"Confusion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... terms of tone-feeling plus thought. Each one of them finds something for himself, selects his own "subject," from the material presented by the quiet sea, and whatever he may find belongs to him. We declaim against the confusion of the genres, the attempt to render in the terms of one art what belongs, as we had supposed, to another art, and we are often right in our protest. Yet artists have always been jumping each other's claims, and the sole test of the lawfulness of the procedure is the success of the ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... rifles, threw themselves, tomahawk in hand, upon the defense. Not more than two hundred of the Wyoming men were left standing, and the impact of seven or eight hundred savage warriors was so great that they were hurled back in confusion. A wail of grief and terror came from the other side of the river, where a great body of women and ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the Bambino. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... uprooted tree that tossed wearily beyond the bar. By noon the flying clouds huddled together in masses, and then were suddenly exploded in one vast opaque sheet over the heavens. The sea became gray, and suddenly wrinkled and old. There was a dumb, half-articulate cry in the air,—rather a confusion of many sounds, as of the booming of distant guns, the clangor of a bell, the trampling of many waves, the creaking of timbers and soughing of leaves, that sank and fell ere you could yet distinguish them. And then it came ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... off into the rose garden, and began beating about among the flowers like a madman, muttering: "Vernon! Vernon!" For close upon an hour we all searched. We searched every square yard, I think, within the wire fencing, and found no trace. Miss Eltham slipped out in the confusion, and joined with the rest of us in that frantic hunt. Some of the ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... intermittent nervous attacks that returned nightly, and threw his senses into confusion while showing him the hideous green face of his victim. These attacks resembled the accesses of some frightful illness, a sort of hysteria of murder. The name of illness, of nervous affection, was really the only one to give to the terror that ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... her confusion, he received a quick intuition of the deeper feelings that stirred her, unknown to herself. To that spinster soul, of which he recognized the romantic power of imagination, the unsatisfied yearnings, the poring over old-world books, he suddenly represented, in that exceptional moment ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... blasphemous speech of the frantic virago nobody had observed that Peter Zudar had reached the courtyard of the castle. In the darkness and prevailing confusion he had been able to creep up to the wretched ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... of the enemy, Colonel Clive ordered some shot to be thrown among their cumbrous artillery trains. This was done with such effect that, numbers of the oxen being killed, the trains were thrown into confusion. At the same time some of the Moorish horse made a few ineffectual offers to charge, but were easily driven off, without ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... for it; so the sardines and sandwiches and lemon pie and creamcakes and all the silver-plated ware, were thrust hurriedly back in a dreadful heap of confusion, and the four set out for the beach, feeling sure that they would not ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... powerful neighbors in developing such of their institutions as already contained germs of liberty, in extending constitutional rights which had long existed in monarchies that were by no means absolute. In the place of political wisdom, however, a universal mania appeared to prevail. In the confusion of popular demonstrations, and the clamor of party cries, the "still small voice of reason" was unheard. The revolutionary chiefs harangued anew for war, and Italy, listening to their ill-omened counsels, took up arms against ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... unseen dangers. The jungle came far out over the water, dangling her treacherous plant-life above them, ready to drag them from the vinta: it crept beneath them, shooting up in massive trees that obstructed their passage—trees loaded down with parasites, intertwined, interlaced in hopeless confusion, each trying to crush and climb over the other ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... shook from head to foot; his hand trembled so that he could not prosecute his search rightly, and finally he found the missing ticket in a pocket which he had already searched half-a-dozen times. Now contrast the condition of this highly-civilized man, thrown into a painful flurry and confusion at the demand of a railway ticket, with the impassive coolness of a savage, who would not move a muscle if ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... looseness in the use of terms, it is justified by Ricardo's failing in this respect. That he should have attained the eminence he did, dominating English economic thought for so many years, in spite of the confusion which his loose and uncertain use of words occasioned, is not less a tribute to Ricardo's genius than evidence of the poverty of political economy in England at that time. In view of the constant and tiresome reiteration ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... the French army. At the close of 1821 she was married to General Riego, to whom she had been known and attached almost from infancy, and, in the spring of the following year, became, with her distinguished husband, a resident in Madrid. But the political confusion and continued alarm of the period having appeared to affect her health, the general proceeded with her in the autumn to Granada, where he parted from his young and beloved wife, never again to meet her in this world, the convocation of the extraordinary Cortes for ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... "Atalanta, the Silver Queen of the Moon," appears, strongly illuminated, inside the glass-box, and regards the spectators with an impassive contempt—greatly to their confusion. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... vague and uncertain in their application than those of broad-leaved trees. PINUS, PINE, has been very loosely employed even in botanical nomenclature, and KIEFER, FICHTE, and TANNE are often confounded in German.—Rossmassler, Der Wald, pp. 256, 289, 324. A similar confusion in the names of this family of trees exists in India. Dr. Cleghorn, Inspector-General of the Indian Forests, informs us in his official Circular No. 2, that the name of deodar is applied in some provinces to a cypress, in some to a cedar, and in others to a juniper. If it were certain that the ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... needed. There were thousands of bathers, and a perfect babel of noises. The weather-beaten man, bronzed and toughened and trained to keenness in his work by years of service, said, "I can always hear a cry of distress, no matter how great the noise and confusion. There never yet has been a cry of ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... When, at the end of the day, the desire of his heart was given him, the illusion fell away, for the youth embraced not a beautiful maiden, but an old hag, who had led him into the desert to a hut whose stones were darkness and whose walls were confusion. ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... heritage of so many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes with unavailing remorse, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... curly quotes and apostrophes have been replaced with the simpler "typewriter" form. Words in Greek or Hebrew have been transliterated. In quotations of older material, letters such as "e caudata" (e with "tail") are shown in braces as {e,} to avoid confusion with bracketed text. ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... business. I got them into comparative order and decency by having measures brought forward by the Government and well and steadily worked through. But when they came to their own affairs, and, above all, to money matters, there was a scene of confusion and riot of which no one in England can have any idea. Every man proposes a vote for his own job; and bills are introduced without notice and carried through all their stages in a quarter of an hour! One of the greatest advantages of the Union will be ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... wonderful day, all the more wonderful perhaps because it left in the mind a colourful confusion; pictures of painted tombs hidden deep under red rock and drifted sand, tombs which we should perhaps never reach again through their guarding zone of fire—tombs of kings and queens and nobles forgotten ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... as he made the announcement, began to employ himself sedulously about the papers on the table; which, in the confusion caused by his own emotion, he transferred hither and thither in such a manner as to upset all his previous arrangements. "And now," he said, "I might as well explain, as well as I can, of what that fortune ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continuous chain of language and of life—angels, and the signs of heaven, and the labors of men, each in its appointed season upon the earth; and above these another range of glittering pinnacles, mixt with white arches edged with scarlet flowers—a confusion of delight, amidst which the breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden strength, and the St. Mark's Lion, lifted on a blue field covered with stars: until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... from him, at the time, and just as I was very angry with him, either the question or the manner. I am ashamed to recollect the confusion I was thrown into; all your advice in my head at the moment: yet his words so prohibitory. He confidently seemed to enjoy my confusion [indeed, my dear, he knows not what respectful love is!] and gazed upon me, as if he would have ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... West, triumphant amid the confusion. He was safely aboard; the boat was on its way! Little did it trouble him that he went as a stowaway, since he had no ticket; nothing but an overwhelming determination to be on ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... to trace the successive owners on beyond Abraham; but they married and died at such a rate that we got lost in the confusion somewhere between the altar and the tomb, and gave the matter up. Two well established customs among the early colonists seem to have been to die early and to marry often. Perhaps they usually reversed the order; but, at any rate, dying in middle age after ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... young master by the shoulders, and hurrying him to the door, dismissed him in the manner which he deserved; squalling loudly, he hurried away to the upper part of the house. I continued my labours, but ere three minutes had elapsed, I heard a dreadful confusion above stairs, on faisoit une horrible tintamarre, and I could occasionally distinguish oaths and execrations: presently doors were flung open, and there was an awful rushing downstairs, a gallopade. It was my lord the count, his lady, and my young master, followed by a regular bevy ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... parade for [298] the purpose of refreshment. Directly after, and about half an hour before sun rise, an attack was begun by the Indians on the rear line, and the militia there immediately gave way, and retreated,—rushing through a battalion of regulars, to the very centre of the camp. The confusion was great. Thrown into disorder by the tumultuous flight of the militia, the utmost exertion of the officers could not entirely compose the regulars, so as to render them as effective as ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... clad only in their pajamas faced this angry rabble. Dan Dalzell slept through the confusion until Reade, in passing him, hauled ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... be guarded against," said Flora. "Perhaps Sir Henry— But oh! let us leave politics in peace while we can. I thought we should do some great good, but it is all a maze of confusion. It is so hard to know principles from parties, and everything goes wrong! It is of no use ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... she rose nervously, all mixed up in the blanket. He watched her in her confusion, as she tried to extricate herself and wrap herself up so that she could walk. He watched her relentlessly, as she knew. And as she went, the blanket trailing, and as he saw a glimpse of her feet and ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... Frank was not quite ready to shoot straight at the breasts of human beings, and so his first five shots brought down three of the horses, throwing the band into confusion. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... the rest. The story was, therefore, less an incident belonging to the Crusades, than one which was occasioned by the singular cast of mind introduced and spread wide by those memorable undertakings. The confusion among families was not the least concomitant evil of the extraordinary preponderance of this superstition. It was no unusual thing for a Crusader, returning from his long toils of war and pilgrimage, to find his family ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... proclamation of February 1566, the queen revived some former sumptuary laws respecting apparel; chiefly, it should appear, from an apprehension that a dangerous confusion of ranks would be the consequence of indulging to her subjects the liberty of private judgement in a matter so important. The following clause concerning fencing schools is appended ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... abstraction from the senses, from observation, and the consequent confusion of the judgment, marked in this description! The knight is describing objects immediate to his senses and sensations without borrowing a single trait from either. Would it be difficult to find parallel descriptions in Dryden's plays and in those ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... already crowded with camp followers, and the wildest confusion reigned. The enemy's horse took advantage of this and charged through the baggage, and the troops were unable to act with effect, being mixed up with the crowd of fugitives. However, they soon extricated themselves, drove off the enemy, and placed ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... later the Invincibles were bunched upon the green. As the diners issued from the inn, Bagby gave an order. With some slight confusion the company fell in, and two more orders brought their guns ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... deserving of disapprobation. Talbot continued to frequent the court, appeared daily with brazen front before the princess whose ruin he had plotted, and was installed into the lucrative post of chief pandar to her husband. In no long time Whitehall was thrown into confusion by the news that Dick Talbot, as he was commonly called, had laid a plan to murder the Duke of Ormond. The bravo was sent to the Tower: but in a few days he was again swaggering about the galleries, and carrying billets backward and forward ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cried the little man to the blacksmith, who had been listening to the conversation, and in his amazement and confusion had unconsciously pulled at the reins of his horse, and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... a sad accident had taken place; she could not say how; all was confusion; and that her child and maid were killed. She herself was dangerously injured, and was about to undergo an operation, which the doctors believed she could not survive; only in case of her death would the letter be sent to Lord Mount Severn. She ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... to the sort of interest she could inspire. She worked—and seemingly quite without design—upon the sympathy, the curiosity, the fancy of her associates, and we shall really ourselves scarce otherwise come closer to her than by feeling their impression and sharing, if need be, their confusion. She reduced them, Mrs. Stringham would have said, reduced them to a consenting bewilderment; which was precisely, for that good lady, on a last analysis, what was most in harmony with her greatness. She exceeded, escaped measure, was surprising only because they were so far from ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... he got into the midst of the formidable circle, he looked to his friends, the young Sweepstakes, for their countenance and support: they were amongst the most unmerciful of the laughers. Lady Diana also seemed more to enjoy than to pity his confusion. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... princes of royal blood, and eighty-four faithful followers: the ship, driven by the wind on to the Assyrian shore, foundered, and the dethroned monarch, demoralised by sea-sickness, would have perished in the confusion had not one of his followers taken him on his back and carried him safely to land across the mud. Belibni sent him prisoner to Nineveh with all his suite, and Assur-bani-pal, after allowing him to humble ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... produce it. Business principles are not applied to the domestic service problem. There are no business hours. The person is hired, not the labor. One woman described the situation: "If you have a girl, you want her, no matter at what time." There is no standard of work and the result is confusion worse confounded. The servant's goings-out and comings-in are watched and she has no hours to herself. Is it any wonder that so many women prefer to go into factory life at less pay but where they can have some ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... away, galloping into Bazeilles under the constantly increasing fire, when Delaherche, startled by the strange tidings that came to him in such quick succession and not relishing the prospect of being involved in the confusion of the retreating troops, plucked up courage and started on a run for Balan, whence he regained ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... To illustrate this confusion, I may cite one of the few problems which psychologists have attempted to solve by experiments on children: the determination of the order of rise of the child's perceptions of the different colours. The first series of experiments ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... brooked thy veterans' wish to hear, Who, as thy flight they eyed Exclaimed,—while tears of anguish came, Wrung forth by pride, and rage, and shame, "O that he had but died!" But yet, to sum this hour of ill, Look, ere thou leav'st the fatal hill, Back on yon broken ranks - Upon whose wild confusion gleams The moon, as on the troubled streams When rivers break their banks, And, to the ruined peasant's eye, Objects half seen roll swiftly by, Down the dread current hurled - So mingle banner, wain, and gun, Where the tumultuous flight rolls ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... to get on board in the confusion that attends a vessel's departure; and in one of the dark corners of Steerage No. 1, flat in a bunk and with an empty stomach, Alick made the voyage from the Broomielaw to Greenock. That night, the ship's yeoman ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... telegraphically, there is nothing at all romantic in the whole affair!" said Nattie, who, between her confusion at the turn the conversation had taken, and her alarm lest something should be said about that chubby Cupid—whom it will be remembered she had suppressed in her former description to "C ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... started up in affright, but could discern nothing unusual, and the singular noise was not repeated. The strangest part of the whole affair, however, was that the noise had sounded like her own name uttered by a human voice. This increased her terror and confusion, and she was about to flee from the spot when an oblong pebble to which something white was attached fluttered over the wall and fell at her feet. She was now more alarmed then ever and took several steps backward, the while regarding ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... suddenly turns sentimental, and, after giving elaborate directions for his own obsequies, begins to cry. The whole company are in tears round him when he suddenly rallies, and proposes that, as death is certain, they shall all go and have a hot bath. In the little confusion that follows, the narrator and his friend slip quietly away. This scene of exquisite fooling is quite unique in Greek or Latin literature: the breadth and sureness of touch are almost Shakespearian. Another fragment relates the famous story of the Matron of Ephesus, one of the popular ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... a melancholy ride, and John felt more down-hearted than ever before in his life as he entered the market square of Capetown. Here all was in confusion, burghers were galloping hither and thither, and every one seemed too busy and excited to notice Colton as he rode wearily towards the Field Cornet's quarters to give ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... nor could we tell the effect of our shooting in the dark. A slight fog had arisen, through which the moon occasionally succeeded in dimly appearing. The day had dawned; we reached our horses in the greatest disorder, and heightened the confusion by shouting inquiries to each other after friends and relatives. Some did not wait to find their horses, but fled on foot; others jumped on strange horses. Some even escaped on khaki horses that ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... her full height, threw her arms above her head, and fell down on the stone floor with a long scream. There was a moment of confusion in the court-room. Some one on the bench was heard to say: "This is clearly a case for the ecclesiastical authorities"—and the prisoner's lawyer doubtless jumped at ...
— Kerfol - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... doorway smiling good-humouredly at them, without a trace of embarrassment or of confusion in her manner. She was an immense girl, quite six feet tall, broad and well-made, in proportion. She was very handsome, full-throated, heavy-eyed, and slow in her movements. Her eyes and mouth, like everything about her, were large, but each time ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... so, more or less. For if God shall come to you indeed, and visit you with the forgiveness of sins, that visit removeth the guilt, but increaseth the sense of thy filth; and the sense of this, that God hath forgiven a filthy sinner, will make thee both rejoice and tremble. O, the blessed confusion which will then cover thy face, while thou, even thou, so vile a wretch, shalt stand before God to receive at his hand thy pardon, and so the first-fruits of thy eternal salvation. "That thou mayest remember, and ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... the Milan Court was small and unimposing, compared with the entrance to the hotel proper. I reached it to find some confusion reigning. A tall, gray-bearded man was talking anxiously to the hall-porter, Felicia, standing a little apart, was looking around with an air of bewilderment. My lady of the turquoises was standing ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had a great taste for drawing, and was perpetually depicting terrific steeplechases. From a confusion of ideas natural to a child, he always introduced a church steeple into the corner of his drawings. One Sunday he had drawn a most spirited and hotly-contested "finish" to a steeplechase. When remonstrated with on the ground that it was not a "Sunday" subject, he pointed ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... of the Count of Auxerre. She had wished indeed to see the great lord, who had sought her privately, in the glory of his own house; but, terrified by the strange splendours of her new abode and manner of life, and the anger of the true wife, she had fled suddenly from the place during the confusion of a violent storm, and in her flight given birth prematurely to a child. The child, a singularly fair one, was found alive, but the mother dead, by lightning-stroke as it seemed, not far from her lord's chamber-door, under the shelter of a ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... that last word and pressed her hand, he had gone in another moment. Lois stood breathless. She put her hands up to her head, as though to quiet the confusion of her thoughts. What did it mean? Was it only to let her see that he still loved her? ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... came thundering down the track, throwing tiny pebbles high into the air as they passed. A trim little sorrel won, and there was the usual confusion of voices upraised in an effort to be heard. When that had subsided, interest once more centered on Skeeter and Smoky, who seemed to have recovered ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... answered, "Kapik." "And will you always continue to be Kapik?" said Kohlmeister. "I will always be Kapik," returned the other.[H] "Wilt thou go away then and be quiet?" said the missionary, sharply. Meanwhile, he was observing Siksigak, who, in his agony and confusion, was turning the spoon in his hand, and bringing it to his mouth empty, apparently without knowing what he was about. Kapik, still more distracted than his companion, threw his spoon from him and rushed out of the house. He was met at the door by another missionary who, seeing his ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... valances. The green sofa and its sateen cushions were stiff with applied embroidery. The chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling, modelled to represent cupids holding festoons, was a glittering confusion of gilt and lustres; the lustres tinkled when Sophia stood on a certain part of the floor. The cane-seated chairs were completely gilded. There was an effect of spaciousness. And the situation of the bed between ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... This confusion of my thoughts kept me awake all night; but in the morning I fell asleep; and having, by the amusement of my mind, been as it were tired, and my spirits exhausted, I slept very soundly, and waked ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... reform of King Napkhuria may be estimated on its own merits, it by no means strengthened the authority of Egypt in Asia. Of course it could have in no way been the cause of the state of affairs in Syria and Canaan; perhaps Amenophis III., whatever his own great slackness, simply inherited the confusion in this part of his empire. The heaviest blows could not in the long run prevent the Habiri from returning to the attack again and again at brief intervals. Their need of expansion was greater than their fear, and, after all, it mattered little to Pharaoh ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... of confusion that he had contracted certain debts of honor while in prison, and related the visit of ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... but one end—separation. We would, of whatever extraction, have lived in natural neighbourliness with England, but she chose to trap and harass us, and it will take long generations of goodwill to wipe out some memories. Again, and yet again, let there be no confusion of thought as to this final peace; it will never come while there is any formal link of dependence. The spirit of our manhood will always flame up to resent and resist that link. Separation and equality may restore ties of friendship; nothing else can: for ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... Bedford, the better to conceal myself from the slave-hunters, I had parted with Bailey and called myself Johnson; but in New Bedford I found that the Johnson family was already so numerous as to cause some confusion in distinguishing them, hence a change in this name seemed desirable. Nathan Johnson, mine host, placed great emphasis upon this necessity, and wished me to allow him to select a name for me. I consented, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... instant a strange cry was heard; a bird flew into the room, and, dazzled by the light, flapped his wings against the shade of the lamp, overturned it, and left the apartment in utter darkness. In the confusion of the moment, a figure glided through the open window, and stood beside the chair of Euston. He noiselessly placed his firm grasp upon his laboring breast, and held it there a single instant. A faint rattling sound was heard, and Edith wildly ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... is either a confusion, and a mutual involution of things, and a dispersion, or it is unity and order and providence. If then it is the former, why do I desire to tarry in a fortuitous combination of things and such a disorder? and why do I care about anything else than how I shall at last ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... Roman line by the weapons which fell upon them from all quarters, these elephants also put to flight even the cavalry of the Carthaginians posted in their right wing. Laelius, when he saw the enemy in disorder, struck additional terror into them in their confusion. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... thirty-five minutes later when there arose a sudden commotion in the ship. Mark had returned to his friends and the mate had disappeared. The confusion seemed to come from the engine room where Tony had posted ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... welcome, all the while running on in such voluble ejaculatory talk that the quiet, saddened, recluse-like people were overwhelmed with embarrassment, and hardly knew which way to turn. Presently she saw their confusion ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... and she began to eat her eggs with a resolution born of the consoling memory of Dinwiddie. If only they could be at home again with the children, she felt that all this trouble and misunderstanding would vanish. With a strange confusion of ideas, it seemed to her that Oliver's suffering had been in some mysterious way produced by New York, and that it existed merely within the circumscribed ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... devil should I know!" replied the Secretary in great confusion. "You don't suppose I ever asked her the ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... the all engrossing subject-matter they remained seated at the table, leaning across it, their faces close to one another, their eyes dancing with excitement, questions and answers—as soon as the stranger's back was turned—already tumbling out in confusion ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... supremely characteristic of the present Parliamentary atmosphere that everybody accused Lord Balfour of incomprehensible compromise and vagueness, because he was completely logical and absolutely clear. Clarity does look like a cloud of confusion to people whose minds live in confusion twice ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the voyage is done, your steamship lies at her pier, and you are thrust into the midst of distractions. Families are trying to keep together; the din is indescribable; crying babies add to the general confusion of tongues; all sorts of people with all sorts of baggage are making ready for the landing, which seems a long time off as you wait for the customs officers to get through with the first-class passengers. At last word is given ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... overworking either body or soul, men had time to amuse themselves in something more intellectual than mere toping in pot-houses. Moreover, the half century after the Reformation in England was one not merely of new intellectual freedom, but of immense animal good spirits. After years of dumb confusion and cruel persecution, a breathing time had come: Mary and the fires of Smithfield had vanished together like a hideous dream, and the mighty shout of joy which greeted Elizabeth's entry into London, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Immediate confusion followed, and there was an attempt to carry the demand into execution. Directly over the speaker's head was an old skylight, at which it appeared Mr. Lincoln had been listening to the speech. In an instant, Mr. Lincoln's feet came through the skylight, followed by his tall ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... prisoners being marched through the streets to the gaol, the whole party moving at a foot pace. A little incident at the start did not fail to attract attention. The officer commanding a section of the guard having issued his orders in Dutch and some confusion having ensued, the orders were repeated in German, with a ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... blows as well as he could with the bar, Jack struck both the horses on the head, and the animals plunged so violently, that they not only prevented their riders from assailing him, but also kept off the hostlers; and, in the confusion that ensued, Jack managed to spring over the fence, and shaped his course across the field in the ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... played in his life, and thought they wanted to tease him, and flew straight into the milk-pan, and then into the butter-dish, and from that into the meal- barrel, and at last, terrified at the noise and confusion, right out of the door, and hid himself in the snow amongst the bushes at ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... of the day's work meant confusion and headaches for Evan. Before going to his boarding-house for supper he took a walk by himself along one of the back streets of Mt. Alban. A song his sister used to sing seemed to dwell in the very air about him. It associated ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... the efforts of the officers to check it were unavailing. The fate of the day was decided, and a flight commenced on the left which was soon followed by the right. As soon as the line was broken, the Indians, throwing down their rifles and rushing upon them with the tomahawk, completed the confusion. The attempt of Colonel Butler and of the officers to restore order were unavailing, and the whole line broke and fled in confusion. The massacre was general, and the cries for mercy were answered by the tomahawk. Rather less than sixty men escaped, some to Forty fort, some by swimming ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of mourners who composed the widow's train, appeared a snow-white figure, deeply veiled, with hands uplifted in an attitude of intense grief. Those that stood near her felt a shudder creep over them; they shrank back, and thus increased the alarm of those whom the stranger next approached, so that confusion gradually spread itself through the whole train. Here and there was to be found a soldier bold enough to address the figure, and attempt to drive her away; but she always eluded their grasp, and the next moment reappeared among the rest, moving along ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... of the expedition. The spacemen's job had been to land the newly created Special Order Squadron on the hot planet. The job of the squadron was to explore it. Somehow confusion developed, and the spacemen, including the officers, later reported that the squadron had instructed them to land on the sun side of Mercury, which would have destroyed the spaceship and its crew, or so they believed ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... with some confusion in his manner. "But a very dear friend of mine married him not long since, and for her sake I feel a sort of interest in the man. I fancied that he was rather wild when under the influence of liquor, but for all, a brave and generous man, when ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... the duke to present this Albert, child of a Spanish courtesan, as if he were mine. The duke desired an heir. Amid the confusion wrought in Spain by the French Revolution the trick escaped notice. Are you surprised that my blood boils at the sight of this strange woman's child occupying the place of the ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... was undaunted. Never was he cooler. Never did his genius shine more brilliantly. Never did any man in all the fury and turmoil of battle, amid a thousand conflicting reports and appalling confusion, have a keener perception, a greater power to sum up what was actually passing, and a better knowledge of what ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... passed for no more extravagant a thing than one of those poseurs in art and music who affect such oddity of guise. The man's countenance and demeanour, as he approached the table, exhibited nothing of the awkwardness or confusion to be expected from his Arabian Nights change. He allowed Absalom to seat him at Grandemont's right hand with the manner of one thus accustomed to be ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... study to be undertaken by her pupils, and yet not enough absorbed in herself to investigate her own study. Her psychology and pedagogy have not been valueless by any means; but, lacking the imagination to picture her pupils at work alone, and the sympathy to feel their confusion at such times, she has not been prompted to make an examination of the requirements they should meet when separated from her. Like many persons in other fields, she has been too much interested in the results to consider ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... that night, others dreamed dreams. In a midnight storm like this, time was when the solemn peal and defiant clang of the holy bells would have rung out confusion through the winged hosts of 'the prince of the powers of the air,' from the heights of the abbey tower. Everybody has a right to his own opinion on the matter. Perhaps the prince and his army are no more upon ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... if such it is, of which I find no trace elsewhere. It is however just possible that Clarke was only referring to the earlier invitation, previously mentioned, for Keats to visit at Great Marlow; or he may most probably, with some confusion as to dates and details, be thinking of the message which Shelley, when already settled in Italy for a couple of years, addressed to ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... and as he read and re-read them, it seemed as if the spirit of the author was in unison with his own. "Happy girl!" he thought, "who can thus feel towards and write of a father. How I envy you this blessed, holy affection!" He raised his eyes, and rose up in confusion, to be ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... always dignified. All moral baseness is an actual human phenomenon, but I hope not real human nature, which is always noble. All the faults of taste cannot be surveyed that have been occasioned in criticism or the practice of art by this—confusion between actual human nature and true human nature. The greatest trivialities are tolerated and applauded under the pretext that they are real nature. Caricatures not to be tolerated in the real world are carefully preserved in the poetic ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... by report (replied the Dane); but every person in Copenhagen pities the young Queen, attributing the coolness which the King shewed towards her, ere he set out on his voyage, to the malicious advice of Holcke." The confusion of this minion may be easier conceived than described; whilst the King, giving the Skipper a handful of ducats, bade him speak the truth and shame the devil. As soon, however, as the King spoke in Danish, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... to answer him, but the words mingled in a stammering of confusion before she could ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... defence was now made, but in so great a storm. of displeasure, and confusion of language, that the colonel, looking utterly amazed, was unable to understand what was the matter. Major Price and myself were both alarmed; Miss Port longed to laugh; Miss Mawer sat perfectly motionless; Mrs. Fisher decidedly ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... very calm, though a little confused. A little confusion is excusable when a man passes from wealth to beggary. He thought he would make his last toilet with especial care. Parbleu! The French nobility goes into battle in court costume! He was ready ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... computing the longitude but by means of the log, or dead reckoning, which is liable to perpetual uncertainty from currents and lee-way, and which a storm, even of short continuance, must have thrown into total confusion. Their instruments and methods for determining even the latitudes, appear to have then been imperfect and little understood. In the sequel of this deduction, we shall find the first Portuguese squadron which sailed for India, conducted across ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... spruce, with a few white birch, covering the wreck of the primeval forest that was flame swept thirty odd years ago. Over some considerable areas no new growth to speak of has appeared, and the charred remains of the dead trees stand stark and gray, or lie about in confusion upon the ground, giving the country a particularly dreary and ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... and bent her head. Chevenix marked her confusion, and varied his tone to suit the case. He became practical. "Now, what'll he say about this new state of affairs, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... are giving me far too much credit, Doctor Carmack," said Hugh, reddening with confusion. "I could hardly claim I had any great scruples about not engaging in such things that are almost universal among boys. But years ago I promised my mother never to let my temper get the better of me; and under no conditions ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... take stock of what things are worth while. It would be a hopeless task to count up how many dynasties of masterful barbarians, here and there, have meanwhile come up and played their ephemeral role of vainglorious nuisance and gone under in shame and confusion, and dismissed with the invariable verdict of ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... confusion between boomerang and woomera (q.v.). Perhaps Mr. Dawson wrote the second word, and ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... course, I had my troubles—my stepmother was cruel to me, and she did not understand the longings and fears of a lass such as I was; but still, I did not trouble. But ever since, Paul, ever since he came, it seems as though everything has added to the confusion, to the mystery, to the misery! I don't know how it is, but it seems as though Almighty God has placed a curse upon me. Whatever I've done has turned out wrong. I don't blame you, Paul. No, I don't blame ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... before they shot him down very neatly. The bullet tore past him and made a sort of pop as it pierced his balloon—a pop that was followed by a rustling sigh and a steady downward movement. And when in the confusion of the moment he dropped a bag of ballast, the Germans, very politely but firmly overcame his scruples by shooting his ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Really the confusion and protest that the young man's words had awakened in her mind, coming on top of the disclosure about Betty, made Polly feel as if she had suddenly taken leave of her senses. And as it is a rather good scheme when one is unable to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... her eyes, withdrawing her hand in the meantime from the too warm clasp of the young man. A sense of his meaning was suddenly borne in upon her by look and clasp, and she felt a maidenly confusion at the momentary boldness of this undeclared lover. However, with feminine tact she laughed off the hint, and shortly afterwards took her leave, promising to communicate as speedily as possible with Lucian regarding the circumstances ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... creeds or their contentions to appraise them justly. Their real significance is neither in their organization, for they have little organization, nor in their creed, but in their temper. They represent reaction, restlessness and the spiritual confusion of the time. They can be explained—in part at least—in terms of that social deracination to which reference has already been made. They represent also an excess of individualism in the region of ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins |
