"Puzzle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... next in this pigs-in-clover railroad puzzle," was the blunt statement of the need. "Our freight contract with the Transcontinental is about to expire, and I'd like to get it renewed on the same terms ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... placed it in this room, from which I fancy it would puzzle the most accomplished thief ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... have I paced thy great bare rooms and courts at eventide! They spoke of the past:—the shade of some dead accountant, with visionary pen in ear, would flit by me, stiff as in life. Living accounts and accountants puzzle me. I have no skill in figuring. But thy great dead tomes, which scarce three degenerate clerks of the present day could lift from their enshrining shelves—with their old fantastic flourishes, and decorative rubric interlacings—their sums in triple columniations, set down with formal superfluity ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... clear for that gallant little band of Britons. The guns of the city were trained on them; they were in easy shot of the Spanish in front and the Spanish behind—surprised, tricked, surrounded. And there was no mist to puzzle the enemy's terrible aim! But English chivalry stood the test that day, and ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... that is not like getting knowledge first-hand," he continued with modesty, "but it seemed the best I could do. As to this plan of yours, two heads are sometimes better than one, and between us I believe we can evolve an answer to the puzzle." ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... inmate of his house. I used to go down with him on Saturday afternoons and we talked things over in the train. It was, to an idler like myself, wonderful the way that essential idler's days were cut out and fitted in like the squares of a child's puzzle; little passages of work of one kind fitting into quite unrelated passages of something else. He did it well, too, without the ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... a bulldog of the true breed, and though young, had all his teeth in their full strength. Behind him came dogs of every kind which is common in this country, and if they could do little else, they could bay and yelp, and thus puzzle and ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... shells were the main articles of trade. The Tahitians now fully understand the value of money, and prefer it to old clothes or other articles. The various coins, however, of English and Spanish denomination puzzle them, and they never seemed to think the small silver quite secure until changed into dollars. Some of the chiefs have accumulated considerable sums of money. One chief, not long since, offered 800 dollars (about 160 pounds sterling) for a small vessel; and frequently they purchase whale-boats ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... so extraordinary a puzzle of race and language, may well wonder what principle of unity there is lying behind it, and, indeed, this principle of unity ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... with tears of queens The leaves are red with blood of kings; Unknowing what the mystery means We puzzle ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... creatures survived all modes of persecution, and came back into their ruined hovels to defy the law and beard the Church, and went on living—in some strange, mysterious way of their own—an open challenge to all political economy, and a sore puzzle to the Times commissioner when he came to report on the condition ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... so — so, well so QUEER about it, if you get what I mean. That is, if you know they have one, of course you're naturally watching for them to say humorous things; and they're forever saying the sort of things that puzzle you, because you have never heard those things before in just that way, and if you DO laugh they're so apt to act as if you were ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... She directed all her conversation and eke her bright eyes in his direction. He listened, and when necessary he laughed a jolly resounding laugh. How could she tell that he was drawing comparisons all the while? It is the simple-minded men who puzzle women most. Whenever Luke's face clouded she swept away the gathering gloom with some small familiar attention—some reference to him in her conversation with Fitz which somehow brought him nearer and set ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... name Chichimeca has been a puzzle. The derivation appears to be from chichi, a dog, mecatl, a rope. According to general tradition the Chichimecs were a barbarous people who inhabited Mexico before the Aztecs came. Yet Sahagun says the Toltecs were the real ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... nothing to puzzle, for a man placed as you be," said Obed, drawing hard on his pipe. "If you had a father and a mother, now, both draggin' hard on your coat-tails—My God!" he broke off, staring at the sappers moving on the hillside. "What wouldn't I give to ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... said to her mates one day, "here's some 'hot ones' Miss Brokaw has been handing the primes, and I believe they'd puzzle some of us big girls. Listen! 'What is longitude?' Sue Mellen came to me, puzzled, about that," chuckled Jennie, "and I told her longitude is those lengthwise ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... puzzle has been solved we know that the original script of the Sumerians had been a picture-language, quite as much ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... sense of the word. Seldom a week went by, but Maud had some weird vision of the night to recount to her friend, the meaning of which they would together try to puzzle out; for it was an article of faith with both that there were meanings to ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... of humility, Dennis asked leave to venture on a guess. The perforated paper looked, as he thought, like a Puzzle. "If we wait for a day or two," he suggested, "the Key to it ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... colleagues—work in which many of his critics have had little or no experience under favourable conditions. His conceptions fit in with observed facts with all the accuracy of the pieces in a child's picture puzzle; whilst his logical deductions are supported and enhanced by his wide knowledge of physical ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... after Rome had been taken by the Gauls, the senate, on a sudden emergency, armed ten legions, 3000 horse, and 42,000 foot; a force which the city could not have sent forth under Augustus, (Livy, xi. 25.) This declaration may puzzle an antiquary, but it is ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... at the expressive way his comrades had of urging him on. Nor could he fail to be deeply touched by their confidence in his ability to fathom the puzzle. ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... soliloquized the worried schoolteacher. "But how to explain what I can't understand! Some people would call this thing just natural depravity. But I love these girls. As I think back, every year, in the early summer, I've always had something of this sort of thing to puzzle over. But the last few years it's grown worse. The war made a difference. And since the war—how strange the girls are! They seem to feel more. They're bolder. They break out oftener. They dress so immodestly. Yet they're less deceitful. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... to be a puzzle to me how Father Payne had the command of so much money; his estate was not large; but in the first place he spent very little on himself, and our life was extremely simple. Moreover, I became aware that some of his former pupils and friends used to send him ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... MARRYAT's The Little Marine and the Japanese Lily, a book of adventures in the land of the Rising Sun, which will delight many rising sons for whom chiefly was this book intended. There are always "more ways than one," and so Where Two Ways Meet there is like to be a puzzle, solved in this instance by the authoress, SARAH DOUDNEY. Put down the books! Come to the festive board! Down—(the right way of course) with the mince-pie and plum-pudding! Strange is it that the source of so much enjoyment, the very ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... flatter. Although in some respects you puzzle me, I am very clear and positive as to my feeling of gratitude. While my aunt feels kindly toward me, she is formal. It seemed to me when I came out of the cold of the wintry night I found within a more chilling coldness. But when you gave me your ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... Hugh as he rode through the Singleton lanes; he used to puzzle over them in an odd ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... must not think it is anything so serious as that. You will soon pick up from the ladies you will meet some notion of how you differ from them; and if you should startle or puzzle them a little at first by talking about the chances of the fishing or the catching of wild-duck, or the way to reclaim bogland, you will soon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... 1830):—"I do assure you that your verses gratified me very much, and my sister is quite proud of them. For the first time in my life I congratulated myself upon the shortness and meanness of my name. Had it been Schwartzenberg or Esterhazy it would have put you to some puzzle." ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... The puzzle in the case of Escovedo does not concern the manner of his taking off, or the identity of his murderers. These things are perfectly well known; the names of the guilty, from the King to the bravo, are ascertained. The mystery ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... the uninterested," is the missionary puzzle of the times. Will it not help to solve it if every friend who comes to this Annual Meeting at Concord, New Hampshire, October 25-27, will try to bring one who ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various
... nice puzzle for him, doesn't it?" the Operative said, and grinned. "After all, I didn't touch him—couldn't, in any way. He'd shielded himself perfectly from any telekinetic force—and I had no weapons. I couldn't even get to him barehanded because of his shield and the binder field. He had me located—no ...
— Sight Gag • Laurence Mark Janifer
... it very dull here with all of us grown-up people, dears, so run away now. Therese," she added with a smile to her granddaughter who had risen obediently, "there is a splendid new puzzle in the library; you ought to ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... of an undergraduate who united the hind wings of a butterfly to the body and fore wings of one of a different species, and, thinking to puzzle Professor Westwood, then the entomological authority at Oxford, asked if the Professor could tell him "what kind of a bug" it was. "Yes," was the immediate ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... stole round her waist. Well, this was not unnatural. Would they not be soon man and wife? The puzzle was that she had no feeling of response. She would rather that he did not embrace her. She did not want to be noticed. Yet she could not find it in her heart to be unkind, so she allowed him to draw her nearer, to let her head droop on his shoulder. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... he put the question to his mother. "It is a puzzle to me, which I cannot unravel, why has Matabel ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... maids peeped over her shoulder as she read, in ecstasy that Madonna should have a lover and a poet of her own. Selvaggia filched another handful of sugar and crumbs, and twiddled her sonnet while she wondered what on earth she should do with it. Her fine brows met each other over the puzzle, so clearly case for a confidence. Gianbattista, her youngest brother, was her bosom friend; but he was away, she knew, riding to Pisa with their father. Next to him ranked Nicoletta; she would be at mass to-morrow—that ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... mystical thinker. In his moral aphorisms, he approaches the theory of the ancient Stoics. TEH—i.e., virtue—is lauded. Teh proceeds from TAO. To explain what the Chinese sage means by Tao,—a word that signifies the "way,"—is a puzzle for commentators and inquirers. From Tao all things originate: they conform to Tao, and to Tao they return. There are noble maxims in Laou-tsze,—precepts enjoining compassion, and condemning the requital of evil with evil. Taouism is a type of religion which traces itself to the teaching ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... manner were frequently in odd dimensions; and the machinery was necessarily placed in diversified arrangement, calling forth a similar degree of wasted skill as that used in making a Chinese puzzle conform to its given boundaries. Their area depended upon the topography of the site, and their height upon the owner's pocket book. There was in Massachusetts a mill with ten floors, built on land worth at that time ten cents ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... of science discuss the constitution of matter, and weave hypotheses more or less fruitful as to the interplay of its forces, there is a growing faith that the day is at hand when the tie between electricity and gravitation will be unveiled—when the reason why matter has weight will cease to puzzle the thinker. Who can tell what relief of man's estate may be bound up with the ability to transform any phase of energy into any other without the circuitous methods and serious losses of to-day! In the sphere of economic ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... fine blazing fire, and plenty of hot tea, toast, and eggs, it was easy to remedy one class of these poor people's wants; but how to rig them out in dry clothes was a puzzle, till the captain bethought him of a resource which answered very well. He sent to several of the officers for their dressing-gowns; and these, together with supplies from his own wardrobe, made capital gowns and petticoats—at least, till the more fitting drapery of the ladies ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... did so his attention was arrested by two words "Logs Wanted." He read the article through which told how the price of lumber had suddenly advanced, and that logs were in great demand. When Stephen laid down the paper and went into breakfast, the puzzle had been solved. What about that heavy timber at the rear of their farm? No axe had as yet rung there, no fire had devastated the place, and the trees stood tall and straight in majestic grandeur. A brook flowed near which would bear the logs ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... judge—and it was not her blame that anything in her position had developed her into a thoughtful, earnest character. But then she was always fancied younger than she really was; people supposed her as easy as her mother, while she could be vehement, and was firm to tenacity. Perhaps the reason of the puzzle might be, not only that she had a little of that constitutional indolence which serves to conceal latent energy, but that, in trifles, she did inherit, in a marked degree, the unexacting, kindly temper which causes ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Puzzle as I did over the words, I managed to eat a good breakfast, and then went into the Cullens' car and electrified the party by telling them of Camp's and Fred's despatches, and how I had come to overhear the former. Mr. Cullen and Albert couldn't say enough about my cleverness in what ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... trying," said Joe, "though compared to this a Chinese puzzle is as simple as A B C. Let's take a hack at it, anyhow. We'll each take a separate sheet of paper and try to get something out of it that ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... Lady Chillington, Deepley Walls, Midlandshire." The words repeated themselves again and again in my brain, and became a greater puzzle with every repetition. I had never to my knowledge heard of either the person or the place. I knew nothing of one or the other. I only knew that my heart thrilled strangely at the mention of the word Home; that unbidden tears started to my eyes at the thought that perhaps—only perhaps—in that ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... readily separate the great colonising powers, and group and locate their separate colonies. How many other boys, even after they have passed through the last stage of their school life, could do this? Little-known countries and states are too often a puzzle to the ordinary schoolboy, which are familiar places to the stamp collecting youth. Ask the ordinary schoolboy in which continents are such places as Angola, Annam, Curacao, Funchal, Holkar, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nepaul, Reunion, St. Lucia, San Marino, Sarawak, Seychelles, ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell
... Guy noticed, as far as was possible to one so young and inexperienced; and the general result of this survey was a state of bewilderment and perplexity. He could not make her out. She was a puzzle to him, and certainly not a very attractive one. When she had finally adjusted herself on her father's knee, the General, after the fashion of parents ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... I want to make him happy. But there are so many things, so many different aims and motives, that complicate life, that puzzle one. One doesn't know how much to give of one's self, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... went on and John had come to a better insight of the character of the eccentric person whom Dick had failed to fathom, his half-formed prejudices had fallen away, it must be admitted that he ofttimes found him a good deal of a puzzle. The domains of the serious and the facetious in David's mind seemed to have no very well ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... as white man" (he shakes his head, philosophically). "White man sharp; puzzle nigger to find out what 'e don, know ven 'e mind t'." Thus saying, he takes a small hymn- book from his pocket, and, Franconia setting the light beside him, commences reading to himself ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... an Englishman," asseverated the Prince, using the most powerful simile in the Italian language. "We will have her in Santo Spirito before night, and she will puzzle the doctors." ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... abroad to understand that the breeze got up here is nothing but an attempt to ride the woman's rights theory into respectability on the back of Temperance. And what absurd, infidel and licentious follies are not packed up under the general head of woman's rights, it would puzzle any one to say. While, however, we approve the act excluding the women at the Brick Church, we feel bound to say that we regretted what seemed to us an unnecessary acerbity on the part of some of the gentlemen opposing them. What a load of extraneous, foolish and crooked ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the closer study of the personal history and characteristics—mental and moral—of enemy commanders. Some one else noted that the supposed speciality of the General immediately opposite us was that of making fierce attacks across impassable marshes. "Good," put in a third some one. "Let's puzzle the German staff by persuading him that we have an Etonian General in this part of the line, a very celebrated 'wet-bob.'" Which sprightly suggestion made the Brigadier-General smile. But it was my good fortune to go one better. I had to partner him ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... on. "I am not impractical. My plan is altogether feasible. I do not merely think this. I know. My intuition tells me so. I pride myself on having a natural intuition. It takes me only a few seconds to understand a situation that other men have to puzzle over for hours. I seem to see every side of a question at once. I assure you, I am gifted in this way. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... at the overthrow of Louis Philippe, and again at the overthrow of the Second Republic, and again at the overthrow of the Second Empire, and again at the overthrow of the Commune, these alterations wept on, it is seen that the puzzle offered to Paris people in general, and to Paris postmen in particular, must be anything but amusing. Should the Third Republic perish to-morrow, a new christening of streets would have to be made; but the event only would determine whether the new names should ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... almost frightened at his own conclusion. The clean, shiny mess plate and the phrase out of that letter seemed to fit together like the sections of a picture puzzle. The black spot and the match-end (if there was any match-end) meant just nothing at all. The dim light out in the passageway down below hardly reached the ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... that a soldier brought when Pablo called for it, in a little while put new life into him. Why the ass was not made to pay the penalty of his sins, by being there and then killed, at first was a good deal of a puzzle to me; but presently, from the talk that went on about us while Pablo ministered to him, and while the wounded lying around the altar were being cared for, and the dead borne away, I gathered that no one dared to kill ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... she was alone. That added to his puzzle. At this moment she was staring ahead; and again came the opportunity to study her. Fine but strong lines marked the profile: that would speak for courage and resolution. She was as fair as the lily of the lotus. That suggested delicacy; and yet her young ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... same way. A great, white mysterious moon that he had known long ago. It was queer that there should be a relationship between the gray geese and the cold, white satellite that rode in the sky. Ben Kinney never tried to puzzle out what it was; but he always knew it with a ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... robust, worn down by a tireless mind; perhaps, the memory of long years of effort, seemingly swallowed in oblivion and futility; perhaps contact with men on your own side whose presence there is a puzzle, who have no character and no conception of the grandeur of the Cause, and whose mean, petty, underhand jealousies numb you—you who think anyone claiming so fine a flag as ours should be naturally brave, straightforward and generous; perhaps the seemingly overwhelming ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... in a sense, the Bible of the Greeks, and as society improved in morals, and thought was directed more and more fearlessly towards religious questions, the puzzle as to the immoralities of the gods became acute. The religious and intellectual developments of the sixth century B.C. led to various ways of explaining the old stories. Sophocles is conciliatory, conceiving religion in a sunny good temper which will make the best ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... his willingness to go to Queensland. It is a deep puzzle to me. Here is the explanation, from the planter's point of view; at least I gather from the missionary's pamphlet that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... friend of Leyden!" he soliloquized, restraining his impulse while he puzzled the problem out. "That's no mystery; suspense knocked him out when I got here first. That's no puzzle either. But how in thunder did Leyden get so solid with the ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... think he had been invalided home not more than two or three months when she married Connolly, of the Seventy-first Madras Infantry. Then she ran away from him with some civilian fellow, and Connolly blew his brains out. That," said the major, honestly, "is always a puzzle to me. How a fellow can be such an ass as to blow his brains out when his wife runs away from him beats my comprehension altogether. Now what I would do would be this: I would thank goodness I was rid of such a piece of baggage; ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... which could not exist at all except on the condition of the existence of less important evils, this consideration will remove, so far as those goods and evils are concerned, the time-honoured puzzle how evil can exist at all if God is. To take a specific example. To many of us it appears directly certain that such qualities of character as fortitude, patience, superiority to carnal lusts, magnanimity, are goods of the highest value. ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... set about his task that morning. He had been provident enough to bring some sandwiches in his pockets (provided at the last moment by the much-enduring Walker), and on the strength of these he laboured half the morning. It would puzzle me to explain on what scientific principle the wonderful apparatus was laid down, what mixture between the wing of a bird, the tail of a fish, and the screw of a steamer it embodied. I never was good at mechanics, and certainly Percy Rimbolt's mechanics were such as it is given but to ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... to run up to town on Friday and forgot your letter. The x is a puzzle—I will stick by the ship as long as you do, depend upon that. I fear we can hardly expect to see dear old Tyndall there again. As for myself, I dare not venture when snow is on the ground, as on the last two occasions. And ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... luxurious display. No Russian princess, no Tartar king, no monarch of the south, ever saw anything finer for consideration. There were the smooth, silken skins of the cross fox, of the blue fox, that strange, deeply silken-furred creature, the blend of which is a puzzle to the naturalists; of the silver fox, which ranges so far southward that the farmers and the farmers' sons of the northern tier of the United States follow him fiercely with dog and gun because of the value of his coating; of the otter, ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... whence came ye?" asked, however, in an Italian idiom, had been answered by "Inghilterra, touching at Lisbon and Gibraltar," all regions beyond distrust, as to the plague, and all happening, at that moment, to give clean bills of health. But the name of the craft herself had been given in a way to puzzle all the proficients in Saxon English that Porto Ferrajo could produce. It had been distinctly enough pronounced by some one on board, and, at the request of the quarantine department, had been three times slowly repeated, very much after ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... enough accent on the word "gentleman" to puzzle me. The remark sounded innocent enough, certainly, and yet the stress—if stress was intended—made it biting sarcasm. Obviously the men in the boat were equally in doubt whether to take offense or to accept the statement ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... fact that the Bible story of creation was the work of unscientific men of strong imagination into a far-fetched and unsatisfactory puzzle of symbol and allegory? It would be just as easy and just as reasonable to take the Morte d'Arthur and try to prove that it contained a veiled revelation of God's relations ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... with myself for allowing this tall, simple-hearted country fellow to puzzle me so much. And yet, was he a simple-hearted country fellow? City bred he certainly was not; but his manner, in spite of his awkwardness, had an indescribable air of refinement. Now and then, too, he dropped a word or a phrase that showed his familiarity ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... word of five letters find: 1st. An hour-glass puzzle, the central letters of which, read downward, signify to perform again; horizontally, a symbol often used in writing, a beverage, a vowel, a performance, to provide. 2d. A word-square containing a unit, a vehicle, an epoch. 3d. Words to each of which one letter may be prefixed ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... lie down from inability to stand upon my legs, I drove my paws into the earth, and held up portions to my face, to convince myself that I was indeed on shore. I did not trouble myself much with questions as to how I got there. I did not puzzle my brain to inquire whether the wind which had risen the evening before, and which I felt driving me on so freely, had at length chased me to the land. All I seemed to value was the fact that I was indeed there; and all I could persuade myself to ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... sail, which extends the whole length of the deck, and sometimes of an out-rigger over the stern, and is accordingly well fitted to ply to windward. They frequently set as many as twenty different sails, alow and aloft, by every possible contrivance, so as to puzzle seamen who are not familiar with ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... I am not cunning. If people think I am, it is because, being made up of art themselves, simplicity of character is a puzzle to them. Your women are certainly ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... night was a chemise of silk and cotton, a white quilted jacket, a short pelisse, a turban on her head, and a keffeyah tied under her chin in the same manner as when she was up, with a shawl over the back of her head and shoulders. It is rather a puzzle how she could enjoy in this full panoply any sound or ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... very little about Henry that need puzzle any one," she complained bitterly. "He is just an overgrown, spoilt child, devoted to amusements, and following his fancy wherever it leads him. Why do you look at me, Mr. Lessingham, as though you thought I was keeping something back? I am not, I ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are a never-ending puzzle," he said. "They vary so from the point of view. And if you once grant there are more view points than one, ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... (Ben Jonson, Mr. Greenwood thinks, {298b}) speaks only of a single author, who has written other admirable comedies. "When he is gone, and his comedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, and set up a new English Inquisition." Why? The whole affair is a puzzle. But if the author of the Preface is right about the single author of Troilus and Cressida, and if Shakespeare is alluded to in connection with Cressida, in Histriomastix (1599), then it appears to me that Shakespeare, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... into the house; Caius had gone on; and then he knew that he had this new word to puzzle over. For why should he be supposed to molest the happy hours of the woman he loved, and what could be the sorrow that dogged her life, if her happy hours were supposed to be rare and precious? O'Shea's ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... devised as Mary's Tea. It puzzled me for some time and left me wondering what special beverage was sold inside. I discovered at last that "Coffee" was a thoughtful translation of Cafe, a word which might have been supposed to puzzle an English soldier, though indeed very few French words puzzle ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... another, and had peeled from the wall in patches, and had hidden some of their brightest portions under dreary dust, till the joyousness had quite vanished out of them all. It was often difficult to puzzle out the design; and even where it was more readily intelligible, the figures showed like the ghosts of dead and buried joys,—the closer their resemblance to the happy past, the gloomier now. For it is thus, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... threw himself at full length on the sand, burying his face on his arms. Much startled, Estelle gazed at him in wonder and sympathy. What had upset him so greatly? Why did Goody sigh over him? It was a bewildering puzzle to her, who knew Jack to be the kindest fellow in the world. She could not bear to see him so grieved. It was her fault. Why had she said a word ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... officers quartered in the fort were assembled. They seemed to falter for a moment, when they beheld our lady companions. They scanned the Methodist and his wife, and took their measure at once But the dressmaker and Miss Mary, hanging on the arms of two of my companions, seemed to puzzle them. Anyhow they hastened towards them, took them by the hand, led them to the place of honour on the sofa, and began the conversation with "Do you speak English ?" I don't recollect now how it all went off, but I know ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... standing about the driveway and outside the fence, people of the village grouped along the sidewalk, everybody out upon their doorsteps to watch the coach go by, and to all the face of the bride was a puzzle and a surprise. They half expected to see another coach coming ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... play havoc with such a relation. To Swift it was the most secluded thing in the world. "I am weary of friends, and friendships are all monsters, except MD's;" "I ought to read these letters I write after I have done. But I hope it does not puzzle little Dingley to read, for I think I mend: but methinks," he adds, "when I write plain, I do not know how, but we are not alone, all the world can see us. A bad scrawl is so snug; it looks like PMD." Again: "I do not like women so much as I did. MD, you must know, ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... child without speaking, while he cautiously manipulated his arms and interested himself in the puzzle of his ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... indeed, and the boy began to believe that he had gotten himself into an inextricable difficulty, for how to reach the steam man and renew the fire, under the circumstances, was a question which might well puzzle an older ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... Lake Ontario. This conjecture is not improbable, and accounts for the singular fact that salmon and herring are caught in all the lakes communicating with the St. Lawrence, but no others. As the Falls of Niagara must always have existed, it would puzzle the naturalists to say how those fish got into the upper lakes unless there is a subterranean river; moreover, any periodical obstruction of the river would furnish a not improbable solution of the mysterious flux and ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... here it is, behind the box, That puzzle wrought so neatly— That paradise of paradox— We once knew so completely; You see it? 'Tis the same, I swear, Which stood, that chill September, Beside your aunt Lavinia's chair The ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... might get drunk. Some of it, moreover, seemed, for the further mystification of the officer, to be written in cipher; a needless precaution, it might seem, when the writer's natural chirography was so full of puzzle ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the second line we had a fairly easy job, but for the 9th Brigade it was a regular Chinese puzzle, for by this time some of their trenches were in German hands at one end and English at the other, whilst Northumberland Fusiliers, Lincolns, Sussex, West Ridings, Cavalry, and even part of the 2nd Grenadiers,[21] who had turned ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... document was a great puzzle to our friends, who, on reflecting that its bewildering categories had relation to breakfast alone, had an uneasy prevision of an encyclopedic dinner list. They found a great deal of entertainment at the hotel, an enormous wooden structure, ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... after divine service, a car waits them at the nearest street corner, and they slip into it, don trilby hats and civilian overcoats, and sweep outside the restricted area at a haste that causes the slow-witted country policeman to puzzle over the speed of the car and forget its number while groping for ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... had a little sound of bitterness. In spite of all his love, had the gentle puzzle-headed woman found her unearthly husband often very hard to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... understood him, and yet loved him well enough to be jealous of one whom she believed that he regarded as a sister. With amusement he thought: "She is not even that to me now. Hanged if I know what she is to me beyond a pretty, vexatious puzzle!" ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... bit, Robert Turold succeeded in fitting together the last pieces of the puzzle which had eluded him for so long. Simon Turrald, the brother, had fled to Cornwall, where he had married a Cornishwoman who had brought him two sons. The elder, Simon, had taken religious vows, and established a priory at St. Fair, a branch ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... was simply a puzzle to me. She was a mystery. She lived amid those infamous surroundings with a quiet, tranquil ease that was either terribly criminal or else the result of innocence. She sprang from the filth of that class like a beautiful ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of land and sea been less familiar, I should none the less have known that I stood on the planet whose ruddy hue is at once the admiration and puzzle of astronomers. Its explanation I now recognized in the tint of the atmosphere, a coloring comparable to the haze of Indian summer, except that its hue was a faint rose instead of purple. Like the Indian summer haze, it was impalpable, and without impeding the ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... Editor does very well in taking Notice of it; but when he only entertains us with the several ways of spelling the same Word, and gathers together the various Blunders and Mistakes of twenty or thirty different Transcribers, they only take up the Time of the learned Reader, and puzzle the Minds of the Ignorant. I have often fancied with my self how enraged an old Latin Author would be, should he see the several Absurdities in Sense and Grammar, which are imputed to him by some or other of these various ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... new order of philosophers is appearing; I shall venture to baptize them by a name not without danger. As far as I understand them, as far as they allow themselves to be understood—for it is their nature to WISH to remain something of a puzzle—these philosophers of the future might rightly, perhaps also wrongly, claim to be designated as "tempters." This name itself is after all only an attempt, or, if it be preferred, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... community—then that solicitor would solicit in vain. If he will insist on walking behind me through woodland ways, pointing out with his walking-stick likely avenues and attractive short-cuts, I shall turn on him with passion, saying: "Sir, I pay you to know one particular puzzle in Latin and Norman-French, which they call the law of England; and you do know the law of England. I have never had any earthly reason to suppose that you know England. If you did, you would leave a man alone when he was looking at it." As ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton |
