"At a loss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... children are? I can't find any here in New-York. There are plenty of young gentlemen and ladies, with little high-heeled boots, and ruffled shirts, who step gingerly, carry perfumed handkerchiefs, use big words, talk about parties, but who would be quite at a loss how to use a hoop or a jump rope—little pale, candy-fed creatures, with lustreless eyes, flabby limbs, and no more life than a toad imbedded in a rock,—little tailor and milliner "lay figures," ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... confessed, "in the sense that they certainly were not crocodile tears; but I am somewhat at a loss to explain them from a sensible, American standpoint. Of course my Jacobitism is purely impersonal, though scarcely more so than yours, at this late day; at least it is merely a poetic sentiment, for which Caroline, ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... said at first that powder had been stored in the building, but it was proved on investigation that the saltpetre alone was the dangerous agent. Three hundred and forty-five buildings were destroyed, at a loss, it was estimated, of ten millions of dollars. For days there was an immense throng about the place. The ruins extended from Bowling Green to ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... had heard about his dreams, but I had had no direct experience of them; when, therefore, he said that he had been killed in his room I took it for granted that he had been dreaming again. I was at a loss to know quite how to tackle him; whether to treat the whole thing as absurd and laugh it off as such, or whether to humour him and hear his story. I got him upstairs to my room, sat him in a big armchair, and poked the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... the present method of compressing air. Here we have a simple engine, compact and complete in itself, capable of high speed without injury, constructed on the basis of our best steam engine practice, which produces compressed air power at a loss ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... recapitulation of the heads of the instruction, after each session, by an elderly Indian who stood out in the midst of the tents. What on earth this man, with his town-crier voice, was proclaiming at such length, we were at a loss to conjecture, and upon inquiry were informed: "Them women, not much sense; one time tell 'em, quick forget; two time tell 'em, maybe little remember." So when we stopped for dinner and for supper and for bed, each time this brazen-lunged spieler stood forth and reiterated the ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... told of an instance where she had been informed that one of five girls confined in a certain room in a house of ill-repute desired to escape. With the help of an honest policeman and two assistants the missionary forced her way into the room. When she found the five girls she was at a loss to determine what to do, because she could not recognize which one wished to escape. She had been informed that the girl she sought would be afraid to indicate her wish. After hesitation the missionary selected one girl and told the detective to seize her. The girl screamed, kicked, ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... to be a considerable damage to his cause that he could not add that she had had something more besides; for it is needless to say that he had learnt the contents of Dr. Sloper's will. He was nevertheless not at a loss. "There are worse fates than that!" he exclaimed, with expression; and he might have been supposed to refer to his own unprotected situation. Then he added, with a deeper tenderness, "Catherine, have ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... besides the care of this boy here, I'm in charge of you too, and have the inside track of the rest of the friends you are going to make in Colorado. I expect to be called on whenever you want anything, or feel lonesome, or are at a loss in any way. My wife is coming to see you as soon as you have had your dinner and got settled a little. She sent those to you," indicating a vase on the table, filled with flowers. They were of a sort which Clover had never seen before,—deep cup-shaped blossoms of beautiful ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... shrink away. In that old time—the brief year—caresses and attention were continually demanded. This new wife does not even meet him half way, and he feels awkward. He can be fond enough of Cecil, and is never at a loss, but this ground is so new that he is inclined to pick his way carefully, with a feeling that she is not at all like any one ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... minute neither spoke, but Hilda's hold did not relax for a second, and her lids did not once veil the intensity of her look. Even if Greif had possessed a wider experience of women than he had, it would not have helped him much. He was utterly at a loss. His manly nature would have provided him with weapons to rid himself of a woman of coarser instincts, even if he had loved her to distraction, provided he had felt that he must part from her. He would ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... him for a few moments. She wanted to act ferocious; but unfortunately she could think of nothing more to say. And not wishing to seem at a loss for words, ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... at a loss, he has his answer ready, and says "Hjalmar." Now Hjalmar was the younger of the two stoneworkers, but neither of them was young as Gustaf himself, none like him ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... you did everything that was consistent with your duty to do, and I have nothing to complain of there. I must again thank my learned and able counsel for the able, zealous, and eloquent manner in which they defended me. I am at a loss for words to express the gratitude I owe to each and every one of those gentlemen who have so ably conducted my case. Now, my lords, I will receive that sentence which is impending. I am prepared for ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... gave each mouse, as it went out, a little tap with her wand, and the mouse was that moment turned into a fair horse. All together the mice made a very fine set of six horses of a beautiful mouse-colored dapple-gray. Being at a loss for a coachman, "I will go and see," said Cinderella, "if there be never a rat in the rat-trap, that we may make a coachman ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... endeavour, is positively ungenerous. To speak of the article in Ole Miss' entitled "Manuscripts and Silver" as "mercenary", is the summit of injustice, for it was nothing more or less than the absolutely gratuitous offer to the United of what is now the Symphony Literary Service. We are rather at a loss to divine Mr. Macauley's precise notion of amateur journalism. He speaks of it as a "tarn", but we cannot believe he would have it so stagnant a thing as that name implies. Surely, the United is something greater than a superficial fraternal order composed of mediocre and unambitious ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... meant to apply in the way of want of funds deciding the suspension of operations which would make the connection remote enough with the spread of the gospel by us, I am at a loss to understand the phraseology, and therefore trust that the difficulty may be explained. The difficulties are mentioned in no captious spirit, though, from being at a loss as to the precise meaning of the terms, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... in her presence for a moment, thereby giving a subtle effect of deference which was not wholly lost upon Tharon, though she would have been at a loss to ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... unauthoritative; unascertained, unconfirmed; undemonstrated; untold, uncounted. in a state of uncertainty, in a cloud, in a maze; bushed, off the track; ignorant.&c. 491; afraid to say; out of one's reckoning, astray, adrift; at sea, at fault, at a loss, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus; puzzled &c. v.; lost, abroad, dsorient; distracted, distraught. Adv. pendente lite[Lat]; sub spe rati[Lat]. Phr. Heaven knows; who can tell? who shall decide when doctors disagree? ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... honour of the renowned image of the virgin of that name, and Victoria with less humility to commemorate his success in battle. He is an honest, plain, down-looking citizen, lame and tall, somewhat at a loss for conversation, apparently amiable and good-natured, but certainly neither courtier nor orator; a man of undeniable bravery, capable of supporting almost incredible hardships, humane, and who has always proved himself a sincere lover of what he considered liberty, without ever having been ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... came forward to welcome us, I at once noticed the remarkable change in her appearance; one would have supposed that at least ten years had been taken from her age since I last saw her, and her whole manner was so cheerful and sprightly that I was at a loss to understand what could have happened; but I never dreamed of the truth till after tea, when Aunt Lucinda rose and said: "I want to see you, Walter, alone in the parlor." I followed her, secretly wondering what wonderful revelation I was to listen to. When we were seated, she said with her ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... comprehension of every observer. These species are always found as controlled by the climates of different elevations, by soil and by the comparative strength of each species in taking and holding possession of the ground; and so appreciable are these relations the traveler need never be at a loss in determining within a few hundred feet his elevation above sea level by the trees alone; for, notwithstanding some of the species range upward for several thousand feet and all pass one another more or less, yet even those species possessing the greatest vertical range are available in ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... most remarkable passages of the work have been already hackneyed through the medium of the newspapers, that we feel somewhat at a loss to present any which may have a chance of being new to our readers. So early as his twentieth year, we find Mr Jeffrey thus sensibly expressing himself ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... we had no trouble in being admitted by the Central Office man who had been detailed to lock the barn door after the horse was stolen. It was precisely as Mr. Andrews had said. Mr. Kahan showed us the safe. Through the top a great hole had been made—I say made, for at the moment I was at a loss to know whether it had been cut, drilled, burned, ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... of these capricious motors standing by the roadside scratching their heads in despair, utterly at a loss to know why the stubborn thing does not go? Who has not seen skilled mechanics in blue jeans and unskilled amateurs in jeans of leather, so to speak, flat on their backs under the vehicle, peering upward into the intricacies of the mechanism, trying to find the cause,—the ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... an undertaking requiring patience and time. Of all history, that of our own country is of the most importance; because, for want of a thorough knowledge of what has been, we are, in many cases, at a loss to account for what is, and still more at a loss, to be able to show what ought to be. The difference between history and romance is this; that that which is narrated in the latter, leaves in the mind nothing which it can apply to present ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... servants and negroes. In 1680 Governor Bradstreet, in answer to the inquiries of his Majesty's Privy Council, states that two years before a vessel from Madagasca "brought into the Colony betwixt forty and fifty negroes, mostly women and children, who were sold at a loss to the owner of the vessel." "Now and then," he continues, "two or three negroes are brought from Barbadoes and other of his Majesty's plantations and sold for twenty pounds apiece; so that there may be within the government about one hundred or ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the little Eva in his arms, though quite at a loss to imagine what experiment was to be tried. The light was certainly too strong to be let suddenly into a darkened room, he thought; but the doctor knew best. It was strange that only the noble-looking gentleman, Mr. Vernon, seemed to divine the meaning of the rough ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... frequently to divide long complex sentences, and the sentence is somewhat further broken by the use of the semicolon between its more decided sections. Abraham Lincoln once said: "I throw in a semicolon whenever I am at a loss what pause to use; it ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... are at the bottom of this late attempt upon my father; and I give you fair warning, if my father comes to a violent end by sword or pistol, or if he dies by the hand of a ruffian, or by the more secret way of poison, I shall not be at a loss to know the first author of it: I shall consider you as the assassin; I shall treat you as such; and wherever I meet you I shall pistol you, though you stood behind the king's chair; and I tell you it in his majesty's presence, that you may ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... higher ground; that instead of "spinsters and widows," the demand should be for "all duly qualified women." After the reading of one of the resolutions Miss Jessie Craigen arose and proposed such an amendment. Mr. Woodhall, M. P., in the chair, seemed quite at a loss what to do. She was finally, after much debate and prolonged confusion, suppressed, whether in a parliamentary manner or not I am unable to say. Here we should have discussed the matter at length if it had taken us until midnight, or adjourned over until ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... ever been an integral part of the Friends religion. We are not called upon to follow any fixed procedure. This is creative. The individual spirit is set free to find its way, in its own manner, to God. Yet it leaves some of us at a loss to know what to do next. Some of us are not yet able to press on. We are unsure of the inward way, and our available resources are not yet adequate to this type of exploration. We need hints from ...
— An Interpretation of Friends Worship • N. Jean Toomer
... petrified by surprise; so many unexpected things happened to her all at once that for the first time she was at a loss. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... but they shook their heads, as was, I thought, but natural for Esquimaux who were not likely to have been sent to Paris for their education. I then spoke a little Spanish to them, but I was equally at a loss to understand their answers. Portuguese was as great a failure; even several of the languages of the North American Indians did not assist us in communicating our ideas to each other. I tried Hindostanee, Arabic, and Chinese, with as little ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... at a loss as to how I should act. My first impulse had been to rush forward among the men and proclaim the intelligence communicated by the captain. I was on the point of doing so, when some good angel seemed ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... flannel shirt. He explained casually that for a fifteen-mile walk flannels were absolutely necessary, and that he was rather pleased to find that he had come from door to door in four hours and two minutes exactly. His host was at a loss for words, because he was comparing this unconventional youth with the fathers, who wore large white stocks and ambled along at about two and a half miles an hour, clearing their throats also in a very impressive way, and seasoning the principles ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... had therefore to set about counteracting this impression with what feeble powers were left him. Of the facts of that period he remembers with confusion and remorse the trouble to which he put the owner of the pony-horse Pansy, whom he visited repeatedly in a neighboring town, at a loss of time and money to himself, and with no result but to embarrass Pansy's owner in his relations with people who had hired him and did not wish him sold. Something of the old baffling mystery hung over Pansy's whereabouts; he was with ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells
... danger, hardship, difficulty, and the things that try men's souls, having unexpectedly found them all to fall short of both the importance and the final significance with which human-kind has always invested them, were now just a little at a loss. Therefore they stretch their long, lean frames in the wicker chairs, they sip the long drinks at their elbows, puff slowly at their long, lean cheroots, and talk spasmodically ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning. I had forgotten Hephzy's "fib" concerning my going away. Fortunately he did not ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... just had the honour of receiving your letter, for which I beg to return my sincere acknowledgments. I am much concerned to find there was anything in my behaviour last night that did not meet your approbation; and though I am quite at a loss to discover in what point I could be so unfortunate as to offend you, I entreat your forgiveness of what I can assure you to have been perfectly unintentional. I shall never reflect on my former acquaintance with your family ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Kissing it fervently he again sighed, his eyes raised to the groined roof, and shook his head sadly. If Saint Denis did not whisper inspiration he at least spun out the time for thought. Commines' request was reasonable, and he was at a loss how plausibly ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... experts in this country were quite at a loss, but to-day the riddle is solved. What was happening was that the High ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... written by any author who would—that is to say, who could—detail, step by step, the process by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say—but, perhaps, the autorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers, poets in especial, prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy, an ecstatic intuition, and would positively shudder at letting the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... or people has exclusive right to Mother Goose. She is an omnipresent old lady. She is Asiatic as well as European or American. Wherever there are mothers, grandmothers, and nurses there are Mother Gooses,—or; shall we say, Mother Geese—for I am at a loss as to how to pluralize this old dame. She is in India, whence I have rhymes from her, of which the ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... what ought to be done, for all thought seemed paralyzed within me, I made as if to return to the chamberlains' apartments, from which I had come. Reaching the place where Marguerite's corridor turned off, I pretended for an instant to be at a loss which way to go; then I turned in the direction taken by Marguerite. If the halberdiers, at the entrance to the King's apartments, saw me do this, they could but think I had made a mistake, and it was not their duty to come after me. Should ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... betterment of Worsted Skeynes. There were occasions, too, when they brought him tramps to deal with, to whom his one remark would be, "Hold out your hands, my man," which, being found unwarped by honest toil, were promptly sent to gaol. When found so warped, Mr. Pendyce was at a loss, and would walk up and down, earnestly trying to discover what his duty was to them. There were days, too, almost entirely occupied by sessions, when many classes of offenders came before him, to whom ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to the Hebrides], I suppose, will be out in the winter. The King at his levee talked to him, as was natural, on this subject. Boswell told his majesty that he had another work on the anvil—a History of the Rebellion in 1745 (ante, iii. 162); but that he was at a loss how to style the principal person who figured in it. "How would you style him, Mr. Boswell?" "I was thinking, Sire, of calling him the grandson of the unfortunate James the Second." "That I have no objection to; my title to the ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... he thus remained disturbed, shaken in his faith in the good powers of life, and at a loss as to who was right—he or those two men so ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... day, Monsieur George manifested an ease of mind, and even at intervals a certain gayety, at which we were quite surprised, and which Madame de Malouet, in particular, was at a loss to understand. My poor wife of course had been left in ignorance of these ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... decisions are and were with me despotic, and, once I was of a mind to go, not even Darthea could keep me. Yet to leave her to my cousin and his wiles I hated. The more I discussed him in the council of my own thoughts, the more I was at a loss. His evident jealousy of one so much younger did seem to me, as it did to my aunt, singular. And why should he wish me to be away, as clearly he did? and why also malign me to my father I I smiled to think I was where his ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... the house, however, who did set himself these riddles, and was at a loss for an answer. Sir George Soane, supping with Dr. Addington, the earl's physician, found his attention wander from the conversation, and more than once came near to stating the problem which troubled him. The cosy room, in ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Skanda, the latter enquired, 'What is it?' Being told by Skanda to speak it out, Vasava said, The lady Abhijit, the younger sister of Rohini, being jealous of her seniority, has repaired to the woods to perform austerities. And I am at a loss to find out a substitute for the fallen star. May good luck attend on thee, do thou consult with Brahma (for the purpose of filling up the room) of this great asterism. Dhanishtha and other asterisms were created by Brahma, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... obeyed a natural impulse, madam," said Alizon; "but I am at a loss to conceive what claim I can possibly have to the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... North; but, being human, the mind was not shocked at having the slaves reckoned as population in fixing the basis of representation, though in reality they only represented the masters' ownership. But nobody would have been at a loss to see the absurdity of counting three fifths of the Northern ships as population. Even a Webster Whig of sixty-five years later could, perhaps, have understood that that was something more than an "unimportant anomaly." There was no clearer-headed ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... the park belonging to M. de Fitz-James, now national property, "the finest trees are sold on the spot, cut down, and carried off."—F7, 3268, Letter of the overseer of the national domains at Rambouillet, Oct. 31. Woods devastated "at a loss of more than 100,000 crowns since August 10."—"The agitators who preach liberty to citizens in the rural districts are the very ones who excite the disorders with which the country is menaced. They provoke the demand for a partition of property, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... great relief, and restored me to confidence in the establishment. I am at a loss to explain how my faith should have been confirmed afterwards by coming upon a guillotine—an awful instrument in the likeness of a straw-cutter, with a decapitated wooden figure under its blade—which the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... cause of the outburst of applause. Later, at the reception at the Governor's mansion, guests gathered around her and she held a levee that crowded one of the big drawing-rooms. Those who sought to measure wit with her found her never at a loss for a reply, and woven through her responses were many similes drawn from ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... intensely at words. We should scrutinize them closely and endeavor to grasp their innermost meaning. There is an indefinable satisfaction in knowing how to choose and use words with accuracy and precision. As Fox once said, "I am never at a loss for a word, but Pitt always has ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... Pani Celina seemed at a loss what to say, and at last replied: "I do not know; I took her to the doctor, but we did not find him at home. I left my card and asked him to call on us at the hotel; that is all I ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... some suggested object, but also without reference to any distinct object whatsoever, so that the soul should be abruptly filled with joy or sadness, with fear or hope, with desire or aversion, and yet be at a loss to determine the object of these spiritual passions. St. Ignatius Loyola, in his "Rules for Discerning Spirits," borrowed no doubt from the current mystical theology of his day, makes this absence of any suggested object a criterion of "consolation" coming from God alone—a ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... government, and was originally issued at the close of the year 1800, has most surprisingly decreased, as very little indeed is now used currently. This occurrence is so strange in itself, that I am totally at a loss to account for it, on any principles whatever. Considering its rapid diminution, I cannot conjecture by what means the circulation is still kept up; nor, on the other hand, can I suppose that the coin is caught up for the purposes of exportation, as it was issued ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... robbers and thieves had sprung up like bees, and though the Government troops were bent upon their capture, it was anyhow difficult to settle down quietly on the farm. He therefore had no other resource than to convert, at a loss, the whole of his property into money, and to take his wife and two servant girls and come over for shelter to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... requires a present Remedy. It will not be long before they will be here that will apprehend me, and carry me away into Tribulation. And last of all, seeing Balbinus at a Stand, says the Alchymist, I am as much at a Loss as you, nor do I see any Way left, but to die like a Man, unless you shall approve what I am going to propose, which is more profitable than honourable; but Necessity is a hard Chapter. You know these Sort of Men are hungry after Money, and so ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... distance she might easily be mistaken. At last she ran off to the rectory. Again she lingered in the garden, devoutly wishing that all might be well between Alan and me. Then she became conscious that something unusual had taken place, owing to the lights and commotion. For a long time she was at a loss to conjecture what could have happened. At last, yielding to curiosity, she came back to the lodge. The gates were wide open. Mrs. Eastham's dance was still in progress. She is not a timid girl, so she walked boldly up the avenue until she met Fergusson, ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... family lay in getting together and remaining together, and in this journey taking Mr. Copley away from his haunts and his tempters. Yet Dolly reflected with trembling that the temptation, both temptations, would meet them on their way; if a man desired to drink or to play, he would never be at a loss for the opportunity or the companions. Dolly wrung her hands ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... they are applied, it is a matter of uncertainty whether the beneficial effect of the application is due to the soluble phosphate of lime, or to the ammonia. On the other hand, guano contains both ammonia and phosphate; and we are equally at a loss to determine, whether the effect is attributable to the ammonia or phosphate, or both. In order, therefore, to determine satisfactorily, which of the several ingredients of plants is required in greatest proportion, for the maximum growth of any particular ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... strength, such interest in the local prosperities of the line, found their natural result in the absorption of the new bonds. They were purchased by individuals and municipal corporations. Freight was diverted from its legitimate channels, and drawn over the road at a loss; but it looked like business. Passes were scattered in every direction, and the passenger traffic seemed to double at once. All was bustle, drive, business. Under a single will, backed by a strong and orderly executive capacity, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... quickly that many shepherds say that if you give more than from three to six lessons of this kind to a young dog you will spoil him. He will need the mastership of the other dog, and will thereafter always be at a loss and ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... was on lunch-time; Grindle proposed that they should go together to a legal chop-house, which offered prime value for your money, and where, over the meal, he would give Mahony the latest news of his suit. At a loss how to get through the day, the latter followed him—he was resolved, too, to practise economy from now on. But when he sat down to a dirty cloth and fly-spotted cruet he regretted his compliance. Besides, the news Grindle was able to give him amounted to nothing; ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... is a sovereign, while a king is no more than a man. While well able to measure personalities and forces, to divine causes, and to discern and emphasize in the foreground of his pictures, even as an artist does, the important figure, yet Carleton is never at a loss to do this because the real hero may be of humble birth or ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... my childhood, so far that I am at a loss where to place it, is a little episode, standing so far apart from the main purport of its history, that I do not know how it happened, or whether the original impression was deepened by its subsequent recurrence. This ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... I am quite at a loss to understand why your brother George does not take this very obvious course, and why Valentine potters about in this neighbourhood, when a gold mine is waiting to be exploite ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... long break in your correspondence with me your excuses are truly most modest, inasmuch as you might with more justice accuse me of the same fault; and, as the case stands, I am really at a loss to know whether I should have preferred your not having been in fault to your having apologised so finely. On no account let it ever come into your mind that I measure your gratitude, if anything of the kind is due to me from you, by your ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Sibilet, turning the knife in the wound, "you will find yourself at the mercy of workmen who will force you to pay rich men's prices instead of market-prices. In short, they'll put you, as they did that poor Mariotte, in a position where you must sell at a loss. If you then try to lease the woods you will get no tenants, for you cannot expect that any one should take risks for himself which Mariotte only took for the crown and the State. Suppose a man talks of his losses to the government! ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... was at a loss to know where to turn or what next to do. There was no sign of any spoor which might denote that the she had been here. The metal was gone, and if there was any connection between the she and the metal it seemed useless to wait for her now that the latter ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... lair of the jaguar. The islands, entirely alluvial, are periodically flooded, and undergo a constant round of decay and renovation. Indeed, the whole river annually changes its channel, so that navigation is somewhat difficult. The Indians, on coming to a fork, were frequently at a loss to know which was the main channel. Then, too, the river is full of snags and plaias, or low, shelving sand-banks, rising just above the water-level—the resort of turtles during the egg season. It was interesting to trace the bed of the river ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... together with a cord about the waist. As he advanced Henley observed that the bones of his cheeks were high and prominent, and the eyes buried so deep beneath their projecting brows and skull, that he was at a loss to account for the strange sense of power which he felt to be lodged in so ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... don't know. Thank God, I'm not in any was responsible for that part of this misfortune. I only know that Olga Tcherny wrote the play. As to her motives in doing so I am at a loss. But if I thought she used my house, violated my hospitality at the expense of one of my guests, to serve some private ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... at a loss; then, plainly reluctant to believe me, he once more inspected the blank, closed front of the house, for denial or confirmation of my word. When he next looked back at me, the expression of inquiring helplessness and vague alarm on his face, as if the earth were giving ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of the reality of the amazing sight he had just witnessed through his binoculars, yet for a long moment he remained silent and staring, utterly at a loss for any rational explanation of the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... GRAHAM has appeared at the Surrey. He is reported to be a very chaste and clever actor. If so, he certainly will not suit the taste of Mr. Davidge's patrons. How they have tolerated Wilson, Leffler, and Miss Romer so long, we are utterly at a loss to divine. It must be, that "music ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... when he came into the woods again it was lost. There was no grass here and the ground was too hard. Nor did the lie of the land itself offer any hint of Shif'less Sol's progress. It was all level and one direction was no more inviting than another. Henry paused, at a loss, but as he looked around his eyes caught a gleam of white. It came from a spot on a hickory tree where the bark had been deftly chipped away with a hatchet or a tomahawk, leaving the white body of the tree, exposed for ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... owed, as a gentleman, to the parents of Ambulinia, a duty in itself involving not only his own happiness and his own standing in society, but one that called aloud the act of the parties to make it perfect and complete. How he should communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular or an argumentative manner, or whether he should use moral suasion, legal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it was to do the latter, he would ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... citizens in Italy, I can comprehend what happens to allies in distant lands. To conduct oneself in this matter in such a way as to satisfy the publicani, especially when contracts have been undertaken at a loss, and yet to preserve the allies from ruin, seems to demand a virtue with something divine in it, I mean a virtue like yours. To begin with, that they are subject to tax at all, which is their greatest grievance, ought not to be thought so by the Greeks, because they were so subject ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... if he preserve his conscience in any better condition. When Jack made this allusion, therefore, the dying man—for death was much nearer to Spike than even he supposed, though he no longer hoped for his own recovery—when Jack made this allusion, then, the dying man was a good deal at a loss to comprehend it. He saw no particular harm in making the best bargain he could; nor was it easy for him to understand why he might not dispose of any thing he possessed for the highest price that was to be had. Still he answered in an apologetic ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... They will think of all likely difficulties, but not of all possible ones. They have not much imagination. They are like steam engines which must keep to prepared tracks. There they will hunt any man down, but let him trek for open country and they will be at a loss. Therefore boldness, my friend; for ever boldness. Remember as a nation they wear spectacles, which means that they ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... appeared to Vickers more like a comfortable country club or a small country inn than the home of a private family. There were people coming and going all the time. Isabelle seemed at a loss without a peopled background. "And they are all interesting," she said to her brother, with a touch of pride. "It's the only place Dickie will stay in for any time,—he says I have the best collection of fakes ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... had the full worth of the money paid for passage. How different it is to come to New York in ten days, instead of being on the ocean for sixty-four days, as I have in a sailing packet! Well, this saving of time and feelings is worth the difference of the passage price. I am at a loss to understand how Americans who have to cross the ocean should think of supporting the English steamers in preference to our own superior ships. The influence of every English agent, of course, goes out in behalf of the old line; ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... really thought that M. de Nailles could have any ideas but her own. When the adroit Clotilde was at a loss, she was likely to evoke this chimerical notion of her husband's having an ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... woodsmen, and reentered the forest. Reine kept silence and her companion was at a loss to resume the conversation; so they journeyed along together quietly until they reached a border line, whence they could perceive the smoke ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... look towards Quentin, and seemed at a loss what to resolve upon. Durward, who had not lost a word of the conversation, which alarmed him very much, saw nevertheless that their only safety depended on his preserving his own presence of mind, and sustaining the courage of Pavillon. He struck boldly into ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... stupendously solemn questions about the "salvation of man," the "state of progress," the mystic meaning of passages of the Bible, and the like; and I watched her draw on her memory for answers. She was never at a loss, and her interlocutors went away, and named their ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... as if nothing had happened. The guilty boy was agitated and confused, and was utterly at a loss to know what to do. What could the teacher mean? Had he discovered the trick? and, if so, what was he going ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... much at a loss as ever," said Grace, leaving the dining-room. "This is destined to be an evening of ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... be forgotten," said the king, as he opened the letter. When he had read it, he burst out laughing, and exclaimed—"Upon my word, I am at a loss to understand anything about it." He then read the letter a second time. Miss Stewart assuming a manner marked by the greatest reserve, and doing her utmost ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... my first book, I came to the subject 'Harmonics,' I found myself at a loss as to how to explain these tones; not as to how to produce them myself, but to give a correct theory of their production. I searched in vain through a multitude of musical works, not knowing or thinking of anywhere else to look. I stopped for several ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... theory. But it has its inconveniences. We ourselves used to act upon it, but often, when we found him long in bringing our order, we were at a loss which waiter to ask whether it would be ready some time during the evening; and occasionally we have blown up the wrong waiter, who did not fail to bring us to ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... line of legitimate enterprise had been overpassed and where its intention had been none too sanguine—on the one hand in the faded, and pretentious red brick building with the false third storey, occupied by Cleary which must have been let at a loss to dry-goods or anything else; on the other hand in the solid "Gregory block," opposite the market, where rents were as certain as the dividends of the ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... admit that I am somewhat at a loss how to interpret your Excellency's treatment of these matters. There are many circumstances connected with these important subjects to which I would have expected your Excellency to advert but of which you make no mention, and there are other circumstances to which you ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... for his master's quota of milk, he was told by the great man whom he had the day before unwittingly offended, that the governor desired to speak to him. Wondering that so distinguished a personage should even know that so humble a being as himself was in existence, and at a loss to conjecture what could be his gracious will and pleasure, he was ushered trembling into his dread presence. In an instant his alarms were quieted. The governor told him with a condescending smile, that as the chief constable's house was in his way ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... tell you that it is all the fault of the Government, and if you don't believe me I shall eat you.' The Wolf had a thoroughly practical mind, and was never at a loss for a good argument. ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... testimony about old-world London, if you like; and my before-quoted friend, Charles Louis, Baron de Poellnitz, will conduct us to it. "A man of sense," says he, "or a fine gentleman, is never at a loss for company in London, and this is the way the latter passes his time. He rises late, puts on a frock and, leaving his sword at home, takes his cane, and goes where he pleases. The park is commonly the place where he walks, because 'tis the Exchange for men of quality. 'Tis the same thing ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... from it. She thus characterizes her feelings toward Bonaparte just before marriage. "I discovered in him a tone of assurance and exaggerated pretension, which injured him greatly in my estimation. The more I studied his character, the more I discovered the oddities for which I was at a loss to account; and at length he inspired me with so much aversion that I ceased to frequent the house of Mad. Chat*** Ren***, where he spent his evenings." Notwithstanding the excessive affection professed, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... alludes to an odd fancy or trick of his own; —whenever he was at a loss for something to say, he used always to gabble over "1 2 3 4 ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... regulated State, is a reproach to its Laws and Government; but to see a Nation of Beggars, is too scandalous to have it exemplified in any Kingdom but Ireland; and yet without an effectual Law for Tillage, that must unquestionably be our Misfortune for a while, and in some Years our Ruin. I am at a Loss how to account for this universal Conspiracy to destroy ourselves, which is the more alarming, as our own Plots against our own Happiness generally succeed. Have we made a Vow of Poverty, like the Capuchin Friars, or have we entred into a Confederacy to enrich every Country but our own? ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... to do with strange religions. They were rich people who came to live there to find out about the poor people; but what good they expected it would do them to know, one could not imagine. So spoke Elzbieta, naively, and the young lady laughed and was rather at a loss for an answer—she stood and gazed about her, and thought of a cynical remark that had been made to her, that she was standing upon the brink of the pit of hell and throwing in snowballs to ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Though I am not concerned to deny that, in the columns of a few English organs, there may be occasional lapses from good taste and right feeling, such sweeping charges against the Anglo-Indian Press as a whole are absolutely grotesque, and its most malevolent critics would be at a loss to quote anything, however remotely, resembling the exhortations to hatred and violence which have been the stock-in-trade not only of the most popular newspapers in the vernaculars, but of some even of the leading newspapers published ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... service that you have rendered to Cardinal Mazarin is still untouched. It is something so new to me that anyone in France should be so perfectly contented with his lot as to refuse such an offer as that made to you by the queen, that I feel somewhat at a loss what to do. I can understand that, young and ardent, increased rank would have no charm for you. Were it otherwise I could bestow the highest rank upon you. I am aware that your habits are simple, for I have made inquiries, and that money in itself goes for little ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... are cut into mince-meat you'll think it's enough," was the grim reply, and before Fred could speak again the day's labor had begun. The black fragments came through the chute with a roar which was deafening, and the "green hand" was at a loss to ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... and asked him what was become of his brother, because he had not seen him of many days; whereas he used to observe them conversing together at other times. But Cain was in doubt with himself, and knew not what answer to give to God. At first he said that he was himself at a loss about his brother's disappearing; but when he was provoked by God, who pressed him vehemently, as resolving to know what the matter was, he replied, he was not his brother's guardian or keeper, nor was he an observer ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... see that the like ending ([Greek: TO]) in the superior line, fully accounts for the omission of the second line. (b) A proper lesson begins at this place; which by itself would explain the phenomenon. (c) Words which the copyists were at a loss to understand, are often observed to be dropped: and there is no harder word in the Gospels than [Greek: deuteroprotos]. But I repeat,—will you tell us how it is conceivable that [a word nowhere else found, and known to be a crux to commentators and others, should have ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... shook his head. "The keys of the stable are on my desk, which shows that the horses are in for the night. I admit I am at a loss—however, I reckon they will be in presently, with an explanation and a good laugh at ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... of you," returned Gay good-humouredly. "I'm glad to be able to congratulate you on the success of your new acquisition, especially as the little lady interests me greatly—as, indeed, you mentioned in your note, though how you came to know of that interest I'm at a loss to conceive, unless she told you ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... tailless. Had it a tail it would be at a loss to know what to do with it in this position. Were it to draw it up between its legs, it would interfere with them; and were it to let it hang down, it would become the sport ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... own Government had purposely kept the Embassy in the dark as to its relationship with Edestone. Not knowing the whereabouts or even the ownership of this frightful instrument of war, he was at a loss to know what he should say when certain pointed questions which were inevitable ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... studies, will best explain the extent of my proficiency. During the two last years in which I held the office of Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, having exhausted the subject which I had chosen for my terminal course, I was at a loss for some materials for the few remaining lectures before my office should expire. I had been led by the ardent curiosity, which I have ever felt to acquire some knowledge of the poetry of all ages and nations—to examine some of the publications of French and German, as well ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... of what varieties should compose these ornaments, one can hardly be at a loss. Flanking the cottage, and near the kitchen garden, should be the fruit trees. The elm, maples, oak, and hickory, in all their varieties, black-walnut, butternut—the last all the better for its rich kernel—are every one appropriate ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... the bar The 5 Indians which we met last night Continued, about 11 oClock the 1 s & 2d Chief Came we gave them Some of our Provsions to eat, they gave us great quantites of meet Some of which was Spoiled we feel much at a loss for the want of an interpeter the one we have can Speek ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... SIR,—I am at a loss to understand what is the meaning of all this futile discussion as to the respective merits of the various kinds of road pavement. There cannot be a moment's doubt, as to which is, far and away, the cheapest, the safest, and—in a word—the—best. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... whose appearance proclaimed him to be in the prime of life, midway, perhaps, between thirty and forty years of age. But why a lady should persist in keeping an opera-glass fixed on him all through his speech was a question which found the general ingenuity at a loss ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... know," she replied. "I don't think she's at home." "Well, I can't find her anywhere," I frowned wandering out at a loss what to do, and thrusting my hands deep in my pockets as ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... and I thought that if she were not baptized, there was no time for delay, and that if she were, a good thing could not be repeated too often. And in pursuance of this idea, we reflected upon a good name for the child, for we now were often at a loss to know what to call her. We agreed at last that Dorothea would be the most suitable for her, for I once heard that it meant a gift of God, and she had surely been sent to us by God as a gift and comfort in our misery. She, on the other ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... comment upon the insubordinate attitude which you have assumed, I am at a loss to know how you can relieve yourself from obedience to the orders of the President, who is made by the Constitution the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, and is therefore the official superior as well of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... more evil than good in this world," said Count Rosenberg, sighing, "and a man, though he can seldom count his friends, is never at a loss to count ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... easy. Whenever you are with Madame de Monconseil, Madame du Boccage, or other women of fashion, with whom you are tolerably free, say frankly and naturally: "I know little of the world; I am quite a novice in it; and although very desirous of pleasing, I am at a loss for the means. Be so good, Madame, as to let me into your secret of pleasing everybody. I shall owe my success to it, and you will always have more than falls to your share." When, in consequence of this request, they shall tell you of any little error, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... day with Mrs. Frere. She is evidently eager to leave the place—as eager as I am. Frere rejoices in his murderous power, and laughs at her expostulations. I suppose men get tired of their wives. In my present frame of mind I am at a loss to understand how a man could ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... explaining Yoga, one is often at a loss for the English equivalent of the manifold meanings of the Sanskrit tongue, and I earnestly advise those of you who can do so, at least to acquaint yourselves sufficiently with this admirable language, to make the literature of Yoga more intelligible to you than it can be ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... which might afford us shelter, without concealing the approach of our foes; or else we threw up a breastwork of logs and branches, behind which we could be protected from the arrows of our assailants. The old trapper and Sandy were adepts at making arrangements of this kind, and were never at a loss. Of course, one of the party, or sometimes two, kept guard; our horses being hobbled near, as we always chose localities where there was an abundance of grass. We could thus, in case of alarm, immediately bring them in under such protection as we ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... no more the Vekeel sat looking at her inquisitively and somewhat at a loss, till at length she rose, and with no little dignity dismissed him, remarking that now their business was at an end and she had nothing further to say ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... winter of 1783-84, so memorable for heavy falls of snow, Napoleon was greatly at a loss for those retired walks and outdoor recreations in which he used to take much delight. He had no alternative but to mingle with his comrades, and, for exercise, to walk with them up and down a spacious hall. Napoleon, weary of this monotonous promenade, told his comrades that he thought they ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne |
