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More "Baffle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long shalt thou baffle justice in thy mad career? To what extreme wilt thou carry thy audacity? Art thou nothing daunted by the nightly watch, posted to secure the Palatium? Nothing, by the city guards! Nothing, by the rally of all good citizens? Nothing, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... been no less difficult or uncertain in criticisms than in law. Imagination, a licentious and vagrant faculty, unsusceptible of limitations, and impatient of restraint, has always endeavoured to baffle the logician, to perplex the confines of distinction, and burst the inclosures of regularity. There is therefore scarcely any species of writing, of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius produces some innovation, which, when ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Still would it baffle and perplex the brain. But show this bitter truth: Man lives not in the past: None but a woman ever comes again Back ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... him, with frankly affectionate concern, found herself wondering—was he really quite so transparent as he seemed? That queer visionary look in his eyes, now and then, suggested spiritual depths, or heights, that might baffle even the all-appropriating Rose? Did she seriously intend to appropriate him? There were vague rumours of a title. But no one knew anything about him, really, except the two Desmonds; and she would be a brave woman who tried to squeeze family details out of ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... consciousness of the other. In this hope he wears himself out in vain struggles with fate, and puts himself to the rack of his imagination every day he has to live in the meanwhile. When the event is so remote or so independent of the will as to set aside the necessity of immediate action, or to baffle all attempts to defeat it, it gives us little more disturbance or emotion than if it had already taken place, or were something to happen in another state of being, or to an indifferent person. Criminals are observed ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the management of the baronet's affairs taken out of his hands, without any advantage accruing to the inquirer, for Sir Lawrence had told Messrs. Graham that, in case his place of residence was revealed by them, not only would he cease to bank with them, but instantly take measures to baffle any future inquiries as to his whereabouts, by removing to some ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. And they cast chains on her, who was still with ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... which I can not accept," said Erik smiling, "for I do not merit it. No—I have no thoughts of abandoning the expedition, for I am far from regarding it as impracticable. I only think that it is best for us all to baffle the machinations of that scoundrel who is lying in wait for us, and the first thing to do ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... the notary's office-door was ajar. Instantly a demon whispered, that although the law was restored, it was still blind and deaf as ever—could not see or hear in that dark silence—and that I might easily baffle the cheating usurer after all. Swiftly and softly, I darted towards the half-opened door—entered. The notary's secretaire, Antoine, was wide open! I hunted with shaking hands for the deed, but could not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... would seek to spite it in all sorts of ways, and laugh in secret for several months at the pranks he played. To begin with, he voted for candidates who would worry the Ministers at the Corps Legislatif. Then, if he could rob the revenue, or baffle the police, and bring about a row of some kind or other, he strove to give the affair as much of an insurrectionary character as possible. He told a great many lies, too; set himself up as being a very dangerous man; ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... last Sunday, and for ten miles further our kind host rode in our company, absolutely refusing to turn back till we were in a country that Walter knew right well, and might be considered comparatively safe; then he left us, proposing to return home by another and yet more circuitous route, so as to baffle possible pursuers. He did get home safe, but was arrested within the same week—not, I trust, before he had moderately chastised that treacherous contraband—and we met, two months later, in the ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... pardon us, Master Scrivener," said Lowestoffe. "You will not baffle us—it wants three-quarters of noon by ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... sharer. If he could have once placed me in a ridiculous or mortifying position, he would have forgiven me much, but I was guarded by three faculties—Caution, Tact, Observation; and prowling and prying as was Edward's malignity, it could never baffle the lynx-eyes of these, my natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice watch my tact, hoping it would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like on its slumber; but tact, if ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... of honour!—Ah! celestial beauties, by whose bright eyes it is graced! Never more shall Piercie Shafton advance, as the centre of your radiant glances, couch his lance, and spur his horse at the sound of the spirit-stirring trumpets, nobly called the voice of war—never more shall he baffle his adversary's encounter boldly, break his spear dexterously, and ambling around the lovely circle, receive the rewards with which beauty ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Nur ed-Din formulated a plan to punish the rebellious Shawir. Persecuted by Shirkuh, Nur ed-Din sent him with his army into Egypt. The Franks now joined with Shawir to defend the country, hoping thereby to baffle the schemes of Nur ed-Din. The Christian army was amazed at all the splendour of the caliph's palace at Cairo. Shawir retreated to entice the invaders on, who, advancing beyond their base, were soon reduced to straits. Shirkuh then tried to come ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... of the thing was becoming thrilling. A Black Flag must surely be fluttering close by. Here was evidently a malignant contrivance of the Pirates, designed to baffle our gun-boats when we dashed up-stream to shell them from their lair. A gun-boat, indeed, might well have hesitated, so stout was the netting, so close the hedge: but I spied where a rabbit was wont to pass, close down by the water's edge; where a rabbit could go a boy could follow, ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... is a most effective one, and when well performed, with intervals for gazing at the dust, the clean palm, mystic words and so forth, it would baffle most audiences. Yet it is simplicity itself, and this ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... the foe, his nets all tear, And baffle every wile and snare; When all with me once more is well, May gratitude ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... in his tone, Varney looked up and found the reporter's eyes fixed upon him in an odd gaze which made him look all at once ten years older and infinitely difficult to baffle: a gaze which made it plain, in fact, that the wearer of it was not to be put off with anything short of the whole truth. The next second that look broke into an easy laugh, and Hammerton was a chattering ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... mighty snake,—nor do I blame myself. Since in regard to happiness and misery, men sometimes possess the power of bringing and dismissing them, and sometimes do not. Therefore one should not fret one's mind. Who can baffle destiny by self-exertion? I deem destiny to be supreme, and self-exertion to be of no avail. Smitten with the stroke of destiny, the prowess of my arms lost, behold me to-day fallen unto this condition without palpable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... such a snow-storm in his imagination, when telling the shepherds to be kind to their helpless charge, addressed them in language which, in an ordinary mood, would have been bombast. "Shepherds," says he, "baffle the raging year!" How? Why merely by filling their pens with food. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... too sure of that," she said, exultantly. "I have a trick or two up my sleeve that will baffle ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... thunderstorms reminded them that the autumn was far spent, and they determined to return as quickly as possible to the sea. Their pilots told them, however, that it was out of the question to try to descend the River of the Red Cross, which they had ascended, as the current would baffle them; and therefore they attempted what is now called the Macareo channel, farther east. Raleigh names this ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... surprise and baffle a reason deprived of principle; but they are never contrary to it, because they proceed from reason itself, from that Supreme Reason which created us in its own image; and, by that very fact, is always in accord with ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... numerous to be won over by personal inducements, and remote from the imperial agencies which had worked so effectively through the Chamber of Magnates, the lesser nobility of Hungary during these years of absolutism carried the habit of political discussion to their homes, and learnt to baffle the imperial Government by withholding all help and all information from its subordinate agents. Each county-assembly became a little Parliament, and a centre of resistance to the usurpation of the Crown. The stimulus ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... who think that by following a certain "cult" or "ism," they will be able to have an uneventful walk through life are merely deluding themselves. As he learns to overcome the difficulties of life which baffle the ordinary individual, he will be tempted and tried in other and more subtle ways. This is because life is not for mere passing pleasure, but is for the building up of character, through experience. Therefore, one who would succeed ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... character either confined to the males, or more largely developed in them than in the females, or again equally developed in both sexes. The little lizards of the genus Draco, which glide through the air on their rib- supported parachutes, and which in the beauty of their colours baffle description, are furnished with skinny appendages to the throat "like the wattles of gallinaceous birds." These become erected when the animal is excited. They occur in both sexes, but are best developed ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... an affection already weakened. But the mother and son adored each other with all the strength of their strong, wild natures. Even under ordinary circumstances the father's influence over a boy yet in childhood is exerted in vain if the mother lend herself to baffle it. And in this miserable position, what chance had the blunt, stern, honest Poland (separated from his son during the most ductile years of infancy) against the ascendancy of a mother who humored all the faults and gratified all the wishes of ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that hesitating and tentative action which results from knowledge that is still so imperfect as to be actively self-conscious; nor yet that it should grow or vary perceptibly unless under such changed conditions as shall baffle memory, and present the alternative of either invention—that is to ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... the blonde came very close together; and Zoe, exasperated by her own wounded pride and the sullen torpor of her lover, gave Fanny fresh instructions, which nobody was better qualified to carry out than that young lady, as nobody was better able to baffle female ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... just the circumstances that surround us, He makes His sun to shine and His dew to fall upon us, and transforms the very things that were before our greatest hindrances, into the chiefest and most blessed means of our growth. No difficulties in your case can baffle Him. No dwarfing of your growth in years that are past, no apparent dryness of your inward springs of life, no crookedness or deformity in any of your past development, can in the least mar the perfect work that He will accomplish, if you will only ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... without a recurrence of the First one; or into three different Parts, lacking the evidence of the return to the beginning. When such irregularities are encountered, or when any conditions appear which elude or baffle natural classification among the Three-Part Song-forms (simple or enlarged), the piece may be called a group of Parts. The use of this term is entirely legitimate, and is commended to the student on account of its convenience, ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... Velasquez's portrait painting, that no artist 'ever followed nature with more catholic fidelity; his cavaliers are as natural as his boors; he neither refined the vulgar, nor vulgarized the refined,' and goes on to quote this among other criticism:—'his portraits baffle description and praise; he drew the minds of men; they live, breathe, and are ready to walk out of the frames.' Sir William winds up with the enthusiastic declaration, 'Such pictures as these are real history; we know the ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... won some concessions for the Protestants, knowing the temper of the Flemish, to whom she was allied by birth, but Granvelle was artful in his policy and managed by frequent correspondence with Spain to baffle the efforts of the whole party, which looked with indignation on the work of the Inquisitors. Peter Titelmann, the chief instrument of the Holy Office in the Netherlands, alarmed Margaret as well as her subjects, who were ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... divertisement," remarked Shen Yi, with conciliatory mildness in his voice. "There was one, turning on the contradictory nature of a door which under favourable conditions was indistinguishable from an earthenware vessel, that seldom failed to baffle the unalert in the days before the ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... heightened by circumstances, but the impulses must be voluntary, and the flow of feeling, or of soul, as it has become a law to style it, is not to be forced, or commanded to come and go at will. This is the reason that all premeditated enjoyments connected with the intellect, are apt to baffle expectations, and why academies, literary clubs, coteries and dinners are commonly dull. It is true that a body of clever people may be brought together, and, if left to their own impulses, the characters of their mind ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... boys who stick together thru thick and thin; thru high adventure and scrapes. On the field of sport and in the broader field of life, their comradeship persists. There are several mysteries interwoven thru these tales that baffle the most astute. To follow the fortunes of "The Darewell Chums," prepare for an ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... some natures so essentially base, so incapable of being affected by kindness, so dead to honour and generosity, that they will not scruple to conspire or set themselves individually to escape and baffle the wise precautions undertaken for their benefit. I will not name the dastards at present—they themselves can look into their hearts and see their ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... measures resorted to—Masks, Quarantine and the veto upon public gatherings—proved equally mistaken and futile. Masks of a texture calculated to baffle the most determined attempts of the minute invisible homicide were made compulsory, and in the great cities masquerading millions became a constant feature of the streets, until an idea of the danger of masks, as microbe preservers and carriers, dawned upon the official mind. Thus, beyond ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... Messer Griffo, she was at pains to make herself acquainted with that gallant adventurer, and to show him certain favors and courtesies which won his English heart. So that in a little while Madonna Vittoria knew all about Simone's purposes, and very pleasantly resolved to baffle them. ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... would seriously affect all their plans, time being so limited and so many places remaining to be visited. I had passed once, why not again? Influenced by these facts, and thinking what a triumph it would be once more to baffle French vigilance, I determined to attempt the return. There was a train leaving Aix about eight P.M., reaching Geneva at eleven: it was decided that I should take this train. I had arranged a vague plan of action, although ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... to Brant's abilities as a military leader, there will continue to exist differences of opinion. That he possessed the craftiness of his race in a superlative degree, and that he used this to baffle his opponents on the field of battle, cannot be denied. Some will go further and assert that he had a remarkable genius in the art of stratagem. Whatever powers he had he used, from his boyhood days, in the interests of British rule in America, and the services ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... Cushing, American minister at China, to Alexandra, whilst at anchor in Gibraltar bay, on the 26th ult., was entirely consumed by fire. The fire broke out in the night, and raged with such determined fury as to baffle all the efforts of the crew, as well as that of the assistance sent from her Majesty's ship Malabar, and from the garrison. The magazines were flooded soon after the commencement of the fire; and, although a great many shells burst, yet, very fortunately, ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... eyes, and immediately recognised the features of that goblin, who from the hour of his birth, had declared himself his adversary. He had been repeatedly used to the visits of this malicious spirit, who delighted to subvert all his schemes, and to baffle his deepest projects. This was the only misfortune, the sovereign of the hills had ever known; this was the only instance in which he had at any time been taught what it was to have his power controled and his nod unobeyed. ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... could not fail to be certain of all that; but would they so easily trail us thence? In our search after the horses, we had tracked the woods in all directions. I had gone back to the bye-road, and some distance along it. All this would surely baffle the dogs for a while; besides, D'Hauteville, at starting, had left the pawpaw thicket by a different route from that we had taken. They might go off on his trail. Would that they might ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... endures not to be nonplussed, and had rather fly for sanctuary to nonsense which few descry, than to nothing, which all. His boldness is beholden to other men's modesty, which rescues him many times from a baffle; yet his face is good armour, and he is dashed out of anything sooner than countenance. Grosser conceits are puzzled in him for a rare man; and wiser men, though they know him, [yet] take him [in] for their pleasure, or as they would do a sculler for being ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... no intrepidity can balance. The troops which are now approaching have been for years inured to the practice of slaughter; they join to a courage which defies every danger, a knowledge of every fraud and subtility which can confound or baffle an adversary. In bodily strength, in numbers, your countrymen are superior; even in courage, and the contempt of danger, they are probably not inferior to their enemies; but such are the fatal effects of military skill and discipline, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... that there was something in the social circumstances of England during the long period in question which prevented such talent as there was from assuming the particular form of literature. Fully to make out what this 'something' was may baffle us; but, when we remember that this was the period of the Civil Wars of the Roses, we have reason to believe that the dearth of pure literature may have been owing, in part, to the engrossing nature of the practical questions which then disturbed English society. . . . Accordingly, though printing ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... would soon be upon me. If I distrusted the certainty of my aim before this last fright, should I not do it much more now? I felt so; and, as I was now within a mile of the river,—where, if I could reach it, I thought it possible to find a way to baffle, at least, if I did not kill, my ruthless pursuer,—I concluded that my best chance for life was to run for the place. But, in peering out to ascertain the exact whereabouts of the painter before I started, my ear caught the sound ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... is right; there's not a mother's son in Botfield to swear agen them for the master's sake. If he didn't see them, nor Miss Anne, why need we know? I'll soon baffle the justice, I promise ye. It's a rare chance to forgive ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... up the skeleton without delay. There was little snow in the chasm, in spite of the lateness of the season, and if the roll of bark held the secret of the lost gold it would be possible for them to locate the treasure before other snows came to baffle them. ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... yells now raised baffle description. A furious attack was made on Jonathan, who, though he defended himself like a lion, was desperately wounded, and would inevitably have perished if he had not been protected by the guards, who were obliged ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... time between my last glimpse of Theodore and the gendarme's entry into room 25 it would be impossible for the most experienced criminal on earth to murder a man, conceal every trace of the crime, and so to dispose of the body as to baffle the most minute inquiry and ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... theoretical contingency under conditions which engineering skill might avert. The Sappers and Miners who were roused from their beds to make good a dynamited embankment and block the relentless Thames did not work with a more untiring zeal to baffle a real enemy than did Dave and Dolly to keep out a fictitious one, and hypothetically save Uncle Moses and Aunt M'riar from drowning. But all efforts would be useless if there was to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Catiline: "Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?" (How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?) "Quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet?" (How long will this your madness baffle us?) "Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, ... nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt?" (Does the night watch of the Palatium, ... do the faces and expressions of all these men fail to move you?) "In te conferri ..." (This plague should have been inflicted upon you long ago, which you have plotted ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... daylight appeared in the distance, Rick understood that the cave had an outlet other than the one by which he had entered, and evidently miles distant from it. Thus it was that the distillers were well enabled to baffle the law that ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Stephen, committing the charge of his uncle to Kit, threw off his apron, washed his face and went up to the hall, not very rapidly, for he suspected that since his father-in-law knew nothing of the arrival, he would best baffle the inquiries by ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... incident resembles an adventure attributed to Thor. In the legends of all countries, sorcerers or fugitives are represented as raising magic floods, either to sweep away their enemies or to baffle pursuit. There are three instances ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... not been for them, I would have gone to West Point with you, Bob. But, above all else in the world I enjoy pitting my wits against another's—enjoy unravelling mysteries that baffle others. To me there is no excitement equal to a man hunt. I suppose in a way it is an inheritance; my father was a great criminal lawyer, and his father before him. When Pinkerton organized the Secret Service ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... could ring a bell in Ransome's ear. He also clandestinely unscrewed a little postern door that his predecessors had closed, and made a key to the lock, so that if he should ever be compelled to go out at night he might baffle his foes, who would naturally watch the great ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... matter needs management; for, though the savages are in the dark as to Chingachgook and the rock, they've eyes and legs, and will see in what direction we steer, and will be sartain to follow us. I shall strive to baffle 'em, howsever, by heading the scow in all manner of ways, first in one quarter and then in another, until they get to be a-leg-weary, and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... perhaps, to avoid the final trial by battle, when he considered, that, from the equality of the contending forces, the issue must be extremely doubtful. He knew that the presence of Pizarro in the camp, the detested enemy of the Almagrians, would excite distrust in their bosoms that would probably baffle every effort at accommodation. Nor is it likely that the governor cared to have so restless a spirit introduced into his own councils. He accordingly sent to Gonzalo, thanking him for the promptness of his support, but courteously declined it, while he advised him to remain in his province, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... be it thine to calm and guide The swelling democratic tide; To watch the state's uncertain frame, And baffle Faction's partial aim: But chiefly, with determined zeal, To quell that servile band, who kneel To Freedom's banish'd foes; That monster, which is daily found Expert and bold thy country's peace to wound; Yet dreads to handle arms, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... times. Leave behind the dazzling dance places of theatrical Montmartre, American, and come back of the wine shop in the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve! Leave behind the turning mill wheel, American, and come into the Avenue de Choisy, where over a preglacial store a couple of cornets baffle the night and set a hundred feet in motion, feet from the Gobelin quarter, feet from the Butte-aux-Cailles! More leathery feet, to be sure, than the suede feet of the Ziegfeld Montmartre, but kicking up a different wax dust, the wax dust ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... of the bright spots in my experiences in France. That eloquent secretary represents a type who will tell the public about anything he thinks it wants to know about the "horrible details" of war in France, and facts do not baffle his inventive genius. ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... Nonconformist and Ashley against Clarendon, partly to preserve his own independence and partly with a view of winning some advantage to the Catholics from the political strife. The temper of the Commons had enabled Clarendon to baffle the king's attempts; and on his fall Charles felt strong enough to abandon the attempt to preserve a political balance and had sought to carry out his designs with the single support of the Nonconformists. But the new policy had broken down like the old. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... life.—It is not easy to think life, much less define it. The elements are so numerous as to baffle and bewilder the mind. It looks out at one from so many corners that it seems Argus-eyed. At one moment we see it on the Stock Exchange where men struggle and strive in a mad frenzy of competition; at another, in a quiet home, where ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... hinges of a block of timber. We then no more shall Master, master, whoot, The swagger, who th' alarum bell holds out; Could one seize on the dagger which he bears, Heads would be free from tingling in the ears, To baffle the whole storehouse of abuses. The thus farewell Apollo ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... as a lion! She went back to bed; and when we followed her, in a couple of hours, she was sleeping soundly. But I can't say either of us slept so well. If a trick was being played upon us, it was carried out in so clever a manner as to baffle me completely. I need not say that I made careful search of every cranny about the handsome house and offices; and if there was a secret passage or a door in the wall anywhere, it escaped me. We had peace for a fortnight, and then ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... troubled with memories of civil war and of associations still earlier, belonging to an age already vanishing or vanished; but what could she know about civil war who had been almost an infant at the time? At this moment, she happened to be interested in the baffle of Waterloo, for she was reading "Vanity Fair," and had cried as she ought for poor little Emmy, when her husband, George Osborne, lay dead on the field there, with a bullet through his heart. But how was she to know that here, only a few rods before her, lay scores and hundreds of George ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... darted blindly down another, and yet another; with straining chest, and legs that began to fail, and always in my ears the yells that rose round me as fresh pursuers joined in the chase. Still I kept ahead, I was even gaining; with night thickening, I might hope to escape, if I could baffle those who from time to time—but in a half-hearted way, not knowing if I were armed—made an attempt to stop me ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... resolved to baffle his impatience by working all the evening and retouching one act of his drama with which he was not perfectly content. He went to his room, lighted his lamp, and seated himself before his open manuscript. Now, then! to work! He had been silly ever since the night before. ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... this or the following night; and as there was no ship of force at Cherbourg but an old 64, with frigate's masts, he was certain that the appearance of a man-of-war off Cherbourg would preserve Alderney, and baffle the expedition. Chance having thrown me off Cherbourg, within sight the whole day, I was happy the purport of this letter was so fully answered. Expecting further intelligence, I waited till a cutter hailed us that he was going express to Plymouth. No other vessel appearing, I ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... believe the lies of their own invention? Why not men doubt the truth of their own doings? There are such men, and he may he one of them. He may deny stoutly and solemnly the charge, but let him not deceive you or baffle your pursuit. We shall prove it upon him, and he shall hang, Dillon—ay, hang, hang, hang—though it be under her ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Besides, since he would be visible as long as he stood up, he could find out whether they were looking for him or not. They came nearer and then vanished, and he sat down and speculated about his line of retreat. Their disappearance was suspicious, and although he thought he could baffle the rural police, it would be different if he had ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... thinking how to baffle Madame's inquiries. She knew she would be questioned closely by her, and resolved not to tell more than she could help, as she, curiously enough—considering how he had treated her—wished to shield Vandeloup. But she still cherished a tender feeling for the man she loved, and had Vandeloup ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... full speed; but he started too late, and was further delayed by a strong wind which the Fairy raised behind the young couple so as to baffle ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... for it involves nothing less than the destruction of belief in the supernatural. The Jupiter of Mythologic History, the Allah of Alkoran, and the Jehovah of 'Holy Scripture,' if entities at all, are assuredly entities that baffle human conception. To 'frame clear and distinct ideas of them' is impossible. In respect to the attribute of unknown ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... of the Bible, who desires to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn the one thing needful from his lips. In this, as in many other portions of Scripture, a hungry labourer may live upon the bread, while it may baffle a philosopher to analyze its constituents, and expound its nutritive qualities. A devout reader may get the meaning of the parable in power upon his heart, while the logical interpreter expends much profitless labour in the dissection of a ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... shrinks not from inviting that large army of involuntary martyrs to repair thither at once. Yes! even gout, that has so long laughed out at all pharmacopoeias, and tortured us from the time "when our wine and our oil increased"—Gout, that colchicum would vainly attempt to baffle, that no nepenthe soothes, no opium can send to sleep—Gout, that makes as light of the medical practitioner as of his patient; that murdered Musgrave, and seized her very own historian by the hip[9]—this, our most formidable foe, is to be ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... That is the unlikeliest road on which to think of pursuing you, and thus you will baffle Charlot. Let your mother proceed on her journey to Prussia, but tell her to avoid Charleroi, and to go round by Liege. Thus only can she hope to escape Tardivet's men that are patrolling the road from France. As for you, Suzanne, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Rollox stalk, like a pile of dingy chalk; Disappeared the cypress walk, and the flowers; And a donjon-keep arose, that might baffle any foes, With its men-at-arms in ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... uppermost, "Mamma died this morning." In a moment it flashed upon her that Dan had read the letter, and was waiting now to see the effect of the shock upon her. She immediately, but involuntarily, set herself to baffle his cruel curiosity. With a calm, illegible face she read the letter from beginning to end, folded it, and put it back in its envelope deliberately, then took up another ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... himself from Edward's grasp, seemed at this moment to renounce his intention of pushing the conflict to a desperate end. 'I give it all up for life—dear life!' he cried, with a hoarse laugh. 'A reckless man has a dozen lives—see how I'll baffle you ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... They would then brush off the Mosquitoes that had alighted on their clothes, crawl into the lodge and close the door tight. Not a Mosquito was left alive in it, and the smoke hanging about the smoke-vent was enough to keep them from coming in, and so they slept in peace. Thus they could baffle the worst pest of the woods. But there was yet another destroyer of comfort by day, and this was the Blue-bottle flies. There seemed more of them as time went on, and they laid masses of yellowish eggs on anything that smelled like meat or corruption. They buzzed about the table and got into ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... vigorous in Protestant Scotland. A large body of ministers joined in denouncing the new practice as "flying in the face of Providence," and "endeavouring to baffle a Divine judgment." ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... things—to make plans mentally or upon paper, and another thing to carry them out. A general lays down his plan of campaign, but a dozen hazards of the war may tend to baffle and spoil courses which seem as they are laid down sure ways leading ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... Farfrae's chair, watching his dexterity in clearing up the numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard's books as almost to baffle even the Scotchman's perspicacity. The corn-factor's mien was half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash of pity for the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled paper; ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... and the machine fell heavily to the ground. Pericord undid the girdle. The motor was uninjured. A sudden strange thought flashed upon him as he looked at it. The machine had become hateful to him. He might dispose both of it and the body in a way that would baffle all human search. ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and excitement? Let the wind baffle and drop in a heavy tide- way just as you are sailing your little sloop through a narrow draw-bridge. Behold your sails, upon which you are depending, flap with sudden emptiness, and then see the ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... there was the immense prize that success would award him. Was everything to be lost because of one piece of infernal bad luck. If he could reach Southampton unobserved he was confident that the arrangements he had prepared would baffle observation. Besides the presumption was that the watchers had been called off and this infernal smiling idiot on the seat opposite had failed to receive new instructions and was acting ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... during which I could guess that the denouement of the play was near at hand, I went to my charming countess, taking care to change my gondola three times—a necessary precaution to baffle spies. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... ordinary thought between animate and inanimate, between nature and spirit, between man and God, does not baffle the poet. At the stage of human life, which is "the grand result" of ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... mutilated remains were made the object of ignominious ribaldry; and at length, if very general rumour is to be believed, the English army of occupation has been literally expunged. Corunna, Walcheren, all the reverses that have chequered our military career, baffle the memory to find a parallel to the utter defeat which, in the eyes of the barbarians of the Indian frontier, has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... told of Elise's masquerade the night before, and of A.O.'s wild curiosity about the lady in black. She had persecuted them all morning with questions, and they were almost worn out trying to evade them and to baffle her. Ethelinda appreciated being taken into her confidence, for she had been more lonely than her pride would allow her to admit. Her patronizing airs and ill-guarded speech about being exclusive in the choice of friends had offended most of the lower-class girls. Slowly she was learning ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... figure had reached the open window through which he must have entered some time previously, taking time to lay these various traps by means of which he expected to baffle pursuit. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... as had never been seen by any eye before, all fashioned into a wondrous style of architecture peculiarly unique, yet withal holding a perfect harmony—such is (not a description, for a description, in detail would baffle the clearest mind and cleverest pen)—a bold mention of a few ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... shouting told me that savages from the camp had already found their dead. A moment more would place them on my trail, hot for revenge; and there was no course left me but to take the water, before their keen eyes found me out. I waded out, seeking thus to get far enough from shore to baffle their search, when suddenly a quick spark of light winked from the blackness in front of me. Surely it could be nothing less than a signal, the swift stroke of flint on steel,—no doubt in the faint hope it would prove a beacon ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... the major problems we have to face. If every man was alike and every avocation in life was on a parity, it would be possible to dispose of this subject in a paragraph. But men are not alike. What one could do successfully might easily baffle another. Therefore, it seems advisable to consider the subject by ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... influence, high o'er Hell, that turns to a rapture Pain—and despair's murk mists blends in a rainbow of hope? What is beyond the obstruction, stage by stage tho' it baffle? Back must I fall, confess 'Ever the weakness I fled'? No, for beyond, far, far is a Purity all-unobstructed! Zeus was Zeus—not Man: wrecked by his weakness I whirl. Out of the wreck I rise—past Zeus to the Potency ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... of this cheering prosperity was, however, destined to experience a sudden and formidable interruption, and that, too, in a manner so strange and mysterious as to baffle all investigation, and throw upon the events themselves a shadow ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... dawn-goddess Athene, the loftiest of Greek divinities, becomes degraded into the art of an enchantress. She reappears, in the Arabian Nights, as the wicked Queen Labe, whose sorcery none of her lovers can baffle, save Beder, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... now I seem to have some very knotty cases on hand—one, in particular, seems to baffle all my skill with its mystery. Indeed, it bids fair ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... to my mutton," the young man observed. "Dorminster," he added, turning to his host, "I heard the other day, on very good authority, that you were thinking of writing a novel. If you are, study the lady who has just entered. There is a type for you, an intelligence which might baffle ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the side chambers is a spray; at the bottom are gutters and an eliminator or set of baffle plates to separate the fine mist ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... difficult to baffle Mr. Cadbury Taylor," said the girl, looking up at her employer with a merry twinkle ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... at Badsworth, I must leave the neighbourhood. There's no help for it. It would only be for a short time, of course—and it seems hard, when I have only just come home, as it were,—but there,—never mind, Cicely! We'll treat it as a game of hare and hounds,—and we'll baffle the hounds somehow!" ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... GOLDEN FLEECE.—Becoming aware of the treacherous designs of her father, Medea at {226} once took measures to baffle them. In the darkness of night she went on board the Argo, and warned the heroes of their approaching danger. She then advised Jason to accompany her without loss of time to the sacred grove, in order ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... horse-laugh, or the sardonic, is made use of with great success in all kinds of disputation. The proficients in this kind, by a well-timed laugh, will baffle the most solid argument. This upon all occasions supplies the want of reason, is always received with great applause in coffee-house disputes, and that side the laugh joins with is generally observed to gain the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... ambitiously for a north-west passage, instead of circumnavigating all the capes and head-lands I had doubled in my outward voyage, I came suddenly upon such knotty problems of alleys, such enigmatical entries, and such sphynx's riddles of streets without thoroughfares, as must, I conceive, baffle the audacity of porters and confound the intellects of hackney-coachmen. I could almost have believed at times that I must be the first discoverer of some of these terrae incognitae, and doubted whether they had yet been laid down in the modern charts of London. For all this, however, ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... a pretty thing, if HE should become commander- in-chief!" cried Blucher. "The confusion and wrangling that would ensue would baffle description; for York and Bulow would be even more disobedient to him than they ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... among them. The crafty Oneidas soon suspected the designs of the stranger, and they conferred among themselves, as to the surest mode of guarding against the meditated blow of Wauchee. They well recognized by his paint and garb the Mohawk warrior, and they resolved to baffle his assault, and for ever prevent his return to the people ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the two gigantic Conventions at which the rival candidates are nominated that the artist finds material for his pencil, the satirist for his pen, and the man of the world food for reflection. By all accounts, these Conventions baffle description. Everything is sacrificed to spectacular effect. They take place in huge buildings decorated with banners, emblems of all kinds, startling devices, transparencies, and portraits of the candidates. Bands play different airs at the same time; processions ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... that constitutes his mental individuality. Originality in men dates from nothing previous, other things date from it, rather. I have to confess that Bergson's originality is so profuse that many of his ideas baffle me entirely. I doubt whether any one understands him all over, so to speak; and I am sure that he would himself be the first to see that this must be, and to confess that things which he himself ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... of character and defects of art. His life and work raise many problems which will long continue to fascinate and to baffle the critics. But after all of them have had their say, it will remain true that he was a seer and a prophet, far in advance of his own time, like Lincoln, and like Lincoln, an inspired interpreter of the soul ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... Harley[32] Earl of Oxford watched its progress with an anxious eye; and although he might have learnt experience from the fatal examples of R. Smith,[33] and T. Baker,[34] and the more recent ones of Thomas Rawlinson,[35] Bridges,[36] and Collins,[37] yet he seemed resolved to brave and to baffle it; but, like his predecessors, he was suddenly crushed within the gripe of the demon, and fell one of the most splendid of his victims. Even the unrivalled medical skill of Mead[38] could save neither his friend nor himself. The Doctor survived his Lordship about twelve years; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... enterprise. He was in conference with Merry, the British minister, and with Yrujo, the Spanish minister; and each received a different impression as to the scope of his plans. At one time Burr talked madly of seizing the government at Washington. The kaleidoscopic changes of his plans baffle consistent explanation. One thing only is clear: he needed funds. These he obtained in part from his son-in-law, Joseph Alston, a wealthy planter in South Carolina, and in part from the credulous Blennerhassett, who was persuaded to purchase a million ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... allowed that journal to become a vehicle of vituperation, respecting Messrs. A.T. STEWART, RIDLEY, and other leading merchants of this city. To this query we reply that the spots on the Sun are increasing so in number and magnitude as to baffle our telescopic investigations. A suggestion in the case is furnished, however, by the fact that the columns of the Sun are not lighted up with advertisements from any of the establishments against which it has been discharging its meteoric ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... Captain McKnight's battery (N. Y.) to cover, as a rear-guard, the retreat of the Third Corps to Manassas Heights via Bristoe Station. My orders were to avoid anything like a general engagement, but to beat back the advancing enemy whenever possible, prevent captures, and baffle him in his endeavors to delay or reach the main column. The successful conduct of a rear-guard of a retreating army, when pursued by an energetic foe, requires not only bravery but skill and tact. After the main body of my corps had left camp on its march ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... as we start into these homely talks in John's Gospel. They are simple keys. Any one can use them. They fit easily and smoothly into every lock, the lock of your life, the lock of any circumstance, any sore problem that may come up to baffle all your efforts. They bring treasures within easy reach. They open up the way into all you need. There is a key to God, a key to the Book of God, and then there are three keys to this little ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... general destitution had gone into the heart of society, and visited many whose circumstances had been looked upon as beyond its reach. The decent farmer, for instance, whom no one had suspected of distress, made his appearance among them with an air of cheerfulness that was put on to baffle suspicion. Sometimes he laughed as if his heart were light, and again expressed a kind of condescending sympathy with some poor person or other, to whom he spoke kindly, as a man would do who knew nothing personally of the distress ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... not there. Nor had any one been seen like him. The asylum for "masterless men," near Smart's Quay, and all the other dens for thieves and criminals hiding from justice, in and about the metropolis, were searched, but with the like ill result. Hitherto, Mompesson had contrived entirely to baffle the ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... a happy hunting-ground to satisfy the British spirit of adventure and research; but large waterless tracts, that baffle man's ingenuity, have put man's powers of endurance ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... occult sciences. Whether at Rome or Naples, or, in fact, wherever his abode, he selected one room remote from the rest of the house, which was fastened by a lock scarcely larger than the seal of a ring, yet which sufficed to baffle the most cunning instruments of the locksmith: at least, one of his servants, prompted by irresistible curiosity, had made the attempt in vain; and though he had fancied it was tried in the most favourable time for secrecy,—not a soul near, in the dead of night, Zanoni ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the minister of police, arrived as we were approaching the town, who notified the First Consul of a plot to assassinate him two leagues farther on; the very day and hour were named. To baffle the attempt that they intended against his person, the First Consul traversed the city in a gallop, and, followed by some lancers, went to the spot where he was to be attacked, halted about half an hour, ate some Abbeville cakes, and set out. The assassins were deceived. They had not ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... in truth, a constant state of negotiation; and, if you attend to it in that view, will qualify you for any. By the same means that you make a friend, guard against an enemy, or gain a mistress; you will make an advantageous treaty, baffle those who counteract you, and gain the court you are sent to. Make this use of all the company you keep, and your very pleasures will make you a successful negotiator. Please all who are worth pleasing; offend none. Keep your own secret, and get ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... minds of a structure so singularly complex and unique, that one leaves the study of them impressed only with a deep, abiding sense of his inability to fathom them. We have in our midst one such, the penetration of whose manifestations and phenomena is well calculated to baffle the most zealous investigator. Reared among the rugged hill-sides and verdant vales of Williamstown, his character and oratory bear the evident impress of his nurturing. If to Elihu Burritt belongs the title of "The Learned Blacksmith," not less to William Pratt is due that ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... jacket clearly pointed him out as the pirate-chief. Being greatly superior to his fellows in mental and physical powers, it was natural that he should excel them in his efforts to escape. Even after the whole affair was over, this man, who might have been a hero in other circumstances, continued to baffle his pursuers. ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... and were the Greeks Distributed in bands, ten Greeks in each, Our banded decads should exceed so far Their units, that all Troy could not supply 150 For every ten, a man, to fill us wine; So far the Achaians, in my thought, surpass The native Trojans. But in Troy are those Who baffle much my purpose; aids derived From other states, spear-arm'd auxiliars, firm 155 In the defence of Ilium's lofty towers. Nine years have passed us over, nine long years; Our ships are rotted, and our tackle marr'd, And all our wives and little-ones at home Sit watching our return, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... and baffle us with the mystery of their emotions, with the magical and evasive depths of the feminine secret in them. They make us think of Rebecca at the well and Ruth in the corn-field; of Andromache on the walls of Troy and of Calypso, Brunhilda, Gwenevere, ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... drums, tabors, and sistras, and which would have drawn blood from the ears inside a palace, was none too loud or too unbearable beneath the vast cupola of heaven, in the midst of this immense open space, amongst this buzzing crowd, at the head of this army which would baffle nomenclators, and which was now advancing with a roar ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... previous evening, was following his own track by Orleans, Salem, and Thoroughfare Gap.* (* "Up to the night of August 28 we received," says Longstreet, "reports from General Jackson at regular intervals, assuring us of his successful operation, and of confidence in his ability to baffle all efforts of the enemy, till we should reach him." Battles and Leaders volume 2 page 517.) It was evident, then, that the whole Federal army was in motion northwards, and that Longstreet had crossed the Rappahannock. But Longstreet ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... same phrase that means nothing. Ah, Violante, lady of few words, you know how to baffle argument. If I could only make you speak! If I could only see what the thoughts are that ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... would baffle me by impertinence rather than yield a confidence. A queer insistence had seized me—a strange desire to know more about this mysterious chamber. But, for all my curiosity, I flushed at the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... communicate its intentions beforehand, and afterwards verify them in this manner, has the attributes of God, and must be Divine; a chance that can hear and answer prayer, that can work out its own designs and baffle those of others, that can reveal secrets to His favourites and honourably keep covenants, deserves the faith and worship of all men: this was Abe Lockwood's God, and He shall be ours for ever and ever. There are some ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... Pimpernel—the man whom he had learned to know, to dread, and even in a grudging manner to admire—was not like to leave one of his followers in the lurch. Marguerite's brother in the Temple would be the surest decoy for the elusive meddler who still, and in spite of all care and precaution, continued to baffle the army of spies set ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... deny animals all traits and characteristics which are similar to his own. This reminds us of a remark that Cardinal Newman once made that men know less of animals than they do of angels. Why should we show such foolish pride and delusion, and try to baffle one of God's great facts? When men attempt to extinguish the idea of animal intelligence and sentiment by referring to it as instinct, we are reminded of the desert ostrich, which buries its head in the sand and thinks it cannot be seen. We should proudly acknowledge the wonderful human-like methods ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... there was no such thing as an even break with Whispering Smith. A few men in a generation amuse, baffle, and mystify other men with an art based on the principle that the action of the hand is quicker than the action of the eye. With Whispering Smith the drawing of a revolver and the art of throwing his shots instantly ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... but to breathe their band, Or shall they onward press, or here withstand? It matters little—if they charge the foes Who by their border-stream their march oppose, 980 Some few, perchance, may break and pass the line, However linked to baffle such design. "The charge be ours! to wait for their assault Were fate well worthy of a coward's halt." Forth flies each sabre, reined is every steed, And the next word shall scarce outstrip the deed: In ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... at Rome or Naples, or, in fact, wherever his abode, he selected one room remote from the rest of the house, which was fastened by a lock scarcely larger than the seal of a ring, yet which sufficed to baffle the most cunning instruments of the locksmith: at least, one of his servants, prompted by irresistible curiosity, had made the attempt in vain; and though he had fancied it was tried in the most favourable time for secrecy,—not a soul near, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... martyr's prayer. I know my lot—I only ask Power to fulfil the glorious task; Willing the spirit, may the flesh Strength for the day receive afresh. May burning sun or deadly wind Prevail not o'er an earnest mind; May torments strange or direst death Nor trample truth, nor baffle faith. Though such blood-drops should fall from me As fell in old Gethsemane, Welcome the anguish, so it gave More strength to work—more skill to save. And, oh! if brief must be my time, If hostile hand or ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... it was said: "Such a thing has happened to Jesus; now Jesus is the Messiah; therefore such a thing was to happen to the Messiah."[1] Too simple explanations are always false when analyzing those profound creations of popular sentiment which baffle all systems by their fullness and infinite variety. It is scarcely necessary to say that, with such documents, in order to present only what is indisputable, we must limit ourselves to general features. In almost all ancient histories, even in those which are much less legendary ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... rid of Gregorio, she would have felt almost sure of victory; but as it was, she believed the man absolutely meant to baffle her, partly out of a spiteful rivalry, partly because his master's torpid indolence could be used to his own advantage. She was absolutely certain that his sneering tone of remark made her husband doubly disinclined to let any religious book be near, or ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... globe, but that he has also written a number of books of travel, plays, musical comedies and one cook-book. The background of this picture shows the densely matted bush of the Filbert Islands in their interior portion, a jungle growth which might well baffle any but the most skillful threader of the trackless wilds. The gun carried by Dr. Traprock is a museum-piece, having been presented to the author's great-grandfather by Israel Putnam immediately after the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga. ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... They found Pinky Swett, but were not able to find the baby. Careful as they were in their surveillance, she managed to keep them on the wrong track and to baffle every effort to discover what had been done ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... broke. The hounds swam pell-mell in hot pursuit, and the otter was forced to turn up-stream. Moving cautiously under the rocky ledges, he regained the "holt," where his terrified mate awaited his return. Sorely pressed, the dog-otter hid close, hoping to baffle his relentless pursuers. But a bristling, snarling terrier soon came down the shaft from the bank. Maddened, and courageous with the fury of despair, Lutra seized the intruder by the muzzle, and, in the combat that ensued, sorely ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... your name in the city—and here is the girl waiting under your window before you have changed your clothes. Oh, no, I will have nothing to do with coincidence. These people certainly knew that we had left England—they have been expecting us; they will do their best to baffle us. Yes, and that means that we run some danger. I must think of it—I must see the Chief of the Police to-night. It would be foolish ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... have been unable to discover his place of abode, but we sometimes meet him taking an evening stroll through the walks. He is an object of great interest to the cat, whose curiosity, however, he seems decidedly to baffle.... ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... crafty Oneidas soon suspected the designs of the stranger, and they conferred among themselves, as to the surest mode of guarding against the meditated blow of Wauchee. They well recognized by his paint and garb the Mohawk warrior, and they resolved to baffle his assault, and for ever prevent his return to the people ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... these to scenes which lie Secreted from the vulgar eye, And baffle all the powers of song?— A brazen throat, an iron tongue, (Which poets wish for, when at length Their subject soars above their strength,) Would shun the task. Our humbler Muse, Who only reads the public news And idly utters what ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Heaven seemed to open on him at this prospect, and he fell into a deep reverie. By-and-by, as he pondered, it seemed to him as if the shadow of a coming idea was projected in advance of the idea itself. He knew somehow there was a way to baffle his enemies, and resume his business, and yet he could not see the way; but still he was absolutely ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the sensuous splendors of an Italian landscape. In descending to the valley, we took a winding road which led farther up toward the heart of the range. Here were gorges opening up through the mountains, which baffle all description, and before which Art must despair. Such grouping! such luxury! so blended and irradiated with gossamer mists, it seemed easy to fancy, that in their depths lay hidden the happy fields of Pan. It is in these mists which harmonize contrasts, in these tremulous motions ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... came Diarmid to the vale, To the famed sons of Innisfail, And glad was the king, for his foe in his sight Came aidless and powerless to baffle his might. ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... thoroughly adapted to deal with the Asiatic. Half an Asiatic himself, in spite of his fair complexion, he knows how to baffle the arts and overcome the prejudices of his new subjects. The Russian diplomatist has all the softness and suavity of his Asiatic congeners. He conforms to their customs and allows them to delay and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... knew well what a fox was, but had scarcely seen a dog. A fox they knew they could easily baffle by taking to a tree, but when in the Gunner Moon old Cuddy came prowling through the ravine with his bob-tailed yellow cur, the mother spied the dog and cried out Kwit! Kwit!" (Fly, fly). Two of the brood thought it ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... the same phrase that means nothing. Ah, Violante, lady of few words, you know how to baffle argument. If I could only make you speak! If I could only see what the thoughts ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... natural and irresistible,—a mystery perhaps but ordained, and without which marriage would be mere calculation and negotiation. Passion, doubtless, is blind; but in this very blindness we see the hand of the Creator,—to baffle selfishness and pride. What would become of our world if men and women were left to choose their partners with the eye of unclouded reason? Expediency would soon make a desert of earth, and there would be no paradise found for those who are unattractive or in adverse ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... think, doctor," cries the nobleman, "that any minister could support himself in this country upon such principles as you recommend? Do you think he would be able to baffle an opposition unless he should oblige his friends by conferring places often contrary to his own inclinations and ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... deeper law) for that once, and perhaps never again for centuries. Even so it is with man, and the physiological laws which determine the earthly appearance of men. Laws there are, doubt it not; but they are beyond us: and let our induction be as wide as it may, they will baffle it; and great nature, just as we fancy we have found out her secret, will smile in our faces as she brings into the world a man, the like of whom we have never seen, and cannot explain, define, classify—in one word, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... all the rigor of a sub-Arctic climate. In history, too, mountains play the same part as barriers. They are always a challenge to the energies of man. Their beauty, the charm of the unknown beyond tempts the enterprising spirit; the hardships and dangers of their roads daunt or baffle the mediocre, but by the great ones whose strength is able to dwarf these obstacles is found beyond a prize of victory. Such were Hannibal, Napoleon, Suvaroff, Genghis Khan, and those lesser heroes of the modern work-a-day world who toiled across the Rockies and Sierras in the ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... tendrils of the vine And shed a flood of softness on the hardness of his heart, * He yielded though at first he was minded to decline; And dreading lest the railer's eye should light upon his form, * Came armoured with caution to baffle his design: His waist makes moan of hinder cheeks that weigh upon his feet * Like heavy load of merchandise upon young camel li'en; Girt with his glances scymitar which seemed athirst for blood, * And clad in mail of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... them away to the dim world under the floor of the pools to be his brides. He lives in the water, and sings in the reeds, sometimes, of an evening and at other times works mischief among the crops and the cattle with spells that baffle the husbandman. ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... compliment which I can not accept," said Erik smiling, "for I do not merit it. No—I have no thoughts of abandoning the expedition, for I am far from regarding it as impracticable. I only think that it is best for us all to baffle the machinations of that scoundrel who is lying in wait for us, and the first thing to do is to ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... assault? Schemes of retirement sown In youth, and 'mid the world kept pure As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown, Must perish; how can they this blight endure? And must he, too, his old delights disown, Who scorns a false, utilitarian lure 'Mid his paternal fields at random thrown? Baffle the threat, bright scene, from Orrest-head, Given to the pausing traveller's rapturous glance! Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance Of nature; and if human hearts be dead, Speak, passing winds; ye torrents, with your strong And constant ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... is perfectly simple," said Bunyip. "We have merely to stop wandering along the road, and the story will stop wandering through the book. This, too, will baffle the puddin' thieves, for while we wander along the road, our Puddin' is exposed to the covetous glances of every passing puddin'-snatcher. Let us, then, remove to some safe, secluded spot and settle down to a life of gaiety, dance and song, where no puddin'-thief will dare to show a sacrilegious ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... but the impulses must be voluntary, and the flow of feeling, or of soul, as it has become a law to style it, is not to be forced, or commanded to come and go at will. This is the reason that all premeditated enjoyments connected with the intellect, are apt to baffle expectations, and why academies, literary clubs, coteries and dinners are commonly dull. It is true that a body of clever people may be brought together, and, if left to their own impulses, the characters of their mind will show themselves; ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... time which Reuben took to undo the complicated folds by which, before the days of envelopes, correspondents endeavored to baffle the curiosity of those who sought to know more than was intended for them. But what is this? for Reuben's eyes had been so greedy to suck up the words that he had not given his mind time to grasp their meaning: "Not coming back! never—any more!"—"I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... effort to celebrate Christmas in a manner worthy of our surroundings. We could not procure fish for our banquet, but one of the Mexicans had the good luck to shoot four turkeys; and Kee, our Chinese cook, surprised us with a plum pudding the merits of which baffle description. It consisted mainly of deer fat and the remnants of dried peaches, raisins, and orange peel, and it was served with a sauce of white sugar and mescal. The appreciation of this delicacy by the Mexicans knew no ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... station not far beneath that of your Lordships, the lowest, though once most useful, portion of the people should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? But while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for the wretched mechanic who is famished into guilt. These men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but there was none ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... tone and character of the bat with that of the young gentleman's head. As to the ball, we do not recollect ever to have seen one in the works of any of the old masters so true to nature. In conclusion, the buttons on the jacket, and the button-holes, companions thereto, would baffle the criticism of the most hyper-fastidious stab-rag; and the shirt collar, with every other detail—never forgetting the chiaro-scuro—are equal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... multitudinous existence exerts a powerful influence upon the lives and character of individuals. As their manitoes are of all imaginary kinds, grades, and powers, benign and malicious, it seems a grand conception among the Indians to create a personage strong enough in his necromantic and spiritual powers to baffle the most malicious, beat the stoutest, and overreach the most cunning. In carrying out this conception in the following myth, they have, however, rather exhibited an incarnation of the power of Evil than of the ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... travelled by a circuitous route; got into one hackney-coach and out of another; drove hither, thither, and everywhere, to baffle my mother's spies. Do you suppose that any one of her bigoted followers would believe in a chaste friendship like ours? Do you suppose they would understand the blameless longings I have to see your lovely ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... loyal and best disposed, and the most cordial haters of the French, that ever existed; but there is an indolence and a want even of the power of exertion in their disposition and habits, either for their own security, that of their country, or of their allies, which baffle all our calculations ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... supreme and immaculate taste Has a paradise form'd from a wilderness waste; With his walks rectilineous, all shelter'd with trees, That shut out the sunshine and baffle the breeze, And a field, where the daughters of Erin{12}may roam In a fence of sweet-brier, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... what difficulty they find in meeting: they do meet, however, every now and then, and many sore evils does the Destroyer suffer at their hands. By faith and fortitude, however, and the occasional assistance of the magic implements he strips them of, he is enabled to baffle and elude their malice, till he is conducted, at last, to the Domdaniel cavern, where he finds them assembled, and pulls down the roof of it upon their heads and his own; perishing, like Samson, in the final ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... evoked immediate interest, and he was asked several further questions about the destruction of Anlaf's house, and what became of his son. He tried to baffle their inquiries, and ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... the first oration of Cicero against Catiline: "Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?" (How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?) "Quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet?" (How long will this your madness baffle us?) "Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, ... nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt?" (Does the night watch of the Palatium, ... do the faces and expressions of all these men fail to move you?) "In te conferri ..." (This plague should have been ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... set out in pursuit. Their efforts at overtaking the highwayman were unavailing, for the trail soon ran out over the rocky and brushy ledges, and the fugitive had been clever enough to sprinkle some of his tracks liberally with red pepper to baffle the dogs. The sheriff made a hard push of it, however, and for one day held closely enough on the trail. Bob's journey to Sycamore Flats took place on this one day—during which Saleratus Bill was too busy dodging his pursuers to resume a purpose ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... needs management; for, though the savages are in the dark as to Chingachgook and the rock, they've eyes and legs, and will see in what direction we steer, and will be sartain to follow us. I shall strive to baffle 'em, howsever, by heading the scow in all manner of ways, first in one quarter and then in another, until they get to be a-leg-weary, and tired of ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... to Smoke her knowledge of the country and the way she planned to baffle pursuit. There were but two ways out, one west, the other south. Snass would immediately dispatch parties of young men to guard the two trails. But there was another way south. True, it did no more than penetrate half-way into the high mountains, then, twisting to the west ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... was stamped with this purpose. It puzzled White Fang. Never had he seen such a dog. It had no hair protection. It was soft, and bled easily. There was no thick mat of fur to baffle White Fang's teeth as they were often baffled by dogs of his own breed. Each time that his teeth struck they sank easily into the yielding flesh, while the animal did not seem able to defend itself. Another disconcerting thing was that it made no outcry, such as he had ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... Several who were against Taylor, but not for anybody particularly, before, are since taking ground, some for Scott and some for McLean. Who will be nominated neither I nor any one else can tell. Now, let me pray to you in turn. My prayer is that you let nothing discourage or baffle you, but that, in spite of every difficulty, you send us a good Taylor delegate from your circuit. Make Baker, who is now with you, I suppose, help about it. He is a good ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... reader of the Bible, who desires to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn the one thing needful from his lips. In this, as in many other portions of Scripture, a hungry labourer may live upon the bread, while it may baffle a philosopher to analyze its constituents, and expound its nutritive qualities. A devout reader may get the meaning of the parable in power upon his heart, while the logical interpreter expends much profitless labour in the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... the same. In other cases, the hero foils his opponents by subterfuges which are admitted to be just, but which are not intended actually to deceive, as in the devices by which the blind Shaykh instructs the merchant to baffle the sharpers, in one of the Sindibad stories (vol. vi., pp. 202-212, No. 135x., of our Table). In the present story Pharaoh was baffled by the superior cunning of Haykar but it is not made quite clear whether he ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... in to her and asked her, "How shall I do and what plan shall I pursue?; it is thou hast caused this great distress to us;" and she had answered, "O great King and mighty Cohen![FN389] I will teach thee a trick would baffle Iblis himself, though he summon to his assistance all his grisly hosts."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... signals and Paul Revere on his swift horse were able, however, to baffle successfully the plans of the British general. The redcoats had scarcely gotten into their boats, when Dawes and Paul Revere started by different roads to warn Hancock and Adams, and the people of the country-side, that the regulars were out. Revere rode by way of Charlestown, and ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... constant state of negotiation; and, if you attend to it in that view, will qualify you for any. By the same means that you make a friend, guard against an enemy, or gain a mistress; you will make an advantageous treaty, baffle those who counteract you, and gain the court you are sent to. Make this use of all the company you keep, and your very pleasures will make you a successful negotiator. Please all who are worth pleasing; offend none. Keep your ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... crown he had seized, received intelligence of a conspiracy against his life from the traitorous Aumerle, who purchased his own safety at the expense of his confederates. The timely warning enabled the king to baffle the design. It was in Windsor also that the children of Mortimer, Earl of March, the rightful successor to the throne, were detained as hostages for their father. Liberated by the Countess-dowager of Gloucester, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... weaving, denotes that you will baffle any attempt to defeat you in the struggle for the up-building of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... inevitable, considering the different shades of opinion prevailing amongst them, though they hope to reconcile all their differences by the time Parliament meets, which they will probably do, in order to baffle their common enemy. It is, however, a good thing that these differences should arise amongst them. I wish I could see a party formed upon really Conservative principles, determined to maintain the Constitution and steer clear of Tory nonsense and bigotry; but this ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... after dining, he resolved to baffle his impatience by working all the evening and retouching one act of his drama with which he was not perfectly content. He went to his room, lighted his lamp, and seated himself before his open manuscript. Now, then! to work! He had been ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... turn'd in at a gate, and began to cut across a field: for I hop'd thus not only to baffle pursuit for a while, but also to gain the wood that we saw dimly ahead. It reach'd to the top of the hill, and I knew not how far beyond: and as I was reflecting that there lay our chance of safety, I heard the inn door below burst open with loud cries, and the sound of footsteps ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... amazing, the undeceivable man, Cleek. He'd get at the truth of it. Nothing could baffle and bewilder him. But—oh, well, it's the old, old tale of the power of money. He wouldn't take the case, a high-and-mighty 'top-notcher' like that, unless the reward was a tempting ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of suspicion, he set this down as an attempt to disguise her hand. "So," said he, to himself, "this is the game. The old woman is to be drawn into it, too. She is to help to make Georges Dandin of me. I will go. I will baffle them all. I will expose this nest of depravity, all ceremony on the surface, and voluptuousness and treachery below. O God! who could believe that creature never loved me! They shall none of them see my weakness. Their benefactor shall be still their superior. They ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... contemporaries appear to have fully realized it; but as long as society was made up of unequals with no caste barriers to prevent imitation, the inferiors were bound to ape the superiors, and the superiors were bound to baffle imitation, so far as possible, by seeking ever-fresh devices for ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... mysteries may surprise and baffle a reason deprived of principle; but they are never contrary to it, because they proceed from reason itself, from that Supreme Reason which created us in its own image; and, by that very fact, is always in accord with individual reason in so far as this will consent to sacrifice ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... one of considerable firmness of character, who unflinchingly maintains his ground whilst a host are baying at him, appearing as unmoved as the rock that is pelted by the storm; he seems never taken by surprise, but is ever ready with such answers and explanations as generally baffle his accusers; still he cannot be called a popular minister, because he is known to possess what is called the Anglo-mania, that is, to have a most decided predilection for everything that is English, and ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... been disemboweled, and the enemy kept up such a murderous fire that there was a prospect of the entire battery being knocked to pieces should they persist in holding that position longer. It was time to take some step to baffle that tremendous fire, notwithstanding the danger there was in moving, and the captain unhesitatingly gave orders to bring ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... past. For the first night in a week his mind and body took the rest that had been denied them for so long. The thing was behind him. It was over. He had earned his right to sleep. When he laid his head upon the pillow there was no fear of evil dreams, no qualms, no troubled conscience to baffle the demands of exhaustion. He had done no wrong. His sleep was long, sweet, refreshing. He had no fear of God in his soul that night, for he had spoken with God in the silence of the long night before and he was at peace with Him. No man could ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Jesus, the parable was ordinarily chosen as a means of making clear the spiritual truth which he was presenting. Illustration never finds place as mere ornament in his addresses. His parables, however, were sometimes used to baffle the unteachable and critical. Such was the case on the occasion in Jesus' life when attention is first called in the gospels to this mode of teaching (Mark iv. 1-34). The parable of the Sower would mean little ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... unerringly that she was in love not with a dream, but with a fact, that she was in love not with Arthur, but with O'Hara. For days, weeks, months, she had been blindly groping toward the knowledge; and now, in a flash of intuition, it had come to her like one of those discoveries of science, which baffle investigators for years, and then miraculously reveal themselves in a moment of insight. Her first antagonism, her injustice, her unreasonable resentments and suspicions, she recognized now, in the piercing light of this discovery, as the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... the great ones, there exists a third element, preeminently vital. This third element the master plotters have either overlooked or else have not had the genius to construct. They plan with rare cunning to baffle the victim. They plan with vast wisdom, almost genius, to baffle the trailer. But they fail utterly to provide any plan for baffling the punisher. Ergo, their plots are fatally defective and often ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... on this island. He landed at Madagascar during that unhealthy season which commences about the middle of October; and soon after his arrival died of the pestilential fever, which prevails in that island six months of the year, and which will forever baffle the attempts of the European nations to form establishments on that fatal soil. His effects were seized upon by the rapacity of strangers, as commonly happens to persons dying in foreign parts; and his wife, ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... the tomb, which had proved to be greater by far in importance and splendour than even the Arab soothsayer had predicted. It was, in fact, a tomb of unique interest, a tomb whose history was to baffle the most expert Egyptologists. Freddy had kept the wonder of it a secret from Mike and Margaret. He had told them practically nothing. He wished ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... the side of a roaring torrent, he built himself a house of iron and stone, and placed a door on each of its four sides, so that he could see whatever passed around him. There, for many winters, he lived in lonely solitude, planning with himself how he might baffle his enemies and regain his old place in Asgard. Now and then he slipped slyly away from his hiding-place, and wrought much mischief for a time among the abodes of men. But when Thor heard of his evil-doings, ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... with equally fierce but certainly very well-deserved attacks on the character of the convention. William Pitt wound up his speech by declaring that "this convention, I think from my soul, is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy; an illusory expedient to baffle the resentment of the nation; a truce without a suspension of hostilities on the part of Spain; on the part of England a suspension, as to Georgia, of the first law of nature, self-preservation and self-defence; a surrender of the rights and the trade of England to the mercy of plenipotentiaries, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... and inheriting, all the sacred rights and inalienable prerogatives of the ineffable Adonai of the deathless soul, is the only test of man's qualification for the holy office; for, as Bulwer Lytton has truthfully said, "the loving throb of one great HUMAN HEART will baffle more fiends than all the magicians' lore." So it is with the sacred ritual. One single aspirational thought, clearly defined, outweighs all the priestly trappings that the ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... marriage I have had nothing but a few words to explain your amazing conduct; and now here am I doing my best to free you from the chains that bind you, and all the while you seem to be struggling to hug those chains about you and to baffle all my efforts. Why do you do this? What is the secret that you conceal so carefully from the man who would do anything to save you from trouble, from the man you profess to love? If ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... matter in a large family to keep your actions a secret. Obtuse as most men are, with things going on right under their eyes, it is not easy to baffle them when once their curiosity is roused. And yet curiosity is always imputed exclusively to women! Though Eve was the first to taste the apple, Adam had no intention of being behindhand. I know a man who always manages to get down to breakfast five minutes ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... didn't, and so she served at this hour to drive the truth home. It was the truth, vivid and monstrous, that all the while he had waited the wait was itself his portion. This the companion of his vigil had at a given moment made out, and she had then offered him the chance to baffle his doom. One's doom, however, was never baffled, and on the day she told him his own had come down she had seen him but stupidly stare at the escape she ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... the calves, hopelessly deep, indeed, for any of the herd but himself to venture through—he gave a wistful look towards the depths of the cedar swamps in the valley, where he believed he could baffle all pursuers. Then his courage—but without his autumnal fighting rage—came back to him. His herd was his care. He crowded the cows and calves between himself and the snow, and turned to face his pursuers as they came running and shouting through ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... his mouth against her cheek. She should not baffle him thus. Now, that she was in his arms, his hot breath mingling with the warmth of hers, he was sure she could not resist him. Suddenly, she ceased to struggle—Limply, she lay against his breast. How he loved her! Frederick remembered with a thrilling, cutting desire that in those dear, ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... his little haven. Once there, the different crafts were quite concealed from the view of persons outside, and it now remained to be proved whether their cover was not so complete as effectually to baffle a hostile attempt to ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... you suspect is true, Josh," said Rod hurriedly, "we must do something to baffle the terrible game he is bent on playing. Can you lead us to the place where the man is hiding, and is it possible to get close to him without his knowing about ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... sky was cleared of dust and darkness, and a delicious, cool breeze began to blow and the disc of the sun resumed its normal state. Then the eater of clarified butter (Agni), glad because none could baffle him, assumed various forms, and sprinkled over with the fat exuded by the bodies of creatures, blazed forth with all his flames, filling the universe with his roar. Then numerous birds of the Garuda tribe bearing excellent feathers, beholding ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... A LOVE" might be the utterance of the same person, when he has grasped the fact that the loved one is determined to elude him. She may baffle his pursuit, but he will never desist from it, though it absorb his ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... one of those authors who baffle criticism by sheer high spirits. She gives me first and last a prevailing impression that novel-writing must be tremendous fun; and this is so cheering that it is really impossible to be angry with her. Otherwise I might have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... justice for civil and criminal causes. The nobles only attended on occasions of unusual interest. Moreover, a law or edict of the King became valid on being registered by a Parliament. It was a moot question whether the Parliament had the power to baffle the King by refusing to register an edict, and Henry IV. had avoided a refusal from the Parliament of Paris, by getting his edict of toleration for the Huguenots ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... faster and faster, Brim over and baffle resistance, And roll down blear'd roads to each distance Of past desolation and years; Till they cover the place of each sorrow, And leave you no past and no morrow: For what man is able to master And stem the great ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... of associations still earlier, belonging to an age already vanishing or vanished; but what could she know about civil war who had been almost an infant at the time? At this moment, she happened to be interested in the baffle of Waterloo, for she was reading "Vanity Fair," and had cried as she ought for poor little Emmy, when her husband, George Osborne, lay dead on the field there, with a bullet through his heart. But how was she to know that here, only a few rods before her, lay ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... minutes they were at the top of the mountain, and then they turned to judge of their position, and decide on a route that would baffle their pursuers. ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... clear air. They would then brush off the Mosquitoes that had alighted on their clothes, crawl into the lodge and close the door tight. Not a Mosquito was left alive in it, and the smoke hanging about the smoke-vent was enough to keep them from coming in, and so they slept in peace. Thus they could baffle the worst pest of the woods. But there was yet another destroyer of comfort by day, and this was the Blue-bottle flies. There seemed more of them as time went on, and they laid masses of yellowish eggs on ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... distresses me, can I not control my eyes? My strength must indeed have failed, and little should I esteem myself, if I cannot control my eyes and make them turn their glance elsewhere. Thus, I shall be able to baffle Love in his efforts to get control of me. The heart feels no pain when the eye does not see; so, if I do not look at him, no harm will come to me. He addresses me no request or prayer, as he would do were he in love with me. And since he neither loves nor esteems me, shall I love him without ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... craft; but, when petty controversy will no longer serve their purpose, we see the same men without warmth or energy, cold, languid, and unequal to the conflict; like those little animals, which are brisk in narrow places, and by their agility baffle their pursuers, but in the open field are soon overpowered. Haec pars dialectica, sive illam dicere malimus disputatricem, ut est utilis saepe et finitionibus, et comprehensionibus, et separandis quae sunt differentia, et resolvenda ambiguitate, et distinguendo, dividendo, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... bygone ages induced the O.S.N. Company to violate the sanctuary of peace sheltering the calm existence of Sulaco. The variable airs sporting lightly with the vast semicircle of waters within the head of Azuera could not baffle the steam power of their excellent fleet. Year after year the black hulls of their ships had gone up and down the coast, in and out, past Azuera, past the Isabels, past Punta Mala—disregarding everything but the tyranny of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... should bawl out that he was pale, and ask him what was the matter, and he should answer, tremblingly, that something was following him, and was near him then! He must get rid of it first; he must walk quickly, and baffle its pursuit by turning sharp corners, and plunging into devious streets and crooked lanes, and so ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... out, the new-comer also made herself comfortable in her seat, which, being opposite to that of Ashby, gave her the opportunity of examining his face at her leisure, if she felt so inclined, while she herself was so closely veiled as to baffle recognition. Her dress, though very plain, was in the latest fashion, and she wore with inimitable grace that marvellous Spanish mantilla which is equally adapted to adorn and to conceal. Although in the opposite seat, she was not close to Ashby, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... must sharpen its edges and polish its points, if it would be greatliest available in days like these. The knowledge that can plant batteries and plan campaigns, that is fertile in expedients and wise to baffle the foe, is just now the strongest power. Diagrams and first-aorists are good, and they who have fed on such meat have grown great, and done the state service in their generation; but these times demand new measures and new men. It is conceded that ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... us in Brussels—at the centre," he said, hastily. "Whatever vigorous action originated in Hermione Street seemed doomed to failure. Something always happened to baffle the best planned manifestations in every part of Europe. It was a time of general activity. You must not imagine that all our failures are of a loud sort, with arrests and trials. That is not so. Often the police work quietly, ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... whom I have made a half promise, but we can get no hold on this Chester, he will baffle us, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... him to the spirit land. The wish was creditable to the warmth of his domestic affection, but if the survivors preferred to keep the child with them a little longer in this vale of tears, they took steps to baffle grandfather's ghost. For this purpose when the old man's body was stretched on the bier and raised on the shoulders of half-a-dozen stout young fellows, the mother's brother would take the grandchild ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... been safe. How could they suppose that she was Lady Carse, dressed as she was, agitated as she was! A word from Mr Ruthven, the least readiness on his part, would have saved her. And now, here was the steward come to baffle all. Sir Alexander Macdonald had had eyes for her deliverers, though her nearest friends had none. Annie was her best friend after all. It was Annie's ball of thread, no doubt, that had roused her friends, and made them send this vessel; and Annie alone had shown any ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... baffled his own commanders in the past, so now did Devers baffle all. Far from interfering or assuming control, he did so only when in actual command at mounted inspection or drill, and then in the most courteous way of which he was capable. He declined to overhaul or inspect the quarters or stables of the other ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... appeared to me best to be adopted on this occasion, that they might be submitted to Your Royal Highness's consideration; and I take the liberty of repeating my firm conviction, that it will greatly advance Your Royal Highness's credit, and, in case of events, lay the strongest grounds to baffle every attempt at opposition to Your Royal Highness's just claims and right, that the language of those who may be, in any sort, suspected of knowing Your Royal Highness's wishes and feelings, should be that of great moderation ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... necessary aid, to be paid by the United States to humane individuals, in order to induce them voluntarily to part with their property. The Committee have no 'data' by which they can measure what this might be. But any sum, however small, will make so great an augmentation of the amount, as almost to baffle calculation, and to exhibit this project at once, as one exceeding, very far, indeed, any revenue which the United States could ever draw from their citizens, even if the object was to increase and multiply, instead of reducing the numbers of the class of productive labor.'—[Mr Tazewell's ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... felt quite good-humouredly towards my Arabs, because they had so woefully failed in their wretched attempt, and because, as it turned out, I had done what was right. They too, poor fellows, evidently began to like me immensely, on account of the hard-heartedness which had enabled me to baffle their scheme. ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... there really somebody behind Lucien? For he is the bete noire of my staff; and before allowing them to plot against him, I thought I should like to know whether, in your opinion, it would be better to baffle them and ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... to baffle pursuers. Apparently the blacks had just wandered off aimlessly in obedience to a whim of the moment. There was nothing but conjecture to support the opinion that the decampment had anything to do with the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... his soul was baffled—or did it mean that his soul would not suffer him to baffle it, try as he might? Was that girl of the old days to greet him with her wondering eyes at the end of every high path? These and many other ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... soon as possible, brother. If they follows me, I tries to baffle them, by means of jests and laughter; and if they persist, I uses bad and terrible language, of which I have ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... involuntary martyrs to repair thither at once. Yes! even gout, that has so long laughed out at all pharmacopoeias, and tortured us from the time "when our wine and our oil increased"—Gout, that colchicum would vainly attempt to baffle, that no nepenthe soothes, no opium can send to sleep—Gout, that makes as light of the medical practitioner as of his patient; that murdered Musgrave, and seized her very own historian by the hip[9]—this, our most formidable foe, is to be conquered at Vichy! Here, in a brief time, the iron ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... put herself out of the running, so what was there left for me to do but modestly to confess that I had passed two Red Cross examinations, could flick a thermometer with the best, and baffle the tricks of the most obstinate bronchitis kettle that ever overbalanced itself, or spat ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... God, and that which relates to the truth of Christianity; in both of which, if we mistake not, man's position is precisely similar—placed, that is, amidst evidence abundantly sufficient to justify his reasonable faith, and yet attended with difficulties abundantly sufficient to baffle an indocile reason. ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... Forsythe had just been subjected had been chastening in character, of a kind to baffle curiosity concerning the father's knowledge of details, and to discourage any further romantic rides with Miss Rosa. It had been left in abeyance whether or not the Temples should be made acquainted with the episode, dependent upon the future conduct of both young people. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... were certainly most puzzling," I remarked. "It almost appears as though matters were cleverly arranged in order to baffle detection." ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... "You baffle me," said the doctor at last, thoroughly discouraged. "Apparently you are sound all over, yet, looking at you, I fail to see how ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... that baffle the dainty stipple and line tracery of time, refusing to become mere tablets, mere fleshy intaglios of the past, whereon every curious stranger may spell out the bygone, and, counting their footprints, cast up the number ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... There is a rise of about one degree in the temperature of the blood and the blood pressure is increased in all parts of the body. The entire body is unduly sensitized, and the boy is besieged by an army of new and vivid sense impressions that overstimulate, confuse, and baffle him. He is under stress and like all persons under tension he reacts extremely and hence inconsistently in different directions. He cannot correlate and organize his experiences. They are too vivid, varied, and rapid for that. ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... the old steward shook his head doubtfully. The signs were sufficient to baffle his reason, which was none of the strongest, but the faithful servant could not bring himself to believe that his noble mistress would take flight in a manner so extraordinary—his good sense revolted at the thought. In his belief some crime had been committed, but how was it to be explained— ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... Charity L1.17.6." The majority will sympathize rather than disapprove of his opinion when he wrote, "Workmen in most Countries I believe are necessary plagues;—-in this where entreaties as well as money must be used to obtain their work and keep them to their duty they baffle all calculation in the accomplishment of any plan or repairs they are engaged in;—and require more attention to and looking after than ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... I suppose he became a little reckless, or perchance he began to think he knew more than his mother did about it, and wouldn't keep still. Anyway, whatever was the matter I don't know, but there came a day when "she could no longer hide him," and then she laid a plot to baffle the king, defeat ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... houses were haunted in Egypt, and have left some sane, educated, and methodical men to meet the same annoyances as the ancient Egyptians did, by the same measures. We do not pretend to discover, without examination, the causes of the sounds and sights which baffle trained and not superstitious investigators. But we do say that similar occurrences, in a kraal or an Eskimo hut, in a wigwam, in a cave, or under a gunyeh, would greatly confirm the animistic hypothesis of savages. ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... snow once more. And as Shirley slipped out of the engine-house, carrying a scaling ladder which he had borrowed after much persuasion from his good-natured friend, he thanked his luck for this natural veiling of the night, to baffle eyes too curious about the campaign he had planned. He knew the posts of the policemen on this street, and sedulously ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... upon every subject. His objections proceeded as much from his mind as his heart. "Catholicism," he was wont say, "is the most ancient of worships; and as for our own heresy, it unquestionably had its origin in vice. With regard to those difficulties which baffle our understanding, are they more easily explained by Protestants than ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... time to remedy so dangerous an omission; or if the law has been perverted from its original purposes, and criminals deserving to be punished under its provisions have been rescued by legal subtleties, it ought to be made so plain by amendatory provisions as to baffle the arts of perversion and accomplish the ends ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... is sometimes vaguely referred to the verb foil, to baffle, with which it has no connection. The Fr. feuille, leaf, is also invoked, and compared with Fr. fleuret, a foil, the idea being that the name was given to the "button" at the point. Now the earliest foils and fleurets were not buttoned; first, because they were pointless, and secondly, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... that have incensed me, can in soul Acquit me of that guilt. They know I dare To spurn or baffle them; or squirt their eyes With ink or urine: or I could do worse, Arm'd with Archilochus' fury, write iambicks, Would make ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... large, and the slave-dealers were fully determined to preserve their profitable monopoly, if by any means they could baffle the Government. The Egyptian officials were also inclined to assist their efforts, and while Gessi was recovering his strength, he had the mortification of seeing the fruits of his earlier success lost by the inaction or more culpable proceedings of his lieutenants. ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... that were uppermost, "Mamma died this morning." In a moment it flashed upon her that Dan had read the letter, and was waiting now to see the effect of the shock upon her. She immediately, but involuntarily, set herself to baffle his cruel curiosity. With a calm, illegible face she read the letter from beginning to end, folded it, and put it back in its envelope deliberately, then took up another which had ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... when we followed her, in a couple of hours, she was sleeping soundly. But I can't say either of us slept so well. If a trick was being played upon us, it was carried out in so clever a manner as to baffle me completely. I need not say that I made careful search of every cranny about the handsome house and offices; and if there was a secret passage or a door in the wall anywhere, it escaped me. We had peace for a fortnight, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... is astonishing how clear even the later Latin language becomes when it touches on congenial subjects, such as agriculture or law. The ancient legal phraseology had been seriously complained of as being so technical as to baffle all but experts in deciphering its meaning. Horace ridicules the cunning of the trained legal intellect in more than one place. But this reproach was no longer just. The series of able and thoughtful writers who had carried out a successive and systematic treatment of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... first, we yet can never pass beyond the principle of self-consciousness. Should we attempt it, we must be driven back from ground to ground, each of which would cease to be a ground the moment we pressed on it. We must be whirled down the gulf of an infinite series. But this would make our reason baffle the end and purpose of all reason, namely, unity and system. Or we must break off the series arbitrarily, and affirm an absolute something that is in and of itself at once cause and effect (causa sui), subject and object, or rather the absolute identity of both. But as this is inconceivable, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... said my friend, calmly. "Perpetual motion, or squaring the circle, would baffle Gregory. He's ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... is the goal. The pupil gives constant attention to the handwriting as well as to the thought. A number of students of about the same grade, under the same teacher, will write much alike. Fifteen or twenty of these students could each write a line on a page and it might baffle a layman, and perhaps puzzle an expert, to tell whether or not more than one person wrote the page. This constant striving after one ideal, and putting thought on the handwriting, had drawn them all toward that ideal ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... and unique, that one leaves the study of them impressed only with a deep, abiding sense of his inability to fathom them. We have in our midst one such, the penetration of whose manifestations and phenomena is well calculated to baffle the most zealous investigator. Reared among the rugged hill-sides and verdant vales of Williamstown, his character and oratory bear the evident impress of his nurturing. If to Elihu Burritt belongs the title of "The Learned Blacksmith," not less to William Pratt ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... ascend a ladder and creep through an aperture at the bottom of the sphere. This was not worth the labor, but then we could say we had attained the highest point of the cathedral. I hear that ladies sometimes venture into the ball; if so, their timidity is insufficient to baffle their curiosity. This accomplished, we retraced our steps, and visited the portion of St. Paul's in which divine service is performed. About a dozen boys, dressed in white surplices, were chanting sweetly; a dull-looking clergyman read the service indifferently; ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... had but two desires. The first was to live until he had saved as many lives as his carelessness had lost in the Nerbuddha. For it was nothing worse, but mere forgetfulness to change the course: one of those dreadful lapses of memory which baffle all Board of Trade inquiry. You may light, and buoy, and beacon every danger along the coast, and still you leave that small kink in the skipper's brain which will cast away a ship for all your care. The second of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... long talk between the earl and his page as to the best course to be pursued. It was clear that their old enemy was the leading person in the plot, and that the only plan to baffle it with any fair chances of success was to keep a constant eye upon his movements, and also to have three or four of the sturdiest men of the band told off to watch, without being perceived, each time that the princess ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... meant to feed on. 360 For the earth-not a use to which they don't turn it, The ore that grows in the mountain's womb, Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb, They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it— Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle With side-bars never a brute can baffle; Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards; Or, if your colt's fore-foot inclines to curve inwards, Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. 370 Then they cast bells like the shell of the ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... prevent surprise whilst the others sleep; and often practise the stratagem of lighting a fire at sunset, which they leave burning, and move on after dark to a more distant encampment—yet these precautions do not always baffle the depredators. Such is the description of men whom the traders of this river have constantly to guard against. It must require a long residence among them and much experience of their manners to overcome the apprehensions their hostility and threats are calculated to excite. Through ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... need, he gave her "for Charity L1.17.6." The majority will sympathize rather than disapprove of his opinion when he wrote, "Workmen in most Countries I believe are necessary plagues;—-in this where entreaties as well as money must be used to obtain their work and keep them to their duty they baffle all calculation in the accomplishment of any plan or repairs they are engaged in;—and require more attention to and looking after than ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... trained inquirers. That is the advantage of Societies such as ours; so that we don't personally have the unpleasantness. Some cases do baffle everybody. It's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Sometimes, indeed, when the deaths were less numerous, a hope began to be entertained that the distemper was abating, and confidence was for a moment restored; but these anticipations were speedily checked by the reappearance of the scourge, which seemed to baffle and deride all human skill ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... not quite of his opinion, for, dangerous as he knew the Bohemian to be, he thought he could use his services, and, at the same time, baffle his treasonable purpose, now that he saw clearly to what it tended. But his anxiety upon this subject was soon at an end, for the little cavalcade was not an hundred yards from the monastery and the village before Maugrabin joined it, riding as usual on his little ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... man was the one emotion that seemed to be left in her withered bosom. To baffle him, to evade him, to anticipate his coming and be away from home, constituted the chief object of ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. And they cast chains on her, who was still with an ominous stillness, and took her westwards with them and brought ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... without effect. Sir George Cary, burning to avenge the injury offered to his commander, sent immediately a letter of defiance to lord Fleming, challenging him to meet him in single combat on this quarrel, when, where and how he dares; concluding thus: "Otherwise I will baffle your good name, sound with the trumpet your dishonor, and paint your picture with the heels upward and bear it in despite of yourself." That this was not the only species of affront to which portraits were in these days exposed, we learn from ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... failure; on the contrary, he was one of those men whom opposition stimulates. And what before had been but a suggestion of prudence, became an object of desire. Plenty of other lads might no doubt be had on as reasonable terms as Lenny Fairfield; but the moment Lenny presumed to baffle the Italian's designs upon him, the special acquisition of Lenny became of paramount importance in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... greeted in surprise as Craig shook hands and introduced Norton. "And Jameson, too? Well, I think you've found a case at last that will baffle you." ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... out for a quarreller. Of all disgraces he endures not to be nonplussed, and had rather fly for sanctuary to nonsense which few descry, than to nothing, which all. His boldness is beholden to other men's modesty, which rescues him many times from a baffle; yet his face is good armour, and he is dashed out of anything sooner than countenance. Grosser conceits are puzzled in him for a rare man; and wiser men, though they know him, [yet] take him [in] for their pleasure, or as they would do a sculler ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... prison. The abolition of slavery in my native State and throughout the country, and the lapse of time, render the caution hitherto observed no longer necessary. But even since the abolition of slavery, I have sometimes thought it well enough to baffle curiosity by saying that while slavery existed there were good reasons for not telling the manner of my escape, and since slavery had ceased to exist, there was no reason for telling it. I shall now, however, cease to avail myself of this formula, and, as far as I can, endeavor to satisfy this ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... particularly, to be the most loyal and best disposed, and the most cordial haters of the French, that ever existed; but there is an indolence and a want even of the power of exertion in their disposition and habits, either for their own security, that of their country, or of their allies, which baffle all ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... recognized the deficit as the expectation of the ill fortune which should befall the time, and which still failed to materialize. So strong upon him was the persuasion of evil chances rife in the air to-day that he set himself as definitely to thwart and baffle them as if rationally cognizant of their pursuit. He would not return to his wonted vocation at the distillery, but carried his venison home, where his father, a very old man, with still the fervors of an aesthetic pride, pointed out with approbation the evidence of ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... were, of course, conducted with caution and remoteness. Gylingden, however, was one of those places which, if it knows anything, is sure to find a way of telling it, and the attorney was soon satisfied that Mark's secret visit had been conducted with sufficient caution to baffle the eyes and ears of the good folk ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... personal safety. He had made up his mind to communicate the secret of his enterprise to none until the moment of its execution; and this being accomplished, his ultimate plans were laid, as he thought, with sufficient skill to baffle pursuit and defeat either the malice of his enemies or the ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to translate these sentences into the true statement of his opinions, in order to baffle this angry and impotent attack; the self-righteousness of all who expect to claim salvation on the plea of their own personal merit. "Pay to A. B. at sight—value received by me."—To Messrs. Stone and Co. Bankers, Heaven-Gate. It is a ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... inherited both the truth and the error of Columbus. His career is one of those irritating mysteries which baffle the most patient inquiry. Born at Genoa, and naturalized in 1476 at Venice after fifteen years' residence, he seems to have settled in England eight or nine years before the close of the fifteenth century. Already his life had been an adventurous ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and popular fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the provinces of Arabia. His death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword from each tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the guilt of his blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites. An angel or a spy revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the only resource of Mahomet. [117] At the dead of night, accompanied by his friend Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the assassins watched at the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... spectacle with profound reverence, sure that through it all is working some divine power. Goodness is dear to the gods, wickedness is abhorrent to them. But the good man is often unhappy,—from strange inheritance of curse, or from complication of events which no wisdom can baffle. Yet from the discipline of suffering emerges the noblest character, and over the grave itself play gleams of ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... winnaw," cried Hal o' Nabs, "yo're neaw taen yet, feyther abbut, an' ey knoa a way to baffle 'em. If y'on let him down into t' river, Ebil, ey'n manage to ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... somewhat different. Why, it is a veritable romance—an affair of Daphne and Corydon—although, to be unpardonably candid, the plot of your romance, my young Arcadians, is not the most original conceivable. I think that the denouement need not baffle our imaginations." ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... as by the English Government, as to the course to be adopted during its deliberations. He was fully persuaded in his own mind that Sir Alfred Milner, being still a new arrival in South Africa, had not been able to grasp its complicated problems, and so had not adopted the best means to baffle the intrigues of President Kruger and the diplomacy of his clever colleague, President Steyn. At every tale which reached Cecil Rhodes concerning the difficulties encountered by Sir Alfred, he declared that he was "glad to be out of this mess." Yet ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... any rate, Peteiro had given no signs of possessing much cunning. To all appearances he was a tough, go-ahead fighter, with a right which would drill a hole in a steel plate. Had he sufficient skill to baffle his (Sheen's) strong tactics? If only Joe Bevan would come! With Joe in his corner to direct him, he ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... express the meaning in the form of logical definitions than in the way of the simple reader of the Bible, who desires to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn the one thing needful from his lips. In this, as in many other portions of Scripture, a hungry labourer may live upon the bread, while it may baffle a philosopher to analyze its constituents, and expound its nutritive qualities. A devout reader may get the meaning of the parable in power upon his heart, while the logical interpreter expends much profitless labour in the dissection of a ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... to the exit, and the young man noticing this, became momentarily tongue-tied, but nevertheless persisted, with a certain awkward doggedness which was not going to allow so slight a hint that his further attendance was unnecessary, to baffle him. He did not speak until they had passed down the stone steps to the pavement, and then his utterance began with a half-embarrassed stammer, as if the shadow of displeasure demanded justification ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... baffle, deter, dissuade, hinder, confound, disapprove, expose, impede, counteract, disconcert, frustrate, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... genius, his haunting fiend. He had conceived a profound terror of her from the moment he perceived that she was resolutely bent upon making him honest. He had broken from her years ago, fled, resumed his evil courses, hid himself from her,—in vain. Wherever he went, there went she. He might baffle the police, not her. Hunger had often forced him to accept her aid. As soon as he received it, he hid from her again, burying himself deeper and deeper in the mud, like a persecuted tench. He associated her idea with all ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... are starting-points to an azimuth circle, and command them to search and find out the ultimate causes of things in the universe, but the forever narrowing circle in one direction, and the forever widening one in the other, would utterly baffle all their attempted research. Whether they descended into the microscopic world, with its myriad-thronged conditions of life, or passed upward and outward, in Sirius-distances, to the irresolvable nebulA|, where other and perhaps brighter stars might burst upon their view—gleaming ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... to watch the operations of nature, that he may be led to just perceptions of the greatness of the Creator, and the goodness of his immutable laws. Soon he finds his perceptions dim, and is conscious of evil propensities, which baffle all his efforts at sinless perfection. He finds nothing in nature to solve the solemn inquiry how sin is to be pardoned, and evil thoughts and habits to be rooted out. The convinced sinner then feels the necessity ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to my embrace * Which clips him all about like the tendrils of the vine And shed a flood of softness on the hardness of his heart, * He yielded though at first he was minded to decline; And dreading lest the railer's eye should light upon his form, * Came armoured with caution to baffle his design: His waist makes moan of hinder cheeks that weigh upon his feet * Like heavy load of merchandise upon young camel li'en; Girt with his glances scymitar which seemed athirst for blood, * And clad in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... silent as her schoolboy brother. Seemingly a prey to the fateful maiden meditations which baffle a father's penetration and even a mother's sagacity, it was impossible to be certain whether it was the lamplight that cast those shadows that flitted over her face like thin clouds over a bright sky, or whether they were passing shades of ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... complicated locks which had helped to guarantee the late Mrs. Allerton against burglars. There was not only a bolt, a chain, and an ordinary lock, but there was an ingenious double lock which turned the wrong way when you thought you were turning it the right, and could otherwise baffle the unskilful. Occupied with this task he could peep over his shoulder, through the unlighted front drawing-room, and see his adored one standing on the hearthrug, his hands clasped behind him, and his head bent, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... had not been for them, I would have gone to West Point with you, Bob. But, above all else in the world I enjoy pitting my wits against another's—enjoy unravelling mysteries that baffle others. To me there is no excitement equal to a man hunt. I suppose in a way it is an inheritance; my father was a great criminal lawyer, and his father before him. When Pinkerton organized the Secret Service division of the army in '61, ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... could find out whether they were looking for him or not. They came nearer and then vanished, and he sat down and speculated about his line of retreat. Their disappearance was suspicious, and although he thought he could baffle the rural police, it would be different if he had gamekeepers to ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... watching the blue sunrise. The entire sky in the north, halfway up to the zenith, was streaked with extraordinary colours, among which jale and dolm predominated. Just as the principal character of an ordinary dawn is mystery, the outstanding character of this dawn was wildness. It did not baffle the understanding, but the heart. Maskull felt no inarticulate craving to seize and perpetuate the sunrise, and make it his own. Instead of that, it agitated and tormented him, like the opening bars of ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... retiring to Metapontum, were taken to Tarentum by mistaking the roads; where they were seized by some Roman foragers, who were straggling through the fields, and brought before the proprietor, Caius Claudius. At first they endeavoured to baffle him by evasive answers, but threats of applying torture being held out to them, they were compelled to confess the truth; when they fully admitted that they were the bearers of a letter from Hasdrubal to Hannibal. They were delivered into the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... crime, especially in the great ones, there exists a third element, preeminently vital. This third element the master plotters have either overlooked or else have not had the genius to construct. They plan with rare cunning to baffle the victim. They plan with vast wisdom, almost genius, to baffle the trailer. But they fail utterly to provide any plan for baffling the punisher. Ergo, their plots are fatally defective and often ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... these mysteries may surprise and baffle a reason deprived of principle; but they are never contrary to it, because they proceed from reason itself, from that Supreme Reason which created us in its own image; and, by that very fact, is always in accord with individual ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... worthily reveal the secret of the sadness in that haunting face, to which sculptors alone have done full justice. There are hints scattered through his poems that startlingly supplement the vague clues which now tantalise and baffle as we trace the story ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... powers, every step of its progress marked by false professions, by broken pledges, by a steady degradation of moral fiber among all those engaged in the scheme. The opposition to it—as usually happens—consisted partly in the natural effort of partisans to baffle their opponents, and partly in an honorable protest of heart and conscience against a great wrong committed in the interest of a national sin. But looking back upon the whole transaction—even over so ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... since taking ground, some for Scott and some for McLean. Who will be nominated neither I nor any one else can tell. Now, let me pray to you in turn. My prayer is that you let nothing discourage or baffle you, but that, in spite of every difficulty, you send us a good Taylor delegate from your circuit. Make Baker, who is now with you, I suppose, help about it. He is a good hand to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Sir, I think from my soul, is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy; an illusory expedient, to baffle the resentment of the nation; a truce without the suspension of hostilities on the part of Spain; on the part of England a suspension, as to Georgia, of the first law of nature, self-preservation and self-defence—surrender ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... penetrated my perceptions long since. Of course I remembered young Bretton well; and though ten years (from sixteen to twenty-six) may greatly change the boy as they mature him to the man, yet they could bring no such utter difference as would suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr. John Graham Bretton retained still an affinity to the youth of sixteen: he had his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all the excellently-moulded lower half of the face; I found ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... stalk, like a pile of dingy chalk; Disappeared the cypress walk, and the flowers; And a donjon-keep arose, that might baffle any foes, With its men-at-arms in rows, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... patient has been subject to the packs from the beginning of the disease, there will be cases when water-treatment can neither prevent such an event or even save the life of the patient afflicted by scarlet-fever. There will be a case, now and then, to baffle any mode of treatment, and the physician must not be blamed for losing a patient of scarlatina occasionally, but it is not necessary that people should continue to die of this disease in such numbers, as they have been destroyed ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... know what to advise"—distractedly. "If we give our suspicions publicity, Arthur Dynecourt may even yet find time and opportunity to baffle and disappoint us. Besides which, we may be wrong. He may have had nothing ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... scene, during which I could guess that the denouement of the play was near at hand, I went to my charming countess, taking care to change my gondola three times—a necessary precaution to baffle spies. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... though well-travelled road on the south shore which led to St. Valier. Angelique was crafty enough amid her impulsiveness to see that it were better for Fanchon to go down by water and return by land: it lessened observation, and might be important one day to baffle inquiry. La Corriveau would serve her for money, but for money also she might betray her. Angelique resolved to secure her silence by making her the perpetrator of whatever scheme of wickedness she might devise against the unsuspecting lady of Beaumanoir. As for ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... sound of the outboard motor could be heard at the mansion, and decided it probably could not. The heavy marsh grass was a good sound baffle and the motor was relatively quiet. He leaned out, trying to see ahead. There were many birds in the swamp, and next to the boat a surprised snapping turtle looked up briefly, then scurried into ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... whether the resolution to sanction the enormous attendant damage would be displayed. It is said that the national spirit does not beat so high as when the youthful William resorted to that measure in 1672 to baffle the French monarch, and then prepared his fleet, in the event of its failure, to convey the relics of Dutch greatness and the fortunes of Orange to a new home and country beyond the seas. On that occasion the waters did their ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... place for the pursued deer to take to the water in their endeavor to baffle the hounds following their tracks, and from my station on the long point I could watch and ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... phenomena received by a series of instruments of delicate construction and capable of exposing the least attempt at fraud. Those who were present at the circles with him declare that he would frequently make his appearance with a new instrument and a face full of grim expectancy that he would now baffle the powers that had baffled him on previous occasions, and that he would retire with a countenance of settled despondency as the unseen something set at nought his deep-laid plans and secret hopes. It will suffice to say here that his experiments ended in his accepting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... breath, as if he had been writing with his heart's blood. Folding up the paper, he hid it inside his shirt and began his dogged walk, calculating the chances of escape. Once out of this shed, he could baffle a blood-hound, he knew the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... southern night, with its sense of rich, luscious, breathing intensity, lay over that romantic spot in Southern Rhodesia where the grey walls of the Zimbabwe ruins, with a sublime, imperturbable indifference, continue to baffle the ingenuity and ravish the curiosity of all who would read their story. Scientists, archaeologists, tourists come and go, but the stern old walls, guarded by the sentinel hills, give back no answer to eager questioning, eager ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... the provision adopted by the mercy of the Creator to preserve religion in the world. Outside the Catholic Church all things tend to atheism. The Catholic Church is the one face to face antagonist, able to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of passion and the all-dissolving scepticism of the mind. I am a Catholic by virtue of my belief in God. If I should be asked why I believe in God, I should answer, because I believe in myself. I find it impossible to believe in myself, without believing ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... far astride, his oilskins dripping, his feet awash to the ankles, spume drenching and whipping him, the wind a lash—brought exultation and a sense of mastery and confidence such as he had never before held suggestion of. To guide the ship, constantly to baffle the sea and wind, the turbulence, buffeting bows and run and counter, smashing at the rudder, leaping always like a pack of yapping hounds—this was a thing that left the days of his water-front detail ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... plan a robbery that was to mulet the Adams Express Company of $100,000, baffle the renowned Pinkertons for weeks and excite universal admiration for its ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... have previously mentioned; excessive capitalization, investment write-ups and security manipulations; price rigging and collusive bidding in defiance of the spirit of the antitrust laws by methods which baffle prosecution under the present statutes. They include high-pressure salesmanship which creates cycles of overproduction within given industries and consequent recessions in production until such time as the surplus is consumed; ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... escape, and the thought brought him back to the consideration of his own situation. A sudden unreasonable disgust of the conditions which made his salvation so improbable seized upon him. He reflected that he might still baffle fate by taking his own life, and for an instant the idea of thus escaping from all the vexations which surrounded him presented itself to his mind in alluring colors. The idea of self- destruction was one with which ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... there is nothing even in all these urgencies to justify a single lie or fraud, there is much to sharpen a man's wits to secure the sale of his goods,—much to educate him in all manner of expedients to baffle the inquiries of customers who would be offended, if they could discover that he ever charged them the profit without which he could never meet his expenses. And the jobber's problem is complicated by the folly, universally prevalent among buyers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... bury the calves, hopelessly deep, indeed, for any of the herd but himself to venture through—he gave a wistful look towards the depths of the cedar swamps in the valley, where he believed he could baffle all pursuers. Then his courage—but without his autumnal fighting rage—came back to him. His herd was his care. He crowded the cows and calves between himself and the snow, and turned to face his pursuers as they came running and ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... her feeling she had thus found the way to show she was not simple. It struck out of Mrs. Wix that this lady still believed her moral sense to be interested and feigned; so what could be such a gage of her sincerity as a peep of the most restless of the passions? Such a revelation would baffle discouragement, and discouragement was in fact so baffled that, helped in some degree by the mere intensity of their need to hope, which also, according to its nature, sprang from the dark portent of ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... heavily before he shipped; but the captain was evidently too short of hands to be particular. I think I will give the Concanens my tin box to hide in their cabin. Of course I can trust them, and this will baffle theft; the clasp I will wear about me. This is a happy idea; I will go to their cabin now and ask them. It is 9.30 p.m., and the wind ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gentleman's head. As to the ball, we do not recollect ever to have seen one in the works of any of the old masters so true to nature. In conclusion, the buttons on the jacket, and the button-holes, companions thereto, would baffle the criticism of the most hyper-fastidious stab-rag; and the shirt collar, with every other detail—never forgetting the chiaro-scuro—are equal to any ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... before his departure, King Afridun had gone in to her and asked her, "How shall I do and what plan shall I pursue?; it is thou hast caused this great distress to us;" and she had answered, "O great King and mighty Cohen![FN389] I will teach thee a trick would baffle Iblis himself, though he summon to his assistance all his grisly hosts."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... is almost impossible to compose and print, with perfect accuracy, a work of this size, in which so many little things should be observed, remembered, and made exactly to correspond. There is no human vigilance which multiplicity may not sometimes baffle, and minuteness sometimes elude. To most persons grammar seems a dry and difficult subject; but there is a disposition of mind, to which what is arduous, is for that very reason alluring. "Quo difficilius, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... cousin as she paused before answering. He felt that the question must baffle her. He did not comprehend what was behind her ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... than I had intended, and I signified to Lord Bolingbroke my intention of quitting him by sunrise the next morning. He endeavoured in vain to combat my resolution. I was too fearful lest Montreuil, hearing of his danger from the state, might baffle my vengeance by seeking some impenetrable asylum, to wish to subject my meeting with him and with Gerald, whose co-operation I desired, to any unnecessary delay. I took leave of my host therefore that night, and ordered my carriage to be in ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and galloped off with his horse's shoes turned backward, so as to baffle pursuit. He came safely, on the fifth day, to his own border castle of Lochmaben, where he found his brother Edward. Keeping watch, they seized a messenger on his way to the English court, bearing ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the Diana Gallery, were equally sumptuous. The Emperor, however, especially delighted in the masked balls, when, changing his Imperial robes for a simple domino, he whose police system was so perfect, who knew and saw everything, used to baffle the women, and tease or surprise ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... planet's history, yet among simians it will be apt to come from second-rate motives. Greed, selfishness or fear-thoughts will be the incentives, the bribes. Contrivances, rather than continence, will be the method. How audacious, and how disconcerting to Nature, to baffle her thus I Even into her shrine they must thrust their bold paws to control her. Another race viewing them in the garlanded chambers of love, unpacking their singular devices, might think them grotesque: but the busy little simians will ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... the Ramesside period; the writing is careful and for the most part very distinct; some lacunae are met with toward the end, and in a few passages the characters baffle the present ...
— Egyptian Literature
... our agent there. I would have given a good deal at that moment for a few words with him. But I knew of no Mulligans in Kildormey, although, of course, there might be. I was born myself only a few miles from the place. Now, thinks I to myself, if these two children can baffle a purser who has been twenty years on the Atlantic when they say they came from his own town almost, by the powers they deserve their passage over the ocean. I had often seen grown people try to cheat their way across, and I may say none of ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... consisted in leaving her stepmother in doubt. She more than suspected, not without cause, that Fraulein Schult was false to her, and had the wit to baffle all the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... profit from their annihilation; but since the distemper they have spread seems incurable, since their contagion bids defiance to the medicine of advice or reprehension, and since they are found to baffle all the mental art of physic, save what is prescribed by the slow regimen of Time, and bitter diet of Experience; surely all attempts to contribute to the number of those which may be read, if not with advantage, at least without injury, ought rather to be encouraged ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... upon the matter, I naturally grew obstinate also, and he spent his whole day in trying to catch me up, while I spent mine in trying to baffle him, and we seemed to be playing at hide-and-seek; the consequences were, that when it was getting dark, I had completely lost myself in the most deserted part of the moor. There was no cottage near, and not even a church spire in the distance. The only ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... as he had baffled his own commanders in the past, so now did Devers baffle all. Far from interfering or assuming control, he did so only when in actual command at mounted inspection or drill, and then in the most courteous way of which he was capable. He declined to overhaul or inspect the quarters or stables of the other troops, which, as battalion ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... or, if thrown at when outside, to dodge the rope by lying as flat as possible on the ground. Thus Lincoln unwittingly taught the Coyote the dangers and limitations of a rope, and so he proved a blessing in disguise—a very perfect disguise. When the Coyote had thoroughly learned how to baffle the lasso, the boy terror devised a new amusement. He got a large trap of the kind known as "Fox-size." This he set in the dust as he had seen Jake set a Wolf-trap, close to the kennel, and over it he scattered scraps of meat, in the most approved style for Wolf-trapping. After a while ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... who when they hear Such tidings, hasten. O ye race of men Though born to soar, why suffer ye a wind So slight to baffle ye? He led us on Where the rock parted; here against my front Did beat his wings, then promis'd I should fare In safety on my way. As to ascend That steep, upon whose brow the chapel stands (O'er Rubaconte, looking ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... nettle danger. It was then and there that Washington[6] proposed making a flank march to Princeton that very night, boldly throwing themselves upon the enemy's communications, defeating such reenforcements as might be found in the way, and perhaps dealing such a blow as would, if successful, baffle all the enemy's plans. ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... however, every now and then, and many sore evils does the Destroyer suffer at their hands. By faith and fortitude, however, and the occasional assistance of the magic implements he strips them of, he is enabled to baffle and elude their malice, till he is conducted, at last, to the Domdaniel cavern, where he finds them assembled, and pulls down the roof of it upon their heads and his own; perishing, like Samson, in the final ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... subjected to an examination, in the hope that something might be found to incriminate her in the words of those who might hardly be able to estimate the exact value of their expressions. The princess had been old enough to baffle the utmost malice of her questioners; and the boy had given short and plain replies from which nothing to suit their purpose could be extracted, till they forced him to drink brandy, and, when he ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... drive her back: the mystery of the thing; the desire to baffle, or at least to discover, a dark design; the wish to be of service to her mistress; and the hope of finding out something which would keep Iris from going back to her husband. Fanny was unable to comprehend the depth of her mistress's affection ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... festival, and in something of the same spirit Pons' thoughts turned to the coming end. In his tender love he tried to protect Schmucke when he should be low in the grave. It was this father's thought that led him to fix his choice upon the leading lady of the ballet. Mlle. Brisetout should help him to baffle surrounding treachery, and those who in all probability would never forgive his ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... retirement sown In youth, and 'mid the world kept pure As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown, Must perish; how can they this blight endure? And must he, too, his old delights disown, Who scorns a false, utilitarian lure 'Mid his paternal fields at random thrown? Baffle the threat, bright scene, from Orrest-head, Given to the pausing traveller's rapturous glance! Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance Of nature; and if human hearts be dead, Speak, passing ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... their own use, it is time to remedy so dangerous an omission; or if the law has been perverted from its original purposes, and criminals deserving to be punished under its provisions have been rescued by legal subtleties, it ought to be made so plain by amendatory provisions as to baffle the arts of perversion and accomplish the ends of its ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... which they could not previously depend. The extraordinary difficulty of penetrating into this country had now been fully experienced; where unexpected delays from deep ravines and other obstacles, frequently force the traveller from his direct course, and baffle every conjecture concerning the time required for passing a certain tract. The utmost extent of this excursion in a direct line had not been more than thirty miles, and it had taken up five days. ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... some of them in the name of Jesus himself, that this world is a vale of tears, and that our lives had better be passed in sorrow and even in torment, as a preparation for a better life to come. Make these sad people comfortable; and they baffle you by putting on hair shirts. None the less, governments must proceed on dogmatic assumptions, whether they call them dogmas or not; and they must clearly be assumptions common enough to stamp those who reject them as eccentrics ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... judge. At one moment it exceeded not the common height, at another her forehead seemed to strike the sky; and whenever she raised her head higher, she began to pierce within the very heavens, and to baffle the eyes of them that looked upon her. Her garments were of an imperishable fabric, wrought with the finest threads and of the most delicate workmanship; and these, as her own lips afterwards assured me, ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... kept the steward waiting while he studied the menu. Dick, who envied his coolness, thought it indicated one of two things: Kenwardine knew he was beaten and was philosophically resigned, or had some plan by which he hoped to baffle his pursuers. Now and then Dick looked at Don Sebastian inquiringly, but the Spaniard answered with an ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... showed Irving's great ability was the scene in the forest of Montmorency, where, as Robespierre, he reveals at one moment, in his talk with the English envoy, his ambition, his overestimate of himself, his suspicion of everybody and everything, his willingness to be cruel to any extent in order to baffle possible enemies; and then, next moment, on the arrival of his young friends, boys and girls, the sentimental, Rousseau side of his character. This transition was very striking. The changes in the expression of Irving's face were marvelous—as wonderful as those in his Louis XI; but that ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... are some natures so essentially base, so incapable of being affected by kindness, so dead to honour and generosity, that they will not scruple to conspire or set themselves individually to escape and baffle the wise precautions undertaken for their benefit. I will not name the dastards at present—they themselves can look into their hearts and see their ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... to notice, that among Swift's eccentricities, we find a propensity to "out-of-the-way rhymes." In his works are numerous examples of couplets made apparently for no other purpose but to show that no word could baffle him; and the anecdote of his long research for a rhyme for the name of his old enemy Serjent Betsworth, and of the curious accident by which he obtained it, is well known; from which we may conclude that he was on the watch for occasions of exhibiting such rhymes as rakewell ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... sweetly chous'd the States, By Bergen-baffle grown more wise; And made 'em shit as small as rats, By their rich Smyrna fleet's surprise: Had haughty Holmes, but call'd in Spragg, Hans had been put into ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... said, to all men sweet is, Death to all must bitter be; Wherefore thus, oh, mother Thetis! None can baffle Jove's decree? I am ready, I am willing, To resign my stormy life; Weary of this long blood-spilling, Sated ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... appeared probable enough, and it was with no pleasant feelings that when darkness came I mentally surveyed the situation, and bethought me of some plan by which to baffle those who sought ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... scene on our entrance was very striking. There were three thousand people present in full dress; from the roof to the floor, the theatre was decorated magnificently; and the light, glitter, glare, show, noise, and cheering, baffle my descriptive powers. We were walked in through the centre of the centre dress-box, the front whereof was taken out for the occasion; so to the back of the stage, where the mayor and other dignitaries received us; and we ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... might be the utterance of the same person, when he has grasped the fact that the loved one is determined to elude him. She may baffle his pursuit, but he will never desist from it, though ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... consummated: "This is now the time for humbling the whole House of Bourbon: and if this opportunity is let slip, we shall never find another! Their united power, if suffered to gather strength, will baffle our most vigorous efforts, and possibly plunge us in the gulf of ruin. We must not allow them a moment to breathe. Self-preservation bids us crush them before they can combine or recollect themselves."—"No evidence ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... remember how Herod and Luther died of a diet of Glow-worms," and while the Nightingale (who was by no means a bad bird at stomach) was considering these propositions, escaped, hanging out false lights to baffle his enemy's pursuit. ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... beneath that of your Lordships, the lowest, though once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? But while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for the wretched mechanic, who is famished into guilt. These men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... is thoroughly adapted to deal with the Asiatic. Half an Asiatic himself, in spite of his fair complexion, he knows how to baffle the arts and overcome the prejudices of his new subjects. The Russian diplomatist has all the softness and suavity of his Asiatic congeners. He conforms to their customs and allows them to delay and prevaricate ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... about race, climate, religion. But always sooner or later, and much more often sooner than later, the mocking demon of the individual, or, if a different phrase be preferred, the great and splendid mystery of the idiosyncrasy of the artist, will meet and baffle you. You will find that on the showing of this science falsely so called, there is no reason why Chapelain should not be a poet, and none why Shakespeare is. You will ask science in vain to tell you why some dozen or sixteen ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... boys kept swimming alongside, to direct the floats toward the shore; at the same time he realized what tremendous difficulty they would have to keep the doors from "turning turtle," for there were many cunning eddies in the flood, that would strive to baffle their best efforts. ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... have been rid of Gregorio, she would have felt almost sure of victory; but as it was, she believed the man absolutely meant to baffle her, partly out of a spiteful rivalry, partly because his master's torpid indolence could be used to his own advantage. She was absolutely certain that his sneering tone of remark made her husband doubly disinclined to let ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his pride? Slept the old pilot in so rough a tide, Whose wiles had from the happy shore betray'd, And thus on shelves the credulous youth convey'd? In deep revolving thoughts he weighs his state, Secure of craft, nor doubts to baffle fate; At least, if his storm'd bark must go adrift, To balk his charge, and for himself to shift, 850 In which his dexterous wit had oft been shown, And in the wreck of kingdoms saved his own. But now, with more than common danger press'd, Of various resolutions stands possess'd, Perceives the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... phenomena make just this sort of impression. They are inwardly as incoherent as they are outwardly wayward and fitful. If they express anything, it is pure "bosh," pure discontinuity, accident, and disturbance, with no law apparent but to interrupt, and no purpose but to baffle. They seem like stray vestiges of that primordial irrationality, from which all our rationalities have ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... Beaumont, 'L'Irlande Sociale,' p. 251. It is of primary consequence that Englishmen should realise the undoubted fact, that agrarian conspiracies and agrarian outrages, such as those which baffle the English Government in Ireland, are known to foreign countries. For centuries the question of tenant-right, in a form very like that in which it arises in Ireland, has been known in the parts of France ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... equal the chagrin of Fitzpatrick and Bridger at being dogged by their inexperienced rivals, especially after their offer to divide the country with them. They tried in every way to blind and baffle them; to steal a march upon them, or lead them on a wrong scent; but all in vain. Vanderburgh made up by activity and intelligence for his ignorance of the country; was always wary, always on the alert; discovered every movement of ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... speculation of their chances of escape, and the thought brought him back to the consideration of his own situation. A sudden unreasonable disgust of the conditions which made his salvation so improbable seized upon him. He reflected that he might still baffle fate by taking his own life, and for an instant the idea of thus escaping from all the vexations which surrounded him presented itself to his mind in alluring colors. The idea of self- destruction ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... highway, the rough though well-travelled road on the south shore which led to St. Valier. Angelique was crafty enough amid her impulsiveness to see that it were better for Fanchon to go down by water and return by land: it lessened observation, and might be important one day to baffle inquiry. La Corriveau would serve her for money, but for money also she might betray her. Angelique resolved to secure her silence by making her the perpetrator of whatever scheme of wickedness she might devise against the unsuspecting lady of Beaumanoir. As for Fanchon, she need know ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... three days afterwards they started, and at the station she gave Cartwright her hand with a smiling glance, but Cartwright knew his step-daughter and was not altogether satisfied. Barbara did not sulk; when one tried to baffle ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... to expiate a venial falsehood by concealed disaffection. The secrets of confession were inviolable. Anathemas the most fearful forbade their disclosure; and, secured behind this impenetrable shield, the church might defy the most stringent provisions, and baffle every precaution. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... be a pretty thing, if HE should become commander- in-chief!" cried Blucher. "The confusion and wrangling that would ensue would baffle description; for York and Bulow would be even more disobedient to him than they ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... I have heard of the scales on butterflies; but there are lots of sexual characters which quite baffle all powers ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... ought to be published shall be kept back,—and this she certainly intended to correct, augment, and re-produce—but I open the doubled-up paper! Warn anyone you may think needs the warning of the utter distress in which I should be placed were this scoundrel, or any other of the sort, to baffle me and bring out the letters—I can't prevent fools from uttering their folly upon her life, as they do on every other subject, but the law protects property,—as these letters are. Only last week, or so, the Bishop of Exeter stopped the publication ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... think from my soul, is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy; an illusory expedient, to baffle the resentment of the nation; a truce without the suspension of hostilities on the part of Spain; on the part of England a suspension, as to Georgia, of the first law of nature, self-preservation and self-defence—surrender ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the lodge and close the door tight. Not a Mosquito was left alive in it, and the smoke hanging about the smoke-vent was enough to keep them from coming in, and so they slept in peace. Thus they could baffle the worst pest of the woods. But there was yet another destroyer of comfort by day, and this was the Blue-bottle flies. There seemed more of them as time went on, and they laid masses of yellowish eggs on anything that smelled like meat or corruption. ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... in Dr. Hansombody, who had been measuring out a draught at the little table by the window, "I don't pretend to be a scholar; but I have made out the gist of them; and I understand them to recommend a gentle aperient in cases which at first baffle diagnosis." ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... likewise, and all the manifold appearances connected with them, are governed by certain laws no less than the phases of the moon. But the laws which determine the latter are known and calculable, while those of the former are hidden from us. At all events, the number and variety of their effects baffle our powers of calculation; and that the sky is clear or obscured at any particular time, we speak of, in common language, as a matter of accident. Well! at the time of the full moon, but when the sky is completely covered with black clouds, I am walking on in the dark, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... as he was retiring to Metapontum, were taken to Tarentum by mistaking the roads; where they were seized by some Roman foragers, who were straggling through the fields, and brought before the proprietor, Caius Claudius. At first they endeavoured to baffle him by evasive answers, but threats of applying torture being held out to them, they were compelled to confess the truth; when they fully admitted that they were the bearers of a letter from Hasdrubal to Hannibal. They were delivered ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... should have done had we recognised it as such, the loss of many of our animals would have been the inevitable consequence, and very probably a final issue would have been put to our journey. It is only to those who are placed in situations that baffle their own exertions or foresight, that the singular guidance of ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... delicate ground,' said Millbank; 'yet from me you may learn to suffer. There was a being once, not less fair than the peerless girl that you would fain call your own, and her heart was my proud possession. There were no family feuds to baffle our union, nor was I dependent on anything, but the energies which had already made me flourishing. What happiness was mine! It was the first dream of my life, and it was the last; my solitary passion, the memory ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... should say we—for four of my Brethren were deeply interested in you on account of the courage you had shown—we took you up to the utmost height of endurance in the way of mental terror—and, to our great joy, found your Soul strong enough to baffle and conquer the ultimate suggestion of Death itself. You held firmly to the truth that there is NO death, and with that spiritual certainty risked all for Love. Now we have released you from our spells!"—and ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... were the Greeks Distributed in bands, ten Greeks in each, Our banded decads should exceed so far Their units, that all Troy could not supply 150 For every ten, a man, to fill us wine; So far the Achaians, in my thought, surpass The native Trojans. But in Troy are those Who baffle much my purpose; aids derived From other states, spear-arm'd auxiliars, firm 155 In the defence of Ilium's lofty towers. Nine years have passed us over, nine long years; Our ships are rotted, and our tackle marr'd, And all our wives and little-ones ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... resolved to make this hardened smuggler's fate a warning and example to all such as should henceforth dare the law, one of the cutter's crew, wrought upon by the fear lest Jerrem should escape and baffle the vengeance they had vowed to take, was got to swear that Jerrem was the man who fired the fatal shot; and though it was shown that the night was dark and recognition next to impossible, this evidence was held conclusive to prove the crime, and nothing now remained ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... the corner, on a chair, made twice as large as any of the others, reposed the mother of the family, a woman of large size. The whole house was pervaded by a sickly odour, like that of a vault, whilst the grime and filth of it baffle description. And this was the place we had to eat and sleep in. However, there was no help for it; the only thing to do was to light one's pipe, and smoke. After an hour or so, supper was put upon the table, consisting of a bowl full ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... Simone she could get from Messer Griffo, she was at pains to make herself acquainted with that gallant adventurer, and to show him certain favors and courtesies which won his English heart. So that in a little while Madonna Vittoria knew all about Simone's purposes, and very pleasantly resolved to baffle them. ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... if the sound of the outboard motor could be heard at the mansion, and decided it probably could not. The heavy marsh grass was a good sound baffle and the motor was relatively quiet. He leaned out, trying to see ahead. There were many birds in the swamp, and next to the boat a surprised snapping turtle looked up briefly, then scurried into the mud ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... my advice, gentlemen,' said the highwayman, trotting up upon a beautiful bay mare, 'I should say that your best course is to allow me to act as guide to you as far as the camp. It will be strange if I cannot find roads which shall baffle ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... felicity and glory of her reign would preserve her from contempt; the affections of her subjects, and those of all the Protestants in Europe, would defend her from danger; and her own prudence, without other aid or assistance, would baffle all the efforts of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... your virtue; the native dignity, which, in a situation so very difficult, (friendless, destitute, passing for a wife, cast into the company of crea- tures accustomed to betray and ruin innocent hearts,) has hitherto enabled you to baffle, over-awe, and confound, such a dangerous libertine as this; so habitually remorseless, as you have observed him to be; so very various in his temper, so inventive, so seconded, so supported, so instigated, too pro- bably, as he has been!—That native dignity, that heroism, I will ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... moments of pure happiness, which in reminiscence give to single days the value of months or years. Two or three such moments it has been my good fortune to enjoy with you, in talking over the mysteries which forever fascinate while they forever baffle us. It was our midnight talks in Great Russell Street and the Addison Road, and our bright May holiday on the Thames, that led me to write this scanty essay on the "Unseen World," and to whom could I so heartily dedicate it as to you? I only ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... represent the embryo's attempt to make the best of an unexpected situation. Or, as Butler puts it, "When ... events are happening to it which, if it has the kind of memory we are attributing to it, would baffle that memory, or which have rarely or never been included in the category of its recollections, it acts precisely as a creature acts when its recollection is disturbed, or when it is required to do something which it has never done before" (p. 132). "It is certainly noteworthy that the embryo ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... like a conspiracy to bewilder and baffle him at the moment when hope seemed to be returning. He had convinced himself that his one chance was to break with every tie which bound him to his old life, and to start afresh from the lowest step of all. And here, at the outset, there met him two calls from that old ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Thus wonderfully did God baffle lord Cornwallis, and visit a sudden and bloody destruction upon those unnatural wretches, who were going forth to plunge their swords into the bowels of their ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... quarters and the speed and power they indicated! The arch of her back rib, her flank, her clean legs, with firm, dry muscle, and tendons like steel wires, her hoofs, almost as small as a clenched fist, but open and hard as flint, all these utterly baffle description. Her hide was glossy black, without a hair of white. From her Canadian sire she had inherited the staunchest constitution, and her thoroughbred dam dowered her with speed, game, intelligence and grace. An anchorite might have ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... on mental wealth in which he was no sharer. If he could have once placed me in a ridiculous or mortifying position, he would have forgiven me much, but I was guarded by three faculties—Caution, Tact, Observation; and prowling and prying as was Edward's malignity, it could never baffle the lynx-eyes of these, my natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice watch my tact, hoping it would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like on its slumber; but tact, if it be ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... That's what the auld folk call a gypsy. Weel, Mrs. Dishart, she led police and sojers sic a dance through Thrums as would baffle description, though I kent the fits and fors o't as I dinna. Ay, but they gripped her in the end, and the queer ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... consent to any sacrifice for the sake of her dear daughter. No such clap-trap as that passed her lips. She owned the true motive with a superiority to cant which won my sincerest respect. 'I'll do anything,' she said, 'to baffle Herbert Linley and the spies he has set to watch us.' I can't tell you how glad I was that she had her reward on the same day. We were too late at the station, and we had to wait for the next train. And what do you think happened? The two scoundrels followed ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... offence," said the fellow; "but I have cause to remember how, to relieve the young maiden's fears, you condescended to point out the mode in which these deceptions were practised, and to baffle the poor juggler by laying bare the mysteries of his art, as ably as if you had been a brother of his order.—She was indeed so fair a maiden that, to win a smile of her, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... mean," continued Draxy, "by the Gospel of Mystery, the good tidings of the things we cannot understand. This gospel is everywhere. Not the wisest man that has ever lived can fully understand the smallest created thing: a drop of water, a grain of dust, a beam of light, can baffle his utmost research. So with our own lives, with our own hearts; every day brings a mystery—sin and grief and death: all these are mysteries; gospels of mystery, good tidings of mystery; yes, good ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... she had drawn very often lately in her idle moods, half unconsciously sometimes—a bold handsome face, that offered none of those difficulties by which some countenances baffle the skill of a painter. It was the face of a man of whom she had told herself it was a sin even to think; but the face haunted her somehow, and it seemed as if her pencil reproduced it in spite ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... been his cue ever since he began acting as lieutenant to the chief. It had seemed to baffle the others; it baffled the big man now. Later on Joe Clune and Scottie came in together. That was about noon—they had met each other an hour before. But Allister had not come in, although he was usually the first at a rendezvous. Neither did Larry la Roche come. The day wore ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... trying during the whole autumn to recover her former hold on him, and he also saw clearly and bitterly that he was not strong enough to resist her, should he continue to be thrown with her; and not clever enough to baffle her, if her will were really set on recapturing him. He was afraid of her, and ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... before and of the assurance he had given to Isabel. Then there was the immense prize that success would award him. Was everything to be lost because of one piece of infernal bad luck. If he could reach Southampton unobserved he was confident that the arrangements he had prepared would baffle observation. Besides the presumption was that the watchers had been called off and this infernal smiling idiot on the seat opposite had failed to receive new instructions and was acting upon ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... to separate into four or more individual sections or Parts, with or without a recurrence of the First one; or into three different Parts, lacking the evidence of the return to the beginning. When such irregularities are encountered, or when any conditions appear which elude or baffle natural classification among the Three-Part Song-forms (simple or enlarged), the piece may be called a group of Parts. The use of this term is entirely legitimate, and is commended to the student on account of its convenience, for all examples of the Song-form which, upon thoroughly conscientious ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... sent by the minister of police, arrived as we were approaching the town, who notified the First Consul of a plot to assassinate him two leagues farther on; the very day and hour were named. To baffle the attempt that they intended against his person, the First Consul traversed the city in a gallop, and, followed by some lancers, went to the spot where he was to be attacked, halted about half an hour, ate some Abbeville cakes, and set out. The assassins ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... that in a few years, from the multiplication of seminal varieties, springing from seeds casually, or perhaps purposely impregnated with the pollen of different sorts, such a crop will be produced as will baffle all our attempts to reduce to ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 3 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... secrecy she told of Elise's masquerade the night before, and of A.O.'s wild curiosity about the lady in black. She had persecuted them all morning with questions, and they were almost worn out trying to evade them and to baffle her. Ethelinda appreciated being taken into her confidence, for she had been more lonely than her pride would allow her to admit. Her patronizing airs and ill-guarded speech about being exclusive in the choice of friends had offended most of the lower-class ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... lawyer Mr. Otis ranks high in his profession, having a very extensive knowledge of the law in all its ramifications, and a readiness in the application of his knowledge that enables him to baffle and confound his opponents without ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... simple reader of the Bible, who desires to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn the one thing needful from his lips. In this, as in many other portions of Scripture, a hungry labourer may live upon the bread, while it may baffle a philosopher to analyze its constituents, and expound its nutritive qualities. A devout reader may get the meaning of the parable in power upon his heart, while the logical interpreter expends much profitless labour in the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... satisfied himself that it would be a work of great difficulty, and what was more, of great length, and he had no mind to embark in it; and that the French certainly would not have driven him out: he should have taken up some position, and have been enabled to baffle the Emperor himself just as he had done his marshals. He thinks that Napoleon's military system compelled him to employ his armies in war, when they invariably lived upon the resources of the countries ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... be got, nothing can be lost by it. Increase at all events your navy. I will procure, if commissioned, any quantity of sailcloth and cordage. A general war is undoubtedly at hand in Europe, and consequently America will be safe, if you baffle the arts and arms of the two Howes through the summer. Every one here is in your favor. Adieu. I will write you again ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... the validity of this rule, as applied to minor incidents. For example, it may sometimes be a point of art to lead the audience to expect the appearance of one person, when in fact another is about to enter. But it is exceedingly dangerous to baffle the carefully fostered anticipation of an important scene. See Chapters ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... in his novel, of the ancient city of Thebes, of the great necropolis in the valley of Biban el Moluk, of the subterranean tombs, of the precautions taken by the designers to baffle curiosity, of the form and ornamentation of the sarcophagi, of the mummy-cases, of the mummy itself, of the manners, customs, dress, and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, are marvellously accurate. Nothing is easier than to verify his descriptions by reference to the works of Champollion, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... marbles such as had never been seen by any eye before, all fashioned into a wondrous style of architecture peculiarly unique, yet withal holding a perfect harmony—such is (not a description, for a description, in detail would baffle the clearest mind and cleverest pen)—a bold mention of a ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... The young fellow, for instance, who, for some reason or another, thinks it "worth his while" to conform to Christianity for a time, will have the very smallest scruples about doing so; and that, with a semblance of earnestness that will baffle, at any rate for some time, the careful scrutiny to which candidates are rightly subjected by most, if not all, of the missionary bodies. The missionaries, I fear, are often imposed on; and yet—anything, ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... mistake a tuft of grass, or a tree, or other most dissimilar object, for his companion, or his horse, or game. An old traveller is rarely deceived by mirage. If he doubts, he can in many cases adopt the following hint given by Dr. Kane: "Refraction will baffle a novice, on the ice; but we have learned to baffle refraction. By sighting the suspected object with your rifle at ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... miscreants should thus baffle all his cunning. The quarter of the town in which he happened to be stationed was spared; whilst in the others, where nobody apprehended any evil, these robberies and ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... their leisure hours way back in U.S.A. And this was the whole and the sole fatal obstacle! Hemingway took it as it came; Mr. DAVIS seemed quite pleased about it; but I felt that I had been wantonly deceived. Baffle me by all means, said I, but do not lie to me. Maybe I was not in a good temper at the time, for the three preceding stories were not calculated to stir the gentlest reader's sympathies. Possibly I am not in a good temper now, for the three later stories ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... inscrutable will; yet, if so, why have permitted the capture of Isabel? Why not have prevented the crime rather than punished the criminal? And did Zicci really feel love for Isabel? Love, and yet offer to resign her to himself,—to a rival whom his arts could not fail to baffle? He no longer reverted to the belief that Zicci or Isabel had sought to dupe him into marriage. His fear and reverence for the former now forbade the notion of so poor an imposture. Did he any longer love Isabel himself? No. When, that morning, ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... growth from it, and made the turfed undulations look slimy and raw. But Lady Constantine settled down in her chair to await the coming of the late curate's son with a serenity which the vast blanks outside could neither baffle nor destroy. ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... one of the major problems we have to face. If every man was alike and every avocation in life was on a parity, it would be possible to dispose of this subject in a paragraph. But men are not alike. What one could do successfully might easily baffle another. Therefore, it seems advisable to consider the subject by looking into ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... secret which he did not dare even to think of; there was the enforced absence of his wife and daughter, whom he had been compelled to send away; there was the hidden enmity of Cargrim, which he did not know how to baffle; and now there was the shame of Gabriel's engagement to a barmaid; of George's choice of a wife, who, if rumour could be believed, was the daughter of a scoundrel. With these ills heaped upon his head, the bishop did not know how he could ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... copy-book hand is the goal. The pupil gives constant attention to the handwriting as well as to the thought. A number of students of about the same grade, under the same teacher, will write much alike. Fifteen or twenty of these students could each write a line on a page and it might baffle a layman, and perhaps puzzle an expert, to tell whether or not more than one person wrote the page. This constant striving after one ideal, and putting thought on the handwriting, had drawn them all toward that ideal and ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... feed on. 360 For the earth—not a use to which they don't turn it, The ore that grows in the mountain's womb, Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb, They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it— Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle 365 With side-bars never a brute can baffle; Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards; Or, if your colt's forefoot inclines to curve inwards, Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. 370 Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle That keep a stout heart in the ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Sir John Perrott, having by this time no further sieges to prosecute, drew his toils closer and closer round the Geraldine's retreat. For a whole year, the fidelity of his adherents and the natural strength of the place enabled him to baffle all the President's efforts. But his faithful Scottish guards being at length surprised and cut off almost to a man, Fitzmaurice, with his son, his kinsman, the Seneschal of Imokilly, and the son of Richard Burke, surrendered to the President at Kilmallock, suing on his knees for the Queen's pardon, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... quite out of our discretion; for sundry of the elder boys, grave and reverend signors, who had taken no small pleasure in teaching our hands to fight, to ward, to parry, to feign and counter, to lunge in the manner of sword-play, and the weaker child to drop on one knee when no cunning of fence might baffle the onset—these great masters of the art, who would far liefer see us little ones practise it than themselves engage, six or seven of them came running down the rounded causeway, having heard that there had arisen "a snug little mill" at the gate. Now whether that word hath origin in a Greek ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... remained, and then departed, to the unfeigned regret of Mrs. "Anak." But present pleasure meant future trouble, so the happy pair—and they were happy in spite of the lowering clouds—were forced to leave their temporary paradise in order to baffle their enemies. Miss Greeby, Chaldea, Silver, and perhaps Garvington, were all arrayed against them, so a conflict could ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... the chemists had most difficulty in sorting out and identifying were the heavy metals found in the "rare earths." There were about twenty of them so mixed up together and so much alike as to baffle all ordinary means of separating them. For a hundred years chemists worked over them and quarreled over them before they discovered that they had a commercial value. It was a problem as remote from practicality as any that could be conceived. The man in the street did not see ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... council of war, the result was, in the first instance, both painful to those who promoted the decision of the question, and highly obnoxious to the army. Arrangements were, however, made to keep the proposed retreat as secret as possible, both in order to baffle the Duke of Cumberland and not to irritate the Highlanders. Yet the design was soon penetrated by those who were intent upon every movement of their superiors. Lord George Murray, in his journal, describes ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... causes of your ailment, and that they had signally failed. Physicians, mademoiselle, are very clever and estimable men, and there are a few things which come within the limit of their treatment; but there are also other things which baffle their utmost profundity of knowledge. One of these is that wondrous piece of human machinery, the nervous system; that intricate and delicate network of fine threads—electric wires on which run the messages of thought, impulse, affection, emotion. ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... falling in with a richly-laden merchantman, but for the purpose of avoiding her, lest she should prove to be one of the many enemies on the watch to destroy them. The wind also no longer favoured them, but shifting to the westward, had aided to baffle them in their efforts to escape. Zappa prayed again for the gale, which had so opportunely arisen to enable him to force his way out of the harbour of Lissa; but now when he equally needed it, and had no evil purpose in view, when better intentions ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... void of divertisement," remarked Shen Yi, with conciliatory mildness in his voice. "There was one, turning on the contradictory nature of a door which under favourable conditions was indistinguishable from an earthenware vessel, that seldom failed to baffle the unalert in the days before the binding ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... Fourth, scarcely assured of the crown he had seized, received intelligence of a conspiracy against his life from the traitorous Aumerle, who purchased his own safety at the expense of his confederates. The timely warning enabled the king to baffle the design. It was in Windsor also that the children of Mortimer, Earl of March, the rightful successor to the throne, were detained as hostages for their father. Liberated by the Countess-dowager of Gloucester, who contrived to open their prison door with false keys, the ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... myself exposed to the plots of my political opponents, who sought to destroy me by every means: if I would live in security, if I would preserve the city from destruction, there was but one course open to me—to seize upon the government, and thereby baffle my opponents, put an end to their machinations, and bring my countrymen to their senses. There were not a few who approved my design: patriots and men of cool judgement, they understood my sentiments, and saw that I had no alternative. With their help, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... the beginning, GOD created the Heaven and the Earth:"—by which I understand, that, at some remote period,—which may or may not baffle human Arithmetic[272],—it was the pleasure of GOD the FATHER, GOD the SON, GOD the HOLY GHOST,—three Persons, coeternal and coequal,—one GOD,—out of nothing, to create the entire Universe. "All things that are in Heaven, and that are in Earth, visible and invisible, whether ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... confidence in his thunders aloft, brandishing in his hand a fire-breathing bolt. For not one jot shall these suffice to save him from falling dishonored in a downfall beyond endurance; such an antagonist is he now with his own hands preparing against himself, a portent that shall baffle all resistance; who shall invent a flame more potent than the lightning, and a mighty din that shall surpass the thunder; and shall shiver the ocean trident, that earth-convulsing pest, the spear of Neptune. And when he hath stumbled upon this ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... rule of philosophising, for it involves nothing less than the destruction of belief in the supernatural. The Jupiter of Mythologic History, the Allah of Alkoran, and the Jehovah of 'Holy Scripture,' if entities at all, are assuredly entities that baffle human conception. To 'frame clear and distinct ideas of them' is impossible. In respect to the attribute of unknowability all Gods are alike. They are all supernatural; and the merely natural ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... with yells which made the mountains and plains resound, we rushed upon the foe. The fray was terrible. Several times did the Rebels break, but, being reenforced or falling back upon some better position, again endeavored to baffle our efforts. But they were not equal to the task, and we drove them through the village of Paris, and finally through Ashby's Gap, upon their infantry columns in the Shenandoah Valley. In these charges and chase we captured two pieces of artillery, four caissons, several ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... names, and the incidents, are all contrived as if to baffle curiosity, as if, in the very form of the poem, to teach us that it is no story of a single thing which happened once, but that it belongs to humanity itself, and is the drama of the trial of man, with Almighty God and the angels as the ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... far from the town of Arpinum, was Marcian's ancestral villa. Of this he thought, as his horse trotted beside or behind the carriage. It was much out of his way; surely there would be no need to go so far in order to baffle pursuers. Yet still he thought of his villa, islanded in the Liris, and seemed to hear through the night the music of tumbling waters, and said within his heart, 'Could ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... said Bradley Headstone. 'He takes this river-road—the fool!—to confuse observation, or divert attention, if not solely to baffle me. But he must have the power of making himself invisible before he can ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... indeed strongly stated; and it is not given us to understand the secret of that divine alchemy whereby pain, and sin, and discord become the means to beneficent ends worthy of the revealed attributes of the Infinite Parent. Unsolved by human reason or philosophy, the dark mystery remains to baffle the generations of men; and only to the eye of humble and childlike faith can it ever be reconciled to the purity, justice, and mercy of Him who is "light, and in whom is no darkness ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... way he went. Besides, since he would be visible as long as he stood up, he could find out whether they were looking for him or not. They came nearer and then vanished, and he sat down and speculated about his line of retreat. Their disappearance was suspicious, and although he thought he could baffle the rural police, it would be different if he had gamekeepers ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... be the utterance of the same person, when he has grasped the fact that the loved one is determined to elude him. She may baffle his pursuit, but he will never desist from it, though it ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... for ordinary thought between animate and inanimate, between nature and spirit, between man and God, does not baffle the poet. At the stage of human life, which is "the grand ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... the bank to the exit, and the young man noticing this, became momentarily tongue-tied, but nevertheless persisted, with a certain awkward doggedness which was not going to allow so slight a hint that his further attendance was unnecessary, to baffle him. He did not speak until they had passed down the stone steps to the pavement, and then his utterance began with a half-embarrassed stammer, as if the shadow of displeasure ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... been noticing, a delusion equally common. It is this: that practical Statesmen assume too much credit to themselves for their ability to see into the motives and manage the selfish passions of their immediate agents and dependants; and for the skill with which they baffle or resist the aims of their opponents. A promptness in looking through the most superficial part of the characters of those men—who, by the very circumstance of their contending ambitiously for the rewards and honours of government, are separated ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... by his imagination. He reasoned upon every subject. His objections proceeded as much from his mind as his heart. "Catholicism," he was wont say, "is the most ancient of worships; and as for our own heresy, it unquestionably had its origin in vice. With regard to those difficulties which baffle our understanding, are they more easily explained ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... this prospect, and he fell into a deep reverie. By-and-by, as he pondered, it seemed to him as if the shadow of a coming idea was projected in advance of the idea itself. He knew somehow there was a way to baffle his enemies, and resume his business, and yet he could not see the way; but still he ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Thus we see that, for a thing to admit of definition, the idea of it must be complex. Simple ideas baffle definition, but at the same time do not require it. In defining we lay out the simpler ideas which are combined in our notion of something, and so explain that complex notion. We have defined 'triangle,' when we analyse it into 'figure' and 'contained by three lines.' ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... resistance of the Tolbooth-gate promised to do more to baffle the purpose of the mob than the active interference of the magistrates. The heavy sledge-hammers continued to din against it without intermission, and with a noise which, echoed from the lofty buildings ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... awaiting her up there. But if he asked her whether she intended always to defy him, she would show him that Barbara Blomberg was not to be intimidated; that she knew how to defend herself and, if necessary, to suffer; that she would be ready to risk everything to baffle his design and carry out her own resolve. Then he should see that nations and kings, nay, even the Holy Father in Rome-as Charles had once sacrilegiously done—may be vanquished and humbled; that the hard, precious stone may be crushed and solid metal melted, but the steadfast will of a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... occasionally baffle the man of science, in his endeavours to contend with the hidden secrets of the crust of the earth which we inhabit, the Kilsby Tunnel of the London and North-western Railway presents a striking example. The proposed tunnel was to be driven about 160 feet below the surface. It was to be, as indeed ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... contrived our espousing, Baffle my sisters, the forty and nine, Raging like lions that mangle the kink, Each on the blood ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... found so much wit in one single book as in that, which at the same time is the most difficult to be translated. Who would believe that a work which paints in such lively and natural colours the several foibles and follies of mankind, and where we meet with more sentiments than words, should baffle the endeavours of the ablest translator? But the reason of this is, almost every part of it alludes to particular incidents. The clergy are there made the principal object of ridicule, which is understood but by ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... true, is that of putting little Alured into the place I have held. My father's last marriage was on the 15th of April, 1836," he added to her. He says she quite glared at him with mortification, as if he had invented poor little Alured on purpose to baffle her; but my ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... us in open view, it would be a wonder to this convention that tile drainage has wrought out such favorable results as it has. We would see tile laid on the siphon plan, good and poor joints, faulty connections, ditches crooked enough to baffle the sagacious mole should he attempt to follow the line. Patience would scarcely hold out to enumerate the exasperating defects of much of our drainage work. Nothing can overcome the egotism and self-confidence ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... they that have incensed me, can in soul Acquit me of that guilt. They know I dare To spurn or baffle them, or squirt their eyes With ink or urine; or I could do worse, Arm'd with Archilochus' fury, write Iambics, Should make the desperate lashers hang themselves; Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... fields, and in our evening meadows; they were so puny and so delicate, the period of their existence was so short, that one cannot help wondering how they could learn, in that short space, the sublime art to hide themselves and their offspring in so perfect a manner as to baffle the rigour of the season, and preserve that precious embryo of life, that small portion of ethereal heat, which if once destroyed would destroy the species! Whence that irresistible propensity to sleep so common in all those who are severely attacked by the frost. ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... Eliot signaled for Rod to keep the ball high and close on Cline. Roger had made no mistake in judgment, and, despite the Texan's effort to baffle the hitter, Cline managed to bump a roller into the diamond. Cooper, charging in, scooped the sphere and snapped it underhand to Eliot; for Larkins, having started to dig gravel with the first motion of Grant's arm, was doing his ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... that Buonaparte made his first effort to baffle the science of those who fancied there was nothing new to be done in warfare. On the 10th of April, D'Argenteau came down upon Monte Notte, and attacked some French redoubts, in front of that mountain ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... in hand warranted your conclusions," was Uncle Peter's judicial comment, "but I have received later information. The rumor is, and well-founded, that he turned his ship and made for the Pamlico River with the intention of obtaining pardon from the false and greedy Governor Eden. This would baffle our plans against him, or so he would assume. And it would enable him to remain within convenient distance ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... half a dozen ways; but let our first act be to bring them up, for muskets and rifles are of little use against such a rampart as they have made, bristling with spikes and living twigs and branches, which baffle assault as you might scarce believe without ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... whence the waters drain to Hudson Bay, you will strike north across the Keewatin barrens: Bald, fruitless rocks, piled as by an indifferent hand; great stretches of almost impenetrable forest, ravines, lakes, rivers, and rapids; all these will hinder and baffle your progress. Add to such conditions snow, ice, and eighty degrees of frost, and you have the situation that Donald McTavish faced the day he ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... foil is sometimes vaguely referred to the verb foil, to baffle, with which it has no connection. The Fr. feuille, leaf, is also invoked, and compared with Fr. fleuret, a foil, the idea being that the name was given to the "button" at the point. Now the earliest foils and fleurets were not buttoned; first, because they were ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... peculiar way of looking at things that constitutes his mental individuality. Originality in men dates from nothing previous, other things date from it, rather. I have to confess that Bergson's originality is so profuse that many of his ideas baffle me entirely. I doubt whether any one understands him all over, so to speak; and I am sure that he would himself be the first to see that this must be, and to confess that things which he himself has not ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... infallibility is the provision adopted by the mercy of the Creator to preserve religion in the world. Outside the Catholic Church all things tend to atheism. The Catholic Church is the one face to face antagonist, able to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of passion and the all-dissolving scepticism of the mind. I am a Catholic by virtue of my belief in God. If I should be asked why I believe in God, I should answer, because I believe in myself. I find it impossible ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... in her cave, but which the wind, as soon as the doors opened, scattered or jumbled together, so that most of her predictions proved unintelligible to those who visited her shrine. After a solemn invocation, Aeneas besought her not to baffle him by writing on oak leaves, and was favored by her apparition and the announcement that, after escaping sundry perils by land and sea and reddening the Tiber with blood, he would, thanks to Greek aid, triumph over his foes and settle in Latium with a new bride. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... later, Nur ed-Din formulated a plan to punish the rebellious Shawir. Persecuted by Shirkuh, Nur ed-Din sent him with his army into Egypt. The Franks now joined with Shawir to defend the country, hoping thereby to baffle the schemes of Nur ed-Din. The Christian army was amazed at all the splendour of the caliph's palace at Cairo. Shawir retreated to entice the invaders on, who, advancing beyond their base, were soon reduced to straits. Shirkuh then ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... was thinking how to baffle Madame's inquiries. She knew she would be questioned closely by her, and resolved not to tell more than she could help, as she, curiously enough—considering how he had treated her—wished to shield Vandeloup. But she still cherished a tender feeling for the man she loved, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... managed to do this before quite losing sight of the disturbance made by her passage through the water; and, this done, we regulated our pace by hers, maintaining a distance of about fifty fathoms between her and ourselves. She shifted her helm several times in an evident attempt to baffle pursuit; but, thanks to the tell-tale swirl she raised, we were able to follow her; and at length, after a chase of about three-quarters of an hour, she rose to the surface, the watertight door of her tower opened, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... chance lay. But you might have knocked me over with a straw when I saw you come on shore. That was good fortune, my friend... I have been thinking much about the Germans, and I will tell you the truth. It is only boldness that can baffle them. They are a most diligent people. They will think of all likely difficulties, but not of all possible ones. They have not much imagination. They are like steam engines which must keep to prepared tracks. There they will hunt any man down, but ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... in the psalms], but for the sake of the service as though this work were a service, or at feast, for the sake of reward. [All this they cannot deny. Some who are upright among them are even ashamed of this baffle, and declare that the clergy is in need of reformation. ] With us many use the Lord's Supper [willingly and without constraint] every Lord's Day, but after having been first instructed, examined [whether they know and understand anything of the Lord's Prayer, ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... employment for originality of mind rather in tracking old principles into details than in ascending to new ones,(1022) is merely a temporary one, destined to pass away when some happy guess shall reveal the highest laws which now baffle inquiry; yet it is not probable that such an advance will traverse the province of religion. The survey of those regions where discovery seems most hopeful, will explain the reason of ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... determined to return as quickly as possible to the sea. Their pilots told them, however, that it was out of the question to try to descend the River of the Red Cross, which they had ascended, as the current would baffle them; and therefore they attempted what is now called the Macareo channel, farther east. Raleigh names ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... just now I seem to have some very knotty cases on hand—one, in particular, seems to baffle all my skill with its mystery. Indeed, it bids fair to develop quite ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the intermixed effect, or resultant, may be calculated beforehand; provided that the forces concerned admit of being quantitatively estimated, and that the conditions of their combination are not so complex as to baffle the powers of mathematicians. In such cases, when direct observation or experiment is insufficient to resolve an effect into the laws of its conditions, the general method is to calculate what may be expected from ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... to calm and guide The swelling democratic tide; To watch the state's uncertain frame, And baffle Faction's partial aim: But chiefly, with determined zeal, To quell that servile band, who kneel To Freedom's banish'd foes; That monster, which is daily found Expert and bold thy country's peace to wound; Yet dreads to handle ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... common sense is daily insulted by these weak attempts at mystery. If the secret is one that cannot be kept, why, let the author tell it us at once, and we can then follow with sympathy the attempts to baffle those in the story who are trying to detect it, instead of being offended with a shallow artifice. Here lies the artistic error of that very clever book, "Paul Ferroll." We all see at once that Mr. Ferroll murdered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... and backed it with 60 My earnest prayers, and urgent interest; It was returned unanswered. I doubt not But that the strange and execrable deeds Alleged in it—in truth they might well baffle Any belief—have turned the Pope's displeasure 65 Upon the accusers from the criminal: So I should guess from ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... for glory just then, and thought it wiser to get back to his ship and sail for home; our spoil was too precious to be risked, and was a tempting bait to any foe. We set out at once. Coming to a place where two streams entered the main river, we took the smallest waterway, hoping thus to baffle pursuit, for our real path lay along the main stream. Our ruse would have succeeded but for a trivial oversight. The Dons came to the parting of the ways, and were nonplussed as to our route. They ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... its own in addition to the fact that it produced one of the bright spots in my experiences in France. That eloquent secretary represents a type who will tell the public about anything he thinks it wants to know about the "horrible details" of war in France, and facts do not baffle his inventive genius. ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... subtle countenances that baffle the dainty stipple and line tracery of time, refusing to become mere tablets, mere fleshy intaglios of the past, whereon every curious stranger may spell out the bygone, and, counting their footprints, cast up the number of engraving years. Thus it happened that if Salome ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... his imagination. He reasoned upon every subject. His objections proceeded as much from his mind as his heart. "Catholicism," he was wont say, "is the most ancient of worships; and as for our own heresy, it unquestionably had its origin in vice. With regard to those difficulties which baffle our understanding, are they more easily explained by Protestants ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... extraordinary gowns and be-ribboned head-dresses than I had yet seen them wear, were sweeping along one on each side of her and cackling their welcomes in French, whilst the Baroness was looking about her in a way so gentle as to baffle all description, nodding graciously first to one and then to another, and then adding in her flute-like voice a few German words in the pure sonorous dialect of Courland—all this formed a truly remarkable and unusual picture, and my imagination involuntarily connected ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the equality of the contending forces, the issue must be extremely doubtful. He knew that the presence of Pizarro in the camp, the detested enemy of the Almagrians, would excite distrust in their bosoms that would probably baffle every effort at accommodation. Nor is it likely that the governor cared to have so restless a spirit introduced into his own councils. He accordingly sent to Gonzalo, thanking him for the promptness ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... on her own shoulders. She was as busy as a bee the whole day. To her all the ins and outs of the house, its advantages and disadvantages, were much better known than to anybody else; nothing could be done but by her advice; and more than that, she contrived by some sweet management to baffle Mrs. Rossitur's desire to spare her, and to bear the larger half of every burden that should have come upon her aunt. What she had done in the breakfast room she did or helped to do in the other parts of the house; she unpacked boxes and put away clothes and linen, in which Hugh was her excellent ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... or embitter, at will. If the past is gloomy, I do not see the necessity of dwelling upon it. If the mind can make one vigorous exertion, it can another: the same energy you put forth in acquiring knowledge, would also enable you to baffle misfortune. Determine not to think upon what is painful; resolutely turn away from every thing that recals it; bend all your attention to some new and engrossing object; do this, and you defeat the past. You smile, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... services she must have rendered during that period are, of course, accredited to Fairfax, of which county she was then a part. The few existing or available records of the remaining six years of warfare, as of the entire period, are imperfect and unlocalized and would baffle the most experienced and ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... so symmetrical, and so completely excludes the outside world and its accustomed standards, it is with difficulty one can acquire any notion of its immensity. Were it half as deep, half as broad, it would be no less bewildering, so utterly does it baffle human grasp. Something may be gleaned from the account given by geologists. What is known to them as the Grand Canyon district lies principally in northwestern Arizona, its length from northwest to southeast in a ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... have received later information. The rumor is, and well-founded, that he turned his ship and made for the Pamlico River with the intention of obtaining pardon from the false and greedy Governor Eden. This would baffle our plans against him, or so he would assume. And it would enable him to remain within convenient distance of ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... forget That love, which has, in later years Shared all my pastimes, hopes, and fears. Long has pale death beside her stood, And poured his arrows like a flood, Whilst I have tried, with beating heart, To steal the poison from each dart; But oft I fear, lest these dread showers Will baffle all our feeble powers, And death's cold hand, will rend apart The tie that binds her to my heart. Long I've refused to leave her side, Lest there should aught remain untried, Which might her wasting form restore, And tinge her cheek with bloom once ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... attention exclusively to the villages and small towns, in which it was quite easy for the government to frustrate my efforts by means of circulars to the local authorities, who would of course be on the alert, and whose vigilance it would be impossible to baffle as every novelty which occurs in a small place is forthwith bruited about. But the case would be widely different amongst the crowds of the capital, where I could pursue my labours with comparative secrecy. My present plan was to abandon ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the square was occupied by a building exactly like the one opposite. The low-reaching roof was supported by wooden posts, and the long porch or corridor between the posts and the wall was paved with large earthen tiles. The doors, elevated several feet above this pavement to baffle the heat of a tropical sun, were darkened by the overhanging roof; and this, together with the effect of the small wooden-grated windows and the absence of furniture, gave the rooms a gloomy and comfortless aspect. All these buildings, with the exception of the ruined convent, which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... of a second the lance gleamed. Came a snarl, half of rage, half of fear, as the wolf fell backward. But he was on his feet again. It was to no purpose. All was over in an instant. Long practice with the lance had given the boy power to baffle his enemy and send the lance straight to the ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... see that all knowledge is vain; That Science finds Error still keep in her train; That Imposture or Darkness, with Doubt and Surmise, Will mislead, will perplex, and then baffle the wise, Who often, when labours have shorten'd their span, Declare—not to know—is ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... Being greatly superior to his fellows in mental and physical powers, it was natural that he should excel them in his efforts to escape. Even after the whole affair was over, this man, who might have been a hero in other circumstances, continued to baffle his pursuers. ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... brightened a little, for the prospect of disguising her true feelings in the presence of Lord Reckage and Pensee appealed to that genius for mischief which animated the whole current of her life. To baffle the looker-on seemed not merely a great science, but the one game of wits which could never lose its interest. She was not insincere. She thought that lies, as a rule, were clumsy shifts, and abominable. Even in the moments when she was ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... he gives, in his novel, of the ancient city of Thebes, of the great necropolis in the valley of Biban el Moluk, of the subterranean tombs, of the precautions taken by the designers to baffle curiosity, of the form and ornamentation of the sarcophagi, of the mummy-cases, of the mummy itself, of the manners, customs, dress, and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, are marvellously accurate. Nothing is easier than to verify ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... I have raised abandon me, The spells which I have studied baffle me, The remedy I recked of tortured me I lean no more on superhuman aid; It hath no power upon the past, and for The future, till the past be gulfed in darkness, It is not of my search.—My Mother Earth![119] And thou fresh-breaking ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... that it is almost impossible to compose and print, with perfect accuracy, a work of this size, in which so many little things should be observed, remembered, and made exactly to correspond. There is no human vigilance which multiplicity may not sometimes baffle, and minuteness sometimes elude. To most persons grammar seems a dry and difficult subject; but there is a disposition of mind, to which what is arduous, is for that very reason alluring. "Quo difficilius, hoc praeclarius," ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... watching his dexterity in clearing up the numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard's books as almost to baffle even the Scotchman's perspicacity. The corn-factor's mien was half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash of pity for the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically unfit ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... on the move, sir, so as to baffle them a bit when they seemed disposed to come ashore and ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... of men, who had been enlisted to join the Battalion to be raised by Major Rogers, to the City of Philadelphia. We have an admirable clue of their abominable conspiracies, and (however late this undertaking has been) I hope by spirit and perseverance we may baffle their wretched Plots of occasioning ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... you did my poor men when you fooled them about the victuals! I know your tricks and all your acting has no other effect on me than to make me admire your wonderful coolness and courage; so, my dear, stop puzzling your little head with schemes to baffle me! You are like the caged starling! You can't—get—out!" chuckled Black Donald, hitching his chair nearer to hers. He was now right upon the center of ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... he resolved to baffle his impatience by working all the evening and retouching one act of his drama with which he was not perfectly content. He went to his room, lighted his lamp, and seated himself before his open manuscript. Now, then! to work! He had been silly ever since the night before. Why should he imagine ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... baffle Maulincour (who will not persecute us much longer), I have left the protecting roof of the embassy, and am now safe from all inquiry in the rue des Enfants-Rouges, number 12, with an old woman, Madame Etienne Gruget, mother of that Ida, who shall ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... phenomenon. Here are his words, October 2d, when it is about to get consummated: "This is now the time for humbling the whole House of Bourbon: and if this opportunity is let slip, we shall never find another! Their united power, if suffered to gather strength, will baffle our most vigorous efforts, and possibly plunge us in the gulf of ruin. We must not allow them a moment to breathe. Self-preservation bids us crush them before they can combine or recollect themselves."—"No evidence ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to draw with fair success either rounded and simple masses, like stones, or complicated arrangements of form, like those of leaves; provided only these masses or complexities will stay quiet for you to copy, and do not extend into quantity so great as to baffle your patience. But if we are now to go out to the fields, and to draw anything like a complete landscape, neither of these conditions will any more be observed for us. The clouds will not wait while we copy their heaps or clefts; the shadows will escape from us as ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... out of our discretion; for sundry of the elder boys, grave and reverend signors, who had taken no small pleasure in teaching our hands to fight, to ward, to parry, to feign and counter, to lunge in the manner of sword-play, and the weaker child to drop on one knee when no cunning of fence might baffle the onset—these great masters of the art, who would far liefer see us little ones practise it than themselves engage, six or seven of them came running down the rounded causeway, having heard that there had arisen "a snug little mill" at the gate. Now whether ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... the kennel, or, if thrown at when outside, to dodge the rope by lying as flat as possible on the ground. Thus Lincoln unwittingly taught the Coyote the dangers and limitations of a rope, and so he proved a blessing in disguise—a very perfect disguise. When the Coyote had thoroughly learned how to baffle the lasso, the boy terror devised a new amusement. He got a large trap of the kind known as "Fox-size." This he set in the dust as he had seen Jake set a Wolf-trap, close to the kennel, and over it he scattered ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... determined to baffle this strong-hope man of West Point. He sent in one of his craftiest outshoots. For a wonder, Carter guessed it, and reached out ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... bitterly, however; for I found he was too hard for me, as well in his contrivances as riches; and so had recourse again to my only refuge, comforting myself, that God never fails to take the innocent heart into his protection, and is alone able to baffle and confound the devices of the mighty. Nay, the farmer was so prepossessed with the contents of his letter, that he began to praise his care and concern for me, and to advise me against entertaining addresses without my friends' ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... am not angry, O mighty snake,—nor do I blame myself. Since in regard to happiness and misery, men sometimes possess the power of bringing and dismissing them, and sometimes do not. Therefore one should not fret one's mind. Who can baffle destiny by self-exertion? I deem destiny to be supreme, and self-exertion to be of no avail. Smitten with the stroke of destiny, the prowess of my arms lost, behold me to-day fallen unto this condition without palpable cause. But to-day I do not so ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... yells which made the mountains and plains resound, we rushed upon the foe. The fray was terrible. Several times did the Rebels break, but, being reenforced or falling back upon some better position, again endeavored to baffle our efforts. But they were not equal to the task, and we drove them through the village of Paris, and finally through Ashby's Gap, upon their infantry columns in the Shenandoah Valley. In these charges and chase we captured two pieces of artillery, four caissons, several stand of small arms, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... some hymn. This text was called the "daily word," it supplied a profitable subject for private meditation, and a theme for the public discourses. The daily word on the morning of their embarkation on a mission which so often appeared to baffle all hope, was, 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... risks of the high places of the world. For this social disease of gossip resembles that distemper which, at the present moment, threatens the chestnut forests of America. It first attacks the noblest trees. Like it, too, it would seem to baffle all remedies, and like it, it would seem to be the work of indestructible ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... into your ear by the fire at night, may be entirely destitute of those more intimate charms which a woman values. On the other hand, an ugly, boorish, badly-dressed figure may mark a man endowed with the very genius of love, and who has a perfect mastery over situations which might baffle us with our superficial graces. A man whose conventional aspect accords with his real nature, who, in the intimacy of wedded love, possesses that inborn grace which can be neither given nor acquired, but which Greek art has embodied in statuary, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... fury of the pestilence. Sometimes, indeed, when the deaths were less numerous, a hope began to be entertained that the distemper was abating, and confidence was for a moment restored; but these anticipations were speedily checked by the reappearance of the scourge, which seemed to baffle and deride ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... he endures not to be non-plussed, and had rather fly for sanctuary to nonsense which few descry, than to nothing which all. His boldness is beholden to other men's modesty, which rescues him many times from a baffle; yet his face is good armour, and he is dashed out of any thing sooner than countenance. Grosser conceits are puzzled in him for a rare man; and wiser men though they know him [yet] take him [in] for their pleasure, or as they would do a sculler for being next ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... not more: this is open. I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device, the very man. I do not now fool myself to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... accruing to the inquirer, for Sir Lawrence had told Messrs. Graham that, in case his place of residence was revealed by them, not only would he cease to bank with them, but instantly take measures to baffle any future inquiries as to his whereabouts, by ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... provoke the despair of his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and popular fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the provinces of Arabia. His death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword from each tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the guilt of his blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites. An angel or a spy revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the only resource of Mahomet. [117] At the dead of night, accompanied by his friend Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... The extraordinary difficulty of penetrating into this country had now been fully experienced; where unexpected delays from deep ravines and other obstacles, frequently force the traveller from his direct course, and baffle every conjecture concerning the time required for passing a certain tract. The utmost extent of this excursion in a direct line had not been more than thirty miles, and it had taken up five days. The return of the party was effected with much more ease; the track was made, and the trees ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... spite of their apprehension that the smell and smoke might be observed. They then shut up the chest, replaced the padlocks and chains with those they had brought for the purpose, and renewed the seals with the queen's signet, which, bearing the royal arms, would baffle detection that the seals had been tampered with. They then took the crown into the chapel, where they found a red velvet cushion, so large that by taking out some of the stuffing a hiding-place was made in which the crown ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... to be born in the aristocratic ranks, chafes against the obstacles which prevent him from freely developing it. But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in their attempt freely to apply the modern spirit in English literature; they could not succeed in it; the resistance to baffle them, the want of intelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great. Their literary creation, compared with the literary creation of Shakespeare and Spenser, compared with the literary creation of Goethe and Heine, is a failure. The ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... enough! Her eyes met mine easily; their azure depths puzzled me. She was almost, but not quite, some one I had seen before, and it was not my woodland Olivia. Her eyes, the soft curve of her cheek, the light in her hair,—but the memory of another time, another place, another girl, lured only to baffle me. ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... produced by trumpets, drums, tabors, and sistras, and which would have drawn blood from the ears inside a palace, was none too loud or too unbearable beneath the vast cupola of heaven, in the midst of this immense open space, amongst this buzzing crowd, at the head of this army which would baffle nomenclators, and which was now advancing with a roar as of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... lender, addressing himself to Count Melvil, "I pretend to have acquired by experience some skill in physiognomy; and though there are some faces so deeply disguised as to baffle all the penetration of our art, there are others, in which the heart appears with such nakedness of integrity, as at once to recommend it to our goodwill. I own your countenance prepossesses me in your favour; and you shall be accommodated, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... to the English policy of increasing the number of negro slaves in America agitated many minds in the colonies, opposition to the system of taxation was the principal source of action; and this opposition now centered in a determination to baffle the designs of Great Britain in respect to the duties on tea. Seventeen millions of pounds of tea were now accumulated in the warehouses of the East-India Company. The government was determined, for reasons I have before given, to assist this mercantile company, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... that sought to be a run of entreaties. In fear of his tongue she caught at words to baffle it, senseless of their imbecility: 'Do not insist: yes, in time: they will—they—they may. My father is not very well . . . my mother: she is not very well. They are neither of them very well: not at present!—Spare ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... flew in at the great bailey tower door, hoping that he had not seen her, but tolerably secure that even if he had, and should pursue her, she was sufficiently superior in knowledge of the stairs and passages to baffle him, and make her way along the battlements to the tower at the corner of the court nearest the parsonage, where there was a turret stair by which she ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... striking, biting, and scratching him, demanding the while to know who he was, so that for fear lest she should call out he sought to stop her mouth with the bedclothes. But this he found it impossible to do, for when she saw that he was using all his strength to work her shame she did as much to baffle him. She further called as loudly as she could to her lady of honour,(7) who slept in her room; and this old and virtuous woman ran to her mistress ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... journal to become a vehicle of vituperation, respecting Messrs. A.T. STEWART, RIDLEY, and other leading merchants of this city. To this query we reply that the spots on the Sun are increasing so in number and magnitude as to baffle our telescopic investigations. A suggestion in the case is furnished, however, by the fact that the columns of the Sun are not lighted up with advertisements from any of the establishments against which it has been discharging its meteoric sneezes. And this ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... village, but only a distractingly circuitous path, while the roads are not only crooked, but so atrociously bad that it is difficult for the foreign traveller to keep his temper. The Chinese do not count their own inconvenience if they can only baffle their demoniac foes. It is the custom of the Chinese to bury their dead wherever a geomancer indicates a "lucky'' place. So particular are they about this that the bodies of the wealthy are often kept for a considerable period while a suitable place of interment is being found. ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... country between the Wolga and Ural rivers, often bore the name of Kumania. But the destructive conquests of the Mongals, has in all ages broken down the nations of those parts into fragments, and has induced such rapid and frequent changes as to baffle all attempts at any fixed topography, except of lakes, rivers, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... only been quick enough to let them know who she was, she should by this time have been safe. How could they suppose that she was Lady Carse, dressed as she was, agitated as she was! A word from Mr Ruthven, the least readiness on his part, would have saved her. And now, here was the steward come to baffle all. Sir Alexander Macdonald had had eyes for her deliverers, though her nearest friends had none. Annie was her best friend after all. It was Annie's ball of thread, no doubt, that had roused her friends, and made them send this vessel; and Annie ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... their plans, time being so limited and so many places remaining to be visited. I had passed once, why not again? Influenced by these facts, and thinking what a triumph it would be once more to baffle French vigilance, I determined to attempt the return. There was a train leaving Aix about eight P.M., reaching Geneva at eleven: it was decided that I should take this train. I had arranged a vague plan of action, although I expected to depend rather ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... habits, frequented evil company, took to drinking, and finally, in a fit of delirium tremens, hanged himself in the very garret room of which I have before spoken. The scenes at his funeral were said to baffle description. The corpse was laid out in the kitchen, and thither all his late boon-companions repaired and turned the sad ceremonial into a hideous orgy. Among other horrible deeds, they took the corpse from the coffin, propped it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... and read the words that were uppermost, "Mamma died this morning." In a moment it flashed upon her that Dan had read the letter, and was waiting now to see the effect of the shock upon her. She immediately, but involuntarily, set herself to baffle his cruel curiosity. With a calm, illegible face she read the letter from beginning to end, folded it, and put it back in its envelope deliberately, then took up another which ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... escaping figure had reached the open window through which he must have entered some time previously, taking time to lay these various traps by means of which he expected to baffle pursuit. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... day I also discharged my men, and re-engaged twenty of them to return to the "Great Master." Bombay, though in the interior he had scorned the idea of money rewards, and though he had systematically, in my greatest need, endeavoured to baffle me in every way, received, besides his pay, a present of $50, and each man, according to his merits, from $20 to $50. For this was a day to bury all animosities, and condone all offences. They, poor people, had only acted according to their nature, and I ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... pointed out a test by which it would be possible to select the true orbit, which we know must be one or other of these five. The mathematical difficulties which attended the application of this test were no doubt great, but they did not baffle Professor Adams. ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... its deliberations. He was fully persuaded in his own mind that Sir Alfred Milner, being still a new arrival in South Africa, had not been able to grasp its complicated problems, and so had not adopted the best means to baffle the intrigues of President Kruger and the diplomacy of his clever colleague, President Steyn. At every tale which reached Cecil Rhodes concerning the difficulties encountered by Sir Alfred, he declared that he was "glad to be out of this mess." Yet it was not difficult to see that he passionately ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... Ellen, who knew the voice, and still better could read the eye, drew conclusions very different. She was almost breathless with terror. Saunders was enraged and mortified at an interference that promised to baffle him; he was a stout young man, and judged himself the stronger of the two, and took notice, besides, that the stranger had nothing in his hand but a slight riding-whip. He answered very insolently, and with an oath; and John saw that he was taking the bridle in ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... south shore which led to St. Valier. Angelique was crafty enough amid her impulsiveness to see that it were better for Fanchon to go down by water and return by land: it lessened observation, and might be important one day to baffle inquiry. La Corriveau would serve her for money, but for money also she might betray her. Angelique resolved to secure her silence by making her the perpetrator of whatever scheme of wickedness she might devise against the unsuspecting lady of Beaumanoir. As for Fanchon, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the thing was becoming thrilling. A Black Flag must surely be fluttering close by. Here was evidently a malignant contrivance of the Pirates, designed to baffle our gun-boats when we dashed up-stream to shell them from their lair. A gun-boat, indeed, might well have hesitated, so stout was the netting, so close the hedge: but I spied where a rabbit was wont to pass, close down by the water's edge; where a rabbit could ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... may surprise and baffle a reason deprived of principle; but they are never contrary to it, because they proceed from reason itself, from that Supreme Reason which created us in its own image; and, by that very fact, is always in accord with individual reason in so far as this will consent to sacrifice its own prejudices ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... given to Isabel. Then there was the immense prize that success would award him. Was everything to be lost because of one piece of infernal bad luck. If he could reach Southampton unobserved he was confident that the arrangements he had prepared would baffle observation. Besides the presumption was that the watchers had been called off and this infernal smiling idiot on the seat opposite had failed to receive new instructions and was acting ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... uncharitableness they prove that they themselves are neither Christians, nor acquainted with the spirit of Christianity. But let the most fearful and dubious reassure themselves with the thought, that should the Bible Society foster the very worst intentions, it would baffle their power, if even assisted by Satanic agency, to render Spain worse than it at ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... the Tolbooth-gate promised to do more to baffle the purpose of the mob than the active interference of the magistrates. The heavy sledge-hammers continued to din against it without intermission, and with a noise which, echoed from the lofty buildings around the spot, seemed enough ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... blanch life's worldly wave With surf and surge could quench its flawless fire: No blast of all that blow Might bid the torch burn low That lightens on us yet as o'er his pyre, Indomitable of storm, That now no flaws deform Nor thwart winds baffle ere it all aspire, One light of godlike breath and flame, To write on heaven with man's most glorious ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of Cleave's was rivalled a few years ago by M. Herzen's clever plan of sending great numbers of his treasonable and forbidden paper, the Kolokol, to Russia, soldered up in sardine-boxes. No Government, in fact, can ever baffle determined and ingenious smugglers. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... fell into a terrible rage, and massacred Uluhoomoe on the spot. The gods avenged the death of the priest by sending a distressing famine, first on the island of Maui, then on Hawaii. Hua, thinking to baffle the divine vengeance, went to Hawaii to escape the scourge; but a famine more terrible yet pursued him there. The chief vainly traversed every quarter of the islands; he starved to death in the temple of Makeanehu (Kohala). His bones, after death, dried and shrunk in the rays of the ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... foreknowledge, and power, that can communicate its intentions beforehand, and afterwards verify them in this manner, has the attributes of God, and must be Divine; a chance that can hear and answer prayer, that can work out its own designs and baffle those of others, that can reveal secrets to His favourites and honourably keep covenants, deserves the faith and worship of all men: this was Abe Lockwood's God, and He shall be ours for ever and ever. There are some who say, "What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? and what profit shall ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... major moved away, and seemed determined to baffle him, Joel had no choice between complying and exposing his disobedience of orders to the captain. He disliked doing the last, for his cue was to seem respectful and attached, and he was fain to submit. Never before, however, did ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... difficult to be translated. Who would believe that a work which paints in such lively and natural colours the several foibles and follies of mankind, and where we meet with more sentiments than words, should baffle the endeavours of the ablest translator? But the reason of this is, almost every part of it alludes to particular incidents. The clergy are there made the principal object of ridicule, which is understood but by few among the laity. To explain this a commentary would be requisite, ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... events," Jack responded. "Come, boys," he added, "one last desperate effort, and we'll baffle ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... own it, but I expected to hear her say that she would consent to any sacrifice for the sake of her dear daughter. No such clap-trap as that passed her lips. She owned the true motive with a superiority to cant which won my sincerest respect. 'I'll do anything,' she said, 'to baffle Herbert Linley and the spies he has set to watch us.' I can't tell you how glad I was that she had her reward on the same day. We were too late at the station, and we had to wait for the next train. And what do you think happened? ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... to the ankles, spume drenching and whipping him, the wind a lash—brought exultation and a sense of mastery and confidence such as he had never before held suggestion of. To guide the ship, constantly to baffle the sea and wind, the turbulence, buffeting bows and run and counter, smashing at the rudder, leaping always like a pack of yapping hounds—this was a thing that left the days of his water-front detail ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... The hounds swam pell-mell in hot pursuit, and the otter was forced to turn up-stream. Moving cautiously under the rocky ledges, he regained the "holt," where his terrified mate awaited his return. Sorely pressed, the dog-otter hid close, hoping to baffle his relentless pursuers. But a bristling, snarling terrier soon came down the shaft from the bank. Maddened, and courageous with the fury of despair, Lutra seized the intruder by the muzzle, and, in the combat that ensued, sorely mangled her assailant's lips and nostrils. Then, as her mate dived ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... obtains among the voters as now; for the people will not support a ruler in the exercise of extra-legal powers unless he be honest and patriotic. The danger may come in a time of trouble from either an irresolute or an unduly obstinate executive. The irresolute man would baffle the best intentions of the voters; the obstinate man might quarrel with Congress and the people. Either event in time of war would be serious and might be disastrous. But the chances are against another Buchanan or Johnson in ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... conquer an adversary; in proof of which "Origen, says he, Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, have written many thousands of lines against Celsus, and Porphyry: consider with what arguments and what slippery problems they baffle what was contrived against them by the spirit of the devil: and because they are sometimes forced to speak, they speak not what they think, but what is necessary against those who are called Gentiles. I do not mention the Latin writers, Tertullian, Cyprian, Minutius, ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English
... different. Why, it is a veritable romance—an affair of Daphne and Corydon—although, to be unpardonably candid, the plot of your romance, my young Arcadians, is not the most original conceivable. I think that the denouement need not baffle our imaginations." ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... flowed the river Liris, and there, not far from the town of Arpinum, was Marcian's ancestral villa. Of this he thought, as his horse trotted beside or behind the carriage. It was much out of his way; surely there would be no need to go so far in order to baffle pursuers. Yet still he thought of his villa, islanded in the Liris, and seemed to hear through the night the music of tumbling waters, and said within his heart, 'Could I not ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... object," he said slowly, with a teasing smile, such as one might use with a persistent child whom one chose to baffle ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was no such thing as an even break with Whispering Smith. A few men in a generation amuse, baffle, and mystify other men with an art based on the principle that the action of the hand is quicker than the action of the eye. With Whispering Smith the drawing of a revolver and the art of throwing his shots instantly from wherever his hand rested was pure sleight-of-hand. To a dexterity ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... them. The crafty Oneidas soon suspected the designs of the stranger, and they conferred among themselves, as to the surest mode of guarding against the meditated blow of Wauchee. They well recognized by his paint and garb the Mohawk warrior, and they resolved to baffle his assault, and for ever prevent his return to the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... as soon as possible, brother. If they follows me, I tries to baffle them, by means of jests and laughter; and if they persist, I uses bad and terrible language, of which I ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... finding that it was of no use, as they always reappeared in new multitudes, he renounced that; took to calling in his remoter outposts; and, except where Magazines or the like remained to be cared for, let the Pandours baffle about, checked only by the fortified Towns, and more and more submerge the Hill Country. Prince Karl, to be expected in the form of lion, mysteriously uncertain on which side coming to invade us,—he, and not the innumerable weasel kind, is our important matter! By the end of April (news of the PEACE ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... wandered down the river, as we undoubtedly should have done had we recognised it as such, the loss of many of our animals would have been the inevitable consequence, and very probably a final issue would have been put to our journey. It is only to those who are placed in situations that baffle their own exertions or foresight, that the singular guidance of Providence ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... reply to him, it appeared that they preferred war to a dishonourable peace; that they would take care not to expose themselves to the hazards of a battle against too formidable an enemy; and that, in short, they were resolved on making every sacrifice, in order to spin out the war, and to baffle Napoleon." ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... her head high in defiance of him, she retreated a few paces. It was true, as she had said, that she was not afraid, but she did not mean to be without caution. She would make her test quickly. If she could but baffle him once more with that old trick of hers, that thus far had never failed to confound him, she would know that she ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... passed that way. These marks were devised by the chiefs of the different tribes, and were duly communicated to the war leaders of tribes in friendship or alliance, like our cipher codes; and equally they were changed from time to time to baffle the enemy. Neither hunters nor main body ever got in front of the advance guard, lest they should give an alarm. Thus they travelled until they got within two days or so of the enemies' headquarters; thenceforward they only marched by night, ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... laurel crowns, and reluctantly and sullenly drops one now and then on female brows. To possess herself of the golden apple of immortality was a purpose from which she had never swerved; but how to baffle the dragon critics who jealously guarded it was a problem whose ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... perhaps, they should start again for Europe, which they were not likely to do. If Miss Olive tried to hide Verena away in the United States he would undertake to find her—though he was obliged to confess that a flight to Europe would baffle him, owing to his want of cash for pursuit. Nothing, however, was less probable than that they would cross the Atlantic on the eve of Verena's projected debut at the Music Hall. Before he went back to Marmion he wrote to this young lady, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... of rupture. Wolf distrusted his partner, and yet believed he had lulled all suspicion. He had never failed before in duping any one he had set out to; why should he in this case? Still, he was uneasy and resolved to end it all as soon as possible. But Indians have one peculiarity that will baffle even the shrewdest Jew. They never talk. Their faces are always as expressionless as a graven image. While contemplating the most cruel murder they never show the least change in expression, nor do their eyes show the faintest shadow of an emotion. ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... common, and—where the object is to baffle curiosity—the most useless of prevaricating replies. When her mother asked her what she was reading she ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... speech (k). The omission of (i) might be due to the state of the MS.: the words of the song may have been left out of the dialogue, as appearing on a separate page with the musical notes, or may have been inserted in such an illegible way as to baffle ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... was bad enough to be poor, while by the labour of their thin hands, the sweat of their brows, the masters were made rich; but they would not be utterly ground down to dust. No! they would fold their hands and sit idle, and smile at the masters, whom even in death they could baffle. With Spartan endurance they determined to let the employers know their power, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Grosvenor in the building, That's where the trouble came in, I suppose, Now let me get this straight. You wrote a letter, and somehow or other he got it, and now you want it back. Stripped of the things that baffle my ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... attempt it, we must be driven back from ground to ground, each of which would cease to be a ground the moment we pressed on it. We must be whirled down the gulf of an infinite series. But this would make our reason baffle the end and purpose of all reason, namely, unity and system. Or we must break off the series arbitrarily, and affirm an absolute something that is in and of itself at once cause and effect (causa sui), subject and object, or rather the absolute identity of both. But as ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the wall arose high, formidable, not to be scaled by one like her. As she looked at it the thought came to her that it had been arranged for that very purpose, so that it should not be easily climbed, and so it was not surprising that a barrier which might baffle the active poacher or trespasser should prove insuperable to a slender girl ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... putting little Alured into the place I have held. My father's last marriage was on the 15th of April, 1836," he added to her. He says she quite glared at him with mortification, as if he had invented poor little Alured on purpose to baffle her; but my ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... charmed me more during my stay in town than the pictures I saw. One or two private collections of Turner's best water-colour drawings were indeed a treat; his later oil-paintings are strange things—things that baffle description. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... persistency and intellectual force which had won him his "first- class" at the university. Nothing which could subserve his cause escaped his searching inquiry, and when he arose to address Parliament his mastery of his subject was so complete as to baffle the skill of the few who durst ask ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... part, I shared my grandfather's stupefaction at their unaccountable changes. It appeared almost as if my father had won them over to baffle him. The old man tried to insist on their sitting down again, but Janet perseveringly smiled and smiled until he stood up. She spoke to him softly. He was one black frown; displeased with her; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of his young poetry, the fierce and the tender humanity of his storm and stress period, I fancy a kind of baffle in Lowell, which I should not perhaps find it easy to prove. I never knew him by word or hint to renounce this doctrine, but he could not come to seventy years without having seen many high hopes fade, and known many inspired prophecies fail. When we have ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ship laying up, close-hauled under all plain sail, for the spot where, according to my reckoning, Saint Paul ought to be. I was now especially anxious to make that island, for the weather of the past three or four days had been of such a character as to baffle the most experienced of navigators, and I confess that I was beginning to feel rather more than a trifle nervous. The island, however, hove into view at the precise moment and in the precise quarter that it ought to do if my reckoning happened to be correct; and this test and ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... must be found—and found blamed quick, too! Great Caesar! Can a simple affair like this baffle your ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... we reached the hut, deviating from a direct line, in order to do so. At the hut, itself, Susquesus made a long and minute examination; but even I could see, that the marks here were so numerous, as to baffle even him. After finishing his search at this point, the Indian turned, and went back to the place where he had stuck the knot in the ground. In doing this, however, he followed his own trail, returning by precisely the same deviating course as that by which he had come. This, alone, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... the native dignity, which, in a situation so very difficult, (friendless, destitute, passing for a wife, cast into the company of crea- tures accustomed to betray and ruin innocent hearts,) has hitherto enabled you to baffle, over-awe, and confound, such a dangerous libertine as this; so habitually remorseless, as you have observed him to be; so very various in his temper, so inventive, so seconded, so supported, so instigated, too pro- bably, as he has been!—That native dignity, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... dates from the piratical invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries. It includes anger, awe, baffle, bang, bark, bawl, blunder, boulder, box, club, crash, dairy, dazzle, fellow, gable, gain, ill, jam, kidnap, kill, kidney, kneel, limber, litter, log, lull, lump, mast, mistake, nag, nasty, niggard, horse, plough, rug, rump, sale, scald, shriek, skin, skull, sledge, sleigh, tackle, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... in others dainty and delicate in pink, pearly flesh, almost pure white, and softest rose, while the midway sorts are in brilliant carmines, cherry-reds, lilacs, and intermediate tones too numerous to mention. Nearly all varieties show most magnificent combinations of color that baffle description. Comparatively few varieties ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
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