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More "Puzzle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than my former mode of life—that of a locum tenens, or minder of other men's practices—which had, when I was following it, seemed intolerably irksome, now appeared to possess many desirable features; and I found myself occasionally hankering to sit once more by the bedside, to puzzle out the perplexing train of symptoms, and to wield that power—the greatest, after all, possessed by man—the power to banish suffering and ward off the approach ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... quickly," he said. His voice had become brusque, the politeness had gone from his address. He carried the card and the fragments of paper to the round table. There he sat down and, with infinite patience, gummed the fragments on to the card, fitting them together like the pieces of a Chinese puzzle. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... was not entirely theoretical, proposed a visit to Rose's apartment, or, as he termed it, her troisieme etage. Waverley was accordingly conducted through one or two of those long awkward passages with which ancient architects studied to puzzle the inhabitants of the houses which they planned, at the end of which Mr. Bradwardine began to ascend, by two steps at once, a very steep, narrow, and winding stair, leaving Mr. Rubrick and Waverley to follow at more leisure, while he should ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... extremely small, but the walls, as well as those of a little garden that surrounded it, were constructed with an ambitious degree of solidity, being composed of layers of large stones and turf; and some of the corner stones were so weighty, as to puzzle the spectators how such a person as the architect could possibly have raised them. In fact, David received from passengers, or those who came attracted by curiosity, a good deal of assistance; and as no one knew how much aid had been given by others, the wonder of each ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... it?" smiled the man opposite. "Well, I'll own those initials have been something of a puzzle to people. One man declares they're 'Merely Jokes'; but another, not so friendly, says they stand for 'Mostly Jealousy' of more fortunate chaps who have real names for a handle. My small brothers and sisters, discovering, with the usual perspicacity of one's family on such matters, ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... Gerrit. She realized, of course, that he must have had the past of any healthy honorable man of his age, and that it would have included at least one woman. However, when even the present was an almost complete puzzle his past had been so lost to her that she had ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of chivalry?' she retorted; and no one seemed to have an answer ready, but the crowd fell silent, like people determined to puzzle ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... about the room for a few minutes. Apparently he was glancing at the numerous college pennants and other things that were upon the walls; but in reality he found himself wrestling with the strange puzzle that was giving his chum ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... Browning, the worst of all the boys Who had a sure-nuff cannon that made all kinds of noise; And when the cannon wouldn't go he blew into the muzzle, But what became of Willie's teeth has always been a puzzle. ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... on the previous day, and the Major read among the presentations that of Lady Clavering by Lady Rockminster, and of Miss Amory by her mother Lady Clavering,—and in a further part of the paper their dresses were described, with a precision and in a jargon which will puzzle and amuse the antiquary of future generations. The sight of these names carried Pendennis back to the country. "How long have the Claverings been in London?" he asked; "pray, Morgan, have you seen ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would soon be almost automatic. In some plants most of the work is on one uniform grade or blend. But coffees which vary greatly in moisture-content, in flinty or spongy nature, and in various other characteristics, will puzzle the operator until he establishes a personal acquaintance with them in various combinations in repeated roasting operations. The roasterman therefore must be able to observe closely, to draw sensible conclusions, and to remember what he learns. Roasting coffee ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the destruction of the ancient cloister a covered way of some kind was erected here. Marks can also be seen, in the masonry, which indicate that the building once had three gables. Two of the Norman buttresses of the south nave aisle have very curious terminations, which might well puzzle any observer. They are fireplaces for the use of plumbers. Passing through the Norman doorway at the north-western corner of the Laurel Court, we come into a narrow passage ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... after that rough tumble he felt bruised from crown to heel, and his head was aching dully. For a few moments his mind was in a puzzle as returning consciousness began slowly to array before him the last things he remembered. Then he came to himself with a start, and looked round eagerly to see where he was and what had ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... knew just what "striding" meant. What fun it was to feel what a word meant! Then when you used it, you could feel it lie down flat in the sentence, and fit into the other words, like a piece in a jig-saw puzzle when you got it into the right place. Gracious! How fast you could "stride" down those rocks into Aunt ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... not trustworthy witnesses, Goethe and Coleridge—and nothing more in three centuries. The mere fact may well give us pause, pointing as it does to a truth which is still insufficiently understood. It is the puzzle of criticism, at once the despair and wonder of readers, that the greatest men of letters usually pass through life without being remarked or understood by their contemporaries. The men of Elizabeth's time were more interested in Jonson than ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... "Strange!—Ay, I puzzle you, as I have done, and shall do, many. You cannot read me as easily as I can read you. Come, shall I guess at your character and circumstances? You are a gentleman, or something like it, by birth;—that the tone of your voice tells me. You are poor, devilish ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... rendering of a subject was incomprehensible to me, and in fact in that kind of work there is little difference, for it is but copying, and requires only a correct eye and infinite patience, both of which I had; and it was a puzzle to me rather than a compliment when the veteran Durand said to me of one of my studies, that it was a subject he would not have dared attack on account of the difficulty of the effect of light, for to me it was simply a question of time and sticking to it. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... to the difficulty the Foxites and Pittites had in passing over to join each other in attacking the Addington Ministry (forgetting at the moment how easily he had himself overcome a like difficulty in joining that Ministry), alluded to the puzzle of the Fox and the Goose, and did not clearly expound his idea. Whereupon, Mr. Dudley North said, "It's himself he means,—who left the Fox to go over to the Goose, and put the bag of ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... might be a private dwelling on a large scale, to be sure; yet, instead of chambers above, there was one very large apartment with two or three smaller rooms off, that were being fitted up as a kitchen and dressing-rooms. This building proved a puzzle to these work-people. They could not find any use for it, as they strolled by twos and fours through its unfinished expanse. Nate Tierney suggested that young Early was coming here to live, and that this great upper chamber was to be his ball-room, where he could have ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... because he must rest for a week or a month or a year. I know that there must be anxious times, especially when idleness means dependence, and when it brings hardship to those who need our help. But the invalid must not try constantly to puzzle the matter out. If we do not make ourselves sick with worry, we shall be able sometime to approach active life with sufficient frankness and force. It is the constant effort of the poor, tired mind to solve its ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... I can supply something new: I can furnish the key to the puzzle. There is always a certain mystery about these adventures: I can dispel it. I reprint articles that have been read over and over again; I copy out old interviews: but all these things I rearrange and ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... plunge with me head over heels in the brushwood; in scrambling out of that thicket, I certainly turned wrong, and have missed my road—how to regain it? 'sdeath! I could as soon compose an almanac as and a clue to this puzzle. Well, I was found in a wood when a baby, and have just lived to years of discretion to be lost in a wood again! Fortune! Fortune! thou spiteful gipsy! was this an honest trick to pass upon a faithful ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... "It do puzzle me, Mas'r Harry," said Tom, as we sat in the chains one bright, sunny day, when the storm was over, but a fine stiff breeze was helping the toiling engines to send the steamer along at ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... to George as he studied over the puzzle that Thede might not have been as innocent and loyal as he had pretended to be. He might have been merely an instrument in the hands of a ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... a high value. The defendant confessed he had killed the ass, but pleaded a set-off, insisting that the loss he had sustained by the ravage in his corn was equal to the sum demanded for the animal. To ascertain this fact was the point at issue, and the learned advocates contrived to puzzle the cause in such a manner, that, after a hearing of three days, the court broke up without coming to any determination upon it; and a second palaver was, I suppose, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... Monsieur. I see that you are in great puzzle. Let me solve the puzzle for you. I have always been a man of quick and violent temper, and sometimes this temper has been that of the fool. The wisest of us make mistakes. I have made a grievous one. In a moment of ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. In collecting their vocabularies I found one alleged to have been obtained from them, but differing completely from the Algonquian dialects. It had been partly printed by Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton,[12-3] but remained a puzzle. My article (21) proves that it belongs to the Mandingo language of western Africa. It was doubtless obtained from some ...
— A Record of Study in Aboriginal American Languages • Daniel G. Brinton
... But I must live. . . . Well, at least, there is some old college nonsense of mine, written three years ago, when I believed, like you, that all heaven and earth was put together out of separate bits, like a child's puzzle, and that each topic ought to have its private little pigeon-hole all to itself in a man's brain, like drugs in a chemist's shop. Perhaps it will suit you, friends; perhaps it will be system-frozen, and narrow, and dogmatic, and cowardly, and godless ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... of me! Another cup of tea, with a thin slice of lemon in it, and then, dear Mr. Fortescue, please explain my absurd little puzzle. One can't help believing gentlemen with Roman noses, even if one meets ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... smitten it with the son of Amram's rod, has made it open, and cloven a path through it, yet other and more fearful nebulae may loom in sight, (if further improvements should be effected in the telescope,) that may puzzle even Lord Rosse. And when he tells his famulus—'Fire a shot at that strange fellow, and make him show his colors,' possibly the mighty stranger may disdain the summons. That would be vexatious: we should all be incensed at that. But no matter. What's a nebula, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the present time, about 600,000 aliens are coming to America yearly. What is the result? I was invited to meet a distinguished German visiting in New York last month, and at the dinner a young lady who sat by my side said to me, "I wish I could puzzle him." "Why?" I asked, in amazement. "Oh," was her reply, "he looks so cram full of knowledge; I would like to take him down." "Ah," I said. "Ask him which is the third largest German city in the ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... Corny; she could not stand that. "Are you aware, Lady Isabel, that an order such as that would only puzzle the butcher? Shall I give the necessary orders for to-day? The fishmonger will be ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the knot of logic, yet for the ear he still leaves the tissue of the sentence floating somewhat loose. In prose, the sentence turns upon a pivot, nicely balanced, and fits into itself with an obtrusive neatness like a puzzle. The ear remarks and is singly gratified by this return and balance; while in verse it is all diverted to the measure. To find comparable passages is hard; for either the versifier is hugely the superior of the rival, or, if he ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vicinity became a constant terror to this unfortunate, who knew not how to avoid them. He soon learned to distinguish the shriek of a coming shell, and would race off in one direction, looking fearfully back over his shoulder, until a similar sound in another quarter would so puzzle and terrify him that he would stand still awhile until the noise of an explosion utterly demoralized him, when he would frantically dig up the ground, as ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... described in my "Pilgrimage." Between this point and Ras Za'farnah, higher up, the wind seems to split: a strong southerly gale will be blowing, whilst a norther of equal pressure prevails at the Gulf-head, and vice vers. Suez, indeed, appears to be, in more ways than one, a hydrographical puzzle. When it is low water in and near the harbour, the flow is high between the Straits of Jobal and the Daedalus Light; and the ebb tide runs out about two points across the narrows, whilst the flood runs in on a line parallel with it. Finally, when we returned, hardly making ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... ambition of France and the cautious reactionary despotism of Spain, remained suspended. Students are left, face to face with the sixteenth century, to decipher an inscription that lacks its leading verb, to puzzle over a riddle whereof the solution is hidden from us by the ruin of a people. It must ever be an undecided question whether the Italians, undisturbed by foreign interference, could have passed beyond ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... deviation from the rules of inferences, be denominated a gang of desperate robbers. But it seldom happens that robbers in the vicinity of a rich and populous city are to be found in a state of such utter destitution; and if such were really the case, it might puzzle the beholder to discover what possible inducement they could have to continue in so ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... that of a big ranch near by, and to over-brand the cattle. For instance, a big ranch with thousands of cattle owns the brand Cross-Bar (X—). The rustler adopts the brand Cross L (XL) and by the addition of a vertical mark to the bar in the first brand completely changes the brand. It was always a puzzle for the ranchers to find brands that would not be easily changed. Rustlers engaged in this work invariably took grave chances, for a good puncher could tell a changed brand in an instant, and often knew every cow belonging to his ranch by sight, without looking ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... come here? I scarcely know myself. It's everything or nothing. The key to the puzzle. I tell you, M. Fuselier, things are becoming increasingly ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... pump'i, -ilo. pumice-stone : pumiko. pupil : lernanto; (of eye) pupilo. pure : pura, virta. purple : purpura. purpose : cel'i, -o; intenci. push : pusxi; (along) sxovi. put : meti. —"off", prokrasti. —"aside", apartigi. putrid : putra. puzzle : enigmo. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... to go coursing in these shoes, I assure you, Susy. This is an evening dress. I have a shooting-jacket and all thereunto belonging in the britschka, which will not puzzle either Harebell or Hector, because it's just what they have been used to see ...
— Town Versus Country • Mary Russell Mitford
... years to master the English printed and written language, but in a few days can read and write in Cherokee. They do the latter, in fact, as soon as they learn to shape letters. As soon as they master the alphabet they have got rid of all the perplexing questions in orthography that puzzle the brains of our children. Is it not too much to say that a child will learn in a month, by the same effort, as thoroughly, in the language of Se-quo-yah, that which in ours consumes the time of our children for ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... thinking man of this tribe, at this epoch, the new thought—Who made the world? he will be sorely puzzled. The conception of a world has never crossed his mind before. He never pictured to himself anything beyond the nearest ridge of mountains; and as for a Maker, that will be a greater puzzle still. What makers or builders more cunning than those wasps of whom his foolish head is full? Of course, he sees it now. A Wasp made the world; which to him entirely new guess might become an integral part of his tribe's creed. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... an excuse for retiring. She must think the puzzle out in solitude. Matters were really going too far. She allowed it to be understood that she was indisposed. Mr Bittenger was full of sorrow and sympathy. But did Stephen show the slightest concern? Stephen did not. She went upstairs, and she meditated, ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... of my judgment and belief; and if in any of those opinions I have erred, I have not the least shadow of doubt upon my mind that a wise, just and beneficent Creator and father of all, will pardon my errors. I do not feel the least disposed now to investigate, or puzzle myself, in my last moments, in a vain endeavour to enquire whether I have been right or wrong; the Lord's will be done, say I, and may he in his goodness assist you to continue an honest and an upright man amongst ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... considering deeply on any subject, or trying to understand any puzzle, does he frown, or wrinkle the ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... dissected a melolontha as exquisitely as Strauss Durckheim himself ever did it? So the Master, recalling these studies of his and certain difficult and disputed points at which he had labored in one of his entomological paroxysms, put a question which there can be little doubt was intended to puzzle the Scarabee, and perhaps,—for the best of us is human (I am beginning to love the old Master, but he has his little weaknesses, thank Heaven, like the rest of us),—I say perhaps, was meant to show that some folks knew as much about some things ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... think of it, Iberville?" said De Troyes. "A juggler's puzzle—let us ask Perrot," ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Salisbury at his house at Ivie Bridge to devide the two parishes of St. Martin's in the Fields and St. Clement's Danes in that place." I gave up theorizing until I could see the registers of St. Clement's Danes, and from various causes three years passed before I had an opportunity of clearing up the puzzle. These registers prove that in London, as in Stratford-on-Avon, I had been confused by double entries, and that there was another John Shakespeare. The St. Martin's John lost his wife Dorothy in 1608; the St. Clement's John married his wife Mary in 1605. ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... seasons of the year at the home in Hartford. Like other children, she was blithe and happy, fond of play; unlike the average of children, she was at times much given to retiring within herself, and trying to search out the hidden meanings of the deep things that make the puzzle and pathos of human existence, and in all the ages have baffled the inquirer and mocked him. As a little child aged seven, she was oppressed and perplexed by the maddening repetition of the stock incidents of our race's fleeting sojourn here, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... not yield to it, although he could not repel it. He cried upon Jesu in his heart, and then set the puzzle by. ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... "Lilas, you puzzle me," confessed Lorelei, doubtfully. "You say things that make me think you don't care for him at all; then again you seem to be crazy about him. How DO you feel? How far would you ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... a queer puzzle when a person has time to figure it out. We make things hard for each other. Here we were, Ted and I, lying all day inactive, not because we wanted to, but because we had to, to save our lives. Lying in a patch of scrub, stiff, cold, and hungry, when we might ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... a puzzle to me sometimes,' I said, 'when it is best to keep silent and when to speak. One's life ought to tell most amongst unconverted people, and yet that tempts one sometimes to hide one's light. It is easy to ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... course, systems of opening which deviate absolutely from those which have been proved sound and are in general use, and it is those openings that puzzle the beginner most of all. He says: What is the good of learning correct openings, if my opponent plays incorrectly and wins all the same? This line of thought is wrong from its inception. The student is not supposed to "learn" openings by heart, but ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... extremely interesting, and, with the exception of those coined at Newark, are all rare. They may be known by their shape from every other English coin, as well as by their legends. Those of Newark are of a diamond or lozenge form, some are octangular, and others of a shape that would puzzle a geometrician. Some have the rude representation of a castle; others, a crown; and many have the initials, C.R., and the legend DVM. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... Buckthorn of our hedges and woods has spinous thorny branchlets, from which its name, Rhamnus, is thought to be derived, because the shrub is set with thorns like as the ram. At one time this Buckthorn was a botanical puzzle, even to Royalty, as ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... Will you allow me to show you this little novelty, Sir? 'Ave you seen the noo perfume sprinkler? Do come and try this noo puzzle—no 'arm in lookin', Sir. Very nice little novelties 'ere, Sir! 'Eard the noo French Worltz, Sir? every article is really ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... dreamed, and told long stories which showed her to be a child of great imagination. But all these dreams and continuations of dreams Aunt Frances wrote down the first thing the next morning, and, with frequent references to a thick book full of hard words, she tried her best to puzzle out from them exactly what kind of little girl Elizabeth ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... occasionally (though not invariably) creates a gentle swirl in Brammo Bay, a swirl so placid as to be imperceptible in default of such indices as driftwood. Under such a condition Neptune makes playthings which possibly in some future age may puzzle men who happen to ponder seriously on first causes. I recall an afternoon when such playthings were being manufactured abundantly. Globular, oval, and sausage-shaped dollops of dark-grey mud were twirling and rolling on the fringe ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... in mind of 'The Leavenworth Case,' and all that sort of thing," said Felix, whose reading was of the lightest description. "Awfully exciting, like putting a Chinese puzzle together. Gad, I wouldn't mind being a ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... upon the Actions of Men, is a Question I am not yet come to, nor indeed does it so particularly belong to the Devil's History, it seems rather a Polemick, so it may pass at School among the Metaphysicks, and puzzle the Heads of our Masters; wherefore I think to write to the learned Dr. B—— about it, imploring his most sublime Haughtiness, that when his other more momentous Avocations of Pedantry and Pedagogism will give him an Interval from Wrath and Contention, he will set apart a Moment to consider ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... ruffling it above the door at the corner of the Rue de la Bourse and the Rue de Richelieu, with a message to deliver urbi et orbi, "Here I reign more tranquilly than at Lahore"? Perhaps but for this immortal analytical study, archaeologists might begin to puzzle their heads about him five hundred years hence, and set about writing quartos with plates (like M. Quatremere's work on Olympian Jove) to prove that Napoleon was something of a Sofi in the East before he became "Emperor of the ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac
... white house in which Mrs. Patterson managed by ingenuity to fit in a husband, a mother-in-law, an aged father, seven children of her own, the Conroy orphan, and a constantly changing number of cats. Nobody could have done it but Mrs. Patterson. The house resembled one of those puzzle boxes containing a number of curiously sawn pieces of wood, which, once removed, can be returned and fitted into place again only by some one who ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... get a great cold, we are apt to puzzle ourselves to find out when it began, or how we got it; and when that is accounted for, down we sit contented, and let it have its course; or, if it be very troublesome, take a sweat, or use other means to get rid ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... not easy to tell you," he said, "without entering into the legal aspect of the case. I shall only puzzle you if I do that. Suppose we look at the matter in its social bearings—I mean, as it may possibly affect you and Blanche, ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... out her arms to receive it with a cry of delight. Bab seized the games, and Ben was lost in admiration of the little Arab chief prancing on the white horse,—all saddled and bridled and fit for the fight. Thorny poked about to find a certain curious puzzle which he could put together without a mistake after long study. Even Sancho found something to interest him; and, standing on his hind-legs, thrust his head between the boys to paw at several red and blue ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... where Oliver, by the side of his friend Wraysford, was sitting. Wraysford's face was beaming as he clapped his friend on the back. Oliver looked as unconcerned and indifferent as ever. The fellow was a puzzle, certainly. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... he came again, not paying the least attention to my scolding. I went back with the raft, which drifted a good way down stream, and caught the rascal and started him over again, but when I got half way across he jumped and played the same joke on me again. I began to think of the old puzzle of the story of the man with the fox, the goose and a peck of corn, but I solved it by making a basswood rope to which I tied a stone and threw across, then sending the pony over with the other end. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... of that?" laughed Rachel. "Is it so wonderful to find one leg in a collection of arms? However, not to puzzle you, I may as well acknowledge that it was brought to me from Rome by a learned Italian, and is a curious antique. The Romans made flutes of the leg-bones of their enemies, and this is ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... have therefore degenerated BECAUSE THEY WERE OF NO FURTHER VALUE TO THE INSECT. But if selection did not influence the setting aside of these parts because they were neither of advantage nor of disadvantage to the species, then the Darwinian factor of selection is here confronted with a puzzle which it cannot solve alone, but which at once becomes clear when germinal selection is added. For the determinants of organs that have no further value for the organism, must, as we have already explained, embark on a gradual ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... obvious difficulty that if it is the nature of all phenomenal things to return to God, from whom they proceeded, the process which he calls the birth of the Son ought logically to occur in every conscious individual, for all have a like phenomenal existence. He attempts to solve this puzzle by the hypothesis of a double aspect of the new birth (see below). But I fear there is some justice in Professor Pearson's comment, "Thus his phenomenology is ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... plain man the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is something of a puzzle—on the face of it an arithmetical paradox; suggestive, moreover, of the abstract subtleties of speculation rather than of the concrete realities of religious life. But the doctrine did not have its origin, as a matter of historical fact, in any ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... dismal, wretched, man-forsaken stretch of country it beats anything I ever saw," Walter exclaimed in disgust. "The river itself is about a half mile wide, but it twists, turns, and forks every few yards so as to puzzle a corporation lawyer. The shores for half a mile back from the water are nothing but boggy marsh, with here and there a wooded island. Ugh, the sight of it is enough ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... physically so ill and weak, while yet her mind worked so clearly and quickly, she set herself to solve a painful puzzle. Why had Varick tried to do her to death? She admitted to herself that she had never liked him, but she had never done him any harm. And they had been on ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... mean. In the beginning a star, when drawn with a nail into a brick looked as follows: {illust.} This sign however was too cumbersome and after a short while when the meaning of "heaven" was added to that of star the picture was simplified in this way {illust.} which made it even more of a puzzle. In the same way an ox changed from {illust} into {illust.} and a fish changed from {illust.} into {illust.} The sun was originally a plain circle {illust.} and became {illust.} If we were using the Sumerian script today we would make ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... has not attempted a great variety in the use of dialect, for she has avoided unfamiliar words, and has made use of no expressions which would puzzle her readers in the attempt to understand them. The words not to be found in the dictionary are those which may in almost every instance be heard in the speech of the uncultured wherever the English ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Gravitation remains a puzzle to science. The tendency of modern physics is to explain all material phenomena in terms of electrons and the ether, but the attempt to account for gravitation in this way is attended with difficulties. In order to cope with these, it seems ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... and they wouldn't be flattered by our comparison. They are yelling what, in United States, would be 'extra!' I'll get a paper and see if I can puzzle out some of the French," and he strolled down to intercept one of the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... "I have another great puzzle come to me. The Queen of Sicily has sent her son, Prince Leopold, to Gibraltar to propose himself to be regent of Spain. It appears to me to be extreme want of knowledge of the state of Spain. The Duke of Orleans came down with him, and on the 13th of August I discussed ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... child's head with that nonsense," he said, and, perhaps, afterwards gave his friend a hint; for Madelon heard no more about the saints, and was left to puzzle out meanings and stories for the pictures for herself—and queer enough ones she often made, very likely. On the other hand, the American, who liked to talk to her in his own tongue, and to make her ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... exhaustless. Further, assuming this luciferous element to be not equally diffused through space, we find a reason why in some ages of the earth's history the heat should have been greater than at others, why stars have been seen to vary in brightness, and why there was that puzzle to geologists—a glacial period. During that period, according to Mr Nasmyth, with whose words I finish this part of my communication, 'an arctic climate spread from the poles towards the equator, and left the record of such a condition in glacial handwriting on the mountain walls ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... think to puzzle me with your fine phrases; but I'm not to be caught in that way. Just listen to me. Some of your band of black-gowns stole my cross; you returned it to me. Some of the same band carried off these children; you brought them back. It is also true that ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... his courteousness, he is an antagonistic observer of his conquerors; he pushes his questions farther than the need for them; his Minister the same; apparently to retain the discountenanced people in their state of exposure. Up to the time of the explanation of the puzzle on board the departing vessel (on the road to Windsor, at the Premier's reception, in the cell of the Police, in the presence of the Magistrate-whose crack of a totally inverse decision upon their case, when he becomes acquainted with the titles and station of these imputedly peccant, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... recital of its aims and purposes—and, indeed, the whole organization, as formidable as it was in numbers, was soon in the most terrible condition, and died in great agony. The complications of the disease of which the order came to its death, would puzzle the most profound pathologist. It might, perhaps, be set down as a disease of the heart, induced by corrupt morals, with the following complications: Softening of the brain from the study of State sovereignty; extreme ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... few yards distant, a little stream of water pouring from the end of a pipe or trough raised about a foot and a half from the ground; and a well- worn path leading to it, left no doubt of its being "the spout." But when she had reached it, Ellen was in no small puzzle as to how she should manage. The water was clear and bright, and poured very fast into a shallow wooden trough underneath, whence it ran off into ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... well-known dealer, by whom it was pronounced a cheat; and on inquiry it was discovered that the seller had had a copy made of the original, and, while he offered the latter for sale, delivered the former, which was so carefully and perfectly copied as to puzzle the eye even ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... cast no light upon the present puzzle. In the rambling years that had led him to this spot upon the old Virginia, he had lost touch with the science that had interested him during his college days. He had heard nothing of the results of the Hunter expedition. But this island ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... money enough to last three or four years. It's all she'll ever get, for she hasn't a soul now to look to for help. That's the way we human beings arrange things,—we, or the Lord, or the Evil One, or whoever it is; we bring a puzzle into the world, and then leave it for other people to work out—if they can! Who'll work out this one? Who'll work out this one? Perhaps she'll die before the money's gone; let's ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... those doors up and down the hall, which would be hers? There was no reasoning which could help him in the midst of that puzzle. He walked to what he judged to be the middle of the hall, turned to his right, and opened the first door. A hinge creaked, but it was no louder than the rustle of ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Like our huge earth itself, which, to ordinary scansion, is full of vulgar contradictions and offence, man, viewed in the lump, displeases, and is a constant puzzle and affront to the merely educated classes. The rare, cosmical, artist-mind, lit with the Infinite, alone confronts his manifold and oceanic qualities—but taste, intelligence and culture, (so-called,) have been against the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... austere piety with remorseless efficiency in the world of facts. After all the materials for an accurate judgment of Cromwell which have been collected by the malice of his libellers and the veneration of his partisans, he is still a puzzle to psychologists; for no one, so far, has bridged the space which separates the seeming anarchy of his mind from the executive decision of his conduct. A coarse, strong, massive English nature, thoroughly impregnated with Hebrew thought and Hebrew ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... literature. It is clear that the task of its preparation was immense, and more time must have been spent in merely collecting authorities than has been bestowed altogether on more pretentious histories. Where Mr. MacMaster found all these authorities is a puzzle, for even such libraries as those in Boston and Cambridge have not all the materials for such an undertaking. Yet even he leaves many points untouched, or cursorily disposed of. Among the subjects referred to, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... to puzzle her a little, and though she certainly did not like him, there was a sort of strange attraction for her in his voice, appearance and manner. I wonder if men can know what ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... was still the puzzle of the ages to him—he'd used it half his life, and still found it impossible to guess why such a building had been chosen. But eventually, he found the periodical room, and managed to get through ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... plant are a puzzle; botanically it is a Primrose, but it is never so called. It has many names, but its most common are Paigle and Cowslip. Paigle has never been satisfactorily explained, nor has Cowslip. Our great etymologists, Cockayne and Dr. Prior and Wedgwood, are all at variance on the name; ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... there is no structural division between chancel and nave, is at Tansor in Northants. The perplexity which arises here is due to the plentiful re-use of old work by the builders, the presence of which in unexpected places makes the history of the building a nearly insoluble puzzle. The church reached its present length about 1140, when probably the Saxon nave was left as the west part of a church, which was now of the same width the whole way through, and had no chancel arch. Some forty years later, narrow aisles of three bays were ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... apparent that by that time the young lady had completely recovered her spirits; but she carefully avoided all reference to the little scene that had occurred earlier in the day, so Leslie thought it best to let the matter drop, although he continued to puzzle over it ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... become ready to act, these responses become the controlling ones in play. So it is that for a time play is controlled largely by the instinct of manipulation, at another time physical activity combined with competition is most prominent, at another period imagination controls, still later the puzzle-solving tendency comes to the point followed by all the games involving an intellectual factor. This being true, it is not surprising to find certain types of play characterizing certain ages and to find that though the particular games may vary, ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... present of fifty thousand francs to Nicolas Dugrival's wife! Do you call that uninteresting? And what about the way in which you solved the puzzle of the ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... moorland, the well-called Windy Brae; sloping gently down in mile on mile of heather from the Mere Marches on the top to the fringe of the Silver Mere below. In all that waste of moor the only break is the quaint-shaped Giant's Chair, puzzle of geologists, looking as though plumped down by accident in the heathery wild. The ground rises suddenly from the uniform grade of the Brae; up it goes, ever growing steeper, until at length it ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... said gravely, "it is—well, you shall!—at least a part of it. A woman always keeps a little back," she said, looking at him with a smile. "As soon as she ceases to be a puzzle she ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... the puzzle, I could only give my unstinted attention to the boy and girl. If only our armor of love ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... time his resentment wholly drowned itself in wonder at the puzzle of the engines, the mechanism of the dump-cars, the wondrous working of the small steam crane which lifted rails from flat-cars, and, as a strong man guided them, dropped them with precision at the time and place decided on beforehand. He noted how the men worked in great gangs, subject to the ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... say to which of the two men Bok was the more attracted, and when it came, each quarter, to figuring how many articles could go into the Review without exceeding the cost limit fixed by the house, it was always a puzzle to Doctor Briggs why the majority of the articles left out were invariably those that he had brought in, while many of those which Doctor Patton handed in somehow found their place, upon the final assembling, among ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... and fantastic hand-made studies of Chinese and Japanese artists would puzzle the Celestials, especially in the coloring and finish. Professional critics are often deceived as to the materials employed, so fine a ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... I glanced back, and there was that yellow livid face watching us out of the upper window. What link could there be between that creature and my wife? Or how could the coarse, rough woman whom I had seen the day before be connected with her? It was a strange puzzle, and yet I knew that my mind could never know ease again until ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... which we must not look down upon for so doing: for God dwells therein. I should have to come back to this at every turn, if I wanted to fathom everything I have to tell you about. Each tip of hair which you grow, is an incomprehensible prodigy which would puzzle us for ever, if we did not call to our aid those eternal laws which have made us what we are, and to which it is very just our spirits should submit, since we could not exist for one second were they to cease from making themselves ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... time he began to notice the words that showed dimly through the stain, began to read them, to puzzle them out, as if ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... he lay thinking, and gradually finding in the mist the pieces of the puzzle of his past adventure, till he seemed to have ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... themselves as to what in the world he can be. The sun mounts and the breeze presses till we are at the bay of the Somme with its shifting sands, its incomprehensible currents, and its low and treacherous coast, buoyed and beaconed enough to puzzle you right into the shoals. The yacht, with my friend S—- in her, bound for Paris, has just been wrecked on that bank near Cayeux—unpleasant news now—and there is St. Valery, from whence King William the Conqueror sailed ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... high pass of the Sierras on which I live and of which I am probably the sole stationary inhabitant. I keep a rudimentary tavern, rather ruder than a hut, on the very top of this specially steep and threatening pass. My name is Louis Hara, and the very name may puzzle you about my nationality. Well, it puzzles me a great deal. When one has been for fifteen years without society it is hard to have patriotism; and where there is not even a hamlet it is difficult to invent a nation. My father was an Irishman of the fiercest and most ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... persist in thinking me seriously ill? I am too weary to puzzle my brains in the effort to understand my dear old surgeon. It is one o'clock in the morning; and I have still to write the story of all that happened later in the day. My eyes are beginning to ache; and, strange to say, I have hardly been able to see the last two or three lines ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Lucy, what can she pretend to—But I will not puzzle myself about her—Yet she pretend to give disturbance to such a man! You will find her mentioned in Dr. Bartlett's next letter; or she would not have been named ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... may well suppose, was not without influence in suggesting to his mind the probable shape of the earth. The Milky Way, which doubtless had puzzled astronomers from the beginnings of history and which was to continue to puzzle them for many centuries after the day of Anaxagoras, was explained by the Clazomenaean philosopher on a theory obviously suggested by the theory of the moon's phases. Since the earth-like moon shines by reflected light at ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... expected him to do—to all of which he listened gravely and with an astonishing air of comprehending what was said to him—seemed to enter into the spirit of the situation, and to try his very best to meet its requirements. It is a puzzle to me to this day how El Sabio managed to shrink himself so that we got him through that narrow hole; but he certainly did manage it—and then went down the stone stair-way backward, as though he had been trained to be a trick donkey from his youth up. When the feat was accomplished, and he ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Mrs. Pope nor Miss Gabriel made further allusion to it. Their silence, for which at first he was merely thankful, began to puzzle ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... which Amos Opie himself is to superintend. I wish I could fathom the ins and outs of the matter, which are not at present clear, but probably I shall know in time. Meanwhile, I have Maria for a winter companion, and a mystery to solve and puzzle about; is not this ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... with that thrown in maybe the answer to the puzzle isn't so easy, eh?" responded ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... could begin to puzzle his brains about the meaning of this departure, another pigeon came flying in from the ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... and women, and drew them to her as if by a spell. But her talk and manner in conversation were so unlike her singing, so little accorded with the look that often came into her eyes while she sang, that she was a perpetual puzzle to such elderly men as Sir Donald Ulford, to such young men as Robin Pierce, and even to some women. They came about her like beggars who have heard a chink of gold, and she showed them a purse that seemed to ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... veneration for written documents, red tape, and sealing-wax. Master Pothier's acuteness in picking holes in the actes of a rival notary was only surpassed by the elaborate intricacy of his own, which he boasted, not without reason, would puzzle the Parliament of Paris, and confound the ingenuity of the sharpest advocates of Rouen. Master Pothier's actes were as full of embryo disputes as a fig is full of seeds, and usually kept all parties in hot water and litigation for the rest of their days. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... tell me, quoth Cleodemus, what difference there is between these riddles and those of Eumetis, which she frames and invents to recreate herself with as much pleasure as other virgins make nets and girdles? They may be fit to offer and puzzle women withal; but for men to beat their brains to find out their mystery would be mighty ridiculous. Eumetis looked like one that had a great mind to reply; but her modesty would not permit her, for her face was filled with blushes. But Aesop in her vindication asked: Is it ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Hampden," he began, looking at me through his half closed eye-lids, "you are beginning to puzzle me strangely. Did any one ever tell you you are an ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... should explore every hut upon the moor until I lighted upon the right one. If this man were inside it I should find out from his own lips, at the point of my revolver if necessary, who he was and why he had dogged us so long. He might slip away from us in the crowd of Regent Street, but it would puzzle him to do so upon the lonely moor. On the other hand, if I should find the hut and its tenant should not be within it I must remain there, however long the vigil, until he returned. Holmes had missed him in London. It would indeed be a triumph for me if I could run him to earth ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... plenty of room when you get there; in the other, you have half a dozen men holding horses and carriages, screaming in all directions, and more time is wasted in embarking than a Yankee boat would employ to deposit you safely on the other side; and it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to decide which is the more abominable, the exit or the entry. Nevertheless, the traveller will find himself compensated for all his troubles—especially if the horse and carriage be a friend's—by the lovely drive which takes him to the Chaudiere Falls, a trip I had the pleasure ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the novices. They often say: "You have an answer for everything. This time I thought I should puzzle you. Where do you find all that you teach us?" Some are even simple enough to think I can read their souls, because at times it happens I discover to them—without revelation—the subject of their thoughts. The senior novice had determined to hide ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... blocks which could only have been carried by ice, and which are called "erratic blocks," some of them as big as cottages, have been left scattered over all the northern part of Europe. These blocks were a great puzzle to scientific men till, in 1840, Professor Agassiz showed that they must have been brought by ice all the way from ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... simply can't puzzle out," confessed Joyce. "The Lovely Lady must have locked it, or the disgraceful relative may have done it, or some one entirely different. I can't make ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... that the reef is continued, at the various heights where special kinds die out, by those that prosper at shallower depths; otherwise it would be impossible to understand how this variety of building material, as it were, is introduced wherever it is needed. This point, formerly a puzzle to naturalists, has become quite clear since it has been found that myriads of these little germs are poured into the water surrounding a reef. There they swim about till they find a genial spot on which to establish themselves, when they become attached to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... went to Paris for a year? No, no!—too many of the Englishmen who went to Paris lost their individuality and became third-rate Frenchmen. He would puzzle out things for himself—stick to his ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Church Catechism and the Articles. Bunyan found his in the theology of his sect, appealing more strongly than orthodoxy to a nature more bellicose than Izaak's. Men like him, with his indomitable courage, will never lack a solution of the puzzle of the earth. At worst they will live by law, whether they dare to speak of it as God's law, or dare not. They will always be our leaders, our Captain Greathearts, in the pilgrimage to the city where, ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... pleasantly affirm I came home laughing from Egypt, never propounded a darker puzzle to any of its victims than you have to me. From last week's Spectator I learn, for the first time, that I was at a Protection meeting at Wallingford on some particular day, and that I wept at the prices of 1845. Allow me to assure ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... P. Sybarite sat pondering with vacant eyes; and the wounded boy stared upward with a frown, as though endeavouring to puzzle the answer to this riddle out of the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... herself into Tai-yue's apartments. Contrary to her expectation Tai-yue was not at this time in her own room, but in Pao-yue's; where they were amusing themselves in trying to solve the "nine strung rings" puzzle. On entering Mrs. Chou put on a smile. "'Aunt' Hsueeh," she explained, "has told me to bring these flowers and present them to you to wear in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... I'm afraid. Those big beech woods are rather a puzzle to anybody who is not familiar with the country. No wonder she became ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... man's shoulder. "My boy," he cried, laughing and crying at the same time, "forgive me—forgive me. I was hasty. I should have let you speak, first. God be praised, everything is well. De Grissac—think of it—they will puzzle their brains over that cipher for weeks and weeks and they will discover nothing—nothing! Is it not splendid!" He grasped the Ambassador's hand and embraced him ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... three rousing hurras filled the air, bringing tears to our eyes, through which we took our last look at the beautiful ship Archer. Then we turned with curiosity to see these islands, so new and strange. I was in quite a puzzle to know how we were going through the surf without upsetting our boat, but there was a break in the coral reef which afforded us a safe entrance. On the wharf were a good many people watching our approach, and we recognized the familiar faces of some ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... is a puzzle—you say that "No. 2 would have been still more like if the paper had been exactly the same shade—but I'd no more at hand of the darker colour." Had I given you the impression that I was in a hurry, and was willing ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... salvation to innumerable wild hordes of Americans? to clothe the naked? to encourage the repenting sinner? to aid the dying Christian? The fathers of the Society of Jesus did all this. And for this their zeal is pronounced to be the most fanatical, directed by the coolest policy. It will puzzle many a clear brain to comprehend how it is possible, in the nature of things, that zeal the most fanatical should be directed by the coolest policy. Ah, Mr. Laureate, Mr. Laureate, that "quidlibet audendi" of yours may now and then gild the poet at ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... turn to the left," Dick said, "for our natural line leads to the right. However, it does not make much difference, for they will be able to track us; still, it may puzzle them. It will be dark in a couple of hours, and if we can keep ahead till then ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... air by itself. One would think that by adding water vapor which, while light, still has weight, the total weight would be the sum of both. It really is so, notwithstanding the above figures, and the explanation of the puzzle is that there was an increase in pressure with expansion, so that the volume of the air and saturated vapor was greater than one cubic meter. Since then a cubic meter of air and saturated vapor weighs less than a cubic meter of dry air at freezing temperature, speaking generally, ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... among the sheaves, or under the hedgerows, full of laughter, and full of droll anecdotes of all the country round? Should I not hear of the farmer who never wrote but one letter in his life, and that was to a gentleman forty miles off; who, on opening it, and not being able to puzzle out more than the name and address of his correspondent, mounted his horse in his vexation, and rode all the way to ask the farmer to read the letter himself; and he could not do it—could not read his own writing? Should I not hear ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Grammont not doubt but that she was possessed of every other qualification. Her mind was a proper companion for such a form: she did not endeavour to shine in conversation by those sprightly sallies which only puzzle; and with still greater care she avoided that affected solemnity in her discourse, which produces stupidity; but, without any eagerness to talk, she just said what she ought, and no more. She had an admirable discernment in distinguishing between solid and false wit; and far from making an ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... indistinct that the first two men he asked did not hear. The third man frowned and pointed to a policeman. The fourth snapped: "Take the elevated for Charlestown or the trolley-cars, either;" all of which served but to puzzle Hezekiah ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... world talk if thou wilt,' answered the gladiator, gaily; 'but not till thou art a slave no more. Beneath thy own roof, my father, thou shalt puzzle this dull brain all day long, ay, and all night too, if it give thee pleasure. Oh, such a spot as I have chalked out for thee!—it is one of the nine hundred and ninety-nine shops of old Julia Felix, in the sunny ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... (my dear boy!), is that you?" said Betto; "there's glad I am! You are late to-night, and I was beginning to puzzle." ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... and sin not," had always been a puzzle to Malcolm, who had, as I have said, inherited a certain Celtic fierceness; but now, even while he knew himself the object of the anger, he understood the word. It tried him sorely, however, that such gentleness ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go on? Where were we going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant was a formidable man—a man who might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair, and set the matter aside until night should bring ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... streets, was probably the very savour of each of my chance feasts. Which stirs in me at the same time some wonder at the liberty of range and opportunity of adventure allowed to my tender age; though the puzzle may very well drop, after all, as I ruefully reflect that I couldn't have been judged at home reckless or adventurous. What I look back to as my infant license can only have had for its ground some timely conviction on the part of my elders that the only form of riot ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... told 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," ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... water became deeper, and Captain Dick's pole would not reach the bottom; still, owing to some mysterious influence, their curious boat drifted merrily on, and the children did not puzzle themselves in the least as to the cause of their progress. It was quite enough for them to notice how strange and unnatural the gardens and all the familiar surroundings appeared in their present inundated state. The rosebushes and hedges ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... returned home, striving to find a meaning in the connection of these three persons,—Ida, Ferragus, and Madame Jules; an occupation equivalent to that of trying to arrange the many-cornered bits of a Chinese puzzle without possessing the key to the game. But Madame Jules had seen him, Madame Jules went there, Madame Jules had lied to him. Maulincour determined to go and see her the next day. She could not refuse his visit, ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... myself tacklin this hopeless puzzle from every angle I could think of. I tried 'phonin' to Claire's old street number. Nothin' doin'. They didn't know ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... find "a family grave to be sold, unused for nearly 50 years at that period, but partly occupied. To save trouble, price 25l." Another advertisement—"to small capitalists" is a perfect puzzle; for the advertiser will not describe the "ready-money concern" to be disposed of, but says, "the principal article of sale is what is consumed, either in a greater or less degree, by almost every individual." Next is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... tell you that where these things are found among mica, quartz and granite, there gold is to be found if men have the wit, the patience and the skill to look for it. I can't tell you why; the laws of gold puzzle deeper heads than mine, but so it is. I seem to smell gold all round me here." And Robinson flushed all over, so powerfully did the great idea of gold seated here on his native throne grapple and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... these, If your judgment agrees That he did not embark Like an ignorant spark, Or a troublesome lout, To puzzle and bother, and blunder about, Give him a shout, At his first setting out! And all pull away With a hearty huzza For success to the play! Send him away, Smiling and gay, Shining and florid, With ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... at his companion's side, thinking. He was trying to fit together a great many things; he felt as a child feels who is presented with a puzzle in many pieces and ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... the expense. I am going to take the case largely because it has interested me, and it will be a pleasure to work it out, not only on your daughter's account, but on my own. You know, to me, such matters are of absorbing interest, like the solving of some complex and baffling puzzle." ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... the grass and parallel to it, there was an indentation a little over an inch wide and about the same depth. It extended in a straight line for perhaps nine inches, and what could have caused it was a puzzle to Gimblet. The turf was unbroken, and it looked as if an oblong, narrow, heavy object had rested there, sinking a little into the ground so as to leave this strange mark. Gimblet rubbed his forehead pensively, as he looked ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... didn't intend—" He stopped for she was laughing at him. They went on and her mood continued to puzzle him. Never had he seen her so blithe, so gay. She waved her hand back at the woodland ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... have a sense of humor are 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
... while you bring Armstrong into the laboratory. By the way, Walter, that was another of the Binet tests, putting a man at solving puzzles. It involves reflective judgment, one of the factors in executive ability. If Whitecap had been defective, it would have taken him five minutes to do that puzzle, if at all. So you see he is not in the class with Miss Sawtelle. The test shows him to be shrewd. He doesn't even touch his own dope. Now ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... first place, they were Icelandic names falling upon the Italian ears of old Nicolo and Antonio, and spelled by them according to their own notions; in the second place, these outlandish names, blurred and defaced withal in the weather-stained manuscript, were a puzzle to the eye of young Nicolo, who could but decipher them according to his notions. The havoc that can be wrought upon winged words, subjected to such processes, is sometimes marvellous.[284] Perhaps the slightest ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... remains to consider, whether a temporary continuance under these sufferings would be paid for, by the amendment it is likely to produce. However, I believe there is no fear that Great Britain will puzzle us, by leaving it in our choice to hasten or ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... to Owen, "we must make the best of it. We must brush up our manners, and set the house tidy, and amuse her as well as we can. The difficulty is where to put her; and, when that is settled, the next puzzle will be, what to order in to make her comfortable. It's a hard thing, brother, to say what will or what will not please ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... The early development of the rabbit is apt to puzzle students a little at first. We have an ovum practically free from yolk (alecithal), and, therefore, we find it dividing completely and almost equally. We naturally assume, from what we have learnt, that the next stages will be the formation of a hollow blastosphere, invagination, ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... We tried to track your pony's footmarks, but as there had been more snow in the night, and it had now set in to thaw, we could see nothing anywhere in the way of footmarks to trust to. Certainly it was a regular puzzle, for we hadn't the slightest idea which way to turn. 'Well, Harry?' I said. 'Well, Master Walter?' he said in reply; but that didn't help us forward many steps. 'Let us ride on till we get to some house where we may make inquiries,' I said. So we set off, and after a bit came to ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... are mistaken, Jasper. 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 ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... there are many things we cannot understand; we puzzle about them a good deal perhaps, and then we ask questions. And sometimes the grown-ups answer our question and make the puzzling things clear to us, sometimes they answer yet do not make the puzzling things any clearer to us, and sometimes they tell us not to trouble, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... to the assistance of a strange girl, whose real identity is a puzzle to all the Blythe girls. Who the girl really was comes ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... wires, and it would be easy enough to do that with one's eyes shut; but it always did puzzle me to see how blind people can tell one color from another with the ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... are a puzzle; botanically it is a Primrose, but it is never so called. It has many names, but its most common are Paigle and Cowslip. Paigle has never been satisfactorily explained, nor has Cowslip. Our great etymologists, Cockayne and Dr. Prior ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... Towers of Ireland," but the general trend of scientific opinion is that they are of early Christian origin. Father Matt Horgan, a famous Munster antiquary, humorously started the theory that they were built to puzzle posterity, which they have very successfully done. Lucan is a health resort, possessing a sulphur spa, and situated in a well-wooded country above the Liffey. The Hydropathic stands well sheltered and commanding a splendid view. The drives in the district are many, and the antiquarian ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... little coz, and they wouldn't be flattered by our comparison. They are yelling what, in United States, would be 'extra!' I'll get a paper and see if I can puzzle out some of the French," and he strolled down to intercept one of the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... 'The Leavenworth Case,' and all that sort of thing," said Felix, whose reading was of the lightest description. "Awfully exciting, like putting a Chinese puzzle together. Gad, I wouldn't mind ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... had not a very sensible effect. I pick up the names of their acquaintance; amours and little squabbles are easily gleaned from among servants and neighbors; and, indeed, people themselves are the best intelligencers in the world for our purpose. They dare not puzzle us for their own sakes, for everyone is anxious to hear what he wishes to believe; and they who repeat it, to laugh at it when they have done, are generally more serious than their hearers are apt to imagine. With a tolerably good memory, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... dead and living surfaces, so that to celestial eyes the stones on which we tread are written with our deeds, and the leaves of the forest are but undeveloped negatives where our summers stand self-recorded for transfer into the imperishable record? And what a metaphysical puzzle have we here in this simple-looking paradox! Is motion but a succession of rests? All is still in this picture of universal movement. Take ten thousand instantaneous photographs of the great thoroughfare in a day; every one of them will be as still as the tableau in the "Enchanted Beauty." Yet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... that my writing has been in the main too hard for many I should have been pleased to communicate with; but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never pretended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar or a game at dominoes to an idle man. So, perhaps, on the whole I get my deserts, and something over—not a crowd, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... matter of universal interest in song and story; and that is why quite elderly people, removed by half a century from such frivolities themselves, but nevertheless possessed of memory and a little imagination, and still conscious that life has been throughout a puzzle and a game of chance, and that even in their case it might have turned out very differently, find themselves awaiting with a strange curiosity and anxiety the decision of some child of seventeen, knowing no more of the world than a ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... musty archives of the castle. Everything relating to Thibermesnil interests him greatly. But the quotations that he mentions only serve to complicate the mystery. He has read somewhere that two kings of France have known the key to the puzzle." ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... of her head and hurried away. Mrs. Lee sat on alone, her hands idly clasped over the blouse in her lap. It was her way to puzzle ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... perhaps more desirous of raising the fallen fortunes of his house than of securing the independence of his country. Even at that early age, however, his mind was not easy to read, and his character was somewhat of a puzzle to those who studied it. "I see him much discontented with the States," said Leicester; "he hath a sullen deep wit. The young gentleman is yet to be won only to her Majesty, I perceive, of his own inclination. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... lifting of summer garments laid away, for a peek beneath—a journey on one's stomach under the spare-room bed—a pilgrimage around the cellar with a flaring candle—furtive explorations of the storeroom. And when we came to a door that was locked—Aha! Here was a puzzle and a problem! We tried every key in the house, right side up and upside down. Bluebeard's wife, poor creature,—if I read the tale aright,—was merely seeking her Christmas presents around the ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... girl who had handed the book. The slip of paper she had written it on fluttered to the floor at the feet of the stranger, and the stranger stooped and picked it up, offering it back; but the other girl shook her head, and the stranger kept it, looking wonderingly at the words, trying to puzzle out ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... But he could not see why departed souls should be regarded as the shadows of living men. Rather it was we who lived in a vain show, and would continue to do so until the spirit, the true substance of us, should be set free. Well, whatever the truth of it might be, it was all a charming puzzle, and we should learn all about it some day, and meantime he had been furnished with an entirely new idea—the revealing power of darkness. He loved the light because it was beautiful, and now he loved the darkness because it was mysterious, and held such wondrous secrets in its ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... inches broad and 3 inches long has holes bored into it in the design herewith illustrated. Nails are stuck loosely in all of these holes, excepting the centre one. The puzzle is to jump all of the nails off the board so that only one nail is left, and that in the centre-hole on the board. The nails are jumped off in the same manner that men are jumped in the game of checkers. Jumping is allowed either forward, backward, ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... drawing-room proper there is none; the large front room is the studio, where he and Sabina eat and drink, as well as work and paint but out of it opens a little room, the walls of which are so covered with gems of art (where the rogue finds money to buy them is a puzzle), that the eye can turn nowhere without taking in some new beauty, and wandering on from picture to statue, from portrait to landscape, dreaming and learning afresh after every glance. At the back, a glass ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... She is some charming emigree of Clarence Hervey's acquaintance. But where did you meet with her this morning? You have both of you conspired to puzzle me. Take it upon yourselves, then, if this new acquaintance should not, as Ninon de l'Enclos used to say, quit cost. If she be half as agreeable and graceful, Clarence, as Madame la Comtesse de Pomenars, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... white-sailed stranger, and mumble among themselves as to what in the world he can be. The sun mounts and the breeze presses till we are at the bay of the Somme with its shifting sands, its incomprehensible currents, and its low and treacherous coast, buoyed and beaconed enough to puzzle you right into the shoals. The yacht, with my friend S—- in her, bound for Paris, has just been wrecked on that bank near Cayeux—unpleasant news now—and there is St. Valery, from whence King ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... your tricks well," Sir Ralph said, good-temperedly, "and, in truth, your quick returns puzzle me greatly, and I admit that were we both unprotected I should have no chance with you, but let us see what you could do were we fighting in earnest," and he took down a couple of suits of complete body armour from ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... (oh, he had plenty of words for it!), and who was essentially booked to lose much more than he gained. He disliked "offices" and abominated "hours." I think that even my own modest professional applications sometimes became a puzzle ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... thread and embroidery silk to the side of the table, he touched a spring, and a lid flew up. The table, though presenting the appearance of fragility itself, was really of iron, and contained a vault that would puzzle ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... parchment and held it close to her nose, which was saddled with a pair of iron-bound spectacles. But no sooner had she begun to puzzle over it than she burst into a chuckling laugh, holding both her hands ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 may ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... of restoration was like putting together the parts of a picture puzzle where some of the pieces are lacking. Fragments are still coming to light, and possibly we may have the complete text some day. As it is, the introduction is complete, and perhaps four-fifths of the list of articles with prices attached are extant. The ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... do that?" said Madame. "'Twould puzzle a wise man to do so, for in these parts there are so many turnings. However, I will send a girl to guide you. You could find room for her on the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Mavors, Mars, because magna vortit, he brings about mighty changes; Minerva, because minuit, she diminishes, or because minatur, she threatens; Venus, because venit ad omnia, she comes to all; Ceres, a gerendo, from bearing. How dangerous is this method! for there are many names would puzzle you. From what would you derive Vejupiter and Vulcan? Though, indeed, if you can derive Neptune a nando, from swimming, in which you seem to me to flounder about yourself more than Neptune, you may easily find the origin of all names, since it is founded only upon the conformity of some one letter. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... thee understand the first, the nature of it, and the cause why most men are born to it; as for the second, it would be treason for thee and me to do more than whisper it here, and sigh for it when none are listening; but the third need hardly puzzle thee, thy hookah is bright with it; all thy jewels are set in it; gold is inlaid in the ivory of thy bath; thy cup and thy dish are of gold, and golden threads ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... certain old sheets on one side of the table; newer sheets on the other; some half sheets in the middle. It was like an intricate puzzle, and the same one that ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... obliged to explain my actions to every one, am I, Rose?" said the lady. "Children are a sort of a puzzle to me, never having had any of my own; and I don't believe I know how to bring them up. But these of Helen's ...
— Five Happy Weeks • Margaret E. Sangster
... Dallas had gone to sleep after dinner, and his wife was knitting at a sufficient distance. 'The quaint fancies and delicate work are really such as I never imagined before in wood-carving. But your words about it remain a puzzle to me.' ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... out what it is that he has had to do with. Something is wrong somewhere, but what something, what may come of it, to whom, when, and from which unthought of and unheard of quarter is the puzzle of his life. His remote impressions of the robes and coronets, the stars and garters, that sparkle through the surface-dust of Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers; his veneration for the mysteries presided over by that best and closest of his customers, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... running apparently in every direction, would grow bewildered. He would circle, of course, but the circles themselves would lead him off on tracks that turned back on themselves. As an additional puzzle, wherever the old man doubled, he put his arms about a tree and remained, his body pressed against the trunk a moment, as if he had climbed it. "His whiskers will be whiter than they are now," he grinned, "before ever he ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... why had he baited a clumsy trap for me and permitted me to walk out of it untouched? What did they want from me, these people? The thought was utterly confusing. I could find absolutely no explanation. Then, again, another puzzle remained. I remembered Louis' desire, almost command, that I should return to London by this particular train. Had he any reason for it? Was it connected in any way, I wondered, with the presence of this man and girl in the next compartment? ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... But what a puzzle is one's serious mind To open;—oysters, when the ice is thick, Are not so difficult and disinclin'd; And Julio felt the declaration stick About his throat in a most awful kind; However, he contrived by bits to pick His trouble forth,—much like ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... different stamp. Her real ancestry was a puzzle. In some respects she resembled her father. Knowing that she was Giacomo's child, it was easy for the observer to trace the lineage of some of her qualities; but nevertheless they reappeared in her on a different scale, ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... residents of the River Drive district, among them the Flaggs, but was a fairly representative mixture of all grades of society, including the poorest. These last were specimens under spiritual duress rather than free worshippers, and it was a constant puzzle to the reverend gentleman why, in the matter of attendance, they, metaphorically speaking, sickened and died. It had never been so in England. "Bonnets!" responded one day Mrs. Hallett Taylor, who had become Mr. Glynn's leading ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... yet come to a bad pass, and the blind race of man watches helpless the trammels it could shake off did it but greatly dare. My business, ladies and gentlemen, now is, as I have just explained to you, to attempt to puzzle your eyes by the quickness of my fingers. Yours, on the other hand, will be to detect the way—or modus operandi, as old Simon Magus used to say—in which I perform my little wonders—if you can. Will any gentleman lend me ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... of Samoan natural history is Le Manu Mea, or red bird of the natives, the tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus Strigirostris, Peale), and is peculiar to the Samoan Islands. This remarkable bird, so long a puzzle to the scientific world, is only found in Samoa, and even there it has become so scarce that it is rapidly becoming extinct, as it falls an easy prey to the numerous wild cats ranging the forests. It was first ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... keen now, was dovetailing together the pieces of the puzzle. Those who had originally planned the crime had in some way discovered that the Rat, in the actual theft, had forestalled them. Possibly, for instance, bent on the same errand, they had seen the Rat leaving the building; then, finding the safe already looted, they ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... "what we have to do is to puzzle out some easy way of getting up and down. What do ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... them on to another by a rational discourse. Whereas indeed, we, generally missing this way, do teach children as we do parrots, to speak they know not what, nay which is worse, we, taking the way of teaching little ones by Grammar only at the first, do puzzle their imaginations with abstractive terms and secondary intentions, which till they be somewhat acquainted with things, and the words belonging to them, in the language which they learn, they cannot apprehend what they mean. And this I guess to be the reason, why many great persons ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius
... her upper lip, and here and there A rugged wart with grisly hairs behung; Her breasts shrunk up, her nails and fingers long; Her left leant on a staff, in her right hand She always carried her enchanting wand. Splay-footed, beyond nature, every part So patternless deformed, 'twould puzzle art To make her counterfeit; only her tongue, Nature had that most exquisitely strung, Her oily language came so smoothly from her, And her quaint action did so well become her, Her winning rhetoric met with no trips, But chained the dull'st attention to her lips. With greediness he heard, and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Teresa, that marvellous woman? The Americans puzzle me," he continued. "You are the most practical people on the globe and yet the most idealistic. When I hear of a new religion, I am morally certain that it is evolved ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... and four females in the party and their ornaments denoted them as members of different hordes, a fact which tended to puzzle me infinitely, since the various hordes of green men of Barsoom are eternally at deadly war with one another, and never, except on that single historic instance when the great Tars Tarkas of Thark gathered a hundred and fifty thousand ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... xxiii. Leaves from the Life of Alexander Hamilton, xix. Leaves from the Diary of an Aged Spinster, vi. Leein' Jamie Murdieston, viii. Leveller, The, xvi. Linton Lairds, The; or, Exclusives and Inclusives, iv. Lord Durie and Christie's Will, ii. Lord Kames's Puzzle, xxiii, Lost Heir of the House of Elphinstone, xx. Lottery Hall, xiii. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... very blunt needles, and a peculiar species of dye obtained from a tree, succeeded, after a good hour's work, in embellishing us—L. with a ring on each shoulder (the sign manual of the tribe), and myself with a bird, whose genus it would puzzle most naturalists to determine, but which was popularly supposed among the Poonans to represent a hornbill, on the arm. Strange to say neither L.'s punctures nor mine showed the slightest signs of inflammation afterwards, and ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... legis estis la "Daily Telegraph" kie oni trovis la sekvantan mallongan kritikajxon "Its meagre scant array of words Could puzzle no beginner; Untutored cannibals by herds, Would learn them ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 1 • Various
... to feel that it is a virtue to stand on the side of unbelief, skepticism, and infidelity. But underneath an appearance of candor, it will be found that such persons are actuated by self-confidence and pride. Many delight in finding something in the Scriptures to puzzle the minds of others. Some at first criticise and reason on the wrong side, from a mere love of controversy. They do not realize that they are thus entangling themselves in the snare of the fowler. But having openly expressed unbelief, they feel that they must ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... The result obtained is always quite satisfactory to the writer, often plausible, sometimes in a measure sound, but it would defy the skill of the most synthetic genius to co-ordinate the results thus obtained, and combine them in one harmonious whole. They are like pieces of a puzzle, each of which has been symmetrically cut and trimmed, till they lie side by side, un-fitting, ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... me you're not doing much good up here. You're always fooling about with those precious juniors of yours, instead of sticking to cricket and tennis and your books. Here's young Aspinall here, ahead of you, by long chalks, in classics, and getting a break on at tennis that'll puzzle you to pick up unless you wake up. You can do as you like; only don't blame me if you get stuck among ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... to where Oliver, by the side of his friend Wraysford, was sitting. Wraysford's face was beaming as he clapped his friend on the back. Oliver looked as unconcerned and indifferent as ever. The fellow was a puzzle, certainly. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... devices, shoot, leaves, flowers and fruit spring in a short season from a single bud. In the light of this fact, pruning should be looked on as a simple problem to be solved mathematically and not as a puzzle to be untangled, as so many regard it. For an example, a problem in pruning ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... expresses strong differences of opinion with Gandhi at many points. In one place he says: "What a problem and a puzzle he has been not only to the British Government but to his own people and his closest associates!... How came we to associate ourselves with Gandhiji politically, and to become, in many instances, his devoted followers?... He attracted people, but ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... ask, but it 'ud puzzle me to answer for I ain't got no 'ome, unless I may say that London is my 'ome. I come an' go where I pleases, so long's I don't worrit nobody. I sleep where I like, if the bobbies don't get their eyes on me w'en I'm agoin' to bed, an' I heat wotever comes in my way if it ain't too ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... stories of from five to nine thousand words which the average American magazine editor publishes? Why a vivid people like the American should be so dusty and dull in their short stories is a lasting puzzle to the European, who knows that America has produced a large proportion of the great short stories ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... see anything so childish?" observed he, indicating the envelopes. "A big, registered, sealed Chinese puzzle like that is just crying out to be opened. We would have seen the inside of that one even if it had been addressed to the Lord Mayor, and not to—well, someone in whom we are deeply interested, though he ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... far away. The younger woman's pensive gaze rested on the peaceful waters below, taking in the slow approach of the fog that was soon to envelop the land. Neither spoke for many minutes: inscrutable thinkers, each a prey to thoughts that leaped backward to the beginning and took up the puzzle at its inception. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... that point puzzle you?" exclaimed Florian, greeting the allusion to Browning as the war-horse welcomes the battle. "Then you have never chanced to run across the first edition of Child's Scottish Ballads. You get the story there, of Childe Roland following up the quest for his sister, shut up by enchantment ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... mountains, and that triangle was the chosen stamping ground of Jerry Strann. Jerry was not born in the region of the Three B's and why it should have been chosen specially by him was matter which the inhabitants could not puzzle out; but they felt that for their sins the Lord had probably put his wrath among them in ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... scowled over the puzzle of that fanlike formation of riders. They would hardly begin so soon to herd him and his men into that evil little rock basin with the sinister name, and there was no other reason he could think of which would justify those tactics, unless another party waited ahead ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... chest in an upper room over the chapel on the north side of Redcliff church;" and thence, most rare young conjurer, he evoked its spirit in the shape of fragments of law-parchment, quaintly inscribed with spells of verse and armorial hieroglyphics, to puzzle antiquaries and make fools of scholiasts. Puzzle them he did; and they could not forgive a clever stripling, whom hunger had tempted to don an ancient mask, and impose himself on their spectacled eyes as a reverend elder. Rogue!—vagabond! Profligate impostor! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... his trade, while John was beast of burden. The young master could work up his catalogues, study his famous collections, make his own bibliographical notes, or run off here and there by 'bus or train in quest of books for a customer; he could swallow down his Greek verbs or puzzle out his French for Barbier in the intervals of business; the humbler matters of the shop ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Bill," I will only remark that neither in the preamble nor elsewhere is any information vouchsafed as to the Conventions, out of thirteen drafted at The Hague, which are within the purview of the Bill. The reader is left to puzzle out for himself, supposing him to have the necessary materials at hand, that certain clauses of the Bill relate respectively to certain articles which must be looked for in the Conventions numbered I., V., ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... house was filled with all known kinds of games—instruments and devices to amuse that most unfortunate class of human beings who have no resources within themselves, and must play some foolish game, or do some foolish puzzle in order to get through the life which seems to hang so heavily on ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... sore puzzle to the early telescopic observers. They did not for a long time grasp the fact that it was surrounded by a ring—so slow is the human mind to seek for explanations out of the ordinary course of things. The ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... sounds like a puzzle. If they're not now upon the ground they're probably in the air, but they're not birds, because birds don't belong on the ground. Then they're animals that have ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... all these miscellaneous movements going on all around us without being struck by the similarity of aim between them; each seems to form part of a common plan, which, like the separate pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, convey no meaning, but when fitted together make up a perfectly clear design. That there is somewhere in the background a point of contact is suggested by the fact that we find members of the different groups playing a double and a treble role, the same name occurring in the list of ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... world, I wonder, did you all get that grand look of yours from?—I don't mean your good looks merely, but that look of distinction. Your father and mother have it too; but where did they get it from? You're a puzzle-family—all of you. But wouldn't you like a cup of tea? Come in," and she led the way indoors to a tiny, sweet-smelling boudoir on the left of the hall, of which a dainty glimpse, with its books and water-colours and bibelots, was to be caught ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... girls as she handed the letter to her brother, and he put on his spectacles and opened it. Susan watched him. It was a thin foreign envelope, and the letter inside it was short, but it seemed to puzzle him a great deal. He held it out at arm's length, frowned at it, and gave it an impatient tap with one finger. Then he took off his glasses, rubbed them, put them on, and read it again, after which he rose suddenly, and leaning across ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... you," he almost shouted. "I never knew anyone named Goodwin! I don't care a hoot about your invention. And as for letting me die—why didn't you? That's a puzzle: you were ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... man-forsaken stretch of country it beats anything I ever saw," Walter exclaimed in disgust. "The river itself is about a half mile wide, but it twists, turns, and forks every few yards so as to puzzle a corporation lawyer. The shores for half a mile back from the water are nothing but boggy marsh, with here and there a wooded island. Ugh, the sight of it is enough to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a verbal puzzle, and I answer, yes! The finite can contain the Infinite, if you are talking about two hearts that love, one of them God's and one of them mine. We have got to keep very clear and distinct before our minds the broad, firm line of demarcation between the creature and the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... have an exact picture of those mysterious excavations some of which still survive to puzzle antiquaries under the name of Dene Holes. They are found in various localities; Kent, Surrey, and Essex being the richest. In Hangman's Wood, near Grays, in Essex, a small copse some four acres in extent, there are no fewer than seventy-two Dene Holes, as close together ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... Vee squared it with Aunty is a puzzle I never expect to find out the answer to; but I'll risk her. She's a pink queen, she is, and after that one waltz with her I can look cold-eyed at a row of Tessie girls stretchin' from here ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... irregularity which exists in the personal terminations of verbs, some of the best early writers using them promiscuously, some using them uniformly, and others making no use of them; and really they are of no use but to puzzle children and foreigners, perplex poets, and furnish an awkward dialect to that exemplary sect of Christians, who in every thing else study simplicity."—Fowle's True E. Gram., Part II, p. 26. Wells, a still later writer, gives this unsafe rule: "When ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... distinct species of chickens. There is the chicken which you find in the barnyard, in the incubator, or on a hat. And there is the type indigenous to State Street, Chicago. Each is known by its feathers. The barnyard variety may puzzle the amateur fancier, but there is no mistaking the State Street chicken. It is known by its soiled, high, white canvas boots; by its tight, short black skirt; by its slug pearl earrings; by its bewildering coiffure. By every line of its ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... the web of one genus! Why, there, As they lie by my desk in that glistering heap, All tangled together like dreams in the sleep Of a bliss-fevered heart, I might turn them and turn Till night, in a puzzle of pleasure, and learn Not a fact, not a secret I prize half so much, As, how rough is this leaf when I think of her touch. There's one now blown yonder! what can be its name? A topaz wine-colored, the wine ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... push open the somewhat frail windows or equally frail door, and to accomplish that deed which had already been attempted. Nora knew well that she must act, she must do something—what, was the puzzle. Squire O'Shanaghgan was one of the most generous, open-hearted, and affectionate of men. His generosity was proverbial; he was a prime favorite with his tenants; but he had, like many another Irishman of his type, a certain hard phase in ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... verbatim copy. Yesterday evening, while I was examining it for the twentieth time, it occurred to me that I had read some portions of it before. Where, and under what circumstances? It was a puzzle which kept me awake most of the night. But this morning I suddenly remembered a book which I had seen in the hands of the workmen at the factory, and which I had often laughed over. So, while I was out this morning I entered a ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... his head sadly, "these women are indeed a puzzle. I fear much that Rosa's mind has changed since your departure. Absence, as the poets say, is love's worst bane. But let her go, Gulielmo; fairer charms than hers will ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... public spirits, were about the year 1700 household words with us. Leibnitz was struck by their significance, but it might now puzzle us to find synonyms, or even to explain the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and lacking in political knowledge they may have been, but it is evident that their mental tone was high, that their minds had not been vulgarized by trash and sensationalism. Hamilton's sole bait was a lucid and engaging style, which would not puzzle the commonest intelligence, which he hoped might instruct without weighing heavily on the capacity of his humbler readers. That he was addressing the general voter, as well as the men of a higher grade as yet unconvinced, there can be no doubt, for as New York State ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... and Ras Za'farnah, higher up, the wind seems to split: a strong southerly gale will be blowing, whilst a norther of equal pressure prevails at the Gulf-head, and vice vers. Suez, indeed, appears to be, in more ways than one, a hydrographical puzzle. When it is low water in and near the harbour, the flow is high between the Straits of Jobal and the Daedalus Light; and the ebb tide runs out about two points across the narrows, whilst the flood runs in on a line parallel with it. Finally, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... "You will puzzle your hearer, my dear uncle," said the same deep-toned woman's voice which had first spoken to me. "As you volunteered the saint's name, Lillian, you shall ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... in letters from friends than even these, which merely puzzle and distress, but do not infuriate. For I feel cheated by casual glimpses of affairs which concern me not; I resent odd scraps of information, not chosen for my palate; I am indignant at news culled ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... mesquites. Then Blanco Sol stopped. His shrill, ringing whistle came distinctly to Gale's ears. The raiders were mounted on dark horses, and they stood abreast in a motionless line. Gale chuckled as he appreciated what a puzzle the situation presented for them. A lone horseman in the middle of the valley did not perhaps seem so menacing himself as the ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... of Hooker, when Sedgwick did eventually arrive within serviceable distance, is so entire a puzzle to the student of this campaign, that speculation upon what he did then actually assume as facts, or how he might have acted under any other ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... well-authenticated dream which strikes the bull's eye of facts not known to the dreamer nor capable of being guessed by him. If the events beheld in the dream are far away in space, or are remote in time past, the puzzle is difficult enough. But if the events are still in the future, perhaps no kind of explanation except a mere "fluke" can even be suggested. Say that I dream of an event occurring at a distance, and that I record or act on my dream before it is corroborated. ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... reached the level again could he solve the puzzle. Then he perceived that the way in which the cliff bulged out on both sides prevented the ledge from becoming evident in profile, whilst, seen en plein face in the glare of the sunlight, it suggested nothing more than ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... they suspected to be a nursery for a popish army, and seemed disinclined to maintain it any longer. The king consequently, in 1683, sent Lord Dartmouth to bring home the troops, and destroy the works; which he performed so effectually, that it would puzzle all our engineers to restore the harbour. It were idle to speculate on the benefits which might have accrued to England, by its preservation and retention; Tangier fell into the hands of the Moors, its importance having ceased, with the demolition ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... should I question the Universe, and puzzle my sad brains about Life—the meaning of Life ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... obligations to one who serves her at such a sacrifice. Indeed, she can make us no adequate return, but to allow me to return—the only return I ask. When, however, that favor will be granted is past my guessing. You ask when the war will terminate? You could not puzzle any of us more than by putting such a question. We are more at our wit's end than the war's end. And yet I do not see that anything has been left undone, that might have been done. The army has moved steadily toward its ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... illustrious Linnaeus the bats had been more or less a puzzle both to scientific folk and to common people. The general notion was that they were a kind of bird with wings of skin, while the German name for the creature, Fledermaus, or fluttering mouse, points to another opinion ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... great a puzzle to attempt to solve on the spur of the moment, and I had first to apply myself to the evident duty of getting my fair and mysterious visitor into my cabin, there to try to undo the effects of whatever untoward accidents had ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... amount of wool covering each might take perhaps a half hour to use up. They were allowed the prize only when the last strand of wool around it was used. They were then occupied for a while with whatever it was—a little book, or a puzzle, or a game. When they grew tired of its novelty, they crocheted again until they came to the next prize. In the end they had also new ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... the whiskered countenance. "Good for you, old top," she responded, cheerfully. "You ought to go into the Sunday puzzle department. You'd be hung all over with gold-filled watches. Where did you blow ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... die out, by those that prosper at shallower depths; otherwise it would be impossible to understand how this variety of building material, as it were, is introduced wherever it is needed. This point, formerly a puzzle to naturalists, has become quite clear since it has been found that myriads of these little germs are poured into the water surrounding a reef. There they swim about till they find a genial spot on which to establish themselves, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... bad—inartistic, as they say, and without taste; a man, at all events, should repent like a gentleman. As far as I can guess at it, I think there ought to be considerable elegance of manner in repentance—a kind of genteel ambiguity, that should seem to puzzle the world as to whether you weep for or against the sin; or perhaps repentance should say—as I suppose it often does—'D—n me, this is no humbug; this, look you, is a grand process—I know what I'm about; let the world look on; I have committed a great many naughty things ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Damon up to the house. I'd be glad to see him again, though I don't fancy he'll call. He's off on a little trip, and won't be back for a week. But watch out, Rad." And with that Tom turned toward the house, shaking his head over the puzzle of ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... were coming in droves and the boys were pouring in from the front half-starved, having been fighting all night with nothing to eat except reserve rations. Some had been longer with only such rations as they took from their dead comrades. The need was most urgent, but the puzzle was how to get there. The roads had been shelled and ploughed by explosives until there was no possible semblance of a way, and there were no conveyances to be had. The Zone Major had gone back for supplies, telling ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... yet comprehend clearly what it was all about. She herself had done nothing to merit such treatment from people whose names she did not even know. She rode for a long time without speaking, trying, in her tragic bewilderment, to puzzle it out. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... who was seated in my lap, listened, with eyes fixed on the preacher, to every word that was said. At last one or two accounts were given which seemed to puzzle him greatly, and, casting an inquiring glance into my face, he whispered,—"Papa, papa! ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... thanking you. All that you say seems to me very clear and convincing, and as in all your writings I find a large number of philosophical remarks new to me, and no doubt shall find many more. They have recalled many a puzzle through which I passed when monographing the Cirripedia; and your book in those days would have been quite invaluable to me. It has pleased me to find that I have always followed your plan of making notes on separate pieces of paper; I keep several scores of large ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... great exultation. "So much for the l'arning of one who has look'd into so many books, that his eyes are not able to tell a moose from a wild-cat! Now my Hector, here, is a dog of education after his fashion, and, though the meanest primmer in the settlements would puzzle his information, you could not cheat the hound in a matter like this. As you think the object no man, you shall see his whole formation, and then let an ignorant old trapper, who never willingly pass'd a day within reach of a ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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 religious people have that consciousness. To them Undershaft the Mystic will be quite intelligible, and his perfect ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... Thackeray, then occasionally a book of poems; Longfellow and Whittier, or, if we want to study harder, there is Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, and Shakespeare. It would be excellent discipline to try and get at the exact meaning of the authors, and puzzle out all the obscurities, it would not be long before we should feel quite rich in a literary way. In reading such works together, and talking them over, of course we make them ours as we ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... the weak, the rich and the poor, penetrates the whole of Greek political thought, and was, amid obvious flaws, actually realized to a remarkable degree in the best Greek communities. The conception of Truth as an end to pursue for its own sake, a thing to discover and puzzle out by experiment and imagination and especially by Reason, a conception essentially allied with that of Freedom and opposed both to anarchy and to blind obedience, has perhaps never in the world been more clearly grasped than by the early ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... I can't puzzle it out, sir, unless there's some other Amphitryon to manage your business, no matter if you are away, and to do your job for you when you have gone. I tell you what, that sham Sosia was monstrous surprising, but this second Amphitryon ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... autumn, Jim took from the Sevenoaks Post-Office a letter for Paul Benedict, bearing the New York post mark, and addressed in the handwriting of a lady. The letter was a great puzzle to Jim, and he watched its effect upon his companion with much curiosity. Benedict wept over it, and went away where he could weep alone. When he came back, he was a transformed man. A new light was in his eye, a new ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... but what can puzzle you about him? He seems to me the most simple and charming old gentleman I have seen in this house ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Bathurst, Dean of Wells, and one of the chaplains to King Charles 1st, who is no superstitious man, protested to me that the curing of the King's evill by the touch of the King doth puzzle his philosophie: for whether they were of the house of Yorke or Lancaster it did. 'Tis true indeed there are prayers read at the touching, but neither the King minds them nor the chaplains. Some confidently report that James Duke of Monmouth ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... this description, and accordingly is one where the public are continually gulled out of their money by a system of the most artful and complicated traffic—a traffic calculated to raise the hopes of novices, to puzzle the wits of out-door speculators, and sure to have the effect of diminishing the property of those who are not ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... sight of his face behind her back and I thought I saw a trace of puzzle—nothing more. ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... makes tracks like a dry river-bed across country. We are certain that there are Earthquakers, otherwise how can we account for earthquakes? But how to tackle an Earthquaker, how to get at him, and what to do with him when you have got at him, are questions which might puzzle even ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... have we sat together, reviving each other's recollection, and occasionally relaxing into the grave amusement of capping verses. Then, if by any chance my ingenuity or memory enabled me to puzzle my companion, his good temper would lose itself in a quaint pettishness, or he would cite against me some line of Aristophanes, and ask me, with a raised voice, and arched brow, to give him a fitting answer to that. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that it could be kept from the two would-be murderers for a long time that he was still in existence; but he thought that, by keeping out of sight, he might puzzle them as to his intentions, and perhaps frighten ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... 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 ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... little child without speaking, while he cautiously manipulated his arms and interested himself in the puzzle of his ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... matter for advice. Elizabeth had no close confidant. John was the nearest, but there were so few things John understood. Then one never dared tell Mary anything. Mary did not mean to be a tell-tale, but somehow everything she knew always oozed out sooner or later. Yes, this was a puzzle ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... soothing to their pride—with every appearance of reality; he received from them, together with all the titles of the Babylonian kings, that name of Pulu, which later on found its way into their chronicles, and which was so long a puzzle to historians, both ancient and modern. Experience amply proved that this was the only means by which it was possible to yoke temporarily together the two great powers of the Euphrates and the Tigris. Among the successors ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Necklace seemed to glitter through the case. That did not of course happen; but a jewel case is easy to recognize, and I knew in a moment that the waiter discerned the presence of precious stones. Our eyes met. In my puzzle I could do nothing but smile feebly and apologetically. The waiter smiled also—but his was a smile of compassion and condolence. He took a step nearer to me, and with infinite sympathy in his ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... doing with him he had no idea—although his knowledge of plainsmen's character supplied him with two or three solutions hardly calculated to exhilarate the victim. Where they were taking him was almost as much of a puzzle, for Bud, after the first few turns of his captors, completely lost his sense of direction, except for the general ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... said. "As he promised, he does not forget what was done for him. He will keep this band in control, and unless I am much mistaken he will tell Monitaya all he knows of us, which surely will not do us any harm. At any rate, we can sleep in safety to-night. And since it does no good to puzzle about what is gone by or to worry about what has not yet to come to ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... questions of the coinage, the gossip of the king's embroilments with the Parliament—these things, it may again be said, occupied Law's mind far less than the question of gaining audience with his fair rescuer of the morn at Sadler's Wells. This was the puzzle which, revolve it as he might, not even his audacious wit was able to provide with plausible solution. He pondered the matter in a hundred different pleasing phases as he passed from the Bank of England through the crowded streets of ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... was reminded of it, and it became a distracting puzzle. Hilary thought Diana and Actaeon and the Siena chalice good things—and Hilary edited an art paper. What in the name of all that was horrible did he put in it? A light was shed on Signor Leroni, who was, said the Gem, a good dealer in plaques, and ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... the college president, said to a friend of mine at the beginning of the war, speculating on the probable futures of the boys who had been under his care, "There's Barlow, now he'll go in and come out at the top." Barlow had been a sad puzzle to the faculty, good men, often perplexed to know what to do with him or what would become of him. Dr. Walker's astuteness divined well the outcome. As I review those early years I can see now that Barlow ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... united by ropes from one passage to another; but this explanation is open, as Beckett points out, to the fatal objection that the passages meet at their lowest point, not at their highest, so that it would be rather a puzzle "to work out the mechanical idea." The reflection explanation is not only open to no such objections, but involves precisely such an application of optical laws as we should expect from men so ingenious as the pyramid builders certainly were. In saying this, let me explain, I am not ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... hand's in, let me tell you of a third matrimonial proposition, which gives me more puzzle and dislike a great deal. And that is, Mr. Adams has, with great reluctance, and after abundance of bashful apologies, asked me, if I have any objection to his making his addresses to Polly Barlow? which, however, he told me, he had ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... for the moment, and that he would shortly be revenging himself upon them. No, the only way every to get any peace and quiet was to render the Tanuki harmless for ever. Long did the old man and the hare puzzle together how this was to be done, and at last they decided that they would make two boats, a small one of wood and a large one of clay. Then they fell to work at once, and when the boats were ready and properly painted, the hare went to the Tanuki, who was still very ill, and invited him to a great ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... with local allusions and illustrations which puzzle the non-classical reader. I add an explanatory index to some names of things and persons which have not occurred in my brief ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... mathematical mind to some extent, with the result that I can look down wonderingly upon these deeps of ignorance yawning daily in the papers—much, I dare say, as the senior wrangler looks down upon me. Figures may puzzle me occasionally, but at least they never cause me ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... this: He seemed to be very fond of Punch-and-Judy shows, and whenever he heard one on the street he would run out without his hat, make the showmen perform in front of the house and then invite them to his rooms, where he would question them for a long time. This habit used to puzzle both Brass and Quilp, the dwarf, and they never could ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... Craig, I tried to puzzle the case out for myself. Though I knew nothing about it as yet, I felt sure that I had not made a mistake and that ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... But puzzle as he might, he never once dreamed of the truth—that his sister Madelon had promised to marry Lot Gordon in a month's time, and sent her "yes" by word of mouth of Margaret Bean that morning. Somehow, even with the ashes of the letter of proposal before his eyes on the hearth, ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... think I shall be able to convince my readers that the modern results of geological investigation are perfectly sound logical inferences from well-established facts. In this, as in so many other things, we are but "children of a larger growth." The world is the geologist's great puzzle-box; he stands before it like the child to whom the separate pieces of his puzzle remain a mystery till he detects their relation and sees where they fit, and then his fragments grow at once into a connected picture beneath ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... edge of battle No enemy's shot is equal to a weak heart in the act Not afford to lose, and a disposition free of the craving to win Past, future, and present, the three weights upon humanity Put material aid at a lower mark than gentleness Puzzle to connect the foregoing and the succeeding Seventy, when most men are reaping and stacking their sins Should we leave a good deed half done Showery, replied the admiral, as his cocked-hat was knocked off So indulgent when they drop their blot on a lady's character ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... why, as a woman does think at times for long years afterwards, trying to solve the psychological puzzle of her foolish youth! Hollenby was certainly the abler man, as well as the more brilliant prospect. And there were others who had loved her, and whom even as a girl she had wit enough to value.... A girl's choice, when her heart speaks, as the novelists say, is a curious ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... angry, the more so that she did not know how to defend Maggie. It was quite likely, she thought, that Maggie might do all sorts of wrong things, and it was also quite true that she had, herself, made friends with a strange girl. She could not puzzle it out, and she went down stairs to the sitting-room where Uncle Justus was. She sat down on a hassock by the fire, looking very thoughtful. Once or twice she glanced up at ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... had thought out this observation it was time for him to carefully ascend to the top of one of the great mooring-posts, the flattest-topped one by preference. How it was done was a puzzle, and it drew forth the observations of the cutter's crew, while the midshipman in charge shouted "Bravo!" But somehow or other, by the use of his hands and a peculiar hop, Tom Bodger brought himself up perpendicularly upon the top of the post, steadied himself ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... show his gratitude to his deliverer?" Mysie pointed with her finger across the river, but ventured not to turn her eyes in that direction. "Nay, but speak plain, most generous damsel," said the knight, who, for once, was puzzled as much as his own elegance of speech was wont to puzzle others, "for I swear to you that I comprehend nought by the extension of thy ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... think of himself, Auguste bowed, went down the stairs, and returned home, striving to find a meaning in the connection of these three persons,—Ida, Ferragus, and Madame Jules; an occupation equivalent to that of trying to arrange the many-cornered bits of a Chinese puzzle without possessing the key to the game. But Madame Jules had seen him, Madame Jules went there, Madame Jules had lied to him. Maulincour determined to go and see her the next day. She could not refuse his visit, for he ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... shows an unusual dovetail joint, which, when put together properly is a puzzle. The tenon or tongue of the joint is sloping on three surfaces and the mortise is cut sloping to match. The bottom surface of the mortise is the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... relax the former sentence of condemnation. Now obedience, being a present duty, cannot pay old debts, or satisfy for our former rebellions, and so it must leave a man to seen condemnation. I fear this is a puzzle that all consciences must come unto here, or elsewhere. Here ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of nature, such as "Seashore," "The Humble-Bee," "The Snow-Storm," "Days," "Fable," "Forbearance," "The Titmouse" and "Wood-Notes." In another class are his philosophical poems devoted to transcendental doctrines. The beginner will do well to skip these, since they are more of a puzzle than a source of pleasure. In a third class are poems of more personal interest, such as the noble "Threnody," a poem of grief written after the death of Emerson's little boy; "Good-Bye," in which the poet bids farewell to fame as he hies him ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... thousand men here in a short time, and the more of these scoundrels that are gathered together the better, so that we can end it at one blow. If Arabi does but stand there is no doubt as to the result. The thing that would puzzle us would be for him and his troops to march away into Upper Egypt and lead us a long dance there. In this tremendous heat our fellows would not be able to march far, and it would be like a tortoise trying to catch a hare, hunting them all over the country. The more men Arabi ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... procured, and, working under the signorina's directions, after a good deal of trouble, we laid bare a neat little safe embedded in the wall. This safe was legibly inscribed on the outside "Burglar's Puzzle." We however, were not afraid of making a noise, and it only ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... she said, "even after that terrible flight and its awful ending. And you have been so good to me, and have made me so happy. It has all grown into such a strange puzzle. If they were to find out that we got the money do you think they would force you to make the amount ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... of all of the catalogues and guide books sold on the grounds, and in the bag is a further supply of heavier literature for the improvement of her idle moments. It would puzzle anybody to find out when these idle moments occur, for when visible she is engaged in a frantic rush from place to place, pausing only for a moment to ask a question or jot down an impression, sometimes doing both at once without even looking at the ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... distinguish the rising generation of the clergy. I much doubt if he could have passed what would now be called a creditable examination in the Fathers; and as for all the nice formalities in the rubric, he would never have been the man to divide a congregation or puzzle a bishop. Neither was Parson Dale very erudite in ecclesiastical architecture. He did not much care whether all the details in the church were purely gothic or not: crockets and finials, round arch and pointed arch, were matters, I fear, on which he had never troubled ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... a great many other whys and wherefores, which will keep cold. In short, you must excuse all my seeming omissions and commissions, and grant me more remission than St. Athanasius will to yourself, if you lop off a single shred of mystery from his pious puzzle. It is my creed (and it may be St. Athanasius's too) that your article on T * * will get somebody killed, and that, on the Saints, get him d——d afterwards, which will be quite enow for one number. Oons, Tom! you must not meddle just now with the incomprehensible; ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... were in bed. "There is another secret somewhere, and I cannot puzzle it out. Mamma wants Mrs. Hardy to be fond of me, and Rock is likely to be ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... replied his lordship. "I am somewhat in a puzzle. If you want to know who is the queen of the fete, I can tell you. It is Lord Earle's daughter, Miss Beatrice Earle. She is over there, ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... good men in print. The authoress of "Jane Eyre" was taken for a man by many persons. Can Number Five be masquerading in verse? Or is one of the two Annexes the make believe lover? Or did these girls lay their heads together, and send the poem we had at our last sitting to puzzle the company? It is certain that the Mistress did not write the poem. It is evident that Number Seven, who is so severe in his talk about rhymesters, would not, if he could, make such a fool of himself as to set up for a "poet." Why should not the Counsellor fall in love and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "They will puzzle it out soon. Get your floating mines ready," ordered Captain Blaise. That was my work, and in anticipation of it I had knocked together two small rafts loaded with explosives and a large one with explosives and combustible stuff to ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... the word Infinite is the real fallacy in the amusing logical puzzle of Achilles and the Tortoise, a puzzle which has been too hard for the ingenuity or patience of many philosophers, and which no less a thinker than Sir William Hamilton considered as insoluble; as a sound argument, though leading to a palpable falsehood. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... dissected maps, in order to make any meaning at all, and to study hard before one can do it. Not that I grudge the study or the time. The depth and power of the significance (when it is apprehended) glorifies the puzzle. With you and me it is so; but with the majority of readers, even of readers of poetry, it is not and ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... the offered chair and exchanged a few words with Claire as she gathered together her possessions, but the subtle change persisted. Claire felt vaguely disturbed, but the next half-hour passed so pleasantly that she had no time to puzzle over the explanation. Captain Fanshawe never left her side; they sat together on the same sofa which Great-aunt Jane had monopolised for the earlier part of the evening, and talked of many things, and discussed many problems, and sometimes agreed, and oftener disagreed, ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... traits, to eliminate the most chances for confusion, one finds the same conditions every time. Whether it be speed in marking off all the A's in a printed sheet of capitals, or in putting together the pieces of a puzzle, or in giving a reaction to some certain stimulus, or in making associations between ideas, or drawing figures, or memory for various things, or giving the opposites of words, or discrimination of lifted weights, or success ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... day as to the information possessed by Lieutenant Loring which led to such extreme precaution. The major was close-mouthed, and, for him, rather stern. He held aloof from his juniors all day long and seemed to be keeping an eye and an ear attent on Nevins. That officer's conduct was a puzzle. Six months before he was the personification of all that was lavish, hospitable, good-natured, extravagant. Everybody was apparently welcome to the best he had. Then came the collapse, his arrest, his flight, his capture and confinement, his laughing defiance of his accusers until he found ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... was quite a puzzle to Thorwald to tell which of his visitors from the earth was of unsettled mind and which in his normal condition. He decided to hold the question open and ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... laboratory. By the way, Walter, that was another of the Binet tests, putting a man at solving puzzles. It involves reflective judgment, one of the factors in executive ability. If Whitecap had been defective, it would have taken him five minutes to do that puzzle, if at all. So you see he is not in the class with Miss Sawtelle. The test shows him to be shrewd. He doesn't even touch his ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... fancy, that they so often stick in the throat—which might contribute to my legends, I came to some sheets whereon his lordship had written some hasty remarks, to the effect that the case Napier versus Napier was the most curious puzzle that ever he had witnessed since he had taken his seat on the bench. The papers were fragmentary, consisting of parts of a Reclaiming Petition and some portion of a Proof that had been led in support of a brieve ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... college degrees, her year's teaching experience, her four years' nursing, and her people in the old home town. Bit by bit, we picked out her status from the things she dropped inadvertently. And that night in our rooms we assembled the parts of the puzzle thus; one rambling Bedford limestone American castle in the Country Club district; two cars, with garage to match; a widowed mother, a lamented father who made all kinds of money, so naturally some of it was honest money; two brothers, a married sister; ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... is now in high relief on a flat background, but, though having correct form, it still lacks colour. How to colour plaster satisfactorily is a puzzle which has perplexed more persons than taxidermists. Speaking for myself, I say that, having coloured the cast, when wet and when dry, with water-colours, used paper varnish when dry, with water-colours ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... The 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 ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... 'At mi frolic wod prove a done job. But aw'll gladden mi e'en wi' its face, To mak sure at its safe in its nick;— But aw'm blest if ther's owt left i' th' place! Why, its hook'd it as sure as aw'm wick. Whear its gooan to's a puzzle to me, An' who's taen it aw connot mak aat, For it connot be th' wife, coss you see It's a paand 'at ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... knowledge along the line of induction, we are on the road to the solution of the puzzle, that nature puts to every child. To every infant, indeed, the world is an enormous riddle or puzzle, whose parts lie in fragments about him, waiting the operation of his curious and inventive mind toward the reconstruction of the whole. Endless variety and complexity confront us all in the beginning. There is indeed an order and classification of things in nature, but it does ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... he remarked, "presumably English, known to both Miss Beverley and Jocelyn Thew, seems rather a puzzle. He may be the connecting link. I hope to goodness your man ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... too highly of him to suppose that," said Mrs Clagget; "though, to be sure, I do wish he would talk more about himself. I like a person to be communicative; those reticent people always puzzle me." ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... he has paid enough. Whether to pay his fifteen cents, American or Mexican, for the first hour, and ten cents, or centavos, for the hour succeeding, and how many media pesetas make a quarter of a dollar in our currency,—these are the questions that annoy and puzzle the newcomer, till he learns to disregard expense, and order his livery from the hotels ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... his thoughts. "Pray, young man," said he, "say nothing of my trade in tin, for I see these are men of quality, and, having heard of me only through the newspapers, know but little of my true history. But, let my enemies say what they will, I am not a man to stand at trifles. Honors never puzzle me: it's the thickness of them. I say, though, that when fame puts a man on the pedestal he must never think of falling to the ground, for that would be a fear unworthy my profession." He now read and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the glass together, as a child puts together his puzzle-map, one bit at a time, working from the base corner that ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... concession. To them it seemed well-nigh incredible that any nation should be their superiors in any department pertaining to the practice of war. They could not bring themselves fully to understand it. It remained as much a puzzle to them as the unaccountable obstinacy of the English in refusing to be budged out of their position by displays of cold steel, or to be shaken by the volleying, bull-like roar of the German charging cry, which at first the Germans counted upon as ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... old-fashioned woman, who cried and fretted easily, and worried over trifles, was a good housekeeper, and a fond mother—a fat, dumpy little woman with a doleful voice. She was always urging her brother not to puzzle his head about writing; writing and thinking, she said, were "bad for the head." When he would go away on a journey of only a hundred miles, she would worry incessantly lest something happen to him. She married and had five daughters. Her death occurred in May, 1912, at the age of seventy-seven. ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... to account for our being sent to the Trentino. One was that an Austrian attack was feared there, another that an Italian attack was intended, but that the intention was afterwards abandoned, a third that the whole thing was a feint to puzzle the Austrians. But in any case we did not remain there long. By the beginning of August we were back on the Plateau. On the return journey, which was again by road all the way, we were given three days' rest at Desenzano and I was able to spend ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... salt and sand, and it shall puzzle the wisest of men, with his mere natural ——s, to separate all the grains of sand from all the grains ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... ovarian plates and the visual plates is filled up with small movable plates closing the space between them. I should add that one of the five ovarian plates is larger than the other four, and has a peculiar structure, long a puzzle to naturalists. It is perforated with minute holes, forming an exceedingly delicate sieve, and this is actually the purpose it serves. It is, as it were, a filter, and opens into a canal which conducts water through the interior of the body; closed by this sieve on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... follow the intricacies of a really interesting trial; to observe the demeanour and aspect of the witnesses; to listen to the impassioned flummery of the leading counsel; to note its effect on the Twelve Men in the Box; and then to see the Chinese Puzzle of conflicting evidence arranged in its damning exactness by a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardly be equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired in a capital case, for I hold it impious ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... thick growth of hair hiding your face gives you an air of mystery and romance no woman could possibly resist. You're a perpetual puzzle, and to pique a woman's curiosity is the surest way to interest her. Why, there are plenty of women who would marry you simply to find out what is under all that ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... long years past may not be protecting you from difficulties which you do not foresee. Instructors and writers of text books (impressive as is the evidence to the contrary) are human, and do not invent rules to puzzle you. They do not, in fact, invent rules at all, but only make convenient applications of principles which generations of writers have found ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... sure whether the books went regularly under the actual inspection of Mr. Channing, or whether Hamish went over them aloud. If only the latter, could the faults be concealed? She knew nothing of book-keeping, and was unable to say. Leaving her to puzzle over the matter, we will return ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... parts have therefore degenerated BECAUSE THEY WERE OF NO FURTHER VALUE TO THE INSECT. But if selection did not influence the setting aside of these parts because they were neither of advantage nor of disadvantage to the species, then the Darwinian factor of selection is here confronted with a puzzle which it cannot solve alone, but which at once becomes clear when germinal selection is added. For the determinants of organs that have no further value for the organism, must, as we have already explained, embark on a gradual ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... you ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.' Somehow whenever she said that, Lois fancied it meant that nurse was not very sure of the answer herself. She had already asked Aunt Isabel in church that same morning, when the puzzle began; and Aunt Isabel's answer about 'a halo' had left the little girl more ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... come to a puzzle of unusual magnitude. If Homer does not know small circular shields, but refers always to huge shields, whereas, from the eighth century B.C. onwards, such shields were not in use (disregarding Tyrtaeus, and the vase of Aristonothos ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... being less frequently used, often puzzle us to know whether to add s or es to form the plural: armadillos, cantos, cuckoos, halos, juntos, octavos, provisos, salvos, solos, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... 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 money ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... no light on this new problem; and she was somewhat more interested, moreover, in their other puzzle. But as she was about to revert to that ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... for any one to creep up to the barn at night, to push open the somewhat frail windows or equally frail door, and to accomplish that deed which had already been attempted. Nora knew well that she must act, she must do something—what, was the puzzle. Squire O'Shanaghgan was one of the most generous, open-hearted, and affectionate of men. His generosity was proverbial; he was a prime favorite with his tenants; but he had, like many another Irishman of his type, a certain hard phase in his character—he could, on ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life. Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn liberality. The solitary hired man on a farm in the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... at the puzzle-map she had brought with a childish pleasure, and between them they locked it away carefully in a drawer of ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... prove it by not asking me to play my hand before I have all the cards I want. All in good time. I'm working several ends, and they all must be fitted together, like the old jigsaw puzzle, before I can act. Besides, anything I could say now wouldn't set you free. You can't get out before a trial or before I can produce some one on whom I can actually fasten the murder. And I can't do that yet. You aren't ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... over to-day—shows orders a full month ahead of shipments, besides many canceled orders, countermanded because not filled promptly enough to satisfy the customers. You're superintendent as well as engineer. I wish you'd try to clear up this puzzle." ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... husband, a mother-in-law, an aged father, seven children of her own, the Conroy orphan, and a constantly changing number of cats. Nobody could have done it but Mrs. Patterson. The house resembled one of those puzzle boxes containing a number of curiously sawn pieces of wood, which, once removed, can be returned and fitted into place again only by some ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... excess of his satisfaction at the solution of this long-standing puzzle, Moses threw back his head, shut his eyes, opened ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... 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
... greatness of God. Half the wonder, half the mystery of creation is lost, when we fail to recognize the truth that it is governed by eternal laws springing from an Almighty Intelligence. Take the Creator out of creation, and it becomes a hopeless puzzle—a dreary problem, incapable of solution. But we restore to it all its brightness, all its beauty, all its charm, when we are able to lift up our hearts with the Psalmist and to say: "Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens; praise ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... the Mayhew muddle, for I believe that handsome Engineer boy is capable of breaking his heart in earnest because Elsie has lost hers pro tem.,—engaging little goose that she is. Really I sometimes think that the man and woman puzzle is just an endless game of ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... interesting inquiry presents itself to our minds, which is intimately related to this subject of the habitats of fungi. It shapes itself into a sort of "puzzle for the curious," but at the same time one not unprofitable to think about. How is the occurrence of new and before unknown forms to be accounted for in a case ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... Starr studied the puzzle from all angles. He might have stayed and had his curiosity satisfied, but it was second nature with Starr to hide any curiosity he might feel; his riding matter-of-factly away, as though the girl were a logical ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... down because they puzzle me. I think I was in love with Beatrice, as being in love is usually understood; but it was quite a different state altogether from my passionate hunger for Marion, or my keen, sensuous desire for and pleasure in Effie. These were selfish, sincere things, fundamental and instinctive, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... not glued together in any way. Perhaps it's a puzzle, and they all come apart." And he turned it over and over with boyish ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... Miss Hampden," he began, looking at me through his half closed eye-lids, "you are beginning to puzzle me strangely. Did any one ever tell you ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... thought is usually clear, yet his brilliant but erratic mind was impelled to clothe this thought in the most bizarre garments. Literary paradox he loved; his mind turned naturally to metaphor, and despite the protests of his closest friends he continued to puzzle and exasperate the public. He who could have written the greatest novels of his age merely wrote stories which serve to illustrate his theories of life and conduct. No man ever put more real thought into novels than he; none ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is one of the writers that puzzle the historian with a doubt as to whether or not he should be included in the story of literature. The one book for which he is famous is called Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth (1651). It is partly ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... "We often puzzle ourselves about the rights and wrongs of Onkel Peter's death," concluded the simple man; "but this will always be clear to us, that three foreign ladies visiting the house out of respect to his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... letters, some of them in French or Norwegian, were a great puzzle to the boy. He sat on his stool nervously awaiting the arrival of his "boss". He suffered tortures of shyness when, at half-past eight, the factory girls for ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... it before," said Mrs. Clibborn, with an air of triumph, as though she'd found out a very difficult puzzle. "Had he a ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... Roscoe? I didn't see as much of him as you did, but I liked him. Take my tip for it, that woman will make trouble for him some day. She is the biggest puzzle I ever met. I never could tell whether she liked him or hated him; but it seems to me that either would be the ruin of any "Christom man." I know she saw something of him while she was in London, because her quarters were next to those of my aunt the dowager (whose heart ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... for workin' up wild suspicions. Say, he can't find a stray sheet of scribblin' paper on the floor without pouncin' sleuthy on it and tryin' to puzzle out ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of sight of any passer-by he went on: 'I am Jasper Pope at your service, Sir Denzil de Foulke's own man, and I have in my basket such a disguise as would puzzle his dearest friend, that of a pedlar's wife. Also there is a packet for you, lady; you will find it at the bottom. I could not see you sooner. I have been selling my wares in the village for a day or two, but durst not venture near the Court until I heard ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... 'Gilmour was a puzzle to most of our fellow-students, and they could not quite make him out. By some he was: regarded as very eccentric, which is another way of saying that he preserved a very marked individuality, and always had the ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... up the scissors and cut around the outline with what seemed to Rosemary, reckless abandon. But when he had finished and she took up the two pieces, they fitted together like parts of a picture puzzle. ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... glasses if you'll wear them. And I don't want to go alone. David went back on me; he's got a new book. It's a puzzle to me why any man should want to read when he can have ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... how to start," he says, "which way you get into it, and then I won't keep you any longer; I'll puzzle ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... through which ran a piece of metal, like a blade through a sword guard. He felt sure it was an electrode of some sort, a tool to convert stolen electricity into a weapon of offense and assault. But he neither waited to strike a light nor stooped to puzzle over the bundle. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... thoughts crowding upon his brain that wintry night. Now they were of the eccentric old man, who had been to him a father, and from whom he had received Spring Bank, together with the many peculiar ideas which made him the strange, odd creature he was, a puzzle and a mystery to his own sex, and a kind of terror to the female portion of the neighborhood, who looked upon him as a woman-hater, and avoided or coveted his not altogether disagreeable society, just as their fancy dictated. For years the old man and the boy had lived together ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... me. But one can't escape the talk about him. I have him crammed down my throat even in hospital. The internes read him at the clinics. He tumbles out of the nurses' pockets. The patients keep him under their pillows. Oh, with most of them, of course, it's just a craze, like the last new game or puzzle: they don't understand him in the least. Howland says that even now, twenty-five years after his death, and with his books in everybody's hands, there are not twenty people who really understand Pellerin; and Howland ought ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... merely a few "pieces" of poetry, and a few haphazard and detached observations (called "Nature Study" nowadays) about familiar things—"the cat," "the cow," "the parsnip," "the rainbow," and so forth—this was the jumble of stuff offered to the child's mind—a jumble to which it would puzzle a philosopher to give coherence. And what could a child get from it to kindle his enthusiasm for that civilized learning in which, none the less, it all may have its place? When the boy left school his "education" had but ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... it been otherwise,—had she been sullen and obstinate as well,—I do not know what would have come of it, or how we could have got on at all. Miss Bowdler, I am afraid, would have had a very satisfactory crow over papa. I have seen him sit for minutes in silent contemplation of the little puzzle, trying, no doubt, to fit her into his theories, or, as my mother said, to find her a three-legged stool and a corner somewhere in the kingdom of heaven; and we were certain something or other would come out of that pondering, though whether ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... the first faint grey of the morning, walking through the trees, in an easterly direction, and looking like a person in a trance. This convinced me that she walked in her sleep. But this hypothesis did not solve the puzzle. How did she pass out from her room, leaving the door locked on the inside? How did she escape from the house without unbarring door ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Bell Rock. Chapter IV. A Family of Boys. Chap. V. The Grandfather. VI. Alan Stevenson. VII. Thomas Stevenson. My materials for my great-grandfather are almost null; for my grandfather copious and excellent. Name, a puzzle. A Scottish Family, A Family of Engineers, Northern Lights, The Engineers of the Northern Lights: A Family History. Advise; but it will take long. Now, imagine if I have been homesick for Barrahead and Island Glass, and Kirkwall, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some disposals of a strictly ecclesiastical character are made by the same document. Thus we find an abbot who makes disposal for his heirs—a counterpart to those references to the legitimate progeny of churchmen, which frequently puzzle the antiquary in his researches ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... I. It's a puzzle. If he had molested her while she was a captive, you could understand. But he never came ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... many of them in curious animal forms, and other similar things. It was known, positively, that these objects had been found in Egypt, but it was impossible to assign them a place in the known periods of Egyptian art. The puzzle was increased in difficulty by certain plates of slate with hunting and battle scenes and other representations in relief in a style so strange that many investigators considered them products of the art ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... then his words were so low-spoken and indistinct that the first two men he asked did not hear. The third man frowned and pointed to a policeman. The fourth snapped: "Take the elevated for Charlestown or the trolley-cars, either;" all of which served but to puzzle Hezekiah the more. ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... value. The defendant confessed he had killed the ass, but pleaded a set-off, insisting that the loss he had sustained by the ravage in his corn was equal to the sum demanded for the animal. To ascertain this fact was the point at issue, and the learned advocates contrived to puzzle the cause in such a manner, that, after a hearing of three days, the court broke up without coming to any determination upon it; and a second palaver was, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... hand of a female; and underneath of which peeped two corners of his shirt. His features were of that kind, that carried precisely the expression of those of a masculine woman; and when he spoke, it was a perfect puzzle to the stranger, to know whether he heard the voice of a man or ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... says the Zulu medicine-man, in Mr. Rider Haggard's Allan's Wife, 'who can make men see what they do not see.' The class of persons who are said to have possessed this power appear, now and then, in all human history, and have at least bequeathed to us a puzzle in anthropology. This problem has recently been presented, in what may be called an acute form, by the publication of the 'Experiences of Mr. Stainton Moses'. {78b} Mr. Moses was a clergyman and schoolmaster; in both capacities he appears to have been industrious, conscientious, and honourable. ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... into dreaming and wondering how it had all happened. Not being able to solve the puzzle, she drifted into reminiscence once more. She could see him—him—and feel his impassioned eyes fixed on her face. "Oh, make haste back! I am so afraid he will not come yet! Besides, it is all very well, but ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... Philosophy enough: Let Divines puzzle themselves about these Things; let us discourse of those Matters that were first mentioned. If you would be a compleat Mother, take Care of the Body of your little Infant, so that after the little Fire of the Mind has disengaged itself from the Vapours, it may have sound and fit Organs ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... that I know of. Come, Chief Inspector, this finessing with me is highly improper on your part—highly improper. And it's also unfair, you know. You shouldn't leave me to puzzle things out for myself like this. Really, I ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... rather puzzle me," said the inspector. "From what I heard at Halvey I guessed it might be common robbery and murder by some tramp, though such a thing is very far from common in these parts. But as soon as I began my inquiries I came on some curious points, which by this time I dare say you've noted for yourself. ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... unusual dovetail joint, which, when put together properly is a puzzle. The tenon or tongue of the joint is sloping on three surfaces and the mortise is cut sloping to match. The bottom surface of the mortise is ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... That man don't talk a bit like a clergyman, miss; he talks just like any other man—only better than I ever heard man talk before. I couldn't help liking him from the first, and wishing I might meet him again! But I think I could put him a question or two yet that would puzzle him!" ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... be afraid of a trail for this divine creature? 'Thou knowest, that I have more than once, twice, or thrice, put to the fiery trial young women of name and character; and never yet met with one who held out a month; nor indeed so long as could puzzle my invention. I have concluded against the whole sex upon it.' And now, if I have not found a virtue that cannot be corrupted, I will swear that there is not one such in the whole sex. Is not then the whole sex concerned that this trial should ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... dark. Trade was opened with the interior, and the discovery of diamond mines and gold mines in South Africa (1867, 1884) stimulated emigration. Railways have been pushed forward in many directions (S622), new markets are springing up, and Africa, once the puzzle of the world, seems destined to become one of the great fields which the Anglo-Saxon race is determined to control, if not ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... 75, p. 215.) The want of the Latin 'V' obliged the Greeks to employ their 'beta'; nor do they regard quantity. Till he recollected the true language, these strange sentences might puzzle a professor.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... replied Carlo, laughing. "I looked just as you do now- -I felt just as you do now—all in a fright and a puzzle, when I first heard of angles and sines, and cosines, and arcs and ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... chance in saving him from sending across some stuff about the Cardinal Archbishop of CRANBERRY, instead of CHAMBERY. I got a dispatch from, him quoting the Virago of Paris—meaning the Figaro, of course. And then that Schema; a Sphinx could not have made it more of a puzzle, whether he meant that the bishops voted that the Pope should be deified, or defied, or that the de fide should pass ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... wonder that it has been hard to make thee understand the first, the nature of it, and the cause why most men are born to it; as for the second, it would be treason for thee and me to do more than whisper it here, and sigh for it when none are listening; but the third need hardly puzzle thee; thy hookah [Footnote: Hookah: a kind of pipe for smoking tobacco, used in Eastern Europe and Asia.] is bright with it; all thy jewels are set in it; gold is inlaid in the ivory of thy bath; thy cup and thy ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... forgotten, although his name had been put forward by the minister Chamillart: this was the celebrated Superintendent of Finance, Nicolas Fouquet. In 1837, Jacob, armed with documents and extracts, once more occupied himself with this Chinese puzzle on which so much ingenuity had been lavished, but of which no one had as yet got all the pieces into their places. Let us see if he ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... shyness which came on me when strange hands did my undressing for me once in Nan-nan's absence: the first time I had felt such a thing. And another day I remember, after contemplating the head of Judas in a pictorial puzzle for a long time, that I seized a brick and pounded him with it beyond recognition:—these were the first vengeful beginnings of Christianity in me. All my history, Bible and English, came to me through picture-books. ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... every great historical conflict? Surely we should stay this awful, pitiable and destructive conflict of the conscientious; at least, long enough to examine most earnestly into the cause of this strange and disastrous puzzle. If conscience is not a safe guide, then woe betide us; for it is the only moral guide we have, or, at least, the only avenue through which human and divine truth can guide us. For it is the ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... of Diminishing Utility. Let us turn back, then, to the factor of utility, and see if we cannot put on a more satisfactory basis the relation between utility and price. The clue to the puzzle is to be found in a brief reflection on the implications of the second general law propounded in Chapter II. A rise in price, it was there stated, will sooner or later diminish the demand. This was asserted as a matter of fact, observed from and confirmed by experience. ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... the scene on the wharf-boat flashed on my recollection. I remembered the youth wore a cloak, and that he was of low stature. It was he who was standing before me! That puzzle was explained. I was but a waif—a foil—a thing for ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... would do it in a way which should not shock them with its coarseness or starve them with its poverty. As it is now, most women deny themselves the expression of the best part of their love, because they know it will be either a puzzle or a terror to ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... the other; "but for my part, I am often disposed to look upon the man as mad; yet still the puzzle is to think how he lives in such buck style—the vagabond. He certainly is involved in some-mystery, for every one you meet or talk ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... versifier may draw the knot of logic, yet for the ear he still leaves the tissue of the sentence floating somewhat loose. In prose, the sentence turns upon a pivot, nicely balanced, and fits into itself with an obtrusive neatness like a puzzle. The ear remarks and is singly gratified by this return and balance; while in verse it is all diverted to the measure. To find comparable passages is hard; for either the versifier is hugely the superior of the rival, or, if he be not, and still persist in his more delicate enterprise, ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... summer garments laid away, for a peek beneath—a journey on one's stomach under the spare-room bed—a pilgrimage around the cellar with a flaring candle—furtive explorations of the storeroom. And when we came to a door that was locked—Aha! Here was a puzzle and a problem! We tried every key in the house, right side up and upside down. Bluebeard's wife, poor creature,—if I read the tale aright,—was merely seeking her Christmas presents around the house before ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... of course, systems of opening which deviate absolutely from those which have been proved sound and are in general use, and it is those openings that puzzle the beginner most of all. He says: What is the good of learning correct openings, if my opponent plays incorrectly and wins all the same? This line of thought is wrong from its inception. The student is not supposed to "learn" openings by heart, but to UNDERSTAND how the general ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... tacklin this hopeless puzzle from every angle I could think of. I tried 'phonin' to Claire's old street number. Nothin' doin'. They didn't ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the vowel sounds,—the symbols, dash and dot, With rules and regulations charging us "Forget-me-not." Wish you could have heard us sound them. It was amusing, too; Seemed like talking Chinese language,—ah, [a], ee; aw, o, oo. Then came the hooks with many crooks to puzzle and perplex; They were so very obstinate, and would be sure to vex; For while we thought we had them right, they were just turned about, And when we came to read them, we could scarcely make them out. The circles ...
— Silver Links • Various
... 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
... not difficult to piece together the bits of pasteboard, for I knew pretty well what I should find. Completed, the puzzle read, "Mr. Esper Indiman," and in pencil, "Call at 4020 Madison Avenue at ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... he replied; "and because it may serve to keep your mind busy during hours when otherwise it would be engaged with profitless sorrows, I invite you to puzzle out this business for yourself. You have nothing else to do until late to-night, and you can work undisturbed, ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... little talk of this, it was plain that all the town could not be told to say that the fisher was drowned on such a night, and Hodulf would leave naught undone to find the truth of the matter. So the puzzle became greater, and the one thing that was clear was that Grim was in ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... sure that I had not been followed before I approached the desk and asked to see Mr. Ostrander. No such person was in the hotel or had been. Then I brought out my photograph. The face was recognised, but not as that of a guest. This seemed a puzzle. But after thinking it over for awhile, I came to this conclusion: that the address I saw written on the card was not his own, but that of some friend ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... found his way across that vast and gloomy world was a great puzzle to us. John Dolittle asked him by what means he navigated—how he knew he was on the right road to Puddleby River. And what the snail said in reply got the Doctor so excited, that having no paper ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... at the camp, not only to Ben Rainsford but also to van Riebeek, to Jimenez and even to Ruth Ortheris, which seemed a little odd. Ruth seemed to think so, too, and Mallin hastened to tell her that Borch was with Personnel, giving some kind of tests. That appeared to puzzle her even more. None of the three seemed happy about the presence of the constabulary troopers, either; they were all relieved when the cruise ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... now—the reign Of love and trade stills all dissensions, And the clear heavens arch again Above a land of peace and pensions. The black chap—at the last we gave Him everything that he had cried for, Though many white chaps in the grave 'Twould puzzle to say ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... game, thought the hearer, deep in that wounded heart of his, would not only be with the patriarch. And the great puzzle, Life, would be ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... four years. It's all she'll ever get, for she hasn't a soul now to look to for help. That's the way we human beings arrange things,—we, or the Lord, or the Evil One, or whoever it is; we bring a puzzle into the world, and then leave it for other people to work out—if they can! Who'll work out this one? Who'll work out this one? Perhaps she'll die before the money's gone; let's hope ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... variation from a normal type, sickness in childhood ought to have a certain value not to be classed under any fitness or unfitness of natural selection; and especially scarlet fever affected boys seriously, both physically and in character, though they might through life puzzle themselves to decide whether it had fitted or unfitted them for success; but this fever of Henry Adams took greater and greater importance in his eyes, from the point of view of education, the longer he lived. At first, the ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... upon the solution that is accepted, the life of the individual is to a large extent based. It is, of course, very interesting to meditate and speculate upon the material world, its origin and evolution, but the question is very largely one of mere theoretical interest—a kind of game or puzzle for studious minds. It is the question of life itself that is ultimately of practical interest to every human soul. And this is the problem that Eucken would solve. Hence those who expect to find a closely reasoned philosophy on matter and its manifestations must look ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... time to think out a course of action. His face seemed to puzzle Colville, who was rarely at fault in such judgments of character as came within his understanding. But he seemed for an instant to be on the threshold of something beyond his understanding; and yet he had lived, almost day and night, for some months with Barebone. Since the beginning—that ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... the least surprised," returned Wyley with an easy smile. "Though I admit that I am interested. A wife is sauce to any story." He looked placidly round the company. He alone held the key to the puzzle, and since he was now become the centre of attraction he was inclined to play with his less acute brethren. With a wave of the hand he stilled the requests for an explanation, and ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... awe. Could this be the sensual, passionate voluptuary he had known two days since?—the strange, unprincipled, impulsive being, who yielded like the reed, to every gust of passion—this deep, clear, vigorous thinker! It was indeed a change to puzzle sager heads than that of Arvina! a transformation, sudden and beautiful as that from the torpid earthy grub, to the swift-winged etherial butterfly! He gazed at her, until she smiled in reply to his look of bewilderment; and then he met her smile with a sad heavy ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... p. 217.).—Before we puzzle ourselves with the meaning of a thing, it is well to consider whether the authority may not be very loose and inaccurate. This emerald cross, even if it was made of emeralds, might have been in several pieces. But we are told generally, in Phillips's ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.03.23 • Various
... now had these children been fed, and by dint of wonderful care and economy, the matron had managed to keep within the mark. How she could do it had been rather a puzzle to me. The only time that I had undertaken to cater for them, was in the Fall, when I took a number of them down to Garden River, to dig potatoes on our land there, and on that occasion I remember I gave them bread and jam for tea, and found that the jam alone which they devoured ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... position perilous enough to alarm the stoutest-hearted man, and awkward enough without the danger to puzzle any schemer, and for a few minutes the lad stood with one hand resting on the rock, and the cold perspiration gathering on his forehead, trying to think what he ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... in the policeman's mind, and he was wondering how the puzzle would explain itself in the long run, when an exclamation from Bates brought his vagrom speculations sharply back to the problem of ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... until it poured out everything there was in his seething brain. He told of the scheme of Martin Leland and Sledge Hume, for Garth Conway had dropped an incautious word and the shrewd brain of Ettinger had worked out the puzzle. He told how the three men were trying to do this very thing, how they had planned on getting the water themselves, how Martin Leland had tied up thousands in options and purchases, how Ettinger had been one too many for them ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... the assistance of a strange girl, whose real identity is a puzzle to all the Blythe girls. Who the girl really was ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the intricacies of a really interesting trial; to observe the demeanour and aspect of the witnesses; to listen to the impassioned flummery of the leading counsel; to note its effect on the Twelve Men in the Box; and then to see the Chinese Puzzle of conflicting evidence arranged in its damning exactness by a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardly be equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired in a capital case, for I hold it impious to stare at the ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... like bits of cotton-wool in succession, and the aeroplane sailing unconcernedly along. It appears to be very difficult to judge distance away in the air, and even more difficult to estimate the rate at which the object is travelling. What became of the shell-cases of the shrapnel used to puzzle us. One day Walkley remarked that it was peculiar that none fell on us. I replied "surely there is plenty of room other than where we are for them to fall." Scarcely were the words uttered than down one came close by. We knew it was a case from above and not one ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... evidence of still another occupant; and here, though so far easy to read, came in something of a puzzle. Who in this humble out-of-the-way cottage could afford to wear that exquisite cambric petticoat edged with a fine and very expensive lace? And surely it was on no country legs that those delicately clocked and open-worked silk stockings ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... the Kayani family, and who professed to know everything about everything,—Gul Khan and I gradually climbed to the higher part of the mountain. I say "gradually" because there was a great deal to interest and puzzle one on ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... no especial consequence in what reign of what kingdom our clever artist has laid his scene—and sooth to say, from the diversified and pleasantly incongruous costume and accessories of the picture, it might puzzle an uninitiated to tell. But we, who are in the secrets of Maga, and to whom the very brain-workings of her poets and painters are as palpable as the crystal curdling of the lake beneath the filmy breath of the Frost King, of course know all about it, and will whisper in your ear ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... you to the House? And as for a 'New Way to Pay Old Debts,' commend me to Commissioner Goulburn in Bankruptcy; while 'Love's Last Shift' is daily performed at the Court of Probate, under the distinguished patronage of Judge Wills. Is there any need to puzzle one's head over the decline of the drama, then? You might as well ask if a moderate smoker will pay exorbitantly for dried cabbage-leaves, when he can have prime Cubans for the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... no need for the question, or, rather, there was need for it, and the answer ought to have been clear to them; their sin was the all-sufficient reason for their defeat. There are plenty of Christians, like these elders, who, when they find themselves beaten by the world and the devil, puzzle their brains to invent all sorts of reasons for God's smiting, except the true one,—their own ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... right one. If this man were inside it I should find out from his own lips, at the point of my revolver if necessary, who he was and why he had dogged us so long. He might slip away from us in the crowd of Regent Street, but it would puzzle him to do so upon the lonely moor. On the other hand, if I should find the hut and its tenant should not be within it I must remain there, however long the vigil, until he returned. Holmes had missed him in London. It would indeed be ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... his body, and his heart was a lump of ice. He was dragging along some pointed flat pieces of ice, which he laid together in all possible ways, for he wanted to make something with them; just as we have little flat pieces of wood to make geometrical figures with, called the Chinese Puzzle. Kay made all sorts of figures, the most complicated, for it was an ice-puzzle for the understanding. In his eyes the figures were extraordinarily beautiful, and of the utmost importance; for the bit of glass which was in his eye caused this. He found whole figures ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Jesus gave us two special temptation prayers to make. The one is: "Lead us not into temptation."[66] That petition has been a practical puzzle to many of us, and the explanations not always quite clear. Would God lead us into temptation? we instinctively ask. And the answer seems to be ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... a lid drooped, or an eyebrow grew on a forehead, could make such havoc of your nerves! And more especially when, in the brain or soul that lay behind, no spiritual trait answered to the physical.—Well, that was for others to puzzle over, not for him. The strong man tore himself away while there was still time, or saved himself in an engrossing pursuit. He, having had neither strength nor saving occupation, had bartered all he had, and knowingly, for the beauty of this face. And as long as ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... females. The question of female suffrage had not then been much agitated, and I knew the community had not thought sufficiently upon it to be ready to introduce it as an element in our political system. While I am aware of that fact, I think it will puzzle any gentleman to draw a line of demarkation between the right of the male and the female on this subject. Both are liable to all the laws you pass; their property, their persons, and their lives are affected by the laws. Why, then, should not the females have a right ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... complete fulfilment. But how by a process of this kind, partly literary and partly conjectural, and attended by great difficulties at every step, he would reach a fact of prehistoric times of so much gravity as creation in series, we think it would puzzle Dr. Taylor to explain. Indeed, the mere production in a controversy of this nature of these vague fancies, half pious, half poetical, conjured up in most cases as a help to mental peace, by a leading minister ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... from me his acquaintance with Rachel Leonard? Why had they both been so strangely moved at meeting? I longed to ask a question; but I could not find my voice. I longed for John to speak, and tell me something—anything at all that he liked; and were it the strangest puzzle that ever failed to be unriddled, I swore to my own heart that ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... wrong?—Oh, what a fool I am! The mother and daughter must have suspected that you would raise some obstacles in the way of this affair since they have kept it from you," said Madame Marneffe. "But if you did not live with the young man, my dear, all this is a greater puzzle to me ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... documents, red tape, and sealing-wax. Master Pothier's acuteness in picking holes in the actes of a rival notary was only surpassed by the elaborate intricacy of his own, which he boasted, not without reason, would puzzle the Parliament of Paris, and confound the ingenuity of the sharpest advocates of Rouen. Master Pothier's actes were as full of embryo disputes as a fig is full of seeds, and usually kept all parties in hot water and litigation ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... political knowledge they may have been, but it is evident that their mental tone was high, that their minds had not been vulgarized by trash and sensationalism. Hamilton's sole bait was a lucid and engaging style, which would not puzzle the commonest intelligence, which he hoped might instruct without weighing heavily on the capacity of his humbler readers. That he was addressing the general voter, as well as the men of a higher grade as yet unconvinced, there can be no doubt, for as New York State was still seven-tenths ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... that race dominant were developed in the highest degree. The sequel, indeed, might lead the ethnographer into a labyrinth of conjecture, but the story is too tempting a one for me to forego telling it, although the said ethnographer should lose his wits in striving to solve the puzzle. ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... "you wish those who sent me to believe that my message has been delivered. Yet there I must confess that you puzzle me. What I cannot see is, to put it bluntly, where you come in. Any one of the countries represented at this little conference would only be the gainers by the miscarriage of my message, which is, without doubt, so far as they are concerned, of a distasteful nature. ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... think every man who lives in Montana ought to know it by heart. Yes, or in America. I'd rather puzzle it all out, up in here, than read anything else that we ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... mechanical principles more widely known than that of so-called centrifugal force; an action which, though still a puzzle to students, has long been thoroughly understood. It is, however, comparatively recently that it has been applied in practice. One of the earliest examples was perhaps the ordinary governor, due to the genius of Watt. Every boy knows that if he takes a weight hanging from a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... amused themselves by making me pass an examination, which consisted in ascertaining how many tunes I could recognise when they were played rather more quickly or slowly than usual. 'God save the King,' when thus played, was a sore puzzle. There was another man with almost as bad an ear as I had, and strange to say he played a little on the flute. Once I had the triumph of beating him in one of ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... church of Brou; a wonder of sculptured lace by Colonban. There is a legend about it which I will tell you some evening when you cannot sleep. You will see there the tombs of Marguerite de Bourbon, Philippe le Bel, and Marguerite of Austria. I will puzzle you with the problem of her motto: 'Fortune, infortune, fort'une,' which I claim to have solved by a Latinized version: 'Fortuna, in fortuna, forti una.' Are you fond of fishing, my dear friend? There's the Reissouse ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Madge became every day more and more attached to their adopted child, whose former history continued to puzzle them a good deal. They plainly saw the nature of Harry's feelings towards her, and were far from displeased thereat. They recollected that Simon had said to the engineer on his first visit to the old cottage, "How ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... ever did I set my brain to puzzle out some way of escaping this horrible infliction. Was it not possible to give them the slip, somehow, somewhere? I took the Colonel's hint, and pretended to take refuge in sleep, and at last, I believe, I dozed off. It must have ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... is really moved to an effort of memory by this, and blubbers out something that proves in the end to resemble the family name, though for the present it is merely a puzzle ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... mediatorship and that is not offered in His name, is supremely wicked. It is a gross perversion of the religion of Jesus. And how Christian men, even preachers of the gospel, can find it in their hearts to acquiesce in such a thing, is to us a profound puzzle. The institution that has no place for my Master has ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... of open and friendly routes towards Roumania. It was an Italian who set out to explain to me that Fiume must be at least a free port; it would be wrong and foolish to cut the trade of Hungary off from the Mediterranean. But the banking puzzle is a more intricate and puzzling matter altogether than the possibility of trouble between ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... boils upon his skin has often been a puzzle to his physician, who has in vain attempted to find some cause for the trouble in the general health alone. Had he known that every boil owed its origin to pus bacteria, which had infected a sweat gland or hair follicle, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... were themselves only practical in some specialty, or had made fortunes for themselves out of the gratuity of nature, were wont to look upon Wasson as a visionary and unpractical person. To those who acted only from motives of self-interest he was a perpetual puzzle. Neither was he ignorant of this unfavorable opinion, for he could see through people almost as if they were glass, and he endured it with true Emersonian serenity. If they had known what he thought of them they would not have felt so very comfortable. He was sufficiently practical ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... reads her approbation of his conduct, thus far, in the mild eyes that seem to look encouragingly upon him. Good old man, it would puzzle the saints to find fault with any of ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... to be in his love. I was once asked this question by an individual who probably wished to puzzle me. He said: 'You preach that a man must be in Christ to be saved, and at the same time say that Christ must be in the man. How is this?' I answer by using a very plain illustration. I said to him: When you get uncomfortably ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... me feel grave, Kathleen," said Ruth. "Oh, Kathleen, I can't tell how you puzzle me. Of course, I know that you are very pretty and fascinating, and that lots and lots of girls love you, and will always love you. You are a sort of queen in the school. Perhaps you are not the greatest queen, but still you are a queen, and you ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... time, thought, and money; and many times it was a puzzle to find the latter, though she had been drawing a slight advance in salary for several months, and Morton, by working in the college laboratory at odd hours, was now ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... though a little more circumspect. She loved odd puzzles like pigs in clover, the spider's hole, baby billiards, and the like. Lester shared in these simple amusements. He would work by the hour, if necessary, to make a difficult puzzle come right. Jennie was clever at solving these mechanical problems. Sometimes she would have to show him the right method, and then she would be immensely pleased with herself. At other times she would stand ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... much concern about Monsieur Roquion and his bill; but we had unfortunately come to the end of our stock of wine and tea, and a few other luxuries, and where to obtain them except from Monsieur Roquion was a puzzle. The next morning we determined to try, so we went to his shop to order what we wanted; but he instantly met us with a hint that "Le petit compte must first ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... to learn in the next few minutes how great was the executive ability of Caleb Barter. He had created a mighty puzzle, each and every bit of which must fit together exactly. Time was important in making the puzzle complete—and the puzzle changed with each passing second. As the anthropoid went slowly down the face of the Clinton Building, Bentley was sure that Barter controlled every move and saw every slightest ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... sat down to puzzle over those parts of her letter which he had barely skimmed; faded into insignificance for the moment before the outstanding confession that she really loved him. But they loomed larger and larger, more and ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... it, The ore that grows in the mountain's womb, Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb, They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it— Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle With side-bars never a brute can baffle; Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards; Or, if your colt's fore-foot inclines to curve inwards, Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. 370 Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle That keep a stout heart in the ram with their ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... awkward as she went out of the room. Yorkshire people seemed strange, and Martha was always rather a puzzle to her. At first she had disliked her very much, but ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... eye of an osprey, the memory of an elephant and a mind that unfolded from him in three movements like the puzzle of the carpenter's rule. He rolled to the front like a brunette polar bear, and shook ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... if you please give you a sketch of my plan. On Monday, the day on which the examination subjects are given out, I shall begin. My first performance will be my verses and my declamation. I shall then translate the Greek and Latin. The first time of going over I shall mark the passages which puzzle me, and then return to them again. But I shall have also to rub up my Mathematics, (by the bye, I begin the second book of Euclid to-day,) and to study whatever History may be appointed for the examination. I shall not be able to avoid trembling, whether I know my subjects ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... I could have made a son of that fellow. Poor lad!—poor lad! Suppose he thought it wasn't the straight thing to bind a girl of ours till he was in a better position—it'd be just like him. Well—but Mary, of all people!" (This was the puzzle to all.) "It must have been the baby. She certainly did dote on that child, and 'love me, love my dog'—eh? But to think of her keeping it so close all that time! Afraid I'd make a fuss, I suppose. You could have told her, Deb, that I don't ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Peninsula, and look at Spain, Italy, and Greece. Do not Kamtchatka and Korea, Arabia and the Indian Peninsula all point south? South America, Africa, and Australia are drawn out into wedges narrowing southwards. They are like stalactites in a grotto. But however much you may puzzle over the globe, and however much you may question learned men, you will never know why the earth's surface has assumed exactly the form ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... good glove's with your hand. My wife and I knew Captain and Mrs Ashburnham as well as it was possible to know anybody, and yet, in another sense, we knew nothing at all about them. This is, I believe, a state of things only possible with English people of whom, till today, when I sit down to puzzle out what I know of this sad affair, I knew nothing whatever. Six months ago I had never been to England, and, certainly, I had never sounded the depths of an English heart. I had known ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... steady, On the barrel of the gun Little mischief could be done; But on that sad morn a whim Suddenly seized hold of him; 'Twas the lunatic desire To observe how shot-guns fire; So he boldly took his stand Where the barrel ended, and, All agog to solve the puzzle, Poked his napper up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... "That's the puzzle we have to solve, as we found out about the hidden water. Up to now the raids of Del Pinzo and his crowd— assuming that they are the ones—have been small. They're the kind that's always going on, and a lot of the cattlemen, and Dad among 'em, seem ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... sanitation. A great part of the town consisted of houses of extreme antiquity, crowded together in narrow alleys in the neighbourhood of the river. These alleys, I may note in passing, were known as "chares"—a designation which used habitually to puzzle the Judges of Assize when they had to inquire into the circumstances of one of the not infrequent riots which in those days chequered the harmony of life on the banks of the Tyne. It was towards the end of July, 1853, that the rumour spread, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... could not determine to what degree had persisted the young man's initial attraction for the girl. Of her devotion there could be no question, but in how much it depended on the necessity of the moment lay the puzzle. Her demeanor was inscrutable. Yet Sam came gradually to trust ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... correctly worked the Christmas Puzzle in Young People. I had to study some time over "ray," never having heard of such a fish. It was only by finding what letters I needed in the columns 11, 9, 9 that I saw they were r a y. On looking in the dictionary I found there was a fish ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... unravel the web of one genus! Why, there, As they lie by my desk in that glistering heap, All tangled together like dreams in the sleep Of a bliss-fevered heart, I might turn them and turn Till night, in a puzzle of pleasure, and learn Not a fact, not a secret I prize half so much, As, how rough is this leaf when I think of her touch. There's one now blown yonder! what can be its name? A topaz wine-colored, the wine in a flame; And another that's hued like the pulp of ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... beautiful specimen of his skill in this latter respect; and it was curious to see how he had imparted the same faculty in some measure to his gardener—James Dixon, I think, was his name. I found them together one morning in the little lawn by the Mount. 'James and I,' said he, 'are in a puzzle here. The grass here has spots which offend the eye; and I told him we must cover them with soap-lees. "That," he says, "will make the green there darker than the rest." "Then," I said, "we must cover the whole." He objected: "That will not do with reference ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... hostile to thistle-heads and puzzle-heads, and to all withered leaves and weeds:—praised be this wild, good, free spirit of the storm, which danceth upon fens ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... have learned the dubious character of its chronology. The Assyrian Chronicle has "in the land" for 712, that is, there was no campaign in that year. Yet for that very year, the Annals has an expedition against Asia Minor! It is prism B which solves the puzzle. In the earliest years, it seems to have had the same chronology as the Annals. Later, it drops a year behind and, at the point where it ends, it has given the Ashdod expedition as two years earlier than the Annals. ...
— Assyrian Historiography • Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead
... among them the Flaggs, but was a fairly representative mixture of all grades of society, including the poorest. These last were specimens under spiritual duress rather than free worshippers, and it was a constant puzzle to the reverend gentleman why, in the matter of attendance, they, metaphorically speaking, sickened and died. It had never been so in England. "Bonnets!" responded one day Mrs. Hallett Taylor, who had become Mr. Glynn's leading ally ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... The word clef is derived from CLAVIS—a key—the reference being to the fact that the clef unlocks or makes clear the meaning of the staff, as a key to a puzzle enables us to solve ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... of both claims—that the ass should be paid for, and so should the corn; for the proprietor had no right to kill the beast, and it had no right to damage the field. The glorious uncertainty was therefore displayed in ascertaining the relative value of each; and the learned gentlemen managed so to puzzle the cause, that after a hearing of three days the court broke up without coming to any decision, and the cause was adjourned ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... to another by a rational discourse. Whereas indeed, we, generally missing this way, do teach children as we do parrots, to speak they know not what, nay which is worse, we, taking the way of teaching little ones by Grammar only at the first, do puzzle their imaginations with abstractive terms and secondary intentions, which till they be somewhat acquainted with things, and the words belonging to them, in the language which they learn, they cannot apprehend what they mean. ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius
... 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
... been left in two pieces, to puzzle the ingenuity of those gentry to unite. Yet, venerable and learned as they were, I doubt ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... be inhospitable to those who wish to inspect the interior. This afternoon Langeais and Azay-le-Rideau are beckoning us, although we were tempted to stop for a nearer view of the strange Pile de Cinq Mars, which is, we are told, an unsolved architectural puzzle. The most probable explanation is that this lofty tower was once part of a signalling system, by beacon fires, which flamed messages along the valley, past Luynes to the Lantern of Rochecorbon and as ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... you are changed enough already to puzzle 'em; and with your beard dyed black—by the way, don't forget to dye your hair too, old chap!—and glasses, et cetera, by jingo I do ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... have forgot thee, and exclaim They have not seen thee here since Charles, his reign, Or if they mention thee, like some old man, That at each word inserts—"Sir, as I can Remember"—so the cyph'rers puzzle me With a dark, cloudy character of thee. That—certs!—I fear thou wilt be lost, and we Must ask the fathers ere't be long for thee. Come! leave this sullen state, and let not wine And precious wit lie dead ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... not be surprising if such a book should be made the subject of special attack by the evil one. It is not surprising, though it is deeply grievous, that the common idea about this book among Christian people is that it is a sort of a puzzle, that it is impossible to get a simple, clear, workable understanding of its message. Parts of it are conned over tenderly and loved, a paragraph here, a verse there, and so on, but a grasp of the one simple message of the book seems not common, ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... shouted. "I never knew anyone named Goodwin! I don't care a hoot about your invention. And as for letting me die—why didn't you? That's a puzzle: you were ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... have heard some of Mr. Choate's clients dwell upon his mighty power as an advocate, and it seems to me that words of law flowing from such lips might have been suggestive of the harmony of the universe. The chirography of Mr. Choate was equal to any Chinese puzzle; it was even more difficult to decipher than that of Horace Greeley. I once received a note from him and was obliged to call upon my family to aid me in reading it. He had a fund of humor which was universally applauded by an admiring public. Once, in replying to a toast on Yale College at the "Hasty-Pudding" ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... brought us together, and dollars aren't likely to trouble us any. But let me get on with my puzzle. 'Slump in Grey.' That's funny, isn't it? 'Slump' certainly has to do with business. I've seen 'Slump' in the finance columns of the Toronto Globe. And then 'Grey.' That's ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... partake in. Not a soul loves Bowles here; scarce one has heard of Burns; few but laugh at me for reading my Testament,—they talk a language I understand not; I conceal sentiments that would be a puzzle to them. I can only converse with you by letter, and with the dead in their books. My sister, indeed, is all I can wish in a companion; but our spirits are alike poorly, our reading and knowledge from ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... did not answer him, but sat fretting. I turned reluctantly from the smeared puzzle of the glass and stared at his face. "Yes," I said, "I am hungry. I feel somehow enormously disappointed. I had expected—I don't know what I had expected, but ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... brothers, and the streams were sisters—brethren in common dependence upon God their Father, brethren in common consecration to His service, brethren by blood, brethren by vows of holiness. Unquestioning faith rendered this world no puzzle; they overlooked the things of sense because the spiritual things were ever present, and as clear as day. Yet did they not forget that spiritual things are symbolised by things of sense; and so the smallest herb of grass was vital to their tranquil contemplations. We who have lost sight ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... "Puzzle. Nobody in the clubs knows him. He's a spender. Bit of a rounder, too, I expect. Plays the Street, and ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... deeply inspired by political ambition. He was perhaps more desirous of raising the fallen fortunes of his house than of securing the independence of his country. Even at that early age, however, his mind was not easy to read, and his character was somewhat of a puzzle to those who studied it. "I see him much discontented with the States," said Leicester; "he hath a sullen deep wit. The young gentleman is yet to be won only to her Majesty, I perceive, of his own inclination. The ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I offended. On the contrary, I found amusement in alternately exciting, and lulling to sleep, the suspicions of my timorous companion, and in purposely so acting as still farther to puzzle a brain which nature and apprehension had combined to render none of the clearest. When my free conversation had lulled him into complete security, it required only a passing inquiry concerning the direction of his journey, or the nature of the business ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... discover why, if he was entitled to the horse's keep at all, he was not entitled to it, whether he had paid me half or the whole of the money? He seemed to think, that he for once had been duped; and very luckily his rage was averted from me to the daroga, who he very freely accused of being a puzzle-headed fool, and one who had no more pretension to law than he ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... as this young man possessed, are often short-sighted at a moderate range, and would be fitted up with glasses in these artificial times, and yet at long distance they are most efficient, and can make out objects that would puzzle keener organs. And so it was that Scudamore, with the sinking sun to help him, descried at a long distance down the tidal reach a peaceful-looking boat, which made his heart beat faster. For a sailor's glance ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... "Not these puzzle the will; Not these the yet unanswered question urge. But the unjust stricken; but the hands that kill ...
— A Father of Women - and other poems • Alice Meynell
... boldly executed figures of men, women, and animals, which, when his admiration had passed sufficiently to enable him to study them in detail, seemed to Stukely to tell some sort of a story. But what the story was he was quite unable to puzzle out, for there were hunting episodes depicted, and also scenes which seemed to represent some sort of religious ceremonial, while others, again, might be interpreted as representing either a human sacrifice, or, possibly, the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... made there, and wrote me for the measurements. He expressed it to me, and I repacked it and sent it to you," chuckled Doctor Forester. "He was determined to puzzle you completely." ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... offered chair and exchanged a few words with Claire as she gathered together her possessions, but the subtle change persisted. Claire felt vaguely disturbed, but the next half-hour passed so pleasantly that she had no time to puzzle over the explanation. Captain Fanshawe never left her side; they sat together on the same sofa which Great-aunt Jane had monopolised for the earlier part of the evening, and talked of many things, and discussed many problems, and sometimes agreed, and oftener ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... or compound, which constitutes the chief point of the First Method of Analysis above, is not always plain, even to the learned. The definitions and examples which I have given, will make it generally so; and, where it is otherwise, the question or puzzle, it is presumed, cannot often be of much practical importance. If the difference be not obvious, it can hardly be a momentous error, to mistake a phrase for an elliptical clause, or to call ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... ten years get together, and you will soon observe two or three are "whittling" out some ingenious device; working with locks or complicated machinery. When they were but five years old their father could find no toy to please them like a puzzle. They are natural mechanics; but the other eight or nine boys have different aptitudes I belong to the latter class; I never had the slightest love for mechanism; on the contrary, I have a sort of abhorrence for complicated machinery. I never had ingenuity ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... muse upon the miseries of the animal creation that I have revisited these shores. I came to puzzle once more over the site of that far-famed Athene temple which gave its name to the whole promontory. Now, after again traversing the ground with infinite pleasure, I fail to find any reason for changing what I wrote years ago in a certain pamphlet which some scholar, glancing ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... the idle populace between Hammersmith and London, besides a host of radicals, who will not let go by such an auspicious opportunity. How the peace of the metropolis or the safety of the Parliament is to be secured under all these circumstances, might puzzle wiser heads than those whose business it will be to decide upon it. T—— admits himself to be considerably alarmed, and describes the appearance of the Ministers in these latter days as betraying more anxiety and apprehension than vigour or decision. He said that ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... interest, the supreme interest, came instantly to the front again; nothing could keep it in the background many minutes on a stretch. The couple took up the puzzle of the absence of Tilbury's death-notice. They discussed it every which way, more or less hopefully, but they had to finish where they began, and concede that the only really sane explanation of the absence of the notice must be—and without ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... of the texts which is apt to puzzle people who do not read their Bibles carefully enough. They cannot see what the latter part of it has to ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... this, looked a long time at William, and William looked earnestly at his parent. Then she cocked her head on the other side, to take a new view of the question. Then she gathered up mouth and eyebrows, in a puzzle, and again broadened out upon Bill in an odd kind of smile; at last she doubled up one fist, put it against her cheek, glanced at Bill, and out came the answer: "Well, sah, I'd let 'em take dere own heads for dat!" I must confess ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... mysterious rustlings far and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment of the river and the frogs. I learned next day that the chestnut gardens are infested by rats; rustling, chirping, and scraping were probably all due to these; but the puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, and I had to compose myself for sleep as best I could, in wondering uncertainty about ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... each day I found myself wondering whether Sir John would think me good enough for his daughter. She was not his heiress, I knew, for he had a son at college, but she was lovely, high-born, accomplished, and my one great puzzle was whether he would think me ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the sign, but about other things; first about the rose in his hand. An' pretty quick John was talkin' about it, too. He had the rose an' was smellin' of it. Then Keith had a new knife, an' he passed that over, an' pretty quick I saw that John had that little link puzzle of Keith's, an' was havin' a great time tryin' to straighten it out. That's the first ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... 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
... art of the ugly. His countenances are so repulsive that they attract. The psychology of the looks, and leers, and grins, and hot, hectic desires on the faces of his women is a puzzle that we can not lay aside—we want to solve the riddle of this paradox of existence—the woman whose soul is mire and whose heart is hell. Many men have tried to fathom it at close range, but we devise a safer plan and follow the trail in books, art and imagination. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... youth as trick-horse in possession of an itinerant fakir, had acquired, since I knew him, reputation enough to be yoke-mate in a team highly enough thought of to be entered for two races the same day in the Circus Maximus. This was a puzzle almost as absorbing as the likeness and contrast between the ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... swing, as she undoubtedly will, whithersoever her inclinations lead, to the end of her life. To crystallize such wayward, human atoms into proper forms, and make them useful, is a problem that would puzzle wiser heads than that of ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... stuck on was a puzzle indeed! As I said before, our captain knew all about that part of the sea, and, although he knew we were in shallow soundings, he was certain that there wasn't any shoal or rock thereabout that we ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... presence needs must puzzle Antony; Take from his heart, take from his brain, from's time, What should not then be spar'd. He is already Traduc'd for levity: and 'tis said in Rome That Photinus an eunuch and your maids Manage ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... she 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 ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... he were trying to work out a puzzle. "Nearly all the people outside seem to have fathers and mothers. I never had either. I have always lived here, but nobody here is my father or my mother, and I don't know how I came here. I have been here so long, and yet it seems so strange to me. This is my only home, and yet I never feel ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... losing no time. He stayed but a few days in London after his victory at Barnet, and on the 19th of April left for Windsor, ordering all his forces to join him there. The Lancastrians had endeavoured to puzzle him as to their intended movements by sending parties out in various directions; but as soon as he had gathered a force, numerically small, but composed of veteran soldiers, he hurried west, determined to bring on a battle at the earliest opportunity. The ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... who took up the study of the puzzle, Judge Jarriquez was one of the most to be pitied. By a natural association of ideas, he also joined in the general opinion that the document referred to the affair at Tijuco, and that it had been written by the hand of the guilty man, and exonerated Joam Dacosta. ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... attentive collector is rewarded by finding that a coherent whole is growing up in his or her mind out of the shreds and patches heard here and there, and it is delight indeed when your own dim suspicion that this part of the puzzle fits into that is confirmed by finding the two incidents preserved side by side in the mouth of some perfectly unconscious witness. Some of the tales in this volume have thus been a year or more on ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... "It's a puzzle to me," said Uncle Lucky, "why we are always having so many accidents. Maybe I had better get a chauffeur." "You won't need any chauffeur after I'm done with you," said a deep growly voice, and out from behind a clump of bushes jumped a wicked wildcat and bit one of the ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... whom it had not a very sensible effect. I pick up the names of their acquaintance; amours and little squabbles are easily gleaned from among servants and neighbors; and, indeed, people themselves are the best intelligencers in the world for our purpose. They dare not puzzle us for their own sakes, for everyone is anxious to hear what he wishes to believe; and they who repeat it, to laugh at it when they have done, are generally more serious than their hearers are apt to imagine. With a tolerably good memory, and some share ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... 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
... that the perplexities which uniformly puzzle man in the physical world, and even in the little world of his own mind, when he passes a certain limit, are just as unmanageable as those found in the moral constitution and government of the universe, or in the disclosures of the volume Revelation. In both we find ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... are again young. Sometimes I wonder whether Jack was right, who used to say it may be we are never young or old, but merely seem to be so. This is the queer kind of reflection which I find now and then in Jack's diary, or with which he used to puzzle me and please James Wilson. Of course a man is young or is old. and there's an end on 't, as a greater man has said. But Jack has imagination, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... there was need for it, and the answer ought to have been clear to them; their sin was the all-sufficient reason for their defeat. There are plenty of Christians, like these elders, who, when they find themselves beaten by the world and the devil, puzzle their brains to invent all sorts of reasons for God's smiting, except the true one,—their own ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... keep bees, but found they would not thrive at Tapton. Many hives perished, and there was no case of success. The cause of failure was a puzzle to the engineer; but one day his acute powers of observation enabled him to unravel it. At the foot of the hill on which Tapton House stands, he saw some bees trying to rise up from amongst the grass, laden with honey ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... riveted, or welded together so that every section was exactly according to the measurements laid out on the plan. As each part was finished it was marked to correspond with the plan and also to show its relation to its neighbour. It was like a gigantic puzzle. The parts were made to fit each other accurately, so that when the workmen in Burma came to put them together the tangle of beams and rods, of trusses and braces should be assembled into a perfect, orderly ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... nerve, or a disease of the spinal cord; whether it is purely a muscular or purely a nervous lesion, or a compound of both—it still continues, if an etiologist is bound to possess universal knowledge within the scope of his special studies, to be his reproach and his puzzle. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... thought, and money; and many times it was a puzzle to find the latter, though she had been drawing a slight advance in salary for several months, and Morton, by working in the college laboratory at odd hours, was now earning enough to ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... the hot dry weather were a daily occurrence. We did not see imaginary castles and cities turned upside down and all that sort of thing, but apparent lakes of water were often seen, so deceptive as to puzzle even the oldest plainsman. Cattle appeared as big as houses and mounted men as ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... boy, who was seated in my lap, listened, with eyes fixed on the preacher, to every word that was said. At last one or two accounts were given which seemed to puzzle him greatly, and, casting an inquiring glance into my face, he whispered,—"Papa, ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... subdued. Her chief interest seemed to be now in her studies, and in music. Her companions she never sought; but they, partly from uneasy, remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked her much better now that she did not puzzle and oppress them, sought her continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life, the only stain upon ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... approval. 9. Egotism. 10. Unstable, "hair-trigger," conflicting emotions. 11. Altruism, sincere interest in the well-being of others. 12. Religious and moral awakening. 13. New attitude. 14. Aesthetic awakening. 15. Puzzle to everybody. 16. Desire to abandon conventionalities, struggle for self-assertion. 17. Career motive. 18. Period of "palling" and mating; clique and "gang" spirit. 19. Positiveness,—affirmation, denial. ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... to Vienna," she said, with a smile that served to puzzle rather than to delight him. He was more than ever convinced that she was playing with him. "But pray do not look so gloomy, Mr. Schmidt, I shall not make any demands upon your time while I am there. You ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... The puzzle was this, that for three weeks after this eventful discovery Blanche had been, only too eager about her dearest Arthur; was urging, as strongly as so much modesty could urge, the completion of the happy arrangements which ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it ought to be," he said, then drew upon his pipe for reflection, and became murmurous with the symptoms of melancholy laughter. "It don't make things less of a puzzle, though, does it?" ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... you came sailing over the stairs, peeping out from that bunch of lace. I loitered and spoke. Were the eyes green, or blue, or gray; ambition, or love, or indifference to the world? I was at my old puzzle again, while you unfastened the pinks, and, before the butler, who acquiesced at your frivolity in impertinent silence, you held them out to me. Only you know the preciousness of unsought-for favors. "Write me," ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... which immediately occurs to the mind. This Latin expression means a fuller; a person who kneads and presses cloth under a stream of water, making it flexible and ridding it of the asperities of weaving. What connection has the subject of this chapter with the fuller of cloth? I may puzzle my head in vain: no acceptable ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... to pass the acts of repeal only on condition that nothing was said about the royal supremacy. To Mary's insistence they returned a blank refusal to act and she was compelled to wait "while Parliament debated articles that might well puzzle a general council," ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... on one side of the table; newer sheets on the other; some half sheets in the middle. It was like an intricate puzzle, and the same one that Maclin had ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... keep his thoughts from his puzzle. Supper-time came, and he was still struggling to reach a conclusion. He carved the cold mutton with more than usual precision, and ate it in anxious abstraction. The room was chilly; draughts from the narrow windows made the lamp flare, and the wind from under the closed door raised ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... two leave church 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 ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... very real sense of the term, Robert became more reconciled to his isolation. His mind was broadening and deepening, and he felt that it was so. Many things that had before seemed a puzzle to him now became plain. He was compelled, despite his youth, to meditate upon life, and he resolved that when he took up its thread again among his kind he would put his new knowledge ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in the hot sunshine in the cricket-field, she used to lend me her vinaigrette for a cure. But I knew that I had asked you to have it, and that you had done me the favour to accept it. The fascinating puzzle was, how had it come back to me? At last I questioned Barbara Franklin. She could not tell any more than myself at first, and was equally puzzled, until she remembered your sister Annie's running into the room on the night when you were listening for news of my death, and asking for a smelling-bottle, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... to figure out the puzzle, yes," admitted the young engineer. "You see, we were both of us wrong, and we have ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... His great puzzle was the Anglo-Saxon, cold, austere and uncomplaisant. This Caucasian, fair of skin, with smooth and wavy hair, small cheekbones and elevated forehead, appeared a worshipful master whose station, under God, was of preordained and predestined eminence. Occupying Eurasia from the Channel ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... about it. It has been such a puzzle to me to know what I could do to support myself. There seemed to be nothing but teaching or stenography, and I should ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... the ground by the run, as though you were struck by lightning, or in the way of a 36-pounder! Ralph Waldo is death and an entire stud of pale horses on flowery expressions and japonica-domish flubdubs. He revels in all those knock-kneed, antique, or crooked and twisted words we used all of us to puzzle our brains over in the days of our youth, and grammar lessons and rhetoric exercises. He has a penchant as strong as cheap boarding-house butter, for mystification, and a free delivery of hard words, perfectly ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... destruction of the ancient cloister a covered way of some kind was erected here. Marks can also be seen, in the masonry, which indicate that the building once had three gables. Two of the Norman buttresses of the south nave aisle have very curious terminations, which might well puzzle any observer. They are fireplaces for the use of plumbers. Passing through the Norman doorway at the north-western corner of the Laurel Court, we come into a narrow passage leading to the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... positively shuddered as he tried to describe the woman, but he couldn't tell why. She seems to have been a sort of enigma; and I expect if that one dead man could have told tales, he would have told some uncommonly queer ones. And there you are again in another puzzle; what could a respectable country gentleman like Mr. Blank (we'll call him that if you don't mind) want in such a very queer house as Number 20? It's altogether a ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... mechanical puzzle to understand how the vibratory motions called heat could set up light waves in the ether seeing that there is an absence of friction in the latter. In the endeavour to conceive it, the origin of sound-waves has been in mind, where longitudinal ...
— The Machinery of the Universe - Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena • Amos Emerson Dolbear
... put before you a 'Hero-ic' puzzle of mine, but please remember I do not ask for your solution of it, as you will persist in believing, if I ask your help in a Shakespeare difficulty, that I am only jesting! However, if you won't attack it yourself, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... heads of offices change together, so very frequently it must be. If twenty offices are vacant at once, there are almost never twenty tried, competent, clever men ready to take them. The difficulty of making up a Government is very much like the difficulty of putting together a Chinese puzzle: the spaces do not suit what you have to put into them. And the difficulty of matching a Ministry is more than that of fitting a puzzle, because the Ministers to be put in can object, though the ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... knew not how to avoid them. He soon learned to distinguish the shriek of a coming shell, and would race off in one direction, looking fearfully back over his shoulder, until a similar sound in another quarter would so puzzle and terrify him that he would stand still awhile until the noise of an explosion utterly demoralized him, when he would frantically dig up the ground, as if trying ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... Boat House as my dwelling was called, from the image of the old Viking vessel that my uncle had carved and set above the door, and I led him in staring about him with all his eyes, which in his thin face looked large as those of an owl, taking him up the stairs, which seemed to puzzle him much, for at every step he lifted his leg high into the air, ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... white and thin, and she is fifty-five. I tell you her age, because in a way it explains many things which would otherwise puzzle you. She was born just before the war. She knew nothing of the luxury of the days of slavery. She has twisted and turned and economized all of her life. She has struggled with all the problems which beset the South ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... restless and intriguing, quarreling with all with whom he came in contact, burning with righteous indignation against corruption and misdoing, generous to a point which crippled his finances seriously, he was a puzzle to all who knew him, and had he died at this time he would only have left behind him the reputation of being one of the most brilliant, gifted, and honest, but at the same time one of the most unstable, eccentric, and ill ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... of the rabbit is apt to puzzle students a little at first. We have an ovum practically free from yolk (alecithal), and, therefore, we find it dividing completely and almost equally. We naturally assume, from what we have learnt, that the next ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... side. But he could not see why departed souls should be regarded as the shadows of living men. Rather it was we who lived in a vain show, and would continue to do so until the spirit, the true substance of us, should be set free. Well, whatever the truth of it might be, it was all a charming puzzle, and we should learn all about it some day, and meantime he had been furnished with an entirely new idea—the revealing power of darkness. He loved the light because it was beautiful, and now he loved ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... that; won't you? If I hadn't I'd been burning the midnight oil yet, I reckon. 'Taint safe to make me a present of a puzzle, because I'm just dead sure to nearly split my poor weak brain trying to figger it out. And Jack, I'll never be happy till I know what was in those boxes; and why did that sly little professor believe someone wanted to steal ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... Over the door was a stone tablet, bearing the name,—River's Cottage. There was a little garden between the road and the house, across which there was a straight path to the door. In front of one window was a small shrub, generally called a puzzle-monkey, and in front of the other was a variegated laurel. There were two small morsels of green turf, and a distant view round the corner of the house of a row of cabbage stumps. If Trevelyan were living there, he had certainly come ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... as it may, this I say, that, of all men, seafaring men are the most likely to solve this great puzzle about the limits of science and of religion, of law and of providence; for, of all callings, theirs needs at once most science and most religion; theirs is most subject to laws, and yet most at the mercy of Providence. ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... little ladies, my dear, Know what they're about: that is clear. 'Tis something important, you see, Though a puzzle to you and to me; For they each look as grave as a judge: So, old folks, don't laugh, and cry, "Fudge!" It may be that your own great affairs Are not any more ...
— The Nursery, September 1877, Vol. XXII, No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... time to think about it, yet!" Fergus laughed. "There is generally a way, if one can but find it out; but I have no doubt that it will take a good deal of thinking before we hit upon it, and if it does nothing else for us, it will be an amusement through the long evenings to have to puzzle it out. There is no hurry, for it is not likely that there will be any more fighting before the army goes into winter quarters; and so that we are there when the campaign opens in the spring, it ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... cold, we are apt to puzzle ourselves to find out when it began, or how we got it; and when that is accounted for, down we sit contented, and let it have its course; or, if it be very troublesome, take a sweat, or use other means to get rid of it. So my dear, before the malady you wot of, yet wot ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the pity, the admiration of which the lad's heart had been full an hour before, still hungered for expression; but it was not easy to vent such feelings before Louis, nor at a moment when the Syndic's cold eye and the puzzle of his presence there chilled for the time the ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... then, are taxes? The question is one which is apt to come up, sooner or later, to puzzle children. They find no difficulty in understanding the butcher's bill for so many pounds of meat, or the tailor's bill for so many suits of clothes, where the value received is something that can be seen and handled. But the tax bill, though ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... high in the heavens when they had started, and she had taken no note of direction. East, west, north or south were all one to her in her happy care-free life that she had hitherto led. She tried to puzzle it out and remember which way they had turned from the railroad but grew more bewildered, and the brilliant display in the west flamed alarmingly as she realized that night was coming on and she was lost on a great desert with only ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... very beginning of the tale there comes a moment of puzzled hesitation. One way of approach is set beside another for choice, and a third contrived for better choice. Still the puzzle persists, all because the one precisely right way might seem—shall we say intense, high keyed, clamorous? Yet if one way is the only right way, why pause? Courage! Slightly dazed, though certain, let us be on, into the shrill thick of it. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... what can she pretend to—But I will not puzzle myself about her—Yet she pretend to give disturbance to such a man! You will find her mentioned in Dr. Bartlett's next letter; or she would not have been named ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... his most positive opinion that it had been self-inflicted. And it was inflicted with a razor, Henning's own, as was very clearly proved after inquiry. For the razor was found in the barn by the police, entangled with the blackened frame of an old lantern. Here was still another puzzle; one to which the final revelation of the mystery of the Red Triangle gave an answer, as will be seen in ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... three miles distant. If we could remove the dam of glacial boulders and gravel at the lower end of the lake, the water would be lowered only three hundred feet. The lake would not be drained, for it is very much deeper. Now here is another puzzle for us: the bottom of the lake is more than one thousand feet below the level of the Columbia. We shall have to go still farther back into the past to get ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... farewell and Maud's interview with the crossing-sweeper. He too looked strangely disturbed, pacing up and down an adjoining street, more than once, before he could make up his mind to ring a well-known bell. Verily Miss Bruce seemed to be one of those ladies whose destiny it is to puzzle, worry, and interest every man with whom they come ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... as atheistically disposed a person who regards certain things and events as being what they are through designed laws (whatever that expression means), but as not themselves specially ordained, or who, in another connection, believes in general, but not in particular Providence. We could sadly puzzle him with questions; but in return he might equally puzzle us. Then, to deny that anything was specially designed to be what it is, is one proposition; while to deny that the Designer supernaturally or immediately made ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... dull and lifeless scroll. You shall have soon a tissue of truth and fiction impossible to be extricated, the interleavings shall be so delicate, the partitions perfectly invisible, it shall puzzle you till you return, & [then] I will not explain it. Till then a ... adieu, with kind rem'brces of me both to you & ... [Signature and a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... outsides, too, to women's in some respects. Why all human beings—since they have no coats of their own, and are obliged to buy them—do not buy handsomely marked furs whilst they are about it, is a puzzle to a cat. As to the miserable stuff ladies cover themselves with in an evening, there is about as much comfort and softness in it as in going to sleep on a duster. Men's coats are nothing to boast of, either to look at or to ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... attracted him most, for it was full of toys of the most fascinating kind. A rocking-horse as big as a pony, the finest dolls' house you ever saw, boxes of tea-things, boxes of bricks—both the wooden and the terra-cotta sorts—puzzle maps, dominoes, chessmen, draughts, every kind of toy or game that you have ever had or ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... or hindrance from any foreign source, and with the better part of a continent at their disposal for a field to work in, so great a political problem as that of the American Union has not been solved without much toil and trouble. The great puzzle of civilization—how to secure permanent concert of action without sacrificing independence of action—is a puzzle which has taxed the ingenuity of Americans as well as of older Aryan peoples. In the year 1788 when our Federal Union was completed, the problem ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... of you," he said. "It was womankind needed here. I could do so little—Mrs. Hoden, you look better to-day. I'm glad. And here's baby, all clean and white. Baby, what a time I had trying to puzzle out the way your clothes went on! Well, Mrs. Hoden, didn't I tell you friends would come? ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... containing dried corn-silk, the other hayseed, convenient for the making of amateur cigarettes; the smoker's outfit being completed by a neat pile of rectangular clippings from newspapers. On the shelves of the whatnot were some fragments of a dead pie, the relics of a "Fifteen-Puzzle," a pink Easter-egg, four seashells, a tambourine with part of a girl's face still visible in aged colours, about two thirds of a hot-water bag, a tintype of Hedrick, and a number of books: several by Henty, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," "100 Practical Jokes, Easy to Perform," "The ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... got at some house plans by accident that they found out where he fitted in. He'd go over a set of them puzzle rolls that mean as much to me as a laundry ticket, and he'd point out where there was room for another clothes closet off some chamber here, and a laundry chute there, and how the sink in the butler's pantry was on the wrong side for a right handed dish washer, and ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... through idle curiosity to know the number of the Angels; nor for the solution of a logical puzzle, nor for that of a question in metaphysics, or of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... precaution. The major was close-mouthed, and, for him, rather stern. He held aloof from his juniors all day long and seemed to be keeping an eye and an ear attent on Nevins. That officer's conduct was a puzzle. Six months before he was the personification of all that was lavish, hospitable, good-natured, extravagant. Everybody was apparently welcome to the best he had. Then came the collapse, his arrest, his flight, his ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... verbal puzzle, and I answer, yes! The finite can contain the Infinite, if you are talking about two hearts that love, one of them God's and one of them mine. We have got to keep very clear and distinct before our minds the broad, firm line of demarcation between the creature and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... to the sneezer becomes intelligible when we learn that the savage has a good reason for it. He thinks the sneeze expels an evil spirit. Proverbs, again, and riddles are as universally scattered, and the Wolufs puzzle over the same devinettes as the Scotch schoolboy or the Breton peasant. Thus, for instance, the Wolufs of Senegal ask each other, 'What flies for ever, and rests never?'—Answer, 'The Wind.' 'Who are the comrades that ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... should be paid for, and so should the corn; for the proprietor had no right to kill the beast, and it had no right to damage the field. The glorious uncertainty was therefore displayed in ascertaining the relative value of each; and the learned gentlemen managed so to puzzle the cause, that after a hearing of three days the court broke up without coming to any decision, and the cause was ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... of fifteen in a good grammar school of that period and yet not be able to use the multiplication table. As late as 1823 Lamb writes: "I think I lose a hundred pounds a year owing solely to my want of neatness in making up accounts: how I puzzle 'em out at last is the wonder!" There is no evidence, however, to show that Lamb did not overcome his lack of preparation. The contrary impression sometimes prevails, due, perhaps, to his supposed apology for his late arrival by his representation that he made up for it ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... seems to have been a sad puzzle to the hunters, who hardly knew how to come at so valuable a piece of game. Some described the horn as movable at the will of the animal, a kind of small sword, in short, with which no hunter who was not exceedingly cunning in fence ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... the troops had been halted at crossroads, and they had marched by that which they had least expected. The camp at Luray on the 21st presented the same puzzle. One road ran east across the mountains to Warrenton or Culpeper; a second north to Front Royal and Winchester; and the men said that halting them in such a position was an ingenious device of Jackson's to prevent them fathoming his plans.* ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... finding out relationships is delightful!" said Mab. "It is like a Chinese puzzle that one has to fit together. I feel sure something wonderful may be made of it, but I can't ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... settle it that way, after a great deal of talking. You can't imagine, Ring-tail, how queer it makes me feel to be divided up in such a fashion. Sometimes I puzzle over it until I am dizzy. Which of me belongs to Stuart, and which ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... often employ about Physiological Mysteries, are wont much more to declare the wit of him that uses them, then increase the knowledge or remove the doubts of sober lovers of truth. And such captious subtleties do indeed often puzzle and sometimes silence men, but rarely satisfy them. Being like the tricks of Jugglers, whereby men doubt not but they are cheated, though oftentimes they cannot declare by what slights they are imposed on. And therefore I think you have ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... I've got your number now," he said. "I could pick you out from amongst a hundred wolves." This was merely a casual assertion, a self-congratulation over having solved the puzzle, and the Coyote Prophet made it without a thought that the day would ever come when he might have opportunity to ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... the doubtful kind; A something, nothing, not to be defined; 'Twould puzzle worlds its sex to ascertain, So very empty, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... servants and negroes, 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
... 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 ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... pride is equal to theirs: I won't go out of my way a hair-breadth for them," and he walked in to supper as if he were at home and had an absolute right to be there. He had been at the table but a few moments, however, before the aspect of the Jocelyn family began to puzzle him exceedingly. Belle appeared as if she had been crying; Mrs. Jocelyn looked perplexed and worried, and in Mildred's eyes there were anxiety and trouble. Mr. Jocelyn had not lost his serenity in the least, but his aspect now was grave, and ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... didn't take in this delicate political hint. In fact, anything fine or keen is sure to puzzle ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... we may well suppose, was not without influence in suggesting to his mind the probable shape of the earth. The Milky Way, which doubtless had puzzled astronomers from the beginnings of history and which was to continue to puzzle them for many centuries after the day of Anaxagoras, was explained by the Clazomenaean philosopher on a theory obviously suggested by the theory of the moon's phases. Since the earth-like moon shines by reflected light at night, and since the stars seem obviously brighter on ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... suffering with numerous boils upon his skin has often been a puzzle to his physician, who has in vain attempted to find some cause for the trouble in the general health alone. Had he known that every boil owed its origin to pus bacteria, which had infected a sweat gland or hair follicle, the treatment would probably have been more efficacious. The ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... all dark to me," owned Sally Flint. "I guess 'twould puzzle a saint to explain men-folks, anyway, but I've al'ays thought they was sort o' numb about some things. Anyway, Josh Marden was. Well, things went on that way till the fust part o' the summer, an' then they come to a turnin'-p'int. I s'pose ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Now the puzzle was, how the palm got there. Naturally one would suppose that a seed of the palm had been deposited on the top of the banyan, and had there germinated and thrown out ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... guess whom I have seen,' she began, when Monica was quite ready to listen. 'We had a letter the other morning which did puzzle us so—I mean the writing before we opened it. And it was ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... II. The Northern Lights. Chapter III. The Bell Rock. Chapter IV. A Family of Boys. Chap. V. The Grandfather. VI. Alan Stevenson. VII. Thomas Stevenson. My materials for my great-grandfather are almost null; for my grandfather copious and excellent. Name, a puzzle. A Scottish Family, A Family of Engineers, Northern Lights, The Engineers of the Northern Lights: A Family History. Advise; but it will take long. Now, imagine if I have been homesick for Barrahead and Island ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... these Psalms are occupied with that standing puzzle to Old Testament worthies—the good fortune of bad men, and the bad fortune of good ones. The former recounts the personal calamities of David, its author. The latter gives us the picture of the perplexity of Asaph its writer, when he 'saw the prosperity ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... to hear,' said Burney simply. 'It's always been a bit of a puzzle to me how a chap like you came to be a Tommy in this outfit. With your education, you ought to be an officer ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... 'I'm heart-broken,' in response. Then, as fast as her mischievous little feet could carry her, she raced down one hill and across to the other. Very stealthily she advanced till she found the boy bent over a puzzle on the back stoop, and—and he was ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... They knew a good horse when they saw one, and they let people see how a man, if he chooses, can shift for himself, without being beholden to any one. Anyhow, they have given clever men something to puzzle their brains about, and their language is not, as some would have it, a mere thieves 'patter,' but is a good, if not a better one, than that which the clever ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... the villain was only crushed for the moment, and that he would shortly be revenging himself upon them. No, the only way every to get any peace and quiet was to render the Tanuki harmless for ever. Long did the old man and the hare puzzle together how this was to be done, and at last they decided that they would make two boats, a small one of wood and a large one of clay. Then they fell to work at once, and when the boats were ready and properly ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... lower side while the upper side or that within the dam is gently sloped. the brush appear to be laid in no regular order yet acquires a strength by the irregularity with which they are placed by the beaver that it would puzzle the engenuity ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... down, or rather fall into a chair! Then I sprang up with a bound to look about me; then I sat down again, overcome by astonishment and fear, in front of the transparent crystal bottle! I looked at it with fixed eyes, trying to solve the puzzle, and my hands trembled! Some body had drunk the water, but who? I? I without any doubt. It could surely only be I? In that case I was a somnambulist—was living, without knowing it, that double, mysterious life which makes us doubt whether there are not two beings ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... busy ones for Brewster. Miss Drew saw him quite as often as before the important interview, but he was always a puzzle to her. ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... the reasons for my fellow-traveller's anxiety about my name and occupation, I knew not, yet could not help feeling gratified at thinking that as I had not given my name at the coach office, I was a great a puzzle to him as ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... 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 ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... grimly, and put the thought aside, and moved their worldly goods to the two tiny rooms. When they had got their trunks in, there was no place to sit save on the beds; and though Corydon had cast away all superfluities for this pilgrimage, still it was a puzzle to ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Natacha relapsed into dreaming and wondering how it had all happened. Not being able to solve the puzzle, she drifted into reminiscence once more. She could see him—him—and feel his impassioned eyes fixed on her face. "Oh, make haste back! I am so afraid he will not come yet! Besides, it is all very well, but I am growing old; I shall ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... talented musicians of the younger generation. It is improbable that Berlioz would have been an easy subject for the wisest and kindest of spiritual guides; but no influence, repellent or attractive, could have been more disastrous for that passionate, quick-witted and yet eminently puzzle-headed mixture of Philistine and genius, than the crabbed old martinet whose regulations forbade the students access to Gluck's scores in the library, and whose only theory of art (as distinguished from his practice) is accurately formulated in the following passage from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... other; "but for my part, I am often disposed to look upon the man as mad; yet still the puzzle is to think how he lives in such buck style—the vagabond. He certainly is involved in some-mystery, for every one you meet or talk ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... in the missive which seemed of greater interest to him than others. For example, the place whence it had been addressed was an ever recurring puzzle; he also dwelt long upon the sentence which referred so delicately to a paternal relationship. The most exigent passages, however, were those relative to the time he might look for the man's coming. As specially directed, he had taken note of the day of the delivery ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... conspirators. It often since appeared to me odd. Every year, indeed, more odd, as this cumulative case of the marvellous becomes to my mind more and more inexplicable—that underlying my sense of mystery and puzzle, was all along the quiet assumption that all these occurrences were one way or another referable to natural causes. I could not account for them, indeed, myself; but during the whole period I inhabited that house, I never once felt, though much alone, and often up very late at ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... little painting here; but, after all, I don't seem to take as much interest in composing pictures as in trying to puzzle out ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... consideration of his patient's tenderness of brain. "We both of us fought a good fight; for though you struck no actual stroke, you took them as unflinchingly as ever I saw a man, and so turned the fortune of the battle better than if you smote with a sledge-hammer. Two things puzzle me in the affair. First, whence came my assailants, all in that moment of time, unless Satan let loose out of the infernal regions a synod of fiends, hoping thus to get a triumph over me. And secondly, whence came you, my preserver, unless ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Those who were not akin were bound to each other by ties of long acquaintanceship; but the homogeneousness of the people, complete and thorough as it was, was not marked by any monotony. On the contrary, character and individuality ran riot, appearing in such strange and attractive shapes as to puzzle and bewilder even those who were familiar with the queer manifestations. Every settlement had its peculiarities, and every neighborhood boasted of its humorist,—its clown, whose pranks and jests were limited by no license. Out of this has ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... She was a puzzle to all who knew her. Meanwhile, in her own soul she was waging a battle with her desires, to which she knew not how to give a definite form. She asked herself why she lived. She buried herself in books, but found no comfort there. She felt that she must find something that would absorb and ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... strip, and another. Some went on very well, some with heavy travail, and with results that made me grateful for our pictures and furniture. Yet it became fascinating work; it was like piecing out some vast picture-puzzle, one that might be of some use when finished. I improved, too. I was several days finishing the up-stairs, and by the time I got it done I had got back some of the dash I started off with. I could slap on the paste and swing the strip to the ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... can afford to ignore a coincidence, and it so happened that upon the very day that league Poteet's wife presented him with the puzzle of a daughter, Fate presented his countrymen with the problem of war. That night, sitting in the door of his house and smoking his pipe, Teague witnessed other developments of the coincidence. In the next room the baby-girl squalled ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... dramatic entertainments, pageants and tableaus, of varying degrees of grossness, similar to the more elaborate and polished products of the early Javanese and Peruvian drama ... one cannot help fancying must be all pieces out of the same puzzle ... I have with some pains discovered the origin of the name "Arioi." It throws a lurid light on the character of some of the Asiatic explorers who must have visited this part of the Eastern Pacific prior to the Europeans. In Maori the word Karioi ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... naturally perfectly frank. Pity it was she had ever had a secret to keep! These frank people are a sore puzzle to gentlemen of Lawyer Larkin's quaint and sagacious turn of mind. They can't believe that anybody ever speaks quite the truth: when they hear it—they don't recognise it, and they wonder what the speaker is driving at. The best method of hiding your opinion or your ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... did not move. Slowly the heavy brows contracted over intent eyes as he strove to puzzle it out. At length his lips ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... It was rather a puzzle to her and her brother. All they were sure of was what they saw—that the Yaquis had separated, most of them following Paz, while the captives were left in charge of the villainous Mike and his ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... sensation of discomfort, of apprehension even. Still, when he thought about her it seemed impossible to connect anything sinister with a personality so charming, with a disposition so amiable. No, it was beyond him; it was useless his attempting to puzzle out the problem. Only time could explain it. As they had met at the Savoy, so sooner or later they would meet again. He knew it was useless to try and forget her; that was impossible, but, ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... 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
... as fair as could be, With her tempting smiles And maidenly wiles, And he was a trifle past seventy-three: Now what she could see Is a puzzle to me, In a ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... occasionally held to her nose. But all her effort was to compose her thoughts—a difficult attempt, as the image of her mother was the one which insisted on taking the pre-eminence in her mind. She ordered it down, with a sort of bitterness. Had her mother been alive, she would have gladly fled from this puzzle into which her life had tangled itself, and gone back to America to rest and mother-love. So she told herself, at least. But then followed the reflection that in her mother's death the refuge of love's calm and protection ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... for a grand saturnalia is best when Mr. Smith goes from home for a day or two. Then I can deny myself to visitors—take full license—set the hydrant running, and puzzle the water commissioners with an extra consumption of Schuylkill. My last exploit in this way was rather disastrous; and I am patiently waiting for its memory to pass away, before I venture even to think of repeating it. Mr. Smith had business in New York—imperative ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... and mutilate, and palm upon me senses which he knows are deliberately disavowed by me, all the while pretending that it is my bad logic which justifies him! We know that very many religious men are bad logicians: if I am as puzzle-headed a fool as Mr. Rogers would make people think me, how does that justify his mocking at my religion? He justifies himself on the ground that I criticize the New Testament as freely as I should Cicero (p. 147). Well, then let him criticize me, as freely (and with ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... now, was dovetailing together the pieces of the puzzle. Those who had originally planned the crime had in some way discovered that the Rat, in the actual theft, had forestalled them. Possibly, for instance, bent on the same errand, they had seen the Rat leaving the building; then, finding the safe already looted, they ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... scene can be witnessed every evening in numerous cafes in the City of New York. Tons of brew have been consumed over theories to account for it. Some have conjectured hastily that all Southerners in town hie themselves to cafes at nightfall. This applause of the "rebel" air in a Northern city does puzzle a little; but it is not insolvable. The war with Spain, many years' generous mint and watermelon crops, a few long-shot winners at the New Orleans race-track, and the brilliant banquets given by the Indiana ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... experience, her four years' nursing, and her people in the old home town. Bit by bit, we picked out her status from the things she dropped inadvertently. And that night in our rooms we assembled the parts of the puzzle thus; one rambling Bedford limestone American castle in the Country Club district; two cars, with garage to match; a widowed mother, a lamented father who made all kinds of money, so naturally some of it was honest money; two brothers, a married sister; a love for ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... to bed, on the night of Lady Kitty's recitation, William Ashe stayed up till past midnight talking with old Lord Grosville. When relieved of the presence of his women-kind, who were apt either to oppress him, in the person of his wife, or to puzzle him, in the persons of his daughters, Lord Grosville was not by any means without value as a talker. He possessed that narrow but still most serviceable fund of human experience which the English ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the narrowest compass, and most clearly set forth, the great standing puzzle of all thought, which can only be solved by action. On the one side there is the distinctest knowledge of a divine purpose that will be executed; on the other side there is the distinctest consciousness ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... obtrudes itself upon me, and I ask, "Suppose Gen. TERRY had a daughter, why would she necessarily be a delightful puzzle? Obviously because she ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... fifty thousand francs to Nicolas Dugrival's wife! Do you call that uninteresting? And what about the way in which you solved the puzzle of the ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... for God's righteous and eternal law, against man's false and unrighteous law. It is a very difficult thing, no doubt, to tell where to draw the line in such matters. But we, thank God, here in England now, have no need to puzzle our heads with such questions. Every man's conscience is free here, and he has full liberty to worship God as he thinks best, provided that by so doing he does not interfere with his neighbour's character, or property, or comfort. There is no single ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... the first time he began to notice the words that showed dimly through the stain, began to read them, to puzzle them out, as if they were new ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... said Phil, struggling into a white, medallioned blouse that fastened as intricately as the working of a prize puzzle. "I've taken such a dislike to her, and ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... good drink, and cheered by the certainty of having water by me, I sat down for a while on the cabin-scuttle that I might puzzle out a plan for getting to some ship so recently storm-slain that aboard of her still would be eatable food. As for rummaging in the hold of the brig, I knew that no good could come of it—she having lain there, as I judged, for a good deal more than half a century; ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... Harry Girdwood had got through the above puzzle once or twice, he was in a regular fog. The only result was to get himself heartily laughed at by ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... that?" said Madame. "'Twould puzzle a wise man to do so, for in these parts there are so many turnings. However, I will send a girl to guide you. You could find room for her on the box-seat, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... is lively, is interesting, and is brief. It can be read with pleasure now, as it was read with pleasure when it first appeared. But, besides this, it is interesting to us as the early work of a writer whose mind has been a puzzle to men of letters. Even should we accept Macaulay's judgment on Boswell, and despise him as he despises him, yet it must surely be worth while to examine closely the early writings of an author, who has, "in an important department of literature, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... the yard-man, with alacrity; and he went off shaking his head, as if all this was a puzzle beyond his capacity ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... your hair, then you must have a false nose, and put a spot on some part of your face, or a wart, or a few hairs." I laughed, and said, "Help me to contrive this for the next ball; I have not been to one for twenty years; but I am dying to puzzle somebody, and to tell him things which no one but I can tell him. I shall come home, and go to bed, in a quarter of an hour."—"I must take the measure of your nose," said he; "or do you take it with wax, and I will have a nose made: you can get a flaxen ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... "That shows our man to be industriously at his task. No, no explanation now; on the twenty-seventh of May we'll come again, and the drain itself shall furnish a solution to the puzzle." ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... wit and resource of the Enterprise huddled around Calloway's puzzle, considering its mysterious ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
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