"Baffled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... same unfriendly spirit was informed that, if he were, he would be detained on a charge of murder. And so the months dragged on. Holmes, studious, patient, injured, the authorities puzzled, suspicions, baffled—still no news of Miss Williams or the three children. It was not until June 3 that Holmes was put on his trial for fraud, and the following day pleaded ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... them, moreover, with appalling force and terrifying effect. One moment they were in complete mastery of the situation, the next they were groveling in the road, coughing, sneezing, barking, retching, blaspheming poisonously. Baffled fury followed their first surprise. Mallow tore the mask from his face and groped blindly for the weapon he had dropped, but before he could recover it, pain mastered him and he fell back, clawing at himself, rubbing at his eyes ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... associating with Napoleon to reduce Europe to slavery. Napoleon thought in that, as well as in all other circumstances, to succeed in blinding a man by a false representation of his interest; but he encountered conscience, and his calculations were entirely baffled; for that is an element, of the strength of which he knows nothing, and which he never allows ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... wily turns, by desperate bounds, Had baffled Percy's best blood-hounds; In Eske or Liddel, fords were none, But he would ride them, one ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Empiricism of the American and the Doctrine of Intuition of the Frenchman. Although James obtains a certain priority in point of time in the development and enunciation of his ideas, we must remember that he confessed that he was baffled by many of Bergson's notions. James certainly neglected many of the deeper metaphysical aspects of Bergson's thought, which did not harmonize with his own, and are even in direct contradiction. In addition to this Bergson is no pragmatist, for him "utility," so far from being ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... would be easy and without hardships, he straightway and without stay or delay equipped himself for a voyage to China (as we have already told) and he did what he did with Alaeddin fancying that he would become Lord of the Lamp. But his attempt and his hopes were baffled and his work was clean wasted; whereupon, determining to do the lad die, he heaped up the earth over him by gramarye to the end that the unfortunate might perish, reflecting that "The live man hath ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... her pencil as if to resume her work, while he eyed her with a countenance baffled and uncertain. Presently ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... once in a month, or less, owing to a plum-stone which had lodged; which, after various operations, was extracted. There is likewise an account of a man, who dying of an incurable colic, which had tormented him many years, and baffled the effects of medicine, was opened after his death, and in his bowels was found the cause of his distemper, which was a ball, composed of tough and hard matter, resembling a stone, being six inches in circumference, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... and parted on the side, giving her a youthful, boyish look that was in odd contrast to the sudden terror in her eyes, and for the first time I saw how slight and frail she was, saw that about her which baffled and puzzled me, and which I could not analyze. She wore no hat, and the red scarf around her neck was the only touch of color in her otherwise dark dress. The lips of her large, sweet, sensuous mouth were as colorless ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... practised matador, appeared to guess the sinister intentions of the bull, and followed his every movement with an active eye—nay, he seemed to penetrate into the inmost feelings of the animal.—Irritated by the defiance, the bull sprang upon his foe; but was baffled in his vengeance, for he pierced only the floating piece of cloth; the matador very adroitly turning aside, and plunging his sword into his flank as he passed. The wound however was not mortal, and the combat was renewed. The ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... himself in a long and fierce contest with the authorities of New York. The brunt of this battle fell upon his new captain. There was one period when for sixty successive days an attempt was made to arrest him; but the captain baffled every attempt. Leaving his crew in New Jersey (for they also were liable to arrest), he would approach the New York wharf with a lady at the helm, while he managed the engine; and as soon as the boat was made fast he ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... I did not stop to reason about it; there was too much to be done. Rushing on, I entered the room I had left in such high hopes a few hours before. Emptiness was before me, and I realized what it was to be baffled at the moment of success. But I did not waste an instant in inactivity. I searched the closets and pulled open the drawers; found her coat and hat gone, but not Mrs. Van Burnam's brown skirt, though the purse had been taken ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... determined woman, Reuben would not have been a failure. The only thing he had needed in life had been persistent purpose and courage. The right sort of wife would have given him both. But when he was discouraged, baffled, Jane clasped her hands, sat down, and looked into his face with streaming eyes. If he smiled, she smiled; but that was just when it was of least consequence that she should smile. So the twelve years of their married life had gone on slowly, very ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... feel humiliated at the baseness of such enjoyment, she clung to it from habit or from corruption, and each day she hungered after them the more, exhausting all felicity in wishing for too much of it. She accused Leon of her baffled hopes, as if he had betrayed her; and she even longed for some catastrophe that would bring about their separation, since she had not the courage to make up her mind to ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... he lifted himself to a sitting posture, his eyes wandering uneasily over the speaker's body, resting on his head—on his shoulders, arms, and hands—as if trying to fix his mind on something which constantly baffled him. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... re-translated from my idiom where there seemed a need for it. And I am not much afraid of being ever guessed at—except by those Oedipuses who astounded me once for a moment and were after all, I hope, baffled by the Sphinx—or ever betrayed; because besides the black Stygian oaths and indubitable honour of the editor, he has some interest, even as I have the greatest, in being silent and secret. And nothing is mine ... if something is of me ... or from me, rather. Yet it was wrong ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... He had baffled with his bemuddled brain, to recall the conversation he had held with his wife since his return home to marry her, and every innocent word she had uttered in jest had seemed guilty and foul. "You've been nothing but a fool, Davy," he told himself. "You've ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... happened that the police were quite baffled in their endeavours to find the children, and after they had fallen into Mrs. Donaldson's hands the description given was ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... hurried fruitlessly this hot morning and he was not again to be baffled. As he advanced toward her, she regarded him with some apprehension until he stopped a safe six feet away. She had noted certain lines of determination in ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... even by the scandal of those false Christians, whom jealousy, covetousness, and the spirit of the world blinded and seared to every feeling, not only of religion, but even of humanity. Religious missionaries, filled with the spirit of the apostles, and armed with the power of God, baffled obstacles which seemed insurmountable to flesh and blood; and by their zeal, charity, patience, humility, meekness, mortification, and invincible courage, triumphantly planted the standard of the cross in a world heretofore unknown ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Dick for several seconds without making any remark. They were sitting on their ponies, completely baffled by the manner in which the trail of the rustlers had suddenly "petered out." And they had been about to turn and go back to camp when Dick made his ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... wherefore he started and cried out, "Thou art caught." But little it availed, for wings could not outstrip fear. The one went under, and the other, flying, turned his breast upward. Not otherwise the wild duck on a sudden dives when the falcon comes close, and he returns up vexed and baffled. Calcabrina, enraged at the flout, kept flying behind him, desirous that the sinner should escape, that he might have a scuffle; and when the barrator had disappeared he turned his talons upon his companion, and grappled ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... stroke of business, sir," said Campbell, with a sneer and a look of baffled hatred. "The lady's fortune makes her a ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... (such was their infatuation) devoted their lives to his, and threw themselves in the way of Kapchack's emissaries, the hawks, submitting to be torn in pieces rather than see their beloved hero lose a feather. Thus baffled, the enraged Kapchack next tried to get him assassinated, but, as before, his friends watched about him with such solicitude that no one could enter the wood where he slept at night without their raising such a disturbance that their ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... pistol from his shaky fingers, and when Quest struggled to his feet with a baffled howl, jammed him back into the chair again and handed the pistol to Grandcourt, who locked it in a bureau drawer and ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... loom, and ca' your loom, man!" And Gilbert had taken him at the word and returned, with an expedition almost to be called flight, to the house of his father. The clearest of his inheritance was that family gift of prayer of which Kirstie had boasted; and the baffled politician now turned his attention to religious matters - or, as others said, to heresy and schism. Every Sunday morning he was in Crossmichael, where he had gathered together, one by one, a sect of about a dozen persons, who called themselves "God's Remnant of the True Faithful," or, for short, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Camusot, the police commissioner, and the public prosecutor had been baffled in their proceedings and inquiries by the effects apparently ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... over those barbarians. Finding that the island of Mona, now Anglesey, was the chief seat of the Druids, he resolved to attack it, and to subject a place which was the centre of their superstition, and which afforded protection to all their baffled forces. The Britons endeavoured to obstruct his landing on this sacred island, both by the force of their arms and the terrors of their religion. The women and priests were intermingled with the soldiers ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... few times, as if it were in some way at fault, then dropped down to try for her nest again. Only vacant air there! She hovers and hovers, her blue wings flickering in the checkered light; surely that precious hole MUST be there; but no, again she is baffled, and again she returns to her perch, and mauls the poor beetle till it must be reduced to a pulp. Then she makes a third attempt, then a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, till she becomes very much excited. "What could have happened? Am I dreaming? ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... and left with a powerful whip, which he also laid vigorously on the backs of his horses. For a moment it looked as if a catastrophe was unavoidable, but the next saw the startled horses plunging at break-neck speed with the hack up Court street and the mob pursuing it with yells of baffled rage. Then began a thrilling, a tremendous race for life and Leverett street jail. The vehicle flew along Court street to Bodoin square, but the rioters, with fell purpose flew hardly less swiftly in its track. Indeed the pursuit of the ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... word. Go when she would, she must leave Constantine behind, leave him without an expectation of beholding him more—without a hope of penetrating the thick cloud which involved him, and with which he had ever baffled any attempt she had heard to discover his birth or misfortunes. She wept over this refinement on delicacy, and "loved him dearer ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... after this he called upon them. On the first occasion only Lady Dalrymple was visible. On the second, none of the ladies were at home. He was baffled, but not discouraged. Returning from his call, he met Minnie and Mrs. Willoughby. Hawbury was with them, riding beside Minnie. The ladies bowed, and Girasole, as before, coolly turned his horse and rode by the carriage, talking with Mrs. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... lounge idly in the unchangeable conditions which bear no stimulant which they have not exhausted. Thousands of years pass. They have drunk every attainable spring of knowledge dry. Not a prize stirs a pulse. All pleasures, permutated till ingenuity is baffled, disgust them. No terror startles them. No possible experiment remains untried; nor is there any unsounded fortune left. No dim marvels and boundless hopes beckon them with resistless lures into the future. They have no future. One everlasting now is their all. At last the incessant ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... nations of Western Scythia, who encountered and baffled the arms of Darius, King of Persia, under the general name of Scythians, who were perhaps congeneric, or the same with those afterwards known by the name of Goths, the dreaded name of the Huns became known to the declining Roman Empire. But our object does not ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... aircraft bases behind the hard pressed lines were other empty cots. Time and time again the Slav planes shot down two to the Americans' one; time and time again the treacherous disintegrating flames—the weapon which baffled America's scientists—had struck down whole squadrons that had been lured into traps, even as Lance's ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... Christie unconsciously spoke with something of her old dramatic fervor in voice and gesture; Mr. Fletcher saw it, and, while he never had admired her so much, could not resist avenging himself for the words that angered him, the more deeply for their truth. Wounded vanity and baffled will can make an ungenerous man as spiteful as a woman; and Mr. Fletcher proved it then, for he saw where Christie's pride was sorest, and touched the wound with the skill of a ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... Thus baffled, Pizarro determined to try the effect of pacific overtures. He sent to the Inca, both in his own name, and in that of the Bishop of Cuzco, whom the Peruvian prince held in reverence, to invite him to enter into negotiation.25 Manco acquiesced, and indicated, as he had formerly done ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... that, when the bitterness of death was past, I was inhumanly brought back to life and misery. But a fixed determination is not to be baffled by disappointment; nor will I allow that to be a frantic attempt, which was one of the calmest acts of reason. In this respect, I am only accountable to myself. Did I care for what is termed reputation, it is by other circumstances that I should ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... reached the landing above when the yell of triumph turned to one of baffled rage, for the Wolves had found that the ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... intricate than any that church or school had prepared them to understand. Increasingly they know that they cannot understand them if the facts are not quickly and steadily available. Increasingly they are baffled because the facts are not available; and they are wondering whether government by consent can survive in a time when the manufacture of consent is an unregulated private enterprise. For in an exact sense the present crisis of western democracy is ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Longer, too. I was endeavouring to still the wild throbbings of my breast—to affect the calmness of indifference. Vain hypocrisy! To her eyes my spite must have been patent, for in this the keen instincts of woman are not to be baffled. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... suddenly calmed Plantagenet. He felt in an instant the injudiciousness of fostering by his conduct the latent jealousy which always lurked at the bottom of his mother's heart, and which nothing but the united talent and goodness of Lady Annabel could have hitherto baffled. So he rejoined in a kind yet playful tone, 'If you will be good, I will give you a kiss for a Christmas-box, mother; and the parrot shall go ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Hamburgh, from a fifth or sixth copy in the handwriting of some Dutch or English clerk—thence, by cautious steps, smuggled into France—and then, disavowed and denounced by himself, and, for him, by his numberless agents, with an intrepid assurance which, down to the last, confounded and baffled all official inquisitors, until, in each separate case, the scent had got cold. Therefore, he sympathized not at all with any of these, his subalterns, when they, in their own proper matters, allowed themselves a ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... to see—how pretty you are," he answered; but during that pause, slight as it was, she realized he had stubbornly, defiantly, baffled his pride. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... the modern theory. For the idea is suggested by this simple picture of the old theory that the theory itself was simple, whereas it had become so confusing that not merely young learners, but the most profound mathematicians, were baffled when they tried to unravel the motions of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... Carroway cried; "why was I thoroughly educated and trained in both services of the king, expected to rise, and beginning to rise, till a vile bit of splinter stopped me, and then sent down to this hole of a place to starve, and be laughed at, and baffled by a boy? Another lucky run, and the revenue bamboozled, and the whole of us sent upon a wild-goose chase! Every gapper-mouth zany grinning at me, and scoundrels swearing that I get my share! And the only time I have had my dinner with my knees crook'd, for at least a fortnight, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... looked blankly at Whitey, then burst out laughing. He could not understand any one's having consideration for a horse, and the boy's anger struck him as being funny. Whitey turned from him in disgust, baffled by such a lack ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... in politics and religion. And take my adviceIf you want an affair of consequence properly managed, put it into the hands of an antiquary; for as they are eternally exercising their genius and research upon trifles, it is impossible they can be baffled in affairs of importance;use makes perfectand the corps that is most frequently drilled upon the parade, will be most prompt in its exercise upon the day of battle. And, talking upon that subject, I would willingly read to your lordship, in order to pass away ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of the Capitoline hill were so steep that for a long time the Gauls were baffled in their attempts to seize it. At last they discovered a path, and one dark night were on the point of scaling the height when some geese, sacred to the goddess Juno, cackled and flapped their wings until the garrison was aroused and the Gauls hurled headlong ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... with his daughter's seeming meekness. Moreover, the working of Caleb's and Sarah's faces baffled him. He ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... been utter and complete. But a few weeks before it had seemed that Spain was his, and that the forces at his disposal were ample to crush out the insurrection in Barcelona, and to sweep into the sea the handful of the invaders. But all his plans had been baffled, all his hopes brought to naught by the genius and energy of one man, in spite of that man being thwarted at every turn by the imbecile German coterie who surrounded the king, and by the jealousy and ill will of ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... arms with her loveliness, to plunder her sweet smile with kisses, to drink her dark glances with my eyes. Ah, but, where is it? Who can strain the blue from the sky? I try to grasp the beauty, it eludes me, leaving only the body in my hands. Baffled and weary I come back. How can the body touch the flower which only the ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... him to lose those pursuing vultures. The last of them fell off, baffled,—or afraid to go deeper into France. Now he emerged again into the clear air and the starlight. The land beneath him was a scudding blur, with a dark-green mass in its center, the forest of ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... human-shaped speck, appearing black against the bluish gray of the waters, was still her husband, even though already it became vague and indefinable, lost in the distance, where persistent sight becomes baffled, and ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... over rocks and ledges, carrying all before it with a tremendous sweep that seems to be absolutely irresistible until it meets the higher ledges of rock, when it is hurled back, and retires with a watery hiss that suggests the idea of baffled rage. ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... there, baffled and sombre, biting his pen and wondering what was meant by the "rewards" of literature, he generally ended by tossing away the composition deflowered by Mr. Locket and trying his hand at the sort of twaddle that Mrs. Ryves might be able to set to music. Success in these experiments wouldn't ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... the chief conspirators have been arrested and tried by the government, and others have fled, their schemes have been exposed and baffled." ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... and with feminine skill mutely conveyed the rebuke she would not trust herself to utter, by stripping the glove from the hand he had touched and dropping it disdainfully as if unworthy of its place. Gilbert had not looked for such an answer, and while it baffled him it excited his man's spirit to rebel against her silent denial. With a bitter laugh he snatched up ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... loweringly upon her. Swiftly she smote the door twice with her hand and instantly the portal opened as far as the chain would allow it. Count Herbert noticed that in the interval, three other chains had been added to the one that formerly had baffled his sword. The girl, like a woodland pigeon, darted underneath the lower chain, and although the prisoner took a rapid step forward, the door, with greater speed, closed and ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... always coming pretty soon To fool him back, with penitent scared eyes That had in them the laughter of the moon For baffled lovers, and to make him think — Before she gave him time enough to wink — Sin's kisses were the keys ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... then made their escape on horses belonging to the guards. As soon as their absence was discovered, bloodhounds were put upon the trail which led towards the interior. The dogs were soon completely baffled, however, for the fugitives had evidently taken to water whenever they came near a pond or creek. This ruse, as well as the whole uprising, is believed to have been the headwork of 'Indian Charley,' one of the escaped prisoners, who, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and partly by professional curiosity, both ardent students and methodical practitioners would crowd round his simple bed, probing him with instruments, poking him with their fingers, and punching him with their fists; each with a new theory to propound and establish; and the more they were baffled and contradicted in their preconceived notions, the more obstinate they became in their enforcement. Panpan's own thoughts upon the subject always reverted to the brass button, although he found few to listen to or encourage him in his idea. His medical ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... Newgate. They did not know that as soon as the convict was given in charge of the tipstaff of the court he was led away by Inspector Denning, along a carefully planned and circuitous route that entirely baffled the curiosity of the waiting crowd. Through the Court of Exchequer the prisoner and his guards went, by the members' private staircase, across the lobby, along the corridor, through the smoking-room into the Commons Courtyard, where ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... person of the royal hunter the slayer of the champion of Gath, and he immediately seized David, bound him neck and heels together, and laid him beneath his wine-press, designing to crush him to death. But, lo, the earth became soft, and the Philistine was baffled. Meanwhile, in the land of Israel a dove with silver wings was seen by the courtiers of King David fluttering about, apparently in great distress, which signified to the wise men that their royal master was in danger of his life. Abishai, one of ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... wondering expression which was often on his face nowadays. He had glimpses of the maternal depths of his wife's heart, which, while not understanding, he acquiesced in; but there was something else which baffled him. ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of mine, a dearer creature or a nobler passion. And I will tell you why it is dear to me, as well as to you. She is like the good people of England whose heart is with the colonies, but whose will is being baffled and oppressed. Let us hope it may not be for long. My good wishes for you involve the whole race whose blood is in my veins. That race has ever been like the patient ox, treading out the corn, ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... glance when he struck down the sister he had played with from childhood, neither did he note that his father's hand had dealt the blow that dropped his right arm helpless to his side. Only a cry of baffled rage and hate escaped his lips, as he snatched his falling knife with his left hand. Another blow, and his father fell across the quivering ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... from Higgins, to follow the business on which he had been bent when the latter first accosted him; leaving Higgins baffled ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sniffed and walked on without speaking. Dr. O'Grady was not the kind of man who is easily baffled. He turned ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... into the heart of a country, where he was sometimes attacked by armies of twenty thousand Moors. The boldness of his charge dismayed the irregular Barbarians; they were disconcerted by his seasonable and orderly retreats; they were continually baffled by the unknown resources of the military art; and they felt and confessed the just superiority which was assumed by the leader of a civilized nation. When Theodosius entered the extensive dominions of Igmazen, king of the Isaflenses, the haughty savage required, in words of defiance, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... voice, "You are on the alert, my old comrade. You have not forgotten your former habits when in command here. But Sir Eustace intrusts the care of changing the guard to none but me; so I will not trouble you to disturb yourself another night." And the baffled miscreant retreated. ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice. I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled. Ah, thou hast made my heart captive in the endless meshes of thy music, ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... a nigger, be you?" exclaimed the mate, waxing warmer and warmer, as he: fancied himself baffled by the other's powers of endurance. "Take that, and let us see if ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... from the royal palace, though the city was bedecked with flowers and gay flags, and every painful object removed from sight when the young Prince Siddartha visited it, yet the decrees of destiny were not to be baffled, the "voices of the spirits," the "wandering winds" and the devas, whispered the truth of human sorrows into his listening ear, and when the appointed hour arrived, the Suddha Devas threw the spell of slumber over the household, ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... until Captain Lawton comes up, if you please," cried the surgeon, observing him to flee with a rapidity that baffled his horsemanship. But as if the invitation contained new terrors, the footman redoubled his efforts, nor paused even to breathe, until he had reached his goal, when, turning on his heel, he discharged his musket ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... eighteenth century Arthur Young painted the English rural clergy in very dark colours. The curates, the rectors, the monks of France as a body, showed under the old regime the same qualities of devout faith and Christian sympathy with the people with which they met and baffled their persecutors after the crash of the monarchy. The three representatives of the clergy who first struck hands with the Third Estate on June 13, 1789, were curates sent to Paris by a province more intensely Catholic than Artois. They were Poitevin priests from the region which we now know as ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... chastisement. Branwell was his father's and his sisters' pride and hope in boyhood, but since manhood the case has been otherwise. It has been our lot to see him take a wrong bent; to hope, expect, wait his return to the right path; to know the sickness of hope deferred, the dismay of prayer baffled; to experience despair at last—and now to behold the sudden early obscure close of what might have ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... what to say, or what to do, Norah had left the room. I do not think he had ever really intended to send for the police to this old servant of his wife's; for he had never for a moment doubted her perfect honesty. But he had intended to compel her to tell him who the man was, and in this he was baffled. He was, consequently, much irritated. He returned to his uncle and aunt in a state of great annoyance and perplexity, and told them he could get nothing out of the woman; that some man had been in the ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... be to keep in motion as the means most likely to defeat any attempt at a surprise—announcing his own and March's intention to requite themselves for the loss of sleep during their captivity, by lying down. As the air still baffled and continued light, it was finally determined to sail before it, let it come in what direction it might, so long as it did not blow the ark upon the strand. This point settled, the released prisoners helped to hoist the sail, and they threw themselves upon two of the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... I turned away baffled and discouraged; but my new friend was not so quickly depressed. It was impossible, he maintained, that the English girl and the child could have left the town unnoticed. He went with me to all the omnibus bureaus, where we made urgent inquiries ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... often baffled, that he grows contemptible. Were he here, should he see you enter into my ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... and Bob Strahan had to say of her disappearance. There had been no report of any accident in the district and no child had been kidnapped so far as the police knew. Mr. Jerry and Bob Strahan were disappointed. They felt baffled. It didn't seem possible that a little girl could have disappeared so completely as Mary Rose had disappeared. When they drove back to the Washington, Jimmie was not with them. He was going to make a few inquiries on his own hook, ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... restlessness of baffled expectation, I could not fix my mind on any occupation. I seated myself in the window recess and began to read, but my eyes were constantly wandering to the road, watching for the dust cloud that would roll before the advancing carriage. Dissatisfied ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... cabin and, praying for his country, found himself praying also, resoundingly and with tears, for the "strange people" down under his bended knees, while out on the boiler deck the disputation concerning them steadily warmed and spread, the committee of seven feeling themselves for the moment baffled but by no means beaten—baffled, for their casual brush with Ramsey had most surprisingly, not to say unfairly, discredited their cause. "Gideon Hayle's daughter" had become as universally known by sight as "John Courteney's son," ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... angels and holy manifestations and heavenly illuminations constantly occurring on that sacred spot till I forgot all about asking where the Lord would have me be, and forthwith started for Moriah. But I was baffled at every turn. Especially was I chagrined to find there was no place for me on Moriah at that time. Brother Dreamgood had a dreadful battle with the giants before he won a home for himself, and I am not certain that I could have fought ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... been suffered here, and they had all been of one kind. Even Henrietta's fewer years had been more varied. She had known poverty and been compelled to the practical application of her wits, she had baffled Mr. Jenkins, she had ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... diseases still baffle the physician? Surely it is less often than the pestilences of old which baffled sacrifice and prayer. The cruelest laws ever devised by man have more equity and benevolence in them than the appalling and ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... days of anxiety; but then the fever again asserted its empire, and strength, little by little but daily, lost ground rather than gained it. Though not ever very high, the fever came back with persevering regularity; it would not be baffled; and such always recurring assaults are trying to flesh and blood and to spirit too, be they of what they may. Faith's patience and happy quiet never left her; as the weeks went on it did happen that the quiet grew more quiet, and was even a ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... lost three blankets a blanket coat and their pittance of merchandize. in our bear state of clootheing this was a serious loss. I sent Sergt. Pryor and a party over with the indian canoe in order to raise and secure ours but the debth of the water and the strength of the current baffled every effort. I fear that we have also lost our canoe. all our invalides are on the recovery. we gave the sick Cheif a severe sweat today, shortly after which he could move one of his legs and thyes and work his toes pretty well, the other leg he can move a little; his fingers ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... no passage of colour but is imitated by some shell. Purple and red and white, and green and yellow, pied and striped and clouded, the living shells wear in every combination the livery of the dead reef—if the reef be dead—so that the eye is continually baffled and the collector continually deceived. I have taken shells for stones and stones for shells, the one as often as the other. A prevailing character of the coral is to be dotted with small spots of red, and it is wonderful how many varieties of shell have adopted ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of redemptive energy in the sphere of personal life. It comes to a man shamed by the sense of guilt and baffled by moral failure, and rouses him to a consciousness of his high worth and eternal destiny. It transmits the faith of the Christian Church in a loving and gracious God who is willing to forgive and powerful ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... thought hinted rather than expressed. Each must mean something, must symbolize something. But what does it mean? what does it symbolize? Continually we seem just on the point of penetrating the secret; we almost touch the explanation, but are baffled. A dog, a cat, a snake, a crocodile, a spider,—what does each mean? why were they made? why this infinite variety of form, color, faculty, character? Animals thus in their unconscious being, as expressions of God's thoughts, are mysteries, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... On Saturday night the baffled coroner's jury returned their unsatisfactory verdict: "The deceased, Ailsie Dunbar, came to her death by a wound inflicted in her throat with a razor held in the hands of some person unknown ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... from the effects of a few drops of musk—on the first day; with his eyes he had seen the dead twist themselves, and move and grin under the electric current—provided it had not been too late. But that "too late" had baffled him, and from his first belief that life might be restored when once gone, he had descended to what seemed the simpler proposition of the two, to the problem of maintaining life indefinitely so long as its magic essence lingered in the flesh and blood. And now he believed ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... schooner's lofty main-truck the Sultana's private flag fluttered out; the mark and sign of Dolores's ownership. And while three anxious yachtsmen on the cliff-top waited for her return, a hundred and twenty hungry and thirsty baffled ruffians on the sloop cursed her vehemently in ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... idleness of a solitary scholar. I comprehended, too, how gradually and slowly, as my father entered that stage of middle life when all men are most prone to ambition, the long-silenced whispers were heard again, and the mind, at last escaping from the listless weight which a baffled and disappointed heart had laid upon it, saw once more, fair as in youth, the only true ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... horde of human depredators. It was Necker's error to have gone so directly to the point with the lawyers that they at once saw his scope; and thus he himself defeated his hopes of their support, the want of which utterly baffled all his speculations. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... witch in a hollow tree, and destined by her as her son Lorel's mistress. The swineherd now enters with the object of wooing the imprisoned damsel, whom he releases from the tree, Maudlin and Douce retiring the while to watch his success, which is small. Baffled, he again shuts the girl up in her natural cell, and his mother, coming forward, rates him soundly for his clownish ways, reading him a lecture for his guidance in his intercourse with women, in which she seems little concerned by the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Oxberry's exaggeration. The dinner is kept waiting, and the whole business of the play suspended, for the Justice to make speeches. But the last scene was capital,—prodigious,—full of that dark, dismal, despairing energy you would look for in a dethroned spirit, baffled, like Mephistopheles, at the very moment his arm is outstretched, and his long, lean fingers are clutching at the shoulder of his victim. Being about to cross blades with his adversary, in a paroxysm of rage he plucks ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... none too well, for a time. But my friend darted one side, and as his adversary rushed past, he delivered another blow in the vicinity of the man's right ear, that stopped his headlong career, and he dropped to mother earth once more, baffled, bewildered, and discouraged. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... attack was too much for the wolves, and so with howls of baffled rage they turned to the east, and soon disappeared in the forest, ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... through the water at from 30 to 40 horse power, and would deliver a formidable blow upon the net, the thrust was effectually resisted, though as a matter of course the net was much torn by the explosion of the baffled projectile. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... I see it, to look at?" said Mrs. Picture. "I may not be able to read it, quite, but you shall have it back, to read." She was eager to see the young scribe's progress, but was baffled by obscurities, as she anticipated. She was equal to:—"Dear Granny Marrable." ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... subject, I need scarcely say, highly interesting to the working classes. I have calculated a scale of living for incomes of eighty, one hundred and sixty, two hundred, and two hundred and forty pounds a year. I must confess that the income of eighty pounds has somewhat baffled me, and the others are not so exact as I could wish; for the price of washing varies largely in foreign countries, and the different cokes, coals, and firewoods fluctuate surprisingly. I will read ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... frank, then, I had counted, in case of failure, to avoid all scandal to your daughter's name. I had hoped (you will excuse me) to have carried her off and evaded you until I could present myself as her husband. If baffled in this, I proposed to make my escape as a common burglar surprised upon your premises. It seems to me," I wound up, including the three servants with an indignant sweep of the arm, "that you might well have emulated my delicacy! As it is, I must trouble ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Harry burst out of the garden door and stood staring in the empty oval. How distracted, how violent he looked, balked of his prey! He was stalking the garden, beating the bushes, walking up and down. All at once he stopped and raised a white baffled face to her window. She shrank away. She was in peril of Harry now. He knew her no longer innocent. She had held the ring against him in the face of the fact he had told her it was stolen. And he must guess her motive. ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... in their presence, for the last two days, taken up a hopeless case, and conducted it against a man who, in their hearts, they had supposed was more than a match for Joshua R. Giddings or Chief Justice Hitchcock, beaten and baffled him, and finally thrashed him out of all ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... gathering about him like a pack of hungry wolves hissed as they lapped against his wet shroud, and drew back, baffled, only to assail him again. The trail was narrow and the flames close on ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... the difficulty which baffled Reis, and succeeded in making the undulations of the current fit the vibrations of the voice as a glove will fit the hand. But the articulation, though distinct, was feeble, and it remained for Edison, by inventing the carbon transmitter, and Hughes, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... spoke from her place before the fire, where she stood rigidly, with a baffled look on her face. Her voice was ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... made against him, and lettres de cachet were issued. These would have flung him into the Bastile, to rot and die forgotten. But Montresor had effectually concealed himself, together with his wife, and the emissaries of the government were baffled. It was by that time too late for him to defend himself in any way; and the end of it was, that he decided to fly from France. He did so, and succeeded in reaching Quebec in safety. Here he hoped to remain ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... as light came, was to the town, where we inquired at the few hotels, and put questions to the police. Nobody answering the description of Bedr and his two companions had been seen in Medinet, and we had to go back to camp baffled. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... to the comedy of Timon, if the whole of it is written as well as the concluding address of the misanthrope (which Mr. Panizzi has extracted into his pages), it must be very pleasant. Timon conceals a treasure in a tomb, and thinks he has baffled some knaves who had a design upon it. He therefore takes leave of his ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... sentence, the words of his arraignment marched through his mind, as he sat with his elbows on the desk and his chin in his doubled fists. A single reading seemed to have stamped them indelibly and forever upon his memory. Baffled by conflicting reflections he began, for the first time, to doubt whether his had been the course of conscience, or merely that of pride and perversity. Was not the "Record" right, perhaps, after ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... finding and embracing of truth, and not a contest for victory. And thus maxims have their use to put a stop to their perverseness, whose ingenuity should have yielded sooner. But the method of the Schools having allowed and encouraged men to oppose and resist evident truth till they are baffled, i.e. till they are reduced to contradict themselves, or some established principles: it is no wonder that they should not in civil conversation be ashamed of that which in the Schools is counted a virtue and a glory, viz. obstinately ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke |
