"Puzzled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commonplace conversation had much more interest than those who were speaking could have any idea of. It puzzled him sorely too, for it seemed to tell such a different tale from the one Elsie had put together. He was watching Elsie closely, wondering what she could say to it. It was not so much what she had said that made Duncan uncomfortable as the way she said it. "Just as if she was our ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... house—gold repeaters, massy plate, gold snuff boxes—untouched? That argument certainly weighed much in his favor. And yet again it was turned against him; for a magistrate asked him how HE happened to know already that nothing had been touched. True it was, and a fact which had puzzled no less than it had awed the magistrates, that, upon their examination of the premises, many rich articles of bijouterie, jewelry, and personal ornaments, had been found lying underanged, and apparently in their usual situations; articles so portable that in the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... first attempt to increase his knowledge of the general nature of trusts, discovers that the problem has a close connection with others which have long puzzled workers for the public good. Trusts ally themselves at once in his mind with monopolies, in whichever form he is most familiar with them, and are apt to be classed at once, without further consideration, as simply a new device for the oppression of the laborer ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... and drink. He at once rose up and came to me, felt my pulse, looked at my tongue, and prescribed a small quantity of broth, which Jack Keene presently brought me, and which I found delicious. I may here mention that several days later I became aware that this same broth—the origin of which puzzled me at the moment, though not enough to prevent me from taking it—had been prepared from a kind of tortoise, the existence of which in large numbers on the spit Hutchinson had accidentally discovered that very morning, and in pursuit of which ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... through the air, and he started and tried to run away, crying, "It is the arrow of the Archer. Let me live a little longer—only a little longer!" The arrow struck him and he died. Leo looked at the Girl, and she looked at him, and both were puzzled. ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... been the member of the Guild of Knowle for whose sake masses were said in 1512. "Alicia" may have been his wife, or his sister Alice before she married "Buklond." But I confess I am puzzled with this William. ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... if he is already familiar with the more characteristic works of Bulwer-Lytton, will find himself for the first time provided with a key to much that has puzzled him in the nature of that author. The story itself, apart from the tragic matrimonial trouble which runs through it like a blood-red cord, is of unusual interest. It is a story of strife, without repose, without enjoyment, but with a good ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... that any one should be puzzled with the name 'Triad' after reading the poem! I have turned to Dr. Johnson, and there find 'Triad, three united,' and not a word more, as nothing more was needed. I should have been rather mortified if you had not liked the piece, as I think it contains some of the happiest ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Puzzled and dismayed, I made a rapid search of my clothes— first one pocket and then another. It was useless. Beyond a doubt the statement was nowhere about ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... looked puzzled but Judge Breckenridge caught the idea. "You're a wonder, Bet! And I do believe you are right. You'll be as safe as if you ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... observed on the breast of the soldier's uniform the Congressional military medal for bravery on the field of battle. Its glint furnished Peter the necessary clew. He remembered his mother's writing him something about Tump Pack going to France and getting "crowned" before the army. He had puzzled a long time over what she meant by "crowned" before he guessed her meaning. Now the medal aided Peter in reconstructing out of this big umber-colored giant the rather spindling Tump Pack he ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... the daytime the apartment was as light and cheerful as the rooms up stairs. Across the end, under the front windows, was a workbench, with a variety of carpenter's tools, few in number, and of the most useful kind. On the bench was an unfinished piece of work, whose intended use would have puzzled a philosopher, if several similar specimens of mechanism, completed and practically applied, had not appeared in the cellar to explain ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... cried. They all thought she was to have a sort of play-school; did they? They were going just for fun. She must talk to mamma. Mamma thought the school was foolish business; but mamma always knew what ought to be done, and how to help do it. Or if mamma ever felt puzzled, there was papa to go to,—papa, who could not possibly make a mistake. Between them they would see that their ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... have critics In the present day (1821) who cannot tell what to make of the tragic writers of Queen Elizabeth's age (except Shakespear, who passes by prescriptive right), and are extremely puzzled to reduce the efforts of their 'great and irregular' power to the standard of their own slight and showy common-places. The truth is, they had better give up the attempt to reconcile such contradictions as an artificial taste and natural genius; and repose ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... concomitants of life—has played the part in biology which the alchemists' quest played in chemistry. It led by the way to a host of positive discoveries. Aristotle, the father of biology, believed in spontaneous generation. He was puzzled by the case of parasites, especially in putrefying matter. Even Harvey, who made the first great definite discovery about the mechanism of the body, agreed with Aristotle in this error. It was left ...
— Progress and History • Various
... is never in a hurry; convinced, that hurry is the surest way to make him do what he undertakes ill. To be in a hurry, is a proof that the business we embark in is too great for us; of course, it is the mark of little minds, that are puzzled and perplexed when they should be cool and deliberate; they wish to do every thing at once, and are thus able to do nothing. Be steady, then, in all your engagements; look round you before you begin; and remember, that you had better do half of them well, and ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... avoid the bother of explanations. As for Brian, his extreme sensitiveness is better than studied tact. I'm sure he felt magnetically that Dierdre O'Farrell shrank from a reference to her part in the night air raid. But his silence puzzled her, and I saw her studying him—more curiously than ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Dale was puzzled. During the elder Bransford's last days, and for a year or more preceding the day of Bransford's death, Dale had professed friendship for him. The pretense of friendship had resulted profitably for Dale, for it had enabled him to establish an intimacy with Bransford which had made ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... explained that he had been recommended for a commission and had joined St. Cyr. More details followed, all of a verisimilitude wholly convincing. Madame, who knew France and the French Army up and down, became more thoughtful and more puzzled. It was plain that Rust had really served in the ranks of the Army, and had been at St. Cyr. Yet he was an Englishman and an officer of the English Flying Corps! She asked further questions, innocent, flattering questions, seeking to discover what had happened ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... the letter from its large square envelope. He read it with puzzled wonder rising to his eyes. Before he came to its end he was on ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... the 25th ultimo, from Colonel Blachden of Connecticut, now at Dunkirk, to the Marquis de la Fayette. I will cite it in his own words. "A gentleman who left London two days ago, and came to this place to-day, informs me that it is now generally supposed that Mr. Pitt's great secret, which has puzzled the whole nation so long, and to accomplish which design, the whole force of the nation is armed, is to make a vigorous effort for the recovery of America. When I recollect the delay they have made in delivering the forts in America, and that little more than a year ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... with his eager fondness for the sport, was anxious to attend them. He did not like to go anywhere alone, and one evening he invited me to accompany him. Just as he stepped into the auditorium there was a vigorous round of applause. The players stopped, somewhat puzzled, for no especially brilliant shot had been made. Then they caught the figure of Mark Twain and realized that the game, for the moment, was not the chief attraction. The audience applauded again, and waved their handkerchiefs. Such a tribute ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... stood by his side, a puzzled frown on his face. "There hadn't ought to be water running hyer now," he said, as if to himself. "I don't see how it could 'a' come hyer, for Bill Weston—he's the ditch rider—went to Mesa this mo'ning, and couldn't 'a' got back to turn ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... figure of himself looking through a telescope, life size, and planted on the summit of the rock. On the occasion of the Prussian invasion of Bohemia the image was assumed to be a spy, and the Germans fired at it and greatly damaged the figure, and were much puzzled at being unable to prostrate the dauntless spy. The present possessor of the rock castle has had the figure restored. Burgstein remained the abode of a hermit till 1785, when the reforming Joseph II. abolished all hermitages, and turned out every hermit in his dominions. ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... hair rising in a bold curve from her forehead, was outlined against the sky. He could see the gleam of the western light in her eyes, which were half averted. While she watched the sunset, he watched her with a puzzled expression about his lips. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... goose-neck must be spread out by the armourer as soon as the forge was up. In short, what with dead eyes and shrouds, cats and cat-blocks, dolphins and dolphin-strikers, whips and puddings, I was so puzzled with what I heard, that I was about to leave ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... not there and this fact puzzled Wade. The Sheriff was not there either, and presently it occurred to the cattleman that a part of the posse, with Santry, might have returned to Crawling Water over the main trail. Probably Moran, with the rest, was waiting ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... out of house and home. You are one of those who creep into widows' houses, and for pretence make long prayers. You, sir, I will hear," I went on, turning to the dear old man who had sat by shaking his white locks with a sad and puzzled air, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... conduct had so puzzled me, and to whom I had been so strangely introduced, seemed to be a man of about thirty, decidedly handsome, and of striking mien, of elegant manners, and evidently accustomed to refined society. His hair, which curled naturally, was, however, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... embarrassment, when she had asked him to describe the furniture of the drawing-room at Greatwood, the very last summer he had been there, for he ought certainly under such circumstances, to have remembered it as well as herself; he had looked puzzled, and had glanced at Mr. Clapp, and the lawyer had immediately broken off the examination. Such were the opinions of the friends at this stage of the proceedings. Still it was an alarming truth, that if there were improbabilities, minor facts, and shades of manner, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Adela; and the captain came before Mr. Pericles had retreated. "Ce nonchalant" was not quite true to his title, when he heard that Emilia had flown. He did not say much, but iterated "Gone!" with an elegant frown, adding, "She must come back, you know!" and was evidently more than commonly puzzled and vexed, pursuing the strain in a way that satisfied Mr. Pericles more ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... him for a moment with a puzzled expression, and then walked into his little shop, and Davy turned away. As he did so the path behind him began to unfold itself through the wood, and, looking back over his shoulder, he saw the little shop swallowed up by ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... desire of each lady to spend long hours separated from the other ladies puzzled the servants. The result was a deathly stillness in the house, except at meal-times. It might have been as empty as it had been all the winter, for any sounds of life there were. The old lady sat ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... blow. Officers were frowning over their note-books as if afraid they had not heard correctly. The enemy here, in the western corner of Belgium? The Major's orders petered out. They saluted, and returned to their platoons, feeling puzzled ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... that the Scoutmaster was giving him a warning. But though he puzzled his head and wondered, he could not fathom ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... artist by his work is known."— A piece of honey-comb, one day, Discover'd as a waif and stray, The hornets treated as their own. Their title did the bees dispute, And brought before a wasp the suit. The judge was puzzled to decide, For nothing could be testified Save that around this honey-comb There had been seen, as if at home, Some longish, brownish, buzzing creatures, Much like the bees in wings and features. But what of that? for marks the same, The hornets, too, could truly ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... to the foreign mode of fighting. Friend and foe hardly recognized the rapid general in the cautious master of fence who trained his men carefully and not unfrequently in person; and they became almost puzzled by the masterly skill which displayed itself as conspicuously in delay as in promptitude ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... visions of sense. Not being practical astronomers ourselves, we have to follow the counsel of that unknown authority who bids us believe the expert. But expertness being the fruit of experience, we may be puzzled to tell who have attained that rank. We will inquire, however, with due docility, of the oracles of scientific research. It is agreed on all sides that to render the moon habitable by beings at all akin with our own kind, there must be within or upon that body an atmosphere, water, changing ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... was genuinely puzzled. Yet she understood; it was merely theories about life that he had gained. Again she called to mind a sentence in Doctor Milton's letter: "I know that you have followed the case in such a way as ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... into his lair, was unhappily conscious that the girl was on the verge of tears. He puzzled over the situation for some time. His immediate instinct was to help any troubled creature, and it had dawned on him that this composed young lady who manicured her nails out of a pasteboard box during the slack portion of every day was troubled. In his abstraction he commenced ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... important-looking document within. There is a pause—a lengthened one. Presently Barbara rises from her seat, mechanically, as it were, always with her eyes fixed on the letter in her hand. She has grown a little pale—a little puzzled frown is contracting ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... what Blaisette saw in the dark scowling girl, who was reserved and offhand with people in general; and probably Blaisette herself was puzzled as to why she sought Ellenor so constantly. The girls were a distinct contrast, not only ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... Men than a Right-handed Man with him, as well in Lessons as in Assaults, most Masters being Right-handed, as well as most of the Scholars, taking Lessons from the Right-hand, and practising seldom with Left-handed Men, find themselves puzzled, nothing surprizing more than what one is not used to, which is so true, that to embarrass a Left-handed Man, who has not fenced much, you must put another against him; I say one that has not fenced much, because Right or Left-handed Men who go to the School ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... faint idea once that things were as you say they are, but the affair of the ring—of the unexpected ring—puzzled me. Wish SHE"—he indicated Miss Klegg's back with a nod—"was at the bottom of the sea.... I would like to talk to you about this—soon. If you don't think it would be a social outrage, perhaps I might walk with you to your ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... What puzzled me, and at the time made me thoroughly angry, was the way in which she spoke of the man whom I had seen playing with her, and who had dragged her into the pen. She was afraid of him in a curious way—in much the same way as she was afraid of father or mother. ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... shook her head vaguely. She did not seem to take his remark very seriously, but then, she had learned never to take any of his remarks seriously. She had been puzzled at first by his manner of treating everything with a half-joking pessimism, ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes' test, and there will ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the widow's eye as she said this that sorely puzzled Phil, and kept him in confused meditation that night, until the confusion became worse confounded and he fell ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... puzzled, and turning to Captain Martinoff remarked that the Russian language must be very comprehensive when a speech of twenty minutes could be translated in three or ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... talents and his father's inability to make the best use of them; he possessed in a no less remarkable degree his father's independence of mind. In both cases, this quality was coupled with a corresponding eccentricity of conduct, which occasionally, to puzzled onlookers, wore the appearance of something very near insanity. Many stories are related of the queer behaviour of Dr. Beddoes. One day he astonished the ladies of Clifton by appearing at a tea-party with a packet of sugar in his hand; he explained that it was East Indian ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... Here he was puzzled. To go in and inquire, even if he cared to and could make himself understood, would perhaps involve further risk of infection. While he was considering, the door slowly opened, and the leather-skinned crone appeared. Her eyes ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... is hoped that not many persons will be so much puzzled as are Dr. Latham and Professor Fowler, about the application of this rule. In their recent works on The English Language, these gentlemen say, "In certain words of more than one syllable, it is difficult ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... old brass-faced clock in the shadow struck three times upon its strident bell. Only fifteen minutes more, and then the police would enter and charge him with that foul crime. Then the solution of a remarkable mystery which had puzzled the whole ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... half surprised and half puzzled. It was to her such an odd and unexpected point of view. But she felt instinctively that Ernest really and deeply meant what he said, and she knew she must not allude to the subject again. 'I beg your pardon,' she said simply, 'if I've put it wrong; yet you know I can't help ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... thoroughly puzzled. Before returning to Mrs. Armadale he sent for her son. The chances were that the guard had been off the stranger's tongue when he spoke to Allan, and with Allan's frankness there was no fear of his ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... whispering between the two ladies, while the children looked pleased, puzzled, and eagerly curious all at once; but they were not to know. Aunt Fanny and their mother, after a great deal of nodding of heads together, and laughing and whispering, got this mysterious affair settled to their satisfaction, and then took leave of each ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow
... senses. He complained of a very twisted back. Homer set one of the men in after the bed-wagon, by means of which the sufferer was shortly transported to camp. By the end of the week he was again in the saddle. How men escape from this common accident with injuries so slight has always puzzled me. The horse rolls completely over his rider, and yet it seems to be the rarest thing in the world for the latter to be ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... printed Puzzles as if because it had puzzled Dodsley and Reed to make out the true word. In the old copy it stands Puriles; and although it may seem a little out of character for Grim to quote Latin, yet he does so in common with the farmer in Peele's "Edward I.," and from the very ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... of the civil engineers, no wonder the reviewers were puzzled. The 'Quarterly,' in an able article in support of the projected Liverpool and Manchester Railway,—while admitting its absolute necessity, and insisting that there was no choice left but a railroad, on which the journey between Liverpool and ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... seemed minutes they faced each other, Emma excited, with a diffused indignation that defied impartially the missing St. Michael and the puzzled man before her; Crocker with a perplexity that renewed the old boyish expression in his eyes. He seemed to be thinking, and, as he thought, the tension of Emma's attitude relaxed, she forgot to ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... of sweet, strong, steady womanliness, although she did not know it. Caleb knew something extraordinary was going on inside of him, but under what impulse he was too puzzled ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of such diverse protagonists as Royall and Randolph, the wording of the executive order was in part both vague and misleading. The vagueness was there by design. The failure to mention either segregation or integration puzzled many people and angered others, but it was certainly to the advantage of a president who wanted to give the least offense possible to voters who supported segregation. In fact integration was not the precise word to describe the complex social change in the armed forces ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... the writing was his was as certain to me as if I had seen him actually doing it. He foresaw some danger to the collection. Was it because he foresaw it that he abandoned his charge of it? But if so, why should he hesitate to warn Mortimer in his own name? I puzzled and puzzled until at last I fell into a troubled sleep, which carried me beyond ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in accordingly. Sure enough, in bold, heavy characters, was the name Charles Wrexell Allen written out in full. That handwriting was one in a thousand. I made sure I had seen it before, and yet I did not know it; and the more I puzzled over it the more confused I became. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... must confess to being fairly puzzled to know what to do with the money you have sent me. Everyone suggests different investments. One says buy sheep and put them out on terms. I will explain to you what this means. I can buy a thousand ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... what road we had come, what sport we had, etc., all in the nicest way possible. I never felt more awkward in my life than when I stooped to enter that low doorway, and yet in a minute I was quite at my ease again; but of the whole party I was naturally the one who puzzled him the most. In the first place, I strongly suspect that he had doubts as to my being anything but a boy in a rather long kilt; and when this point was explained, he could not understand what a "female," ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... but 1600 times less than that prevailing on the Earth's surface; or, to put it in a less accurate form, a weight of 100 lbs. should have weighed an ounce. It did weigh two ounces, the gravity being not one 1600th but one 800th of terrestrial gravity, or just double what, I expected. I puzzled myself over this matter longer, probably, than the intelligent reader will do: the explanation being obvious, like that of many puzzles that bewilder our minds intensely, only to humiliate us proportionately when the solution is found—a solution ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... to intrigue, obtained the coadjutorship of the archbishopric of Paris, plotted against Mazarin, played an important part in the troubles of the Fronde, and was in 1652 thrown into prison, from which he escaped; he left "Memoirs" which are valuable as a record of the times, though the readers are puzzled to construe from them the character of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... shock in all this. He recurred to his last evening with her, when in her paroxysm of agony she had thrown herself at his feet. Much as he had desired such an outcome, it puzzled him to find her in love with some one else. It was ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... last said the doctor, with a smile, "I guess we'll call it a day. But remember that if at any time you are puzzled and want more information all you have to do is to come and ask me. I'll gladly lay aside my work any time to help you ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... in years like you," lady Feng smilingly exclaimed; "who've gone through many experiences! This Ta Chieh-erh of mine has often been inclined to ail, and it has quite puzzled me to make out how and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... She puzzled a good bit over this, especially the first part of it; but when they told her the next day, she understood. Probably she grieved for him more than had any one else; even more than the members of his own family or profession. For, whereas there are many people in the world who can give life to others, ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... north-east trade-wind when it reaches the end of its journey, and where is that end think you, my boy?" asked Captain Frankland. Jerry looked puzzled, and I had not a notion to give forth on the subject. "I will try and explain the matter; but when you can obtain a work, written by Lieutenant Maury, of the American navy, you will comprehend the subject much better," said Captain Frankland. "There are three calm regions or ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... strong fellow with a clear brain, who attracts women. Here are two peasants from the Central South, both with bad sciatica, slower in look, with a mournful, rather monkeyish expression in their eyes, as if puzzled by their sufferings. Here is a true Frenchman, a Territorial, from Roanne, riddled with rheumatism, quick and gay, and suffering, touchy and affectionate, not tall, brown-faced, brown-eyed, rather fair, with clean jaw and features, and eyes with ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... a loss to know what to say. He gazed, with the same puzzled expression, at the kind, bright face, which was so strange yet so close to ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... his eyebrows with a puzzled, whimsical air, which made me tremble with suppressed anger. As he advanced his, eyebrows contracted, and his lips seemed to form the ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... districts, and although the African holds them all in high horror and terror, he does not see anything supernatural in his "Duppy." It is a horrid thing to happen on, but there is nothing strange about it, and he is ten thousand times more frightened than puzzled over the affair. He does not want to "investigate" to see whether there is anything in it. He wants to get clear away, and make ju-ju against it, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the time is come for the revealing of the mystery that hath puzzled all your young life. Know, then, that it had its birth in the matters which I shall now unfold. My brother Ulrich is the great Duke of Brandenburgh. Our father, on his deathbed, decreed that if no son were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Hecker was informed by Father Rumpler that Walworth and McMaster would sail for Belgium the evening of the next day. "I decided to join them," he said when relating the circumstances afterwards. "Father Rumpler was favorable, but puzzled. And I must first present myself to the Provincial, Father de Held, who was in Baltimore. I arrived in Baltimore at four o'clock in the morning on Saturday, travelling all night. Father de Held looked at me, as I presented myself, and said that ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... entirely unconnected with the one thus produced was manifested at his own family dinner-table the following evening. Aunt Clara had been out rather late, and came to the table after the rest were seated. She wore a puzzled expression. ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... dinner-bell that had called three generations of Noriagas and an equal number of generations of Farrels to their meals. As its musical notes echoed through the dewy patio, Murray, the butler, appeared from the kitchen. At sight of Farrel, he halted, puzzled, but recognized in him almost instantly the soldier who had so mysteriously appeared at the house the night before. El Mono was red of face and obviously controlling with difficulty ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... paying the slightest attention to me whatever. I thought this rather rude of them at first, until it dawned upon me that I was talking to myself all the time, instead of out aloud, so that, of course, they did not know that I was telling them a tale at all, and were probably puzzled to understand the meaning of my animated expression and eloquent gestures. It was a most curious mistake for any one to make. I never knew such a thing happen ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... the watch was forward, he would come aft and hold a short yarn with me; but this was against the rules of the ship, as is, in fact, all intercourse between passengers and the crew. I was often amused to see the sailors puzzled to know what to make of him, and to hear their conjectures about him and his business. They were as much at a loss as our old sailmaker was with the captain's instruments in the cabin. He said there were three,— the chro-nometer, the chre-nometer, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... "Who is the greatest living composer, yourself excepted?" Beethoven seemed puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed, ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... She looks puzzled, casting about in her mind to find a definition, when it occurs to her that it is easier to point out the substantial object itself, massive against the dark-blue ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... he said, "I want to tell you that I appreciate the fine sense of loyalty to a friend that prevented you from telling Mr. Stevens that you had seen Turner breaking into Campbell's room. That would have explained something that puzzled us. But we respect you for ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... white strangers by their red enemies, the Six Nations, whom they regarded as a flock of meddlesome crows, that were always dipping their ravenous bills into matters that did not in the least concern them; and their simple heads were sorely perplexed and puzzled, that two great kings, dwelling in far-distant countries, thousands of miles away beyond the mighty ocean, should, in the midst of uncounted riches, fall to wrangling with each other over a bit of wilderness land that neither of them had ever set eyes or ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... and the "Constitutionnel." The cost of subscribing to the Parisian paper was shared by Vinet the lawyer, and Baron Gouraud. Rogron himself carried the paper to Gouraud, who had been a colonel and lived on the square, and whose long yarns were Rogron's delight; the latter sometimes puzzled over the warnings he had received, and asked himself how such a lively companion could be dangerous. He was fool enough to tell the colonel he had been warned against him, and to repeat all the "clique" had said. God knows how the colonel, who feared no one, and was equally to ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... puzzled, then angry, and after a few minutes' more conversation she returned to her young men, conspicuously turning ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in haste by a woman who had been taken suddenly ill, answered the call though somewhat puzzled by it, for he knew that she was not of his parish, and was, moreover, known to be a devoted worker in another church. While he was waiting to be shown to the sick-room he fell to talking to the little girl of ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... cask—the dramatic decease of Collard—of Nantes—. From time to time, Warcolier, while speaking, cast an involuntary, angry glance at the paper that he twisted in his fingers, so much so that Vaudrey, feeling puzzled, at last asked him what ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... branch of the Bank of Ireland, and asked where we should find the hotel. We were very civilly directed to "The Register's Office over the way." This seemed odd enough. But reaching it we were further puzzled to see the sign over the doorway of a "coach-builder"! However, we rang the bell, and presently a maid-servant appeared, who assured us that this was really the hotel, and that we could have "whatever ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... quite," he said with a puzzled look. "The galley must have gone down with all hands and yet I fancy that the hero went on living afterward. Perhaps he climbed into the attacking ship. I wouldn't see that, of course. I was ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Two things puzzled his new subjects; the fact of his arrival being two days before the appointed time, and the circumstance of the new pasha, who was apparently a Turk, returning their ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... puzzled with the adventures that had befallen him, that he waited in a dazed condition for what would happen next. But the turtle, who had talked so much of him to the princess that she had expressed a wish to see him, went at once to make known his arrival. And directly the princess beheld him ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... much, and you would be puzzled if called upon to demonstrate this evidence; whereas, nothing is more uncertain and elusive than the thing that is called conscience, which is in reality only an affair ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... idea that a somnolent hackman was going to rob him. He had his dress suit case in one hand and his plug hat in the other, and he covered three blocks in ten seconds. The cabby, whom he had hired, waked in time to discover the meteoric dash, and was the most puzzled man in the capital. Eckles is a warrior, and his credit giving, or ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... felt slightly puzzled by the seriousness with which the other delivered this well-meant but wholly superfluous advice. What just exactly did the lawyer mean by ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... with a very perplexed look, puzzled to understand who it was that had married twice, and whether her aunt had stated Harry's age or that of ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... before, see her in a thousand ways rising above her former stature to a wonderful womanhood beyond even your dreams—how are you going to get more capacity out of that boiler without breaking it, when the load calls for four hundred pounds? Now these problems puzzled the young man, living at that time in his eight-room house with a bath, and he sat up nights to work them. And some times there were two heads at work on the sums, and once in a while three heads, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... clothes and bed-covering became more sensibly felt: those they had were beginning to wear out. Catharine had managed to wash her clothes at the lake several times, and thus preserved them clean and wholesome; but she was often sorely puzzled how the want of her dress was to be supplied as time wore on, and many were the consultations she held with the boys on the important subject. With the aid of a needle she might be able to manufacture the skins of the small animals into ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... have puzzled Jasper," he said to himself. "He was anxious to know how his scheme had worked. He will have ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... I handle this case this way?" both parties knowing all the while that it is a farce, and that the department waits helpless until this humble little man saves its honour by solving some problem before which its intricate machinery has stood dazed and puzzled. ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... young lady returned to her home in a more magnanimous frame of mind; and fell asleep that night wondering if the whole male sex were as stupid as the particular specimen with which she had to do—a problem which has puzzled ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... I am off to Otaki to see my native parishioners. What different work from calling in at S. W.'s and other good Alfingtonians! The walk will be pleasant, especially as I have been grinding away at navigation all the morning. My stupid head gets puzzled at that kind of work; and yet it is very good for me, just because ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and took nothing," protested Simon. "But if you wish, I will try again." Much puzzled by this sudden request, the two fishermen pulled toward deep water. The people on the shore watched them put up the oars; the boat drifted slowly in the wind. The two men lowered the net. It had hardly sunk below the surface ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... and puzzled. "How did everybody all over the world know about it, granp? They couldn't all hear Him say it," ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... occasion often to think of it. Mr. Carlisle was everywhere, of course, in Brighton; at least he was in Eleanor's everywhere; she saw him a great deal and was a little struck and puzzled by his manner. He was very often in her immediate company; often attending upon her; it constantly happened, she could not tell how, that his arm was the one to which she was consigned, in walks and evening escorts. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... of merchants, of lawyers, of physicians, of the better order of farmer and bourgeoise. Two thirds of them knew how to write and were capable of being made officers. Indeed in the regiment it would have puzzled me to decide who were the most deserving subjects, or who best merited promotion, as they were all so good. Oh! that all my armies had been ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... examining the maps, my dear boy," she said, "and find that it is seventy or eighty miles out of your direct course, and we have puzzled ourselves in vain as to why you should have made your way there. The girls guess that you have gone there to deliver in person some message from one of your late fellow-prisoners to his family. I am not good at guessing, and am content to ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Her religion is an obscure chaos of theogonies as old as the world, treasured up out of respect for ancient customs; and of more recent ideas about the blessed final annihilation, imported from India at the epoch of our middle ages by saintly Chinese missionaries. The bonzes themselves are puzzled; what a muddle, therefore, must not all this become, when jumbled together in the childish brain of ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... making a tremendous noise, followed her trail up to the stone wall. Then he was puzzled. He sniffed this way, and he sniffed that way, but he could not tell where Mother Fox had disappeared to. He looked up at old Mother Moon and bayed and bayed, but old Mother Moon did not help him a bit. Then he jumped over the stone wall and looked, ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... distance from the house. She dusted the seat with her smart silk apron before her father occupied it. Mr. Vanstone was not accustomed to such an extraordinary act of attention as this. He sat down, looking more puzzled than ever. Magdalen immediately placed herself on his knee, and rested her head comfortably ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... a worry to me. I do not know him at all," said Sanders with a puzzled frown. "Ahmet, the spy, has seen one of the chiefs who attended the palaver, which apparently was very impressive. Up to now nothing has happened which would justify a movement against him; the man is possibly from the ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... and ink, she proceeded to tell him a list of plants and herbs, and forest productions, and he was surprised to find that it agreed most wonderfully with the recipe contained in the old manuscript, as he had puzzled it out, and as it had been explained by the doctor. There were a few variations, it is true; but even here there was a close analogy, plants indigenous to America being substituted for cognate productions, the growth of Europe. Then there was ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... colour deepened into a flush. The thick fringe of her lashes swept down to hide the glow in her eyes. Without a word she swung ahead, on up the canon. Though not a little puzzled over her abruptness, Lennon felt certain that she had been far from displeased by his ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... bed of the river. Our canoe remained fast for some minutes between two trunks of trees; and it was no sooner disengaged than we reached a spot where several paths, or small channels, crossed each other, so that the pilot was puzzled to distinguish the most open path. We navigated through a forest so thick that we could guide ourselves neither by the sun nor by the stars. We were again struck during this day by the want of arborescent ferns in that ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... looking on from the balconies, all crying "Murder!" and "Help!" without moving themselves. I poured some water on the man's bloody hand, as he held it streaming with gore up to me, saying, "The man in there did it," meaning the one who keeps the little grog-shop, though it puzzled me at the time to see that all the doors were closed and not a face visible. I had hardly time to speak when Tiche called loudly to me to come away,—she was safe at the front gate,—and looking up, I found myself in a knot of a dozen ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... brought from on board, so that he was incapable of working, and without his assistance they could not hope to proceed with their design; their first attention, therefore, was to make him a pair of bellows, but in this they were for some time puzzled, by their want of leather; however, as they had hides in sufficient plenty, and they had found a hogshead of lime, which the Indians or Spaniards had prepared for their own use, they tanned some hides with this lime; and though we may ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... said Jack, "that it is merely a phosphoric light; but I must say I'm puzzled at its staying always in that ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... a burr to the Colonel by day, looking very smart and workmanlike in khaki uniform and being of more than average usefulness with rifle and bayonet. Not until after the restoration of order did Mr. Edward Jones, formerly of the Duri High School, long puzzled as to where he had seen him before, realize ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... of his face. It occurred to me he might be a Basque. It didn't necessarily follow that he should understand Spanish; but I tried him with the few words I know, and also with some French. The whispered sounds I caught by bending my ear to his lips puzzled me utterly. That afternoon the young ladies from the Rectory (one of them read Goethe with a dictionary, and the other had struggled with Dante for years), coming to see Miss Swaffer, tried their German and Italian on him from the ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... off alone either," said the puzzled father. "He is neither old enough nor wise enough to manage by himself, but who to send with him is the puzzle. It doubles the ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... it too strange if I ask you how he appeared to take it?" I said, trying to make my remark seem as casual as possible. Seeing the puzzled expression on his face, I added: "I know it is a peculiar thing to ask, but please don't think any more about it than you ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... and sociologist, put forth again, independently, practically the same theory, basing it upon an extensive study of the North American Indian tribes. Morgan had lived among the Iroquois Indians for years and had mastered their system of relationship, which previously had puzzled the whites. He found that they traced relationship through mothers only, and not at all along the male line. This method of reckoning relationship, moreover, he found also characterized practically all of the ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... the hospital, more puzzled than ever as to who could be the occupant of your little chamber. He seemed to me to have seen better days; and as for your lady of the slipper, it was so long before I saw any female with Monsieur ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... no one comes up here only once in a great while," she said in a puzzled way. "I ought to be able to pull it open, I'm sure, for I am so big and strong." She exerted all her strength till her face was like a rose. The door was fast. Phronsie turned a despairing look upon the ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... a single short question, which I supposed meant "Who are you?" I answered in English quite composedly as though he would understand me, and endeavoured to be my very most natural self as well as I could. He appeared more and more puzzled, and then retired, returning with two others much like himself. Then they took me into an inner room, and the two fresh arrivals stripped me, while the chief looked on. They felt my pulse, they looked at my tongue, they ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... puzzled at this phenomenon; and, not being the least vain, fell to wondering whether he played the nightly sentinel opposite every lady's window who exchanged civilities within him. "Because, if he does, he is a fool," said she, promptly. But on reflection, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of Claude puzzled him. Since that day in Devonshire, when Claude had endeavored to intervene, the latter had spoken scarcely a dozen words to him. He shook hands with Jim at the station and with Angela, but his congratulations sounded ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... Englishman's first landing in Calcutta. The shore is thronged with the swarthy natives, eagerly awaiting his arrival. Innumerable palanquins are brought down to the boat, and the bearers, like the Paddington stagecoach men, are all violently struggling to procure a passenger. The bewildered stranger is puzzled which to choose; and when he has made up his mind, he finds it no easy matter to jostle through the countless rival conveyances which completely surround him. He is also sure to make some laughable mistake in entering the palanquin. It requires ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... was puzzled, he did not believe in giants. His mind was not accustomed yet to these flights of speech, he felt stupid and irritated with himself, and in some way humiliated. The lady leant over ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... and how he had done so, and Jack had made the award. Then he began to think that the horse must be a good one, as Jack would not set too high a price on him, seeing that he was the purchaser. Then he wondered that he had put enough on to induce Sponge to sell him: that rather puzzled him. He lay a long time tossing, and proing and coning, without being able to arrive at any satisfactory solution of the matter. At last he rang his bell, and finding it was eight o'clock he got up, and proceeded ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... for her soul treat me like a common lacquey. My prudence and modesty were not long proof against these bewitching compliments. One day, while I waited at dinner, the conversation turned upon a knotty passage of Tasso's Gierusalem, which, it seems, had puzzled them both: after a great many unsatisfactory conjectures, my mistress, taking the book out of her pocket, turned up the place in question, and read the sentence over and over without success; at length, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... second. He had intended to administer a sharp reprimand to the one who had stolen his apples. But now when he saw the little girl tighten her hands round her apron, he felt sorry for her. Only he was puzzled to know how he should manage this thing so that she could keep her apples; for if he were to let her off without further ado, it might result in his having ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... they were able, Jack and Fred explained the situation to their cousins and also answered a number of questions put to them by Captain Dale. The military instructor was much puzzled over the situation, and hardly ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... a little puzzled to put it into words," Miss Sessions answered him with a deprecating smile; "and yet it's there—the feeling that John Consadine is—I hate to ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... that either. The fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... Ernest Lismore was thoroughly puzzled. What could be the old lady's object in ascertaining that he was still free from a matrimonial engagement? If the idea had occurred to him in time, he might have alluded to her domestic life, and might have asked if she had children? With a little tact he might ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... quite puzzled with this affair, and in his confusion knew not what he was about. Manon shook her head. The affair was dark and mysterious to her. "Who will now pay me for the ...
— The Broken Cup - 1891 • Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke
... keenly enjoying the puzzled look on Baker's face. "The young lady left word that if you wanted to see them you'd have to ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... less pleasure than I feel in reading the great Attic poets, but still with admiration. An idea occurred to me which may very likely have been noticed by a hundred people before. I was always puzzled to understand the reason for the extremely abrupt transitions in those Odes of Horace which are meant to be particularly fine. The "justum et tenacem" is an instance. All at once you find yourself in heaven, Heaven knows how. What the firmness ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... poor woman; glancing for a minute at the bar, where her husband was sipping gin, and already brawling with an American. But as the apple-complexioned man whom Andy addressed happened to be a French habitan, limited in English at the best of times, the Irish brogue puzzled him so thoroughly, that he could only make a polite bow, and signify his ignorance ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... puzzled but relieved. Next morning he stood on the platform of the Grand Trunk station, and Evelyn, leaning on the rails of a vestibule, smiled and waved her hand ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... no references to the newspaper correspondent's rhapsodies when he paid Mrs Gildea a short visit two or three days before the landing of the new Governor. But his very reticence and something in his expression made Joan suspect that he was puzzled and excited, and would have been glad had she volunteered any information about Lady Tallant's companion. Joan, however, kept perverse silence. In truth, she felt considerably nervous over the prospect. What was going to happen when ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... turning round a childish puzzled face. "Oh, Major Harper, you know I am quite ignorant of these things. Do let us ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... cities, situated in different countries in the world, which are each in their way connected with the danger which is brewing for this country. I have heard them described as the three secret cities. One is in Germany. I have been there at the risk of my life, and I came away simply puzzled. Kroten is the next, and of the third I have still to discover the whereabouts. Are you willing, Lord Dorminster, to let me act for you abroad? I require no salary or remuneration of any sort. I am a wealthy man, and investigations ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that her friends were puzzled at this remark; they did not quite see how paying for the house was "fooling the company." Evidently they were very inexperienced. Cheap as the houses were, they were sold with the idea that the people who bought them would not be able ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Thing—the hateful, murderous, dirty Thing which in American we call "Nigger-hatred" was not only not there—it could not even be understood. It was a curious monstrosity at which civilized folk laughed or looked puzzled. There was no elegant and elaborate condescension of—"We once had a colored servant"—"My father was an Abolitionist"—"I've always been interested in your people"—there was only the community of kindred souls, the delicate ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... patrol boat, whose choleric commander bellowed instructions at us, interlarded with much profanity, through a megaphone. The captain of the Padova could understand a few simple English phrases, if slowly spoken, but the broadside of Billingsgate only confused and puzzled him, so, despite the fact that he had no pilot and that darkness was rapidly descending, he kept serenely on his course. This seemed to enrage the British skipper, who threw over his wheel and ran directly across our bows, very much ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... of a soft, stealthy, heavy tread on the road behind him. It seemed like the jog trot of some heavy, cushion-footed animal following him. Turning round, he was scared very badly to find himself looking into the glaring eyes of a large lion. The puzzled animal acted very strangely, now raising his head, now lowering it, and all the time sniffling the air in a most perplexed manner. Here was a surprise for the lion. He could not make out what kind of animal it was that could roll, walk, and sit still all ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... puzzled, as well he might. Then he smiled, took my hand and led me away from the door—to the knob of which I was still holding with all my ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... may explain the whole business of Brother Marshman's furniture, etc., which you have all been so puzzled to account for, and have certainly accounted for in a way that is not the true one. We have, you know, a very large school, perhaps the largest in India. In this school are children of persons of the first rank in the country. The parents or guardians of these children frequently ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Corydon or Thyrsis. He was a singular mixture of genius and vanity, at once the admiration and the butt of the Blackwood's wits, who made him the mouthpiece of humour and eloquence which were not his, but Christopher North's. The puzzled shepherd hardly knew how to take it; he was a little gratified and a good deal nettled. But the flamboyant figure of him in the Noctes will probably do as much as his own verses to keep his memory alive with posterity. Nevertheless, Hogg is one of the best of modern Scotch ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... whose Prayer-books are written in English, take no trouble to find out the meaning of them? Would to Heaven that you would try to find out the meaning of the Prayer-book! Would to Heaven that the day would come, when anyone in this parish who was puzzled by any doctrine of religion, or by any text in the Bible, or word in the Prayer-book, would come confidently to me, and ask me to explain it to him! God knows, I should think it an honour and a pleasure, as well as a duty. I should think no time better spent than in answering your questions. I do ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... and clapping hand to cheek was relieved to find his whisker yet intact, but for a long moment sat clutching that handful of soft and fleecy hair, staring before him in puzzled wonder, for the hand had seemed so very real he could almost feel it there yet. Presently, bethinking him to glance over his shoulder, Mr. Brimberly gasped and goggled, for leaning over the back of his chair was a little, old man, very slender, very upright, and very smart ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... decorations were some that puzzled the professor considerably. They were crude drawings of men in what appeared to be intended for boats. The professor found these inexplicable. The very idea of boats in that arid spot seemed absurdly out of place. Why, then, should the mesa-dwellers ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... when she first entered the station. Her very manner had the air of flight and secresy. Puzzled and annoyed, he sat down in the rear of the car, himself unseen. When they reached Philadelphia it was not yet dawn. The passengers rushed out of the cars: Kitty sat quiet. She had never slept outside ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... will stand scrutiny, and might easily be illustrated. They may observe, to take only one point, the curious analogy between the early stages of dramatic composition and those soliloquies in which Iago broods over his plot, drawing at first only an outline, puzzled how to fix more than the main idea, and gradually seeing it develop and clarify as he works upon it or lets it work. Here at any rate Shakespeare put a good deal of himself into Iago. But the tragedian in real life was not the equal of the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... have been reading several books on this subject, and am rather puzzled. Are the English people, as existing now, Teutons, or Danes, or Celts, or what? Can we be Teutons when the aborigines of these islands were not Teutonic? I feel that my own genius—and I have a lot—is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... intercourse which is going on continually between writers and readers, affairs of all degrees of complication are continually being discussed, of a nature so complicated that the inexperienced writer is puzzled at every turn to express himself, and the altogether inartistic writer fails to do so. Who among writers has not to acknowledge that he is often unable to tell all that he has to tell? Words refuse to do it for him. He struggles and stumbles and alters and adds, but finds at last ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... in the direction of the wagon until, finding himself alone, and remembering what had befallen his companions, he dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and pursued rapidly on foot. He soon saw the wagon looming up in front of him again, and was puzzled to know how to reach it and learn the truth, when the wagon turned abruptly off the road, and ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... puzzled by the various names given to the different waters over which we travelled; but soon discovered, that, while the term "Puget Sound" is popularly applied to the whole of them, it properly belongs only to the comparatively ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... to see all these things—but there was one question which it puzzled him very much to decide, and that was whether he would rather go to Holland in the ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... The astonished inhabitants of the island soon gathered to see the strange sight—the landing of white men in the West Indies. They looked upon the ships as sea-monsters, and the white men as gods. Nor was Columbus less puzzled by what he saw. The people were a strange race—cinnamon colored, naked, greased, and painted to suit each one's fancy. They had only the rudest means of self-defense, and were almost as poor as the parrots that chattered in the ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... belted knight, Sir Guy, I shall not presume to tease you any more, but shall treat you with the respect due to your dignity." Then she swept a deep curtsey, and turning, went off with a merry laugh, while Guy looked after her more puzzled ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... Sense and Sensibility describes the book as being 'by a Lady.' This ascription satisfied the author's desire for concealment, but it puzzled the advertisers. The first advertisement—that in the Morning Chronicle on October 31, 1811—merely describes it as 'a novel, called Sense and Sensibility, by Lady ——.' In the same paper, on November 7, it is ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh |
