"Mystifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... September, 1869, Dickens was working over the late Lord Lytton's tale for All The Year Round, "The Disappearance of John Ackland," for the purpose of mystifying the reader as to whether Ackland was alive or dead. But he was conspicuously defunct! (All the Year Round, ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... declared at this that nothing would induce her to budge from Paris till she had seen her sister through, and Gaston shrank from proposing that she too should spend five weeks in the Place Beauvau or the Rue de Lille. There was moreover a slight element of the mystifying for him in the perverse unsociable way in which Francie took up a position of marked disfavour as yet to any "visiting." AFTER, if he liked, but not till then. And she wouldn't at the moment give the reasons ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... separation, all I need do is to leave the helm in his hands. I have not had your good fortune in meeting with a man of the highest distinction, but I may perhaps have the satisfaction of helping him on the road to it. Five years hence let us meet in Paris and see! I believe we shall succeed in mystifying you. You will tell me then that I was quite mistaken, and that M. de l'Estorade is a man ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... But she knew that rumor was only the attenuated ghost of Ananias, doomed forever to remain on earth for the propagation of inaccurate whispers. Wax! Why, she would have trusted herself in any situation with a man with those eyes and that angle of jaw. It was all very mystifying. "Follow him; see where he goes." The frank discussion, then, and the calm dismissal were but a woman's dissimulation. And he had ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... the brown eyes smiled. His whole demeanor showed that he was more than ever hugely enjoying his own verbosity—the florid language which was both maddening and mystifying the tramp. ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... literature has actually furnished a basis to our own. Let us understand clearly what it is that Pope means to assert. For it is no easy matter to do that where a man dodges behind texts and notes, and shuffles between verse and prose, mystifying the reader, and designing to do so. Under the torture of cross-examination let us force Pope to explain what literature that is which, having glorified France, became the venerable mother of a fine English literature in an early stage of the fifteenth century? The ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... not a word, but no doubt his feelings were just as strong as those of his companion. And so they had now embarked on what seemed to be the last leg of the strange chase, with the future lying before them as mystifying as that fog bank lying far ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... of us now, computers, silicon chips, data processing, cybernetics, and all the other innovations of the dawning high technology age are as mystifying as the workings of the combustion engine must have been when that first Model T rattled down Main Street, U.S.A. But as surely as America's pioneer spirit made us the industrial giant of the 20th century, the same pioneer spirit today is opening up on ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... mystifying, and naturally it served only to pique my curiosity. A certain quality of loneliness which had seemed to belong to the village, even in the brightness of the summer evening, now asserted itself potently. Seated there in the quiet little inn parlor, I recalled that ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... he elaborated a romance or a keen and playful witticism—and who really did injustice to his own powers,—not from modesty but meanness,—even he, the son of a prime minister and heir to a peerage—a man who was himself always something of a trickster, now mystifying a blind old woman at Paris; now sending open letters, privately nullified, recommending the bearers to his friend the envoy at Florence; now, with the mechanic aid of village carpenters and bricklayers, rearing a frail edifice ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... bounds of sanity when I investigate and express such thoughts, opinions and findings as my reason and understanding dictate. No one can truthfully say that he possesses sufficient knowledge to account for or to explain the peculiar and mystifying rules, conditions and surroundings which we are forced to accept, abide by and live under. And, therefore, the result of one person's findings is worthy the same consideration as ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... their vivid hues of red and gold, but each one whirled around upon its stalk like a miniature wind-mill, completely dazzling the vision of the beholders and so mystifying them that they knew ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... subject. After all, there was something in him so different from other men, even from Arthur Campbell. There was always some deep, happy meaning to his simplest words, and his most commonplace conceptions of things were flavored with this mystifying attraction whatever it was. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... well-conducted periodical, The Irish Quarterly Review, which, in the number for September, 1852, after giving a most humorous account of a first interview between Blackwood and his wild Irish contributor, who had for more than a year been mystifying the editor by contributions under various ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... awhile we'd make a cow-hand out of him. See the wiggle he gets on himself now, will you?" Promptly at the hour, the herd were counted and corralled, Don Mateo Gonzales not troubling to appear, which was mystifying to the North Texas men, but Uncle Lance explained that a mere incident like selling seven hundred cattle was not sufficient occasion to arouse the ranchero of Santa Maria when his corporal could attend to ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... we have to live in matter, by matter, and for matter, to wind one's self up in a snarl that puts matter out of reach, and leaves us with nothing to live in, or by, or for! Now you, for instance, are not content with this poor old Nile as it stands, but must go fussing and wondering and mystifying about it till you have positively nothing of a river left. I look at the water, the banks, the trees growing on them, the islands in which we get occasionally entangled: here, at least, I have a real, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... in a stupor for some minutes, till a strange sensation succeeded the aforesaid perceptions, mystifying her intelligence, and leaving her physically almost inert. With his personal disappearance, the last three days of her life with him seemed to be swallowed up, also his image, in her mind's eye, waned curiously, receded far away, ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... every case she would have taken to discriminate. She was aware of how little she could judge of the value of a thing till she had looked at it ten minutes; indeed modest little Biddy was compelled privately to add "And often not even then." She was mystified, as I say—Nick was often mystifying, it was his only fault—but one thing was definite: her brother had high ability. It was the consciousness of this that made her bring out at last: "I don't so much care whether or no I please ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... bellow of the animal's voice has also undergone a marked change, now resembling nothing earthly, although some have remarked that it could be likened to the bay of an enormous hound. Some of its later actions have seemingly added further canine attributes, which make the matter all the more mystifying. Veterinaries are asking why this animal should chase automobiles, and why it should carry bones in its mouth ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... The picture, though full of beauty, is not the finest of the master's; but it serves again as well as another to transport—there is no other word—those of his lovers for whom, in far-away days when Venice was an early rapture, this strange and mystifying painter was almost the supreme revelation. The plastic arts may have less to say to us than in the hungry years of youth, and the celebrated picture in general be more of a blank; but more than the others any fine ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... in your being interesting. For you are! And my nerves—!" said Newton Winch with a face from which the mystifying smile had vanished, yet in which distinction, as Mark so persistently appreciated it, still sat in the midst ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... so too, but had some faith in Preston's and Mrs. Sandford's powers of transforming and mystifying the present very natural appearance of the performers. ]However, she was beginning to be of the opinion that it ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... is there stronger evidence of any perception, on the part of these much respected artists, that there were such things in the world as mists or vapors. If a cloud under their direction ever touches a mountain, it does it effectually and as if it meant to do it. There is no mystifying the matter; here is a cloud, and there is a hill; if it is to come on at all, it comes on to some purpose, and there is no hope of its ever going off again. We have, therefore, little to say of the efforts of the old masters, in any scenes which might naturally have been ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... was rolling the small end of a cigar in his mouth to prepare it for smoking, the regulations of the ship forbidding any further indulgence below; but when he received this assurance, he withdrew the tobacco with the sort of mystifying simplicity that gets to be a second nature with a regular votary of Neptune, and answered with a coolness of manner that was in ridiculous contrast to the affected ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... then, the Major has come, my dear Cleek, to ask you to help in unravelling a puzzle of singular and mystifying interest. Now you may or may not have heard of a Music Hall artiste—a sort of conjurer and impersonator combined—called Zyco the Magician, who was once very popular and was assisted in his illusions by a veiled but reputedly beautiful Turkish lady who was billed on the ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Bessie Benton for his society. He suspected, from Tom's style of talking, that he was "low and uneducated," and he would have given considerable to know that his hated rival had been a New York bootblack. But this knowledge he could not obtain from Tom. The latter delighted in mystifying him, and exciting suspicions which he afterward learned to ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... returned to his revolvers, while I went out of the shop, hailed a cab, and drove up-town to my apartments in Riverside. It was eight o'clock by my watch. I leaned back against the cushions, ruminating. There seemed to be something going on that night; the ten of hearts was acquiring a mystifying, not to say sinister, aspect. First it had alarmed the girl in Mouquin's, and now this stranger in the curio-shop. I was confident that the latter had lied in regard to his explanations. The card had startled him, but his reasons were altogether of transparent thinness. A man ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... perhaps, which can be devised to account for these passages, if it were possible to prove that the interpretation that the documents themselves suggest, must be rejected a priori; viz may not Leonardo have written them with the intention of mystifying those who, after his death, should try to decipher these manuscripts with a view to publishing them? But if, in fact, no objection that will stand the test of criticism can be brought against the simple and direct interpretation ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... mystifying several great personages, and two or three ladies whom the Emperor designated to me with such minute details that it was impossible to mistake them, and told me some singular things in regard to them, which were not generally known, and were well calculated ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... temptation of mystifying him a bit, I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths, so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and said, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... thanked for my good amends;" for up to that moment I was an ungrateful man for all this high and noble solicitude. One dark doubt shot for an instant across my brain. Maybe her ladyship had "registered a vow" never to syllable a name unchronicled by Debrett, or was actually only mystifying me for mere amusement. A minute's consideration dispelled this fear; for I found myself treated "en Seigneur" by the whole family. As for the daughters of the house, nothing could possibly be more engaging than their manner. The eldest, Lady Jane, was pleased from my near relationship ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... it. The Spaniard replied: "The leaf which you yourself have brought me has told me everything. Moreover, you reached my friend's house at such an hour and you left it at such another." In this way our people amuse themselves by mystifying these poor islanders, who think they are gods, with power to make the very leaves reveal what they believe to be secret. Thus the news spread through the island that the leaves speak in response ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... over and over again; it was very mystifying. Much depends in this world upon the humour people are in at the time; Mynheer Krause was, at that time, full of Cato-like devotion and Roman virtue, and he took the contents of the letter ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... mystifying plot, lovable characters, rapid and thrilling incident and delightful descriptions of English ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... me (whether he was not mystifying me I do not know, but Lady Caroline Lamb and others told me that he said the same both before and after he knew me) was founded upon 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers'. He told me that he did not care about poetry (or about ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... we stayed 2 dayes for the weather. We weare not without feare, thinking that the wildmen should follow us. They contrary wise stayed (as we heard) seaven nights, thinking that we weare asleepe, onely that some rose now and then, and rung the litle bell which stooke to the hogg's foot. So mystifying the businesse affaire, [they] went & brought news to the village, which made them come and looke over the pallisados, and saw in good earnest the ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... two insects was destroyed in coition, that state was not interrupted for two or three days. The insects on which are observed this remarkable circumstance, were the Cantharis oclemero, and some others. Spanish flies, you will say? That accounts for it; but at present we are not mystifying our indulgent readers. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... letter has puzzled and alarmed me. The more I think of it, the more mystifying it all becomes. I must see you, and you must tell me the truth—the whole truth. We love each other, dear heart, and no one shall force you to lie again to me as you did in that letter you wrote from Glencardine. You wish to see me, darling. You shall—and ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... and said: "Edna, do you know what he meant? He often amuses himself by mystifying me, and I will not gratify him by asking ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... commanded to leave the pen alone and stick to his wax, that his family might not become chargeable to the parish. He neglected this good advice, and continued his studies; burning minerals and purifying metals one day, and mystifying the Word of God on the next. He afterwards wrote three other works, as sublimely ridiculous as the first. The one was entitled Metallurgia, and has the slight merit of being the least obscure of his compositions. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... in his anxiety to save the literal account in Genesis, has urged that Jehovah tilted and twisted the strata, scattered the fossils through them, scratched the glacial furrows upon them, spread over them the marks of erosion by water, and set Niagara pouring—all in an instant—thus mystifying the world "for some inscrutable purpose, but for ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... to be on the best of terms. And once when something was said about a dog by Mr. Harrow, who hadn't heard anything of the midnight tumult in the dormitory, and was for continuing the account of his trained pet, the other under-teacher and Joel Pepper indulged in smiles and nods perfectly mystifying to all the other people at the ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... after this Thor seemed to have no object in life at all. There was nothing in the canyon to eat, and he wandered about among the rocks, smelling and listening and deporting himself generally in a fashion that was altogether mystifying to Muskwa. In the afternoon of the second day Thor stopped in a dump of jackpines under which the ground was strewn with fallen needles. He began to eat these needles. They did not look good to Muskwa, but something told the cub that he should do as Thor was doing; ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... was mystifying himself, because he was departing from right, the only true 'good sense.' His right judgment in all things was becoming obscured, so he talked metaphysical jargon, instead of plain practical truth, and thought he was teaching Laura to strengthen her powers of mind, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... excitement in their faces and in their actions. White uniformed policemen were flocking into the corridors; soldiers, coatless and hatless, fresh from their beds, came dashing upon the scene. There were excited cries, angry shouts and, snore mystifying than all, ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... fame; but he reflected that this would be indiscreet, since Colonel Capadose handled the brush—as a raconteur—with such freedom. There might be a ghost and there might not; but the Colonel himself, he inclined to think, was the most mystifying ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... (the letter said), "it was hard to leave without a last word. All the way here I have been thinking of our little talk—if that can be called a talk where one side has lost his senses and the other is trifling or mystifying. I told you that I loved you. I thrill even yet with the joy of that. You are so wayward and capricious, so coy, that I began to fear that I never could get your car long enough to tell you what I felt you must have long known. You didn't ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the bag. Was it Gwendolen's idea, taking a hint from him, to liberate this animal only on the basis of the renewal of such a relation? Was the figure in the carpet traceable or describable only for husbands and wives—for lovers supremely united? It came back to me in a mystifying manner that in Kensington Square, when I mentioned that Corvick would have told the girl he loved, some word had dropped from Vereker that gave colour to this possibility. There might be little in it, but there was enough ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... eyes to the ceiling of the cupola of the capitol to conceal her unparalleled embarrassment, making him a rough courtesy, and not harrassing him with mystifying, rarefying, and stupefying innuendoes, she gave him a couch, a bouquet of lilies, mignonette, and fuchsias, a treatise on mnemonics, a copy of the Apocrypha in hieroglyphics, daguerreotypes of Mendelssohn and Kosciusko, ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... turned his back on me. He, most likely, attached no great importance to what he had said to me, he had a reputation for mystifying, and was noted for his power of taking people in at masquerades, which was greatly augmented by the almost unconscious falsity in which his whole nature was steeped.... He only wanted to tease me; but every word he uttered was a poison that ran through my veins. The blood rushed to my head. 'Ah! ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... the story centers in London and Italy. The book is skilfully written and makes one of the most baffling, mystifying, exciting detective stories ever written—cleverly keeping the suspense and mystery intact until the surprising discoveries which ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... lips parting, his breath coming quickly. If his imagination had ever attempted to picture heaven, its wildest flight would have resembled but fallen short of that living beauty before him. It was mystifying, exalting. It was worth the dangers and discomforts of the past month multiplied by twelve, just to have one moment's glimpse of such perfection. And it was Los Angeles! A city of the Californias, built by Indian hands! No ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... may be doubted if the knowledge and acumen of prejudged scientific opponents, or the subtlety of orthodox special pleaders, have yet exerted their full force in mystifying the real issues of the great controversy which has been set afoot, and whose end is hardly likely to be seen by this generation; so that, at this eleventh hour, and even failing anything new, it may be useful to state afresh that which is true, and to put the fundamental positions advocated ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... had no camping outfit, a bulkily rolled slicker forming his only burden. He could not, then, be planning to take her much farther into the wilderness; yet if he did not hide her away, how could he expect to keep her? His motive for marrying her was rather mystifying. He did not seem sufficiently in love with her to warrant an abduction, and he was too cool for such a headlong action, unless driven by necessity. She wondered what he was thinking about as he rode. Not about her, she guessed, except when some bad place in the ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... been piecing things together. The result is rather curious, and still very mystifying, still leaving a deal to be explained, and somehow this wallet doesn't fit into ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... the city and its environs were very much intrigued. Such a thing was very exciting and mystifying; but it was so far out of touch with their own lives that it did not affect them very much at any time except when they were reading the paper or discussing it in conversation. The police were the ones who were doing the real worrying. And, when the following ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... [Footnote 24: The mystifying carefulness)—Ver. 21. By "obscuram diligentiam" he means that formal degree of precision which is productive ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... are a frightful grumbler. What interest can the State have in mystifying people's intellects in favour of revolutions, and civil and foreign wars? There must certainly be a great deal of exaggeration in ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... a thing to rejoice at:' I am one of those who cannot see the good that is to result from all this mystifying and blue-devilling of society. The contrast it presents to the cheerful and solid wisdom of antiquity is too forcible not to strike any one who has the least knowledge of classical literature. To represent vice and misery as the necessary accompaniments of genius, is as mischievous ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... period of almost utter unconsciousness, since we were both conscious of only one thing while it lasted; but the reaction came at last while she was still relaxed in my embrace, and while yet the mystifying magic induced by contact with her, enveloped ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... earnest young face. Mystifying as were her statements, Jean Brent had the appearance of honesty. Taking one of the girl's hands in both her own, she said, "I don't in the least understand you, Miss Brent, but I will respect ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... Embury; "he owns right up that it was a trick. Why, good heavens, man! if it hadn't been, he couldn't have done it at all. I'm rather keen to know just how he managed, though, for the yarn of Eunice and Aunt Abby is a bit mystifying." ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... laughter upon the stage were laborious on his part and mystifying to the thoughtful observer. He took noticeable means to change from his real self. It mattered not what was the nature of the part he filled, he invariably assumed an unnatural, rasping voice; he stretched his mouth ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... generally speaking, but their attractions are too irresistible to many, for them to suffer the season to pass over without once joining the gay throng, particularly to some who have a great delight in mystifying a friend or acquaintance, and telling them a few home truths under the protecting shield of a mask, having opportunities of so doing at the public balls without fear of being recognised; whereas concealment at private masquerades can seldom be preserved to the last. ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... mystifying story dealing with unexpected results of a wealthy M.P.'s experiment with a poor ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Doria, I elaborated her reasons for setting Adrian on his towering pinnacle. Liosha nodded. She understood. False gods, whatever degree of godhead they usurped, had for a time the mystifying power of concealing their falsehood. And during that time they were gods, real live dwellers on Olympus, flaming Joves to poor mortal Semeles. Liosha ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... sunburnt, were small and shapely; the bare foot in the wooden shoe might have worn without trouble Cinderella's magic slipper. Her clothes, coarse and homespun, were clean and variously mended. Her hair, in a thick braid, was the tone of the heart of a chestnut-bur, and her eyes were of that mystifying hazel, sometimes brown, sometimes gray, according to whether the sky was clear or overcast. And there was something above and beyond all these things, a modesty, a gentleness and a purity; none of the bold, rollicking, knowing manner so common in handsome peasant girls. He contemplated ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... with me, whom I would like you to meet. When you talk me over with Mildred and Barbara to find out their opinion of me and of what I have tried to tell you, you can explain to them that I am not alone. I realize that I have always been a mystifying acquaintance and I'm sorry, but it is not possible to tell you my history at present. Some day I may ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... Incidents follow one another with a wild and stupefying rapidity. Every moment is a crisis. The style is startlingly abrupt, and the short, disconnected paragraphs are fired off like so many pistol shots. The sequence of events is mystifying—Zastrozzi's motive for persecuting Verezzi is darkly concealed until the end of the story, for reasons known only to writers of the novel of terror. Shelley's romance, in short, is no better and perhaps even worse than that of the other disciples ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... at the same time earnestly gesticulating, "your lives, your country, and your honor depend upon right hearts." And thus the old Colonel exhorted each Company previous to its dismissal, amusing some and mystifying others. The heart was his theme, and time or place, a court-martial or a review, did not prevent the introduction ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... closing the door carefully and glancing about to assure himself they were alone. "I have had a long talk with young Jardin and it was very mystifying. You are mistaken about Frank, I think. He must have a bank account or something of the sort, because he has actually offered to buy that plane. I suspect he has offered very little for it, because Jardin would not tell me the price. But the deal is good as closed. Jardin is going to ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... Meggie was exceedingly ignorant of customs and things in her new home, and was continually making laughable mistakes, and asking the most absurd questions. This "greenness," as he called it, gave Archie immense delight, and he was never tired of mystifying and hoaxing the sweet-tempered little girl, who never resented his quizzings and practical jokes. Of course it never occurred to the silly boy that he was just as ignorant about India as ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... military occupation of the peninsula was necessary at this time, it was viewed with uneasiness; but none was prepared for what followed. Before peace was actually concluded, Russia approached China with a proposition for her permanent occupancy of—not the peninsula alone, but all of Manchuria. A mystifying proposition when we reflect that Japan was forced out of the southern littoral of Manchuria because her presence there threatened Korea, China, and the peace of the world. Port Arthur was no farther from Pekin and ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... had entered and left caused me considerable curiosity. Kemsley was one of those free, bluff, open-hearted, open-handed, men. He was never secretive, never elusive. I could only account for his curious, mystifying actions by the fact that the reputation of a woman was at stake—that he was acting for ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... fond of watching a clever conjuror and can pay enormous fees, but no Indian conjuror appears to appeal to them. A Western performer always wants to give his best to his audience and takes a pride in mystifying them. David Devant, who is one of the greatest living exponents has quite recently written an article in the Strand Magazine of his dreams of tricks that he would like to be able to do. To meet the late Charles Bertram "at home" was a study in itself. To have seen him playing, as a child ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... mystifying being! It was not until the absurdity of her last line broke upon him that he saw that this was only another side of Phil the inexplicable. She threw up her arm and signaled to her Uncle Amzi, who was approaching with Perry. The interruption was unwelcome. It had ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... excellent magazine ever since it came out, and though it needs a few corrections like the others, A. S. is nearly perfect. Why not have your pages evened up, and add a department of science on subjects such as Rocket Propulsion etc., so the readers could become familiar with the mystifying problems stated in the stories? Have the advertisements in the back, and don't change your artists ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... a full day for him. He returned to the perfect boarding house just at supper time. During the meal he realized that Mr. Bangs seemed to be trying to attract his attention. Whenever he glanced in that gentleman's direction his glance was met by winks and mystifying shakes of the head. Losing patience at last, he demanded to know what ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a crowbar, and a hydraulic jack, and even with drills and explosives as a last resort, Jackson, Kinney, and Van Emmon returned the same day to the walled-in room in the top of that mystifying mansion. The materials they carried would have made considerable of a load had not Smith removed enough of the weights from their suits to offset their burden. They reached the unopened door without special ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... Le Queux, who has been styled "The Master of Mysteries," has here woven one of his most mystifying tales. It is like a Chinese puzzle in its ingenuity, and holds the reader breathless from the ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... enjoy mystifying us," said Edwin. "Who knows but they are listening just now, and laughing in whatever they may ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... shillings!" Blush, Bristol, blush at this record of a citizen's meanness; the paltry remuneration could have hardly tempted even so poor a lad as Thomas Chatterton to continue his labors for the love of gain; yet he furnished Burgum with further information, loving the indulgence of his mystifying powers, and secretly satirizing the folly ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... fancied, and I hoped to find either the pine or the evening grosbeak, for both of which I had been making anxious search. The shifting of the song from point to point struck me as odd, and it was very mystifying. ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... most incomprehensible and mysterious person I ever met in my whole lifetime!' said Herbert, dryly. 'I believe you take a positive delight in deceiving and mystifying one. Do you seriously mean to tell me you feel any interest at the present time of day ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... understand one another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories, tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom .. you design for my bedfellow —a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the door into the hall of mysteries opening, but only to make disclosures dimmer and more mystifying still. The postponement of dreadful certainties enabled her, however, to say with some slight relief, "But this—this other person couldn't have been very fond of her himself if he—if he gave her up ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... a psychologist. Barnstable, true to his attitude of the plain business man, would have been the first to ridicule the idea publicly if anyone had dubbed him "the psychological detective." That, to his mind, would have savored of charlatanism. He would have said: "I am nothing so strange and mystifying as that—I am a plain business man." But in reality there was no new discovery of the investigating psychologists of which he did not avail himself at once. His ability to clothe himself with the thoughts ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... at Bela Palanka, and this morning it begins while I am eating breakfast, and continues a drenching downpour for over an hour. While waiting to see what the weather is coming to, I wander around the crooked and mystifying streets, watching the animated scenes about the bazaars, and try my best to pick up some knowledge of the value of the different coins, for I have had to deal with a bewildering mixture of late, and once ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... time straight south of my position. It was a riddle; annoying, yet interesting. Never in my mountain experience had I encountered such a mystifying situation. However, with grim determination, but little enthusiasm, I turned south. My curiosity was aroused. I wanted to see what sort of fool ran around in dizzy circles yelling for help, yet not waiting for an answer to his supplications, nor ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... minutes he returned with the mystifying news that Mr. Klutchem's letters had been sent to his apartment the night before, and that a telegram had just been received notifying his clerks that he would not ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... 'This Shakespeare is a queer man.' At times seeming irresponsible, he does not always seem reliable. There appears to be a certain—what shall I call it?—hidden sun, say, about him, at once enlightening and mystifying. Now, I should be afraid to say what I have sometimes thought that hidden ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... not shining and the winter was not congealing and the ardent expression of satisfaction was not mystifying any one speaking the language that have meaning. Any language is the same when they all speak a few words of some and some speak all the words they are using. It was not mingling beginning and ending. It was not disturbing spending ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... and is accessible by means of steps and a platform at one end. Through this boxlike tube the chief expert in spectroscopy (Dr. Bay-ley) spies on the spectrum of the gas, and learns some of its innermost secrets. But an even more mystifying apparatus is an elaborate array of long glass tubes, some of them carried to the height of several feet, interspersed with cups of mercury and with thermometers of various sizes and shapes. The technical scientist would not make much of this ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... daily, and write up the bosh concerts that advertise. Humbug, boys; rank humbug! Modern music is gone to the devil. Brahms was a fraud who patched up a compound of Beethoven and Schumann, put in a lot of mystifying harmonic progressions, and thought he was new. Verdi, the later Verdi was helped out by Boito: Just compare 'Otello' and 'Falstaff' with 'Mefistofele'! Dvo[vr]ak, old 'Borax' as they call him, went in for 'nigger' music ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... who saw the necessity of mystifying his companions a little, "you see, the captain towld me that I kum around, an' rekimminded me ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... activity not susceptible to measurement with the foot-rule, or analysis with the test tube, with the result that the newer Science of Psychology was invented to supply a reasonable and material explanation for the subtle and mystifying phenomena of ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... moved as if it were alive. Many other mysterious movements took place. Lombroso was very much disturbed by these inexplicable phenomena, and could not rest till he sat again. At the second seance spectral hands developed, profoundly mystifying every sitter, and Lombroso went away, promising to carry forward a study of spiritism. In a letter written the following June he manfully said: 'I am filled with confusion, and regret that I combated ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... not believe anything Dexter tells you!" interposed Lady Clarinda. "He delights in mystifying people; and he purposely misled you, I have no doubt. If all that I hear is true, he ought to know more of Helena Beauly's strange freaks and fancies than most people. He all but discovered her in one of her adventures (down in Scotland), ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... the foreign tribunal, prosecuting Him before this alien power, seeking His death from the hated Imperial government? What can He have done to bring about so unusual a situation? Pilate is perplexed; and the answer of Jesus does not clarify the magistrate's ideas. It seems only more mystifying. Jesus describes His kingdom, so different from any institution bearing the name that Pilate has ever heard of. It is not of the order of things in this world. If it were, of course Christ's servants would fight, ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... fancy and made her eager as a girl to have the plot carried into effect. What was to be accomplished by it, she did not trouble herself to define; it only gave her a kind of confused satisfaction to think that she was mystifying somebody who had for a long time been mystifying her. Roeschen was exactly of Miss Jones's height and their figures closely resembled each other. So when they were masked a microscope would be required to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... with Pablo at her heels, Bill Conway unburdened himself of a slightly ribald little chanson entitled: "What Makes the Wild Cat Wild?" In the constant repetition of this query it appeared that the old Californian sought the answer to a riddle not even remotely connected with the mystifying savagery of ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... only a leaf picked up by the edge of the storm in which Clark sat, its unapproachable center. The telegram compiled by Birch and signed by Wimperley, as president, was on his desk, just as the secretary had laid it before he went silently out, unable to meet the mystifying glance of those gray eyes. Clark had never moved nor looked up, nor did he till half an hour later, when he dictated a notice to be posted throughout the works. "All operations will temporarily cease this night at six o'clock. Employees will ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... was enlightening in some respects, it was mystifying in others. I did not interrupt, however, for ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... they were mystifying him, and began to curl his mustache and knit his eyebrows; but the knee of Mme. Coquenard gently ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... organic nature is to be spiritually blind. But to see it as something foreign to or separable from nature is to do violence to our faith in the constancy and sufficiency of the natural order. One star differeth from another in glory. There are degrees of mystery in the universe. The most mystifying thing in inorganic nature is electricity,—that disembodied energy that slumbers in the ultimate particles of matter, unseen, unfelt, unknown, till it suddenly leaps forth with such terrible vividness and power on the face of the storm, or till we summon it through the transformation ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... curtain aside to let her sweep through; and once more she turned back, gathering up her voluminous train, to repeat with a glance and accent, which I found mystifying: 'Remember, Monsieur! It is only ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... of these fascinating little books, which, to a few readers, have always meant so much, and which are every day becoming better known, is not the least curious in modern literature. On the appearance of "A Digit of the Moon" in 1899, the author's mystifying attributions to a Sanscrit original, and the skill with which he kept up the illusion of translation, completely took in even the best scholars, and this work was added to the Oriental Department of the British Museum Library. Later, however, the discovery was made that ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... of "The Bosom Serpent" is a husband's jealousy; and it is the self-forgetful devotion of his wife that finally cures his malady and relieves him of his unpleasant companion. The tale ends with one of those mystifying passages which Hawthorne weaves so skilfully, so that it is difficult to determine from the text whether there was a real serpent secreted under the man's clothing, or only an imaginary one,— although we presume the latter. Francis of Verulam says, "the best fortune for a husband ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... a man may be obliged to admit, in strict confidence between himself and his mirror, that he is not at all handsome, nevertheless he is certain that he has some occult influence over that strange, mystifying, and ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... shooting fast and high. Whatever she had done or left undone, he ought not to have been able to conceal that he was glad to see her—he ought not to have been able to think of Lady Dunstable first! She began to take a pleasure in mystifying him. ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... and laid down that rainbow stuff of dreams, delighting in it, speaking softly above it. Had he been the king's friend, St. George was asking—but why did no one know anything of him? Or had he been an enemy who had done the king violence—but how was that possible, in his age and feebleness? Mystifying as the matter was, St. George exulted as much as he marveled; for it would be his, at all events, to place the jewels in Olivia's hands and clear her father's name; he longed to step out of the dark and confront the old man and seize the casket out of hand, and he would probably have done so and ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... his accomplice are necessary to this mystifying game. The leader leaves the room while his accomplice passes around among the players, occasionally stopping in front of one of them, and with hands extending over the player's head says. "Hands Over Head." The leader answers ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... at Slains for some time. Meanwhile, she and Mr. Falconer met, but unknown to the latter, who about the same time became acquainted with a very dashing young cavalier, evidently a man of high birth and standing, but resolutely bent on mystifying his friends as to his origin. The two saw each other frequently, and were linked by that desultory companionship of London life which sometimes indeed ripens into friendship, but as often ends in a sudden quarrel. Such was the end of this acquaintance, and one day some trifling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... who spoke. How the man had got past the butler, who certainly had no love for him, was mystifying. Yet here he was, ready and ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... began, opening fire without further parley, "the major has come to ask your aid in a case of singular and mystifying interest. You may or may not have heard of a music-hall artiste—a sort of conjuror and impersonator—called 'Zyco the Magician,' who was assisted in his illusions by a veiled but reputedly beautiful Turkish lady who was billed on the programmes ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... bewildered by his finesse. And this delighted the young man beyond measure, making him feel himself master of a difficult situation. Mysteries had been woven before his eyes so persistently, of late, that it was a real pleasure to be able to do a little mystifying on his own account. By adopting this reticent and non-committal attitude, he was forcing the hand of a woman old enough to be his mother and most evidently a past-mistress in the art of misleading. All of which seemed very fascinating ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... which is so much harsher among people near the edge of pauperism, sometimes leaves ugly marks on character, and the charity visitor finds these indirect results most mystifying. Parents who work hard and anticipate an old age when they can no longer earn, take care that their children shall expect to divide their wages with them from the very first. Such a parent, when successful, impresses the immature nervous ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... pleased to learn from their trusty messenger that the citizens had advocated his cause not only from the consciousness of its being a just one, but also because they were assured of his zeal for the preservation of religion.(4) This was one of James's mystifying remarks which he was accustomed to throw out in order to raise the hopes of the Catholics, who questioned his title to the crown, whilst affording no cause for alarm or discontent among ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... believe you. A man is never so useful as when he moves in the dark. Women were born to mystify. Some of us do it one way—some in another. If you wear mannish clothes and a Bath-bun, it is because they become you extraordinarily well and because they form a disguise more complete and mystifying than anything ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... of the steelyard it was stated that a small item could balance a very large one whose position in point of balance was closer to the fulcrum, but to this point must be added the increase of weight and importance which isolation gives. These considerations need not be mystifying. ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... had effected an understanding of some vague and intangible kind between him and Sylvia Garrison. She might not approve of him, he had no idea that she did; but she had struck a chord whose vibrations pleased and tantalized. She was provocative and, to a degree, mystifying, and the abrupt termination of their talk seemed to leave the way open to other interviews. He thought of many things he might have said to her at the moment; but her period was not to be changed to comma ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... direction. Fortune or a will-o'-the-wisp? Or was Marishka calling to him? He had had the impression of her nearness often—there in the hospital—and since, at Selim Ali's—upon the road. It seemed strange and a little mystifying too, that he had never doubted that he would be able to find her.... And ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... pavement with his staff, as he had periodically done, whatever the weather, since I could remember the years of my life. I listened to the angry tapping, watched the urchins and curious folk gather for the show; and I was moved to regard the mystifying spectacle with an indulgent grin. The gray stranger, however, at that instant got ear of the patter of the staff and the clamor of derision. He cried upon me sharply to stand from the window; but I misliked this harsh manner of authority, and would not budge: ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... scorn his Raven's croak, And well may mock his mystifying cloak Inscribed with runes from tongues he has not read To make the ignoramus turn his head. The artificial glitter of his eyes Has captured half-grown boys. They think him wise. Some shallow player-folk esteem him deep, Soothed by his steady wand's mesmeric sweep. The little ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... supper was scarcely tasted; but on rising to go, our host explained to the 'Governor Sahib,' 'that the feast was his: it had been prepared for him; he had looked on it! it was his!' These polite assertions were a little mystifying, till one of the staff-officers, well versed in the manners of the natives, explained that the governor was expected to carry off what remained of the entertainment. It was really difficult to help laughing at the whimsical notion ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... Three. Three gooses instead of three graces," was Amy's addition, after which the three laughed in the fashion which Dorothy found so mystifying, and consequently objectionable. ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... cheerfulness which lingered for at least a half hour after the man himself had gone on his genial way. If, as Gerty Bridewell had once declared in a fit of exasperation, "Arnold Kemper consisted of a surface," he managed at least to present those mystifying ripples of personality which suggest to the imagination depths of pleasantness as yet undiscovered. Adams had lived to his present age by the help of few illusions—and he realised even now that the thing he liked in ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... asked irrelevantly and with a mystifying earnestness, "which do you think would kill a man quickest—a slash across the throat, or a stab in ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... her manner as she let her glance fall again upon the children. The gaiety super-imposed upon her customary staid gravity seemed to have made her, not younger or less mature, but less domestic, more complex and mystifying. And I found myself recalling Mr. Carville's contemptuous moralizings upon the illusory nature of love. I tried, foolish as it may seem, to place myself intellectually in the place of a woman like Mrs. Carville, to conceive her probable fundamental attitude towards her offspring, ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... seemed to carry to the prisoners a spirit of encouragement and reflect a ray of mercy into the dark corners of their hearts. They indulged the hope that some of those foreign uniforms might conceal trustworthy friends. And they recognized a basis for such a hope in the mystifying movements of one of those uniforms that met their notice day by day. It was near them at the palace when they were thrown upon a maddened world. They saw it following onward as they passed through pathless wilds. ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... the English Traveler said: "Gentlemen, I regard this Incident as Most Extraordinary and somewhat Mystifying. I fear that I am not sufficiently acquainted with your Vernacular to grasp the full Purport of what has occurred here. Will you ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... end every purely destructive programme is inevitably futile, because it goes against the grain. For all conduct is constructive in motive, and forward in direction. But how wasteful is the momentary fury—wasteful of high passion and distinguished capacity, and how mystifying ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... Here they were lured aside and to the north to pretty Woodland, where Billy drove team for a fruit farm, and where Saxon wrung from him a reluctant consent for her to work a few days in the fruit harvest. She made an important and mystifying secret of what she intended doing with her earnings, and Billy teased her about it until the matter passed from his mind. Nor did she tell him of a money order inclosed with a certain blue slip of paper in a ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... sweat forming on his forehead, for it was beginning to look remarkably as though there was but one entrance to the vault—that through which they had come—and that all these other passages were either natural, or had been cut simply with the idea of mystifying ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood |
