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Bewilder   Listen
verb
Bewilder  v. t.  (past & past part. bewildered; pres. part. bewildering)  To lead into perplexity or confusion, as for lack of a plain path; to perplex with mazes; or in general, to perplex or confuse greatly. "Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search."
Synonyms: To perplex; puzzle; entangle; confuse; confound; mystify; embarrass; lead astray.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bewilder" Quotes from Famous Books



... Danvers feebly, feeling quite unequal to cope with the gravity of the situation, "I wish you both would not quarrel like this, Hilary; you talk so fast that you bewilder me. Now, Miss Carson, it is your turn to speak. I am quite sure that you can explain everything if you will. You are too young, and—and far too nice a girl to be a burglar, and if you will only tell us how Colonel Baker's things got under your bed, I am ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler

... snow. The swift fakes struck at her eyes and ears like a swarm of vicious flies. In such a wind, the blows of the soft thin snow, beating upon her face, now from one quarter, now from another, were enough to bewilder even a strong woman like Kirsty. They were like hail to a horse. After trying for a while to force her way, she suddenly became aware of utter ignorance as to the direction in which she was going, and, for the first time in her life, a fell terror possessed her—not for herself, ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... interests; ay, and who learned Gitano—their own Gitano—from the lips of the London Caloro, and also songs in the said Gitano, very fit to dumbfounder your semi-Buddhist priests when they attempt to bewilder people's minds with their school-logic and pseudo-ecclesiastical nonsense, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... learn many things, and then, after having begun them, abandoned them. Thus, in arithmetic, during the few months that he studied it, he made so much progress, that, by continually suggesting doubts and difficulties to the master who was teaching him, he would very often bewilder him. He gave some little attention to music, and quickly resolved to learn to play the lyre, as one who had by nature a spirit most lofty and full of refinement: wherefore he sang divinely to that instrument, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... curiosity not very unnatural under the circumstances. The truth is, the general effect of the schoolroom, with its scores of young girls, all their eyes naturally centring on him with fixed or furtive glances, was enough to bewilder and confuse a young man like Master Langdon, though he was not destitute of self-possession, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... to bewilder and baffle him at the moment when hope seemed to be returning. He had convinced himself that his one chance was to break with every tie which bound him to his old life, and to start afresh from the lowest step of all. And here, at the outset, there ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... which the thought itself is above his comprehension. "Children possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high in imagination or feeling so long as it is simple likewise. It is only the artificial and the complex that bewilder them," said Hawthorne, and because of his knowledge of this fact he wrote his exquisite classics for children. The phraseology of books is frequently different from that to which the child is accustomed. He must be taught to understand thought as expressed ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman

... equilibrio two colours of doctrines so diametrically opposite, and consequently two parties equally dissatisfied at not being able to crush each other, neutralizing them, in short, by its immense influence in the employment of their strength, when they bewilder or exhaust themselves uselessly for its interests; but I could not touch on these matters, without travelling out of the domain of literature, which is the only one that is at present familiar to me, in order ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... mental faculties. Warwick's first emotion was simply a great and hopeless astonishment. Long inured to the mystery of the jungle, he thought he had passed the point where any earthly happening could actually bewilder him. But in spite of it, in spite of the fire-eyed peril in the darkness, he was quite himself when he spoke. The voice that came out of the silence was wholly steady—a kindly, almost amused voice of one who knows life as it is and who has mastered ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... dear! you're getting worse and worse. It's not often I ask you anything—and on my birthday too! It is really too bad of you to bewilder my poor little ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... reveal itself, and speak the truth of many appearances, nay, of all. In reading this poem of Homer we are only following the poet, if we seek to lay hold of its essence under its varied manifestations. The whole Odyssey is a Proteus, ever changing, assuming new forms, which will utterly bewilder the reader until he reaches its first principle. Homer probably suggests that his own Fairy Tale, nay, his own poem, is a Proteus, which must be grasped and held by the one central thought. In fact, does not ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... continues; so the search for mind in matter goes on, with a seriousness scarcely equalled in any other line of strife. There is nothing more certain to permanently bewilder a vocal student than to deluge him with pseudo-scientific twaddle about the voice. And this for the simple reason that he comes to learn to sing, not for a course ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger

... great ones, and describes his shipwreck on the infinite sea of printer's ink, and his rescue as of one escaping by mercy from a region where there was water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. Let us confess that books by their very multitude bewilder, and that careless and purposeless reading destroys the mind. Let us admit, too, that books no more mean culture than ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... saw by the young man's startled aspect that he was prepossessed against him, and had listened probably to the damning rumors which were rife everywhere concerning him, a second motive was added, in his pride of seduction and sophistry, by which he was wont to boast, that he could bewilder the strongest minds, and work them to his will. When by the accidental disarrangement of Arvina's gown, and the discovery of his own dagger, he perceived that the intended victim of his specious arts was probably cognizant in some degree of ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... she was about? had she netted beforehand all the meshes of this web she was throwing over him? the admirable mixture of frankness and subtlety, nature and art—must it not have been planned and calculated beforehand, to bewilder and mislead?—It may well be doubted. No preconceived and elaborated programme can come up to the inspiration of the moment, which is genius. Such felicitous wording of subject-matter so objectionable: such an unassailable presentation of so indefensible a principle—could hardly have ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... slaughter'd boys.— Shudd'ring, O king, thou dost avert thy face: So did the sun his radiant visage hide, And swerve his chariot from the eternal path. These, monarch, are thy priestess' ancestors, And many a dreadful fate of mortal doom, And many a deed of the bewilder'd brain, Dark night doth cover with her sable wing, Or shroud ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... in small bark have following sail'd, Eager to listen, on the advent'rous track Of my proud keel, that singing cuts its way, Backward return with speed, and your own shores Revisit, nor put out to open sea, Where losing me, perchance ye may remain Bewilder'd in deep maze. The way I pass Ne'er yet was run: Minerva breathes the gale, Apollo guides me, and another Nine To my rapt sight the arctic beams reveal. Ye other few, who have outstretch'd the neck. Timely for food of angels, on ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... James's Hall, this sounds surprising, But if you'd understand it, just look round!) Dockers and Brickies, charwomen and "childer," With such small deer, mate, as my friend and me, Find one more "Social Question" to bewilder The small brains left us ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various

... of lace—isn't she bewitching? Her stockings are green. The wall is a most miraculous adumbration of green. Across the room is another agent of disquiet in Nile green, Mercedes by name. Her aquiline nose, black eyes, and the flowers she wears at the side of her head bewilder; the sky, clouds, and landscape are all very lovely. This is a singularly limpid, loose, flowing picture. It has the paint quality sometimes missing in the bold, fat massing of the Zuloaga colour chords. The Montmartre Cafe concert singer ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... all the Gardiner diamonds to-night, my dear," were the lady-mother's parting words. "Every one is expecting to see them on you. They are famous. You will create a sensation in them; you will bewilder, dazzle, and astonish ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... bronze, the myriad lamps of every fantastic form, the quaint and daring designs for shop fronts, the infinite arts employed to "set off" goods, and the surprising, never-ceasing varieties of art-manufacture—whether in chocolate or the popular Algerian onyx—bewilder strangers. Does successful Mr. Brown, who, having doffed the apron of trade, considers it due to himself to become—so far as money can operate the strange transformation—a fine fleur; does he desire also ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... the public school with the actual facts to be observed in the present method of teaching German, we see immediately what they really amount to in practice,—that is to say, only to subterfuges for use in the fight and struggle for existence and, often enough, mere means wherewith to bewilder an opponent. For we are unable to detect any single feature in this teaching of German which in any way recalls the example of classical antiquity and its glorious methods of training in languages. 'Formal education,' however, which is supposed ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... her pumps and thrown it away. Like Aunt Alvirah and Helen, Ruth knew that the figure beside Bilby in the car was not the missing Indian girl. He had attempted to use the scarecrow he had stolen from the cornfield across the road to bewilder anybody ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson

... already said, the settlers, from behind their intrenchments, were prompt in returning the fire of their assailants. The effect upon persons who had never been brought in collision with Indians would have been to bewilder and terrify them. It is very probable that such was one of the principal objects of the Apaches in making their attack as they did; but it failed utterly in that respect. Carefully avoiding any exposure of themselves, they popped away right and left, the reports of the ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... prehistoric Aryan tribes of which the Irish were a branch. Its basis is the art of weaving, and in some respects resembles the matting of Polynesia much more closely that the vine-stems of Sicily or the arabesques of Byzantium. Spirals occur that bewilder the eye, yet are so faultlessly perfect that only the magnifying-glass brings out the incredible accuracy of the drawing. Among them are mythological and allegorical beasts, snakes, and lizards—thought to represent demons, like the gargoyles of Gothic architecture—in ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... speak; but confusion and great fear fell upon Priam, And every hair was erect on the tremulous limbs in his faintness. Dumb and bewilder'd he stood; but beneficent Hermes, approaching, Tenderly took by the hand, and accosted and questioned the old man: "Whither, O father! and why art thou driving the mules and the horses Through the ambrosial night, when the rest of mankind ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... up from the fleshless and skeleton perfection of the problemed forms, which start at your slightest touch from the formal squares of the chess board,—forms which confuse me with their complexity, bewilder me in the mazes of their ceaseless combinations, dazzle me with their chill erudition, and appal me with want of life,—and smile acceptance on the glowing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Still further to bewilder the savages—against whom he bore no grudge, and to avoid encountering whom was his chief desire—Dick varied his costume, appearing sometimes in the dress of a Blackfoot chief, or a Cree warrior; at other times in the hunting-shirt and cap of ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... "that is how we bewilder ourselves on earth. Why, it is hard to say! But all the real things remain. It is all just as surprising and interesting and amusing and curious as it ever was: the only things that are gone—for a time, that is—are the things that are ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... progress—the natural law of amelioration in human affairs—the fundamental law of human nature—the basic law of the time-binding energy peculiar to man—is a Logarithmic law—a law of logarithmic increase. I beg the reader not to let the term bewilder him but to make it his own. It is easy to understand; and its significance is mighty and everlasting. Even its mathematical formulation can be understood by boys and girls. Let us ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... and to march directly upon Valencia and give battle to the Duke of Arcos under its walls. Peterborough, however, simply told them to wait and see what would come of it, and in the mean time he continued to bewilder his foes by the most ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... of a telephone, foretells you will meet strangers who will harass and bewilder you in your affairs. For a woman to dream of talking over one, denotes she will have much jealous rivalry, but will overcome all evil influences. If she cannot hear well in conversing over one, she is threatened with evil gossip, and the loss of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... with a new Adjective to help him to express his opinions; but, for all that, he is a great man. If you call him "the heroic defender of the national honor" one day, and "a brutal and licentious soldiery" the next, you naturally bewilder him, and he looks upon you with suspicion. There is nobody to speak for Thomas except people who have theories to work off on him; and nobody understands Thomas except Thomas, and he does not always know what ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... stratagem; and it was his maxim, that to grasp our object the faster, we must go a little round about it. His life is said to have been one of intricacies and mysteries, using indirect means in all things; but if he walked in a labyrinth, it was to bewilder others; for the clue was still in his own hand; all he sought was that his designs should not be discovered by his actions. His word, we are told, was his bond; his hour was punctual; and his opinions were compressed and weighty: but if he was true to his bond-word, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... bosom a spell To work wonders he took, Thrice kiss'd it and smiled, Then triumphantly shook The boat by the rudder, The maid by the hair, With wailings and shrieks She bewilder'd the air; He flung her far seaward, Then sailed off to Larg— There was mirth at the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various

... fine, that the merest commonplace often received a living spirit from her lips. I have seen a single glance from her powerful eye hush an audience—I have seen her acting sometimes even startle and bewilder the actors beside her. There is perhaps a genius for every art, and hers was the genius of the stage—a faculty of instant communication between the speaker and the hearer, some unaccountable sympathy, the power to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... main street to see it pass, when he squeezed himself into a front place, elaborately renovated; threw back his little coat, to show a broad-barred velvet waistcoat, sprinkled all over with stars; then adjusted himself and his cane so as utterly to bewilder and transfix the Friar, when he ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... round he did not find it easy to give due attention to his other cases. His custom was to brood upon them as he rode; but now that look and the tears that followed seemed to bewilder him, taking from him all ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... all without was so wild and strange. When an ever busy imagination, of which that tale may bear witness, led me hither and thither; when the medley of fable and history, mythology and religion, threatened to bewilder me,—I liked to take refuge in those Oriental regions, to plunge into the first books of Moses, and to find myself there, amid the scattered shepherd-tribes, at the same time in the greatest solitude and ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... which will cost at the outset $400 or $500, and last for an indefinite period. If this is true, it is unquestionably the greatest discovery of modern times, and will produce a change in affairs of all sorts so profound and extensive as to surpass and bewilder the mind which seeks to imagine it. When with a pail of water you can without expense light and heat your house; when coal mines are useless, and steamships draw their fuel from the waves they traverse; then the comforts and luxuries of life, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... hath he given utterance to such a senseless jingle-jangle of verse-jargon as to-night! Strange it is that the so-called 'poetical' trick of confusedly heaping words together regardless of meaning, should so bewilder men and deprive them of all wise and sober judgment! By my faith! ... I would as soon listen to the gabble of geese in a farmyard as to the silly glibness of such inflated twaddle, such mawkish sentiment, such turgid garrulity, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... believe that they are at their best. The friction of the crowd rubs out their individuality. In a crowd I feel mentally as if I were in a maze of telegraph wires. The thoughts of so many people streaming out in all directions about me entangle and bewilder me." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... instead of the kine, bewilder in Shadow of aisle and dome, The bear who tore up the children, The fox who burnt up the corn, And the wolf who suckled at Rome Brothers ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... buoyant enough to follow without an effort. Children possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high, in imagination or feeling, so long as it is simple, likewise. It is only the artificial and the complex that bewilder them. ...
— The Gorgon's Head - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... with all this confounded nonsense!" exclaimed Henry passionately. "Do you imagine I will allow Lady Juliana to stand here all day, to answer all the absurd questions that come into the heads of three old women? You stupefy and bewilder her with your eternal tattling and roundabout harangues." And he paced the room in a paroxysm of rage, while his wife suspended her dancing, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... once the querist and the oracle: and to regard it as something out of itself, like a mineral in the hands of the analytic chemist. We cannot fully enter into the absurdities of its condition, except by remembering that it is our own wise selves who so grotesquely bewilder us. The mind, on such occasions, takes itself (if we may so speak) into its own hands, turns itself about itself, listens to the echo of its own voice, and is obliged, after all, to lay itself down again with a very puzzled expression—and acknowledge that of its very self, ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... doubtful value. There was always that mother in the background. If Vivie was in court for a suffrage offence of a grave character the prosecuting Counsel would be sure to rake up the "notorious Mrs. Warren" and drag in the White Slave Traffic, to bewilder a jury and throw discredit on the militant side of the Suffrage cause. Of course if the true story of Vivie were fully known, she would rise triumphant from such a recital.... Still ... throw plenty of mud and some of it will stick.... ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... more rarely comes upon a cluster of huts in the woods along the streamlets or half hidden among the fissured rocks of a granite kopje. The chief traces of man's presence in the landscape are the narrow and winding footpaths which run hither and thither through the country, and bewilder the traveller who, having strayed from his waggon, vainly hopes by following them to find his way back to the main track, or the wreaths of blue smoke which indicate the spot where a Kafir has set the grass on fire to startle and kill the tiny ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... several star players this year, fellows who moved to Marshall lately, and who have played on other teams before. Two of them are grand goal kickers, and may give you the surprise of your lives later on. Then we've got a dandy end who is like lightning on his pins; and once he gets the ball he can bewilder the best of them by his ducking and doubling. Well, enough for the present. I don't want to discourage you, Winters, but take my word for it, Chester has to go the limit if she hopes to snatch that game from us. We're full of ginger and—say, that was ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... moment, expresses them with emotion, and covers them with a feint at scientific speculation. It is not, however, a powerful system, like that of Hegel, capable of bewildering and obsessing many who have no natural love for shams. M. Bergson will hardly bewilder; his style is too clear, the field where his just observations lie—the immediate—is too well defined, and the mythology which results from projecting the terms of the immediate into the absolute, and ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... day dragged heavily on, and Rust grew weary. The constant stir about him; the hum of voices, occasionally hushed into silence at the cry of the officer, or the tap of the judge on his desk; the hot, stifling air of the room; the wranglings of the lawyers, all tended to bewilder him. All excitement had long since left him. A leaden heaviness had settled upon all his faculties, and leaning his head upon the table, even while life and death were in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... is only one small part of His administration. He gives no hint of the means that He will use in future aeons for the fulfillment of His designs. That is not for us to know in this life. Indeed such a revelation would only confuse and bewilder us. For consider how such a revelation might involve the revelation of a great many other things far beyond us ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... mornings it was Jack's custom to hide his work-day garb in an angle of the ivy-covered wall of the Dovecot garden, only letting his head appear over the top, from whence he watched to see Phoebe pass on her way to Sunday School, and to bewilder himself with the sight of her starched frock, and her airs with her Bible and Prayer-book, and class ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing

... stood, bewilder'd on the deck: The wind sung, cordage strain'd, and sailors swore, And the ship creak'd, the town became a speck, From which away so fair and fast they bore. The best of remedies is a beef-steak Against sea-sickness: try it, sir, before You sneer, and I assure you this is true, For I ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... quizzing me, Harry—that's what you're at, It cannot be you that they speak of like that!' Then he insists on my telling, displeas'd At any concealment, WHAT have I heard? Worried and wearied, bewilder'd and teaz'd, I blurt it out and repeat every word! Harry regards me with almost a stare— Pulls his moustache with a sort of amaze— Passes his hand through his clustering hair And—bursts out laughing, as if it was praise! There is ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart

... the sassafras, And the gold of the spicewood-bush, Bewilder the ways of the forest pass, And brighten the underbrush: The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree, And the haw with its pearly plumes, And the redbud, misted rosily, ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... heart adoring still to the God exhales, Speech from his glimmering lips on the silent air prevails: —"Child of this earth, bewilder'd in thine aerial dream, Turn thee to Powers that are, and not to those that seem. All of fairest and noblest filling my graven form First in a human spirit was breathing alive and warm. Seek thou in him all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... towards you, she is engaged in a whispered conversation. When he is gone she turns again to you. But the varied expressions that pass across her face while you are discussing with her the disadvantages of Protection, bewilder you. When, explaining your own difficulty in arriving at a conclusion, you remark that Great Britain is an island, she roguishly shakes her head. It is not that she has forgotten her geography, it is that she is conducting a conversation ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome

... invested with the trappings of verse, there alike is an avoidance of what is practical and true, and an absence of all that is inventive and poetic. They contain nothing that appeals to the heart or the affections, and their efforts of imagination aspire not to please or to elevate, but to astonish and bewilder by exaggeration and fable. Their poverty of resources leads to endless repetitious of the same epithets and incidents; books are multiplied at the present day chiefly by extracts from works of established popularity, and the number of qualified ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... was always happening—something in each country to bewilder her afresh, and to make it necessary for her husband to remind her of the proprieties. In France, a cousin of van Tuiver's had married a marquis, and they had visited the chateau. The family was Catholic, of the very oldest and strictest, and the brother-in-law, a prelate of ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... these words over and over again, till the hearing them seemed to bewilder all my senses. I hardly knew what I touched. Suddenly, my searching hands stopped of themselves, I could not tell why. Was there some change in the room? Was there more air in it, as if a door had ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... resemblance only accentuated the astounding difference. Maggie's first impression was her ultimate one—that her aunt had strayed out of some stained-glass window into a wild world that did not bewilder her only because she did not seriously regard it. Maggie found herself wondering who had fastened her aunt's buttons and strings when she rose in the morning, how had she ever travelled in the right train and descended at the right station? How could she remember such trifles when her thoughts ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... no cause for shame, Whom even the injur'd cannot blame, Now here, now there, above, below, Their looks of wild avoidance throw! Nay, gentle cousin, blush not so! And do not, pray thee, rise to go! I am bewilder'd with my woe; But hear me fairly to the end, I will not pain thee, nor offend. O no! I would thy favour win; For, when I die, as next of kin, So 'reft am I of human ties, It is thy ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... thither, delighting to make him clamber in the dark over every possible obstruction; while a noisy crowd hustled him, and laughing women called him Colin Maillard, the name of the chief player in blindman's buff. [Footnote: Juchereau, 323.] Amid a prodigious hubbub, intended to bewilder him and impress him with a sense of immense warlike preparation, they dragged him over the three barricades of Mountain Street, and brought him at last into a large room of the chateau. Here they took the bandage from his eyes. He stood for a moment with an air of astonishment and some confusion. ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... the huge white stems from which the bark hung down in ragged masses giving them a weird and dreary aspect. Tracks there were, but they branched now in one direction now in the other, and were more calculated to bewilder the travellers than to guide them aright. Their map—for being new arrivals in the country they carried one—told them that they should soon reach a broad stream. They were now looking out eagerly for it, wondering whether they should have to wade through it or should find ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston

... doors, intent only on the brilliant chateaux, that shimmer above in the gorgeous sunlight of a brave Espagne. But laughing imps, with flying feet, venture singly into these realms of the Unknown. Bright streameth the light there from carbuncles and glowing rubies; but of the melodies that there bewilder them, no returning voice ever speaketh, for are they not Eleusinian mysteries? But when thou meetest, O brother, sailing down the stream under gay flags and rounding sails, some Hogarth or some Sterne, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... you are,' said her mother. 'Why won't it do to continue as you are? No sooner have I learnt up your schemes, and got enough used to 'em to see something in 'em, than you must needs bewilder me again by starting some fresh one, so that my mind ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... well as the masses. "His constant and daring flights," writes Moscheles, "his newly discovered flageolet tones, his gift of fusing and beautifying objects of the most diverse kinds—all these phases of genius so completely bewilder my musical perceptions that for days afterward my head is on fire and my brain reels." His tone lacked roundness and volume. His use of very thin strings, made necessary by his double harmonics and other specialties, ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... either Gabrielle or the servant, therefore I assumed a polite and sympathetic attitude and told them that I hoped to call again on Mrs. Tennison's return. Afterwards I left, feeling that at least I had gained some knowledge, even though it served to bewilder me the more. ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... the things I care to cook well. Hence I have set my hand to this, a real cook's book. Most cook books are written by folk who cook by hearsay—it is the fewest number of real cooks who can write so as not to bewilder the common or garden variety of mind. The bulk of what follows has an old-time Southern foundation, with such frillings as experience approves. To it there will be added somewhat of Creole cookery, learned and proved here in New York ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... sae braw, And his bare lyart pow sae smoothly he straikit, And he looket about, like a body half glaikit, On bonny sweet Nanny, the youngest of a'. "Ha, laird!" quo' the carline, "and look ye that way? Fye, let na' sie fancies bewilder you clean: An elderlin man, in the noon o' the day, Should be wiser than youngsters that ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... the slain are homeless as the breeze, Vocal are they, like storm-bewilder'd seas. Their faces are the fair, unshrouded night, And planets are their eyes, their ageless dreams. Tenderly stooping earthward from their height, They wander in the dusk with chanting streams; And they are dawn-lit trees, with arms up-flung, To ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... God a whit more, he set himself eagerly to contend against the Apostles, in order that he himself might seem to be a wonderful being, and studied with still greater zeal the whole range of magic art, that he might the better bewilder the multitude of men. Such was his procedure in the reign of Claudius Caesar, by whom also he is said to have been honored with a statue on account of his magic. This man, then, was glorified by many ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... 'Crescents are crescents, trade is trade. Pharaohs and emperors in their seasons Built, I believe, for different reasons— Charity, glory, piety, pride— To pay the men, to please a bride, To use their stone, to spite their neighbours, Not for a profit on their labours. They built to edify or bewilder; I build because I am a builder. Crescent and street and square I build, Plaster and paint and carve and gild. Around the city see them stand, These triumphs of my shaping hand, With bulging walls, with sinking ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sweet cup First may I pour the clearest of the wine— For her—for her—ah, yes! for her supreme, I struggle onward through this blinding light, E'en at whose dazzling threshold I might stand, Pale, trembling, like a terror-smitten soul, Waiting bewilder'd at the gate of heaven. Yet once again let me the plan review, Searching within my soul of souls each part, That doubt or danger, lurking there, may thus By love's ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... a little surprised at the revelation. It seemed as if that devil of a man had sworn to puzzle him up to the last moment and to bewilder him by the most unexpected sensational news. And how well this last detail depicted the fellow, a queer mixture of dignity and impudence, of mischief and simplicity, of smiling chaff and disconcerting charm, a sort of hero who, while conquering kingdoms by most incredible adventures, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... better to say something that is not quite the truth but is perfectly understandable than something which is true but bewildering. This is a cardinal rule in television. Never bewilder your audience! So Linda Beach did not bewilder her audience by accurate statement. She told them something they would understand. It made the children convincingly ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster

... jumped Vanus so stately, But fainted, kase lately so hard she was pressed— Which much did bewilder, but ere it had killed her Her father distilled her a drop ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... of novelty had entirely ceased to bewilder the understanding of the renegade, preparations were made for the assault; and after a fierce but ineffectual resistance under their gallant leaders Thomas and Herbis, the Damascenes were obliged to submit to their imperious conqueror, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... Derues had saved his life. The latter could not carry out his culminating crime at Buisson-Souef; it was only in Paris that his victims would disappear without his being called to account. Obliged to leave hold of his prey, he endeavoured to bewilder him in a labyrinth where all trace of truth might be lost. Already, as he had arranged beforehand, he had called calumny to his help, and prepared the audacious lie which was to vindicate himself should an accusation fall upon his head. He had hoped ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... everything was silent—everything. But up in the heights soughed the everlasting song, the voice of the air, the distant, toneless humming which is never silent. I listened so long to this ceaseless faint murmur that it began to bewilder me; it was surely a symphony from the rolling spheres above. ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... Like all successful business men, Mr. Newman had an unschooled aptitude for the science, and had practised it with profit on his competitors and employees before he knew a word of its technology. In Carrick's bare and lamp-lit study they had joined forces to bewilder and undermine the intelligence of the sly spaniel, and there had been sessions of hypnotism, with Mr. Newman rigid in trances, while Carrick groped, as it were, among the springs of his mind. The pair of them had incurred the indignation of European authorities, ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... and heavy manners impressed her disagreeably, and she liked to say things that puzzled and startled him. It was a pleasure to her to throw some paradox or odd saying at him, and watch his awkward attempts to catch it, and then while he was just on the point of getting at some idea of it to bewilder him with some new enigma. To her he seemed to be what he was not, simply a sham, a heavy piece of hypocrisy. Formalism and ostentatious piety she recognized as part of the business of a Nonconformist minister, in whom they were excusable, as his grave garb would be, but they seemed insufferably ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... commanded with a steady will: else he took liberties. Eyes suddenly opened annoyed Old Tom, and he would set the furniture ambulating round the room in a manner at once indecorous in stable objects and calculated to bewilder the observer. Therefore, upon setting down her glass, this purposeful woman would squarely fix the bureau that stood opposite her, would for a moment keep her gaze upon it with a sternness that forbade movement, then gently would close her eyes. When Old ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... features stand out more distinctly, and make us feel that there was a groundwork of noble conceptions which has been covered and distorted by an aftergrowth of fantastic nonsense. We shall do best for the present to leave out all proper names, which only bewilder the memory and which convey no distinct meaning even to the scholar. It will require long-continued research before it can be determined whether the names so profusely applied to the Deity were intended ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... misen, an' six childer, Six o'th' roughest, aw think, under th' sun, Aw'm sartin sometimes they'd bewilder Old Joab, wol his ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley

... signer of his own humiliation, the renouncer of his immemorial rights? And Ferdinand, the young monarch of whom so little was known and so much expected,—he, too, a voluntary prisoner, while a Frenchman reigned in Madrid? This was news, indeed, to bewilder nations who had hitherto remained content in infantile tutelage, unconscious, undesirous, of the rights of men! Addresses, fervent with loyalty, were dispatched to Spain, embodying vows of eternal affection towards the King, and of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... mouth shall you be condemned. When the Spirit convinceth you of sin, you will see no faith, no prayer at the first opening of the eyes. But I add, there is no true confession but it is particular: the Spirit useth not to bewilder men's spirits in a general notion only, and a wide field of unknown sins. And such are many of your convictions. You mourn for sin, as you say, and yet you cannot condescend on a particular that burdeneth your conscience; ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... county, situated on the Kentucky Central Railroad, thirty-two miles from Lexington, and about twenty-two by turnpike from Georgetown. By moving in this direction, and striking a blow at this point, he hoped to induce the impression that he was aiming at Cincinnati, and at the same time thoroughly bewilder the officer in command at Lexington regarding his real intentions. When he reached Cynthiana he would be master of three or four routes, by either of which he could leave Kentucky, completely eluding his pursuers, and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... their worship. His rank and fame, the glittering splendour of his verse, the romance of his travels, his picturesque melancholy and affectation of mysterious secrets, combined with the magic of his presence to bewitch and bewilder them. The dissenting malcontents, condemned as prudes and blues, had their revenge. Generally, we may say that women who had not written books adored Byron; women who had written or were writing books distrusted, disliked, and made him a moral ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... him so keenly. And all the while he was torn by the misery of two contending impressions; one, the dim, subliminal foreboding that she was ordained for worthier and cleaner hands than his, the other, that this upheaval of the emotions still had the power to shake and bewilder and leave him so wordlessly unhappy. It was the ever-recurring incongruity, the repeated syncretism, which made him vaguely afraid of himself and of the future. Then, as he looked down into her face once more, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... foolish futile searchings for thee, yet it is I who hold thee, and in very truth can call thee wife; nor will I stay this my camel so that thou mayest have speech with him; this pale faced yearling, who dared to look upon thy shadow; but by the grace of Allah, I will so bewilder him who blundereth after thee astride the product of the bazaar, that his sightless skull shall stare blindly at the moon to-morrow night, whilst I shall feast my eyes upon the whiteness of thy ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... our hearts bewilder'd in their choice, And hence our feet from Virtue led astray: Truth calls imperious with repulsive voice To follow on a steep and rugged way; While Beauty beckons us along a gay And flowery path, that leads, with treacherous slope, To gulfs ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... pinnacles in the canopy of Cardinal Beaufort's chantry." Owing, however, to the extreme elaboration, the effect is hardly impaired by this loss. The plan of the tomb is two groups of four clustered piers at each end, supporting a mass of canopies, niches, and pinnacles, which "bewilder the sight and senses by their number and complexity," as Britton quaintly says. The screen at the west end is closed, that at the east end open. The vault displays some elaborate fan-tracery. The body of the cardinal is presented in his scarlet official robes and the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... alone. 510 Then, Rustum rais'd his head: his dreadful eyes Glar'd, and he shook on high his menacing spear, And shouted, Rustum! Sohrab heard that shout, And shrank amaz'd: back he recoil'd one step, And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing form; 515 And then he stood bewilder'd; and he dropp'd His covering shield, and the spear pierc'd his side. He reel'd, and staggering back, sunk to the ground. And then the gloom dispers'd, and the wind fell, And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all 520 The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair; Saw Rustum ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... anything worth while out of this talk," he decided, "I've got to mix up my delivery, shuffle the cards, spring first one thing and then another at him—bewilder him." ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... to her, I could well believe in the far-famed Orpheus lute. It was enough to bewilder any man. She had a sweet, rich voice, a contralto of no ordinary merit, and the way in which she used it was something never ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme

... whether the mechanical system can have any claim to be called philosophy; are questions for another place. It is, however, certain, that as long as we deny the former, and affirm the latter, we must bewilder ourselves, whenever we would pierce into the adyta of causation; and all that laborious conjecture can do, is to fill up the gaps of fancy. Under that despotism of the eye (the emancipation from which Pythagoras by his numeral, and Plato by his musical, symbols, and both by ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... time in my life, Arthur, I take up my pen to write to you, and in truth the difficulty of the task before me, as well as my own want of skill, tends to bewilder me, and, though I have much upon my mind to say, I scarcely know if it will reach you—if, indeed, this letter is ever destined to lie open in your ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... error: "This is their praying and singing," he said, "that makes you reject me,— You that were kind to me once. But I think my fathers' religion, With a light heart in the breast and a friendly priest to absolve one, Better than all these conversions that only bewilder and vex me, And that have made men so hard and women fickle and cruel. Well, then, pray for my soul, since you would not have spoken to save me,— Yes; for I go from these saints to my brethren and sisters, the sinners." Spoke ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... undeceivable man, Cleek. He'd get at the truth of it. Nothing could baffle and bewilder him. But—oh, well, it's the old, old tale of the power of money. He wouldn't take the case, a high-and-mighty 'top-notcher' like that, unless the reward was ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... Some maintained that they were dissolved in vats of hydrofluoric acid. Others argued that they were encased in cement, then taken out to sea in speedboats on moonless nights and jettisoned. The favorite rumor was that the entire firm was a decoy to bewilder agents of foreign powers and pre-empt their espionage efforts. There was neither proof of this ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler

... master-builder, In his ship-yard by the sea, Whistling, said, "It would bewilder Any man but Thorberg Skafting, Any man ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow

... since taught sensible men to beware of beautiful women—to sound them carefully before they give them their confidence. Beauty is shallow—only skin deep; fleeting—only for a few years' reign; dangerous—tempting to vanity and lightness of mind; deceitful—dazzling often to bewilder; weak—reigning only to ruin; gross—leading often to sensual pleasure. And yet we say it need not be so. Beauty is lovely and ought to be innocently possessed. It has charms which ought to be used for good purposes. It is a delightful gift, which ought to be received with gratitude and worn ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... his particular Study. Besides, how was it possible for a Foreigner to pierce thro' their Politicks, that gloomy Labyrinth, in which such of the English themselves as are best acquainted with it, confess daily that they are bewilder'd and lost? ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... hook the reader, you, John Murray, Have publish'd 'Anjou's Margaret,' Which won't be sold off in a hurry (At least, it has not been as yet); And then, still further to bewilder 'em, Without remorse you set up 'Ilderim;' So mind you don't get into debt, Because as how, if you should fail, These books would be but baddish bail. And mind you do not let escape These rhymes to Morning Post or Perry, Which ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... of architecture. It is furnished with all the appliances of luxury which Europe or Asia can produce. The pleasure grounds, in their artistic embellishments, are perhaps unsurpassed by any others in the world. Fountains, groves, lawns, lakes, cascades and statues, bewilder and delight ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... we can use our companion hunters best, for the shunkas will intimidate and bewilder the buffalo women," said ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... so, Mary," replied Albert. "I have been reading and studying with an earnest desire for truth. I find much, in the Old Testament, calculated to bewilder, and much that requires the New Testament to explain. I find, scattered through the Old Testament, holy principles that are brought into full relief by Jesus Christ, who has, by his example, and in ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... country, where the will Of one is law to all, he still Retain'd the infection, with full aim To spread it wheresoe'er he came; Freedom he hated, Law defied, The prostitute of Power and Pride; Law he with ease explains away, And leads bewilder'd Sense astray; 1870 Much to the credit of his brain, Puzzles the cause he can't maintain; Proceeds on most familiar grounds, And where he can't convince, confounds; Talents of rarest stamp and size, To Nature false, he misapplies, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... touch her. She might have been wrapped in white fire. He found that though she had not stirred a finger, his hand had shrunk away from hers. He got to his feet, all the cleverness which all day long he had been weaving like a silk net to catch, to bewilder, to draw away her brain from the anguish of full comprehension, was shriveled. He stood and stared helplessly at her, dumb as a youth. And, obedient, he went out and shut the door, taking the white patch ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... first leaves his cell he cannot bear the light of day; he is unable to discriminate colors or recognize faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half-blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinions subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... cloak that entirely shrouded her figure; a black veil hid her face so completely that not one feature could be seen. When she entered the station the change from the blinding glare outside to the shade within seemed to bewilder her. She stood for a few moments perfectly motionless; then she looked around her in a cautious, furtive manner, as though she would fain see if there was any one ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... of dense, black smoke which rolled up from the funnels of the steamers made the atmosphere very thick and murky; and the whole scene, as Mr. George and Rollo looked down upon it from the parapet above, for a time seemed almost to bewilder them. ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott

... whoever kisses, Oh! he never misses to grow eloquent; 'Tis he may clamber to a lady's chamber, Or become a Member of Parliament. A clever spouter, he'll sure turn out, or An "out—an'—outer" to be let alone; Don't hope to hinder him, or to bewilder him, Sure, he's a ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... passing, and closer drew the stormy period when, with the advent of grim November, the duties of the beach patrol naturally grow more and more laborious, since there are greater possibilities of wrecks, with the strong winds and the fogs that bewilder mariners, and allow them to run upon the reefs when they believe they are scores of miles away from ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster

... 'Mary, you bewilder me. I have no right to ask you to explain, except that you speak as if I must understand. What have they been telling ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... personal gallery, the gallery under his hat, showed a tendency to become both obsolete and inadequate. That endless catacomb of lost souls grew too intricate for one human mind to compass. New faces, new names, new tricks tended to bewilder him. He had to depend more and more on the clerical staff and the finger-print bureau records. His position became that of a villager with a department store on his hands, of a country shopkeeper trying to operate an urban emporium. He was averse to deputizing his official labors. He was ignorant ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... impression left by a ballad of Coleridge's or a story of Tieck's, but rather, as in Shelley's case, from the dizzy splendour and excitement of the diction. His verse, like Shelley's, is full of foam and flame, and the result upon the reader is to bewilder and exhaust. He does not describe in pictures, like Rossetti and Morris, but by metaphors, comparisons, and hyperboles. Take the following very typical passage—the portrait of Iseult in "Tristram of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... you bewilder me," exclaimed Dan. "Why should you go; why should we not all join forces, hunt for the treasure together, if there is a treasure; ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... all notices and impressions from the outward world, to be thought upon, to be made subjects of patient reflection, to be brought by our own intellect and activity into their true connection with all our other thoughts. A great idea, without reflection, may dazzle and bewilder, may destroy the balance and proportion of the mind, and impel to dangerous excess. It is to awaken the free, earnest exertion of our powers, to rouse us from passiveness to activity and life, that inward inspirations, and the teachings of outward nature, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewilder'd laid, And back recoil'd, he knew not why, E'en at the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... at him slowly). So I perceive. Miss WEST is naturally inclined to be forward. But, I say, really you know— However, I came to tell you that poor BEATA was not so mad as she looked, though flowers did bewilder her so. (Taking off his gloves meaningly.) She jumped into the mill-race because she had an idea that you ought ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various

... are by our manners and customs, often struggle together in the hearts of women; one or other must succumb when they are not of equal strength; when they are, they produce some exceptional women, the glory of our sex. A man of your genius must surely comprehend many things that bewilder fools but are none the less true; indeed I may go further and call them justifiable through difference of characters, temperaments, attachments, situations. I, for example, at this moment, after twenty years ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac



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