"Baffled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Licinius still remained, and with his superior naval force he might have baffled his rival. But fortune, or valor, again decided in favor of the Western emperor, and after a fight of two days the admiral of Licinius retired to Byzantium. The siege of this city was now pressed with valor by Constantine, and Licinius fled with his ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... one advantage, as I believe I have elsewhere observed, that we male-delinquents in love-matters have of the other sex:—for while they, poor things! sit sighing in holes and corners, or run to woods and groves to bemoan themselves on their baffled hopes, we can rant and roar, hunt and hawk; and, by new loves, banish from our hearts all remembrance of the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... were baffled by Prairie-dogs which dodged down out of reach and hawks which rose up out of reach, and still we rode, till, rounding a little knoll near a drinking place, we came suddenly on a mother Blacktail and her two fawns. All three swung their big ears and eyes into full bearing on us, ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... appeared that, since intercourse between the two worlds had first begun, it had been the constant effort of the spirits to teach this truth to men; but the stupid refusal of the latter to comprehend had till now baffled every attempt. How it had been possible that men who had reached the point of believing in immortality at all should be content to rest in the inadequate and preposterous conception that it only attached to the latest phase of the individual, ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... puzzled. A gentleman in the audience called out, "Tell him to give the half of twenty-seven." Poor Minos looked quite bewildered for a moment; but he was not to be baffled so. He ran off, and brought back the card with the figure on it. ...
— The Nursery, No. 107, November, 1875, Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... product of an alien people, rests but lightly upon the Teuton when he is deeply aroused, and that in the heat of combat he is quite prone to revert to the mental type of his own Woden-worshipping progenitors, losing himself in that superb fighting zeal which baffled the conquering cohorts of a Caesar, and humbled the proud aspirations of a Varus. Though appearing most openly in the Prussian, whose recent acts of violence are so generally condemned, this native martial ardour is by no means peculiar to him, but is instead the common ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the 'rickshaw: so that my first hope that some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage and the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went round this treadmill of thought; and again and again gave up baffled and in despair. The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had originally some wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of begging her to marry me at once; and in her arms defying the ghostly occupant of the 'rickshaw. "After all," I argued, "the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... know me? does no voice within Answer my cry, and say we are akin?" The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien, Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene; The Emperor, laughing, said, "It is strange sport To keep a madman for thy Fool at court!" And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace Was ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... confederacy previously to the arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, which effectually crushed the hopes of the rebels, although for some months afterwards they carried on a sort of flying campaign, with a desperation and ferocity that constantly baffled the operations of the regular troops. Lord Edward Fitzgerald died on the 3rd of June from the effects of the wounds he received in the frantic resistance he offered to the ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... two or three plates with some trifling difficulty, for I didn't understand the automatic apparatus then as I understand it now: but the fourth stuck hard for a minute; the fifth broke in two; and the sixth—well, the sixth plate baffled me entirely by getting jammed in the clockwork, and refusing to move, ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... baffled. He had expected to surprise her into a confession. He did not suppose he had subjugated this woman so completely that she would make her interests identical with his own, and he could only explain her answer by ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... man go aside from the highway, maundering and talking to himself, think there must be a reason for it; they suppose him insane, or scornful, or meditating a murder,—in any case, one to be visited with hard thoughts; and thus baffled curiosity will grow uneasily into disgust, and into calumny, if not into some species of outrage,—and very naturally, after all; for man is, on the whole, made for society, and society has a sovereign right to take cognizance of him, his ways and his movements, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... Tsing-tao. China had endeavoured, indeed, but unsuccessfully, to preclude belligerent operations in her territory: only after the Japanese landing, when she was powerless to do otherwise, had she extended the zone of war. As to the responsibility, she reiterated her previous declaration. The baffled Germans fell back on threats: the right was reserved to visit upon China dire consequences for her alleged breach of neutrality. The incident, thrown into striking contrast with Germany's offer to Belgium, marked the unscrupulousness of German diplomacy, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... the baffled seekers after ways and means who had gone out to try arguments upon the storm, began to come pouring back into the car. And bringing with them not only their loud and coarse voices with every shade of disagreeableness ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... appeared, but they had made their getaway. Baffled, he turned and retraced his steps ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... a baffled manner and tries to worm out a hint, but they say it's a thing would go like wildfire once it got known, being so much tastier than whale meat and easier to ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot. My life thou shalt command, but not my shame: The one my duty owes; but my fair name,— Despite of death, that lives upon my grave,— To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have. I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here; Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear, The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood Which breath'd ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... woodman abroad for us, and he does not hew down, he simply transplants. God is our only judge; to him alone shall we yield the record of life's troubled day, and isn't it a great comfort to think that he so fully understands what have been our limitations, and how we have been handicapped and baffled and hindered? If jockeys were to enter their horses for the great Derby with the understanding that the road was rough and the horses blind, do you think much would be expected of the finish? And is heaven less ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... black corsage, striped with those fine red roses. And now Adrienne's anger, the grief that she had trampled under for some hours, increased from moment to moment, heightened and stung by the sight of this creature, by all kinds of bitter thoughts and by visions of treason and baffled love. She felt that she was becoming literally mad at the thought that, upon those red and painted lips, Sulpice had rested his, that his hands had stroked those shoulders, unwound that hair, that this woman's body had been folded in his arms. ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... safely lodged in Newgate. They did not know that as soon as the convict was given in charge of the tipstaff of the court he was led away by Inspector Denning, along a carefully planned and circuitous route that entirely baffled the curiosity of the waiting crowd. Through the Court of Exchequer the prisoner and his guards went, by the members' private staircase, across the lobby, along the corridor, through the smoking-room into the Commons Courtyard, ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... human sagacity was sometimes baffled, and how often the most valuable discoveries are made by chance. He had employed himself and his emissaries seven years at great expense to perfect his series of Gazettes, but had long wanted a single paper, which, when he despaired ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... tell of what only came to my knowledge many years later, and not through himself, of attempts made to tamper with his integrity, and gain private information from him which he had steadily baffled.' ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are incredibly prolific. All they write is poor, and the spiteful fairy, spiteful to us, has granted them the faculty to write thus, without any trouble, for ever. Up to this day Lydgate's works have baffled the attempts of the most enterprising literary societies; the Early English Text Society has some time ago begun to publish them; if it carries out the undertaking, it will be ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... he tried to grapple his foe by the throat. The cries of the mother now mingled with those of the child as he put out his little arms to shield his black protector. The ruffian, foiled in his purpose, with baffled rage evaded the negro by stepping to one side; and as he did so, he hurled the helpless child with great force from him. The large cabin windows at the stern were open to let in the breeze; and as the brig sank slowly down with her counter to the following waves, and ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... paused; his breast rose and fell with his labored breathing; his sword was dyed red, also his arms, his clothes; from his forehead the blood ran down over his beard. His eyes rolled like those of an animal; he seemed something inhuman; an incarnation of baffled purpose. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... relentless iron hands that tamed that brilliant, baffled creature—and hers was the only strain in Margarita that genius need be called on to vindicate!—I won from the old caretaker, a family retainer, who showed me, on a proper day, over the gloomy, faded glories of the musty palace. She was always heretic at heart, the old ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... routing those who were opposite him without any trouble he slew many. And a great outcry and commotion arose throughout the city, as was to be expected, and the Romans gathered as quickly as possible to all parts of the fortifications; whereupon the barbarians after a short time retired to their camp baffled. ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... is an awful thing to hear the bloodhounds following up the scent which leads them straight to our lurking-place. God's judgments may be long in being put on our tracks, but, once loose, they are sure of scent, and cannot be baffled. It is an old, old thought, 'Thou God seest me'; but kept well in mind, it would save from many a sin, and make sunshine in many ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... obstinately in his lines between Edinburgh and Leith. A march of the English army round his position to the slopes of the Pentlands only brought about a change of the Scottish front; and as Cromwell fell back baffled upon Dunbar, Leslie encamped upon the heights above the town, and cut off the English retreat along the coast by the seizure of Cockburnspath. His post was almost unassailable, while the soldiers of Cromwell ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... kilometers—and yet they must be close to send such a wave as that. But the Second thinks not—what do you think, Costigan?" The bluff commander, reactionary and of the old school as was his breed, was furious—baffled, raging inwardly to come to grips with the invisible and undetectable foe. Face to face with the inexplicable, however, he listened to the ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... attack of redemptive energy in the sphere of personal life. It comes to a man shamed by the sense of guilt and baffled by moral failure, and rouses him to a consciousness of his high worth and eternal destiny. It transmits the faith of the Christian Church in a loving and gracious God who is willing to forgive and powerful to save. ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... Sybella, holding to the point with a persistence that showed she would not be lightly baffled, "her face haunted me, too. And I have seen it since then,—engraved, I am sure. Sometimes, when I look at you suddenly, I seem to take hold ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... police commissioner, and the public prosecutor had been baffled in their proceedings and inquiries by the effects ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... still held him by the arms, else he and St. Genis would have been at one another's throat before now. But his gestures as he struggled to free himself, the imprecations which he uttered were those of a man who was baffled and found out—not of one who ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... Adrian Boldero, in his queer, silky way, incisively definite; Tom Castleton, romantically definite. And poor old Tom was dead. Dear, impossible, feckless fellow. He took a first class in the Classical Tripos and we thought his brilliant career was assured—but somehow circumstances baffled him; he had a terrible time for a dozen years or so, taking pupils, acting, free-lancing in journalism, his father having, in the meanwhile, died suddenly penniless; and then Fortune smiled on him. He secured a professorship at an Australian University. The three of us—Jaffery and ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... that had defeated Napoleon stopped, baffled, before a breast-work defended by raw militiamen; when, finding that the heads of their columns melted away like wax in fire as they approached the blaze of those hunters' rifles, they finally recoiled, terribly defeated,—saved from total destruction, perhaps, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Quite baffled by the man's obstinacy, I said no more, but walked off. If my anger was roused, my ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... and crew were aboard when the baffled mob retreated from Mineola, and some, when that danger was past, wished to descend to the ground, and go and look at the rising waters, which had not yet invaded the neighborhood. But Cosmo absolutely forbade any departures from the ark. The ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... his shoulders, baffled and irritated. He had always looked to Galen for advice in a predicament. It was Galen, in fact, who had kept him from playing much more than the part of a spy-listening, talking, suggesting, but forever ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... illness had ever been known in the district, and since it had not only baffled Mooty's skill, but had irreverently seized him—the only physician of credit and renown—its cause must be supernatural. Thus did he reason, as he began occult investigations. Jack and Rosey lay in their camp passively dying. Mooty prowled about, the sleeves of a ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Charles, her monarch, is restored: And she, that sometime wore a saintly mask, The stale-grown vizor from her face doth pluck, And weareth now a suit of morris bells, With which she jingling goes through all her towns and villages. The baffled factions in their houses sculk: The common-wealthsman, and state machinist, The cropt fanatic, and fifth-monarchy-man, Who heareth of these visionaries now? They and their dreams have ended. Fools do sing, Where good men yield God thanks; ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and shaven hero, with a magnificent gesture, motioned the villain to begone! That baffled person, after waiting long enough to register despair, spread his fingers across his brow and be-went; the hero turned, held out his arms; the scornful young beauty crept into them. Click! On the screen appeared ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... weep in secret. The next day the castle rang with the escape of Alexis. Messengers were sent out in pursuit of him in every direction; but a fall of snow in the latter part of the night prevented the possibility of tracking him, and even the dogs that the count put upon the scent were completely baffled. The next day the count and his daughter ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... again threw up his hands, this time in baffled chagrin. There was deep regret in his dark eyes as ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... struck me a blow in the mouth. It involved ever so many things in it. It ran over me, questioning and examining, as if I had been a wild beast. It said, 'Did my ears deceive me, or did I hear aright?' And then came the painful, baffled expression, which was worse than all. It said, 'I wonder if that's true?' But, as she left the room, she seemed to accuse herself of having wronged me, and smiled kindly upon me, and said, 'She is my little scholar, and I will go and see her.' I replied not a word. I was too much ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... for soldiers of the cross To point their weapons, each at other's breast, When the great Enemy, the common Foe, Though baffled, unsubdued, lays ever wait For some unguarded pass, to cheat the walls Not all his dread artillery could breach? How is each lunge, and ward, of tart reproof, And bitter repartee—painful to friends— ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... even in summer measure their strength against it. But Napoleon III inspired this road, and it emerges, quickly rejuvenated, from tempest and torrent, to laugh unconquered. Of the undertakings of the Bonaparte family, only two were ever baffled by opposing forces. ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... of his long and patient investigation; of scents which had led nowhere; of threads which had broken in his hand; of fruitless burrowings into the graves of past generations. These disappointments had lengthened the search, but they had never, baffled the searcher nor broken ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... though they illustrate dramatic incidents; the third is predominantly instrumental, though it has an accompaniment of word and action. The first is an intermezzo in which all action ceases except that which plays in the bestially perverted heart and mind of Salome. A baffled amorous hunger changes to a desire for revenge. The second is the music of the dance. The third is the marvelous finale in which an impulse which can only be conceived as rising from the uttermost pit of degradation is beatified. Crouching over the dissevered ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... honored by the hierarchy and people, enemies were not wanting to him. In 1144 the monastery had been burned and hostile clouds were again gathering round it, when in 1163 Flathbert erected a cashel or series of earthen fortifications, which baffled for a time the enmity of the plunderer. A passing calm was thus assured him, of which he took advantage, in 1164, to commence the building of his Cathedral, called in Irish "Teampull-mor," a name which one of the city parishes still retains. But the times were troublous, and hardly was ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... wore a blue sweater. He was neither a Raffles nor one of the chefs from Hell's Kitchen. The police would have been baffled had they attempted to classify him. They have not yet heard of the respectable, unassuming burglar who is neither above nor ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... Can I do it? God's will May no man thwart, or leave his righteousness Baffled. I would not say, 'My will be done,' Were God's will not for righteousness as mine, If right be righteous, wrong be wrong, must be. How else may God work wrong's requital? I Must be or none may be his minister. And yet what righteousness ...
— Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... each other in all directions. And among the would-be readers may be found every shade of intelligence, and every degree of ignorance. There is the timid variety, too modest or diffident to ask for any help at all, and so feeling about among the catalogues or other reference-books in a baffled search for information. There is the sciolist variety, who knows it all, or imagines that he does, and who asks for proof of impossible facts, with an assurance born of the profoundest ignorance. Then, too, there is the half-informed reader, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... some little crowding in passing the gate, yet only a small portion of the water was spilled. The brave water carriers were received with open arms and loud cheers by the garrison, who hailed them as their preservers, and the Indians shortly after retired, baffled and cursing themselves for being outwitted ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... South, and West also, and, in addition, you essayed realms where commerce and purely real affairs have no foothold—worlds of thought, of spiritual import, of psychic phenomena—speaking generally, of mysteries. As now and again I was baffled in my inquiries, I had to enlarge my mechanism, and to this end started—not in my own name, of course—some new magazines devoted to certain branches of inquiry and adventure. Should you ever care to know more of these things, Mr. Trent, in whose name the stock is left, will be delighted ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... name. Who is it? Lloyd. Thus, when the aged friends of Job stood mute, And, tamely prudent, gave up the dispute, Elihu, with the decent warmth of youth, Boldly stood forth the advocate of Truth; Confuted Falsehood, and disabled Pride, Whilst baffled Age stood snarling at his side. The day of trial's fix'd, nor any fear Lest day of trial should be put off here. 240 Causes but seldom for delay can call In courts where forms are few, fees none at all. The morning came, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... hundred years before the date of his decease; he appears, too, to have had some connexion with a person named Isaac Madley, or Bradley, and through his mother with the Turners of Kirkleatham. This inquiry is made in the hope of unravelling a genealogical difficulty which has hitherto baffled all ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... voice, and in a minute the place was a shambles. Before Maxim and Lee-Metford were too hot to touch, before the baffled foe fell back, those who surged in through the gate climbed, not over a wall of dead, but up on to a platform of dead, a plateau through which ran a valley literally blasted ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... Canterbury asking him 'to represent the case to the Lord Chancellor, that he might give such directions that his courts might go on to enforce ecclesiastical censures with civil penalties, without fear of being baffled in their proceedings.'[702] In the later meetings of Convocation this subject of the enforcement of Church discipline was constantly suggested for discussion; but, as questions which were, or were supposed to be, of more immediate interest claimed ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... death. Even now, as I stood bareheaded, my breath in check, one of the fellows grasped this hand, wrenched open these delicate fingers with brutal strength, and finding within them only a wisp of crumpled paper, swore a hoarse oath of baffled cupidity that changed to a howl as my uncle's cane rapped ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... again his tongue was tied. In a word he could have explained the whole predicament; but he did not. Instead he sat as if stunned, the heart inside him pounding violently. He saw that his father was not only deeply annoyed but baffled to solve the incident. ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... of the Federal army, fifteen miles away to the north-west, suddenly vanished from the landscape, and great clouds of dust, rising high above the woods, left it no longer doubtful that Pope had taken the alarm. It was too late to interfere, and the sun set on an army baffled of its prey. In the Confederate councils there was some dismay, among the troops much heart-burning. Every hour that was wasted brought nearer the junction of Pope and McClellan, and the soldiers were well aware that a most promising opportunity, which it was worth while living ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... forth with great caution into the night, but we always spotted the man we wanted, and almost invariably arrested him elsewhere, having followed him from his kennel. In each case my uniformed officers found a dark and empty cellar, and retired apparently baffled. But the coincidence that on the night of every raid some member there present was secretly arrested in another quarter of Paris, and perhaps given a free passage to Russia, never seemed to awaken suspicion in the minds ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... the full history of that life, its joys and its sorrows, its aspirations, its baffled hopes, its compensations that didn't compensate, the bareness of the life, the dagger-sharp trials with what is called small things, the wild heart struggles veiled by the New England coldness of expression, some as her sharp crags and stuns are covered with the long reign of ice and snow. ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... quirks necessary to the capture of the wary and elusive moonshiner. Nevertheless, it was impossible, on either of these obvious bases, to account for the fact of something withheld in the stranger's manner, some secret exultant knowledge of the phenomenon which baffled the mountaineer's speculation. Hite, all unaware that in his impulsive speech he had disclosed the fact of his hazardous occupation, began to feel that, considering his liability to the Federal law for making brush whiskey, he had somewhat ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the rest. They then made their escape on horses belonging to the guards. As soon as their absence was discovered, bloodhounds were put upon the trail which led towards the interior. The dogs were soon completely baffled, however, for the fugitives had evidently taken to water whenever they came near a pond or creek. This ruse, as well as the whole uprising, is believed to have been the headwork of 'Indian Charley,' one of the escaped prisoners, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... values—of distinguishing this from that, for truth lies in the mass. The delicate nuances of Chopin's music have never been equaled by another composer; every note is cryptic, every sound a symbol. And yet it is dance-music, too, but still it tells its story of baffled hope and stifled desire—the tragedy of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... Christians, whom jealousy, covetousness, and the spirit of the world blinded and seared to every feeling, not only of religion, but even of humanity. Religious missionaries, filled with the spirit of the apostles, and armed with the power of God, baffled obstacles which seemed insurmountable to flesh and blood; and by their zeal, charity, patience, humility, meekness, mortification, and invincible courage, triumphantly planted the standard of the cross in a world heretofore unknown to us, and but lately ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... bowl, The rich repast prepare; Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast: Close by the regal chair Fell Thirst and Famine scowl{25} A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. Heard ye the din of battle{26} bray, Lance to lance, and horse to horse? Long years of havoc urge their destined course, And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their way. Ye towers of Julius,{27} London's lasting shame, With ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... drawn swords in the presence of nearly all the officers of the colonial army, and of a vast concourse of spectators. The stripling De Soto displayed skill with his weapon which not only baffled his opponent, but which excited the surprise and admiration of all the on-lookers. For two hours the deadly conflict continued, without any decisive results. De Soto had received several trifling wounds, while his antagonist was unharmed. At ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... its place, and he found himself wholly unarmed, just as he came to a tree which the wind had blown down, and which spread before him a mass of roots and earth eight or nine feet high. He gathered all his strength, bounded into the air, and cleared it, while a yell of wonder rose from the baffled Indians behind him. A little later he came upon General Madison of Kentucky sitting on a log, so spent with the day's work and loss of blood from a wound, that he could no longer walk, and waiting for the Indians to come up and kill him. Kennan ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... remembering that scene in the orchard, and her baffled lover's menaces. Had he forgiven her altogether, and was this kind interest in her affairs an unconscious heaping of coals of fire on her head? Had he forgiven her so easily? Again she argued with herself, as she had ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... derived so much pleasure and surprise out of ordinary life. She was as uncritical and tolerant of those she loved as she was narrow and vehement over those who had unaccountably offended her. She had an ebullient and voracious sense of humour and was baffled and eblouie by titled people, however vulgar and ridiculous they might be. By this I do not mean she was a snob—on the contrary she made and kept friends among the frumps and the obscure, to whom she showed faithful hospitality; ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... swung round and made off. Not so P. Sybarite. Profoundly intrigued, he waited hopefully for this second midnight caller to reappear, as baffled as himself. But though he dawdled away a patient five minutes, nothing of the sort occurred. The front doors remained closed and undisturbed, as little communicative as the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... each other face to face. The intuition and ready wit of the woman pierced the disguise which had baffled the soldier. ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... the prisoner." The distinguished scarlet mask suddenly changed tune. While the hideous face within the close-fitting hood glared fiendishly at Marjorie, the real face behind it wore an expression of baffled anger. The unruly prisoner seemed in possession of an inner force that forbade molestation. Then, too, she was unafraid and all ready to ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... favourable, that it might in all things resemble the last conflagration of the world. The destruction was sudden, for in a small space of time the City was seen most flourishing, and reduced to nothing. Three days after, when this fatal fire had baffled all human counsels and endeavours in the opinion of all, it stopped as it were by a command from Heaven, and was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... admitted her husband's embraces but for the sake of posterity. If her hopes were baffled, in the ensuing ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... round the rampart, these same troops, After the taking of the "Cavalier,"[449] Just as Koutousow's most "forlorn" of "hopes" Took, like chameleons, some slight tinge of fear, Opened the gate called "Kilia," to the groups[450] Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near, Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, Now thawed into a marsh ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Baffled in this direction, the new commander-in-chief, General Gage, resolved to accomplish the desired end by an expedition from Fort Pitt. Pontiac, however, was known to be still plotting vengeance at that time, and it seemed ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... constantly engaged skirmishing with the enemy during the day. At about three P.M. the Confederates massed troops in two columns, one on each side the road, flanked by a line some eight hundred yards long, in the woods. An impetuous charge was made to within twenty yards of the abattis, but it was baffled by ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... as I could, and then he remarked: "Do you know, while in Athens our little party stood on the Acropolis admiring the Parthenon, and one enthusiastic Grecian exclaimed: 'There is the wonder of the world. For three thousand years its perfection has baffled and taught the genius of every generation. It can be copied, but never yet has been equalled. Surely, notwithstanding your love of New York and devotion to the ticker, you must admire the Parthenon.' I answered him, if ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... baffled look and stealthy stride Sudden vanished from the room, leaving squaws. Side by side the English stood with pointed weapons, Eyes fixed on the open door whence swiftly came Savage warriors rushing madly on their ...
— Pocahontas. - A Poem • Virginia Carter Castleman
... fear; all voiced disappointment, the passion of baffled fury. Angrily a boiler-shop clatter of machine-guns ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... so history tells us, that one of the grandees of Spain, the great Duke of Medina Sidonia, was wrecked when he sailed in command of that mighty Armada which would have assuredly crushed the power of England had it not been so completely baffled by the wonderful opposition of the elements. Many of his crew after being saved from the fury of the tempest were cruelly murdered by the barbarous inhabitants, and he and a small remnant only escaped to the main island of Shetland, whither ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... single instance, unless we may except the case of the Black Warrior, under the late Administration, and that presented an outrage of such a character as would have justified an immediate resort to war. All our attempts to obtain redress have been baffled and defeated. The frequent and oft-recurring changes in the Spanish ministry have been employed as reasons for delay. We have been compelled to wait again and again until the new minister shall have had time to investigate ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... hitherto seen, with great indignation, their attempts baffled and their force defied by an enemy, whom they considered themselves as entitled to conquer by the right of prescription, and whom many ages of hereditary superiority had taught them to despise. Their fleets were more numerous, and their seamen braver, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... quell the noise, if possible, but he might as well have stamped and roared at Niagara. Not a voice cared for his threats or his rage, but those within reach of his arm. The choleric little man had to come back baffled. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... have been baffled by this conflict between the aims of the eighteenth century and the accomplishments of the twentieth. The facts they admit. For explanation, either they may say, "It was the war," implying that with the cessation of hostilities and the return to ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... powers of every Continental police like a plague of crimson gadflies. But this extreme writer has been also the active inspirer of secret societies, the mysterious unknown Number One of desperate conspiracies suspected and unsuspected, matured or baffled. And the world at large has never had an inkling of that fact! This accounts for him going about amongst us to this day, a veteran of many subterranean campaigns, standing aside now, safe within his reputation of merely the greatest ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... hundred years the Christian world endeavored to rescue from the "Infidel" the empty sepulchre of Christ. For three hundred years the armies of the cross were baffled and beaten by the victorious hosts of an impudent impostor. This immense fact sowed the seeds of distrust throughout all Christendom, and millions began to lose confidence in a God who had been vanquished by Mohammed. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... asked angrily. No man likes to have his mind turned inside out and laid out flat so that all the little wheels, cables and levers are open to the public gaze. On the other hand, since I was not only innocent of any crime but as baffled as the rest of them, I'd have gone to them willingly to let them dig, to see if they could dig past my conscious mind into ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... who used it must do so without dispute. For a long time Kolbiorn and Egbert went on peaceably with their game. But while Olaf watched them, he noticed that Egbert became more and more ruffled, as he found himself being constantly baffled by his opponent's better play. So great was Kolbiorn's skill that Egbert at length became desperate, and only made matters worse by his hasty moves. He wanted to move back a knight which he had exposed, but Kolbiorn would not allow it. Olaf advised them to leave the knight ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... orders then. 'Twas the cat those men wanted. Before Pierre Radisson had said one word the mutineers had discovered the deck cannon pointing amidships. A shout of baffled rage broke from the ragged group. Quick words passed from man to man. A noisy, shuffling, indeterminate movement! The crowd swayed forward. There was a sudden rush from the fo'castle to the waist. They ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... "Thus baffled, the burghers of the little city found their proud position quite untenable. They accordingly, on the 1st of December, despatched the burgomaster and a senator to Amersfoort, to make terms, if possible, with Don Frederic. ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... were hidden beneath trade signs in London and Hamburg. A good number owed their lives to that mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, that unknown Englishman who had snatched scores of victims from the clutches of Tinville the Prosecutor, and sent M. Chauvelin, baffled, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... constantly, to better her speech, and she had proved an apt pupil. Now it seemed that she had sunk back into her race. Her face was guileless, stolidly guileless, giving no cue. Kitty's untroubled brow likewise baffled him. What had happened? How much had been said? and ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... preserving the general peace of Europe was that Austria should be permitted to deal with Serbia as she pleased, without interference from any other power. And so it continued through those critical days. Every effort made by England looking toward a peaceful settlement of the quarrel was baffled by Germany's refusal to cooeperate. This is not difficult to understand in the light of our later knowledge of the plans and aims of the ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... Chateau rose a tower of rough masonry—crenellated on top, and loopholed on the sides—which had been built as a place of defence and refuge during the Indian wars of the preceding century. Often had the prowling bands of Iroquois turned away baffled and dismayed at the sight of the little fortalice surmounted by a culverin or two, which used to give the alarm of invasion to the colonists on the slopes of Bourg Royal, and to the dwellers along the wild banks ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... hope and delight, the flowers and leaves glad to feel themselves alive. What was one to make of it all? Where to turn for light? What conceivable benefit could result from thus perpetually desiring to know and perpetually being baffled? ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Wells—seeing only its individual manifestations, quite baffled and unable to look beyond the individuals to any vision of the people as a whole (he travelled over a ludicrously small portion of the country)—sums up as a "lack of sense of the State" is in truth the cardinal quality which has made the greatness of the United States—and ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... every barking tongue could allege against a Service so unservicable and needlesse," he sent out year after year the most skillful and daring sailors of Italy and Portugal, and inspired them anew, as often as they returned baffled and discouraged, with his own perennial enthusiasm. Between 1435 and 1460, famous captains in his service—Gil Eannes, Denis Diaz, the Venetian Cadamosto—made those crucial voyages round the Point of Bojador, past ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... years of vain solicitations in Portugal, he left the banks of the Tagus to seek aid of Ferdinand and Isabella, rich in nautical experience, having watched the stars at sea from the latitude of Iceland to near the equator at Elmina. Though yet longer baffled by the skepticism which knew not how to comprehend the clearness of his conception, or the mystic trances which sustained his inflexibility of purpose, or the unfailing greatness of his soul, he lost nothing of his devotedness to the sublime office to which he held himself elected from ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... unpleasant, so involved in mystery, and giving rise to so many painful surmises, afforded me no very agreeable food for rumination. All attempts on my part to arrive at the truth were baffled; Lord Glenfallen evaded all my enquiries, and at length peremptorily forbid any further allusion to the matter. I was thus obliged to rest satisfied with what I had actually seen, and to trust to time to resolve the perplexities in which the whole transaction ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... detectives from New York, New Orleans and other places completely baffled. He expected to be followed by a gentlemanly appearing man, who would drink and smoke occasionally, wear a heavy gold watch chain, and have plenty of money to spend; but the idea of being followed by a poor old ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... you please, my dear V——," replied the conspirator with a slightly baffled air. "You have made a good beginning, apparently, with the ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... outside who were not to be supplied on any account with anything they asked for. The widow obeyed blindly. They asked for tea—she refused to sell it; they asked for biscuits—she set her hand firmly on the lid; they mentioned the picture—she was a rock. Baffled, they withdrew; and the widow, now on the right scent, took the next train to Brighton to lay the whole matter before her landlord. He took it up, consulted an expert, and the picture was found to be a portrait of Mrs. Jordan, the work either of ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... about Melastoma: these flowers have baffled me, and I have caused several friends much useless labour; though, Heaven knows, I have thrown away time enough ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... his inward knowledge to that of the world outside. Yet his vanity was keenly sensitive to disapprobation, and when the censure of the world coincided with the condemnation of his own reason he suffered. To self- contempt was added a baffled sense of having been discovered; and as his imagination now ran forward to picture the effects of Irons's disclosure, the suffering ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... access to the house. This French window yielded at once to a firm push. The three men searched the ground-floor and found nothing. They then ascended the stairs and equally found nothing. The house must have been empty for many months. From the first-floor window at the back Hugo gazed out, baffled. Far off he could see lights of houses, but the foreground ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... a while may yield to wrong, And virtue be baffled by crime, But the help of our need and the might of our creed Are faith, ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... poor specimen of a bird which to my unornithological eyes appears to be a happy mixture of a lark, pigeon and snipe (No. 710). Mr. MacLeay himself never imagined such an inosculating creature: I suppose it will turn out to be some well-known bird, although it has quite baffled me. I have taken some interesting Amphibia; a new Trigonocephalus beautifully connecting in its habits Crotalus and the Viperidae, and plenty of new (as far as my knowledge goes) saurians. As for one little toad, I hope it may be new, that it may ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the old-time low-bell held each bird Suddenly trembling, nestling pair by pair Dark in the covert, till a blinding glare Of torchlight and a clamorous shouted word Dazed their bright eyes, and terrified wings upwhirred To baffled blundering ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... so much that I did my best to enter into conversation with him, only to be baffled by the jerky embarrassment with which he met all advances, and when we got out at Esher, curiosity led me to ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... it had made no difference at any time. He cared for neither praise nor blame. In his actions a materialist, in his mind he was a watcher of life, a baffled inquirer whose refuge was irony, and whose singular habits had in five years become a personal insult to the standards polite society and Puritan morality had set up. Perhaps the insult had been intended, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... have been at his throat. But before that second passed he was in mid-air, his legs spread wide like those of a squirrel, falling to the ice-cakes of the swollen river. From the brink above, the grim eyes of the baffled pack flamed down upon him for an instant, and then withdrew. What was a drowned wolf, when there was a winded ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts |
