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More "Disconcert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confuse, v. disconcert, perplex, abash, fluster, embarrass, chagrin, pose, nonplus, bewilder, obfuscate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... stupidity, we conceive these symptoms may be easily recognised in the conduct of this country upon the Catholic question. A man has a wound in his great toe, and a violent and perilous fever at the same time; and he refuses to take the medicines for the fever because it will disconcert the toe! The mournful and folly-stricken blockhead forgets that his toe cannot survive him; that if he dies, there can be no digital life apart from him: yet he lingers and fondles over this last part of his body, soothing it madly ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... the commons; and that even he himself could not, according to the usage of their ancestors, by virtue of his authority remove any person, because the words were as follows: "If ye think proper, depart, Quirites." He was easily able to disconcert Laetorius by discussing his right thus contemptuously. The tribune, therefore, burning with rage, sent his officer to the consul; the consul sent his lictor to the tribune, exclaiming that he was a private individual, without ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... not disconcert Delarey. He retired with Kemp to a position close to his lair in the Zwartruggens, where, however, he did not long remain. At the same time, he sent Smuts to the Hartebeestfontein district, out of which he had just been driven. The audacity of the act was justified, for Smuts maintained himself ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... It is only when you get close to the bust of Astor, observing the strength of each feature and its perfect proportion to the rest,—force everywhere, superfluity nowhere,—that you recognize the monarch of the counting-room; the brain which nothing could confuse or disconcert; the purpose that nothing could divert or defeat; the man who could with ease and pleasure grasp and control the multitudinous concerns of a business that embraced the habited and unhabited globe,—that employed ships in every sea, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... With a face motionless he drew backward his gun and turning quietly, spat out a quid of tobacco as if it were all that interfered with his aim. He again slowly raised his rifle and fired, despite continued efforts to disconcert him. ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... wondering whether it would be wiser to return home. Her resolve, however, had been taken, and it seemed vacillating even to childishness to abandon it now, unless for graver reasons. How could she face her parents, get back her box, and disconcert the whole scheme for the rehabilitation of her family on ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... scarce a pretty face or a striking figure that I daily saw, about which I had not thus gradually framed a dramatic story, though some of my characters would occasionally act in direct opposition to the part assigned them, and disconcert the whole drama. Reconnoitring one day with my glass the streets of the Albaycin, I beheld the procession of a novice about to take the veil; and remarked several circumstances which excited the strongest sympathy in the fate of the youthful being thus ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... genial sap of humanity has been pressed by accumulated injuries. With as much elasticity of mind as stiffness of neck, every step he takes but the last is as firm as the earth he treads upon. Nothing can daunt, nothing disconcert him; remonstrance cannot move, ridicule cannot touch, obloquy cannot exasperate him: when he has not provoked them, he has been forced to bear them; and now that he does provoke them, he is hardened against them. In a word, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... oddity of these phenomena should disconcert you, I will venture to read you a couple of similar narratives, much shorter, merely to show that we are dealing with a well-marked natural kind of fact. In the first case, which I {61} take from the Journal ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... creature was returning to its lair, when, with the cry of "Now for the fray!" Bearwarden aimed beneath the body and blew off one of the farther armoured legs, from the inside. "Shoot off the legs on the same side," he counselled Ayrault, while he himself kept up a rapid fire. Cortlandt tried to disconcert the enemy by raining duck-shot on its scale- protected eyes, while the two rifles tore off great masses of the horn that covered the enormously powerful legs. The men separated as they retreated, knowing that one slash of the great shears would cut their three bodies in halves if they were ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... quick pattering sounds, as of small unshod hoofs: he turned, and saw the Welchmen at the distance of some fifty yards. But at that moment there passed, along the road in front, several persons bustling into London to share in the festivities of the day. This seemed to disconcert the Welch in the rear, and, after a few whispered words, they left the high road and entered the forest land. Various groups from time to time continued to pass along the thoroughfare. But still, ever through the glades, Harold caught glimpses of the riders; ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... forward on the slant, pulling itself up, then sliding again—always he maintained his air of importance, giving his cough, twisting the ends of his moustache, staring, fiercely, at some one suddenly that he might disconcert him, patting, with his plump little ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... too little occupied with herself to feel any of Josiah's humiliation. This society was hers by right of birth, and did not disconcert her; only no one could help being lonely when quite neglected, ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... used to all this, and therefore it did not disconcert him in the least. He went off and brought his own target, and set it up with his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... and lost 70 pieces of artillery and 10,000 men. Although Frederick the Great had at this time adopted the principle of moving backwards and forwards in order to make a battle impossible, or at least to disconcert the enemy's plans, still the alteration of position on the night of the 14-15 was not made exactly with that intention, but as the King himself says, because the position of the 14th did not please him. Here, therefore, ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... Pullman and sat down to think it all over. It had but one other occupant, a huge man with heavy shoulders who lowered the paper he had been reading and looked at Jimmy through a pair of clear, gray, appraising eyes that conveyed such a sense of directness as to slightly disconcert one with ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... as if the Shawanoe had the other at his mercy, yet he refrained from discharging the arrow. In fact, his whole action was designed rather to disconcert the Pawnee than to injure him. Not only had Deerfoot's confidence in his bow and arrow weakened, but the two escapes of the Pawnee gave him a half-superstitious belief that it was intended the latter should not be injured. He, therefore, relaxed the ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... except civilization between a very old woman and an ape." Some time after its publication, when he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli, Mrs. Disraeli, herself both elderly and very plain, laid a plan to disconcert him. She seated herself close to a low mirror, in the hopes that Burton would presently join her. He soon fell into the trap and was observed a few minutes later leaning over her ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... counsel is not to pause, rather to gallop still on steadily, as though we saw them not. But let us be ready; and if they dare to molest us, let us with one accord discharge our pieces in their faces. That will disconcert them for a moment, and we may perchance outride them. We are but three miles and a half from Cross Way House. I trow we can make shift to reach its friendly shelter; and once ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... I preferred an Indian and the packer. Once, you know, you dropped me; but nothing seemed to disconcert that young man. He must have been horribly worn out, for he had been up twice, but he was so steady and reassuringly quiet. I suppose a man of his kind would appreciate twenty ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... say, always seems to work after a certain military necessity. Every nation punishes the general who is not victorious. It is a rule in games of chance that "the cards beat all the players," and revolutions disconcert and outwit all the insurgents. The revolutions carry their own points, sometimes to the ruin of those who set them on foot. The proof that war also is within the highest right, is a marked benefactor in the hands of Divine Providence, is its morale. The war gave back ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... the midst of his speech falling into some confusion, was for awhile silent; but, recovering himself, observed, "how reasonable it was to allow counsel to men called as criminals before a court of justice, when it appeared how much the presence of that assembly could disconcert one of ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... less embarrassed, in spite of his excitement. His followers entered after him, and all paused a moment at sight of the ladies. Of course their modesty was not fated to be long-lived, but for a moment they were abashed. Once let them begin to shout, however, and nothing on earth should disconcert them. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Adelaide was thus using her eyes and her mind—her own eyes and her own mind—in observing what was going on around her, she did not disconcert the others, not even Janet, by expressing her thoughts. Common sense—absolute common sense—always sounds incongruous in a conventional atmosphere. In its milder forms it produces the effect of wit; in stronger doses it is a violent irritant; in large quantity, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... in her wickedness, to utterly disconcert her middle-aged admirer, she could not have adopted a surer plan. For fully five minutes he ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... the blunt old knight would readily excuse ceremony; and I had such a belief in the extent and decided character of Rashleigh's machinations, that I had some apprehension of his having provided means to intercept a journey which was undertaken with a view to disconcert them, if my departure were ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... shudder at doing anything unusual, and even hear by anticipation the laugh of your particular friends. You are especially ashamed at appearing to care for what those about you do not care for. A laugh at your humanity, or your "theories," would disconcert you. You are fearfully anxious that any project of benevolence you undertake should succeed, not altogether on its own account, but because your sagacity is embarked in it, and plentiful will be the gibes at its failure, ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... and the beams torn away from the roofs, or the glorious army massacring those who defend themselves, taking away the others as prisoners, pillaging in the name of the sword and offering thanks to God to the thunder of the guns, are as many appalling scourges which disconcert any belief in eternal justice, all the trust we were taught to place in the protection of heaven and the ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... the man's feet made him appear clumsy-footed, but he swung down from the giddy height as lightly and airily as a mountain goat. A rock, turning under his foot on the edge of the precipice, did not disconcert him. He seemed to know the precise time required for the turn to culminate in disaster, and in the meantime he utilized the false footing itself for the momentary earth-contact necessary to carry him on into safety. ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... you give her a sudden shock; nor must you let it be known that you have seen her, for that might disconcert the plan I ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... though it was of Mrs Varden's extraordinary sweetness and amiability, had so strong a tendency to check the conversation and to disconcert all parties but that excellent lady, that only a few monosyllables were uttered until Edward withdrew; which he presently did, thanking the lady of the house a great many times for her condescension, and whispering in Dolly's ear that he would call on the morrow, in case there ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... his breath, but again checked himself just in time to prevent the words "and wives," that rose to his lips. "And friends," he substituted, with evident constraint and as awkwardly as before. It was not often that a woman had been able to disconcert Edgar Harrowby so strangely as did this ignorant and innocent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... followed a strangely zigzag course. It was evident that, in trying to baffle pursuit, they had tried to avoid places which they thought might be dangerous to them. This may have been simply a method to disconcert pursuit. If so, it was, in a measure, excellent, for none of those immediately following could possibly tell in what direction they were heading. It was only when we worked the course on the great map in the signaller's room (which was the old guard room ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... consequential and prophetic of the rest. The calm places in life are filled with power and its spasms with resource. No emotion can overwhelm the mind, for of none is the basis or issue wholly hidden; no event can disconcert it altogether, because it sees beyond. Means can be looked for to escape from the worst predicament; and whereas each moment had been formerly filled with nothing but its own adventure and surprised emotion, each ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... passed half of the intervening distance, he seemed to fancy that he was not making satisfactory time for the Shawanoe, who, he doubtless imagined, was standing with leveled gun, finger on the trigger. He therefore began leaping from side to side, so as to disconcert the aim of the dreaded Deerfoot. In the hope also of further confusing him, he emitted several frenzied whoops, which added such grotesqueness to the scene that Terry Clark threw back his head and made the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... of them having gone about; the idea, of course, being to separate and widen their distance as much as possible in the hope that by so doing one of them at least might escape, even if the other were captured. Captain Vavassour, however, did not allow these tactics to disconcert him in the least; he fixed upon one of them as the object of his pursuit—altogether disregarding the movements of the other, meanwhile—and devoted all his efforts to close with her, with the result that by two bells in the ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... from our state of animal spirits, want of confidence in the justice of our cause, or any other motive, our own courage happens to be in a wavering condition, nothing tends so much altogether to disconcert us, as a great appearance of promptitude on the part of our antagonist. Halbert Glendinning, both morally and constitutionally intrepid, was nevertheless somewhat troubled at seeing the stranger, whose resentment he had provoked, appear at once ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... assuming because he was asked in church and lawfully married; and she wore a handsome lilac silk gown and a white wreath and veil, and very well she looked in them. She had a child of two years old, which did not at all disconcert Bill; but he continues to be dignified, and won't let her go and wash clothes in the river, because the hot sun makes her ill, and it is not fit work ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... Evidently it did, for she smiled brightly and graciously and bent her ruddy head. But she was pale, I noticed critically; there was apprehension in her eyes. Wasn't it odd that the prospect of a few simple questions from an officer should disconcert her when she had possessed the courage, or the foolhardiness, to sail on this line at ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... circumstance occurred of a disagreeable nature, which however did not much disconcert me. Mr Ivory, who had a good many years before made himself favourably known as a mathematician, especially by his acquaintance with Laplace's peculiar analysis, had adopted (as not unfrequently happens) some singular hydrostatical theories. In my last Paper on the ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... moment she was intent upon something beyond the picture. She was preparing for a little scene, and was going to give him some advice. He understood it all, but as he was really desirous of working at his canvas, and was rather averse to having a scene at the moment, he made a little attempt to disconcert her. "It is the heart that gives success," she said, while he was considering how he might best put an extinguisher upon her romance for ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... could induce the gentleman to think the same." This was a point that seemed rather to disconcert our candidate for equality, who commenced whistling and kicking ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... that, by order of time, was regularly to precede this latter design; with such regularity did this our hero conduct all his schemes, and so truly superior was he to all the efforts of passion, which so often disconcert and disappoint the ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... then explained the method of this peculiar stratagem of Indian warfare. The twenty picked men were about to ride around us in a circle, at top speed, delivering flights of arrows as they passed, their object being to disconcert us and draw our fire; our guns once empty, the main body whom we observed held themselves in readiness, would ride in, and by a sudden dash, end the skirmish by our ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... existence of another, steel is your only arbiter, and charitable allowances for the dead make the one rational peroration. So we crossed blades; and, pursuing my usual tactics, I began upon a flow of words, which course, as I have learned by old experience, is apt to disconcert an adversary far more than any trick of ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... between us," Porfiry Petrovitch went on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles. "Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay put a stop to it, or I don't know what we might not have come to. That damned workman was sitting at the time in the next room—can ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sent him, cursing the government in his heart, stigmatizing "Madame Royale" as an unnatural sister, and considering the king no better than other royal uncles who had occupied thrones which belonged to their imprisoned nephews. The news of his discomfiture did not disconcert or dishearten the plotters, and, although their first attempt to approach the daughter of Louis XVI. had resulted in failure, they resolved to make another attempt. Madame de Jacquieres, in particular, was very hopeful, and, with a wisdom and modesty ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... vigor from the singing. Teachers who enjoy hearty singing will get nervous; they will doubt the value of the innovation. In those grades where children range in age from twelve to fourteen years, the apparent loss in vocal power will disconcert the pupils even. Never mind; the use of the thin register will demonstrate its excellences, and it will, if slowly yet surely, increase in brilliance and ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... this, she is as a profitable field to her master." To analyse such a work in detail is impossible: it is still more impossible to translate the whole of it. The nature of the subject, the strangeness of certain precepts, the character of the style, all tend to disconcert the reader and to mislead him in his interpretations. From the very earliest times ethics has been considered as a healthy and praiseworthy subject in itself, but so hackneyed was it, that a change in the mode of expressing it could alone give it freshness. Phtahhotpu ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to that point of polish which meets the New England necessity for thoroughness, are "bright," and the near observer blinks as he suddenly comes upon them in the sun. A bit of looking-glass handled judiciously by the small boy, has the same quality, and is warranted to disconcert the most placid temperament; and so the New England woman is apt to have jagged edges and a sense of too much light for the situation. "Sweetness and light" is the desirable combination, and may come in the new union of North and South. The wise woman is she who best unites the two. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... not answer; she only looked a little doubtfully at her aunt, with a gaze of deep, uneasy enquiry. That sort of insinuation seemed to disconcert her. But she did not challenge her aunt to define her meaning, and the attack was soon ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... sorts of people—folks making inquiries, paying bills, ordering goods, and the like. I've had an idea from the first that some prominent person—no ordinary man—is responsible for the circulars. They're well worded, grammatical, and the malicious insinuations are cleverly contrived to disconcert the loyal but weak brethren. However, these envelopes haven't helped me a bit. Neither of the two persons who addressed the envelopes of the circulars addressed any of these business envelopes. Of ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... who could guess a portion of her story, did not disconcert her. To Lady Pennon and Lady Singleby, she was the brilliant Diana of her nominal luminary issuing from cloud. Face and tongue, she was the same; and once in the stream, she soon gathered its current topics and scattered her arrowy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which are often made in handling figures are just as annoying. It is a trifling error to call eight and four thirteen, but it often may disconcert an immense calculation. Like the pebble in the shoe, small in itself, it may do great injury. Some years ago there traveled through the country a genuine "lightning calculator." You could put down any number, big or little, while ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... and others have actually held that Ashmole made Masonry—as if any one man made Masonry! 'Tis surely strange, if this be true, that only two entries in his Diary refer to the order; but that does not disconcert the theorists who are so wedded to their idols as to have scant regard for facts. No, the circumstance that Ashmole was a Rosicrucian, an Alchemist, a delver into occult lore, is enough, the absence of any allusion to him thereafter only serving to confirm the fancy—the theory being ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... the queen and her throne, by taking upon him to declare the pretended prince of Wales king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The three declarations of the emperor, England, and the states-general, which were published in one day, did not fail to disconcert, as well as to provoke the French monarch. When his minister De Torcy recited them in his hearing, he spoke of the queen with some acrimony; but with respect to the states-general, he declared with great emotion, that "Messieurs the Dutch merchants should one day repent of their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... even at the early period plots were being contrived against the young princess, which, if successful, would have been wholly destructive of her happiness, and which, though she was fully aware of them, she had not means by herself to disconcert or defeat. They were the more formidable because they were partly political, embracing a scheme for the removal of a minister, and consequently conciliated more supporters and insured greater perseverance than if they had merely aimed at securing a preponderance of court favor ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... in Galicia, doubtless with a view to its reaction upon the attitude of Rumania; and here Bothmer was menaced by Sakharoff in the north and Lechitsky in the south. To disconcert the northern attack the Germans had planned a counter-offensive on the 18th, but Sakharoff got his blow in first three days before. Forcing the Austrians across the Styr in front of Dubno, he advanced along ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... together, but to date later than that picture.[18] The tonality of the picture is of an exquisite silveriness—that of clear, moderate daylight, though this relative paleness may have been somewhat increased by time. It may a little disconcert at first sight those who have known the lovely pastoral only from hot, brown copies, such as the one which, under the name of Giorgione, was formerly in the Dudley House Collection, and now belongs to Sir William Farrer. ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... for the moment, seemed to disconcert the two men. Then Mayer laughed, "Nothing but bluff, young man—American bluff. I know who you are. You followed Seltz here from London, and got the snuff box from him by a trick. Now tell ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... of the eyes which told how ill "Coventry" was agreeing with his spirits. The cheers, with which he was greeted, due quite as much to his pluck in coming to-day as to his exploit at the match last Saturday, appeared to disconcert rather than please him, and he took a corner seat as far as possible from the Classic seniors present. When, however, Percy and Co. entered the Hall, a much livelier demonstration ensued. Cheers and compliments and pats on the back showered fast on the youthful "blacklegs," and ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... Mansfield saw, but it did not disconcert him. He was glad to see a clear line being drawn, which made it impossible for any but the practised hypocrites to hang out false colours and pretend to be what they were not. It was half the battle to the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows, as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... for strong feelings disconcert the mind, and produce confusion of ideas. On every occasion that requires attention, learn to concentrate your thoughts with quickness and comprehension. These two rules reduced into habits, if steadily practiced, will induce decision of resolve ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... says this enfant terrible, still fixing him with a glance of calm and searching scrutiny that is well calculated to disconcert even a bolder man. Then all at once her mind seems made up, and, coming forward, she holds out her hand, and says, "How d'ye do?" to him, with a sudden, rare sweet smile that convinces him at once of ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... he became aware that Sam Marlowe was moving towards him with outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was the calmest person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech. He did not in so many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of luck which had befallen him, but he tried to make him understand by his manner that he was distinctly to be ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... with his own hands that he consented. Ojeda bore the frightful agony without a murmur or a quiver, such was his extraordinary endurance. It was the custom in that day to bind patients who were operated upon surgically, that their involuntary movements might not disconcert the doctors and cause them to wound where they hoped to cure. Ojeda refused even to be bound. The remedy was efficacious, although the heat of the iron, in the language of the ancient chronicler, so entered his system that they used a barrel of ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... than ever when he came into the cabin. He had a certain triumphant air that consorted ill with his trick of evading one's eyes. He came nervously, I thought; but to my surprise Roger's caustic accusal seemed rather to put him at ease than to disconcert him further. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the place and song, and respect for the singer alike failed to control the irrepressible start of amazement and smile of amusement with which we greeted the weird and apparently demented shriek which rose high over the voices of the choir, but which did not at all disconcert their accustomed ears. Words, however chosen, would fail in attempting to describe the grotesque ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Mrs. Gallosh was one of those good ladies who are fond of asking their friends to take "pot luck," and then providing them with fourteen courses; or suggesting a "quiet little evening together," when they have previously removed the drawing-room carpet. It is an affectation of modesty apt to disconcert the retiring guest who takes them at their word. In the drawing-room of Mrs. Gallosh the startled Baron found assembled—firstly, the Gallosh family, consisting of all those whose acquaintance we have already made, and in addition two stalwart school-boy ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... the commons; for that even he himself could not, according to the usage of their ancestors, by virtue of his authority remove any person; because the words run thus, if ye think proper, depart, Romans." He was able to disconcert Laetorius by arguing fluently and contemptuously concerning the right. The tribune therefore, burning with rage, sends his beadle to the consul; the consul sends his lictor to the tribune, exclaiming that he was a private individual, without ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... disconcert her. She coloured, and then grew suddenly pale. Her eyes no longer looked into his; they were fixed steadfastly ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and indeed for the best of motives, men and women suppress, exalt, refine the presentment of themselves, because they desire to be loved, and think that they must therefore be careful to be admired, just as the lover adorns himself and puts his best foot forward, and hides all that may disconcert interest or sympathy. So that it happens in life that often when we most desire to be real, we ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... work. The dismayed blank faces of all the conspirators, with the exception of the arch traitor only, whom it would seem that nothing could disconcert or dismay, confirmed the impression made upon all minds by that strong appeal. For, though he had mentioned no man's name save Catiline's and Laeca's only, suspicion was called instantly to those who were their known associates in riot and debauchery; and many eyes were scrutinizing ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... searching mouth. The free gesture, the bent head, the unconscious doing, made the act as lovely as the person. Fulke murmured his joy, and Jehane looking presently up saw the Old Man's solemn eyes blinking at her. This did not disconcert her very much, for she thought, 'If he is correctly reported he has seen ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... the alacrity of one who had mentally discussed and decided every point in anticipation. There was no cause for haste, and hence there was no confusion. He could not foretell the number of his guests, but this did in no way disconcert him. He had already decided that no matter how many might come there should be enough. In Wild Bill he had an able and willing assistant, and all through the afternoon and well into the evening the two men pushed on the preparation ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... Fairly farms, known as the Three-Tree Farm, subsisting there, men fancied, by the aid of his housekeeper's money. For he was of those evil fellows who disconcert all righteous prophecy, and it was vain for Mrs. Boulby and Warbeach village to declare that no good could come to him, when Fortune manifestly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of this, and the cloakroom move did not disconcert him. He seized on one of the most reverend of the Senate walruses, one festooned with the very seaweed of Senate tradition, and, casting him, as it were, on the coals of his hot rhetoric, proceeded to roast ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... above the timberline, no matter the weather, they were always there, contentedly feeding on the sweet, early-cured tufts of grass that the raging alpine gales kept uncovered. It was fascinating to watch them; neither wild winds nor blinding snow seemed to disconcert them; their thick wool coats were impervious to the keenest, most penetrating blasts. True, on terribly stormy days they sought the shelter of giant upthrusts of rock, towering cliffs or sky-piercing spires that faced eastward, away from the prevailing winds. There they ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor, burned by the sun, and powdered by the dust, old Sale yet retained a little life in her sharp eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been sick for months,—who could not work, and yet had to eat. She said two or three things calculated to disconcert a young girl, and looked Cecile directly in the face with malicious delight. Two or three times Jack felt a strong inclination to put the wretch out of the door; but he restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with which ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... turned towards Robin, but made no reply; it is sometimes given to the simple to disconcert the wise, and that alone ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... saying as many unpleasant things as he could. In this, however, his benevolent views were materially frustrated by Henderson, who made his contemptuous comments in a tone sufficiently loud to be heard by many, and quite distinctly enough to disconcert ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... Adams nor Franklin wrote one word which either directly or indirectly had a personal bearing. Arthur Lee was more frank; in the days of Deane he had begun to write that to continue himself at Paris would "disconcert effectually the wicked measures" of Franklin, Deane, and Williams, and that it was "the one way of redressing" the "neglect, dissipation, and private schemes" prevalent in the department, and of "remedying the public evil." He said that the French court was the place of ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... dignity of this assembly, nor with those rules which ought to be ever venerable, the great rules of reason and humanity. Yet being now arrived at a time of life in which the passions grow calm, and patience easily prevails over any sudden disgust or perturbation, I forbore to disconcert him, though I have known interruption produced ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... he takes part in, behind it will be the reality, a private understanding with the biggest man in sight; for this reason the fall of Lloyd George and the succession of a Labor government in England will disconcert him terribly. The democratic passion for equality, which dogs the tracks of the great, he mollifies by reminding the nation always that he is "just folks," by opening the White House lawn gates, by calling everyone by his first name. So constant is his aim to appease it that I wonder if he is ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... tried to disconcert a mummy with my facetiousness. Said Rogers: "I get all my coats there—they're the only coats fit to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a secret sting in this speech that seemed quite to disconcert Master Simon. He jerked away his hand in a pet, smacked his whip, whistled to his dogs, and intimated that it was high time to go home. The girl, however, was determined not to lose her harvest. She now turned upon me, and, as I have a weakness of spirit where there is a pretty ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... wearisome, and his audience grew gradually less, until it was reduced to twenty passengers. But this did not disconcert the enthusiast, who proceeded with the story of Joseph Smith's bankruptcy in 1837, and how his ruined creditors gave him a coat of tar and feathers; his reappearance some years afterwards, more honourable and honoured than ever, at Independence, Missouri, the chief ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... confuses our judgment, as a Paula in real life might, and leaves us attracted and repelled, and, above all, interested. But Duse has no resources outside simple human nature. If she cannot convince you by the thing in itself, she cannot disconcert you by a paradox about it. Well, this passionately sincere acting, this one real person moving about among the dolls of the piece, shows up all that is mechanical, forced, and unnatural in the construction of a play never meant to withstand the searchlight of this woman's creative intelligence. ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... face of the building as easily as he would have dropped from limb to limb of a jungle tree. The sixteen stories under him did not disconcert him at all. Bentley had a suspicion about this particular ape, but he wouldn't know for a time yet whether his suspicion had a basis in fact. He couldn't think of a man—especially an old man like Harold ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... a tumult by the receipt of a mysterious package from the custom-house containing an intaglio ring. The ring came from Italy, and her ship had touched at Genoa. The fact that it was addressed in an unknown handwriting did not disconcert him, for he argued that to make the test more difficult she might disguise the handwriting. He at once carried the intaglio to an expert at the Metropolitan Museum, and when he was told that it represented Cupid feeding a fire upon an altar, he reserved ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... with his face turned up to the raindrops, sure-footed, with the gait of a panther. He did not speak a word to the girl beside him, but his silence, did not disconcert her. There was even something in it that ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... prepared for the day's journey. Girths and bridles, the horse furniture, and the shoes of the horses themselves, were carefully inspected with his own eyes, that there might be as little chance as possible of the occurrence of any of those casualties, which, petty as they seem, often interrupt or disconcert travelling. The horses were also, under his own inspection, carefully fed, so as to render them fit for a long day's journey, or, if that should be necessary, for ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... the people. James Moore proclaimed Governor. The declaration of the Convention. The Governor transmits an account of the whole proceedings to the Proprietors. The Revolutioners appoint new officers, and establish their authority. In vain the Governor attempts to disconcert them. Rhett refuses obedience to his orders. And preserves the confidence of the Proprietors. Further attempts of the Governor to recal the people. The invasion from Spain defeated. The Governor's ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... are, you are. You're a regular sphinx sometimes. Peter says that you even disconcert him at times, when you take to remembering things out of your ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... of the Polar regions, I found myself one fine morning down to my last few dollars, walking the streets with an imminent prospect of speedy starvation. The fact of death, as an alternative to the apparently actual, did not disconcert me. I shouldn't have minded dying in the least, were it not for the fact that I had hoped before that event to have expounded for modern consumption certain theories of mine upon the dialectics of Hegel. As my money dwindled I was reduced to quite necessary economies, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... not exactly a showy figure; his shoulders were high, his stature but middling—one leg slightly more bandy than the other. He shook hands, looking vaguely around. A spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged. I behaved with a politeness which seemed to disconcert him. Perhaps he was shy. He mumbled to me as if he were ashamed of what he was saying; gave his name (it was something like Archbold—but at this distance of years I hardly am sure), his ship's name, and a few other ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... the Citizen, whom nothing could disconcert. HOME SECRETARY having no fear of the lamppost before his eyes, formally moved that the Citizen be suspended. GRAHAM snapped his fingers at HOME SECRETARY. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... altogether—a tall, stalwart man whose face was full of the serenity that comes from breadth and poise, but whose mind, as she herself knew well enough, was too habituated to the broad treatment of big matters to have any aptitude for repartee and chatter. She liked to disconcert him, and it was usually an easy thing to do. "And I wish, while you have your hand in, you would just come up and nail some weather-strips ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... or playing sweet old melodies at the piano. The young officers were rather afraid of her. She was "a somewhat superior old maid," said a youngster whom she had found it expedient to repress. Some women declared her a trifle unapproachable, unsympathetic perhaps, but even that did not seem to disconcert her. Something happened ere long that did, however, for a few months after adjournment of the court Davies reappeared at Laramie. He had actually taken a leave of absence, and now he was at Cranston's six evenings out of seven, and garrison gossip began in good earnest. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Stevens, of course, was always the central figure in the House. No possible emergency could disconcert him. Whether the attack came from friend or foe, or in whatever form, he was ready, on the instant, to repel it and turn the tables completely upon his assailant. He exercised the most absolute freedom of speech, making his thrusts with the ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... approach until the reading of the papers was finished. Suddenly the Pasha appeared to get weary of his papers. He tossed them aside, ordered his carriage, rose hastily, and left the room. But this uncourteous behaviour did not appear to disconcert those who awaited his pleasure. Probably, like eels, they had got used to rough treatment. Some of them ran after the Pasha and tried to urge their suits in a few rapid sentences, others went off with a sigh ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... away from me for a moment. My question seemed to disconcert her, perhaps by reason ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... did not appear to disconcert the other boy. He was a slippery sort of customer, who always seemed able to find some sort of ready excuse, or a way to "climb down a tree" ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... "lively to severe" certainly took Maguire by surprise, and he seemed for an instant as much disconcerted as it is possible to disconcert an Irish ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... selection, to things as they are, they will never be reconciled with them, and an eternal war will ensue between what the animal needs, loves, and can understand and what the outer reality offers. So long as such a creature lives—and his life will be difficult and short—events will continually disconcert and puzzle him; everything will seem to him unaccountable, inexplicable, unnatural. He will not be able to conceive the real order and connection of things sympathetically, by assimilating his habits of thought to their habits of evolution. His ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... death—this time by the distinct and awful sentence of God Almighty. He stooped to disconcert for a moment the puny plans of men who had set themselves in array against the Lord and His Christ. On the chief of all the persecutors, Sir Thomas de Arundel himself, the angel of God's vengeance laid his irresistible hand. Cut ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... the indulgence lavished upon Bulgaria and the severity displayed toward Rumania is calculated to disconcert the stanchest friends of the Supreme Council. The Rumanian government, in a dignified note to the Conference, explained its refusal to sign the Treaty with Austria by enumerating a series of facts which amount to a scathing condemnation of the work of the Supreme Council. On the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... certain, that the repeated losses suffered by the States, in little more than two months after they had withdrawn themselves from the Queen's assistance, did wholly disconcert their counsels;[20] and their prudence (as it is usual) began to forsake them with their good fortune. They were so weak as to be still deluded by their friends in England, who continued to give them hopes of some mighty and immediate resource from hence; for when the Duke ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... canon of naval tactics is to maintain formation. Another is to keep moving, at the full speed of the slowest ship, not only to disconcert the enemy's fire, but to obtain and hold the most advantageous position—if possible, to flank him. As these rules apply equally well to both sides, it is obvious that two fleets, passing in opposite directions, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... man of about twenty-two. He and his sister and mother were frequent visitors to this little household of three. But the young Mexican was the most frequent, and the husband's being home or not did not disconcert him. Men of affairs must need spend morning hours, and sometimes afternoon hours, too, inside of offices, but wealthy and aristocratic young Mexicans ride horses all day, decked out with silver, leather, and velvet trappings, both horse and rider. It was this lady's custom ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... set his jaw firmly. Somehow, somewhere, something must be wrought that would place Amoyah at a disadvantage and bring ridicule upon him. No great matter, it might be said, to compass the change of a fickle woman's mind, to disconcert a giddy young man. But how? Cheesto was aweary of his own incantations and his ineffectual spells. He would fain lend Fate a ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... when one doubts oneself ones art even. That is the moment when it must be happiness to find a faithful and loving heart, ever ready to sympathize with one's depression, to which one may appeal without fearing to disconcert a confidence and enthusiasm that are, in fact, unalterable. And then the child. That sweet unconscious baby smile, is not that the best moral rejuvenescence one can have? Ah! I have often thought over that. For ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... he said hoarsely, "that the probability of your name being coupled with mine and dragged through the public mire does not disconcert you?" ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... sons or daughters. The young officers who visited at our house would try to make themselves agreeable; but their conduct appeared so insipid, so ridiculous, that I only mocked them, and gave such biting replies as to disconcert the most ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... depends the success of military expeditions. The reader will admire the surprising courage and intrepidity of the great men at the head of the Grecian affairs, whom neither all the world in motion against them could deject, nor the greatest misfortunes disconcert; who undertook, with an handful of men, to make head against innumerable armies; who, notwithstanding such a prodigious inequality of forces, dared to hope for success; who even compelled victory to declare on the side of merit and virtue; and taught all succeeding generations what infinite resources ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... which seems to rule the world of spirits may cause these lower beings to be attracted by uncultured mediums, while the great spirits are repelled by them. It would be these larvae of the other world who give the messages which disconcert when they do not scandalise us. But the man of science should not be rebuffed by these messages which, in spite of their contents, are important, if they result in irresistible proof of the fact that there exist outside ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... kettles hung upon cranes and "Dutch ovens" were ranged before the coals, each filled with savory food for hungry people. It was a spot Mrs. Hungerford found vastly interesting, but where she rarely lingered; for her presence seemed to disconcert the shy French maids who served their mistress there and whose own homes were isolated cottages here and there. So she was even now leaving the kitchen when she chanced to notice ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... ranked; and, in general, by the extrication of their best self as the self to develope, and by the simplicity of the ends fixed by them as paramount, they hinder the unchecked predominance of that class-life which is the affirmation of our ordinary self, and seasonably disconcert mankind in ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... him he gave not only strength, but an abundance of sweetness and light, illuminating mind and spirit, and inspiring an affection that was both unselfish and uplifting. But his enemies hated him so frantically that their characters measurably deteriorated; to ruin or even disconcert him they stooped and intrigued and lied; they were betrayed into public acts which lowered them in their own eyes and in those of all students of history. Other hatreds were healthy and stimulating by comparison; but there is no doubt that Adams, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... within depender (de), to depend (upon) dependiente, clerk deplorar, to deplore deposito, deposit, depot, store deprimir, to depress derecho, right, straight, customs, duty desanimado, lifeless, stagnant (market) desanimar (se), to disconcert, to feel discouraged desarme, disarmament desarrollar, to develop descarga, discharge, unloading descomponer, to put out of gear desconcertar, to put out, to upset descuidar, to neglect ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... can be so accurately projected, but some little Circumstance intervening may spoil it. He, who directs the Heart of Man at his Pleasure, and understands the Thoughts long before, may by ten thousand Accidents, or an immediate Change in the Inclinations of Men, disconcert the most subtle Project, and turn it to the Benefit of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... blind, and her eyes fixed on Mr. Joseph, she did wish with all her might that he would turn his head and see her at the window and wave his hand gallantly as he had done on one or two previous occasions. Then she would beckon and he would run across and entering the room disconcert this odious Mr. Lyman B. Rattray and put an end to his stony wooing. But alas! for Miss Maria and her mesmeric powers! The harder she tried, the less she succeeded. On came Mr. Joseph, supremely unconscious of the injured heart beating behind the windowpane. At one moment it seemed as if he were ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... our entire moral being, our mind no less than our character, is incapable of living and acting except in justice. Leaving that, we leave our natural element; we are carried, as it were, into a planet of which we know nothing, where the ground slips from under our feet, and all things disconcert us; for while the humblest intellect feels itself at home in justice, and can readily foretell the consequences of every just act, the most profound and penetrating mind loses its way hopelessly in the injustice ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... house in Princes Gate he found it shut up. This, however, did not disconcert him, it was no more than he expected. After a considerable amount of ringing at both bells, there was a grating sound within as of the unfastening of bolts and chains, and an elderly woman, evidently fresh from her labours over ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... exception, that when there he can get whisky when he wants it. He knows nothing of the ennui of traveling, and never seems to long for the end of his journey, as travelers do with us. Should his boat come to grief upon the river, and lay by for a day or a night, it does not in the least disconcert him. He seats himself upon three chairs, takes a bite of tobacco, thrusts his hand into his trowsers pockets, and revels in ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... to a violent attack, you may often disconcert your opponent by compelling the exchange of two or three Pieces. When, however, you are about to exchange officers, you must calculate not only their ordinary value, but their peculiar worth in the situation in question; for example, a Rook is generally more valuable ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... burst of laughter from the auditors did not in the least disconcert the speaker, who continued,—"Yes, gentlemen; Edward, the infant phenomenon, who is quite an adept in the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... would break his back, Ginx calmly proposed to disconcert physical, moral, and legal relations by drowning the straw Mrs. Ginx clinging to Number Twelve listened aghast. If a mother can forget her sucking child she was not that mother. The stream of her affections, though divided into twelve rills, would ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... vicar's guest had created a very favourable impression on us all, for though Mrs. Marchbold looked at us rather hard, and then pursed up her lips and looked steadily at the vicar's sister, evidently meaning to disconcert that lady with some indication of the thought that was in all our minds, we rather resented the rudeness, and murmured in chorus that it was evident that Mr. De Montfort was quite ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... refused to conclude a peace without obtaining for his allies a just and reasonable satisfaction, persists in these sentiments, and he doubts not that the United States will on their part fulfil their engagements by continuing the war till a definitive treaty is concluded, and thereby entirely disconcert the projects of the English, who flatter themselves, that by means of the eventual treaty, which they have concluded, they will be able to establish on the Continent a suspension of hostilities equal to a truce, written ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... been closely followed by Sir Piercie Shafton. When, whether from our state of animal spirits, want of confidence in the justice of our cause, or any other motive, our own courage happens to be in a wavering condition, nothing tends so much altogether to disconcert us, as a great appearance of promptitude on the part of our antagonist. Halbert Glendinning, both morally and constitutionally intrepid, was nevertheless somewhat troubled at seeing the stranger, whose resentment he had provoked, appear at once before him, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... to disconcert her a little. She was prepared for indignant denial, or angry remonstrance even; but this calm self-possession was something almost new to her. True, he had always been calm and philosophical, like his father; but this was something deeper ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... not at the Hotel de l'Europe did not disconcert Verdayne very much. He had foreseen that she was hardly likely to stay in the hotel with which English tourists would ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... left and centre were at last accounts approaching the Yalabusha, near Grenada, and the railroad to his rear, by which he drew his supplies, was reported to be seriously damaged. This may disconcert him somewhat, but only makes more important our line of operations. At the Yalabusha General Grant may encounter the army of General Pemberton, the same which refused him battle on the line of the Tallahatchie, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Ibarra's little banka was now far away and the swimmer was approaching the shore, distant some thirty yards. The rowers were tired, but Elias was in the same condition, for he showed his head oftener, and each time in a different direction, as if to disconcert his pursuers. No longer did the treacherous track indicate the position of the diver. They saw him for the last time when he was some ten yards from the shore, and fired. Then minute after minute passed, but nothing ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... that nothing could be more honourable than their way of living, and nothing more easy than to continue it; but he soon perceived that the greatest prosperity is not the most lasting. Good living, bad economy, dishonest servants, and ill-luck, all uniting together to disconcert their housekeeping, their table was going to be gradually laid aside, when the Chevalier's genius, fertile in resources, undertook to support his former credit by ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... somewhat wearisome, and his audience grew gradually less, until it was reduced to twenty passengers. But this did not disconcert the enthusiast, who proceeded with the story of Joseph Smith's bankruptcy in 1837, and how his ruined creditors gave him a coat of tar and feathers; his reappearance some years afterwards, more honourable and honoured than ever, at Independence, ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... had been so daring that nothing seemed to be able to disconcert her, now lowered her head like a timid boarding-school girl who has been caught acting contrary to rules; and a flood of crimson spread over her face, and every part of her figure which was not concealed ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... meditation, full of deep thoughts and budding purposes, wrought by the celestial voices into high hopes and noble aspirations, possessed with the belief that she had been chosen by heaven to deliver France from its woes and to disconcert its enemies. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... rifle, so I looked round to see if I was being stalked. I could see no one on my track, so I just lay still and waited developments at the farmhouse. I saw the girl throw the milk, and I then calculated that a shot placed between you and the men would so disconcert them for the moment that you could be able to ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Mrs. Patman and her sister might constantly be seen tilling their little field with an energy far beyond the capacity of its late tenant. Her neighbours' unimpressed rejoinder, "Well, and supposin' they are itself?" did not in the least disconcert the widdy, nor yet their absence of enthusiasm when she stated that it was "a sight to behould Tishy M'Crum diggin' over a bit of ground; she'd lift as much on her spade as any two strong men." As for little Katty, "she'd never seen anybody doin' anythin' agin the child; ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... here grouped together, but to date later than that picture.[18] The tonality of the picture is of an exquisite silveriness—that of clear, moderate daylight, though this relative paleness may have been somewhat increased by time. It may a little disconcert at first sight those who have known the lovely pastoral only from hot, brown copies, such as the one which, under the name of Giorgione, was formerly in the Dudley House Collection, and now belongs to Sir William Farrer. It is still so ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... his excitement. His followers entered after him, and all paused a moment at sight of the ladies. Of course their modesty was not fated to be long-lived, but for a moment they were abashed. Once let them begin to shout, however, and nothing on earth should disconcert them. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... watched that opposite sand bank carefully, not the slightest movement revealed the presence of others. That every motion he made was being observed by keen eyes he had no doubt, but this knowledge did not disconcert him, now that he felt convinced fear of revealment would keep his watchers at a safe distance. Whoever they might be they were evidently more anxious to escape discovery than he was fearful of attack, and possessed no desire to take his life, unless it ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... depended upon the amount of impudence he could bring to bear upon the case before him, and the skill with which he personated the part he had chosen. He knew of nothing, short of falling on the Fourth Alabama, which could disconcert him. Even if he did, there were only a few who knew the captured scout; and his chances were fair, even if the ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... this service, which confirmed me in the belief I had previously entertained, that the English were to join with the Russians in an expedition against Holland. The aim of the Anglo-Russians was to make a diversion which might disconcert the movements of the French armies in Germany, the allies being at that time unacquainted with the peace concluded at Presburg. Not a moment was therefore to be lost in uniting the whole of our disposable force for the defence of Holland; but it is not of this expedition ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... alarm the country as well as secure the supplies of which he began to stand in great need, determined to detach Colonel Baum with a force of some six or eight hundred of Riedesel's dragoons for the attack upon Bennington. His instructions to Baum were "to try the affections of the country, to disconcert the counsels of the enemy, to mount Riedesel's dragoons, to complete Peters' corps (of Loyalists), and to obtain large supplies of cattle, horses, and carriages." Baum set off on the 13th of August on this expedition which was to result so unfortunately to himself, and which proved ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... move, hearing all these women's talk, unaffected either to joy or sorrow, was driven still more to serious thought, sighing to witness such strange conduct, and beginning to understand the women's design, by these means to disconcert his mind, not knowing that youthful beauty soon falls, destroyed by old age and death, fading and perishing! This is the great distress! What ignorance and delusion (he reflected) overshadow their minds: "Surely they ought ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... sounds followed, like exploding Chinese crackers, and then the thunderous roars and a vast volume of smoke rolled over the bay and enveloped the warships that were pouring their deadly fire into the Spanish vessels. The American ships, in order to disconcert the aim of the batteries of the enemy, moved slowly in their terrible ellipses or loops, their sides spouting crimson flame and answered by the shots of the Spaniards, who fought with a courage deserving of all praise. The manoeuvring of the American ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... Gloucester, while Campion preached from Oxford to Northampton. They took pains to set up a small printing press, which was removed from place to place, and from which was issued sufficient literature to disconcert their opponents. Probably the most remarkable volume published from the Jesuit printing-press was Campion's /Ten Reasons/,[32] addressed particularly to the Oxford students amongst whom it created a great sensation. At last after many hair-breadth escapes Campion ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... mean," he said hoarsely, "that the probability of your name being coupled with mine and dragged through the public mire does not disconcert you?" ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... to the house in Princes Gate he found it shut up. This, however, did not disconcert him, it was no more than he expected. After a considerable amount of ringing at both bells, there was a grating sound within as of the unfastening of bolts and chains, and an elderly woman, evidently fresh from her ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... Acting was his legitimate calling, but he would attempt anything to turn an honest penny. In turn he had been sailor, engineer, pilot, painter, manager, lecturer, bartender, soldier, author, clown, pantaloon, and a brass band. To preach a sermon would disconcert him as little as to undertake to navigate a balloon. He could get away with a pint of Jersey lightning, and under its stimulating influence address a blue ribbon temperance meeting on the pernicious effects of rum. Where he was born no one could tell. He ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... angry and say something hard to his father, and because she couldn't bear to see him hectored. Claude had always found life hard to live; he suffered so much over little things,-and she suffered with him. For herself, she never felt disappointments. Her husband's careless decisions did not disconcert her. If he declared that he would not plant a garden at all this year, she made no protest. It was Mahailey who grumbled. If he felt like eating roast beef and went out and killed a steer, she did the best she could ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... delightful contradiction, half gamine, half Burne-Jones, she confuses our judgment, as a Paula in real life might, and leaves us attracted and repelled, and, above all, interested. But Duse has no resources outside simple human nature. If she cannot convince you by the thing in itself, she cannot disconcert you by a paradox about it. Well, this passionately sincere acting, this one real person moving about among the dolls of the piece, shows up all that is mechanical, forced, and unnatural in the construction of a play never meant to withstand ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... This did not disconcert Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the least. He had put the new law through for a certain purpose, and he was willing to wait patiently until he could ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 42, August 26, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the subject-matter might change the merit of his work to a disproportionate extent. The more special the idiosyncrasy upon which a man's literary success is founded, the greater, of course, the probability that a small change will disconcert him. A man who can only perform upon the drum will have to wait for certain combinations of other instruments before his special talent can be turned to account. Now, the talent in which De Foe surpasses all other writers is just one of those peculiar gifts ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... any time learn, from him, whatever design might be formed in favour of HAMET, by assuming HAMET'S appearance: that he would thus be the confident of every secret, in which his own safety was concerned; and might disconcert the best contrived project at the very moment of its execution, when it would be too late for other measures to be taken: he determined, therefore, to let Osmyn live; at least, till it became more necessary to ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... may disconcert the gallant Colonel Newcomes who throw an air of restraint over our victorious front, there can be no doubt that they are an important as well as a novel development of the modern offensive. Of course neither the Tanks nor their very obvious next developments going to wrest ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... find no fitting replication, unless it were to indulge in facial contortion or invective, and Miss Clarissa was too much of a lady to do either. Forced into silence, she had no resource but to seek to transfix him with a protracted and contemptuous stare, which, though failing to disconcert the object, put her in possession of the facts that he had mild blue eyes, that the remnants of his hair were red, that he was slightly above middle height and below middle age, and that there was little about his face ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... mutual pleasure and without stake, and to the interest of spectators play many an emulatory game which may bear comparison with the best of the few good ones to be found in the most recent tedious chess matches played for amounts not thought of in previous times, and sufficient to disconcert and make timid both of the opponents. With our Foreign visitors, Simpson's Divan is the first resort to meet old friends, to hear chess news, to compare notes, and to discuss topics of interest. It is a kind of landmark, or where the pilot comes aboard. When they do not dine at Simpson's, which ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... city of Sens, which belonged to Burgundy, and of which he was the governor, took great pleasure in disconcerting the different companies who came to compliment him. The Abbe Boileau, brother of the poet, was commissioned to make a speech to the Prince at the head of the chapter. Conde wishing to disconcert the orator, advanced his head and large nose towards the Abbe, as if with the intention of hearing him more distinctly, but in reality to make him blunder if possible. The Abbe, who perceived his design, pretended to be greatly embarrassed, and thus began his speech: "My ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... some little revival. After this he had thoughts of going to London, and intended to have spent part of September at Northampton. The expectation of this was mutually agreeable; but Providence saw fit to disconcert the scheme. His love for his friends in these parts occasioned him to express some regret on his being commanded back; and I am pretty confident, from the manner in which he expressed himself in one of his last letters to me, that he had some more important ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... was as little fitted as I should have been for the conquest of the Polar regions, I found myself one fine morning down to my last few dollars, walking the streets with an imminent prospect of speedy starvation. The fact of death, as an alternative to the apparently actual, did not disconcert me. I shouldn't have minded dying in the least, were it not for the fact that I had hoped before that event to have expounded for modern consumption certain theories of mine upon the dialectics of Hegel. As my money dwindled I was reduced to ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... just a little bit disconcerted. Not much, you know. It would take a great deal to disconcert Lady Caroline very much. But she did not try to talk to me again! I choked her ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... remained with Percerin. Why? From curiosity, doubtless; probably to enjoy a little longer the society of his good friend Aramis. As Moliere and Porthos disappeared, D'Artagnan drew near the bishop of Vannes, a proceeding which appeared particularly to disconcert him. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... name of the Hog's Back; and then everybody sits around and eats sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, and considers the occasion a debauch. This formality resembles great good fun,—especially as there are girls who laugh, and play, and threaten to disconcert you on the morrow when you solemnly arise to lecture on the Religion of Emerson. But picnic-baskets out of doors are rather ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... cried the Doctor, embracing the boy with his usual effusive warmth, though it was a proceeding that seemed to disconcert the sufferer almost as much as if he had been an English schoolboy of the same age. 'And now,' he added, 'I will take ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in darkness. Nevertheless this discovery did not disconcert him, for frequently Lucy worked until dusk among her flowers, or lingered on the porch in the peace ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... Corder, looking very limp and haggard, and with a savage flash of the eyes which told how ill "Coventry" was agreeing with his spirits. The cheers, with which he was greeted, due quite as much to his pluck in coming to-day as to his exploit at the match last Saturday, appeared to disconcert rather than please him, and he took a corner seat as far as possible from the Classic seniors present. When, however, Percy and Co. entered the Hall, a much livelier demonstration ensued. Cheers and compliments and pats on the back showered fast on the youthful ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... fainter, and soon all was still. I kept my ears strained for the slightest sound. The cook and the boss, the only men up, hurried back to bed. Watson had risen so hurriedly that he had not been careful about his "tarp" and water had run into his bed. But that wouldn't disconcert anybody but a tenderfoot. I kept waiting in tense silence to hear them come back with dead or wounded, but there was not a sound. The rain had stopped. Mrs. Louderer struck a match and said it was three ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Wag shot a swift quizzing glance at him; but it took more than a glance to disconcert Mac once his mind was made up, and he met it unmoved, and entered into a vivid description of the "passage of the Fergusson," which filled in our ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Indian black, married my pretty washerwoman Rosalind, and was thought rather assuming because he was asked in church and lawfully married; and she wore a handsome lilac silk gown and a white wreath and veil, and very well she looked in them. She had a child of two years old, which did not at all disconcert Bill; but he continues to be dignified, and won't let her go and wash clothes in the river, because the hot sun makes her ill, and it is ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... all this, and therefore it did not disconcert him in the least. He went off and brought his own target, and set it up ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... placed himself on an eminence commanding a view of the field of battle, and where the balls rolled to his horse's feet. Many persons were wounded behind him. The English and the Dutch commenced the attack at the same time at different points. The former advanced as if nothing could disconcert their audacity. As the ground contracted, their battalions became more close together, but still keeping the finest order; and there was formed, partly by design, partly by accident, that redoubtable column of which the Duke of Cumberland soon felt the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... not apparently disconcert the other, but he looked carefully around as if searching for ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... leaned back in the carriage, and gave herself up to a pleasing reverie, in which she anticipated the successful completion of all her schemes. Relieved from the apprehension that Captain Walsingham's arrival might disconcert her projects, she was now still further re-assured by Mr. Palmer's resolution to sail immediately. One day more, and she was safe. Let Mr. Palmer but sail without seeing Captain Walsingham, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... leader, Mr. Stevens, of course, was always the central figure in the House. No possible emergency could disconcert him. Whether the attack came from friend or foe, or in whatever form, he was ready, on the instant, to repel it and turn the tables completely upon his assailant. He exercised the most absolute freedom of speech, making his thrusts with the same coolness at "unrighteous copperheads and self-righteous ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... later the whole of the band arrived safely within a mile or so of the great main line which runs between Aix-la-Chapelle and Liege, and then on through Namur to Paris. A stoppage to their communications on this line would disconcert the Germans in a way that hardly anything else could do, and Max, from the knowledge he had gained, while at Liege, of the great trains loaded with troops and munitions that constantly passed through at all hours of the day and night, was very well aware of it. Next to his darling ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... succession of stages or shelves, filled with soldiers, and with a bridge with iron hooks, capable of being launched from the highest story to the top of the battlements. The besieged could generally disconcert the battering- ram by hanging beds or mattresses over the walls to receive the brunt of the blow, the sows could be crushed with heavy stones, the towers burnt by well-directed flaming missiles, the ladders overthrown, and in general the besiegers suffered a great ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... coming to him. So disregard his ferocious pose. Though he may treat you as an unwelcome intruder, proceed calmly to the statement of your business. You know that your intention to render him a true service justifies you in taking his time. Therefore his assumed fierce manner should be powerless to disconcert you. ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... been said and written about Buddhism,—enough to frighten priests by seeing themselves anticipated in auricular confession, beads, and tonsure by the Lamas of Tibet,[54] and to disconcert philosophers by finding themselves outbid in positivism and nihilism by the inmates of Chinese monasteries,—the real beginning of an historical and critical study of the doctrines of Buddha dates from the year 1824. In that year Mr. Hodgson announced the fact that the original ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... and many of the bursts were dotted between the craft behind. I heard the customary wouff! wouff! wouff! followed in one case by the hs-s-s-s-s of passing fragments. We swerved and dodged to disconcert the gunners. After five minutes of hide-and-seek, we shook off this ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... birth to various fables and conjectures. It seems probable, that the Palladium was a small statue (three cubits and a half high) of Minerva, with a lance and distaff; that it was usually enclosed in a seria, or barrel; and that a similar barrel was placed by its side to disconcert curiosity, or sacrilege. See Mezeriac (Comment. sur les Epitres d'Ovide, tom i. p. 60—66) and Lipsius, (tom. iii. p. 610 ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... did not disconcert the young man, who poured out a liberal dose of the fluid he had brought with him, and made the old chief drink it. During the night he repeated the doses several times, and on the following day he kept up the treatment. ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... invited to Rome by the ambitious, to disconcert the suffrages, or influence them in their own favor; the public assemblies were so many conspiracies against the state, and a tumultuous crowd of seditious wretches was dignified with the title of Comitia. The authority of the people and their laws—nay, that people themselves—were no more ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... to what would occur next, for just before he disappeared the lookers-on saw the officer suddenly turn aside to close up to the natural wail of the little ravine, giving place to the passage of the stronger party still who came on cheering and yelling as if to disconcert the sharpshooters who were committing such havoc in their little detachments. But their effort was in vain, for at a short interval the two young riflemen once more fired at the dense little party, which it was impossible to miss. Two men in the front went ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... the gentleman to think the same." This was a point that seemed rather to disconcert our candidate for equality, who commenced whistling and kicking his heels with ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... this, he became aware that Sam Marlowe was moving towards him with outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was the calmest person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech. He did not in so many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of luck which had befallen him, but he tried to make him understand ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Convention of 1881. It was clearly his opinion that Lord Derby had, through stupidity and thoughtlessness, abandoned the suzerainty in 1884, just as Lord Russell had abandoned the idea of obtaining the South African Republic in 1852, so that he would now, just as Shepstone in 1877, have to try and disconcert the Republic by a display of force and inflexible determination, so as not to be deprived of ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... next. Being tall and athletic for her age, she had a long reach, which she employed successfully in driving the first ball she received right along the ground into "the country" for three. This seemed to disconcert the bowler; the next one she sent down was an easy full pitch. Honor waited till just the right moment, and then, with a fine swing of her bat, sent the ball clean over the boundary for six, a performance that quite "brought down the house", even the Hilaryites ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... discouragement and weariness, when one doubts oneself ones art even. That is the moment when it must be happiness to find a faithful and loving heart, ever ready to sympathize with one's depression, to which one may appeal without fearing to disconcert a confidence and enthusiasm that are, in fact, unalterable. And then the child. That sweet unconscious baby smile, is not that the best moral rejuvenescence one can have? Ah! I have often thought over that. For us artists, vain as all must be who live by success, by ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... if he were all German he would proceed thus for ever without self- consciousness or embarrassment; but, in so far as he is Celtic, he has snatches of quick instinct which often make him feel he is fumbling, show him visions of an easier, more dexterous behaviour, disconcert him and fill him with misgiving. No people, therefore, are so shy, so self-conscious, so embarrassed as the English, because two natures are mixed in them, and natures which pull them such different ways. The Germanic part, ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... on the man's feet made him appear clumsy-footed, but he swung down from the giddy height as lightly and airily as a mountain goat. A rock, turning under his foot on the edge of the precipice, did not disconcert him. He seemed to know the precise time required for the turn to culminate in disaster, and in the meantime he utilized the false footing itself for the momentary earth-contact necessary to carry him on into safety. Where the earth sloped so steeply that it was impossible to stand for a second ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... sovereign; and when the vote and ordinance were transmitted to their house, they rejected both without a dissentient voice, and then adjourned for a week.[b] This unexpected effort surprised, but did not disconcert, the Independents.[c] They prevailed on the Commons to vote that the people are the origin of all just power, and from this theoretical truth proceeded to deduce two practical falsehoods. As if no portion of that power had been delegated to the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... don't throw away a shot, and don't fire 'till I give the word." He then explained the method of this peculiar stratagem of Indian warfare. The twenty picked men were about to ride around us in a circle, at top speed, delivering flights of arrows as they passed, their object being to disconcert us and draw our fire; our guns once empty, the main body whom we observed held themselves in readiness, would ride in, and by a sudden dash, end the skirmish ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... recitative, off the stage, and without the support—real or imaginary—afforded by the wonted orchestral accompaniment as well as the customary stage-surroundings, and he will be apt to find himself embarrassed. The very fact of being compelled to repeat is of itself alone enough to disconcert almost anyone. The men and women who to-day attempt the forlorn task of reproducing for us a hula mele or an oli under what are to them entirely unsympathetic and novel surroundings are, as a rule, past the prime of life, and not unfrequently acknowledge themselves ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... I to myself, that you are no beauty; else, alas, this innocent sort of fooling might chance to disconcert me; at other times I thought it is lucky, too, she is so young, there could never be any danger of becoming attached to girls of her years. At other times, however, I felt a little uneasy, thinking I was mistaken in having pronounced ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... abundance of sweetness and light, illuminating mind and spirit, and inspiring an affection that was both unselfish and uplifting. But his enemies hated him so frantically that their characters measurably deteriorated; to ruin or even disconcert him they stooped and intrigued and lied; they were betrayed into public acts which lowered them in their own eyes and in those of all students of history. Other hatreds were healthy and stimulating by comparison; but there is no doubt that Adams, Jefferson, and Madison ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... it," she said, speaking very quickly before his look could disconcert her. "But then what I did last night was unusual, too. Also what Phil Turner did for me. You—you don't seem to realise that ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Neglect. It appears so to me. My Judgment, however, may be too severe. I confess, I feel much chagrind, while I think that any thing has been omitted which might have been done, to have finishd the War with a glorious Campaign. But Disappointments, tho vexatious, ought not to disconcert us. They do not. No Difficulties should discourage us in the Support of a Cause, so righteous in the Sight of Heaven as I believe ours to be, and so interresting to Mankind. Our Creator has given us Understanding, - Strength ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... when he heard behind quick pattering sounds, as of small unshod hoofs: he turned, and saw the Welchmen at the distance of some fifty yards. But at that moment there passed, along the road in front, several persons bustling into London to share in the festivities of the day. This seemed to disconcert the Welch in the rear, and, after a few whispered words, they left the high road and entered the forest land. Various groups from time to time continued to pass along the thoroughfare. But still, ever ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was especially steep, I preferred an Indian and the packer. Once, you know, you dropped me; but nothing seemed to disconcert that young man. He must have been horribly worn out, for he had been up twice, but he was so steady and reassuringly quiet. I suppose a man of his kind would appreciate twenty dollars. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... carefully minute manner, as face oval, nose ordinary, complexion medium, and so forth, identification from mere looks was not striking. So he had to take me on trust for what I purported to be, an assumption which did not disconcert him in the least. With writing materials which he drew from his sleeve, he registered me then and there, and, the demands of the law thus complied with to the letter, left me amid renewed civilities to sleep the sleep ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... prepared for the plural number, and she was a woman whom it took many plurals to disconcert. "I'm sure Guy is longing for another dance with you," she rejoined, with the most ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... an action for false imprisonment, but he did not make it clear, and he was evidently greatly crestfallen. He had no doubt hoped to brazen out his assumed character sufficiently to disconcert Mr. Beauchamp's faith in his own memory, and though he had carried on the same game after being confronted with Maria, it was already becoming desperate. He had not reckoned upon her deserting his cause even for her own sake, and the last chance of employing her ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Captain," Fred said calmly; "if I were in command of the troops. Your men are worn out by the march, while the Indians are no doubt ready for an attack. Then, too, if the attack should fail, the night would intervene and disconcert us. My advice would be to give the troops a thorough rest, start out when darkness has set in, and attack the Pequot village toward the morning. This will not give them any ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... "friend." Because I wish there were more men like him, many more men like him, in the world. Because I have ever seen in him nothing but the best and highest. And, besides, it's such good fun to see how one virtuous man can so disconcert you captains of industry and arbiters of destiny. Confess that you are very much disconcerted, father, right now. He will be here in a few minutes, and you will be more disconcerted. Why? Because it is an affair that transcends family arrangements. ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... of his words seemed, for an instant, to disconcert her; and she produced a torn lace handkerchief, which she thrust in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the eventful times in which Erasmus flourished, opening to my mind's eye a long vista of historical recollections, till my absorbed demeanour attracted observation. I found myself exposed to that vacant stare with which people are so apt to disconcert your composure, if they observe you contemplating with curiosity and interest, objects which they have seen every day of their lives, and for that very reason always pass unnoticed. Leaving then my position, yet anxious to follow up the train of ideas it had inspired, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... hurriedly, yet never seemed in a hurry to be off. It seemed as though nothing could disconcert him; in every circumstance and in every sort of society he remained the same. He had a great deal of conceit, but was utterly ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the others, and she loved him with a love that was carefully observing and, as it were, did not believe in itself. Now she felt painfully sorry for him; but she restrained her feelings, knowing that to show them would disconcert Nikolay, that he would become, as always under ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... spur of the moment, seemed to disconcert them very decidedly, for they remained inactive, staring each other in the face. It also seemed to disconcert Oahika; for no sooner had I finished speaking than he began to shout a long string of further directions, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... in the scale of novel-writing than Voltaire, having left long and ambitious books of the kind against Voltaire's handful of short, shorter, and shortest stories. It might be possible to accept this in one sense, but in one which would utterly disconcert the usual valuers. The Confessions, if it were not an autobiography, would be one of the great novels of the world. A large part of it is probably or certainly "fictionised"; if the whole were fictitious, it would lose much of its repulsiveness, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... she felt the colour creeping over her cheeks. No doubt he would account for that in his own way, and to disconcert him she added casually, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... of the serenity that comes from breadth and poise, but whose mind, as she herself knew well enough, was too habituated to the broad treatment of big matters to have any aptitude for repartee and chatter. She liked to disconcert him, and it was usually an easy thing to do. "And I wish, while you have your hand in, you would just come up and nail some weather-strips on my ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... showy figure; his shoulders were high, his stature but middling—one leg slightly more bandy than the other. He shook hands, looking vaguely around. A spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged. I behaved with a politeness which seemed to disconcert him. Perhaps he was shy. He mumbled to me as if he were ashamed of what he was saying; gave his name (it was something like Archbold—but at this distance of years I hardly am sure), his ship's name, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... telling him one of his funny stories, but not a smile came over the poor doctor's face. At dinner the midshipmen had all the conversation to themselves. The boatswain did not address even a word to them. This did not, however, disconcert them in the least, and they continued talking away as if there was no such person present, so that he was well pleased to get ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... progressing thoughtfully, as if wondering whether it would be wiser to return home. Her resolve, however, had been taken, and it seemed vacillating even to childishness to abandon it now, unless for graver reasons. How could she face her parents, get back her box, and disconcert the whole scheme for the rehabilitation of her family on such ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... I was in some danger, but being a strong man, and used to perils of all kinds, it was not easy to disconcert me. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... as well have tried to disconcert a mummy with my facetiousness. Said Rogers: "I get all my coats there—they're the only coats fit to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... its scandals—I suppose she must know them in her profession—instantly recognized me and placed me as Robert Clephane's wife. For I am his wife—or rather his widow. I lied to her because I didn't intend that she should have the gratification of seeing her play win. She sought to distress and disconcert me, and to raise in your mind a doubt of my motives and my story. It may be legitimate in diplomacy, but it's dastardly and inhuman. 'Rumour also had it that he was none too happy in his marriage, and that his Mrs. Clephane was something of the same sort—she was of the type to make men's hearts ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... her wickedness, to utterly disconcert her middle-aged admirer, she could not have adopted a surer plan. For fully five minutes he sat staring ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... this purpose till he had first effected that, by order of time, was regularly to precede this latter design; with such regularity did this our hero conduct all his schemes, and so truly superior was he to all the efforts of passion, which so often disconcert and disappoint the ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... while prolonging the case, and the prosecution was nervous. The way that old black woman took the court and its officers into her bosom was enough to disconcert any ordinary tribunal. She patronised the judge openly before the hearing began and insisted upon holding a gentle motherly conversation with the foreman ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Manning being detected, and punished with death, he corrupted Sir Richard Willis, who was much trusted by Chancellor Hyde and all the royalists; and by means of this man he was let into every design and conspiracy of the party. He could disconcert any project, by confining the persons who were to be the actors in it; and as he restored them afterwards to liberty, his severity passed only for the result of general jealousy and suspicion, The secret source of his intelligence ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... It is not easy to see how the appeal to evolution need disconcert him. Should he be so foolish as to maintain that egoism is always, in fact, necessary and unavoidable on the part of every living creature, he might easily be refuted by a reference to the actual life of the brutes, where ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... while facts are a discomfort because they will not be evaporated into fancy. In his eyes, Theory is too fine a dame to confess even a country-cousinship with coarse handed Practice, whose homely ways would disconcert her artificial world. The very susceptibility that makes him quick to feel, makes him also incapable of deep and durable feeling. He loves to think he suffers, and keeps a pet sorrow, a blue-devil familiar, that goes with him everywhere, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Convention may be directed by other motives than the public wish, it is impossible to form any conclusion on the subject. I am, of course, desirous of peace, and should be so from selfishness, if I were not from philanthropy, as a cessation of it at this time would disconcert all our plans, and oblige us to seek refuge at , which has just all that is necessary for our happiness, except what is most desirable—a mild and dry atmosphere.— ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... satisfied with the figures so far; the profit each night exceeding the estimated profit by L130 odd. He is anxious I should also tell you that he is the most unpopular and best-abused man in America." Next day a letter to his sister-in-law related an incident too common in American cities to disconcert any but strangers. He had lodged himself, I should have said, at the Westminster Hotel in Irving Place. "Last night I was getting into bed just at 12 o'clock, when Dolby came to my door to inform me ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... hyena snarl when in action. He had no friends and no intimates. He was the sort who played dirty golf in a match: deliberately moving on the green, casting his shadow across the hole, talking when his opponent was about to drive, and anything else to disconcert. In fact, he was a dirty player in any game—because it was natural. He would not have been tolerated a moment, even at the Heights, if he had not been Warwick Mattison's son, and the heir to his millions. He never made an honest dollar in his life, and could ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... that was going on in the city and Island; also that he believed Jaffier's convoy had something to do with his own presence at The Pleiad; and finally that Celestino Rey was not trained to truth. In fact, Bedient had done more to disconcert the master of the establishment by stating the exact facts, than by any strategy he might have evolved.... Bedient arose at length and took the cold hand. He could not forbear ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... constantly intruding upon the pleasures and comforts of others; like a dog in a game of nine-pins, overturning with his paws all the arrangements of your joys and sorrows; more insupportable, and more difficult to get rid of than the dog, they lie in ambush to pounce upon you, and disconcert by a word or a trick the feelings you may enjoy, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... young officers were rather afraid of her. She was "a somewhat superior old maid," said a youngster whom she had found it expedient to repress. Some women declared her a trifle unapproachable, unsympathetic perhaps, but even that did not seem to disconcert her. Something happened ere long that did, however, for a few months after adjournment of the court Davies reappeared at Laramie. He had actually taken a leave of absence, and now he was at Cranston's six evenings out of seven, and garrison ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... entourage it is not surprising if the first residence in an asylum as its responsible head—especially an asylum in the olden days—should disconcert even a physician. A German psychologist once declared, after passing his first night in an institution as superintendent, that he could not remain there; he felt overwhelmed with his position. Yet this physician remained ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... lest a prince of such profound policy, if allowed to proceed in his own way, might probably in the end prevail, he resolved to take all the advantage which his present victory gave him, and to disconcert the cautious measures of the king, by the vehemence and vigour of his own conduct [q]. Assured of support from Rome, he was little intimidated by dangers which his courage taught him to despise, and which, even if attended ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... less than our character, is incapable of living and acting except in justice. Leaving that, we leave our natural element; we are carried, as it were, into a planet of which we know nothing, where the ground slips from under our feet, and all things disconcert us; for while the humblest intellect feels itself at home in justice, and can readily foretell the consequences of every just act, the most profound and penetrating mind loses its way hopelessly in the injustice itself has created, and can form no conception of what ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... particular fancy for painting. The fact that all the walls of his rooms were hung with the most childish caricatures of animal life, and that he had even embellished the outside of his blinds with the most ridiculous paintings, did not disconcert me in the least; on the contrary, it confirmed my belief that he did not dabble in music, until, to my horror, I discovered that the strangely discordant sounds of a harp which kept reaching my ears from some unknown region were actually proceeding from his basement, where he had two harpsichords ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... The confounded workmen played the devil with the place while I was away." Then, without any more words, she led the way to the interior of her habitation, and I could not but wonder whether her blunt straightforwardness did not disconcert and rebuke Mr. Rogers for ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... her purposes, had thought to disconcert the man unused to courts. But it struck her at once that nothing of the kind would happen. His easy naturalness was too much a part of him, was the man himself. And she was glad of it. She was glad of the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... openness is better between us," Porfiry Petrovitch went on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles. "Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay put a stop to it, or I don't know what we might not have come to. That damned workman was sitting at the time ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... somewhat alarmed at plans that would disconcert all the instructions she had received, and only her old habits of respect kept her silent when she thought Master Richard not ready enough to refuse all ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... character of the works of both Botticelli and Mantegna, is mainly technical; the antique is frustrated in Botticelli, not so much by the Christian, the mediaeval, the modern mode of feeling, as by the new methods and aims of the new art which disconcert the methods and aims of the old art; and that which arrests Mantegna in his development as a painter is not the spirit of paganism deadening the spirit of Christianity, but the laws of sculpture hampering painting. But this technical contest between two arts, the ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... with an eagle's or a king of Prussia's eye, all the relative directions that his opponents take. It must be his business to create alarms and suspicions among the enemy's line in one quarter, while his real intention is to act against another; to puzzle and disconcert him in his plans; to take advantage of the manifold openings which his feints have produced, and when the contest is brought to issue, to be capable of plunging with effect upon the weakest part, and carrying the sword of death where its blow is certain of being mortal. But to accomplish these important ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... in this speech that seemed quite to disconcert Master Simon. He jerked away his hand in a pet, smacked his whip, whistled to his dogs, and intimated that it was high time to go home. The girl, however, was determined not to lose her harvest. She now turned upon me, and, as I have a weakness of spirit ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... had been born and bred in the midst of alarms, and were so used to them that a "bustin' steam biler" itself, unless it had blown them fairly off their legs, would not have startled them. But the effect, such as it was, was sufficient to disconcert the aim of Jim Scraggs, who fired at the same instant, and missed the nail by ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... still smiling, and he was speaking easily. But no man had ever spoken to her in that way before. She flushed, and her eyes sparkled angrily as he ceased. Her glance did not disconcert him. He stood looking at her—not masterfully, but with the quiet dignity of conviction. It was plain that if their association were to continue, it must be at the price of something more than the ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... illustrative though it was of Mrs Varden's extraordinary sweetness and amiability, had so strong a tendency to check the conversation and to disconcert all parties but that excellent lady, that only a few monosyllables were uttered until Edward withdrew; which he presently did, thanking the lady of the house a great many times for her condescension, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... uneasily and wonder if his wife Soon will know the amatory secrets of your life! Dighton was impressible, you were quite accessible— The bachelor who marries late is apt to lose his head. Dighton wouldn't hurt you; does it disconcert you? Dighton is a ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the time he reached the highway. Approximately half an hour later he would reach the highway again. However, the seeming paradox did not disconcert him in the least: this was far from being the first time he had ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... the rest of the household was still sleeping. For once she did not wait for Poppy's kiss to awaken her. The empty bed surprised and disconcerted Poppy—that is, Fifine—upon her appearance. But much, these days, was happening to surprise and disconcert Poppy—that is, Fifine. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... strength of each feature and its perfect proportion to the rest,—force everywhere, superfluity nowhere,—that you recognize the monarch of the counting-room; the brain which nothing could confuse or disconcert; the purpose that nothing could divert or defeat; the man who could with ease and pleasure grasp and control the multitudinous concerns of a business that embraced the habited and unhabited globe,—that employed ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... I hoped, that she was enough recovered to bear a presence that it behoved me to make her bear; and fearing she would throw out something in her exclamations, that would still more disconcert me, I went into ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... recognised in the conduct of this country upon the Catholic question. A man has a wound in his great toe, and a violent and perilous fever at the same time; and he refuses to take the medicines for the fever because it will disconcert the toe! The mournful and folly-stricken blockhead forgets that his toe cannot survive him; that if he dies, there can be no digital life apart from him: yet he lingers and fondles over this last part of his body, soothing it madly ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... the piano bench, and settled herself on the opposite settee by the music stand, and though her scrutiny was amazingly thorough, Patricia was surprised to find that it did not disconcert her in the least. Madame Tancredi was the exact opposite of her friend Milano in all save the kindly spirit of the true artist. She was stout and heavy, where Milano was swift and graceful; she was frankness itself where Milano was cryptic; and, finally, she was the ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... society either for the sake of their sons or daughters. The young officers who visited at our house would try to make themselves agreeable; but their conduct appeared so insipid, so ridiculous, that I only mocked them, and gave such biting replies as to disconcert the ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... a circumstance occurred of a disagreeable nature, which however did not much disconcert me. Mr Ivory, who had a good many years before made himself favourably known as a mathematician, especially by his acquaintance with Laplace's peculiar analysis, had adopted (as not unfrequently happens) some singular hydrostatical theories. In my last Paper on the Figure of the ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... bench permitted the slightest ripple of anxiety to disconcert his steadfastness of gaze just then pandemonium was ripe for breaking in his courtroom. But the judge looked down with imperturbable calm as though this were the accustomed procedure of his court, and when a margin of pause had intervened to give his ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... towards the kiosk. Near it, on the small, green chairs, were some ladies swathed in gigantic floating-veils, talking to two or three very smart young men in white suits and straw hats, who leaned forward eying them steadily with a determined yet rather vacuous boldness that did not disconcert them. One of the ladies, dressed in black-and-white check, was immensely stout. She seemed to lead the conversation, which was carried on with extreme vivacity in very loud and ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... passed I have overthrown high kings and prophets, and sorcerers also, as when Misery half carelessly made sport of Mithridates and of Merlin and of Moses, in ways that ballad-singers still delight to tell of. But with you, Dom Manuel, I shall deal otherwise, and I shall disconcert you by and by in a more quiet fashion. Hoh, I must grapple carefully with your love for Niafer, as with an antagonist who is not scrupulous, nor very sensible, but who is exceedingly strong. For observe: you obstinately desire this perished heathen ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... kept relentlessly on down the list, and then showed him the tally. Allowing for infancy, an abbreviated boyhood on land, and the time they had known him since he had quit the sea, he was one hundred and thirty-five years old. The showing did not disconcert him, however. He was interested, but he had told those stories so often and had come to believe each of them so implicitly that he could not doubt them in the aggregate. He simply exclaimed: "Well, I'll be darned! I feel like a young ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... inclination of the head begins, "Mr. Grandon," and then something intangible awes him a trifle. They may grumble among themselves, and lately they have found it easy to complain to Mr. Wilmarth, but the unconscious air of authority, the superior breeding, and fine, questioning eyes disconcert the man, who pulls himself together with the certainty that this gentleman, aristocrat as he is, has no right to set himself at the head of the business and ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Indians at Three Rivers, with the object of consummating the destruction of the entire colony. The Recollet brother Duplessis discovered the plot, and, while the French at Quebec remained closely shut up in their fort, contrived to disconcert it. In the end the savages, who seem to have had originally no very serious cause of offence, proposed a reconciliation, which was acceded to by the French, on condition that the case of the murderers should be decided on Champlain's return, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... ground, some right to speak. It is possible that I may relate matters which some do not suspect, and concerning which others have already made up their minds; but, as I shall tell nothing but truths, I trust I may not very much disconcert the former, nor put the latter completely out of patience; ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... discombobulate, disorganize; embroil, unsettle, disturb, confuse, trouble, perturb, jumble, tumble; shuffle, randomize; huddle, muddle, toss, hustle, fumble, riot; bring into disorder, put into disorder, throw into disorder &c. 59; muss [U.S.]; break the ranks, disconcert, convulse; break in upon. unhinge, dislocate, put out of joint, throw out of gear. turn topsy-turvy &c. (invert) 218; bedevil; complicate, involve, perplex, confound; imbrangle[obs3], embrangle[obs3], tangle, entangle, ravel, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to the bluff, the latter brought the wind more ahead, as respected the desired course. This was unfavourable, but it did not disconcert her watchful commander. ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... the lines of metaphors which the reader finds natural. The same latitude cannot be allowed in unfamiliar directions. Thus though a shower of flowers from heaven is not more extraordinary than talking flowers and is quite natural in Indian poetry, it would probably disconcert the English reader[715]. An Indian poet would not represent flowers as talking, but would give the same idea by saying that the spirits inhabiting trees and plants recited stanzas. Similarly when a painter draws a picture of an angel with wings rising from the shoulder blades, even the very ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... counsel, no amount of it would disconcert the clerk, and it is wonderful how many briefs he can arrange in upstanding attitude along mantelpieces, tables, tops of dwarf cupboards, windows—anywhere, in fact, where there is anything to stand a brief on—without that gentleman feeling the least exhausted. It would take ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... for the fray!" Bearwarden aimed beneath the body and blew off one of the farther armoured legs, from the inside. "Shoot off the legs on the same side," he counselled Ayrault, while he himself kept up a rapid fire. Cortlandt tried to disconcert the enemy by raining duck-shot on its scale-protected eyes, while the two rifles tore off great masses of the horn that covered the enormously powerful legs. The men separated as they retreated, knowing that one slash of the great shears would cut their three ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... Mrs. Carling's remark that they had been almost afraid he had forgotten them embarrassed while it pleased him, and his explanations were somewhat lame. Miss Blake, as usual, came to the rescue, though John's disconcert was not lessened by the suspicion that she saw through his inventions. He had conceived a great opinion of that young ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... "Rough-and-Ready Record," and, having been her fellow-passenger from Sacramento, had already once or twice availed himself of her father's invitation to call upon them. Mrs. Mulrady had not discouraged this mild flirtation. Whether she wished to disconcert Don Caesar for some occult purpose, or whether, like the rest of her sex, she had an overweening confidence in the unheroic, unseductive, and purely platonic character of ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... rock, difficult to move, hearing all these women's talk, unaffected either to joy or sorrow, was driven still more to serious thought, sighing to witness such strange conduct, and beginning to understand the women's design, by these means to disconcert his mind, not knowing that youthful beauty soon falls, destroyed by old age and death, fading and perishing! This is the great distress! What ignorance and delusion (he reflected) overshadow their minds: "Surely they ought to consider old age, disease, and death, and day and night stir themselves ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... and he was speaking easily. But no man had ever spoken to her in that way before. She flushed, and her eyes sparkled angrily as he ceased. Her glance did not disconcert him. He stood looking at her—not masterfully, but with the quiet dignity of conviction. It was plain that if their association were to continue, it must be at the price of something more than the scientific, aloof, touch-and-go ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... which had before displayed itself in the countenance of the poor woman was a little clouded on this occasion. This news did indeed a good deal disconcert her. To requite so disinterested a match with her daughter, by presently turning her new son-in-law out of doors, appeared to her very unjustifiable on the one hand; and on the other, she could scarce bear the thoughts ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... apparently disconcert the other, but he looked carefully around as if searching for ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... form, moreover, the only means of uniting the speculative with the practical interest. Our opponent, who must not be considered here as a critic solely, we can be ready to meet with a non liquet which cannot fail to disconcert him; while we cannot deny his right to a similar retort, as we have on our side the advantage of the support of the subjective maxim of reason, and can therefore look upon all his ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... be quoted in our favor? Did not Appius the Blind, by the force of his eloquence dissuade the Senate from making a shameful peace with Pyrrhus? Did not Cicero's divine eloquence appear more popular than the Agrarian law he attacked? Did it not disconcert the audacious measures of Cataline? And did not he, even in his civil capacity, obtain by it honors that are conferred on only the most illustrious conquerors? Is it not the orator who strengthens the soldier's drooping courage, who ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... horses ready at a moment's notice. I have some sort of idea that there is a plot on foot against the cardinal, and I want to take a hand in the matter. I fancy that with you and my five troopers we shall be strong enough to disconcert ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... was not a magistrate of the people in general, but only of the commons; and that even he himself could not, according to the usage of their ancestors, by virtue of his authority remove any person, because the words were as follows: "If ye think proper, depart, Quirites." He was easily able to disconcert Laetorius by discussing his right thus contemptuously. The tribune, therefore, burning with rage, sent his officer to the consul; the consul sent his lictor to the tribune, exclaiming that he was a private individual, without military office and without civil authority: ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... unexpected innovation on the elegant quietude and romantic seclusion of our home. His countenance expressed it but too plainly, and Margaret, careless as she was, must have observed it. It did not appear to disconcert her, however. She had not waited for an invitation,—she did not trouble herself about a welcome. She had come for her own amusement, and provided that was secured, she cared not for ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... beside the great fireplace, where kettles hung upon cranes and "Dutch ovens" were ranged before the coals, each filled with savory food for hungry people. It was a spot Mrs. Hungerford found vastly interesting, but where she rarely lingered; for her presence seemed to disconcert the shy French maids who served their mistress there and whose own homes were isolated cottages here and there. So she was even now leaving the kitchen when she chanced ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... of fifteen was reproved for holding his ear to the keyhole of a room in which his mother and sisters were having an animated discussion. The appellation "eavesdropper" did not disconcert him in the least. On the contrary, he undertook to justify his conduct on the ground that he was being discussed, and as he had no "dictagraph" he was obliged to do the listening in person. The fact that the dictagraph had been so frequently used for getting information that was later ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... made as if she would lay the book that she was reading on a small, round stand; but as she did so, she turned towards M. de Nueil, and the volume, insecurely laid upon the edge, fell to the ground between the stand and the sofa. This did not seem to disconcert her. She looked up, bowing almost imperceptibly in response to his greeting, without rising from the depths of the low chair in which she lay. Bending forwards, she stirred the fire briskly, and stooped to pick up a fallen glove, drawing it mechanically ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... living, and nothing more easy than to continue it; but he soon perceived that the greatest prosperity is not the most lasting. Good living, bad economy, dishonest servants, and ill-luck, all uniting together to disconcert their housekeeping, their table was going to be gradually laid aside, when the Chevalier's genius, fertile in resources, undertook to support his former credit ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the plans of those who have made themselves believe that the Democratic Party neither understood nor was ready to assist the business of the country in the great enterprises which it is its evident and inevitable destiny to undertake and carry through. The breaking up of the lobby must especially disconcert them: for it was through the lobby that they sought and were sure they had found the heart of things. The game of privilege can be played successfully ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... from the roofs, or the glorious army massacring those who defend themselves, taking away the others as prisoners, pillaging in the name of the sword and offering thanks to God to the thunder of the guns, are as many appalling scourges which disconcert any belief in eternal justice, all the trust we were taught to place in the protection of heaven ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... put a complete end to further dispute over sweethearts; but they could not change their nature, and I observed that each young husband had a vast amount of fault to find, much scolding and grumbling. Happily it did not seem to disconcert the little wives; they sang as sweetly, and worked as steadily as though they were used to it, and expected nothing better, which was ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... analyse such a work in detail is impossible: it is still more impossible to translate the whole of it. The nature of the subject, the strangeness of certain precepts, the character of the style, all tend to disconcert the reader and to mislead him in his interpretations. From the very earliest times ethics has been considered as a healthy and praiseworthy subject in itself, but so hackneyed was it, that a change in the mode of expressing it ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and centre were at last accounts approaching the Yalabusha, near Grenada, and the railroad to his rear, by which he drew his supplies, was reported to be seriously damaged. This may disconcert him somewhat, but only makes more important our line of operations. At the Yalabusha General Grant may encounter the army of General Pemberton, the same which refused him battle on the line of the Tallahatchie, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... dissolved, and the proceedings of the people. James Moore proclaimed Governor. The declaration of the Convention. The Governor transmits an account of the whole proceedings to the Proprietors. The Revolutioners appoint new officers, and establish their authority. In vain the Governor attempts to disconcert them. Rhett refuses obedience to his orders. And preserves the confidence of the Proprietors. Further attempts of the Governor to recal the people. The invasion from Spain defeated. The Governor's last attempt to recover ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... that she was enough recovered to bear a presence that it behoved me to make her bear; and fearing she would throw out something in her exclamations, that would still more disconcert me, I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... storm. He had come to wholly disregard the presence of the detective who shadowed him, and if the youthful Fogerty by chance addressed him he was rewarded with a direct snub. This did not seem to disconcert the boy in the least, and to-day, as usual, when Mershone walked out Fogerty followed at a respectful distance. He never appeared to be watching his man closely, yet never for an instant did Mershone feel that he had shaken the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... brogans on the man's feet made him appear clumsy-footed, but he swung down from the giddy height as lightly and airily as a mountain goat. A rock, turning under his foot on the edge of the precipice, did not disconcert him. He seemed to know the precise time required for the turn to culminate in disaster, and in the meantime he utilized the false footing itself for the momentary earth-contact necessary to carry him on into safety. Where the earth sloped so steeply that it was impossible to stand for a ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... mouth. The free gesture, the bent head, the unconscious doing, made the act as lovely as the person. Fulke murmured his joy, and Jehane looking presently up saw the Old Man's solemn eyes blinking at her. This did not disconcert her very much, for she thought, 'If he is correctly reported he has seen ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... him intently, interrupting now and again with exclamation or pertinent question; as, Had Kirkwood been able to see the face of the man in No. 9, Frognall Street? The negative answer seemed to disconcert him. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... an entourage it is not surprising if the first residence in an asylum as its responsible head—especially an asylum in the olden days—should disconcert even a physician. A German psychologist once declared, after passing his first night in an institution as superintendent, that he could not remain there; he felt overwhelmed with his position. Yet this physician remained not only over the next night, but for ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... us." Neither Adams nor Franklin wrote one word which either directly or indirectly had a personal bearing. Arthur Lee was more frank; in the days of Deane he had begun to write that to continue himself at Paris would "disconcert effectually the wicked measures" of Franklin, Deane, and Williams, and that it was "the one way of redressing" the "neglect, dissipation, and private schemes" prevalent in the department, and of "remedying the public evil." He said that the French court was the place ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... some measure familiarized to the scene, led the way with a steadiness that no slight obstacle was likely to disconcert, into this very building. It was the principal edifice of the village, though roughly constructed of the bark and branches of trees; being the lodge in which the tribe held its councils and public meetings ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... little revival. After this he had thoughts of going to London, and intended to have spent part of September at Northampton. The expectation of this was mutually agreeable; but Providence saw fit to disconcert the scheme. His love for his friends in these parts occasioned him to express some regret on his being commanded back; and I am pretty confident, from the manner in which he expressed himself in one of his last letters to me, that he had some more important reasons for wishing an opportunity ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... wished, in her wickedness, to utterly disconcert her middle-aged admirer, she could not have adopted a surer plan. For fully five minutes he sat staring ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... sting in this speech that seemed quite to disconcert Master Simon. He jerked away his hand in a pet, smacked his whip, whistled to his dogs, and intimated that it was high time to go home. The girl, however, was determined not to lose her harvest. She now turned upon me, and, as I have a weakness of spirit where there is ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... public wish, it is impossible to form any conclusion on the subject. I am, of course, desirous of peace, and should be so from selfishness, if I were not from philanthropy, as a cessation of it at this time would disconcert all our plans, and oblige us to seek refuge at , which has just all that is necessary for our happiness, except what is most desirable—a mild and ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... stated the nature of their business. No one else dared to approach until the reading of the papers was finished. Suddenly the Pasha appeared to get weary of his papers. He tossed them aside, ordered his carriage, rose hastily, and left the room. But this uncourteous behaviour did not appear to disconcert those who awaited his pleasure. Probably, like eels, they had got used to rough treatment. Some of them ran after the Pasha and tried to urge their suits in a few rapid sentences, others went off with a sigh or a growl, resolving to repeat the visit another ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... less than ever when he came into the cabin. He had a certain triumphant air that consorted ill with his trick of evading one's eyes. He came nervously, I thought; but to my surprise Roger's caustic accusal seemed rather to put him at ease than to disconcert him further. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the countess, whose coquettish little ways missed their mark in presence of such frigid gravity and conventional respect. In vain Adam kept saying: "Do be lively, Thaddeus; one would really suppose you were not at home. You must have made a wager to disconcert Clementine." Thaddeus continued heavy and half asleep. When the servants left the room at the end of the dessert the captain explained that his habits were diametrically opposite to those of society,—he went ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... agony without a murmur or a quiver, such was his extraordinary endurance. It was the custom in that day to bind patients who were operated upon surgically, that their involuntary movements might not disconcert the doctors and cause them to wound where they hoped to cure. Ojeda refused even to be bound. The remedy was efficacious, although the heat of the iron, in the language of the ancient chronicler, so entered his system that they used a barrel of ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... fat body sliding forward on the slant, pulling itself up, then sliding again—always he maintained his air of importance, giving his cough, twisting the ends of his moustache, staring, fiercely, at some one suddenly that he might disconcert him, patting, with his ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... magnificent to impress him. The crowd on the landing-stage before the steamer laid alongside and the cabmen and porters began shouting and calling, was enough to stupefy him, but he had made up his mind beforehand that nothing should disconcert him. It would have been difficult enough in any case to disentangle himself from all ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... seems probable, that the Palladium was a small statue (three cubits and a half high) of Minerva, with a lance and distaff; that it was usually enclosed in a seria, or barrel; and that a similar barrel was placed by its side to disconcert curiosity, or sacrilege. See Mezeriac (Comment. sur les Epitres d'Ovide, tom i. p. 60—66) and Lipsius, (tom. iii. p. 610 de Vesta, &c. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... been afraid to tell Randerson that it was Kelso who was facing him, for fear that the information, bursting upon Randerson quickly, would disconcert him. ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... me as if the people at first almost tried to stop breathing, so intense was the feeling. Mrs. Falchion was sitting very near me, and though she had worn her veil up at first, as I uncharitably put it then, to disconcert him, she drew it rather quickly down as his reading proceeded; but, so far as I could see, she never took her eyes off his face through the whole service; and, impelled in spite of myself, I watched her closely. Though ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as he bestowed handkerchiefs, in one drawer, socks in another, hung pyjamas before the fire, and set the patent-leather pumps against the fender. Even the old Mexican shooting-suit seemed in no way to disconcert him. He drew forth its constituent elements as with a practised hand; when he had hung them up, sombrero and all, in the wardrobe against the wall, they had the trick of making that venerable oaken receptacle ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... advantage, and that everybody admired her. When the door again opened the name announced was 'Miss Shale.' Stopping in the middle of a swift sentence, May looked at the newcomer, and saw that it was indeed Hilda Shale, of Brent Hall; but this did not disconcert her. Without lowering her voice she finished what she was saying, and ended in a mirthful key. The baronet's daughter had come into town on her bicycle, as was declared by the short skirt, easy jacket, and brown shoes, which well displayed her athletic person. She was a tall, strongly ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... turned up to the raindrops, sure-footed, with the gait of a panther. He did not speak a word to the girl beside him, but his silence, did not disconcert her. There was even something in it ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... wise to disconcert a great people, in the complacence of its awakening to the fact that it was remotely at war with the Hun, with information that a Boche submersible was, or of late had been, operating in ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... thinking only of the stubborn joints that would not be unhinged, he totally forgot the gravy. Presently, the goose slipped off the dish, and escaped into his neighbour's lap. Now, to have thrown a hot goose on a lady's lap would disconcert most people, but the gentleman in question was not disconcerted. Turning round, with a bland smile, he said: 'I'll trouble you for that goose.' Here we have a sublime example of a man with one idea. This gentleman's idea was the goose; and in the absorbing interest attached ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... a turbulent writer of Occasional Letters, and other vexatious papers, in conjunction perhaps with one or two friends as bad as himself, is able to disconcert, tease, and sour us whenever he thinks fit, merely by the strength of genius and truth; and after so dexterous a manner, that, when we are vexed to the soul, and well know the reasons why we are so, we are ashamed to own the first, and cannot tell how to express the other. In a word, it seems ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... understood what it meant. He looked regretfully at the injured foot. Swollen out of shape and angry-looking, the mere appearance would have told him, had the confirmation been needed, that his situation was becoming critical. This did not so much disconcert him as it surprised him and spurred him mentally to the necessity of new measures. He lay a long time thinking. Against the infection he could do little. But the one aid at his hand was abundance of cold water to drink ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows, as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... of my pen discouraged the trial of my voice.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 221. Some years before he entered Parliament, he said that his genius was 'better qualified for the deliberate compositions of the closet, than for the extemporary discourses of the Parliament. An unexpected objection would disconcert me; and as I am incapable of explaining to others what I do not thoroughly understand myself, I should be meditating while I ought to be answering.' Ib ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the same clearness and decision which distinguished Monsieur de Lamotte's question; but he reflected that the latter's inquiries, unforeseen, hasty, and passionate, were perhaps more likely to disconcert a prepared defence than cooler and more skilful tactics. He therefore changed his plans, contenting "himself for the moment with the part of an observer only, and watching a duel between two fairly ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... much the Tanks may disconcert the gallant Colonel Newcomes who throw an air of restraint over our victorious front, there can be no doubt that they are an important as well as a novel development of the modern offensive. Of course neither the Tanks nor ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... turning around, he perceived he had been closely followed by Sir Piercie Shafton. When, whether from our state of animal spirits, want of confidence in the justice of our cause, or any other motive, our own courage happens to be in a wavering condition, nothing tends so much altogether to disconcert us, as a great appearance of promptitude on the part of our antagonist. Halbert Glendinning, both morally and constitutionally intrepid, was nevertheless somewhat troubled at seeing the stranger, whose resentment ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... got even a knife; but I've heard that there's nothing equal to a chair, if you want to disconcert a burglar; and so I'll take this, and knock down the first brigand that shows his nose;" and as he said this, he lifted a chair from the floor, and ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... indulge in reverie. escape notice, escape attention; come in at one ear and go out at the other; forget &c. (have no remembrance) 506. call off the attention, draw off the attention, call away the attention, divert the attention, distract the mind; put out of one's head; disconcert, discompose; put out, confuse, perplex, bewilder, moider[obs3], fluster, muddle, dazzle; throw a sop to Cerberus. Adj. inattentive; unobservant, unmindful, heedless, unthinking, unheeding, undiscerning[obs3]; inadvertent; mindless, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... facts seemed to disconcert the Frenchman. It astonished him considerably to find his prisoner thus indicating so clearly the nature of the charge ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... herself as much amused as if she had been one of the babies themselves. There was screaming and jumping, and rushing out of reach of the waves which came up ready to overthrow the most complicated labors of the little architects, rough romping of all kinds, enough to amaze and disconcert a lover. ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... having gone about; the idea, of course, being to separate and widen their distance as much as possible in the hope that by so doing one of them at least might escape, even if the other were captured. Captain Vavassour, however, did not allow these tactics to disconcert him in the least; he fixed upon one of them as the object of his pursuit—altogether disregarding the movements of the other, meanwhile—and devoted all his efforts to close with her, with the result that by two bells in the first ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... received these insinuations of the pursuits of her visitor. Her countenance did not satisfy him. Glaucus, slightly coloring, hastened gaily to reply. Nor was he, perhaps, without the wish in his turn to disconcert and ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... could best discern the real workings of the passions in the actors, or what they substituted instead of them," says poor Tom Davies, whose dread of the critic was extreme. "During the run of 'Cymbeline,'" he wrote apologetically to Garrick, his manager, "I had the misfortune to disconcert you in one scene, for which I did immediately beg your pardon; and did attribute it to my accidentally seeing Mr. Churchill in the pit; with great truth, it rendered me confused and unmindful of my business." Garrick had himself felt oppressed ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... do not disguise the fact that I know what it signifies at bottom, therefore upon me rests the burden of being offended at hearing them; but when women have penetrated their motives, they have need of their vanity to disconcert their designs. Our anger, when they have offended us, is not the best weapon to use in opposing them. Whoever must go outside herself and become angry to resist them, exposes her weakness. A fine irony, a ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... princess, name him, and declare that he knew him, while he thought himself certain he had never seen him before. He was much more surprised when he heard him praise him so highly. Those praises however from the mouth of majesty did not disconcert him, though he received them with such modesty, as shewed that he deserved them. He prostrated himself before the throne of the king, and rising again, said, "Sire, I want words to express my gratitude ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... singer alike failed to control the irrepressible start of amazement and smile of amusement with which we greeted the weird and apparently demented shriek which rose high over the voices of the choir, but which did not at all disconcert their accustomed ears. Words, however chosen, would fail in attempting to describe ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Imagination transported me back to the eventful times in which Erasmus flourished, opening to my mind's eye a long vista of historical recollections, till my absorbed demeanour attracted observation. I found myself exposed to that vacant stare with which people are so apt to disconcert your composure, if they observe you contemplating with curiosity and interest, objects which they have seen every day of their lives, and for that very reason always pass unnoticed. Leaving then my position, yet anxious to follow up the train of ideas it had inspired, I sought, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... story became somewhat wearisome, and his audience grew gradually less, until it was reduced to twenty passengers. But this did not disconcert the enthusiast, who proceeded with the story of Joseph Smith's bankruptcy in 1837, and how his ruined creditors gave him a coat of tar and feathers; his reappearance some years afterwards, more honourable ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... that opposite sand bank carefully, not the slightest movement revealed the presence of others. That every motion he made was being observed by keen eyes he had no doubt, but this knowledge did not disconcert him, now that he felt convinced fear of revealment would keep his watchers at a safe distance. Whoever they might be they were evidently more anxious to escape discovery than he was fearful of attack, and possessed ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... over the St. Lawrence with a sumptuous air of spaciousness. Leaning over the granite balustrade, one can look down on the tiny Wolfe's cove, where three thousand British crept up in the blackness of the night to disconcert the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... the woods to a great distance from the place. His party who were to march from the camp was about 1200, and to join Colo. Lewis' party about 28 miles from Chillicoffee. But whether the action above mentioned would disconcert this plan or not, I think appears a little uncertain, as there is a probability that his excellency on hearing the news might, with his party, fall down the river and join Colo. Lewis' party and march together ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... from "lively to severe" certainly took Maguire by surprise, and he seemed for an instant as much disconcerted as it is possible to disconcert an Irish gentleman's gentleman. ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... serenity that comes from breadth and poise, but whose mind, as she herself knew well enough, was too habituated to the broad treatment of big matters to have any aptitude for repartee and chatter. She liked to disconcert him, and it was usually an easy thing to do. "And I wish, while you have your hand in, you would just come up and nail some weather-strips on my ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... only arbiter, and charitable allowances for the dead make the one rational peroration. So we crossed blades; and, pursuing my usual tactics, I began upon a flow of words, which course, as I have learned by old experience, is apt to disconcert an adversary far more than any trick of the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... the repeated losses suffered by the States, in little more than two months after they had withdrawn themselves from the Queen's assistance, did wholly disconcert their counsels;[20] and their prudence (as it is usual) began to forsake them with their good fortune. They were so weak as to be still deluded by their friends in England, who continued to give them hopes of some mighty and immediate resource from hence; for when the Duke of Ormonde ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... which enables them to assert some obvious unity, like those who, in religion, belong always to one sect. Yet if they were in a position to analyse their emotions and leanings, no doubt very fundamental contradictions would be discovered to disconcert them. Conviction and enthusiasm in the arts and religion would seem to be the frame of mind natural to those who assimilate, and are rendered productive by what they study and admire. Convictions ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... of it," she said, speaking very quickly before his look could disconcert her. "But then what I did last night was unusual, too. Also what Phil Turner did for me. You—you don't seem to realise that he saved ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... their work. The dismayed blank faces of all the conspirators, with the exception of the arch traitor only, whom it would seem that nothing could disconcert or dismay, confirmed the impression made upon all minds by that strong appeal. For, though he had mentioned no man's name save Catiline's and Laeca's only, suspicion was called instantly to those who were their known associates in riot ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... roared the Citizen, whom nothing could disconcert. HOME SECRETARY having no fear of the lamppost before his eyes, formally moved that the Citizen be suspended. GRAHAM snapped his fingers at HOME SECRETARY. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... of themselves, because they desire to be loved, and think that they must therefore be careful to be admired, just as the lover adorns himself and puts his best foot forward, and hides all that may disconcert interest or sympathy. So that it happens in life that often when we most desire to be real, we are ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... he had said "There is no difference except civilization between a very old woman and an ape." Some time after its publication, when he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli, Mrs. Disraeli, herself both elderly and very plain, laid a plan to disconcert him. She seated herself close to a low mirror, in the hopes that Burton would presently join her. He soon fell into the trap and was observed a few minutes later leaning over ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... me, and said, "We all spoil her—that's a fact—every one of us down to Rover, there, who lets her tie tippets round his neck, and put bonnets on his head, and hug and kiss him, to a degree that would disconcert any other dog ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... with a general laugh, which did not in the least disconcert him. He went on talking about the Indians however, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... generals, on which depends the success of military expeditions. The reader will admire the surprising courage and intrepidity of the great men at the head of the Grecian affairs, whom neither all the world in motion against them could deject, nor the greatest misfortunes disconcert; who undertook, with an handful of men, to make head against innumerable armies; who, notwithstanding such a prodigious inequality of forces, dared to hope for success; who even compelled victory to declare on the side of merit and virtue; and taught all succeeding generations what infinite resources ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... seems small and set. It is only when you get close to the bust of Astor, observing the strength of each feature and its perfect proportion to the rest,—force everywhere, superfluity nowhere,—that you recognize the monarch of the counting-room; the brain which nothing could confuse or disconcert; the purpose that nothing could divert or defeat; the man who could with ease and pleasure grasp and control the multitudinous concerns of a business that embraced the habited and unhabited globe,—that ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... A burst of laughter from the auditors did not in the least disconcert the speaker, who continued,—"Yes, gentlemen; Edward, the infant phenomenon, who is quite an adept in the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... at me and, with that extraordinary penetration which used to disconcert me, shook ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... protected troops of workmen who tried to undermine the wall, and moving towers consisting of a succession of stages or shelves, filled with soldiers, and with a bridge with iron hooks, capable of being launched from the highest story to the top of the battlements. The besieged could generally disconcert the battering-ram by hanging beds or mattresses over the walls to receive the brunt of the blow, the sows could be crushed with heavy stones, the towers burnt by well directed flaming missiles, the ladders overthrown, and in general the besiegers suffered a great deal ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... self-sacrificing, and brave beyond any mere man known to history. Elijah fled before the threats of Jezebel, but no powers on earth could daunt the soul of Luther. Even the apparitions of the devil himself could not disconcert him. ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... says he, disconcerted. This little girl from a far land is proving herself too much for him. And it is not her words that disconcert him so much as the straight, clear, open glance from ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... washerwoman Rosalind, and was thought rather assuming because he was asked in church and lawfully married; and she wore a handsome lilac silk gown and a white wreath and veil, and very well she looked in them. She had a child of two years old, which did not at all disconcert Bill; but he continues to be dignified, and won't let her go and wash clothes in the river, because the hot sun makes her ill, and it is not fit ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... as I should have been for the conquest of the Polar regions, I found myself one fine morning down to my last few dollars, walking the streets with an imminent prospect of speedy starvation. The fact of death, as an alternative to the apparently actual, did not disconcert me. I shouldn't have minded dying in the least, were it not for the fact that I had hoped before that event to have expounded for modern consumption certain theories of mine upon the dialectics of Hegel. As my money dwindled I was reduced to quite necessary ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... people—folks making inquiries, paying bills, ordering goods, and the like. I've had an idea from the first that some prominent person—no ordinary man—is responsible for the circulars. They're well worded, grammatical, and the malicious insinuations are cleverly contrived to disconcert the loyal but weak brethren. However, these envelopes haven't helped me a bit. Neither of the two persons who addressed the envelopes of the circulars addressed any of these business ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... a feather from one rock to the other. Then, all of a sudden they came to a ten foot drop. There was no getting round that drop, it was a basalt step that circled the whole Lizard Point on its seaward side. It did not disconcert Raft. He threw the harpoon down, then he lowered himself, clutching the edge and let himself fall. Following his directions she threw him the bundle. It would have felled an ordinary landsman, but he caught it, placed it beside him and then ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... young man," returned the other, no way disconcerted; indeed, he seemed a person whose frank temper nothing could disconcert. "But starvation is—excuse me,—unpleasant; and necessity has no law. It is of vital consequence that I should reach Coltham to-night; and after walking twenty miles one cannot easily walk ten more, and afterwards appear as Macbeth ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... work shortly after four o'clock. The door of the little camp was wide open when they arrived but their host was nowhere to be seen. This circumstance did not trouble them, however, for on the days when Laurie was expected Ted always left the boathouse unlocked. What did disconcert them and make Laurie impatient was to discover that through some error in reckoning they were almost an hour ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... apprize M. d'Aiguillon, who, with M. de la Vrilliere and the chancellor, entered my apartments ere the lady had had time to commence the subject upon which she was there to speak. This unexpected appearance did not seem to disconcert her in the least, nor did her and ordinary assurance in any degree fail her. She reproached me for having intrusted the secret to so many persons, but her reproof was uttered without bitterness, and merely as if she feared lest my indiscretion ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... German ground, some right to speak. It is possible that I may relate matters which some do not suspect, and concerning which others have already made up their minds; but, as I shall tell nothing but truths, I trust I may not very much disconcert the former, nor put the latter completely out of patience; nor ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... lest you give her a sudden shock; nor must you let it be known that you have seen her, for that might disconcert the ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... other religions likewise sing and shout. A great and inharmonious din is thus caused. I must confess that this midnight mass did not produce upon me the effect I had anticipated. The constant noise and multifarious ceremonies are calculated rather to disconcert than to inspire the stranger. I much preferred the peace and repose that reigned around, after the service had concluded, to all the pomp and ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... non-plussed for a minute. John had no business to disconcert him in that way. He turned and expected Harry to answer, but it seemed as though he had imperfectly understood it. There was no way out of it, and George tried to get his body into a proper position to answer ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... for ever without self- consciousness or embarrassment; but, in so far as he is Celtic, he has snatches of quick instinct which often make him feel he is fumbling, show him visions of an easier, more dexterous behaviour, disconcert him and fill him with misgiving. No people, therefore, are so shy, so self-conscious, so embarrassed as the English, because two natures are mixed in them, and natures which pull them such different ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... is better between us," Porfiry Petrovitch went on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles. "Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay put a stop to it, or I don't know what we might not have come to. ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in this service, which confirmed me in the belief I had previously entertained, that the English were to join with the Russians in an expedition against Holland. The aim of the Anglo-Russians was to make a diversion which might disconcert the movements of the French armies in Germany, the allies being at that time unacquainted with the peace concluded at Presburg. Not a moment was therefore to be lost in uniting the whole of our disposable force ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... passive—possibly indeed a trifle portentous. "If you had plotted and planned it in advance," he none the less firmly pursued, "if you had acted from some uncanny or malignant motive, you couldn't have arranged more perfectly to incommode, to disconcert and, to all intents and purposes, make light of me and insult me." Even before this charge she made no sign; with her eyes now attached to the ground she let him proceed. "I had practically guaranteed to our excellent, our charming friend, your favourable ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... deal to disconcert Farnborough. 'Some of us were arguing in the smoking-room last night,' he said, 'whether it didn't hurt a candidate's chances going ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... worth while prolonging the case, and the prosecution was nervous. The way that old black woman took the court and its officers into her bosom was enough to disconcert any ordinary tribunal. She patronised the judge openly before the hearing began and insisted upon holding a gentle motherly conversation with ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... works of both Botticelli and Mantegna, is mainly technical; the antique is frustrated in Botticelli, not so much by the Christian, the mediaeval, the modern mode of feeling, as by the new methods and aims of the new art which disconcert the methods and aims of the old art; and that which arrests Mantegna in his development as a painter is not the spirit of paganism deadening the spirit of Christianity, but the laws of sculpture hampering painting. ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... the other, with the part of the person which is supposed to require stockings, extended in a horizontal direction—reclined, not Huldy, but her Southern cousin, who, I will wager, was decidedly the prettier and dirtier of the two. Our entrance did not seem to disconcert her in the least, for she lay there as unmoved as a marble statue, her large black eyes riveted on my face, as if seeing some nondescript animal for the first time. I stood for a moment transfixed with admiration. In a somewhat extensive observation of her sex in both hemispheres, I had ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... This movement appeared to disconcert the spirit. It halted, waved the arms with greater vigor than before, and seemed to indicate to the adventurers that it was dangerous to advance. But Mr. Damon and Mr. Parker kept on. They wanted to give Tom and Mr. Jenks time ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... blue in the eyes. He was not exactly a showy figure; his shoulders were high, his stature but middling—one leg slightly more bandy than the other. He shook hands, looking vaguely around. A spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged. I behaved with a politeness which seemed to disconcert him. Perhaps he was shy. He mumbled to me as if he were ashamed of what he was saying; gave his name (it was something like Archbold—but at this distance of years I hardly am sure), his ship's name, and a few other particulars of that sort, in the manner of a criminal making ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... another infant straw would break his back, Ginx calmly proposed to disconcert physical, moral, and legal relations by drowning the straw Mrs. Ginx clinging to Number Twelve listened aghast. If a mother can forget her sucking child she was not that mother. The stream of her affections, though divided into twelve rills, would not have been exhausted in twenty-four, and ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... toiled. The shot and shell certainly fell amongst them after a while, but seemed in no whit to disconcert them. The Canadian soldiers regarded with amaze this cool intrepidity. They themselves could be bold in forest warfare, with shelter all around them; but they were never steady in the open under fire, and could hardly credit how any soldiers could pursue their tasks unmoved by the leaden ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... method of this peculiar stratagem of Indian warfare. The twenty picked men were about to ride around us in a circle, at top speed, delivering flights of arrows as they passed, their object being to disconcert us and draw our fire; our guns once empty, the main body whom we observed held themselves in readiness, would ride in, and by a sudden dash, end the skirmish by our death ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... was not blinded, however. He seemed difficult to disconcert. The only response he made was to grin, and push his hat a little farther back on his head. An inch more, and it must have slid down over his collar—which was so low in the neck in front that it ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... All this did not disconcert the intrepid commander of the launch. His main concern at that moment was an unexpected obstacle he had discovered, and which threatened to defeat his enterprise. A raft of logs had been placed around the iron-clad to protect her from any such attack. There she lay, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... flight, followed a strangely zigzag course. It was evident that, in trying to baffle pursuit, they had tried to avoid places which they thought might be dangerous to them. This may have been simply a method to disconcert pursuit. If so, it was, in a measure, excellent, for none of those immediately following could possibly tell in what direction they were heading. It was only when we worked the course on the great map in the signaller's room (which was the old guard ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... again?" Evidently it did, for she smiled brightly and graciously and bent her ruddy head. But she was pale, I noticed critically; there was apprehension in her eyes. Wasn't it odd that the prospect of a few simple questions from an officer should disconcert her when she had possessed the courage, or the foolhardiness, to sail on ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... obtaining for his allies a just and reasonable satisfaction, persists in these sentiments, and he doubts not that the United States will on their part fulfil their engagements by continuing the war till a definitive treaty is concluded, and thereby entirely disconcert the projects of the English, who flatter themselves, that by means of the eventual treaty, which they have concluded, they will be able to establish on the Continent a suspension of hostilities equal to a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... moment of experience becomes consequential and prophetic of the rest. The calm places in life are filled with power and its spasms with resource. No emotion can overwhelm the mind, for of none is the basis or issue wholly hidden; no event can disconcert it altogether, because it sees beyond. Means can be looked for to escape from the worst predicament; and whereas each moment had been formerly filled with nothing but its own adventure and surprised emotion, each now makes room for the lesson of what went before and surmises what ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... still. I kept my ears strained for the slightest sound. The cook and the boss, the only men up, hurried back to bed. Watson had risen so hurriedly that he had not been careful about his "tarp" and water had run into his bed. But that wouldn't disconcert anybody but a tenderfoot. I kept waiting in tense silence to hear them come back with dead or wounded, but there was not a sound. The rain had stopped. Mrs. Louderer struck a match and said it was three o'clock. ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... overthrown high kings and prophets, and sorcerers also, as when Misery half carelessly made sport of Mithridates and of Merlin and of Moses, in ways that ballad-singers still delight to tell of. But with you, Dom Manuel, I shall deal otherwise, and I shall disconcert you by and by in a more quiet fashion. Hoh, I must grapple carefully with your love for Niafer, as with an antagonist who is not scrupulous, nor very sensible, but who is exceedingly strong. For ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... opinion, whether the opinion be one flattering to our vanity, or whether it causes us pain; for in either case it is the same feeling which is touched. Otherwise, a man is the slave of what other people are pleased to think,—and how little it requires to disconcert or soothe the mind that is greedy ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
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