"Puzzled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war—congress—Stony Point. He had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, "Does nobody here know ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Catbird had only wanted to have a jolly time with the Bobolink family. He had intended to sing one of Bobby's songs a few times, until they were puzzled; and then he had expected to dash out of the bush where he was hiding and have a good laugh with Mr. and Mrs. Bobolink. But somehow his plans were ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... riotous charcoal sketches which formed the mural decoration of the studio were distinctly "advanced." But, since the center of interest seemed to be the large canvas on the easel, the two moved to the edges of the group of spectators and began to examine this masterpiece. A very puzzled newspaperman joined them, bending and ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... versification and dialogue are so astonishingly Shakesperian that it is almost impossible to account for the writing of them by any one else than Shakespere. By far the larger majority of critics declare for the part authorship of Shakespere in The Two Noble Kinsmen; I avow myself simply puzzled. On the other hand, I am nearly sure that he did not write any part of Edward III., and I should take it to be a case of a kind not unknown in literature, where some writer of great but not very ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... received this message, one evening at sundown, he went into the house and repeated it to Rachel, for it puzzled him much, and he knew ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... puzzled, wistful expression, staring straight ahead like a man striving to solve ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... was relating to King James that he had seen the true Philosopher's Stone, in the possession of a hermit in Italy; and when the king was very curious to understand what sort of a stone it was, and Sir Kenelm being much puzzled in describing it, Sir Francis Bacon, who was present, interposed, and said, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... all the sap and vigour of the human intellect: and what has it effected? What profitable truth has it taught us which we should not equally have known without it? What has it enabled us to do which we should not have been equally able to do without it?" Such questions, we suspect, would have puzzled Simplicius and Isidore. Ask a follower of Bacon what the new philosophy, as it was called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind, and his answer is ready; "It has lengthened life; it has ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... time the features of the Quick Man were assuming a puzzled expression. "This thing beats me," he whispered, "I don't see through it ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... Gentlemen, you will never settle this controversy till you have first settled what is good for man in this world; the great question, de finibus, which has puzzled all philosophers. If the enchanter has represented the twelfth century too brightly for one, and too darkly for the other of you, I should say, as an impartial man, he has represented it fairly. ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... turned and looked at the bowed sleek head with a puzzled expression. "A ghost!" he murmured. "I ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... expertness. Thinking on his experience, he concludes that the subjects which can be imitated deceptively are limited in range and interest; he has a vague, disquieting sense that somehow these pictures do not mean anything. Yet he is puzzled. Art aims to represent, he tells himself, and it should follow that the best art is that which represents most closely and exactly. He recalls, perhaps, the legend of the two Greek painters, one with his picture of the fruit which the birds flew down to peck at, the other with his ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... the performance as being, in its main features, "a complete failure," and the stage setting "incredibly awkward and wooden" (very different from what it is in Dresden to-day). Mme. Schroeder-Devrient was an admirable "Senta," and received enthusiastic applause; but the opera itself puzzled the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Dr. Johnson). 'Pray, Sir, have you read Edwards, of New England, on Grace?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'It puzzled me so much as to the freedom of the human will, by stating, with wonderful acute ingenuity, our being actuated by a series of motives which we cannot resist, that the only relief I had was to forget it.' MAYO. 'But he makes the proper distinction between moral and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... wood beside them and then the arrow was fitted to the string, while Old Mok, strong-armed if weak-legged, raised aloft his spear. The two were seeking no conflict with wild beasts today and were but defensive and alert. They were puzzled by the sound their quick ears caught. "Patter, patter," ever beside them, but deep in the forest shade, came the sound of menacing ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... puzzled. 'Such ideas you have in your country? Why? Leesen now, my friend, I also have a sadness, but consider if you was a bull, or I was a bull. Would you prefair to go to your death in a bull-ring or to be led to ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... by what he had learned in the cabal of "The Importants," of whose jargon he had retained some smattering, which, together with some expressions he had perfectly acquired from Madame de Vendome, formed a language that would have puzzled a Cato. His speech was short and stupidly dull, and the more so because he obscured it by affectation. He thought himself very sufficient, and pretended to a great deal more wit than came to his share. He was brave enough in his person, and outdid the common Hectors by being so ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... unlike that of any other spot in England, with its privileged powers, and exemptions from the general law, with its special mode of government and police, its usages and tastes and traditions, and even costume, which the rest of England looked at from the outside, much interested but much puzzled, or knew only by transient visits. And Oxford was as proud and jealous of its own ways as Athens or Florence; and like them it had its quaint fashions of polity; its democratic Convocation and its oligarchy; its social ranks; its discipline, severe in ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... twinkled freely when he saw the guests in his home, and the gentle bishop's puzzled interest nearly sent them all off into laughter. Fairy had no idea of the young men's names, but she ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... hall I found this behind the portieres at the entrance to below-stairs," he announced. "I was quite puzzled for a moment, for I knew the master had taken it into the dining-room ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... but away I went, happy in her service, swinging the heavy bucket and humming to myself, as care-free and light-hearted as any youth in Christendom, and presently reached the pool. I was stooping, in the act of filling the bucket, when I paused, arrested by a sudden, vague indefinable sound that puzzled me to account for and set me idly speculating whence it came and what it might be; so I filled the bucket and then, all in a moment, though why I cannot explain, puzzlement changed to swift and sudden dread and, dropping the ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Frank, with a frown on his face. "It's puzzled me a whole lot, let me tell you, Andy. Because, of course, my first thought was that it must have been Percy Carberry's work; but now that you tell me he was here, and knew we hadn't fetched our hydroplane home, I ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... witnessed a veritable case of fascination—for the young man was looking intently into the eyes of a large rattlesnake, coiled at his feet; nor could the voices of all his friends arouse him. Being jerked back with some violence, he instantly recovered his senses, but seemed to be puzzled to recall the circumstances connected with his first view of the snake. After a mental effort he explained, while the cold sweat poured from his face, and his limbs were flaccid as an infant's, that the sound of a rattle had caused him to stop short—that ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... phrase, the variations arose spontaneously. The fruitless search after final causes leads their pursuers a long way; but even those hardy teleologists, who are ready to break through all the laws of physics in chase of their favourite will-o'-the-wisp, may be puzzled to discover what purpose could be attained by the stunted legs of Seth Wright's ram or the hexadactyle members of ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... making it smooth. The fifth and the sixth nights he passed in the same way, and he ended the sixth night by heating the end of a small iron rod in the fire and burning the first three letters of Deane's epitaph on the slab. For a time he was puzzled, wondering whether he should use the name Scottie or David. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... resentment in a world out of joint, where the winning side was a butt for epigrams. To win, and be laughed at! To have the account reopened in lampoons and witticisms, contemptible but irritating, when it should be closed by the mere act of winning! It puzzled him, and he brooded over it, turning sulky in the end, not vicious. It was in no viciousness that he had flung a book at young Murray's head and called him a lousy Jacobite, but simply to provoke Wesley and get his grievance settled by intelligible weapons, ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... countrywomen of those two labourers. For who else would dig, and delve, and drudge, and do domestic work, and make canals and roads, and execute great lines of Internal Improvement! Irishmen both, and sorely puzzled too, to find out what they seek. Let us go down, and help them, for the love of home, and that spirit of liberty which admits of honest service to honest men, and honest work for honest bread, no ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... delightful sensation, so delightful that, after a minute, she walked back. Twice again, after short intervals, she trod the fascinating way so magically opened at the lifting of the big man's hand. But the last time her conductor left her at the curb, he gave a puzzled frown. ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... which the cavalcade was passing was lined with shabby-genteel brownstone houses, with high stoops and haughty dark doors, and dressmakers' placards or doctors' cards in the windows. Carl was puzzled. The girls seemed rather too cheerful to belong in this decayed and gloomy block, which, in the days when horsehair furniture and bankers had mattered, had seemed imposing. But the girls ascended the steps ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... he arrived when he learned that Shaibani Khan had arrived before Kandahar and was besieging his brother there. He was puzzled how to act, for he was not strong enough to meet Shaibani in the field. A strategist by nature, he recognised at the moment that the most effective mode open to him would be to make an offensive demonstration. He doubted only whether such a demonstration should be directed against Badakshan, ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... branches. At the inner extremity he found a mildewed blanket, and the place where the musical-box had evidently lain a long time; but there, though he delved to the elbows in the loosened earth, his discoveries ended. Puzzled and annoyed, Kilbride was on the verge of cursing his subordinate, when all at once he was given fresh cause. The musical-box had burst into selections from The ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... quickly to the bedside and his sharp eyes darted from the bank-note in the boy's hand to the signature his patient had written. The man looked wonderingly about the room, his puzzled gaze drifting from one to another of his visitors until it finally fastened upon the pale ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... was working quite well. He had scarcely seen Daisy since they had come down here, while he had seldom been out of her own company, and it was clear to Mrs. Halton that Daisy was certainly beginning to be puzzled, and, poor child, was beginning to ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... vaguely as sometimes equivalent to intelligence in general, sometimes to the poetic faculty, and sometimes to the erratic fancy, which the true poet restrains by sense. Pope would have been still more puzzled if asked to define precisely what he meant by the antithesis between nature and art. They are somehow opposed, yet art turns out to be only "nature methodized." We have indeed a clue for our guidance; to study nature, ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... never, a happiness, any happiness at all, to TAKE. The only safe thing is to give. It's what plays you least false." Interesting, touching, strikingly sincere as she let these things come from her, she yet puzzled and troubled him—so fine was the quaver of her quietness. He felt what he had felt before with her, that there was always more behind what she showed, and more and more again behind that. "You know so, at least," she added, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... friends. Bah! what are all your letters of introduction worth? What do they bring you in? A few invitations to dinner, or to spend a week up country by a wealthy estanciero, advice from this friend and the next friend, and from a dozen friends maybe, but all different. You are already getting puzzled. You don't know what to do for the best. You're stopping here to look about you, as the saying is. You might well ask me what right have I to advise you. The right of brotherhood, I may answer. By birth and station you may be far above me, but—you are friends—you are from dear ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... herself put an end to the matter. Her parents told her all unpreparedly, and with no doubt unnecessary harshness, the real position of the college lad with whom she had wandered in the fields so confidingly; and in the bewilderment of her poor little broken heart and puzzled brain, she gave herself to the river by whose flowering banks she had sworn her maiden vows,—though she knew it not,—to her future King; and so, drowning her life and love together, made a piteous exit from all difficulty. Before she went forth to die, she wrote a farewell to ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... Gibney or McGuffey been watching Captain Scraggs for the next twenty minutes they would have been much puzzled to account for that worthy's actions. First he dodged around the block into Drumm Street, and then ran down Drumm to California, where he climbed aboard a cable car and rode up into Chinatown. Arrived at Dupont Street he alighted ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... once said to Charles Young, who enthusiastically admired her great genius, "Vous trouvez qu'elle chante et joue bien, n'est-ce pas?" "Je crois bien," replied he, puzzled to understand her drift. "Well," replied the daughter of the great lyrical artist, "to us, to whom she belongs, and who know and love her, her great talent is the least admirable thing about her; but no one ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... of that principle. It was only to a prophetic genius like the Separatist Roger Williams that it was revealed that civil government had no concern to enforce "the laws of the first table." But the historical student might be puzzled to name any other church establishment under which less of molestation was suffered by dissenters, or more of actual encouragement given to rival sects, than under the New England theocracies. The Nationalist principle was exclusive; ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the mother, "but Kate has a will of her own. Mr. Ingram, you will allow me to take you into my confidence. I am often puzzled to know how to act towards Catherine. She is a good girl, but I can't lead her. She is only seventeen, only just seventeen. Surely that is too young an age to walk ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... questions to them in 1563 will be remembered. They replied that what astonished them most was (Essais I. xxx.) to see so many strong men armed and bearded (meaning the Swiss guard probably) obeying a puny little person like the King. They were also fairly puzzled at seeing men gorged with plenty and living in ostentation on one side of the road, and starveling ruffians begging their bread in the gutter on the other without attempting to take the rich men by the throat, or even burn their houses. On which the ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... [449] This passage puzzled Mr. Croker and Mr. Lockhart. The following extract from the Gent. Mag. for Feb. 1772, p. 92, throws light on Johnson's meaning:—'This, say the opposers of the Bill, is putting it in the King's power to change the order of succession, as he may for ever ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... as a more valuable asset than mere gold. She regretted always that poor little Amelia, her only grandchild, was so very plain-looking. She always knew that Amelia was very plain, and yet sometimes the child puzzled her. She seemed to see reflections of beauty, if not beauty itself, in the little colorless face, in the figure, with its too-large joints and utter absence of curves. She sometimes even wondered ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... didn't know what to do. I reckon they'd been reading magazines and thought that writing had to be like that muck. Anyway, they didn't know what to do. I reckon their talk would be good enough for Daleswood when they loved Daleswood like that. But they didn't, and they were puzzled. ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... her in difficulties; but that she was a 'wet hen' she never for a moment doubted. "She is so calm; nothing rouses her—though wet hens are not always calm! Oh! I can't understand it!" Her eldest daughter inspired Lizabetha with a kind of puzzled compassion. She did not feel this in Aglaya's case, though the latter was her idol. It may be said that these outbursts and epithets, such as "wet hen" (in which the maternal solicitude usually showed itself), only made Alexandra laugh. Sometimes the most trivial thing annoyed Mrs. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Puzzled at this singular behaviour (for he had never seen a hare act like it before), he ran after her; and the curious part of it was, that although she did indeed run away, she did not go far—she kept only a few yards in front, just evading him. If she ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... person confided to me, later in the day, that her new boarder troubled and puzzled her very much. "She will sit up until one or two o'clock every night, writing something or other, and that makes her late to breakfast. She goes out teaching every morning, and comes back tired and late to luncheon; ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... at him, puzzled. "I allowed you'd never ranched it much," he said, vaguely. "How'd you happen to come ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... Archie, and then with Doodles, and asked the latter why he was not as yet gone to Warwickshire. Archie, in almost mortal fear, looked up into his brother's face. Had his brother learned the story of that seventy pounds? Sir Hugh was puzzled beyond measure at finding that the woman knew the two men; but, having still an eye to his lamb chops, was chiefly anxious to get rid of Sophie ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... the gate behind him with steady hands. His lips were pressed firmly together, as if he had definitely made up his mind to something. Lone was impressed somehow with Swan's perfect control of his speech, his thoughts, his actions. But he was puzzled rather than anything else, and when Swan turned, facing him, Lone's ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... in Nature. There are men who will walk all day through a June wood and come out atheists at the end of it, finding no signature thereupon; and there are others who, sailing over the sea, come back home after seeing so many things still puzzled as to their ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... applied to adjectives, verbs and pronouns, sometimes the first syllable, Ngu or Nga was taken for the concord and sometimes the second mu or ma. This would account for the seemingly inexplicable lack of correspondence between the modern prefix and its accompanying particle, which so much puzzled Bleek and other early writers on the Bantu languages. In many of these tongues, for example, the particle which corresponds at the present day to the plural prefix Ma- is not always Ma, but more often Ga-, Ya-, A-; while to Mu- ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... knew of old, and the appearance of having been installed with the full approval of Cousin Martha and James and the rest of the family, stopped the questions on their lips, and they spent the afternoon much enlivened but slightly puzzled. ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... with the creeping sensation of unexplainable fear. He first thought some animal was prowling near, and, raising himself on his elbow, looked keenly about. The appearance of the fire puzzled him. It looked as if fresh wood had been laid upon it, but, as no one was in sight he concluded that his own wood had been damp, and, therefore, ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... at his cigar, removed it from his lips to glance at its glowing end, while the Mexicans stared up at him in silence, puzzled by this lone guard who carried no rifle, who did not flee away to spread an alarm and seek aid, and who so unexpectedly had appeared as ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... gathering at New Scotland Yard at which thirty or forty of the senior detectives of the metropolis, heads of districts, and headquarters men meet in conference and compare notes. The movements of criminals are checked, particular mysteries discussed. A. is puzzled by certain peculiarities in a robbery at Hampstead; B. remembers that similar peculiarities were present in an affair in which he arrested Bill Smith, at Brixton, some years ago. Resolved unanimously that Bill's recent ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... and his bright, restless eyes travelled over me, to my hands, to the stick I carried, to my feet, to the tattered places in my coat, and the cuts and scratches I had received from the thorns. He seemed puzzled at something. His eyes came back to my hands. He held his own hand out and counted his digits slowly, "One, two, ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... being a poor soap-and-candle maker, with a dozen children or more to support or assist, and Benjamin being a printer's apprentice, he was more and more puzzled to gratify his love of knowledge. But one day he hit upon an expedient that brought in a little cash. By reading a vegetarian book this hard, calculating Yankee lad had been led to think that people could live better without meat than with it, and that killing innocent animals ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... more puzzled than ever; for, as he himself alleged, his life had been spent more in studying the artifices of Indians, with whom he had long disputed his domain, than in diving ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... and as equals, she working with them, in which lies the answer to "What Is to Be Done?" After a while she falls in love with her husband's dearest friend, who is described as so exactly like him that the reader is puzzled to know wherein she descried favorable difference, and the husband, perceiving this, makes things easy by pretending to drown himself, but in reality going off to America. Several years later he returns—as an American—and his ex-wife's present husband, having become ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... reader be here unnecessarily alarmed. On that terrible slave question, over which wiser brains have puzzled, till they became lost in a labyrinth of self-contradiction, I purpose to speak only a few cursory words. It is beyond dispute that a vast extent of the richest land in the South can only be kept in cultivation ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... was slow to enter my mind, puzzled by an inquiry that at every moment was complicated by events which, at first sight, might be looked upon as superhuman; and more than once I was within an ace of abandoning a task in which I was exhausting myself in ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... a year was a great deal to George. That morning he had been very much puzzled to think how he was to keep himself going till he might be able to open the small end of the ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Count looked puzzled—as I meant him to be:—a heinous fault, and one intolerant to the clergy, that love of profane tongues! And the next thing against your Norman is (added the abbot, with a sly wink), that he is a close man, who loves not his stoup; now, I say, that a priest never has more hold ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... grizzling hair, fashionably dressed, flashing dark eyes, long gold ear-rings, gold beads and gaudy attire, came out to reclaim her property. A word or two passed about payment, during which Clement had a strange thrill of puzzled recollection. The bottles bore the labels of raspberry vinegar and lemonade, but he had seen too ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... after-birth has puzzled scientists as well as the laity, and not until comparatively recent times have its origin, structure, and use been satisfactorily explained. Its meaning profoundly interested primitive men and stimulated their imagination scarcely less than the mystery of conception. ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... to convict Awtry of being a spy. When brought before the court martial convened to try him, he displayed considerable arrogance, and obstinately persisted in declaring himself a British subject. With such plausibility did he defend himself, that the court was at first very much puzzled to decide whether or not he was a spy, for every evidence brought against the prisoner was explained and made insignificant by his consummate skill in argument, and it was only by the opportune arrival of a detective with the most decided ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... are told to beware the Yoop unless he is dangerous," observed the Scarecrow in a puzzled tone. ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... see how I can stop there. It's a great risk for me to take. If there was only one of the Directors on board now." Draxy looked still more puzzled. "No," he said, giving her back the ticket: "I can't do it no how;" ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... made the most of rather faulty music. Jacqueline thought the songs wonderful. It was her introduction to the sensuous, discordant harmonies of Strauss and de Bussy, of whom Channing was an ardent disciple. They puzzled and stirred her oddly. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... puzzled. It is not like Tish to be irritable without reason, although she has undoubtedly a temper. She was most unpleasant on the way out, remarking that if the Ostermaiers's maid continued to pare away half the potatoes, as any fool could see around their garbage can, she thought the church ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "I am most puzzled about a hat, Humphrey," said Edward: "I hate those steeple-crowned hats worn by the Roundheads; yet the hat and feather is not ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... Dr. Johnson, "should help us either to enjoy life or to endure it." Judged by this standard, one is puzzled what to recommend among Johnson's numerous books. The two things which belong among the things "worthy to be remembered" are his Dictionary and his Lives of the Poets, though both these are valuable, not as literature, but rather as a study of literature. ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... everything, but she did not know under what head to put this pleasant conversation. She was bewildered, puzzled. She listened without losing a word. She forgot ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... puzzled by this great difference, because in both cases it is impossible for the lamp circuit to be acted upon by the main current. It occurred to me, however, that the rapid alternations of the exciting current from the dynamo, and the consequent speed of magnetic molecular rotation, gave ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... the subject abruptly, and went on to talk of one or two matters of passing interest, which the papers had been booming for want of anything of real importance. She had evidently received an average education, Jimmy could see that plainly, and yet he was puzzled, for in many of her ideas, and especially in her strong prejudices, she belied her apparent age; for they were those of a child of fourteen, rather than of a girl of some two or three and twenty. Insensibly, he found himself ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... in his mobile face and the momentary arrest of its happy expression. She was frightened and yet puzzled. It was not the sensitiveness of a lover at the mention of the loved one's name, and yet it suggested an uneasy consciousness. If his previous impulsive outburst had been prompted honestly, or even artfully, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... pointed it out. But the captain observed that the next door was chalked in the same manner, and in the same place; and showing it to his guide, asked him which house it was, that, or the first. The guide was so confounded that he knew not what answer to make, but still more puzzled when he and the captain saw five or six houses similarly marked. He assured the captain, with an oath, that he had marked but one, and could not tell who had chalked the rest, so that he could not distinguish the house which the ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... of fighting a greatly superior army while his rear was threatened by the garrison of Mantua. Austria was making unparalleled efforts to drive this presumptuous young general from a land which she regarded as her own political preserve. Military historians have always been puzzled to account for her persistent efforts in 1796-7 to re-conquer Lombardy. But, in truth, the reasons are diplomatic, not military, and need not be detailed here. Suffice it to say that, though the Hapsburg lands in Swabia were threatened by Moreau's Army of the Rhine, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... fortunate circumstance, and things went smoothly on as in the good old time. But on the death of her parents Emily Barton, as the reader already knows, left Vellenaux to reside in London. The Rev. gentleman did not know which way to turn; he was sorely puzzled; he had depended so much on Emily that he began to think seriously of the possibility of being able to induce Miss Barton to exchange that name for the one of Denham. This matter had been revolving in his mind for ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... her hat, gave her friend a kiss, and ran down the steps and out again, through the wicket by which she had entered. A minute after the sound of her little carriage rolling away was heard, and Lucia came back flushed and puzzled. ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... The national title of Anticus, in the laws and inscriptions of Justinian, was adopted by his successors, and is justified by the pious Ludewig (in Vit. Justinian. p. 515.) It had strangely puzzled the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... exchanged puzzled glances. The fact was that they had never seen a fairy before; and they felt a little scared in her presence. However, Tyltyl ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... something like an argument and a conversation, but they were at that moment overtaken by the neighbouring farmer's wife, who wanted to give Miss Prescott some information about a setting of eggs, which she did at some length, and with a rapid utterance of dialect that amused, while it puzzled, Magdalen, and her inquiries and comments were decided to be "thoroughly good-wife" by all save Thekla, who hailed the possible ownership of a hen and chicken as almost equal ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... winter's journey. He also hired the requisite nartas, or sledges, and the thirty-nine dogs which were to draw them, thirteen to each. The he bargained for a large stock of frozen and dry fish for the dogs, and other provisions for themselves. But what mostly puzzled the people were his assiduous efforts to get a man to go with them who would harness twenty dogs to an extra sledge. To the astonishment of everybody, three young men at last volunteered, and three ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... ground her teeth as she had a sudden blighting vision of the day a week later, when, puzzled and resentful, she had walked up the steep hill with several of the girls whose homes were on California and Taylor Streets, and two of whom, like herself, ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... lessons. She never spoke, nor did she look at masters or pupils; but she followed attentively all that was said, striving to gather the sense of the words to gain a general idea of Louis' progress. If Louis asked a question that puzzled his master, his mother's eyes suddenly lighted up, and she would smile and glance at him with hope in her eyes. Of Marie she asked little. Her desire was with her eldest son. Already she treated him, as it were, respectfully, using all a woman's, ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... points of massive maroon-colored drapery that falls over the sides, forming brilliant depressions. In these alcoves are groups of figures and statuettes, and parts of statuettes, legless and armless, and all presenting a rude and mutilated condition. What some of them represented it would have puzzled the ancient Greeks to decypher. Madame, nevertheless, assures her guests she got them from among the relics of Italian and Grecian antiquity. You may do justice to her taste on living statuary; but her ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... her boudoir and had tea, and she grew more like herself; but several times that night I observed her looking puzzled and thoughtful, and a certain expression of anxiety shone in her blue eyes that was ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... Puzzled by his constraint, the girl's eyes again sought his; and warned in time by the movement of her head, he mustered impudence to meet their question with the look of tenderness that went with the role she ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... he was perforce quit of any share in the business, he found his wrath rising against the King. A few hours back he had spoken for him. Had he after all been wrong? He wondered. Oliver's puzzled face rose before him. He had learned to revere that strange man's perplexities. No brain was keener to grasp an argument, for the general was as quick at a legal point as any lawyer. When, therefore, he ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... both touched and puzzled. "Why, you've done none. There is no need for excuses. I never saw a better steward; you did not know me, and you were within your rights to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... I was some puzzled. Was Vee doin' the spy act on Belcher, watchin' him open the store and spendin' the forenoon concealed in a crockery crate or something? No, that didn't sound reasonable. But what the—— Meanwhile I was leggin' it down towards ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... allow him to think, and suffer him to question the assertions which he meets with in books, with freedom, and that minute accuracy which is only tiresome to those who cannot reason. The simple morality of childhood is continually puzzled and shocked at the representation of the crimes and the virtues of historic heroes. History, when divested of the graces of eloquence, and of that veil which the imagination is taught to throw over antiquity, presents a disgusting, terrible list of crimes ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... I trouble you to play the G minor, which has even puzzled me more than the one you ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... and she followed me in silence. Once I glanced back at her—there was an expression on her face which puzzled me, yes, almost made me afraid. I could imagine Clytemnestra holding her midnight watch, with a face like that—Lady Macbeth waiting for her husband's return, with eyes like those—oh, I had grown so fanciful and ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... old phiz is still worth its weight in innocence, and because you never could act for nuts! You looked as puzzled as the other poor devil; but you wouldn't if you had known ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... can be but little doubt that the story was true, and that the ship contained Spaniards passing between these two places. They also told curious stories of a great river 'Cipo,' where pearl was obtained, which has puzzled later historians to locate; but we now know that Cipo or Sepo, in the Algonquin language, which was spoken from Maine to about this point, means simply a river, and probably referred to either the Moratio, now called the Roanoke, or ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... troopers under a hard-bitten nom-com.; and standing a pace or so ahead of them, a young second lieutenant fresh from West Point: Lieutenant Bascom, a stranger in a strange, harsh land, just a little puzzled over the complications which he saw arising here, but dead sure of himself and intolerant of the men with whom he was treating. That intolerance showed in his stare as ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... at Boiscoran, haughty and even scornful. It was impossible to get any thing out of him. When he was pressed, he became obstinately silent, or said that he needed time to consider. The magistrate had returned home more troubled than ever. The position assumed by Jacques puzzled him. Ah, if he could ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... puzzled bewilderment for a moment clouded the expressive features of Mauleverer; it passed away. "How sweet is your rebuke!" said he. "Yes; I do not yet deserve any other sentiment than esteem. You are not to be won precipitately; a long trial, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... album. I remember in my boyhood (when Browning kept us awake like coffee) a friend reading out the poem about the portrait to which I have already referred, reading it in that rapid dramatic way in which this poet must be read. And I was profoundly puzzled at the passage where it seemed to say that the cousin disparaged the picture, "while John scorns ale." I could not think what this sudden teetotalism on the part of John had to do with the affair, but I forgot to ask at the time and it was only years afterwards that, looking ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... at each other in puzzled bewilderment but Max suddenly changed the subject. His eye had fallen upon Grayfur, the big cat that had purred himself into the room in the shelter ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... never enjoyed the advantage of going to college, is puzzled as he witnesses the demonstration of undergraduate life, and he fails to catch the meaning; he does not understand; it has played no part in his own experience; college customs seem absurd to him, and he fails to appreciate that in these traditions ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... - and I'll be bound you Find a dozen strangers round you. "Hallo," cries the new-born baby, "Where's my parents? which may they be?" Awkward silence - no reply - Puzzled baby wonders why! Father rises, bows politely - Mother smiles (but not too brightly) - Doctor mumbles like a dumb thing - Nurse is busy mixing something. - Every symptom tends to show You're decidedly DE TROP - Ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! he! ho! ho! Time's teetotum, If you ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... ago I stood in the Court Room examining a similar notice, puzzled at the absence of any system or order in the times appointed for the sittings, which did not come once a month, or every six weeks; and did not even fall twice in succession on the same day of the week. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... and he felt better able to be good when it rained or snowed hard. I might mention the inquiry whether it was not possible somehow to elude the omniscience of God; but that is a common question with thoughtful children, and indicates little that is characteristic of the individual. That he puzzled himself about the perpetual motion may pass for little likewise; but one thing which is worth mentioning, for indeed it caused him considerable distress, was, that in reading the Paradise Lost he could not help sympathizing with Satan, and feeling—I ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... have asked in vain of you. And think, Paphnutius, what a strange situation when your blessed soul sees, from the height of heaven, its own body given up to sin. God, who has promised to return you this body after the day of judgment and the end of time, will Himself be much puzzled. How can He place in celestial glory a human form inhabited by a devil, and guarded by a sorceress? You have not thought of that difficulty. Nor God either, perhaps. Between ourselves, He is not ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... to honour the Assembly Wooms with your pwesence this evening," drawled Captain Kelly to the elder Miss Bankes—the dark one with the single curl hanging down her back. Her sister wore two light ones, and it puzzled us very much to account for the difference in number, and even in colour, for the complexions were the same. Was Glenville justified in surmising that the art of the contrivance was to prove that the curls were natural and indigenous, for if false, he said, surely they would be ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... the carcase of the hear, they became aware of a curious humming sound in the air. The cause was soon apparent and the mystery that had puzzled them was solved when they reached the beast. The carcase was covered with bees while close above it hummed a swarm of others watching for an exposed ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... superb in the defiance visible in every feature and the proud poise of the shoulders. A woman grown could hardly have done better. Andrew Henry was curiously amused, and not a little puzzled as to how he should restore peace between them. Faith's face had settled ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas |
