"Puzzling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said. "Nemesis will know where to find him. We know now what causes the mark of the Zayat Kiss. Therefore science is richer for our first brush with the enemy, and the enemy is poorer—unless he has any more unclassified centipedes. I understand now something that has been puzzling me since I heard of it—Sir Crichton's stifled cry. When we remember that he was almost past speech, it is reasonable to suppose that his cry was not 'The red hand!' but 'The red ANT!' Petrie, to think that I failed, by less than an hour, to save ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... his fellows. There were sad faces, gay and reckless faces, pleasant faces, anxious faces and kindly faces, all mingled in puzzling disorder. Some worked at tedious tasks; some strutted in impudent conceit; some were thoughtful and grave while others seemed happy and content. Men of many natures were there, as everywhere, and Claus found much to please him and much ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... special attention to history, have any idea of. The volume does not constitute, then, a contribution to that theme that has interested the last few generations so much,—the supposed continuous progress of the race and its marvellous advance,—but rather emphasizes that puzzling question, how is it that men make important discoveries and inventions, and then, after a time, forget about them so that they have to be made over again? This is as true in medical science and in medical practice as in every other department ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... hours of time rather puzzling as recorded in the "Study of Italian Made Easy," I devoted twenty-four hours to learning how to say the time from one o'clock at noon to midnight, or thirteen to twenty-three o'clock. My soul revolted at the task, for a foreign tongue abounds in these malicious little refinements ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... before I was up, the puzzling songster visited the little grove under my windows, and I heard his whole song, of which it now appeared the three notes were merely the conclusion. The performance was eccentric. It began with a soft warble, apparently for his sole entertainment, then suddenly, as if overwhelmed by ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... morning, having been wakened by new sounds. Thousands of marching feet, songs. This was puzzling. ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... dinner-table, he was placed directly opposite, with the advantage of a very distinct view; and the face, relieved against the dark stamped leather hangings on the wall, stood out like a sharply-painted portrait, and produced an odd and unpleasant effect upon Sturk, who could not help puzzling himself then, and for a long time after, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... return. Whence comes that faith I cannot tell—but whence comes any great and steadfast faith? When you come into this house and the little fortune that has been yours since you left for the Arctic, you may meet with some puzzling things; you may even be tempted to say, or think, that the old man must have been a little 'cracked.' But one must amuse oneself, especially when thought gnaws and time hangs heavy; and if there happens to be a way of attaining one's chief ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... wasn't long puzzling over why he had brought me up there. It stuck out all over, though they didn't know it, and would have been mighty astonished to think that I saw. It was in their manner, in her condescending ways with me, in her assumption of serious interest, ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... embraces in which lovers usually indulge. I have never kissed but one girl, and her with far too little enthusiasm to satisfy her. My last sweetheart was a very passionate girl, the warmth of whose embraces was somewhat torrid and, to me, both puzzling and annoying. The intensity of feeling which demanded such strenuous expression was beyond my knowledge of human nature. A somewhat peculiar circumstance in connection with these experiences is the fact that I often ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... some puzzling questions for Jeanne. She liked the freedom of conscience at the chapel, and then gentle Father Rameau ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... much about anything but the present is, we all agree, beneath the dignity of a healthy human animal. Yet how many of us can resist the malsane pleasure of puzzling over the past and speculating about the future? Once admit that the Contemporary Movement is something a little out of the common, that it has the air of a beginning, and you will catch yourself saying "Beginning of what?" instead of settling down quietly to enjoy the rare spectacle ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... justified by Donatello's skill and humour. In the great reliefs at Padua, Siena and Lille he introduces them without any specific object, though he contrives that they shall show fear or surprise in response to the incident portrayed. It is puzzling to know what the bronze boy in the Bargello should be called. Perseus, Mercury, Cupid, Allegory and Amorino have been suggested: he combines attributes of them all together with the budding tail of a faun, and the gambali, the buskin-trouser of the Tuscan peasant[151]—"vestito ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... painter who stops you from seeing me," she meant Vermeer, "I have never even heard of him; is he alive still? Can I see any of his things in Paris, so as to have some idea of what is going on behind that great brow which works so hard, that head which I feel sure is always puzzling away about things; just to be able to say 'There, that's what he's thinking about!' What a dream it would be to be able to ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... boulders. In such a situation the birds could hardly have found it possible to accumulate by kicking and scratching so great a quantity of debris. The material was not available on the site, and as the makers do not carry their rubbish, it was puzzling to account for it all, until it was noticed that the junction of two boulders with an inclination towards each other formed a natural flume or shoot down which most of the material of the mound had been sent. As the rains and ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... now laughed heartily at the puzzling the friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him; he's only pesthering you with bog-Latin; but, at any rate to do him justice, he's not a bad Scholar, I can tell you that.... Your health, Prank, you droll crathur—your health. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... these puzzling Russians? They are certainly not Europeans. They possess none of the mental equipoise of the Teutons, neither do they appear to possess that logical faculty which, in spite of many wayward outbursts of passion, generally ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... This had a puzzling sound. James Mandeville almost forgot to say thank you. He decided to go, feeling he could better enjoy the chocolate alone. ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... as he followed her down the staircase he asked himself again the puzzling question: "She is different from other women—but how is she different?" And still he assured himself with confidence that what he liked in her was her serene separateness from the appeal of passion. "This is ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... the estate of his nephew, and, directly on landing in Hongkong, had himself, as next of kin, appointed Willy's guardian, with the idea of taking him with him on board the "St. George." But how to get him away from the school in the middle of the term was a puzzling question. ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... reactions whatever. I am familiar with the 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, ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... redder for his huge white moustache and well-filled white uniform. He began by fuming and blustering as if about to order me to summary execution. He spoke so fast, it was not easy to follow him. Probably my amateur German was as puzzling to him. The PASSIERSCHEIN, which I produced, was not in my favour; unfortunately I had forgotten my Foreign Office passport. What further added to his suspicion was his inability to comprehend why ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... often wished in such opportunities of recollection and of silence, for a complete barrier that might isolate the mind. With that wish came in a puzzling thought, very proper to a pilgrimage, which was: 'What do men mean by the desire to be dissolved and to enjoy the spirit free and without attachments?' That many men have so desired there can be no doubt, and the best men, whose ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... talk had commenced again, though much subdued, and he was at liberty to examine the company. They were four grown-up Hamilton girls, he noticed, and three little ones. With the exception of the beauty on the organ-stool, the young ladies were rather puzzling to a stranger. They were all tall and fair and pretty, but the minister's quick eye soon noted distinguishing characteristics. Bella, the eldest and the one to whom the young Johnstone giant was paying such obvious attentions, was the tallest and fairest. Sarah, the one with the affected ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... instance, is a puzzling case to be tried in foro conscientiæ. In the first edition of ‘Goblin Market,’ published in 1862, appeared three poems of more breadth of treatment than any of the others: ‘Cousin Kate,’ a ballad, ‘Sister Maude,’ a ballad, and ‘A Triad,’ a sonnet. In ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... unaffected by this treatment, ligninsulphonic and other sulphonic acids cause opalescence. Note.—Employing formic acid in lieu of hydrochloric acid (Knowles) renders the reaction no more reliable.—Transl.] is very puzzling; none of the natural tannins are precipitated by this reagent, but only sulphite cellulose on account of its content of ligninsulphonic acid. One is justified in assuming that there is at least some connection ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... puzzling over this phenomenon when he again raked out the Panama on the end of the hunting-crop he carried, dusted it as before, looking about him the while with a bewildered air, and setting it firmly upon his head, came down the path. ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... distinguished and saintly person of Walton's narrative, so simple, so easily explicable, becomes more complex at every moment, as fresh light makes the darkness more and more visible. At the end we seem to have become singularly intimate with a fascinating and puzzling creature, whom each of us may try to understand after his fashion, as we try to understand the real secrets of the character of ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... was his appearance at the moment, that I really felt but half awake, and kept puzzling myself for an explanation of the scene, rather than thinking of a reply to his question; perceiving which, and auguring but badly from ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... not again speak lightly of an order having such ancestors as the great Comacine Masters. Had Fergusson known their story, he would not have paused in his History of Architecture to belittle the Free-masons as incapable of designing a cathedral, while puzzling the while as to who did draw the plans for those dreams of beauty and prayer. Hereafter, if any one asks to know who uplifted those massive piles in which was portrayed the great drama of mediaeval worship, he need ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... France from the end of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century was borrowed from Spain, and had to do with a multiplication of trap doors, dark lanterns, intrigues, and puzzling disguises, until Moliere, in his "Precieuses Ridicules" successfully attacked these follies of ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... heard him. Where had he seen and heard this woman before? Though he could not recall a feature of her face, form, dress, manner, yet he had the puzzling sense of having met her long ago, that her personality was not unfamiliar. Still her features baffled the sense. He studied her in vain. When her lecture ended, with drooping head and clasped hands, she modestly withdrew amid ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... lego make in the imperative mood? Legito, doth it not?"—"Yes," answered Dick.—"And what besides ?" says the father. "Lege," quoth the son, after some hesitation. "A good boy," says the father: "and now, child, what is the English of lego?"—To which the boy, after long puzzling, answered, he could not tell. "How!" cries Adams, in a passion;—"what, hath the water washed away your learning? Why, what is Latin for the English verb read? Consider before you speak." The child considered some time, and then the parson cried twice or thrice, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... wheat, sugar-cane, and vast poppy fields,—these last treacherously beautiful,—and from which the opium of commerce is derived. The presence of such abundance makes the contrast in the condition of the peasantry all the more puzzling. There must be something radically wrong in the modes of the governing power. This part of India is noted for the excellence and prolific yield of its sugar crops. From here, also, indigo and saltpetre are exported in large quantities. Along the route traversed ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... he sent a herald, and called the kings into the square, and said: "This is a puzzling matter; remember but one thing. These Minuai live close by us, and we may meet them often on the seas; but Aietes lives afar off, and we have only heard his name. Which, then, of the two is it safer to offend, the men near us, or ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... across two columns! Black borders round the pages! "Death of England's greatest painter." "Sudden death of Priam Farll." "Sad death of a great genius." "Puzzling career prematurely closed." "Europe in mourning." "Irreparable loss to the world's art." "It is with the most profound regret." "Our readers will be shocked." "The news will come as a personal blow to every lover of great ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... Those mixed feelings, also, which perplex us between a sense that the scene is but a plaything, and an interest which ever and anon surprises us into a transient belief that that which so strongly affects us cannot be fictitious; those mixed and puzzling feelings, also, are exciting in the highest degree. Then there are the bursts of applause, like distant thunder, and the permission afforded to clap our little hands, and add our own scream of delight to a sound so commanding. All ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... meanings. It has often befallen me, when I was at the University, or later when studying law, to exert my mind to grasp, and all in vain, some problem in mathematics or a puzzling legal question, or even to remember some refractory word in a foreign language which would not remain in the memory. After a certain amount of effort in many of these cases, further exertion is injurious, the mind or receptive power seems to be seized—as if nauseated—with ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... The loving breath, the stern condemnation of whatever was not absolutely true, the disregard of what the world said, the hatred of shams, and most puzzling of all, the often apparent struggle with himself, the unceasing effort to conquer his chief fault. Yet this noble, honest, intellectual man was laboring under a great delusion, a delusion which somehow gave him an extraordinary power of ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... two young men; Kearney not having the vaguest suspicion that the author of the point in debate was then sitting opposite to him, sometimes seeming to share the very doubts and difficulties that were then puzzling himself. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... me," said Alec, "new and somewhat puzzling. In what way are you bound up with the fortunes of my house, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... a delicate, interesting game that he played. Under one innocent pretext or another, he invaded this or that special province she had made her own. He would collect the themes and have them all read and marked, answer all the puzzling questions in mathematics, make the other teachers come to him for directions, and in this way gradually took upon himself not only all the general superintendence that belonged to his office, but stole away so many of the special duties which might fairly have belonged to his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... serpent brooch had to do with the matter Beecot could not conjecture. It was certainly an odd piece of jewellery, and not particularly pretty, but that the merest glimpse of it should make Norman faint was puzzling in ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... the thick leaves, a youth, about our age we supposed, for his head was not cropped and he was about the height of Ongyatasse. When we had satisfied ourselves that he was alone, we took pleasure in puzzling him. As soon as he missed our tracks in the trail, he knew that he was discovered and played quarry to our fox very craftily. For an hour or two we stalked one another between the buckeye boles, and then I stepped on a rotten log which crumbled and threw me noisily. The Lenape let ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... he said to Miss Dayton's aunt, as truly as I meant what I said to you, and Randy," he continued, "you and I have been here in the city all winter, have seen its life and stir and bustle, and you have seen much of the social side of the problem which is puzzling me. Is it so much better, this city life, than the home life in the country? There, every busybody is interested in his neighbor; here, we are met on every hand by strangers who do not know, or wish to know anything ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... however, received us in a very puzzling fashion, coming round our cages to look at us, as if we were so many wild animals, and roaring with laughter at our appearance; even the very babies crowing with merriment on our being pointed out to ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... him the sweetest words that ever fell from mortal lips, and no less sweet—though infinitely puzzling—was that exquisite humility with which she crowned the wonder of her self-surrender. Yet even as he heard his brain grew bewildered—his senses seemed to reel. Strange thoughts and shapes seemed to hover around him, and all the soft, ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... he wound up gloomily.... "That old scoundrel never visited Dutch House out of simple curiosity; and whatever his purpose, one thing's sure—it wasn't one to stand daylight. It's been puzzling me ever since—an appointment of some sort he made with November just as I hove within earshot. 'Two-thirty,' he said; and November repeated the hour and promised to be on the job. 'Two-thirty!'—what can it mean? It's later than that now but—mark my words!—something's ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... the inscription on the Catstane, VETTA F[ILIUS] VICTI, is a contemporary commemoration of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, it may not be easy to suggest a solution of the question free from difficulties as puzzling. At all events the palaeographic features of the inscription seem plainly to associate it with a class of rude post-Roman monuments, of which we have a good many examples in different parts of the kingdom; and it may be remarked that Mr. Skene, who has made this period of our ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... "ten-cents-a-year" publishers, who coolly expected all amateur journalists to subscribe to their worthless misprints as a matter of fraternal obligation. Mr. Macauley is an extremist on the subject of amateur rating, a fact which explains many otherwise puzzling allusions in his ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... Breton, where coincidence occurs), and not too much encumbered with diacritical signs. It is to some extent a following of Dr. Edward Lhuyd, whose system, though rather clumsy and unnecessarily puzzling in places, was on the whole very good and ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... very slowly she moved. But for all her care, she had to stop every minute or two, and sometimes even turn back a few paces, for the cub was continually dropping behind. His big, inquiring ears took in all the vague, small noises of the mountainside, puzzling over them. His sharp little nose went poking in every direction, sniffing the strange new smells, till he would get bewildered, and forget which foot to put forward first. Then he would sit back ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... going on in the drawing-room, Harry was tutoring his father in the study, and putting that poor gentleman through a course of questions that nearly drove him distracted; for Harry got out the hardest books he could find, and selected the most puzzling subjects. A dusty old history was rummaged out also, and classical researches followed, in which papa's memory played him false more than once, calling forth rebukes from his severe young tutor. But he came to open disgrace over his mathematics, for he had ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... oriel, and while I was occupied with my own dinner I did not particularly notice the three persons who sat down to theirs. The coarseness and harshness of their dialect, however, presently struck my ear. It was pure Appenzell, a German made up of singular and puzzling elisions, and with a very strong guttural k and g, in addition to the ch. Some knowledge of the Alemannic dialect of the Black Forest enabled me to understand the subject of conversation, which, to my surprise, was—the study of the classics! It was like hearing an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... north-west flank, whilst a big fight was going on at Arras. Lille, with a few Territorial battalions in it, was still holding out, but was surrounded by the enemy. Hence the hurry. But we ought to have plenty of troops now to keep the Germans off. It was very puzzling to make out what was happening, for we had not even the vaguest idea where the rest of our own Army was, let alone the French or Germans. Nobody seemed to know anything, except that we should probably soon be ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... of New Guinea. The Harfours, Haraforas, or Alforas, for they have been thus variously named, have often been described as inhabiting the interior of many of the large islands of the Malayan Archipelago, but, as Prichard remarks, "nothing can be more puzzling than the contradictory accounts which are given of their physical characters and manners. The only point of agreement between different writers respecting them is the circumstance that all represent them as very low in civilisation and of fierce and ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... chief himself spoke some and might have served fairly well, but he studiously remained away from me, and even took most of the men from the kampong to make prahus at another place. I was told that he was afraid of me, and certainly his behaviour was puzzling. Three months later I was enlightened on this point by the information that he had been arrested on account of the murder by spear of a woman and two men, a most unusual occurrence among Dayaks, who, as ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... in Paris, but at Coventry. There again was a puzzling circumstance. Harvey himself declared his surprise at hearing that Redgrave had entered into partnership with Hugh Carnaby. Had Sibyl anything to do with this? Could she have hinted to her friend the millionaire that her husband's financial ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... her own borders, on too large a scale to be called "bushwhacking," and yet with a strong flavor of that irregular style of conflict. The President interested himself a good deal in the early efforts of the loyalists, and amid a puzzling snarl of angry "personal politics" he tried to extend to them aid and countenance, though with imperfect success. It was fortunate that Missouri was away on the outskirts, for she was the most vexatious and perplexing part of the country. Her population had little feeling ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... my companion a little curiously. There was something in his manner distinctly puzzling. With his lips he was smiling approval at the little danseuse who was pirouetting near our table, but it seemed to me that his mind was busy with other thoughts. Suddenly he turned ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his line at right angles, while another narrower road coming in at a tangent, went off to the south-westward in the direction of the bold projection, which I had learned to recognize as Rocky Hill; over the high fence into the road; well performed, gallant horses! And now they check for a moment, puzzling about ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Lower and nearer came the sound of the something still to me invisible, but the sound, slight though it was, gave, somehow, the impression of bulk, and the strange, subdued, half-grunting snuffle was puzzling to senses on the alert for deer. Lower and nearer, and then—out into the open by the shallow water he strolled—no deer, but a ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... are formed, respectively with and without an accessory (in this case, DOUBLE) chromosome. Of these, only those possessing the accessory body become functional spermatozoa, the others degenerating. We have thus an elucidation of the puzzling fact that in these forms fertilisation results in the formation of FEMALES only. How the males are formed—for of course males are eventually produced by the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... quiet earth lay bathed in silvery moonlight. Pillot's talk had set me thinking. My wound had completely healed, and I felt strong enough to take a further part in the struggle. The situation was, however, puzzling. Mazarin's downfall had left me without a patron, and I could not join his enemies, most of whom, utterly and heartlessly selfish, cared for nothing but their own welfare. Their senseless squabbles were dragging France through the mire, and I longed ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... quick-witted letter-bandit would have been at a loss to decipher what he was driving at. If you occasionally come across some unintelligible notices at the tail end of the Observer, they will thus seem to you more puzzling still, and to the blockhead who breaks open this letter they will remain unintelligible, even if I tell you that they are a part of my correspondence. Only give me frequent tidings, my beloved heart, even if short ones, so that I may have the assurance that you ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... smallpox is sometimes extremely puzzling and demands the skill of an experienced physician. When one is unavailable, the following points may serve to distinguish the two disorders: smallpox usually begins like a severe attack of grippe, with pain in the back and head, general pains and nausea or vomiting, with high ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... at all times, most of them quite unnecessary, and only a few of them comprehensible. To folk accustomed, like the dog people, to intercourse confined chiefly to looks and movements, the continuous babble of words which humans indulge in is one of their most puzzling attributes. When the Master really wanted Finn to understand anything, the wolfhound very rarely failed him. But Colonel Forde's references to Othello—well, it was all so much puppy talk, just amiable, meaningless nickering to ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... lessons. The shoemaker had little or no English. They had no German. It would seem, however, that their teacher had some sort of a "word-book," and when they assembled in his little cubby-hole of a retreat he began reading aloud from it this puzzling sentence: ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the spirits whether they are of God." These words can only mean that the early Christians not only practised Spiritualism as we understand it, but also that they were faced by the same difficulties. There is nothing more puzzling than the fact that one may get a long connected description with every detail given, and that it may prove to be entirely a concoction. However, we must bear in mind that if one case comes absolutely correct, it atones for many failures, just as if you had one telegram correct you would know that ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the literary history of the age are more puzzling than the reception given to 'Romola' by a novel-devouring public. That the lovers of mere sensationalism should not have appreciated it, was to be fully expected. But to probably the majority of readers, even of average intelligence and capability, it ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... corslets and greaves— things of the ninth to seventh centuries. We shall find Helbig stating, on the same page, that in the matter of usages "the epic poets shunned, as far as possible, all that was recent," and also that for fear of puzzling their military audiences they did the reverse: "they probably kept account of the arms and armour of their own day." [Footnote: La Question Mycenienne, p. 50. Cf. Note I.] Now the late poets, on this showing, must have puzzled warriors who used iron weapons by ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... story of the ancient races running through this Bible is so confused by the introduction of new matter by the "author"* and by repetitions that it is puzzling to pick it out. The Book of Ether was somewhat puzzling even to the early Mormons, and we find Parley P. Pratt, in his analysis of it, printed in London in 1854, saying, "Ether SEEMS to have been ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... eyes sparkled, and he was all attention in a moment. He thought one of Wang Ken's stories was a great deal better than puzzling over Korean letters or struggling with long strings of figures. The ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... his fingers closed quickly on the generous tip and once more he lashed his horse. For some time they continued at a rapid pace, now skirting the confines of the park, now plunging into a puzzling tangle of streets; but wherever they went, the other cab managed always to keep them in sight. It even began to creep up, nearer. From his pocket John Steele drew a weapon; his eyes gleamed ominously. The pursuing hansom drew closer; casting ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... Peggy, gazing with wondering eyes at the picture of the figurehead, which was too small on the postal to be very distinct. Anything that Georgina respected and admired so deeply, Peggy wanted to respect and admire in the same way, but it was puzzling to understand just what it was that Georgina saw in that wooden figure to make her feel so. Accustomed to thinking of it in Bailey's way, as a sea-cook with a doughnut, it was hard to switch around to a point of view that showed it as Hope with a ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... my mind the memory of The Mysterious Pitchfork—a German satirical play which made a sensation in its time—and Herlossohn in his romance of Der Letzte Taborit (which helped George Sand amazingly in Consuelo), makes a Gipsy chieftain appear in a wonderfully puzzling light by brandishing, in fierce midnight dignity, this agricultural parody on Neptune's weapon, which brings me nicely around ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... "nigger" do as he likes so long as he raises cotton and buys our goods. But Dixie has her full share of true men of the out-of-doors and they have sworn in downright Southern fashion that this thing has got to end. Nevertheless their problem is deep and puzzling. In Alabama they made an effort and a beginning. They asked for a law requiring every man to obtain written permission before entering the lands of another to hunt and shoot; they asked for a resident license law taxing ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... himself alone, in order to think over what had happened, and to ascertain the state of his own mind, which at present was puzzling even to himself. He could not but feel that much greater advantages of every kind might accrue to himself and his family from the alliance of the wealthy young Earl, than could have been derived from any share of his spoils which he ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... It was puzzling. I would have given a good deal just then for a few words with Dr. Holcomb. The man, Kennedy, had kept it in his pocket. How had he held it a prisoner? The professor had use for it in some scientific work! No wonder! Certainly it was not a jewel. What could it be? It was solid. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... to remember, while pursuing this course, that a taste for poetry is not acquired or fostered by an analysis of grammatical forms or by any study of words merely as such. To analyze a puzzling sentence or to trace the derivation of an interesting word to its roots sometimes helps one to understand a difficult expression or to perceive in it a meaning hitherto unsuspected; but to make the study of any selection consist largely of exercises of this kind is to substitute ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... are named and numbered in a most puzzling manner, and the greater part of the houses are not numbered at all. It is the most hilly city I have seen in America, and its population is unnaturally swollen since the commencement of the war. The fact of there being abundance of ice appeared to me an immense luxury, as ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... and pleasure at this; but her heart had hardly time to expand before she observed the puzzling discrepancy between what Jim said to her and what he had been saying to other people, and found it impossible to reconcile the two, so as to have any confidence in ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... is obtained from a fragment of pottery from New Jersey. The impressions are extremely puzzling, but are such as I imagine might be made by the use of a basket, the meshes of which had been filled up with clay or resin so that only the more prominent ridges or series of thongs remain uncovered to give impressions upon the clay. ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes
... dining-room, was really getting to take an interest in Edward's puzzling cases. They were like tricks at cards. A quick motion, and out of the unpromising heap, all confused together, presto! the right card turned up. Edward stated his case, so that there did not seem loophole ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... imagination from victory to victory. What served him best was his capacity for puzzling her. That its hero should want to keep such a gallant affair secret proved him of amazing modesty or amazing pride—perhaps both—a titillating combination. It surprised her more that he should dare rebuff the advances of Miss Lambourne. Madame knew very well the power of ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... continue always along these same lines. A woman had entered his small world and instantly there was discord. The disturbing element had appeared. Wherever the woman had put her foot a score of distressing complications had sprung up, like the sudden growth of strange and puzzling flowers. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... was there—not a difficult matter, when he had in its perfection the secretarial manner of complete self-effacement. Said she reflectively, like one puzzling out a ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... procure; that, by fixing the relative situation of Asia and America, and discovering the narrow bounds of the strait that divides them, he has thrown a blaze of light upon this important part of the geography of the globe, and solved the puzzling problem about the peopling of America, by tribes destitute of the necessary means to attempt long navigations; and, lastly, that, though the principal object of the voyage failed, the world will be greatly benefited even by the failure, as it has brought us to the knowledge ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... and often sensual character, and that there is not a trace of romantic sentiment such as would color a similar love-story if told by a modern poet. The Song of Songs is so confused in its arrangement, its plan so obscure, its repetitions and repeated denouements so puzzling,[293] that commentators are not always agreed as to what character in the drama is to be held responsible for certain lines; but for our purpose this difficulty makes no difference. Taking the lines just as they stand, I find that the following:—1: 2-4, 13 (in one version), 17; 2: 6; 4: 16; 5: ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... brothers, and a pang shot through his heart. But how did it get where he found it? He was too keen a woodsman not to know that no footstep had gone before his on that path that morning. It was a mystery too deep for him, and after puzzling over it a while he tied the parcel up again as nearly like what it had been before as he could, and determined to give it to one of the Mills boys when he reached the Cross-roads. He unbuttoned his jacket and put it into the little inner pocket, and then rebuttoning ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... had to contend with no ordinary murderer and he was content to remain in the shadow, waiting and watching, in seeming inactivity, for some slip which should betray the person or persons who had perpetrated two of the most puzzling murders that he had ever had to ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... Herapath take you into his house?" asked Burchill, continuing the examination which Barthorpe was beginning to find irksome as well as puzzling. "I'm asking all this for good reasons—it's necessary, if you're to understand what I'm going to ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... cavity torn and then filled up by falling fragments—was two or three hundred feet in circumference; and in this space I found considerable masses of the same metallic substance, attached generally to pieces of the cement. After examining and puzzling myself over this strange scene for some time, my next care was to seek traces of the ship and of her crew; and before long I saw just outside the coral reef what had been her bowsprit, and presently, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... her. The puzzling, twisted hole in the puzzle was suddenly there, staring him in the face, falling down into place in his mind with blazing clarity. Staring, he dived into the pile of papers again, searching, frantically searching for the missing piece, something he had seen, and ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... (as in Hans Andersen's story) that the King is naked—i.e., that it is as clear as day that Shakespeare did not succeed and did not even wish to give any character to Hamlet, did not even understand that this was necessary. And learned critics continue to investigate and extol this puzzling production, which reminds one of the famous stone with an inscription which Pickwick found near a cottage doorstep, and which divided the scientific ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... perplex us, and keep asking questions of us to which we have not as yet any sufficient answer to give; let us not imagine that a general puzzling of us all is to be the end of our discussion, but if we are unable to answer, do you answer, as you have promised. Consider, then, whether you will divide pleasure and knowledge according to their kinds; or you may let the matter ...
— Philebus • Plato
... had encountered few barriers because she was a woman. She had had little personal contact with the hardships other women suffered because of their inferior legal status. To be sure, it had been puzzling to her as child that Sally Hyatt, the most skillful weaver in her father's mill, had never been made overseer, but the fact that her mother had not the legal right to hold property in her own name did not at the time make an impression upon her. Brought up as a Quaker, she had no obstacles ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... deals with a man's soul. We cannot explain the facts of our experience or the fashion of our circumstance save in as far as we can see these things reflected in our character. The true spiritual philosophy of life begins its inquiry in the soul, and works outward into all the puzzling mass of life's details. And the foundation of such a philosophy is not experience, but faith. It is true that experience often confirms faith, but faith interprets experience. Experience asks more questions than it can answer. It collects more facts than it can explain. It admits of many different ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... must? What would Jim's attitude be? He frowned heavily. This had not occurred to him before. Would there be trouble? Well, if there were it might be easier, at least less complicated. On the other hand, what else could Jim do? It was uncomfortably puzzling. His own disposition made it impossible for him to probe the possibilities of such a ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... idea of conversion and salvation as then understood, one can readily see from our present standpoint that nothing could be more puzzling and harrowing to the young mind. The revival fairly started, the most excitable were soon on the anxious seat. There we learned the total depravity of human nature and the sinner's awful danger of everlasting punishment. This was enlarged upon ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... two mails from home.... The Government approves of my having sent my troops to India, and Clarendon's letter seems to imply that they are not quite insensible to the difficulties of my position.... As it is, I now find myself in a very puzzling position. If I go to the North I shall lose prestige, and perhaps also time; it is even possible that I may force the Emperor to declare himself against us, and to direct hostilities against us at the northern ports, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... and superposed upon this motion is that of the two stars concerned, which together may be approaching or receding or traveling across the line of sight. Thus the complications involved in the stellar motions are often exceedingly great and puzzling. ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... thread. The work progressed before their eyes, and it was only when evening came that he repeated his questions. Not receiving a satisfactory answer, he vanished in a fit of mocking laughter. Helen sat down by the window to think; but think as she might, no answer to these puzzling ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... therefore too strong to be put aside by mere conjectures or inferences. If they were the work of Indians, they must have been used by the Cherokees and buried with their dead. It is true that some of the engraved figures present a puzzling problem in the fact that they bear unmistakable evidences of pertaining to Mexican and Central American types, but no explanation of this which contradicts the preceding evidences that these shells had been in the hands of ...
— The Problem of Ohio Mounds • Cyrus Thomas
... sight these figures strike many untrained observers as simply grotesque. Some of them are indeed odd; Fig. 91 reproduces one which is especially so. But they soon become absorbingly interesting and then delightful. The strange-looking, puzzling garments, [Footnote: Fig 91 wears only one garment the Ionic chiton, a long; linen shift, girded at the waist and pulled up so as to fall over conceal the girdle. Figs 89, 90, 92 93 wear over this a second garment which goes over the right shoulder and under the ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... see and hate a foul thing done within thy gate," and so, after a little more dallying, she wrote and sent over the Western seas what all may read, but it appears only Kate Field, out of all Florence, can understand. It seems incredible. How did you find out, beside, the meaning of all these puzzling passages which I quote in the exact words of the poem? In short, you are not only the delightful Kate Field which I always knew you to be, but the sole understander of Ba in all Florence. ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... epitome:—Cuneiform Inscriptions, in which the writer has presented concisely and clearly the fruits of a careful examination of all the many theories that have been broached with regard to these important and puzzling records of the ancient world, without revealing a preference, if he have one, for any; a wise course, where, in a case of such consequence, the views of learned men are so conflicting, but one not always easily followed:—Damascus ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Royalty of whom little is known save what a few inscriptions have to tell, there remains a portrait statue in the British Museum. Sometimes I go to look at that statue and try to recall exactly under what circumstances I caused it to be shaped, puzzling out the ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... very puzzling to the boys, when Nate, who was always on the job, broke in with a suggestion. "Why don't you fellows telephone down to 'Moose Boone' and ask him ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... As long as I was talking to her I didn't care a snap of my finger for the Water-devil. It is queer what an influence a beautiful woman has on a man, but it's so, and there's no use arguing about it. She said she had been puzzling her brains to find out what had stopped us, and she supposed it must be that we had run onto a shallow place and stuck fast in the mud, but thought it wonderful that there should be such a place so far from land. I agreed with her that it ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... as mysterious and puzzling as the rumours. For what reason could the cibolero have attacked the officers of the garrison? Who were the Indians that accompanied him? Were they "bravos" or "mansos"?—savages ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... a very remarkable and, in some respects, puzzling incident. It is tempting to bring it into connection with the immediately preceding narrative as to Apollos. The same stage of spiritual development is presented in these twelve men and in that eloquent Alexandrian. They and he were alike ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... shot in a close-choked twelve is not an ideal load for the purpose; but by care in letting our birds get far enough away we managed to have a very good afternoon's sport. And whenever we would make a bad miss we had ready consolation: the thought of Tommy waiting and wondering and puzzling in his blind. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... denounce visions of gray bulls as hocus-pocus would be to describe a puzzling situation much too subjectively, since the Government has apparently no evidence that these are not genuine prophecy. The best the Government can do is to call them "extraordinary ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... over to herself sometimes, in the long hours that she spent alone with the children. That was what her life had become. The inescapable daily routine left her no time for unnecessary prettiness. She met each day bravely, only to find herself beaten and exhausted every night. It was puzzling, it was sometimes a little depressing. Anne reflected that she had always been busy, she was indeed a little dynamo of energy, her college years and the years of travel had been crowded with interests and enterprises. But she had never been tired before; she had never felt, as she felt ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... Nevertheless—he found himself puzzling over certain other incidents in his recent ken, of a different character. The hospital at Carton was mainly for privates, with a certain amount of accommodation for officers. He had done his best during the ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... puzzle, demanding reflection, adaptation of means to end, and labour for its solution, and the educational value resides in the shell and in the puzzle". As this strain of remark is not new, there is nothing new to be said in answer to it. Such puzzling efforts are certainly not the rule in learning Latin and Greek. Moreover, the very same terms would describe what may happen equally often in reading difficult authors in French, German, or Italian. Would not the pupil find puzzles and difficulties in Dante, or in Goethe? And are there not ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... practical bent of their minds, and of the immense progress which they had made in the direction of the scientific conquest of nature, that it was not to be supposed their medium of communication with one another would be lacking in clearness, or would possess any of the puzzling and unnecessary ambiguities that characterized the ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... off the forebodings which assailed him in the deep silence of the forest night, for hours he tossed in the distress of apprehension over the friend of whom he came in search. Toward dawn he fell asleep puzzling over the problem of Terry's reason for closing the door of his bedroom before going to bed and then opening it for ventilation. He waked from a dream in which he had slyly peered into the room in time to see Terry withdrawing a hypodermic needle ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... knew we were here," said Dick finally. "I've been puzzling about that. I remember now seeing that car as we went by. But of course I didn't pay any particular attention to it, except that I saw a little ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... replied calmly. "Properly considered, each figure and each group illustrated a separate point in the story, and was rigid. They went past us, of course; and if they had gone on cars it would have been less puzzling; but these good people cannot afford cars and so the figures had to walk. It would have done as well if the public had walked past the figures, but that would have been difficult to manage. The only movement in the procession was in the story which we held ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... course, and nervy scouts who look up the delinquents in their city offices come back with badly frosted ears and spread the warning. But there are few of these. Even President Banks of the great F. C. & L. Railroad System, who played on the Homeburg baseball nine thirty-five years ago, will stop puzzling over the financial situation long enough to give the glad hand to a Homeburg man during office hours. Of course I don't mean that any one from Homeburg can break in on him and pile his desk full of feet. You have to be a thirty-third degree Homeburger from his standpoint; that is, you or ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... puzzling facts remained insoluble until the publication, in the year 1840, of Mr. Darwin's famous work on coral reefs; in which a key was given to all the difficult problems connected with the subject, and every difficulty ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... in love. At that time I was teaching myself German, and I sat one day puzzling out two ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... nevertheless Cobo told himself that if people were prying about those deserted premises it was with some object, and their actions would warrant observation. The presence of the woman—a woman—with the glow of phosphorus upon her face was puzzling, but the whole affair was puzzling. He determined to investigate. After a time he murmured, "I should like to see ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... was the centre-piece, and though these words were as puzzling to him as to his crew, their sincerity was unmistakable, and once more his head began ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... do you know," said Ready, stopping after they had walked twenty yards, "by what means we may find our way back again; for you see this forest of trees is rather puzzling, and there is no path to ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... it, Vi was again puzzling her young brain with the question whether Meta was right in saying it would be selfish to do so. Ah, if she could only ask mamma which was the right way to do! This was the first perplexity she had not been able to carry ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... of ours will play us!" exclaimed the professor. "Here is a woman who has forgotten every circumstance of her former life, has forgotten her friends and relations, and is puzzling us all with her extraordinary lack of memory, and who, nevertheless, remembers fluently the forms and expressions of one of the most complicated languages in the world. At the same time we do not think that she remembers what she reads. I wish we could find out. She acts like ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... mysterious hero of the red racing car again. Could the stranger have had any knowledge of what was to happen and did that information account for his jaunty adieu? Of course such a thing was impossible. And yet how odd and puzzling it all was! ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... anything like this before, and my wonder at it almost drove the pain away. Mother and I always chased rats and birds, and once we killed a kitten. While I was puzzling over it, one of the boys cried out, "Here ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders |
