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More "Perplex" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... briefly—amid conflicting asseverations it is hard to deal fairly—with the last of the vexatiously controverted episodes which need perplex our narrative. Byron, in wishing Moore from Ravenna a merry Christmas for 1820, proposes that they shall embark together in a newspaper, "with some improvement on the plan of the present scoundrels," "to give the age some new lights on policy, poesy, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... meaning—rather indeed confirm our reliance on its authority in all the points of agreement, that is, in every point which we are in the least concerned to know,—and expose the simple and unlearned Christian to objections best fitted to perplex, because easiest to be understood, and within the capacity of the shallowest infidel to bring forward and exaggerate; and lastly, whether the Scriptures must not be read in that faith which comes from higher sources than history, that is, if they are read to any ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... these might be accounted for in one of two ways. Either, first, the writer, in copying it out, grew confused in forming his cipher characters; or, secondly, he framed the whole paper with a deliberate purpose to baffle and perplex." ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... ope the ancient text an impulse strong Impels me, and its sacred lore, With honest purpose to explore, And render into my loved German tongue. (He opens a volume, and applies himself to it.) 'Tis writ, "In the beginning was the Word!" I pause, perplex'd! Who now will help afford? I cannot the mere Word so highly prize; I must translate it otherwise, If by the spirit guided as I read. "In the beginning was the Sense!" Take heed, The import of this primal sentence weigh, Lest thy too hasty pen be led ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... all sides, and amusing me with all his varied eccentricities of movement and song, if one may thus name his vocal performances. Occasionally madam condescended to entertain, or, what is more probable, tried to perplex me by her tactics. She scorned the transparent device of drawing me away from the dangerous vicinity by pretending to be hurt, or by grotesque exhibitions. Her plan was far more cunning than these: it was to point out to the eager seeker after forbidden knowledge, convenient places ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... what is law? Do they not triumph most, and acquire most fame, when they can gain a cause in the very teeth of the law they profess to support and revere? Who is the greatest lawyer? Not he who can most enlighten, but he who can most perplex and confound the understanding of his hearers! He who can best brow-beat and confuse witnesses; and embroil and mislead the intellect of judge and jury. Yet the mischiefs I have mentioned are but ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... cross, and observe whether he repeats it, (as on Whitsunday [15] he surely ought to do.) Look! he does repeat it; but these driving April showers perplex the images, and that, perhaps, it is which gives him the air of one who acts reluctantly or evasively. Now, again, the sun shines more brightly, and the showers have all swept off like squadrons of cavalry to the rear. We will ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... outline of the scheme, an escape in a collective family party—father, mother, children, and servants—and the king himself, whose features were known to millions, not even withdrawing himself from the public gaze at the stations for changing horses—all this is calculated to perplex and sadden the pitying reader with the idea that some supernatural infatuation had bewildered the predestined victims. Meantime an earlier escape than this to Varennes had been planned, viz., to Brussels. The preparations for this, which have been narrated by Madame ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... be expected lightly to abandon their allegiance to such a faith as this, nor would it be to their credit if they did; while in Christianity, even when faithfully represented, there is very much calculated to perplex and estrange one who has been trained in the tenets of Buddhism. Moreover, however little he may agree with them, the Buddhist holds that the religious convictions of others are entitled to respect, and that their feelings should never ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... passing in the channel made his boat roll heavily for a moment, with the forward part of the bottom resting on the sand. For the want of something better to think of, he began to put conundrums to himself in the absence of any other person to perplex with them. What was the gentleman that wanted to buy a steamer in Nassau doing up the Hudson? This was the principal one: he could not answer it. He gave it up; as the French have it, he had to "throw his tongue to the dogs," having no use for it in ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... is of interest and value, but there is nothing in it which need perplex the student. It is not pretended that the disease is always, or even, it may be, in the majority of cases, carried about by attendants; only that it is so carried in certain cases. That it may have local and epidemic causes, as well as ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... could not assist him to judge, for he had never been so far along this chain of Alps before. There was, however, a road to guide them; and there could be little doubt that it was the right one; for, since they had left Beaujeu, there had been no variety of tracks to perplex or mislead. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... myself that it was possible I could be deceived; there were movements and noises which I understood all about,—cracklings of small branches in the frost, and little rolls of gravel on the path, such as have a very eerie sound sometimes, and perplex you with wonder as to who has done it, when there is no real mystery; but I assure you all these little movements of nature don't affect you one bit when there is something. I understood them. ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... and briskly applying a light whisk-broom to the coat, she hummed one of the songs her father taught her when he was in his buoyant or in his sentimental moods, and that was a fair proportion of the time. It used to perplex her the thrilling buoyancy and the creepy melancholy which alternately mastered her father; but as a child she had become so inured to it that she was not surprised at the alternate pensive gaiety and the blazing exhilaration of the particular ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... afterwards made his appearance at the divan, and immediately recognised Yussuf in his partial disguise. He observed to Giaffar, "Do you see there our friend Yussuf? I have him at last, and now I will perplex him not a little before he escapes me." The chief of the beeldars being called, stepped forward and made his obeisance. "What is the number of your corps?" inquired ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... too, the trinkets, that the fair adorn, But who can count the spangles of the morn? What pencil can pourtray this splendid mart. This vast, stupendous wilderness of art? Where fancy sports, in all her rainbow hues, And beauty's radiant forms perplex the muse. The boundless theme transcends poetic lays,— Let plain historic truth record ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again, stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee, and after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments, looked round at ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... less difficult or uncertain in criticisms than in law. Imagination, a licentious and vagrant faculty, unsusceptible of limitations, and impatient of restraint, has always endeavoured to baffle the logician, to perplex the confines of distinction, and burst the inclosures of regularity. There is therefore scarcely any species of writing, of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... plan on plan, and maze involved in maze; In vain Sueante, and either Stenon, fought; In vain my arm a transient succour brought: Almighty Fate on all our labours frown'd, Athwart each scheme the thread of error wound, Our efforts with an unseen chain controll'd, Perplex'd the prudent, and dismay'd the bold. Fate urges on—Her adamantine shield Protects our destined Conqueror in the field; To his own seas by War and Famine driven, Furious he mounts, nor heeds the frowns ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... north of old Point Barrow Where there ain't no East or West; Where man has a thirst that lingers And where moonshine tastes the best; Where the Arctic ice-pack hovers 'Twixt Alaska and the Pole, And there ain't no bloomin' fashions To perplex a good man's soul." ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... coming blow from the head of the intended victim, who, ignorant of the impending danger, was making most furious thrusts at his assailant with the point of his umbrella, a novel mode of attack, which seemed to perplex and annoy that individual in no ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... "Do not perplex yourself, fair mistress," pursued Gillian. "All will be speedily made known to you. But now, no more time must be lost, and we must each assume the character we have to enact. As I am to be the bride, and you the tire-woman, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... with woman's meekness To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he, And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady, And the people lov'd her much. But a trouble weigh'd upon her, And perplex'd her, night and morn, With the burden of an honor Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter, As she murmur'd, "O, that he Were once more that landscape-painter, Which did win my heart from me!" So she droop'd and droop'd ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the poor old creature was subjected had disturbed her costume not a little. Her shawl came nearly off, and, holding on by one pin, fluttered like a flag of defiance. Her slippers, which were of the carpet pattern, were left behind on the prairie to perplex the wolves, and her voluminous hair—once a rich auburn, but now a pearly grey—having escaped its cap and fastenings, was streaming out gaily in the breeze, as if to tempt the fingers and knife of ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... so great as to make her utterances only half coherent; and Ailsa, realising that this sort of thing must only perplex Cleek, and leave him in the dark regarding the matter upon which they had come to ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... brain does that strange fancy roll Which makes the present (while the flash doth last) Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past, Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul Self-questioned in her sleep: and some have said We lived ere yet this ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... colonists for many years to come, whatever may be the increase in their numbers. To mention, therefore, the endless less important productions to which the climate and soil of this colony are equally congenial, would only be to perplex their choice, and to divert, perhaps, their industry into less productive channels. It would be superfluous to dwell upon the happy results that would attend the general introduction and culture of these two productions, both with reference ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... wisdom, and poured upon a benighted world the full blaze of evangelical revelations?—Sarah doubted the possibility of an occurrence which was attended with striking difficulties, and evidently miraculous; but what censure do not they deserve who shut their eyes against the clearest light, perplex with sophisms the most intelligible statements, and endeavour, by every exertion of a slanderous tongue and a malignant pen, to subvert the basis of our religious hopes, and to undermine a fabric which has stood the test of ages, giving repose and refreshment ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... of comments, as well as of laws, have great inconveniences, and serve only to obscure and perplex; all manner of comments and expositions on any part of these FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS, or any part of the common or statute law of CAROLINA, are ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... in a simply practical view, which is the only view in which it ought to concern or perplex any one, we consider that it can have legitimately no effect whatever in leading us from England to Rome. We do not say no legitimate tendency in itself to move us, but no legitimate influence with serious ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... put into disorder, throw into disorder &c 59; muss [U.S.]; break the ranks, disconcert, convulse; break in upon. unhinge, dislocate, put out of joint, throw out of gear. turn topsy-turvy &c (invert) 218; bedevil; complicate, involve, perplex, confound; imbrangle^, embrangle^, tangle, entangle, ravel, tousle, towzle^, dishevel, ruffle; rumple &c (fold) 258. litter, scatter; mix &c 41. rearrange &c 148. Adj. deranged &c v.; syncretic, syncretistic^; mussy, messy; flaky; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... readings' in fact is a term which belongs of right to the criticism of the text of profane authors: and, like many other notions which have been imported from the same region into this department of inquiry, it only tends to confuse and perplex the judgement. ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... thinking now of the so-called "realm of the occult," nor of those extraordinary occurrences which startle and perplex the world from time to time, nor of those complicated and subtle problems of crime which are set to puzzle us. I am thinking of much more human and familiar things, quite natural and inevitable as it seems, which make us feel that life is threaded through and through ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... saw that this system would never do, so he changed his tactics, and the next morning gave Crusoe no breakfast, but took him out at the usual hour to go through his lesson. This new course of conduct seemed to perplex Crusoe not a little, for on his way down to the beach he paused frequently and looked back at the cottage, and then expressively up at his master's face. But the master was inexorable; he went on, and Crusoe followed, for true love had now taken possession of the pup's young heart, and he preferred ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... therefore, Dolph was satisfied he would have time enough to reflect, and to make up his mind as to what he should do when he arrived at Albany. The captain, with his blind eye and lame leg, would, it is true, bring his strange dream to mind, and perplex him sadly for a few moments; but, of late, his life had been made up so much of dreams and realities, his nights and days had been so jumbled together, that he seemed to be moving continually in a delusion. There is always, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... thought proper to ask; and as the objects were before us, we could not well have misunderstood each other. It happened unluckily that Oedidee was not with us in the morning; for Tee, who was the only man we could depend on, served only to perplex us. Matters being thus cleared up, and mutual presents having passed between Otoo and me, we took leave and ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... 'tis as false as ten thousand other Truths, that your Philosophers and Politicians above Ground keep such a babling with over our Heads. For my part I never had that Pleasure, for since my first Nap under my Gravestone, which did not last three Weeks, I have been as much perplex'd about Ireland, as if I was still living at the Deanry, writing for Posterity, and thinking for my poor Country. What makes you sigh so Tom? Why you draw your Breath as hard as a broken-winded Racer; some Qualm I ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... teens they have wit to perplex us, With letters and lovers for ever they vex us: While each still rejects the fair suitor you've brought her; O! what a plague is an obstinate daughter! Wrangling and jangling, Flouting and pouting, Oh, what a ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... "Though the root of the English language be Dutch{199}, yet it may be said to have been inoculated afterwards on a French stock". He may know that the Dutch is a sister language or dialect to our own; but this that it is the mother or root of it will certainly perplex him, and he will hardly know what to make of the assertion; perhaps he ascribes it to an error in his author, who is thereby unduly lowered in his esteem. But presently in the course of his reading he meets with the following ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... and, in the latter case, it may even have as good a hope of hitting the mark as any philosopher whatever can promise himself. Nay, it is almost more sure of doing so, because the philosopher cannot have any other principle, while he may easily perplex his judgment by a multitude of considerations foreign to the matter, and so turn aside from the right way. Would it not therefore be wiser in moral concerns to acquiesce in the judgment of common reason or at most only to call in philosophy for the ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... and should it ever be disputed, I have quirks and quibbles enough at your service, with Mr. Brazen and Mr. Attorney-General's assistance, to render it so doubtful, obscure and ambiguous, as to puzzle Lord Justice, perplex Dunning, ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... consent to it, unless she preferred, for the children's sake, to live in San Francisco. A sense of a loss of independence—of a change of circumstances that left him no longer his own master—began to perplex him, in the midst of his brightest projects. Certain other relations with other members of his family, which had lapsed by absence and his insignificance, must now be taken up anew. He must do something for his sister Jane, for his brother William, for ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... brawls; or the way great armies of us are trained to fight,—not liking it much, and yet doing more killing in wartime and shedding more blood than even the fiercest lion on his cruelest days. Which would perplex a gentlemanly super-cat spectator the more, our habits of wholesale slaughter in the field, or our spiritless making a ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... was unexpectedly replied to by another shout of "Aileen, to the rescue!" which not only arrested him in his career, but seemed to perplex the pirate greatly. ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... sign of the cross, and observe whether he repeats it, (as, on Whitsunday,[17] he surely ought to do.) Look! he does repeat it; but the driving showers perplex the images, and that, perhaps, it is which gives him the air of one who acts reluctantly or evasively. Now, again, the sun shines more brightly, and the showers have swept off like squadrons of cavalry to the rear. We will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... undertake to represent upon the stage any great action or theatrical subject, he must begin by making an extract from it, of all the most picturesque situations. No other parts beside these can enter into his plan; all the others are defective or useless, they can only embarras, perplex, confound, and render ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... held in the Freemasons' Hall. This lack of a regularly-ordained clergy was partly remedied by a number of itinerant Methodist preachers or 'exhorters.' These men were described by Bishop Mountain as 'a set of ignorant enthusiasts, whose preaching is calculated only to perplex the understanding, to corrupt the morals, to relax the nerves of industry, and dissolve the bands of society.' But they gained a very strong hold on the Loyalist population; and for a long time they were familiar figures ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... the real trees, because the black profile in the drawing is quite stable, and does not shake, and is not confused by sparkles of luster on the leaves,) you may try the extremities of the real trees, only not doing much at a time, for the brightness of the sky will dazzle and perplex your sight. And this brightness causes, I believe, some loss of the outline itself; at least the chemical action of the light in a photograph extends much within the edges of the leaves, and, as it were, eats them away, so that no tree ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... stage the universal agent is love, by whose power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady and a rival into the fable; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with oppositions of interest, and harrass them with violence of desires inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in rapture and part in agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and outrageous sorrow; to distress them as nothing human ever was distressed; ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... often great, when means were small, Will not perplex me any more at all A few short years at most (it may be less), I shall have done ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn
... both agreed to leave all to her father, who, in every way, ought to have the best ability to judge whether there was unreasonable presumption in such a betrothal; but this very ability only served to perplex the poor doctor more and more. It is far easier for a man to decide when he sees only one bearing of a case, than when, like Dr. May, he not only sees them, but is rent by them in his inmost heart. Sympathising in turn with each lover, bitterly accusing his own carelessness ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... congress. The powers of that body are already defined, and those powers cannot be amended, confirmed or diminished by ten thousand resolutions. Is not that the guide and rule of this legislature. A multiplicity of laws is reprobated in any society, and tend but to confound and perplex. How strange would a law appear which was to confirm a law; and how much more strange must it appear for this body to pass resolutions to confirm the constitution under which they sit! This is the case ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... should be accused, and justly, of talking nonsense. Yet such an assertion would not, as far as we can perceive, be more unreasonable than that which Mr Mill has here ventured to make. Without adducing one fact, without taking the trouble to perplex the question by one sophism, he placidly dogmatises away the interest of one half of the human race. If there be a word of truth in history, women have always been, and still are, over the greater part of the globe, humble ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Daggett; and when the deacon had not been over to perplex him, and wake up the worldly spirit in him, he was as well inclined to preparation as any sick person I ever waited on. To be sure it was different arter the deacon had paid one ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... may not take up thy gauntlet, Should we meet where the steel strikes fire, 'Twixt thy casque and thy charger's frontlet The choice will perplex ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... descend to a comparatively low level in safety. The speed and mobility of his machine constitute his protection. He can vary his altitude, perhaps only thirty or forty feet, with ease and rapidity, and this erratic movement is more than sufficient to perplex the marksmen below, although the airman is endangered if a rafale is fired in such a manner as to ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... they needna starve or sweat, Thro' winters cauld, or simmer's heat; They've nae sair wark to craze their banes, An' fill auld age wi' grips an' granes: But human bodies are sic fools, For a' their colleges and schools, That when nae real ills perplex them, They mak enow themsels to vex them; An' ay the less they hae to sturt them, In like proportion, less will ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... rigid figures, from the stares and smiles of the good people in white stone and black granite who throng the galleries and vestibules on the ground floor. None of them, to be sure, will follow us; but all the same they guard in force and perplex with their shadows the only way by which we can retreat, if the formidable hosts above have in store for us too ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... opening new questions to tantalize the imagination. We find it so always. The solution of any question of our spiritual lives does not lead as perhaps we thought it would lead to there being no longer any questions to perplex us and to draw on our time and our energy; rather such solution puts us in the presence of new and, it may well be, deeper and more perplexing questions. "Are there no limits to the demands of God upon us," we sometimes despairingly ask? And the answer is, "No: there are ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... ever perplex those who confound the unhappiness of civil dissension with the crime of treason. Whenever a rebellion really and truly exists, which is as easily known in fact as it is difficult to define in words, government has not entered into ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tomb-stone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate—as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport—there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which may serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... have since ventured on similar mystifications, with even more startling results. Incredible as it may seem to those who have not looked into the subject, it is a fact that there are boys and girls—especially girls—who take a morbid delight in playing pranks that will astound and perplex their elders. The mere suggestion that Satan or a discarnate spirit is at the bottom of the mischief will then act as a powerful stimulus to the elaboration of even more sensational performances, and the result, if detection does not soon occur, will ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... is continually changing his loves, or to an husband that hath but one mistress whom he loves with a constant passion. And if you keep some measure of civility to her, he will at least esteem you; but he of the roving humour plays an hundred frolics that divert the town and perplex his wife. She often meets with her husband's mistress, and is at a loss how to carry herself towards her. 'Tis true the constant man is ready to sacrifice, every moment, his whole family to his love; he hates any place where she is not, is prodigal in what concerns his love, covetous ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... talked of and hinted at within! Did they not in this state of things, and with these circumstances, did not Governor Strong, and the federal party generally, seize hold of this alarming state of our affairs, to call the Convention at Hartford, and that not merely to perplex the government, but to be the organ of communication between the enemy and the malcontents? Did they not then talk loudly of our worm eaten Constitution; and did they not call the Union "a rope of sand," that could ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... past twenty years, have served their terms and been released? and yet what does the public know of the real inside of prisons? This used to perplex me at first. My fellow prisoners with whom I talked were bitter and voluble enough in denouncing the conditions; but no sooner had they passed the gates to freedom than they became strangely silent. Some of them even were quoted in the local papers as praising ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... think, is sufficient reason, for rejecting his story; and yet the general truth of the descriptions, and a certain verisimilitude which marks it, might easily deceive a careless reader and perplex a critical one. These, however, are easily explained. Six years before Hennepin published his pretended discovery, his brother friar, Father Chretien Le Clercq, published an account of the Recollet missions among the Indians, under the title of "Etablissement de la Foi." This book ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... toys to amuse them, not sighs and kisses and bold, brown eyes to frighten and perplex them. Have you any toys to amuse me if I give you an hour ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... a boon to suffering humanity, or criticise any act which, in her God-given wisdom, she is led to do? But, I am sure, I have talked enough for now, although I am at your service at any time if other questions arise to perplex," she concluded, as she arose, and the little company, after a few moments spent in social converse, ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... she was not allowed to receive the Holy Communion as she desired with tears. Thus weakened by long captivity and ill usage, she, an untaught girl, was questioned repeatedly for three months, by the most cunning and learned doctors in law of the Paris University. Often many spoke at once, to perplex her mind. But Joan always showed a wisdom which confounded them, and which is at least as extraordinary as her skill in war. She would never swear an oath to answer all their questions. About herself, and all matters bearing on her own conduct, she would answer. About the king ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... peruse Fair nature's outspread volume: All in vain, Look'd up admiring at the dappling clouds And depths cerulean: Even as I gazed, The film—the earthly film obscured my vision, And in the lower region, sore perplex'd, Again I wander'd; and again shook off With vex'd impatience the besetting cares, And set me straight to gather as I walk'd A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice; And, in few moments, of all hues I held A glowing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... I was so transported with joy that I knew not whether I was asleep or awake; but being persuaded that I was not asleep, I recited the following words in Arabic aloud: "Call upon the Almighty, He will help thee; thou needest not perplex thyself about anything else: shut thy eyes, and while thou art asleep, God will change ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... loudly; the idea amused him, and he could imagine a man refraining from any excess that might disturb and perplex ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... chambers of the heart. Let in the day". Here, then, my words have end. Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells— Of that which came between, more sweet than each, In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves That tremble round a nightingale—in sighs Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance, Stole from her [10] sister Sorrow. Might I not tell Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, And vows, where there was never need of vows, And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap Hung tranced from all pulsation, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... resolve before him, and having done with it, he went his way. His plan was long since laid, and was simple enough. Demetri Agryopoulo was not the man to perplex himself with details until the time came for them to be useful. When that time came he could rely upon himself for invention. And so his plan was simply to take James Leland alone, and then and there to put ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... of death perplex thy fancy; But answer me to what I shall demand, With a firm temper and ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... exclaimed, 'be kind to me, and don't perplex me like this.—Oh, my poor old boy, are you in love with ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... preacher took his tex' He look so berry much perplex' Fur nothin' come acrost his mine But ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... I 'm grown auld, and wi' cares I 'm perplex'd, How numerous the woes are by which I am vex'd! I 'm tentin' the kye wi' my dog, staff, and plaidie; How changed are the days since langsyne when ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... spirits again * * * fail too often * * * formula a certain cure (with great emphasis) * * * prescribed form * * * full conviction." The conversation then became more audible, and was carried on at considerable length. I should perplex myself and the reader by endeavouring to follow the ingenious perversity of all they said; enough, that in the course of time the visit came to an end, and Mahaina took her leave receiving affectionate embraces from all the ladies. I had remained in the background ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... but I do not allow it," and his tone implied, "You city gentlemen may think to surprise and perplex us, but we in Eastern Siberia also know what the law is, and may even teach it you." The copy of a document straight from the Emperor's own office did not have any effect on the prison inspector either. He decidedly refused to let Nekhludoff come inside the prison walls. He only ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... absurd entanglements, and the best way of dealing with them, when lo! to perplex me still more, in ran a bevy of the royal pages to ask for mtende beads—a whole sack of them; for the king wished to go with his women on a pilgrimage to the N'yanza. Thinking myself very lucky to buy the king's ear so cheaply, I sent Maula as before, adding ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... twisted together); complex'ion; complex'ity; perplex' (literally, to twist thoroughly—per: hence, to puzzle or ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... busy time with us. The season was in full roll, and our most aristocratic patients were in town. The easterly winds were bringing in their usual harvest of bronchitis and diphtheria. If I went, Jack's hands would be more than full. Had these things come to perplex us only two months earlier, I could have taken a holiday ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... I timid and perplex'd Often have my spirit vex'd, Sleepless toss'd thro' all the night, Sick at heart when dawn'd the light, When heart fail'd me utterly, Hast Thou then appear'd ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... mirth of summer was shrill all around; Its incessant small voices like stings seem'd to sound On his sore angry sense. He stood grieving the hot Solid sun with his shadow, nor stirr'd from the spot. The last look of Lucile still bewilder'd, perplex'd, And reproach'd him. The Duke's visit goaded and vex'd. He had not yet given the letters. Again He must visit Lucile. He resolved to remain Where he was till the Duke went. In short, he would stay, Were it only to know when the Duke went away. But just as he form'd this resolve, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... heart of the shrine, a nameless sense of something impure in the whole subject; an undefinable something in his way of looking at it, which has often made the purity of men—blameless in their outer life—- sadden and perplex me almost as much as the actions and words ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... may draw as many absurd consequences as you please, and endeavour to perplex the plainest things; but you shall never persuade me out of my senses. I ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... in this life but what is mingled with some evil; honours perplex, riches disquiet, and pleasures ruin health. But in heaven we shall find blessings in their purity, without any ingredient to embitter, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... intervene, No artful wildness to perplex the scene; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects the other. The suffering eye inverted Nature sees, Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees, With here a fountain never to be played, And there a summer-house that ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... she is," answered Foster—"one of you is enough to perplex a plain head. But will you ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... it. Thus, our "unfinished feeling" represents in itself an obscure demand for a resolution of the unadjusted; it corresponds to that inner compulsion which operates upon the imperfect consciousness of the dreamer, or upon the mentality of any person seeking the solution of a problem or "perplex," either asleep, or awake—as I trust you all still remain. The present demand for the resolution of the unadjusted must be met without going deeper into the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... persuade my unwilling lips to pronounce such sounds. So I beg you not to perplex me with your German, but read ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... were intercepted, as well as those she wrote to him. She finds herself every Day perplex'd with the Addresses of the Prince she hated; he was ever sighing at her Feet. In vain were all her reproaches, and all her Coldness, he was on the surer Side; for what he found Love would not do, Force of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... and slaves, having come to build a fort and custom-house at the Kongone. As we had no good reason to hide the harbour, but many for its being made known, we supplied him with a chart of the tortuous branches, which, running among the mangroves, perplex the search; and with such directions as would enable him to find his way down to the river. He had brought the relics of our fugitive mail, and it was a disappointment to find that all had been lost, with the exception of a bundle of old newspapers, two photographs, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... one in whom Nature has fix'd a Decree, Ordaining my Life to happy and free; With no Cares of the World I am never perplex'd, And never depending, I never am vex'd: I'm neither of so high nor so low a degree, But Ambition and Want are both strangers to me; My life is a compound of Freedom and Ease, I go where I will, and I work when I please: I live above Envy, and yet above Spight, And have Judgment enough for ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... perverse reluctance in me to go on with this inordinately long letter just when I have arrived at the most interesting part of it. I can't account for my own state of mind; I only know that it is so. The difficulty of describing the young lady doesn't perplex me like the difficulty of describing Mrs. Farnaby. I can see her now, as vividly as if she was present in the room. I even remember (and this is astonishing in a man) the dress that she wore. And yet I shrink from writing about her, as if there was something wrong ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... description of cricket intelligible, much less entertaining, to the uninitiated. The veriest enthusiast never thought the forty-seven "laws of cricket" light reading, and, resembling as they do certain other statutes whose only apparent design is to perplex the inquiring layman, they would, if cited here, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... Lake Ontario by an overpowering naval force and seize the French forts upon it, Niagara, Frontenac, and Toronto; attack Ticonderoga and Crown Point on the one hand, and Fort Duquesne on the other, and at the same time perplex and divide the enemy by an inroad down the Chaudiere upon the settlements about Quebec.[387] The council approved the scheme; but to execute it the provinces must raise at least sixteen thousand men. This they refused to do. Pennsylvania and Virginia would take no active part, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... after all; to strengthen the wickedness which would hide itself behind the sinister expression, that the "devil may not be so bad as he is painted," is to be on the side of the devil. It is to hearten the foes of good and perplex and discourage ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... intertribal habit. They held frequent intercourse, gave feasts and presents, and practised unbounded hospitality. Through this traffic objects travelled far from home, and now come forth out of the tombs to perplex archaeologists. Remembering the organization of the tribe everywhere prevalent, it is not difficult to understand that the army, or horde, that stands for the idea, was assembled on the clan basis. The number of men arrayed under one banner, the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to a reign of pure custom is this: Meaningless injunctions abound, since the value of a traditional practice does not depend on its consequences, but simply on the fact that it is the practice; and this element of irrationality is enough to perplex, till it utterly confounds, the mind capable of rising above routine and reflecting on the true aims and ends of the social life. How to break through "the cake of custom," as Bagehot has called it, is the hardest lesson that humanity ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... was wrong in thinking you can multiply money by money. The multiplier must be regarded as an abstract number. It is true that two feet multiplied by two feet will make four square feet. Similarly, two pence multiplied by two pence will produce four square pence! And it will perplex the reader to say what a "square penny" is. But we will assume for the purposes of our puzzle that twopence multiplied by twopence is fourpence. Now, what two amounts of money will produce the next smallest possible result, the same in both cases, when added or multiplied ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... collective family party—father, mother, children, and servants—and the king himself, whose features were known to millions, not even withdrawing himself from the public gaze at the stations for changing horses—all this is calculated to perplex and sadden the pitying reader with the idea that some supernatural infatuation had bewildered the predestined victims. Meantime an earlier escape than this to Varennes had been planned, viz., to Brussels. The preparations for this, which have been narrated ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... perplex me more than this question between Governor Gamble and the War Department, as to whether the peculiar force organized by the former in Missouri are State troops or United States troops. Now, this is either ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... indifferent, this took place, and easily rooted it self in the bewildred Fancy of the People, and now 'tis riveted too fast for the Devil himself to remove it if he was disposed to try; but as I said above, 'tis none of his Business to solve Doubts or remove Difficulties out of our Heads, but to perplex us with more, as much ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... were all children again, with no hearts to perplex us and no great temptations to try us," she said to herself as she rested a minute in a quiet nook while her partner went to get a glass of water. Right in the midst of this half-sad, half-sentimental reverie, she heard a familiar voice behind her say earnestly: "And allophite ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... "Never perplex her mind with an idea that may disturb, but cannot reform"—were his latest words; and Dorriforth's reply ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... impels him, ere he lay the wicked low, To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe. Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex Him in dealing with an issue—to the scandal of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... gloom. Eternal as the chorus of their wail, And the dim isthmus of that middle space, Where the compassioned soul may purge its sins In pious expiation. Then advance Ye children of all sorrows, and all sins, Doubts that perplex, and hopes that tantalize, All the wild forms the fiend Temptation takes To tamper with the soul! Come with the care That eats your daily life; come with the thought That is conceived in the noon of night, And makes us stare around us ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... who lived there for three years—and a few steps bring you to the river and to a small monument upon its brink. It is a narrow, grassy way; not a field nor a meadow, but of that shape and character which would perplex the animated stranger from the city, who would see, also, its unfitness for a building-lot. The narrow, grassy way is the old road, which in the month of April, 1775, led to a bridge that crossed the stream at this spot. And upon the river's margin, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... river, valley, mountain, woods, and plains, How gladsome once he ranged your native turf, Your simple scenes how raptured! ere EXPENSE Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught Convenience to perplex him, Art to pall, Pomp to deject, and Beauty ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... intrusted to my keeping. In the second place, all attempts on my part to induce him to abandon the idea of searching out his uncle's remains would be utterly useless after what I had incautiously said to him. Having settled these two conclusions, the only really great difficulty which remained to perplex me was whether I was justified in aiding him to execute his ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... work. And greatly more proud was I when in time you taught me several Latin words, and then whole sentences, both in prose and verse, pasting a strip of paper over, or obscuring with impenetrable ink, those passages in the poets which were beyond my comprehension, and might perplex me. But proudest of all was I when you began to reason with me. What will now be my pride if you are convinced by the first arguments I ever have opposed to you; or if you only take them up and try if they are applicable. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Henry,' she said, as, seated on the sofa hand in hand, they dilated on their present happiness and future plans—'dear Henry, there is one thing that has rather perplexed me, and does perplex me still, a little—do you know, I have been ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... Edinburgh, where we had found at Addison's, 87 Prince's Street, the most comfortable hotel in Great Britain, and went to Melrose, where we put up at the George. This is all travelled ground with me, so that I need not much perplex myself with further description, especially as it is impossible, by any repetition of attempts, to describe Melrose Abbey. We went thither immediately after tea, and were shown over the ruins by a very delectable old Scotchman, incomparably the best guide I ever met with. ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pupil of Shelburne would have raised this country to a state of great material prosperity, and removed or avoided many of those anomalies which now perplex us; but he was not destined for ordinary times; and though his capacity was vast and his spirit lofty, he had not that passionate and creative genius required by an age of revolution. The French outbreak was his evil daemon: he had not the means of ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... What smiling mirth was heard in all thou spoke; Manhood and grizzled age were fond of thee, And youth itself sought thy society. 40 The aged thou taught, descended to the young, Clear'd up the irresolute, confirm'd the strong; To the perplex'd thy friendly counsel lent, And gently lifted up the diffident; Sigh'd with the sorrowful, and bore a part In all the anguish of a bleeding heart; Reclaim'd the headstrong; and, with sacred skill, Committed hallow'd rapes upon the will; Soothed our affections; and, with their delight, To gain ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... costume did not in the least perplex Mr. Maltboy, as he lay on the sofa digesting his dinner, and puffing out smoke rings by the dozen. His thoughts were mildly fixed on that delightful Miss Whedell. Five times he had been graciously permitted to visit the lady at her house, and to discover a score of new charms at each interview. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... [To the RABBIT, giving him a light tap with her wing to send him home.] Afraid of nothing but dogs. And since you put me in mind of it, I think I must go and perplex their noses, by tangling my tracks all ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... heard something about this affair. I'll meet him, and accost him. But how dreadfully frightened I am! Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man with a guilty conscience, such as possesses myself. But however this matter turns out, I'll proceed to perplex it still further: so does ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... from Cambridge, sick at heart and sorely vexed, Ere I see my University disestablished and unsexed.'" Thus she spake, and I endeavoured to console the weeping Muse: "Dry your tears, beloved Clio, drive away this fit of blues. Cease your soul with gloomy fancies and forebodings to perplex; You are doing gross injustice to the merits of your sex. Know you not that things are changing, that the Earth regains her youth, Since Philosophers have brought to light the one primeval truth? Long have all things ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... dejected friends in England, were daily fed with the vain hopes of the Queen's death, or the party's restoration. They likewise endeavoured to spin out the time, till Prince Eugene's activity had pushed on some great event, which might govern or perplex the conditions of peace. Therefore the Dutch plenipotentiaries, who proceeded by the instructions of those mistaken patriots, acted in every point with a spirit of litigiousness, than which nothing could give greater advantage ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... think partly on Johnnie's account, partly from fatigue. There was William Henry Lyttelton amongst others; much of his oddity has rubbed off, and he is an honoured courtly gentleman, with a great deal of wit; and not one of the fine people who perplex you by shutting their mouths if you begin to speak. I never fear quizzing, so am not afraid of this species of lying-in-wait. Lord have mercy ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... given for this reason and for that reason; but he knows nothing at all of the services rendered to the State by the dozens of knights made every year, while he can see very well that the men of real distinction, whom he does know, never get any distinctions at all. These difficulties perplex and irritate him. Probably he goes home with a ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... would not perplex her with her embryo lord on that same evening, thinking that she would allow her a few hours to make herself at home; but on the following morning Mr Arabin arrived. 'And now,' said Miss Thorne to herself,' I must contrive to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of speech, should shape their words according to the model of the natural sciences, and by employing a dark and inappropriate phraseology about things which surpass the comprehension of those whom it designs to instruct, perplex the simple people of God, and thus obstruct its own way toward the attainment of the far more exalted ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... delight, shut my eyes in my rough, unfinished little room, and the vales of Persia and the scented glades of the tropics were mine to wander through. Yes, a dreamer's Paradise, for I was only sixteen then, and untroubled by any thoughts of Love; yet sometimes Its shadow would enter and vaguely perplex me, a strange shape, waiting always beyond, in the midst of my glowing gardens, and I sighed with a prescient pain. How have I known Love since those days? As yet it has brought me but two things—Sorrow and ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... had all the softness of her sex, Her face had all the sweetness of the devil When he put on the cherub to perplex Eve, and to pave, Heaven knows how, the road ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Indifference never to have a violent Aversion or Fondness for any thing. And by this it comes to pass, that if any good Fortune happens to me, I am not vainly transported, or grow insolent; or if any thing falls out cross, I am not much perplex'd. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... Her poor old father's in despair, For China's throne is now without an heir; He longs for her to wed some prince or other, And not perplex him with continual bother. He's of an age to live in peace and quiet, And not be plagued with wars and civil riot; He's tried all means his daughter's mind to soften, Has often sternly threatened—coaxed as often; Used prayers for such a monarch infra dig— ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... elaborate education. There was, however, running through her character a vein of what might be called emotionalism. The habit of concentration, acquired through study, seemed rather to intensify this quality than otherwise. Perhaps it made even greater her love for Corbett, but it was destined to perplex him. ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... objects, do thou, since thou hast reason and they have none, make use of them with a generous and liberal spirit. But towards human beings, as they have reason, behave in a social spirit. And on all occasions call on the gods, and do not perplex thyself about the length of time in which thou shalt do this; for even three hours ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... "I think that nature and an angry God Produced thee to the world, thou wicked sex, To be to man a plague, a chastening rod; Happy, wert thou not present to perplex. So serpent creeps along the grassy sod; So bear and ravening wolf the forest vex; Wasp, fly, and gad-fly buzz in liquid air, And the rich grain lies tangled with ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... merry cavaliers. For my part, the dissensions of Christendom weary me, and I prefer to leave to the holy men vowed to the service of the altar, the labor of unloosing the knots of controversy, rather than perplex my brains with them. Come, Master Arundel, hast never a song wherewith to waken the echoes of the virgin forest and shorten the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... punishment. It had all been for the best, sad as it was at the time. Madame also was comforted, though she had not forgotten her son. It was the will of God: it was God who had called him, as He would call her some day. There was no bitterness in her grief, and she did not perplex her soul with brooding over the impenetrable ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent. He may be excused if he shrink from the lurid glory of martyrdom; he may be justified in not placing himself in a position of singularity. He may even be commended for not helping to perplex mankind with doubts which he feels to be founded on limited and possibly erroneous investigation. But if allegiance to truth lays no stern command upon him to speak out his immature dissent, it does lay a stern command not to speak out hypocritical assent. There are many justifications ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... and eternal interests. More happy are those placed under the authority of strict parents, who have already chosen and marked out for themselves a path to which they expect their children strictly to adhere. The difficulties that may still perplex the children of such parents are comparatively few: even if the strictness of the authority over them be inexpedient and over strained, it affords them a safeguard and a support for which they cannot be too ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... Cincinnati, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit had stood to the New West fifty years before. The problems of labor and capital and municipal administration, which the earlier writers boasted would never perplex the planting South, had come in ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... his study, and Christian had returned to her routine of household duties, one of which was teaching Arthur and Letitia—not the pleasantest of tasks—the peace of his words remained in her heart, comforting her throughout the day. She ceased to trouble or perplex herself about what was to come; it seemed, indeed, as if nothing would ever trouble her any more. She rested in a deep dream of tranquility, so perfect that it beautified and glorified her whole appearance. Arthur ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... what she was expected to do, what she intended to do, formed the subject of the keenest interest and anxiety in England at the time; and the problems and mysteries of those years, never unravelled to this day, never with any certainty to be unravelled at all, continued to perplex English statesmen and to complicate the situation in England for nearly nineteen years more. We shall have to follow them therefore in much greater detail than would a priori seem justifiable in a volume ostensibly dealing not with Scottish but ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... one: to master Lake Ontario by an overpowering naval force and seize the French forts upon it, Niagara, Frontenac, and Toronto; attack Ticonderoga and Crown Point on the one hand, and Fort Duquesne on the other, and at the same time perplex and divide the enemy by an inroad down the Chaudiere upon the settlements about Quebec.[387] The council approved the scheme; but to execute it the provinces must raise at least sixteen thousand men. This they ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... succeeded, faith in the future did not pay dividends in a present income on which to set up house. A widow, considering her daughter's future, might well feel a little anxiety. But one can see wheels within wheels of family conclaves and matters to perplex the simple which drew another ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... continued my course, he still stood gazing at me in utter astonishment. Bill and Flam were now slipped by the natives, and in another moment they were barking around him. I shouted loudly to encourage the dogs and perplex the elephant, who seemed puzzled to know what to think of us, and, shrilly trumpeting, charged headlong after the dogs. Retreating, he backed into the thicket, then charged once more, and made clean ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... comfort. She really did not know from where they were taken, but she found herself repeating them, and she knew that if she really agreed to marry Dent, she would give up far more than her life for Will. No questionings as to the right or the wrong of this action came to perplex her—she never for an instant supposed it possible that Will could prefer prison with the thought of her waiting for him at the end, to liberty with her lost to him forever. No, no; sailors, of all men, must be free—free as the wind or the air. Will must once more go where he pleased, ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... "You perplex me," admitted the elder financier shortly. "You make great pretense of open frankness; brazen defiance even, and yet you choose to cloak every attack and to move by stealth. You know that just now such a flurry may precipitate a general panic that will shake ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Ear, Though dancing Mountains witness'd Orpheus near; Nor Lute nor Lyre his feeble Pow'rs attend, Nor sweeter Musick of a virtuous Friend, But everlasting Dictates croud his Tongue, Perversely grave, or positively wrong. The still returning Tale, and ling'ring Jest, Perplex the fawning Niece and pamper'd Guest, While growing Hopes scarce awe the gath'ring Sneer, And scarce a Legacy can bribe to hear; The watchful Guests still hint the last Offence, The Daughter's Petulance, the Son's Expence, Improve his heady Rage with treach'rous Skill, And mould his Passions ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... delightful way, blessed by perfect summer weather, a good harvest of fish, fine winds for sailing, and calm, starry nights. Maloney's selfish prayer had been favourably received. Nothing came to disturb or perplex. There was not even the prowling of night animals to vex the rest of Mrs. Maloney; for in previous camps it had often been her peculiar affliction that she heard the porcupines scratching against ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... his foot on the rock when he knows that whoever needs not a Redeemer is more than human. Remove from him the difficulties that perplex his belief in a crucified Saviour, convince him of the reality of sin, and then satisfy him as to the fact historically, and as to the truth spiritually, of a redemption therefrom by Christ. Do this for ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the Baroness. "Did not Adam live near a thousand years, and was not Eve beautiful all the time? I used to perplex Mr. Tusher with that—poor creature! What have we done since, that our lives are so much lessened, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... acquainted is made all the blacker by the fact that it is thus but a drop in an infinite ocean of moral imperfection. When, therefore, Professor Flint goes on to say, "We ought to be content if we can show that what God has done is wise and right, and not perplex ourselves as to why He has not done an infinity of other things," I answer, Most certainly; but can we show that what God has done is wise and right? Unquestionably not. That what he has done may be wise and right, could we see his whole scheme of things, ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... IRWIN, whose previous books I remember to have greatly enjoyed, has produced for her third a story of much originality and power, called Out of the House (CONSTABLE). The title may perplex you at first. It comes from the struggles of the heroine to wrench herself free from encompassing family ties and the tradition of intermarriage, in order to join her life to the outside lover who calls to her. You might therefore consider it, in some sense, a story of eugenics, but that its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... proper for whoever hath power to think. Why shouldst not a woman think if by so doing she can find answer to some question that doth perplex her heart?" ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... of a nephew of Bishop Kennedy, Patrick Graham, Kennedy's successor as Bishop of St Andrews, now perplex the historian. Graham dealt for himself with the Pope, obtained the rank of Archbishop for the Bishop of St Andrews (1472), and thus offended the king and country, always jealous of interference from Rome. But he was reported ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... yet ascensively, expatiates in those in-all-ways-sloping fields of metaphysical investigation which perplex whilst they captivate, and bewilder whilst they allure, cannot evitate the perception of perception's fallibility, nor avoid the conclusion (if that can be called a conclusion to which, it may be said, there are no ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... delight! come hither And see the opening morn, Image of Truth new-born. Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason, Dark disputes and artful teazing. Folly is an endless maze; Tangled roots perplex her ways; How many have fallen there! They stumble all night over bones of the dead; And feel—they know not what but care; And wish to lead others, when ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... they will not work together. Our reason is our glory, but our indiscretions serve us best—we must either be cowards or fools. We have a perception of infinite goodness, just sufficient to make us conclude that we are "arrant knaves, all of us," and just enough belief in immortality "to perplex our wills." There is nothing but disagreement and disproportion—a constant missing of the mark, a stretching of the hand for that which is not. How is it possible to take seriously such a life if you ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... use to congress. The powers of that body are already defined, and those powers cannot be amended, confirmed or diminished by ten thousand resolutions. Is not that the guide and rule of this legislature. A multiplicity of laws is reprobated in any society, and tend but to confound and perplex. How strange would a law appear which was to confirm a law; and how much more strange must it appear for this body to pass resolutions to confirm the constitution under which they sit! This is the case ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... constitute an exceedingly well-defined group, and the question of relationship in any direction need not much perplex the student. Least of all is the question to be settled by anybody's dictum, which is apt to be positive inversely in proportion to the speaker's acquaintance with the subject. No one test can be applied as a universal touchstone to separate plants from animals. Such is simply petitio principii. ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... out of him, and out of Aristotle, which Dubravius often quotes in his Discourse of Fishes: but it might rather perplex than satisfy you; and therefore I shall rather choose to direct you how to catch, than spend more time in discoursing either of the nature or the breeding of this Carp, or of any more circumstances concerning him. ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... paint me thus, as I am, to know me; weak, as I am, and in the weeds of this time; only with eyes which seek out labour, and with a faith, not learned, yet jealous of prayer. Do this; so shall thy soul stand before thee always, and perplex thee no more. ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... to awaken the attention and to diversify the scenes, yet they are not in sufficient number to perplex the memory or to confuse the incidents. Their spirit is well kept up till the very last, and they relieve one another with so much art that the reader will not find himself wearied even with the pedantic jargon of the old Baron ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... room.... She was out from the cove of childhood; she was into the bay of youth; breasting towards the sea of womanhood (that sea that's sailed by stars and by no chart); and she was encountering tides that come to young mariners to perplex them and Keggo could talk about such things with the experience that so enraptures young mariners and of which young mariners are at the same time so confidently contemptuous, so superiorly sceptical. Nearer to press the simile, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... knew a maid, A young enthusiast ... Her eye was not the mistress of her heart; Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste Or barren, intermeddling subtleties, Perplex her mind; but wise as women are When genial circumstance hath favoured them, She welcomed what was given, and craved no more, Whate'er the scene presented to her view. That was the best, to that she was attuned By her benign simplicity ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... might prove so fatal; he fears to know what he dies to be satisfied in, and she fears to discover too late a secret, which was the only one she had concealed from him. Octavio runs over in his mind a thousand thoughts that perplex him, of the probability of her being married; he considers how often he had found her with that happy young man, who more freely entertained her than servants use to do. He now considers how he had seen them once on a bed together, when ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the most prominent men of the party, led by Erastus Root. Besides, a new Legislature, elected in the preceding April, had a Republican majority on joint ballot divided between Clintonians and Madisonians; and, still further to perplex the situation, twenty Republican assemblymen absolutely refused to vote unless Madison were given a fair division of the electors. This meant the surrender of one elector out of three, an arrangement to which Clinton ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... daughter waiting on an old Huguenot bourgeois, making sugar-cakes, selling her hair! And what next? Here was she alive after all, alive and disgracing herself; alive—yes, both she and her husband—to perplex the Chevalier, and force him either to new crimes or to beggar his son! Why could not the one have really died on the St. Bartholomew, or the other at La Sablerie, instead of putting the poor Chevalier in the wrong by coming to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cudgel, and, seizing his uplifted arm, succeeded in averting the coming blow from the head of the intended victim, who, ignorant of the impending danger, was making most furious thrusts at his assailant with the point of his umbrella, a novel mode of attack, which seemed to perplex and annoy that ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... that his skilful hands had ever executed. This exercise of his craft pleased him better than any other occupation which he could have adopted, and served as an apology for secluding himself in his workshop, and shunning society, where the idle reports which were daily circulated served only to perplex and disturb him. He resolved to trust in the warm regard of Simon, the faith of his daughter, and the friendship of the provost, who, having so highly commended his valour in the combat with Bonthron, would ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... letters of gold, the crime it told, That blasted a sister's soul. That fluttering dove flew round the shrine, Where the Pope by chance was led, And he let the scribbled parchment fall On his holiness' bald head. Now the Pope was very sore perplex'd, At the words the dove had scrawl'd, For he could not read the pig-squeak tongue, Which is now old English call'd. He questioned the French ambassador, The news of that scroll to speak. Who bowing observed, "it was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... mountain-tops, two beings have come into life, not in such an Eden as bloomed to welcome our first parents, but in the heart of a modern city. They find themselves in existence, and gazing into one another's eyes. Their emotion is not astonishment; nor do they perplex themselves with efforts to discover what, and whence, and why they are. Each is satisfied to be, because the other exists likewise; and their first consciousness is of calm and mutual enjoyment, which seems not to have been the birth of that very moment, but prolonged ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a step she started from a true belief that Girard had ceased to care much for Cadiere. But she might have guessed that he had other things to perplex him in Toulon. He was disturbed by an affair no longer turning upon a young girl, but on a lady of ripe age, easy circumstances, and good standing; on his wisest penitent, Mdlle. Gravier. Her forty years failed to protect her. He would have no self-governed ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... when she comes, or goes; But with thy equal thoughts, prepared dost stand To take her by the either hand; Nor car'st which comes the first, the foul or fair:— A wise man ev'ry way lies square; And like a surly oak with storms perplex'd Grows still the stronger, strongly vex'd. Be so, bold Spirit; stand centre-like, unmoved; And be not only thought, but proved To be what I report thee, and inure Thyself, if want comes, to endure; And so thou dost; for thy desires are Confined to live with private Lar: Nor curious ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... upon it; especially, since so much of that which I shall publish concerning them, is derived from the long experience of a most learned and ingenious person, from whom I acknowledge to have received many of these hints. Not to perplex the reader with the various names, Greek, Gallic, Sabin, Amerine, Vitex, &c. better distinguish'd by their growth and bark; and by Latin authors all comprehended under that of salices; our English books reckon them promiscuously thus; the common-white willow, the black, and ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Mr William Lee complained that parties had been excited against him at Nantes, and that so far from having been supported by the commissioners in the execution of his duty, these gentlemen had as much as possible contributed to perplex him in the discharge of it; that he had frequently written, &c. His letters have been taken notice of already, and the reason mentioned why they were not answered. The rest of this complaint is, as ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... Now, to perplex the ravell'd noose, As each a different way pursues, While sullen or loquacious strife, Promis'd to hold them on for life, That dire disease, whose ruthless power 75 Withers the beauty's transient flower: Lo! the small-pox, whose horrid glare ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Christmas night, and why it kept calling to me every night, and what it said. I know it now. The work is done, and I am content. Tell father it is better as it is. I should have lived only to worry and perplex him, and something in me tells me ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... corresponding with the learned, the sentimental, and the refined,—my heart and my pen turn with ardor and alacrity to a tender and affectionate parent, the faithful guardian and guide of my youth, the unchanging friend of my riper years. The different dispositions of various associates sometimes perplex the mind which seeks direction; but in the disinterested affection of the maternal breast we fear no dissonance of passion, no jarring interests, no disunion of love. In this seat of felicity is every enjoyment ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... are often impressed with the presence of the same problems of government there that perplex our own people in the Philippines, and although England has sent her ablest men and applied her most mature wisdom to their solution, they are just as troublesome and unsettled as they ever were, and we will doubtless have a similar ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... that before your eyes; for there are some things in it I would not have liable to accident. You shall only know in general that it is an account of what I have done to serve him in his pretensions on these vacancies, etc. But he must not know that you know so much.(37) Does this perplex you? Hat care I? But rove Pdfr, saucy Pdfr. Farewell, deelest MD MD MD FW FW ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... and travelled at such a breakneck speed that Bishop was more puzzled than ever over the conduct of his master. He had sacrificed his well-earned reputation for promptitude on the day before, and now he seemed to be no longer merciful to his beast; quite enough to perplex the servant beyond measure. However, Washington expedited his business at Williamsburg, secured the supplies for his army that he asked, and returned by the way of the "White House" on the Pamunkey River, where Mrs. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... captain Daggett; and when the deacon had not been over to perplex him, and wake up the worldly spirit in him, he was as well inclined to preparation as any sick person I ever waited on. To be sure it was different arter the deacon had paid ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... interpretation of the Book of Revelation; by labored calculations based upon arithmetical principles, and algebraic formulae until then unknown, but which appeared mystical and appalling from the fact that they were incomprehensible. The book was written in a style well calculated to perplex, astonish, or terrify the readers, especially those who were not well stocked with intelligence. It is therefore not remarkable that it caused a commotion wherever it was circulated. The judgment day was the topic of discourse and persons of ungodly lives and conversation were led to think ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... precious stiff posers to loyal Primrosers Are offered by Rochester, Walsall, and Hexham! Platform perorators, post-prandial glosers, Must find many points to perplex 'em and vex 'em. It bothers a spouter who freely would flourish Coat-tails and mixed tropes at political dinners, When doubts of his safety he's driven to nourish, Through publicans rash ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various
... occasion, or person, nor even the amount, is specified, tends to cover or protect any act of the same nature (as far as a general confession can protect such acts) which may be detected hereafter, and which in fact may not make part of the gross sum so confessed, and that it tends to perplex and defeat all inquiry into such practices.—That the said Warren Hastings, in stating to the Directors that he has resolved to reimburse himself in a mode the most suitable to the situation of their affairs, viz., by receiving money privately ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and its sacred lore, With honest purpose to explore, And render into my loved German tongue. (He opens a volume, and applies himself to it.) 'Tis writ, "In the beginning was the Word!" I pause, perplex'd! Who now will help afford? I cannot the mere Word so highly prize; I must translate it otherwise, If by the spirit guided as I read. "In the beginning was the Sense!" Take heed, The import of this primal sentence weigh, Lest thy too hasty pen be led astray! Is force creative then of ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... sight of reason) how I could, previously to the deciding outrage, have considered myself as everlastingly united to vice and folly? 'Had an evil genius cast a spell at my birth; or a demon stalked out of chaos, to perplex my understanding, and enchain my will, with ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... again those faces which he was wont to know—and where he faileth he shall hold his peace, neither betraying by semblance of surprise or other sign that he hath forgot; that upon occasions of state, whensoever any matter shall perplex him as to the thing he should do or the utterance he should make, he shall show nought of unrest to the curious that look on, but take advice in that matter of the Lord Hertford, or my humble self, which are commanded of the King to be upon this service and close at call, till ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have the best appreciation of its lustre—a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the eye in the latter case, but, in the former, there is the more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmanent by a scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated, or ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Frank Jones told the story of that day's hunting. To his father's ears it sounded as being very ominous. He did not care much for hunting himself, nor would it much perplex him if the Landleaguers would confine themselves to this mode of operations. But as he heard of the crowds surrounding the coverts through the county, he thought also of his many acres still under water, by the operation of a man who had taken upon himself to be his enemy. And the whole morning ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... task thus to compromise the awful realities of religion, and thus to perplex the distinctions which a religious mind wishes to observe between truth and illusion; yet it seems inevitable to narrate that which comes before us, as an integral and important portion of the history we have to do with. And yet incidents ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... kettle making it home-like, the children chattering, Miss Wells smiling, letters coming in to perplex or to clear up perplexities, amuse or cheer. The children were then turned out for an hour's hoop-driving on the gravel drive, horse-chestnut picking, or whatever might not be mischief, while Honora was conferring with Jones or with Brooks, and receiving her orders for the day. Next ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by money. The multiplier must be regarded as an abstract number. It is true that two feet multiplied by two feet will make four square feet. Similarly, two pence multiplied by two pence will produce four square pence! And it will perplex the reader to say what a "square penny" is. But we will assume for the purposes of our puzzle that twopence multiplied by twopence is fourpence. Now, what two amounts of money will produce the next smallest possible result, the same in both cases, when added or multiplied in this manner? The two ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... up by telling the jury that their duty was plain: yet, as three points had arisen which might perplex their views of the case, he would first dispose of these. The prisoner had intimated that he was indicted by a false name. But, as it had sufficiently appeared in evidence that he was generally known by this name, that was no matter for their inquiry. ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... of Barillon deserve to be transcribed. They would alone suffice to decide a question which ignorance and party spirit have done much to perplex. "Cette liberte accordee aux nonconformistes a faite une grande difficulte, et a ete debattue pendant plusieurs jours. Le Roy d'Angleterre avoit fort envie que les Catholiques eussent seuls la liberte de l'exercice de ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 the true alphabet, is first to study a false alphabet; that the way to speak words ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... giver's pigs. Destitution of this kind, brought about by unswerving loyalty to an ideal, ceases to exist in its sordid manifestations: it exalts the sufferer. And his life's work is there. Hitherto there had been no "Albanian Question" to perplex the chanceries of Europe. He applied the match to the tinder; he conjured up that phantom ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... only our blessed Lord had been on earth now, and I might have gone on pilgrimage to the place where He was! If I could have asked Him all the questions that perplex me, and laid at His feet all the sorrows that trouble me! For I do not think He would have commanded the saints to chase me away because I maybe have poorer wits than other women,—He who let the ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... starve or sweat, Thro' winters cauld, or simmer's heat; They've nae sair wark to craze their banes, An' fill auld age wi' grips an' granes: But human bodies are sic fools, For a' their colleges and schools, That when nae real ills perplex them, They mak enow themsels to vex them; An' ay the less they hae to sturt them, In like proportion, less ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... glen, owing to the vast height from which it was viewed, and to our being seldom within a mile of it. The geologist would here have a most interesting field for research, and would doubtless be enabled to account for those natural phenomena, which, from their defiance of all rule, perplex us so greatly. These mountains abound with coal and slate. The dip of the rocks on this side (the north) of the glen, is about ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... never doubting their existence her reason acquiesced, her heart turned away, oppressed and disquieted, as from other mysterious actualities common enough to human observation, such as illness, disease, deformity, old age, the pains of birth and of death. Such matters might perplex and sadden, or arouse her indignant pity; but, being strong with the confidence of untouched youth and innocence, they were powerless, in and by themselves, to terrify her to the contemptible ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... wondrous and omnipotent way of working, and man can but guess at the manner and means by which the problems that perplex him will be solved in ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... cock-crow, that the bigger and stronger the wave, the mair was it broken against the rocks?—it's just thus wi' the pride o' man's understanding, when he measures it against the dark things o' God. An' yet it's sae ordered, that the same wonderful truths which perplex and cast down the proud reason, should delight and comfort the humble heart. I am a lone, puir woman, Robert. Bairns an' husband have gone down to the grave, one by one; an' now, for twenty weary years, I have been childless an' a widow. But trow ye that the puir lone woman ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... and in spite of all that with most perverted pains he has made himself (so different from what he once was), can charm and interest, pain and perplex me:—not so D**, another disciple of the same school: he inspires me with the strongest antipathy I ever felt for a human being. Insignificant and disagreeable is his appearance, he looks as if all the bile under heaven had ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... not perplex our minds with its origin. It is, and that's enough for any mind. Ah! listen! Now you will hear ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... children were looking at the book of Bible Pictures, and it came out that Dolly knew nothing at all about Joshua and the walls of Jericho, nor Gideon and the lamps in the pitchers, nor anything else. Then, when I was surprised, she said that it was not the present system to perplex children with the myths of ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... vain, I strove with the tormentors: All in vain, Applied me with forced interest to peruse Fair nature's outspread volume: All in vain, Look'd up admiring at the dappling clouds And depths cerulean: Even as I gazed, The film—the earthly film obscured my vision, And in the lower region, sore perplex'd, Again I wander'd; and again shook off With vex'd impatience the besetting cares, And set me straight to gather as I walk'd A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice; And, in few moments, of all hues I held A glowing handful. In a few moments more Where are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... to be hoped the girls were asleep also; indeed, there is little doubt the younger ones were. But Bessie, with the cares of a castle on her head, the mysteries of the evening to perplex her, and an unfortunate love-affair going more and more awry, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... so tender and gentle, yet so passionate, that you feel it indecorous to look at him; and Europa, under her thick rich stuffs and embroideries, is all a woman. What a pity that such a picture should fade, and perplex the beholder with such splendor ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... away is good," she went on to advise Pao-yue, "and we are all willing to go also; and why not avail yourself of this opportunity to dismiss us in a body? It will be for our good, and you too on the other hand, needn't perplex yourself about not getting better people to come and wait ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... then, to a reign of pure custom is this: Meaningless injunctions abound, since the value of a traditional practice does not depend on its consequences, but simply on the fact that it is the practice; and this element of irrationality is enough to perplex, till it utterly confounds, the mind capable of rising above routine and reflecting on the true aims and ends of the social life. How to break through "the cake of custom," as Bagehot has called it, is the hardest lesson that humanity ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... would be, Full of mischievous glee; If aught came to vex thee, I'd plague and perplex thee. An ape I would be, Full ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... what delight rhymes on the scribbling dunce. He's ne'er perplex'd to choose, but right at once; With rapture hails each work as soon as done, And wonders so much wit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... structure, not only between Greek and Latin, but among all the languages of the Indo-European class. Nevertheless, the Roman grammarians deserve great praise for their elaborate results in the sphere of correct writing. No defects of syntax perplex the reader of the classical authors. Imperfect and unpliable the language is, but never inexact. And though the meaning is often hard to settle, this is owing rather to the inadequacy of the material than ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... the number of executions; yet I cannot but think, that they who destroy the confidence of society, weaken the credit of intelligence, and interrupt the security of life; harass the delicate with shame, and perplex the timorous with alarms; might very properly be awakened to a sense of their crimes, by denunciations of a whipping-post or pillory: since many are so insensible of right and wrong, that they have no standard of action but the law; nor feel guilt, but as ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... the time of the publication he was also connected with Mr. Taylor. I hope, under these circumstances, that Mr. Taylor will think it right to favour you with a statement of the facts, that future "Note"-makers may not perplex future editors with endless ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... start be much nearer Cuba than at Martinique, and he would be able, as far as fuel went, to reach either Santiago, Cienfuegos, or Puerto Rico, or even Havana itself,—all which possibilities would tend to perplex us. It is scarcely probable, however, that he would have attempted the last-named port. To do so, not to speak of the greater hazard through the greater distance, would, in case of his success, not merely have enabled, but invited, the United States to concentrate ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... longer then perplex the breast— When thoughts torment, the first are best; 'Tis mad to go, 'tis death to stay! Away, to Orra, haste away. ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... gazed on them like one whose heart denieth To think that done, he sees so strangely wrought; Till one said thus, 'O thou of little faith, What doubts perplex thy unbelieving thought? Each one of us a living body hath, We are Christ's chosen servants, fear us naught, Who to avoid the world's allurements vain, In ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the petty matters which concern the buyer of art and perplex the producer, he pours forth his jeremiads upon the age and its art, subjecting them to indefensible comparisons with the fifteenth century and deploring ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... are like a big ship anchored in a safe harbor, and you can't think what it's like to be a silly little yacht bobbing about on the open sea!" (Such is the uncomprehending viewpoint of twenty toward thirty; the calm assumption that ladies of that mature age can have no love-affairs of their own to perplex them!) ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... through, seeing the dusky shape of the small vessel, hearing the ripple of the flood tide against the stone piers, and scarcely conscious of the bridge or the ship or the gray dimness of the sea, so profound was the concentration of his mind on this problem. It did not perplex him; it maddened him. He whispered a defiant protest to himself and walked on. He was able to think more calmly when he reached his room. There were the facts, the simple, undeniable facts, to be faced without shrinking,—and a ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... language. I was so transported with joy, that I knew not whether I was asleep or awake; but being persuaded that I was not asleep, I recited aloud the following words in Arabic: 'Call upon the Almighty, He will help thee; thou needest not perplex thyself about anything else: shut thy eyes, and while thou art asleep, God will change ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... were gone, sat staring out of the window at the green spray of the spring boughs. His mouth was twitching, but his forehead was contracted. This problem of feminity and childhood which he had confronted was too much for him. The boy did not perplex him quite so much—he did not think so much about him—but the girl, the pure and sweet unreason of her proceedings, was beyond his mental grasp. The attitude of reproach which this delicate and altogether lovely ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... evangelical revelations?—Sarah doubted the possibility of an occurrence which was attended with striking difficulties, and evidently miraculous; but what censure do not they deserve who shut their eyes against the clearest light, perplex with sophisms the most intelligible statements, and endeavour, by every exertion of a slanderous tongue and a malignant pen, to subvert the basis of our religious hopes, and to undermine a fabric which has stood the test of ages, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... many as possible of the states concerned will rather tend to facilitate and simplify a rational scheme for preserving Spain (if that were our sole, as I think it ought to be our principal object) than to delay and perplex it. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that this system would never do, so he changed his tactics, and the next morning gave Crusoe no breakfast, but took him out at the usual hour to go through his lesson. This new course of conduct seemed to perplex Crusoe not a little, for on his way down to the beach he paused frequently and looked back at the cottage, and then expressively up at his master's face. But the master was inexorable; he went on, and Crusoe followed, for true ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... you allude to; they say that Jove used it with Ganymede in paradise, and here upon this earth it is practised by some of the greatest emperors and kings. I, however, am but a poor humble creature, who neither have the power nor the intelligence to perplex my wits with anything so admirable." When I had finished this speech, the Duke and his attendants could control themselves no longer, but broke into such shouts of laughter that one never heard ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Isle of Wight. From these indubitable cases of erosion—commencing, if necessary, with the small ravines which run down the flanks of the ridges, with their little working navigators at their bottoms—we can proceed, by almost insensible gradations, to the largest valleys of the Alps; and it would perplex the plutonist to fix upon the point at which fracture begins to ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... poor old creature was subjected had disturbed her costume not a little. Her shawl came nearly off, and, holding on by one pin, fluttered like a flag of defiance. Her slippers, which were of the carpet pattern, were left behind on the prairie to perplex the wolves, and her voluminous hair—once a rich auburn, but now a pearly grey—having escaped its cap and fastenings, was streaming out gaily in the breeze, as if to tempt the fingers and ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... conduct, she had strong the sense of decent comfort. Rose always knew very well what it was she wanted, and she knew very well what was the right way to do to get everything she wanted, and she never had any kind of trouble to perplex her. And so the subtle intelligent attractive half white girl Melanctha Herbert loved and did for, and demeaned herself in service to this coarse, decent, sullen, ordinary, black, childish Rose and now this unmoral promiscuous shiftless Rose was to be married ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... that Order—and that the island should be garrisoned by Neapolitan troops, paid by France and England, until the Knights should be able to maintain their independence. This reopening of the question discussed, ad nauseam, at Amiens proved that the Maltese Question would long continue to perplex the world. The matter was still further complicated by the abolition of the Priories, Commanderies, and property of the Order of St. John by the French Government in the spring of 1802—an example which was imitated by the Court of Madrid in the following ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... with irresistible impulses, engrossing thoughts, and startling memories, all defined and united, and yet lasting for so brief a moment that we are scarcely able to realize their existence ere they are gone—and so completely, that we perplex ourselves again and again with the vain effort to recall their subject or their meaning. And so it was with Stanley. The thrill passed and he could not even trace its origin or flitting thought; ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... things, I thought, one might not hope to meet Save in the dear delicious land of Faery! But now (by proof I know it well) There's still some peril in free wishing—— Politeness is a licensed spell, 15 And you, dear Sir! the Arch-magician. You much perplex'd me by the various set: They were indeed an elegant quartette! My mind went to and fro, and waver'd long; At length I've chosen (Samuel thinks me wrong) 20 That, around whose azure rim Silver figures seem to swim, Like fleece-white ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... with me? Who is it wills King Richard free? He who bravely toils and dares, Pain and danger with me shares,— He whose heart is true and warm, Though the night perplex with storm Forest, plain, and dark morass, Hanging-rock and mountain-pass, And the thunder bursts ablaze,— Is the lover ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... to the House to clear London of all but two of the regiments then in it, on the ground that, having so recently served Fleetwood and the Wallingford-House party in their usurpation, they were not to be trusted. The message was of a kind to surprise and perplex the House, and Monk had purposely reserved it to this late stage of his march that there might be the less time for discussion. While waiting at St. Alban's, he had to endure, we are told, "amongst the rest of his interruptions," ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... a lion in the flesh, our first care must be to determine upon the position and attitude it is to ultimately assume. Not to perplex the student too much, we determine that it shall take the attitude of our last example (Plate IV), or else that shown in Plate III. Accordingly, we arrange it on a platform just raised from the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... questions. And you tell him any old thing and he goes and writes it down in his room upstairs, and afterwards asks you another like it in order to perplex himself by the variety of your answers. He regards the whole world with a methodical distrust. He wants to document it and pin it down. He suspects it only too justly of disorderly impulses, and a capacity ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... continually to the modern Christian as well as to the ancient philosopher. "What makes an action right or wrong? What is a duty? What is expediency? How shall I learn to choose between my principles and my interests? And lastly (a point of casuistry which must sometimes perplex the strictest conscience), of two 'things ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... through a chain of various complicated effects, an examination not properly conducted upon accurate analytical principles, instead of giving light upon a subject in which there had been obscurity and doubt, may only serve to perplex the understanding, and bring confusion into a subject which was before sufficiently distinct. To redress that evil, then, must require more labour and some address; and this is an inconveniency that may be looked for, more or less, in every ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... sorrow, that he had an unreasonable aversion to experiments, and was fond of governing his province after the simplest manner; but then he contrived to keep it in better order than did the erudite Kieft,[51] tho he had all the philosophers, ancient and modern, to assist and perplex him. I must likewise own that he made but very few laws; but then again he took care that those few were rigidly and impartially enforced: and I do not know but justice on the whole was as well administered as if there had been volumes of sage ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... nervous depression from which I am suffering. But this is not all; it seems to me that I may point out that your—I hardly know what word to use: "irrelevancy" does not express my meaning; "inconsequences" is nearer, yet it isn't the word I want—well, your inconsequences perplex and distract my thoughts. If you will look through the letter you sent me last you will find that you have written many things that might annoy a man living in the conditions in which I live. You follow the current of your mood, but the transitions you ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... of the teacher's life are, as was explained in the last chapter, almost proverbial. There are other pressing and exhausting pursuits, which wear away the spirit by the ceaseless care which they impose, or perplex and bewilder the intellect by the multiplicity and intricacy of their details. But the business of teaching, by a pre-eminence not very enviable, stands, almost by common consent, at ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... execution of my father? It wouldn't be funny. Better be a disguised Russian prince and make them swallow a lot of stuff about the Emperor Alexander. Or I might be Cousin, and talk philosophy; oh, couldn't I perplex 'em! But no, that shabby fellow with the tousled head looks to me as if he had jogged his way through the Sorbonne. What a pity! I can mimic an Englishman so perfectly I might have pretended to be Lord Byron, travelling incognito. ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... several Latin words, and then whole sentences, both in prose and verse, pasting a strip of paper over, or obscuring with impenetrable ink, those passages in the poets which were beyond my comprehension, and might perplex me. But proudest of all was I when you began to reason with me. What will now be my pride if you are convinced by the first arguments I ever have opposed to you; or if you only take them up and try if they are applicable. Certainly ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... SIR:—Few things perplex me more than this question between Governor Gamble and the War Department, as to whether the peculiar force organized by the former in Missouri are State troops or United States troops. Now, this is either ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... one message to Pete's mind. It seemed to explain something which had begun to perplex him—why Philip had not met him at the quay, and why Kate had not heard of his coming. Clearly Philip was at present at Ballure. He had not yet received the telegram addressed ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... of soothsayer whom Saul and his servant had resolved to consult is very common in all lands at a certain stage of knowledge and civilization,—a personage who, without much reliance on Divine aid, could amuse the curiosity of a rustic and perplex his ignorance with an ambiguous answer. But the age of Samuel required more solid qualifications in the prophets, and hence the term seer had already given way to that of expounder or master of eloquence and wisdom. The expedient ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... off quite scatheless, however," said Redding, rubbing the top of his head tenderly, "for here is a bump that would perplex the whole ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... etymology nor the exact meaning of the word "to pose," are easy to determine. It seems to be abbreviated from the old verb "to appose;" which meant, to set a task, to subject to an examination or interrogatory; and hence to perplex, to embarrass, to puzzle. The latter is the common meaning of the word to pose; thus ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... represent upon the stage any great action or theatrical subject, he must begin by making an extract from it, of all the most picturesque situations. No other parts beside these can enter into his plan; all the others are defective or useless, they can only embarras, perplex, confound, and render ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... part assigned to the vice in the earlier comedies, is a well-sustained and entertaining character, and the series of transformations which he and the rest undergo, even while they occasionally perplex us a little, as the plot thickens, and the figures on the stage multiply, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... practical, and gives in simple language the why and wherefore of the many colour phenomena which perplex the dyer and the ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... question, the nature of which has perplexed theologians, philosophers, and metaphysicians, in every age, and will perplex them all to the end of time. No wonder, therefore, that it could not be solved by the poor simple Scotswoman. But as she stood hushing the child to her breast, and looking vacantly out of the window at the far mountains which grew golden in the sunset, she was ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... intending to assault the towers. But Archimedes had constructed catapults to suit every range; and as the ships sailing up were still at a considerable distance, he so wounded the enemy with stones and darts, from the tighter wound and longer engines as to harass and perplex them to the last degree; and when these began to carry over their heads, he used smaller engines graduated according to the range required from time to time, and by this means caused so much confusion among ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... did not in the least perplex Mr. Maltboy, as he lay on the sofa digesting his dinner, and puffing out smoke rings by the dozen. His thoughts were mildly fixed on that delightful Miss Whedell. Five times he had been graciously permitted to visit the lady ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... dangerous to a rule like his. 'It is not a salon,' said he; 'it is a club.' It was, in fact, the antagonism between mind and physical force. The First Consul had said before, of the orators of the Tribune: 'I have no time to answer these refractory speechifiers: they do nothing but perplex all things; they must be silenced.' And one great point of attack was Mme de Stael's salon. It was necessary she should abdicate her throne. A sentence of banishment condemned the brilliant lady to lay down the sceptre. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... to practice; but as most true and certain; forasmuch as the reason was so, which made us determine it. And this was sufficient for that time to free me from all the remorse and repentance which useth to perplex the consciences of those weak and staggering minds, which inconstantly suffer themselves to passe to the practice of those things as good, which ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes
... discretion, and by a sense of responsibility, as on this occasion. The question of the Corn Laws throws all other questions into the shade. Yet, even if that question were out of the way, there would be matters enough to perplex us. Ireland, we fear, is on the brink of something like a civil war—the effect, not of Repeal agitation, but of severe distress endured by the peasantry. Foreign Politics look dark. An augmentation of the Army will be necessary. Pretty legacies to leave to ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... appreciation of its lustre—a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the eye in the latter case, but, in the former, there is the more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmanent by a scrutiny too sustained, too ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and some of the first fame for critical learning, had been before him in this attempt. Yet he did not find himself prevented by their labours; in which, besides innumerable lesser faults, he, more especially, observed two inveterate errors, of such a fort, as must needs perplex the genius, and distress the learning, of any commentator. The one of these respects the SUBJECT; the other, the METHOD of the Art of Poetry. It will be necessary to say something ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... Vectis' Isle three happy Days By any may be seen: First, James, who loves by social ways To animate mirth's scene; An honest lawyer, Henry, next With speech and bottle plies you; And when by fell disease perplex'd, Charles physics and revives you. "Love, law, and physic," here combine To claim the poet's praise: May fortune's sunbeams ever shine On ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... which have no reason, and generally all things and objects, do thou, since thou hast reason and they have none, make use of them with a generous and liberal spirit. But towards human beings, as they have reason, behave in a social spirit. And on all occasions call on the gods, and do not perplex thyself about the length of time in which thou shalt do this; for even three ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... is proper for whoever hath power to think. Why shouldst not a woman think if by so doing she can find answer to some question that doth perplex her heart?" ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... great, when means were small, Will not perplex me any more at all A few short years at most (it may be less), I shall have done ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn
... warfare gives a merciless asperity to their language, even when it does not infuse their hearts with bitterness. Duty enjoins the barrister to leave no word unsaid that can help his client, and encourages him to perplex by satire, baffle by ridicule, or silence by sarcasm, all who may oppose him with statements that cannot be disproved, or arguments that cannot be upset by reason. That which duty bids him do, practice enables him to do with terrible precision and completeness; and in many a case the caustic ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Communion as she desired with tears. Thus weakened by long captivity and ill usage, she, an untaught girl, was questioned repeatedly for three months, by the most cunning and learned doctors in law of the Paris University. Often many spoke at once, to perplex her mind. But Joan always showed a wisdom which confounded them, and which is at least as extraordinary as her skill in war. She would never swear an oath to answer all their questions. About herself, and all matters bearing ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... The fallacies which are noted by him appear trifling to us now, but they were not trifling in the age before logic, in the decline of the earlier Greek philosophies, at a time when language was first beginning to perplex human thought. Besides he is caricaturing them; they probably received more subtle forms at the hands of those who seriously maintained them. They are patent to us in Plato, and we are inclined to wonder how any one could ever have been deceived by them; but ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... been for seven years past, during which her young prodigal had been running the thoughtless career of which he himself was weary, and which had occasioned the fond lady such anguish. Those doubts which perplex many a thinking man, and, when formed and uttered, give many a fond and faithful woman pain so exquisite, had most fortunately never crossed Kew's mind. His early impressions were such as his mother had left them, and he came back ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... myself shall flee from Cambridge, sick at heart and sorely vexed, Ere I see my University disestablished and unsexed.'" Thus she spake, and I endeavoured to console the weeping Muse: "Dry your tears, beloved Clio, drive away this fit of blues. Cease your soul with gloomy fancies and forebodings to perplex; You are doing gross injustice to the merits of your sex. Know you not that things are changing, that the Earth regains her youth, Since Philosophers have brought to light the one primeval truth? Long have all things been misgoverned by the foolish ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... that many others besides himself were observing Miss Mayhew. She seemed to fascinate, perplex, and trouble all who looked towards her. The singular beauty and striking toilet might account, in part, for the lingering glances, but not for the perplexity and uneasiness they caused. If Ida had been dead her features ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... says that Mr William Lee complained that parties had been excited against him at Nantes, and that so far from having been supported by the commissioners in the execution of his duty, these gentlemen had as much as possible contributed to perplex him in the discharge of it; that he had frequently written, &c. His letters have been taken notice of already, and the reason mentioned why they were not answered. The rest of this complaint is, as far as I know anything about the matter, totally groundless; ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... endure that, when I am eating my pottage equal with the best, and that without either thinking or speaking any manner of ill, they rudely come to vex, trouble, and perplex my brains with that antique proverb ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... was fond of going about at Newport and inviting people haphazard to lunch—thirty or forty at a time—and then surprising them with a splendid banquet. Again she would give a big formal dinner, and perplex people by offering them something which they really cared to eat. "You see," explained Mrs. Vivie, "at these dinners we generally get thick green turtle soup, and omelettes with some sort of Florida water poured over them, and mushrooms cooked under glass, and real hand-made desserts; but Mrs. ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... haud awa' frae me, kind sir, I pray don't me perplex, For I'll na lie in your bed till ye answer questions six: Questions six ye maun answer me, and that is four and twa, Before I lie in your bed, at either stock ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... seems to pass out of the limits and course of ordinary life, often lies above the ken of intellectual judgment; but its merits and its infirmities never escape the sleepless perspicacity of the common sentiment, which no novelty of form can surprise, and no mixture of qualities can perplex. The mind—the logical faculty—comprehends a subject, when it can trace in it the same elements, or relations, which it is familiar with elsewhere: if it finds but a faint analogy of form or substance, its decision ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... man whom danger could not daunt, Nor sophistry perplex, nor pain subdue; A stoic, reckless of the world's vain taunt, And steeled the path of honor to pursue. So, when by all deserted, still he knew How best to soothe the heart-sick, or confront Sedition; schooled with equal eye to ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... man, departed not out of the Tabernacle?'" As a punishment for this pert reply, which must have distressed and confounded his master, Joshua's power of brain was immediately weakened, so that he forgot three hundred Halachahs, and seven hundred doubts sprang up to perplex him. All Israel then rose up to murder him, but the Holy One—blessed be He!—said unto him, "To teach thee the Halachahs and their explanation is impossible, but go and trouble them with work; as it is said (Josh. i. 1), 'Now after the death ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... in this life but what is mingled with some evil: honours perplex, riches disquiet, and pleasures ruin health. But in heaven we shall find blessings in their purity, without any ingredient to imbitter; with everything ...
— Miscellaneous Pieces • John Bunyan
... shall charge his angels to accomplish it at the end of the world. In my judgment, to contend for the right of excluding some of the ranker tares, after admitting that this parable bears upon the subject of ecclesiastical discipline, tends not only to perplex the student, but to throw a reflection on the authority of the Word. I see only two doors open: either cease to hold that the field is the Church, or cease to claim the right of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... heart and mind with irresistible impulses, engrossing thoughts, and startling memories, all defined and united, and yet lasting for so brief a moment that we are scarcely able to realize their existence ere they are gone—and so completely, that we perplex ourselves again and again with the vain effort to recall their subject or their meaning. And so it was with Stanley. The thrill passed and he could not even trace its origin or flitting thought; he only saw a Benedictine novice before him; he only felt regret ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... called himself. But she was insistently cheerful; and there was nothing for him to do, in the face of this, but play an awkward second to her, ignore his aching back, his sore hands, his throbbing head, and keep a resolute silence as to all that happened to vex and humiliate and perplex and hurt him. It was not always easy; to-day he was conscious that he was walking more and more slowly as he ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... its former splendor. There are several houses ready to tumble down, the fronts of which are magnificently enriched with old oaken carvings of hideous faces, unknown birds, beasts, and fishes, and fruits and flowers which it would perplex a naturalist to classify. There are also, in Aldersgate Street, certain remains of what were once spacious and lordly family mansions, but which have in latter days been subdivided into several tenements. Here may often be found the family of a petty tradesman, with its trumpery ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... dear terms upon which to purchase the original edition! The reviewer has illustrated his position by a model of the Pigot diamond; and intimates that this model does not "lessen the public desire to possess the original." Lord Mansfield once observed that nothing more frequently tended to perplex an argument than a simile—(the remark is somewhere in Burrows's Reports); and the judge's dictum seems here a little verified. If the glass or crystal model could reflect all the lustre of the original, it would be of equal utility; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... slowly, and the resolutions in this respect, and for the negotiations with Russia, drag equally slow. The English party, led by the English Ambassador, and by another person who leads the majority here, continue to perplex, delay, and cross everything; and he who is at the head of all, follows their impulses. In a word, the English intrigue more here than in all Europe besides. The difficulties they excite in Germany and foment on the subject of the coadjutor of Munster and Cologne, are intended to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... I should not get beyond the statement that I had a new experience. It did not occur to me that the thing might be so well known, that a mere hint of the feelings concerned, would enable any older person to classify the consciousness. I said to myself I should merely perplex my uncle. And in truth I believe that love, in every mind in which it arises, will vary in colour and form—will always partake of that mind's individual isolation in difference. This, however, is nothing to ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... ere he lay the wicked low, To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe. Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex Him in dealing with an issue—to the scandal of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... myself of it, and be prepared to proceed to take charge as soon as I am directed to do so, as I have no arrears in any of my offices to detain me, and can make them over to any one at the shortest notice, with the assurance that he will find nothing in them to perplex or ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... same lifting up befel the thoughts of my heart and the views that have to do with the spirit's life. I stood above the region of mists for a little. I saw how the inequalities of the lower level, which perplex us there, sink into nothing when looked upon from a higher standpoint. I saw that rough roads led to quiet valleys; and that the blessed sunlight was always lying on the earth, though down in one of those depths one might lose sight of it for a time. I do not ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... do but make that difficult which, if received in its simplicity, need neither perplex ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... government. Two of the Pope's nephews were promoted to the Cardinalate with provisions of about 10,000 crowns apiece. His old brother abode in retirement at Bologna under strict orders not to seek fortune or to perplex the Papal purity ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... has acquired its title from the regular Trades not being found there, but in their place unsteady breezes, long calms, heavy squalls, and sometimes smart winds from the south and south-westward. These Variables, which sorely perplex all mariners, even those of most experience, while they drive young ones almost out of their senses, are not less under the dominion of the causes which regulate those great perennial breezes the Trades, blowing to the northward and southward of them. Their ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... sort, which we admire in Mr. Sinclair. Indeed, Sinclair borrows from Glanvil and Henry More, authors who, like himself, wished to establish the existence of the supernatural on the strange incidents which still perplex us, but which are scarcely regarded as safe matter to argue upon. The testimony for a Ghost would seldom go to a jury in our days, though amply sufficient in the time of Mr. Sinclair. About "The Devil of Glenluce" he took particular care to be ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... multiplicity of comments, as well as of laws, have great inconveniences, and serve only to obscure and perplex; all manner of comments and expositions on any part of these FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS, or any part of the common or statute law of CAROLINA, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... scarce in their teens they have wit to perplex us, With letters and lovers for ever they vex us; While each still rejects the fair suitor you've brought her; Oh, what a plague is an obstinate daughter! Wrangling and jangling, Flouting and pouting, Oh, what a plague is ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... every form and stature. I have omitted a long list of trees, the names of which, conveying no notion to an English ear, and wanting the characteristic epithets of Ovid's or of Spenser's well-known and picturesque forest description, would only perplex the reader with several lines of unintelligible words. To the Indian ear these names, pregnant with pleasing associations, and descriptive in their etymological meaning, would no doubt convey the same delight as those of the ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... from which my wit did not a second time in a like way save me. I was cast into the dungeon to await my death. How, by the help of my gift in answering riddles and puzzles, I did escape from captivity I will now set forth; and in case it doth perplex any to know how some of the strange feats were performed, I will hereafter make the manner thereof plain ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... unconsciousness, supply his political needs? It is not easy to answer these questions. We begin now upon the views of a Pennsylvania Oppositionist; and quicksilver defied not more utterly the skill of Raymond Lullius than the doctrines of the Philadelphia school perplex the inquiries of sharply defined New England minds. The rudimentary state of Republican principles may nowhere else be so clearly seen as in Pennsylvania. Four years of the Democratic administration of her "favorite son" have done much to make her less favored sons ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... others. We know that no holy or self-denying effort can fall to the ground vain and useless; but the sweep of eternity is large, and God alone knows when the effect is to be produced. We are trying to do right now, and to feel right; don't let us perplex ourselves with endeavouring to map out how she should feel, or how ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... among individuals, of six to one. The present principle is the most just, to regulate by the burthen. It is certainly desirable, that these duties should be reduced to a single one. Their names and numbers perplex and harass the merchant, more than their amount; subject him to imposition, and to the suspicion of it when there is none. An intention of general reformation in this article has been accordingly announced, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... unnecessary details. If you make use of much "red tape" you will kill the undertaking at the outset. Simply form your society and appoint your committees, and you will find that the various matters which perplex you when looked at in the whole will readily adjust themselves to the conditions that arise as the society goes on with its work. Put theories aside, and do something, and you will find very little difficulty in making ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... Lad's-love,—in the name there's nothing To one that knows not Lad's-love, or Old Man, The hoar-green feathery herb, almost a tree, Growing with rosemary and lavender. Even to one that knows it well, the names Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: At least, what that is clings not to the names In spite of time. And yet I like ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... have become a positive science. As for these duties of our office, these examinations, all this formality—you yourself, you will remember, touched upon the topic just now, batuchka—these examinations, and so forth, sometimes perplex the magistrate much more than the man under suspicion. You said as much just now with as much sense as accuracy." (Raskolnikoff had made no statement of the kind.) "One gets confused, one loses the thread of the investigation. Yet, as far as our judicial customs go, I agree with ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... gave as much of his conversation with the wizard as sufficed to utterly perplex his mother's mind without enlightening it much. When he had finished, or rather had come to an abrupt stop, she looked at him calmly, ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... is made all the blacker by the fact that it is thus but a drop in an infinite ocean of moral imperfection. When, therefore, Professor Flint goes on to say, "We ought to be content if we can show that what God has done is wise and right, and not perplex ourselves as to why He has not done an infinity of other things," I answer, Most certainly; but can we show that what God has done is wise and right? Unquestionably not. That what he has done may be wise and right, could we see his whole scheme of things, no careful thinker will deny; but ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... sweet thy accents! and how mild thy look! What smiling mirth was heard in all thou spoke; Manhood and grizzled age were fond of thee, And youth itself sought thy society. 40 The aged thou taught, descended to the young, Clear'd up the irresolute, confirm'd the strong; To the perplex'd thy friendly counsel lent, And gently lifted up the diffident; Sigh'd with the sorrowful, and bore a part In all the anguish of a bleeding heart; Reclaim'd the headstrong; and, with sacred skill, Committed hallow'd rapes upon the will; Soothed our affections; and, with their delight, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... simple and clear language, an achievement all the more remarkable as in addition to the difficulty arising from the transcendental nature of the subject matter, the involved style, and the total absence of punctuation tend to perplex the reader. Now and then there might be some difference of opinion as to how St. Teresa's phrases should be construed, but it is not too much to say that on the whole Mr. Lewis has been more successful than any other translator, whether English or foreign. Only in one case have I found it ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... Collectively, Christians can give diffusion to it with an efficiency vastly beyond the sum of all their insulated efforts. As to the end, all such are agreed. That it is a duty, they are satisfied. As to the means, there can be but little if any variety of opinion that can greatly perplex; and as to the manner, information abundant and easily explicable is found in the Scriptures. If the duty of Covenanting is obligatory on an individual, on a church, or on a nation, it is incumbent on the members of a ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... said Bridgenorth, "you may suspend farther inquiry at present, as it doth but fatigue and perplex the memory ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the morsel. The wires seemed to perplex him a little, but before he had time to examine the mystery, the boy gave ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... find him a mighty understanding man, and one I will keep a knowledge of. Did business, though not much, at the office; because of the horrible crowd and lamentable moan of the poor seamen that lie starving in the streets for lack of money. Which do trouble and perplex me to the heart; and more at noon when we were to go through them, for then a whole hundred of them followed us; some cursing, some swearing, and some praying to us. And that that made me more troubled was a letter come this afternoon from the Duke of Albemarle, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Perplex'd, I hoped my heart was pure of guile, But judged me weak in wit, to disagree; But now, I see that men are mad awhile, 'Tis the old history—Truth without a home, Despised and slain, ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... of our mind. This impression, like the preceding ones of pride and humility, love and hatred, it is impossible to define, and needless to describe any farther; for which reason we shall cut off all those definitions and distinctions, with which philosophers are wont to perplex rather than dear up this question; and entering at first upon the subject, shall examine that long disputed question concerning liberty and necessity; which occurs so naturally in ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... best examples that you can imitate, in the friendly and the familiar style. The simplicity and the clearness of Cardinal d'Ossat's letters show how letters of business ought to be written; no affected turns, no attempts at wit, obscure or perplex his matter; which is always plainly and clearly stated, as business always should be. For gay and amusing letters, for 'enjouement and badinage,' there are none that equal Comte Bussy's and Madame Sevigne's. They are so natural, that they seem to be the extempore conversations of two ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... shadow which for converse seem'd Most earnest, I addressed me, and began, As one by over-eagerness perplex'd: "O spirit, born for joy! who in the rays Of life eternal, of that sweetness know'st The flavour, which, not tasted, passes far All apprehension, me it well would please, If thou wouldst tell me of thy name, and this Your station ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... that odd way Which spirits do when they are gay; For there are spirits good and bad— The good are aye a merry squad. No body-pains their hearts to vex, No worldly cares their minds perplex. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... testimony: an English judge and Crown advocate would never have acted as these Frenchmen have done; the latter inflaming the public mind by exaggerated appeals to their passions: the former seeking, in every way, to draw confessions from the prisoner, to perplex and confound him, to do away, by fierce cross-questioning and bitter remarks from the bench, with any effect that his testimony might have on the jury. I don't mean to say that judges and lawyers have been more violent and inquisitorial against the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... X; Last night I was in bed, A dream did me perplex, Which came into my Edd. I dreamed I sor three Waits A playing of their tune, At Pimlico Palace gates, All underneath the moon. One puffed a hold French horn, And one a hold Banjo, And one chap seedy and torn A Hirish pipe did blow. They ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... form had all the softness of her sex, Her face had all the sweetness of the devil When he put on the cherub to perplex Eve, and to pave, Heaven knows how, ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... seek worldly glory and renown, He was tempted only because He had taken on the world's Karma and was subject to its laws. As a God, He would not have felt the temptation any more than a man would feel the temptation of the earthworm. But as a man He was subject to the desires and ambitions that perplex and "devil" the race. And according to the rule that the greater the mental development the greater the power of such temptation toward self-aggrandizement (because of the mind being able to see more clearly the opportunities), Jesus was subjected to a test that would have ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... this singular equanimity was that he always had the full command of all the resources of one of the most fertile minds that ever existed. Accordingly no complication of perils and embarrassments could perplex him. For every difficulty he had a contrivance ready; and, whatever may be thought of the justice and humanity of some of his contrivances, it is certain that they seldom failed to serve the purpose for ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Busch is of interest and value, but there is nothing in it which need perplex the student. It is not pretended that the disease is always, or even, it may be, in the majority of cases, carried about by attendants; only that it is so carried in certain cases. That it may have local and epidemic causes, as well as that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... relation with a broken prolongation from the next higher spot. From the absence of the upper and thickened part of the ring, the uppermost ocellus, though perfect in all other respects, appears as if its top had been obliquely sliced off. It would, I think, perplex any one, who believes that the plumage of the Argus pheasant was created as we now see it, to account for the imperfect condition of the uppermost ocellus. I should add that on the secondary wing-feather farthest from the body all the ocelli are ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... great enigmas which perplex the natural theologian are the same in all ages. The ingenuity of a people just emerging from barbarism is quite sufficient to propound those enigmas. The genius of Locke or Clarke is quite unable to solve them. It is a mistake to imagine that subtle speculations touching ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... those faces which he was wont to know—and where he faileth he shall hold his peace, neither betraying by semblance of surprise or other sign that he hath forgot; that upon occasions of state, whensoever any matter shall perplex him as to the thing he should do or the utterance he should make, he shall show nought of unrest to the curious that look on, but take advice in that matter of the Lord Hertford, or my humble self, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... time enough to reflect, and to make up his mind as to what he should do when he arrived at Albany. The captain, with his blind eye and lame leg, would, it is true, bring his strange dream to mind, and perplex him sadly for a few moments; but, of late, his life had been made up so much of dreams and realities, his nights and days had been so jumbled together, that he seemed to be moving continually in a delusion. There is always, however, a kind of ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... happened before to see him in one of his violent moods, and fancied that his apathetic manner indicated a person more easily bullied. There was something, too, in the tone and look of Captain Lake which went a good way to confound and perplex his suspicions, and he half fancied that the masterstroke he had hazarded was a rank and irreparable blunder. Something of this, I am sure, appeared in his countenance, and Captain Lake looked awfully savage, and each gentleman stared the other full in the face, with more frankness ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Houston stood in the same relation to the New South that Cincinnati, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit had stood to the New West fifty years before. The problems of labor and capital and municipal administration, which the earlier writers boasted would never perplex the planting South, had come in ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... the lady, I assure you. Ha, ha, ha, how gravely he looks. Come, come, I won't perplex you. 'Tis the only thing that providence could have contrived to make me capable of serving you, either to my inclination or ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... ending I ought to have given my romance is what has ever since remained to perplex me, and it is what has prevented my ever writing it. Here is material of the best sort lying useless on my hands, which, if I could only make up my mind, might be wrought into a short story as affecting as any that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... most prominent men of the party, led by Erastus Root. Besides, a new Legislature, elected in the preceding April, had a Republican majority on joint ballot divided between Clintonians and Madisonians; and, still further to perplex the situation, twenty Republican assemblymen absolutely refused to vote unless Madison were given a fair division of the electors. This meant the surrender of one elector out of three, an arrangement to which Clinton dared ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... conversion of the sceptic are improved. In the first place we find that all the manifestations—be their cause what it may—can occur only on the physical plane. However much the origin of the phenomena may perplex us, the phenomena themselves must be purely material, in so far as they are perceptible at all. "Raps" are audible according to the same laws of vibration as other sounds: the tilting table is simply a material body displaced by an adequate agency; ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... Sicard at Mazaro with picks, shovels, hurdles, and slaves, having come to build a fort and custom-house at the Kongone. As we had no good reason to hide the harbour, but many for its being made known, we supplied him with a chart of the tortuous branches, which, running among the mangroves, perplex the search; and with such directions as would enable him to find his way down to the river. He had brought the relics of our fugitive mail, and it was a disappointment to find that all had been lost, with the exception of a bundle of old newspapers, two photographs, and three letters, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... own particularly, were such unaccountable beings that a vagary more or less could not more hopelessly perplex his misunderstanding of them. With a "Tut! tut!" of impatience, he took the paper from her ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... when the question of the Test and the question of the Comprehension became complicated together in a manner which might well perplex an enlightened and honest politician, both questions became complicated with a third question of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... States, and thus invites an even more obnoxious appellation. History will record with amazement, as among the strange phenomena of a war the most wicked of all the wicked wars with which ambition has desolated the earth (phenomena that will perplex men and women of loyal instincts and righteous common sense to the latest day), the resolutions of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... speedily placed before him, soon discovered Pellicanus wanted to feed him like a baby, but the boy took the spoon out of his hand, and the former smilingly watched the sturdy eater, without disturbing, him, until he was perfectly satisfied; then he began to perplex the lad with questions, that seemed to him neither very intelligible, nor calculated ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... difficult or uncertain in criticisms than in law. Imagination, a licentious and vagrant faculty, unsusceptible of limitations, and impatient of restraint, has always endeavoured to baffle the logician, to perplex the confines of distinction, and burst the inclosures of regularity. There is therefore scarcely any species of writing, of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Unjust, ever hath, and always will exit in the Divine Mind, and be to him a perfect, constant, and invariable Rule of Action, in relation to his Creatures. He that is infinite in Knowledge, cannot but know, at all Times, and under the most (to us) difficult and perplex'd Circumstances of Things, what in its own Nature is best, and fittest to be done; and, being void of all Bias, Prejudice, and Passion, cannot but approve of what is right and best; and being likewise Almighty, no Power can possibly interrupt, or prevent what he determined to ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... sees. After the heat of the day, when the sun has seemed a destroyer rather than a fructifier, the slender crescent rising over the plain is like a girl dressed in silver. This poverty in nature must perplex the Mesopotamian artist. The only objects that the native jewellers etch into their silver work are Ezra's tomb, the native boat, the jackal, the palm tree and the camel. And that is about all the material the country yields. ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... Fair nature's outspread volume: All in vain, Look'd up admiring at the dappling clouds And depths cerulean: Even as I gazed, The film—the earthly film obscured my vision, And in the lower region, sore perplex'd, Again I wander'd; and again shook off With vex'd impatience the besetting cares, And set me straight to gather as I walk'd A field-flower nosegay. Plentiful the choice; And, in few moments, of all hues I held A glowing handful. In a few moments more Where are they? ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... would be, if apprehended in any true measure according to their real content and significance, the most extreme intellectual and moral outrage that could be inflicted upon us. Properly understood, or even superficially understood, they would wound and shock and stagger and perplex every one of our most sacred prejudices. They would conflict with the whole method and aim of the education which we have received, an education of which the professed object is to fit us for an active, successful and energetic life in the sphere of industrial or commercial or ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... neatness and precision. It was easy to make points, not easy to sum up and settle. It was not easy to find a clear issue for the dispute, and still less by a logical process to decide it in favour of Anglicanism. This difficulty, however, had no tendency whatever to harass or perplex me: it was a matter which bore not on convictions, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the return of his betrothed. He chided himself that he had allowed her father to persuade him against following her to the cabin of her mother. Then doubt began to perplex him; then suspicion. A bird croaked significantly as it flew above his head. He could not longer endure inaction. Kaala's footprints were still traceable in the sand. He would go as far as they might ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... gentle vow T' appear in greater light and make more plain His rugged oracle. I long to know How my dear mistress fares, and be inform'd What hand she now holds on the troubled blood Of her incensed lord. Methought the spirit (When he had utter'd his perplex'd presage) Threw his changed countenance headlong into clouds, His forehead bent, as it would hide his face, He knock'd his chin against his darken'd breast, And struck a churlish silence through his powers. Terror of darkness! O, thou king of flames! That ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Hemlock, aconite—— Nay, rather, Plant divine of rarest virtue: Blisters on the tongue would hurt you. 'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee; None e'er prospered who defamed thee; Irony all, and feigned abuse, Such as perplex'd lovers use, At a need, when in despair, To paint forth their fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... their language. I was so transported with joy, that I knew not whether I was asleep or awake; but being persuaded that I was not asleep, I recited the following words in Arabic aloud: "Call upon the Almighty, he will help thee; thou needest not perplex thyself about any thing else: shut thy eyes, and while thou art asleep, God will change thy ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... hinted at within! Did they not in this state of things, and with these circumstances, did not Governor Strong, and the federal party generally, seize hold of this alarming state of our affairs, to call the Convention at Hartford, and that not merely to perplex the government, but to be the organ of communication between the enemy and the malcontents? Did they not then talk loudly of our worm eaten Constitution; and did they not call the Union "a rope of sand," that could no longer hold together? If there be a line of transgression, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... of the so-called "realm of the occult," nor of those extraordinary occurrences which startle and perplex the world from time to time, nor of those complicated and subtle problems of crime which are set to puzzle us. I am thinking of much more human and familiar things, quite natural and inevitable as it seems, which make us feel that life is threaded ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... encouraging or inspiring to have the meanness and pettiness of human nature brought before one, and to feel conscious of one's own weakness and feebleness as well. Some sorrows and losses purge, brace, and strengthen. Such trials as these stain, perplex, enfeeble. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... delicate, and because Mr. Salsify had communicated to her in private that he was certainly "rising in his profession;" and the quick-sighted lady foresaw the day speedily approaching when she would no longer be obliged to perplex herself with so ungrateful a class of beings as boarders, but should roll through the streets of Wimbledon in her coach and four, the "observed ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... place that it was unobtrusive. Three big canvases occupied the walls, indiscernible in the dim light, but masterpieces of world fame, heirlooms known all over Europe. There was a curious dearth of small objects and unessentials, nothing in all the great space that could fatigue the eye or perplex the ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... his rejecting for her a younger and a fairer queen;—perhaps she entertained a transient thought of making him her own husband, and wished previously to give him consequence by this proposal;—perhaps she meant nothing more than to perplex Mary by a variety of suitors, and thus delay her marriage; an event which she could not ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Momently listening with suspended oar For the low rote of waves upon a shore Changeless as heaven, where never fog-cloud drifts Over its windless wood, nor mirage lifts The steadfast hills; where never birds of doubt Sing to mislead, and every dream dies out, And the dark riddles which perplex us here In the sharp solvent of its light are clear? Thou knowest how vain our quest; how, soon or late, The baffling tides and circles of debate Swept back our bark unto its starting-place, Where, looking forth upon the blank, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... latter case, it may even have as good a hope of hitting the mark as any philosopher whatever can promise himself. Nay, it is almost more sure of doing so, because the philosopher cannot have any other principle, while he may easily perplex his judgment by a multitude of considerations foreign to the matter, and so turn aside from the right way. Would it not therefore be wiser in moral concerns to acquiesce in the judgment of common reason or at most only to call in ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... conduct pursued towards Maynooth college, every thing is done to irritate and perplex—every thing is done to efface the slightest impression of gratitude from the Catholic mind; the very hay made upon the lawn, the fat and tallow of the beef and mutton allowed, must be paid for and accounted upon oath. It is true, this economy in miniature ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... conjunction the anticipations of the glories of Solomon's reign, or the happy prospects of a return from Babylon, with the higher glory and happiness of Messiah's advent, such transitions of thought are in perfect accordance with the ordinary laws of poetry, and ought not to perplex even the most unimaginative student ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... you are left to your own company for the night, and surly weather imprisons you by the fire. You may remember how Burns, numbering past pleasures, dwells upon the hours when he has been "happy thinking." It is a phrase that may well perplex a poor modern, girt about on every side by clocks and chimes, and haunted, even at night, by flaming dial-plates. For we are all so busy, and have so many far-off projects to realise, and castles in the fire to turn into solid habitable mansions ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... transported with joy that I knew not whether I was asleep or awake; but being persuaded that I was not asleep, I recited the following words in Arabic aloud: "Call upon the Almighty, He will help thee; thou needest not perplex thyself about anything else: shut thy eyes, and while thou art asleep, God will change ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... the roses sprouting, Which, clad in damask mantles, deck the arbours, And then behold your lips where sweet love harbours, My eyes perplex me with a double doubting, Whether the roses be your lips, ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... as amongst the populace. The Queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret, in her early youth, "was as fond of a ball as of a sermon," says Brantome, "and she had advised her spouse, Anthony de Bourbon, who inclined towards Calvinism, not to perplex himself with all these opinions." In 1559 she was passionately devoted to the faith and the cause of the Reformation. With more levity, but still in sincerity, her brother-in-law, Louis de Conde, put his ambition and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... all children again, with no hearts to perplex us and no great temptations to try us," she said to herself as she rested a minute in a quiet nook while her partner went to get a glass of water. Right in the midst of this half-sad, half-sentimental reverie, she heard a familiar voice behind her say earnestly: "And allophite is the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... thoughts returned; the fear that kills; And hope that is unwilling to be fed; Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills; And mighty Poets in their misery dead. But now, perplex'd by what the Old Man had said, My question eagerly did I renew, 'How is it that you live, and what is it ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to India are often impressed with the presence of the same problems of government there that perplex our own people in the Philippines, and although England has sent her ablest men and applied her most mature wisdom to their solution, they are just as troublesome and unsettled as they ever were, and we will doubtless have a similar experience among ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... one subject, I cannot but transcribe, from his excellent work, a distinguished passage in support of the Christian Revelation.—After shewing, in decent but strong terms, the unfairness of the indirect attempts of modern infidels to unsettle and perplex religious principles, and particularly the irony, banter, and sneer, of one whom he politely calls 'an eloquent historian,' the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... at breakfast," From the Parliamentary news, one learns that "Mr. Harcourt intrigued the House of Commons by his sustained silence for two years" and that "London is interested in, and not a little intrigued, by the statement." This use of intrigue in the sense of "perplex, puzzle, trick, or deceive" dates from 1600. Then it fell into a state of somnolence, and after an existence of innocuous desuetude lasting till 1794 it was revived, only to hibernate again until 1894. It owes its new lease of life ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... a feather to cure disease. Or again, high prices and low wages, high wages creating high prices, resented conditions leading to strikes, strikes bringing confusion to both wages and prices alike—these things perplex the most clear-sighted among us, compelling us to wonder as to what new troubles we are heaping up. Or again, taxes crippling incomes and gnawing at the heart of industry vex us each year with a sense of the futility of ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... bodily likenesses, as happened to Balthasar (Dan. 5:5), such a man is not to be considered a prophet, unless his mind be enlightened for the purpose of judgment; and such an apparition is something imperfect in the genus of prophecy. Wherefore some [*Rabbi Moyses, Doct. Perplex. II, xxxvi] have called this "prophetic ecstasy," and such is divination by dreams. And yet a man will be a prophet, if his intellect be enlightened merely for the purpose of judging of things ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the amount of near $300,000." These were doubtless what led to the foregoing correspondence with de Vergennes. In reply he says that he has already engaged himself for the bills drawn on Mr. Laurens, and adds: "You cannot conceive how much these things perplex and distress me; for the practice of this government being yearly to apportion the revenue to the several expected services, any after demands made, which the treasury is not furnished to supply, meet with great difficulty, and are ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... hardly courts his friends; Is fond of power, and yet concerned for fame- >From different parties would dependents claim Declares for war, but in an awkward way, Loves peace at heart, which he's afraid to say; His head perplex'd, altho' his hands are pure- An honest man,-but not ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... blunder'd on some virtue unawares; With all these blessings, which we seldom find Lavish'd by Nature on one happy mind, 140 A motley figure, of the Fribble tribe, Which heart can scarce conceive, or pen describe, Came simpering on—to ascertain whose sex Twelve sage impannell'd matrons would perplex. Nor male, nor female; neither, and yet both; Of neuter gender, though of Irish growth; A six-foot suckling, mincing in Its gait; Affected, peevish, prim, and delicate; Fearful It seem'd, though of athletic make, Lest brutal breezes should too roughly shake 150 Its tender form, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... interwoven with truth that I count it to have been impossible for Master Richard in his sickness and confusion to have disentangled the one from the other. I have heard a physician say, too, that the surest manner to perplex a man is to suggest to him that his brain is clouded; at such words he often loses all knowledge of self; he doubts his own thoughts, and ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... of that. I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice, then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum. Set you down this; And say besides, that in Aleppo once, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... as also how far forth former statutes had provided remedy for former mischiefs, and defects discovered by experience; then should very few questions in law arise, and the learned should not so often and so much perplex their heads to make atonement and peace, by construction of law, between insensible and disagreeing words, sentences, and provisoes, as they now do." And if this inconvenience was so heavily felt in the reign of queen Elizabeth, you may judge how the evil is increased in later times, when the statute ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... everything Art when the object is to carry out the "doing" (being able), as for example, Art of building; Science, when merely knowledge is the object; as Science of mathematics, of astronomy. That in every Art certain complete sciences may be included is intelligible of itself, and should not perplex us. But still it is worth observing that there is also no science without a mixture of Art. In mathematics, for instance, the use of figures and of algebra is an Art, but that is only one amongst ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... not have liable to accident. You shall only know in general that it is an account of what I have done to serve him in his pretensions on these vacancies, etc. But he must not know that you know so much.(37) Does this perplex you? Hat care I? But rove Pdfr, saucy Pdfr. Farewell, deelest MD MD MD FW FW ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? O sweet content! Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd? O punishment! Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd To add to golden numbers, golden numbers? O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content! Work apace, apace, apace, apace; Honest labour bears a lovely face; Then hey nonny nonny, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... at the map, you will see that there are numerous chains of mountains in the countries lying west of China, especially in Tibet, while China proper has but few of them. The land generally slopes from the several ranges to the sea, but I will not perplex you with the names of them. The rivers, of course, flow from the mountains, and you can see that they have space for a long course. They are generally called ho in the north, and chiang or kiang in the south. The Ho, Hoang-ho, or Yellow ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... the channel made his boat roll heavily for a moment, with the forward part of the bottom resting on the sand. For the want of something better to think of, he began to put conundrums to himself in the absence of any other person to perplex with them. What was the gentleman that wanted to buy a steamer in Nassau doing up the Hudson? This was the principal one: he could not answer it. He gave it up; as the French have it, he had to "throw his tongue to the dogs," having no use for it in ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... ripple of the flood tide against the stone piers, and scarcely conscious of the bridge or the ship or the gray dimness of the sea, so profound was the concentration of his mind on this problem. It did not perplex him; it maddened him. He whispered a defiant protest to himself and walked on. He was able to think more calmly when he reached his room. There were the facts, the simple, undeniable facts, to be faced without shrinking,—and a decision to ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... law? Do they not triumph most, and acquire most fame, when they can gain a cause in the very teeth of the law they profess to support and revere? Who is the greatest lawyer? Not he who can most enlighten, but he who can most perplex and confound the understanding of his hearers! He who can best brow-beat and confuse witnesses; and embroil and mislead the intellect of judge and jury. Yet the mischiefs I have mentioned are but the sprouts and branches of this tree of evil; its root is much deeper: it is in the law itself; ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... opposite to him, on a seat a little more elevated, in such a manner that his knees may be betwixt yours, and your feet at the side of his. First, request him to resign himself; to think of nothing; not to perplex himself by examining the effects which may be produced; to banish all fear; to surrender himself to hope, and not to be disturbed or discouraged if the action of magnetism should cause in him momentary pains. After having ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... days Piled plan on plan, and maze involved in maze; In vain Sueante, and either Stenon, fought; In vain my arm a transient succour brought: Almighty Fate on all our labours frown'd, Athwart each scheme the thread of error wound, Our efforts with an unseen chain controll'd, Perplex'd the prudent, and dismay'd the bold. Fate urges on—Her adamantine shield Protects our destined Conqueror in the field; To his own seas by War and Famine driven, Furious he mounts, nor heeds the frowns of heaven: Fresh hosts appear, ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... your profession of the stage must, and ought to, occupy all your attention, it would be an unwise measure to enter into a dry study. You may take my word for it, Nature has made you a melodist, and you would only disturb and perplex yourself. Reflect, 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing;'—should there be errors in what you write, you will find hundreds of musicians in all parts of the world capable of correcting them, therefore do not disturb your ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... rather trying. Some of the girls asked foolish questions just to perplex her. Occasionally she suggested they should ask Miss Davis. The younger ones were quite tractable, though now and then a spirit of fun broke out, set a-foot ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... operations. It was a comprehensive one: to master Lake Ontario by an overpowering naval force and seize the French forts upon it, Niagara, Frontenac, and Toronto; attack Ticonderoga and Crown Point on the one hand, and Fort Duquesne on the other, and at the same time perplex and divide the enemy by an inroad down the Chaudiere upon the settlements about Quebec.[387] The council approved the scheme; but to execute it the provinces must raise at least sixteen thousand men. This they ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Catharine,' I cried. 'We're dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us....' ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... part of the Amoor do not wash like the alluvial lands along the Mississippi and Missouri, but are more like the shores of the Ohio. They are generally covered with grass or bushes down to the edge of the water. There are no shifting sand-bars to perplex the pilot, but the channel remains with little change from year to year. I saw very little drift wood and heard no mention of snags. The general features of the scenery were much like those below Mihalofski. The numerous islands and ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... credibility of history in its common meaning—rather indeed confirm our reliance on its authority in all the points of agreement, that is, in every point which we are in the least concerned to know,—and expose the simple and unlearned Christian to objections best fitted to perplex, because easiest to be understood, and within the capacity of the shallowest infidel to bring forward and exaggerate; and lastly, whether the Scriptures must not be read in that faith which comes from higher sources than history, that is, ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... why the drum came to me that Christmas night, and why it kept calling to me every night, and what it said. I know it now. The work is done, and I am content. Tell father it is better as it is. I should have lived only to worry and perplex him, and something in me tells me this ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... self-controlled—might have caused this change in his appearance. Ah! better twist and untwist the rings of little Leslie's fair hair, and dress and undress her as she had done her doll; better examine the shell cracked by the yellow-hammer, and count the spots on the broad, brown leaf of the plane, than perplex herself with so uncongenial a difficulty. But the difficulty pursued her nevertheless, and baffled and bewitched her as ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... in souls that past all fear Win heavenward their supernal way, and smite With scorn sublime as heaven such dreams as here Plague and perplex with cloud and fire the light That leads men's waking souls from glimmering night To the awless heights of day, whereon man's awe, Transfigured, dies in rapture, seeing the law Sealed of the sun that ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Barillon deserve to be transcribed. They would alone suffice to decide a question which ignorance and party spirit have done much to perplex. "Cette liberte accordee aux nonconformistes a faite une grande difficulte, et a ete debattue pendant plusieurs jours. Le Roy d'Angleterre avoit fort envie que les Catholiques eussent seuls la liberte de l'exercice de leur ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tread gave sound. They fell, those still confessions of an obscure, uncomprehended life, amidst letters and documents eloquent of the strife that was then agitating millions,—the fleeting, turbulent fears and hopes that torture parties and perplex a nation; the stormy business of practical public life, so remote from individual love and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... reverence, not by any spell of suffering or harrowing convictions, but by a kind of insensible growth toward them, and an easy, deliberate, moderate living by them, which more active and incisive minds cannot comprehend. He had no great wastes of doubt to perplex him, like Reuben, simply because his intelligence was of a more submissive order, and never tested its faiths or beliefs by that delicately sensitive mental apparel with which Reuben was clothed all over, and which suggested a doubt or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... put all sorts of whimsies, queries, and vagaries. Smerdakov, the epileptic, is a thorn in the side of those who endeavour to instruct him, for he asks questions and raises unforeseen difficulties that perplex those who regard themselves as his superiors. No one but Dostoevski would ever have conceived of such a character, or have imagined ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... might have been in despair. Yet never were the magnificent hopefulness, the wise audacity of Henry more signally manifested than now when he seemed most blundering and most forlorn. His hardy nature ever met disaster with so cheerful a smile as almost to perplex ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... grammarians, however, agree about the things themselves, and the forms used to express them; though they differ about the names, by which these forms should be called: and as those names are practically best, which tend least to perplex the learner, I see no good reason here for deviating from what has been established by ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
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