"Mystification" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brief visit of the General and his aid inspecting the affairs of Major Burleigh, who, confined to his bed by nervous prostration, and forbidden by his doctor to see anybody, had nevertheless sent his keys and books and bank account, and to the mystification of the chief, more money was found in the big office safe at the depot quartermaster's than was necessary to cover his accountability. The General and his inspector were fairly puzzled. They personally questioned the bank cashier and the quartermaster's clerks. They ransacked ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... chances are I'll only stay a day or so. After to-night we'll probably not see much of each other, maybe nothing at all, ever. We're rather different types and our roads lead differently." He smiled to dissipate the mystification he saw gathering on the other's face. "This is a preface. What I'm aiming at directly is to say a thing or two that have been on my mind for some time—in case I don't have the opportunity again." Once more the smile,—the same smile that had won the confidence of the other against heavy odds ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... men on board, also, had discovered the perfect uselessness of the signals of distress which had excited their sympathy; and their indignation was great at what they considered a stupid mystification. They surrounded the sailor with a threatening air, while he struggled in the captain's hand, and cried in his ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... obliged hitherto to keep to themselves what they knew, and to resort to all kinds of stratagems to avoid making any disclosure, were certainly no less pleased at being rid of the secret; now they could talk freely to their heart's content. If we had previously had to resort to mystification, there was now nothing to prevent our laying our cards on the table. So many a conversation had come to a standstill because those who had a number of questions to ask did not dare to put them, and those who could have told held their tongues. Hereafter it would be ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... was the only one of the kind he had seen in the course of a long experience.) Very much surprised was the old lady, of whom I made the purchase in my capacity of stage-manager, at so uncommon a customer in her line of business; and when, after enjoying her mystification for some time, I let her into the secret, so delighted was she at the notion, that she gave me sundry hints as to the management of the female toilet, and offered to get made up for me any dresses that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... second, on the third, and even on the fourth, to make up their minds whether the emotions they experienced resulted from the novelty of my interpretation, or whether in fact it was the true sentiment of Othello's passions which was transmitted to them—in short, whether it was a mystification or a revelation. By degrees the public became convinced that those excesses of jealousy and fury were appropriate to the son of the desert, and that one of Southern blood must be much better qualified to interpret them than a Northerner. The judgment ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... the eccentric capitalist cried gaily,—"with joy! He bested me proper the other night at the Athletic Club—he dusted the mat with me—and I want to play even." Seeing that Bruce's face did not lose its look of mystification he curbed his exuberance: "You see I've got some little reputation as a wrestler so when Billy Harper ran across this fellow in Central America he imported him on purpose to reduce the swelling in my head, ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... fifty links in respect to Susie absent from the chain of association. She knew so herself what she thought of Susie that she would have expected the lady of Lancaster Gate to think something quite different; the failure of which endlessly mystified her. But her mystification was the cause for her of another fine impression, inasmuch as when she went so far as to observe to Kate that Susan Shepherd—and especially Susan Shepherd emerging so uninvited from an irrelevant past—ought, by all the proprieties, simply to have bored Aunt Maud, her confidant ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... Furious at this mystification, the Suliots retired to their mountains, and Kursheed profited by the discontent Ali's conduct had caused, to win over the Toxide Skipetars, with their commanders Tahir Abbas and Hagi Bessiaris, who only made two conditions: one, that Ismail ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Basil steadily and somberly, while they sat about the tea-table. The long drive, Sir Basil's radiance, her mother's serenity, how must they look to Imogen? Jack could conjecture, though knowing, for his own bitter mystification, that what they looked like was perhaps not what they meant. Imogen must be truly at bay, and he felt a cruel satisfaction in the thought of her hidden, her gnawing anxiety. He was aware of every ring of falsity in her ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... and squeezed himself in between us, and met with a perfectly civil reception despite the liberty. I did not know the boy by sight, nor did Raffles introduce us; but their conversation proclaimed at once a slightness of acquaintanceship and a license on the lad's part which combined to puzzle me. Mystification reached its height when Raffles was informed that the other's father was anxious to meet him, and he instantly consented to ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... approvingly quotes in regard to his opium-induced "architectural dreams," and, aptly enough, immediately after a page devoted to Piranesi, the etcher, architect, and visionary. You may find this page in The Confessions of an English Opium Eater, that book of terror, beauty, mystification, and fudge (De Quincey deluded himself quite as much as his readers in this autobiography, which, like the confessions of most distinguished men, must not be taken too literally): "Many years ago," he wrote, "when I was looking over Piranesi's Antiquities of Rome, Mr. Coleridge, who was ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... best a mistake and an absurdity, this unfortunate servitor had fallen, by degrees, into such an abyss of confused and contradictory suggestions from within and without, that Truth at the bottom of her well, was on the level surface as compared with Britain in the depths of his mystification. The only point he clearly comprehended, was, that the new element usually brought into these discussions by Snitchey and Craggs, never served to make them clearer, and always seemed to give the Doctor a species of advantage and confirmation. Therefore, ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... it is," said Cornelia to Mr. Barrett, "that a person whom we know—whose actions and motives are as plain to us as though discerned through a glass, should at times produce a completer mystification than any other creature? Or ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... State Church seems more and more anxious to repudiate all complicity with the principles of the Protestant Reformation and to call itself "Anglo-Catholic." Inspiration, deprived of its old intelligible sense, is watered down into a mystification. The Scriptures are, indeed, inspired; but they contain a wholly undefined and indefinable "human element"; and this unfortunate intruder is converted into a sort of biblical whipping-boy. Whatsoever ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... edition (1803) of Chatterton's Works by R. Southey and J. Cottle, published for the benefit of the poet's sister. The neglected condition of the study of earlier English in the 18th century alone accounts for the temporary success of Chatterton's mystification. It has long been agreed that Chatterton was solely responsible for the Rowley Poems, but the language and style are analysed in confirmation of this view by Prof. W.W. Skeat in an introductory essay prefaced to vol. ii. of The Poetical ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... At length the Marquis's interest became so eager that they resolved that the best way of ending his torment was to make the nun die. When the Marquis de Croismare returned to Paris, the plot was confessed, the victim of the mystification laughed at the joke, and the friendship of the party seemed to be strengthened by their common sorrow for the woes of the dead sister. But Diderot had been taken in his own trap. His imagination, which he had set to work in jest, was caught by the figure and the situation. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... My mystification was certainly deep enough without this suggestion that I was a mere character in a tale whose awkward beginning aroused only the gravest apprehensions as to the conclusion. She looked at her ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... happened to be in the club. Medford was there, and as usual catering to Jackson, when the latter was called to the 'phone. Naturally, I put two and two together." He paused to more thoroughly enjoy the look of utter mystification that hovered on the girl's countenance. It was very apparent that this method of deduction through addition was unsatisfying. "What Jackson said to Medford, on his return," the young man continued, "I did not hear; ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the preceding, a stout little woman, of robust health; a friend of Madame Margaritis; she gladly contributed her share to the mystification of Gaudissart as conceived by her husband. [Gaudissart ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... have an embarrassment, noted by all foreigners: it is expressed, perhaps, in the Irish by a confusion of speech and in the English by a confusion of thought. For the Irish bull is a license with the symbol of language. But Bull's own bull, the English bull, is "a dumb ox of thought"; a standing mystification in the mind. There is something double in the thoughts as of the soul mirrored in many waters. Of all peoples they are least attached to the purely classical; the imperial plainness which the French do finely and the Germans coarsely, but the Britons hardly at all. They are constantly colonists ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... may happen to be we have not the remotest idea. But who would not forgive a little mystification for so brilliant a pun?—THE ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... said Gentz, offering his arm to her. "I see very well that there is a mystification in store for me, but I shall follow you wherever you will take me, to the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... been at war with the English constitution. First of all they captured the King; then they vanquished the House of Commons; now they have laid siege to the House of Lords. But here the fallacy of their grand scheme of political mystification begins to develop itself. Had, indeed, their new constituency, as they have long impudently pretended, really been 'the people,' a struggle between such a body and the House of Lords would have been brief but final. ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... wrong-headed was strictly incomprehensible to him, and from this angle the curious relations which existed between him and Dr Richard Garnett of the British Museum are of uncommon interest. They afford a strange example of mutual mystification. ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... Emperor repeated to me the words I had heard the night before, 'You are a traitor,' etc.) He acknowledged, in fact, continued the Emperor, 'that he had received such a letter, but that it was not signed and that he had looked upon it as a mystification. He showed it me. Now that letter was evidently an answer, in which the writer again declared that he would listen to nothing more concerning the Emperor, but that, his person excepted, it would be easy to agree to all the rest. I expected that the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... regards the Life of Nelson, and his character as involved in this matter, the fact is beyond dispute that he believed himself the father, and Lady Hamilton the mother, of the girl, whose origin he sought to conceal by an elaborate though clumsy system of mystification. This might possibly have left the subject covered with clouds, though not greatly in doubt, had not Lady Hamilton, after wildly unnecessary lying on her own part, recklessly preserved her holdings of a correspondence ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... stood before Diane with a square of birch bark in his hand. Greatly astonished—for this negro was apparently too lazy to talk when he deemed it unnecessary—Diane took the birch bark and inspected it in mystification. A most amazing message was duly ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... no offense; she maintained her curious observation of him; she appeared genuinely interested in acquainting herself with a man who could master such a phenomenal quantity of liquor. There was mystification in her ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... said, Is this a joke, and, if so, where is the point of it? And then, as if not content with so much mystification, Mr. Whistler assured his ten o'clock audience that there was no such thing as nationality in art, and that you might as well speak of English mathematics as of English art. We do not stop to inquire if such answers ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... good counterfeit of complete mystification for some seconds, and then a gleam as of sudden recollection ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... said to one another, "This is evidently the church of society, though the adjective 'Free' should by rights attract the masses." On the second Sunday we reversed the order of things, and found the Established bonnet much finer than the Free bonnets, which was a source of mystification to us, until we discovered that it was a question of morning or evening service, not of the form of Presbyterianism. We think, on the whole, that, taking town and country congregations together, millinery ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... for the regimentation of millions, and the records of science and progress. They need not be angry with us, who plead for those who will never read our words or reward our effort, even with gratitude. They need surely have no worse mood towards us than mystification, seeing that in recalling these small things of broken hearts or homes, we are but recording what cannot be recorded; trivial tragedies that will fade faster and faster in the flux of time, cries that fail in a furious and ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... the article for the Gaulois and, in coperation with his friends, he worded it in the terms with which we are familiar, amplifying and embellishing it, yielding to an inborn taste for mystification which his youth rendered excusable. The essential point, he said, is ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... throughout characterized by a spirit of tenderness. The burlesque tone, which in many languages may be tolerated, has been properly rejected by the French, for whenever it is not guided by judgment and taste, it sinks to disgusting vulgarity. Don Japhet represents in a still ruder manner the mystification of a coarse fool. The original belongs to the kind which the Spaniards call Comedias de Figuron: it also has undoubtedly been spoiled by Scarron, The worst of the matter is, that his exaggerations are ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... There was a box of aerial bombs, which Godfrey turned over to Simmonds with the injunction to go and amuse himself. For Sylvester's contemplation and further confusion were the gloves with which Silva had managed his parlour mystification scheme, six pairs of them; and there was also the very simple apparatus with which the finger-print reproductions had been made—an apparatus, as Godfrey had suggested, similar in every way to that used for making rubber ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... apparent terror, threw back his hood, crossed his arms, and, while Gorenflot fled at his utmost speed, sustained, firm and smiling, the first shock. It was a terrible moment, for the gentlemen, furious at the mystification of which they had been the dupes, advanced menacingly on the Gascon. But this unarmed man, his breast covered only by his arms—this laughing face, stopped them still more than the remonstrance of the cardinal, ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... say "confided to me," I must add that in the many confidences William Sharp made to me on the matter, I was always aware of a reserve of fanciful mystification, and I am by no means sure, even now, that I, or any of us—with the possible exception of Mrs. Sharp—know the whole truth about "Fiona Macleod." Indeed it is clear from Mrs. Sharp's interesting revelations of her husband's temperament that "the whole truth" could hardly ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... adequate experience will lay down an unalterable rule. Habit no doubt counts for a great deal, but apart from habit there are differences of temperament and peculiar sensibilities. Some men write best when they sign what they write; they find impersonality a mystification and an incumbrance; anonymity makes them stiff, pompous, and over-magisterial. With others, however, the effect is just the reverse. If they sign, they become self-conscious, stilted, and even pretentious; it ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... to regard the Lane of the Mad Eccentrics from the point of view of metropolitan sophistication; to dismiss the Vermilion Hound and the Hell Hole and the Pirate's Den and the Purple Pup and Polly's as clap-trap and tinsel designed for the mystification of yokels and social investigators from Long Island City. But it is impossible to deny that the crazy decorations have added a touch of real colour to what had been a drab corner of the town. The present writer has no intention of going into a detailed ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... fifty miles or so," Valentine answered very lamely. It had been an easy thing to invent an ancient aunt Sarah for the mystification of the astute Horatio; but Valentine Hawkehurst could not bring himself to tell Charlotte Halliday a deliberate falsehood. The girl looked at him wonderingly, as he gave that hesitating answer to her question. She was at a loss to understand why ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... humourists, that meaning not being always expected of them, it is not always sought by their readers with sufficient care. Anyhow, it may be suspected that this retort of Tristram's is too often passed over as a mere random absurdity designed for his interlocutor's mystification, and that its extremely felicitous pertinence to the question in dispute is thus overlooked. The point of it, of course, is that the business in which the commissary was then engaged was precisely analogous to that of exacting salt ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... strategical, dispositions. To try to obtain that information an army pours out much blood and treasure; to guard that information an army will consume a full third of its energies in an elaborate system of mystification. A modern army must either banish the war correspondent altogether or subject him to such restrictions of Censorship as to veto honest, accurate, and prompt criticism ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... operating the pole and announcing the results, to the mystification of Joe, who could not comprehend their intimate knowledge of ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... evening paper in question lying on the writing-table, a little crumpled from use, but with a certain "displayed-headed" article of three columns' length in full view, he turned round and stared at Cleek with an air of awe and mystification. "My dear fellow, you must be under the guardianship of some uncanny familiar. You surely must, Cleek!" he went on. "Do you mean to tell me that is what kept you at home? That you have been reading about the preparations ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Molly had listened with growing astonishment to the movements on the other side of the curtain. Her mystification deepened every moment. It seemed to her that the room was still in darkness. She could hear the sound of breathing; and then the light of the torch caught her eye. Who could this be, and why had he not switched on ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... before been placed to Nan's credit. He knew that she received five- and ten- and even fifty-dollar drafts from Eastern periodicals, and he had touched these with reverent hands: but two thousand dollars in a lump from one of the best-known publishers in the country staggered Amzi. To add to his mystification, half the amount plus one cent, to-wit, $1057.58, was immediately transferred to Thomas Kirkwood's account, and this left Amzi away up in the air. Just what right Tom Kirkwood had to participate in ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... they pretend to understand perfectly what is wanted and trace on tissue-paper, with a paint-brush, the addresses of the shops where we shall without fail meet with what we require. Away we go, full of hope, only to encounter some fresh mystification, till our breathless djins ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... years in Bombay and was roused to interest by hearing that Claire's mother was now settled in that city. Yes! she had met a Mr Judge. Robert Judge, was it not? Her husband knew him quite well. He had dined at their house. Quite a dear man. She had heard of his marriage, "but"—here came a look of mystification—"to a young ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that up, slipped it on, and was off down the corridor after the old man, moving as swiftly and slyly as he. St. George had no great faith in him or in what he might know, but the old man puzzled him, and mystification is the smell of a ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... expect us to sit up forever as sedately as that old party over there," mused Hugh, after the savages had withdrawn, greatly to the mystification of their guests. "We're evidently left here to make the best of it. I fancy we are now supposed to be in business as real gods with a steady job in ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... account of Holbach, though short and incidental, is to be found in M. Avezac-Lavigne's Diderot et la Societe du Baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1875, 8vo), and M. Armand Gaste has a little book entitled Diderot et le cure de Montchauvet, une Mystification litteraire chez le Baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1895, 16vo). There are several works which devote a chapter or section to Holbach. [3:4] The French critics and the histories of philosophy contain slight notices; Rosenkranz's "Diderot's Leben" devotes ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing
... than John Jones in the next yard. One Gipsy would say paanengro-gujo means sailor, or water gentile, another Gipsy would say it means an Irishman, or potato gentile; another would say poovengri-gujo meant a sailor; another would say it means an Irishman. They glory in contradictions and mystification. I was at an encampment a few days ago, and out of the twenty-five men and women and forty children there were not three that could talk Romany, and there was not one who could spell a single word of it. Their language, like themselves, was Indian enough, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... but neither De Grammont nor De Montrond would ever have consented to soil his hands with such vile commercial speculations as the Houilleres d'Anzin or the Vieille Montagne, or condescend to such disgraceful financial mystification as the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... struck its subjective with fearful impact, Sir," replied the bad boy imperturbably, misquoting from his latest fiction (and calling it a "parry-bowler," to "Grandfather's" considerable and very natural mystification). ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... secret, through the unveiling of which they would be more admired, or less esteemed, and which they well know how to hide under the subtle smile of an almost imperceptible mockery. Delighting in the pleasure of mystification, from the most spiritual or comic to the most bitter and melancholy, they may perhaps find in this deceptive raillery an external formula of disdain for the veiled expression of the superiority which they internally claim, but which claim they veil ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... conference, and as to whether it was or was not an advance, as the Chamberlainites claimed, towards Mr Chamberlain. Meanwhile the party was getting more and more disorganized, and the public were getting tired of the apparent mystification. The opposition used the situation to make capital in the country, and loudly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... part; that's your part," answered Wyndham, enjoying his mystification. "S'posing we go for the old game—'Hot boiled beans and very good butter'? Hallo!" The smile died from his face as his glance went to the roadway. "Here are some of your lot! They haven't got wind of ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... dedication to which the initials R.P. are affixed, speaks of the book as the work of the writer in the most unmistakeable terms. Was the S. in the place of the P. a typographical error, perpetuated by carelessness and oversight; or a mystification of the author, adopted when the success of the book was uncertain, and continued after the dedication had contradicted it, by that want of attention to minutiae which was more frequently manifest in former times ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... to question the worthiness of the impulse which had sent her into the north, but she was realizing in fuller measure the difficulties with which she must deal. In the dining room she had felt recklessly intrepid and the utter mystification of Buck Crowley had amused her. But she had had plenty of opportunity in her Vose-Mern work to know the nature of Crowley—he had the shell of an alligator and the scruples of a viper and would double-cross a twin brother if the project could help ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... exclaimed Miss Tonker, with a gaze of mingled amazement, mystification, and contempt, at the poor old maiden ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... and mystification, her cheeks and brow flushed rosily; she was obviously conscious of it, ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... being "myself;" and informed me that all Strasbourg would be delighted to see me, which latter piece of news was only the more flattering, that I knew no one there, nor had ever been in that city in my life; and after about an hour's mystification as to my tastes, habits, and pursuits, he fell fast asleep, leaving me to solve the difficult problem as to whether I was not somebody else, or the only alternative—whether travelling en courier might not be prescribed by physicians as a ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... had encountered a wag, the beginning of a mystification in the open street. He was not in a very good humor at the moment. He frowned. Laigle de ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... writers, then, the doctrine of final causes for rudimentary organs was a piece of mystification and an absurdity; no less fatal to any such doctrine were the processes of embryological development. It was plain that the commonly received teleology must be given up; but the idea of design or purpose was so associated ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... gives his head some well-applied blows against the curb-stone, and then, pushing through the crowd, carries him off bodily. As for me, my curiosity unsatisfied, I grow resigned—may the will of the Commune be done—and I give it up. More hopeless mystification from the Citizen Beslay, who regrets not having been chosen to aid in this "heroic act." He also alludes to the drawing of lots, and I begin after all to fancy poor M. Thiers must be at the bottom ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... pieces, could never, ah never more be put together again. I have, dear Miss Wenham," Granger went on, happy himself in his extravagance, which was yet all sincere, and happier still in her deep but altogether pleased mystification—"I've found, do you know, just the thing one has ever heard of that you most resemble. You're the Sleeping Beauty ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... The mystification of Fergus was now complete. Unimaginative as he was by practice and profession, he had an explanation a minute until the time was up, when the truth beat them all for wild improbability. Macbean had risen, lifting the lamp; holding ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... smile passed over the face of the Minister, adding to his visitor's mystification. "But suppose he were English, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to be talking merely for the sake of mystification," said Brain. "If you have any practical advice to give you might as ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... universities, to which we all have reason enough to be thankful, seeing that it drove Saint Augustine from Carthage to Rome; and they, in compliance with the usual fashion of tormenting any simple creature who came in their way by mystification and insult, commenced a series of personal witticisms, which the beggar bore stoically enough. The coin was offered him, but he blandly put aside the hand of the giver, and keeping his place on the pavement, seemed inclined ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Such perilous ideas, so frequently started by Jenny for his mystification, joggled together in his brain and made there the subject of a thousand ruminations. They tantalised Pa's slowly revolving thoughts, and kept these moving through long hours of silence. Such notions preserved his interest in the ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... periods of our history. The whole theory is carefully worked out in the opening pages of 'Sybil.' The most remarkable thing about our popular history, so Disraeli tells us, is, that it is 'a complete mystification;' many of the principal characters never appear, as, for example, Major Wildman, who was 'the soul of English politics from 1640 to 1688.' It is not surprising, therefore, that two of our three chief statesmen in later times should be systematically ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... caused some mystification among the sentinels, as we could understand by the hum of conversation which followed; but the old man did not call a halt, and we continued straight on toward the sally-port, I feeling more than a bit nervous lest the sergeant's loud words ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... with calm dignity, while Lord Donal dropped into his chair, an expression of complete mystification on his clear-cut, honest face. Jennie slowly fanned herself, for the heat made itself felt at that elevated situation, and for a few moments nothing was said by either. The young man was the ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... conversation was too deep for him. After opening in the conventional 'judge-then-placed-the-black-cap-on-his-head' manner, his assailant had suddenly begun to babble lightly of sporting literature. He began to entertain doubts of the Headmaster's sanity. It would not have added greatly to his mystification if the Head had gone on to insist that he was the Emperor of Peru, and ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... the colonel, without waiting to question further, and as the trumpet gave out the "Forward—gallop!" the Hussar troop went sweeping through the gate, leaving the guard-sergeant and his men in a state of great mystification and no little chagrin; he, their chief spokesman, saying with ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... it. Ellen was telling them something about the picture of the white-satin lady, and mamma said, "Oh, if it is only that young man, no doubt it is a mere mystification;" and papa said, "Poor young fellow, he seems very amiable and well disposed;" and mamma said, "If he can invent such a story it shows that Horace was right, and he is not to be believed." Then they stopped, but I asked Ellen who it ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... its correctness; he may be cynical, if the cynicism is wholly free from emphasis; he may be ironical, if the irony is sufficiently disguised; he may mystify his fellows, if he keeps the pleasure of mystification for his private amusement. Should he happen to be an artist, he must appear to be only a dilettante. He must never incur ridicule, and yet his whole attitude may ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... schemes in the beginning; they may only rejoice with you over their happy outcome." "To mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy," is one of the first principles in war, as had been frequently pointed out. But how about the other process—the mystification of one's own men? Those who may think that Sun Tzu is over-emphatic on this point would do well to read Col. Henderson's remarks on Stonewall Jackson's Valley campaign: "The infinite pains," he says, "with which Jackson sought to conceal, even from his most trusted staff officers, his movements, ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... of literary trickery, may be inferred from his fate in another department of authorship. He twice got into trouble for a device exactly analogous to that which he afterwards practised in fiction. On both occasions he was punished for assuming a character for purposes of mystification. In the latest instance, it is seen, the pamphlet called 'What if the Pretender Comes?' was written in such obvious irony, that the mistake of his intentions must have been wilful. The other and better-known performance, 'The Shortest Way with the ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... of this place, and other men from the market-town, are doing their utmost; but as yet the result has been only new mystification—new conjecture." ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... at least a little further time for consideration. I shall stay here a few hours longer. If you change your mind, send to me—I am with Father Benecke. If not—good-bye! But I warn you that I will be no party to further mystification. It is undesirable for us all. I shall write at once to General Delafield-Muir, and to my aunt. I think it will be also my duty to communicate with your friends in ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the world with vast experience of human deceptions and intrigues, could have been put off the scent, in view of all the circumstances, is too great a tax on credulity, but it is wholly characteristic of Nelson's ideas of mystification. But even if there were any further proof needed, Lady Hamilton has settled the matter by preserving the correspondence Nelson urged her to destroy. This will ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Wentworth to bear him company, and in the mean time his trusted agents were to pave the way for his coming in the following spring. Of late the lack of direct news from the Duke had been a source of mystification to his friends in the West, and now, suddenly, the information went abroad—it was something more than rumour this time—that a letter of the greatest importance had been intercepted. From whom that letter proceeded or to whom it was addressed, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... may be mastered very easily by a little painstaking practice, and much amusement may be had through the mystification of those who do not understand it. A "wigwag" flag may be easily made by sewing a white square of muslin in the centre of ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... at the reflecting surface of one or the other of the glasses, when he seemed to be looking through them. It put a singular power into his possession, which might possibly hereafter lead to something more significant than the mystification of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... real life ended here, it would be to some extent a sort of mystification. The first man you meet can tell you a better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, unhappily, this is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse in those who have known the divine delights of infinite ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... talk, one's respect for him began to grow. He talked well and to the point, and with a tone of voice that could command where command was possible, persuade where persuasion was required, mystify when mystification was needed, and express with accuracy the tone of an obedient humble servant when servility was thought to be expedient. We will now accompany him on his little tour ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... passed in general mystification. Kate, who could have thrown a light, did not come down to breakfast. She ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... cripple moved down a few steps from the house door, and began grubbing with her hands around the roots of a bunch of balsams. Daisy looked a minute or two, very still, and then bade the boy hold her pony; while, without troubling herself about his mystification, she got out of the chaise, and, basket in hand, opened the wicket, and softly went up the path. The neat little shoes and spotless white dress were close beside the poor creature grubbing there in the ground before she knew it, and there they stood still; Daisy was a good deal at a loss ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... gendelettres—one of the few words coined by Balzac which have become naturalized—may be divided into several categories. First, there are the publicistes, occupied in scratching the pimples of the body politic. From these pimples they extract a book which is a mystification. Not far removed from the publicistes are the chief managing editors and proprietors general, big wigs who sometimes become prefects, receivers general, or theatrical directors. The type of this class is glory's porter, speculation's ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... which common sense will ask is this: Why should Junius go to Mr. Cox's printing-office to correct his proofs? Where he wrote the letters he might surely have corrected the proofs. Why, after all his trouble, anxiety, and mystification to keep the secret, should he needlessly go to anybody's printing-office to correct the proofs, and thus wantonly risk the consequences?—in fact, go there and betray himself, as we are expected to believe he did? The story is absurd, on the face of it. But ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... Lodovico, of that great principality, would have been mortally affronted if he believed Bentivoglio to have been considered first. Therefore the visit to Bologna was to be a dead secret, performed by the principals almost unattended. Meantime Grifone (who loved mystification) prepared litters with a dummy Duke and Duchess to go under escort to Borgo San Donnino. He and his wagging escort duly entered that city: excuses to the Podesta secured him a covered passage to the palace. Once there, unfortunately, the populace clamoured for a view, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... it wrong, likewise the next; thereby completing the mystification of The Roman, who now concentrated his attention on Macnooder and the Tennessee Shad, as being next in order of ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... organised wisdom of so superior a planet as this Utopia, this moral monster State my Frankenstein of reasoning has made, and to that pitch we have come. When we are next in the presence of our Lucerne official, he has the bearing of a man who faces a mystification beyond his powers, an incredible disarrangement of the order of Nature. Here, for the first time in the records of Utopian science, are two cases—not simply one but two, and these in each other's company!—of duplicated thumb-marks. This, coupled with a cock-and-bull story of an instantaneous ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... admitted to his confidence, insisted that there was no secret to tell; their hypothesis being that the Inconnue was a myth, and the letters a romance, with which some petty details of actual life had been interwoven to keep up the mystification. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... father's voice was rendered harsh by mystification and foreboding, "tell me what you're talking about. Come to the ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... by 'Cruikshank the Younger' (by him so-called), and I will retract this indignant disclaimer and apologise. If Mr. Bentley cannot do this, he stands self-convicted of an attempt to impose upon the public by a mystification, for purposes as apparent as the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... Pointed assertions are scattered up and down his pages. Could, for instance, one of the dangers of a democracy be more clearly and ill-naturedly put than by his statement, that the whole science of government in what are called free states, is getting to be a strife in mystification, in which the great secret is to persuade the governed that he is in fact the governor? His books, moreover, while they reflect his prejudices, show an honest desire to be just. He undoubtedly preferred the Continent to England. But in his account of that country, while ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... after thus surprising them, I went on to explain that by the Atlantic I did not mean the ocean, nor by America the western continent, but that the Atlantic meant the village green, and America the squire's house on the other side of it, I should justly gain credit for a very silly mystification. As Nicholas Nickleby very justly remarked, If Dotheboy's Hall is not a hall, why call it one? Mr. Squeers, in his reply, no doubt stated the law of the case: If a man chooses to call his house an island, what is to hinder him? If the author of Man and his Dwelling-Place ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... so Melicent would not burden herself with the suspicion. It was far more agreeable to believe that affairs were shaping themselves according to her wishes regarding her brother and her friend. Yet her mystification was in no wise made clearer, when David left them to go to ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... Then says Kate, have it at Richmond. Then I say, that might be inconvenient to the people. Then she says, how could it be if we dine late enough? Then I am very much offended without exactly knowing why; and come up here, in a state of hopeless mystification. . . . What do you think? Ellis would be quite as dear as anybody else; and unless the weather changes, the place is objectionable. I must make up my mind to do one thing or other, for we shall meet Lord Denman ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... were dumfounded. Their mystification culminated in one grand chorus of amazement when, on Friday, the Squire came to the hotel hugging under his ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... met this remarkable engineer, musician, diplomatist and professor of mystification, in London, when he was complaining with facetious bitterness that Mr. Frederic Gye had not sent him a box for one of Angiolina Bosio's touching ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... in our time to say that God does not exist; you are free to say that He exists and is evil; you are free to say (like poor old Renan) that He would like to exist if He could. You may talk of God as a metaphor or a mystification; you may water Him down with gallons of long words, or boil Him to the rags of metaphysics; and it is not merely that nobody punishes, but nobody protests. But if you speak of God as a fact, as a thing like a tiger, as a reason for changing one's conduct, then the modern world will stop you somehow ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... so, and she'll be right.... Was that her voice?..." A sound had come from the cottage. Keziah might be wanted. She wished the farmer good-night; and he drove off, no longer mystified, but dumfoundered with what had removed his mystification. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... doctors, and the naturalists. Like Sir Walter, Cooper seems to have taken but little pains in the deliberate planning of his plots. Frequently he accepts a ready-made formula of villain and hero, predicament and escape, renewed crisis and rescue, mystification and explanation, worthy of a third-rate novelist. His salvation lies in his genius for action, the beauty and grandeur of his landscapes, the primitive veracity of his children of nature. Cooper was an elemental man, and he comprehended, ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... truth, they say, is stranger than fiction," and he was about to add something to Arethusa's further mystification, when the ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... by style?" He explained, moved by the mad lust for mystification which seizes a man in the presence of adorable simplicity. "I don't mean anything in the least resembling a Beaver's coat (there really isn't any style about a Beaver's coat). And if you want me to say it's the clothing ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... had been by Stillwell. They were highly amused and speculative to the point of taking sides and making wagers on their choice. Moreover, this situation so frankly revealed by Stillwell had completed their deep mystification. They were now absolutely nonplussed by the singular character of American cowboys. Madeline was pleased to note how seriously they had taken the old cattleman's story. She had a little throb of wild expectancy that made her both fear and delight in ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... so. Of course, I may be wrong in the motives which I ascribe to this Whitehall agent, but misunderstanding is certain to arise out of a system of such deliberate mystification, which can only be compared to that employed by the Russian police ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... search of your merits, but of your faults. And you wonder why no impression was produced on her when she heard you addressed by your name! Poor innocent! I can tell you this—you only discovered my mother in her own character when I put an end to the mystification by presenting you to each other. You saw how angry she was, and ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... you see. And now let us make music," he added, his good humour restored by the Tenor's mystification. "If you will be so good as to accompany me with your piano, I will give you a treat. I brought my music the last time I was here;" and there it was, piled up, on a chair beside ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... talking of the American army—its strength and weaknesses—with an intimate knowledge that greatly surprised and interested the young officer; and when they separated presently it was with a curious mixture of liking and mystification that ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... held the paper. He had opened it, and was turning it in and out, with an expression of great surprise. "What am I to understand by this mystification?" ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Positivists never use except metaphorically, and by which they never mean more than certain successions of events.[47] Very well. Either, then, they acknowledge no real government of phenomena at all, in which case to speak of phenomena as governed by law is, if not a purely gratuitous mystification, as glaring an instance as can well be conceived of a 'bare enunciation of facts, put forward as a theory or explanation of them:' or, if they do recognise real government, then they must suppose that, behind ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... hesitated. "We have got up a little mystification," she said after a pause, "and I am sure I can trust you; besides, you don't know the parties. There is a gentleman here who is supposed to be with his regiment at Moscow; but there is a sweetheart in the case, and you know when there are ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... however, my observations were concluded by Triplett's suddenly wheeling and saying sharply, "Traprock! ... target practice!" This was a stunt we had often performed for the amusement and mystification of kindly cannibals in the Solomons. I had seen it in vaudeville and taught it to Triplett. As was my custom, I had in the pocket of my singlet a number of ship biscuit. Plucking out one of these I placed it on my forehead and ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... attitude of years. His solitude, his ennui, his love for his daughter, his good manners, his bad manners, were so many features of a mental image constantly present to him as a model of impertinence and mystification. His ambition was not to please the world, but to please himself by exciting the world's curiosity and then declining to satisfy it. It had made him feel great, ever, to play the world a trick. The thing he had done in his life most ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... husbands will find a preliminary difficulty in executing this plan of campaign. If your wife is a woman of profound dissimulation, the question is, what signs will indicate to her the motives of your long mystification? ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... almost magical power of getting a revenue with little trouble, continued to issue coins until suddenly the heavier coins began to be exported or melted, and the value of the other money fell, to the mystification alike of the prince and of his people. The reason is now perfectly plain: the number of coins was not kept within the proper limits and they went down to their bullion value. The only way a further profit could be made in this way was to debase the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... incidental, is to be found in M. Avzac-Lavigne's Diderot et la Socit du Baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1875, 8vo), and M. Armand Gast has a little book entitled Diderot et le cure de Montchauvet, une Mystification littraire chez le Baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1895, 16vo). There are several works which devote a chapter or section to Holbach. [3:4] The French critics and the histories of philosophy contain slight notices; Rosenkranz's ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... earlier and soberer part of the afternoon the phrenologist had skilfully steered his way by the safe stars of flattery. Now, as he ran his hands uncertainly through the miner's thick hair, a look of mystification crept into his bleary eyes. He ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... extreme mystification (and joy), I came across a bear and its cub lying dead at the foot of a hummock. I could not believe my eyes. There she lay on her right side, a spot of dirty-white in a disordered patch of snow, with one little eye open, and her fierce-looking mouth also; and ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... accordingly, washed and shaved, and, putting on his dazzling robe of cloth-of-gold thickly sewn with gems, he joined Fakrash—who, by the way, was similarly, if less gorgeously, arrayed—in the sitting-room, in a state of some mystification. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... and found it six feet shorter than the corresponding one below, it was pretty clear where he was. I thought he had not the nerve to lie quiet before an alarm of fire. We could, of course, have gone in and taken him, but it amused me to make him reveal himself. Besides, I owed you a little mystification, Lestrade, for your chaff in ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... inquired, looking about in mystification, wondering if something had happened in the ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... unintelligible by inventing a sort of lingo, compounded of bad French, grafted upon worse Latin, forming a mongrel and incomprehensible race of words, with French heads and Latin tails, which answered the purpose intended—that of mystification.—Flotsam and jetsam are of this breed. Flot, derived from the French flottant, floating; and jet, from the verb jeter, to throw up; both used in seignoral rights, granted by kings to favourites, empowering them to take possession of the property of any man who might happen to be unfortunate, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... March 15, 1851, is the following explanation of this word: "Mr. Phillips's first introduction to Curran was made the occasion of a mystification, or practical joke, in which Irish wits have excelled since the time of Dean Swift, who was wont (vide his letters to Stella) to call these jocose tricks 'a sell,' from selling a bargain." The word bargain, however, which Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines "an unexpected reply tending ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... Syria was favourable to the great mystification in which Lord Montacute was an unconscious agent. It was as fully believed in the mountain, by all the Habeishes and the Eldadahs, the Kazins and the Elvasuds, the Elheires, and the Hai-dars, great Maronite families, as well as by the Druse Djinblats and their rivals, the House of Yezbeck, or the ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... there shown made Somerset peremptory, and he could not help replying somewhat more impetuously than usual:— 'Why do you give me so much cause for anxiety! Why treat me to so much mystification! Say once, distinctly, that what I have ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... which Bright called "a mixture of pompousness and servility," described his audiences of the Queen, and so handled the Royal name as to convey the impression that Her Majesty was on his side. Divested of verbiage and mystification, his statement amounted to this—that, in spite of adverse votes, he intended to hold on till the autumn, and then to appeal to the new electorate created by the Reform Act of the previous year. As the ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... are more they radiate some unknown form of influence which paralyzes my vocal cords. However, I got out of this scrape, and many times afterward when I chanced with other operators to meet some of the young ladies on their way home from school, they would smile and nod, much to the mystification of the operators, who were ignorant ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... suffering. He simply sank back into himself, and became the man he had been before, plus his experience of feeling, and minus the ingenuousness of his self-knowledge. He took instead to self-mystification, trying to persuade himself that because he could not have Alison, Alison was not worth having. After that, it was but a step to palming off on his reason the monstrous syllogism that because Alison ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... were, in manuscript, in this volume, and as there were circumstances of mystification attendant upon their prior publication, what does the captain do but claim them all, Songs of Zion and sentimental ballad alike, as Marvell's. This of course brought the critics, ever anxious to air their erudition, down upon his head, raised his anger, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... to ease their feeling of incredulous mystification. But it banished their superstitious dread. Both of them were used to dogs. And though neither could guess how this particular dog happened to be stealing the twice-stolen baby, yet neither had the remotest fear of tackling the beast ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... of mystification at Mac Tavish. The master's business was with his mill student. "What's wrong with you, Danny? Hold yourself for a moment on that side of the rail where you're still a man of the mill! I'm afraid of a soldier, like you'll be when you're ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... breathed again. If Mr. Malthus had frequented the place for two years there could be little danger for the Prince in a single evening. But Geraldine was none the less astonished, and began to suspect a mystification. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... against her sister, with a look of sleepy mystification, while Anthony, glancing to Peter for command, was fingering his revolver in anxious indecision. Already one of the ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... But the answer her heart alone possessed. That heart had been his. It was his no longer. The heart that she had given him, she had taken away. Nothing could be simpler and nothing more mysterious. The mystification was complete, but not the suffering. Suffering is never complete. However deep the hell, there ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... the fate of the worm taught the wisdom of remaining in bed until a later hour. Then an illustration may be even less clear than the argument to be illustrated. We have heard scientific illustrations of this character, from which the hearer derived a supplementary dose of mystification rather than an elucidation of the problem with which he was already manfully grappling. An illustration may be too pathetic, and people may weep from the wrong cause, an event which often occurs in church. It is one thing to shed tears over a touching story and another ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... the narrow hall. "Come in, come in. Right along!" he said excitedly. "Right along," he repeated as he pushed Eastman before him into his sitting-room. "Well I'll—" he stopped short at the door and looked about his own room with an air of complete mystification. The back window was wide open and a strong wind was blowing in. Cavenaugh walked over to the window and stuck out his head, looking up and down the fire escape. When he pulled his head in, he drew down ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... considering any matter in connexion with Borrow it is always necessary to take into account the secretiveness of his disposition, and also his passion for posing. He had a child’s fondness for the wonderful. It is through his own love of mystification that students like Dr. Knapp must needs pry into these matters—must needs ask why Borrow drew the veil over seven years—must needs ask whether during the “veiled period” he led a life of squalid misery, compared with which his sojourn ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the Diamond to Miss Rachel was said, as usual, by way of a mystification or joke. He gravely entreated her (in the interests of science) to let him take it home and burn it. "We will first heat it, Miss Rachel," says the doctor, "to such and such a degree; then we will expose it to a current of ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... and, indeed, does not much matter for the understanding of the rest of Mrs. B.'s adventures. And though people will say that Bluebeard's settlement of his whole fortune on his wife, in event of survivorship, was a mere act of absurd mystification, seeing that he was fully determined to cut her head off after the honeymoon, yet the best test of his real intentions is the profound grief which the widow manifested for his death, and the fact that he left her mighty well to do ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... system adopted at a new settlement in Australia. We will state at once, that our official authority is a Blue Book—one of those huge volumes printed from time to time, by order of parliament, for the edification—or as some facetious folks say, for the mystification—of M.Ps. Having carefully waded through its voluminous pages, we have jotted down the passages that especially struck us, and propose to present the pith and substance of our labour—for it is nothing less—in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... orgies, succeeded by mornings in which the toilet had been altogether neglected. His dress, too, a blanket with tawdry red and yellow trimmings, with ornamented leggings and moccasins to correspond, had all aided in maintaining the accidental mystification. Mike followed his companion, growling out his discontent, and watching the form of the Indian, as the latter still went loping over the flat, having passed the captain, with a ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... on repetition, as a mystification, have irritated our friend a little, but he knew, once more, as we have seen, where he was, and his being proof against everything was only another attestation that he meant to stay there. "I couldn't, without ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... 1820. From my rooms facing the Bodleian." My own belief is that Lamb wrote the essay at Cambridge, under the influence of Cambridge, where he spent a few weeks in the summers of 1819 and 1820, and transferred the scene to Oxford by way of mystification. He knew Oxford, of course, but he had not been there for some years, and it was at Cambridge that he met Dyer and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... mystification and suspicion about one o'clock, and his grotesque attendant followed him with a tray bearing bread, some herbs and other eatables, a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives. I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watching me with ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... appearing to my mind to be an invention of the learned to mystify this poor world, I was not sorry to see my uncle suffering the pangs of mystification. At least, so it seemed to me, judging from his fingers, which were beginning to work ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... popular cigarettes; there were a few in it still, but between the cigarettes were jammed lumps of sugar wadded with cotton-wool. I saw Raffles weighing the lot in his hand with subtle satisfaction. But the clerk saw merely the mystification which ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... the underworld itself; but he found his way around easily enough in daylight, and had his labor for his pains. For when he went back to the hotel at the luncheon-hour he brought little with him save a stench in his nostrils and a slightly increased fund of mystification. Gryson had disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him. And Blount knew the disappearance was real, because the ward-heeler's own henchmen were ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... temper was singularly perverse and mischievous. His confidence in his own powers led him to contemn the powers of other people. He enjoyed nothing so much as mystifying those who were engaged in the same pursuits as himself, and his favourite method of mystification was to announce anonymously the discovery of documents which owed all their existence to his own ingenuity. This, he admitted, was his notion of "fun." Whenever the whim seized him, he would in gravest manner reveal to the Press, or even contrive to bring to the notice of a learned society, some ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... laughed again, their imaginations happening to picture to each, at the same instant, the mystification about the boat; Biddy having told Josh in confidence, the manner in which the party had returned to the brig, while he and Simon were asleep; which fact the steward had already communicated to the cook. ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... coincidence one of the guests at the dinner brought a hush of expectancy over the entire company by relating a series of experiences he had been privileged to share with a "psychic" some years before. He told of his mystification with a laugh in his eyes and with racy vigor of tongue, but Serviss, newly alive to the topic, could not but marvel at the intensity of interest manifested by every soul present. "Disguise it as we may," ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... new variety in her eyes, and entertained her greatly. Where the bounds of banter ended, was not easy to define, but whenever he tried a little mystification, she either entered merrily into the humour, or threw it over with keen wit that he kept constantly on the stretch. They were always discovering odd, unexpected bits of knowledge in each other, and a great deal more ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge |
