"Mystifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has been styled "The Master of Mysteries," has here woven one of his most mystifying tales. It is like a Chinese puzzle in its ingenuity, and holds the reader breathless from the ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... interestingly mystifying to Ross. Where in the world had she got that red hair and those wonderful Irish eyes? She had not a single feature like her mother. Her tallness, he thought, could be said to have come straight from him. ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... moreover the only other hypothesis, perhaps, which can be devised to account for these passages, if it were possible to prove that the interpretation that the documents themselves suggest, must be rejected a priori; viz may not Leonardo have written them with the intention of mystifying those who, after his death, should try to decipher these manuscripts with a view to publishing them? But if, in fact, no objection that will stand the test of criticism can be brought against the simple and direct interpretation of the words as they stand, we ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... had some faith in Preston's and Mrs. Sandford's powers of transforming and mystifying the present very natural appearance of the performers. ]However, she was beginning to be of the opinion that it was good fun ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... cab, and drove up-town to my apartments in Riverside. It was eight o'clock by my watch. I leaned back against the cushions, ruminating. There seemed to be something going on that night; the ten of hearts was acquiring a mystifying, not to say sinister, aspect. First it had alarmed the girl in Mouquin's, and now this stranger in the curio-shop. I was confident that the latter had lied in regard to his explanations. The card had startled him, but his reasons were ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... other mysterious movements took place. Lombroso was very much disturbed by these inexplicable phenomena, and could not rest till he sat again. At the second seance spectral hands developed, profoundly mystifying every sitter, and Lombroso went away, promising to carry forward a study of spiritism. In a letter written the following June he manfully said: 'I am filled with confusion, and regret that I combated with ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... the entertainment of the company. This they did, and though they were handicapped by the absence of the usual stage properties, Larry not having his stage suit with him and Tim being without his clog dancing pumps, the spectators were delighted. Larry tied himself into a mystifying tangle of knots, and his whistling was so sweet and melodious that it roused his audience to the heights of enthusiasm. And Tim's graceful dancing was a revelation of the possibilities ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... father. But Delia declared at this that nothing would induce her to budge from Paris till she had seen her sister through, and Gaston shrank from proposing that she too should spend five weeks in the Place Beauvau or the Rue de Lille. There was moreover a slight element of the mystifying for him in the perverse unsociable way in which Francie took up a position of marked disfavour as yet to any "visiting." AFTER, if he liked, but not till then. And she wouldn't at the moment give the reasons ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... Was it Gwendolen's idea, taking a hint from him, to liberate this animal only on the basis of the renewal of such a relation? Was the figure in the carpet traceable or describable only for husbands and wives—for lovers supremely united? It came back to me in a mystifying manner that in Kensington Square, when I mentioned that Corvick would have told the girl he loved, some word had dropped from Vereker that gave colour to this possibility. There might be little in it, but there was enough to make me wonder if I should have to ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... am not, as I pretend to be, in the secret which he hitherto supposed to be shared by no one but the Countess and himself, or else that I am cruelly mystifying him. That I am in her confidence, I swear by all that is dear in a whispered farewell. By the last companion of this flower!" and she took for a moment in her fingers the nodding head of a white rosebud that was nestled in her bouquet. "By my own good star, and hers—or ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the peninsula was necessary at this time, it was viewed with uneasiness; but none was prepared for what followed. Before peace was actually concluded, Russia approached China with a proposition for her permanent occupancy of—not the peninsula alone, but all of Manchuria. A mystifying proposition when we reflect that Japan was forced out of the southern littoral of Manchuria because her presence there threatened Korea, China, and the peace of the world. Port Arthur was no farther from Pekin and Seoul than it was five years before, and it was much nearer ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... and his accomplice are necessary to this mystifying game. The leader leaves the room while his accomplice passes around among the players, occasionally stopping in front of one of them, and with hands extending over the player's head says. "Hands Over Head." The leader answers from without "Hands Over ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... Olympia" (the letter said), "it was hard to leave without a last word. All the way here I have been thinking of our little talk—if that can be called a talk where one side has lost his senses and the other is trifling or mystifying. I told you that I loved you. I thrill even yet with the joy of that. You are so wayward and capricious, so coy, that I began to fear that I never could get your car long enough to tell you what I felt you must have long known. You didn't say that you loved me; but, dear Olympia, neither ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Dorcas, knowing how Rachel thought upon it, had grown reserved and impenetrable upon the subject; indeed, at one time, I think, she had half made up her mind to fight the old battle over again and resolutely exercise this fatal passion. She had certainly mystified Rachel, perhaps was mystifying herself. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... as I do, on a daily, and write up the bosh concerts that advertise. Humbug, boys; rank humbug! Modern music is gone to the devil. Brahms was a fraud who patched up a compound of Beethoven and Schumann, put in a lot of mystifying harmonic progressions, and thought he was new. Verdi, the later Verdi was helped out by Boito: Just compare 'Otello' and 'Falstaff' with 'Mefistofele'! Dvo[vr]ak, old 'Borax' as they call him, went in for 'nigger' music and says there's no future for American music unless ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... over Sunday at Bela Palanka, and this morning it begins while I am eating breakfast, and continues a drenching downpour for over an hour. While waiting to see what the weather is coming to, I wander around the crooked and mystifying streets, watching the animated scenes about the bazaars, and try my best to pick up some knowledge of the value of the different coins, for I have had to deal with a bewildering mixture of late, and once again there is a complete change. Medjidis, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the statement that "nervous troubles are neither physical nor imaginary but a disease of the personality," sounds rather mystifying to the average person, it is only because the average person is not very conversant with his own inner life. We shall hope, later on, to find some definite guide-posts and landmarks which will help us feel more at home in this fascinating realm. At present, we are not ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... Princes of India are very fond of watching a clever conjuror and can pay enormous fees, but no Indian conjuror appears to appeal to them. A Western performer always wants to give his best to his audience and takes a pride in mystifying them. David Devant, who is one of the greatest living exponents has quite recently written an article in the Strand Magazine of his dreams of tricks that he would like to be able to do. To meet the late Charles Bertram "at ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... noticing the Mexican's unaccustomed air of enterprise, "if we had that fellow under us awhile we'd make a cow-hand out of him. See the wiggle he gets on himself now, will you?" Promptly at the hour, the herd were counted and corralled, Don Mateo Gonzales not troubling to appear, which was mystifying to the North Texas men, but Uncle Lance explained that a mere incident like selling seven hundred cattle was not sufficient occasion to arouse the ranchero of Santa Maria when his corporal could ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... citizen's meanness; the paltry remuneration could have hardly tempted even so poor a lad as Thomas Chatterton to continue his labors for the love of gain; yet he furnished Burgum with further information, loving the indulgence of his mystifying powers, and secretly satirizing ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... theatres which are the most expensive; the ladies however only as spectators, generally speaking, but their attractions are too irresistible to many, for them to suffer the season to pass over without once joining the gay throng, particularly to some who have a great delight in mystifying a friend or acquaintance, and telling them a few home truths under the protecting shield of a mask, having opportunities of so doing at the public balls without fear of being recognised; whereas concealment at private masquerades can seldom ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... of exclusion is a blot upon the American national honor, and the most mystifying part of it is that intelligent people, the best people, are not a party to it. The railroads want the Chinese laborer. The great ranches of the West need him; people want cooks at $15 and $20 a month instead of $30 ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... in your being interesting. For you are! And my nerves—!" said Newton Winch with a face from which the mystifying smile had vanished, yet in which distinction, as Mark so persistently appreciated it, still sat in the ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... its fruits; it gave me an extraordinary increase of public influence, and that influence produced, in the natural course of such things, an extraordinary crop of adherents. If I could have drunk adulation, no man was in more imminent hazard of mystifying his own brains. I began to be spoken of as one equal to the highest affairs of the state, and to whom the viceroyalty itself lay naturally open. But I still longed for a return to England. Delighted as I was with the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... the love of mystifying; which indeed may be referred to that of mischief. There was no knowing how much or how little to believe of his narratives. Instance:—Mr. Bankes[23] expostulating with him upon a dedication which he had written in extravagant terms of praise ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... he said, closing the door carefully and glancing about to assure himself they were alone. "I have had a long talk with young Jardin and it was very mystifying. You are mistaken about Frank, I think. He must have a bank account or something of the sort, because he has actually offered to buy that plane. I suspect he has offered very little for it, because Jardin would not tell me the price. But the deal is good as ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... the sort happened, however. There was a queer, a mystifying change in Laura's expression. She was looking down at the floor. Suddenly her face was hidden in her hands. The Inspector threw his ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a plan for mystifying several great personages, and two or three ladies whom the Emperor designated to me with such minute details that it was impossible to mistake them, and told me some singular things in regard to them, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... But it has occurred to me that you may have the conceit of your own mystery, that you may take rather too much pleasure in mystifying people as ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... was sitting in the same place in which I had seen her last, in the same position, with the same mystifying bandage over her eyes. her welcome was to turn her almost invisible face to me and show me that while she sat silent she saw me clearly. I made no motion to shake hands with her; I felt too well on this occasion ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... the morning rose up unrefreshed, and set about the examination of the papers and books intrusted to my care by my departed friend. And oh, the stuff I found there! If I was depressed at starting in, I was stupefied when it was all over, for the collection was mystifying to the ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... as soon as they came into Julien's presence, they discovered, with that cautious perception which is an instinct with rustic minds, that before them stood a man completely ignorant of the customs of the country, and very poorly informed on Claude de Buxieres's affairs. They made no scruple of mystifying this "city gentleman," by means of ambiguous statements and cunning reticence. The young man could get no enlightenment from them; all he clearly understood was, that they were making fun of him, and that he was not able to cope with these country ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... in coition, that state was not interrupted for two or three days. The insects on which are observed this remarkable circumstance, were the Cantharis oclemero, and some others. Spanish flies, you will say? That accounts for it; but at present we are not mystifying our indulgent readers. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... game of spy on both sides during most of the journey, with little but mystifying results. The train reached Twin Lakes at about sundown, and even then the girls had discovered no positive evidence as to the "squint-eyed man's" purpose in taking the trip they were taking. And Langford, ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... other, stimulated her romantic fancy and made her eager as a girl to have the plot carried into effect. What was to be accomplished by it, she did not trouble herself to define; it only gave her a kind of confused satisfaction to think that she was mystifying somebody who had for a long time been mystifying her. Roeschen was exactly of Miss Jones's height and their figures closely resembled each other. So when they were masked a microscope would be required to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... have to live in matter, by matter, and for matter, to wind one's self up in a snarl that puts matter out of reach, and leaves us with nothing to live in, or by, or for! Now you, for instance, are not content with this poor old Nile as it stands, but must go fussing and wondering and mystifying about it till you have positively nothing of a river left. I look at the water, the banks, the trees growing on them, the islands in which we get occasionally entangled: here, at least, I have a real, substantial river,—not equal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... Hennings' group of music-halls would have rewarded success. Yet his tricks, things that he had done with the utmost ease a thousand times, had been a succession of blunders, rather mirth-provoking than mystifying to the audience. Presently one of the glass balls fell crashing on the stage, and amidst the jeers of the gallery he turned to his wife, who served as ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... their simple, pleasant conversation could let anyone think that they had not both been born and brought up right there on Kettle. Everything about the house had the mark of a cultured taste, yet the cushioned chairs, the rugs, the soft-toned hangings were worn to shabbiness. And most mystifying of all was Miss Jerry herself, who had appeared at the supper table in a much faded but spotless gingham dress, black shoes and cotton stockings replacing the elkskins and woolen socks, very much a spirited little girl, with a fearlessness of expression that amused John Westley while at the ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... crisis, even in those which have swept whole nations from existence, the Jew has always found himself with one inalienable possession—his faith. There is something mystifying about the persistence through so many vicissitudes of a religion which commands respect from neighbors who see in it a powerful inspiration, while the Jew himself, especially the Jew more fortunately placed in the general community, endeavors so often to cast it off as outworn ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... south of my position. It was a riddle; annoying, yet interesting. Never in my mountain experience had I encountered such a mystifying situation. However, with grim determination, but little enthusiasm, I turned south. My curiosity was aroused. I wanted to see what sort of fool ran around in dizzy circles yelling for help, yet not waiting for an answer to his supplications, nor ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... She had turned the friendly inquiry with a rather mystifying abruptness. I murmured politely. She blew twin jets of smoke from the widely separated corners of her generous mouth and then shrewdly narrowed her gaze to some distant point ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... in attractiveness for the observer with a telescope. The rings are almost as mystifying to-day as they were in the time of Herschel. There is probably no single telescopic view that can compare in the power to excite wonder with that of Saturn when the ring system is not so widely opened but that ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... seemed to carry to the prisoners a spirit of encouragement and reflect a ray of mercy into the dark corners of their hearts. They indulged the hope that some of those foreign uniforms might conceal trustworthy friends. And they recognized a basis for such a hope in the mystifying movements of one of those uniforms that met their notice day by day. It was near them at the palace when they were thrown upon a maddened world. They saw it following onward as they passed through pathless wilds. They could see it hovering near them ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... how little she could judge of the value of a thing till she had looked at it ten minutes; indeed modest little Biddy was compelled privately to add "And often not even then." She was mystified, as I say—Nick was often mystifying, it was his only fault—but one thing was definite: her brother had high ability. It was the consciousness of this that made her bring out at last: "I don't so much care whether or no I please mamma, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... fine dust of a too great destiny. But presently, when nothing adequate to them happened during the night, I learned to have more confidence in the wisdom of God and less in William's. With him prayer was simply a spiritual obsession based upon a profound sense of mortal weakness and very mystifying to his young wife, who had cheerfully said her orisons from a book night and morning with ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... liveliness throughout the evening." About midnight his guests generally left him, with the exception of Captain Medwin, who used to remain, as I understand, talking and drinking with his noble host till far into the morning; and to the careless, half mystifying confidences of these nocturnal sittings, implicitly listened to and confusedly recollected, we owe the volume with which Captain Medwin, soon after the death of the noble poet, favoured ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... her little life in India, Meggie was exceedingly ignorant of customs and things in her new home, and was continually making laughable mistakes, and asking the most absurd questions. This "greenness," as he called it, gave Archie immense delight, and he was never tired of mystifying and hoaxing the sweet-tempered little girl, who never resented his quizzings and practical jokes. Of course it never occurred to the silly boy that he was just as ignorant about India ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... platitude, of course, for everybody who has mixed with women and who possesses a gleam of intelligence knows that they are extraordinary, just as he knows, or ought to know, that if they were not bizarre and mystifying, complex and erratic, they would be less insidiously captivating than ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... also undergone a marked change, now resembling nothing earthly, although some have remarked that it could be likened to the bay of an enormous hound. Some of its later actions have seemingly added further canine attributes, which make the matter all the more mystifying. Veterinaries are asking why this animal should chase automobiles, and why it should carry bones in its mouth ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... particularly some of the circumstances connected with this instructive analogy. By tracing the likeness so conspicuously held out to us in this analogy by Nature herself, we shall be greatly assisted in evading the bewildering and mystifying influence of prejudice, and the reader will be much better prepared to judge of the value of those means recommended for nourishing and strengthening the mind by knowledge, when he finds them to correspond so exactly with similar principles employed by Nature for the nourishing ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... This was mystifying. A person about fifty! Who could she be? Villiers hastily considered,—there must be some mistake, he thought,—at any rate, he would see the unknown intruder himself first, and find out what her business was, before breaking in upon Alwyn's ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... returned with the mystifying news that Mr. Klutchem's letters had been sent to his apartment the night before, and that a telegram had just been received notifying his clerks that he would ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a chill of disappointment, but as he passed along the street his name was called by Juliet Burwell, and she fluttered across to him in all her mystifying flounces and ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... their faces and in their actions. White uniformed policemen were flocking into the corridors; soldiers, coatless and hatless, fresh from their beds, came dashing upon the scene. There were excited cries, angry shouts and, snore mystifying than ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... finesse. And this delighted the young man beyond measure, making him feel himself master of a difficult situation. Mysteries had been woven before his eyes so persistently, of late, that it was a real pleasure to be able to do a little mystifying on his own account. By adopting this reticent and non-committal attitude, he was forcing the hand of a woman old enough to be his mother and most evidently a past-mistress in the art of misleading. All of which seemed very fascinating to the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Antin. But this you may not know perhaps. The Government, that is, the aristocracy of lawyers and bankers who represent the country to-day, just as the priests used to do in the time of the monarchy, has felt the necessity of mystifying the worthy people of France with a few new words and old ideas, like philosophers of every school, and all strong intellects ever since time began. So now Royalist-national ideas must be inculcated, by proving to us that it is far better to pay twelve ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... opportunity of observing the success of Charles in mystifying Europe. Diplomatists, ambassadors, and wits would have been surprised, indeed, had they known that one of the most famous men of the age possessed the secret for which they were seeking. The author of 'L'Esprit ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... be doubted if the knowledge and acumen of prejudged scientific opponents, or the subtlety of orthodox special pleaders, have yet exerted their full force in mystifying the real issues of the great controversy which has been set afoot, and whose end is hardly likely to be seen by this generation; so that, at this eleventh hour, and even failing anything new, it may be useful to state afresh that which is true, and to ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... nearer. It had a grosbeak-like quality, I fancied, and I hoped to find either the pine or the evening grosbeak, for both of which I had been making anxious search. The shifting of the song from point to point struck me as odd, and it was very mystifying. ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... throughout the city and its environs were very much intrigued. Such a thing was very exciting and mystifying; but it was so far out of touch with their own lives that it did not affect them very much at any time except when they were reading the paper or discussing it in conversation. The police were the ones who were doing the ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... that Hawthorne was attracted by Tieck—in passages of the "American Note-Books," where he speaks of grubbing out several pages of Tieck at a sitting, by the aid of a German dictionary. Colonel Higginson ("Short Studies"), a propos of Poe's sham learning and his habit of mystifying the reader by imaginary citations, confesses to having hunted in vain for this fascinatingly entitled "Journey into the Blue Distance"; and to having been laughed at for his pains by a friend who assured him that Poe could scarcely read a word of German. But Tieck did really ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... The first mystifying suggestion that some strange juggling of stock had been going on came to him just before he had driven the hundred and eighty-six steers to San Juan. Rounding up his own stock and cutting it out from Temple stock, ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... unquiet spirits. Most of the excesses of France, during that momentous period, were to be attributed to the agency of a few, the bulk of the nation having little to do with any part of them, beyond yielding their physical and pecuniary aid to an audacious and mystifying political combination. One of the baneful results, however, of these great errors of the times, was the letting loose of the audacious from all the venerable and healthful restraints of the church, to set them afloat on the sea of speculation and conceit. There is something so gratifying ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... reports blackened all Michu's actions and gave them a criminal aspect by absurd suggestions,—unknown, of course, to the bailiff, who was aware, however, of the base part played by the farmer, and took delight in mystifying him. ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... opening fire without further parley, "the major has come to ask your aid in a case of singular and mystifying interest. You may or may not have heard of a music-hall artiste—a sort of conjuror and impersonator—called 'Zyco the Magician,' who was assisted in his illusions by a veiled but reputedly beautiful ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... journey and had directed his steps with rare assurance in this direction. Fortune or a will-o'-the-wisp? Or was Marishka calling to him? He had had the impression of her nearness often—there in the hospital—and since, at Selim Ali's—upon the road. It seemed strange and a little mystifying too, that he had never doubted that he would be able to find her.... And now—if not ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... puzzled and alarmed me. The more I think of it, the more mystifying it all becomes. I must see you, and you must tell me the truth—the whole truth. We love each other, dear heart, and no one shall force you to lie again to me as you did in that letter you wrote from Glencardine. ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... devotees adopted a spirit of skepticism concerning all problems of human activity not susceptible to measurement with the foot-rule, or analysis with the test tube, with the result that the newer Science of Psychology was invented to supply a reasonable and material explanation for the subtle and mystifying ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... after this Thor seemed to have no object in life at all. There was nothing in the canyon to eat, and he wandered about among the rocks, smelling and listening and deporting himself generally in a fashion that was altogether mystifying to Muskwa. In the afternoon of the second day Thor stopped in a dump of jackpines under which the ground was strewn with fallen needles. He began to eat these needles. They did not look good to Muskwa, but something told the cub that he should ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... dangerous subject. After all, there was something in him so different from other men, even from Arthur Campbell. There was always some deep, happy meaning to his simplest words, and his most commonplace conceptions of things were flavored with this mystifying attraction whatever it was. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... laugh which answered her, the way in which Mr. Linden bent down and said, "How do you know, Miss Faith?" were slightly mystifying to ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... went out with Rathbury and the box; and saw excellent, if mystifying, material for the article which had already become the daily feature ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... awake nights studyin' on where I'm a-goin' to get the money," said the old woman, taking delight in mystifying him. She had him now, and he couldn't escape. He strove to show his indifference, however, by playing a tune or two on ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... that, as one of his friends said, he was not inclined to pour out unmixed wine to those who asked for a sample out of mere curiosity. At length, in the epilogue to the "Romanzero," dated 1851, there appeared, amid much mystifying banter, a declaration that he had embraced Theism and the belief in a future life, and what chiefly lent an air of seriousness and reliability to this affirmation was the fact that he took care to accompany ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... the reserve which was in his manner toward every one else. He seemed even to have no desire to take advantage of the patronizing advances of Andy P. Symes and was content enough to spend a portion of each day reading books with mystifying titles and to ride away into the hills to be gone for hours at a time. He still wore the regalia of the country, the Stetson hat, flannel shirt and corduroys that were too common to attract attention, but the hollows in ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... to the change in Ellen's fortunes, or that her choice should not be free and unrestrained. It was for this reason he mystified the aunt and procured for Ellen a cordial invitation to stay with her 'till the business matters were settled,' thus mystifying Ellen also. She, poor girl, continued in happy ignorance of her absolutely destitute condition. She loved Joel dearly, and it was one of her happiest day-dreams to plan how she could aid him in his projects by putting him in possession of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... succeeded in mystifying Lady Alexandrina. "I don't believe he is engaged a bit," she said to ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... whole earth's life—an informed, pregnant Aristotle,—Ah! there would be the man to talk with! What satisfaction to see him take, like reins from between his fingers the long ribbons of man's life and trace it through the mystifying maze of all the wonderful adventure of his coming up. The crooked made straight. The 'Daedalian plan' simplified by a look from above—smeared out as it were by the splotch of some master thumb that made the whole involuted, ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... But their ignorance was mystifying and oppressive. They saw before them the beautiful country, the hills and valleys, the forest and the blue loom of the mountains, so much that appealed to the eye, and yet the horizon, looking so peaceful in the distance, was barbed with spears. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of hostess, and her state of mind, at no time much preoccupying Helen, preoccupied her now less than ever. The person who really interested her, now that she had come to look at him and to realise that he was suffering, was Mr. Kane. He was puzzling to her, not mystifying; there was no element of depth or shadow about him; even his suffering—it was odd to think that a person with such a small, flat nose should suffer—even his suffering was pellucid. He puzzled her because he was different from anything ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... is not a thing to rejoice at:' I am one of those who cannot see the good that is to result from all this mystifying and blue-devilling of society. The contrast it presents to the cheerful and solid wisdom of antiquity is too forcible not to strike any one who has the least knowledge of classical literature. To represent vice and misery as the necessary accompaniments of genius, ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... "Your knock was mystifying, Philip," put in the girl presently; "we expected nobody else but the Sylvesters, and when we heard your solitary step our hearts sank. We thought that Charles Sylvester had taken it into his head to ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... to grandpa did not reach him until January 27, 1861, but his reply left San Quentin by Wells-Fargo Express on the twenty-eighth of January. It was a brave letter, closing with the following mystifying paragraph: ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... Blunt into that mystifying tangle had been as sudden as it was unexpected. And yet, knowing Blunt as he did, Merry wondered that he had not thought of the ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... mechanism was. Yet to the worshippers, who probably had entered the temple through doors miraculously opened, and who now witnessed this seemingly intelligent response of a machine, the result must have seemed mystifying enough; and, indeed, for us also, when we consider how relatively crude was the mechanical knowledge of the time, this must seem nothing less than marvellous. As in imagination we walk up to the sacred tank, drop our drachma in the slot, and hold our hand for the spurt of holy-water, can we ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... may be obliged to admit, in strict confidence between himself and his mirror, that he is not at all handsome, nevertheless he is certain that he has some occult influence over that strange, mystifying, and altogether unreasonable ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... into the hall of mysteries opening, but only to make disclosures dimmer and more mystifying still. The postponement of dreadful certainties enabled her, however, to say with some slight relief, "But this—this other person couldn't have been very fond of her himself if he—if he gave her up ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... Stratford-atte-Bowe, to be translated by Comment vous portez-vous, ma chere? was rendered by most of the senior scholars Eh, ma vieille, ca boulotte? One innocent and anachronistic damsel, writing on the execution of Charles I., declared that he cracha dans le panier in 1649, thereby mystifying the good vicar, who was unaware that "to spit into the basket" is to be guillotined. This wealth of vocabulary was discounted by abject poverty in other branches of the language. No one could give a list of the words in "al" that took "s" ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... is absolutely mystifying. I am going to start for the captain's place now. He may be able to throw some ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... friends here in the house with me, whom I would like you to meet. When you talk me over with Mildred and Barbara to find out their opinion of me and of what I have tried to tell you, you can explain to them that I am not alone. I realize that I have always been a mystifying acquaintance and I'm sorry, but it is not possible to tell you my history at present. Some day I may be able ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... held at Ebersdorf (June, 1739), the Count expounded his views at length {1739.}. He informed the Brethren, in a series of brilliant and rather mystifying speeches, that there were now three "religions" in Germany—the Lutheran, the Reformed and the Moravian; but that their duty and mission in the world was, not to restore the old Church of the Brethren, but ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... eyes to the ceiling of the cupola of the capitol to conceal her unparalleled embarrassment, making him a rough courtesy, and not harrassing him with mystifying, rarefying, and stupefying innuendoes, she gave him a couch, a bouquet of lilies, mignonette, and fuchsias, a treatise on mnemonics, a copy of the Apocrypha in hieroglyphics, daguerreotypes of Mendelssohn ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... that his voice had sunk a few notes. He had looked askance at my yellow pup when I lifted him to a place at our feet, but had only queried, "Is that part of your baggage?" and had not demurred. His next speech was rather mystifying, for I had understood from Reuben that this man was certainly lord of his manor, and ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... Serpent" is a husband's jealousy; and it is the self-forgetful devotion of his wife that finally cures his malady and relieves him of his unpleasant companion. The tale ends with one of those mystifying passages which Hawthorne weaves so skilfully, so that it is difficult to determine from the text whether there was a real serpent secreted under the man's clothing, or only an imaginary one,— although we presume the latter. Francis ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... afternoon news editions had gone to press, and I had given up in despair, determined to go up to the laboratory and sit around idly watching Kennedy with his mystifying experiments, in preference to waiting for him to ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... precious weed on condition that they sell it all to the State at a fixed rate. Naturally, if they otherwise disposed of it, they would be able to make a much larger profit, as it is a monopoly of the State. They have a peculiar way of mystifying the exciseman as to the number of leaves on a string, for this is the regulation way of reckoning; besides which, wholesale smuggling goes on at times, and waggon-loads are got away. Occasionally there is a fight between ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... masterpieces owe their existence to mental forces quite as miraculous as those which put the heavens into being. The notes in compositions of this kind are not there by any rule of man. They come through the ever mystifying source which we call inspiration. Each note must bear a distinct ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... "I ain't the leastest mite afraid." She laughed a little, in a manner mystifying to him, for it suddenly seemed to her she should never be afraid of ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... either for work or for anything else, other liberties that would get him into trouble) under this queer torment of irreconcilable things, a bewildered consciousness of tenderness and patience and cruelty, of great evident mystifying facts that were as little to be questioned as to be conceived or explained, and that were yet least, withal, to ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... Again was that mystifying and tantalizing tear. Viola hastily searched among the other letters, hoping the missing pieces might ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... within a half mile now, and there was no mistaking the destination, the intent of its makers. "Honk! honk! honk! honk!" from many throats, in many keys, louder and louder, confused as children's voices at play; then in turn diminishing, retreating. Very mystifying to one who did not understand would have been that augmenting, lessening sound; but to that waiting human boulder it was no mystery. As plainly as though he could see, he knew every movement of that approaching triangle. As certainly as the broncho near by and the herd in the distance ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... Pablo at her heels, Bill Conway unburdened himself of a slightly ribald little chanson entitled: "What Makes the Wild Cat Wild?" In the constant repetition of this query it appeared that the old Californian sought the answer to a riddle not even remotely connected with the mystifying savagery of non-domestic felines. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... peaceably with her mother, who took a strong dislike to him, and constantly led the conversation to topics which he detested, such as foreign news and politics. He revenged himself by writing to the newspapers accounts of events which never happened, for the sole purpose of mystifying her; and probably not a few of his mischievous fictions have passed current for history. They made up their differences before her death, and a Latin epitaph of the most eulogistic order from his pen is inscribed ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... with which I had entered and left caused me considerable curiosity. Kemsley was one of those free, bluff, open-hearted, open-handed, men. He was never secretive, never elusive. I could only account for his curious, mystifying actions by the fact that the reputation of a woman was at stake—that he was acting for ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... learned, Mrs. Morton, after many years spent in detective work. There is no circumstance, however mystifying it may at first appear, which is not susceptible of some reasonable and often very commonplace explanation. You find this letter on the floor in your daughter's bedroom. It was placed there, either by someone within the apartment, or by someone from without. Now you tell me that it could ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... to do anything, go anywhere, speak on any topic! Now she makes you pull the chestnuts out of the fire and thinks I do not see her waiting behind. Ah, the hand is the hand of Esau, the voice is the voice of Jacob, wicked, sly, skulking, mystifying Jacob. Why don't "secretaries" write the official letters? How much they leave the "president" to do! Naughty idlers, those secretaries! Well, let me thank Miss Secretary Anthony for her gentle consideration; then let me say I'll ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... us now, computers, silicon chips, data processing, cybernetics, and all the other innovations of the dawning high technology age are as mystifying as the workings of the combustion engine must have been when that first Model T rattled down Main Street, U.S.A. But as surely as America's pioneer spirit made us the industrial giant of the 20th century, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... put forward by water diviners, many people regard them all as a huge joke, and laugh outright at the credulity of their patrons. Certainly it is true that the faculty is claimed by many, but possessed by few. After all, however mystifying it may be to the ordinary mind, hard facts cannot be ignored, and proof positive has repeatedly been adduced of the good work done by men ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... take pleasure in mystifying me. If you're not going to try your prisoners by court-martial, in what way are your words to be made good? Surely you don't intend to have them shot without ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... everyone, himself included, possibly, by sending out a crack that by bard base running allowed him to reach second. Then Keeler, the Allandale backstop, not to be outdone in the matter, also met one of Tyree's mystifying balls on the tip of his bat; and Patterson, who had not had time to even think of asking to get some one to run for him, had to keep galloping along in mad haste, the coach near third sending him home, which he reached ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... feare, thinking that the wildmen should follow us. They contrary wise stayed (as we heard) seaven nights, thinking that we weare asleepe, onely that some rose now and then, and rung the litle bell which stooke to the hogg's foot. So mystifying the businesse affaire, [they] went & brought news to the village, which made them come and looke over the pallisados, and saw in good earnest ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... replied: "The leaf which you yourself have brought me has told me everything. Moreover, you reached my friend's house at such an hour and you left it at such another." In this way our people amuse themselves by mystifying these poor islanders, who think they are gods, with power to make the very leaves reveal what they believe to be secret. Thus the news spread through the island that the leaves speak in response to a sign from ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... a little further to the corner, cross the street and enter the store of the Costa Brothers. It is a big grocery store and while you will not find the sausage and mystifying mass of food products in such lavish display and profuseness, as in the previous place, if you look around you will find this even more interesting, for it is on a different plane. Here you find ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... all this high and noble solicitude. One dark doubt shot for an instant across my brain. Maybe her ladyship had "registered a vow" never to syllable a name unchronicled by Debrett, or was actually only mystifying me for mere amusement. A minute's consideration dispelled this fear; for I found myself treated "en Seigneur" by the whole family. As for the daughters of the house, nothing could possibly be more engaging than ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... his sense, was mystifying himself, because he was departing from right, the only true 'good sense.' His right judgment in all things was becoming obscured, so he talked metaphysical jargon, instead of plain practical truth, and thought he was teaching Laura to strengthen her powers ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge |
