"Perplex" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... listening with suspended oar For the low rote of waves upon a shore Changeless as heaven, where never fog-cloud drifts Over its windless wood, nor mirage lifts The steadfast hills; where never birds of doubt Sing to mislead, and every dream dies out, And the dark riddles which perplex us here In the sharp solvent of its light are clear? Thou knowest how vain our quest; how, soon or late, The baffling tides and circles of debate Swept back our bark unto its starting-place, Where, looking forth ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... as to which ending I ought to have given my romance is what has ever since remained to perplex me, and it is what has prevented my ever writing it. Here is material of the best sort lying useless on my hands, which, if I could only make up my mind, might be wrought into a short story as affecting as any that wring our hearts in fiction; and I think I could get something ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... when the question of the Test and the question of the Comprehension became complicated together in a manner which might well perplex an enlightened and honest politician, both questions became complicated with a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... when her father spoke. When she returned, she had a demure, secretive expression on her face which made Harry stare at her in bewilderment. All his life Harry Edgham had been helpless and bewildered before womenkind, and now his little daughter was beginning to perplex him. She sat down and took up a piece of fancy-work, and her father continued to glance at her furtively over his paper. Presently he spoke ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... thee, and paint me thus, as I am, to know me; weak, as I am, and in the weeds of this time; only with eyes which seek out labour, and with a faith, not learned, yet jealous of prayer. Do this; so shall thy soul stand before thee always, and perplex ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... and place yourself opposite to him, on a seat a little more elevated, in such a manner that his knees may be betwixt yours, and your feet at the side of his. First, request him to resign himself; to think of nothing; not to perplex himself by examining the effects which may be produced; to banish all fear; to surrender himself to hope, and not to be disturbed or discouraged if the action of magnetism should cause in him momentary pains. After having collected yourself, take his thumbs between your ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... myself, and in spite of all that with most perverted pains he has made himself (so different from what he once was), can charm and interest, pain and perplex me:—not so D**, another disciple of the same school: he inspires me with the strongest antipathy I ever felt for a human being. Insignificant and disagreeable is his appearance, he looks as if all the bile under heaven ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... led, In days perplex'd 'tween new and old, Each at his will the realm to mould; This, basing sovereignty on the single head, This, on the many voices of the Hall:— Each for his own creed Prompt to die at need: His side of England's shield each saw, and took ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... knowledge. It requires a great deal of reading, or a wide range of information, to warrant us in putting forth our opinions on any serious subject; and without such learning the most original mind may be able indeed to dazzle, to amuse, to refute, to perplex, but not to come to any useful result or any trustworthy conclusion. There are indeed persons who profess a different view of the matter, and even act upon it. Every now and then you will find a person of vigorous or fertile mind, who relies upon his own resources, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... awa' frae me, kind sir, I pray don't me perplex, For I'll na lie in your bed till ye answer questions six: Questions six ye maun answer me, and that is four and twa, Before I lie in your bed, at either stock ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... impervious ear, Though dancing mountains witness'd Orpheus near; Nor lute nor lyre his feeble pow'rs attend, Nor sweeter musick of a virtuous friend; But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue, Perversely grave, or positively wrong. The still returning tale, and ling'ring jest, Perplex the fawning niece and pamper'd guest, While growing hopes scarce awe the gath'ring sneer, And scarce a legacy can bribe to hear; The watchful guests still hint the last offence; The daughter's petulance, the son's expense, Improve his heady rage with treach'rous skill, And mould his passions ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... of a lottery, and that you are taking great interest in the drawing, you will engage in some worthless enterprise, which will cause you to make an unpropitious journey. If you hold the lucky number, you will gain in a speculation which will perplex and ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... you perplex me; for if the noise I heard here, Awaking me from sleep so, were but as you avow, The rain-fall, and the wind, and the tree-bough, and the river, Why is it ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... as I wanted to hear, for a man's wife can hold him devilish uneasy if she begins to scold and fret, and perplex him, at a time when he has a full load for a railroad car on his mind already. And so, you see, I determined not to break full-handed, but thought it better to keep a good conscience with an empty purse, than to get a bad opinion of myself with ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... from a cigarette which he had just lit, "but one never knows. We have friends, and our position, although, I must admit, a little ridiculous, is easily remedied. But how that mischief-making Mr. Hamel could have found his way into the boat-house does, I must confess, perplex me." ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that Frank Jones told the story of that day's hunting. To his father's ears it sounded as being very ominous. He did not care much for hunting himself, nor would it much perplex him if the Landleaguers would confine themselves to this mode of operations. But as he heard of the crowds surrounding the coverts through the county, he thought also of his many acres still under water, by the operation of a man who had taken upon ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... conduct pursued towards Maynooth college, every thing is done to irritate and perplex—every thing is done to efface the slightest impression of gratitude from the Catholic mind; the very hay made upon the lawn, the fat and tallow of the beef and mutton allowed, must be paid for and accounted upon oath. It is true, this economy in miniature cannot sufficiently be commended, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... often impressed with the presence of the same problems of government there that perplex our own people in the Philippines, and although England has sent her ablest men and applied her most mature wisdom to their solution, they are just as troublesome and unsettled as they ever were, and we will doubtless have a similar experience among our ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... with impatience the return of his betrothed. He chided himself that he had allowed her father to persuade him against following her to the cabin of her mother. Then doubt began to perplex him; then suspicion. A bird croaked significantly as it flew above his head. He could not longer endure inaction. Kaala's footprints were still traceable in the sand. He would go as far as they might lead. He set off at a round pace, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... however, agree about the things themselves, and the forms used to express them; though they differ about the names, by which these forms should be called: and as those names are practically best, which tend least to perplex the learner, I see no good reason here for deviating from what has been established by long ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice, then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum. Set you down this; And say besides, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... Mather—show the hospitality to anecdotes of an edifying sort, which we admire in Mr. Sinclair. Indeed, Sinclair borrows from Glanvil and Henry More, authors who, like himself, wished to establish the existence of the supernatural on the strange incidents which still perplex us, but which are scarcely regarded as safe matter to argue upon. The testimony for a Ghost would seldom go to a jury in our days, though amply sufficient in the time of Mr. Sinclair. About "The Devil of Glenluce" he took particular care to be well informed, and first gave it to the world ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... to confess what an absurdly selfish thought occurred to me a while ago. I was lamenting to myself all the troubles that surround us, the dangers and difficulties that perplex us, thinking of the probable fate that might befall some of our brave friends and defenders in Port Hudson, when I thought, too, of the fun we would miss. Horrid, was it not? But worse than that, I was longing for something to read, when I remembered ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... before. The caliph soon afterwards made his appearance at the divan, and immediately recognised Yussuf in his partial disguise. He observed to Giaffar, "Do you see there our friend Yussuf? I have him at last, and now I will perplex him not a little before he escapes me." The chief of the beeldars being called, stepped forward and made his obeisance. "What is the number of your corps?" inquired ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... them. We have a very complete and extensive organisation of churches in the land, and an army of officials ordained to teach doctrines and tenets: let them take up the inculcation of creeds and rites, but don't let us perplex the school children with catechisms and metaphysical definitions. It is easy to make a distinction between morality and doctrine—a distinction which is alike clear and reasonable. Morality is an earthly and secular affair, and has to do with matters of elementary honesty ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... doubting their existence her reason acquiesced, her heart turned away, oppressed and disquieted, as from other mysterious actualities common enough to human observation, such as illness, disease, deformity, old age, the pains of birth and of death. Such matters might perplex and sadden, or arouse her indignant pity; but, being strong with the confidence of untouched youth and innocence, they were powerless, in and by themselves, to terrify her to the contemptible extremity of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... hollow; though his tongue Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels; for his thoughts were low; To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds Timorous and slothful: yet he pleased the ear, And with persuasive accent thus began. Paradise ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... least suspect Wolfe's real designs. He discussed, in fact, the very plan Wolfe adopted, but dismissed it by saying, "We need not suppose that the enemy have wings." The British ships were kept moving up and down the river front for several days, so as to distract and perplex the enemy. On September 12 Wolfe's plans were complete, and he issued his final orders. One sentence in them curiously anticipates Nelson's famous signal at Trafalgar. "Officers and men," wrote Wolfe, "will remember what their country expects of them." A feint on ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... sagacity might have been in despair. Yet never were the magnificent hopefulness, the wise audacity of Henry more signally manifested than now when he seemed most blundering and most forlorn. His hardy nature ever met disaster with so cheerful a smile as almost to perplex disaster herself. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the cross, and observe whether he repeats it, (as on Whitsunday [15] he surely ought to do.) Look! he does repeat it; but these driving April showers perplex the images, and that, perhaps, it is which gives him the air of one who acts reluctantly or evasively. Now, again, the sun shines more brightly, and the showers have all swept off like squadrons of cavalry to the rear. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... consider, that, tho' he had been unjustly dealt with, and was highly provok'd, yet his Religion taught and commanded him not to resent Injuries, but to forgive his Enemies, and to Love them that hated him; it is reasonable to think, that this Clashing between Nature and Principle would perplex him, and himself stand in Need of good Advice, what to do in this Dilemma. If in this Case, the Clergyman, who first preached to him the Purity of the Christian Religion, and the Severity of its Morals, and whom he often went to hear, should persist in the same Sentiments; and, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... else strangling fate— Which Free-will, fearful of foretold abuse, I have myself from my own son fore-closed From ever possible self-extrication; A terrible responsibility, Not to the conscience to be reconciled Unless opposing almost certain evil Against so slight contingency of good. Well—thus perplex'd, I have resolved at last To bring the thing to trial: whereunto Here have I summon'd you, my Peers, and you Whom I more dearly look to, failing him, As witnesses to that which I propose; And thus propose the doing it. Clotaldo, Who ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... particular and practical problems of curing babies or cutting up rabbits. This power of the modern metaphor must be understood, by way of an introduction, if we are to understand one of the chief errors, at once evasive and pervasive, which perplex ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... liberty to modify these creeds at his pleasure. He might, of course, become an Anabaptist or Arian, but he was not the less a heretic in doing so than if he had continued in the Church of Rome. By what light a Protestant was to steer, might be a problem which at that time, as ever since, it would perplex a theologian to decide: but in practice, the law of the land which established one exclusive mode of faith, was the only safe, as, in ordinary circumstances, it was, upon the whole, the most eligible guide.' Speaking, in another place, of the causes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... be necessary, why do you perplex yourself, and not rather choose, if you have any choice among them, and fit them into ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... practical, and gives in simple language the why and wherefore of the many colour phenomena which perplex the dyer and ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... time to relieve the feelings and attention in the most agreeable manner. The novelty of the Highland world which is discovered to our view powerfully excites curiosity and interest: but though it is all new to us it does not embarrass or perplex, or strain the attention. We never are harassed by doubts of the probability of any of these modes of life: though we did not know them, we are quite certain they did exist exactly as they are represented. We are sensible that ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... whose previous books I remember to have greatly enjoyed, has produced for her third a story of much originality and power, called Out of the House (CONSTABLE). The title may perplex you at first. It comes from the struggles of the heroine to wrench herself free from encompassing family ties and the tradition of intermarriage, in order to join her life to the outside lover who calls to her. You might ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... his excellent work, a distinguished passage in support of the Christian Revelation. After shewing, in decent but strong terms, the unfairness of the INDIRECT attempts of modern infidels to unsettle and perplex religious principles, and particularly the irony, banter, and sneer, of one whom he politely calls 'an eloquent historian', the archdeacon ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... person in the world to whom that accident had happened, the prince thought there would be nothing so easy as to learn who his destined bride was. He had been too well educated to put the question to his godmother, for he knew when she uttered an oracle, that it was with intention to perplex, not to inform; which has made people so fond of consulting all those who do not give an explicit answer, such as prophets, lawyers, and any body you meet on the road, who, if you ask the way, reply by desiring to know whence you came. Mi Li was no sooner returned ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... interposed between our own age and that which is commemorated by the monuments of Greece and Rome. The venerable genius of antiquity, seated among crumbling arches and broken columns, has but little to say to us respecting those questions which most deeply agitate and unceasingly perplex the busy and the thinking part of mankind at the present day. No response are we to expect from that quarter, concerning our bank-laws and our corn-laws; our systems of credit and of commerce; our endless disquisitions on the balance of power and of parties, on the rights of suffrage ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... thus seen that Religion is a Help as to the fact of sin, when men are convinced of it as a great reality; and a help as to the fact of human suffering, because it is a working-power. But, over and above all this, there are problems that perplex us, and demand some answer; problems as to the How, and the Wherefore, and the End. There are times when our thoughts rise above all specific instances, and we take up humanity and existence as a whole, and ask—"What ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... many of whom were reckless men; the army then was not up to the standard of today. Besides, there came in the wake of the soldiers a trail of gamblers and other disreputable people to vex and perplex us. In the blockhouses could be seen bullet marks which we knew did ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... was 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 perplex the bull. ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... unlearned and untrained by sheer goodness of life attain to wonderful perception of spiritual truth, and the holiness of the unlettered peasant reveals to his conscience the law of right conduct in circumstances which perplex the disciplined and well informed. As the human race has learnt the highest spiritual truth by direct communication from God, so too on communion with God far more than on intellectual power, depends the progress of spiritual knowledge in ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... be said out of him, and out of Aristotle, which Dubravius often quotes in his Discourse, but it might rather perplex then satisfie you, and therefore I shall rather chuse to direct you how to catch, then spend more time in discoursing either of the nature or the breeding of this Carp, or of any more circumstances concerning him, but yet I shall remember you of what ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... your eyes from the ends of the earth and fix them on this truth just under your nose; and Andrew Undershaft's views will not perplex you in the least. Unless indeed his constant sense that he is only the instrument of a Will or Life Force which uses him for purposes wider than his own, may puzzle you. If so, that is because you are walking either in artificial Darwinian darkness, or to mere stupidity. All genuinely ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... I could find Him!" she exclaimed, passionately. "On the right hand and on the left I grope, but touch Him not. Why dost Thou fight against me?—why dost Thou scare and perplex me, O First and Only Fair? I have Thee not, and I need Thee." She added, "I am no Christian, you see, or I should have found Him; or at least I should say I had ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... secret bridal chambers of the heart. Let in the day". Here, then, my words have end. Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells— Of that which came between, more sweet than each, In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves That tremble round a nightingale—in sighs Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance, Stole from her [10] sister Sorrow. Might I not tell Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, And vows, where there was never need of vows, And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above The heavens between ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... excursion from Hastings is of course to Battle, whither a company of discreetly satisfied Normans—Le Souvenir Normande—recently travelled, to view with tactfully chastened enthusiasm the scene of the triumph of 1066; to erect a memorial; and to perplex the old ladies of Battle who provide tea. Except on one day of the week visitors to Battle must content themselves with tea (of which there is no stint) and a view of the gateway, for the rule of showing the Abbey only on Tuesdays ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... of anomalies: the Irish peasants will puzzle you, perplex you, disappoint you with their inconsistencies, but keep from liking them if you can! There are a few cleaner and more comfortable homes in Lisdara and Knockcool than when we came, and Benella has been invaluable, although her reforms, ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... sick at heart and sorely vexed, Ere I see my University disestablished and unsexed.'" Thus she spake, and I endeavoured to console the weeping Muse: "Dry your tears, beloved Clio, drive away this fit of blues. Cease your soul with gloomy fancies and forebodings to perplex; You are doing gross injustice to the merits of your sex. Know you not that things are changing, that the Earth regains her youth, Since Philosophers have brought to light the one primeval truth? Long have all things been misgoverned by the foolish race of men, Who've monopolized sword, ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... multiply money by money. The multiplier must be regarded as an abstract number. It is true that two feet multiplied by two feet will make four square feet. Similarly, two pence multiplied by two pence will produce four square pence! And it will perplex the reader to say what a "square penny" is. But we will assume for the purposes of our puzzle that twopence multiplied by twopence is fourpence. Now, what two amounts of money will produce the next smallest possible result, the same in both cases, when ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... Henry,' she said, as, seated on the sofa hand in hand, they dilated on their present happiness and future plans—'dear Henry, there is one thing that has rather perplexed me, and does perplex me still, a little—do you know, I have been told ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... trap, And looks, she sits in simple smiles, Her two hands lying in her lap. Her secret (privilege of the Bard, Whose fancy is of either sex), Is mine; but let the darkness guard Myst'ries that light would more perplex! ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... she could not say whether the mother and daughter had ever returned, or had ever been heard of afterwards. No further search, on Miss Halcombe's part, through the few letters of Mrs. Fairlie's writing which she had left unread, assisted in clearing up the uncertainties still left to perplex us. We had identified the unhappy woman whom I had met in the night-time with Anne Catherick—we had made some advance, at least, towards connecting the probably defective condition of the poor creature's intellect with the peculiarity of ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... poor old father's in despair, For China's throne is now without an heir; He longs for her to wed some prince or other, And not perplex him with continual bother. He's of an age to live in peace and quiet, And not be plagued with wars and civil riot; He's tried all means his daughter's mind to soften, Has often sternly threatened—coaxed as often; Used prayers for such a monarch ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... perplex the ravell'd noose, As each a different way pursues, While sullen or loquacious strife, Promis'd to hold them on for life, That dire disease, whose ruthless power 75 Withers the beauty's transient flower: Lo! the small-pox, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... that something in Bridget's manner, very soon after the Carton visit, had begun to perplex and worry the younger sister. Why was Bridget always insisting on the lessons?—always ready to scold Nelly if one was missed—and always practising airs and graces with Sir William that she wasted on no one else? Why was she so frequently ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said Bertha, looking hastily away, and again blushing—as a matter of course! "I am no reader of riddles; and I hate riddles—they perplex me so. Besides, I never could find them out. But, Hake, has ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... pedestal—a very goddess; but, believe me, you must soon descend to take your place among mortals, and well for you if you can do it gracefully. Believe me, dearest, I have no wish to sadden your spirit—only to prepare it for the trials which must come to perplex it. ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... understanding of the complex nature of Causes and Effects helps us to overcome some other difficulties that perplex the use of these words. We have seen that the true cause is an immediate antecedent; but if the cause is confounded with one of its constituent conditions, it may seem to have long preceded the event which is regarded as its effect. Thus, if one man's death is ascribed to another's desire ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... efforts to relieve it have proved as effective as tickling with a feather to cure disease. Or again, high prices and low wages, high wages creating high prices, resented conditions leading to strikes, strikes bringing confusion to both wages and prices alike—these things perplex the most clear-sighted among us, compelling us to wonder as to what new troubles we are heaping up. Or again, taxes crippling incomes and gnawing at the heart of industry vex us each year with a sense of the futility of all ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... being much accustomed to perplex his mind with theories of this nature, expressed no opinion on the subject. Nor did he receive his companion's announcement with one solitary syllable, good, bad, or indifferent. He preserved this taciturnity for ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... nothing, probably, that Charmian would have liked better, but there was nothing that Cornelia would have liked less. She wanted to cry; it always seems hard and very unjust to us, in after life, when some error or folly of our youth rises up to perplex us; and Cornelia was all the more rebellious because the fault was not wholly hers, or not even largely, but mostly her ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... G., who has left us repining, While he is, no doubt, still engaged in refining; And explaining distinctions to Peter and Paul, Who faintly protest that distinctions so small Were never submitted to saints to perplex them, Until the Prime Minister came up ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... solid power in her. Rose had strong the sense of decent conduct, she had strong the sense of decent comfort. Rose always knew very well what it was she wanted, and she knew very well what was the right way to do to get everything she wanted, and she never had any kind of trouble to perplex her. And so the subtle intelligent attractive half white girl Melanctha Herbert loved and did for, and demeaned herself in service to this coarse, decent, sullen, ordinary, black, childish Rose and now this unmoral promiscuous shiftless Rose was to be married to ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... of affection, like an old house which one has once inhabited, not disliking the antient arrangement of its interior, and perhaps unreasonably prejudiced against many of its modern innovations. The innovation that has long given me uneasiness, and which now seems most seriously to perplex the Irish Government, was the fatal institution of an Irish Cabinet, which has worked itself into being, considered almost as a component part of that deputed authority. A Government composed of Lords Justices, natives of that country, as a permanent establishment, absurd as such an expedient might ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Though I may not take up thy gauntlet, Should we meet where the steel strikes fire, 'Twixt thy casque and thy charger's frontlet The choice will perplex thy squire. ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... other animal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is either an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and see what its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... smiles of her sweet childhood's innocence, Stole o'er her happy face. The wilderness Rejoiced, and blossom'd as the rose. The curse, Which for six thousand years had sear'd the heart Of nature, was repeal'd. And where the thorn Perplex'd the glens, and prickly briers the hills, Now, for the Word so spake and it was done, The fir-tree rear'd its stately obelisk, The cedar waved its arms of peaceful shade, The vine embraced the elm, and ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... And you tell him any old thing and he goes and writes it down in his room upstairs, and afterwards asks you another like it in order to perplex himself by the variety of your answers. He regards the whole world with a methodical distrust. He wants to document it and pin it down. He suspects it only too justly of disorderly impulses, and a capacity for self-contradiction. He is the most extraordinary contrast to ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... question had come to perplex him in earnest, and it was almost with relief that he heard a familiar rattle on his window-pane as he undressed, and, looking out, saw Will standing in the long ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... evil imaginations indulged, to the taint and burden of some secret sin, or to some disease and exaggeration of the conscience, growing out of bodily infirmity, rather than to any purpose on the part of our Heavenly Father to perplex and mislead His children. The sun does not shine the less because one side of our planet is in darkness. To borrow the words of Augustine "Thou, Lord, forsakest nothing thou hast made. Thou alone art near to those even who remove ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... dim just in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the eye in the latter case, but, in the former, there is the more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmanent by a scrutiny too sustained, too ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... bottom centres it is capable of exerting little or no power; but at those times there is little or no steam consumed, so that no waste of power is occasioned by the peculiarity. Those who imagine that there is a loss of power caused by the crank perplex themselves by confounding the vertical with the circumferential velocity. If the circle of the crank be divided by any number of equidistant horizontal lines, it will be obvious that there must be the ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... and specially to seek for the first cause of all things. Here we touch what is certainly to be recognised as an invariable feature of religion; it always professes to explain the world, and to bring unity to man's mind by clearing up the problems which perplex him, and affording him a commanding point of view, from which he may see all the parts of the world and of life fall into their places. This, however, does not tell us what religion itself is. This curiosity, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... better where she is," answered Foster—"one of you is enough to perplex a plain head. But ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the scented glades of the tropics were mine to wander through. Yes, a dreamer's Paradise, for I was only sixteen then, and untroubled by any thoughts of Love; yet sometimes Its shadow would enter and vaguely perplex me, a strange shape, waiting always beyond, in the midst of my glowing gardens, and I sighed with a prescient pain. How have I known Love since those days? As yet it has brought me but two things—Sorrow and Expectation. In ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... said he had better kill us both, and then there would be no one to tell that the natives had killed the rest of our crew. I told him that the people on board the schooner knew there were two alive, and if they killed us, the crew of the vessel would kill all the natives. This appeared to perplex his mind, and he shortly left ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... Caxton, more quietly, "so, if later wars yet perplex us as to the good that the All-wise One draws from their evils, our posterity may read their uses as clearly as we now read the finger of Providence resting on the barrows of Marathon, or guiding Peter the Hermit to the battlefields of Palestine. Nor, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... project as a favor, and to make concessions for it; thereby acting as if the Company were principals in the hostility; and employing for this purpose much double dealing and divers unworthy artifices to entangle and perplex the said Nabob, but by means of which he found himself (as he has entered it on record) hampered and embarrassed in a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... repeated Sah-luma slowly: . . "But—I have IMAGINED suffering! That is enough for me! The passions, the tortures, the despairs of imagination are greater far than the seeming REAL, petty afflictions with which human beings daily perplex themselves; indeed, I have often wondered.. "here his eyes grew more earnest and reflective ..." whether this busy working of the brain called 'Imagination' may not perhaps be a special phase or supreme effort of MEMORY, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... let the whole go by. They adhered severely to the do-nothing policy. What a world of mischief would have been avoided, if all courts, everywhere, at all times, had shown an equal wisdom! Watts was allowed to vex the village, torment the minister, and perplex those who listened to him by the ingenuity and ability with which he urged his views. He continued his brawling declamations until he was tired; but, not being noticed by ministers or magistrates, no great harm was done, and he probably ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the universal agent is love, by whose power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady, and a rival into the fable; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with oppositions of interest, and harass them with violence of desires inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in rapture, and part in agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and outrageous sorrow; to distress them as nothing human ever was distressed; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... the two sacraments of Christ as of perpetual obligation, and makes faith in Jesus Christ, as contained in the Catholic Creeds, a condition of Christian fellowship. The Anglo-Saxon Church does not perplex men with theories and shibboleths which many a poor Ephraimite cannot speak—she believes in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, three Persons and one God, but she does not weaken ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... one in whom Nature has fix'd a Decree, Ordaining my Life to happy and free; With no Cares of the World I am never perplex'd, And never depending, I never am vex'd: I'm neither of so high nor so low a degree, But Ambition and Want are both strangers to me; My life is a compound of Freedom and Ease, I go where I will, and I work when I ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... with this inordinately long letter just when I have arrived at the most interesting part of it. I can't account for my own state of mind; I only know that it is so. The difficulty of describing the young lady doesn't perplex me like the difficulty of describing Mrs. Farnaby. I can see her now, as vividly as if she was present in the room. I even remember (and this is astonishing in a man) the dress that she wore. And yet I shrink from writing about her, as if there was something ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... showed me how, by three-fold scoff, When cares of life perplex us, To smoke, or sleep, or fiddle them off, And scorn ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Besides, think somewhat less of men's opinions, When you are following the will of Heaven. Shall petty fear of what the world may think Prevent the doing of a noble deed? No!—let us always do as Heaven commands, And not perplex ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... air Went darting gaily here and there; Now crossed a mirror's face, and next Shot up amidst the sprawl'd, perplex'd Olympus overhead. At last, Jerk'd sidelong by a random cast, The striker miss'd it, and it fell Full on the book ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... Catharine,' I cried. 'We're dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us....' ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... were gathered by Hawthorne, who lived there for three years—and a few steps bring you to the river and to a small monument upon its brink. It is a narrow, grassy way; not a field nor a meadow, but of that shape and character which would perplex the animated stranger from the city, who would see, also, its unfitness for a building-lot. The narrow, grassy way is the old road, which in the month of April, 1775, led to a bridge that crossed the stream at this ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... unless, in the very first stage, they removed this source of error; unless they taught their pupil to put away the glasses which distort the object, and to use those which are adapted to his purpose in such a manner as to assist, not perplex, his vision; he would not be in a condition to practice the remaining part of their discipline with any prospect of advantage. Therefore it is that an inquiry into language, so far as is needful to guard against the errors to which it gives rise, has at all times been ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... you scarcely admired at any thing more in all your life, than that any worthy men especially, should be so difficultly persuaded to embrace this account of justifying faith, and should perplex and make intricate so very ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... called, or about his majesty, the Sultan Solyman—two personages who were very frequently confounded with each other in mine host's political hemisphere, and whose realms formed the great pandemonium whence issued all that was dire and disastrous to plague and perplex unhappy England. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... any present here, Whom I can have a cause to fear?— Whom it were wrongful to perplex, Or faulty policy to vex? In what affrights the quiet mind My bitter thoughts employment find! In what torments a common grief Do I alone expect relief! Our aching sorrows to disclose, Our discontents, our wrongs repeat, To hurl defiance at our foes, And let the soul respire, is sweet! ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... distinct from those hitherto mentioned, is the Bogle, or Goblin; a freakish spirit, who delights rather to perplex and frighten mankind; than either to serve, or seriously to hurt, them. This is the Esprit Follet of the French; and Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, though enlisted by Shakespeare among the fairy band of Oberon, properly belongs to this class of phantoms. Shellycoat, a ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... agreeable task thus to compromise the awful realities of religion, and thus to perplex the distinctions which a religious mind wishes to observe between truth and illusion; yet it seems inevitable to narrate that which comes before us, as an integral and important portion of the history we have to do with. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... these things were matter of great Grief to him, and when he had perplex'd himself very much with the thoughts of them, and was now near seven Years Old, he despair'd utterly of having those things grow upon him, the want of which made him so uneasy. He therefore resolv'd to help himself, and thereupon ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... explanation of Metaphor has been found to dissipate much of this confusion. The youngest pupils readily learn how to "expand a Metaphor into its Simile;" and it is really astonishing to see how many difficulties that perplex young heads, and sometimes old ones too, vanish at once when the key of "expansion" is applied. More important still, perhaps, is the exactness of thought introduced by this method. The pupil knows that, if he cannot expand ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... trials of our complex being, As we grow up, such thraldom of that sense 150 Seems hard to shun. And yet I knew a maid, [B] A young enthusiast, who escaped these bonds; Her eye was not the mistress of her heart; Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste, Or barren intermeddling subtleties, 155 Perplex her mind; but, wise as women are When genial circumstance hath favoured them, She welcomed what was given, and craved no more; Whate'er the scene presented to her view, That was the best, to that she was attuned 160 By her benign simplicity of life, And through a perfect happiness ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... not much, at the office; because of the horrible crowd and lamentable moan of the poor seamen that lie starving in the streets for lack of money. Which do trouble and perplex me to the heart; and more at noon when we were to go through them, for then above a whole hundred of them followed us; some cursing, some swearing, and some praying to us. At night come two waggons from Rochester with more goods from Captain Cocke; ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... vain I rage, in vain I rouse my powers; But I shall wake again, I shall, to better hours. Even in slumber will I vex him; Still perplex him, Still incumber: Know, you that have adored him, And sovereign power afford him, We'll reap the gains Of all your pains, And seem to have restored ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... information in reference to both books may be found in Dr. S. Davidson's Introd. to the Old Testament (1862), vol. ii. p. 174 seq., 352 seq. It is deeply interesting to observe, not merely that the difficulties concerning Providence felt by Job refer to the very subjects which painfully perplex the modern mind, but also that the friends of Job exhibit the instinctive tendency which is observed in modern times to denounce his doubt as sin, not less than to attribute his trials to evil as the direct cause. These two books ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... my spirits fell, And I drew near the dead, While inward pangs, and fears of hell Perplex'd ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... on these absurd entanglements, and the best way of dealing with them, when lo! to perplex me still more, in ran a bevy of the royal pages to ask for mtende beads—a whole sack of them; for the king wished to go with his women on a pilgrimage to the N'yanza. Thinking myself very lucky to buy the king's ear so cheaply, I sent Maula as before, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... baby-days flow'd in a much-troubled channel; I see you as then in your impotent strife,— A tight little bundle of wailing and flannel, Perplex'd with ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... as detached and disinterested as if she had no longer any lot in life, and she thought that she could now accept anything that came to her without being perplexed by the form in which it appeared. What was there to frighten or to perplex in the prospect of life? Why should this insight ever again desert her? The world was in truth so large, so hospitable, and after all it was so simple. "Love," St. John had said, "that seems to explain it all." Yes, but it was not the love of man for woman, of Terence for Rachel. Although they ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... vivid stamp. The storm sketches towards the close of the second volume are even infinitely better than any of John Kemble's shilling waves or Mr. Farley's last scenes. In other portions of the work, bits of antiquarianism are so stuck on the pages as to perplex, rather than aid the descriptions, by their technicality. Here and there too the tinsel is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... the experience of the normal boy? In this period of early adolescence he finds within himself a wonderful quickening of mind,—impulses, feelings, longings that he does not understand. These impulses, feelings, longings, perplex him, it may be for years. They reach out vaguely, blindly toward the opposite sex, sometimes in a perverted way, but oftener naturally and honestly. Then the young man falls in love. At once his more or less vague, cloudy, incoherent, ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... they were innumerable, were never spared me, nor did she stint herself of a smile that could allure, nor of a glance that could arouse or perplex. ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... two beings have come into life, not in such an Eden as bloomed to welcome our first parents, but in the heart of a modern city. They find themselves in existence, and gazing into one another's eyes. Their emotion is not astonishment; nor do they perplex themselves with efforts to discover what, and whence, and why they are. Each is satisfied to be, because the other exists likewise; and their first consciousness is of calm and mutual enjoyment, which seems not to have been the birth of that very moment, but prolonged ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... false and faithless Fair, Gods above forbid my Fate, First me Joys you do prepare, Then you Sorrows do create; For 'tis the Nature of your Sex, First to pleasure, then perplex, Happy's he without your Smiles. Ever-blest he lives content; In exorbitant Exiles, Never can his Fate repent; All his Wishes and Desires, To ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... to understand it; for, how am I to pay you? after all, this was the question of the poor, and the Boy. Give you change, your whole weight of the change honor. would fall upon them. Let the rich by all means have Member. Ah! but how? Where's permission to perplex your ready-reckoner? themselves by any division of a pound they pleased; but do Boy. I sells a better sort not let them, by any nor them. Mine's real Cheyny. experiment like this, impose difficulties upon the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... what he was seeking for; and, by the time that long vacation came round again, to which we are compelled to hurry him, he was filled full of a set of contradictory notions and beliefs, which were destined to astonish and perplex the mind of that worthy J. P. for the county of Berks, Brown the elder, whatever other effect they might ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... at first, than the real trees, because the black profile in the drawing is quite stable, and does not shake, and is not confused by sparkles of luster on the leaves,) you may try the extremities of the real trees, only not doing much at a time, for the brightness of the sky will dazzle and perplex your sight. And this brightness causes, I believe, some loss of the outline itself; at least the chemical action of the light in a photograph extends much within the edges of the leaves, and, as it were, eats them away, so that no tree extremity, ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin |
