change in the relative position of the actors. I began to hope that the bear might be baffled after all, and finding the horse too nimble for him, might desist from his attacks, particularly as the horse had already administered to him several kicks that would have discomfited any other assailant. These, however, only rendered ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... come with the otter-skins, Carry?" the elder sister said, laughing; and the younger one retired, baffled and chagrined, but none the less resolved that before Gertrude White completely gave herself up to this blind infatuation for a savage country and for one of its worthless inhabitants, she would have to run the gauntlet of many a sharp word of ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... January was dark and foggy, and the blockading fleet was nowhere to be seen. Then, if ever, was the time for escape; and the Yankee tars weighed anchor and started out through the Narrows. In the impenetrable darkness of the night, baffled by head-winds and perplexing currents, the pilots lost their reckoning, and the orders to the man at the wheel were quick and nervous, until an ominous grating of the ship's keel, followed by the loss of headway, told that the frigate was aground. For a time the ship lay ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... had not forgotten to take her jewels with her, and the old judge made a great fuss, and appealed to the colonel, who requested him to inspect the regiment as it left the town. But the sooty visage and uniform jacket baffled his penetration, and at the first halt, the drummer and the lady were made one flesh. Thorp, the lucky bridegroom, was a fine dashing fellow, bent upon distinguishing himself. He was often wounded, but never missed an engagement, even when his hurts were unhealed. He fell gloriously ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... of every nationality and creed, labored strenuously in making preparations to feed the hungry, clothe the shivering, and care for the sick. When the morning dawned fair and balmy beyond all precedent for this season of the year, the scene in the vast amphitheatre baffled description, over which the heavenly host rejoiced as never before. The united bands of the city discoursed sweet music from the balcony, from steaming cauldrons the multitudes were fed to repletion with nourishing delicious food; the sick, the weak, the women and children were ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... Dick and the deputies were able, with great difficulty, to follow the tracks of the outlaw and his prisoner toward the south for a full mile. But at this point, an expanse of outcropping rock baffled them completely. Search as they would, there was no least sign of footsteps anywhere. After an hour of futile questing, they gave up in despair, and hurried to the rendezvous ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... mechanically sacrifices everything to his dominant task. External circumstances might, as so often happens, have checked the cause of my life and prevented me from following my natural bent, but my utter incapability of succeeding in anything else would have been the protest of baffled duty, and Predestination would in one way have been triumphant by proving the subject of the experiment to be powerless outside the kind of labour for which she had selected him. I should have succeeded in any variety of intellectual application; I should have failed miserably in ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... a rock, and, catching hold of the lower branches of a large tree, drew himself up among the dense foliage, just as the yelling savages rushed with wild tumult to the water's edge. Here they paused, as if baffled. They spoke in rapid, vehement tones for a few seconds, and then one party hastened down the banks of the stream towards the fall, while another band ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... Baffled and mortified, humbled but not penitent, the rash and vindictive monarch, in a whirlwind of mutiny and desertion, was obligated to retreat to York, where he was constrained, by the few sound and sober-minded that yet hovered around him, to try the effect of another negotiation with his insulted ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... of April, 1547, the cry of fire alarmed the inhabitants, and soon the flames were spreading with fury which baffled all human power. The store-houses of commerce, the magazines of the crown, the convent of Epiphany and a large number of dwellings, extending from the gate of Illinsky, to the Kremlin and the Moskwa, were consumed. The river alone arrested the destruction. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... that had defeated Napoleon stopped, baffled, before a breast-work defended by raw militiamen; when, finding that the heads of their columns melted away like wax in fire as they approached the blaze of those hunters' rifles, they finally recoiled, terribly defeated,—saved from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... on the beach and seemed to try to embrace the earth, possess it. But it fell away baffled. Over its subsiding pother sprang a new wave with the same bosomful of desire and the same frantic clutching here and there—the same rebuff, the same destruction under the surge of the next and the next. The descending ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... discipline, the state of the hulks, agricultural distress, commerce and manufactures, the bullion question, the Catholic Question, the Bourbons or the Inquisition, 'domestic treason, foreign levy,' nothing can come amiss to him—he is at home in the crooked mazes of rotten boroughs, is not baffled by Scotch law, and can follow the meaning of one of Mr. Canning's speeches. With so many resources, with such variety and solidity of information, Mr. Brougham is rather a powerful and alarming, than an effectual debater. In so many details (which he himself goes through with unwearied ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various

... colour but is imitated by some shell. Purple and red and white, and green and yellow, pied and striped and clouded, the living shells wear in every combination the livery of the dead reef—if the reef be dead—so that the eye is continually baffled and the collector continually deceived. I have taken shells for stones and stones for shells, the one as often as the other. A prevailing character of the coral is to be dotted with small spots of red, and it is wonderful how ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... unstinted boons that she showered on Napoleon by land, Fortune rudely baffled him at sea. When he was hurrying from Ulm towards the River Inn, to carry the war into Austria, he heard that the French navy had been shattered. Trafalgar was fought the day after Mack's army filed out of Ulm. The greatest sea-fight ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose



Words linked to "Baffled" :   perplexed, mixed-up, people



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