"Confuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... morning, at dawn, he has taken his ride on horseback; with extraordinary promptness and accuracy, his topographical glance has discerned "the best direction for the projected canal, the best site for the construction of a factory, a harbor, or a dike."[4140] To the difficulties which confuse the best brains in the country, to much debated, seemingly insoluble, questions, he at once presents the sole practical solution; there it is, ready at hand, and the members of the local council had not seen it; he makes them touch it with their fingers. They stand ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... often presented in a way to confuse it. We speak of heat in a way not to comprehend precisely what we want; and let me touch upon the point which shows what I mean. When the Saviour was at the well with the woman, it was the love in His heart from which she could ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various
... individuality and the position in which he is placed, everyone without exception lives in a certain state of limitation, both as regards his ideas and the opinions which he forms. Another man is also limited, though not in the same way; but should he succeed in comprehending the other's limitation he can confuse and abash him, and put him to shame, by making him feel what his limitation is, even though the other be far and away his superior. Shrewd people often employ this circumstance to obtain a false and ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... of tactics, these competitive leaders, have endeavored to confuse the question, and to mystify the people, by raising the cry of over-production! The inexorable law of supply and demand! The impossibility of our manufacturers longer competing in the markets of the world, against the cheap ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy ...
— The Yellow Wallpaper • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... proper function of the local representatives of the supreme Power to investigate and determine on the spot the various criminal and civil cases which come under the cognizance of the district officials. Legal technicalities and references to distant tribunals confuse and harass a population which, with comparatively few exceptions, is illiterate, credulous, and suspicious of underhand influence. An almost unlimited right of appeal from one court to another, in ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... self-possession enabled her to conceal the terror and uneasiness his recital inspired her with, listened calmly and silently till he had ceased speaking, and then asked him, with a playful smile, if he was quite sure of being in his right senses? "For how otherwise could you," said she, "confuse a poor obscure widow like myself with the rich and powerful princess you speak of? My friend, you are under the influence of a dream; believe me, I am neither more nor less than poor widow Rossin, and can boast ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... the said EDWIN would return, with a brass ferule slightly worn, the finder should receive earnest thanks, and be seen safely to his home by J. BUMSTEAD. Mr. Gospeler SIMPSON and Judge SWEENEY agreed that a handbill should be issued: but thought it might confuse the public mind if the missing nephew and the lost ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... way; but the old one did not do such great things for us after all! It's hard to see plain, hard to trust anybody; there is no one to show us the way, to point to something grand and fine above all these swamps full of toads.... People are always doing something to confuse the issue, nowadays; talking about Right, Justice, Liberty. But that trick is played out. Good enough to die for, but you can't live for ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... powers with the nature of man and of the feminine animals, and would perhaps do more wisely if they stopped dumb before what lies beyond and above these levels. For beyond, man reads but to misread—studies but to vex and confuse himself, and—shall I say it?—learns to sneer at rather than to reverence what baffles his inquiries. Does this statement seem harsh? Is it doubted? See its truth. The only science (so called) which undertakes a study of woman does not inspire its student with an increased respect for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and to dwell in a tinkle of pleasant sounds that please your ear; and I'm sure I don't wonder, because, as your mother and I both know, you play charmingly. But I feel confident that your better mind does not really confuse the mere diversions of ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... not prominent in battle after his young manhood, he was the brains of the Sioux resistance. He has been called a "medicine man" and a "dreamer." Strictly speaking, he was neither of these, and the white historians are prone to confuse the two. A medicine man is a doctor or healer; a dreamer is an active war prophet who leads his war party according to his dream or prophecy. What is called by whites "making medicine" in war time is again a wrong conception. Every ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Nor, lastly, am I disparaging or discouraging the thorough acquisition of any one of these studies, or denying that, as far as it goes, such thorough acquisition is a real education of the mind. All I say is, call things by their right names, and do not confuse together ideas which are essentially different. A thorough knowledge of one science and a superficial acquaintance with many, are not the same thing; a smattering of a hundred things or a memory for detail, is not a philosophical or comprehensive view. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... him. "It definitely would. We'll show 'em that it doesn't pay to confuse us. Only how do ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... old tribal title, which, unless exceptions are named, is supposed to embrace all the descendants of the old connection to whom it was once common. At first this alternate use of tribe and family names may confuse the reader—for it is rather puzzling to find a MacLoughlin with the same paternal ancestor as an O'Neill, and a McMahon of Thomond as an O'Brien, but the difficulty disappears with use and familiarity, and though the number and variety of newly-coined names cannot be at once committed ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the shape, the movement, the significance of this great historical cataclysm. To keep the outline clear I have deliberately avoided mentioning the names of many subordinate actors; thinking that if nothing essential was connected with them the mention of their names would only tend to confuse matters. Similarly with incidents, I have omitted a few, such as the troubles at Avignon, and changed the emphasis on others, judging freely their importance and not following the footsteps of my predecessors, as in the case of the capture of the Bastille, the importance of which was vastly ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... and humiliations were beginning to confuse the good sense of the French, and to lead their instincts astray. The crowd could not conceive that such things could come about naturally. The Prussians could not possibly have won by honourable means, but must have been spying in France for years. Why else were ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... bin Omar, a Jurhamite, and his progeny abandoning Hebrew began to speak Arabic (ta'arraba); hence called Muta'arribah or Arabised Arabs. (Pilgrimage iii. 190.) He died at Meccah and was buried with his mother in the space North of the Ka'abah called Al-Hijr which our writers continue to confuse with the city ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... creation—sometimes moulding and shaping real history; sometimes taking the form of heroic biography, of tradition, or popular legend; sometimes appearing as recognised fiction in the epic, the drama, or the novel. It is useless to tell us that this is to confuse truth and falsehood. We are stating a fact, not a theory; and if it makes truth and falsehood difficult to distinguish, that is nature's fault, not ours. Fiction is only false, when it is false, not to fact, else how ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... the old conundrum that the enthusiasts over everything German confuse one with. The German's fondness—gobbling-down fondness—for food does not prove that he is a gourmet. The Teuton sentimentality is like mush. It's principally for children. As Fritz keeps a good deal of his childishness about him as he grows up, he keeps this ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... is a way out here," whispered Leoni. "You hinder and confuse me, and at a time like this, when everything points to success, you—ah, here it is!" For his hand had at last come in contact with the boss, which he turned quickly, pressed hard, making the concealed door swing back, and then stooped ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... on which Mill (vide Subjection of Women, last third of Chapter I) has endeavoured to confuse the issues for his reader, first, by representing that by no possibility can man know anything of the "nature," i.e., of the "secondary sexual characters" of woman; and, secondly, by distracting attention from the fact that "acquired ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... you not to. By all you hold sacred let me implore you not to confuse me with questions." He drew himself up and thumped his chest with his fist. "I have a feeling ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... Scriptures were true. Their substantial historical accuracy he wished to confirm. Their great converging lines of light united in him. He constantly claimed their fulfillment in his person and his kingdom. Why, then, should he enter upon a kind of discussion which would have tended to confuse and obscure the main truths which he came to teach? If, then, he refers to these Scriptures, he uses them for his own ethical and spiritual purposes,—not to indorse their scientific errors; not to confirm the methods of interpretation in use ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... you would hardly approve any social reform which threatened to interfere with your own business methods. But no matter how you disapprove of socialism on general principles, as a leader of the capitalist class you should understand what socialism is, and not confuse one of the most important movements in modern world-history with the crazy theories of irresponsible cranks. The anarchists are the natural enemies of the entire human family, and would destroy it were their dangerous doctrines permitted to prevail; the socialists, ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... imparted by them to the mores. Our age is optimistic by virtue of the economic opportunities, power, and prosperity which it enjoys. The writers above mentioned are all pessimistic. They do not affect the age except upon the surface, by entertaining it, but they disturb its moral philosophy, they confuse its standards and codes, and they corrupt its tastes. They set fashions in literature which the writers of the second class imitate. In general, they relax the inhibitions which have come down to us in our mores without giving by suggestion ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... concerns the meaning of terms, and it deals throughout with the relation of words to other words. It is an acute philological argument. We feel ourselves to be arguing about forms, and not about substances. Now, such arguments may confuse, but they cannot convince. We do not know, perhaps, what to say in reply; but we remain unsatisfied. One not used to logic may listen to an argument which shall conclusively prove that white is black; that nothing is ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... inventions and in proving them bring forward the propositions already proved. And this is the proper order; since if you wished to show the usefulness of any plan you would be obliged again to devise new machines to prove its utility and thus would confuse the order of the forty Books and also the order of the diagrams; that is to say you would have to mix up practice with theory, which would produce a ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... the moment the weapon struck him, saved him from instant death. As it was, the dagger cut through his clothes, and punctured his side. Seeing his associates thus hard beset, Dr. Grant, who was behind, ran up and brought his riding whip with such force across the villain's eyes, as to confuse him for the moment, and in the confusion the party ran into a house and barred the doors. The priest received a cut in the head, but Mr. Perkins was not seriously wounded. Through the efforts of the ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... creetur' ever lived! Some forgitful, but everybody's liable to forgit. Only tell him one thing at once, and don't confuse him, and he'll git through an amazin' sight of ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... here for a long time without speaking. The warmth of the chamber had the reverse of an assuaging effect upon his difficult breathing and his frequent short cough—it seemed to oppress and confuse his brain. He began to feel a pain in his right side, and could not sit upright on ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... as peat that looks rather like mould, but is really so different that you must be careful not to confuse the two. Peat is not good for plants, and does not make the soil fertile, but quite the reverse. You can see it being formed on a moor or bog, and you should at the first opportunity go and examine it. There was a peat bog near Wye that was examined with the following results. ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... believe their pet doctrine to be true, but they seem to assume that it is also new. They further treat it as if it were an exact science and a great moral question as well. Unwarranted assumptions merely confuse and this question of national economic policy is too important to be clouded with confusions. It is worth while, therefore, to look at these assumptions one by one and try, before attempting any discussion of the tariff, to clear the ground from cant and ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... covering the front line trenches in the war of competition. The folly of recommending that every one-pound coffee carton, for instance, should be of exactly the same size and shape is immediately apparent; but let us not confuse such unification with standardization. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... expresses the pure and still popular Moslem feeling; and yet the learned and experienced Mr Redhouse would confuse this absolute Predestination with Providence. A friend tells me that the idea of absolute Fate in The Nights makes her feel as if the world were a jail. [FN244] In the Book of Sindibad this is the Story of the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... not confuse this work with that of the Intuition, which is a very different mental phase or plane. This sub-conscious working, just mentioned, plays an entirely different part. It is a good servant, and does not try to be more. The Intuition, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... before the curtain. They pass from side to side, crossing and re-crossing; but their figures never confuse one another, the outlines are never blurred. They stand out against the curtain with symbolic gesture, stooping as if to gather up the wreaths, or swaying with long stiff branch as if to sweep the fallen petals from ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... roar, and motion of the hall itself soon ceased to confuse or abase him. In proportion to membership, he doubted whether there were more able men there than in the State legislature. They were more acute politicians; they were wilier, and talked in larger terms, manipulating states instead of counties—that was all. The routine of the ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... the ligature without unnecessarily raising the vessel from its bed, especially as the vessel itself may very possibly be diseased, and the aneurism of the iliac trunk for which the operation is required will displace and confuse the parts, and may have set up ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... may be lost by an indiscreet attempt upon the subject." Clearly, Pitt was about to join the ranks of the alarmists. But members generally were of his opinion. In vain did Fox, Erskine, Grey, and Sheridan deprecate the attempt to confuse moderate Reform with reckless innovation. Burke illogically but effectively dragged in the French spectre, and Windham declared that the public mind here, as in other lands, was in such a state that the slightest scratch might produce a ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Walter who had last seen poor Charley Wright alone, and far from Bittermeads. But perhaps that was a lie to confuse the search for the missing man, and a reason why that search had failed so utterly up to the moment of Dunn's own grim discovery in ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... course of history went into the welter of religious wars which gradually merge into dynastic wars and confuse the record of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century. At the end of the last of these divisions of ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... me down, frost cleans the air, My sky is black with small birds bearing south; Say what you will, confuse me with fine care, Put by my word as but an April truth,— Autumn is no less on me that a rose Hugs the brown bough ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... him,' said Bradley Headstone. 'He takes this river-road—the fool!—to confuse observation, or divert attention, if not solely to baffle me. But he must have the power of making himself invisible before ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... given, "jumps" in the air, that is, it rises slightly, while the curve, pitched with the same motion, goes outward and downward. The curve will necessarily be slower than the straight ball, and this will give all the variation in speed needed to unsettle the batter's "eye" and confuse him in "timing" the ball. Some pitchers are able, keeping the same motions, to vary the speed even of the curve and straight balls, but, as before said, this is apt to be at the expense of accuracy, and should not be attempted by the young player. Occasionally, say ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... friend, I meet you with an answer here— That even your prime men who appraise their kind Are men still, catch a wheel within a wheel, See more in a truth than the truth's simple self, Confuse themselves. You see lads walk the street Sixty the minute; what's to note in that? You see one lad o'erstride a chimney-stack; Him you must watch—he's sure to fall, yet stands! Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things. The honest ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... gloomy?" she asked him; she pressed her questions, she hinted about Zosia, and began to jest with him. Thaddeus was unmoved; leaning on his elbow, he kept silent, frowned, and puckered his lips: so much the more did he confuse and amaze Telimena. Suddenly she changed her countenance and the tone of her discourse; she arose in wrath, and with sharp words began to shower on him sarcasms and reproaches. Thaddeus, too, started up, as if stung by a wasp; he looked askance; without saying a word ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... visited every spot associated with Trennahan,—not once, but many times. She had made up her mind with the right instinct that the thing to do was to blunt her sensibilities. By the third day she had ordered the earlier associations on duty, and managed to confuse them somewhat with those which had held possession for so brief a time. She was determined to succeed. She had no right to love the husband of another woman, and suffering was something so much more terrible than anything her imagination had ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... to rack one's brain," she smiled, "and here you combine to do your utmost to confuse me! Well, if it is so, I ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the end of these notes. If you are an impatient reader, skip to them at once. In reading aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh verses. These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless your audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse them. Many people can ride on horse-back who find it hard to get on and to get off without assistance. One has to dismount from an idea, and get into the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... signals interpreted with as much ease as by the Federals themselves. The 18th of July was the day determined upon by the Federal commanders for the grand attempt which, if successful, would level the arrogant fortress and confuse it by the mighty power of their giant artillery with the general mass of surrounding sand hills, annihilate its garrison or drive them into the relentless ocean, or else consign them to the ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... efforts are to be commended, not only from the standpoint of their social value but because they have a marked industrial significance. Failing, as they do, however, to touch the question of wages and hours, which are almost invariably the points of trades-union effort, the employers confuse the mind of the public when they urge the amelioration of conditions and the kindly relation existing between them and their men as a reason for the discontinuance of strikes and other trades-union ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... matter of course (Numbers viii.), he hates pronouns and all abbreviating substitutes. What is interesting is passed over, what is of no importance is described with minuteness, his exhaustive clearness is such as with its numerous details to confuse our apprehension of what is in itself perfectly clear. This is what used to be described in the phraseology of historical criticism as epic ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... come up, he may be able to do so. He is to march in the lightest order and at full speed, so as to take the enemy by surprise. Twelve hours before he starts you will bring me back news of his coming, and I will move out to meet him. His operations in their rear will confuse the enemy and enable me to operate with a greater chance of success. I tell you this because, if you are surrounded and in difficulties, you may have to destroy my dispatch. You can then convey my instructions by word of mouth to General Powell if ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... discovered how easy it was to pass for each other, and further to confuse people they began to dress alike. Miss Gwynne, the history teacher, had made a mistake in their identity in class one day and had laughed about it later to the rest of the teachers. Only Miss Baxter refused to find the story amusing. ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... strength lies in my fortune. I am new, like the Empire; there is, therefore, a perfect homogeneity between the Empire and myself."—"However," says Metternich, "I have often thought that Napoleon, by talking in this way, merely sought to study the opinion of others, or to confuse it, and the direct advance which he made to Louis XVIII., in 1804 seemed to confirm this suspicion. Speaking to me one day of this advance he said, 'Monsieur's reply was grand; it was full of fine traditions. There is something in legitimate ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... complexity of its incidents and the intricacies of its plot make it difficult to follow. The rapidity of its action, the necessity of gathering the meaning from a single hearing, and the intensity of feeling aroused would all unite to confuse the hearer were it not for the skill of the actor and the appropriateness of the stage settings. By the aid of these, understanding is in most cases not difficult. The changing scenery, the dress of the actors, their movements, the tones of their ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... and was rather taken by surprise. For a moment all that I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr. Woodcourt seemed to come back and confuse me. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... himself, considered apart from his belongings, his name and race, she cared not at all. But just now, in this tumult of excited feeling, she was disposed to confuse the man with his surroundings—to think of him, not as that young man with gray eyes and thin lips, who had walked with her at The Knoll, who had stood beside her just now by the river, but as the living embodiment ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... man may take just enough to confuse him, or to make him careless, or to destroy his coolness and self-possession, without being in the least drunk; or he may have taken enough to make him drowsy, and so unfit to do work that wants ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... anything about—were chiefly concerned with form, and that the ideas behind their perfection of form were very simple and elementary ideas, not at all comparable in complexity and elaborateness with those that confuse and distinguish the modern world. When one comes to French art it is still more difficult for us to realize that the ideas underlying its expression are ideas of import, validity, and attachment. The truth is largely that ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... incensed judge, and prescribe certain methods of appeasing him—a certain price—in consideration of which He is willing to sell forgiveness; men who accurately draw the distinction between the different kinds of faith—faith historical and faith saving; who bewilder and confuse all natural feeling; who treat the natural love of relations as if it were an idolatry as great as bowing down to mammon; who make intelligible distinction between the work that may and the work that may not be done on the Sabbath-day; who send you into a perilous consideration ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... complaint, there were derivative grievances. Under the influence of the clergy justice was administered in somewhat inquisitorial fashion, there was an uncertainty as to just what the law was, a strong disposition to confuse questions of law with questions of ethics, and great laxity in the admission and estimation of evidence. As early as 1639 people had begun to complain that too much power was rested in the discretion of the magistrate, and they clamoured for a code of laws; but as Winthrop ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... your tongue?" interrupted Aaron, angrily; "you gabble gabble till you make my head ache. You confuse me." ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... interested, and subscribed L1,000 to the venture. Handel was at once engaged in the double capacity of composer and 'impressario,' the latter duty charging him with the selection and engagement of singers. The new society was to be called the Royal Academy of Music, but we must not confuse this body with the Royal Academy of Music existing at the present day, which was ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... see why life should be judged by its last trailing thread of vitality.... I know it for the splendid thing it is—I who have been a diseased creature from the beginning. I know it well enough not to confuse it with its husks. Remember that, Gardener, if presently my heart fails me and I despair, and if I go through a little phase of pain and ingratitude and dark forgetfulness before the end.... Don't believe what I may say at the last.... If the fabric is good enough the selvage ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... know it faithful, fearless, constant, pure, In its conceptions graceful, good, and high. When the world roars, and flames the startled sky, In its own adamant it rests secure, As free from chance and malice ever found, And fears and hopes that vulgar minds confuse, As it is loyal to each manly thing And to the sounding lyre and to the Muse. Only in that part is it not so sound Where Love hath set in it ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... that the similarity established here between the will and the imagination is only partial and has as its aim only to bring to light the role of the motor elements. Surely no one will confuse two aspects of our psychic life that are so distinct, and it would be foolish to delay in order to enumerate the differences. The characteristic of novelty should by itself suffice, since it is the special and indispensable mark of invention, and for volition is ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... a dry, bare, matter-of-fact manner, which requires all the knowledge and sympathy of the initiated to give it vital meaning; or else they are surrounded with an appanage of portents, visions, miracles, legends—spread before the reader without discrimination or explanation—which confuse the mind and soul, and absolutely repel all who do not share the faith of the subject ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... my dear, which most people confuse: to succeed and to win." Then, as he noted her troubled face, he kissed her. "That bell has been ringing for half an hour. That is an outward and visible sign of the first verb. ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... impossible for it. Suppose he were to select some one, some weak and irritable and sentimental and disappointed man, some one whose every foible and weakness he knew, suppose he were to place himself near him and so irritate and confuse and madden him that at last one day, in a fury of rage and despair, that man were to do for him what he is too proud to do for himself! Think of the excitement, the interest, the food for his cynicism, the food ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... succeeded, not from conviction and whole-heartedly, but as a mean-spirited concession, made to save trouble, and under the most disingenuous and least workable provisions. Lastly, it has been made clear that Home Rule cannot possibly assist, but can only obscure and confuse, the movement for the establishment of a true Imperial Union. Unionists and Imperialists can choose no better ground for their resistance to Home Rule than the wide and varied field of ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... were but Pretenders, and meer Traytors to the True High Solunarian Church-Men, that wearing the same Cloth had herded among them in Disguise, only to wheedle them into such wild Extravagancies as must of necessity confuse their Councils, expose their Persons, and ruin their Cause. —— According to the like Practice, put upon their Abrograzian Prince, and of which I ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... were you, Mrs. Hornby," I said, "I would disregard this paper altogether. It will only confuse you and get you into difficulties. Answer the questions that are put, as well as you can, and if you don't ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... sparrows. They swarm about him like flies, and literally mob him back into his dusky retreat. Silence is as the breath of his nostrils to him, and the uproar that greets him when he emerges into the open day seems to alarm and confuse him as it does the pickpocket when ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... whatever that honest judgment may decide to be best for the emergency. No doubt, errors have been made, but they are errors inconceivably less in their results than would be the unpardonable sin of the people, should they, because differing in opinion, weaken the hands and confuse the purposes of the powers that be. With secret and treacherous foes in our very midst, hidden behind the masks of a painted loyalty, the President, after deep and earnest consultation and reflection, deemed it his duty to authorize arrests ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... real nature of our inmost being, we should see how absurd it is to desire that individuality should exist eternally. This wish implies that we confuse real Being with one of its innumerable manifestations. The individuality disappears at death, but we lose nothing thereby, for it is only the manifestation of quite a different Being—a Being ignorant of time, and, consequently, knowing neither life nor death. The loss of intellect is the ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... to add to the impressiveness of the scene, it was about this time that Charlestown, set on fire a little while before, that it should not give cover to the Americans, and that the smoke should confuse the rebels, burst into general conflagration. The town had been for weeks almost deserted, in dread of this fate; now at the command of Howe red-hot shot were thrown in among the houses, and marines landed from the ships and fired the wharves and waterside ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... indispensable it is to have true ideas—just concepts—correct notions—of the things with which we humans have to deal; everyone knows for example, that to mistake solids for surfaces or lines would wreck the science and art of geometry; anyone knows that to confuse fractions with whole numbers would wreck the science and art of arithmetic; everyone knows that to mistake vice for virtue would destroy the foundation of ethics; everyone knows that to mistake a desert mirage for ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... omitted the metronome and merely described the main tempi in general terms, paying, however, particular attention to the various modifications of tempo. It would appear that general directions also tend to vex and confuse Capellmeisters, especially when they are expressed in plain German words. Accustomed to the conventional Italian terms these gentlemen are apt to lose their wits when, for instance, I write "moderate." Not long ago a Capellmeister complained of that term (massig) ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... Bengali or Hindostani, and when Charles Grant went to him for information as to the way of a sinner's salvation this happened—"My anxious inquiries as to what I should do to be saved appeared to embarrass and confuse him exceedingly. He could not answer my questions, but he gave me some good instructive books." On Kiernander's bankruptcy, caused by his son when the father was blind, the "Mission Church" was bought by Grant, who wrote that its labours "have been confined ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... when he digged mud and graves for our soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the Times was extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan—and at that epoch the Times powerfully contributed to confuse ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... confuse you by urging a reply," said Paulus. "You, of course, understand our view of that matter. He who did the greatest good to the greatest number made the greatest success. That was the Lord and Master. 'If I be lifted up, I shall draw all men to me,' he said; and that is being ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... in the arabesques, their brilliancy and euphony. Op. 2 has its dazzling moments, but its musical worth is inferior. It is written to split the ears of the groundlings, or rather to astonish and confuse them, for the Chopin dynamics in the early music are never very rude. The indisputable superiority to Herz and the rest of the shallow-pated variationists caused Schumann's passionate admiration. It has, ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... advice is not needed, however. I am not a murderer. I could not kill that poor old man upstairs, no matter how dreadfully he suffers. I fear that you have overlooked the fact that I am an advocate, not a performer, of merciful deeds. You should not confuse my views with my practice. I advocate legalising the destruction of the hopelessly afflicted. Inasmuch as it is not a legal thing to do at present, I shall continue to practise my profession as all the rest of you do: conscientiously." He was standing ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... hour's tramp brought us to the bush-veld where I feared that our troubles might begin, since if the Amahagger were cunning, they would take advantage of it to confuse or hide their spoor. As it chanced, however, they had done nothing of the sort and a child could have followed their march. Just before nightfall we came to their first halting-place where they had made a fire and eaten one of the herd of farm goats which they had driven away with them, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Without the continuous mute, he would be obliged to tune all three of the strings of the unison before he could tune another interval by it, and it would not be so safe to tune by as a single string, as there might be a slight discrepancy in the unison giving rise to waves which would confuse the ear. The tuner should hear but two strings at once while setting a temperament; the one he is tuning by and the one he is tuning. A continuous mute is a strip of muting felt of the proper thickness to be pushed in between the trios of strings. Simply lay it ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... of his works, Byron's personality has always confused the issue. Politics, religion, morality, have confused, and still confuse, the issue. The question for the modern critic is, of what permanent value is Byron's poetry? What did he achieve for art, for the intellect, for the spirit, and in what degree does he still give pleasure to readers of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... consider how much moral courage it takes to defend Christian virtues when they are sneered at under the guise of "jokes." Let us exercise charity by not quoting instances, but let us be watchful of our laughter and our fellowship, which are both gifts of God, and see that we do not confuse pagan pleasure with Christian joy, the evil sneer with the tender recognition of the absurd in ourselves and in others. It is Mr. Chesterton again who points out the fact that the pagan virtues of justice and the like which he ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... and the ironmasters are standing out in the street (where they always hold high change), making such an iron hum and buzz, that they confuse me horribly. In addition, there is a bellman announcing something—not the readings, I beg to say—and there is an excavation being made in the centre of the open place, for a statue, or a pump, or a lamp-post, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... which is most immediately answerable for the making or marring of texture is the disposition and nature of the final tool marks. These should be so managed that they help the eye to understand the forms. They should explain rather than confuse the contours of the surface. Just as in a good chalk drawing the strokes and cross-hatchings are put in with method, and if well done produce the effect of something solid, so in carving, the tool ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... not our way of regarding it in every-day life. When we observe how disaster follows crime, how ruin at last overtakes ill-gotten prosperity; when we witness the miserable end of the debauchee, the short-lived triumph of iniquity, it is our constant habit to confuse the physical effect with the moral cause; and however little we may believe in the existence of a Judge, we nearly all of us end by a more or less complete submission to a strange, vague faith in the justice of things. And although our reason, our calm observation, prove to us that this justice ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... subjects. They are even more obstinate in their views, but conceal their opinions, and often pass for assenting parties when in reality they are but waiting for the right opportunity to strike their "mental blow" and confuse their opponent. ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... averred that he was too deep for her. Bean was on the point of inventing a close acquaintance with an actress, which he considered would be scandalous enough to compel a certain respect he seemed to find lacking in the old lady, but he saw quickly that she would confuse and trip him with a few questions. He was obliged to content himself with looking the least bit smug ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... has hitherto been regarded as a man of exceptional ability. Time and the issue of this war will tell. The verdict of history may be to the contrary. The world for a time may easily confuse restless energy and habitual meddling with real ability, but its final verdict will go far deeper. Since the Kaiser dropped his sagacious pilot, Germany's real position in the world has steadily weakened. Then it was the first power in Europe with its rivals disunited. The Kaiser ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... upper batteries of the enemy. At 11.16 the great guns began, slowly at first, but soon more rapidly. A few moments later a large fire was lit on the point, bringing the vessels, as they passed before it, into bold relief, and serving to confuse, to some extent, the pilots of the fleet. Each ship as she brought her guns to bear on rounding the point, opened her fire, first from the bow and then from the port battery. The engagement thus soon became general and animated. The confusion of the scene was increased ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... rose erect again her eyes rested in wonder on the black servant who with a crumb-brush was sweeping the rest of the money off the table and catching it upon the coffee-salver. The rain and clash of the coins appeared to confuse her for a moment. Then with another curtsy and a "Thank your Honour," she ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the theory seems to be that the accused is guilty until he has proved his innocence, and those conversant with French trials need not be told that the judges assist the public prosecutor. In this case, they sought by cross-examinations to confuse Fouquet, and to entrap him into dangerous admissions. Seguier sternly repressed any leanings in his favor; he even reproved some of the judges for returning the salutation of the prisoner, as he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... bright she shone, The fatal gift, her tempting self, unknown! The winds were silent, all the waves asleep, And heaven was traced upon the flattering deep; But whilst he looks, unmindful of a storm, And thinks the water wears a stable form, What dreadful din around his ears shall rise! What frowns confuse his picture ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... the orders of Admiral van Tromp. John van Witt placed himself at the head of the squadron. "Tromp has courage enough to fight," he said, "but not sufficient prudence to conduct a great action. The heat of battle is liable to carry officers away, confuse them, and not leave them enough independence of judgment to bring matters to a successful issue. That is why I consider myself bound by all the duties of manhood and conscience to be myself on the watch, in order to set bounds to the impetuosity of valor when it would fain go ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to his comfort in reading, not only that the light should come from the right side, but that the left should be shielded from any luminous object, like the fire, which even at the distance of half the length of a room would strike on his field of vision and confuse the near sight. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... have this happen I did my best not to confuse with a disinterested opinion. But indeed Mrs. Ricker and Kitton was seldom in need of an opinion, as was proved that night by the appearance of this notice in ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... distinguish it from tourmaline (which it may resemble in color). Its double refraction is very large also, so that the doubling of the edges of the rear facets may easily be seen through the table with a lens. The dichroism is feeble too, whereas that of tourmaline is strong. No one would be likely to confuse the stone with true emerald after studying what ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... should form the habit of determining things for himself. He will soon find that he will be surrounded with many well-meaning advisers who, if they have their own way, may serve to confuse him. Some virtuosos regard their well-meaning admirers and entertainers as the worst penalties of the virtuoso life. Whether they are or are not must, of course, depend upon the artist's character. If he accepts their compliments and courtesies as an expression of the measure of pleasure they ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... up and confuse what they see; but they do see beyond the plane section which Time gives to the normal ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... courage that was, his saying that he did not want her to decide in haste, but to take time to know what she was doing! What other man would not have stayed to urge her, to hurry her, to impose his will on hers, masterfully to use his personality to confuse her, to carry her off? For an instant, through all her wretched bewilderment, she thrilled to a high, impersonal appreciation of his saying: "If I had stayed with you, I should have tried to take you by force—but you are too fine for that, Sylvia! What you could be to the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... night, here in Turner Road: the roysterers were in the better-lighted streets, and the sober folk were at home. And there was not a footstep on the pavements outside to confuse the little drama of sound that came down to her through the ill-fitting boards overhead. She could not explain afterwards why she did not interfere. I imagine that she hoped against hope that she was misinterpreting what she heard, and also that a kind of ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... Ned having arranged his plan of campaign so as to confuse the enemy, possibly awaiting their coming ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... her; and as she took out her purse. "No," he added, "you must not pay cash, Flamby. It would confuse Nevin's books. I will write a cheque and charge it to your account together with ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... sentimental people who are always anxious and miserable about their duty to their children, and who end by neither making their children happy nor having a tolerable life for themselves. A selfish tyrant you know where to have, and he (or she) at least does not confuse your affections; but a conscientious and kindly meddler may literally worry you out of your senses. It is fortunate that only very few parents are capable of doing what they conceive their duty continuously or even at all, and that ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... move, and Vieuxtemps knew it. Like Rubinstein, he held that the artist must first of all have ideas, emotional power—his technic must be so perfected that he does not have to think of it! Incidentally, speaking of schools of violin playing, I find that there is a great tendency to confuse the Belgian and French. This should not be. They are distinct, though the latter has undoubtedly been formed and influenced by the former. Many of the great violin names, in fact,—Vieuxtemps, Leonard*, Marsick, Remi, Parent, de Broux, ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... the aspect of a world perhaps bossed with castles and ridged with ramparts, to two individualities encased within chain-armour! Flaubert chose his antiquity wisely: a period of which we know too little to confuse us, a city of which no stone is left on another, the minds of Barbarians who have left us no psychological documents. 'Be sure I have made no fantastic Carthage,' he says proudly, pointing to his documents; Ammianus Marcellinus, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... him in sheer wonderment He was so extremely like David that, at a distance, it was easy to confuse the one ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... a cause in the very teeth of the law they profess to support and revere? Who is the greatest lawyer? Not he who can most enlighten, but he who can most perplex and confound the understanding of his hearers! He who can best brow-beat and confuse witnesses; and embroil and mislead the intellect of judge and jury. Yet the mischiefs I have mentioned are but the sprouts and branches of this tree of evil; its root is much deeper: it is in the law itself; and in the system of property, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... leaping to his feet and pacing back and forth before Jason, clasping and unclasping his hands with agitation. "You seek to confuse me with your semantics and so-called ethics that are simply opportunism and greed. There is a Higher Law ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... of the treatment after birth is to prevent the mother and child from catching cold. They appear to confuse the symptoms of pneumonia and infantile lockjaw in a disease called sanpat, to the prevention of which their efforts are directed. A sigri or stove is kept alight under the bed, and in this the seeds of ajwain or coriander are burnt. The mother eats the seeds, and the child is waved over ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... me:—I cannot think, cried she, of rendering unhappy a person who so much deserves to be blessed:—and what but misery would attend a match so unequal as yours would be with me!—How would your kindred brook it!—How would the world confuse and ridicule the fondness of an affection so ill placed!—What would they say when they should hear the nobly born, the rich, and the accomplished monsieur du Plessis, had taken for his wife a maid obscurely defended, and with no ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... his long career shows him personally incorruptible, and in some ways almost pedantically high-minded. The charge must be put in another way. Grey was irritable, strong-willed, and inclined to self-righteousness. Nothing is easier than for a self-righteous man to confuse his wishes and his principles. It is probable that he came to feel that Mr Hawes's letter went further than was desirable. To the hot fit induced by Howe's eloquence succeeded cold shivers, which the great contractors naturally encouraged. Of the great firm of Jackson, Peto, Betts, and Brassey, which ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... he did," replied the general. "I have a perfect recollection of the fact; but perhaps he may confuse it with something else. I thought I heard the name of Sir Henry Halford. He did not call him in. If I might advise, as an older man than any of you, and a mutual friend of both parties, I would suggest that this gentleman had better at once pay my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... round, smoothly developed Italian head, with that rather tumid outline of features which one often sees in a Roman in middle life, when easy living and habits of sensual indulgence begin to reveal their signs in the countenance, and to broaden and confuse the clear-cut, statuesque lines of early youth. Evidently, that is the head of an easy-going, pleasure-loving man, who has waxed warm with good living, and performs the duties of his office with an unctuous grace as something becoming and decorous to be gone through with. Evidently, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... like certain others to which we have been accustomed for us not to be too much incommoded by the change—upon the power, in fact, of mistaking the new for the old. The power of fusing ideas (and through ideas, structures) depends upon the power of confusing them; the power to confuse ideas that are not very unlike, and that are presented to us in immediate sequence, is mainly due to the fact of the impetus, so to speak, which the mind has upon it. We always, I believe, make an effort to see every new object as a repetition of the object last before us. Objects ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... that makes one sure that this trend toward local autonomy is a reality and not merely one of those meaningless shiftings of power which confuse the observer, is that it is in accord with Chinese temperament, tradition and circumstance. Feudalism is past and gone two thousand years ago, and at no period since has China possessed a working centralized government. The absolute ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... a pattern consisting of two ending ridges and a delta but lacking a recurve, do not confuse the ridge count of the tented arch with that of the ridge count for the loop. The ridge count of the tented arch is merely a convention of fingerprinting, a fiction designed to facilitate a scientific ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... consciousness of a former life comes sharply upon us, in swift, lightning flashes, too sudden to be tangible, too dazzling to leave an impress, or mayhap, in troubled dreams that bewilder and confuse with vague remembrances. If only a burst of memory would come upon some mortal, that the tale might be fully told, and these theories established as facts. It would unfold great possibilities of historical lore; of ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... was beyond comparison with anything that had been seen for ages in Carlingford. The deep border of fur round the velvet, the warm waddings and paddings, the close fit up to the throat, were excellencies which warranted Janey's tour of inspection. Phoebe perceived it very well, but did not confuse the girl by taking any notice, and in her heart she was herself slightly pre-occupied, wondering (as Ursula had done) what the man had come here for, and what he would say when he saw her. Both of these young women had a secret belief that something ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... died of sickness in the camp." All who heard this were grieved, but Horatius, undisturbed, merely said, "Fling his corpse where you please, for I cannot grieve for him," and completed the dedication service. The story was false, invented by Marcus to confuse Horatius. His conduct is a remarkable instance of presence of mind, whether it be that he at once saw through the trick, or believed the story and was ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... gradually becomes a mere impression of light. The details have been effaced little by little, and melted into a general hue of gold and warmth: the windowless houses and the walls extending in terraces confuse interchangeably their blank masses. The dark green hills of Boudjareah and Mustapha seem to have opened their sombre flanks to disclose a marble-quarry: the city, piled up with pale and blocklike forms, appears to sink into the mountains again as the boat retires, although ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... be unprejudiced does not mean to have no convictions. The superficial confuse definiteness with prejudice, forgetting that definite opinions may be the result of careful judgment. Post-judiced I trust I am. But prejudiced? Heaven forfend! Why, 'tis because I do not wish to bind ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... because you confuse construction and destruction with creation and murder. They're quite different: I adore creation and abhor murder. Yes: I adore it in tree and flower, in bird and beast, even in you. [A flush of interest and delight suddenly clears the growing perplexity and boredom from her face]. It was the creative ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... (with frequent omissions), and some parts of Joshua and Judges,[127] he ceased, and declared he would translate no more, having a misgiving lest the narration of many things unlike Christian morality might confuse the judgment of the simple. This is the earliest recorded instance of a devout Christian withholding Scripture from the people for their good. And, when we take it in conjunction with the authorised diffusion of the Benedictine hagiographies of the time, we see what ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... To one who loves his native language, who would delight to keep our rich and harmonious English undefiled by foreign accent, foreign intonation, and those foreign tinctures of verbal meaning which tend to confuse all writing and discourse, it is an affliction as harassing as the climate, that on our stage, in our studios, at our public and private gatherings, in our offices, warehouses, and workshops, we must expect to hear our beloved English with its words ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... a cloud of whirling snow that blotted out sky and mountains alike. It drove into my eyes, and half blinded me. It was so thick that objects a few yards away would have been concealed even without a violent wind to confuse the vision. At times Couttet, close ahead of me, was visible only in a kind of gray outline, like a wraith. On an open plain such a storm in such a temperature would have had its dangers for a traveller seeking his way. We were ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... Hitchcock speak. Says he, "Intoxicating drinks, opium and tobacco, exert a pernicious influence upon the intellect. They tend directly to debilitate the organs; and we cannot take a more effectual course to cloud the understanding, weaken the memory, unfix the attention, and confuse all the mental operations, than by thus entailing upon ourselves the whole hateful train of nervous maladies. These can bow down to the earth an intellect of giant strength, and make it grind in bondage, like Sampson shorn of his locks and deprived of his ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... give you myself of the Empress Queen, or Frederick of Prussia; and I will frankly add," said she, laughing and offering her BONBONNIERE, "that I HAVE heard so much of the years which immediately succeeded the Revolution, that I sometimes am apt to confuse the vivid descriptions fixed on my memory by the frequent and animated recitation of others, for things which I myself have actually witnessed. I caught myself but yesterday describing to Lord M—the riding of the last Scottish Parliament, with as much minuteness ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... the girl's face, but her tears ceased as abruptly as they had commenced, and, noting the slowly growing radiance of her expression, Campbell was stricken dumb with fright at the possible consequences of temerity. The knowledge of his shortcomings robbed him of confidence and helped to confuse him. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... bridge; high Dutch, Greek, Hebrew; jargon &c. (unmeaning) 517. V. be unintelligible &c. adj.; require explanation &c. 522; have a doubtful meaning, pass comprehension. render unintelligible &c. adj.; conceal &c 528; darken &c. 421; confuse &c. (derange) 61; perplex &c. (bewilder) 475. not understand &c. 518; lose, lose the clue; miss; not know what to make of, be able to make nothing of, give it up; not be able to account for, not be able to make either head or tail of; be at sea &c. (uncertain) 475; wonder &c. 870; see through a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... mustn't confuse the law of reactions with that of cause and effect," the Parson went on, "which it is easy to do if you ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... French comedies poisoned youth lies behind us. A strong reaction has set in and the leading companies among the photoplay producers fight everywhere in the first rank for suppression of the unclean. Some companies even welcome censorship provided that it is high-minded and liberal and does not confuse artistic freedom with moral licentiousness. Most, to be sure, seem doubtful whether the new movement toward Federal censorship is in harmony with American ideas on the freedom of ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... Spirit! for the changes are great and the speech of Florentines would sound as a riddle in your ears. Or, if you go, mingle with no politicians on the marmi, or elsewhere; ask no questions about trade in the Calimara; confuse yourself with no inquiries into scholarship, official or monastic. Only look at the sunlight and shadows on the grand walls that were built solidly, and have endured in their grandeur; look at the faces of the little children, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... sanglots la confuse harmonie N'eveille deja plus notre esprit endormi, Aux levres du mourant colle dans l'agonie, Comme un dernier ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... weary in the attempt to bring music to the standard of the Muses and of truth. The Muses are not like human poets; they never spoil or mix rhythms or scales, or mingle instruments and human voices, or confuse the manners and strains of men and women, or of freemen and slaves, or of rational beings and brute animals. They do not practise the baser sorts of musical arts, such as the 'matured judgments,' of whom Orpheus speaks, would ridicule. But modern poets separate ...
— Laws • Plato
... Unfortunately many parents confuse the ideas, or rather the moral sense of their children, in a much more vital manner by untruths of a different kind from this—as, for example, when a mother, in the presence of her children, expresses a feeling of vexation and annoyance at seeing a certain ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... full on Francis Ardry, as if paying the deepest attention to his discourse. All of a sudden, however, he cried with a sharp, cracked voice, 'That won't do, sir; that won't do—more vehemence—your argument is at present particularly weak; therefore, more vehemence—you must confuse them, stun them, stultify them, sir'; and, at each of these injunctions, he struck the back of his right hand sharply against the palm of the left. 'Good, sir—good!' he occasionally uttered, in the same sharp, cracked tone, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... savoured of irresolution, repeatedly said, "The more numerous the better: I wish they were twice as many,—the easier the victory, depend on it." The plan upon which he had determined; if ever it should be his fortune to bring a Baltic fleet to action, was, to attack the head of their line and confuse their movements. "Close with a Frenchman," he used to say, "but out manoeuvre a Russian." He offered his services for the attack, requiring ten sail of the line and the whole of the smaller craft. Sir Hyde gave ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... Santt Kittes of a fiver,' by whom she had Robert Stevenson, born 8th June 1772; and, second, in May or June 1787, Thomas Smith, a widower, and already the father of our grandmother. This improbable double connection always tends to confuse a student of the family, Thomas ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... infantry found shelter behind a stout stone wall, and numerous batteries occupied the commanding ground in rear, was selected for assault. Neither feint nor demonstration, the ordinary expedients by which the attacker seeks to distract the attention and confuse the efforts of the defence, was made use of; and yet division after division, with no abatement of courage, marched in good order over the naked plain, dashed forward with ever-thinning ranks, and then, receding sullenly before the storm of fire, left, within ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... the entire,) obscuration even of true Doctrine, in that pathetic exclamation of His,—"When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the faith upon the Earth[137]?" ... In the face of all this, it is to confuse and mystify the ordinary reader to draw such a picture of the last century as Mr. Pattison has drawn here. As dismal a view might be easily taken of the first, of the second, of the third, of the fourth, of the fifth century. What Mr. Newman once designated as "ancient, holy, and happy times," might ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... figure, the disappointment, as each fancied resemblance shows, on near approach, a face unknown to the searcher, the hurried exit and the quick passage through the dark night air to the next halting-place—all these impressions, following hurriedly upon each other, confuse the mind ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... disposal, for free experimentation, a fine body of players.[112] Here Haydn worked from 1762 until 1790; and, to quote his own words, "could, as conductor of an orchestra, make experiments, observe what produced an effect and be as bold as I pleased. I was cut off from the world, there was no one to confuse or torment me and I was forced to ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... had not got any nearer, and it appeared to us that he had only made a display to confuse us, and with the object of inducing us to flee in face ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... feeling which results from the hand's touching a table is a sensation and so also is the pain which is caused by an injury to the body. The mental action in each case is due to impulses passing to the brain. Care must be exercised by the beginner, however, not to confuse sensations with the nervous impulses, on the one hand, or with secondary mental effects, such as emotion or imagination, on the other. Sensations are properly regarded as the first conscious effects of the afferent impulses and as the beginning ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... thing. This thing halted opposite the railing, and faced about before me, where it appeared to me as a line of heads and moving arms and legs and shuffling feet. But among them all I saw only one individual. It was absurd if they had expected to confuse me with these other creatures. I saw him instantly and I knew him past hope of mistaking. His clothes were all torn and disordered; there was a cut on his forehead and a bloodstained bandage showed on his wrist beneath his sleeve; ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... seem like silence either, and perhaps now and then a hasty turning away of the head, or drooping of the eyes towards the ground, all these minor circumstances, with a disinclination to have candles introduced and a tendency to confuse hours with minutes, are doubtless mere influences of the time, as many lovely lips can clearly testify. Neither is there the slightest reason why Mrs Nickleby should have expressed surprise when, candles being at length brought in, Kate's bright eyes were unable ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens |
