"Confusing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Champlain; (3) the coast of the United States. As the operations on these three fields had little interaction on one another, it will be more convenient to take them separately than to follow the confusing chronological order. Operations on the Ocean.—These cover all cruises of sea-going ships, even when they did not go far from the coast. They again subdivide into the actions of national vessels, and the raids of the privateers. The first gave to the United States the most ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... a tall person, wearing a silk travelling-cap. He had a face of stupid benignity and a self-satisfied smirk; and he was formally trying to put at his ease, and hopelessly confusing the loutish youth before him. "You say you saw the whole accident, and you're probably the only passenger that did see it. You'll be the most important witness at the trial," he added, as if there would ever be any trial about ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... commencement of a psalm. 6 The god of holy songs, Lord of religion and worship 7 seated a thousand singers and musicians: and established a choral band 8 who to his hymn were to respond in multitudes ... 9 With a loud cry of contempt they broke up his holy song 10 spoiling, confusing, confounding, his hymn of praise. 11 The god of the bright crown [1] with a wish to summon his adherents 12 sounded a trumpet blast which would wake the dead, 13 which to those rebel angels prohibited return, 14 he ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... tumult of sound as the gale drove onward would be impossible. A sad cry would swell out like the voice of a mother wailing for her child; then, pitched in a low, loud key, would come a noise like the howling of a soul condemned; while above the confusing din could be heard shrill whistles and cross pipings as if a host of mad spirits were signalling ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... covers one or two parts of the creatures. When Ezekiel mentions more than one part it becomes confusing, so that one verse seems to contradict another. These can usually be sorted out however. Nowhere will you find a ...
— The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel • Arthur W. Orton
... have started us turning as slowly as we like, since we passed through the atmosphere at a comparatively low rate of speed." "I am afraid," said Cortlandt, "the motion, however slow, would have made us dizzy. It would be confusing to see the heavens turning about us, and it would interfere with using the glasses." The base and one side of the Callisto had constant sunshine, while the other side and the dome were in the blackest night. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... intellectual priesthood of the classes born to freedom. Where was this heaven-nurtured priestly virtue sleeping when Wrong straddled the land and the great crime was wrought? It was composing feeble anthologies and pompous theories, cooking its culture-soup, confusing, with true professorial want of instinct, 1913 with 1813[15]—and putting itself at the disposition of the Press Bureau. That was the hour in which to fight for the supremacy of the spirit. Now romance comes, as it always does, ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... about confusing this method with the one Bowditch uses, and still another which Henderson uses in his book "Elements of Navigation." It is not exactly like either one. It requires one operation less than either, however, and it also requires the use of fewer parts of the various tables involved. ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... very hard to write this letter. There are so many things I want to tell you, and they stand on such different levels, that the effect is necessarily confusing and discordant, and I find myself doubting if I am really giving you the thread of emotion that should run through all this letter. For although I must confess it reads very much like an application or a testimonial or some such thing as that, I can assure ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Mary was not slow to take a feminine advantage of, in her present humor. But it was somewhat confusing to observe, also, that the beast, despite some faint signs of past dissipation, was amiable-looking—in fact, a kind of blond Samson whose corn-colored, silken beard apparently had never yet known the touch of barber's razor or Delilah's shears. So that the cutting ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... outside and saw the trees fly past her in the clear night, or some cows, lying in a field, raise their heads at the noise of the carriage. Then she settled herself in a fresh position, and tried to continue an interrupted dream, but the continual rumbling of the carriage sounded in her ears, confusing her thoughts, and she shut her eyes again, her mind feeling ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... went on a voyage by water in order to obtain what appears to have been a marsh plant called dittu.[381] The question naturally arises whether this Babylonian story and the name of the plant played any part in Palestine in blending the Egyptian and Babylonian stories and confusing the Egyptian elixir of life, the red earth didi, with the ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... the British Admiralty, but I never heard a word further on the subject except that it ceased to be discussed in London. A few years later some unavailing efforts were made to revive the discussion, but the twentieth century is started without this confusing change being introduced into the astronomical ephemerides and nautical almanacs of the world, and navigators are still at liberty to practice the system they find ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... land is the key factor in their economy, not money; nothing but land. To get land, it's every man for himself, and the loser starves, and their entire legal and monetary system revolves on that principle. They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with land as the value behind the credit. That explains the lying—of course they're liars, with an economy like that. They've completely missed the concept of truth. ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse
... confusing, and tend to prevent a clear understanding of the matter; therefore let the nation be represented by Uncle Sam, an active, middle-aged man, owning a farm and a factory, of which the annual product is $40,000. The largest and best portion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... there. He went away hurriedly, with a great many vague fears in his mind. Mr Wodehouse's sudden illness seemed to him a kind of repetition and echo of the Squire's, and in the troubled and uncertain state of his thoughts, he got to confusing them together in the centre of this whirl of unknown disaster and perplexity. Perhaps even thus it was not all bitterness to the young man to feel his family united with that of Lucy Wodehouse. He went down Grange Lane in the summer darkness under the faint stars, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... attention was the captain's private collection of fishing tackle and his armoury. There were some fine landing nets and rods with bright brass rings and reels, and the artificial flies were quite confusing in their number and variety. In the armoury were several six shooters of different patterns, and many double-barrelled guns and ornamented rifles. Captain Gordon allowed me to handle some of these, and he explained their mechanism ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... thoroughly satisfactory manner and in the shortest space of time. The book contains everything on the subject of First Aid which the Boy Scout ought to know and is free from technical details which serve no useful purpose and only result in confusing the student. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... little time, it was doubtful what course the fugitive meant to take; for he kept whirling and turning in swift and sudden circles, completely confusing and baffling his pursuers, by his skilful and light evolutions. But, soon tiring of this taunting amusement, or perhaps apprehensive of exhausting his own strength, which was powerfully and most dexterously exerted, it was not long before he darted ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... to all the confusing noises that were about me, but the voice of my faery was not among them. My hand groped after alien hands, but the faery hand was not among them. Nor would I have ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... but Lister's face was wet with sweat, and when he was slow and the engine-room rang with the clash of machinery his heart beat. The big columns that held the cylinders rocked; crank and connecting-rod spun too fast for him to see. There was a confusing flash of ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... remained quiet a few moments; then, rising, she kissed his cheek and went quietly to her room. Once there she threw herself on the bed and tried to think. The events of the day, coming after a long string of monotonous, wearying days, had been confusing; they had succeeded one another in such rapid order as to leave no time for reflection. The meeting by the river with the rude but interesting stranger; the shock to her dignity; Lydia's kindly advice; the stranger again, this time emerging from the dark depths ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... been supposed to have had from the first a soft sibilant sound before E and I; but from the silence of all the grammarians on the subject, from the transcriptions of C in Greek by kappa, not sigma or tau, and from the inscriptions and MSS. of the best ages not confusing CI with TI, we conclude that at any rate until 200 A.D. C and G were sounded hard before all vowels. The change operated quickly enough afterwards, and to a great extent through the influence of the Umbrian which had used d or c before E ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the earlier part of my remarks that we have a case here of the thing that horrifies rhetoricians, but does not matter a bit to a prophet, the blending or confusing of two metaphors. The first of them—'I have blotted out'—suggests a piece of writing, a book, or manuscript of some sort. And the plain English of what lies behind that metaphor is this solemn ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... to meet the enemy, and seeking out the leader, soon found myself near him. First confusing him with arrows poured upon him in rapid succession, I brought my chariot close to his, and suddenly springing into it, cut off his head ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... abundance of his ideas, as they welled forth in his mind day by day. It is really a collection of separate tales and allegories, as much as the Arabian Nights, or, as its counterpart and rival of our own century, the Idylls of the King. As a whole it is confusing: but we need not treat it as a whole. Its continued interest soon breaks down. But it is probably best that Spenser gave his mind the vague freedom which suited it, and that he did not make efforts to tie ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... situated; yet she can only take advantage of circumstances which yet depend upon the caprice of a subtle-minded husband. Over both these friends of the unfortunate, slavery has stretched its giant arms, confusing the social system, uprooting the integrity of men, weakening respect for law, violating the best precepts of nature, substituting passion for principle, confounding ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... variety of ways in which the names of Oriental localities are spelled when transliterated, it is extremely difficult to establish a standard of spelling. Many curious examples of this occur both on maps and in dictionaries. It is certainly confusing to open an atlas that is supposed to be an authority, and find that the name one seeks differs in spelling from that used in the atlas first consulted. Then by looking into dictionaries it is found that each of these has a different way of ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... national attention was focused on the constitutional implications of segregated education, the Eisenhower administration was thrust into a dispute over the intent of federal aid to education and eventually into a reappraisal of the federal role in public education. Confusing to the Department of Defense, the President's personal attitude remained somewhat ambiguous throughout the controversy. He had publicly committed himself to ending segregation in federally financed ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... "I know it's confusing at first," said the Australian, with a beaming smile. "But he—in short, he combines the two professions. And many others besides—many, many, many others," repeated Mr. Dickson, with drunken solemnity. "Mr. Thomas's cotton-mills are one of the sights of Tallahassee; Mr. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a good morning, Dame Anaitis," said Jurgen. "But the stairways hereabouts are confusing, and I must have lost my way. I was going for a stroll. This is my distant relative Queen Sylvia Tereu, who kindly offered to accompany me. We were going out to gather mushrooms and to watch ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... yet picking a passage where the snow had been swept clear. The slipperiness of the incline made their progress slow, as they dared not risk the breaking of a horse's leg in that wilderness, and the faint light glimmer was most confusing. The wind had ceased, the calm was impressive after the wild tumult, but the cold seemed to strengthen as the dawn advanced, viciously biting the exposed faces of the men. The straining ponies were white with frost. In the gray of a cheerless dawn they ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... "Papa talked it into the box, and the man writed it down when he talked," confusing the telephone at home with the cablegram, which, directed to Miss Eunice Ward, as the eldest representative, had been the occasion of ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... too confusing to follow all these grants and charters, or all the attempts at settlements made by Mason and Gorges and others. The land granted to them was often very vaguely outlined, the fact being that the people who applied for the ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... arrangement of The Clintons and Others (COLLINS) at first a little confusing, because Mr. ARCHIBALD MARSHALL, instead of keeping his Clinton tales consecutive, has mixed them democratically with the Others. Our first sight of the family (and incidentally the most agreeable thing in the volume) is provided by "Kencote," a brightly- coloured ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... retribution, obedience would be only the obedience of fear, and God does not desire such obedience. It would be impossible that testing could go on at all if at every instant the whole of the consequences of our actions were being realised. Such a condition of things is unthinkable, and would be as confusing, in the moral sphere, as if harvest weather and spring weather were going on together. Again, the great reason why sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily lies in God's own heart, and His desire to win us to Himself ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... reach up to Heaven. They believed, perhaps, that if ever there should be another deluge upon the earth, they could take refuge in the tower. But God was displeased with their conduct and prevented them from completing the tower by confusing their tongues or language so that they could not understand one another. Then those who spoke the same language went to live in the same part of the country, and thus the human race was scattered over the earth, and the different nations had ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... perfecting the certitudes of his methods rather than upon expressing the confusing subtleties of truth, has done little to help thinking men in the perpetual difficulty that arises from the fact that the universe can be seen in many different fashions and expressed by many different systems of terms, each ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... hastened to answer, "you know as I always did hold that the give and take of advice from friends is the greatest comfort in the world, though at times most confusing, and I thought I told you ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... longer that an American college education is an advantage to most youths who can get it, but in these attempts to estimate statistically what college education does for men there is a good deal of confusing of post hoc and propter hoc. Define success as you will, a much larger proportion of American college men win it than of men who don't go to college, but how much college training does for those successful ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... divergent conditions. No distinction was drawn between a hand which might be trickless as an aid to, or defense against, a No-trump declaration, and one which would produce seven or eight tricks under such circumstances. This kind of bidding was found to be much too confusing for the partner, and prevented him ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... his benefactress on the expedition. Diderot wrote to the hermit a very strong letter to this effect: it made Rousseau furious. He declined the urgent counsel, he quarrelled outright and violently with Grimm, and after an angry and confusing interview with Diderot, all intercourse ceased with him also. "That man," wrote Diderot, on the evening of this, their last interview, "intrudes into my work; he fills me with trouble, and I feel as if I were haunted by a damned ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... seems to read off an instrument, those practically acquainted with their use know well how some errors almost become chronic, how with a certain familiar instrument the chance of error is very great at one particular part of the scale, and how confusing it is to read off through steam alternately from several instruments whose scales are of different dimensions, are differently divided, and differently lettered; such causes of error are constitutional in individual observers. Again, these observations are selected ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... myself, I'm afraid, sir," said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see—being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing." She drew herself up and said very gravely, "I think you ought to tell me ...
— Alice in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... "I'm afraid you're confusing Sir Henry with a different Durwood," said the detective, coming to the rescue. "Sir Henry Durwood is the distinguished specialist of Harley Street, and not the paleontologist of that name. We have called to make some inquiries about the murder which was committed somewhere ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... a strange thing, when we ask questions directly of life, how often the answers are unexpected and confusing. Our logic becomes illogical! Our stories ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... latitude is further confused during the discussion of iceberg sightings. The doctor states that they are two degrees further north than a sighting of icebergs occurring at 42 degrees latitude, apparently confusing the Forward's latitude with ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... to know them in time," she said, "but it will be confusing at first. Do you notice that some of the big girls wear badges? I wonder what ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... (both in spelling and use of diacritics.) Non-standard spelling has been preserved if the word is understandable in context. Changes to the text have only been made in the case of obvious typographical errors and where not making a correction would leave the text confusing or difficult to read. All changes are documented in the notes below. The original text also included an errata page by the author/translator. The changes specified in this errata have been implemented and are also documented in the ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... the battle; though no Conservative regarded him as safe; yet on this question of the Church it had been believed that he was sound. What might be the special ideas of his own mind regarding ecclesiastical policy in general, it had not been thought necessary to consider. His utterances had been confusing, mysterious, and perhaps purposely unintelligible; but that was matter of little moment so long as he was prepared to defend the establishment of the Church of England as an institution adapted for English purposes. On that point it was believed that he was sound. To that ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... in the north by the gulfs of Chacao (or Ancud) and Corcovado, 30 to 35 m. wide, which appear to be a submerged part of the great central valley of Chile, and farther south by the narrower Moraleda channel, which terminates southward in a confusing network of passages between the mainland and the islands of the Chonos group. One of the narrow parts of the Chilean mainland is to be found opposite the upper islands of this group, where the accidental juxtaposition of Magdalena ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... progressed beyond the stage of magic as far as any concept of religion, that is of praying for intercession to any power greater than themselves; whereas the mental state of the Wongolo was half-way between magic and religion, mixing and confusing the two as exemplified in the Rain-making ceremony of employing magic and alternately invoking the god and threatening him with dire penalties if he did not behave. There seemed to be no royal family or clan of the Wamongo; chiefs changed constantly as one more powerful for the moment arose; the ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... treatment to ten million aspiring, education-and-property-acquiring people. In a word, the difficulty of the problem is not so much due to the facts presented as to the hypothesis assumed for its solution. In this it is similar to the problem of the solar system. By a complex, confusing, and almost contradictory mathematical process, by the use of zigzags instead of straight lines, the earth can be proved to be the center of things celestial; but by an operation so simple that it can be comprehended by a schoolboy, its position ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... picture of life with the gruesome horrors of the ghat. This impressionist style of lecturing is very attractive and must essentially cover a great deal of ground. So we saw Jeypore, Udaipore, Darjeeling, and a confusing number of places—temples, monuments and tombs in profusion, with remarkable pictures of the wonderful Taj Mahal—horses, elephants, alligators, wild boars, and flamingoes—warriors, fakirs, and nautch girls—an impression here and an ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... public show, sorry that anybody had been by to witness it. In his embarrassment he pushed his hat back from his forehead, looking around him again as if he would break through the ranks and hide himself from such confusing publicity. ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... legislation, and helped inculcate a feeling of greater political solidarity. When fires and floods and other disasters occurred which were too great for a single city or state to take care of, when state laws became confusing because of their variety, when railroads crossed a dozen states and corporations that were chartered in New Jersey did business in Maine, Florida and California, only at the federal capital could the requisite authority be found, which ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... fond, too, of confusing folks with his lies, and so firmly did he state the tales of his own invention that it was hard to tell whether he was fooling or speaking ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... This statement is confusing. To paraphrase, Postell's party (which made this attack) consisted of ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... It is rather confusing that the term "exchange" is also used for the difference in value between a Rook and a Bishop or a Knight. To win the exchange, in this sense, means to capture a Rook and to lose for it only ...
— Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership • Edward Lasker
... kindly upon them, and the scene was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie thought, only she hoped they would soon set out the tea-cups. It was a little confusing, though, that the young woman began to speak to the old one in a language which Maggie did not understand, while the tall girl who was feeding the donkey sat up and stared at her. At last the old ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous
... and all the food are to come too, and we are to have a great ball—no, that's in the evening—and supper, and the fireworks will go off. Dear, dear, where are the fireworks to be squeezed? it's a most confusing ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... is quite regular, that is, the second stanza is arranged precisely as the first, though such will not appear to be the case without examination: the disposition of the lines, so various in length, is confusing though not confused. ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... subject, yet finding none entirely adequate, gradually, and in spite of all effort to the contrary, I found that my teaching rested more and more on my own personal experience as a housekeeper, both at the South and at the North. The mass of material in many books was found confusing and paralyzing, choice seeming impossible when a dozen methods were given. And for the large proportion of receipts, directions were so vague that only a trained housekeeper could be certain of the order of combination, ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... cried Thuillier to the office-boy as he closed the door and slipped the bolt. "Now," he said, addressing la Peyrade, "we will talk. My dear fellow," he went on, starting with irony, for he remembered to have heard that nothing was more confusing to an adversary, "I have heard something that will give you pleasure. I know now why MY ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... English historical literature when correctly presented by authors with text containing these patronymics with the abbreviation point added, have simply removed the points arguing that this 'full stop' in the middle of sentences is confusing for the English reader, thereby wrongly embedding the abbreviated name as the real one in the readers' minds. This happened for example with the text of "Batavia's Graveyard" according the Cambridge educated historian Mike Dash, its author. ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... stammered. "Matthews was telling me that sergeants handled half-companies and rose from the ranks—and I don't see that there are any lieutenants—and your companies appear to be two hundred and fifty strong. It's a shade confusing to ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... this fashion. But Moti declared that he had got the animal in exchange for fifty pieces of silver, whilst the horse merchants vowed that the money they had on them was what they had received for the sale of other horses; and in one way and another the dispute got so confusing that the king (who really thought that Moti had stolen the horse) said at last, 'Well, I tell you what I will do. I will lock something into this box before me, and if he guesses what it is, the horse is his, and if he doesn't, ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... confusing conditions her plan would be to present to them, as an affectionate surprise, the unheralded visit, which might appear a trifle uncalled for. She felt happily sure of herself under any circumstances not partaking of the nature of collisions at sea. Yet ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of arrows, quarrels, javelins, fell upon the head of the column as it tried to face about and retreat, confusing it more and more. One arrow, shot by no common aim, went clean through William's shield, and pinned it to the mailed flesh. He could not stifle a cry ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... hand, although an independent study of the art offers a wider range of interest, the student is, for that very reason, exposed to the risk of involving himself in a labyrinth of confusing and ineffectual theories. The fact is, that neither method can at the present time be exclusively depended upon as a means of development; neither can be pronounced complete in itself nor independent of ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... settled upon. The alternative was accident. "Which will it be?" I asked in vain. Upon this point my friends the mediums held a delicate reserve. "The Influences were confusing, and they were not prepared to ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... replied. "What a convenient thing it would be if all thieves had the same shape! It's so confusing to have some of them quadrupeds and ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... every taste. Certain parts are unqualifiedly admirable; others border on the theatrical; still others are nearly or entirely liturgical, while, finally, some are picturesque, although there are some almost confusing. Like Gounod, Liszt was sometimes deceived and attributed to ordinary and simple sequences of chords a profound significance which escaped the great majority of his hearers. There are some pages of this sort ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... think you're confusing him with Marconi," said Sir James, shaking his head. "But I always detect genius! It's a curious thing, Woodville, but I never make a mistake! By the way, I should like to send a card to the Leader of the Opposition and his wife. Inquire of Sylvia ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... brought us into a lake expansion some twelve miles long and two miles or so in width, with a great many bays and arms which were extremely confusing to us in our search for the place where the river left it. The lower end was blocked with islands, and innumerable rocky bars, partially submerged, extended far out into the water. A strong southwest wind sent heavy rollers down the lake. Low, ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... rudely in outline, as it would be set for a side-wind on the boat you probably know best,—the boat of burden on the Lake of Geneva (Fig. 3), not confusing the drawing by adding the mast, which, you know, rakes a little, carrying the yard across it (a). Then, with your permission, I will load my boat thus, with a few casks of Vevay vintage—and, to keep them cool, we will put an awning over them, so (b). Next, as we are classical scholars, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... herself who finally forced him to dispatch the news. It was Stanor's first experience of arguing a point with a woman, and a most confusing experience he found it. Pixie invariably agreed with every separate argument as he advanced it, saw eye to eye with him on each separate point, sympathised warmly with his scruples, and then at the very moment when she was expected to say "yes" ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... Tavern," and had decided (the Dons being propitious) to remain at Brazenface, in the nearer neighbourhood of his friends. He had resumed his reading for his degree; and, at various odd times, and in various odd ways, he crammed himself for his forthcoming examination with the most confused and confusing scraps of knowledge. He was determined, he said, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... confusing commixture of population and unstable society of mixed breeds of three nations the second war between England and the United States came like a thunderbolt to upset the already seething administration of Claiborne. As of old, Louisiana was the strategical point upon which ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... really is, and by what law it lives. We have been passing during the last generation from an idea of law which belonged to our forefathers to a new idea of law which has been given to us by modern science; and in transition we still talk in ambiguous terms about "law"—moral "law," for instance—confusing ourselves between a law that is imposed on us from outside, a law that is passed by Parliament, for instance, or a law that has been the common custom of the country through its judges, and that kind of "law" which ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... The other ship's screens would show a large blip which was the planet, and in direct line a very much smaller blip which was the Isis. The small blip might not be noticed because it was in line with the larger. If it were noticed, it would be confusing, because such things should not happen. But the cruisers of Mekin were not apt to be easily alarmed. They represented a great empire, all of whose landing-grids were safely controlled, and though there was disaffection everywhere ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... emergency. In the same way, conceivably, concentration on modern history might be supposed to equip a student for securing concessions abroad for a firm, or for winning a parliamentary election. Of course, this attitude, though it is rather widespread just now, is absurd. The fallacy lies in confusing the general theoretical knowledge of a subject acquired through being educated in it with the technical knowledge and personal experience which one must have to turn the same subject to practical account in after life. There is no difference of opinion on this point ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... dreadful stories in the papers nowadays." And she beamed upon the bewildered man of science. "And then there's the climate, too, to be considered," she went on; "some of these foreign places have their winter while we have summer, or is it the other way round? I never know, it is so dreadfully confusing, especially to me with my bad memory; perhaps it is that they have summer while we have winter, but anyway I think the English arrangement is much to be preferred. I am a good Conservative, you know; besides, I think it is so charming to love one's own country, and all that. By the way, ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... it's better so. The legal terms are confusing," said the officer emphatically. "You can read them later. I don't guess the government could have acted better by you than they've done. The property,"—he was careful to avoid the rancher's name—"the property is to remain yours, ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... Middle Ages, silly, teazing or puzzling answers; the questioner remaining at the end rolled up in the repartees, gasping as a fly caught in a spider's web. The Court fool or buffoon had for his principal merit his clever knack of returning witty or confusing answers; the best of them were preserved; itinerant minstrels remembered and repeated them; clerks turned them into Latin, and gave them place in their collections of exempla. They afforded amusement for a king, an amusement ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... heir-apparent, with the Koran to the troops; but no use. I then sent well-known Syads and Mullahs of each class, but of no avail; up till now, evening, the disturbance continues. It will be seen how it ends. I am grieved with this confusing state of things. It is almost beyond conception. (Here follow the date and ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... sheik of a desert tribe far south of Djelfa. Through Abdul, Tarzan invited his new acquaintance to dine with him. As the three were making their way through the crowds of marketers, camels, donkeys, and horses that filled the market place with a confusing babel of sounds, Abdul plucked at ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... voice continued. "All I do is make sure that no unauthorized person comes into Chilblains Base. Other than that, I have nothing but personal guesses and little trickles of confusing information, neither of which am I at liberty ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... say, why don't they wear helmets like they do in London? Why do they look like postmen? It isn't fair on a fellow. Makes it dashed confusing. I was simply standing on the pavement, looking at things, when a fellow who looked like a postman prodded me in the ribs with a club. I didn't see why I should have postmen prodding me. Why the dickens should a fellow come three thousand ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... the cell. However, because the current in the electrolyte flows from the consumed plate to the unconsumed plate, the consumed plate is called the positive plate and the unconsumed, the negative. This is likely to become confusing, but if one remembers that the active plate is the positive plate, because it sends forth positive ions in the electrolyte, and, therefore, itself becomes negatively charged, one will have the proper basis always ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... "physical basis of life", which was soon given to it by Huxley. With this conception of protoplasm as the physical basis of life the problems connected with the study of life became more simplified. In order to study the nature of life it was no longer necessary to study the confusing mass of complex organs disclosed to us by animals and plants, or even the somewhat less confusing structures shown by individual cells. Even the simple cell has several separate parts capable of undergoing great modifications in different ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... that a man who makes an induction holding up a lady to ridicule is probably a cad, and that the cad who makes a deduction confusing patriotism with murder is ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... lot of action in the book, from encounters with the Barbary Pirates in what is now called Morocco, to military goings-on in Somerset and Dorset, to trials by Jeffreys, the Chief Justice (or Injustice might be a better name). It's just a little bit confusing! An example of how confusing is that there's a ship called Benbow, and a couple of chaps of that name as well. We have tried to sort out some inconsistencies in spelling, for example Axminster and Axeminster, Tregellen and Treleggen, but ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... cradle ran to Numitor full of hopes and fears, now that matters had come to a critical point. He was viewed with suspicion by the guards at the king's gate, and while they were treating him contemptuously, and confusing him by questions, they espied the cradle under his cloak. Now it chanced that one of them had been one of those who had taken the children to cast them away, and had been present when they were abandoned. This man, seeing the cradle and recognising it by its make and the inscription ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... spectator who arrived, panting, upon that pinnacle, it was first a dazzling confusing view of roofs, chimneys, streets, bridges, places, spires, bell towers. Everything struck your eye at once: the carved gable, the pointed roof, the turrets suspended at the angles of the walls; the stone pyramids of the eleventh century, the slate obelisks of the fifteenth; the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... oars up, pointed in the helm, And shot in the cool gloom. He thought no realm On which the sun had shone was half so bright. And somehow Clara thought it nice as light. The waters swirled so swift that in the noise Clara grew dizzy; Gilbert lost his poise, And lost an oar; with a confusing shock The boat was grinding—stopped against a rock. "Gilbert, my dear, are we not going down?" "Dearest, my love, we were not born to drown. Oh, kiss me; we are safe; and grant me now Yourself. I'll gather lilies for your brow; And Hugh will know that I have won the race, ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... understand thought as expressed in printed words, his vocabulary is limited; in reading aloud he will often pronounce words correctly without any idea of what they mean and far more frequently than you imagine he will receive a wrong impression by confusing words like zeal and seal of similar sound and totally different meaning. A teacher accidentally found out that her class supposed that the "kid" which railed at the wolf in Aesop's fable was a little boy, and I have had a child tell me that he saw at Rouen ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman
... frolic. In a moment he had lost his stately demeanour and lurched jocularly towards the warrior. He reached for the Indian's face, thinking it was screened with parchment. The next instant he had tweaked the nose of the great chief of the Six Nations. Above the confusing medley of sounds burst the wild accents of the blood-freezing war-whoop. On the instant Brant's tomahawk was forth from his girdle, and was whirling about the head of the astonished offender. Never had such a cry been heard within the halls ...
— 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
... though this kind of romancing is common enough among intelligent children, it distinguishes itself in this case by the strong impression which the incident had left on his own mind. It seems to have been a first real flight of dramatic fancy, confusing his identity ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... his trousers; had mixed two glasses of strong hot rum-and-water for himself and Zack; and had set to work on the composition of a third tumbler, into which sugar, brandy, lemon-juice, rum, and hot water all seemed to drop together in such incessant and confusing little driblets, that it was impossible to tell which ingredient was uppermost in the whole mixture. When the tumbler was full, he set it down on the table, with an indicative bang, close to ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... there, it is said, we see the positive worth of life; we see already realised what we are now growing to realise once more. Christianity, with its supernatural aims and objects, is spoken of as an 'episode of disease and delirium;' it is a confusing dream, from which we are at last awaking; and the feelings of the modern school are expressed in the following sentence of a distinguished modern writer:[2] 'Just as the traveller,' he says, 'who has ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... wisdom to the hearers, besides a seemliness of speech and countenance[732]." Dr. Johnson's method of conversation was certainly calculated to excite attention, and to amuse and instruct, (as it happened,) without wearying or confusing his company. He was always most perfectly clear and perspicuous; and his language was so accurate, and his sentences so neatly constructed, that his conversation might have been all printed without any correction. At the same ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... called into requisition to assist in the preparation of the dinner for the boarders—four gentlemen—who, her mistress informed her, were "very particular," and liked everything nice. She received a confusing multiplicity of directions as to waiting at table, for Mrs. Williams rather prided herself on the "stylishness" of her establishment. She got through her task tolerably well, though somewhat bewildered between Mrs. Williams' quick, sharp reminders ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... scheme if the King stood out; it was to avoid decision by confusing and spinning out the matter in hand, or by substituting another as though arising, opportunely out of it, and by which it was turned aside, or by proposing that some explanations should be obtained. The first ideas of the King were thus ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the Devil, if he might not wed her before God. He soothed her pride by declaring that he was the Prince of Magicians, and would make her his queen. He put on her finger a silver ring, engraved with magic characters. Did he take her to the Sabbath, or only make her believe she had been there, by confusing her with strange drinks and magnetic witcheries? Certain it is, at least, that torn by two different beliefs, full of uneasiness and fear, the girl thenceforth became mad at certain times, and fell into fits of epilepsy. She was afraid of being carried off alive ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... night were confusing, and a simple man could not dare prophesy what might follow," said Kit, who had drawn up a chair and easily fell into Rotil's manner of jest. "But I fancy if that courier had known who would follow after, he would have spent the night by preference ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... whisper to her that she had been foolish in coming here, to cast doubts on what she had hitherto regarded as the one rock-solid fact in the world, her love for Geoffrey. Could she have changed since those days in Wales? Life had been so confusing of late. In the vividness of recent happenings those days in Wales seemed a long way off, and she herself different from the girl of a year ago. She found herself thinking about ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the river are the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, both very wonderful. I have not told you about Westminster yet, because I was afraid of confusing you with too many things at once, but you ought to know now. You can tell for yourselves which side of London it is on from the name—that is, if you are not very stupid. Yes, Westminster is on the west side of the City, but what is rather odd is that once Westminster and London were two separate ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... course, my intention to describe with any detail the individuals of this company. I have chosen already those of us who are especially concerned with my present history, but these others made a continually fluctuating and variable background, at first confusing and, to a stranger, almost terrifying. When the army doctors and Sisters dined with us we numbered from thirty to forty persons: sometimes also the officers of the Staff of the Sixty-Fifth came to our table. There were other occasions when every ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... plague of Prudy's life, and yet she loves her dearly. Both are rare articles in juvenile literature, as real as Eva and Topsy of 'Uncle Tom' fame. Witty and wise, full of sport and study, sometimes mixing the two in a confusing way, they ran bubbling through many volumes, and make everybody wish they could never grow up or change, they ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... and, with the instinct of a placeman, leans rather to the investigation of public concerns than to the profound and abstract topics of philosophy. As is the case with superficial men, he sees no difference between the speculative and the exact, confusing them together. He feels that it is inexpedient to communicate truth publicly, especially that of a religious kind. Doubtless herein we shall agree when we find that he believes God to be nothing more than the soul of the world; discovers many serious objections to the doctrine of Providence; insinuates ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... this preoccupation he has found time for a remarkable number of hobbies, such as politics, music and the study of refrigerating machines, though the effect of all these various activities is sometimes a little confusing for those with whom he works. When consulted on a burning topic of the hour he may, for instance, be on the point of inventing a new type of ice-bucket, so that the interviewer is forced to go out quickly and fetch his fur overcoat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... Zahi where they should have inscribed Kharu, and it is a difficult matter for us always to detect their mistakes. It would be unjust to blame them too severely for their inaccuracies, for what means had they of determining the relative positions of that confusing collection of states with which the Egyptians came in contact as soon as they had ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the valve being of primary importance, no matter what size engine we are dealing with, and being also the most confusing matter for anyone unacquainted with gas engines to grasp, it will not be out of place to suggest a simple ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... elevation of the chin accompanied by a click of the tongue—is negative. This custom is largely adopted in Montenegro, particularly amongst the peasants, but even then we never quite knew if a shake of the head was meant in the Turkish or European sense. It is a confusing and irritating habit, and takes months ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... working garb; and then begins the induction into office, a trying experience to you both, and one which should be sufficiently prolonged to enable her to get a good grip of each new duty as it presents itself. Avoid confusing her at the start with a jumble of instructions, but make haste slowly, giving directions in a way which she can understand. Introduce her into her workroom, explain the range and show her how to operate it, point ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... swimmer, his hands scarred by the tangled branches. There were other steep places that were broken by terraces. When he was down from the rocky heights on which the vapor did not extend and had entered the confusing mists, he was obliged to go more slowly still, for he narrowly missed ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... and confuse right and wrong in the mind of Goodman Brown, was something that excited his imagination, and produced one of his weirdest stories. But that the same devil, clad in a sombre sophism, was confusing the sentiment of right and wrong in the mind of his own countrymen he did not even guess. The monotonous sunshine disappeared in the blackest storm. The commonplace prosperity ended in tremendous war. What other man of equal power, who was not intellectually constituted ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... incommoding you, I shall be glad to avail myself of your offer. I am a trifle shortsighted, and these moorland paths are confusing." ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... business as quickly as possible, and we set out for Starkfield with a good chance of getting there for supper. But at sunset the clouds gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning. It seemed to be a part of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself descending on ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... his surface thinking was still the need of flight, and he was continually confusing it with the earlier one. One moment he was looking about for the snow of that earlier escape, and the next he would remember, and the sense of panic would leave him. After all he meant to surrender eventually. It did not ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... questions she could and done all the prose work. All that was left was a translation of Virgil. Betty stared at the unfamiliar text, and wondered where it had come from. "I don't believe it's Virgil," she said to herself. "If it is it's a part we haven't had." Then a few words from the confusing paragraphs caught her eye, and she began to remember. Her brow cleared—a few words were all Betty ever needed to start her on one of her famous translations. She wrote ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... Kilkenny[5]. This Statute, although it produced little effect at the time, is an extremely important one to understand, as it enables us to realize the state to which the country had then got, and explains, moreover, a good deal that would otherwise be obscure or confusing in the after ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... to wait for that knowledge! An hour would be a year and a year would be a century. He helped in all things as he was told to do; but his fingers were like thumbs and his feet like clubs. He felt a singular and confusing sense of identity with his father, as though the ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... all due respect to the entire sincerity of this magnificent writer, it must be said that those who would enjoy and appreciate him rightly, should ignore his philosophico-religious treatises, which are contradictory and confusing to the last degree. As an illustration, let me cite the case of the famine in Russia of 1891-92. Great sums of money[45] were sent to Count Tolstoy, chiefly from America, and were expended by him in the most practicable and irreproachable manner—so any one would have supposed—for ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... confusing!" said the Jackal, when the recital was ended; "would you mind telling me over again, for everything ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... replied the veteran "It was two nights after the battle. All the camp was at rest; I was occupied as usual, by my honored watch in my sovereign's tent. The king was sleeping soundly, and a strange drowsiness appeared creeping over me too, confusing all my thoughts. At first I imagined the wind was agitating a certain corner of the tent, and my eyes, half asleep and half wakeful, became fascinated upon it; presently, what seemed a bale of carpets, only doubled ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... generation acts not unnaturally in passing by the open doors of the Churches; that the clergy are, as usual, shirking the most serious questions of the modern intelligence, and trusting mainly to profit by the heated and disordered and confusing emotions of ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... secondary history is among the most valuable of literary efforts; where evidence is slight, the judgment of an historian who knows from other reading the general character of the period, is most valuable. Where evidence is abundant, and therefore confusing, the historian used to the selection and weighing of it performs a most valuable function. Still, the reader who is not acquainted with original authorities does not really know history and is at the mercy of whatever myth or tradition may be handed ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... runner by our side. "Yes, sir; here you are, sir. Free 'bus, sir." And in another moment we were in the lumbering coach, and as soon as the last lingering passenger had come from the boat we were whirling over the rough pavement, through a confusing maze of streets, past long rows of dingy, ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... pity that both these discerning writers of the modern school have not gone a little further and seen that the picture before them is not only Giorgionesque, but by Giorgione himself. The mistake of confusing Titian and Giorgione is as old as Vasari, who, misled by the signature, naively remarks, "It would have been taken for a picture by Giorgione if Titian had not written his name on the dark ground (in ombra)." Hinc illae lacrimae! Let us look ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... Church meadows far behind, and was beginning to feel slightly exhausted by his unwonted exertions, when he reached that bewildering part of the river termed "the Gut." So confusing were the intestine commotions of this gut, that, after passing a chequered existence as an aquatic shuttlecock, and being assailed with a slang-dictionary-full of opprobrious epithets, Mr. Verdant ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Lettres a l'Etrangere is confusing the French and Russian dates, he has made a mistake in dating certain of Balzac's letters from St. Petersburg. He had two dated October 1843, St. Petersburg, and on his way home from there Balzac ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... formed but an episode in their career toward oligarchy; indeed, that revolution only rendered the political material of the Florentine republic more plastic in the hands of intriguers, by removing the last vestiges of class distinctions and by confusing the old parties of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... approximate altitude,—all this when the air was criss-crossed with streamers of smoke from machine-gun tracer bullets, and opposing aircraft were maneuvering for position, diving and firing at each other, spiraling, nose-spinning, wing-slipping, climbing, in a confusing intermingling of ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... set now for news, army news especially; and I spent hours in studying all the public prints that were within reach of my hand. So contradictory they were, and so confusing, that they made me only the more long for actual living advices. The second day, Major Fairbairn came to ask me again to ride; and though at first I thought I could not, the next feeling of restless uncertainty ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... but above all things I must enjoy. How much of my enjoyment springs from my knowledge I do not know. The joy of knowing is very great; the delight of picking up the threads of meaning here and there, and following them through the maze of confusing facts, I know well. When I hear the woodpecker drumming on a dry limb in spring or the grouse drumming in the woods, and know what it is all for, why, that knowledge, I suppose, is part of my enjoyment. The other part is the associations that those sounds call up as voicing the arrival ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... we are confusing language very much. Men speak of revolution; and when they say revolution they mean blood. Our fathers meant nothing of the sort. When they spoke of revolution they meant an unalienable right. When they declared as an unalienable right the power of the people to abrogate and modify their ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... barren and meaningless scholasticism—a frigid reproduction of lifeless forms copied technically and without inspiration from debased patterns. Pictures became symbolically connected with the religious feelings of the people, formulas from which to deviate would be impious in the artist and confusing to the worshipper. Superstitious reverence bound the painter to copy the almond eyes and stiff joints of the saints whom he had adored from infancy; and, even had it been otherwise, he lacked the skill to imitate the natural forms he saw ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... front of the picture were additions of this kind, and are very injurious, confusing the organization and concealing the power of the sea. The merits of the drawing are, however, still great as a piece of composition. The left-hand side is most interesting, and characteristic of Turner: no other artist would have put the round pier so ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... conceal itself; and the steep narrow streets, the curious passages where it is scarcely possible for two people to pass, and the little courts which look like culs-de-sac but have a hidden flight of steps leading down to another passage, seem to be purposely intricate and confusing. For I can imagine a revenue cutter chasing a boat into Robin Hood's Bay, and I can see the smugglers hastily landing on the beach and making for the town, followed by the Excise officers, who are as unable to trace the men ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... am confusing my dates," said the old gentleman, with a faint blush. "You say I am mixing up the transactions of my time on earth with the story of my successors? It may be so. We take no count of a few centuries more or less in our dwelling by the darkling Stygian ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... are very confusing—even for a maitre d'hotel. We were speaking of the present chatelaine of Quesnay, Mademoiselle Ward. I have never ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... told from the other. But a landscape or a story or a striking portrait,—you really must let me try Cecil," glancing at her with rapture. "Oh, there is an article here in the Art Journal on which you must give me an opinion." And flying up, she begins a confusing search. "It is so good to find a ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... But when Shergold wrote his Recollections of Brighton in the Olden Time, he speaks of the inn at which the Brighton coach stopped in the days of the Regency as the King's Arms. Inns have a most confusing habit of changing their names. When John Taylor, the Water Poet, in 1636, made his Catalogue of Taverns in Ten Shires about London, he found some seventy or eighty taverns in Surrey, but out of the forty-nine which he mentions by name, hardly a dozen ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... of lean grey horses with long manes and tails. The coachman was an Arab much pitted with smallpox, who wore the tarbush with European clothes. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and the streets of the enticing and confusing city were crowded. Isaacson sat up very straight and looked about him with eager eyes. He felt keenly excited. This was his very first taste of Eastern life. Never before had he set foot in his "own place." Already, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... sand-hills. The grey and yellow desert was varied only by occasional ruins of deserted towns, and the little red boxes of station-houses, where the spindling trees and sickly vines in the blue-grass yards made little green reserves fenced off in that confusing wilderness of sand. ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... planning a garden for the first time there is no one thing more confusing than the selection of the best varieties. This in spite of the fact that catalogues should be, and might be, a great help instead of almost ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... into next day. And he thought of Nance, and of Bernel, and of all the whole matter again; white thoughts and black thoughts, but chiefly white because of Nance, and Nance was a fact, while the black thoughts were shadows confusing as the mist. ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... of mischief-making. He would be counting upon something more tangible than revenge—something that could be counted and weighed and converted into a bank-balance. He smiled when he reached this conclusion—greatly surprising and confusing a matronly lady into whose correct face he chanced to be looking at the instant—and turning ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... mean," he whispered in horror, "that you're exercising Class V privileges? This is terribly confusing. I get doors slammed in my face, when Class Fours are supposed to have a splendid gregarian quotient—you do ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey
... occurrence came freakishly, in flashes, as though the hidden antagonist delighted in confusing his immense audience. The messages he sent over the wireless in the Atlas Building grew more and more threatening and grandiose. They demanded invariably that McCarthy should be sought out and delivered up to a rather ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... contains a message for the modern day and warns us against confusing the functions of the Church with those of the State. The sphere of the Church is spiritual, and its province is not to determine questions which are commercial and political. The Church, however, does provide and inculcate principles which are ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... closed behind her, Laura sprang out of bed and, waiting neither to wash herself nor to say her prayers, began to pull on her clothes, confusing strings and buttons in her haste, and quite forgetting that on this eventful morning she had meant to dress herself with more than ordinary care. She was just lacing her shoes ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... across the forehead, which prevented him from sleeping. On the following morning the headache still remained; he felt a disinclination to rise, and now, for the first time, began to be troubled with vague fears, which blended themselves with his various pre-occupations in a confusing way. The letter which arrived from Waymark was taken up to him. It caused him extreme irritation, which was followed by uneasy dozing, the pain across his forehead growing worse the while. A doctor ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... seaworthy and as they had no cable, the horses must swim. I dreaded to see them enter this chill, gray stream, for not only was it wide and swift, but the two currents coming together made the landing confusing to the horses as well as to ourselves. Rain was at hand and we had ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland |
