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Perplexing   Listen
adjective
Perplexing  adj.  Embarrassing; puzzling; troublesome. "Perplexing thoughts."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Perplexing" Quotes from Famous Books



... sordid gold? They can! for gold too oft with magic art Can rule the passions, and corrupt the heart: This crowns the prosperous villain with applause, To whom in vain sad merit pleads her cause; This strews with roses life's perplexing road, And leads the way to pleasure's soft abode; This spreads with slaughter'd heaps the bloody plain, And pours adventurous thousands o'er the main. II. The stately ship with all her daring band 120 To skilful Albert own'd the chief command: Though train'd in boisterous elements, his mind Was ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... each step my foot touched a central meeting point of a thousand radiating threads, each thread attached to a peal of little bells hanging concealed among the herbage. I waited for my companions, and called their attention to the phenomenon, and to them also it was a thing strange and perplexing. "It is the bell-snake!" cried one excitedly. This is the rattle-snake; but although at that time I had no experience of this reptile, I knew that he was wrong. Yet how natural the mistake! The Spanish name of "bell-snake" had made him imagine that ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... with many novel and perplexing problems of construction, but none seemed so difficult to handle as were those which grew out of the presence of African slavery, as an industrial system, in several of the States. At the threshold of national existence these ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke

... novelty; the diction is sometimes harsh and uncouth, the stanzas ill-constructed and unpleasant, and the rhymes dissonant or unskilfully disposed, too distant from each other, or arranged with too little regard to established use, and therefore perplexing to the ear, which in a short composition has not time to grow familiar with an innovation. To examine such compositions singly cannot be required; they have doubtless brighter and darker parts; but, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... need to have the right sort of fathers as well as fit mothers requires a new training in lines of sex-education. One of the most perplexing of all educational problems is how to give the needed training in this line in the best and most effective way. In the admirable volume on Sex-Education written by Professor Maurice A. Bigelow, of Teachers College, Columbia University, a list of eight reasons for sex-instruction is given which ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... what tribe? That is the question which puzzles them. Not the only one, however. Something besides causes them surprise, equally perplexing them. Among the other hoof-marks, they have observed some that must have been made by a horse with shoes on; and as they know the Chaco Indians never ride such, the thing strikes them as very strange. It would not so much, were the shod-tracks only traceable twice along the ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... that, Corry," replied the truthful dominie; "but I need my staff and my handkerchief, and I think I will leave the specimens on the road, all except these two Asaphoi, the perplexing, bewildering relics of antiquity. This world is full of perplexities still, Corry." So saying, the dominie sighed, emptied his bandanna of all but the two fossils, which he transferred to his pocket, and, with staff in hand, recommenced ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... and, although she was so young and inexperienced, she ruled her people with wisdom and Justice. For Glinda gave her good advice on all occasions; and the Woggle- Bug, who was appointed to the important post of Public Educator, was quite helpful to Ozma when her royal duties grew perplexing. ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... as perplexing, was this unique state of matters—wholly without precedent. For instance, Mr. Rouncival and his stud-groom could almost have sworn to the big slashing brown mare, the image of the long-lost celebrity Termagant, with ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... reflected disgrace; isolation from comradeship; distrust which had blighted his military career at the outset. How different had been the reality from his expectations; the buoyant hopes of youth; the fond anticipation of glory, succeeded by stigma and stain! And, as the miserable, perplexing panorama of these later years pictured itself in his brain he threw, with a sudden gesture, the gems far from him, over the wall, out ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... clearly set forth the situation, and, without recommending war, had pointed out how it might be carried on. Macon wrote of him on December 4 to their mutual friend, Joseph H. Nicholson, "Gallatin is decidedly for war." After his report was sent in the situation became still more perplexing. Rumors came of an intention to call a convention of the five New England States, with New York, if possible, to take ground against the embargo. As these indications of dissatisfaction became manifest, and the contingency of ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... when she gave me the branch of lilacs! I have thought her crafty, dissembling, interested sometimes, it is true; but may not much that looks like cunning and dissimulation in her conduct be only the efforts made by a bland temper to traverse quietly perplexing difficulties? And as to interest, she wishes to make her way in the world, no doubt, and who can blame her? Even if she be truly deficient in sound principle, is it not rather her misfortune than her fault? She has been brought up a Catholic: had she been born an Englishwoman, and reared a Protestant, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... free will is perplexing indeed and interferes with the proper attitude toward God and his worship. The best way out of the difficulty is to act as if we were free, and on the other hand to have confidence in God as ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... King's hand by the appointment of a royal governor. For the moment, however, the uprising of Bacon in Virginia and the Popish Plot in England so distracted the Government that it was obliged to slight or to postpone much of its business. It did succeed in settling the perplexing question of New Hampshire, for, having obtained from Mason a renunciation of all his claims to the Government, though leaving him with full title to the soil, it organized that territory as a colony under the control of ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... tone indicated that her fortune brought in its train many perplexing troubles and many ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... the answer to this perplexing riddle—my clothes! Mechanically I took off my hat and examined it as I had not troubled to do hitherto and saw it for a shapeless monstrosity faded to the colour of dust and with more than one hole in crown and brim. Truly I (like the woman) had seen better on many a scarecrow. I now stooped to ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... perplexing care Has vanished with the day! And angels ever bright and fair Come down the melody to share, And on their pinions lightly bear My happy ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... Scotland and obtain his passage in one of the vessels that traded between Leith and Amsterdam. Happily Eustace always had a tongue that could readily catch the trick of dialects, and this excellent pedlar guarded him like his own brother, and took care to help him through all pressing and perplexing circumstances. Providentially, it was the height of summer, and the days were at their longest and warmest, or I know not how he could have gone through it at all; but at last he safely reached Leith, passing through Edinburgh with a pack on his ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... whereas the demand upon the boiler for steam is very often reckoned contingent upon the nominal horse power of the engine; and as the nominal power of an engine is a conventional quantity by no means in uniform proportion to the actual quantity of steam consumed, perplexing complications as to the proper proportions of boilers have in consequence sprung up, to which most of the failures in that department of engineering may be imputed. It is highly expedient, therefore, in planning boilers for any particular engine, to consider exclusively ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... sometimes to ask if this or that chamber was occupied. I made my way always to the windows of the rooms shown me, in hope of seeing the little court I knew so well, and the abbe's half-open corridor, and yet in half fear, that I might, after all, be looking from the very window about which hung so perplexing mystery. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... resemblance to grocery string. My leader was a piece of gut from my brother's 'cello; my flybook, an old wallet. As for flies, they seemed beyond my means; and it was perplexing to know what to do, until I found a book which said that it was better by far to tie your own flies. With joyful relief I acted on this counsel. Plucking the feather-duster, I tied two White Millers with shoe-thread upon cod-hooks. One of these I stained ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... discussed later, for the present we may very conveniently conceive him married under the traditional laws of Christendom. Having a mind considerably engaged, he will not have the leisure for a wife of the distracting, perplexing personality kind, and in our typical case, which will be a typically sound and successful one, we may picture him wedded to a healthy, intelligent, and loyal person, who will be her husband's companion in their common leisure, and as mother of their three or four children ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... was the representative, the ambassador of the King. Each was promised His help; each the baptism through which memory was to be quickened to recall the words He had spoken—the baptism which was to explain sentences which, at the moment of their utterance, were full of perplexing and affrighting mystery to such as heard. Almost His very last words on earth concerned their mission. Then came Pentecost, the gift of power, the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the waiting company in the Upper Room. Signs and wonders filled the hour. The word was with assurance and ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... intelligence are, how to clothe, feed, educate, and discipline the millions which every passing year pours into the world. The mind may well be bewildered with a prospect so vast, so vivid, and yet so perplexing. Every man sees that old things are done away, that physical force is resuming its primitive power over the world, and that we are approaching a time when Mechanism will have the control of nature, and Multitude ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... respected, Proud nobility, great people, To my words be all attentive: I am Cyprian, I am he Once so studious, and so learned, I the wonder of the schools, Of the sciences the centre. What I gained from all my studies Was one doubt, a doubt that never Left my wildered mind a moment, Ever troubling and perplexing. I Justina saw, and seeing, To her charms my soul surrendered, And for soft voluptuous Venus Left the wise and learn'd Minerva. Baffled by Justina's virtue, I, pursuing though rejected, And from one extreme to another Passing on as passion led me, To ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... interminable, unconquerable thing. But all the time there may be a change, positive as inexplicable, at the very door. How is it that a child begins to be good? Upon what fulcrum rests the knife-edge of alteration? As undistinguishable is the moment in which the turn takes place; equally perplexing to keenest investigation the part of the being in which the renovation commences. Who shall analyze repentance, as a force, or as a phenomenon! You cannot see it coming! Before you know, there it is, and the man is no more what he was; his ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's situation before. It had as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many fluctuations as the Northern Lights, as much colour ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... the midst of these perplexing reflections and strengthened resolves, he saw that it was time for him to be off to see Duffel, as the place of meeting was some ten miles from the cave, and a part of the distance had to be gone over on foot. He reached the spot about the hour appointed, and found the miscreant ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... currency that in the present condition of the country it can best be furnished by the National Government, either by means of National banks or in the form of legal tender treasury notes. State legislatures are therefore relieved from the consideration of this difficult and perplexing subject. ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... have heard of it, even though he were in London, and if he had the heart of a stone he could not desert his bairn. They argued thus among themselves, less as people who were sure of it than to escape the perplexing question, what to do with Grizel if the man never claimed her? and before her they spoke of his coming as a certainty, because it would be so obviously the best thing for her. In the meantime they overwhelmed ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... preferred not being there. To him, the theatre served merely as a stimulant to unpleasant memory. It was in this atmosphere that the ghost walked, and those hidden things of life came back to mock him. He might forget, sometimes, bending above his desk, or struggling against the perplexing problems of his profession in the field, but not here; not in the glare of the footlights, amid the hum of the crowd. He crushed the unread programme within his hand, striving to converse carelessly with the lady sitting next to him, whom he was expected ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... effect, a little, of confounding, or at least of perplexing her comrade, who was touched, who was always touched, by something helpless in her grace and abrupt in her turns, and yet actually half made out in her a sort of mocking light. "If you've ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... to believe that he could have deserved it in any way, but his submission was much less grievous and perplexing to her than his rebellion had been; and she received these few words—spoken rather gruffly, with his back turned to her—as a great proof of confidence, which ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford

... among the latter Charles W. Eliot, then with his foot on the first round of the ladder which he has climbed so high. Eliot pulled a capital stroke; my place was at the bow oar where a rather light weight was required who at the same time had head and strength enough to steer the boat among the perplexing currents. Our excursions were sometimes long. Once we went down the Back Bay, thence around Charlestown up the Mystic to Medford, during which trip I steered the Orion without a single rub, going and coming ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... 7: As an illustration of the perplexing nature of expert evidence in patent cases, the reader will probably be interested in perusing the following extracts from the opinion of Judge Dayton, in the suit of Bryce Bros. Co. vs. Seneca Glass Co., tried in the United States Circuit Court, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... student making his first researches beneath the surface of English history, few facts are more painful and perplexing than the judicial corruption which prevailed in every period of our country's growth until quiet recent times—darkening the brightest pages of our annals, and disfiguring some of the greatest ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... myself. In commemoration of what event, however, or in honour of what distinguished personage, the feast was to be given, altogether passed my comprehension. Mehevi sought to enlighten my ignorance, but he failed as signally as when he had endeavoured to initiate me into the perplexing arcana of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... lines now on the chance of the British attempting some such folly as a big cavalry advance, but I do not think the Germans have reckoned on the use of machine guns in aeroplanes, supported by and supporting cavalry or automobiles. At the present time I should imagine there is no more perplexing consideration amidst the many perplexities of the German military intelligence than the new complexion put upon pursuit by these low level air developments. It may mean that in all sorts of positions where they had counted confidently on ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... of that," said Christopher Burley. "Indeed, I prefer to take that view of the matter myself. But consider my perplexing situation, sir. I have reason to think that the trunk contains papers—not only documents to prove Osmund Maiden's identity, but a statement of what his future plans were when he left Fort Garry. And by that means I will learn ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... loved as a man loves who has thought seriously, speculated, tried to understand; whose love therefore is consistent with itself, harmonious with its nature and history, changing only in form and growth, never in substance and character. Hence the idea of Florimel became in his mind the centre of perplexing thought; the unrest of her being metamorphosed on the way, passed over into his, and troubled him sorely. Neither was his mind altogether free of the dread of reproach. For self reproach he could find little or no ground, seeing that to pity ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... where he was guarded from all intruders by the assistant who sat in the anteroom. Not even a telephone could sound its insistent note in this place where the doctor gained, in a reclining chair, his few brief moments of rest, or where he worked out the intricacies of perplexing problems. Now and then he saw a patient there, but rarely. Usually he shut his door against all distracting influences, and gave his attention to the things which ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... imagery, that it appeals to every age, and speaks in every language of the world. If its descriptions of character had been given in the language of the philosopher or academist, what was intelligible to one age would have been perplexing or meaningless to the next. Remember that the long gallery in the Pyramids, which was directed to the pole-star when they were constructed, is now hopelessly out of course, because the position of the ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... Secretary of State under President Grant. In my opinion, and I know but few who had a better opportunity of judging, Mrs. Fish was in many respects a remarkable woman. For eight years her home was a social center, and she was regarded as the social dictator of the Grant administration. When any perplexing questions of a social nature arose during her regime, the general inquiry was: "What does Mrs. Fish say?" This in time became a standing joke, but it illustrates the fact that her decisions usually ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... backward for past errors, and to take advantage of later discoveries in censuring the conduct of any minister, is in a high degree disingenuous and cruel; it is an art which may be easily practised, of perplexing any question, by connecting distant facts, and entangling one period of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... strong, taking the various directions of the coasts and rivers, and very perplexing to strangers. Unfortunately, there was no one on board who had ever been here before, and not having been able to procure a pilot, we were compelled to grope our way, both by night and by day, with only a rough sketch of a chart to ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... of Government House everyone seemed to vie in good humored gaiety and flow of spirited, animating conversation. Each tried to please. All clouds of despondency vanished upon this occasion. Sir Howard always set the example. Pressing cares of state, perplexing questions, and endless grievances, took speedy and ignominous flight when he entered the family circle. All was unrestrained pleasure and genial delight on this evening. Lady Rosamond was seated beside the gay and attractive secretary, who was endeavoring to engage his companion ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... confirmation at that time knew the Berlin philosopher only by name, and sentences like "unity with one's self," "to grasp and fulfil," "inward purity of life," etc., which every one who was taught by Middendorf must remember, at first seemed perplexing; but our teacher, who considered it of the utmost importance to be understood, and whose purpose was not to give us mere words, but to enrich our souls with possessions that would last all our lives, did ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... telegraph and telephone wires pass through the tunnel, thus avoiding the long detour by Runcorn. Probably, as a feat of engineering, the construction of the new station at Bold Street is not inferior to any part of the scheme advanced. Under very singular and perplexing difficulties it could only be proceeded with in its first stages from midnight until six o'clock the following morning, it being of course essential that the traffic at the Central Station should not be interfered with. During ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... for granted that the greater security she would enjoy as his wife would have preponderance of weight with her, yet there was a certain satisfaction in the reflection that to leave her dependent upon Mrs. Hastings caused him concern. For another thing, his reserve had been perplexing, and it was borne in upon her that it would have cost her a more determined effort to withstand him had he spoken with ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... gradations from the ordinary to the intellectual, yet no one could tell exactly how or when it began to do so, any more than they could describe the strange yet clear logic by which this one woman set to rights various perplexing problems, and gave the key as it were to a nobler and higher order of eclectic philosophy than ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... she was growing cold; but she sat quite still for at least five minutes, thinking hard, and wondering why she felt so sorry to give up Gregory Kinnaird. It was a somewhat perplexing thing that one could be really fond of an eligible man and yet shrink from marrying him, and there was no doubt whatever that the one she had just sent away had in several respects a good ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... the stockmen's interests—by far the most difficult and perplexing of all the problems connected with the administration of the national forests—Pinchot went to the Southwest and persuaded one of the most intelligent and level-headed young stockmen in the country to become head of the grazing department. A. F. Potter had been for years a cow-boy and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... an answer to these perplexing questions, if there was any answer other than the Mill owner's mental condition, John forced himself to the pretense of sharing his father's fears. He agreed with Adam's arraignment of Pete, echoed his father's expression of hatred for the ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... to a terrific degree. Here was a new, strange, perplexing combination—"deny himself," and "cross," coupled with His "Follow Me." What could He mean? This was surely some of His intensely figurative language again, they think. Yes, it surely was; and it stood for a yet intenser experience. ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... become still more perplexing since Eyelids' return that morning, for in the afternoon, when they were sitting together outside the shack, he also had seen something down-river, and, following his father's and sister's example, had risen to his feet, commenced ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... Protectorate. In 1891 Sir Claude Macdonald, who had carried out the negotiations, was appointed Consul—General. No man was better fitted to lay the foundations of British authority in so backward a territory. The period of transition from native to civilised rule brought to the surface many delicate and perplexing problems requiring tact, skill, and unwearied patience, but the task was successfully accomplished, though not without an occasional display of force. It was a special cause of thankfulness to the missionaries that Sir Claude was in full sympathy with their work, and co-operated with them ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... had some perplexing thoughts as to the peculiar situation of the moment. He could ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster

... pestilent fellow. He brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill; but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit.' Burbage adds: 'He is a shrewd fellow indeed.' This perplexing passage has been held to mean that Shakespeare took a decisive part against Jonson in the controversy with Dekker and Dekker's actor friends. But such a conclusion is nowhere corroborated, and seems to be confuted by the eulogies of Virgil in the 'Poetaster' and by ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... my lord, after contributing so much to afflict your worthy hearts, to refer you, for relief under all the distresses of life, whether they affect ourselves or others, to those motives that can alone give true support to a rational mind. This mortal scene, however perplexing, is a very short one; and the hour is hastening when all the intricacies of human affairs shall be cleared up; and all the sorrows that have had their foundation in virtue be changed into the highest joy: when all worthy minds shall be united in the same ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... was truly sober now. I was resolved not to commit myself to anything that would only make me ridiculous; but this passionate, high-strung girl had told only the truth when she warned me that she was in dead earnest. My dilemma was most perplexing—and irritating, too. Could she be made to understand that if I exposed my hand now, before the issue was ripe, that the disclosure might work irreparable injury? Would she comprehend that such a course would immediately drive the guilty inside their defences? Could she be made to see that it was ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... it out from day to day on the deepest principles and from the highest motives. And the Christian woman, having a similar and an equal vocation, undertook the like responsibilities. But her responsibilities were in that age of transition very perplexing, and more than ever invited friendly counsel and pastoral care. Now what was John Knox's private life? He was twice married, and we know from his correspondence that even before his first marriage there were women of high position and character to whom he sustained ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... slight account of the P.D.'s, and if their doings be branded as folly, it is to them at least a very innocent and delicious sort of folly, and just the thing to free them from the perplexing problems of the day and fit them to grapple with a freshened and renewed energy those of ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various

... things to me that I did not understand. In truth, I have been on the verge of saying a final farewell to every one. Ah, my poor mother! I passed three or four days at least, of which I recollect almost nothing, as though I had been in a dark and perplexing dream. I thought I beheld at my bedside my kind schoolmistress of the upper primary, who was trying to stifle her cough in her handkerchief in order not to disturb me. In the same manner I confusedly recall ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... destroyed by a flood, and that the Good Spirit, to repeople the earth, had changed animals into men. It is to J. S. Kohl we owe our acquaintance with the version of the Chippeways—full of grotesque and perplexing touches—in which the man saved from the Deluge is called Menaboshu. To know if the earth be drying, he sends a bird, the diver, out of his bark; then becomes the restorer of the human race and the ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... a gift accepted of the gods; They learned what streaked and varied comeliness Of gall and liver told; I led them, too, (By passing thro' the flame the thigh-bones, wrapt In rolls of fat, and th' undivided chine), Unto the mystic and perplexing lore Of omens; and I cleared unto their eyes The forecasts, dim and indistinct before, Shown in the flickering aspect of a flame. Of these, enough is said. The other boons, Stored in the womb of earth, in aid of men— ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... woman's look or a fit of Quixotism; he was a strong grown man who had seen the world. He had been in the habit of supposing his impulses to be good, and of following them naturally without much thought; it seemed desperately perplexing to be forced into an analysis of those impulses in order to decide what he should do. He was in a thoroughly bad humour, and Del Ferice guessed that if Giovanni could ever be induced to speak out, it must ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... had a different method and a very different system of theories from those I have read on earth, and this makes my exposition considerably more difficult. This article upon which I base my account floated before me in an unfamiliar, perplexing, and dream-like phraseology. Yet I brought away an impression that here was a rightness that earthly economists have failed to grasp. Few earthly economists have been able to disentangle themselves from patriotisms and politics, and their obsession has always been international trade. Here ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... Tripoli, I have crossed seas and penetrated deserts to seek her out. I have, indeed, encountered women of learning whose industry I have been compelled to respect; many who have possessed beauty and charm and perplexing cleverness; a few with remarkable information and a sort ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... we may conclude that the progress of the mechanical arts with the consequent increase in the bulk of the human race has not solved the problem of moral progress, but only placed that problem in a new and more perplexing context. A similar conclusion would meet us if we were to consider the parallel increase of the wealth of the world. The moral question is not about the amount of wealth the world possesses, but about the way men spend it and the use they make of it. Industrially ...
— Progress and History • Various

... laid in August, 1837. The building stands upon a hill, is surrounded by a powerful stone wall, can be approached two ways, and has its front entrance opposite a small street, which has not yet received any name at all. To a stranger, ingress to the building is rather perplexing. A gateway in Lancaster-road, leading to a footpath, fringed with rockery, would appear to be the front way, but it is only a rear road, and when you get fairly upon it you wonder where it will end— whether you will ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... facts as they appeared to me in the light of this latest bit of evidence. The result was not strikingly encouraging, yet I will insert it, if only in proof of my diligence and the extreme interest I experienced in each and every stage of this perplexing affair. It again took the form of a summary ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... by night, and Crassus having chosen that time to set out, Andromachus, lest he should get the start too far of his pursuers, led him hither and thither, and at last conveyed him into the midst of morasses and places full of ditches, so that the Romans had a troublesome and perplexing journey of it, and some there were who, supposing by these windings and turnings of Andromachus that no good was intended, resolved to follow him no further. And at last Cassius himself returned to Carrhae, and his guides, the Arabians, advising ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... seldom impassioned, were addressed to the intellect rather than to the feelings. He was the master of the art of making a perfectly clear statement of the most complicated case, and of defending his measures, point by point, with never-failing readiness and skill throughout the most perplexing series of debates. He talked to make converts, appealing to his colleagues with a directness well calculated to bring to his side ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... should never be cultivated at the expense of the understanding; as is the case, when the former is tasked with ill-devised lessons by which the latter is misled and bewildered. But truth, whether fully comprehended or not, has no perplexing inconsistencies. And it is manifest that that which does not in some respect surpass the understanding, can never enlighten it—can never awaken the spirit of inquiry or satisfy research. How often have men of observation profited by ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... But the perplexing initiative of my intelligence would not, for some reason, permit me to concentrate my thoughts on her at that moment. My mind was bewilderingly full of Anne, but I could not think of her. When I fell into the pose of gazing up at her ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... obtained a nest of the Long-tailed Sibia from the top of a tall tree, situated at an elevation of about 4000 feet, in the neighbourhood of Rungbee, near Darjeeling. This was on the 17th June, and the nest contained five fresh eggs. The nest is as perplexing as are the eggs; for the nest is that of a Bulbul, the eggs those of a Shrike or Minivet. The nest is a deep compact cup, about 41/2 inches in diameter and 23/4 inches in depth. The egg-cavity is 3 inches across and fully 13/4 inch in depth. Interiorly the nest ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... everything to cure his cattle, but could not, and what was more perplexing was the fact that other people's cattle in fields adjoining suffered not at all. In a few months he was driven to extremities; he saw his chances of buying back his old home slipping through his fingers, and what maddened him most was that whenever he passed Richard ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... this is not hard to find. It lies in the physical characteristics of the country. It is the high mountain ranges and the deep swift-flowing rivers that have brought about the differences in customs and language, and the innumerable tribal distinctions, which are so perplexing to the enquirer into ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... by natural law, the sooner it is recognized and understood, the sooner will sane treatment be adopted in dealing with crime. The sooner too will sensible and humane remedies be found for the treatment and cure of this most perplexing and painful manifestation of human behavior. I have tried conscientiously to understand the manifold actions of men and if I have to some degree succeeded, then to that extent I have explained and excused. I am convinced that if we were all-wise and ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... of all personal identity, all moral responsibility, as in pantheism; nor confused by the debasing fractioning of the Divine Unity, as in polytheism; nor bound hand and foot under the crushing despotism of a pitiless Fate;—but in the Glorified Humanity of Christ these perplexing problems of the soul are answered, and the incomprehensible union of the Infinite and finite at last accomplished, He took our nature upon Him that Infinite Love might pass through all degrees of suffering, even to the last dying gasp ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... open this letter again, to let you know that I have just received an account of Sir Thomas Halifax's death, which happened this morning. This circumstance is not a little perplexing to me, especially in Bernard's absence. I have sent an express to Chaplin to desire him to come to town to-morrow, and I shall then hear what he says. The thing to be wished is, that we could secure Bernard's election, now and hereafter, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... been in a very unsettled condition during the past year, in consequence of the embarrassment and distress produced by the ratification of the treaty, and their uncertainty as to the best course to be pursued by them in their trying and perplexing circumstances. They still cling to the hope that they shall be able to ward off the calamity which threatens them, either through the favorable disposition of the new Administration and Senate, to give their case ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... "Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations, not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... Then suddenly, the air being to all seeming quite still, the grey-green leaves began to shake and quiver, until each olive tree was like a silver bonfire, tremulous with a thousand waves of white flame flowing and following along the branches. It was a revelation and swift effluence of life, perplexing and full of charm. The brush was laid down, the moment of inspiration gone, before the capricious leaves ceased their quivering to be robed once more in grey, casting on the ground that translucent shadow which tempers the sunlight only, ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... without a judicious plan, and their discoveries being left imperfect without immediate settlement, or subsequent examination, and scarcely recorded in any well-authenticated or accurate narrations, had been almost forgot; or were so obscurely remembered, as only to serve the purpose of producing perplexing debates about their situation and extent, if not to suggest ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... his persisting in sitting and holding Court that he still continued to dissent, had not given any formal judgment, nor had he even verbally stated any grounds for his opinion. With a view to obtaining light for their guidance in this perplexing emergency, Dr. Baldwin, his son Robert, and Mr. Simon Washburn, another prominent member of the bar, addressed a written application to the Court, in the person of Justice Sherwood, requesting to be favoured with his opinion on the matter. The application was made on Thursday, the 17th, and ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... effects of electric shock and know what to do in such cases, but Ventnor's symptoms, while similar in part, presented other features unknown to me and most puzzling. There was a passive automatism, a perplexing muscular rigidity which caused arms and legs, hands and head to remain, doll-like, in any ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... otherwise. The plausible rascal must have conned them over until this essential was secured. Grant even went so far as to give them a grudging professional tribute. They held a canker of doubt, too, which it was difficult to dissect. Their veiled threats were perplexing. While their effect, as apart from literal significance, was fresh in his mind, he made a ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... that sharp December drive, and a wild, glad sparkle in his eye, as Rose whispers him that Adele has become one of the household. It is no wonder, perhaps, that the latter finds the bit of embroidery she is upon somewhat perplexing, so that she has to consult Rose pretty often in regard to the different shades, and twirl the worsteds over and over, until confusion about the colors shall restore her own equanimity. Phil, meantime, dashes on, in his own open, frank ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... that many of us make it, not naturally and unconsciously like the gentleman who discovered he had been doing it all his life, but professionally. Consider the immense output of novels—but no, do not let us consider anything so surprising and perplexing. The novel, that most exacting problem in the sublimation of the history of our kind, not to be solved with ease, it now appears may be handled by children as a profitable pastime. Children, of course, should be taught to express themselves in writing, and simply, lucidly, ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... possessed, to an extraordinary degree, the power of rapidly transferring his undivided and undisturbed attention to every thing, great and small, which could be brought before it. A single glance of his eye penetrated the most obscure and perplexing parts of a case—a touch of his master-hand disentangled apparently inextricable complexities. He could apply, with beautiful promptitude and precision, some maxim or principle which had not occurred to those who had devoted long and anxious attention to the case, and which at once ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... suggested by Sunderland, and it must be confessed, that the reasons on which they were founded were sufficiently plausible; as indeed the situation to which the king had reduced himself was, to the last degree, delicate and perplexing. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... steadfastly in your patients' thoughts, ex- plain Christian Science to them, but not too soon, - not until your patients are prepared for the explanation, - 414:18 lest you array the sick against their own interests by troub- ling and perplexing their thought. The Christian Scien- tist's argument rests on the Christianly scientific basis of 414:21 being. The Scripture declares, "The Lord He is God [good]; there is none else beside Him." Even so, harmony is universal, and discord is unreal. Christian Science de- 414:24 ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... if I put before her, as I sometimes do, a perplexing business matter, I am surprised at her competence. Of course, she is as able as you or I to reason, but on one subject she does not reason or believe that it admits of discussion; and by Heaven! my friend, ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... a few minutes while they strolled on through the heather. Afterward, Millicent understood where his thoughts had led, but now she was chiefly conscious of a slight but perplexing resentment against the fact that he should discourse rather crude philosophy. Indeed, the feeling almost amounted to disappointment—it was their last walk, and though she did not know what she had expected from him, it was something different from this. Walking by her side, with ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... of the ex-Confederate? What punishments should be inflicted upon the Southern people? What authority, executive or legislative, should carry out the work of reconstruction? The end of the war brought with it, in spite of much discussion, no clear answer to these perplexing questions. ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... from traditional ambitions and antagonisms. It was stripped of the accumulation of centuries, a naked government with all that freedom of action that nakedness affords. And its problems were set before it with a plainness that was out of all comparison with the complicated and perplexing ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... of the perplexing debates upon the course most advisable with regard to the Constitution after the unfortunate return from Varennes, I sent off my little English amanuensis to Paris to bring me, through the means of another trusty person I had placed about the Queen, the earliest ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... still primitive in its social thinking and social habits,—that elusive thing which we mean by "Greek"? And can children get this without its background, particularly as they have yet no social background in their own world to hold it up against? And can children do any better with the perplexing ideals of the chivalrous knight swept by a ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... nautical piece, the subject of which had all her colours (and more) flying, and was making great way through a sea of a regular pattern, like a lady's collar. A benevolent, elderly gentleman of the last century, with a powdered head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife- box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David's harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... wants; now we shall know when and why the dear heart sorrows or is glad. How reassured we feel, how confident! Now we cannot make mistakes; we shall do all for the best; we can give happiness; we can communicate wisdom; relation is established; the perplexing gulf of silence ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... scribes, and restored the purity of the text; for transcribing after transcribing had caused some errors and diversity of readings to occur, between the English and foreign codices, in spite of all the pious care of the monastic copyists; this was perplexing, an uniformity was essential and he undertook the task;[137] labors so valuable deserve the highest praise, and we bestow it more liberally upon him for this good work than we should have done ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... critic will undoubtedly discover instances of repetition and re-statement. Now and then, it has seemed advisable to include matter from earlier writings, long out of print; and new light has been thrown upon some phases of a perplexing problem. Will it tend to induce conviction of the need for reform? Assuredly, this is not to be expected where there is disagreement regarding certain basic principles. First of all, there must be some common ground. No agreement regarding vivisection can be anticipated or desired with any ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... statesman must seek is prevention of this great evil and strong root of evil; and prevention means a large, though it cannot be a very swift, displacement of the population. But among the many experts with whom I have discussed this dolorous and perplexing subject, I never found one of either political party who did not agree that a removal of the surplus population was only practicable if carried out by an Irish authority, backed by the solid weight of Irish opinion. ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... found that the mastering of some little principle upon which a puzzle was built has proved of considerable value to them in a most unexpected way. Indeed, it may be accepted as a good maxim that a puzzle is of little real value unless, as well as being amusing and perplexing, it conceals some instructive and possibly useful feature. It is, however, very curious how these little bits of acquired knowledge dovetail into the occasional requirements of everyday life, and ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... the details of ecclesiastical affairs. The relation of the churches with each other, involving principles of colonial government, demand a transient notice. The position of the episcopal church was anomalous and perplexing. The forms of procedure were derived from its practice, where its supremacy was established by law, and moderated by the crown. The patent of the see gave the bishop authority to try and punish delinquents; but the colonial law recognised no such tribunal as an ecclesiastical court, and patents ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... learned from the whites, and they were excessively jealous of reputation of great skill in this exercise, so important in hunting and war. Boone was challenged to shoot with them at a mark. It placed him in a most perplexing dilemma. If he shot his best, he could easily and far excel their most practised marksmen. But he was aware, that to display his superiority would never be forgiven him. On the other hand, to fall far short of them in an exercise ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... Richard, do you intend fixing his arrival?" she inquired, with the natural uneasiness of one upon whom, in an establishment whose pretensions considerably exceeded its resources, the perplexing cares of ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... the Pelagians in their teaching on original sin,(318) the Semipelagians in their teaching on grace relied mainly on the authority of St. John Chrysostom, from whose writings they loved to quote such perplexing passages as this: "We must first select the good, and then God adds what is of His; He does not forestall our will because He does not wish to destroy our liberty. But once we have made our choice, He gives us much help. For while it rests with us ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... grasp the idea of an Infinite Being; but, without perplexing myself with questions which I cannot solve, everything around me proclaims the presence and the government of an intelligent, law-abiding Law-giver, and I believe implicitly in his power and his love. But I must have the Friend of ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... he asked himself that perplexing question! All the pursuing demons seemed to shout it in his ears, and defy him to answer. If she had escaped the perils he most dreaded, where had she hidden herself? Perhaps she had only taken out a passport for England, with a view of throwing those ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... earlier scene for the purpose of picking up a point that you have overlooked. Nor is it possible to go back and follow the characters who have been temporarily dispensed with. If they reappear, it must be in a scene which naturally follows, and does not come with a sense of perplexing surprise. Remember this: When characters are reintroduced they must not have been too long absent from the plot-movement, but they must have been all the time consciously or subconsciously present in the mind of the spectator as ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... in the other are only the remote and unreal metropolitan politics. And those central city politics are not only cosmopolitan politics but corrupt politics. They corrupt everything that they reach, and this is the real point about many perplexing questions. ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... farther Conference.—I see this base contrivance plain. Your jealousy and pride, your envy of His shining merit, brought this bill to light. But mark me, as you prize our high regard And favour, I command you to suppress it: Let not our name and power be embarrass'd In your perplexing schemes. 'Twas you began, And therefore you ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... his despair "O Serpentina! Serpentina! save me from this agony of Hell!" And it was as if faint sighs breathed around him, which spread like green transparent elder-leaves over the glass; the clanging ceased; the dazzling, perplexing glitter was gone, and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... glorified the practice of art in those days, were the fruit of the old, not the seed of the new order of things: but a stirring and hopeful time it was, and many things were newborn then which have since brought forth fruit enough: and it is strange and perplexing that from those days forward the lapse of time, which, through plenteous confusion and failure, has on the whole been steadily destroying privilege and exclusiveness in other matters, has delivered up art ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... the life of Christ when visible signs showed His full possession of the Divine Spirit, and the lustre of His glorious nature. There are large and perplexing questions connected with both, on which I have no need to enter. At His baptism the Spirit of God descended visibly and abode on Jesus. At His transfiguration His face shone as the light, and His garments were radiant as sunlit snow. Now ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... he must at least pay off what he owes me;' and he began perplexing himself with reckonings. Theodora saw his brow drawn together, and his lips moving, and begged him to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... be driven off before it spoiled the fresco, or he may have suspicion that a rat terrier is in one of the pews by the pulpit, from the fact that he saw two or three children laughing. Now, there is nothing more perplexing than a dog chase during religious services. At a prayer meeting once in my house, a snarling poodle came in, looked around, and then went and sat under the chair of its owner. We had no objection to its being there (dogs should not be shut out from all advantages), ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... ambitious sister, Arabella," all combined to force the universally beloved and unassuming Clarissa to marry the wealthy Mr. Somers, who was to be the means of "the aggrandisement of the family." Clarissa, in this perplexing situation, yielded in a desperate mood to "the earnest entreaties of the artful Lovelace to accept the protection of the Ladies of his family." Who these ladies were, to whom the designing Lovelace ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... should be done. They could not agree upon the precise step to be taken. Some advocated a protest, others a respectful refusal to do duty; and a few went in for a square mutiny. The provisions were transferred from the cutter to the ship, and the boat was hoisted up before the perplexing question could be settled. ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... famed for his uprightness and generous disposition, and was looked up to by all the neighbourhood. He succeeded to 'a large park and very handsome house,' whose existence was partly due to the problem of the unemployed that was perplexing the benevolent more than three hundred years ago; for John Giles, 'to the honour of his memory ... began building of the house, and setting up the walls about his park, in the time of a very great dearth; whereby hundreds ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... in outward appearance at the age of twenty,—striking to the most careless eye; interesting and perplexing the student in that dark language never yet deciphered,—the human countenance. The reader must have observed that the effect every face that he remarks for the first time produces is different from the impression it leaves upon him when habitually seen. Perhaps ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... world-mystery. By accepting the "bread," Thou wouldst have satisfied and answered a universal craving, a ceaseless longing alive in the heart of every individual human being, lurking in the breast of collective mankind, that most perplexing problem—"whom or what shall we worship?" There exists no greater or more painful anxiety for a man who has freed himself from all religious bias, than how he shall soonest find a new object or idea to worship. But man seeks ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky

... of the lunar surface had interested the astronomic mind to a very high degree at their first discovery, and have proved to be very perplexing problems ever since. The first observers do not seem to have noticed them. Neither Hevelius, nor Cassini, nor La Hire, nor Herschel, makes a ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... a double loss. She had learned to love Captain Wopper for his own sake, and now Captain Wopper was lost to her in William Stout! On the other hand William, her darling, her smooth-faced chubby boy, was lost to her for ever in the hairy savage Captain Wopper! It was perplexing as well as heart-rending. Captain Wopper was gone, because, properly, there was no such being in existence. William Stout was gone because he would never write to her any more, and could never more return ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... year after painting the portraits of Meyer and his wife there is a sudden break in the painter's story which has always puzzled his biographers. After such a brilliant start in Basel it is perplexing to find the young man, instead of proceeding to join the Painters' Guild and take the necessary citizenship, suddenly turn his back on all these encouragements and leave the town for a long absence and remote journeys. As will be seen when we come to consider the ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... from the fumes of his terrible tobacco. I look with delight upon the huge man, who, with an air of the utmost good humour, and a twinkle in his eye as he thinks he is twisting me about his finger, vainly endeavours to obtain a hint regarding whatever case is perplexing him at that moment. I baffle him with the ease that an active greyhound eludes the pursuit of a heavy mastiff, then at last I say to him with ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... reasoning being; as a man thoughtful for the best interests of his country, of his individual interests, and of the interests of those who must take up the work of republican government when the present generation has passed away. When I say that this question is of a most complex and perplexing nature, I only assert what ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... too, in their more sentimental passages. But at this point, there developed a most perplexing phenomenon. The idea that he wanted to make love to her, really moved and excited her; set her imagination to exploring all sorts of roseate mysteries. The first time he had ever held her hand—it was inside her muff, one icy December ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... circle knew her but little, and were certainly more affected by the death (which I witnessed) of a beautiful bird, viz., a kingfisher, which had been injured by an accident. With my sister Jane's death (though otherwise, as I have said, less sorrowful than perplexing) there was, however, connected an incident which made a most fearful impression upon myself, deepening my tendencies to thoughtfulness and abstraction beyond what would seem credible for my years. If there ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... as the daylight vanishes when a shutter falls over the window of a cell; and on the other the Britling of the private life saw all the pleasant comfort of his relations with Mrs. Harrowdean disappearing in a perplexing irrational quarrel. He did not want to lose Mrs. Harrowdean; he contemplated their breach with a profound and profoundly selfish dismay. It seemed the wanton termination of an arrangement of which he was only beginning to perceive the ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... then south, and every other way, and it was exceedingly perplexing to know at once what to do in each case, especially as the waves became short and snappish under this pressure from different sides, and yet my compass quietly pointed right, with a soft radiance shining from it, and my mast-light in a brighter ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... Clemence Verney, first from the usual purveyors of such information, and more recently from her son, who, probably divining that rumour had been before him, adopted his usual method of disarming his mother by taking her into his confidence. But, ample as her information was, it remained perplexing and contradictory, and even her own few meetings with the girl had not helped her to a definite opinion. Miss Verney, in conduct and ideas, was patently of the "new school": a young woman of feverish activities and broad-cast judgments, ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... smoking tureens of the savory succotash, an Indian gift to the table for which civilization need not blush; sliced egg-plant in delicate fritters; and marrow squashes, of creamy pulp and sweetness: a rich variety, embarrassing to the appetite, and perplexing to the choice. Verily, the thought has often impressed itself on my mind that the vegetarian doctrine preached in America left a man quite as much as he had capacity to eat or enjoy, and that in the midst of such tantalizing abundance he ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... decided," he said, kissing the burning forehead of Adelheid with affection, and rubbing his hands, in the manner of one who was glad to be free from a perplexing doubt "These good friends agree with me, that, in a case like this, it becomes even our birth to forget the origin of the youth. He who has saved the lives of the two last of the Willadings at least deserves ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... some shikar" Why he did not prefer to say "gun-fire," "tea and toast," "run," "fields," and "game," probably he could not have told himself. His way of peppering his English with Urdu was characteristic of his class, and till I got accustomed to it I found it somewhat perplexing. If he had known me all his life he could not have been more friendly. Yet his kindness and hospitality were not exceptional things in the India of a quarter of a century ago. All is changed there now—whether much for the better I am skeptical. Twenty-two hours after they were due my missing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... over. He uttered little guttural exclamations and tapped the desk with his finger-tips as he read, and all the time his face wore that perplexing expression of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... called for concealment. Happily, Sibyl no longer met Mrs. Strangeways (whose character had taken such a doubtful hue), and Redgrave himself could assuredly be trusted for discretion, whatever his real part in that perplexing scene at he bungalow. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... for Johnny's medicine; that Mrs Thorpe smelt of drink half an hour after she had got two shillings towards the rent; that Mr Hawkins had given his wife a black eye for saying that he was strong enough to go to work again. Mrs Yabsley had listened with a perplexing smile to her ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... the personality of its founder lends exceptional importance. This is the society of "The Servants of India," founded by Mr. Gokhale at Poona. Mr. Gokhale's career itself exemplifies the cross-currents that are often so perplexing a feature of Indian unrest. He is chiefly known in England as one of the leading and certainly most interesting figures in Indian politics. A Chitpavan Brahman by birth, with the blood of the old dominant caste of Maharashtra in his veins, he has often been, ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... more than one judge in chambers, Mr. Justice Stephen being the one who granted the writ. I remember roaming the Law Courts with Mr. Bradlaugh that morning. We went from office to office in the most perplexing manner. Everything seemed designed to baffle suitors who conduct their own cases. Obsolete technicalities, only half intelligible even to experts, met one at every turn, and when I left the Law Courts I felt that the thing was indeed done, but that it would ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... all the seventeen Quartos as well as the new plays must have been printed from fair manuscript copies. From whom were these unblotted copies received, and what became of them? The silence of these players is irritating and perplexing,—though, possibly, the explanation of the mystery, were it forthcoming, would be, as often happens, of the simplest. It may be that these unblotted copies were in the ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... an opposite view. To the naturopath, illness is not a perplexing and mysterious occurrence over which you have no control or understanding. The causes of disease are clear and simple, the sick person is rarely a victim of circumstance and the cure is obvious and within the competence of a moderately intelligent ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... the rural-school question is the coming question in education. Even the country church is being made a subject of discussion in religious circles. It is conceded that agriculture presents "problems." And while the throbbing, busy, intense life of the city brings perplexing questions to our civilization, our people are coming to realize that the agricultural population and the agricultural industry are still tremendous factors in our national life and success, and that both social and industrial conditions ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... necessary that I should indicate the connection between the activity of this apex-point of the complex vision and the various perplexing human problems round which our controversies smoulder and burn. It is advisable that I should indicate the connection between the activity of this "apex-thought" and that thing which the world ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... astonished the people, but we never tempted them to forget their natural good-nature, forbearance, and self-restraint. On our side, the attentive scrutiny to which we were subjected, was at first not a little perplexing. It was difficult not to doubt occasionally whether some unpleasantly remarkable change had not suddenly taken place in our personal appearance—whether we might not have turned green or blue on our ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... He was considered the first wit in Berlin, where he died in 1870." In 1812, when Byron wrote his note to the third edition of Childe Harold, Gropius must have been barely of age, and the statement "that he has for years assumed the name of his (a noble Lord's) agent" is somewhat perplexing.] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... went about my work. I wrote up my notes until five o'clock in the afternoon. Just then—was it due to some personal indisposition?—I felt extremely hot and had to take off my jacket made of fan mussel fabric. A perplexing circumstance because we weren't in the low latitudes, and besides, once the Nautilus was submerged, it shouldn't be subject to any rise in temperature. I looked at the pressure gauge. It marked a depth of sixty feet, a depth beyond the reach of ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... YEAR'S BREAKFASTS AND DINNERS A perplexing problem Requisites for a well arranged menu Suggestions for preparing bills of fare Table of food analyses Fifty-two weeks' breakfasts and dinners Average cost Analysis of various bills of fare ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... bankers' book had been the theme all the morning, and an astonishing one to me equally with my grandfather: Since our arrival in England, my father had drawn nine thousand pounds. The sums expended during our absence on the Continent reached the perplexing figures of forty-eight thousand. I knew it too likely, besides, that all debts were not paid. Self—self—self drew for thousands at a time; sometimes, as the squire's convulsive forefinger indicated, for many thousands within ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was equivalent to the word "man." I had made myself acquainted with this fact as soon as I had acquired sufficient knowledge of their language. My astonishment at it cannot be described. It was a mystery that became more and more perplexing. Never in the closest intimacy that I could secure could I obtain the slightest clue, the least suggestion relating to the presence of man. My friend's infant, scarcely two years old, prattled ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... costumes were most perplexing to good New England ears and eyes, and Rebecca knew not whether to ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... other, is the missing body a mystery. It has been perplexing, troubling him, throughout all the afternoon, even when his blood was up, and nerves strung with excitement. Now, at night, in the dark, silent hours, as he dwells ponderingly upon it, it more than perplexes, more ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... isolated the active principles of his medicines, has taught him how to combine them, has from time to time offered him new remedial agencies, and so of others of his allies. But he will also tell you, if I am not mistaken, that his own branch of knowledge is so extensive and so perplexing that he must accept most of his facts ready made at their hands. He will own to you that in the struggle for life which goes on day and night in our thoughts as in the outside world of nature, much that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... John Bumpus in spite of himself. Violence had no effect on John, because in most cases he was able to meet it with superior violence, and in all cases he was willing to try. But to be put down in this mild way was perplexing. The words were familiar, the look straightforward and common enough. He could not understand it at all, and being naturally of a philosophical turn of mind, he spent the next three minutes in a futile endeavor to analyze his ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... breathed these fears to him—she kept hoping that some accident, or some remark from Mrs. Montague, would throw light on the perplexing mystery. ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... which in this process were accumulated upon my hands might, I hoped, be woven into one long chapter on the Ostrogothic government of Italy. When the materials were collected, however, they were so manifold, so perplexing, so full of curious and unexpected detail, that I quite despaired of ever succeeding in the attempt to group them into one harmonious and artistic picture. Frankly, therefore, renouncing a task which is beyond my powers, I offer my notes for ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... But the most perplexing thing about the plans was how one story ever got upon another. Corona's imagination never fully grappled with this fact, although her intellect accepted it. She took her books down-stairs one night, and Susy came ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... acting on the embryo, the young or adult animal, can cause inherited modifications. It is equally or even more unintelligible on any ordinary view, how the effects of the long-continued use or disuse of any part, or of changed habits of body or mind, can be inherited. A more perplexing problem can hardly be proposed; but on our view we have only to suppose that certain cells become at last not only functionally but structurally modified; and that these throw off similarly modified gemmules. This may occur at any period of development, and the modification ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... I'll pursue its wand'ring fires, No more I'll know perplexing doubts and fears, And erring trace suspicion's endless maze, For, ah! ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey



Words linked to "Perplexing" :   unclear, confusing



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