"Puzzle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... greater portion of the Park was a mass of this abominable grass, and there was no chance of getting the elephants in any other position, this serving them at the same time for both food and shelter. How they can eat it is a puzzle; it is as sharp as a knife, and as coarse as a file, with a flavour of the most ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... fellow. Poor lad!—poor lad! Suppose he thought it wasn't the straight thing to bind a girl of ours till he was in a better position—it'd be just like him. Well—but Mary, of all people!" (This was the puzzle to all.) "It must have been the baby. She certainly did dote on that child, and 'love me, love my dog'—eh? But to think of her keeping it so close all that time! Afraid I'd make a fuss, I suppose. You could have told her, Deb, that I don't stand in my children's way for the sake of ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Robert Turold succeeded in fitting together the last pieces of the puzzle which had eluded him for so long. Simon Turrald, the brother, had fled to Cornwall, where he had married a Cornishwoman who had brought him two sons. The elder, Simon, had taken religious vows, and established a priory at St. Fair, a branch of the great priory of St. Germain. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... was an aunt of Mother's; and once she had the jaundice, and it seems to me she was always yellow after that. But that was not all, Hilda. There was an old handbook of botany among Father's books, and I used to read it a great deal, and puzzle over the long words. I always liked long words, even when I was a little wee girl. Well, one day I was reading, and Aunt Caroline happened to come in. She despised reading, and thought it was an utter waste of ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... fond passion can die, In this prosaic meeting we had! Now, ought we to laugh or to cry— Was it sorrowful, or was it sad? 'Tis a puzzle not worthy our time, So let's give it up—with ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... schoolmasther, he was as quick at figures as th' iddycated pig they showed in th' tint las' week in Haley's vacant lot, and in joggerphy, asthronomy, algybbera, jommethry, chimisthry, physiojnomy, bassoophly an' fractions, I was often har-rd put mesilf to puzzle him. I heerd him gradyooate an' his composition was so fine very few cud make out what ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... soule may lye obscure, and sleepe a while within this house of flesh. Those strange and mysticall transmigrations that I have observed in Silkewormes, turn'd my Philosophy into Divinity. There is in those workes of nature, which seeme to puzzle reason, something Divine, and [that] hath more in it then the eye of a common spectator ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... her wildness, her invention. Her dress was uniform, her manner much subdued. Her chief interest seemed to be now in her studies, and in music. Her companions she never sought; but they, partly from uneasy, remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked her much better now that she did not puzzle and oppress them, sought her continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life, the only stain upon the ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... also appeared to be in high spirits, never tired of glancing at Aglaya and the prince, who were walking in front. It was evident that their younger sister was a thorough puzzle ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Bad in itself, but represented worse. Raised in extremes, and in extremes decryed, With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied; Nor weighed nor winnowed by the multitude, But swallowed in the mass unchewed and crude. Some truth there was, but dashed and bruised with lies, To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise. Succeeding times did equal folly call. Believing nothing, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... laughing. Of course they understood things better than Baby, for even Denny, the youngest next to him, was nine, that is twice his age, which by the by was a puzzle to Denny herself, for Celia had teased her one day by saying that according to that when Baby was eighty Denny would be a hundred and sixty, and nobody ever lived to be so old, ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... these letters I write, after I have done; for, looking over thus much, I found two or three literal mistakes, which should not be when the hand is so bad. But I hope it does not puzzle little Dingley to read, for I think I mend: but methinks, when I write plain, I do not know how, but we are not alone, all the world can see us. A bad scrawl is so snug, it looks like a PMD.(7) We have scurvy Tatlers of late: so pray do not suspect me. I have one ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... of the basement of this hotel was a private electric light plant. In charge of the plant was an old Scotch engineer delightful for his wise sayings and quaint philosophy. The fireman, a young man named T., was rather a puzzle to us. He had all the marks of unusual mechanical ability, and yet he seemed to take only the slightest interest in his work, and was constantly being reproved by his chief for laziness, irresponsibility, and ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... hue, was really becoming discoloured. To upbraid him would be cruel. Richard lifted his head, surveyed the position, and exclaiming "Here!" dropped down on a withered bank, leaving Ripton to contemplate him as a puzzle whose every new move ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... self-evident fact that the Bible story of creation was the work of unscientific men of strong imagination into a far-fetched and unsatisfactory puzzle of symbol and allegory? It would be just as easy and just as reasonable to take the Morte d'Arthur and try to prove that it contained a veiled revelation ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... satire in the form of a romance, the "Adventures of Eovaai" (1736), the authoress dropped entirely out of sight. For six years no new work came from her pen. What she was doing during this time remains a puzzle. She could hardly have been supported by the rewards of her previous labors, for the gains of the most successful novelists at this period were small. If she became a journalist or turned her energies toward ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... characters, motives which we ourselves have never made completely real by imagination are realised for us by the dramatist. Intimations of humanity which in our own minds have lain jumbled fragmentary, like the multitudinous pieces of a shuffled picture-puzzle, are there set orderly before us, so that we see at last the perfect picture. We escape out ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... statistics. We admit honestly that we know no more to-day than when Paul de Decker discussed Quetelet's labors in statistics of morality in the Brussels Academy of Science, and confessed what a puzzle it was that human conduct, even in its smallest manifestations, obeyed in their totality constant and immutable laws. Concerning this curious fact Adolf Wagner says: "If a traveler had told us something about some people where a statute determines ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... boys, the puzzle was more than just an interesting problem to be solved. If some enemy really had penetrated the project and somehow caused disruption of the scientists' brains, then the people nearest and dearest to both of them were also in jeopardy. Spindrift now ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... This puzzle was not on Monday night long in being resolved. Ollivarez entered, and a child in the gallery commenced crying with that persevering quality of tone which threatens long endurance. Mr. Yates could ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... Jasper. I am not cunning. If people think I am, it is because, being made up of art themselves, simplicity of character is a puzzle to them. Your women are ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Graf was a puzzle to all who knew her. She was a puzzle even to herself, and was wont to say, indifferently, that the problem was not worth a solution. For this beautiful girl of fifteen was somewhat bitter and misanthropic, a condition ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... and orts, scraps, or leavings; but no one unfamiliar with the language of that time could have solved the puzzle. ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... those sons of war, Cantabrian, Scythian, each intend, Disjoin'd from us by Hadria's bar, Nor puzzle, Quintius, how to spend A life so simple. Youth removes, And Beauty too; and hoar Decay Drives out the wanton tribe of Loves And Sleep, that came or night or day. The sweet spring-flowers not always keep Their bloom, nor moonlight ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... thought points the way out of another contradictious puzzle, that which confronts my argument from the ears of an ass. It roams treeless deserts where no foe can approach unseen. Thistles make no sound. Why should it be adorned with ears which in their amplitude are scarcely surpassed by those of the rabbit and the hare. There ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... this is true, admitting the place of religion in Greek life, do we not end, after all, in a greater puzzle than we began with? For this, it may be said, whatever it may be, is not what we mean by religion. This, after all, is merely a beautiful way of expressing facts; a translation, not an interpretation, of life. What we mean ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... the table the sophomore officers presented each freshman with a small booklet bound in the freshman green, on the front cover of which, in letters of sophomore scarlet, was the cryptic legend: "Puzzle—name the girl." This was explained, however, by the inside, where appeared a small and rather cloudy blue-print, showing the back view of a girl in shirt-waist and short skirt, with a pile of books under her arm, and the inevitable ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... have squabbled over these famous "Pillar Towers of Ireland," but the general trend of scientific opinion is that they are of early Christian origin. Father Matt Horgan, a famous Munster antiquary, humorously started the theory that they were built to puzzle posterity, which they have very successfully done. Lucan is a health resort, possessing a sulphur spa, and situated in a well-wooded country above the Liffey. The Hydropathic stands well sheltered and commanding a splendid view. The drives in the district are many, and the antiquarian will ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... and listened, his jaws set hard together. Fast as the man talked the thoughts of Lance flew ahead, snatched at the significance of every detail, every bit of evidence. Some things puzzled Burt Brownlee, but Lance knew the answer to the puzzle while Burt talked and talked. Finally he laid his hand over the finely traced maps that showed secret trails, unguessed, hidden little draws where stolen stock had been concealed, all the fine threads that would weave the net close around ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... little child without speaking, while he cautiously manipulated his arms and interested himself in the puzzle of his own anatomy. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... clothes-line presented charming evidence of still another occupant; and here, though so far easy to read, came in something of a puzzle. Who in this humble out-of-the-way cottage could afford to wear that exquisite cambric petticoat edged with a fine and very expensive lace? And surely it was on no country legs that those delicately clocked and open-worked silk stockings walked invisible ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... variety is the "logogram'' (Gr. logos, word), a versified puzzle containing several words derived from recombining the letters of the original word, the difficulty lying in the fact that synonyms of the derived words may be used. Thus, if the original word be "curtain,'' the word "dog'' may be ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... mind—the puzzle about Cap'n Abe's chest—but it did not come to her lips. Looking across the table that evening, after the store was closed, as they sat together under the hanging lamp, she wondered that Cap'n Amazon did not speak of it if ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... heredity do not explain all the puzzle of any single man's mind and character, but they form co-efficients in the making of him which can be no longer disregarded. The chief point to be noticed in reference to Cavour is that he was the outcome of a mingling of race which was not only transmitted ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... time, two champions contend with fists for the smiles of beauty, who may usually be heard bellowing inconsolably in the background. A small but increasing per-centage have already had as much liquid refreshment as is good for them, and intend to have more. Altogether, the scene, if festive, might puzzle an Intelligent Foreigner who is more familiar with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... principle of franchise. "The question of female suffrage," said he, "had not then been much agitated, and I knew the community had not thought sufficiently upon it to be ready to introduce it as an element in our political system. While I am aware of that fact, I think it will puzzle any gentleman to draw a line of demarcation between the right of the male and the female on this subject. Both are liable to all the laws you pass; their property, their persons, and their lives are affected by the laws. Why, ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... She was a puzzle to all who knew her. Meanwhile, in her own soul she was waging a battle with her desires, to which she knew not how to give a definite form. She asked herself why she lived. She buried herself in books, but found no comfort there. She felt that she must find ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... a good many small pieces," explained the kangaroo; "and whenever any stranger comes near them they have a habit of falling apart and scattering themselves around. That's when they get so dreadfully mixed, and it's a hard puzzle to put them ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... said on the previous night, that in the presence of this man he felt himself brought face to face with some indescribable wickedness, I could not but be surprised at the coincidence. The whole story seemed to me now to resemble one of those puzzle pictures or maps which I have played with as a child, where each bit fits into some other until the outline is complete. It was as if I were finding the pieces one by one of a bygone history, and fitting them to one another until some terrible whole should ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... a woman's part, and that is the final record of boys masquerading as women in the English theatre. I believe the practice now survives nowhere except in Japan. This mode of representation has always been a great puzzle to students of Elizabethan drama.[17] Before, however, Pepys saw Shakespeare's work on the stage, the usurpation of the boys ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... indeed, uncertain in its completeness; it is precisely to answer it that we study ethics. Or if we mean, "What is the psychology of happiness?" the answer is as yet dubious; but it is irrelevant. Whatever its psychological conditions and the means to attain it, we know happiness when we have it. The puzzle is not to recognize it, but to get it. By happiness we mean the steady presence of what we have called intrinsic goodness and the absence of intrinsic badness; it is as indefinable as any ultimate element of experience, but as well known to us as blackness and whiteness or light ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... a Sir, to give me a bit of bread.' Now, if you take time to reflect a little on this matter, you will never be puzzled for a moment by those detached words, to suit which grammarians have invented vocative cases and cases absolute, and a great many other appellations, with which they puzzle themselves, and confuse and bewilder and torment those who read their books."—Ib., Let. xix, 225 and 226. All this is just like Cobbett. But, let his admirers reflect on the matter as long as they please, the two independent nominatives it and state, in the text, "It being, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... The suggestion which was given through the so-called muscular sense had operated in a subject to whom the muscular sense, as tested in other ways, seemed to be wholly lacking. As soon as Adrienne could be communicated with, it was possible to get somewhat nearer to a solution of this puzzle. Lucie was thrown into catalepsy; then M. Janet clenched her left hand (she began at once to strike out), put a pencil in her right, and said, "Adrienne, what are you doing?" The left hand continued to strike, and the face to bear the ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... mind; I won't say it. Still, you used to be a puzzle to me, Greenacre; now I feel as if I was beginning to understand you ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... you puzzle me, boy, for you are anything but an angel in pantaloons. I have occasionally thought to remark in you a hint of unplumbed deeps—of passions as ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Ugly—who, after a very short experience, had learned not to waste his time in vain digging—turn toward us with a waddling, disconsolate trot, and having approached a few rods, stop and sit down to revolve the puzzle over in his mind. He would look where the rabbit had housed himself, then drop his head, cock up an ear, and cast an inquiring glance toward us, as much as to say: "Why, do tell Ugly why you did not shoot that old lap-ears? ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... himself. When you write a symphony, you do it out of yourself, but not by yourself. You do it by the exact rules that somebody else before you has laid down. You can have just so many themes and so many episodes, though it would puzzle the Concertmeister of the heavenly choir to tell where the themes leave off and the episodes begin. You know you have got those rules to hang on to, and they are a great support in seasons of mental famine. Two themes and a subsidiary, and a lot of episodes for padding: that's ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... as much to secure men from mistakes in matters of belief, as God hath afforded to keep men from sin in matters of practice. He hath made no effectual and infallible provision that men shall not sin; and yet it would puzzle any man to give a good reason why God should take more care to secure men against errors in belief than against sin and wickedness ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... to stand it, Thor. I have to stand it day and night, without ever getting away from the thought of it. I have to go back and puzzle and wonder and speculate as to why you did what you've done to me. I see things this way, Thor: There was a time when you thought you might come to care for me. You really thought it. And then—something happened—and you were not so sure. Later, you felt that you couldn't—that you ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... me, Pa?" Le Croix's brow grew darker, but he tried to conceal his vexation, and quietly said, "Darling, never mind. Don't puzzle your little head about matters you cannot understand, and which our wisest ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... diffuse and playful. When the nightingale sings, in Paradise Lost, "Silence was pleased." When Adam begs the Angel to tell the story of the Creation, he adds, "Sleep, listening to thee, will watch." Either of these paradoxes would have been tormented and elaborated into a puzzle by ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... physically, of course, the regulated exercises may be far superior to the haphazard work in sport. To solve picture puzzles, even if they absorb the attention for a week, can never have the same effect as a real interest in a human puzzle. There is a chance for social work for every woman and every man, work which can well be chosen in full adjustment to the personal preference and likings. Not everybody is fit for charity work, and those who are may be entirely unfitted for work in the interest of the beautification ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... is a tradition that a mob of meddling Martians once stopped on Earth long enough to give the foolish humans false ideas about architecture and many other matters. But I soon forgot everything in my interest in the people. Such a poor puzzle-headed lot they are. One's heart goes out to them at once as they push and jostle one another this way and that, with no conceivable object other than to get anywhere but where they are in the shortest time possible. One longs to help them; to call a halt upon their senseless struggles; ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... poured out everything there was in his seething brain. He told of the scheme of Martin Leland and Sledge Hume, for Garth Conway had dropped an incautious word and the shrewd brain of Ettinger had worked out the puzzle. He told how the three men were trying to do this very thing, how they had planned on getting the water themselves, how Martin Leland had tied up thousands in options and purchases, how Ettinger had been one too many for them and had beat them to Shandon. ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... the spinal cord; whether it is purely a muscular or purely a nervous lesion, or a compound of both—it still continues, if an etiologist is bound to possess universal knowledge within the scope of his special studies, to be his reproach and his puzzle. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... as Mat was naturally closely studied. The combined intelligence of the outfit was trained upon him, for some time without result. He was the knottiest puzzle that ever hit Cross Canon. At first he was suspected of religious scruples and nicknamed "Circuit Rider." But presently it became apparent that he owned ability and will to curse a fighting outlaw bronco till ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... bend in the tortuous mountain road, both drew up sharply, with a gasp of astonishment. For a long time neither spoke, their bewildered minds struggling to comprehend the vast puzzle that confronted them. Even the fagged horse pricked up his ears and looked ahead with interest. Not three hundred yards beyond the bend stood the ruins ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... my "Pilgrimage." Between this point and Ras Za'farnah, higher up, the wind seems to split: a strong southerly gale will be blowing, whilst a norther of equal pressure prevails at the Gulf-head, and vice vers. Suez, indeed, appears to be, in more ways than one, a hydrographical puzzle. When it is low water in and near the harbour, the flow is high between the Straits of Jobal and the Daedalus Light; and the ebb tide runs out about two points across the narrows, whilst the flood runs in on a line parallel with it. Finally, when ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... morning, by a mysterious messenger, a curious document; it looks like a series of carriage-wheels, but it is a cipher from Prince Metternich, who is in Bordeaux, and is dated the 1st of May. It took me a long time to puzzle it out: "Vous conseille de partir; pire viendra. Pauline a Vienne; moi triste ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... asked the priest, M. La Perruque, the meaning of certain expressions the voice had used. For example, he did not understand the wild frenzy of France [le delvie de la France] nor the evils to which she would fall a victim [elle serait en proie]. But there is nothing that need puzzle us in such ignorance, if it really existed. Martin may well have remembered the words he did not understand and which he afterwards attributed to his Archangel still ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... the puzzle of my informant's relation to the man who was his wife's father-in-law, for suddenly I saw the man himself, and knew that I was meeting a personage. Kahauiti was on the veranda of a small hut, sitting Turk fashion, and chatting with another old man. Both of them were striking-looking, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... with the old lawyer, Katherine was forced back again upon misunderstanding. She went carefully over the records of her father's department, on file in the Court House, seeking some item that would cast light upon the puzzle. She went over and over the indictment, seeking some loose end, some overlooked inconsistency, that would yield ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... know that Glinda is the most complete mistress of magic who has ever existed, and she was wise enough to guess that the clever but evil magician who had enchanted Prince Bobo had used a spell that would puzzle any ordinary wizard or sorcerer to break; therefore she had given the matter much shrewd thought and hoped she had conceived a plan that would succeed. But because she was not positive of success she would have no one present ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... his vain efforts to find out what it was. He could talk of nothing else, and asked endless questions about it, and they told him that this strange thing was nothing but the Mirage, but of course that was not telling him enough, so that he was left to puzzle his little boy-brains over this new mystery, just as they had puzzled before over the mystery of the echoes. Now this Mirage was a glittering whiteness that looked just like water, always shining and dancing before him and all round him, on the dry level plain where ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... in the position of a man who might solve a puzzle by hard, painstaking experiment and inquiry, but rather hoped that some brilliant flash of inspiration or luck might give him the key that would fit it together at ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... to exclude slavery. And I have argued and said that for men who did intend that the people of the Territory should have the right to exclude slavery absolutely and unconditionally, the voting down of Chase's amendment is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle—a riddle. But I have said that with men who did look forward to such a decision, or who had it in contemplation, that such a decision of the Supreme Court would or might be made, the voting down of that amendment would be perfectly rational and intelligible. ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley—''pon my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for. It would puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad. I wanted a little inspiration, a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and— 'Pon my soul and honour,' said the military gentleman, checking himself and looking round the room, 'what a devilish ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... beautiful maiden, Alcestis, and, because of the strange condition that her father Pelias had laid upon all suitors, he was heavy-hearted. Only that man who should come to woo her in a chariot drawn by a wild boar and a lion might ever marry Alcestis; and this task was enough to puzzle ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... plentiful in it, often cemented together with veins of gypsum. Both these pits are mentioned in the Government Geological Survey (pp. 152, 153) of “The country around Lincoln.” Close by the latter pit the writer once found a curious fossil, which was for some time a puzzle to all who saw it. It is now in the British Museum, and was pronounced to be an Echinus crashed into ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... ought to be able to sue B, since performance or readiness to perform was all that was necessary to give him that right, and conversely the same might be said of B. On the other hand, considering either B or A as defendant, the same facts would be a complete defence. The puzzle is largely one ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... a stiff game; but 'Scruff' Mackenzie maneuvered cunningly, with an unconcern which served to puzzle the Sticks. He took great care to impress the men that he was a sure shot and a mighty hunter, and the camp rang with his plaudits when he brought down a moose at six hundred yards. Of a night he visited in Chief Thling-Tinneh's ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... But puzzle as he might, he never once dreamed of the truth—that his sister Madelon had promised to marry Lot Gordon in a month's time, and sent her "yes" by word of mouth of Margaret Bean that morning. Somehow, even with the ashes of the letter ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... worry, or frighten yourself. Of course no one is to blame if it is a case of sleep-walking,—only it will be a great anxiety for the future. You had better get up now and dress. I will take these things down; they may help to explain what is such a puzzle to us all, and to relieve ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... he is one of the few Irish poets we have who is always thinking as he goes along. He does not rebel against love because he is not himself sweet at heart, for the best thing in the book is its unfeigned humanity. So we have a personal puzzle to solve with this perplexing writer which makes us all the more eager to hear him again. A man might be difficult to understand and the problem of his personality might not be worth solution, but it is not so with James Stephens. From a man who can write with ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... inquired innocently. Her mind was occupied with the puzzle of the income which, womanlike, engrossed her ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... permanently across the sky, and now and then broken by the black shadow of the planet itself as it came between them and the sun. However, we must begin at the beginning, and find out about Saturn himself before we puzzle ourselves over his rings. Saturn is not a very great deal less than Jupiter, though, so small are the other planets in comparison, that if Saturn and all the rest were rolled together, they would not make one mass so bulky as Jupiter! Saturn is so light—in other words, his density is so small—that ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... my lad," he said. "We're working wrong way on. These great places would puzzle a monkey, and we shan't find the hole unless we come by daylight, and leave a boat off-shore to signal to us till ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... every yearling on the place, and they were inimitably told. It was with great reluctance that Hamilton found himself obliged to head off the man's eloquence and make him stick to hard facts. An inquiry as to the number of eggs sold was somewhat of a puzzle, but the farmer's wife knew the amount of the "trade" she had received at the grocery store in the nearest town in return for eggs, and at an average sale price of nine cents a dozen, this was easily computed. She was also the authority on the amount ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... 'Coast Scene, Mount Desert'—F. E. Church, N. A. A puzzle. We are glad once more to welcome to a public gallery a significant work by this widely known and much admired artist. Of late, the exhibition of such works (in so far as we know) invariably alone, may perhaps have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... trying vainly to support them by grubbing in dusty parish registers. It is most necessary to defend you from your friends—from such friends as the veteran and inveterate M. Arsene Houssaye, or the industrious but puzzle-headed M. Loiseleur. Truly they seek the living among the dead, and the immortal Moliere among the sweepings of attorneys' offices. As I regard them (for I have tarried in their tents) and as I behold their trivialities—the exercises of men who neglect Moliere's ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... observation, delicate tact, and rare knowledge of the human heart. I think it will take a place in our literature among the highest efforts of what may be called the Tragic Muse of fiction. You are, intellectually speaking, quite a puzzle to me. How comes it that with so thoroughly healthy an organization as you have, you have such a taste for the morbid anatomy of the human heart, and such knowledge of it, too? I should fancy from your books that you were burdened with secret sorrow; that you had some blue chamber in your ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... "Inghilterra, touching at Lisbon and Gibraltar," all regions beyond distrust, as to the plague, and all happening, at that moment, to give clean bills of health. But the name of the craft herself had been given in a way to puzzle all the proficients in Saxon English that Porto Ferrajo could produce. It had been distinctly enough pronounced by some one on board, and, at the request of the quarantine department, had been three times slowly repeated, very much after ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that point puzzle you?" exclaimed Florian, greeting the allusion to Browning as the war-horse welcomes the battle. "Then you have never chanced to run across the first edition of Child's Scottish Ballads. You get the story there, of Childe Roland following up the ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... I said. 'He wouldn't leave anything he valued in a place like this. That sort of fellow doesn't take risks. If he wanted to hide something there are a hundred holes in this Chateau which would puzzle the best detective.' ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... the point," said Phil, struggling into a white, medallioned blouse that fastened as intricately as the working of a prize puzzle. "I've taken such a dislike to her, and ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... and lifted the shadow of her big garden sun-bonnet—and then he stiffened suddenly and grew very pale. He was a little behind the other two, and they observed nothing, but Sabine saw the change of color in his healthy handsome face, and the look of surprise and incredulity and puzzle which grew in his ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... passages almost ever since, and could not guess what it was that offended his lordship in either of them. Garth laughed heartily at my embarrassment; said, I had not been long enough acquainted with lord Halifax, to know his way yet; that I need not puzzle myself about looking those places over and over when I got home. 'All you need do,' says he, 'is to leave them just as they are; call on lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... highly of him to suppose that," said Mrs Clagget; "though, to be sure, I do wish he would talk more about himself. I like a person to be communicative; those reticent people always puzzle me." ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... familiar to casual readers from its being appended to one or two of his aphorisms which are sometimes reproduced in odd corners of popular periodicals; but who he was, when he lived, and what he wrote, are questions which would probably puzzle not a few, even of those who consider themselves as "well read," to answer without first recurring to some encyclopaedia. Yet Saadi was assuredly one of the most gifted men of genius the world has ever known: a man of large and comprehensive intellect; an original ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... little coz, and they wouldn't be flattered by our comparison. They are yelling what, in United States, would be 'extra!' I'll get a paper and see if I can puzzle out some of the French," and he strolled down to intercept one of the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Loria also, when they met—as secretly as if the bond between them had been a forbidden love. But if the truth about the yachting trip had been told, even he had no solution ready for the puzzle. ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... successful thieving being the result of mental training. It is not necessary to follow him to his most famous doctrine, namely, that of doing nothing, by which means, he declared, everything could be done, the solution of which puzzle of left everybody to find out for himself. Among his quaint sayings will be found several maxims of a very different class, as witness his injunction, "Requite evil with kindness," and "Mighty is he who conquers himself." Of the latter, the following illustration ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... impossible to observe all these miscellaneous movements going on all around us without being struck by the similarity of aim between them; each seems to form part of a common plan, which, like the separate pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, convey no meaning, but when fitted together make up a perfectly clear design. That there is somewhere in the background a point of contact is suggested by the fact that we find members of the different groups playing a double and ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... on the post at the opposite side. He was beginning to take an interest in the talk, for the boy plainly thought before he spoke, and tried to answer truly. 'It appears you have a taste for feeling good,' said the Doctor. 'Now, there you puzzle me extremely; for I thought you said you were a thief; and ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an inscrutable woman allows her to dominate us too commandingly. So the lordly mind takes her in a hard grasp, cracks the shell, and drawing forth the kernel, says, "This was all the puzzle." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in our hair, then they ought to be burned. It is true that some of us may get pleasure from searching novels for solecisms and collecting evidence by which shall be guessed the originals of the novelist's characters, just as others extract amusement from puzzle pictures. But book-worming has the same relation to literature, even when it is done by a learned doctor in the Bodleian, as flies in a dairy with our milk supply. If most of the books in the British Museum were ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... my hand's in, let me tell you of a third matrimonial proposition, which gives me more puzzle and dislike a great deal. And that is, Mr. Adams has, with great reluctance, and after abundance of bashful apologies, asked me, if I have any objection to his making his addresses to Polly Barlow? which, however, he told me, he had not mentioned to her, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Boswell's hero, who will, perhaps, be reprobated as the profane utterer of these idle words: 'Suppose I know a man to be so lame that he is absolutely incapable to move himself, and I find him in a different room from that in which I left him, shall I puzzle myself with idle conjectures, that perhaps his nerves have by some unknown change all at once become effective? No, sir, it is clear how he got into ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... mechanical principles more widely known than that of so-called centrifugal force; an action which, though still a puzzle to students, has long been thoroughly understood. It is, however, comparatively recently that it has been applied in practice. One of the earliest examples was perhaps the ordinary governor, due to the genius of Watt. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... inseparable." The opposition to the court measures appears to have been uncommonly spirited during the course of this session. The minister's motions were attacked with all the artillery of elocution. His principal emissaries were obliged to task their faculties to their full exertion, to puzzle and perplex where they could not demonstrate and convince, to misrepresent what they could not vindicate, and to elude the arguments which they could not refute. In the house of commons, lord Hervey, lately appointed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... present quite an interesting pitching problem, the puzzle being to find out which of the above pitchers did the best work in the box in every respect, not only in pitching, but by his batting, fielding and base running. In percentage of victories pitched in, Meekin took the lead. In the number of batsmen struck ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... all general purposes, miracle followed as an occasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder the mind, the latter to puzzle the senses. The one was the lingo, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... of Leyden!" he soliloquized, restraining his impulse while he puzzled the problem out. "That's no mystery; suspense knocked him out when I got here first. That's no puzzle either. But how in thunder did Leyden get so solid with the little ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... was all about. She herself had done nothing to merit such treatment from people whose names she did not even know. She rode for a long time without speaking, trying, in her tragic bewilderment, to puzzle it out. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... again, sir? Well, it'll be strange if in all this great mountainy place we can't puzzle those ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... in their present form. They are the offspring of other stories which were sun-myths; they are stories which conform to the sun-myth type after the manner above illustrated in the paper on Light and Darkness. [Hence there is nothing unintelligible in the inconsistency—which seems to puzzle Max Muller (Science of Language, 6th ed. Vol. II. p. 516, note 20)—of investing Paris with many of the characteristics of the children of light. Supposing, as we must, that the primitive sense of the Iliad-myth ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... the difficulty of securing necessary materials and devices. To-day the experimenter may buy wire, springs, insulators, batteries, and almost anything that might be useful. Morse, with scanty funds and limited time, had to search for his materials and puzzle out the way to make each part for himself with such crude tools as he had available. Need we wonder that his progress was slow? Instead we should wonder that, despite all discouragements and handicaps, he clung to his great idea ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... attitude towards his own sex—although marked by a freedom that often reached the verge of indiscretion—conveyed the least suggestion of passion or sentiment. The consul, more perceptive than analytical, found her a puzzle—who was, perhaps, the least mystifying to others who were content to sum up her eccentricities under the single vague epithet, "fast." Most women disliked her: she had a few associates among them, but no confidante, and even these ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said Barby. "It would puzzle anybody to spell much more out of it than pork and ham. There's plenty of them. I sha'n't starve this ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to summit, with boldly executed figures of men, women, and animals, which, when his admiration had passed sufficiently to enable him to study them in detail, seemed to Stukely to tell some sort of a story. But what the story was he was quite unable to puzzle out, for there were hunting episodes depicted, and also scenes which seemed to represent some sort of religious ceremonial, while others, again, might be interpreted as representing either a human sacrifice, or, possibly, the execution of a criminal; for they represented ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... of running the braize—it was so pronounced in the west county—has long been a puzzle to antiquarians. Probably it is the survival of a custom practised by our Scandinavian forefathers. A Scandinavian hero or warrior considered it beneath his dignity to court a lady's favour by submitting the matter of marriage to her decision. When he saw or heard of ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... the ax. There were vague misgivings in him which he was not able to realize. The state of his own mind was fast becoming a puzzle ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... Blackie would dissent, and would say that the great improvement of teaching, on which the salvation of classical study now hangs, is to make it a teaching by the ear. But, says Professor Price: "A Greek or Latin sentence is a nut with a strong shell concealing the kernel—a puzzle, demanding reflection, adaptation of means to end, and labour for its solution, and the educational value resides in the shell and in the puzzle". As this strain of remark is not new, there is nothing new to be said in answer to it. Such ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... you like to do?" I asked, when we had partaken of tea. "Shall we put the jig-saw puzzle together; or should you prefer to have ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... learned to use the names belonging to childhood and infancy in their solemn record, the generation which docks its Christian names in such an un-Christian way will bequeath whole churchyards full of riddles to posterity. How it will puzzle and distress the historians and antiquarians of a coming generation to settle what was the real name of Dan and Bert and Billy, which last is legible on a white marble slab, raised in memory of a grown person, in a certain burial-ground in a town in ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... this, and what does Mr—Mackintosh—of Inveraray—want with Carlos, I wonder?" mused the young man, as he strode off across the Park. He considered the matter carefully for a few minutes, and presently snapped his fingers as he felt that he had solved the puzzle. ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... certain points in the missive which seemed of greater interest to him than others. For example, the place whence it had been addressed was an ever recurring puzzle; he also dwelt long upon the sentence which referred so delicately to a paternal relationship. The most exigent passages, however, were those relative to the time he might look for the man's coming. As specially ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... have been a theme upon which a "bookworm" could gloat, a chest of secret drawers into which the curious delight to pry, a difficult problem in Euclid for the mathematician to solve; and an unreadable book for the author. A conglomeration of languages for the scholar, a puzzle for the historian, and a subject for the novelist. These are points which it is not the object of this book to attempt to clear up and settle; all it aims at, as in the case of my "Cry of the Children ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... of Craythorpe." The father consents to their union. The real character of the husband appears early; his fond love soon dwindles to painful neglect: how truly does the writer observe, "the rapidity with which love may glide from the heart of man is a moral phenomenon for which it would puzzle philosophers to account. The brief space of a few months not unfrequently converts the devoted into the unkind, or to a delicate mind still worse—the neglectful husband." The wayward Huntley breaks off church-going; he refuses ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... wouldn't be surprised, if you had the opportunity of examining our friend's hands, if you found them rather inked than horny. Still, I shall vote for him, and say something, if not exactly in his favour, at least a few words that will puzzle our fellows and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... and Frohman had come to some understanding, because she had gone to see him the day the play was delivered. No, that could not be, for he found her at home when he returned. He could not find a piece to fit into the puzzle at this point. He went over their joint work on the book—her book. He understood, now, how she was so sure of every move, why she knew her characters so well. What a blind fool he had been not to see that Francesca was herself! How she had played with him about that, ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... be subjected to critical analysis by future Philistine historians of New Zealand or Australia, it will be proved by them to be utterly mythical, incredible, monstrous—and that all the more, the more the actual facts remain to puzzle their unimaginative brains. What will they make two thousand years hence, of the landing at Boulogne with the tame eagle? Will not that, and stranger facts still, but just as true, be relegated to the region of myth, with the dream ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... discarnin' eye in yer head—ye an' the skipper," he said. "However the skipper kep' himself away from Chance Along for t'ree entire days, wid herself a-singin' an' a-flashin' her eyes right in his own house, bes a puzzle to me. Aye, sure it do, for didn't I see her put the spell o' women on to him the very first minute she opened her eyes at him on the fore-top o' ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... his deeds and of his strange gospel were floating through Cuckoo's mind as fragments of broken wood float by on a stream, fragments of broken wood that were part of a puzzle, that should be rescued by some strong hand from the stream, and fitted together into ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... got her, Jack—remember that; won't you? If I hadn't I'd been burning the midnight oil yet, I reckon. 'Taint safe to make me a present of a puzzle, because I'm just dead sure to nearly split my poor weak brain trying to figger it out. And Jack, I'll never be happy till I know what was in those boxes; and why did that sly little professor believe someone wanted to steal his thunder ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... in the descriptions given by them of what had been done to them; and they introduced, in addition, quite a new vocabulary on the subject. The minute and detailed descriptions of the sexual act given by chits of 10 and 11 would do credit to the pages of Mirabeau. At first sight it is a puzzle to see how children so young obtained their information." "About the use of the word 'seduced,'" the same writer remarks, "I wish to say that the class of women from amongst whom the great bulk of these cases are drawn seem to use it in a sense altogether different ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a little sorting about. The pieces of the puzzle were all there. Hazel Ripwinkley settled the first little bit in the right place. She asked her mother one night, if she didn't think they might begin their beehive with a fire-fly? Why couldn't they ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... and looked at Chloe, who could do nothing but weep. There were many words in the prayer which conveyed to her no meaning; and why she was accursed on account of the sin of Ham remained a perplexing puzzle to her mind. But she felt as if she must, somehow or other, be doing something wicked, or the minister would not come and pray for her in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... is too old in Cornwall to have originated in any theory about the Phœnicians and the tin trade of the Cassiterides, for it is found in times when no one troubled himself about either, but its origin is decidedly a puzzle. ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... said, 'I'm heart-broken,' in response. Then, as fast as her mischievous little feet could carry her, she raced down one hill and across to the other. Very stealthily she advanced till she found the boy bent over a puzzle on the back stoop, and—and he was ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... The puzzle of getting the wagons down next engrossed the attention of our best engineers. The proposition to unpack the lading, take the wagons apart, and carry all down by hand, appeared for a time to be the only feasible plan. Captain John, however, ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... command car and waited while one of his majors dashed into the woods along the path that led to the attack group's staging area. Less than a minute later he returned, followed by a colonel. They jumped into the command car which roared off immediately. As the captain was trying to puzzle out the incident's meaning, three of his runners came out of the woods ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... that time, so I said 'You bet.' 'That's not right,' said he. 'Give the countersign.' I hadn't heard anything about a countersign, so I told him not to be a damned fool, and that I'd break his head if he said I wasn't a loyal man. That seemed to puzzle him a bit He got out a notebook and read a page or two, looking at me and the car every now and then as if he wasn't quite satisfied. I felt pretty sure, of course, that he was the man I wanted. He couldn't very well be anyone else. So by way of cutting the ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... ply a good knife and fork, that I will say for thee." Here the farmer turned round, and gazed on Kenelm with deliberate scrutiny. That scrutiny accomplished, his voice took a somewhat more respectful tone, as he resumed, "Do you know that you puzzle me somewhat?" ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... defection and opposition of its own supporters, are disposed to be patient and moderate; that is, the more sagacious of them are; but they are always in danger of being prematurely urged on by the violence and impetuosity of their tail. Such is the state of parties at the present moment, and it would puzzle the most sagacious observer and most experienced actor in political life to predict the result of the ensuing session. There is quite enough, however, in the general aspect of affairs both at home and abroad to moderate the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... ungovernable dependencies; the Prussians in the blasphemous necromancy of receiving crowns for their kings direct from God; and all in some shape or other professing devotion to human liberty, and doing every thing in their power to subvert it. Truly it is enough to puzzle one who seeks for truth amid the prevailing fogs of error that seem to have descended upon mankind. If there be any degree in honesty, I really think the Emperor of Russia is entitled to the palm of being the most sincere in ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... discover why, if he was entitled to the horse's keep at all, he was not entitled to it, whether he had paid me half or the whole of the money? He seemed to think, that he for once had been duped; and very luckily his rage was averted from me to the daroga, who he very freely accused of being a puzzle-headed fool, and one who had no more pretension to law than he ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... sky, and perceived that that too was impossible. Then she understood that the will had already lost touch with the body, that the crumbling world had receded to an infinite distance—that was as she had expected, but what continued to puzzle her was that her mind was still active. It was true that the world she had known had withdrawn itself from the dominion of consciousness, as her body had done, except, that was, in the sense of hearing, which was still strangely alert; yet there was still enough memory to be ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... by Christ was really historical, or merely attributed to Him by His biographers after His death. If Christ knew that the facts were not due to devils, He may also have known it was best to fall in with current theory, rather than to puzzle the people with a lecture on pathology. If He did not know, why should He, if He had previously 'emptied Himself' of omniscience? In either case, if He had denied the current theory, He would have been giving evidence of scientific knowledge or of scientific intuition beyond ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... indelicate or even loud. And she was certainly very interesting. How did it come to pass that she was so completely alone, so poor, so unfriended and yet possessed of such gifts? There certainly was a mystery, and it would certainly be his fate, and not the fate of Dick Shand, to unravel it. The puzzle was much too delicate and too intricate for Dick Shand's rough hands. Then, giving his last waking thoughts for a moment to Hester Bolton, he went to sleep in spite ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... upper-maid found my book, and showed it to my mistress, who told me, that wenches like me might spend their time better; that she never knew any of the readers that had good designs in their heads; that she could always find something else to do with her time, than to puzzle over books; and did not like that such a fine lady should sit up for her ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... almost frightened at his own conclusion. The clean, shiny mess plate and the phrase out of that letter seemed to fit together like the sections of a picture puzzle. The black spot and the match-end (if there was any match-end) meant just nothing at all. The dim light out in the passageway down below hardly ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... these precautions, Lapo seems to have gained the ear of Michelangelo's father, who wrote a scolding letter in his usual puzzle-headed way. Michelangelo replied in a tone of real and ironical humility, which is exceedingly characteristic: "Most revered father, I have received a letter from you to-day, from which I learn that you have been informed by Lapo and Lodovico. I am glad that you should rebuke ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... evening's contest a young girl from some few miles' distance, Ellen Kingsbury, the only child of a substantial farmer, had been the very last to sit down, after a prolonged effort on the part of Mr. Horner to puzzle her, for the credit of his own school. She blushed, and smiled, and blushed again, but spelt on, until Mr. Horner's cheeks were crimson with excitement and some touch of shame that he should be baffled at his own weapons. At length, either by accident or design, Ellen missed ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... speaking, quite a puzzle to me," his friend George Hillard wrote to him, once. "How comes it that, with so thoroughly healthy an organization as you have, you have such a taste for the morbid anatomy of the human heart, and such a knowledge of it, too? I should fancy, from your books, that you were ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... than the air by itself. One would think that by adding water vapor which, while light, still has weight, the total weight would be the sum of both. It really is so, notwithstanding the above figures, and the explanation of the puzzle is that there was an increase in pressure with expansion, so that the volume of the air and saturated vapor was greater than one cubic meter. Since then a cubic meter of air and saturated vapor weighs less than a cubic meter of dry air at freezing temperature, ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... [Here is an example of suspended meaning, where the suspense intensifies the effect, because each particular is vividly apprehended in itself, and all culminate in the conclusion; they do not complicate the thought, or puzzle us, they only heighten expectation]. In such an age bodily vigour is the most indispensable qualification of a warrior. At Landen two poor sickly beings, who, in a rude state of society, would have been regarded as too puny to bear any part in combats, were the souls of two great armies. ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... a puzzle for me," he answered. "Five minutes ago I would have said three hundred at the utmost, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... follow Houssaye's solution of this puzzle as the least unsatisfacty, but it does not show why Napoleon should have been so perplexed. D'Erlon debouched from the wood of Villers Perwin exactly where he might have been expected. Was Napoleon puzzled because the corps was heading ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... runs by Tollsworth Farm over the summit of White Hill, and is actually marked "The Pilgrims' Way" twice on the sign posts, so sure are the local painters of what they have to point out. East from White Hill you may follow a single track, sometimes grass, sometimes modern road. There is a puzzle at Godstone Quarry, where the chalk pits have cut the hill to pieces, and the tiny path which perhaps still keeps the line across the pits is a perilous slippery place in the rain. On the far side of to-day's road by the chalk pit you may pick up the green track again, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... piece together the bits of pasteboard, for I knew pretty well what I should find. Completed, the puzzle read, "Mr. Esper Indiman," and in pencil, "Call at 4020 Madison Avenue ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... has turned out pretty lucky for me," he thought to himself. "All the same, it is a puzzle where those bonds came from. Congreve wouldn't go and give them to Harry? No, of course not! Well, the best I can do is ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... manner were frequently in odd dimensions; and the machinery was necessarily placed in diversified arrangement, calling forth a similar degree of wasted skill as that used in making a Chinese puzzle conform to its given boundaries. Their area depended upon the topography of the site, and their height upon the owner's pocket book. There was in Massachusetts a mill with ten floors, built on land worth ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... here there was nobody to ask. Nurse would only say, 'If you ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.' Somehow whenever she said that, Lois fancied it meant that nurse was not very sure of the answer herself. She had already asked Aunt Isabel in church that same morning, when the puzzle began; and Aunt Isabel's answer about 'a halo' had left the little girl more ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... chicanery, and a respect amounting to veneration for written documents, red tape, and sealing-wax. Master Pothier's acuteness in picking holes in the actes of a rival notary was only surpassed by the elaborate intricacy of his own, which he boasted, not without reason, would puzzle the Parliament of Paris, and confound the ingenuity of the sharpest advocates of Rouen. Master Pothier's actes were as full of embryo disputes as a fig is full of seeds, and usually kept all parties in hot water and litigation ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... blight, especially on our crosses of Castanea mollissimax seguini. This is not surprising since C. seguini comes from a warmer region in China, but why these attacks should occur during a mild winter is a puzzle. Evidently other factors, such as the drought of the preceding fall, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... bed with the puzzle still unsolved, and the morning yielded no solution. Mr. Wiggett appeared to have forgotten the previous night's proceedings altogether, and steadfastly declined to take umbrage at a manner which would have chilled a rhinoceros. He told several fresh anecdotes of himself ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... a puzzle to Frank at first, but when Memotas told Frank that every time he handled a trap or a bit of bait he left enough of himself on it for the fox to know all that he wanted to about him, it was more ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... simple yet powerful water-press invented by Bramah, without which it would have been a puzzle to float the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... quadruplex, battery key system, in Fig. 8, and refer the reader to the above or other text-books if he desires to make a close study of its intricate operations. Before finally dismissing the quadruplex, and for the benefit of the inquiring reader who may vainly puzzle over the intricacies of the circuits shown in Fig. 8, a hint as to an essential difference between the neutral relay, as used in the duplex and as used in the quadruplex, may be given. With the duplex, as we have seen, the current on the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... of her face, the rather odd trick she had of shaking back the straying tresses of her dark, glossy hair, and, above all, that quick smile with which she greeted any flash of humor, and which produced a fascinating dimple in her cheek, all served to puzzle and stimulate him; while admiration of her so apparent womanliness began as instantly to replace the vague curiosity he had felt toward her as an actress. She was different from what he had imagined, with absolutely nothing to ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... do," I told myself. "I am used to fresh air, and sunshine, and the sound of voices, and I must live amongst all these as usual if I am to puzzle out this riddle. The answer, the key, if it comes at all, will arrive in a snap and a sudden, and won't be got at by tedious pondering in ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... again in the door of the cabin. "The mate understands," he said, "and the crew will obey. I told them that the Admiral was going out with us to inspect the lock. But the presence of a woman aboard will puzzle them. I have placed the Princess in the mate's cabin so no one can molest her. We have other things to keep ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... man ... before you married that bounder, Dene." Brett spoke very quietly, like a man communing with himself, fitting together the pieces of a puzzle. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... unusual dovetail joint, which, when put together properly is a puzzle. The tenon or tongue of the joint is sloping on three surfaces and the mortise is cut sloping to match. The bottom surface of the mortise is the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... for he knew that the villain was only crushed for the moment, and that he would shortly be revenging himself upon them. No, the only way every to get any peace and quiet was to render the Tanuki harmless for ever. Long did the old man and the hare puzzle together how this was to be done, and at last they decided that they would make two boats, a small one of wood and a large one of clay. Then they fell to work at once, and when the boats were ready ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various |
