"Puzzling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... One puzzling thing that could not be explained away was the conduct of the troopers with their exploding rifles. It seemed impossible that they should be in the plot, yet there were the hundreds their flying bullets had slain, including the King and Queen. On the other hand, more baffling ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... Jim's attitude be? He frowned heavily. This had not occurred to him before. Would there be trouble? Well, if there were it might be easier, at least less complicated. On the other hand, what else could Jim do? It was uncomfortably puzzling. His own disposition made it impossible for him to probe the possibilities of such a ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... sucking out the sense of an Egyptian hieroglyph as long as the pyramids will last, before they should find it. These pests worrit me at business, and in all its intervals, perplexing my accounts, poisoning my little salutary warming-time at the fire, puzzling my paragraphs if I take a newspaper, cramming in between my own free thoughts and a column of figures, which had come to an amicable compromise but for them. Their noise ended, one of them, as I said, accompanies me home, lest I should be solitary for ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... of police lived here, and the adjoining bridge, which had hitherto been known as the Green Bridge, had its name changed to the Police Bridge, which rather puzzling appellation ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... than one place pink double roses (vagrants from cultivated grounds, no doubt) offered buds and blooms to all who would have them. The cross-vine (Bignonia), less freehanded, hung its showy bells out of reach in the treetops. Thorn-bushes of several kinds were in flower (a puzzling lot), and the treelike blueberry (Vaccinium arboreum), loaded with its large, flaring white corollas, was a real spectacle of beauty. Here, likewise, I found one tiny crab-apple shrub, with a few blossoms, exquisitely tinted with rose-color, ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... was puzzling himself as to how it had been managed, he grasped the fact that some one was gliding down the smooth trunk of a palm-tree which grew close to the house, and to which one of the bamboo rafters had been secured, but whether ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... same spirit and mind, and at the end He smiled and put on His crown again, and sat down for ever ad dexteram Dei, that He might let us do the same, and help us by His grace, especially in the sacraments, to be merry and confident. [This is a very puzzling philosophy. It is surely either very profound or very shallow. But it certainly is not cynical. Sir John is incapable of such ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... sense of the passage—We conceive these puzzling words of Moses to be no other than a prayer for himself—that his sins which might stand charged against him in the book of God, might be blotted out, however God might deal with Israel. "SINS are compared to debts, which are ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... light of the open window like a beacon for the truant who would never come back now; a truant no longer but a downright fugitive. Yet a fugitive carrying off spoils. It was the flight of a raider—or a traitor? This affair of the purloined brother, as I had named it to myself, had a very puzzling physiognomy. The girl must have been desperate, I thought, hearing the grave voice of Fyne well enough but catching the sense of his words not at all, except the ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... the Indians were right in saying that the mind should conquer the body. I like that idea of going off by yourself and watching for some sign from nature. Being away from people and not hearing them talk gives you a great chance to think out the things that are puzzling you. I am going over on the mainland, in the woods, and keep the ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... and went on with my puzzling task of collation. But the more I examined the more did my brain reel. I could not find the nucleus of a coherent story. A great shout from Jaffery made ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... technique, and her work was descriptive rather than critical. But it probably did more to enlist the interest of the general reader in Christian art than Lord Lindsay's more learned volumes; or possibly even than the brilliant but puzzling ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... England"; so much so that he held a living at Leominster, and was the friend of two Bishops, Sanderson and Seth Ward. It is doubtful whether Mr Tombs would now, if he came back, move in Episcopal circles. His career gives us a glimpse into those puzzling times of confusion and cross-purposes, when compromise and toleration co-existed, both in parties and in individuals, with bitter fanaticism, more commonly than is supposed, ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... 100 deg.. On we go: Throw over OSBOURNE, and come along with Louis STEVENSON of Treasure Island. Bah! that exciting Chapter was but a flash in the pan: brilliant but brief: and "Here we are!" growls the Baron, "struggling along among a lot of puzzling lumber in search of excitement number two, which does not seem to come until Chapter XXIV., p. 383." Then there is a good blow out—of brains, a scrimmaging, a banging, and a firing, and a scuffling, and a fainting, and one marvellous effect. And then—is heard no more. The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... oxygen, a far more complicated and puzzling body; the difficulties of observation were very much increased by the extraordinary activity shown by this element and the dazzling brilliancy of some of its constituents. The gaseous atom is an ovoid body, within which a spirally-coiled snake-like body revolves at a high velocity, five brilliant ...
— Occult Chemistry - Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements • Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater
... query—why a lady-bird is called Bishop Barnaby? Probably there will be less difficulty in answering another entomological question—Why do the country-people in the south of Scotland call an earwig a "coach-bell?" The name "earwig" itself is sufficiently puzzling, but "coach-bell" seems, if possible, still more ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... to me as the means; but, in my present state, both were also matters of supreme indifference. My one desire was to rescue my love from her loathsome captors; of little else did I pause to think. Yet Rattray's visit left its own mark on my mind; and long after he was gone I lay puzzling over the connection between a young Lancastrian, of good name, of ancient property, of great personal charm, and a crime of unparalleled atrocity committed in cold blood on the high seas. That his complicity was flagrant I had no room to doubt, after Eva's own indictment of him, uttered ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... been a very large fish, then," observed Ernest. "Those prickles, too, are puzzling. Perhaps they grew after ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... support of Verden University because it was a "safe and conservative citadel which never had yielded to demagogic assaults." At the time he had wondered just what the president of the Verden Union Water Company had meant. He was slowly puzzling his way ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... as he and Mercutio were lounging arm in arm on a bridge near their lodgings, they met a knave in livery puzzling over a parchment which he was plainly unable ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... well worth having, and after bringing praise to younger friendships, let me for ever feel, rather than speak (for 'tis too deep and wide for words) befitting gratitude to old ones. For there is always something puzzling in the present; unrestful and disquieting in all novelty; and we require, poor harassed mortals, the past and lots of it; the safe, the done-for past, a heap of last year's leaves or of dry, scented hay (which is mere dead grass and ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... "How puzzling!" returned the other meekly. "He meant you, then, to understand that I was going to kill a seal and a bear. Glad am I that I am not an angekok, for it would be very difficult work for a stupid man,—enough almost ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... you looking so much better," the captain said as they entered. "Sit down. Do you know," he went on with a smile, "I do not think that any of us would have slept had you not recovered sufficiently to tell your story to-night. We have been puzzling over it in vain. How you two boys came to be adrift alone on a raft, made up of three water-kegs, as Mr. Armstrong tells me, and how you came to have two bugles with you on the raft, ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... Dorminster assented. "His coming links up many things which had been puzzling me. I tell you, Nigel, what happens during Prince Shan's visit will probably decide the destinies of this country, and yet I wouldn't mind betting you a thousand to one that there isn't a single official of the Government who has the slightest idea as to why he is coming, or that he is coming ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... than his proper work had won for him came of a momentary impulse. One day he had taken up a newspaper to find it chiefly concerned with a crime of a sort curiously rare in our country—a murder done in a railway train. The circumstances were puzzling; two persons were under arrest upon suspicion. Trent, to whom an interest in such affairs was a new sensation, heard the thing discussed among his friends, and set himself in a purposeless mood to read up the accounts given in several journals. He became intrigued; ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... they approached the river, and Gage leading a strong advance guard across it, found no enemy on the other side, puzzling and also pleasing news. The foe, whom they had expected to find in this formidable position, seemed to have melted away. No trace of him could be found in the forest, and to many it appeared that the road to Fort ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of a conversation, would take place between the two young men; Kearney not having the vaguest suspicion that the author of the point in debate was then sitting opposite to him, sometimes seeming to share the very doubts and difficulties that were then puzzling himself. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... life. But I had heard no singing of any kind in Mars before this night. How was it possible that I could have experienced that delightful sensation before and not be able to fix the place or time? It was a puzzling question, but I refused to give it up I knew the song, and the memory of it warmed my heart with each recurring flash, but the singer ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... From an acute angle of the window a cornice overhangs a sheer fall of cliff. That is as near the ground as can be got from my outlook. Several superior peaks rise out of the wilderness, where the churches are; and beyond the puzzling middle distance, where smoke dissolves all form, loom the dock warehouses, a continuous range of far dark heights. I have thoughts of a venturesome and lonely journey by moonlight, in and out of the chimney stacks, and all the way to the distant mountains. It looks inviting, and ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... of the rules of motion, let us come to the laws of the union between body and soul, where M. Bayle believes that he finds again some vague indifference, something absolutely arbitrary. Here is the way he speaks of it in his Reply (vol. II, ch. 84, p. 163): 'It is a puzzling question whether bodies have some natural property of doing harm or good to man's soul. If one answers yes, one plunges into an insane labyrinth: for, as man's soul is an immaterial substance, one will be bound to say that the local movement of certain bodies is an efficient cause of ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... of relief Pollyanna stepped back into a doorway and waited. She was tired, but she was happy. In spite of sundry puzzling aspects of the case, she yet trusted the boy, and she had perfect confidence that ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... and waddled over to the Blind Horse, and the Duckling told him what was puzzling them. The Blind Horse laughed very heartily. "So the Peacock is proud of having grown such a fine train and crest, but he isn't ashamed of his homely feet, because he couldn't help having those! There is no reason for either ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... the whole attitude and behavior of the fellow was puzzling to no small degree, my mind was too full of my own concerns to give much thought to him indeed, scarce was he out of my sight but I forgot him altogether; for, what with my weariness, the long, dark road before and behind me, and my empty ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... when Gaudenzio's Journey to Calvary was dispersed, but it was some time, doubtless, between 1600 and 1644. It is puzzling to note that the Pieta appears in the plan of 1671 as situated rather in the part of the building now occupied by the Entombment than by the Pieta, while the 39 that should mark the site of the Entombment does not appear; but this is perhaps only ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... It sounded amazingly puzzling to Alice and Mary Jane, who couldn't in the least understand what a fire and wires and all that had to do with a beach. But they were to find out before so very long. For that same afternoon, while Alice was still in school, Mrs. Holden and Betty came over to call on Mrs. Merrill and Mary ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson
... brought this letter, Beck was already gone on his errand, and after puzzling himself with vague conjectures, Percival's mind had been naturally too absorbed with his anxieties for Helen to recur much ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... together, consisting of a sa amulet of bronze, a dark steatite cylinder, and a little glazed steatite draughtsman with a human head and traces of some sign inscribed below. The inscription on the cylinder is copied in PL. XX, 28, and is rather puzzling. The name in a cartouche seems to be Ka-kau-ra, which is not that of a known king. As the pottery in the tomb is of the XIIth dynasty, and the tomb is in the cemetery of that period, one might read Kha-kau-ra, Usertesen III, but his Ka name, Neter-kheperu, is known, and cannot ...
— El Kab • J.E. Quibell
... astonishing and puzzling to find a photographer perched there, in the very heart of ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... Gwen came and said we had better go outside to hear the music and see the crowd, so I came, but all the while I had been puzzling my brain wondering what she hoped to accomplish with that clever disguise, nor did the truth break in upon my mind until we discovered her talking to Doctor Chicago. Then I ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... How queer everything is to-day! How puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh, dear, I shall never get to twenty at that rate!" But ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... police to work—not that they're much good, I think; but he wouldn't leave a stone unturned. And now I believe he has gone to London to get help from the police there. But O, sir, I can't make it out, and I have lain awake, night after night thinking of it, and puzzling myself about it, until all sorts of dreadful fancies ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... wonder, and then they gazed at each other, as if to seek the solution of the difficulty. Familiarity deadens the sensibilities even as connected with the gravest natural phenomena, and never before had these simple beings thought of enquiring into a movement that was of daily occurrence, however puzzling it might appear on investigation. When the subject was thus suddenly started, it struck both alike, and at the same instant, with some such force, as any new and brilliant proposition in the natural sciences would strike the scholar. Chingachgook ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... "measure", "expressions of separation", "reference", etc., thus become familiar to the student, long before he meets them in the more difficult garb of a national tongue, whose exceptions seem to outnumber its rules, and whose idioms prove more puzzling than its exceptions, unless approached by the smooth and gradual ascent of ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... time, I will be frank with you. You are right when you say that it was you who first directed my attention towards Sir Timothy Brast. Since that time, however, your own relations with him, to an onlooker, have become a little puzzling." ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... advanced a direct claim; he had dodged the real issue, leaving the soldier in the dark regarding his relationship to Naida, and erecting a barrier between the other two. It was a masterpiece of defence, puzzling, irritating, seemingly impassable. From the consideration of it all, Brant emerged with but one thought clearly defined—whoever she might prove to be, whatever was her present connection with Hampton, he loved this dark-eyed, auburn-haired ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... "I am glad, Nelly, I am glad. Why, it is just the thing for you; Harry and I have been puzzling our heads all the week as to what ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... puzzling at first," admitted Professor Wright. "Perhaps I can illustrate it for you. Take, for instance, the Dinornis—and before we go any farther let me see if you can give me a good English name for the creature. Try ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... there was unpleasantness. When he asked somebody to lend 'im a pocket-'andkercher to turn into a white rabbit, Henery Walker rushed up and lent 'im 'is, but instead of a white rabbit it turned into a black one with two white spots on it, and arter Henery Walker 'ad sat for some time puzzling over it 'e got up and went off 'ome without saying good-night to ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... country at the time of its discovery by Europeans, is therefore too strong to be put aside by mere conjectures or inferences. If they were the work of Indians, they must have been used by the Cherokees and buried with their dead. It is true that some of the engraved figures present a puzzling problem in the fact that they bear unmistakable evidences of pertaining to Mexican and Central American types, but no explanation of this which contradicts the preceding evidences that these shells had been in the hands of Indians ...
— The Problem of Ohio Mounds • Cyrus Thomas
... expression was that of one who after long puzzling has solved a troublesome problem, and has found the solution not that which he desired. The outlaws' statement that there was a party of Indians on their way from the Everglades had given ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... must guard against treachery. As he rode, his eyes never left those far-away sand dunes, although he perceived no movement, no black dot even which he could conceive to be a possible enemy. Now that he possessed ample time for thought, the situation became more puzzling. This tragedy which he had accidentally stumbled upon must have had a cause other than blind chance. It was the culmination of a plot, with some reason behind more important than ordinary robbery. Apparently the wagons contained nothing of value, merely ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... red, I knew, and I felt a puzzling sensation in my throat, but I did not hesitate: "Of course, I am sorry to leave you, more sorry than I can say, but I fear more, that leaving you may mean ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... He was still puzzling over the thing when a boy came with a special delivery letter for the sheriff. Bolt glanced at it and handed the ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... he said. I was still puzzling my brains over his extraordinary conjuring trick—for trick I am convinced it was. He had risen and was slowly drawing on his gloves when ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... amongst Masters, a Master within the Great White Lodge, He is amongst His peers, in the presence of His Superiors, and the problems with which that Lodge has to deal, the questions on which that Lodge has to decide, are, if I may use the phrase, as difficult and as puzzling on that plane of being as the problems that we have to decide down here are on our plane. Hence the possibility of miscalculation, the possibility of error, the possibility of mistake; and you can well understand that these beings are subject to such limitations ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... chairs, closed the book the Doctor had opened, put the gas out and went away, shutting the door for the night, and leaving the room to its recollections. What sleepless nights the chairs and heavy-gilt glasses and gorgeous carpets of a hotel must pass, puzzling over the fragments of history that ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the convolutions of America's street railway and public lighting finance would involve a puzzling array of statistics and an inextricable complexity of stocks, bonds, leases, holding companies, operating companies, construction companies, reorganizations, and the like. Difficult and apparently impenetrable as is this financial morass, the essential facts still stand out plainly enough. ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... a betwixt and between," he answered, puzzling it over; "but it's going to spoil a matter of fifty turnips, and missus she'll want it moved." We went up to her and touched the side, and it was as hard as a real ship. "Now, there's folks in England would call that very ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... it, Vi was again puzzling her young brain with the question whether Meta was right in saying it would be selfish to do so. Ah, if she could only ask mamma which was the right way to do! This was the first perplexity she had not been able to ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... one of the most puzzling in the annals of love, it may be well to set forth the circumstances very briefly, to weigh the theories that have already been ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... better, that convalescence had improved her beauty, discovering it, as husbands discover everything, a little too late. Instead of calling Rosalie, who was in the kitchen at the moment watching the cook and the coachman playing a puzzling hand at cards, Monsieur de Merret made his way to his wife's room by the light of his lantern, which he set down at the lowest step of the stairs. His step, easy to recognize, rang under ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... such a hole in my consciousness that for a long time I went on puzzling over the nature of the apparition, and wondering nervously if it would ever come back. But as time passed I lost this dread, and retained only the precision of the image. Then ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... haunted him, and obscured Mr Wentworth. Mrs Morgan sat at the head of the table at dinner with an equal want of curiosity. Even when the subject was discussed between the Rector and Mr Proctor, she asked no questions—a course of procedure very puzzling and trying to Mr Morgan, who could ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... a puzzling rejoinder! To neither of the captives did it convey any knowledge. Arnold, however, deemed that the best course would be to assume no impression that he and his friend were regarded ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... acted as "Official Guide" that day and, incidentally, paid all the bills for the young celebrators. This suited Jim and Kenneth, all right, as they were puzzling how to make a big splash in the puddle before these two girls, and ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... a few of the chief officers, came on board the 'Lorna Doone,' and were received by us in the extremely small deck-house, the remainder of the suite having to content themselves with looking through the windows and strolling about the deck. It was very puzzling to be obliged to invent fresh civilities, for we felt that our recent visit had quite exhausted our stock; but I luckily bethought me that there was some connection by marriage between the Sultans of Brunei and Johore; and the discussion of this ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... names are very puzzling. Miaco and Yeddo, which we did know something about, are quite cut out, and replaced by Kioto and Tokio. Oddly enough, the same syllables, reversed, mean capital of the Western Empire and capital ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... I hear the tragic note." The certainty of her ground became as morass again. In his turn he was puzzling her. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... had perhaps a little excess of whimsical humour. She would herself have needed a good deal of such humour to take this farewell just as it was offered. "Does truth sound bitter, as one at first believes?" Somewhat puzzling to her, it may be, that very philosophical reflection! . . . This has been called a noble, tender, an heroic, song of loss. For me there lurks a smile in it. I do not say that the smile makes the ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... sir," replied Dent. "They must have had a vessel of their own, but that's a puzzling thing. Did you see any sign of this Saya Chone on the ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... quick-witted letter-bandit would have been at a loss to decipher what he was driving at. If you occasionally come across some unintelligible notices at the tail end of the Observer, they will thus seem to you more puzzling still, and to the blockhead who breaks open this letter they will remain unintelligible, even if I tell you that they are a part of my correspondence. Only give me frequent tidings, my beloved heart, even if short ones, so that I may ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... puzzling over the import of a dream? Still busy with vain phantoms, chasing a visionary happiness through your head, that 'fleeting' joy, as the poet ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... garden. The gate gave no trouble. He walked fast, and long before Marianne came back to her sweeping he had gained the woods, which were near, and enclosed the house on two sides in a shady half-circle. They were pretty woods, full of flowers and squirrels and winding, puzzling paths. Archie had never been allowed to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... one at a time, that they were strangely unlike all the other women he had known, and held their hands a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and then went away, leaving them and him a prey to conflicting and puzzling emotions. ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... had been arranged by a Madame de Pompadour and which had contributed to the disasters and disgrace of the Seven Years' War [Footnote: See above, pp. 358 ff]. While grave ministers of finance were puzzling their heads over the deficit, gay Marie Antoinette was buying new dresses and jewelry, making presents to her friends, giving private theatricals, attending horse-races and masked balls. The light- hearted girl-queen had little serious ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... musician wandering about Barnstaple. The street musician disappeared and the ten shillings were never returned, so Mary took possession of the zither, and with the aid of a cheap instruction book, managed to learn enough of its somewhat puzzling technique to accompany her own voice with a few full, rich, plaintive chords. And it was in this fashion that Angus heard her first sing what she called "A song of ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... so can you. We don't pretend to know everything; we only hope that we are on the right road to learn. I, for one, am thankful to think that there are wiser heads than mine puzzling over the problem of our psychic powers. I've always taken impressions from inanimate objects, and it has bothered me. Now I find my sensations analyzed and classified under the head of Psychometry, and it is a comfort to know that other people besides myself ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... to know!" he wound up gloomily.... "That old scoundrel never visited Dutch House out of simple curiosity; and whatever his purpose, one thing's sure—it wasn't one to stand daylight. It's been puzzling me ever since—an appointment of some sort he made with November just as I hove within earshot. 'Two-thirty,' he said; and November repeated the hour and promised to be on the job. 'Two-thirty!'—what can it mean? It's later than that now but—mark my words!—something's ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... man, improbable as are some of the incidents narrated, is no fiction of imagination. Sir Everard Home's statement, read before the Royal Institution, corroborates every particular. The mental constitution of the philosopher, puzzling enough during his life, was shrouded certainly in even greater mystery ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... deliver me into the hands of the Philistines, just as you did my poor men when you fooled them about the victuals! I know your tricks and all your acting has no other effect on me than to make me admire your wonderful coolness and courage; so, my dear, stop puzzling your little head with schemes to baffle me! You are like the caged starling! You can't—get—out!" chuckled Black Donald, hitching his chair nearer to hers. He was now right upon ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... else," proceeded Mrs. Lecount. "He is a scoundrel who really has this information and who means what he says, or he is a mouthpiece of Miss Vanstone's, and she has caused this letter to be written for the purpose of puzzling us by another form of disguise. Whether the letter is true, or whether the letter is false—am I not reading your own wiser thoughts now, Mr. Noel?—you know better than to put your enemies on their guard by employing the police in this matter too ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... I have spoken were most singular and puzzling. There were the bookshelves, for instance, home-made and stained at the cost of a few pence, but filled with recent and costly works on archaeology and ancient art. There were the objects on the mantelpiece: a facsimile in bronze—not ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... Am I puzzling you? I hope not: but, lest I should be, 1 will give you one simple example which ought to make all clear as to the struggle between a man's flesh and his spirit, and also as to doing right from the ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... belonging to Major Denham to be brought, among which was his journal, and they were all in a handsome manner returned. He spoke with great bitterness of Boo-Khaloum for making predatory inroads into his territories, next putting the puzzling question: "What was your friend doing there?" Clapperton replied that Major Denham had no other object than to make a ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... courted. Sam, who had talked briefly with her a half dozen times, had long had a haunting curiosity to know more of her personality. As she stood there before him looking so wonderfully well-kept and confident he thought her baffling and puzzling. ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... He was still puzzling over this when they turned through a gateway, imposing with its tangle of wrought iron and gilt, and at a decorously reduced speed crinkled up a wide drive to the vast pile of gray stone that housed the ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... into one of the most puzzling, fascinating, bothering books I ever came across," replied Austin, following his example. "I mean 'The Garden of Cyrus,' by Sir Thomas Browne. I can't follow him a bit, and yet, somehow, he drags me along with him. All that about ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... words she had spoken were accompanied with such an air, and such a look, as to make him believe that it was Venus with all her graces who had addressed him. He was near her when she sat down to cards, and as he was puzzling himself to devise by what means he should get this answer, she desired him to lay her gloves and fan down somewhere: he took them, and with them the billet in question; and as he had perceived nothing severe or angry in the conversation he had with her, he ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... understand it. I don't. But as I stood by the grave, I suddenly felt that there was something for me to do, something very important that had to be done. It was odd, very odd. I went back to my hotel quite harassed, puzzling and racking my brains. Then an idea struck me; and I had a hunt through the registers. I found that two days before she died a boy was born, Hildebrand Anne Beauleigh—the old Beauleigh names. She knew that I should like him ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... the liberty to say," said Sir Charles absently, and he went back to his room puzzling over what he had seen, and over what he could neither see nor understand. The desire for sleep was altogether gone from him. He opened his window and leaned out. The rain had ceased, but the branches still ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... was a puzzling one. Hyacinth had never thought of trying to understand the Captain's motives. Then the conversation in the ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... unequal width, puzzling, and many of them bearing the name of the particular gate in the old walls of the city to which they lead. There were no such fine, ancient, stately houses as some of those in Shrewsbury were, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... can mean these unpleasant surmises? I scarce know what prognosis to form of the crisis: And our friends, quite perplex'd at this puzzling delay, Can't imagine how scruples should stand in the way. Must the grand Opus Magnum be brought to a fix, Because some jarring drugs are unwilling to mix? His lordship, I'm certain, would cut the thing shorter, If he'd borrow a touch of my pestle ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... that it is as clear as day that Shakespeare did not succeed and did not even wish to give any character to Hamlet, did not even understand that this was necessary. And learned critics continue to investigate and extol this puzzling production, which reminds one of the famous stone with an inscription which Pickwick found near a cottage doorstep, and which divided the scientific world ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... hot morning, therefore, Desire collected Mr. McClintock's belief alone. It was an especially puzzling one, having to do with the origin and meaning of pain and founded upon the text, "Whom ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... windmill that would not move, It puffed with round red cheeks in vain, One sail stuck fast in a puzzling groove, And baby's breath could ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... sat down to puzzle over those parts of her letter which he had barely skimmed; faded into insignificance for the moment before the outstanding confession that she really loved him. But they loomed larger and larger, more and more puzzling and ominous, as he read and reread them. Finally he thrust the pages into his desk and went ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... barbarians; they don't believe in the great GOD." I told him, "Excuse me Sir. We do believe in GOD, and in Jesus Christ too." "Um," said he, "e nel Papa? and in the Pope?" "No." "E perche? And why?" This was a puzzling question in these circumstances; for there was a great audience to the controversy. I thought I would try a method of my own, and very gravely replied, "Perche siamo troppo lontani. Because we are too far off."[96] ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... very puzzling, and I could not make it out at all. In fact, the more I tried, the more perplexing it grew, and while I was trying to get my head to think properly, everything grew dull and misty, and I went off ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... the speaker thrust his hand into his jacket pocket. "If Mr. Thurston had not been of such tireless nature, I might have found leisure to admire the beauty of this most entrancing coast scenery, instead of puzzling over weary figures in ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Map's and Borron's (v. infra), with some of the verse forms connected with them, are in a very puzzling condition for study. M. Paulin Paris's book, above referred to, abstracts most of them; the actual texts, as far as published, are chiefly to be found in Hucher, Le Saint Graal (3 vols., Le Mans, 1875-78); in Michel's Petit Saint Graal (Paris, 1841); in the Merlin of MM. G. Paris and Ulrich ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... toys don't generally have much say as to what we shall or shall not do," bleated the Lamb. "I have been puzzling over ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... disappointment—only the Chevalier Strong and a friend of his in the room." This was all that Blanche had said. "But she was bound to keep her father's secret, Pen," Laura added. "And yet, and yet—it is very puzzling." ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... It was puzzling—inconceivable. Thorpe looked about him to note the lifeboats snug and undisturbed in their places. No sign there of an abandonment of the boat, but abandoned she was, as the silence told only too plainly. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... time was more puzzling, for he could not just say what had aroused him. On listening intently, however, he discovered that Ebenezer must have gotten to his feet again after a little rest, and started to cropping the grass once more; and that it was his rope catching ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... seem to notice their antics, but went with them downstairs, where I heard the sound of music, which didn't strike me as so sacred as it ought to be. Besides, there was a buzz and a hum like a hive of bees swarming, which was puzzling. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... time rather puzzling as recorded in the "Study of Italian Made Easy," I devoted twenty-four hours to learning how to say the time from one o'clock at noon to midnight, or thirteen to twenty-three o'clock. My soul revolted at the task, for a foreign tongue abounds in these malicious ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "Bank—bank—" repeated Lloyd, puzzling over the verse again, when they had given up the search in the conservatory and gone back to the drawing-room. "It might mean a savings-bank, but there hasn't been one in the house since that little red tin one of mine that you dropped ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of a light brown with a sheen upon it, her forehead broad, her eyes dark and wonderfully clear. But there was something more than her beauty to attract him. He had a strong belief that somewhere, some while ago, he had already seen her. And this belief grew and haunted him. He was still vaguely puzzling his brains to fix the place when the croupier finished ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... expression of countenance; indeed, at first sight of Bibbs Sheridan a stranger might well be solicitous, for he seemed upon the point of tears. But to a slightly longer gaze, not grief, but mirth, was revealed as his emotion; while a more searching scrutiny was proportionately more puzzling—he seemed about to burst out crying or to burst out laughing, one or the other, inevitably, but it was impossible to decide which. And Bibbs never, on any occasion of his life, either laughed aloud ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... is to bring the search down to the region of experience and rigorously insist on its remaining there. For this end the device of biography is adopted, and we see the meaning of all that apparent byplay of the six paper bags, and of the Weissnichtwo allusions which drop as puzzling fragments into Book I. The second book is wholly biographical. It is in human life and experience that we must fight our way through delusive appearances to reality; and Carlyle constructs a ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... figure be a petrifaction or a piece of statuary, it is a mystery and a success. Who carved it?. When was it made? Whom does it represent? What is its lesson? Why was it hidden? How happens it that tradition is silent about it? These are puzzling questions, which at present are solved only ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... forebodings which assailed him in the deep silence of the forest night, for hours he tossed in the distress of apprehension over the friend of whom he came in search. Toward dawn he fell asleep puzzling over the problem of Terry's reason for closing the door of his bedroom before going to bed and then opening it for ventilation. He waked from a dream in which he had slyly peered into the room in time to see Terry withdrawing ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... is quite possible, then," said Trevanion, musingly; "do you know, Mr. Lorrequer, this affair seems much more puzzling to me than to you, and for this plain reason—I am disposed to think you never ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... for me. Mr. Belknap's deductions were as diametrically opposite to mine as if he had purposely studied out the contrast; and I was shaking my sides with the thought of how all this plausibility must be puzzling Miss Wardour and her aunt, when a new element was ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... done the latter, and that the lazy rascal was in his hut fast asleep, instead of keeping a watch for me, as he ought to have been doing. This last thought caused me to look particularly for the huts, and then I understood another thing that had been puzzling me: ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Dr. Wallich [65] verified my observation, and added the interesting discovery, that, not unfrequently, bodies similar to these "coccoliths" were aggregated together into spheroids, which he termed "coccospheres." So far as we knew, these bodies, the nature of which is extremely puzzling and problematical, were peculiar to the ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... fragments—was two or three hundred feet in circumference; and in this space I found considerable masses of the same metallic substance, attached generally to pieces of the cement. After examining and puzzling myself over this strange scene for some time, my next care was to seek traces of the ship and of her crew; and before long I saw just outside the coral reef what had been her bowsprit, and presently, floating on the sea, one of her masts, with the sail attached. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... success of the Sicilians. They presented themselves at the Shaftesbury Theatre with little in the shape of preliminary paragraphs to "boom" them. Most of their repertoire consisted of works unknown to London playgoers. Several of their plays were performed in a puzzling dialect. Even the judicious step of offering a fairly full synopsis of the plays was neglected. Notwithstanding all this, the theatre was well patronized during two seasons and the audiences ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... Yet now, when the mischief (whatever it is) should either be done or on the point of doing, she will have none of our help. Clearly she knows more, yet will have none of our help. That is altogether puzzling to me. . . . And she sends us north. . . . Very well again; we will go ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... stage producer, feeling he is getting nowhere, but still helpless, puts the climax of some puzzling lip-debate, often the climax of the whole film, as a sentence on the screen. Sentences should be used to show changes of time and place and a few such elementary matters before the episode is fully started. The climax of a motion picture scene cannot ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... smoothly until he was asked which leg came after which, whereupon he became so rattled that he couldn't take a step. I know I have come on a thousand feet, on wings, winds and American machines,—I have leaped and run and climbed and crawled,—but to tell which step came after which I find a puzzling matter. Plenty of maiden aunts were present during my second infancy, in the guise of immigrant officials, school-teachers, settlement workers, and sundry other unprejudiced and critical observers. Their statistics I might properly borrow to fill the gaps in my recollections, but I am prevented ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... unintelligible, unaccountable, undecipherable, undiscoverable, unknowable, unfathomable; incognizable[obs3], inexplicable, inscrutable; inapprehensible[obs3], incomprehensible; insolvable[obs3], insoluble; impenetrable. illegible, as Greek to one, unexplained, paradoxical; enigmatic, enigmatical, puzzling (secret) 533; indecipherable. obscure, dark, muddy, clear as mud, seen through a mist, dim, nebulous, shrouded in mystery; ; opaque, dense; undiscernible &c. (invisible) 447[obs3]; misty &c. (opaque) 426; hidden &c 528; latent &c 526. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... made to go when Mr. Bayley preached; but on week-days she would get the key from the schoolmistress, and hang over the old pews, puzzling out the window—or trying to decipher some of the other Popish fragments that the church contained. Sometimes she would sit rigid, in a dream that took all the young roundness from her face. But it was like the Oratory church, and Benediction. It brought ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... early showed her mental independence by puzzling questions upon religion. The eloquent Massillon attempted to win her to orthodoxy. But he soon gave up the task, told the Sisters to buy her a catechism, and went off declaring her charming. The inefficacy of the catechism was proved later, when the precocious girl developed ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... with the thumb and two forefingers, with the third finger underneath in touch with the sphere. Then with a very high swing and a raise on my toes, I bring the arm down swiftly. The reverse twist is given with the third finger. A great deal of practice is required to acquire control of this puzzling ball, and at times speed is sacrificed in ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... the Minnie B's auxiliary engines had put hopeful notions in Madden's head of puzzling out their control by mere inspection, a single glance at the huge machinery of the ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... scurrying about the deck of our Urania, lounging on the deck-chairs, having luncheon, or dinner or supper, or lost in the smoke of cigars in the smoking room. This elusiveness made the personality of the traveller puzzling and interesting, and we bestowed the title of "Our American" now on one, now on another of the middle-aged American gentlemen. Of course, we marked as candidates the more interesting and typical figures. The Urania ...
— The Shield • Various
... aspects of the situation in which he found himself that were as puzzling as ever to Cleggett. It is true that he now knew why Loge's men had been in the hold of the vessel; they had been there, no doubt, in an attempt to get possession of the oblong, unpainted box which had caused Loge's explosion ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... puzzling our brains for years, we were reluctantly driven to the sad conclusion, that it was almost impossible to escape from slavery in Georgia, and travel 1,000 miles across the slave States. We therefore resolved to get the consent of our owners, be married, settle down in slavery, ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... them my simplicity seems to have seen this—many a man wearing himself with study, and tormenting his soul as to whether he believed rightly this doctrine and that, while he knew not with Solomon that in much learning is much sorrow, and that while he was puzzling at the letter of God's message, the spirit of it was going fast and ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... softly singing trees! And in the great amphitheater of the woods no longer the shade of Pontius Pilate gnawed his bitten nails, but more gallant presences were, gray-eyed Greek women, with proud composed faces and eloquent hands, and Saracens calmly awaiting the morrow's battle, and troubadours puzzling keenly for a rime.... They were not colored thoughts, but sentient presences. Spirit and thought had united in him into a being like a bird, leaving the earth, and flying into a realm of ancient forgotten beauty, spirit being the will, and thought the vibrating ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... restore it, a great search had followed, which ended in its being picked up by one of the students, and brought back as far as the driveway in front of The Evergreens, when it had again disappeared, and in a way to rouse conjecture of the strangest and most puzzling character. ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... is thus linked on to almost healthy states, and especially to a condition which may be described as one of sex-hunger. Such a suggestion may help us to see these puzzling phenomena in their true ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... not, but she vaguely felt that she ought to, so she bobbed her head slowly and fell to puzzling over the queer ways of the world. Fortunately for the whole household, the last week of preparation for the holiday season was a very busy one, so Peace had little time to think of all these perplexing questions; and when Christmas Day dawned at length, ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... that, o' course, and things got more puzzling than ever. Once or twice the old gentleman went out for a walk, but Bob Pretty or 'is missis was always with 'im, and if anybody tried to speak to him they always said 'e was deaf and took 'im off ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... transaction of ordinary business; for his opponents could not but feel that he knew much of which they were ignorant, and that he decided, both surely and speedily, many questions which to them would have been hopelessly puzzling. But the higher powers of government and the most valuable patronage ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... but half alive; its pursuits are without bound or method; its aliment is admiration, the chase, ambiguity, which Apollo sufficiently declared in always speaking to us in a double, obscure, and oblique sense: not feeding, but amusing and puzzling us. 'Tis an irregular and perpetual motion, without model and without aim; its inventions heat, pursue, and interproduce ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... his favorite bat in his hand. He gripped it a little harder for an instant, then relaxed and waited for Hi's puzzling delivery. ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... decided suddenly that she was taking the problem of her own life too seriously. "The thing to do is to get married and then work things out afterward," she told herself. She made up her mind that the puzzling, insistent antagonism that existed between men and women was altogether due to the fact that they were not married and had not the married people's way of solving such problems as Frank Metcalf had been talking about ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... it up. There was no arguing with a boy like this. If there had been, there would have been no further opportunity that night, for as I stood by, puzzling in my mind what to say to bring home to the graceless youth a sense of his iniquity, he began picking up his ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... It was puzzling. I would have given a good deal just then for a few words with Dr. Holcomb. The man, Kennedy, had kept it in his pocket. How had he held it a prisoner? The professor had use for it in some scientific work! No wonder! Certainly it was not a jewel. What could it be? It was ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... counted upon his falling into the snare—and, while a portion of the Southern force was engaged in Culpepper, might design an attack with the rest upon the Federal right flank or rear. In fact, the situation of affairs was so anomalous and puzzling that Lee might design almost any thing, and succeed in ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... mm., while those on thicker paper measure 22-3/4 x 17-1/2 mm. and papers of other thicknesses provide still other measurements. These differences in size (fairly considerable in relation to the comparatively small area of a postage stamp) proved very puzzling to collectors of twenty years or so ago for, though it was felt that the stamps came from the same plates, it was at the same time found impossible to account for such varieties, except on the hypothesis that all ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... were secret consultations and aristocratical assemblies; such, I suppose, as the Prytaneum and Thesmothesium here at Athens. And not different from these is that night-meeting, which Plato mentions, of the best and most polite men, to which the greatest, the most considerable and puzzling ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... puzzled her. The loving breath, the stern condemnation of whatever was not absolutely true, the disregard of what the world said, the hatred of shams, and most puzzling of all, the often apparent struggle with himself, the unceasing effort to conquer his chief fault. Yet this noble, honest, intellectual man was laboring under a great delusion, a delusion which somehow ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... pale, and very ladylike person in deep mourning, with a perfectly uninterested look, and such deep lines of sorrow on her face, that I saw at a glance that the world had no power to interest or please her. She sat on the same sofa with me, and was helplessly puzzling over the route from Buffalo to Albany with a gruff, uncouth son, who seemed by no means disposed to aid her in her difficulties. As I was able to give her the information she wanted, we entered ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird |
