"Perplexity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sought John Turner in his apartment in the Avenue D'Antan, almost within a stone's throw of the British Embassy. There are some to whom one naturally turns in time of trouble and perplexity, while the existence of others who are equally important in their own estimation is at such moments forgotten. Our fellows seem to move around us in a circle—some step out of the rank and touch us as they pass—one, if it please God, comes out and ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... taken at once, and from eight o'clock until ten minutes to nine the following night Messrs. Kidd and Brown did their best to win it. Then did Mr. Kidd, turning to Mr. Brown in perplexity, inquire with many redundant words what ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... choked with agony. On her chair, Berna drooped wearily. Her wide, staring eyes were fixed on the floor in pitiful perplexity. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... came to a branch, walked in the water for some distance. At a place of this sort, the pursuers were for some time wholly unable to find at what point the Indians had left the branch, and began to despair of regaining their trail. In this extreme perplexity, one of the company was attracted by an indication of their course, which proved that the daughters shared the sylvan sagacity of their parents. "God bless my dear child," exclaimed Colonel Calloway; "she has proved that she had strength ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... Mme. de Combray hear that Lefebre had fainted during an examination, and was not in a condition to write. But she did not slacken her correspondence, and wrote several letters daily to the lawyer, which greatly increased Licquet's perplexity: ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... advantages of the free system over slavery. He replied thus: 1st. The diminished expense of free labor. 2d. The absence of coercion. 3d. The greater facility in managing an estate. Managers had not half the perplexity and trouble in watching, driving, &c. They could leave the affairs of the estate in the hands of the people with safety. 4th. The freedom from danger. They had now put away all fears ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... sack upon his shoulders in silence, and strode away with a swelling heart, in which a tumult of anger and perplexity was raging. 'If I had only a commandment about these things!' he thought. He was not quite certain whether it would not have been best and wisest to fight with Tim and have it out; especially as Tim was all the time taunting him for being a coward. But his father had read ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... his mother as to verify and strengthen his own opinions. At times he halted, finding no words, and then he saw before him a disturbed face, in which dimly shone a pair of kind eyes clouded with tears. They looked on with awe and perplexity. He was sorry for his mother, and began to speak again, about herself ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... opened the door of the closet. The little marks that he and Doctor Wells had made with the paper-knife were sufficient evidence to bring back the reality of each incident and to plunge Teeny-bits into a gloomy perplexity from which not even the crisp brightness of the November day or the prospect of the Jefferson ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... radically insufficient. He had not given an adequate explanation of the facts. The recognition of the insufficiency of his reasoning was highly important if only as a stimulus to inquiry. It was a warning to his and to Hartley's followers that they had not thoroughly unravelled the perplexity but only cut the knot. But when the insufficiency of the explanation was interpreted as a demonstration that all explanation was impossible, and the 'intuition' an ultimate 'self-evident' truth, it became a refusal to inquire just where inquiry was wanted; a positive command to stop analysis ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... but in spite of perplexity at what she regarded as Mrs. Hunter's recognition of her lover's face and forgetfulness of his name, she could not help noticing her excited talk to her sister, and the meaning glances finally directed toward her, Elizabeth. Whereat, to hide a little rosy flush, Miss Waldron turned more ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... personally and absorb our interest in the hours of daily work. We remind ourselves of those things that are greater than we are, of those principles by which we believe our hearts to be elevated, of the more difficult things that we must undertake in these days of perplexity when a man's judgment is safest only when it follows ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... as I spoke. Was this new interest that I had so innocently aroused, an interest in Mellicent? Her next question only added to my perplexity. Her next question proved that my guess had completely failed to ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... limbs and chest, and the hump on the back, have caused much perplexity among naturalists; but, perhaps, their purpose may be explained. They seem to bear some relation to the necessities of the animal, considered as the slave or man. The callosities are the points on which it kneels down to receive its burden. The hump, ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... situation and a dawning perplexity on the man's face. He propped his stick carefully against the counter and leaning over it, said ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... her with some perplexity; the girl's face was vaguely familiar to her, yet at the same time she felt perfectly certain that she had never seen her before. She wondered whether she were any relation to the man with her, but there was no particular resemblance between the two, except that both ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... 1787 he wrote: "A good rent would induce me to let the fishery that I have no trouble or perplexity about it." The Diary shows a good deal more interest during the early years in how the fish ran than it does later. ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... importunately active? If that was so, why did not he still wish to make his phrases about his like, to reproduce their effect in composite portraiture? Eugenio fell into a state so low that nothing but the confession of his perplexity could help him out; and the friend to whom he owned his mystifying, his all but appalling, experience did not fail him in his extremity. "No," he wrote back, "it is not that you have seen all these people, and that they offer ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... past two, and he remorsefully summoned a servant. He gazed with bewilderment at the list of dinner dishes tended him; bear's meat, he felt, canvas back duck or terrapin, was not a diet proper to seven; but he solved the perplexity by ordering snipe, rolled and sugared cakes filled with whipped cream and preserved strawberries, and a deep apple pandowdy. After this, and a block of nougat, Eunice discovered herself to be sleepy. As she lay with tossed ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... what was in prospect, but laid aside her distaff and proceeded to don a great coarse apron, and to unbutton and turn back her sleeves, leaving her pretty round white arms bare for her culinary task. But there was a little pucker of perplexity and vexation on her forehead, which was not caused by any ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... sorry to receive the money," thought Herbert, who was quick in reading the faces of others. "I wonder why?" and he gazed at the visitor in some perplexity. ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... One tribe plotting to attack another—that is all; but as a friend of mine dwells just now with the tribe to be secretly attacked, it behoves me to do what I can to save him. I am perplexed, however. It would seem sometimes as if we were left in perplexity for wise purposes which are ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... was as well as possible, ordered her not to go and make any more fuss, and left her hastily. She was unhappy, and far from satisfied; she had never known his temper so much affected, and was much puzzled; but she was too much afraid of vexing him, to impart her perplexity even to Margaret. However, the next day, Sunday, as she was reading to Margaret after church, her father came in, and the first thing he said was, "I want to know what ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... can't hear what she is singing about, which is not seldom—leads more quickly to the wrinkles of perplexity than even does the problem of how to circumvent the culinary soarings of Mrs. Beaton, and yet obtain the same results . . . with eggs at the price they are! If some producing genius had not conceived the idea of ending off nearly every musical-comedy ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... are touchy!" exclaimed poor Lydia in perplexity and distress. "Only one word: you haven't been doing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... propositions, 'He may study,' 'He might study,' 'He could study,' affirms an ability or power to study."—Hallock's Gram. of 1842, p. 76. "The divisions of the tenses has occasioned grammarians much trouble and perplexity."—Ib., p. 77. "By adopting a familiar, inductive method of presenting this subject, it may be rendered highly attractive to young learners."—Wells's Sch. Gram., 1st Ed., p. 1; 3d, 9; 113th, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... what he means. You are supposed to see and appreciate the smallest gestures of a good actor; but you do not see all the gestures of a conjuror, if he is a good conjuror. Hence, into the critical estimate of such works as this, there is introduced a problem, an extra perplexity, which does not exist in other cases. I mean the problem of the things commonly called blinds. Some of the points which we pick out as suggestive may have been put in as deceptive. Thus the whole conflict between a critic with one theory, like Mr. Lang, and a critic with ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... from what quarter it comes. No one who has not seen a fog on the Banks can quite imagine its dense opaqueness. When it settles down on a large fleet of fishermen, with hundreds of dories out, the peril and perplexity of the skippers are extreme. In one instant after the dull gray curtain falls over the ocean, each vessel is apparently as isolated as though alone on the Banks. A dory forty feet away is invisible. The great fleet of busy schooners, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... think the fox enjoys the chase as much as the hound, especially when the latter runs slow, as the best hounds do. The fox will wait for the hound, will sit down and listen, or play about, crossing and recrossing and doubling upon his track, as if enjoying a mischievous consciousness of the perplexity he would presently cause his pursuer. It is evident, however, that the fox does not always have his share of the fun: before a swift dog, or in a deep snow, or on a wet day, when his tail gets heavy, he must put his best foot forward. As a last resort ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... she told me her concerns," pursued Miss Grant, "and in what a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about yourself, with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had found herself after you was gone away. And then I minded at long last, says she, that we were kinswomen, and that Mr. David should have given you the name of the bonniest of the bonny, and I was thinking to myself, 'If she is so bonny she will be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to tell the truth and clear yourself?" asked Celia, in a low voice, her lips parted now, with a perplexity, a vivid interest. ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... to be profitable to me pecuniarily; but in these respects Fate runs so uniformly counter to me, that I dare not expect ever to be free from perplexity and uncongenial labor. Still, these will never more be so hard to me, if I shall have done something good, which may survive my troubled existence. Yet it would be like the rest, if by ill health, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... their long gaze and settled on him full of an intelligence which deepened his perplexity. "You have not learned to know me yet; death is not more inexorable or time more tireless than I. This week has seemed one of indolent delight to you. To me it has been one of constant vigilance and labor, for scarcely a look, act, or word of mine has been without effect. At first I ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... working. It takes more out of you. And it puts more into you, too, of fine-grained, steady strength, if you can stand the strain of it. And if, to the waiting is added perplexity, the pull upon your strength is much greater. It is harder to hold steady, and not break. And if the thing you've put your very life into seems at stake, that taxes the wearing power of your strength ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... would call it bravado—with which he thus finished the story of his relations with the dead heiress, seemed to be more than Mr. Challoner could stand. With a look of extreme pain and perplexity he vanished from the doorway, and it fell to Dr. Heath ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... could not be expected to divine. One point alone seemed clear to a man — no longer so very young — who had lately come from a seven years' residence in London. He thought he knew as much as any one in Washington about England, and he listened with the more perplexity to Mr. Sumner's talk, because it opened the gravest doubts of Sumner's sanity. If war was his object, and Canada were worth it, Sumner's scheme showed genius, and Adams was ready to treat it seriously; ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Him to do? It seemed highly incredible, not to say impossible, in the very nature of it. And if He did, would He make one person sick for the sake of making another person sorry? These questions were answerless, like so many of the others; but after the perplexity had been pushed aside, the ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... about forty years old. My father's given name was Jeremiah, and the Chaplain almost invariably, when speaking to me, would, in a grave, deliberate manner, address me as "Son of Jeremiah." When I mentioned to him my perplexity above indicated, he responded: "Son of Jeremiah, let not your heart be troubled. The Lord will provide." Knowing that what he said could be depended upon, I asked no questions. The precious document giving me thirty-days leave of absence was delivered to me in due time, and ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... so remote, it seemed so long ago that he had wanted to find an excuse for meeting Claire again, that for a moment Bill hesitated in actual perplexity, and before he could speak Elizabeth had answered ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... his silence, and it served to deepen her own perplexity. She was sure of only one thing—that she ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... him, had already become an unbeliever and thrown up the design of preaching, and he could not bear to think of adding to his father's trials by deserting the standard. Yet his distress and perplexity were so great that at times he seriously contemplated going into some ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... are occupied with that standing puzzle to Old Testament worthies—the good fortune of bad men, and the bad fortune of good ones. The former recounts the personal calamities of David, its author. The latter gives us the picture of the perplexity of Asaph its writer, when he 'saw the prosperity ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... efforts gave rise to no ideas and did not bring out a word. The Countess, with feminine tact and obeying her instincts of a woman of the world, tried to answer him two or three times, but in vain. She could not find words, in the perplexity of her mind, and her own voice almost frightened her in the silence of the large room, where nothing else was heard except the slight sound of plates ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... ten years nothing had changed, as if in the meantime there had not been funerals, births, sorrows, illnesses, cares and—for him, at least—so much good fortune and fame. Involuntarily she shook her head. A kind of perplexity in the face of so much that was incomprehensible came over her. Even the roaring of the train, which was carrying her along to unknown adventures, seemed to her as a chant of remarkable sadness. Her thoughts went back to the time, by no means remote, ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... that they came at last to a seat under a grove beside a long piece of water bearing water lilies, and sat down and made a beginning with the Good Talk. Then indeed she tried to gather together the heads of her perplexity and Mr. Brumley did his best to do justice to confidence she reposed ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... with its mixture of friendliness and reserve, she mechanically rubbed her forehead with her finger tips as though the action might assist in catching some elusive memory that was just beyond her reach. Her brows knit in perplexity ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... life, the deadening influence of routine, the duties that are felt to be overwhelmingly great and those that are felt to be wearisomely and monotonously small! How this unity of motive would give unity to life and simplify its problems! How it would free us from many a perplexity! There are so many things that seem doubtful because we do not bring the test of the highest motive to bear on them. Complications would fall away when we only wished to know and be like Christ. Many a tempting amusement, or occupation, or speculation would start up in its ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... his head again, and uttered a simple prayer for the man who was the occasion of so much trouble and perplexity to his father's family. He prayed that God would forgive his sins for Jesus' sake, and make him a good man. It was very pleasant to hear Eddie pray thus, and to witness his kind and ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... found those of men whose advancement would have provoked a storm of opposition, and whose reputation for loyalty rested upon the flimsiest basis. Charles thrust the paper in his pocket, and dismissed Monk with the most flattering commendation of his own merits. In his perplexity he turned to Hyde, and desired him to expostulate with the General, and his dependant, Mr. Morrice. Hyde had never before met either Monk or Morrice, and his first interview promised to be a disagreeable one-preceded, as it was, by suspicions which ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... pulling at his moustache in great perplexity, "I say—what the deuce are we to do with these people? Get up, little chappie, and take ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... severe exercise. Walking, it would be, I feared, since, for me, that idea was inseparably associated with the visual impression of Fyne. Where, why, how, a rapid striding rush could be brought in helpful relation to the good Fyne's present trouble and perplexity I could not imagine; except on the principle that senseless pedestrianism was Fyne's panacea for all the ills and evils bodily and spiritual of the universe. It could be of no use for me to say or do ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... very sore, the heat of anger past, but the smart of it remaining, when he journeyed back from the city later in the day. And not only that after-smart, but a perplexity held him. For two strange faces had looked into his during the last few hours—those of Loneliness and Freedom. He had taken for granted, in a general sort of way, that such personages existed and exercised a certain jurisdiction in human affairs. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... awaiting solution; questions of great perplexity and embarrassment, though of a domestic and peaceful character; some of them the more perplexing because they bore upon 'those jealousies of race which are the sources of almost all our difficulties in India.' But as regards such questions his ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... always did when longing to speak right out, but afraid to do so; he took hold of his lower lip with thumb and forefinger and twirled it back and forth turning it over and under. Clarence's little sister appeared whilst he was thus engaged, and seeing the sadness of his eyes and the perplexity of his mouth and fingers, she ventured to say, "It is too bad, and Clarence said it was, and that he did not mean to upset the type, but that you got him so provoked he could not help it, and that you could come and pick it out if you choose, 'cause it was yours; but he—" ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... no personal cause—none in Caesar's past conduct as a man? Had he not passed the Rubicon? Had he not entered Rome as a conqueror? Had he not placed his Gauls in the Senate?—Shakespeare, it may be said, has not brought these things forward—True;—and this is just the ground of my perplexity. What character did Shakespeare mean his ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... little scented boxes, like backgammon men or chess-pieces, or mother-of-pearl counters! But by Jove! even this is nothing to your surprise when you go down into the cabin. There you get into a torture of perplexity. As, what became of all those lanterns hanging to the roof when the Junk was out at sea? Whether they dangled there, banging and beating against each other, like so many jesters' baubles? Whether the idol Chin Tee, of the eighteen arms, enshrined in a celestial Punch's Show, in the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... comprehend how the mere fact of diminishing the size of the various objects, by increasing the distance, could enhance their loveliness; and I asked myself whether all far-off things were handsomer than those close at hand? In my perplexity I went as usual to Mr. Ruskin, wondering whether he had ever noticed the same thing; and of course he had, and has a noble passage about it in one of his books on architecture. I will see if my memory appreciates it as it deserves: 'Are not all natural things, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... tearing him up for his impudent flattery. The fox, who had witnessed all this, and how both the simplicity of the bear and the flattery of the wolf had given equal offence to the lion, was in great perplexity what to answer when it came to his turn. He went forward, however, and being interrogated as the others had been whether the smell of the den was disagreeable, he replied modestly that he could not ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... honors and donations, but also answers questions from Lydians, Phrygians, Etruscans, Romans, etc.: it is not exclusively Hellenic. One of the valuable services which a Greek looked for from this and other great religious establishments was, that it should resolve his doubts in cases of perplexity; that it should advise him whether to begin a new, or to persist in an old project; that it should foretell what would be his fate under given circumstances, and inform him, if suffering under distress, on what conditions the gods would grant ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Otto Relstaub, on the day that he and Jack Carleton were captured by the band so near their own home. More than that, Jack had seen the others that same morning in the village at the war feast, though the recollection of them was so shadowy that it had not caused him the perplexity produced by the appearance ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... on a bridge in an English town (it was Chester) many times astonished me with the rapidity of his hand-reading, and by the wonderful light of his face. It was wholly free from the perplexity which most of us show. It must arise in us from being attracted by ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... this time with perplexity in his voice. For Luttrell was there in the cabin in front of him, but sunk in so deep a contemplation of memories and prospects that the cabin might just as well have been empty. Sir Charles Hardiman ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... my spirit's depths there comes a change; Relieved from dark perplexity I feel, Free as a god, and all I owe ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... preened his opal breast; And o'er the meads the bobolink, With vexed perplexity confessed His tinkling gutturals in a kink, Or giggled round his ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... the scrap of gossip that had filtered through to me, which Carton received in quite as much perplexity ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... compartment in that end of the vessel. They searched the engine room and all other sections; but there was no sign of Davis; Lord Hastings scratched his chin in perplexity. ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... enquire of Elizabeth when she expected to leave Exeter, being surprised to see her sitting there in her school dress when the others were either packing or already leaving. She told them the possibility of her remaining at the Hall for the holiday season. At this Landis wrinkled her brow in perplexity, and pondered ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... a time in much perplexity, but the arrival of the Duke of Beaufort, who had broken prison at Vincennes, put heart into the people, who took him for their liberator. Other great personages threw in their lot with the popular cause; a large war-chest was quickly raised and troops were levied, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... Oscar, laughing, "I used to leave him at a street corner, and dodge into a doorway. It was amusing to see his perplexity when he looked about, and ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... worked at the salt-furnaces, and by that gained a few florins; people said he would have worked better and kept his family more easily if he had not loved his pipe and a draught of ale too well; but this had only been said of him after his wife's death, when trouble and perplexity had begun to dull a brain never too vigorous, and to enfeeble further a character already too yielding. As it was, the wolf often bayed at the door of the Strehla household, without a wolf from the mountains coming down. Dorothea was one of those ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... took it moderately. Still he was its slave. A man of marvellous genius, a master of the English tongue, he had not full mastery of his own appetite; and one of such talent, bound Andromeda-like to the rock of his vice, ready to be devoured in the sea of his perplexity by what is worse than the dragon of the story, he deserves our pity, nay, even our tears. He tells us how he was troubled with tumultuous dreams and visions, how he was a participant in battles, strifes; and how agonies seized his soul, and sudden alarms ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... comes to the worst. By this means the breed about his house has time to increase and multiply, beside that the sport is the more agreeable where the game is the harder to come at, and where it does not lie so thick as to produce any perplexity or confusion in the pursuit. For these reasons the country gentleman, like the fox, seldom preys near his ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... experience the next day. But a dozen times Frank Merrill stopped his work to gaze out to sea, an expression of perplexity on his face. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... this with some awe, but with more perplexity. She could not understand why anyone should struggle so much, or why a youth should take such a sombre view of things. But she was perfectly willing to seem like a "goddess" to anyone, and she was glad if that helped him. She was touched ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Ben, whose sea tales were one of Nancy's chiefest joys, and whose wooden leg was her greatest perplexity, I felt deserved some recognition of his service, and, to shorten the telling, in less than a month these houses were occupied as Nancy had desired they should be—Father Michel being given the large one, with Nancy's ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... the effects rather of blind terror than of enlightened foresight. But the few to whom I wish to submit my thoughts are of a character which will enable them to see danger without astonishment, and to provide against it without perplexity. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... reputed to have been a man of fine countenance, wise in homely counsel, honest in all his dealings. Rachel Leah, his wife, had a reputation for practical wisdom even greater than his. She was the advice giver of the village in every perplexity of life. My father remembers his grandmother as a tall, trim, handsome old woman, active and independent. Satin headbands and lace-trimmed bonnets not having been invented in her day, Rachel Leah wore the stately knupf or turban on her shaven ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... cotton than they wanted to is entertaining, though a little troublesome to us in making out the pay-roll. Mr. Palmer, Mr. Soule's assistant, counted sixteen acres of cotton on the place. But the several accounts of the people on the place added up only fourteen and a half acres. In this perplexity, Tony was appealed to, who explained the difficulty thus. The land was laid off in rows, twenty-one to the task, each row being one hundred and five feet long. Tony staked off the tasks anew, throwing twenty-four ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... Systems.—The extreme divergence in the chronological schemes employed by different writers on the history of Babylonia and Assyria has frequently caused no small perplexity to readers who have no special knowledge of the subject. In this section an attempt is made to indicate briefly the causes which have led to so great a diversity of opinion, and to describe in outline the principles underlying the chief schemes of chronology that have been suggested; a short account ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... struck the minds of these high-born ladies with less perplexity and awe than the vulgar souls without, were the portents and horrors of the heaven, without due effect. No mind in those days, however clear and enlightened, but held some lingering belief that such things were ominous of coming wrath, and sent by the Gods to ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... his assistant, and seemed to enjoy the part she took in his labor. They worked till noon, Elizabeth stopping hardly a moment to rest. All this while the prisoner stood watching by his window, and the gardener saw him. The sight occasioned him a new perplexity, and he gravely considered the subject. It was a good while before he said to Elizabeth, speaking on conviction, in his usual ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... upon this brief space of time that the gipsy had calculated for accomplishing his own descent and that of his companion. He had allowed the soldier to proceed twice along the whole length of his post, meaning to avail himself of the third turn he should take. But to his surprise and perplexity, when the man passed for the third time, he left his usual track, moved some twenty paces backwards from the house, and gazed up at Herrera's window. Apparently he could distinguish nothing; for, after remaining a few moments stationary, he again approached the wall of the house, looked cautiously ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the enemy and rush of armed men through the city throws everything into confusion with fire and sword: but gloomy silence and speechless sorrow so stupefied the minds of all, that, through fear, paying no heed as to what they should leave behind, what they should take with them, in their perplexity, making frequent inquiries one of another, they now stood on the thresholds, now wandering about, roamed through their houses, which they were destined to see then for the last time. When now the shouts of the horsemen commanding them to depart became urgent, and the crash of the dwellings ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... expect no gratitude either. Meanwhile though the gifts were adequate, there were more en route, so many that they would lift him within hailing distance of the richest men in the world. Though whether that were worth five minutes of perplexity, ten minutes of tears, a row and, possibly, your name in the papers, depended ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the generality of minds; but to overcome this difficulty, when one has a mind eager for emotion, variable, with width and depth capable of discerning simultaneously the for and against of every thing, and thus being necessarily exposed to perplexity of choice, it is surely marvellous if a mind so constituted be also constant. Now, Lord Byron personified this marvel. In him was seen the realization of that rare thing in nature, intellectual versatility combined with unswerving principle; ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... long time trying to think of some way out of her troubles. At last, when she had become more calm, she arose, exchanged her beautiful evening dress for a wrapper, and then wrote a long letter to Wallace, telling him all about her perplexity and suspicions, begging him to send her some news of himself and to ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... them an account of Prosper's examination, the many charges brought against him, his obstinate denial of having stolen the money; and finally how, after great perplexity and close study of the case by the judge of instruction, the cashier had been discharged for want of sufficient proof ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... whipped out the ivory-mounted revolver, and aiming at a low flat rock, some distance away, fired. She was an unusually good revolver shot, but this time she seemed to have missed. There was no mark on the stone. Diana stared at it stupidly, a frown of perplexity creasing her forehead. Then she looked at her brother, and back to the revolver ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... a sort of quandary between the Christian faith and Islam. The first two, Waraka and Othman, were cousins of Mohammed's wife, and the third, Obadulla, was his own cousin. Zaid, the last of the four, presents to us a very pathetic picture. He lived and died in perplexity. Banished from Mecca by those who feared his conscientious censorship, he lived by himself on a neighboring hillside, an earnest seeker after truth to the last; and he died with the prayer on his lips, "O God, ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... His red right hand, yet merciful to stay that hand when we have taken our punishment meekly. That, Angela, is the nearest my mind can reach to the idea of a personal God. But do not bend those pencilled brows with such a sad perplexity. You know, doubtless, that I come of a Catholic family, and was bred in the old faith. Alas! I have conformed ill to Church discipline. I am no theologian, nor quite an infidel, and should be as much at sea in an argument with Hobbes as with Bossuet. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... return, he came forward boldly and at once to meet and even to court the inquiry I had instituted; he did more,—he demanded on what ground, besides my own word, it rested that this packet had ever been in my possession; and, to my surprise and perplexity, it was utterly impossible to produce the smallest trace of Mr. Marie Oswald. His half-brother, the attorney, had died, it is true, just before the event of that night; and it was also true that he had seen Marie on his death-bed; ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at Hammond, which was our place to disembark. Mother sent out to hire a negro to carry me off the platform; and while waiting in great perplexity, a young officer who had just seated himself before me, got up and asked if he could assist her, seizing an arm full of cloaks as he spoke. I got up and walked to the door to appear independent and make believe I was not the one, when mother begged him not ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... a study in perplexity now. In the past we had befriended the young Aziz, and it was hard to look upon him in the light of an enemy. Yet had we not ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... love, spiritual judgment, etc., they have confidence, I would advise them to do so. I know from my own experience, how often the snare of the devil has been broken, when under the power of sin; how often the heart has been comforted, when nigh to be overwhelmed; how often advice, under great perplexity, has been obtained,—by opening my heart to a brother in whom I had confidence. We are children of the same family, and ought therefore to ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... looked at his mother as he spoke; a grave, frank, most manly expression filling his face. Mrs. Dallas met the look with one of intense worry and perplexity. 'What do you mean?' she said helplessly; while a sudden shove of her husband's chair spoke for his mood of mind, in its irritated restlessness. 'Marks?' she repeated. 'Christians are not marked from ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... hour, as if the bishop's success up there hung on the efficiency with which this work of his earlier appointment should be done, down here, in his absence. She saw in the exhorter a tragic as well as comic problem. Nor was he her only perplexity. Another, she feared, might easily arise through some clash of any two kinds of worshippers each devoted to its own set forms. Certain main features, she knew, had been carefully prearranged, yet as the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... rather enjoyed his brother's perplexity, and to see when the Baronet rode the high horse, how he came down sometimes, "I am sure it does you very great credit," gasped the courtly head of the firm, "to remember a—a humble friend and connexion of our father's ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... happened to show that water was industrious, if all the heat was in a sitting-room and darkness settled down over a lamp, if all this happened separately there would be the same astonishment as in every case and yet the whole endurance of perplexity is under what is not ever over and exasperated. All the extreme respect is countenanced, all the satin shoes have soles, all of them and ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... later found the bishop's original state of perplexity and insomnia returned and intensified. He had done none of all the things that had seemed so manifestly needing to be done after his vision in the Athenaeum. All the relief and benefit of his experience in London had vanished out ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... true,—for him. There is not much resemblance between the Dean and M. Theodore de Banville, except that the latter too is a poet who has little honour out of his own country. He is a charming singer at Calais; at Dover he inspires un morne etonnement (a bleak perplexity). One has never seen an English attempt to describe or estimate his genius. His unpopularity in England is illustrated by the fact that the London Library, that respectable institution, does not, or did not, possess a ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... in great perplexity And sorrow, and I call upon thy friendship To succour me, by frank and free confession Of all ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... face was a picture of perplexity and indignation when she came to read the story all through. There was clearly no sensible ending possible, and ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... marvelling and musing over the new course upon which his destiny had entered, he forgot to take heed of that which his feet should pursue; so that, after wandering unconsciously onward for some time, he suddenly halted in perplexity and amaze to find himself entangled in a labyrinth of scattered suburbs, presenting features wholly different from the road that had conducted him to the archery-ground in the forenoon. The darkness of the night had ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sun, slanting in through a small window, found Major Studholme seated at his table lost in deep thought. The letter Dane had brought was lying open before him. Occasionally he glanced toward it, and each time his brow knitted in perplexity. At length he rose and paced rapidly up and down the room. With the exception of the table and a few stools this office was destitute of any furniture. It was as bleak as the hill upon which Fort Howe was ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... who was sitting next to Mr. Sagittarius, shifted her chair nearer to the Prophet, and whispered, "I'm sure he is dangerous, Mr. Vivian!" while Mrs. Merillia, in the greatest perplexity, replied,— ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... of an age slightly beyond kittenhood. They were of a breed unfamiliar to Florence, and she did not obey the impulse that usually makes a girl seize upon any young cat at sight and caress it. Instead, she looked at them with some perplexity, and after a moment inquired: "Are they really cats, Kitty Silver, do ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... yesterday in some perplexity, and no very good humour, to Mr. Kinnaird, to inform me about Newstead and the Hansons, of which and whom I hear nothing since his departure from this place, except in a few unintelligible ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... fear," said he, decidedly. "Let the plan go on." After a minute, he added, "But I am glad it was so far arranged before I heard of it. My indecision about right and wrong—my perplexity as to how far we are to calculate consequences—grows upon ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... great comfort, when the dream grows troubled and alarming, to feel that it is only a dream, and to know that we shall awake soon and be none the worse for it. We can dream out the foolish perplexity with ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... invited me to take coffee with her; and when she heard of my perplexity with respect to a lodging, she offered me a room in her house. On the following day, I visited the governor, who received me very politely, and overpowered me with favours,—I was obliged to move into his house ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... of books and papers, some of them arranged in formal order, others disarranged by present use into that irregular order which seems chaotic to every eye but one, while for that one the displacement of a single sheet would insure perplexity and loss of time. But neither spreading table nor towering cases seemed to afford their owner room enough to store his printed treasures. Books were everywhere. Below the windows the recesses were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... of a formidable insurrection based on a conflict of political ideas, being an event without precedent in the United States, was necessarily attended by great confusion and perplexity of the public mind. Disloyalty before unsuspected suddenly became bold, and treason astonished the world by bringing at once into the field military forces superior in number to the standing army of the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... remember how at a similar time of perplexity, when there were none to counsel, hardly one to sympathize, and when the conflicting wishes of so many whom I loved pressed the aching heart on every side, after months of groping and fruitless thought, the merest trifle precipitated the ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... expression showed perplexity, perhaps a shade of coldness. In him a warm Irish heart was joined with great strictness, even prudishness of manners, the result of an Irish Catholic education of the old type. Young women, in his opinion, could hardly be too careful, in a calumnious world. The modern flouting ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Bunyan, was attended with great mental sufferings, with painstaking labour, with a simple reliance upon the Word of God, and with earnest prayer. If man impiously dares to submit his conscience to his fellow-man, or to any body of men called a church, what perplexity must he experience ere he can make up his mind which to choose! Instead of relying upon the ONE standard which God has given him in his Word; should he build his hope upon a human system he could be certain only that man is fallible ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... spread them out; he examined; he grunted and grimaced and paused in perplexity. It was difficult to choose when each might do! But he chose, weighing each in his hand before discarding, until ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... much to Molly's perplexity; then she rapped at the door. It was opened by Jenny, who stood with an inquiring look on her face, which asked the visitor plainly ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... the breakfast and we three sat down, but not to a very cheerful meal. The Colonel wore an angry frown and Rad an air of anxious perplexity. Neither of them indulged in any unnecessary conversation. I knew that the Colonel was more upset by his son's reticence than by the robbery of the bonds, and that it was my presence alone which restrained him from giving vent to his anger. ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... for, owing to some mistake, the three brethren who devoted themselves to this graceful task, found when about half through the job that each had been sowing a different sort of grain in the same field; a mistake which caused much perplexity, as it could not be remedied; but, after a long consultation and a good deal of laughter, it was decided to say nothing and see ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... to clamber up the ravine through a perplexity of shrubs growing among loosely packed stones, thankful for strong boots and hands toughened by the sun. Overhanging trees and shrubs almost converted the ravine into a tunnel, but here and there a greenish light wrought changeful patterns ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. Suppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side by side and to say to them, 'What do you people want of one another?' they would be unable to explain. And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: 'Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another's company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man, and ...
— Symposium • Plato
... much grief and perplexity. He sorrowed to hear of his friend's illness, and felt anxious to go to him, and yet he was unwilling to leave my mother and us for so long a time, when the settlement might possibly be annoyed by heathens. Still he knew that he could with confidence leave the instruction of the people ...
— Mary Liddiard - The Missionary's Daughter • W.H.G. Kingston
... were beyond measure perplexed by this curious conduct on the part of her new acquaintance, and by finding herself involved in this singular treaty, her perplexity was not diminished by ensuing circumstances. Besides that Mr Pancks took every opportunity afforded him in Mr Casby's house of significantly glancing at her and snorting at her—which was not much, after what he had done already—he began to pervade her daily life. She saw him in the street, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... unwilling to think or speak on any subject, except on those to which I felt a growing distaste. She had shrunk from me, too, very much, since my ferocious attack that Sunday evening on the dark minister, who was her special favourite. I remarked it, and it was a fresh cause of unhappiness and perplexity. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... perplexity I wrote again to my eldest brother, who had up till now understood me so well, and I asked him for assistance. I was at this time in a peculiar dilemma. On the one hand, I felt very keenly that I must ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, the picture of disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked, was one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... seemed clearer now, and indeed he had so involved himself that it became to him alike and equally criminal to retreat or to advance. But by-and-by a solace for his miseries brought a solution of perplexity. Since he had taken so tremendous a responsibility upon himself, since there was now no escape from it without an act of brutality at the mere thought of which his heart revolted, there grew up within him such a resolve and such a ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... spit of shingle, and staring open-mouthed at the notice, stood the Twins, their honest faces expressing the extreme of perplexity. A few yards off the shore, in their boat, waited Tamsin, and leant ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... perplexity he felt on the question of stopping the 'Lives,' which appeared to present itself in consequence of an objection expressed by Dr. Pusey, in conversation with Mr. Hope, against the Roman tone which had been manifested, Mr. Newman ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby |
