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Baffled   /bˈæfəld/   Listen
Baffled

adjective
1.
Perplexed by many conflicting situations or statements; filled with bewilderment.  Synonyms: at sea, befuddled, bemused, bewildered, confounded, confused, lost, mazed, mixed-up.  "Bewildered and confused" , "A cloudy and confounded philosopher" , "Just a mixed-up kid" , "She felt lost on the first day of school"






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"Baffled" Quotes from Famous Books



... obliged, in some imperfect sense, to connive at injustice; his chance experience must convince him that injustice is continually going on; and yet, in any attempt to intercept it or to check it, he is met and baffled by the insuperable obstacles of household necessities. Dr. S. therefore surrendered himself, as under a coercion that was none of his creating, to a passive acquiescence and a blindness that ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... certainly not above two hundred and fifty years of age; and, though it is undeniably of wood, within and without, the walls are made, as in most of the houses in the town, of a timber frame filled with clay. There is another church in Honfleur, but it was equally without interest. Thus baffled, we walked to the heights above the town: at the top of the cliff was a crowd of people, some of them engaged in devotion near a large wooden crucifix, others enjoying themselves at different games, or sitting ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... sex,—from certain characters not blending together,—and, perhaps, occasionally from the effects of a previous fertilisation on the mother. It is therefore not surprising that every one hitherto has been baffled in drawing up general rules on ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... fell at his side. The two men's glances countered, held each other, one calm, dignified, unafraid; the other, murderous, searching, baffled. Presently, McTurpin turned and strode away. Windham looked after the departing gambler. "'Fraid I've spoiled his morning," he remarked ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... small boat that lay moored there, of which the boatmen, frightened at the sight of his bloody sword, left him in undisputed possession. Chobei pushed off, and sculled vigorously into the middle of the river; and the officers—there being no other boat near—were for a moment baffled. One of them, however, rushing down the river bank, hid himself on a bridge, armed with. a spear, and lay in wait for Chobei to pass in his boat; but when the little boat came up, he missed his aim, and only scratched Chobei's elbow; and he, seizing the spear, dragged ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... they stayed there until the sun had gone down. They accordingly went back to Dan's cabin a sulky and ugly pair. Lustful, and filled with the spirit of revenge, they became all the more determined and desperate the more they were baffled in ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... at the old woman's effrontery, he wanted to crush her with angry eloquence; but her stolidity baffled him, and he went up to his room without a word. When he was alone, his anger soon cooled; but he found himself repeating those cruel words, and as he said them over, he began to fear that Florou was not ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various

... been but the pastime of a half hour that we have given to the flower odors, when an ever-widening field for speculation lies before us. But imagination droops exhausted, baffled by the innumerable enchanting riddles still to solve. And this must ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, is, as its name implies, intended to supply this deficiency. Those who meet with facts worthy of preservation, may record them in its columns; while those, again, who are pursuing literary inquiries, may, through this MEDIUM, ask for information on points which have baffled their own individual researches. How often is even the best informed writer stopped by an inability to solve some doubt or understand some obscure allusion which suddenly starts up before him! How often does a reading man stumble upon some elucidation ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various

... not the men to fear a pair of gaping jaws, armed with a deadly array of tusks, but half a dozen lances were hurled at him, some entering his mouth from a distance of five or six paces, at the same time several men threw handfuls of sand into his enormous eyes. This baffled him more than the lances; he crunched the shafts between his powerful jaws like straws, but he was beaten by the sand, and, shaking his huge head, he retreated to the river. During his sally upon the shore, two of the hunters had secured the ropes of the harpoons ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... unless we may except the case of the Black Warrior, under the late Administration, and that presented an outrage of such a character as would have justified an immediate resort to war. All our attempts to obtain redress have been baffled and defeated. The frequent and oft-recurring changes in the Spanish ministry have been employed as reasons for delay. We have been compelled to wait again and again until the new minister shall have had time to investigate the justice ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... master mariner closed the lips of even Cap'n Joab. The latter did not repeat his query about Cap'n Abe but, with a baffled expression on his weather-beaten countenance, departed with ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... Frau Krause, baffled, could do no more than mumble a: "Well, if you like to wait!" and point out the room. She followed Madeleine over the threshold, drying her hands on ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they did not require him to solve mysteries which had baffled the police. He had never measured a footprint in his life, and what he did not know about bloodstains would have filled a library. The sort of job they gave Henry was to stand outside a restaurant in the rain, and note what time ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... amount of clothing and provisions and wantonly destroying the rest. They then made their escape on horses belonging to the guards. As soon as their absence was discovered, bloodhounds were put upon the trail which led towards the interior. The dogs were soon completely baffled, however, for the fugitives had evidently taken to water whenever they came near a pond or creek. This ruse, as well as the whole uprising, is believed to have been the headwork of 'Indian Charley,' one of the escaped ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Now! Inquiry at the customhouse and at the Mexican consulate shows that the vessel has been sold, and the trail leads straight to the office of the West Coast Trading Company. You are interviewed—and say nothing; and that day, when I appear on 'Change, these baffled journalists drive me into a corner and ask me what I think about it. And I'll tell them it's just another case of the lowly Mexican peon being hornswoggled by the foxy Americano. The Mexicans wanted a ship and asked the American ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... poured in over the gunwale and half filled the dory, which seemed on the point of sinking before the long wave crept away, growling, as though disappointed at being baffled ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... light—for the ground was hard as a rock, and he had made no footmarks. Marengo might trace him. The dog had been left at the camp, as Basil preferred "still-hunting" without him. But in his present situation the hunter's apprehensions were stronger than his hopes. Even Marengo might be baffled ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... baffled. He was ten years older than either of them, but so many actual clashing things happening had never come his way before. His ten years' advantage had been spent writing stylistic essays, and such do not fit one for stepping down into ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer

... really remarkable how completely she had done that. In that meeting in the garden just now she had just sailed through Mrs Quantock as calmly as a steamer cuts through the waters of the sea, throwing her off from her penetrating bows like a spent wave. But baffled though she was for the moment, Georgie had been aware that Mrs Quantock seethed with revolutionary ideas: she deeply resented this confiscation of what was certainly her property, though she was impotent to ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... mother were also surveyed. Here Barbara was baffled by the determination on the part of both of them that she should talk, should think, should dream about all the things concerning which she could not talk, think nor dream. "How to grow up into a nice little girl," "How to pray to God," "How never to tell ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... Then they were baffled by Prairie-dogs which dodged down out of reach and hawks which rose up out of reach, and still we rode, till, rounding a little knoll near a drinking place, we came suddenly on a mother Blacktail and her two fawns. All three ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... 'Baffled! baffled!' hissed Madame, when she had read the note; 'God deliver me from my friends!' She paced up and down the room several times, and at last began to mutter to herself, as people often do in moments of strong ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... secret. Still, if art has efficacy to surprise and reveal the elusive Spirit of Truth, when truth is dramatically presented it is made vivid and impressive, strengthening the faith of the strongest and bringing a ray of heavenly light to many a baffled seeker. ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... Was it possible that such as he could altogether die? Some touch, some turn, I could not tell what or how, seemed all that was necessary to enable me to see and to hear him. It was just as if I were perplexed and baffled by a veil which prevented recognition of him, although I was ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... firm, they quickened their pace, and at length dashed forward through the wood, uncontrolled by the bridle. The long narrow saddle, with its woollen covering, the crescent-shaped wooden stirrups, and the heavy spurs, with their clumsy rowels, baffled all our skill in horsemanship, and it was with no little difficulty we kept our seats. We thought it best to give the animals the rein, and they galloped through the umbrageous thickets, until at last, panting and breathless, they stuck in a morass. Here we recovered ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... destinies of France and Mexico, and the incident naturally impressed itself upon my memory. Upon my arrival in Mexico, where I found men puzzling over the extraordinary lack of concert between the allied invaders, which baffled their understanding, I remembered those words of the Duc de Morny, uttered even before a suitable pretext had been furnished General de Lorencez for breaking through the preliminary treaty of La Soledad, and, of course, before the news of the final rupture ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... Miller was, perforce, obliged to let the matter rest. She went her way angry and vexed beyond measure, and somewhat baffled too. How is a mother to deal with a daughter who is so determined and so defiant as was Beatrice Miller? There is no known method in civilized life of reducing a young lady of twenty to submission in matters of ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... gold of the mine. And as for the Romans, they did nothing, thinking it sufficient for them that the enemy had lost the income from there, and the Persians were not able against the will of the Romans to force the inhabitants of the place to terms, because they were baffled ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... farmers enraged by the 'bedivilment' of their stock, shot at with silver slugs, and identified next morning with some dreaded hag or other lying groaning and wounded in her bed—of calves' hearts burnt at midnight with awful ceremonies, while the baffled witch outside flung herself in rage and agony against the close-barred doors and windows—of spells and wise men—these things had sent chills of pleasing horror through the boy's frame. They were altogether ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... is this part of the story that makes me saddest of all. For I ask myself unceasingly, my mind going round and round in a weary, baffled space of pain—what should these people have done? What, in the name of ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... be in a restless mood, and she soon saw that he was bent upon a swift victory. He made his moves with a quick dexterity that baffled her completely, and but a very few minutes elapsed before he uttered ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... less remarkable than those of the ridden. At each change in the evolutions of the latter, the former raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this manner, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and diminishings of the stature, as baffled every conjecture that might be made as to his dimensions. If to this be added the fact that, in consequence of the ex parte application of the spur, one side of the mare appeared to journey faster than the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... baffled. He had expected to surprise her into a confession. He did not suppose he had subjugated this woman so completely that she would make her interests identical with his own, and he could only explain her answer ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... then again seeking the spiritual union still for ever denied. The vague sense of the Roman Campagna is distilled into exquisite words, and through all there sounds the sad and weary undertone of baffled endeavour:— ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... florid, and his appearance rather stout and athletic; but when he had been about eighteen months in India, he felt the effects of that climate, so perilous to European constitutions. The disease baffled all power of medicine; he was reduced almost to a skeleton; the use of his limbs was for some time entirely lost; and the only hope that remained was from a voyage home. Accordingly he was brought home by Captain Pigot, in the DOLPHIN; and had it not been for the attentive and careful ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... termed Mr. Secretary Chase a passive patriot. Peccavi. And here let me write down my recantation! Chase exerted himself for the retaining of Seward in the cabinet, and it was by Chase alone that the efforts of the patriots to expel Seward, were baffled. And yet, from the first day of the official assemblage of this cabinet down to the day of the meeting of the present session of Congress, Chase was more vigorously vicious than any other living man in daily, hourly, all the time, denunciation of Seward,—of ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... foreign powers, are able to spout freely. And these papers have been having a wonderful time describing the happenings in Tientsin, where the threatened boycott has gone into effect. For the Chinese, baffled in their attempt to regain their captured territory, have instituted what they call that "revenge which must take the form of civilized retaliation, namely, refusal to buy or sell French goods." On an appointed day there ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte

... without exposure to certain death. They were too well acquainted with the unerring aim of Boone's rifle to venture within its range. Keeping the log cabin between them and their redoubtable foe, the baffled Indians fled ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... the door,' said Romaine, 'and reconsider this damnable position. Without doubt, Alain was this moment at the door. He hoped to enter and get a view of you, as if by accident. Baffled in this, has he stayed himself, or has he planted Dawson here ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and that the young girl was the subject of a sedulously concealed scrutiny. Was he watching for his friend or for his own sake, or was he, in a spirit of retaliation, enjoying the suffering of one who had made others suffer? His reserve was so great that she could not pierce it, and his caution baffled even her vigilance. But she waited patiently, assured that the little drama must soon pass into a more ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... and jealousy and the constantly increasing suspicion of baffled ambition, how was she to act? To accept her situation as a decree of fate, to fawn upon the mistress like a patient slave, and, if the lord were to tire of her in the end and give himself up to other captivations, to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Edward, baffled, finally turned for aid to Warwick. Over the Channel hastened the earl and his new son-in-law, levied troops, met the king at Olney, and—Edward found himself if not exactly a prisoner, at least under restraint. Two sovereigns—both ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... unconsciously for what belonged to her life and growth; being taught one thing more than all, that her duty must be followed eagerly and reverently in spite of the adverse reasons which tempted and sometimes baffled her. As she grew older she was to understand more clearly that indecision is but another name for cowardice and weakness; a habit of mind that quickly increases its power of hindrance. She had the faults that belonged to her character, but these were the faults of haste and rashness rather ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... expressed an infinite deal, but she did not answer at once. She wanted to be very sure of saying the right word; and it is only when we try to grapple with another's intimate need that we find ourselves baffled by the elusive, intangible spirits of those with whom we share sunlight and food and the bewildering gift of speech. Honor was wondering now whether, by a supreme concentration of will, she could possibly infuse some ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... forcibly a dead man whom she had neglected, detested and deceived. And as for Douglas, for years he had been sensible of the smart of a baffled instinct, a hunger for a mother's love and affection, which had never been ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... confusion. Grimwood's force was the first to be withdrawn and was saved from disaster by the gallant stand made by two field batteries as it crossed the level ground. The cavalry scampered home in Grimwood's track. A dramatic episode brought the battle of Lombard's Kop to a close. Just as the baffled troops were entering Ladysmith a battery of naval guns, which had arrived from Durban that morning and had gone immediately into action, succeeded in silencing Long Tom and some other guns on Pepworth Hill, nearly four miles distant. In the evening ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... external or internal, to their essential nature, he is equally at fault. Though he may succeed in resolving all properties of objects into manifestations of force, he is not thereby enabled to conceive what force is; but finds, on the contrary, that the more he thinks about it, the more he is baffled. Similarly, though analysis of mental actions may finally bring him down to sensations as the original materials out of which all thought is woven, he is none the forwarder; for he cannot in the least comprehend sensation. Inward and ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... their homes after the battle of Culloden, to settle in South Carolina. The "High Hills of Santee," which lie between Lynche's creek and the Wateree, in what is now Sumter County, were designed for them. The exiles, however, baffled by contrary winds, were driven into the Cape Fear, and from thence a part of them crossed and settled higher up, in what is now Darlington County, the rest having taken up ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... asked her husband, baffled, and even awed, by this extraordinary revelation of a woman he had supposed ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... supplied the armies; he fortified Richmond; he sustained the great captain whom he had placed in command while McClellan was at the gates. When the tide had turned and the Army of the Potomac sullenly withdrew, baffled, there occurred the one brief space in Confederate history that was pure sunshine. In this period took place the splendid victory of Second Manassas. The strong military policy of the Administration had given the Confederacy powerful armies. Lee had inspired them with victory. This period of ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... Christie unconsciously spoke with something of her old dramatic fervor in voice and gesture; Mr. Fletcher saw it, and, while he never had admired her so much, could not resist avenging himself for the words that angered him, the more deeply for their truth. Wounded vanity and baffled will can make an ungenerous man as spiteful as a woman; and Mr. Fletcher proved it then, for he saw where Christie's pride was sorest, and touched the wound with the ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... Baffled in their previous search, and smarting under the sense of their intolerable wrongs, the party regarded this as a providential deliverance of their arch-enemy into their hands. Here was the chief cause of all their woes, the man ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... kindred, with everything that belonged to them; to take possession of their property, and to burn and destroy whatever they could not bring away: but the sagacious and active youth had foreseen this, and had taken his measures with such prudence and promptitude, that he had completely baffled the tyrant. He, his wife, his wife's relations, his own parents and family, with all their effects (leaving only their tilled ground behind them), had concerted one common plan of migration into the Russian territory. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... the infinite reason, and recognises the almighty power, in their sublimest manifestations. I rejoice in the glory of its triumphs, and am ready to pronounce its empire boundless. But, alas! I see it again baffled and confounded by the wonders and ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... squinny rogue, a low-born fellow even as I am, whom you had baffled and made a laughing-stock, had come to me in my loneliness and sworn before God that if you honorable gentlemen would not keep your words, he the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... purr, and the car began to move. There was a low mutter from the crowd, a moan of fury and baffled desire; but not a hand was lifted, and the car shot away, and disappeared down the street, leaving Carpenter standing on the curb, making a Socialist speech to a ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... term is frequently employed by the diagnostician when he is baffled in the matter of definitely locating the cause of lameness; when he has by exclusion and otherwise arrived at a decision that lameness is "high up." Shoulder lameness may be caused by any one or several of a number of conditions, ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... Schuyler's end was different. He was a man reserved—a man who thought much and told little. His illness baffled Dr. DeLancey at first; but then he knew what the disease was; although to it he could give no polysyllabic name of Latin, and for it he could prescribe no remedies; for the cure had gone from the hands of man into the hands of God. And to the hands of God, John Stuyvesant Schuyler went, at length, ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne

... huge fire-place. A woman, with a begrimed cotton handkerchief tied over her head, sat on the hearth endeavoring to blow them into a blaze, while the smoke, that poured down the foul and blackened chimney, caused the tears to roll from her eyes, and baffled her efforts. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... somewhat swollen passion, cuts the knot by the derangement of the hero's clock. Such personages and incidents belong to the novel of character; they are out of place in the high society of the passions; when the passions are introduced in art at their full height, we look to see them, not baffled and impotently striving, as in life, but towering above circumstance and acting substitutes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... MOKANNA'S soul would have defied them all; Yet now, the rush of fugitives, too strong For human force, hurries even him along; In vain he struggles mid the wedged array Of flying thousands—he is borne away; And the sole joy his baffled spirit knows, In this forced flight, is—murdering as he goes! As a grim tiger whom the torrent's might Surprises in some parched ravine at night, Turns even in drowning on the wretched flocks Swept with him in that snow-flood from the rocks, And, to the last, devouring on his way, Bloodies ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... there, the vindictive cruelty of the French soldiery had been seen in full sway: the ruined chateau, the burned villages, the desecrated altars, the murdered peasantry,—all attested the revengeful spirit of a beaten and baffled enemy. No sooner, however, had they crossed the frontiers, than, as if by magic, their character became totally changed. Discipline and obedience succeeded to recklessness and pillage; and instead of treating the natives with, inhumanity and cruelty, in all their intercourse with ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... him to lose those pursuing vultures. The last of them fell off, baffled,—or afraid to go deeper into France. Now he emerged again into the clear air and the starlight. The land beneath him was a scudding blur, with a dark-green mass in its center, the ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... her, baffled in spite of his determination to understand. "You wouldn't want to do that, then?" ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... fabulous wealth in some form. A few hundred dollars and a rope of pearls lay in it. It was a good "haul," but where was the vast spoil the counterfeiters had accumulated? We had missed it. So far we were completely baffled. ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... not lacking in penetration; men of his stamp are commonly endowed with that quality to an eminent degree. Not slow to reckon the caliber of the man before him, the leaven of intuition began to work in his adipose intelligence. He owned himself baffled. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... Diana looked baffled. Her romantic plan of restoring the fortunes of the Seton family through matrimony certainly did not ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... were about as big as the palm of the hand. Inside the wall he stationed archers and cross-bows, or scorpions, and by the volleys discharged through these he made the marines useless. By these means he not only baffled the enemy, whether at a distance or close at hand, but also killed the greater number of them. As often, too, as they tried to work their Sambucae, he had engines ready all along the walls, not visible at ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason—the walls of privacy shall not stifle its voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret counsels clear as noon-day, what canst thou now have in view? Proceed, plot, conspire, as thou wilt; there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can propose, nothing you can attempt which I ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... sight of both hosts. Deemest thou he would be more gentle to us and to thee? Such are thy dangers. Be bold and frank,—and thou canst not escape them; be wary and wise, promise and feign,—and they are baffled: cover thy lion heart with the fox's hide until thou art free from ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... attack of redemptive energy in the sphere of personal life. It comes to a man shamed by the sense of guilt and baffled by moral failure, and rouses him to a consciousness of his high worth and eternal destiny. It transmits the faith of the Christian Church in a loving and gracious God who is willing to forgive and powerful to save. ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... glen, Soon lost to hound and Hunter's ken, In the deep Trossachs' wildest nook 145 His solitary refuge took. There, while close couched, the thicket shed Cold dews and wild-flowers on his head, He heard the baffled dogs in vain Rave through the hollow pass amain, 150 Chiding the ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... attack will certainly fail," Ned said, as they sat at breakfast. "They will be baffled by this water belt round us. However, they will come next time with rafts ready to push across it, and then we shall have ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... give place to a faith that claims for God the entire world with its present life as well as individual immortality in future felicity. Miracle and cataclysm and postmortem glory—the ever-ready recourse of baffled hope and persecuted Christianity—are giving place more and more to a Christian conquest that is orderly and inclusive of the whole sweep of human life. The church is but dimly conscious, as yet, that through the aid of science she has attained this magnificent ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... had Darrell been brought so near the unseen, the unknown,—always surrounding us, but of which few of us are conscious,—and for hours he sat motionless, lost in thought, grappling with problems hitherto unthought of, but which now perplexed and baffled ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... begin. He took his position behind the long, flat-topped table which he used for his demonstrations before his classes. "I realise, ladies and gentlemen," he began formally, "that I am about to do a very unusual thing; but, as you all know, the police and the coroner have been completely baffled by this terrible mystery and have requested me to attempt to clear up at least certain points in it. I will begin what I have to say by remarking that the tracing out of a crime like this differs in nothing, except as regards ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... anything with regard to the mystery of Lady Arabella's fear of the mongoose, but he steadily pursued his course in being prepared to act whenever the opportunity might come. He was in his own mind perpetually casting about for information or clues which might lead to possible lines of action. Baffled by the killing of the mongoose, he looked around for another line to follow. He was fascinated by the idea of there being a mysterious link between the woman and the animal, but he was already preparing a second string to his bow. His new idea was to use the faculties of Oolanga, so far as ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... Don Ignacio consented to the deception, and they were saved. Whatever the suspicions of Santa Anna and his adjutant, both were baffled about that affair, at least for ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... that some of those friends of the narrator, for whom the account was evidently written, may still be living, and that these pages may meet their eyes. If so, they may be able to solve the few problems that have entirely baffled me, and to explain, if they so choose, the secrets to which, intentionally or through the destruction of its introductory portion, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... features in the dome of Night Elude the keenest gaze of wistful eyes Till amplest lenses aid the failing sight, On heaven's blue sea the farthest isle of fire. From thee, whose glories it would fain admire, Must vision, baffled, ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... the most violent opposition, and the Patricians induced some of the Plebeians to put their veto upon the measures of their colleagues. But Licinius and Sextius were not to be baffled in this way, and they exercised their veto by preventing the Comitia of the Centuries from electing any magistrates for the next year. Hence no Consuls, Military Tribunes, Censors, or Quaestors could be appointed; and ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... lion and assembled all the host of the Goths. He advanced from Ravenna and harassed the walls of Rome with a long siege. But after fourteen months his courage was broken and he raised the siege of the city of Rome and prepared to overwhelm Ariminum. Here he was baffled in like manner 313 and put to flight; and so he retreated to Ravenna. When besieged there, he quickly and willingly surrendered himself to the victorious side, together with his wife Mathesuentha and the ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes

... and the defense of it were equally fierce, bloody, and desperate. Again and again the buccaneers assaulted, and again and again they were beaten back. So the morning came, and it seemed as though the pirates had been baffled this time. But just at this juncture the thatch of palm leaves on the roofs of some of the buildings inside the fortifications took fire, a conflagration followed, which caused the explosion of one of the magazines, and in the paralysis of terror that ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... that was calculated to make a spiritual impression. The address was poor, as also was the music. I tried to follow the argument, but finally gave it up and began to think about that which had been uppermost in my mind for the five days past. The thing baffled me; the object of my quest had eluded my every effort to grasp it. The experience of the five days was new, but it contained nothing but that which could be accounted for by purely natural causes. I ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober

... of some innocent, laudable, and almost sacred affection, as in the case, though its scale be small, out of which all of this has grown, Satan has us at an advantage, because when the obstacle occurs, we have a sentiment that the feeling baffled is a right one, and in indulging a rebellious temper we flatter ourselves that we are merely as it were indulgent on behalf, not of ourselves, but of a duty which we have been interrupted in performing. But our duties can take care of themselves ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... instant sufficed to secure him hand and foot; in another, a gag was clapped in his mouth and secured by a turn of the rope round his neck; at the third, the conqueror, thrusting his hand into his bosom, tore from it the stolen will, which he immediately after buried in his own. Then, spurning the baffled villain into a corner, and flinging over his body a pile of skins and blankets, until he was entirely hidden from sight, he left him to the combined agonies of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... you're baffled, in short, by the fame that you court, and your name's overlooked by the papers,— There's a road to success without toil or distress, or nocturnal consumption of tapers: By adopting this plan you're a prominent man, and no longer a painful aspirant: You ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... glance when he struck down the sister he had played with from childhood, neither did he note that his father's hand had dealt the blow that dropped his right arm helpless to his side. Only a cry of baffled rage and hate escaped his lips, as he snatched his falling knife with his left hand. Another blow, and his father fell across the quivering ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... of the Etham line of fortifications and march toward the north-east along the nearest road leading to Palestine had proved impossible; but Moses' second plan of leading the people around the Migdol of the South had also been baffled; for spies had reported that the garrison of the latter had been greatly strengthened. Then the multitude had pressed around the man of God, declaring that they would rather return home with their families and appeal to Pharaoh's mercy than to let ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... care of the said three brothers, till he should see how the climate agreed with him, and find a home for them. Bill did not belong to the extended fraternity of scapegraces. He was neither wild nor worthless, in the ordinary sense of those terms, but there was a faith in him, the origin of which baffled his most penetrating friends, that he was to get money somehow without working for it by any of the common methods. Unlike many a professor of better principles, Bill had carried that faith into practice. Under its influence, he had engaged in every scheme for making ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various

... deliberate and calm as if he were offering the Bench a pinch of snuff. Albemarle's dark visage crimsoned; his eyes became at once wicked and afraid. Sir Edward's cheeks turned pale, his glance grew startled. Luttrell alone, vigilant and dangerous, preserved his calm. But the situation baffled even him. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... countenance. Trouble he discerned, and shame; but the half-veiled eyes, the quivering nostril, the hard, cold lips, spoke a language beyond Samuel's interpretation. Even had he known of the outrages previously inflicted upon her pride, and that this new attack came at a moment when her courage was baffled, her heart cruelly wounded, he would just as little have comprehended the spirit which ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... even that humiliation was not so strong in her mind as the astounding revelation of Danvers. She remembered that even as his eyes blazed hatred at her, he looked at her, at her neck, her bare arms, with the baffled desire of brute passion. She did not fully understand the look, but she felt that it was a degradation far greater ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)

... bliged," said Jake. Baffled and without further recourse, he left the Major's presence, since there seemed to be nothing else to do. But once outside, he felt that there had been something highly unsatisfactory about the parley. He decided to imitate Mary's little lamb ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... him with a puzzled baffled suspicion. "You switched him on to that subject on purpose, and by means of something uncommon like ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony

... pride on which he had so long depended failed him now. Successful fights that he had waged, profitable crimes committed, grew pale upon his tongue. Listening in the darkness while the engine drove us through a black sea and the canvas awning flapped overhead, I felt the baffled ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... permanently behind the navy. Even in the first year of the conflict, when it was only a crowd of seventy-five thousand undisciplined militia, contending against a solid body of well-disciplined and commanded forces, it wrested two States from the foe, and baffled his intentions for the capture of all our great border cities. But since the opening of the campaign of 1802, the real beginning of war by the North, we have conquered from the aristocracy and now hold ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... resound through the silent garden; and over the lawn rush those three demoniacal fox-terriers, Snap, Puzzy, and Babs, all determined to catch something. Away fly the birds, and though now high overhead, the baffled brutes continue wildly careering about the grounds, vexing the air with their frantic barkings. No more birds to-day! But now the peace-breakers have discovered me, and come tearing across the lawn, and on to the half-way chair, then ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... his couch; great had been the exhaustion that he had often experienced; haggard had sometimes even been the lustre of his youth. But when had been marked upon his brow this harrowing care? When had his features before been stamped with this anxiety, this anguish, this baffled desire, this strange, unearthly scowl, which made him even tremble? What! was it possible?—it could not be—that in time he was to be like those awful, those unearthly, those unhallowed things that were around him. He felt as if he had fallen from his state, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... always been in the habit of playing with the rest of the girls, so thinking that Ling Kuan was like the others, he felt impelled to draw near her and to entreat her, with a forced smile, to get up and sing part of the "Niao Ch'ing Ssu." But his hopes were baffled; for as soon as Ling Kuan perceived him sit down, she impetuously raised herself and withdrew from his side. "I'm hoarse," she rejoined with a stern expression on her face. "The Empress the other day called us into the palace; but I couldn't sing ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... secret of the fact that he believed that, if he dressed for the chase and took to the woods, he would in the end find and capture the princess, but it might take a week or ten days. The archduke cried shame upon a strategist of his ability that he should be baffled by children for a week or ten days. Count Zerbst said sulkily that it was not the children who would baffle him, but the caves and the woods they were using. At last they began to discuss the measure of summoning to their aid the local police; and for some time debated whether it was worth ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... vouchsafed their aid, and the offended Virgin, relenting, held before them her protecting shield. In the form of beasts and other shapes abominably and unutterably hideous, the brood of hell, howling in baffled fury, tore at the branches of the sylvan dwelling; but a celestial hand was ever interposed, and there was a viewless barrier which they might not pass. Marguerite became pregnant. Here was a double ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... better her speech, and she had proved an apt pupil. Now it seemed that she had sunk back into her race. Her face was guileless, stolidly guileless, giving no cue. Kitty's untroubled brow likewise baffled him. What had happened? How much had been said? and ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... oxen he was loosening, and approached Nic in a surly way, hardly glancing at him; but for a few moments the chain-knot baffled him, while the ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... verge of a precipice more than three thousand feet in height,—a sheer granite wall, whose terrible perpendicular distance baffled all visual computation. Its foot was hidden among hazy green spiculae—they might be tender spears of grass catching the slant sun on upheld aprons of cobweb, or giant pines whose tops that sun first gilt before he made gold ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... Beaurepaire was sad, and weighed down with presentiments. She felt as soldiers sometimes feel who know the enemy is undermining them; no danger on the surface; nothing that can be seen, met, baffled, attacked, or evaded; in daily peril, all the more horrible that it imitates perfect serenity, they await the fatal match. She imparted her misgivings to Aubertin; but he assured ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... "Baffled and beaten she turned to the shore, ran hard aground near Tarquino Point, fifty miles from Santiago, and then hauled down ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... meant it, which was strange. Sadie knew and sometimes used her power of attraction, but it was obvious that she was angry. It looked as if he had chosen the wrong moment, and he felt worse baffled and disappointed ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... men stood breathless in their dread, And baffled in their skill— But One was there, who rose and said To the ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... orders then. 'Twas the cat those men wanted. Before Pierre Radisson had said one word the mutineers had discovered the deck cannon pointing amidships. A shout of baffled rage broke from the ragged group. Quick words passed from man to man. A noisy, shuffling, indeterminate movement! The crowd swayed forward. There was a sudden rush from the fo'castle to the waist. They had charged to gain possession of the powder cabin—Pierre ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... whirlpools of the torrent, while the roar of the waters effectually prevented his magnificent voice from reaching more than a dozen yards from the spot where he stood. Arriving at the snow-bridge, we examined it closely for signs of footmarks; it was, however, so hard that it baffled all ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... there must be some method of explaining the matter, but how to go about the explanation to one so utterly ignorant did not at once occur to him. We have seen, however, that Rooney was a resolute man, not to be easily baffled. After a few moments' thought ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... the king decided upon it. Mirabeau himself, bought by the court, had proposed it in his mysterious interviews with the queen. One of his plans presented to the king was, to escape from Paris, take refuge in the midst of a camp, or in a frontier town, and there treat with the baffled Assembly. Mirabeau remaining in Paris, and again possessing himself of the public mind, would lead matters, as he declared, to accommodation, and a voluntary restoration of the royal authority. Mirabeau had carried these hopes away with him into the tomb. The king himself, in his secret correspondence, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... in the diagnosis transmitted by Karshish to Abib, and, on the other side, by the Nazarene physician, whose inspired secret of summoning out of the believing soul of man the power to control his body—so baffled and fascinated Karshish, drawing his attention in Lazarus to just that connection of the known physical with the unknown psychical nature which is still mystically alluring the curiosity ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... car was standing still and Mannering had left his seat and was standing by the side. Ten seconds would have brought us to him. Five passed. He leaped again to his seat, and as he did so, the white robed figure sprang from the car to the turf. The Pirate gave a cry of baffled rage. But he had no time to waste in recovering his escaping victim, for we were within fifty yards of him. His car leaped forward and, leaving the road, tossed like a boat at sea over the uneven boulder-strewn turf. We were within five yards of him, and it was as much as we could ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster



Words linked to "Baffled" :   perplexed, people



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