"Perplexing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a brief outline of the principal facts known with regard to these interesting but perplexing bodies. We must be content with the recital of what we know, rather than hazard guesses about matters beyond our reach. We see that they are obedient to the great laws of gravitation, and afford a striking illustration of their truth. We have seen how modern ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... gentle Hilda, often laughed at the monstrous fictions that had gone abroad in reference to her adventure. Her two confidants (for such they were, on all ordinary subjects) had not failed to ask an explanation of the mystery, since undeniably a mystery there was, and one sufficiently perplexing in itself, without any help from the imaginative faculty. And, sometimes responding to their inquiries with a melancholy sort of playfulness, Miriam let her fancy run off into wilder fables than any which German ingenuity or Italian superstition ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the midst of these perplexing reflections and strengthened resolves, he saw that it was time for him to be off to see Duffel, as the place of meeting was some ten miles from the cave, and a part of the distance had to be gone over on foot. He reached the spot about ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's situation before. It had as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many fluctuations as the Northern Lights, as much colour as a parterre in June, and was as ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... the church wall that needed to be driven off before it spoiled the fresco, or he may have suspicion that a rat terrier is in one of the pews by the pulpit, from the fact that he saw two or three children laughing. Now, there is nothing more perplexing than a dog chase during religious services. At a prayer meeting once in my house, a snarling poodle came in, looked around, and then went and sat under the chair of its owner. We had no objection to its being ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... as swallows of chiming church-bells, they met at the station and were whirled as fast as steam could take them to new streets, lodging-houses, and theatres. To Kate this constant change was at once wearying and perplexing, and she often feared that she would never become accustomed to her new mode of life. But on the principle that we can scarcely be said to be moving when all around is moving in a like proportion, Kate learned to regard locality as a mere nothing, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... to a terrific degree. Here was a new, strange, perplexing combination—"deny himself," and "cross," coupled with His "Follow Me." What could He mean? This was surely some of His intensely figurative language again, they think. Yes, it surely was; and it stood for a yet intenser experience. ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... had from her youth upwards been constantly in the habit of perplexing her father by hypothetical questions, based on absurd conditions. The present seemed to be cast so precisely in the mould of previous ones that, not being given to syntheses of circumstances, he answered ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... well as perplexing, was this unique state of matters—wholly without precedent. For instance, Mr. Rouncival and his stud-groom could almost have sworn to the big slashing brown mare, the image of the long-lost celebrity Termagant, with the same crooked blaze down the face, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... the perplexity of the naturalists, produce her duck-billed beavers as she may, lesser authors some may hold, have no business to be perplexing readers with duck-billed characters. Always, they should represent human nature not in obscurity, but transparency, which, indeed, is the practice with most novelists, and is, perhaps, in certain cases, someway felt to be a kind of honor rendered by them ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... about the threshhold of occult studies are more perplexing and tormenting than those which have to do with the policy of the Brothers as to what shall, and what shall not, be revealed to the outer world. In fact, it is only by students at the same time tenacious and patient—continuously anxious to get ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... of thought reflected on her face, and while these reveries occupied his mind, there was a tender look in the deep black eyes and a smile on his lips. But these pleasant memories were apparently often followed by more perplexing thoughts. One afternoon he had been standing for some time lost in a dream, while he looked with eyes that saw nothing over the heaving waters to the distant horizon, when the captain's voice at his elbow recalled him ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... an author, my way was clear, but if I could not, and if ... and if... And so on through a wearying, perplexing ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... Now, the perplexing problem arises as to how long I shall hold office. The term is for two years. The new charter comes up before the coming Legislature for approval in January, and that instrument provides for another election next fall, to fill all ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... of the two fleets or squadrons it is hard to estimate. I have already spoken of the difficulty in finding out what guns were mounted on any given ship at a particular time, and it is even more perplexing with the crews. A schooner would make one cruise with but thirty hands; on the next it would appear with fifty, a number of militia having volunteered as marines. Finding the militia rather a nuisance, they would ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... than that number of members of either University. I will fairly own that, on receiving us, he drew me quietly aside, and observed:—"Mon ami, quand vous viendrez une autre fois, ne commandez pas, je vous prie, une armee si nombreuse. Je m'imaginois encore en Egypte." What was still more perplexing, we found there a party of English as numerous as ourselves. It was thus, however, that he rebuked ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... showy technique, at others to a cold and even harsh simplicity. Yet always in the main he had color, beauty, emotion, poignance when necessary. Like his idol, de Maupassant, he had no moral or strong social prejudices, no really great or disturbing imagination, no wealth of perplexing ideas. He saw America and life as something to be painted as all masters see life and paint it. Gifted with a true vein of satire, he had not, at the time of his death, quite mastered its possibilities. He still retained prejudice of one type ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... costumes were most perplexing to good New England ears and eyes, and Rebecca knew not whether to advance or ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the Theravadins and summoned a Council which wrote commentaries on the Tripitaka. This may be reasonably held to include a recension of the text commented on but we do not know what that text was, and the brief and perplexing accounts of the Council which we possess indicate not that it gave its imprimatur to Mahayanist sutras but that it was specially concerned with the Abhidharma works of ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... apparently endless succession, with ledges at intervals, which afford the adventurers opportunities for resting themselves and affixing their rope-ladders for the purpose of descending yet farther. What is, however, most mortifying and perplexing is to observe that these abysses are not only before, but behind you, and on every side; indeed, close within the entrance of the cave, on the right, there is a gulf almost equally dark and full as threatening as that which exists at the nether end, and perhaps contains within itself as many ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... large enough to care for the unworthy among the poor as we would care for the unworthy among our own kin, is certainly a perplexing question. To say that it should never be so, is a comment upon our democratic relations to them which few of us would ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... these perplexing thoughts, Calton went down to St. Kilda to have a talk with Madge. He intended to ask her to assist him towards obtaining the information he needed. He had a great respect for Madge, and thought her a really clever woman. It was just possible, he argued, that Brian's great ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... surrounding objects, seemed to deaden all sound also. After a moment's pause he closed the door, but did not lock it, and retreating to the centre of the room remained blinking at the two candles and plucking some perplexing problem from his beard. Suddenly an idea seized him. Rosey! Where was she? Perhaps it had been a preconcerted plan, and she had fled with him. Putting out the lights, he stumbled hurriedly through the passage to the gangway above. ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... the table for supper with dried fish and punch). The younger generation have a keener sense of humour than we elder ones, HAUSTUS, and perhaps, after all, she was only a perplexing sort ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893 • Various
... relating to the Victualling, and thence I by hackney to the Temple to the Auditor's man, and with him to a tavern to meet with another under-auditor to advise about the clearing of my Lord Bellasses' accounts without injuring myself and perplexing my accounts, and so thence away to my cozen Turner's, where I find Roger Pepys come last night to town, and here is his mistress, Mrs. Dickenson, and by and by comes in Mr. Turner, a worthy, sober, serious man—I honour him mightily. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... in some of the parts is not a little perplexing. Hardly one of the speeches put into Caesar's mouth can be regarded as historically characteristic; taken all together, they seem little short of a caricature. As here represented, Caesar appears little better than a braggart; ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... education and citizenship none can be made to mean more than the simple proposition that natural law is as sacred as a moral principle. All who remember this "beatitude" will be helped to solve many perplexing problems of dress, diet, play, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... love of power leads to many exercises and efforts that have no ulterior result. The mathematician will turn aside from his course of study to master a problem, which involves no new principle, but is merely difficult and perplexing. The reading of books obscurely written, or in languages that task the utmost power of analysis, frequently has no other result, and probably no other object, than the trial of strength. What can be attained only by strenuous ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... took hold of the subject with such vigor as to promise relief from all these perplexing disorders, and, after much investigation and a great deal of debate, there resulted the so-called "Reconstruction Laws," which, for a clear understanding of the powers conferred on the military commanders, I deem best to ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... were characteristic of the West. They were based on a positive faith in democracy, in our constitution of government, in the American people. In that faith, likewise, he addressed himself to the problem which in his day, as before and after, was perplexing the champions of democracy and giving pause to the well-wishers of the Republic. A later generation has learned to think of that problem as the negro question, a race question; Douglas's generation thought of it merely as ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... longer than she bad counted upon. For the cars were not ready at eleven o'clock; the snow last night had occasioned some perplexing delays. It was not till near three o'clock that the often-despatched messenger to the depot brought back word that they might go as soon as they pleased. It pleased Mrs. Renney to be in a great hurry, for her baggage was in the cars she said, and it would be dreadful if she and ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... and gladly, too," muttered Mr. Smith, with a perplexing mixture of sadness and mirthful conceit. "A plague upon their nonsense! My own heart is the only really miserable one in the company; it will certainly be the death ...
— The Christmas Banquet (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The metallic sulphides generally pronounced harmless, causes the writing to soften and become illegible in a short time. On the other hand, yellow prussiate of potash, with acetic acid in successive operations is of great service in treating the most perplexing palimpsests. ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... probably thinking it too complicated to inquire into how, at such a time, he could have allowed himself to be carried away by an impulse of happiness, he confined himself to a gesture which he habitually employed whenever any perplexing question came into his mind: that is, he passed his hand across his forehead, dried his eyes, and wiped his glasses. And he could never be consoled for the loss of his wife, but used to say to my grandfather, during the two years for which he survived her, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... be discovered and arrested. Therefore she must be concealed in the house. She had gone off with Walter Franklin, and here she was under the wing of his brother George. The case grew more mysterious and perplexing as time went on. Giles did not know which way to turn, or what advantage ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... of this august body was taken up with the perplexing problem how to attract big Jewish capital into the central governments and at the same time safeguard the latter against the excessive influx of Jews, who, for the sake of settling there, would register in the first guild and, under the disguise of relatives, ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... I admit. "Like for instance yesterday when we play 'A Spaceship Built for Two.' This is a song, as you know, that does not have in it many high notes, but even when you play the low notes they sound somewhat like they maybe are trying to be high notes. It is a matter which is perplexing to ...
— The Flying Cuspidors • V. R. Francis
... himself[139] who acts and who effects all that is real in the sin of the creature. This objection leads us to consider the physical co-operation of God with the creature, after we have examined the moral co-operation, which was the more perplexing. Some have believed, with the celebrated Durand de Saint-Pourcain and Cardinal Aureolus, the famous Schoolman, that the co-operation of God with the creature (I mean the physical cooperation) is only general and mediate, and that God creates substances and gives them the force they need; and ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... a disturbing element, a perplexing unknown quantity, which had somehow crept into the work, and which seriously threatened to impair the accuracy of his calculations. It was a touching sight to behold the venerable mathematician as he pleaded with me not so ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... into a whistle, many things perplexing him. "He's lucky to get away at all," he remarked at length. "From what he said, it looks like there'd be ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... estimating their rights as the law established them, said but little on the subject, and that little was rather against the propriety of annoying a man, in their brother's condition, with business of so perplexing a nature. The fact that these important personages set their faces against the scheme had due weight, and most of the relatives began to calculate the probable amount of their respective shares under the law of distribution, as it stood in that day. ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... abound, but so far as we know, this is the first attempt to confine the vast and perplexing subject within the dimensions of a small, accessible volume devoted to the principles underlying the planning of all costumes, regardless ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... heart in the delegates for the job on hand. To them, the active forces in the Convention, the Princeton president was, indeed, a man of mystery. Who could solve the riddle of this political Sphinx? Who was this man Wilson? What were his purposes? What his ideals? These questions were troubling and perplexing the delegates. Colonel Harvey, the commander-in-chief of the Wilson forces, when interrogated by us, refused to answer. How masterfully the Old Guard staged every act of the drama, and thus brought about the nomination of the Princeton president. The Convention is at an end. Wilson ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... they had never been, till perhaps some accidental occurrence, some words in conversation, some object by the wayside, or some passenger in the street, attract our notice—and then, as if awaking from a perplexing trance, a light darts in upon our darkness; and we discover that thus some one long ago spoke; that there something long ago happened; or that the person, who just passed us like a vision, shared smiles ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... queer names that made her smile: "The Cranny," "The Nook," "Snug Harbour," "Buena Vista,"—of course,—which she thought pretty, though she did not know its meaning; and another, in German, equally perplexing, "Klein aber Mein." Though the windows of these places were now boarded up, though the mosquito netting still clung rather dismally to the porches, they were mutely suggestive of contentment ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... feelings were easily roused and but indifferently satisfied; wherever the boy turned he found himself surrounded by a wonderful and would-be learned activity, to which the garish theatres presented a ridiculous contrast, and the entrancing strains of music a perplexing one. Now, to the observer who sees things relatively, it must seem strange that the modern man who happens to be gifted with exceptional talent should as a child and a youth so seldom be blessed with the quality of ingenuousness and of ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the children. The independent self-support of every adult, healthy Indian, female as well as male, and the gentile relationship, which is more wide reaching and authoritative than that of marriage, have already disposed of these questions, which are usually so perplexing for the white man. So far as personal maintenance is concerned, a woman is, as a rule, just as well off without a husband as with one. What is hers, in the shape of property, remains her own whether she is married or not. In fact, marriage among these Indians seems to be but the natural mating of ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... the special correspondent of the Court Journal arrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King's arabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yet were illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing at first, as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer appeared to have attempted the article once or twice in several journalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, "Try American style," ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... 1870." In 1812, when Byron wrote his note to the third edition of Childe Harold, Gropius must have been barely of age, and the statement "that he has for years assumed the name of his (a noble Lord's) agent" is somewhat perplexing.] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... in civil war. In such cases there always is a main question; but in this case that question is a perplexing compound—Union and slavery. It thus becomes a question not of two sides merely, but of at least four sides, even among those who are for the Union, saying nothing of those who are against it. Thus, those who are for the Union with, but not without, slavery; those for it without, ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... door behind her, and then everything in the corridor grew clouded and confused. Who was this? A genuine fear came over him at a sudden alarming thought; was the house full of people, and was he, perhaps, the victim of some plot? Who could tell in what confusion of perplexing circumstances he might find himself involved, what importunate individuals he might come across here? These thoughts stirred a strong spirit of indignation and resistance. Was it a fool's journey he had undertaken? Not this time! He summoned all his powers of will and determination, ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... the lunar surface had interested the astronomic mind to a very high degree at their first discovery, and have proved to be very perplexing problems ever since. The first observers do not seem to have noticed them. Neither Hevelius, nor Cassini, nor La Hire, nor Herschel, makes a ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... of this most remarkable passage, which at once solves many interesting and perplexing problems, was published eighty years ago by Macpherson. But, strange to say, it attracted no notice, and has never, as far as I know, been mentioned by ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... history to a point (September 1750) where the Prince, for a moment, emerges from fairyland, and where we are not left to the perplexing conjectures of diplomatists in Paris, Dresden, Florence, Hanover, and St. Petersburg. In September 1750, Charles certainly visited London. There is a point of light. We now give an account of his actual ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... objected likewise that they saw no reason for exposing themselves to such hazards, without hope of reward, as they had found no mines in all the vast extent of country they had travelled over. This opposition was exceedingly perplexing to Soto, as he had expended the whole of his substance on the expedition, and was afraid his men would desert him if he came near the coast, when he was not in a condition to raise new forces. For these ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... time, as he went on along the difficult track, the narrow little toe-print pointed the way to him, like an arrow through the wilds. It was a pleasant thought, and yet a perplexing one. Would he have undertaken this quest just to see her? Would he be content with that if his other motive failed? For as he made his way up to the ridge he was more than once assailed by doubts of the practical success of his enterprise. In the excitement of last night, and even the hopefulness ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... young students with no a priori repugnance for the labours of external criticism, who perhaps are even disposed to like them, who yet are—experience has shown it—totally incapable of performing them. There would be nothing perplexing in this if these persons were intellectually feeble; this incapacity would then be but one manifestation of their general weakness; nor yet if they had gone through no technical apprenticeship. But we are concerned with men of education and intelligence, sometimes of exceptional ability, ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... mortal. I am sensible you have grounds to be diffident of the behaviour of a body consisting of above two hundred persons, who are neither capable of governing nor being governed. I own the thought is perplexing; but such favourable circumstances seem to offer themselves at this juncture that matters ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... beside him and did not reply. She was a woman of perplexing silences; and her pale and placid face, with its cold correct outline, gave no clue to the thoughts with which she occupied them. She sat without stirring. Durrance was embarrassed. He remembered Mr. Adair as a good-humoured ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... same sound did not usher in my day's work. The ear grew so accustomed during those weeks to the terrible roar, that when Sebastopol fell the sudden quiet seemed unnatural, and made us dull. And during the whole of this time the most perplexing rumours flew about, some having reference to the day of assault, the majority relative to the last great effort which it was supposed the Russians would make to drive us into the sea. I confess these latter rumours now and then caused me temporary uneasiness, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... vicarious. The fault, or desertion, or death of the natural protectors, turns loose upon the desert of our streets those nomade hordes of Bedouins, male and female, whose presence is being made especially palpable just now, and whose reclamation is a perplexing, yet still a hopeful problem. In the case of the adult Arab, there is a life's work to undo, and the facing of that fact it is which makes some of our bravest workers drop their hands in despair. With these young Arabs, on ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... purposes. They abused the Warsingali for being such fools as to let me travel in their country, and said I should never cross over to them. This little incident of dropping paper, though fully explained to them, was ever afterwards brought up in accusation against me, and proved very perplexing. ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... great turmoil of nations it rings with a tone peculiarly true: for Italy is the country that found herself confronted, at the outbreak of the great war, by perhaps the most perplexing situation of any of the present allies. If she had chosen to follow the way which lay open and easy before her, the war would have long since been decided in favor of the Central Powers. Italy had entered the Triple Alliance as a clean ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... her father's sake, who had been so respected in Cranford. My father and I had agreed to say as little as possible about the bank, indeed never to mention it again, if it could be helped. Some of the plans were evidently a little perplexing to her; but she had seen me sufficiently snubbed in the morning for want of comprehension to venture on too many inquiries now; and all passed over well with a hope on her part that no one would be hurried into marriage on her account. When we came to the proposal that she should sell tea, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... times when Ruth was exceedingly disgusted with these perplexing thoughts, and wanted nothing so much as to get away from them. She resented this intrusion upon her quiet. This day was one of those in which she was impatient of all these things, and she had made her toilet with great satisfaction, and said within herself complacently: "We are to have one hour ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... Thirty-fourth Street were too many and too perplexing; for the first time in his life Hedger took a hansom cab for Washington Square. Caesar sat bolt upright on the worn leather cushion beside him, and they jogged off, looking down on ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... the palace, so that he might hear of my arrival, for he had been up that morning, and would have been glad to see me, only the boys, from fear of entering his cabinet, had forged a lie, and deprived him of any interview with me, which he had long wished to get. This ready cordiality was as perplexing as all the rest. Could it be possible, I thought, I had been fighting with a phantom all this while, and yet the king had not been able to perceive it? At all events, now, as the key to his door had been given, I would make good use of it and watch the result. Meanwhile Nasib returned from ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... and cross-ways," which are said by Camden to have existed in the Forest, and to have rendered it a place of refuge for noble fugitives, were those paths which penetrated its depths, having their direction turned and rendered perplexing through the frequent interposition of streams, bogs, and thickets. Such were the means of communication which for many generations served the purposes of the Foresters, who permitted no wheeled vehicles to enter their domain, and possessed few ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... thing was perplexing him, as an occurrence altogether unusual. He had known of people being killed and torn to pieces by the animal in its anger; but never of one being carried up ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... exclaimed Brother Bart, in dismay. "Me at a party! Sure I'd look and feel queer indeed in such a place." Brother Bart's glance turned from the fine boat to the gentleman before him; he felt the responsibilities of his position were growing perplexing. "It will be great sport for the boys, I am sure," he added; "and I don't like to say 'No,' after all yer kindness in coming for them. But how are ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... assumed in succession two distinct types, marking two eras quite dissimilar. First came the Semi-Saxon, or transition period, throughout which the old language was suffering disorganization and decay, a period of confusion, perplexing alike to those who then used the tongue, and to those who now endeavor to trace its vicissitudes. This chaotic state came to an end about the middle of the thirteenth century, after a duration of nearly two hundred years. The second era, or period of reconstruction, follows, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... luculent testimonies for that blending of fact and fancy in strictly historical times which people find it so difficult to believe, but which offers the key, and the only true key, for many of the most perplexing problems, both of history and ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... thoughts, still pondering this most perplexing situation, the hostess standing silent by the door, when suddenly Madonna ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... bold, 110 In pain and hazard toil for sordid gold? They can! for gold too oft with magic art Can rule the passions, and corrupt the heart: This crowns the prosperous villain with applause, To whom in vain sad merit pleads her cause; This strews with roses life's perplexing road, And leads the way to pleasure's soft abode; This spreads with slaughter'd heaps the bloody plain, And pours adventurous thousands o'er the main. II. The stately ship with all her daring band 120 To skilful Albert own'd the chief command: Though train'd in ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... were becoming more and more accustomed to the obscurity; and among the vague, perplexing objects which filled the corners, he ended by distinguishing some old barrels, remnants of fowl cages, and broken tools, a lot of rubbish such as is swept away and thrown to the bottom of cellars. Hanging from the rafters, moreover, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Perplexing questions these—questions which at once suggested themselves to the minds of all concerned, but which admitted of no easy solution. I could find no reply to them. Captain Prendergast had not even a suggestion to offer. Jonathan Jelf, who seized ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... authority for the legend, is perhaps the most perplexing in the list. Like twin stars that seem one to the naked eye, but resolve themselves into two beneath the telescope, so the single author of the printed text of Calderon appears distinct persons in the pages of Montalvan. He gives them thus: — "Jacobo," "Solino," with a separate reference ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... quench the Holy Spirit. He is grieved whensoever He is resisted; He may be resisted until He is quenched. It was Christ Himself who spoke of a sin against the Holy Spirit which "hath never forgiveness." Is there any more painful, perplexing, and yet more certain fact in life than this, that man can resist God? Is there any that has bound up with it more terrible and inevitable issues? "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears," cried the martyr Stephen to his judges, "ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... authors recur to it: "All but a very small portion of the sun's heat goes day by day into what we call empty space, and it is only this very small remainder that is made use of by the various planets for purposes of their own. Can anything be more perplexing than this seemingly frightful expenditure of the very life and essence of the system? That this vast store of high-class energy should be doing nothing but travelling outwards in space at the rate of 188,000 miles per second is hardly conceivable, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Elizabeth Burton proved tedious and perplexing to the specialists who traced its origin beyond the purely physical to some unconfessed thing gnawing at the peace of her brain. Accordingly they did what they could and, having effected a temporary repair, fell ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... passed, when the prince speaks and reveals the plot; an extraordinary number of variants exist in Eastern and Western languages, the earliest written version being an Arabian text of the 10th century: a great mass of literature has grown round the subject, which is one of the most perplexing as well as ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... infantine hypotheses. A complete revolution—vital and all-embracing—has altered our modes of thought, so that the man of 1887 can scarcely bring himself to conceive the state of mind which contented the man of 1837. We have dark doubts now, perplexing misgivings, weary uncertainties, painful consciousness of limited powers; but along with these weaknesses we have our share of certainties. Are we happier? Nay, not in mind. A quiet melancholy marks the words of all the men who have thought most deeply and learned most. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... electing the president a perplexing question. b. The constitution of the electoral college, with illustrations. c. Qualifications for serving as an elector. d. The method of choosing electors. e. The time of choosing electors. f. When ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... the twentieth century, with a fine collection of microscopic animalculae; our descendants may perhaps write as much nonsense as the scientific schools of the nineteenth century have uttered on this mysterious and perplexing question. ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... should indicate the connection between the activity of this apex-point of the complex vision and the various perplexing human problems round which our controversies smoulder and burn. It is advisable that I should indicate the connection between the activity of this "apex-thought" and that thing which the world has agreed to ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... she had only been provoked to curiosity by Bluebell's reserve, but now there really was food for imagination to work on, and perhaps the clue to much that was perplexing in Harry. How curiously it had ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... as the commands of a usurper and a tyrant, and they will continue to be so regarded until a general resumption of agricultural pursuits shall have brought about a practical solution o this much vexed question, which, "in abstracts," is rather perplexing. I think that if each party is compelled to remain within the bounds of justice and equity by the presence of a neutral force, i.e. United States troops, one year's experience will assign to both employers and ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... meal; fresh fish were frying on the fire, and the oat cakes toasting before it. Yet, as she moved rapidly about, she was watching her daughter and very soon she gave words to the thoughts troubling and perplexing her motherly speculations. ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... sombre and savage; he sank back in his chair motionless, a stranger to all that surrounded him, and gave himself up to some mysterious thought against which resistance seemed powerless. Suddenly he appeared to wake from some perplexing dream, and by another powerful effort aroused himself and joined in the conversation with sharp, cutting speeches; he encouraged the noisy humor of his guests, inciting them to drunkenness by setting the example himself; then the same mysterious thought would cross his face anew, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... sphere by the laws of necessity, and through the complex relations of artificial existence. In the strong language of Carlyle, I would say that 'Here is a lie standing up in the midst of society.' I would say 'Down with it, even to the ground;' for while this perplexing and barbarous anomaly exists, fretting like an ulcer at the very heart of society, all new specifics and palliatives are in vain. The question must be settled one way or another; either let the man in all the relations ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... my, outfit which the circular that accompanied my appointment demanded. This requirement was a pair of "Monroe shoes." Now, out in Ohio, what "Monroe shoes" were was a mystery—not a shoemaker in my section having so much as an inkling of the construction of the perplexing things, until finally my eldest brother brought an idea of them from Baltimore, when it was found that they were a familiar ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... perplexing diagnosis, but a few skillful questions draw out the fact that she has a bad cold, and some chamomilla is sent at a venture. Word comes back the next day that "Sister is well: that medicine did her all ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various
... were about five or six months old, St. James came to me with a troubled countenance. He was summoned away, very unexpectedly. He would probably be obliged to go as far as Texas before his return; he might be absent a month. Business of a perplexing nature, which it was impossible to explain then, called him from me, but he would shorten as much as possible the days of absence which would be dreary and joyless to him. I was overwhelmed with grief ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... all over. He uttered little guttural exclamations and tapped the desk with his finger-tips as he read, and all the time his face wore that perplexing expression ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... attracted respect. His person bore the stamp of dignity, and his manners, which possessed the exquisite polish of travel, and of society in its most refined courts, secured him universal esteem. Though little beyond fifty, various perplexing situations having distressed his youth, had not only rendered his hair prematurely gray, but by clouding his once brilliant eyes with thoughtfulness, marked his aspect with premature old age and melancholy. The baronet's ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... that angered him no longer, because he had given over all fight with it. But the great dome, flaming with its letters, AEdificabo meam Ecclesiam, shining there for ages, kindled the fight anew. And strange as it may seem, and perplexing as it was to the Doctor (when he received Reuben's story of it), he came out from his first visit to the great Romish temple with his religious nature more deeply stirred than it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... discovery which had taken place, from my cousin, Miss Drake, on Sunday morning, and came up at once from the country to be with my mother; for I know well with what sympathy she had been following Oliver's wishes and desires. It is a very painful business. I do most truly regret the perplexing situation in which you find yourself, and I am sure you will not resent it if, as Oliver's sister, I write you my views ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... silence was, however, so far acceptable, that it gave him time to bring any shadow of judgment which he possessed to council on his own situation and prospects, which would have appeared to any reasonable person in the highest degree dangerous and perplexing. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... people cannot differ on such great and perplexing public questions without impugning each other's motives. Henry has been called a backslider because of the lenity of his counsels, but I cannot but think it is the Spirit of Christ that influences him. Garrison has been ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... they do not have to battle with the elements. In the city they work under shelter and in accordance with definite regulations. Hence it is that the problem of securing workingmen and servant girls in the country is every day becoming more and more perplexing. ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... Marchand had told and he had not understood it, and could only half believe it. Kate must know far more about all this painful business than he did, for her father's letter would tell her all he wished her to know. Therefore, why should he discuss that most distressing and perplexing subject, which he knew so little about and which she knew all about. So he merely touched upon Major Bonnet and his vessel, and hoped that she might soon write to him and tell him what she cared for him to know, what she cared for him to ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... excited, naughty. 'A man has kissed me; it was a man; it was Mr. Rogers, Daddy's cousin.... He's not my cousin exactly, but just "a man."' And she fell asleep, wondering how she ought to begin her letter to him when she wrote, but, more perplexing still, how she ought to—end it! That little backward brain sought the solution of the problem all night long in dreams. She felt a criminal, a dare-devil caught in the act, awaiting execution. Light had been flashed cruelly upon her dark, careful secret—the greatest and finest secret in ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... cure his cattle, but could not, and what was more perplexing was the fact that other people's cattle in fields adjoining suffered not at all. In a few months he was driven to extremities; he saw his chances of buying back his old home slipping through his fingers, and what maddened him most was ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... principle of opposites. "Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations, not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... remind you that as your task is yet unfinished there is no reward due you. Your success, however, warrants me in demanding further proof of your boasted ability. I would not have Azalia wed to one who was but a lucky fool." Then, unheeding the prince's rage, he continued, "Now among other things perplexing the kingdom is the completion of the palace gardens. If you will but accompany me to the top of the palace I ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... DINNERS A perplexing problem Requisites for a well arranged menu Suggestions for preparing bills of fare Table of food analyses Fifty-two weeks' breakfasts and dinners Average cost Analysis of various bills of fare ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... sympathy; and the strength of a quiet will, which was, however, inflexible. All that was restless, uncertain, and unsatisfied in men's hearts and lives, found something in him to which they clung as if it had been an anchor of hope; and so his popularity had a very wide, and at first sight very perplexing range. ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... if she had entered into your thoughts, and talked them aloud. Her mind was evidently cultivated with great care, but she was perfectly void of pedantry. A hint, an allusion, sufficed to show how much she knew, to one well instructed, without mortifying or perplexing the ignorant. Yes, there probably was the only woman my father had ever met who could be the companion to his mind, walk through the garden of knowledge by his side, and trim the flowers while he cleared ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Training in Sex-education.—The need to have the right sort of fathers as well as fit mothers requires a new training in lines of sex-education. One of the most perplexing of all educational problems is how to give the needed training in this line in the best and most effective way. In the admirable volume on Sex-Education written by Professor Maurice A. Bigelow, of Teachers ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... examinations showed Miss Sullivan, Miss Harbaugh (Mr. Gilman's head teacher), and one other, that I could without too much effort complete my preparation in two years more. Mr. Gilman at first agreed to this; but when my tasks had become somewhat perplexing, he insisted that I was overworked, and that I should remain at his school three years longer. I did not like his plan, for I wished to enter college with ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... titles among them. Those of St. Vincent's complain of the defective criminal and civil justice among them, as well as of military protection." And on the next day he writes to Mr. Jefferson: "The government of the settlements on the Illinois and Wabash is a subject very perplexing in itself, and rendered more so by our ignorance of the many circumstances on which a right judgment depends. The inhabitants at those places claim protection against the savages, and some provision for ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... certain groups of illusion, I am not unmindful of the fact that these divisions answer to no very sharp natural distinctions. In fact, it will be found that one class gradually passes into the other, and that the different characteristics here separated often combine in a most perplexing way. All that is claimed for this classification is that it is a convenient mode of mapping ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... really had arisen against Mr. Pennifeather, he (Mr. Goodfellow) would make every exertion in his power, would employ all the little eloquence in his possession to—to—to—soften down, as much as he could conscientiously do so, the worst features of this really exceedingly perplexing piece of business." ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... ideals. This young man was alien to her in birth, and his education had been along totally different lines, and logically they should not have been in sympathy one with the other, for he made her ideals seem somehow bloodless and her enthusiasms sterile and hardly worth while. It was certainly perplexing, for after three months in which she had not seen him, the attraction he exercised upon her had not noticeably lessened. She oddly felt that it would have been more considerate in Smith had he reappeared a little weaker and less vivid than ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... ringing on the pavement of the patio inside, the sentinel had his reflections and conjectures. He wondered where the colonel-commandant could have been to keep him so long absent from his command, and he had perhaps other conjectures of an equally perplexing nature. They did not much trouble him, however. What mattered it to him how the commandant employed his time, or where it was spent, so long as he got his sueldo and rations? He had them with due regularity, and with this consoling reflection he wrapped ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid |
