"Baffle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... makes His sun to shine and His dew to fall upon us, and transforms the very things that were before our greatest hindrances, into the chiefest and most blessed means of our growth. No difficulties in your case can baffle Him. No dwarfing of your growth in years that are past, no apparent dryness of your inward springs of life, no crookedness or deformity in any of your past development, can in the least mar the perfect work that He will accomplish, ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... jostle him one side. But in his face gleamed an intelligence far beyond what could be expected from one in his humble attire; and as AEnone watched him, a suspicion crossed her that the poor, beggarly dress and the quiet, yielding mien were assumed to baffle observation. Soon another person in similar dress but of fewer years met him. The two joined hands and looked earnestly into each other's eyes, and the older one appeared to mutter a word or two. What was that word, at which the younger bent his head with reverent ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... is that the editor of the Sun has allowed that journal to become a vehicle of vituperation, respecting Messrs. A.T. STEWART, RIDLEY, and other leading merchants of this city. To this query we reply that the spots on the Sun are increasing so in number and magnitude as to baffle our telescopic investigations. A suggestion in the case is furnished, however, by the fact that the columns of the Sun are not lighted up with advertisements from any of the establishments against which it has been discharging its meteoric sneezes. And this may ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... turn and follow, Save a very little number, Who restrained their lusts and wishes, And gave heed unto the sayings Which the kindly spirits bore them, Gaining power, the more they harken'd, To withstand the evil spirits, And to baffle their endeavours. These went to the land of Blisses; But for one who Sero passed Through the wicket on his right hand, Going to the holy regions, Seven passed on his left hand, Going to the pit of terrors. Now that I have told you fairly, Shewing as is due to render ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... part, I shared my grandfather's stupefaction at their unaccountable changes. It appeared almost as if my father had won them over to baffle him. The old man tried to insist on their sitting down again, but Janet perseveringly smiled and smiled until he stood up. She spoke to him softly. He was one black frown; displeased with her; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... same character either confined to the males, or more largely developed in them than in the females, or again equally developed in both sexes. The little lizards of the genus Draco, which glide through the air on their rib- supported parachutes, and which in the beauty of their colours baffle description, are furnished with skinny appendages to the throat "like the wattles of gallinaceous birds." These become erected when the animal is excited. They occur in both sexes, but are best developed when the male arrives at maturity, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... altered for the worse, and, I should think, had been drinking heavily before he shipped; but the captain was evidently too short of hands to be particular. I think I will give the Concanens my tin box to hide in their cabin. Of course I can trust them, and this will baffle theft; the clasp I will wear about me. This is a happy idea; I will go to their cabin now and ask them. It is 9.30 p.m., and the wind is ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the time which Reuben took to undo the complicated folds by which, before the days of envelopes, correspondents endeavored to baffle the curiosity of those who sought to know more than was intended for them. But what is this? for Reuben's eyes had been so greedy to suck up the words that he had not given his mind time to grasp their meaning: "Not coming back! never—any more!"—"I like the place, the people, and, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... to know, to dread, and even in a grudging manner to admire—was not like to leave one of his followers in the lurch. Marguerite's brother in the Temple would be the surest decoy for the elusive meddler who still, and in spite of all care and precaution, continued to baffle the army of ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... we decided that these might be accounted for in one of two ways. Either, first, the writer, in copying it out, grew confused in forming his cipher characters; or, secondly, he framed the whole paper with a deliberate purpose to baffle ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Virginia counties, and the services she must have rendered during that period are, of course, accredited to Fairfax, of which county she was then a part. The few existing or available records of the remaining six years of warfare, as of the entire period, are imperfect and unlocalized and would baffle the most experienced ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... of ingenuity has this system of adulterating food arrived, that spurious articles of various kinds are every where to be found, made up so skilfully as to baffle the discrimination of the most ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... your ailment, and that they had signally failed. Physicians, mademoiselle, are very clever and estimable men, and there are a few things which come within the limit of their treatment; but there are also other things which baffle their utmost profundity of knowledge. One of these is that wondrous piece of human machinery, the nervous system; that intricate and delicate network of fine threads—electric wires on which run the messages of thought, impulse, affection, emotion. If these threads or wires become, ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... But when the malady remained obstinate to his prescriptions, and other insidious symptoms set in, pointing to a gradual decay of the vital energies, he divined that the ill was a mental one which would baffle his art unless he could ascertain its cause from the patient herself. Her confession of it would be half the cure. But he did not succeed in extracting this confession. Pauline did not know what ailed her. Beyond ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... of the scales on butterflies; but there are lots of sexual characters which quite baffle all powers ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... had been his cue ever since he began acting as lieutenant to the chief. It had seemed to baffle the others; it baffled the big man now. Later on Joe Clune and Scottie came in together. That was about noon—they had met each other an hour before. But Allister had not come in, although he was usually the first ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... have just come from them, and they are ready, But I am not. I pray you, let this be; Send back these men to-night. I am oppressed By such o'ermastering presages of ill As baffle all resolve. ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... whinny of a horse. They are mounted, and think to baffle pursuit by their speed and knowledge, of the wood. There is no time to lose. Call up the farmer and his son. I know which is Mistress Joan's room. I will keep guard there till ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... situation, in which it is advisable to force the horse, apparently, to have his own way, in order to baffle his attempts. Restive horses, or even docile animals, when put out of temper, sometimes endeavour to crush their riders' legs against walls, gates, trees, posts, &c. An inexperienced lady, under such circumstances, would strive to pull the horse away; but her exertions would ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... little Alured into the place I have held. My father's last marriage was on the 15th of April, 1836," he added to her. He says she quite glared at him with mortification, as if he had invented poor little Alured on purpose to baffle her; but my ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of icy cold ran through him,—he nerved himself to meet some deadly evil, though he could not guess what that evil might be,—he was willing to throw away all the past that haunted him, and cut off all hope of a future, provided he could only baffle the snares of the pitiless beauty to whom the torture of men was an evident joy, and rescue his beloved and gifted friend from her perilous attraction! Making a strong effort to master the inward conflict of fear and pain that tormented ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... majority will sympathize rather than disapprove of his opinion when he wrote, "Workmen in most Countries I believe are necessary plagues;—-in this where entreaties as well as money must be used to obtain their work and keep them to their duty they baffle all calculation in the accomplishment of any plan or repairs they are engaged in;—and require more attention to and looking after than ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... to be done. Company is, in truth, a constant state of negotiation; and, if you attend to it in that view, will qualify you for any. By the same means that you make a friend, guard against an enemy, or gain a mistress; you will make an advantageous treaty, baffle those who counteract you, and gain the court you are sent to. Make this use of all the company you keep, and your very pleasures will make you a successful negotiator. Please all who are worth pleasing; offend none. Keep ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... juvenile 'Romanies' in hand; and I wish him well in his benevolent crusade. Mr. Smith has obligingly sent me a proof of his address, from which I gather that, owing to a superstitious dislike which the Gipsies entertain towards the Census, and the successfully cunning attempts on their part to baffle the enumerators, it is only by conjecture and guesswork that we can form any idea of the number of Bohemians in this country. The result of Mr. Smith's diligent inquiries has led him to the assumption that there are not less than 4,000 Gipsy men and women, and from 15,000 to 20,000 Gipsy and 'arab'—that ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... inhabit the purified bosom which had been kept carefully swept and garnished. It was the motion of this spirit, uneasy in its unfit abode, that showed itself by the shiver, the flushed cheek, the clenching hand, and the flashing eye. It kept whispering wicked things,—"I will baffle and deceive Maria: she shall withdraw her pity, and laugh at it with me." "I defy Edward and Hester: they shall wonder how it is that my fancy alone is free, that my heart alone is untouched, that the storms of life pass high over my head, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... felicity and glory of her reign would preserve her from contempt; the affections of her subjects, and those of all the Protestants in Europe, would defend her from danger; and her own prudence, without other aid or assistance, would baffle all the efforts of her most ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... and smoke might be observed. They then shut up the chest, replaced the padlocks and chains with those they had brought for the purpose, and renewed the seals with the queen's signet, which, bearing the royal arms, would baffle detection that the seals had been tampered with. They then took the crown into the chapel, where they found a red velvet cushion, so large that by taking out some of the stuffing a hiding-place was made in which the crown was deposited, and the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... to diminish their numbers by conversion? Is it surprising that when he determined to open public schools and establish rabbinical seminaries, Jews looked upon these, too, as the sugared poison with which he intended to extirpate Judaism? Or can we blame them for being determined to the last to baffle him? Nicholas did not understand the great lesson taught by the history of the Jews and inculcated ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... eyes met mine easily; their azure depths puzzled me. She was almost, but not quite, some one I had seen before, and it was not my woodland Olivia. Her eyes, the soft curve of her cheek, the light in her hair,—but the memory of another time, another place, another girl, lured only to baffle me. ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... of their openings and the depth and complexity of their shafts, tunnels, and chambers. From the pipe-like length of their tunnels they have since the time of Herodotus been known by the name syrinx. Every precaution was taken to lead astray and baffle the intending violator of their sanctity. They penetrated hundreds of feet into the rock; their chambers, often formed with columns and vault-like roofs, were resplendent with colored reliefs and ornament destined to solace and sustain the shadowy Ka until the soul itself, the Ba, ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... comment, "but I have received later information. The rumor is, and well-founded, that he turned his ship and made for the Pamlico River with the intention of obtaining pardon from the false and greedy Governor Eden. This would baffle our plans against him, or so he would assume. And it would enable him to remain within ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... to take breath, a rifle ball lodges in your shoulder and you plunge again. Suddenly, thick clouds throw their friendly veil over the moon. You swim for your life, with balls whizzing round you. Thanks to the darkness and the water, you baffle the hounds, both animal and human. Weary and wounded, you travel through the forests, your eye fixed hopefully on the North Star, which seems ever beckoning you onward to freedom, with its bright glances through the foliage. In the day-time, you lie in the ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child
... in surprise as Craig shook hands and introduced Norton. "And Jameson, too? Well, I think you've found a case at last that will baffle you." ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... the building, That's where the trouble came in, I suppose, Now let me get this straight. You wrote a letter, and somehow or other he got it, and now you want it back. Stripped of the things that baffle my intellagence, that's it, ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... particularly, before, are since taking ground, some for Scott and some for McLean. Who will be nominated neither I nor any one else can tell. Now, let me pray to you in turn. My prayer is that you let nothing discourage or baffle you, but that, in spite of every difficulty, you send us a good Taylor delegate from your circuit. Make Baker, who is now with you, I suppose, help about it. He is a good ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... English contemporaries. We are driven to suppose that there was something in the social circumstances of England during the long period in question which prevented such talent as there was from assuming the particular form of literature. Fully to make out what this 'something' was may baffle us; but, when we remember that this was the period of the Civil Wars of the Roses, we have reason to believe that the dearth of pure literature may have been owing, in part, to the engrossing nature ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... for capacity and wit, And very docile: they will do My business, as I wish them to. And hawk—the hawk is a good fellow— And chanticleer, with cockscomb yellow; But all the ravens—they must go— Pry in futurities, you know. That will not do; to baffle all With truth, for the apocryphal. No; jays and pies will do far better,— They talk by rote, nor know ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... hour of the day, or for any hour taken at random. There is a tide in the affairs of children. Civilization is cruel in sending them to bed at the most stimulating time of dusk. Summer dusk, especially, is the frolic moment for children, baffle them how you may. They may have been in a pottering mood all day, intent upon all kinds of close industries, breathing hard over choppings and poundings. But when late twilight comes, there comes also the punctual wildness. The children will run ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... do we need caution," he said. "This fellow is not easily to be caught, for I make naught of the young lord. He is doubtless some trusty retainer sent with the lad by her ladyship because he hath wit to hide and double on his track and so baffle pursuit. But he hath not yet reached port to set sail for France, and mayhap he will not. It remaineth now for us to hide and creep among the rushes and reeds and scrubby trees, and so come up with ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... casing work was begun from the top, and the cap placed on first, the steps being covered one after the other, until they reached the bottom (Note 21). In the inside all was arranged so as to hide the exact place of the sarcophagus, and to baffle any spoilers whom chance or perseverance had led aright. The first point was to discover the entrance under the casing, which masked it. It was nearly in the middle of the north face (fig. 136), but at the level of the eighteenth course, at about forty- five feet from the ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... me more during my stay in town than the pictures I saw. One or two private collections of Turner's best water-colour drawings were indeed a treat; his later oil-paintings are strange things—things that baffle description. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... lead air blast pipes 12 in. in diameter discharging into a hermetically closed ash-pit under the grate area. The air is supplied from fans (Schiele's patent) at a pressure of from 1 to 2 in. of water, and is controlled by means of baffle valves worked by handles on either side of the furnace, conveniently placed for the attendant. The forced draught tends to keep the bars cool and lessen wear and tear. The fumes from the charge drying on the hearth pass through the fire and over the red-hot ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... thin laths occupied the greater part of the deck amidships of the Emma. The four walls of that airy structure were made of muslin. It was comparatively lofty. A door-like arrangement of light battens filled with calico was further protected by a system of curtains calculated to baffle the pursuit of mosquitoes that haunted the shores of the lagoon in great singing clouds from sunset till sunrise. A lot of fine mats covered the deck space within the transparent shelter devised by Lingard and Jorgenson to make Mrs. Travers' existence possible during the time when the fate ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... enough to be poor, while by the labour of their thin hands, the sweat of their brows, the masters were made rich; but they would not be utterly ground down to dust. No! they would fold their hands and sit idle, and smile at the masters, whom even in death they could baffle. With Spartan endurance they determined to let the employers know their power, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that it was better to defend the cities and fortresses which they held, and so lengthen out the war; others that they should harass the army of the Castillians with frequent skirmishes and assaults, and never give them battle power to power, thinking that in this manner they might baffle them till the winter came on. Don Rodrigo Frojaz was at this time recovering of the wounds which he had received at Agoa de Mayas, and he said unto the King that it behoved him above all things to put his kingdom upon the hazard ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... perniciously. Indeed many preachers and saints declare, some of them in the name of Jesus himself, that this world is a vale of tears, and that our lives had better be passed in sorrow and even in torment, as a preparation for a better life to come. Make these sad people comfortable; and they baffle you by putting on hair shirts. None the less, governments must proceed on dogmatic assumptions, whether they call them dogmas or not; and they must clearly be assumptions common enough to stamp those who reject them as eccentrics or lunatics. ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... vigorous in Protestant Scotland. A large body of ministers joined in denouncing the new practice as "flying in the face of Providence," and "endeavouring to baffle a Divine judgment." ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... said with energy. 'Don't imagine that my lawyers and I haven't looked into everything. Unless the disease has made much progress since I last saw her, Alice will always baffle any attempts to put her in restraint. She is queer—eccentric—melancholy; she envelopes the people she victimises with a kind of moral poison; but you can't prove—so far, at least—that she is dangerous to herself or others. The evidence always falls short.' He ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fed his little flock; The sickle, scythe, or plough, he never swayed; An honest heart was almost all his stock; His drink the living water from the rock: The milky dams supplied his board, and lent Their kindly fleece to baffle winter's shock; And he, though oft with dust and sweat besprent, Did guide and guard their ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... breath, as if he had been writing with his heart's blood. Folding up the paper, he hid it inside his shirt and began his dogged walk, calculating the chances of escape. Once out of this shed, he could baffle a blood-hound, he knew the hills ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... whole country, but, above and beyond all, upon a Power superior to all human might—a Power which, from the first gun of the Revolution, in every crisis through which we have passed, in every hour of acknowledged peril, when the dark clouds had shut down over us, has interposed as if to baffle human wisdom, outmarch human forecast, and bring out of darkness the rainbow of promise. Weak myself, faith and ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... were at fault. They found Pinky Swett, but were not able to find the baby. Careful as they were in their surveillance, she managed to keep them on the wrong track and to baffle every effort to discover what had been ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... of the major problems we have to face. If every man was alike and every avocation in life was on a parity, it would be possible to dispose of this subject in a paragraph. But men are not alike. What one could do successfully might easily baffle another. Therefore, it seems advisable to consider the subject by looking into ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... Nonconformist and Ashley against Clarendon, partly to preserve his own independence and partly with a view of winning some advantage to the Catholics from the political strife. The temper of the Commons had enabled Clarendon to baffle the king's attempts; and on his fall Charles felt strong enough to abandon the attempt to preserve a political balance and had sought to carry out his designs with the single support of the Nonconformists. But the new policy had broken down like ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... be, I am content; nay, more, she cannot do That act which I would not consent unto. I can delight in vain hopes, and desire That state more than her change and smiles; then high'r I hug a strong despair, and think it brave To baffle faith, and give those hopes a grave. Have you not seen cur'd wounds enlarg'd, and he That with the first wave sinks, yielding to th' free Waters, without th' expense of arms or breath, Hath still the easiest and the quickest death. Why nurse I sorrows ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... moment he perceived that she was resolutely bent upon making him honest. He had broken from her years ago, fled, resumed his evil courses, hid himself from her,—in vain. Wherever he went, there went she. He might baffle the police, not her. Hunger had often forced him to accept her aid. As soon as he received it, he hid from her again, burying himself deeper and deeper in the mud, like a persecuted tench. He associated her idea ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... recourse was had to giving British registers to the vessels concerned, allowing them to trade under British flags. This, however, was equally contrary to the Navigation Act, which forbade British registry to foreign-built ships, except when prizes taken in war; and the disguise wast too thin to baffle men like Collingwood and Nelson. The latter reported the practice to the home Government, in order that any measures deemed necessary might be taken. Meanwhile he patiently persisted in turning away all vessels, not British built, which he encountered, confining himself for the time to this merely ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... definitions than in the way of the simple reader of the Bible, who desires to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn the one thing needful from his lips. In this, as in many other portions of Scripture, a hungry labourer may live upon the bread, while it may baffle a philosopher to analyze its constituents, and expound its nutritive qualities. A devout reader may get the meaning of the parable in power upon his heart, while the logical interpreter expends much profitless labour in the dissection of a ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... dragon's back. When the play begins, if the subject be tragic the spectators are so affected that they weep till they have to wring their sleeves dry. If the piece be comic they laugh till their chins are out of joint. The tricks and stratagems of the drama baffle description, and the actors are as graceful as the flight of the swallow. The triumph of persecuted virtue and the punishment of wickedness invariably crown the story. When a favourite actor makes his appearance, his entry is hailed ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... cooler outer layers of the heap to reoccupy the core once things cool down. However, there are unique bacteria and fungi that only work effectively at temperatures exceeding 110 degree. Soil scientists and other academics that sometimes seem to measure their stature on how well they can baffle the average person by using unfamiliar words for ordinary notions call these types of organisms thermophiles, a Latin word that simply means "heat ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... if it has happened you to at all, but a thing I've noticed with myself is that, when I'm confronted by a problem which seems for the moment to stump and baffle, a good sleep will often bring the ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... to completely baffle the Khatkan outlaws. They stared at him, the whites of their eyes doubly noticeable in their dark faces, their mouths a little agape. As usual the unexpected had driven them off guard. He dared not look ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... the existence of God, and that which relates to the truth of Christianity; in both of which, if we mistake not, man's position is precisely similar—placed, that is, amidst evidence abundantly sufficient to justify his reasonable faith, and yet attended with difficulties abundantly sufficient to baffle an indocile reason. ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... of the citizens of La Plata, in which Gonzalo had several friends, who used their endeavours to gain over the inhabitants to his side, and to engage them to join his army. They even endeavoured more than once to kill Ribera and Alvarez, but these officers used such precautions as to baffle all their attempts. Ribera and Alvarez waited patiently for receiving the regulations from the viceroy; but owing to the great distance of their city from Lima, these had not yet reached them. In the mean time, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... supreme and immaculate taste Has a paradise form'd from a wilderness waste; With his walks rectilineous, all shelter'd with trees, That shut out the sunshine and baffle the breeze, And a field, where the daughters of Erin{12}may roam In a fence of sweet-brier, and think ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... thought, or what they guessed, as they filed out of the door, a brilliant procession of which I had the right to be proud; they could not guess my secret. I was sufficiently woman of the world to baffle them as long as I wished ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... effectually put him upon a false scent. I accordingly informed the people of the house that I was going into Buckinghamshire for two days; and, as that was nearly the opposite direction to the route I was really about to take—for my destination lay among the sylvan valleys of Kent—I hoped to baffle him at the start. My arrangements were speedily completed, and, having made a hasty inspection of the street before I ventured out, I sprang into a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the authorities at my command so much confusion as to the genera, as given by the most eminent authorities, like Nageli, Kutzing, Braun Rabenht, Cohn, etc., that I think it would be quite unwise for me to settle here, or try to settle here, questions that baffle the naturalists who are entirely devoted to this specialty. We can safely leave this to them. Meantime let us look at the matter as physicians who desire the practical advantages of the discovery you have made. To ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... pretty thing, if HE should become commander- in-chief!" cried Blucher. "The confusion and wrangling that would ensue would baffle description; for York and Bulow would be even more disobedient to him than they are ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... scene, during which I could guess that the denouement of the play was near at hand, I went to my charming countess, taking care to change my gondola three times—a necessary precaution to baffle spies. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Ague, or Drowned. Yet there was a tavern in the village, where these poor, shrinking, feverish creatures met and drank and smoked, and sang their songs, contriving now and again to smuggle a few kegs of spirits from Holland, and baffle the riding-officers in a scamper through the fens. They were a simple folk, fond of telling Ghost-Stories, and with a firm belief in charms to cure them from the Ague. And, with an awe whose intensity was renewed each ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... debate which followed, Gobseck showed greed enough and skill enough to baffle a whole congress of diplomatists; but in the end I drew up an instrument, in which the Count acknowledged the receipt of eighty-five thousand francs, interest included, in consideration of which Gobseck undertook to return the diamonds ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... success, either rounded and simple masses, like stones, or complicated arrangements of form, like those of leaves; provided only these masses or complexities will stay quiet for you to copy, and do not extend into quantity so great as to baffle your patience. But if we are now to go out to the fields, and to draw anything like a complete landscape, neither of these conditions will any more be observed for us. The clouds will not wait while we copy their heaps or clefts; the shadows will escape from us as we try ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... he could find that "elbow-room" the ungratified desire for which has served to immortalize his name. But neither Howe nor Burgoyne nor any one else could dissipate the ragged regiments that invested Boston, nor baffle the plans of the great soldier who commanded them. For nearly a year the world saw with wonder the spectacle of an English army confined in Boston, and an English fleet riding idly in the Charles River. Then the end came. Washington, closing in, offered Lord Howe, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a critical moment had come in her life, she had secured for herself a husband. It was absurd that a man, who was at least half child—she thought of the cuckoo-clocks, the gilded dancing-ball—should baffle her. If only she called upon her powers, she must be able to turn him inside out like one of her long gloves. She would do it to-day. And before he had replied to her ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... of the line as he went; tugged at the anchor, which yielded readily; found it; and almost at the same moment heard the boat's nose grate softly on the pebbles. The beach shelved steeply, and her stern lay well afloat; nor was there any run of sea to baffle him by throwing her broadside-on to the stones. He hurried Tilda aboard. She clambered over the thwarts to the stern-sheets, 'Dolph sprang after her, and then with the lightest push the boy had her afloat—so ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... engineering skill might avert. The Sappers and Miners who were roused from their beds to make good a dynamited embankment and block the relentless Thames did not work with a more untiring zeal to baffle a real enemy than did Dave and Dolly to keep out a fictitious one, and hypothetically save Uncle Moses and Aunt M'riar from drowning. But all efforts would be useless if there was to be a shortage ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... do I see that all knowledge is vain; That Science finds Error still keep in her train; That Imposture or Darkness, with Doubt and Surmise, Will mislead, will perplex, and then baffle the wise, Who often, when labours have shorten'd their span, Declare—not to know—is the ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... from my soul, is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy; an illusory expedient, to baffle the resentment of the nation; a truce without the suspension of hostilities on the part of Spain; on the part of England a suspension, as to Georgia, of the first law of nature, self-preservation and self-defence—surrender of ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... feeling, or of soul, as it has become a law to style it, is not to be forced, or commanded to come and go at will. This is the reason that all premeditated enjoyments connected with the intellect, are apt to baffle expectations, and why academies, literary clubs, coteries and dinners are commonly dull. It is true that a body of clever people may be brought together, and, if left to their own impulses, the characters ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... said Eleanor. And she served her with the chocolate and the toast and the hung beef, in a way that gave Mrs. Caxton's heart a feast. There was the beautiful calm and high grace with which Eleanor used to meet her social difficulties two years ago, and baffle both her trials and her tempters. Mrs. Caxton had never seen it called for. Her face shewed not the slightest embarrassment at her mother's words; not a shade of rising colour did dishonour to Mr. Rhys by proving that she so much ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... two, and while some of the constitutional disorders, such as Bright's disease, diarrhoea, and irregularity of the circulation, each result in from 2000 to 3000 deaths, the cause and prevention of these are so little understood as to baffle the hygienist. There are a number of contagious diseases which, while comparatively unimportant in the number of deaths, yet are of concern because the cause of the disease is so well known that the means of prevention is quite within our power. Of these, typhoid fever, in New York State in ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... knew more than his mother did about it, and wouldn't keep still. Anyway, whatever was the matter I don't know, but there came a day when "she could no longer hide him," and then she laid a plot to baffle the king, defeat ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... With the big guns we can beat them in half a dozen ways; but let our first act be to bring them up, for muskets and rifles are of little use against such a rampart as they have made, bristling with spikes and living twigs and branches, which baffle assault as you might scarce ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and solemn voice: 'If Glaucus be saved by thee, I will never be borne to his home a bride. But I cannot master the horror of other rites: I cannot wed with thee. Interrupt me not; but mark me, Arbaces!—if Glaucus die, on that same day I baffle thine arts, and leave to thy love only my dust! Yes—thou mayst put the knife and the poison from my reach—thou mayst imprison—thou mayst chain me, but the brave soul resolved to escape is never ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... you are weaving, denotes that you will baffle any attempt to defeat you in the struggle for the ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... will rarely set in, when the patient has been subject to the packs from the beginning of the disease, there will be cases when water-treatment can neither prevent such an event or even save the life of the patient afflicted by scarlet-fever. There will be a case, now and then, to baffle any mode of treatment, and the physician must not be blamed for losing a patient of scarlatina occasionally, but it is not necessary that people should continue to die of this disease in such numbers, as they ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... idle. Their number has been increased to upwards of a hundred "good men and true," including some thirty or forty members of the bar; and they have been in constant session, devising every legal method to baffle the pursuing bloodhounds, and relieve the city of their hateful presence. On Saturday placards were posted up in all directions, announcing the arrival of these slave-hunters, and describing their persons. On the same day, Hughes ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... prayer. I know my lot—I only ask Power to fulfil the glorious task; Willing the spirit, may the flesh Strength for the day receive afresh. May burning sun or deadly wind Prevail not o'er an earnest mind; May torments strange or direst death Nor trample truth, nor baffle faith. Though such blood-drops should fall from me As fell in old Gethsemane, Welcome the anguish, so it gave More strength to work—more skill to save. And, oh! if brief must be my time, If hostile hand or fatal clime Cut short my course—still o'er ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... femme de chambre consulted me, described symptoms enough to baffle all the schools of medicine in France, so various and contradictory were they, and I, discovering that she really had nothing the matter with her, advised what I knew would be very palatable to her,—namely, a very nutritious regime, as much ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... answered he. "I fancy I am not so great a bungler as to overshoot my purposes and baffle my own designs; and, woman," said he, raising his arm threateningly above her head, "I caution you to beware. I believe you have already let drop some unguarded words; else why is your mistress so averse to this engagement, as I have learned she ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... love not with Arthur, but with O'Hara. For days, weeks, months, she had been blindly groping toward the knowledge; and now, in a flash of intuition, it had come to her like one of those discoveries of science, which baffle investigators for years, and then miraculously reveal themselves in a moment of insight. Her first antagonism, her injustice, her unreasonable resentments and suspicions, she recognized now, in the piercing light of this discovery, as the inexplicable disguises of love. And she was ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... easily gotten rid of myself," said Charles; "but as that cannot be, we must endeavour to baffle them in the best ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... aggregating a quarter of a million men, the South could marshall barely seventy thousand. Jackson was despatched with eighteen thousand to baffle the armies of McDowell, Fremont, Milroy, Shields and Banks in the Valley and ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... lest any of her companions should come near here to examine her picture, when the regular breathing or some deeper breath might reveal to them, as it had to her, the presence of this political victim. She resolved to keep her place beside that door, trusting to her wits to baffle all ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... to Sir Percival. My interest in the question of the forgery was now at an end, and my only object in keeping the letter was to make it of some future service in clearing up the last mystery that still remained to baffle me—the parentage of Anne Catherick on the father's side. There were one or two sentences dropped in her mother's narrative, which it might be useful to refer to again, when matters of more immediate importance allowed me leisure ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... some concessions for the Protestants, knowing the temper of the Flemish, to whom she was allied by birth, but Granvelle was artful in his policy and managed by frequent correspondence with Spain to baffle the efforts of the whole party, which looked with indignation on the work of the Inquisitors. Peter Titelmann, the chief instrument of the Holy Office in the Netherlands, alarmed Margaret as well as her subjects, who were at the ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... Duchesse thought that in this capacity Isaac Gardon, known by one of the many aliases to which the Calvinist ministers constantly resorted, might avoid suspicion for the present. She took the persecuted fugitives for some stages in an opposite direction, in her own coach, then returned to face and baffle the Chevalier, while her trusty steward, by a long detour, conducted them to Pont de Dronne, which they reached the very night after to Chevalier had returned through it to Nid ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... influence upon the lives and character of individuals. As their manitoes are of all imaginary kinds, grades, and powers, benign and malicious, it seems a grand conception among the Indians to create a personage strong enough in his necromantic and spiritual powers to baffle the most malicious, beat the stoutest, and overreach the most cunning. In carrying out this conception in the following myth, they have, however, rather exhibited an incarnation of the power of Evil than of the ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... the Palladium I don't feel so sure. The six terra-cotta chests are so exactly alike and the five counterfeits are so like the real statue that I am afraid the precautions taken to baffle an intruding thief might confuse you Vestals in ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... him all about like the tendrils of the vine And shed a flood of softness on the hardness of his heart, * He yielded though at first he was minded to decline; And dreading lest the railer's eye should light upon his form, * Came armoured with caution to baffle his design: His waist makes moan of hinder cheeks that weigh upon his feet * Like heavy load of merchandise upon young camel li'en; Girt with his glances scymitar which seemed athirst for blood, * And clad in mail of dusky curls that show the sheeniest shine, His fragrance ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... to whom I have made a half promise, but we can get no hold on this Chester, he will baffle us, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... wonder sprang out of his way, and, far in the rear, a few privileged ones saw the frantic horse plunge towards his stable, stop suddenly, and pitch his mottled rider through the door and mercifully out of sight. Human purpose must give way when a pure miracle comes to earth to baffle it. It gave way now long enough to let the oaken doors of the calaboose close behind tough, farm-hand, and the farmer's wild son. The line of Winchesters at the corner quietly gave way. The power of the Guard was established, ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... adapted to deal with the Asiatic. Half an Asiatic himself, in spite of his fair complexion, he knows how to baffle the arts and overcome the prejudices of his new subjects. The Russian diplomatist has all the softness and suavity of his Asiatic congeners. He conforms to their customs and allows them to delay and prevaricate ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... travelled by a circuitous route; got into one hackney-coach and out of another; drove hither, thither, and everywhere, to baffle my mother's spies. Do you suppose that any one of her bigoted followers would believe in a chaste friendship like ours? Do you suppose they would understand the blameless longings I have to see your lovely face, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... doubtful adventurers Diana believed them to be. If so, it might happen that Lydia would extricate herself out of her present unpleasant position by the use of past experience. To give her no chance of such dodging, Lucian rapidly detailed the evidence against her so that she would be hard put to baffle it. But in this estimate he quite underrated Lydia's nerve and capability of fence, let alone the dexterity with which she produced a satisfactory reply to ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... be found—and found blamed quick, too! Great Caesar! Can a simple affair like this baffle your splendid metropolitan force?" ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... at one and the same moment, the thread of an intrigue, her cards at piquet, and a calculation in algebra, was a very clever woman! If Portia had been created as a mere instrument to bring about a dramatic catastrophe—if she had merely detected the flaw in Antonio's bond, and used it as a means to baffle the Jew, she might have been pronounced a clever woman. But what Portia does, is forgotten in what she is. The rare and harmonious blending of energy, reflection, and feeling, in her fine character, make the epithet clever sound like a discord as applied to her, and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... for glory just then, and thought it wiser to get back to his ship and sail for home; our spoil was too precious to be risked, and was a tempting bait to any foe. We set out at once. Coming to a place where two streams entered the main river, we took the smallest waterway, hoping thus to baffle pursuit, for our real path lay along the main stream. Our ruse would have succeeded but for a trivial oversight. The Dons came to the parting of the ways, and were nonplussed as to our route. They had decided to follow the main stream, and were seated ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... I object," he said slowly, with a teasing smile, such as one might use with a persistent child whom one chose to baffle in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... have been rid of Gregorio, she would have felt almost sure of victory; but as it was, she believed the man absolutely meant to baffle her, partly out of a spiteful rivalry, partly because his master's torpid indolence could be used to his own advantage. She was absolutely certain that his sneering tone of remark made her husband doubly disinclined to let ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and stone, and placed a door on each of its four sides, so that he could see whatever passed around him. There, for many winters, he lived in lonely solitude, planning with himself how he might baffle his enemies and regain his old place in Asgard. Now and then he slipped slyly away from his hiding-place, and wrought much mischief for a time among the abodes of men. But when Thor heard of his evil-doings, and sought to ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... that there is a feeling of encouragement in our present day distress and spiritual ineffectiveness in the thought that even under S. John the Church in Ephesus was not wholly ideal. The conditions which baffle us, baffled him. The converts who were so promising and enthusiastic declined in zeal and fell back under the spell of worldliness. Zeal is a quality which is maintained with great difficulty, and ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... noted the exact spot from which the firing came, so he could locate it in sending out his signal of warning. Jack meanwhile was doing his part, dodging in zigzag curves in all directions in order to baffle the aim ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... without pretending to any extraordinary discernment, we may venture to prophecy, that in a few years, from the multiplication of seminal varieties, springing from seeds casually, or perhaps purposely impregnated with the pollen of different sorts, such a crop will be produced as will baffle all our attempts to reduce to species, or ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 3 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... woo her, and marry her. Heaven seemed to open on him at this prospect, and he fell into a deep reverie. By-and-by, as he pondered, it seemed to him as if the shadow of a coming idea was projected in advance of the idea itself. He knew somehow there was a way to baffle his enemies, and resume his business, and yet he could not see the way; but still he ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... had reached the open window through which he must have entered some time previously, taking time to lay these various traps by means of which he expected to baffle pursuit. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... he had but two desires. The first was to live until he had saved as many lives as his carelessness had lost in the Nerbuddha. For it was nothing worse, but mere forgetfulness to change the course: one of those dreadful lapses of memory which baffle all Board of Trade inquiry. You may light, and buoy, and beacon every danger along the coast, and still you leave that small kink in the skipper's brain which will cast away a ship for all your care. The second of his desires you have helped me to fulfil. He wished in death to be John Murchison ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... credit, and have him for ever in his power. This constituted the outline of my second volume... To account for the fearful events of the third it was necessary that the pursuer should be invested with every advantage of fortune, with a resolution that nothing could defeat or baffle and with extraordinary resources of intellect. Nor could my purpose of giving an overpowering interest to my tale be answered without his appearing to have been originally endowed with a mighty store of amiable dispositions and ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... amiss to make resistance, to take down such a saucy companion, no better means to vindicate himself to purchase final peace: for he that suffers himself to be ridden, or through pusillanimity or sottishness will let every man baffle him, shall be a common laughing stock to flout at. As a cur that goes through a village, if he clap his tail between his legs, and run away, every cur will insult over him: but if he bristle up himself, and stand to it, give but a counter-snarl, there's not a dog dares meddle with him: ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... do?" we asked the corporal. "Do any —— thing," he despairingly cried, "but do some —— thing!" By this time the sergeant-major too was at his wits' end as he looked round his spotless lines. But you can't easily baffle a sergeant-major. There was a pump, with a big tub by it, to catch the waste, I suppose. The artistic possibilities of these simple objects flashed across him. In his mind's eye he saw this prosaic tub sublimed into a romantic pool, and girdled by a rockery, in whose mossy ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... brought into play to baffle Mr. Pericles, inspire Emilia with the spirit of secresy, and carry on his engagement to two women to their common satisfaction. Adela, whose penetration he dreaded most, he had removed by a flattering invitation to Stornley; and that Emilia might be occupied ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... upon the matter, I naturally grew obstinate also, and he spent his whole day in trying to catch me up, while I spent mine in trying to baffle him, and we seemed to be playing at hide-and-seek; the consequences were, that when it was getting dark, I had completely lost myself in the most deserted part of the moor. There was no cottage near, and not even ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... resolved to baffle his impatience by working all the evening and retouching one act of his drama with which he was not perfectly content. He went to his room, lighted his lamp, and seated himself before his open manuscript. Now, then! to work! ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... skeleton without delay. There was little snow in the chasm, in spite of the lateness of the season, and if the roll of bark held the secret of the lost gold it would be possible for them to locate the treasure before other snows came to baffle them. ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... flesh is white, oily, and, in the summer, rank, but is eaten in the fall by the Indians and woodsmen; the skin is not much valued. They are easily killed by dogs, though, being expert climbers, they often baffle their enemies, clinging to the bark beyond their reach; a stone or stick well-aimed soon kills them, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... what he states at first hand in his capacity as an eyewitness, and to two salient cases which may be taken to represent the whole. Among the rest some are in course of investigation, and so far as they have gone are promising similar results; the locality of others has been so chosen as to baffle inquiry; and in one or two instances I have failed to obtain results. It is obviously impossible to prove that there is not a native hut in "a thick and impassable forest" at an unindicated distance from Point-de-Galle, or that this hut does not possess ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... baffle, deter, dissuade, hinder, confound, disapprove, expose, impede, counteract, disconcert, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... second time, and I foresaw that the changes would be strongly marked. But I thought myself bound in honour not to retract. I could not lead the intrigue, but I believed myself sufficiently skilful to baffle all their manoeuvrings. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Sometimes, indeed, when the deaths were less numerous, a hope began to be entertained that the distemper was abating, and confidence was for a moment restored; but these anticipations were speedily checked by the reappearance of the scourge, which seemed to baffle and deride ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a ship; yet, not as before, in the hopes of falling in with a richly-laden merchantman, but for the purpose of avoiding her, lest she should prove to be one of the many enemies on the watch to destroy them. The wind also no longer favoured them, but shifting to the westward, had aided to baffle them in their efforts to escape. Zappa prayed again for the gale, which had so opportunely arisen to enable him to force his way out of the harbour of Lissa; but now when he equally needed it, and had no evil purpose in view, when better ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... vessel and cargo. How it came to pass that Babalatchi, fleeing for his life in a small canoe, managed to end his hazardous journey in a vessel full of a valuable commodity, is one of those secrets of the sea that baffle the most searching inquiry. In truth nobody inquired much. There were rumours of a missing trading prau belonging to Menado, but they were vague and remained mysterious. Babalatchi told a story which—it must be said in justice to Patalolo's knowledge of the world—was not believed. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... passion of the irritated king—the colder but more determined displeasure of the prince—the vindictive spirit of Buckingham, so hastily directed against whomsoever crosses the path of his ambition—the cold concentrated malice of Lord Dalgarno—all, I can baffle them all!" ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... doing justice to your opportunities here, not fulfilling your own ideals and possibilities. All I ask of you is to let this be the impulse to rise; do not let any morbid or fantastic remorse stand in your way, and baffle you. You know that he would have been the first to have forgiven any share of the fault that may be yours. What I wish most earnestly for you—it is what he, if he had lived, would have wished most—is that you should become a nobler man—as you can, I know; as you will, I believe.' ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Three sparkling rubies, wedges three of gold, From Persia sent—"Behold," she said, "behold Thy father's gifts, will these thy doubts remove The costly pledges of paternal love! Behold this bracelet charm, of sovereign power To baffle fate in danger's awful hour; But thou must still the perilous secret keep, Nor ask the harvest of renown to reap; For when, by this peculiar signet known, Thy glorious father shall demand his son, Doomed from her only joy ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... conspiracy to bewilder and baffle him at the moment when hope seemed to be returning. He had convinced himself that his one chance was to break with every tie which bound him to his old life, and to start afresh from the lowest step of all. And here, at the outset, there met him two calls ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... And there they may go on, with their gaugers, and their surveyors, and their supervisors, and their WATCHING-OFFICERS, and their coursing-officers, setting 'em one after another, or one over the head of another, or what way they will—we can baffle and laugh at 'em. Didn't I know, next door to our inn, last year, ten WATCHING-OFFICERS set upon one distiller, and he was too cunning for them; and it will always be so, while ever the people think it no sin. No, till then, not all their dockets and permits signify a rush, or a turf. And ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... gone to and fro! I'll never ask satisfaction again either in bed or board, but to be wasting away with watercresses and rising up of a morning before the sun rises in Babylon! (Weeps.) Oh, we might make out a way to baffle him yet! Is there no meal will serve him only flesh and blood? Try him with Grecian wine, and with what was left of the big ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... attempt it, we must be driven back from ground to ground, each of which would cease to be a ground the moment we pressed on it. We must be whirled down the gulf of an infinite series. But this would make our reason baffle the end and purpose of all reason, namely, unity and system. Or we must break off the series arbitrarily, and affirm an absolute something that is in and of itself at once cause and effect (causa sui), subject and object, or rather the absolute ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... reader, and had got them from magazines. Her three room-mates listened with cold shivers running down their spines. According to Verity's accounts it was a common and every day occurrence for a house-breaker to force an entrance, murder the occupants, and depart, leaving a case to baffle the police until some amateur detective turned up and solved ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... If it had not been for them, I would have gone to West Point with you, Bob. But, above all else in the world I enjoy pitting my wits against another's—enjoy unravelling mysteries that baffle others. To me there is no excitement equal to a man hunt. I suppose in a way it is an inheritance; my father was a great criminal lawyer, and his father before him. When Pinkerton organized the Secret Service division of the army in '61, I went with him, ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... there. I would have given a good deal at that moment for a few words with him. But I knew of no Mulligans in Kildormey, although, of course, there might be. I was born myself only a few miles from the place. Now, thinks I to myself, if these two children can baffle a purser who has been twenty years on the Atlantic when they say they came from his own town almost, by the powers they deserve their passage over the ocean. I had often seen grown people try to cheat their way across, and I ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... camp wore the teeth of the slaughtered animals, and that they had much trouble in killing one of them, as it was remarkably fierce. This we knew so well to the character of one of the animals that we had always supposed it would baffle every attempt of these ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... Harrison's Landing until the 12th of August, and passed through all the terrible and trying scenes that attended the arrival of the defeated, demoralized, and depressed troops of McClellan's army. These baffle description. Enough, that hands and heart were full—full of work, and full of sympathy, with so much frightful suffering all around her! She was here greatly aided and sustained by the presence and help of that excellent man, Chaplain Arthur B. Fuller, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... characteristics which are similar to his own. This reminds us of a remark that Cardinal Newman once made that men know less of animals than they do of angels. Why should we show such foolish pride and delusion, and try to baffle one of God's great facts? When men attempt to extinguish the idea of animal intelligence and sentiment by referring to it as instinct, we are reminded of the desert ostrich, which buries its head in the sand and thinks it cannot be seen. We should ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... with every attention to its diminished income; shut up the windows of one half of her house, to baffle the tax-gatherer; retrenched her furniture; discharged her pair of post-horses, and pensioned off the old humpbacked postilion who drove them, retaining his services, however, as an assistant to a still more aged hostler. To console herself for restrictions by which her pride ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... innocently to be ignored—in moonlight rambles by still streams. Opportunity, such as it is, behind the old gentleman's turned back, and beneath the good mother's spectacled nose. You shall sooner draw out leviathan with a hook, or bind Arcturus and his sons, than baffle the upthrust of Opportunity's many heads. Opportunity is a veritable Hydra, Argus and Briareus rolled into one. He has a hundred heads to plan his poachings, a hundred eyes to spy the land, a hundred hands to set his snares and springes. In the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... several reasons. First of all, by knowing what the girl or boy has nearest the heart we shall be able to enter into closer sympathy with the child, we shall be able to understand much of the conduct that would otherwise baffle as well as annoy us. In the second place, by watching the rise of ideals we shall be better able to direct the child's playing and his reading and those other activities that are needed to supply the ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... great effort to baffle him. "No, oh, no!" she said. "I am really not tired. Do play! I should love to see ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Through the shoulder had passed a musquet ball, which had divided the subclavian artery and caused death by loss of blood. No mark of any remedy having been applied could be discovered. Possibly the nature of the wound, which even among us would baffle cure without amputation of the arm at the shoulder, was deemed so fatal, that they despaired of success, and therefore left it to itself. Had Mr. White found the man alive, there is little room to think that he could have been of any use to him; for that an Indian would submit to so formidable ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... bearing on the same subject I must not omit. Constant disturbances were occasioned in Rome by the tribune Terentillus, who, for reasons to be noticed in their place, sought to pass a certain law. The nobles, in their efforts to baffle him, had recourse to religion, which they sought to turn to account in two ways. For first they caused the Sibylline books to be searched, and a feigned answer returned, that in that year the city ran great risk of ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... them like a refuge; they fled along it with lightened hearts, taking all turnings that might baffle a chase, till at last Miss Gregory smelt acacias and they issued again into the little square. To Miss Gregory it was almost amazing that the cafes should still be lighted, their tables thronged, the music insistent. While history had paced for her the world had stood still. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... for yourself when you have finished this narrative. Our limited experience would lead us to believe that it was a phantom conjured up by some unusual condition of his own brain; but we are fain to confess that there certainly do exist in nature phenomena such as baffle human reason; and it is possible that, for some hidden purposes of Providence, permission may occasionally be granted to those who have passed from this life to assume again for a time the form of their earthly tabernacle. We must, I say, be content to suspend our judgment on such matters; ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... footstool." Amilcare was to have been the footstool. But then Molly came into play. At first she seemed to make the simple thing simpler. Amilcare was a strong man, but stiff. Grifone was sure he would bungle in his handling of Molly; this truth-telling beauty, this flawless jewel in a cup, would baffle him; he would neither see it the fine nor the delicate tool it was. He worked best with a bludgeon which, as it did brute's work, might be brutishly handled. So far well—he might trust Amilcare ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... six fathoms of water, with her two topmasts, and lower mast-heads out of the element, as upright as if docked! It may all have occurred as the mate fancied, or the unusual incident may have been owing to some of the many mysterious causes which baffle inquiry, when the agents ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... not the book of to-day alone, that influences the character to be taken by the book of to-morrow. This element is a historical one and a knowledge of it may be acquired by study; it is the possible inventions that baffle our prophecies. We know that any time some new process may be discovered that will transform the book into something as unlike its present character as that is unlike the papyrus roll. But because the element of invention is so ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... Appearances to the Contrary; if, I say, a Man had a Mind to maintain this, and had Euphranor's Capacity, he might make a great Shew for his Client, without the Learning of Crito, and would certainly baffle his Adversaries, if he had such pliable ones as Alciphron and Lysicles to deal with. Come, would Euphranor say, answer me, Alciphron; is it not demonstrable, that the more Money a Man has, the more able he ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... her lip worked tremblingly; she turned her little head to one side and laid her hand over her brow, to baffle those steady blue eyes of the doctor's. But the doctor left the side of the couch and took a step or two towards ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... obliquely, passed through a much greater depth of it. But the circle of light left by the interposing moon, and of course derived entirely from the rim of the solar disc, yielded to Forbes's examination precisely the same spectrum as light coming from its central parts. This circumstance helped to baffle inquirers, already sufficiently perplexed. It still remains an anomaly, of which no satisfactory explanation ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Garcia, and he laughed mockingly. "Thinkest thou we know our trade so little that such release can baffle us? I tell thee, pain of itself has never yet had power to kill; and we have learned the measure of endurance in the human form so well, that we have never yet been checked by death, ere our ends were gained. And so will it be with ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... the "presents" are! These Gipsies can do anything with the earth, the ore, the sand. Snaffles, whose side-bars no brute can baffle, locks that would puzzle a locksmith, horseshoes that turn on a swivel, bells for the sheep . . . all these are good, but what they can ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... lengthened spring, winter is more than ever negative, dreary, barren to our fancy. Yet even this southern winter gives one things, very lovely things: things which one scarcely notices perhaps, yet which would baffle the most skilled painter to imitate, the most skilled poet to describe. Thus, for instance, there is a peculiar kind of morning by no means uncommon in Tuscany in what is completely winter, not a remnant ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... barbarism with Macedonian garrisons, and Acro-Corinthus be occupied with Illyric and Gaulish soldiers, and, under the specious name of Confederates, to have made those masters of the cities whom he had held it his business by arms and by policy to baffle and defeat, and, in the memoirs he left behind him, loaded with reproaches and insults. And say that Cleomenes was arbitrary and tyrannical, yet was he descended from the Heraclidae, and Sparta was his country, the obscurest citizen of which deserved to be preferred ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... 'You couldn't baffle everybody so,' remarked Mr. Kingsland. Several gentlemen had come up during the talk, closing in round ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... to the ball, we do not recollect ever to have seen one in the works of any of the old masters so true to nature. In conclusion, the buttons on the jacket, and the button-holes, companions thereto, would baffle the criticism of the most hyper-fastidious stab-rag; and the shirt collar, with every other detail—never forgetting the chiaro-scuro—are equal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of the Gulf of Arta, in this September of 1538, we see Kheyr-ed-Din at his best. Ever a fighter, he knew when to give battle and when to refrain, when to sweep headlong upon the foe, but also when to hold back and to baffle by waiting till the psychological moment should arrive. Around him Sinan-Reis, Mourad-Reis, and half a hundred others of their kidney were clamouring; they hurled insults at his head, they heaped opprobrium on "the corsair," they practically incited their troops to ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... burglars. There was not only a bolt, a chain, and an ordinary lock, but there was an ingenious double lock which turned the wrong way when you thought you were turning it the right, and could otherwise baffle the unskilful. Occupied with this task he could peep over his shoulder, through the unlighted front drawing-room, and see his adored one standing on the hearthrug, his hands clasped behind him, and his head bent, in an attitude ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... but, when petty controversy will no longer serve their purpose, we see the same men without warmth or energy, cold, languid, and unequal to the conflict; like those little animals, which are brisk in narrow places, and by their agility baffle their pursuers, but in the open field are soon overpowered. Haec pars dialectica, sive illam dicere malimus disputatricem, ut est utilis saepe et finitionibus, et comprehensionibus, et separandis quae sunt differentia, et resolvenda ambiguitate, et distinguendo, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... never without haunting fears. Different aliases had been assumed, each new departure having been most adroitly maneuvered. It seems impossible that such crafty covering of their doubling trails can baffle pursuit, yet each shrewd move sharpens apprehension by suggestions of new dangers. This growing bewilderment and stress of fear had kept them moving in uncertain rounds, varied by occasional abrupt tangents, until within zone of most heinous crimes, when drawn by that gravity existent between the ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee |
