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More "Mystify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and curves the lips took, with an alert, arch, witty face; a delicate high-bred face; and withal a somewhat sensuous, emotional face; the face of a woman with a vast deal of humour in her soul; a vast deal of mischief; of a woman who would love to tease you, and mystify you, and lead you on, and put you off; and yet who, in her own way, at her own time, would know supremely well how to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... to mystify you," he added, "but the presence of any one else might jeopardize my plan. I ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... I have dispatched to London an anonymous letter for M r. Noel Vanstone. It will be forwarded to its destination by the same means which I successfully adopted to mystify Mr. Pendril; and it will reach Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth, by the afternoon of to-morrow ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... frontier." Gard grew wary. This knowing and recent familiarity was not becoming entirely agreeable. It would be prudent to mystify ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... acting.' The performers were anything but word perfect and hopelessly forgot or confused their business, which, more especially in a play of such a type as this romantic comedy so full of busy and complicated detail demanding close and continuous attention, was enough to mystify the audience completely and foredoom the piece to failure. The worst sinner was Haunce himself, who hardly spoke one of his lines but gagged from start to finish. Not unnaturally, Mrs. Behn resented this and avows that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... was a source of considerable entertainment to us, and became still more so through the espieglerie of our attendant, Jeannotte, who took occasion to mystify him at our expense. This object of mirth was a little stout mountaineer, who came every week from his home in the mountains—between the valleys of Ossau and Aspe—with a load of butter and cheese, with which his strong, sure-footed ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... in this country is a disease," begins the narrative. "My part in this international murder will paralyze the politician and mystify the sober mind of intelligent belief.... History will not be satisfied, however, without a VICTIM, and I must furnish a victim that will satisfy the mob outside!... The Order has been given.... There are celebrations among the banditti.... there are moistened eyes among many peasants; there ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... his career as an author, Scott never avowed his responsibility for any of these series of novels, and even took some pains to mystify the public as to the identity between the author of Waverley and the author of Tales of my Landlord. The care with which the secret was kept is imputed by Mr. Lockhart in some degree to the habit of mystery which had grown upon Scott during his secret partnership ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... Vaches," said Colville. They tried to mystify him further about the bouquets; they succeeded in being very gay, and in making themselves laugh a great deal. Mrs. Bowen was even livelier than the ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... miles, make the rocks of total depravity loom up far above the white capped waves of theological doubt. The lower law being less important than the higher, it takes but 1,984 lawyers to successfully mystify the juries of the Commonwealth. Of physicians and surgeons there are 2,845. It requires the constant services of 2,463 persons to entertain us with music, and just one less, 2,462 barbers, who are in daily tonsorial conflict with our hair, either rebuking it where it does grow, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... intention of making Mr. angry, but he did get angry. He left off speaking to me by my Christian name; he called me by my surname. He said: "Let me tell you, Miss Gracedieu, it is not becoming in a young lady to mystify her elders." ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... be more intelligible to you than to me, and might give you some insight into literary and social, as well as bibliopolical relations. But many details of this account will not yet settle themselves into sure facts, but do dance and mystify me as one green in ledgers. Bookseller says nine hundred and ninety-one copies came from Binder, nine remaining imperfect, and so not bound. But in all my reckonings of the particulars of distribution I make either more or less than ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... ourselves with the second party, and conceive that we must cease speaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations a spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which tends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine ourselves to the consideration of organised matter—its forms—its changes—and its aberrations ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... individuals. The prosperity and happiness of mankind are at stake; and the welfare of succeeding generations will, in no small degree, be influenced by the establishment of sound principles in education at the present time. Nothing, therefore, should be allowed to mystify or cripple that science, upon which the spread and the permanence of all ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... investigations only served to mystify the world to a greater degree. The only thing that came to light was the cause of the bodies' bonelike rigidity. In some inexplicable way the bones in the seamen had dissolved, and according to appearances, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... left. At one point, however, 'Siah found where two persons—a white man and a red one—had embarked in a canoe which had been hidden under the bank of the creek. Evidently Crow Wing had expected the place would be searched and had done all in his power to mystify ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... the Epistolae, and in the second edition are attributed to Ortuinus Gratius. If they are by him, he must have been a dull dog indeed; but by some it has been thought that they are the work of a Reuchlinist, to mystify the monks of Cologne, and render them still more ridiculous; yet, as the Pope's bull against the Epistolae, and Erasmus's disapproving letter, find a prominent place, and some other well-grounded inculpations occur, it appears to me that some slender-witted advocate of the enemies ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... personal inconsistency or womanly prejudice, but as due to a gleam of insight? What clew to the case does Adriana's meekness afford? Or else of the relationship of the Abbess to the twins? Why does she so peremptorily keep the man from his wife? Is not this conduct devised to mystify the audience rather ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... were secretly denounced and afterwards found innocent, then it would only mystify the French police; the policy pursued towards the Surete, as well as towards Sir Hugh, was a clever move on ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... wish you would do me a favour," said Daireh. "A lady—a friend of mine—wants to send a valentine to a man in Ireland, and is anxious to mystify him. She has got me to direct it, and would like it to have the London post-mark. Will you drop ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... intuitively, judge by intuition; hazard a proposition, hazard a guess, talk at random. reason ill, falsely &c. adj.; misjudge &c. 481; paralogize[obs3]. take on faith, take as a given; assume (supposition) 514. pervert, quibble; equivocate, mystify, evade, elude; gloss over, varnish; misteach &c. 538[obs3]; mislead &c. (error) 495; cavil, refine, subtilize[obs3], split hairs; misrepresent &c. (lie) 544. beg the question, reason in a circle, reason in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... is the sword-stick I sent papa for the New Year. You ordered it yourself from Toledo. See, here is the crest. Where did you get it? Do not mystify me. Tell me quickly—is he here? Has ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... man who finds a piece of parchment on which is a secret writing telling where Captain Kidd hid his treasure off the coast of South Carolina. The gold-beetle has nothing whatever to do with the real story, and is only introduced to mystify. It is one of the principles of all conjuring tricks to have something to divert the attention. Poe's detective story is a sort of conjuring trick, but it is all the more interesting because he fully ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... your tricks, Prime," cried Tom, suspecting the negro of an intention to mystify them with a jargon like that he had ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... secretly yearning for the satisfaction of the marriage relation, or for the sense of completion in parenthood; then the tension from these unsatisfied desires shows itself in a hundred little everyday instances of lack of self-control. These mystify him and his friends, but they are understandable when the ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... maintained in Rosalie that early perception of the wondrousness of her father. She loved her mother, but in the atmosphere surrounding her mother there was often flurry and worry and there was nothing whatever in her mother to mystify and entrance by sudden and violent eruptions of the miraculous. She did not love her father for he was entirely too remote and awe-ful for love, but he entranced her with his marvellousness. This maintained in her also her perception of the altogether greater superiority ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... joy would spend. Poor fools the muses' fair regards Why court for such a paltry end? I tell you, give them more, still more, 'tis all I ask, Thus you will ne'er stray widely from the goal; Your audience seek to mystify, cajole;— To satisfy them—that's a harder task. What ails thee? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... mysteries to each other," she suggested. "I mystify you because I wonder, and you mystify me because you don't guess why I wonder. We'll let it go ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... the trial documents themselves, forced to abjure under threats, and subjected to imprisonment by command of the Pope; the Inquisition deferring in this whole matter to the papal authority. All the long series of attempts made in the supposed interest of the Church to mystify these transactions have at last failed. The world knows now that Galileo was subjected certainly to indignity, to imprisonment, and to threats equivalent to torture, and was at last forced to pronounce publicly and on his knees ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... enthusiasm in the midst of Meshech and Kedar. What makes it base and morbid is the desire to exclude for the sake of exclusion; to indulge in solitary raptures, hoping to be overheard; to keep the tail of the eye upon the public; to attempt to mystify; and to trade upon the inquisitive instinct of human beings, the natural desire, that is, to know what is going on within any group that seems to have ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... incline with Johnson, Warton, Bowles, Macaulay, and Carruthers, to look upon it as one of Pope's ape-like stratagems—to believe that P.T. was himself, Smith his agent, and that his objects were partly to outwit Curll, to mystify the public, to gratify that strange love of manoeuvring which dwelt as strongly in him as in any match-making mamma, and to attract interest and attention to the genuine correspondence when it should appear. Pope, it was said, could not "drink tea without a stratagem," and far ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... his friend Gonzaga. He doubted, even, whether some praises addressed to him by Orazio Ariosto, the nephew of the great poet, which, one would have thought, would have been to him a consummation of bliss, were not intended to mystify and hurt him. At length he fancied that his persecutors had accused him of heresy to the Inquisition; and, as he had gone through the metaphysical doubts, common with most men of reflection respecting points of faith and the mysteries ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... a question upon which all the subtilty of jesuitic schoolmen and casuists has been exhausted, to mystify and mislead the honest inquirer in every age. The Jews, Papists, Greeks, English, have each claimed the divine favour as being exclusively limited to their respective sects. Apostolic descent has been considered to depend upon human ceremonies, instead ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... girls looked at each other with dancing eyes, but said nothing. It had been their sport all their lives to mystify people about their several identities. And here was a situation in which they determined—both of them—to keep their ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... nothing. That is why no one has read her riddle, translated her mystic smile. Yet many people smile mysteriously, without any profound meanings behind their smile, with no other reason than a desire to mystify. Perhaps the Sphinx smiles to herself just for the fun of seeing us take her smile so seriously. And surely women must so smile as they hear their psychology so gravely discussed. Of course, the superstition is invaluable to them, and it is only natural that they should make the most of it. Man ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... despoil. Pretty, beautiful, comely, handsome, fair. Profitable, remunerative, lucrative, gainful. Prompt, punctual, ready, expeditious. Pull, draw, drag, haul, tug, tow. Push, shove, thrust. Puzzle, perplex, mystify, bewilder. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... culprit would never be found, as Catholic institutions are built with the purpose of sheltering her abominable faithless in case these criminals' desire to hide themselves therein, as the convents, monasteries and cloisters have a labyrinth which would mystify any one who was not used ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... of the minority of the committee sent in a very strong report condemning the system. He declares "the system is nothing but an absurd attempt to mystify and perplex a subject, which ought to be left plain and clear to the common apprehensions of common men." Further on he states, "No human ingenuity can show a reason for believing that the way to learn ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... concerted not by him but by Mr. Thomasson and his confederates? The setting down near Pomeroy's gate, the reception at his house, the rough, hasty suit paid to her—were these all parts of a drama cunningly arranged to mystify her? And was he innocent? Was he still her lover, true, faithful, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... of the modern Faun, for example, loses all the poetry and beauty which the Author fancied in it, and becomes nothing better than a grotesque absurdity, if we bring it into the actual light of day. He had hoped to mystify this anomalous creature between the Real and the Fantastic, in such a manner that the reader's sympathies might be excited to a certain pleasurable degree, without impelling him to ask how Cuvier would ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... life. I have no money to pay a lawyer to stand up and mystify matters, and my best policy is to defend myself, by ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... startle her, but she asked, rather quietly, "What do you mean?" and she added, as if to punish him for trying to mystify her: "I've heard that it requires gifts for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Brahms' music is brought out in strong light. It is his way of carrying on together a cantus firmus in two's and a counterpoint in three's. All his writing is full of this expedient, one design of which is to mystify the rhythm and to impart to the music a more flowing and ideal character, and at the same time to concentrate the attention of the player upon the large meter, with which these conflicting two's and three's never interfere. In the sixth variation a syncopated ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... is only one statesman in the whole number of those assembled at Paris, who believes that her institutions will continue free; and he would rather they did not; but he stipulates for it, to gratify and mystify ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Verduret read the note, Prosper's rage increased. He was angry and perplexed, for he could not explain the rapidly succeeding events which were so calculated to mystify ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... very fountain head of constitutional law—that branch of our national jurisprudence which can least fluctuate. Judges of a day and not of a generation, or crazy legislators with spasmodic wisdom, may alter, and overturn, and mystify by simplification, the laws and usages of every-day life; but it is scarcely to be apprehended that the current of our constitutional law will ever be diverted from original channels. There is danger rather of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... like a stranger at a masked ball, where all the masks are acquainted with each other's disguises and concerted to mystify the visitor. Among the persons I have met at court several have shown themselves ready to guide me through this labyrinth; but, till they themselves unmask and declare their true characters, I am doubtful whither ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... at his cheerful breakfast, was busied with thoughts of the coming arrival of Hugh Johnstone's secret foe. "I must have money from her at once to swing Ram Lal's Private Inquiry Bureau and to mystify these quid nuncs here. For I must entertain the clubmen a bit. It's as well to begin, also, to pot down a bit of her money for the future. She shall pay her way, as she goes." And, with a view to the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... very good game, which always causes considerable amusement, and if skillfully carried out will very successfully mystify ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... a sly quirk of the mouth, and meaning to mystify his wooden-headed questioner still more, he answered: "Dead-struck? Dead- drunk, you mean. I'm a Nature's dipsomaniac—as you can see," he added with a sly note ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of this substance have been published, almost all of which, however, appear to complicate and mystify a process that ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... rustics whom our partisan governors have made politically equal with the wisest in the land. Three young friends came to spend a day with us, and for fun brought in their pockets the absurd noses popular at Epsom races. We came upon some turf-diggers, and my visitors mounted their masks to mystify them. The clodpoles looked scared and very quiet, till I went up to one of them who knew me,—of course I was in my natural physiognomy,—and I said to him, "My friend, these are foreigners:" and the poor ignoramus staring at those ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... exclusion, it was quite as usual then, as now, to cry out against the moral throes of violated right, since the same eagerness to possess, the same selfishness in grasping, however unjustly obtained, and the same audacity of assertion with a view to mystify, pervaded the Christian world a century since as exist to-day. The cunning Pippo saw that the bait had taken, and, assuming a still more respectful ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... eleven others in reporting the debates in Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... had a strong conviction that the Runic alphabet and dialect were simply an invention to mystify poor human nature, I was delighted to find that my uncle knew as much about the matter as I did—which was nothing. At all events the tremulous motion of his fingers made ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... still further, but he would not dazzle eyes that were yet imperfect with a light brighter than they could stand. He would therefore impose upon people, as much as he thought was for their good; but, on the other hand, he would not allow inferior men to mystify them. ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... It is however of the highest importance that the thought of its simplicity be made prominent. Let us not undervalue religious knowledge; for to some extent it is absolutely necessary. But do not mystify the plan of mercy, and perplex the anxious seeker by requirements which the gospel has not made prominent. Many a poor sinner exercises faith in Christ who cannot give a philosophical disquisition as to its nature. It is not necessary ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... the knowledge that a man may, if he will, live the life of a Mormon in Utah, on the quiet; and if he present a wife well gilt with gold, and a title, to society; society will fall prostrate; or this knowledge might mystify us." ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... doesn't straggle. The mule can keep up with us as long as possible, but it must keep together. Likewise the ox-transport, taking its own time, must keep closed up. I assure you the only object of these people on this journey will be to get away. Two blocks of moving waggons will mystify them, not attract them. Right away,—not a word about the change of direction until after dark—not even to C.O.'s. Tell 'em ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... force. It was impossible to hide the whole of our camp from view and properly hold the position, but we made use of such cover as we could find, and prepared to defend the pass against all comers, since it was vain to attempt to mystify the enemy as to ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Constance, you are very good to bear with me. Suppose, now, my father, instead of sending me here, had commanded that I should sojourn and mystify with that righteous Mrs. Lambert, whom he magnifies into a model of holiness; what a time I should have passed! Why, the nuns, whom the holy Sexburga placed up yonder, had not as much loneliness; don't you think the place was admirably adapted for an elopement? I am certain—nay, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... for obtaining cheap knowledge it is now our intention to adopt. Having got the poorest and least learned authors we could find (of course for cheapness) for our former pieces of information, we have this time engaged a gentleman to mystify a few common-place subjects, in the style of certain articles in the "Penny Cyclopaedia." As his erudition is too profound for ordinary comprehensions—as he scorns gain—as the books he has hitherto published ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... mystify you, Leopold," laughed Mr. Hamilton. "The mate of the Orion is in charge of her. She is a new boat, finished just before I left New York, and offered for sale. On the day after you lost your sloop, I sent the mate to purchase her for you. There ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... want your word you'll get that photograph into my hands by to-morrow afternoon, no matter what transpires in the meantime. And look here, Carruthers, don't think I'm playing the silly thickhead, and trying to mystify you. I'm no detective or anything like that. I've just got an idea that apparently hasn't occurred to any one else—and, of course, I may be all wrong. If I am, I'm not going to say a word even to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... such formidable mystery, may have been nothing more, after all, than some imposture of this kind, some dimly hinted confession of undefined horrors, which, though intended by the relater but to mystify and surprise, the hearer so little understood him as to take ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... be a curious reckoning which, in face of such a catena as this, stretching its links over the whole period, maintains that England wanted Germans to teach her how to admire the writer whom Germans have done more to mystify and distort ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... without the society of brothers or sisters or playfellows; but whilst Hoffmann was a son of the town, Hippel's early days had been spent in the country. In another respect, too, they presented a striking contrast in behaviour; Hoffmann's chief delight was to mystify and tease his uncle Otto, but Hippel was most scrupulous in paying to all the proper meed of respect which he conceived he owed them. Once when Hippel reproached his friend about his behaviour towards his uncle, young Hoffmann replied, "But think what relatives fate has blessed me with! ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... noticed, is fond of quibbles and word-play, and of 'conceits' and turns of thought such as are common in the poets whom Johnson called Metaphysical. Sometimes, no doubt, he plays with words and ideas chiefly in order to mystify, thwart and annoy. To some extent, again, as we may see from the conversation where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern first present themselves (II. ii. 227), he is merely following the fashion of the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... third class of these men, who, to arrive at distinction in a turbulent profession, sharpen their mercenary mouths to mystify the truth, and by prostituting their countenances and their vile barking, work their way with the public. These men, whenever the judge is embarrassed and perplexed, entangle the matter before him with further difficulties, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... when he read the announcement that she would be buried two days later in the Potter's Field. Perhaps the girl had starved for lack of work, he reflected. Perhaps hunger and cold had driven her to her death. Certainly those two were to blame for many a tragedy calculated to mystify warmly clad ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... been watching Elsa. It disturbed but did not mystify him to see her talking to the colonel. Table-chance had brought them together, and perhaps to a better understanding. How pale she was! From time to time he caught the flash of her eyes as she turned to this or that guest. Once she smiled, but the smile did not lighten up her ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... thought I'd made a mess of it, but as I went downstairs a brilliant idea struck me: why should we trouble? Of course if you were in any danger or anything, but why need you care? You needn't care a hang for them. We shall have a laugh at them afterwards, and if I were in your place I'd mystify them more than ever. How ashamed they'll be afterwards! Hang them! We can thrash them afterwards, but ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... for I was resolved to incur no more of the maltreatment which had plunged me into darkness. Now the Deer Men traded with the Sea Men, and the Sea Men with the whites, especially the whalers. So later I discovered a deck of cards in the possession of one of the women, and I proceeded to mystify the Chow Chuen with a few commonplace tricks. Likewise, with fitting solemnity, I perpetrated upon them the little I knew of parlor legerdemain. Result: I was appreciated at once, and was better fed ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... us as long as possible, but it must keep together. Likewise the ox-transport, taking its own time, must keep closed up. I assure you the only object of these people on this journey will be to get away. Two blocks of moving waggons will mystify them, not attract them. Right away,—not a word about the change of direction until after dark—not even to C.O.'s. Tell 'em ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... report, had gone back to Omaha to further mystify the adjutant-general and to eat his Christmas dinner. The order for the court-martial hung fire until the preliminary investigation could be concluded. Fort Cushing set itself to enjoy the sweet festival as best it might, while such a problem ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... but had enough sense to lie down again in the straw, and feign slumber; happily the priest did not concern himself with the loft, but the absence of the bird he had expected to find, caged and waiting, seemed to mystify him. He remained for several minutes lost in thought, then setting the lantern on one box, moved others around, strewed them with a thick layer of hay he found on the floor, and lying down with his ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... Trade-winds is, that they blow more or less from the eastern half of the compass towards the western. On the north side of the equator, the north-east Trade-winds blow; and on the south side, the south-east Trade-winds. These two names have undoubtedly contributed to mystify the subject by naturally suggesting to the imagination currents of air blowing respectively from the north-east and the south-east, or at an angle of 45 deg. with the meridian. And I have even seen sailors (old sailors too) quite surprised, and rather provoked, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Notwithstanding all the attempts of the author of the Acts to mystify him into as mythical a character as the Gospels made of Jesus, Paul is an open book in history. We have his genuine epistles, in which he gives considerable account of himself and his exploits. We have one portion of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... a fiction on the part of my friend, designed to mystify the minister. I said nothing, to avoid an introduction; I had stepped aside, and now stood, amused and observant, under the street lamp. Pendlam especially I studied, with one eye (figuratively speaking) on him, and the other on Susan. I compared him with myself, and had no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... so expressive as in her adorable gaiety. Like a clear fresh spring, it is ever brimming up from the heart into her mischief-loving eyes. By her side merely technically young people seem heavy and serious. And nothing amuses her more than gravely to mystify, or even bewilderingly shock, some proper acquaintance, or some respectable strangers, with her carefully designed mock improprieties of speech or action. To look at the loveliest of grand-mothers, it is ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... himself and life! Would he think himself an abstract intelligence, out of space and time? What a riddle his physical sensations would be to him! Or, suppose him to meet with another being brought up in the same way; how they would mystify each other! Would they learn to feel shame, love, hate? or do the passions only grow in sunshine? Would they ever laugh? Would they hatch plots against each other, lie, deceive? Would they have secrets ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... subject," said Lydia, composedly, but with a play of color again in her cheeks. "Allow me to forbid it unconditionally. I must be plain with you, Mr. Cashel Byron. I do not know what you are or who you are; and I believe you have tried to mystify ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... equal with the wisest in the land. Three young friends came to spend a day with us, and for fun brought in their pockets the absurd noses popular at Epsom races. We came upon some turf-diggers, and my visitors mounted their masks to mystify them. The clodpoles looked scared and very quiet, till I went up to one of them who knew me,—of course I was in my natural physiognomy,—and I said to him, "My friend, these are foreigners:" and the poor ignoramus staring ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... excess. These forms he sometimes used to the exclusion of simpler, or even more literal, words. The nature of the German language, however, keeps these from being as repulsive as they are in English, but they are sufficiently strange to mystify and annoy ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... use of wrapping things up in mystery? But women delight in it! The more they can mystify and mislead and perplex you, and leave their real or their possible meaning doubtful and involved, the greater the pleasure they have. They will carry on a conversation for hours by hints, suggestions, ambiguous terms, allusions, phrases that may mean anything or nothing, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... when he awoke to sudden and hungry aloneness, he would let his arms feel their hunger for her. The vision of her would be flowers and music and sunlight and time and all things perfect to mystify and delight, to satisfy and—greatest of all boons—to unsatisfy. The thought of her became a rest-house for all weariness; a haven where he was free to choose his nook and lie down away from all that was not her, which ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... would round off a logical argument with a familiar example, hitting the nail squarely on the head and driving it home, and they called him a buffoon. Big wigs and little wigs were agreed that he lowered the dignity of debate; as if debates were intended to mystify, and not to clarify truth. Yet he went on and on, and never backward, until his time was come, when his genius, fully developed, rose to the great exigencies intrusted to his hands. Where did he get his style? Ask Shakespeare and Burns ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... of antelope. My chief excuse for doing it is to enable people at home to know the difference between a topi and a sun hat and between a sing-sing and a cob. The names of many of the African antelope family are strange and confusing, so that it is little wonder that they mystify people in America. There are a hundred or more kinds, and no one can hope to know them unless he makes ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... me an insult, and I felt very angry; but a spirit of revenge quickly whispered to me the best way to mystify them, and the idea made me very joyful. I answered so badly all the questions propounded in Latin by the examiner, I made so many solecisms, that he felt it his duty to send me to an inferior class of grammar, in which, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of the committee sent in a very strong report condemning the system. He declares "the system is nothing but an absurd attempt to mystify and perplex a subject, which ought to be left plain and clear to the common apprehensions of common men." Further on he states, "No human ingenuity can show a reason for believing that the way to learn the true alphabet, is first ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... To mystify Jane was the great amusement of the day; Reginald, finding Maurice possessed with the same notion, did more to maintain it than the others would have thought right, and Maurice reporting his speeches to Jane, she had ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, (Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 9, cap. 14,) whose situation opened to him the very best sources of information, which is more than counterbalanced by the defects in his own character as an historian, - his childish credulity, and his desire to magnify and mystify every thing relating to his own order, and, indeed, his nation. His work is the source of most of the facts - and the falsehoods - that have obtained circulation in respect to the ancient Peruvians. Unfortunately, at this distance of time, it is not always easy to distinguish the one from the ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... "They mystify most people, you will find. Only a person who has been there can understand the situation. And he who has been there does not know the frontier line either, for there is, in fact, no exact boundary. The Pamir plateau lies to the north of Peshawar, and ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... certain doubt came up in my mind whether Sergeant Cuff's last random shot might not have hit the mark. I began to question whether my share in the proceedings was quite as harmless a one as I had thought it. It might be all in the way of the Sergeant's business to mystify an honest woman by wrapping her round in a network of lies but it was my duty to have remembered, as a good Protestant, that the father of lies is the Devil—and that mischief and the Devil are never far apart. Beginning to smell mischief in the air, I tried to take Sergeant ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... officer was unlike most German officers and did not understand French, or thought it a good joke to mystify a poor devil of a soldier. He smiled and raised his hand, indicating by his motion that the other was to keep following the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... they are favourites, especially among the young attaches, and are nearly always employed by them on their secret missions or love affairs, which, by the way, are very often the same thing. Our own Jehu has a job on to-night, from which we expect some results that will mystify the enemy not a little. We got our first suspicions of Ainsworth from a few incautious words that he spoke in ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... the property, others said it was a person in very moderate circumstances; as usual, both these reports were contradicted by a third, which represented him as a half-pay lieutenant in the army. Rushbrook had contrived to mystify even the solicitor as to his situation in life; he stated to him that he had retired from the army, and lived upon the government allowance; and it was in consequence of a reference to the solicitor, made by some of the best families in the neighbourhood, who wished to ascertain if the ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... this famous satire were published in 1728. It is generally regarded as Pope's masterpiece, but the accuracy of such an estimate is doubtful. So heavily weighted is the poem with notes, prefaces, and introductions that the text appears to be smothered by them. It was Pope's aim to mystify his readers, and in this he has succeeded, for the mystifications of the poem even confound the commentators. The personalities of the satire excited a keen interest, and much amusement to readers who were not included in Pope's black list of dunces. ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... at the very fountain head of constitutional law—that branch of our national jurisprudence which can least fluctuate. Judges of a day and not of a generation, or crazy legislators with spasmodic wisdom, may alter, and overturn, and mystify by simplification, the laws and usages of every-day life; but it is scarcely to be apprehended that the current of our constitutional law will ever be diverted from original channels. There is danger rather of its ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... promise to assist France, England was no longer neutral, and was actually at war with us, and the argument that the declaration of war was a sequel to the violation of Belgian neutrality is nothing but a piece of play-acting performed to mystify the English people ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... private individuals. The prosperity and happiness of mankind are at stake; and the welfare of succeeding generations will, in no small degree, be influenced by the establishment of sound principles in education at the present time. Nothing, therefore, should be allowed to mystify or cripple that science, upon which the spread and the permanence of all useful knowledge ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... Another a wild night in wanton joy would spend. Poor fools the muses' fair regards Why court for such a paltry end? I tell you, give them more, still more, 'tis all I ask, Thus you will ne'er stray widely from the goal; Your audience seek to mystify, cajole;— To satisfy them—that's a harder task. What ails thee? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it need not have the definiteness of meaning of logical thought; it may suggest rather than explicate; its music is compatible with vagueness. But vagueness is not obscurity; the poet should always make us feel that we understand him; he should not seek to mystify us, or keep us guessing at his meaning. Yet, since the poet operates with words and not with mere sounds, great subtlety and precision of thought are possible in poetry, although not argument and dialectic. Poetry may express the results of reflection, so far as they are of high emotional ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... knowledge that a man may, if he will, live the life of a Mormon in Utah, on the quiet; and if he present a wife well gilt with gold, and a title, to society; society will fall prostrate; or this knowledge might mystify us." ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... that I want to mystify you," he added, "but the presence of any one else might jeopardize my plan. I don't expect ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... Centipedes were to stand by one another on all occasions, though I don't remember that they did; but further than this we had no purpose, unless it was to accomplish as a body the same amount of mischief which we were sure to do as individuals. To mystify the staid and slow-going Rivermouthians was our frequent pleasure. Several of our pranks won us such a reputation among the townsfolk, that we were credited with having a large finger in whatever went amiss ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Madeline's mysterious party. Katherine could not be found, and Rachel and Eleanor were both engaged for the evening; but that was no matter, Madeline said. It ought to be mostly a Belden House affair, but a few outsiders would help mystify the freshmen. ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... that the interest of this our narration of bygone events is quite sufficient, without condescending to what is called claptrap; and there are so many people in our narrative continually labouring under deception of one kind or another, that we need not add to it by attempting to mystify our readers; who, on the contrary, we shall take with us familiarly by the hand, and, like a faithful historian, lead them through the events in the order in which they occurred, and point out to them how they all lead to one common end. With this intention in view, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... leaf, bearing a trumpet-shaped flower, snow white, but unknown to us, seemingly of the convolvulus genus. The dark winding labyrinths and passages from one part of the Ambar Palace to another were utterly confusing, and of a nature designed to mystify any one but an habitue. When the palace has its summer complement of residents, servants and all, it must contain some three hundred souls, besides the soldiery, who occupy the barracks outside to guard the entrances. It is a fort as well as a palace, and so arranged as to form a citadel ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... all of them, and I will gladly answer. I mystify you; I can see that. Well, whenever you say, I promise to do away ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... one, of the Epistolae, and in the second edition are attributed to Ortuinus Gratius. If they are by him, he must have been a dull dog indeed; but by some it has been thought that they are the work of a Reuchlinist, to mystify the monks of Cologne, and render them still more ridiculous; yet, as the Pope's bull against the Epistolae, and Erasmus's disapproving letter, find a prominent place, and some other well-grounded inculpations occur, it appears to me that some slender-witted advocate of the enemies of learning ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various
... finding out what you can bring a crazy cripple to." (You picked out on purpose, he said, the lowest creature, a cripple, for ever covered with disgrace and blows, knowing, too, that this creature was dying of comic love for you, and set to work to mystify her completely on purpose, simply to see what would come of it.) "Though, how is a man so particularly to blame for the fancies of a crazy woman, to whom he had hardly uttered two sentences the whole time. There are things, Varvara Petrovna, of which it is not only ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... I am not thinking of love or courtship. That is the business of the drawing-room, and not of the camp. But she did mystify me last night." ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... did not in those days occur to me that I had a rival in Mr. Talbot. Helen and I used to laugh at his crass ignorance, and mystify him now and then by our allusions. Miss Lenox was never vivacious at table, and used to listen languidly to all of us, turning to me now and then and regarding me with a sort of pleased curiosity when she thought I overmatched ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... "We don't care to mystify you, Leopold," laughed Mr. Hamilton. "The mate of the Orion is in charge of her. She is a new boat, finished just before I left New York, and offered for sale. On the day after you lost your sloop, I sent the ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... Des Vaches," said Colville. They tried to mystify him further about the bouquets; they succeeded in being very gay, and in making themselves laugh a great deal. Mrs. Bowen was even livelier than ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... she said. "It is the sword-stick I sent papa for the New Year. You ordered it yourself from Toledo. See, here is the crest. Where did you get it? Do not mystify me. Tell me quickly—is he ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... problem was harder still. It was how to mystify, tire out, check short, and then immobilize the converging Federals long enough to let him slip secretly away in time to help Johnston and Lee against McClellan. Jackson, like his enemies, moved through what has been well called the Fog of War—that inevitable uncertainty through ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... The presses that have no direct interest in the matter, would treat the affair with indifference or levity, while a few would mystify the truth. It is quite impossible for any man in a private station to make the truth available in any country, in a matter of public interest; and those in public stations seldom or never attempt it, unless ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... the best intention, have frequently edited the blood, bone and sinews of the original thought out of the works of the greatest authors. While attempting to simplify the text for common, rough readers, they mystify the matter by their egotistical explanation, and while showing their superior research and classical learning, they eliminate the chunk logic ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... My husband investigated the matter, and discovered how his escape was made. It was by means of this key. Here is a memorandum and a plan describing how they are to be applied. I have taken them from the Count's escritoire. And now, once more I must leave to your ingenuity how to mystify the people at the Dragon Volant. Be sure you try the keys first, to see that the locks turn freely. I will have my jewels ready. You, whatever we divide, had better bring your money, because it may be many months before you can revisit Paris, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... do not conceive the man as he is at all", said O'Hara: "perhaps you cannot. High finance, the first day he looked into it, ceased to mystify him, for he goes always to the ground of things, touches bottom, where first principles lie, and first principles are simple as two and two. It was because he had discovered a first principle that he escaped from Colmoor. And ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... back of the book in Roman numerals was of a year in the seventeen hundreds. What connection could its Desire Michell have with the girl I knew? Perhaps she had adopted the name to mystify me. Or at most, she might be of the family of that unfortunate woman branded witch ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... a third class of these men, who, to arrive at distinction in a turbulent profession, sharpen their mercenary mouths to mystify the truth, and by prostituting their countenances and their vile barking, work their way with the public. These men, whenever the judge is embarrassed and perplexed, entangle the matter before him with further difficulties, and take pains to prevent any arrangement, carefully ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... renders, in accordance with its etymology, to limit, to define, by drawing or incising a line or boundary. Having said this, Ibn Ezra, in his wonted mysterious manner, stops short, refusing to say more and preferring to mystify the reader by adding the tantalizing phrase, "The intelligent will understand." He means apparently to indicate that an eternal matter was endowed with form. In fact he seems to favor the idea of eternal creation and maintenance of the universe, ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... old Van's would never really understand him; though that was a thing he at times liked people as much for as he liked them little for it at others. It was in fact when he most liked that he was on the whole most tempted to mystify. ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... low tone, "that I want your word you'll get that photograph into my hands by to-morrow afternoon, no matter what transpires in the meantime. And look here, Carruthers, don't think I'm playing the silly thickhead, and trying to mystify you. I'm no detective or anything like that. I've just got an idea that apparently hasn't occurred to any one else—and, of course, I may be all wrong. If I am, I'm not going to say a word even to you, because it wouldn't be playing fair with ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... with the second party, and conceive that we must cease speaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations a spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which tends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine ourselves to the consideration of organised matter—its forms—its changes—and its aberrations from normal ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... blessing would it be for Dr ——, and Professor ——, if they might be allowed to mystify their readers in Greek! though, to do them justice, they have turned the Queen's English to good account for that purpose, and have produced passages which first-class men, at an Athenian University, might possibly construe, but which the whole ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... for it afterwards. Her character was assailed by all the elderly ladies in Loughrea for going off in our company, and her blue satin, piped with scarlet, utterly ruined by a deluge of holy water bestowed on her by the pious sexton. It was in vain that she originated twenty different reports to mystify the world; and even ten pounds spent in Masses for the eternal repose of Father Con Doran only increased the laughter this unfortunate affair gave rise to. As for us, we exchanged into the line, and foreign service took us out of the road of duns, debts, and devilment, and we soon ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... commissariats, and most of all drew from far and near soldiers of fortune to captain a hopeless cause. In such recruiting, Fouquart implied, her loyalty had not flinched at the most personal tests. What seemed to mystify Fouquart was that none of these whilom champions ever attained the grace of forgetfulness. Every year many of these tottering old gentlemen still reported at Castle del Puente, and there she held court as of old. He himself, ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... answered Evan. "I have fancied that some of their orders were just thrown in to mystify us, to undermine our morale. Possibly they stipulated we must leave this point at eight-thirty so they would know exactly when ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... have led to those opposing verdicts, one is impressed with the paucity and the clashing character of the information adduced. The marked reticence on the part of the British Cabinet in regard to its diplomatic proceedings tends further to mystify the inquirer, and leaves the bulk of the British nation in a painful state of suspense without conclusive data for judging whether the war ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... combined with the inexplicable indiscretions that Arsene committed every day served to annoy and mystify the officers of the law. There were secrets known only to Arsene Lupin; secrets that he alone could divulge. But for what purpose did he reveal them? ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... was kindled throughout Italy at the restoration of letters and the fine arts, so that every one, and even every man of genius, were eager to enrol their names in these academies, and prided themselves in bearing their emblems, that is, the distinctive arms each academy had chosen. But why did they mystify themselves? ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... shorthand, and make a respectable income by reporting the debates in Parliament for a morning newspaper. Night after night I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... intuition; hazard a proposition, hazard a guess, talk at random. reason ill, falsely &c. adj.; misjudge &c. 481; paralogize[obs3]. take on faith, take as a given; assume (supposition) 514. pervert, quibble; equivocate, mystify, evade, elude; gloss over, varnish; misteach &c. 538[obs3]; mislead &c. (error) 495; cavil, refine, subtilize[obs3], split hairs; misrepresent &c. (lie) 544. beg the question, reason in a circle, reason in circles, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... costume and make-up are the principal things necessary. You will be obliged to trust largely to your own judgment and tact in working upon Mrs. Thayer's feelings. I suppose she has some vague ideas about astrology, etc., but I have no doubt of your ability to mystify her thoroughly. One thing is certain, Mrs. Warne, that we must have a fortune-teller of our own, and I do not know of any one so competent as yourself. I will rent an office for you near by, and the duties will interfere very little with your ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... we left the pits of Zat Arrras we found the body of the guard Carthoris had slain. It had not yet been discovered, and, in order to still further delay search and mystify the jed's people, we carried the body with us for a short distance, hiding it in a tiny cell off the main corridor of the pits beneath an ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Euphemie, staring at the smiling, lustrous-eyed Aristide, whose busy brain was wondering how he could mystify this unwelcome ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... not respect him. They did everything they could to vex him and to retaliate on him for being such a severe task-master. They all laid themselves out to mystify him, speaking of the most matter-of-fact things in dark and covert hints, in order to make old Jeppe suspicious, and if he spied upon them and caught them at something which proved to be nothing at all they had ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Prime," cried Tom, suspecting the negro of an intention to mystify them with a jargon like that he had palmed ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... beyond measure. There is more in these people than I should have guessed. How pay them off? By taking no notice of the letter? Dignified, but dull. No, I will go; perhaps some one will be there, and I will mystify them in their turn. Or, if no one is there, how I shall crow over them for their imperfectly carried out plot! Perhaps this is some folly of the Cavalier Muzio's to bring me into the presence of some lady whom he destines to be the flame of my future ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... separate compartment for them. Now, Mr. Heigham." And then, with the able and benign assistance of Sir John, he proceeded to utterly confuse and mystify Arthur, till stocks, preference-shares, consols, and mortgages were all whirling in his bewildered brain. Having satisfactorily reduced him to this condition, he suddenly sprang upon him the proposal he had in view with reference to the Jotley ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... from any peculiar regard for Americus Vespucius, but because the quintessence of the whole geographical problem of the discovery of the New World is in one way or another involved in the discussion. I can think of no finer instance of the queer complications that can come to surround and mystify an increase of knowledge too great and rapid to be comprehended by a single ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... not know if the whole army has crossed or only part of it has crossed. He does not know whether we are going to move against Washington, or move against Baltimore, or invade Pennsylvania. Always mystify, mislead, and deceive the enemy ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... sisters or playfellows; but whilst Hoffmann was a son of the town, Hippel's early days had been spent in the country. In another respect, too, they presented a striking contrast in behaviour; Hoffmann's chief delight was to mystify and tease his uncle Otto, but Hippel was most scrupulous in paying to all the proper meed of respect which he conceived he owed them. Once when Hippel reproached his friend about his behaviour towards his uncle, young Hoffmann replied, "But think what relatives fate has blessed me with! If I only ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
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