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More "Astonish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said, "I would rather rely on my ax. Besides, the bow, now it is unstrung, makes an excellent quarterstaff, a weapon with which I have practiced a great deal. With a spear your people would know quite as much as I should; but I fancy that, with a quarterstaff, I should astonish them. It has the advantage, too, that it disables without killing; and as your soldiers would only be doing their duty in arresting me, I should be sorry to do them more harm than I ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... species are suitable and congenerous nursing-mothers for its disregarded eggs and young, and may deposit them only under their care, this would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a fresh manner, that the methods of Providence are not subjected to any mode or rule, but astonish us in new lights, and ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... reception. Here we have no want of scholars to appreciate the value of his views of the ancient drama; and it will be no disadvantage to him, in our eyes, that he has been unsparing in his attack on the literature of our enemies. It will hardly fail to astonish us, however, to find a stranger better acquainted with the brightest poetical ornament of this country than any of ourselves; and that the admiration of the English nation for Shakspeare should first obtain a truly enlightened interpreter ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... and on a third he would shine forth in Mrs. Major-General Flareup's cockaded one, with a worsted shoulder-knot, and a much over-daubed light drab livery coat, with crimson inexpressibles, so tight as to astonish a beholder how he ever got into them. Humiliation, however, has its limits as well as other things; and Peter having been invited to descend from his box—alas! a regular country patent leather one, and invest himself in a Quaker-collared blue coat, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... 'em—that I will furnish the genus whenever it is wanted—genus in great big gloves, monstrous long boots, and astride of a hoss that scatters the little boys like Boston, whenever I touch the critter with my long spurs, to astonish the ladies. Oh, get out!—do you think I couldn't play gineral and look black as thunder, for such pay as ginerals get? I'd do it for half the money, and I'd not only do it cheaper, but considerable better ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... comes, I think, or partly hence, that there is now no fun in the world. Wit we have, and an abundance of grim humour, which evokes anything but mirth. Nothing would astonish us in the Midway Inn so much as a peal of laughter. A great writer (though it must be confessed scarcely an amusing one), who has recently reached his journey's end, used to describe his animal spirits depreciatingly, as being at the best but ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... better, he would have promptly retorted: "Don't be a fool." As it was, he laughed. "Who am I to sit in judgment? The only thing I do know is, that if I had your talent—no, a quarter of it—I should pull myself together and astonish ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... his escape, but not until he had done for one of his keepers. A sudden desire to travel possessed me; I longed to see the world, to be free, and accumulate wealth so that I could return to London, and astonish the nobility ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... you alone had to decide who should appear at our parties, and that every one whom you had invited would be welcome to me. I further told him that his admiration for you did not astonish me at all, and that I would readily forgive his ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... "Her lover!—you astonish me: why, she seemed almost fond of her husband; the tears came in her eyes when she spoke ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... who hungers and thirsts after perfection, not one who dabs flowers upon plates to choke the gullets of diners," declared Telfer, setting himself for one of the long speeches with which he loved to astonish the men of Caxton, and glaring down at those seated upon the stone. "It is the artist who, among all men, has the divine audacity. Does he not hurl himself into a battle in which is engaged against him all of the accumulative genius of ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... Niece? said my uncle: we have not done with you yet. I charge you depart not. Mr. Solmes has something to open to you, that will astonish you—and you shall ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Thackeray often made a very poor appearance when he attempted to deliver a set speech to a public assembly. He frequently broke down after the first two or three sentences. He prepared what he intended to say with great exactness, and his favorite delusion was that he was about to astonish everybody with a remarkable effort. It never disturbed him that he commonly made a woful failure when he attempted speech-making, but he sat down with such cool serenity if he found that he could not recall what he wished ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... stayed and scratched all day. He was loved for himself alone, and he did not care for anything but that. Then he went home, made an elaborate toilet, and returned to astonish her. Alas! old Abner had been about, and seeing how Joab had worn her smooth and useless, had cut her down for firewood. Joab gave one glance, then walked solemnly away into a "clearing," and getting comfortably astride a blazing ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... astonish John, but this announcement did so. He dropped his cigar in a shower of gray ash on to his trousers, and retrieved it almost mechanically, his wide-open eyes fixed ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... implore! Search out America's untrodden shore; There seek some vast Savannah rude and wild, Where Europe's sons of slaughter never smil'd, With fiend-like arts, insidious to betray The sooty natives as a lawful prey. At you th' astonish'd savages shall stare, And hail you as a God, and call you fair: Your blooming beauty shall unrivall'd shine, And Captain Andrew's ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... is already the patron of all the arts; and artists are proud to hail you as their brother. Are you not both a composer of music and a performer? Do you not rival Hermann, Schildbach, and Hamilton, in painting? And did you not astonish Fisher von Erlach with the suggestions you offered him in the planning of the palace of Schonbrunn? And in all your majesty's dominions, is there a bolder horseman, a more valiant sportsman, a more ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... to the party, we found them surrounded by the natives, who were looking with an eye of wonder on the cattle and horses. We pointed out to them the direction in which we were going, and invited them to visit us; and nothing appeared to astonish them so much as the management of the team by a single man. We got back to our position early, and ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... he smoked his short pipe, and occasionally uttered some few guttural sounds of command, which were respectfully listened to by his companion. He was evidently a brave who had met Russians more than once before in quite other circumstances, and nothing about them could astonish or even interest him. Olenin was about to approach the dead body and had begun to look at it when the brother, looking up at him from under his brows with calm contempt, said something sharply and angrily. The scout hastened to cover the dead man's ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... strange new religion, named of Universal Love, with Sacraments mainly of—Divorce, with Balzac, Sue and Company for Evangelists, and Madame Sand for Virgin, will come,—and results fast following therefrom which will astonish you very much! ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... "That'll astonish some of them caps and gowns, I reckon," I heard cabby say to himself. "You see, if he don't drive us right up to the front door, as comfortable as if we was ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... three volcanoes were uniform from the summit to the base, the peak of Teyde would have an inclination of 12 degrees 29 minutes, Vesuvius 12 degrees 41 minutes, and Etna 10 degrees 13 minutes, a result which must astonish those who do not reflect on what constitutes an average slope. In a very long ascent, slopes of three or four degrees alternate with others which are inclined from 25 to 30 degrees; and the latter only strike our imagination, because we think all the slopes of mountains more steep than they really ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... that troublesome little ape to be caged, till it suited the purposes of his proprietors (as Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap might surely be called, for they had caught him, however they might fail to tame him) to let him loose upon society, to amuse and astonish it by his antics?—That was the question occupying the thoughts of Mr. Gammon, while his calm, clear, gray eye was fixed upon Titmouse, apparently very attentive to what he was saying. That gentleman had first told the story of his wrongs to Snap, who instantly, rubbing his hands, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... sole guide of judgement that it is usually taken to be—so far, indeed, that, save in matters approaching down-right demonstration (where of course there is no room for any other ingredient) it is usually hampered by custom, prejudice, dislike, &c., to a degree that would astonish the most sober philosopher could he lay bare to himself all the mental processes whereby the complex act of assent or dissent is ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... company with another gentleman of the most ample qualifications, to note the operation of the British emancipation act. Together, they collected a mass of facts—now in a course of publication—that will astonish, as it ought to delight, the whole south; for it shows, conclusively, that IMMEDIATE emancipation is the best, the safest, the most profitable, as it is the most just and honorable, of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... a half-smile, or what he intended for a smile, though it was but a grim and hurried manifestation. "You nurslings of Protestantism astonish me. You unguarded Englishwomen walk calmly amidst red-hot ploughshares and escape burning. I believe, if some of you were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar's hottest furnace you would issue forth untraversed by the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the hogs charging down on me didn't astonish me any more than to find myself on top of a gate with a young woman charging on my country in this fashion, and it was pretty hard on me to have her pitch into the cab question, because Jone and me had had quite a good deal to say ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... object to me the difficulty and almost impossibility of deceiving the world in an affair of such consequence; the wisdom and solid judgment of that renowned queen; with the little or no advantage which she could reap from so poor an artifice. All this might astonish me; but I would still reply that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence than admit of so signal a violation ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... smile at such an expression, as "the consciousness of our existence," we will take the liberty of citing a few curious instances, for the authenticity of which we assume the entire responsibility—instances which may perhaps astonish a few even of the better informed. There are in many districts (not altogether provincial) of Italy and France great numbers, who would not even in America be classed as ignorant in regard to other matters, who ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... ignorant of your purpose here? You, Murray; your spying was excellent, I'll admit. You were the first to give away certain plans of ours. Well, well! We don't hold that against you. Wheels within wheels, eh? It would perhaps astonish certain braided gentleman of our high command to learn that I, a mere colonel, control their destinies. As our ancestors would ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... very little;" and then yielding to his desire to astonish, confessed he was working at a trilogy on the life of Christ, and had already decided the main lines and incidents of the three plays. His idea was the disintegration of the legend, which had united under a godhead certain socialistic aspirations then prevalent in Judaea. In his first play, ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... bear disasters, and to rise from them quickly, a courage and persistence that no obstacles seem able to thwart. How often in the course of the centuries has France been torn apart by internecine strife or thrown prostrate by her enemies only to astonish the world by a superb display of recuperative powers! It was France that first among the kingdoms of Europe rose from feudal chaos to orderly nationalism; it was France that first among continental countries after the Middle Ages established the ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... besides his grandfather. The band to whom he belonged had put up their children on a wager in a race against those of the giants, and had thus lost them. There was an old tradition in the band, that it would produce a great man, who would wear a white feather, and who would astonish every one with his ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... in fact, we ran a little behind. But we will do finely next year — I am certain of it. I will have some strawberries and celery which shall astonish our State agricultural committee," answered Randolph Rover. He was always enthusiastic, in spite of almost constant failure. Thus far his hobby had netted him a loss of several ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... Sebastian Veneziano? to whom (although he did not come at a favourable time) the Pope gave the Leaden Seal, with the honour and profit which appertain to that office, without the lazy painter having painted more than two things in Rome, which will not astonish Senhor Francisco much. So that in this our country, even those who do not esteem painting greatly, pay for it much better than those who are greatly delighted with it in Spain or Portugal; and therefore I advise you as a son that you ought not to depart ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... relate myself," replied the old detective, without even drawing his pipe from his lips, "I am too stupid, that is perfectly understood. But Monsieur Lecoq will tell you something that will astonish you." ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... 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 seriously ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... so. Remember I don't have a chance to walk up Fifth Avenue every day. Give me a chance to astonish myself. Here are ten thousand women going by in clothes that would make a lily turn red and burn up with shame, and an equal number of proud gents with curlycue collars on their overcoats, and I want to ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... attack on Three Hours after Marriage, that amusing and much-abused play, in Palaemon To Caelia at Bath; Or, The Triumvirate (1717). Pope is said to have collaborated with Gay not only in Three Hours, a play "so lewd,/ Ev'n Bullies blush'd, and Beaux astonish'd stood" (Second Edition, p. 11), but in The Wife of Bath and The What D'Ye Call It. Welsted also hits at God's Revenge Against Punning, the First Psalm, praises Tickell, and finds Pope's versification flat. All of these charges (except the one that ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... Corsica. The valour and the constancy with which that brave people have recovered and defended its liberty, would well deserve that some wise man should teach them how to preserve it. I have some presentiment that one day that little island will astonish Europe." ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... authors—not as a mere exercise of classical scholarship—but because he identified himself with their philosophical opinions, and would have revived Greek customs and modes of life. He used to give suppers after the manner of the ancients, and used to astonish his guests by the ancient cookery of Spartan broth, and of mulsum. He was an enthusiastical Platonist. On a visit to Oxford, he was received with great respect by the scholars of the University, who were much interested ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... streets. All hope of peace with independence is extinct—and valor alone is relied upon now for our salvation. Every one thinks the Confederacy will at once gather up its military strength and strike such blows as will astonish the world. There will ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... at the present mode of dancing!—they who used to consider round dances almost improper. How the programmes must astonish them, too; those engagement cards that did not exist fifty years ago, and in their infancy were quite content to bear only two or three names on their paper countenances. But now times have changed, and as they grow older they become most greedy little ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... Daisy Holroyd, 'there's a thing in that ocean that would astonish you if you saw it. ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... one, remarking that "it would make a good addition to other diplomatic papers." He then continued to advance. The general was no less explicit, a few days later, at Loretto, when conversing with Count Bourbon Busset and other prisoners taken at Castelfidardo. "You astonish me, gentlemen," said he; "how could you for a moment entertain the idea that we would have occupied the Pontifical State without the full consent of the government of your country!" As one of the bystanders, in reply to Cialdini, alluded to the fact which was announced, of the disembarkation ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... conclude anything positively in relation to the general peace; "yet this," said he, "would be a sufficient motive to cause them to advance with their army, and that of my brother will come up at the same time, which will astonish the Court and incline them to an arrangement. And forasmuch as in our treaty with Spain we leave a back door open by the clause which relates to the Parliament, we shall be sure to make good use of it for the advantage of the public ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... virtue;—yea, even the gods themselves, when they engage in human actions, are not represented as free from passions and errors;—lest, for the want of some difficulties and cross passages, their poems should be destitute of that briskness which is requisite to move and astonish the minds ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... do not name them to you, because to-morrow's Gazette will do it full as well as I could. Mr. Pitt, who had carte blanche given him, named everyone of them: but what would you think he named himself for? Lord Privy Seal; and (what will astonish you, as it does every mortal here) Earl of Chatham. The joke here is, that he has had A FALL UP STAIRS, and has done himself so much hurt, that he will never be able to stand upon his leg's again. Everybody is puzzled ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... were cast upon him for prosecuting that testimony for truth, which now he sealed with his blood, in such a treasure of patience, meekness, humility, constancy, courage, burning love and blazing zeal, as did very much confound enemies, convince neutrals, confirm halters, comfort friends, and astonish all. ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... the delegation from Sangamon County was instructed for Baker. A variety of social and personal influences, besides Baker's popularity, worked against Lincoln. "It would astonish, if not amuse, the older citizens," wrote Lincoln to a friend, "to learn that I (a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flat-boat at ten dollars per month) have been put down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... an electric battery which I frequently took into the steerage to astonish the natives. When I first put a silver piece in a basin of water and told them the man taking it out could keep it, what a rush there was! There was one would-be clever clown who was perfectly willing to test the power of the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... hotel at last, with Jack all safe, and the rest of the girls went to dress for dinner, and left me to find the boys, to help me deposit him in a secure place, for we were sure we should very greatly astonish the boarders and achieve renown as having discovered a new species ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... just been writing about is not fashionable by any manner of means. Boston, the great central hub of all creation, can't bottle it up or engage it by the ton to astonish all creation with. She must have the manufactured article, and has sent all over the world ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... control; it belongs to Him. How man ever since the fall attempts to penetrate the mysterious depths of the universe! Scientists with their glasses scan the heavens and try to regain the knowledge of creation, which was lost by the fall of man, Their discoveries astonish us. How marvelous the heavens are! How they declare the glory of God and the firmament His handiwork! Often too has the search of fallen man into the depths of the universe demonstrated the truth of God given by revelation in His word. And yet the great questions we ask of astronomers concerning ...
— The Work Of Christ - Past, Present and Future • A. C. Gaebelein
... rapidity of action enabled him to astonish the world with his marvelous successes. He appeared to be everywhere at once. What he could accomplish in a day, surprised all who knew him. He seemed to electrify everybody about him. His invincible energy thrilled ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... their intellectual as they are beginning to assert their economic, independence, and then no doubt led by the cities of the West—the ones furthest from Boston—there will be a Renaissance of European intelligence in this great daughter of Europe such as will astonish even Paris itself. But this event, as Sir Thomas More says so sadly of his Utopia, is rather to be hoped ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... grass. A redwood forest was soon encountered, and new difficulties developed. The underbrush was dense and no trails were found. Fallen trees made progress very slow. Two miles a day was all they could accomplish. They painfully worked through the section of the marvelous redwood belt destined to astonish the world, reaching a small prairie, where they camped. The following day they devoted to hunting, luckily killing a number of deer. Here they remained several days, drying the venison in the meantime; but when, their strength recuperated, they resumed their journey, the meat was soon ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... fresh search at Donnay; and, as his reputation obliged him to be successful, and as he was not unwilling to astonish the authorities of Calvados by the quickness of his perceptions, he caused Acquet de Ferolles to be arrested. It was he who had first warned the gendarmes of the sojourn of the brigands at Donnay, and this seemed exceedingly ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... He had with him his son, a wild boy of five years old, all brilliant with health and energy, and with the same powerful eye. He said,—You know I am not one to confound acuteness and rapidity of intellect with real genius; but he is for those an extraordinary child. He would astonish you, but I look deep enough into the prodigy to see the work of an extremely nervous temperament, and I shall make him as dull as I can. "Margaret," (pronouncing the name in the same deliberate searching way he used to do,) "I ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the vessel and had not yet any experience of his persuasive ways; unlike the old hands, who knew Mr Tompkins so well that they hated him and shirked work when he was to the fore—and by getting them all into his watch matters would be able to go easy with him, and he would be able to astonish everybody by the way in which he got the duty done when he had charge of the ship, instead of having to call on the assistance of the skipper when his orders were not obeyed, as had ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... hate on that which he so loved before; Nor let the tale astonish which you hear, For since his love was forced by magic lore, The ring the false enchantment served to clear. This too unmasked the charms Alcina wore, And made all false, from head to food, appear. None of her own, but borrowed, all he sees, And ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... volcanic convulsion; a huge white canopy covered land and sea, rendering them undistinguishable the one from the other. The doctor, when he saw that this rock overlooked all the surrounding plain, had an idea,—a fact which will not astonish those who are acquainted with him. This idea he turned over, pondered, and made himself master of by the time he returned to the house, and then he communicated it to ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... woes and our own egoism. Such an attitude of mind is only possible to an absolutely frank, even Arcadian, nature. She did what she wished to do: she said what she had to say, not because she wanted to provoke excitement or astonish the multitude, but because she had succeeded eminently in leading her own life according to her own lights. The terror of appearing inconsistent excited her scorn. Appearances never troubled that unashamed soul. This is the magic, the peculiar ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... sound from the smack of his whip, as equalled the explosion of an ordinary cohorn; and then broke forth into the halloo of a foxhunter, which he uttered with all its variations, in a strain of vociferation that seemed to astonish and confound the whole assembly, to whom he introduced himself and his spaniel, by exclaiming, in a tone something less melodious than the cry of mackerel or live cod, "By your leave, gentlevolks, I hope there's no offence, in an honest ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... obtained. Shook from his hands; the fall was not more strange Of Hannibal, when Fortune pleased to change Her mind, and on the Roman youth bestow The favours he enjoy'd; nor was he so Amazed who frighted the Israelitish host— Struck by the Hebrew boy, that quit his boast; Nor Cyrus more astonish'd at the fall The Jewish widow gave his general: As one that sickens suddenly, and fears His life, or as a man ta'en unawares In some base act, and doth the finder hate; Just so was he, or in a worse estate: Fear, grief, and shame, and anger, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Whig, his favorite sentiment being, "Hitch your wagon to a star," whose practical application led him over highways which knew not macadam. He now perceived nothing grotesque in Bernard Graves's proposal, nor did it astonish him. From his office window he had chanced to overlook the stormy meeting of the suitors, but he gave ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... Hay that will astonish you and make you think he has something to do with the crime. Meanwhile, learn all you can ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... meaning, what was the use of it all? why those exquisite little creatures should have been hidden for ages, in all their splendours of ruby, and emerald, and gold in the South American forests, breeding and fluttering and dying, that some dozen out of all those millions might be brought over here to astonish the eyes of men. And as I asked myself, why were all these boundless varieties, these treasures of unseen beauty, created? my brain grew dizzy between pleasure and thought; and, as always happens when one is most innocently delighted, "I turned to share the joy," as Wordsworth says; and next to me ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... Roederer laughed most heartily. "I thought I should astonish you," he said. "These are not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... diameter, to be raised clear into the air with every root and fibre down to the minutest thread, all entirely cleared of soil, so that every particle could be seen in its natural position. I think it would astonish even the wise ones." From his instinctive sympathy with nature, he often credits vegetable organism with "instinctive judgment." "Observation teaches us that a tree is given powerful instincts, which would almost appear to amount to judgment ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... then," said Eric; "my Tristaner would be certain to keep his word if he promised it. Let us proceed now and astonish them with our presence, which must therefore, as you ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... compact heap, or placed as a layer upon a stratum of peat, some inches thick, and covered with the same. The quantity of first-class compost that may be made yearly upon any farm, if due care be taken, would astonish those who have not tried it. James Smith, of Deanston, Scotland, who originated our present system of Thorough Drainage, asserted, that the excrements of one man for a year, are sufficient to manure half an acre of land. In Belgium ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... worsted belts, gaudy negresses chanting in the soft patois, and here and there a blanketed Indian. Nor was this all. Some occasion (so Madame Bouvet had told us) had brought a sprinkling of fashion to town that day, and it was a fashion to astonish me. There were fine gentlemen with swords and silk waistcoats and silver shoe-buckles, and ladies in filmy summer gowns. Greuze ruled the mode in France then, but New Orleans had not got beyond Watteau. As for Nick and me, we knew nothing of Greuze and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... predicament. Ah, yes! Yonder stands a gentleman worse off yet, for, in addition to your perplexities, he is talking with a young, laughing girl, who is watching his movements, with a merry twinkle in her bright eyes. He evidently wishes to astonish her by his dexterity, and disappoint her roguish expectations. He holds his plate firmly in his left hand, and proceeds, at once, to cut his peach in halves. Deuce take the blunt silver knife! The tough skin resists its ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... which are supposed by primitive man to be dangerous or taboo, we are met by a fact which will astonish anthropologists, and which I cannot satisfactorily explain. Blood is everywhere in the savage world regarded with suspicion and anxiety; there is something mysterious about it as containing (so ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... You always astonish me with your painstaking work; is it a coquetry? It does not seem labored. What I find difficult is to choose out of the thousand combinations of scenic action which can vary infinitely, the clear and striking situation which is not brutal nor forced. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... venerable person in answer to the charms of witchcraft; and other instances from good hands,—may be arguments. Besides the unsearchable footsteps of God's judgments, that are brought to light every morning, that astonish our weaker reasons; to teach us adoration, trembling, dependence, &c. But we must not trouble Your Honors by being tedious. Therefore, being smitten with the notice of what hath happened, we reckon it within the duties ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... come upon you all like a thief in the night. For I believe it is the will of the Lord that our greatest happiness shall consist in working for the salvation of our whole body. When this is accomplished a burst of glory will shine upon you, which will indeed astonish you and the world. Do any of you say this will never be done? I assure you that God will accomplish it—if nothing else will answer, he will hurl tyrants and devils into atoms and make way for his people. But O my brethren! I say ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... was heeded by others in the business. In every way they sought to discourage that wild reaching after public favour and notoriety that led aviators to attempt reckless feats, and often sacrifice their lives in a foolish effort to astonish an audience. No one ever heard of either of the Wright brothers "looping-the-loop," doing a "demon glide," or in any other fashion reducing the profession of aviation to the level of a circus. In a time when brave and skilful aviators, with a mistaken ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... Mediterranean, therefore to be able to hit quick and straight from the shoulder may well save a man's life. Of course he is young yet, but if he goes regularly for an hour two or three times a week to one of the light-weight men, I have no doubt that when he returns he will be able to astonish any of these street ruffians ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... Sarah Warner, "we can't drive all the men out of the country, and don't want to, but we can fix a standard of morals to astonish the world, and there could be no better way than by making an example of this man Gorky. Don't you see that he is a foreigner and can't very well know that our men are just as bad as he is? Besides, isn't ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... left the room with Mrs Dunn, and as he went out Mr Burne blew a flourish, loud enough to astonish the professor, who wondered how it was that so much noise could be made by such a little man, till he remembered the penetrating nature of the sounds produced by such tiny creatures as crickets, and then he ceased ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... venture for him,—twenty-five thousand at the least. And as he paces the decks,—in the view only of the silent man at the wheel and of the silent stars,—he forecasts the palaces he will build. The feeble Doctor shall have ease and every luxury; he will be gracious in his charities; he will astonish the old people by his affluence; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... imagination, or the highest poetic capacity, must necessarily be accompanied by eccentricity. It may, indeed, be difficult to convert a poetical temperament into a merchant, or to make the man who is destined to delight or astonish mankind by his conceptions, sit quietly over a ledger; but the transition from poetry to the composition of such works as Collins planned is by no means unnatural, and the abandonment of his views respecting them must, in justice to his memory, be attributed ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... desire of admiration, admiration in its original sense of wonderment (miratio); you are a true child of the century; you do not desire admiration, you would avoid it, fearing it might lessen that sense which you only care to stimulate—wonderment. And persecuted by the desire to astonish, you are now exhibiting yourself in the most hideous light you can devise. The man whose biography you are writing is no better than ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... the ships with men in them, having their bows ready. They stopped for an interval and rowed for another. They spoke loudly, and looked at the newcomers and at the shore, showing themselves to be troubled. Those in the launch fired off a piece to astonish them, which it did, for they took to flight, rowing as ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... indeed I advised; and had honoured me with your company at the play on Saturday night; (my whole behaviour unobjectionable to the last hour;) must not, Madam, the sudden change in your conduct the very next morning, astonish and distress me?—and this persisted in with still stronger declarations, after you had received the impatiently-expected letter from Miss Howe; must I not conclude, that all was owing to her influence; and that some other application or project ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... but their very bodies and bread-cupboards having been stript bare, and life now no longer possible,—all is reduced to desperation, to the iron law of Necessity and very Fact again; and to temper Dilettantism, and astonish it, and burn it up with infernal fire, arises Chartism, Bare-back-ism, Sansculottism so-called! May the gods, and what of unworshipped heroes still remain among ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... in this place begin to astonish me; such cherries did I never yet see, or even hear tell of, as when I caught the Laquais de Place weighing two of them in a scale to see if they came to an ounce. These are, in the London street phrase, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... in his steps. Her hair was done up in a tower of top-knots and waterfalls; and there was drapery enough on the back of her dress to astonish an upholsterer. Instead of calling Nelly "her darling," as Nelly's first mother used to do, the queen merely said, as she swept by, "Where are your manners, child?" for you must know that poor Nelly ...
— The Nursery, September 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 3 • Various
... best a dull acquaintance with the Italian fifteenth and English eighteenth centuries, or, in revolt, set up for themselves as independent, hedgerow geniuses, ignorant, half-trained, and swollen by their prodigious conceit to such monsters as vastly astonish all those who can remember ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... contain a fair representation of the men of the day, and yet it is ludicrously incomplete. The literary side is as much overdone as the scientific side is neglected. This is not the place to make a list of shortcomings, but it will probably astonish most of our readers to learn that such eminent Men of the Time as Sir Frederick Abel, Sir Frederick Bramwell, and the late Dr. W.B. Carpenter are not mentioned. As this book has as a high reputation, the editor should thoroughly revise it ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... Professor Black, who leads the choir in the Linden Street church, is going to get up a comic opera with a cast from the various choirs, and I am invited. We are to go to Northville and give it in the little one-horse theater there. Won't it be gay? We shall astonish the natives of that small town! ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... dress was far beyond the reach of ordinary folk. She thought too of her necklace with secret satisfaction, when the ladies were talking to her, for she perceived their eyes frequently attracted by its brilliancy and beauty. Then her mind rambled into futurity, to the day when she would astonish these very ladies far more than now by the richness of her costume. Ah, dear readers, would our Saviour if present have called this little child to him, and said, "Of such is the kingdom of Heaven?" But all these selfish thoughts made her conversation ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... fierce defiance Greece astonish'd heard, Blush'd to refuse, and to accept it fear'd. Stern Menelaus first the silence broke, And, inly ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the principal aim of this armament seems to have been to watch and detain the few French ships which had run into the river Vil-laine, after the defeat of Confians; an object, the importance of which will doubtless astonish posterity. The fleet employed in this service was alternately commanded by admiral Boscawen and sir Edward Hawke, officers of distinguished abilities, whose talents might have been surely rendered subservient to much greater national advantages. All that Mr. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... lecturer, Bobbie," he said. "Wait until I get back home and astonish my father with all this knowledge. I'll ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... got back an answer that appeared to astonish him a good deal, for he sat knitting his brows over it ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Thus, when he made bold to praise her elocution, she was not offended, and, although she ignored his request to continue the "Scornful Lady," Anne proved sufficiently mistress of the interruption to astonish the intruder by her "discourse and sprightly wit." That innate breeding, of which no amount of poverty could deprive her, came to the surface, to show that a woman of quality is none the worse for a surprise. Farquhar, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... more of his slaves to whip every Monday morning. He did this to alarm their fears, and strike terror into those who escaped. His plan was to whip for the smallest offences, to prevent the commission of large ones. Mr. Hopkins could always find some excuse for whipping a slave. It would astonish one, unaccustomed to a slaveholding life, to see with what wonderful ease a slaveholder can find things, of which to make occasion to whip a slave. A mere look, word, or motion,—a mistake, accident, or want of power,—are ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... things too seriously," she pleaded. "Royleston isn't half so hopeless as he seems; he will come on to-night alert as a sparrow and astonish you. We have worked very hard, and the whole company needs rest now rather than more drill. To show your own worry would make them worse than ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... drive; it is he— look!' 'John!' said Mrs. Norton, seeking for her glasses nervously; 'yes, so it is; let's run and meet him. But no; let's take him rather coolly. I believe half his eccentricity is only put on because he wishes to astonish us. We won't ask him any questions—we'll just wait and let him tell his ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... itched to astonish each of the smirking men with a sound box on the ear. But my fiercest anger was against Dicky. If he had been properly attentive to me, Mr. Underwood and Dr. Pettit would have had no opportunity, indeed would not have dared, to pay me the idiotic compliments, or to offer the silly ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... our country which I beg she will accept; accompanying it is a little bundle of fire-crackers dear to every patriotic heart. The best way to appreciate them is to tie them together with their fuming little projecting frizzles, set fire to the last one and throw them on the street; the result will astonish you, I am sure. ...
— Silver Links • Various
... rage! Beauty is able sorrow to beguile. Out, traitor absence! thou dost hinder me, And mak'st my mistress often to forget, Causing me to rail upon her cruelty, Whilst thou my suit injuriously dost let; Again her presence doth astonish me, And strikes me dumb as if my sense were gone; Oh, is not this a strange perplexity? In presence dumb, she hears not absent moan; Thus absent presence, present absence maketh, That hearing my poor ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... various Christian Churches had accepted Jesus within thirty years of the crucifixion. And, too, the words of Paul and the Synoptists were written at a time when the sick were still being healed and even the dead raised by the practical application of Jesus' teachings. Hence, miracles did not astonish them. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and fears that had tormented him during the last few days this did not astonish him, but since they took these precautions with him, all was not yet decided. He must, then, defend himself to the utmost. Distracted before the danger came, he felt less weak now that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... were large and round, and of a china-blue colour; her eyebrows so arched as to give her an expression of perpetual surprise, her forehead full, her cheekbones high and pink, her small, pursed mouth of the kind which prefers to hide a sense of humour, and then astonish people with it when they have ceased to believe in its existence. If her complexion had not been netted all over with a lacework of infinitesimal wrinkles, she would have looked like a little girl dressed up for an old lady. She had a ribbon of the MacGregor tartan on ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... lay-figure, order a plaster torso, model feet, buy a Venus, have engravings of all the great masters. And if I work steadily for three years, quietly, without hurry, without being obliged to sell my pictures for my daily bread, I shall astonish ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the voiceless magic of the still countryside and to whimsical memories of his own childhood. Life was so much simpler then! Life would again be so much simpler when he had Babs driving by his side. . . . (If he could only drag her from the train and take her home to astonish and subjugate his parents! It would be worth a little mystery ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... drive on the Apollo Bunder. The line of fine carriages and motor cars is continuous for miles, going out the Esplanade to Queen's road, which runs for five miles to Malabar head, the favorite residence place of the wealthy foreign colony. What will astonish any one accustomed to Calcutta and other East Indian cities is the large representation of Parsee families in this evening dress parade. Two-thirds of the finest equipages belong to the Parsees, who are very richly dressed in silks and adorned with ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... something of atmosphere which gives it a mock-romantic interest. It holds the multitude by reason of the thrilling sensations extracted from incidents wholly unlike anything possible in their lives, but near enough to reported facts to be able to astonish and excite them. Such improbable but ingeniously contrived events are enough to distract them, and if there be more in Mr. Hyne's stories imparted by his personal eagerness and honesty, it escapes them, or at least does not ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... Lieutenant of the Horse Guards. Owner of more than 60,000 acres of land in various provinces. A fresh-looking, bland, agreeable gentleman of 60. Believes in Spiritualism, and likes to astonish people with ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... to run up and down stairs on their fore paws, dance jigs on their hind legs, and play various pretty pranks to the great delight of all the children in the audience. If ever a dog expressed by look and attitude, "Pooh! I could do much better than that, and astonish you all, if I was only allowed to," that dog was Sancho, as he curled himself up and affected to turn his ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... his followers, "I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent that ye might believe;" his absence led to the resurrection of Lazarus, and that event, he foresaw, would confirm their faith. So here, his aim is not to show how much he knows of the separate state, or to astonish the world by the display of its secrets; it is to give men while they are in the body those views of the separate state which will tell most effectually in leading the wicked to repentance, and in establishing ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... temperament and the professional pride of these people was furnished in the gay and braggart style in which they arrived at New York to join the enterprise. They were determined to regale and astonish the people of the "States" with the sight of a Canadian boat and a Canadian crew. They accordingly fitted up a large but light bark canoe, such as is used in the fur trade; transported it in a wagon from the banks of the St. Lawrence to the shores of Lake Champlain; traversed the lake in ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... man at all times to astonish on the one hand, and to court the marvelous on the other, is abundantly proved by present and past experience. That the nervous system may be worked upon by it to such a degree that a state either of extreme irritability, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... eye of wonder let me raise, While on imperial ROME I gaze. But oh! no more in glory bright She fills with awe th' astonish'd sight: Her mould'ring fanes in ruin trac'd, Lie scatter'd on Campania's waste. Nor only these—alas! we find The wreck involves the human mind: The lords of earth now drag a chain Beneath a pontiff's feeble reign; The ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... Supernatural subject, that we will not take the great liberty of arguing any point with him. But—with the view of assisting him to make converts—we will inform our readers, on his conclusive authority, what they are required to believe; premising what may rather astonish them in connexion with their views of a certain historical trifle, called The Reformation, that their present state of unbelief is all the fault of Protestantism, and that "it is high time, therefore, to ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... him abroad, in wider and wider circles, until he found himself at length in the very midst of the masses. Their number did not astonish him; he had always really been conscious of that. And he grew by this contact, and measured himself and the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and astonish them, ordered all the artillery to be fired, "the drums and fifes playing and beating the point of war;" the fte ended by their feasting, in their own camp, on a bullock which the general had given them, following up their repast by dancing the war dance round ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... that night for the City with a newspaper full of specimens inside his suit-case, and he knew that if any person or persons would put up money enough to tear that block of rock away and follow the fissure down, there would be found there something to astonish humanity, geologists ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... the Willow Cove, to pick up Marble. I found the honest fellow happy as the day was long; but telling fearfully long and wonderful yarns of his adventures, to the whole country round. My old mate was substantially a man of truth; but he did love to astonish "know-nothings." He appears to have succeeded surprisingly well, for the Dutchmen of that neighbourhood still recount anecdotes, of the achievements and sufferings of Captain Marvel, as they usually call him, though ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... painters; and having one day expressed great admiration for the talents of the artist, he led me into a recess of the room, and opening a chest, supported upon a pedestal, he observed, with a significant look, he was now going to produce something that would astonish me. He then took out several large volumes, which were full of figures, drawn in a very superior style and tinted with water colours, representing the several trades and occupations carried on in the country; but they seemed ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... asking wonderful things, and yet even his farthest-reaching petitions fall far on this side of the greatness of God's power. One might think that even it could go no further than filling us 'with all the fulness of God.' Nor can it; but it may far transcend our conceptions of what that is, and astonish us by its surpassing our thoughts, no less than it shames us ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... how many wars we have had in the pacific half-century which is lapsing? The tale will astonish him, and should silence the thoughtless word-spinners of the platforms. The door of the temple of Janus has been seldom closed for long. Our campaigns, great and small, and military enterprises of the lesser sort, could not be counted ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... "Captain Marble! You astonish me by this language, sir; but it is nothing more than a momentary feeling, of which your own good sense—nay, even your duty to the owners—will ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... without a miracle; we must know the spirit of the original languages, to distinguish between prophecy and figures of speech; we must know what facts are in accordance with nature and what facts are not, so that we may say how far a clever man may deceive the eyes of the simple and may even astonish the learned; we must discover what are the characteristics of a prodigy and how its authenticity may be established, not only so far as to gain credence, but so that doubt may be deserving of punishment; we must compare the evidence for true and false miracles, and find sure tests ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... good care we shall not try, that's just it," said Pembury, winking at his companion. "Never mind, we'll astonish you some day," growled the editor of the Dominican as he ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... long enough to learn what information they desired, it was an easy matter to satisfy them all to an exceptional extent. I put two good detectives at work to find out everything possible about the parties making the inquiries, and Lucille was thus able to astonish them with the accuracy of her knowledge as to the past. Of course, she was at liberty to exercise her own judgment as to her predictions for the future, since no one could tell whether they would prove true ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... good place to see everything there is to be seen," suggested Louis, as he looked about him. "The king is taking us to his palace in high style. If he meant to astonish us, he has hit the ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... logic nor philosophy offered any difficulty to the brilliant young scholar, whose knowledge of Scripture and of theology was to astonish the men of his time. Alexander himself as he grew older leaned more and more on Athanasius, consulting him, young as he was, on the most important matters. So the years rolled on, and the boy grew into manhood, "gentle and ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... being outwardly given to her challenge, no thunderbolt hurled upon her head, they imagine that she has triumphed over the Christ. The nimble band of demons seized their moment to astonish the people with various small wonders which amazed and overawed the more credulous. The toads, quite harmless in fact, but then accounted poisonous, were bitten and torn between their dainty teeth. They jumped over large fires and pans of live coal, to amuse the crowd and make them laugh ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... enthusiasm. He abandons himself in his letters to the feelings of the moment; he ardently pursues his immediate object by sophistical arguments which convict himself but could never convince a correspondent, and which astonish and amuse the calm reader of after days. 'A kind of ineffable, sickening disgust seizes my mind when I think of this most despotic, most unrequired fetter which prejudice has forged to confine its ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... The stop that has been put to the cruelties of the native rulers ought not to be forgotten in estimating the amount of evil and of good which that conquest has brought upon India. The world has been shocked by the cruelties of which the rebellious Sepoys have been guilty; but they can astonish no one who is familiar with the history of the races to which these mutineers belong. An indifference to life, and a love of cruelty for cruelty's sake, are common characteristics of most of the Orientals, and are chiefly conspicuous in the ruling classes. The reader ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... that followed this sinful act: That is not in the wisdom of mortal man to do; partly, because we know but in part even the evil and destructive nature of sin; and partly, because much of the evil that will follow this action, is yet to be committed by persons unborn. Yet enough might be said to astonish the heavens, and to make them horribly afraid (Jer 2:12). 1. By this act of these two, the whole world became guilty of condemnation and eternal judgment (Rom 5). 2. By this came all the blindness, atheism, ignorance of God, enmity and malice against him, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... become Pope. Nevertheless, ugly rumors were in circulation in regard to them; about children stolen, purses cut, and human flesh devoured. The wise people said to the foolish: "Don't go there!" and then went themselves on the sly. It was an infatuation. The fact is, that they said things fit to astonish a cardinal. Mothers triumphed greatly over their little ones after the Egyptians had read in their hands all sorts of marvels written in pagan and in Turkish. One had an emperor; another, a pope; another, a captain. Poor Chantefleurie was seized ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... threadlace and camel's-hair shawls. (We are off the island now.) If such were not my feeling, there would still be an obstacle to my loving Miss Daw. A greater misfortune could scarcely befall me than to love her. Flemming, I am about to make a revelation that will astonish you. I may be all wrong in my premises and consequently in my conclusions; but ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... their glitt'ring armour stripp'd, Round Hector throng'd, and bold Polydamas, The bravest and the best, who long'd the most To storm the wall, and burn with fire the ships. Yet on the margin of the ditch they paus'd; For, as they sought to cross, a sign from Heav'n Appear'd, to leftward of th' astonish'd crowd; A soaring eagle in his talons bore A dragon, huge of size, of blood-red hue, Alive, and breathing still, nor yet subdued; For twisting backward through the breast he pierc'd His bearer, near the neck; he, stung with pain, Let fall his prey, which dropp'd ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... him a whopper next time, and astonish him so that he'll forget his screws.—Yale Lit. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... the pride of an artist in the result of her efforts, and Max was hardly less delighted than herself as he stood before the glass, gazing at his hairy cheeks and leering horribly, to admire his toothless gums. If the result were so hideous as to astonish even those who had watched the process of his make-up, what wonder that the effect upon Shylock's fond parents ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... a good scholar," said Sarah, "and he was always ready to work too. Walter will never astonish or electrify the ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the nick for her friend Old Harry To come "with his tail," like the bold Glengarry, And drive her foes from their savage job As a mad black bullock would scatter a mob:- But no such matter is down in the bond; And spite of her cries that never cease, But scare the ducks and astonish the geese, The dame is dragged to the ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... made by chamber-barristers, and of the sums realized by counsel in departments of the profession that do not invite the attention of the general public, would astonish those uninformed persons who estimate the success of a barrister by the frequency with which his name appears in the newspaper reports of trials and suits. The talkers of the bar enjoy more eclat than the barristers who confine themselves to chamber practice, and their labors lead to ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... when I sauntered thither, I found fully a score of them in the height of enjoyment, and the wildest and most reckless fellow was my Bob. When he observed me standing on the shore he was so anxious to astonish me that he ventured into the water up to his chin, I shouted to him to come to shore, for he was in fearful peril, and it needed only a few inches further advance for him to drown ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... jolly good of you to say these things, Arthur, because they're not in your line, and I know you hate them. But you're dead right. I dare say I'll tell you something that will astonish you before long. But I'm not doing anything to be ashamed of. I haven't made any mistake; and if I had, I ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... she saw the blow, Astonish'd gave a dreadful shriek; And mother Tellus trembled so, She scarce ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... intellect. His studies had proved fairly satisfactory; if he was somewhat slow and heavy, and had frequently been delayed by youthful illnesses, he had, nevertheless, diligently plodded on. As he was far from talkative, his mother gave out that he was a reflective, concentrated genius, who would astonish the world by actions, not by speech. Before he was even fifteen she said of him, in her adoring way: "Oh! he has a great mind." And, naturally enough, she only acknowledged Blaise to be a necessary ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... his father thought to fit to threaten him with a shameful punishment he could endure it no longer. "Ah," he thought, "the fanatic Diderot is brought out again, then I will take the bull by the horns, I will astonish you all." And thereupon with a calm and even voice, though quaking inwardly in every limb, Ivan Petrovitch declared to his father, that there was no need to reproach him with immorality; that though he did not intend to justify his fault he was ready to make ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... disconcerted all the Pretenders Party who then govern'd the Queen, that they flew all in Pieces, astonish'd not to find the French insist upon the Pretender's Right, as they had laid the Design. They inform against one another, and by their unseasonable and discontinued Animosities threw the Queen into an Agony of Fear, which afterwards usher'd in the Agony of Death. In the mean Time ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... interests at my heart. Why should I bother about them? All I want is to get something fine for my husband when a chance arises. I know what's good better than you do, my friend. You showed me three libretti that didn't do. Show me one that does do, and I'll pay you a price that will astonish you." ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... wild things astonish him or fear him, But tell them all how mild he is of heart, Till e'en the timid hares go frankly near him, And eke the dappled does, yet never start; Nor shall their fawns into the thickets dart, Nor wrens forsake ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... foxes fly about from tree to tree; where the swans are black; where rats make nests; where the bower-bird opens her reception-rooms to receive visits from her feathered friends; where the birds astonish the imagination by the variety of their notes and their aptness; where one bird serves for a clock, and another makes a sound like a postilion cracking of a whip, and a third imitates a knife-grinder, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... without any trouble, but the other one, the big one, the splendid one, burned the very vitals of us, it was so hot to get out and we so hot to let it out and astonish people with it. But we had to keep it in; in fact, it kept itself in. Satan said it would, and it did. We went off every day and got to ourselves in the woods so that we could talk about Satan, and really that was the only subject we thought of or cared anything ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... distance. This he seemed willing to do, but before we had gone many paces he repeated two or three times a phrase or word which sounded like "r'mo-ah-el" ("whence-who-what" do you want?). I shook my head; but, that he might not suppose me dumb, I answered him in Latin. The sound seemed to astonish him exceedingly; and as I went on to repeat several questions in the same tongue, for the purpose of showing him that I could speak and was desirous of doing so, I observed that his wonder grew deeper and deeper, and was evidently mingled first with alarm and afterwards with ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Equality, Fraternity' that the French put on their public buildings. I used to have the most wonderful visions of what independence would mean. I thought that when I was absolutely my own master, with my money and my courage and my free mind, I would do things to astonish all mankind. But really the most I achieve is the occasional mild surprise of a German waiter. Even that palls on one after a time. And if you were independent, Edith—if you had any amount of money—what difference do you think it would make to you? What could you do that you don't ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... seems to me nothing very wonderful if the story should be on the whole true, and these worthies were in the habit of dressing themselves up, like foolish savages as they were, in the skins of the Aguara dog, with what not of stuffing, and tails, and so forth, in order to astonish the weak minds of the Caribs, just as the Red Indians dress up in their feasts as bears, wolves, and deer, with foxtails, false bustles of bison skin, and so forth. There are plenty of traces of such foolish attempts at playing 'bogy' in the history of ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... the unsubstantial Sprite To his astonish'd gaze each moment grew; Ghastly and gaunt, it rear'd its shadowy height, Of more than mortal seeming to the view, And round its long, thin, bony fingers drew A tatter'd winding-sheet, of course ALL WHITE;— The moon that moment peeping through ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... soon," said the doctor, looking at the corpse before him; "but that ought not to astonish you; Monsieur and Madame de Saint-Meran died as soon. People die very suddenly in your house, M. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... came up, one by one, breathless and flushed (like racers who had pulled up), and at last the victor appeared with the dollar between his teeth. We left these juvenile Sam Patches, and returned to the town. [Sam Patch, an American peripatetic, who used to amuse himself and astonish his countrymen by leaping down the different falls in America. He leaped down a portion of the Niagara without injury; but one fine day, having taken a drop too much, he took a leap too much. He went down the Genassee Fall, and since that time ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all." ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... Fortune pleased to change Her mind, and on the Roman youth bestow The favours he enjoy'd; nor was he so Amazed who frighted the Israelitish host— Struck by the Hebrew boy, that quit his boast; Nor Cyrus more astonish'd at the fall The Jewish widow gave his general: As one that sickens suddenly, and fears His life, or as a man ta'en unawares In some base act, and doth the finder hate; Just so was he, or in a worse estate: Fear, grief, and shame, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... to thrive and all sorts of storms are likely to rise out of a clear sky and blight them. Some of the seeds one thought would surely grow the fastest are total disappointments, while others that one just planted to fill in, fairly astonish one by their growth, but if at the end of the freshman year the garden looks green and well cared for, it's safe to say it will keep on growing through the sophomore and junior years and bloom at the ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... in the advance of electro-magnetism, though small, were such as to interest and astonish the scientific world. With the same battery used by Mr. Sturgeon, at least a hundred times more magnetism was produced than could have been obtained by his experiment. The developments were considered at the time of much importance ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... a railroad to the Pacific coast. That, when it is done, will annex a vast and singularly fruitful country to the Union. The fertility of the soil there, and the favorable climatic conditions, promise results that must presently astonish mankind. But in the meanwhile it is our part of the nation-building work to develop the resources of what we now call the West. Minnesota, in its eastern part, is already producing wheat in an abundance that discourages all eastern farmers and ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... knew it would astonish you. My chief pleasure in life, professor, is the surprising of you. I sometimes wonder why it delights me; it ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... by Reddy's paltry egotism and injustice, was at its boiling- pitch once more. He planted himself firmly in his chair, and putting on his fiercest frown, was determined to confront Mister Goggins with an aspect that should astonish him. ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... he made his stakes; and right away after dinner he called us out. 'Come, boys,' says he, 'now we'll astonish ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... no common intelligence, and your gentleness to him does not astonish me, though it seems often to raise a frown on the ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the way knowledge which would astonish his professors." ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... so have I read of old Rome; but the sight of Rome, Caesar and the senate would not astonish me more than that of London, the Queen and the Parliament. Both are yet ideal; the imagination has sketched them, but when were its sketches ever true to nature? I have a veneration for both, but, gentle reader, excuse the confessions of an old man, for I have a soft spot ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... her small straight features into wrinkles of disgust and a shrug seemed to run all over her little trim smartly-gowned figure; no presumption could astonish her in Quisante. ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... A redwood forest was soon encountered, and new difficulties developed. The underbrush was dense and no trails were found. Fallen trees made progress very slow. Two miles a day was all they could accomplish. They painfully worked through the section of the marvelous redwood belt destined to astonish the world, reaching a small prairie, where they camped. The following day they devoted to hunting, luckily killing a number of deer. Here they remained several days, drying the venison in the meantime; but when, their ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... soon started for the highest peak of the island of Poloe—or Poloeland, as Alf preferred to call it. Oolichuk carried on his broad shoulders one of those mysterious cases out of which the Captain was so fond of taking machines wherewith to astonish ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... the sultana in astonish, ment at the penetration of the brothers, whom he summoned to his presence, and inquired of them on what grounds they had founded their just suspicions respecting the bread, the kid, and himself." "My lord," replied the elder prince," when I broke the cake, the flour ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... know who you might be, and I refused to learn. I never did anything so chivalrous in my life; no, never! I consider it is grander than to risk one's life for an interview of ten minutes. Perhaps I may astonish you still more, when I say that I can learn all about you in any moment, any hour, and yet I refuse to learn, because you wish I ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... were gone, how did Dr. Johnson astonish me by asking if I had observed what an ugly cap Miss Gregory had on? Then taking both my hands, and looking at me with an expression ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... a fresh search at Donnay; and, as his reputation obliged him to be successful, and as he was not unwilling to astonish the authorities of Calvados by the quickness of his perceptions, he caused Acquet de Ferolles to be arrested. It was he who had first warned the gendarmes of the sojourn of the brigands at Donnay, and this seemed exceedingly suspicious; ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... neck, sniffed a little, and cropped from his hand the wisp of rowen hay he held, as composedly as if she were a tame kitten, and then followed him all round the yard for more, which I am sorry to say she did not get. Pat had only displayed her accomplishments to astonish me, and then shut her in her stall again. I afterward hunted out Biddy's history, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... and scratched all day. He was loved for himself alone, and he did not care for anything but that. Then he went home, made an elaborate toilet, and returned to astonish her. Alas! old Abner had been about, and seeing how Joab had worn her smooth and useless, had cut her down for firewood. Joab gave one glance, then walked solemnly away into a "clearing," and getting comfortably astride a blazing heap of logs, made ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... treatment? No, surely not. It would be too unreasonable to expect any benefit so soon; besides, she was probably no better physically, that is, her lameness and dyspepsia were not touched as yet, if indeed they ever could be. Well, how it would astonish everybody if she really were cured, and could walk like her old self again. Her stiffened limb would have to undergo a marvelous change, but time would tell—it seemed nothing was beyond reach of this extraordinary Power. Miss Greening was so sincere and earnest, she could not ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... they were disappointed of their hope; for the miners could make but small progress, and that with difficulty also; insomuch that their provisions, though they distributed them by measure, began to fail them. And now Simon, thinking he might be able to astonish and elude the Romans, put on a white frock, and buttoned upon him a purple cloak, and appeared out of the ground in the place where the temple had formerly been. At the first, indeed, those that ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... and round, and of a china-blue colour; her eyebrows so arched as to give her an expression of perpetual surprise, her forehead full, her cheekbones high and pink, her small, pursed mouth of the kind which prefers to hide a sense of humour, and then astonish people with it when they have ceased to believe in its existence. If her complexion had not been netted all over with a lacework of infinitesimal wrinkles, she would have looked like a little girl dressed ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... exhibits the most authentic proofs of the uniform course of nature, it affords also the most evident examples of the degradation of the human mind. It is there we find the cause of those ruins that astonish, and the desolation that afflicts. Had men continued their exertions, the labour of their hands would ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... to go into service, and yet he had luxurious habits of life which he thought he could not abandon. Indeed, there was no necessity of abandoning these habits, since he had lost the strength of conviction as well as the resolution, the vanity and the desire to astonish people that he had possessed in his youth. The other alternative—to reject all the arguments against private ownership of land which he gathered from Spencer's Social Statics, and of which he found confirmation ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... world was likely to become convulsed. Wars, as everybody knew, were certainly to break out; and would it not be an excellent opportunity for being father to a colonel, or, perhaps, a general, that might astonish the world. ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... He in time became an emanation, proceeding from God. This was not enough; he was even born before time. At last he was God consubstantial with God. Crellius, Voquelsius, Natalis, Alexander, and Hornbeck, have supported all these blasphemies by arguments, which astonish the wise and mislead the weak. Above all, Faustus Socinus spread the seeds of this doctrine in Europe; and at the end of the sixteenth century, a new species of Christianity was established. There were already more than three hundred.—[Philosophical ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... putters. A golfer may have been putting badly for a long time, but directly he takes a new putter in his hand he feels that a great change for the better has been effected, and forthwith he begins to astonish himself by holing out from almost anywhere, or at least always getting his ball dead the first time. There is no accounting for these things. They seem very absurd. But there they are, and ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... the zither in a way that would astonish you. He has got a little money. Franziska and he would be able to live ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... aid. But his mode of thought was simpler than that of the Court of Vienna. Schwarzenberg, when it was remarked that the intervention of Russia in Hungary would bind the House of Hapsburg too closely to its protector, had made the memorable answer, "We will astonish the world by our ingratitude." It is possible that an instance of Austrian gratitude would have astonished the world most of all; but Schwarzenberg's successors were not the men to sacrifice a sound principle to romance. Two courses of Eastern policy have, under various modifications, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... infancy of our theatre when nothing proceeded from the crowd of rival dramatists but rude and abortive efforts, ridiculed by the learned and judicious of their own age and forgotten by posterity, to astonish and enchant the nation with those inimitable works which form the perpetual boast and immortal heritage ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... reasonable, Margaret," said Sarah Warner, "we can't drive all the men out of the country, and don't want to, but we can fix a standard of morals to astonish the world, and there could be no better way than by making an example of this man Gorky. Don't you see that he is a foreigner and can't very well know that our men are just as bad as he is? Besides, isn't he a Socialist? We would have been willing to condone his relations with that ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... no doubts and fears regarding the bread-and-butter question. He had no pride, save possibly a pride in the fact that he had none. He played checkers, worked out mathematical problems in his mind to astonish the loafers, related history to instruct them—and get it straight in his own mind—and told them stories to make them laugh. It is a great misfortune to associate only with cultured people. "God loves the common people," said Lincoln, "otherwise He would not have made so ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... rendered the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the undertaking was abandoned." * Such authority should satisfy a believing, and must astonish an incredulous, mind. Yet a philosopher may still require the original evidence of impartial and intelligent spectators. At this important crisis, any singular accident of nature would assume the appearance, and produce the effects ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... brother," and Gerald made an attempt at levity, "you are indeed an unsparing monitor; but suppose I should offer in reply, that a spirit of enterprize was upon me on the occasion to which you allude, and that, fired by a desire to astonish you all with a bold feat, I had resolved to do what no other had done before me, yet without apprehending the serious consequences which ensued—or even assuming the danger to have ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... a cultivated mind, and was not fond of either literary or scientific pursuits. To beguile the hours he amused himself with tools, carving toys for children, and ingenious puppets and automata to astonish the peasants. For a time he was very happy in his new employment. After so stormy a life, the perfect repose and freedom from care which he enjoyed in the convent, seemed to him the perfection of bliss. But soon the novelty ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... "when the master kills the game he must first carry it home. Let us take him and set him up against the bower door there, to astonish the brave knights inside." And stooping down, he attempted to lift the huge carcass; but in vain. At last, with Martin's help, he got it fairly on his shoulders, and the two dragged their burden to the bower ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... left in a state of perturbation that was hardly to be endured. The contempt with which she had been treated during the whole visit was nothing short of insult, but the accusations with which it was concluded did not more irritate than astonish her. ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... became prevalent in the neighborhood. That Dr. Lester should be willing to take charge of an unknown girl did not astonish those who knew of his many charitable deeds. It was not more than he had done for his cousin's child, who had no especial claim upon him. He had adopted Lawrence Egerton, educated him, sent him to college, and was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... red O' this jumpin', thumpin' pain 'n my head." For all the while to himself he said:— "I'll tell ye what! I'll fly a few times around the lot, To see how 't seems, then soon's I've got The hang o' the thing, ez likely's not, I'll astonish the nation, And all creation, By flyin' over the celebration! Over their heads I'll sail like an eagle; I'll balance myself on my wings like a sea-gull; I'll dance on the chimbleys; I'll stan' on the steeple; I'll flop up to winders an' scare the people! I'll light ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... to his new bondage, and rejoiced in it, as though he had found at last what he was seeking for; and, by the time that long vacation came round again, to which we are compelled to hurry him, he was filled full of a set of contradictory notions and beliefs, which were destined to astonish and perplex the mind of that worthy J. P. for the county of Berks, Brown the elder, whatever other effect they might have ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... mutual faults were made! What kisses and forgivenesses were exchanged! At last the two poor souls who had dwelt in the chill of mistakes and ignorance knew that they loved each other. Sometimes the Lord grants such sudden unfoldings to souls long closed. They are of those royal compassions which astonish ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... had pocketed the money, Mr. Fogg said to him, "Don't let this astonish you, sir. You must know that I shall lose twenty thousand pounds, unless I arrive in London by a quarter before nine on the evening of the 21st of December. I missed the steamer at New York, and as you refused to take ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... lived for seven or eight centuries like savages, and to complete our barbarism, were inundated with a race of men termed monks, who brutified, in Europe, that human species which you had conquered and enlightened. But what will most astonish you is, that in the latter ages of ignorance amongst these very monks, these very enemies to civilization, nature nurtured some useful men. Some invented the art of assisting the feeble sight of age; and others, by pounding together nitre and charcoal, have furnished us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... powers did not surprise me, for those I knew already; but those transports of dramatic passion, your powerful acting, so sure of itself, did certainly astonish me." ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... of thunder in a fair frosty day could more astonish the world than our declaration of war ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... most of them read German, if they do not speak it. French is universal, however, for the French novel is far more to the taste than the more sober English book. The number and quality of these French books read by the Dutch young lady are enough to astonish and probably shock an English girl, who reads often with difficulty the safe 'Daudet' ('Sapho' excepted), but the young Dutchwoman knows of no Index Expurgatorius, and reads what she likes. At the same time the classics of England and Germany are very generally read and valued, and many ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... which the senses can be improved or exalted, can best be understood by observing how perfect they become when we are compelled to cultivate them. Thus the blind, who are obliged to cultivate hearing, feeling, and smelling, often astonish us by the keenness of these senses. They will distinguish sounds—especially voices—which others cannot; and with so much accuracy, as to remember for several years the voice of a person in a large ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... outside of the curve that I assume?) If the slope of these three volcanoes were uniform from the summit to the base, the peak of Teyde would have an inclination of 12 degrees 29 minutes, Vesuvius 12 degrees 41 minutes, and Etna 10 degrees 13 minutes, a result which must astonish those who do not reflect on what constitutes an average slope. In a very long ascent, slopes of three or four degrees alternate with others which are inclined from 25 to 30 degrees; and the latter only strike ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... others, who came here in that very year as an embassy from Goa to seek various privileges from the Mogul Government, described it over and over again. At this epoch it was one of the greatest cities of the world, whose magnificent streets and luxurious ways used to astonish the most pompous courts of India. It seems almost incredible that in such a short period nothing should remain of this town but the heaps of rubbish, amongst which we could hardly find room enough for our tent. At last we decided to pitch it in the only building which remained in a tolerable ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... the late Emperor breathes throughout a spirit of humanity, which must astonish every one acquainted with his character. The punishment of death, which, according to Blackstone, may be inflicted by the English law in one hundred and sixty different offences, is now in France confined to the very highest crimes only; the number of which does not exceed ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... had my lesson," she declared. "You'll never have the chance to laugh twice, and this one is such a sky-scraper it would astonish you." ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... really a learned man, read Greek and Latin authors—not as a mere exercise of classical scholarship—but because he identified himself with their philosophical opinions, and would have revived Greek customs and modes of life. He used to give suppers after the manner of the ancients, and used to astonish his guests by the ancient cookery of Spartan broth, and of mulsum. He was an enthusiastical Platonist. On a visit to Oxford, he was received with great respect by the scholars of the University, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... get that stylish suit?" whispered Miss Smith to Miss Jones, as Kitty floated into the station with all sail set, finding it impossible to resist the temptation to astonish certain young ladies who had snubbed her in times past, which snubs had rankled, and ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... but that should hardly astonish you so much as the fact that he was a Boisdhyver. Why are ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... grand test of your modern Englishman is, to bear any amount of amusement without wincing: no pleasure is to wring a smile from him, nor is any expectancy to interest, or any unlooked-for event to astonish. He would admit that "the Governor"—meaning his father—was surprised; he would concede the fact, as recording some prejudice of a bygone age. As the tone of manners and observance has grown universal, so has the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... to which women have been the occasions, the suggesters, and sustaining encouragers of artistic creations in literature, painting, sculpture, and music, will astonish any one who will take the trouble to look up the history of it. When Orpheus found that Eurydice was gone, he threw his harp away. Women have delighted to administer inspiration, praise, and comfort, to great poets, orators, philosophers, because it gratifies their natural ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the house-top, and the saddled horses below, he would conclude that two of the steeds were intended to be ridden by the ladies; in that style of equitation with which the famed Duchesse de Berri was accustomed to astonish the Parisians. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... supposest, I was for so long together daily and hourly a personal witness—when, admirable as she was in all she said, and in all she did, occasion had not at that time ripened, and called forth, those amazing perfections which now astonish and confound me. ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... the girls home in safety: and when the door was closed upon them, and as he walked across Russell Square, laughed so as to astonish the watchman. Amelia looked very ruefully at her friend, as they went up stairs, and kissed her, and went to bed without any ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lies only just out of sight beneath the ordinary life. In order to produce this effect of the mysterious he aims at extreme simplicity of style and a very realistic symbolism. He allows life itself to astonish us by its strangeness, by its inexplicable elements. Many of his plays are really pathetic ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... that of Egypt and Judea. It is mainly these later formations—the Permian, the Jurassic, the Triassic, the Cretaceous, the Eocene,—that give the prevailing features to the South-western landscape that so astonish Eastern eyes. From them come most of the petrified remains of that great army of extinct reptiles and mammals—the three-toed horse, the sabre-toothed tiger, the brontosaurus, the fin-backed lizard, the imperial mammoth, ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... perfect special preparation for the coming event, are least likely to suffer from that great disturber, nervousness; and when they are somewhat tense, the well-disciplined often recover rapidly, and frequently astonish their friends by the success of their first appearance. We strongly recommend all who can to take rest on the day preceding and following a hard evening's work, and preferably, in summer, in the open air. A quiet walk in a park, where one ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... watched intently, hoping to see other bergs, or, indeed, any ships that should tell me how far we had gone towards the north; but the night fell suddenly, and the negro served dinner, asking me if I had warmth enough? My curt answer seemed to astonish him; but the truth was that I was thinking of the man Paolo's words when sick upon my own ship. He had cried, "Ice, ice," more than once in his delirium; but none of us then had the meaning of his cry. Yet I had it, and with it a notion ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... She waited the fitting moment, with splendour to astonish, and with grandeur to subdue her lover. To tell the sad truth, she was no longer sure that it would be well to encourage him on the old footing; was she not standing on tiptoe, her skirts in her hand, on the brink of the brook that parted serfdom from gentility, on the ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... appearances, your guardian and I; and I think that I kept them up best. As for Herr Lippheim, it was only when you accused me of rudeness to him that I confessed how much it astonished me to find that he was the man your guardian had wished you to marry. It does astonish me. Herr Lippheim isn't even ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... cries of disappointment and rage, as they found that everything they prized had been carried off. Some of the provisions, however, which had been left behind were at length discovered; and before long they found their way to the menagerie. This seemed to astonish them not a little. Several of the creatures, however, having been left without food, were howling piteously. At last I caught sight of a fellow rubbing away with two pieces of bamboo, and I knew well enough that he was striking a light. Another ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... put the sheet back; "I think that such a theme, adequately treated, will considerably astonish my learned friends in general, and my esteemed ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... nothing to relate myself," replied the old detective, without even drawing his pipe from his lips, "I am too stupid, that is perfectly understood. But Monsieur Lecoq will tell you something that will astonish you." ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... discrepancies at all. They have left in the historic portions of their narrative an air of general harmony, with an exquisite congruity in points which lie deep below the surface,—a congruity which they must be supposed to have known would astonish the world when once discovered; and have at the same time left certain discrepancies on the surface (which criticism would be sure to point out), as if for the very purpose of affording guaranties and vouchers against the suspicion of collusion. ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... put out my white cashmere for tea, and at five I started to find my way to the blue drawing-room. The bannisters are so broad and slippery—the very things for sliding on. I feel as if I should start down them one day, just to astonish Adeline, only I promised you I would be good. Well, when I got to the drawing-room, the party—about twelve—had assembled. The old Earl had been wheeled in from his rooms: he wears a black velvet skull-cap and a stock but he has a splendid and distinguished ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... conceivable article on the bed or floor, and then with an air of self-denial you say, "There, that will be enough;" and when you find an additional portmanteau lugged out, you ask with an air of astonishment (which may well astonish the servant), "What on earth are you going to do with that?" "To put your things into it, sir," is the very natural, reply; so, after a good deal of "Confound it, what a bore," &c., it ends in everything being again unpacked, a fresh lot thrown aside, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... are by no means common. You may live in the west for many years without witnessing a scene such as those described by Wilson and Audubon, though once or twice every year you may see pigeons enough to astonish you. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... enabled her to succeed in every thing which she undertook. Invincible industry and energy were united with these dreams. She was ambitious of knowing every thing; and when her father placed in her hands the burin, wishing to teach her to engrave, she immediately acquired such skill as to astonish both of her parents. And she afterward passed many pleasant hours in engraving, on highly-polished plates of brass, beautiful emblems of flowers as tokens of affection ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... her little self erect, and trying to look very dignified, "I am astonish! I am regret! You am very onright. You am to be gone to Fraeulein Ashton next day and say you regret; I determine ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... boat! You astonish me. I thought escape from the Belle Helene was the one wish ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... else in this country, at this very moment. One leading New York paper, edited by New England men, during the last controversy about the indemnity to be paid by France, actually styled the Due de Broglie "his grace," like a Grub Street cockney,—a mode of address that would astonish that respectable statesman, quite as much as it must have amused every man of the world who saw it. I have been much puzzled to account for this peculiarity—unquestionably one that exists in the country—but have supposed ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... wiser? Young and inexperienced as you are, and early as you must have been accustomed, from your mother as well as from Mr Belfield, to far other doctrine, the clearness of your judgment, and the justness of your remarks, astonish as much as ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... measure up to his original will astonish no one who knows Shakespeare translations in other languages. Even Tieck's and Schlegel's German, or Hagberg's Swedish, or Foersom's Danish is no substitute for Shakespeare. Whether or not Madhus measures up ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... the eighteen-inch game, on a world-famous night last winter. With practice, that champion could score nineteen or twenty on the Jackass Gulch table; but to start with, Texas Tom would show him miracles that would astonish him; also it might have another handsome result: it might persuade the great experts to discard their own trifling game and bring the Jackass Gulch outfit here and exhibit their skill in a game worth a hundred of the discarded one, for profound and breathless ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... distinct odor, by which he could tell things worn by them, or books they had handled. Laura Bridgeman is said to have selected the laundry of the pupils in her school by this unusual process. I frequently astonish my friends by telling them when I pass a drug store or hospital, a grocery, a confectioner's, or drygoods store, a paint shop, a florist's stand, or a livery stable. I do not think the blind have a keener sense of taste than any other class of people, although this claim ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... to novel surroundings and the influence they exerted. Ann talked to him at times of his mother, but he had the disinclination to speak of the dead which most children have, and had in some ways been kept so much of a child as to astonish his aunt. Neither Leila nor any one could have failed to like him and his gentle ways, and as between him and the village boys she knew Leila preferred this clever, if too timid, cousin. So far they ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... and miraculous skies bless and astonish my eyes; All my dead secrets arise, all my dead stories come true. Here is the Gate to the Sea. Once you unlocked it for me; Now, since you gave me the key, shall I unlock ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... on the morning after Mr. Dinsmore's departure. Gertrude was late to breakfast, and when reproved by her mother answered in a manner so disrespectful as to quite astonish the young Travillas. They expected to see her banished at once from the table and the room; but her mother only looked grave and said in a tone of displeasure, "Gertrude, I cannot have you speak to me in that way—Don't ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... I can do, and it's good to feel that I haven't lost my power. It's odd, but I feel a different woman when I'm impressing my will on these wretched cats. You must come one of these days and see a performance, when I've got them ship-shape. They'll astonish you. And then," she would add, "I can write to Anastasius and tell him how his beloved cats are ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute in ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge. While the first kind study, the second march ahead; the one sort is modest, and the other impudent; the man of genius is silent about his own merits, but these schemers make a flourish of theirs, and they ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... should be oftener asserted falsely than an ordinary combination. It excites wonder. It gratifies the love of the marvelous. The motives, therefore, to falsehood, one of the most frequent of which is the desire to astonish, operate more strongly in favor of this kind of assertion than of the other kind. Thus far there is evidently more reason for discrediting an alleged coincidence, than a statement in itself not more probable, but ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... fascinations of his brilliant business successes had a firm grip upon him. He indulges himself, indeed, from time to time, with the fancy that some day, far off now, he will return to the scenes of his boyhood, and astonish some of the old landholders by buying them out at a fabulous price, and by erecting a "castle" of his own, to be enlivened by the fairy graces of some sylph not yet fairly determined upon. Surely not Rose, who would hardly be equal to the grandeur of his proposed establishment, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... these things. He only realised that his father had the faculty and apparently the intention of freezing any originality he chanced to show, and he inwardly resented the coldness, quietly, if foolishly, resolving to astonish those who misunderstood him by seizing the first opportunity of doing something out of the common way. For some time he stood in silence watching the people who came by and glancing from time to time at the dense crowd outside the barrier. He was suddenly aware that his father was ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... persistent prejudice and injustice towards this man astonish me. Wynne, though poor and degraded now, is a gentleman born, and is no more likely to violate a tomb than the best Aylwin ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... stood talking rapidly but in such low tones that I could not catch a word. To judge by their gestures, Francois was the bearer of fresh news, but whether good or evil I could not determine. It was, however, evidently of considerable significance, and such as to astonish the dwarf. ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... a German. Didn't that chap Holsteig astonish you this morning? In spite of living here so long and marrying a British wife, his sympathies are dead German, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
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