"Mystifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... word, but no doubt his feelings were just as strong as those of his companion. And so they had now embarked on what seemed to be the last leg of the strange chase, with the future lying before them as mystifying as that fog bank lying far ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... Queux, who has been styled "The Master of Mysteries," has here woven one of his most mystifying tales. It is like a Chinese puzzle in its ingenuity, and holds the reader breathless from the first line to ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... the Mexican's unaccustomed air of enterprise, "if we had that fellow under us awhile we'd make a cow-hand out of him. See the wiggle he gets on himself now, will you?" Promptly at the hour, the herd were counted and corralled, Don Mateo Gonzales not troubling to appear, which was mystifying to the North Texas men, but Uncle Lance explained that a mere incident like selling seven hundred cattle was not sufficient occasion to arouse the ranchero of Santa Maria when his corporal could attend to ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... quarters and went from the Faubourg Saint-Germain to the Chaussee de Antin. But this you may not know perhaps. The Government, that is, the aristocracy of lawyers and bankers who represent the country to-day, just as the priests used to do in the time of the monarchy, has felt the necessity of mystifying the worthy people of France with a few new words and old ideas, like philosophers of every school, and all strong intellects ever since time began. So now Royalist-national ideas must be inculcated, by proving to us that it is far better to pay twelve million francs, thirty-three ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... too, but had some faith in Preston's and Mrs. Sandford's powers of transforming and mystifying the present very natural appearance of the performers. However, she was beginning to be of the opinion that it was good fun ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... of these much respected artists, that there were such things in the world as mists or vapors. If a cloud under their direction ever touches a mountain, it does it effectually and as if it meant to do it. There is no mystifying the matter; here is a cloud, and there is a hill; if it is to come on at all, it comes on to some purpose, and there is no hope of its ever going off again. We have, therefore, little to say of the efforts of the old masters, in any scenes which might naturally have ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... said), "it was hard to leave without a last word. All the way here I have been thinking of our little talk—if that can be called a talk where one side has lost his senses and the other is trifling or mystifying. I told you that I loved you. I thrill even yet with the joy of that. You are so wayward and capricious, so coy, that I began to fear that I never could get your car long enough to tell you what I felt you must have long known. You didn't say that you loved me; but, dear Olympia, neither ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... your letter has puzzled and alarmed me. The more I think of it, the more mystifying it all becomes. I must see you, and you must tell me the truth—the whole truth. We love each other, dear heart, and no one shall force you to lie again to me as you did in that letter you wrote from Glencardine. ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... induce her to budge from Paris till she had seen her sister through, and Gaston shrank from proposing that she too should spend five weeks in the Place Beauvau or the Rue de Lille. There was moreover a slight element of the mystifying for him in the perverse unsociable way in which Francie took up a position of marked disfavour as yet to any "visiting." AFTER, if he liked, but not till then. And she wouldn't at the moment give the reasons of her refusal; it was only very ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... position to account for his syncope by illness or the stifling atmosphere of the locality, he has none the less given rise to suspicion! He has lied incomparably, but he has counted without nature. Here is the pitfall! Again, a man off his guard, from an unwary disposition, may delight in mystifying another who suspects him, and may wantonly pretend to be the very criminal wanted by the authorities; in such a case, he will represent the person in question a little too closely, he will place his foot a little too naturally. Here we have another token. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... within a half mile now, and there was no mistaking the destination, the intent of its makers. "Honk! honk! honk! honk!" from many throats, in many keys, louder and louder, confused as children's voices at play; then in turn diminishing, retreating. Very mystifying to one who did not understand would have been that augmenting, lessening sound; but to that waiting human boulder it was no mystery. As plainly as though he could see, he knew every movement of that approaching triangle. As certainly as the broncho near by and the herd in the distance ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... in mystifying plot, lovable characters, rapid and thrilling incident and delightful descriptions of English ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... period of almost utter unconsciousness, since we were both conscious of only one thing while it lasted; but the reaction came at last while she was still relaxed in my embrace, and while yet the mystifying magic induced by contact with her, enveloped ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... elaborated a romance or a keen and playful witticism—and who really did injustice to his own powers,—not from modesty but meanness,—even he, the son of a prime minister and heir to a peerage—a man who was himself always something of a trickster, now mystifying a blind old woman at Paris; now sending open letters, privately nullified, recommending the bearers to his friend the envoy at Florence; now, with the mechanic aid of village carpenters and bricklayers, rearing a frail edifice bristling with false points, and persuading the world that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... and his accomplice are necessary to this mystifying game. The leader leaves the room while his accomplice passes around among the players, occasionally stopping in front of one of them, and with hands extending over the player's head says. "Hands Over Head." The leader answers from without "Hands Over ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... over and over again; it was very mystifying. Much depends in this world upon the humour people are in at the time; Mynheer Krause was, at that time, full of Cato-like devotion and Roman virtue, and he took the contents of the letter ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... over these untoward and sometimes mystifying events, I have often asked myself: Was it possible, with the elements what they were, and he himself what he was, to seat Mr. Tilden in the office to which he had been elected? The missing ingredient in a character intellectually and morally great and a personality far from unimpressive, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... the prestidigitateur, Robert-Houdin, appeared at the Palais-Royal with his new species of entertainment, and for a number of years continued to delight numerous audiences with his mystifying skill in sleight of hand, his example being followed by minor practitioners who gave performances in private salons. The theatre bearing his name on the Boulevard des Italiens still maintains this ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... which I had entered and left caused me considerable curiosity. Kemsley was one of those free, bluff, open-hearted, open-handed, men. He was never secretive, never elusive. I could only account for his curious, mystifying actions by the fact that the reputation of a woman was at stake—that he was ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... occupation of the peninsula was necessary at this time, it was viewed with uneasiness; but none was prepared for what followed. Before peace was actually concluded, Russia approached China with a proposition for her permanent occupancy of—not the peninsula alone, but all of Manchuria. A mystifying proposition when we reflect that Japan was forced out of the southern littoral of Manchuria because her presence there threatened Korea, China, and the peace of the world. Port Arthur was no farther from Pekin and Seoul than it was five years before, and it was much nearer to St. Petersburg! ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... all his sense, was mystifying himself, because he was departing from right, the only true 'good sense.' His right judgment in all things was becoming obscured, so he talked metaphysical jargon, instead of plain practical truth, and thought he was teaching Laura to strengthen her powers of mind, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... over and over again, it was very mystifying. Much depends in this world upon the humour people are in at the time; Mynheer Krause was, at that time, full of Cato-like devotion and Roman virtue, and he took the contents of the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... interlocked in nervous movements. Why hadn't the girl told Selwyn? Why was she shielding Harrie? Would she tell me or Mrs. Mundy what she would not tell Selwyn? I could send Mrs. Mundy to her now—could break the silence which was mystifying to her. ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... who saw the necessity of mystifying his companions a little, "you see, the captain towld me that I kum around, an' rekimminded me to go ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... Gaylord could and could not do, were, I acknowledge, to a Northern ethical sense a trifle mystifying. A Gaylord might drink and gamble and fail to pay his debts (not his gambling debts; his tailor and his grocer); he might be the hero of many doubtful affairs with women; he might in a sudden fit of passion commit a ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... held at Ebersdorf (June, 1739), the Count expounded his views at length {1739.}. He informed the Brethren, in a series of brilliant and rather mystifying speeches, that there were now three "religions" in Germany—the Lutheran, the Reformed and the Moravian; but that their duty and mission in the world was, not to restore the old Church of the Brethren, but rather to gather the children of God into a mystical, visionary, ideal fellowship which ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... Silver closely nor paused to wonder what thoughts were rousing in her mind, but bade her take the poodle forth for exercise outdoors and keep him strictly upon the leash. Without protest, though wearing a unique expression, Kitty obeyed; she walked round the block with this mystifying dog; and during the promenade had taken place the episode that so upset ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... after this Thor seemed to have no object in life at all. There was nothing in the canyon to eat, and he wandered about among the rocks, smelling and listening and deporting himself generally in a fashion that was altogether mystifying to Muskwa. In the afternoon of the second day Thor stopped in a dump of jackpines under which the ground was strewn with fallen needles. He began to eat these needles. They did not look good to Muskwa, ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... being. Ashen blonde, a shade that would never excite the cynical commentary which men applied to certain types of blondes. It would be protective; it would with age turn to silver unnoticeably. A disconcerting gray eye that had a mystifying depth. In the artificial light her skin had the tint and lustre of a yellow pearl. She would be healthy, too, and vigorous. Not the explosive vigour of the north-born, but that which would quietly meet physical hardships ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... concerning all problems of human activity not susceptible to measurement with the foot-rule, or analysis with the test tube, with the result that the newer Science of Psychology was invented to supply a reasonable and material explanation for the subtle and mystifying phenomena of ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... my body, there is a thinking portion, I am within the bounds of sanity when I investigate and express such thoughts, opinions and findings as my reason and understanding dictate. No one can truthfully say that he possesses sufficient knowledge to account for or to explain the peculiar and mystifying rules, conditions and surroundings which we are forced to accept, abide by and live under. And, therefore, the result of one person's findings is worthy the same ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... bucket of water by the tent flap. Philip painfully made a meager toilet, glanced doubtfully at the coarse cotton garment which by one of the mystifying events of the previous night had replaced the silk shirt he had worn from Sherrill's, and emerged from ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... dismissed the matter as outside his immediate concern. If the actual money had been in Wade's possession, as Podmore had been led to believe, Phil would have been more perplexed about it; even Wade's evident inside knowledge of the transaction was sufficiently mystifying. That probably was part of the "puzzle" which would be divulged in due course. Kendrick knew that in the modern business world with its constant clashes between powerful financial interests there were many undercurrents ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... together all the swinging and surging and lagging movements of the whole earth's life—an informed, pregnant Aristotle,—Ah! there would be the man to talk with! What satisfaction to see him take, like reins from between his fingers the long ribbons of man's life and trace it through the mystifying maze of all the wonderful adventure of his coming up. The crooked made straight. The 'Daedalian plan' simplified by a look from above—smeared out as it were by the splotch of some master thumb that made the whole involuted, boggling ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... moreover to place my friends in anxiety and trouble by means of a prank in which I indulged. Among us young people who had been at Leipzig, there had been maintained ever afterwards a certain itch for imposing on and in some way mystifying one another. With this wanton love of mischief I wrote to a friend in Frankfort (he was the one who had amplified my poem on the cake-baker Hendel, applied it to /Medon/, and caused its general circulation) a letter dated from Versailles, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... laughing matter, boys," he said emphatically, at the same time earnestly gesticulating, "your lives, your country, and your honor depend upon right hearts." And thus the old Colonel exhorted each Company previous to its dismissal, amusing some and mystifying others. The heart was his theme, and time or place, a court-martial or a review, did not prevent ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... man, would have been the first to ridicule the idea publicly if anyone had dubbed him "the psychological detective." That, to his mind, would have savored of charlatanism. He would have said: "I am nothing so strange and mystifying as that—I am a plain business man." But in reality there was no new discovery of the investigating psychologists of which he did not avail himself at once. His ability to clothe himself with the thoughts of the criminal as an actor clothes himself ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... a revel. We hear wonders of men, and we see a lifting up of hands in the world. The wonders would be explained, and never a hand need to interject, if the mystifying man were but accompanied by that monkey-eyed confraternity. They spy the heart and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... honest enough," corrected Embury; "he owns right up that it was a trick. Why, good heavens, man! if it hadn't been, he couldn't have done it at all. I'm rather keen to know just how he managed, though, for the yarn of Eunice and Aunt Abby is a bit mystifying." ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... for existence, which is so much harsher among people near the edge of pauperism, sometimes leaves ugly marks on character, and the charity visitor finds these indirect results most mystifying. Parents who work hard and anticipate an old age when they can no longer earn, take care that their children shall expect to divide their wages with them from the very first. Such a parent, when successful, impresses the immature ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... door into the hall of mysteries opening, but only to make disclosures dimmer and more mystifying still. The postponement of dreadful certainties enabled her, however, to say with some slight relief, "But this—this other person couldn't have been very fond of her himself if he—if he gave her up ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... temptation of mystifying him a bit, I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths, so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... with a chill of disappointment, but as he passed along the street his name was called by Juliet Burwell, and she fluttered across to him in all her mystifying flounces and her ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... cried, giving him his full title, and thereby mystifying still further the wondering groom. "I do believe that's the very creature that's been scaring such a lot of people everywhere! How came you by it and what ails ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... story centers in London and Italy. The book is skilfully written and makes one of the most baffling, mystifying, exciting detective stories ever written—cleverly keeping the suspense and mystery intact until the surprising discoveries which ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... she did say about the flat. Still, her demeanour, mystifying as it might be, was benign, benevolent, with a remarkable ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Finger. A mystifying story dealing with unexpected results of a wealthy M.P.'s experiment ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he let the cat out of the bag. Was it Gwendolen's idea, taking a hint from him, to liberate this animal only on the basis of the renewal of such a relation? Was the figure in the carpet traceable or describable only for husbands and wives—for lovers supremely united? It came back to me in a mystifying manner that in Kensington Square, when I mentioned that Corvick would have told the girl he loved, some word had dropped from Vereker that gave colour to this possibility. There might be little in it, but ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... Harmon—his visit to the home of Franklin White. Then—the deliberate murder. And, finally, young Margot Vernee, and her confession. It was like the revolving whirl of a pinwheel, this series of events: continuous and mystifying, but without beginning or end. Surely, somewhere in the procession of horrors, there would be a loose end to cling to. Some loose end that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... returned with the mystifying news that Mr. Klutchem's letters had been sent to his apartment the night before, and that a telegram had just been received notifying his clerks that he would not be down ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... peasants are allowed to grow the precious weed on condition that they sell it all to the State at a fixed rate. Naturally, if they otherwise disposed of it, they would be able to make a much larger profit, as it is a monopoly of the State. They have a peculiar way of mystifying the exciseman as to the number of leaves on a string, for this is the regulation way of reckoning; besides which, wholesale smuggling goes on at times, and waggon-loads are got away. Occasionally there is a fight between the ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... it will be of advantage here to consider more particularly some of the circumstances connected with this instructive analogy. By tracing the likeness so conspicuously held out to us in this analogy by Nature herself, we shall be greatly assisted in evading the bewildering and mystifying influence of prejudice, and the reader will be much better prepared to judge of the value of those means recommended for nourishing and strengthening the mind by knowledge, when he finds them to correspond so exactly with similar principles ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... foot in the wooden shoe might have worn without trouble Cinderella's magic slipper. Her clothes, coarse and homespun, were clean and variously mended. Her hair, in a thick braid, was the tone of the heart of a chestnut-bur, and her eyes were of that mystifying hazel, sometimes brown, sometimes gray, according to whether the sky was clear or overcast. And there was something above and beyond all these things, a modesty, a gentleness and a purity; none of the bold, rollicking, knowing manner ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... not a thing to rejoice at:' I am one of those who cannot see the good that is to result from all this mystifying and blue-devilling of society. The contrast it presents to the cheerful and solid wisdom of antiquity is too forcible not to strike any one who has the least knowledge of classical literature. To represent vice and misery as the necessary ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... justice to Doria, I elaborated her reasons for setting Adrian on his towering pinnacle. Liosha nodded. She understood. False gods, whatever degree of godhead they usurped, had for a time the mystifying power of concealing their falsehood. And during that time they were gods, real live dwellers on Olympus, flaming Joves to poor ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... testified for her companion to something that again particularly pleased her in the renewed promise of motion. The odd passage just concluded, Mrs. Stringham mused as she once more sat alone with a hooked needle and a ball of silk, the "fine" work with which she was always provided—this mystifying mood had simply been precipitated, no doubt, by their prolonged halt, with which the girl hadn't really been in sympathy. One had only to admit that her complaint was in fact but the excess of the joy of life, and everything did then fit. She couldn't stop for the joy, but she could go on ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... him. He returned to the perfect boarding house just at supper time. During the meal he realized that Mr. Bangs seemed to be trying to attract his attention. Whenever he glanced in that gentleman's direction his glance was met by winks and mystifying shakes of the head. Losing patience at last, he demanded to ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... by knack of fingers. Wherever the inspiration leaves him, there is an end of the picture. Beyond that we get only his personalities; no skill, no earnestness of intention, etc., can avail him; he is only mystifying himself or us. At these points we sooner or later come up with him, are as good as he, and the work forthwith begins to tire. What is tiresome is to have thrust upon us the dead surface of matter: this is the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... understanding of some vague and intangible kind between him and Sylvia Garrison. She might not approve of him, he had no idea that she did; but she had struck a chord whose vibrations pleased and tantalized. She was provocative and, to a degree, mystifying, and the abrupt termination of their talk seemed to leave the way open to other interviews. He thought of many things he might have said to her at the moment; but her period was not to be changed to comma or ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... eyes to the ceiling of the cupola of the capitol to conceal her unparalleled embarrassment, making him a rough courtesy, and not harrassing him with mystifying, rarefying, and stupefying innuendoes, she gave him a couch, a bouquet of lilies, mignonette, and fuchsias, a treatise on mnemonics, a copy of the Apocrypha in hieroglyphics, daguerreotypes of Mendelssohn and Kosciusko, ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... strange how, as I talked, each detail fell into its place, how each little circumstance, formerly so mystifying, grew clear. The alarm of the maitre d'hotel over my sudden departure, his relief when I entered the booths, his corresponding horror when, emerging, I took the elevator for my room, puzzled me no longer. The deserted halls, the flight of the little German intruder, the determined ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... partiality of Bessie Benton for his society. He suspected, from Tom's style of talking, that he was "low and uneducated," and he would have given considerable to know that his hated rival had been a New York bootblack. But this knowledge he could not obtain from Tom. The latter delighted in mystifying him, and exciting suspicions which he ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... that often reached the verge of indiscretion—conveyed the least suggestion of passion or sentiment. The consul, more perceptive than analytical, found her a puzzle—who was, perhaps, the least mystifying to others who were content to sum up her eccentricities under the single vague epithet, "fast." Most women disliked her: she had a few associates among them, but no confidante, and even these were so unlike her, again, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... It was very mystifying, and naturally it served only to pique my curiosity. A certain quality of loneliness which had seemed to belong to the village, even in the brightness of the summer evening, now asserted itself potently. Seated ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... Wilfrid's head scratched, than the operation stuck him as humiliating; in other words, the moment he felt his sisters fingers in the ticklish part, he flew to another theme, then returned, and so backward and forward—mystifying her not slightly, and making her think, "Then he has no heart." She by no means intended to encourage love for Emilia, but she hoped for his sake, that the sentiment he had indulged was sincere. By-and-by he said, that though he had no particular ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one Daughter of the Rhine for the other, stimulated her romantic fancy and made her eager as a girl to have the plot carried into effect. What was to be accomplished by it, she did not trouble herself to define; it only gave her a kind of confused satisfaction to think that she was mystifying somebody who had for a long time been mystifying her. Roeschen was exactly of Miss Jones's height and their figures closely resembled each other. So when they were masked a microscope would be required to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... himself who spoke. How the man had got past the butler, who certainly had no love for him, was mystifying. Yet here he was, ready and eager to ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... have been piecing things together. The result is rather curious, and still very mystifying, still leaving a deal to be explained, and somehow this wallet doesn't fit into the ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... a crowbar, and a hydraulic jack, and even with drills and explosives as a last resort, Jackson, Kinney, and Van Emmon returned the same day to the walled-in room in the top of that mystifying mansion. The materials they carried would have made considerable of a load had not Smith removed enough of the weights from their suits to offset their burden. They reached the unopened door without special exertion, and ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... "Why?" though in truth it is generally the solution of a simplex ignotum by a complex ignotius. This, at least, is my experience of everything that has been presented to me as philosophy. I have often had my "Why" answered with so much mystifying matter that I have left off pressing it through fatigue. But this is not having my ultimate "Why?" appeased. It is being knocked ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... into that mystifying tangle had been as sudden as it was unexpected. And yet, knowing Blunt as he did, Merry wondered that he had not thought of the ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... his face at this extraordinary deduction upset my own. But as I was never certain that Enriquez was not purposely mystifying me, with some ulterior object, I could not help saying ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... the letter was taken up with matters about which they had been conferring for some time. But Penelope was not able to find in them her usual interest, so deep was her absorption in Gordon's mystifying ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... there, within a single degree of the suggested spot, he saw a seeming star, invisible to the unaided eye, which proved to be the long-sought planet, henceforth to be known as Neptune. To the average mind, which finds something altogether mystifying about abstract mathematics, this was a ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... converse with Kolchak's authorized agents in Paris they would lay down hard conditions, which were described as immutable; and yet when communicating with the Admiral direct they would submit to him terms considerably less irksome, unknown to his Paris advisers, thus mystifying both and occasioning friction between them. In many cases the contrast between the two sets of demands was disconcerting, and in all it tended to cause misunderstandings and complicate the relations between Kolchak ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... passages of the "American Note-Books," where he speaks of grubbing out several pages of Tieck at a sitting, by the aid of a German dictionary. Colonel Higginson ("Short Studies"), a propos of Poe's sham learning and his habit of mystifying the reader by imaginary citations, confesses to having hunted in vain for this fascinatingly entitled "Journey into the Blue Distance"; and to having been laughed at for his pains by a friend who assured ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... to be spiritually blind. But to see it as something foreign to or separable from nature is to do violence to our faith in the constancy and sufficiency of the natural order. One star differeth from another in glory. There are degrees of mystery in the universe. The most mystifying thing in inorganic nature is electricity,—that disembodied energy that slumbers in the ultimate particles of matter, unseen, unfelt, unknown, till it suddenly leaps forth with such terrible vividness and power on the face of ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... account for these passages, if it were possible to prove that the interpretation that the documents themselves suggest, must be rejected a priori; viz may not Leonardo have written them with the intention of mystifying those who, after his death, should try to decipher these manuscripts with a view to publishing them? But if, in fact, no objection that will stand the test of criticism can be brought against the simple and direct interpretation of the words as they stand, we are bound to regard Leonardo's travels ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... of these, which is decidedly more complex and mystifying, refers to a rectory in Co. Donegal. It is sent as the personal experience of one of the percipients, who does not wish to have his name disclosed. He says: "My wife, children, and myself will have lived here four years next January (1914). From ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... Our Bodies. If the statement that "nervous troubles are neither physical nor imaginary but a disease of the personality," sounds rather mystifying to the average person, it is only because the average person is not very conversant with his own inner life. We shall hope, later on, to find some definite guide-posts and landmarks which will help us feel more at ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... and said: "Edna, do you know what he meant? He often amuses himself by mystifying me, and I will not gratify ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... in those which have swept whole nations from existence, the Jew has always found himself with one inalienable possession—his faith. There is something mystifying about the persistence through so many vicissitudes of a religion which commands respect from neighbors who see in it a powerful inspiration, while the Jew himself, especially the Jew more fortunately placed in the general community, endeavors so often to cast it off as outworn and impracticable. ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... throughout the city and its environs were very much intrigued. Such a thing was very exciting and mystifying; but it was so far out of touch with their own lives that it did not affect them very much at any time except when they were reading the paper or discussing it in conversation. The police were the ones who were doing the real worrying. And, when the following ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... Matilda, her eyes "scintillate with a fiend-like expression." Incidents follow one another with a wild and stupefying rapidity. Every moment is a crisis. The style is startlingly abrupt, and the short, disconnected paragraphs are fired off like so many pistol shots. The sequence of events is mystifying—Zastrozzi's motive for persecuting Verezzi is darkly concealed until the end of the story, for reasons known only to writers of the novel of terror. Shelley's romance, in short, is no better and perhaps even worse than that of the other disciples of ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... had not been used for this purpose, although it would seem the logical and quickest way to make an exit. On the other hand, for that very reason, the persons back of the supposed crime had been clever enough to avoid it, thus adding a mystifying element to what ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... would be indiscreet, since Colonel Capadose handled the brush—as a raconteur—with such freedom. There might be a ghost and there might not; but the Colonel himself, he inclined to think, was the most mystifying figure in ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... conversation immediately preceding his or her entrance. As the good woman's subconscious mind is in the kitchen, and as she is constantly interrupted by the necessity of greeting new arrivals, she usually succeeds in mystifying every one, and creating that atmosphere of 'nerves' so familiar to denizens ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... either that I am not, as I pretend to be, in the secret which he hitherto supposed to be shared by no one but the Countess and himself, or else that I am cruelly mystifying him. That I am in her confidence, I swear by all that is dear in a whispered farewell. By the last companion of this flower!" and she took for a moment in her fingers the nodding head of a white rosebud that was nestled in ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... bulkily rolled slicker forming his only burden. He could not, then, be planning to take her much farther into the wilderness; yet if he did not hide her away, how could he expect to keep her? His motive for marrying her was rather mystifying. He did not seem sufficiently in love with her to warrant an abduction, and he was too cool for such a headlong action, unless driven by necessity. She wondered what he was thinking about as he rode. Not about her, she guessed, except when some bad place in the trail ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... the amusement of kite-flying even when arrived at maturity. His artistic imitations of birds and dragons float over our housetops. To these are often affixed contrivances for producing hollow, mournful, buzzing sounds, mystifying whole neighborhoods. His game of shuttlecock is to keep a cork, one end being stuck with feathers, flying in the air as long as possible, the impelling member being the foot, the players standing in a circle and numbering from four to twenty. Some show ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... me to do anything, go anywhere, speak on any topic! Now she makes you pull the chestnuts out of the fire and thinks I do not see her waiting behind. Ah, the hand is the hand of Esau, the voice is the voice of Jacob, wicked, sly, skulking, mystifying Jacob. Why don't "secretaries" write the official letters? How much they leave the "president" to do! Naughty idlers, those secretaries! Well, let me thank Miss Secretary Anthony for her gentle consideration; then let me say I'll try to speak, as you say, fifteen ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Meanwhile, she and Mr. Falconer met, but unknown to the latter, who about the same time became acquainted with a very dashing young cavalier, evidently a man of high birth and standing, but resolutely bent on mystifying his friends as to his origin. The two saw each other frequently, and were linked by that desultory companionship of London life which sometimes indeed ripens into friendship, but as often ends in a sudden quarrel. Such was the end of this acquaintance, and one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... made use of the street-cars when need be, the terrible things that people scrambled for as the panic-stricken at sea scramble for the boats; she affronted, inscrutably, under stress, all the public concussions and ordeals; and yet, with that slim mystifying grace of her appearance, which defied you to say if she were a fair young woman who looked older through trouble, or a fine smooth older one who looked young through successful indifference with her precious reference, above all, to memories and histories into which he could ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... Cleek," Narkom began, opening fire without further parley, "the major has come to ask your aid in a case of singular and mystifying interest. You may or may not have heard of a music-hall artiste—a sort of conjuror and impersonator—called 'Zyco the Magician,' who was assisted in his illusions by a veiled but reputedly beautiful Turkish lady who was billed on the ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in mystifying people as ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... fruits; it gave me an extraordinary increase of public influence, and that influence produced, in the natural course of such things, an extraordinary crop of adherents. If I could have drunk adulation, no man was in more imminent hazard of mystifying his own brains. I began to be spoken of as one equal to the highest affairs of the state, and to whom the viceroyalty itself lay naturally open. But I still longed for a return to England. Delighted as I was with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... ever since it came out, and though it needs a few corrections like the others, A. S. is nearly perfect. Why not have your pages evened up, and add a department of science on subjects such as Rocket Propulsion etc., so the readers could become familiar with the mystifying problems stated in the stories? Have the advertisements in the back, and don't change your artists as their ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... that too without delay. I come to your house and want a bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you design for my bedfellow—a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... computers, silicon chips, data processing, cybernetics, and all the other innovations of the dawning high technology age are as mystifying as the workings of the combustion engine must have been when that first Model T rattled down Main Street, U.S.A. But as surely as America's pioneer spirit made us the industrial giant of the 20th century, the same pioneer spirit today is opening up ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and yet the song seemed to be no nearer. It had a grosbeak-like quality, I fancied, and I hoped to find either the pine or the evening grosbeak, for both of which I had been making anxious search. The shifting of the song from point to point struck me as odd, and it was very mystifying. ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser |
