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More "Astounding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me that a higher court than those of New York has passed judgment on this astounding ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... mathematician—(his Lettres provinciales was published anonymously)—-and when his fame was rising he retired to Port Royal, where he lived the life of a recluse. The duc de la Rochefoucauld declined the honour from a proud modesty, and Rotrou died too soon to be elected. The one astounding omission of the 17th century, however, is the name of Moliere, who was excluded by his profession as an actor.1 On the other hand, the French Academy was never more thoroughly representative of letters than when Boileau, Corneille, La Fontaine, Racine, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... internationally famous for his unique and astounding experiments in the realm of sound and rhythm. He had been endowed by one of the great electrical companies to do original work, and his laboratory, in which he lived, was situated in a large tract of isolated woodland some forty miles from New York City. It was necessary for the success of ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... employer's many millions, and it was expressly stipulated that this great inheritance was given to him without qualification, hitch, or hindrance in the exercise thereof. Not a share of stock, not a penny of cash, was bequeathed to the dead man's relatives. As for his direct family, one astounding clause expressly stated that Wade Atsheler was to dispense to Eben Hale's wife and sons and daughters whatever moneys his judgement dictated, at whatever times he deemed advisable. Had there been any scandal in the dead man's family, or had his ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... things. Of this she felt absolutely convinced, and it would not have astonished her to find herself claimed as daughter by any of the reigning families of Europe. She was prepared for anything, or so she said to herself, however astounding; and, that being so, she was excited in proportion. Anyone could have told her that, by this attitude of mind towards the future, she was laying up for herself disappointment at the least, if not the bitterest disillusions; but there was no one ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... Manchester, "having travelled 120 miles in four separate journeys, and bought, sold, and delivered, 30 miles off, at two distinct deliveries, 300 tons of goods, in about 12 hours." The occurrence is perfectly astounding; and, had it been hinted at fifty years ago, would have been ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... dictatorship seemed undisputed. But from the day of the Manchu Abdication almost, he was constantly engaged in calculating whether he dared risk everything on one throw of the dice and ascend the Throne himself; and it is precisely this which imparts such dramatic interest to the astounding story which follows. ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... determination of the British people rather to die in death grips with German militarism than to live and let it survive. The best chance for the aircraft was at the beginning of the war, when a surprise development might have had astounding results. That chance has gone by. The Germans are racially inferior to both French and English in the air, and the probability of effective blows over the deadlock is on the whole a probability in favour of the Allies. Nor is there anything on or ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... etext was produced from Astounding Stories September 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... the hottest of rivals in an effort to deliver something good. Gettysburg furnished a tale of a breeze in the unpeopled wilds of Nebraska where two men's farms, fully twenty miles apart, had undergone an astounding experience whereby a complete exchange of their houses, barns, and sheds had been effected by a cyclone, without the slightest important damage to ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... received that piece of astounding intelligence, the mental shock seemed to produce paralysis, for the garment she was about to put on remained suspended in the air as she exclaimed: "Well, I swan! I thought he was married to his hired pets. How did ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... could find asleep under stones and roots, and then on beetles that scrambled away briskly at the first alarm, and then, when the sunshine was brightest, on grasshoppers,—lively, wary fellows that zipped and buzzed away just when you were sure you had them, and that generally landed from an astounding jump facing in a different direction, like a flea, so as to be ready ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... to complicate the Herzegovinian-Montenegrin question, private machinations have recently been the most successful, and consequently the most injurious to order and the general weal. The energy of some of the foreign employes has been truly astounding, while their glib tongues and manoeuvring minds have worked metamorphoses worthy of Robin or the Wizard of the North. This distortion of facts was somewhat naively described by a French colleague ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... Napoleon, was in statesmanship and warfare. Without going the full length of this notion, it will, at least, be conceded, that the free loose which had been given to all the passions and energies of the human mind, in the great struggle of that period, together with the constant spectacle of such astounding vicissitudes as were passing, almost daily, on the theatre of the world, had created, in all minds, and in every walk of intellect, a taste for strong excitement, which the stimulants supplied from ordinary sources were insufficient to gratify;—that a tame deference to established ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... was produced from Astounding Stories November 1931. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... history of these infant races, in whom impulse and heroism were the predominant factors, there is nothing stranger, nothing more astounding, than this almost universal custom, which for all its ingenuity would seem almost too long-suffering and mercantile. May we attribute it to the foresight of the chiefs? We find it in races among whom authority might almost be said to be entirely lacking. Did it originate among ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... schoolgirl's tricks, but she listened religiously to Jean-Christophe's remarks, acknowledged that they were right, gave little timid cries herself when she made a mistake and set herself to be more accurate. Jean-Christophe could not understand it. In a very short time she made astounding progress. Not only did she play better, but with musical feeling. Little as he was given to flattery, he had to pay her a compliment. She blushed with pleasure, and thanked him for it with a look tearful with gratitude. She took ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... route had to be covered at the astounding pace of twenty-five miles an hour, as the distance between stations was determined by the physical character of ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... whether he had them or not. Nothing matters now, except to get home," was the astounding answer. Clo could hardly believe that she had heard aright. Ten—five minutes ago, nothing in the world mattered, except the papers and the pearls. Now they ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... individual. Besides, it is well to consider that laziness results either from special privileges, or physical and mental abnormalities. Our present insane system of production fosters both, and the most astounding phenomenon is that people should want to work at all now. Anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening, dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to make work an instrument of joy, ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... water-brambles," remarked the frog, with a self-satisfied smile. "No doubt you are surprised at the delicacy and refinement of our tastes. Many human beings are under the deplorable mistake of supposing we live on slimy water and dirty insects—ha, ha, ha! whereas our cuisine is astounding in variety and delicacy of material and flavour. If it were not too late in the season, I wish you could have tasted our mushroom ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... day had intervened when, early in the morning as we were going to breakfast, Mr. Woodcourt came in haste with the astounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which Mr. George had been apprehended and was in custody. When he told us that a large reward was offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock for the murderer's apprehension, I did not in my first consternation understand why; but a few more words explained ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... end of which he administered to them a teaspoonful of wine out of a cup. Reading and chanting were again resumed and continued for a long time, the bridegroom and bride crossing and prostrating themselves continually, and the deacon closing up his responses by repeating with the most astounding rapidity, fifteen times in five seconds, the words "Gaspodi pomilui" (goss'-po-dee-po-mee'-loo-ee), "God have mercy upon us." He then brought in two large gilt crowns ornamented with medallions, and, blowing off ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... something that applied to her own case; but she soon discovered that all the sentimental heroines in the so-called bad books were persons who had had bad husbands; besides, they were either widows or old women—at least thirty years old! It was astounding! There was nothing—absolutely nothing—about young girls, except instances in which they renounced their hopes of happiness. What an injustice! Among these victims the two that most attracted her sympathy were Madame de Camors and Renee Mauperin. But what horrors surrounded them! What a varied ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... in the goodness of the man who had already seen more of the world than Tom Boswell would ever see, he rushed in to tell Bertha and the rest of his excited family the astounding talk he had just had ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... even more astounding. At tremendous acceleration, Malcom Porter and Terrence Elshawe, your reporter, headed for Mars. Inside Porter's ship, there is no feeling of acceleration except for a steady, one-gee pull which makes the passenger feel as though he is on an ordinary airplane, ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... its popularity and influence, and of the meaning of the term Marlowesque, an adjective referring more directly to Tamburlaine than to any other of Marlowe's plays. It is in this play that our ears are dinned almost beyond sufferance by the poet's 'high astounding terms', that the hero most nearly 'with his uplifted forehead strikes the sky': incredible victories are won, the vilest cruelties practised; vast empires are shaken to their foundations, kings are overthrown and new ones crowned as easily as the wish is expressed; everywhere pride calls ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... blots, I vow to you I never write a letter myself that I don't smear most damnably—curse me if I don't. That blot, sir, shall be another bond between us, for I have conceived a great regard for you. The astounding likeness between you and one who—was snatched away in the flower of his youth—draws me, sir, draws me most damnably; for I have a heart, sir, a heart—why should I disguise it?" Here Mr. Smivvle tapped the third left-hand button of his coat. "And so long as that organ continues ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... authority. I had intended to give the particulars of this ease, but find the drudgery of repeating such stuff too sickening, and the effect unjust to a man who was doing only what others all over the country were doing as part of the established routine of what is called education. The astounding part of it was the manner in which the person to whom this outrage on decency seemed quite proper and natural claimed to be a functionary of high character, and had his claim allowed. In Japan he would hardly have been allowed the privilege of committing suicide. ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... the wind. There it came again very hard, and what was particularly astounding the knocker seemed to be in a hurry, and not to be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck put his head out the window to see ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... It was astounding that he had overlooked the connection between Jasper Cole and John Minute's wife. His labors did not cease until eleven o'clock, and he was preparing to go home when the commissionaire who acted as caretaker came to tell him that a lady wished to ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... Washington a few weeks, in constant consultation with the administration. How he impressed Lincoln one would gladly know, but cannot. He had unlimited self-confidence, and he gave it to be understood at once that he was a fighting man; but it showed an astounding lack of tact upon his part that, in notifying the troops of this, his distinguishing characteristic, he also intimated that it would behoove them to turn over a new leaf now that he had come all the way from the West in order to teach Eastern men how to win victories! ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... passage, you will often find a box or so in your room. "Great opportunity—veritable Pestarenas of Nockudaun—one whole box for a sovereign English," the Head-Waiter assures you. The memory of that man is astounding; he remembers all the numbers, all the wines, all the names, and all the Lady's-maids. For he is a bit of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... miles from the earth—a succession of the weirdest and most astounding adventures in fiction. John Carter, American, finds himself on the planet Mars, battling for a beautiful woman, with the Green Men of Mars, terrible creatures fifteen feet high, mounted on ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... that was most important to man in society, and the frame to which I had assiduously bent myself, of giving quarter to nothing because it was old, and shrinking from nothing because it was startling and astounding, gave a new bias to my character. The habit which I thus formed put me more on the alert even in the scenes of ordinary life, and gave me a boldness and an eloquence more than was natural to me. I then reverted to the principle which I stated ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... This astounding multitude of books should not scare. We have already remarked that Paris contains about seven hundred thousand men, that one cannot live with them all, and that one chooses three or four friends. Thus must one no more complain of the multitude of books ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... must have come out of it the butt of all shafts. As it was, I was sensitive in regard to my position, and more than once was tempted to see myself as I must have appeared to others. But after all they had not gone through the scene with Holgate, and were not witnesses to his astounding perfidy. I was angry with every one, with myself, with the captain, and, above all, with little Pye. In the universal surprise that came of the discovery of Mr. Morland's identity, my shame, so to speak, was covered, but I felt myself the mark of ridicule, ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... its slow length along, and few things are more astounding at this epoch than to see such a matter, interesting enough certainly to theologians, to the University, and to the rising generation of students, made the topic of unceasing and embittered diplomatic controversy between two great nations, who had most pressing and momentous business on their ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... had given him a suitable version of Margaret's visit, he told me he was engaged to Eva. That was an astounding thing; but what was more astounding was that James had somehow got wind of the real spirit of my interview ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... "Astounding Science Fiction," February, 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... this astounding museum would have been a most absorbing study to Kate, but she was tingling with desire to get at the young seeress and her mother. "What must they be," she asked herself, "to mix with ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... from his hand with a sort of sober patience, and there across the first three column heads, following the direction of Old Jerry's quivering forefinger, he found his first inkling of the astounding news. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... 'initiated' into my 'experience' of the Unseen,—but many of my correspondents (I say it with regret) were moved by purely selfish considerations for their own private and particular advancement, and showed, by the very tone of their letters, not only an astounding hypocrisy, but also the good opinion they entertained of their own worthiness, their own capabilities, and their own great intellectuality, forgetful of the words:— "Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... was coming over the waxen face that had been so calm and placid, as though in utter weariness over this senseless delay. Drayton had been told of young Ray's almost astounding declaration, and officers of the law half expected him to make some adverse comment thereon, but he did not. Alert correspondents, amazed to see the corps commander at such a place and so far from the ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... to the boy the most astounding evidence of art. When would he reach the easy prestidigitation of ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... with which a Filipino girl enters matrimony is astounding. There are no tears, no self-conscious blushes, none of the charming shyness that encompasses an American girl as a garment. It is a contradictory state of affairs, I must admit, for this same American girl is a self-reliant creature, accustomed to the widest range of action and liberty, while ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... "It's simply astounding in a splendid scholar like you, Rickman. It's such an awful waste." He looked at him as he spoke, and his soul was in his eyes. It gave him a curious likeness to his cousin, and in that moment Rickman worshipped him. "Go back. Go back to your ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... the settlers and their families were contentedly at work developing the resources of the country, the astounding cry, "Gold discovered!" came through the valley like a blight, stopping ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... "And, what was more astounding, as we made a fire to cook us food, there passed by us bearing on their backs strangely woven baskets, a caravan of these half-naked barbarians. And, when we motioned to show them we would see within his basket, one of these lowered ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... phantom mist had gone with the shadows. From her bed room window she could see the whole length of the Ober-Engadin, till the view was abruptly shut off by the giant shoulders of Lagrev and Rosatch. The brilliance of the coloring was the landscape's most astounding feature. The lakes were planes of polished turquoise, the rocks pure grays and browns and reds, the meadows emerald green, while the shining white patches of snow on the highest mountain slopes helped to blacken by contrast the somber ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... not," said my father; "that a boy of his years should entertain an opinion of his own—I mean one which militates against all established authority—is astounding; as well might a raw recruit pretend to offer an unfavourable opinion on the manual and platoon exercise; the idea is preposterous; the lad is too independent by half. I never yet knew one of an independent spirit get on in the army; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... rifle, and indeed when shooting turkeys preferred to use a 44 Winchester rifle. We managed to get one bird—a cock—but so old and poor that we gave it to the black contingent to eat. Nothing in the shape of food came amiss to these people, and their appetites were astounding. One day Hansen and I were following down a creek which junctioned with the Reid River, when we saw smoke ascending from a dry gully. Riding up we came across a very old and shrivelled gin and a boy and girl of ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... as though some one had struck him an astounding blow between the eyes. The walls of the cabin reeled and tilted up. He put out his hand to steady himself and rested it on the stove. The sharp pain and the smell of the burning flesh ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... press the matter to a definite conclusion, for when his antagonist began to betray a disinclination to continue the fight he no longer waited for the onset, but boldly advanced, leaping hither and thither with astounding rapidity, each leap landing him nearer his enemy, until the latter was compelled, in self-defence, to continue. But at length a moment arrived when the feline lay moaning and snarling, covered with blood, and either unable or unwilling to ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... cause celebre in which he had nothing more than a professional interest. Indeed, the calm, impersonal interest that he displayed in Thorndyke's analysis, his unmoved attention, punctuated by little nods of approval at each telling point in the argument, were the most surprising features of this astounding interview. ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... twenty, and from that time, rose steadily, until he became the head of the greatest banking house in the country. He has been largely concerned in the reorganization of railways and the consolidation of industrial properties, and the magnitude of some of his operations is fairly astounding. During the Cleveland administration, he floated a national bond issue of $62,000,000; he marketed the securities of the United States Steel Corporation, with a capitalization of $1,100,000,000; he secured American subscriptions aggregating $50,000,000 for the British war loan ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... loose girth. It seemed that she was of the Al Hamsa, which, being translated, means being a direct descendant of one of the five great mares of the time of Mohammed; also she was a two-year-old and playful but not over friendly, therefore was it astounding to see her as she listened to the girl's musical voice, and showed no fretfulness at the ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... would work at whatever was being done on the place Saturday forenoon, but the afternoon was ours. With the old gun we took to the pasture, hunted for game, for birds' nests and even turtles' nests. The mud turtle, common to all California waters, laid an astounding number of very hard shelled, oblong, white eggs, considerably larger than a pigeon's egg. They deposited them in the sand on the shores of the slough, covering them up, leaving them for the sun to hatch. ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... visit, as strange as any of those recounted by Mr. Wells. It was in the year 1535—for the event is most carefully recorded in a manuscript of the period—that some fishermen of Skinningrove caught a Sea Man. This was such an astounding fact to record that the writer of the old manuscript explains that 'old men that would be loath to have their credyt crackt by a tale of a stale date, report confidently that ... a sea-man was taken by the fishers.' They took him up to an old disused house, and kept him there for many weeks, ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... as we are told by Sir Stamford Raffles, far exceeded in force and duration any of the known outbreaks of Etna or Vesuvius. The ground trembled and the echoes of its roar were heard through an area of 1,000 miles around the volcano, and to a distance of 300 miles its effects were astounding. ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... a late, and the last discussion of the House of Lords (of the old Parliament), had the hardihood, the intrepidity, to assert, that, "We (Englishmen) were the least educated people of Europe, nay, that we were behind the savages of New Zealand!" But this astounding declaration of the Minister produced no explosion of indignation, not a single expression of regret, not a hum or murmur of disapprobation from the Spiritual or Temporal Lords, to whom the words of shame and censure were addressed. And, as the Lords, so the Commons, so ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... only one Year later, L'Etoile has left on record a still more astounding and degrading fact. "In this month" (March), he says, "several academies of play have been established, where citizens of all ages risk considerable sums, a circumstance which proves not only an abundance of means, but also the corruption of morals. The son of ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... look into your faces, men, I am struck with the astounding thought that some woman bore the cold sweat and pain of labour to give life to each of you. I hope few of you prolonged that agony as I did. It was in the heart of my mother to make me physically clean, and to that end she sent me daily into the ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... de Lera did not understand a word he said, Pargeter's attitude was eloquent of how he had taken the astounding news, and she looked at him with angry perplexity and pain. She said something in a low voice to Vanderlyn; as a result he walked up to Pargeter and ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... a very peculiar "O!" and, seemingly perfectly satisfied with this explanation, asked to be shown his berth. The captain consulted the clerk, and the clerk consulted the berth-book, which conveyed the astounding intelligence that the berths were ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... as a work of criticism. Certainly if any young writer took this book as a manual of rules by which to 'commence poet', he would find himself embarrassed. But, if the book is properly read, not as a dogmatic text-book but as a first attempt, made by a man of astounding genius, to build up in the region of creative art a rational order like that which he established in logic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, psychology, and almost every department of knowledge that existed in his day, then the uncertainties ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... was quite inexplicable to the scholars; he made no allusion whatever to the crimes of which Dick and Ted had been guilty, and gave no hint that he harboured any intentions that were not entirely generous and friendly. The two culprits, working with quite astounding assiduity, were beset with conflicting emotions. Dick, who had a vague sort of insight into the master's character, was prepared for the worst, and yet not blind to the possibility of a free pardon. Ted, after the first hour, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... need, shallow, superficial views of the gravity and universality and obstinacy of the fact of sin, are an impenetrable veil between us and all real understanding of Jesus Christ. There is no adequate motive for such an astounding fact as the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God, except the purpose of redeeming the world. If you do not believe that you—you individually, and all of us your brethren—need to be cleansed, you will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... departed in a most crest-fallen condition, the old Marquis returns from his audience with the King and relates its astounding results. His Majesty had been so peremptory in his questioning about the Marquis' son and heir, that the Marquis, losing his presence of mind, promised to present his son at Court on the King's demand. The only question now is where ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... the loyal ones? What would have been said of Abolitionists ten or twenty years ago, had they preached to the people that Congress had no right to vote against admitting a new State with slavery, because it was not already abolished in all the old States? It is perfectly astounding, this seeming eagerness of so many of our old friends to cover up and apologize for the glaring hate toward the equal recognition of the manhood of the black race. Well, you will be in New York to witness, perhaps, the disbanding of the Anti-Slavery Society—and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Pholoe on the borders of Elis and Arcadia. From thence Alaric escaped with difficulty, and not without some suspicion of connivance on the part of Stilicho. He crossed the Corinthian Gulf and marched with the plunder of Greece northwards to Epirus. Next came an astounding transformation. For some mysterious reason, probably connected with the increasing estrangement between the two sections of the empire, the ministers of Arcadius conferred upon Alaric the government of some part—it can hardly have been the whole—of the important prefecture ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Shaftoe added exaggerations and backstairs gossip, and an astounding statement which lived as the feeblest lie can live. Anne Oglethorpe, she said, informed her that the real Prince of Wales (born June 10, 1688) had died at Windsor of convulsions when five or six weeks old; that Lady Oglethorpe hurried up to town with her little son James, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... it was already late in the evening. The first night was given to rest, after the hardships of the journey. The next day, the Lady Idalia, with her son and Father Peter, paid their respects to the noble couple. Emerich Thurzo had an astounding memory; as soon as he heard Father Peter's name, he at once expressed his surprise that he did not recollect that he had as bishop confirmed a monk of that name, and, of course, Madocsany belonged to his diocese. Father Peter replied that he had received his confirmation from the Provincial ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... suggested Nigel, venturing on a pleasantry, whereat Moses opened his mouth in a soundless laugh, but, observing the professor's goggles levelled at him, he transformed the laugh into an astounding sneeze, and immediately gazed with pouting innocence and interest ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... at the Hotel de la Poste; no Tiler in Brieg. Only a brief telegram from him conveying unwelcome and astounding intelligence. It had been despatched from Vevey about 2 ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... which he always made on such occasions; but to-day, with the knowledge of the astounding contents of that will on his mind, his lips refused to utter it. He simply bowed, seated himself, and opened the document. The old-fashioned legal phrases soon were steadying him as the harness steadies an uneasy horse; and he was monotonously and sonorously rolling off paragraph after paragraph. ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... Mary Alice. Godmother nodded. "Why, he told me himself——!" Mary Alice began; and then stopped to put two and two together. It was all very astounding, but there was no reason why what he had told her and what Godmother said might not both ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... satisfied by a rational theory of life, it will demand satisfaction from some magical theory; as did the mind of the eighteenth century when, revolting from materialism, it fled to magic, to explain the ever-astounding miracle of life. ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... wonder. There was a quiet daring in his attitude, an utter disregard of the tragic forces that had closed in on his ill-fated venture that was astounding. What could be its secret? It was something more than the coolness and poise of a brave Ulan. His manner was not cool. His ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... particular afternoon she had started out for Billy-goat Hill to hear about the shooting, and to break the news to the family, that she had gotten a new place. This happened with such regularity, that it would not have deserved attention, had not the astounding fact to be added that Myrtella was pleased. In her fifteen years of rebellious services she had never before approximated a place that gave satisfaction. To be sure there were dark and not-to-be-remembered instances where she had failed to give satisfaction herself, but usually it was the place, ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... adversely criticized for holding out such astounding hopes for the future of the human race; but let us reason a little more, beginning nearer home. What has the race accomplished, even within the short span of our own recollection? Man is fast conquering ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... engaged on, Miss Day was sitting. Near by, his hands on the raised sash of Deleah's special window, leaning forward to look into the street, her companion stood. It was not until Bessie had come forward to greet the unexpected, astounding visitor, that Sir Francis, turning to look at the other occupant of the ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... Paris was astounding, and the first mobilization orders were issued with no more publicity than attends the delivery of a trade circular through the halfpenny post. Yet in hundreds of thousands of houses through France and in all the blocks and tenements of Paris there was a drama of tragic quietude when ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... there is to my mind a sort of profound and terrifying logic in it, as if it were our imagination alone that could set loose upon us the might of an overwhelming destiny. The imprudence of our thoughts recoils upon our heads; who toys with the sword shall perish by the sword. This astounding adventure, of which the most astounding part is that it is true, comes on as an unavoidable consequence. Something of the sort had to happen. You repeat this to yourself while you marvel that such a thing could happen in the year of grace before last. But it has happened—and ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... of the year's work which preceded "Guy Mannering" is given by Lockhart, and is astounding. In 1814 Scott had written, Lockhart believes, the greater part of the "Life of Swift," most of "Waverley" and the "Lord of the Isles;" he had furnished essays to the "Encyclopaedia," and had edited "The Memorie of the Somervilles." The spider might well seem spun out, the tilth ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to come,' he said. 'Elsmere will deliver his soul, and the amount of soul he has to deliver in these dull days is astounding. A dowdy dress and a veil, of course. I will go down beforehand and see some one on the spot, in case there should be difficulties about getting in. Perhaps Miss Leyburn, too, might like to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for half a minute. The proposition was so astounding that it might well have appalled the stoutest heart. At that time no one had attempted to cross the Atlantic in a heavier-than-air plane, a feat later on successfully accomplished. Nobody had piloted the way in a Yankee-made seaplane; ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... whole being filled with soldiers for every description of fighting. And what was most wonderful was that, notwithstanding its size, when it was moved it never tottered or inclined to one side, but went forward on its base in perfect equilibrium, with a loud noise and great impetus, astounding the minds, and yet at the same time charming the eyes of all ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... leaped into the air like an athlete, and, turning with a swiftness astounding in one of her weight, beheld the semaphoric arm of Gipsy again extended between the bars and hopefully reaching for her. Beside herself, she lifted her right foot briskly from the ground, and allowed the sole of her shoe to come in contact with ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... continuous since the time, over half a century ago, when Commodore Perry, by his expedition to Japan, first opened the islands to western civilization. Since then the growth of Japan has been literally astounding. There is not only nothing to parallel it, but nothing to approach it in the history of civilized mankind. Japan has a glorious and ancient past. Her civilization is older than that of the nations of northern Europe—the nations from whom the people of the United States have chiefly ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... that is discord in an English ear. The notes are no less curious, and to a stranger no less bewildering. Nothing could be more naive than the writer's ignorance at some points, or more startling than her learning at others. On the whole, the attainment of the book was simply astounding. It consisted of a selection of translations from nearly one hundred French poets, chosen by the poetess herself on a principle of her own which gradually dawned upon the careful reader. She eschewed the Classicist writers as though they ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... more: she interpreted all the other teaching for me. Ah, my friends, when the barriers were down for the first time, what an astounding illumination! I had been prepared for infatuation, for intoxication, for all the illusions of love's young dream; and lo! never was my perception clearer, nor my criticism more ruthless. The most jealous rival of my mistress never saw every blemish ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... wasn't beautiful. She was well-dressed and well-mannered and she had grey eyes. Beyond that I haven't any distinct memory of what she was like. And the astounding thing to me, when I look back on that business, is the utter lack of any common interests. How could I expect her to take any notice of me? I was a book-worm. I couldn't do any of the social tricks she admired. I knew as much about music ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... overwhelmed by the suddenness and freedom of this generosity, stood staring at him, her eyes round, her lips open. Isom could not have studied a more astounding surprise. If he had hung diamonds on her neck, rubies on her wrists, and garnets in her hair, she could quicker have ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... expression at the words, Beatrice looked up. For the instant her woe was forgotten in the astounding fact that she had won compassion from this cast-iron ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... in a hurry, to fetch which from London he started back late on Saturday night after bringing the Duke safe down to Basing. It was on the next day, if the French ambassador said true, that he had the astounding conversation with Elizabeth about Essex, at the end of which, after railing against her dead favourite, she opened a casket and produced the very skull of Essex. The subject of the fall of favourites was one in which Biron ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... my word, I know— In a month they both returned, and lo! Astounding fact! this happy pair Took a gentlemanly ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... willing to take—would get him back into the office when no one was around, but how could he open the safe? Walking straight to the thing he was after had been fine. Having been put in a position to get to know what the notes looked like was another astounding piece of good fortune. All this, however, could turn out to mean nothing because he didn't know how ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... pushed on, impelled by our burning curiosity. What other marvels did this cavern contain? What new treasures lay here for science to unfold? I was prepared for any surprise, my imagination was ready for any astonishment however astounding. ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... curiosity as to what the harmony is to be. And the sequel may shed a new light upon the harmony, and thus by degrees the whole character of the melody may be transformed. The power of the modern round for humorous and subtle, or even profound, expression was first fully revealed by Mozart, whose astounding unaccompanied canons would be better known if he had not unfortunately set many of them to extemporized texts unfit for publication. The round or the catch (which is simply a specially jocose round) is a favourite English art-form, and the English specimens of it are probably ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... the usual defensive preparations made by the warriors whenever they knew a sizable body of foes was somewhere in the vicinity. It remained for the brains of the white men to devise additional features, simple enough in themselves, but astounding to the savages, who were accustomed only to the primitive battle tactics of their ancestors. For the first time in their lives the cannibals found themselves ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... Perry, in his Students' English Church History, disposes of this noble group of men in one contemptuous paragraph, as a "class of divines who were neither Puritans nor High Churchmen," and makes the astounding statement that "to the school thus commenced, the deadness, carelessness, and indifference prevalent in the eighteenth century are in large measure to be attributed." It is of these very same men that Bishop Burnet writes, that if they had not appeared ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... rumoured through the Grange; nobody seemed to know quite where it started, or what was the fount of information, but everybody said it was perfectly true, and girl whispered to girl the astounding secret. ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... authority, their fast and loose morality, their inordinate pride. The extraordinary felicity of the means taken to place all these things in the most ridiculous light has never been questioned. The doggerel metre, never heavy or coarse, but framed as to be the very voice of mocking laughter, the astounding similes and disparates, the rhymes which seem to chuckle and to sneer of themselves, the wonderful learning with which the abuse of learning is rebuked, the subtlety with which subtle casuistry is set at nought can never be ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... system met with an astounding success. The scheme of Union was laid before both Houses. On the thirteenth of December the Council, which had hitherto been the chief obstacle, approved of the scheme by fourteen votes to eight, the minority consisting of Toronto 'die-hards' with the Bishop, recalcitrant as usual, ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... to the astounding changes in Jimmy from boy to buccaneer and back again, I was now interested at the fell scowl which he summoned to his features, as soon as he felt relieved as to the domestic situation. "Speak, fellow!" he demanded; and folding ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... are going out, and DEAR now—two a penny, very large and delicious. I am wild to get out and see the glorious scenery and the hideous people. To-day the wind has been a cold south-wester, and I have not been out. My windows look N. and E. so I get all the sun and warmth. The beauty of Table Bay is astounding. Fancy the Undercliff in the Isle of Wight magnified a hundred-fold, with clouds floating halfway up the mountain. The Hottentot mountains in the distance have a fantastic jagged outline, which hardly looks real. The town is like those ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... and superfluous in the human economy, but as positively dangerous on account of the harbour they afford for those bacteria that accelerate the decay of age. He proposes that these viscera should be removed. To a layman like myself this is an altogether astounding and horrifying idea, but Doctor Metchnikoff is a man of the very greatest scientific reputation, and it does not give him any qualm of horror or absurdity to advance it. I am quite sure that if a gentleman called upon me "done up" in the way ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... commendable absence of body whenever blows fell thick, seemed always to me to be the better part. And for this I have boldly endured many taunts. Yet it so chanced that in my life I fell in with many to whom the cutting of throats was but a moment's diversion. Nay, more, in most of their astounding ventures I shared with them; I made one upon their reckless forays; I was forced, sorely against my will, to accompany them upon their stormy voyages, and to endure with them their dangers; and there does not live one man, since all of them ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... all the other fire-ships, which had been ignited, and bore down on us in flames fore and aft. Their rigging was hung with Congreve rockets; and as they took fire, they darted through the air in every direction with an astounding noise, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is the result of fluctuating variability and "the survival of the fittest." The precise form, curvature and colour of the thorns I freely admit to be the result of the laws of growth of each particular plant, or of their conditions, internal and external. It would be an astounding fact if any varying plant suddenly produced, without the aid of reversion or selection, perfect thorns. That Natural Selection would tend to produce the most formidable thorns will be admitted by every one who has ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... heavy drain upon Gallic vitality for many generations, France achieved steady progress to primacy in the arts of peace. None but a marvellous people could have made such efforts without exhaustion, yet even now in the twentieth century the astounding vigor of this race has not ceased to compel the admiration ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... afterward the worthy provost returned in hot haste with the astounding information that the fair lady was nowhere to be found. She had disappeared from her chamber, none knew how, before daylight, and as a notoriously suspected individual who had lately been hanging round the tavern had disappeared too, it was ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... transports I am dying, Oh! Love's astounding wonder!— For love, his fell spear plying, Has cleft my heart asunder. Around the blade are lying Sharp teeth, my life to sunder, In rapture I am dying, Distraught ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... That is, he said that he was the Messiah whose anointing and work the prophet had foretold. For a time the people listened spellbound to his gracious words, and then they began to grow angry, that he whom they knew as the carpenter of their village should make such an astounding claim. They rose up in wrath, thrust him out of the synagogue, and would have hurled him over the precipice had he not eluded them and gone ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... precise reason that he was not at all sure that there was not someone else hiding somewhere in the house. He did not believe the woman, or rather he was incapable by now of judging what could be true, possible, or even probable in this astounding universe. He was terrified out of all capacity for belief or disbelief in regard of this extraordinary affair, which began with police inspectors and Embassies and would end goodness knows where—on the scaffold for ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... grief. Plaster heads being very heavy at first, before drying, it is as well to get them dried, if possible, in advance of the mounting, to obviate great weight, and also a tendency to cause mildew inside the skin. It is really astounding, however, to observe how very light plaster becomes when thoroughly dry; clay of the same sized model is, on the contrary, exceedingly heavy—more than twice ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... overthrowing the king and getting possession of the throne. For a time now the Cabinet had things nearly as they wished. In 1371 they forced the king to grant them all the royal estates as fiefs, and to declare that on the death of any one of them his successor should be chosen by the survivors. This astounding grant the Cabinet owed chiefly to the influence of their chancellor, Bo Jonsson, who had done more than any other to set Albert on the throne; and to him were granted as fiefs all the royal castles. In 1386 he died, leaving all his fiefs, by will, to the chief magnates of the land. ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... arrived at the Castle of Bittse, it was already late in the evening. The first night was given to rest, after the hardships of the journey. The next day, the Lady Idalia, with her son and Father Peter, paid their respects to the noble couple. Emerich Thurzo had an astounding memory; as soon as he heard Father Peter's name, he at once expressed his surprise that he did not recollect that he had as bishop confirmed a monk of that name, and, of course, Madocsany belonged to his ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... such an astounding bargain that Reedy's pink face grew a little pale, and he moistened his lips as he figured. He was trying to reassure himself that it would be dead easy to borrow the other $18,000. He did not have ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... nothing," was the astounding answer. "You know perfectly no Time Freight on this road takes a passenger of any kind, and it would be more'n my job's ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... profound and terrifying logic in it, as if it were our imagination alone that could set loose upon us the might of an overwhelming destiny. The imprudence of our thoughts recoils upon our heads; who toys with the sword shall perish by the sword. This astounding adventure, of which the most astounding part is that it is true, comes on as an unavoidable consequence. Something of the sort had to happen. You repeat this to yourself while you marvel that such a thing could happen in the year of grace before last. But it has happened—and ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... to be made. It is clear that the greater portion of the latter will never be attempted, seeing that people have really found out that railways are not exempt from the operation of the great natural laws of supply and demand. Some of the facts of last year's traffic are astounding: the total number of passengers conveyed was 85,391,095—twelve millions more than in the preceding year; and the aggregate returns amounted to L.14,997,459. What a difference when compared with the sum paid for travel and transport twenty years ago! In the United States, the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... personally. Compulsion has cut the knot and eased their consciences. They'll make fine soldiers! But we want more—more!" And then follows talk on the wonderful developments of training—even since last year; and some amusing reminiscences of the early days of England's astounding effort, by which vast mobs of eager recruits without guns, uniforms, or teachers, have been turned into the magnificent ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you this island," he began. "It's really quite a remarkable island. You know, I've been wanting to show it to you. There's a stone over here—quite—quite an astonishing stone. And a flower. Queer. Really an astounding flower. I don't believe you ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... difficult to make Ike talk, but by careful suggestions, rather than by questioning, Ike was finally led to talk, and Shock began to catch glimpses of a world quite new to him, and altogether wonderful. He made the astounding discovery that things that had all his life formed the basis of his thinking were to Ike and his fellows not so much unimportant as irrelevant; and as for the great spiritual verities which lay at the root of all Shock's ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... of six fashions," as Falstaff says. I like a man who has cricket in his soul. I find I am prejudiced in his favour, and am disposed to disbelieve any ill about him. I think my affection for Jorkins began with the discovery that he, like myself, saw that astounding catch with which Ulyett dismissed Bonnor in the Australian match at Lord's in 1883—or was it 1884? And when to this mutual and immortal memory we added the discovery that we were both at the Oval at the memorable match when Crossland rattled Surrey out like ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... soldiers for every description of fighting. And what was most wonderful was that, notwithstanding its size, when it was moved it never tottered or inclined to one side, but went forward on its base in perfect equilibrium, with a loud noise and great impetus, astounding the minds, and yet at the same time charming the eyes of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... a fashionable woman, the president or chairman of a score of clubs. She was forever running after fads, appearing continually in the society wherein she moved with new and astounding proteges—fakirs whom she unearthed no one knew where, discovering them long in advance of her companions. Now it was a Russian Countess, with dirty finger nails, who travelled throughout America and borrowed money; now an Aesthete who possessed a wonderful collection ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... time Beale had ever betrayed any real emotion in my presence. To him, I suppose, the return of Ukridge was as sensational and astounding an event as the reappearance of one from the tomb would have been. He was not accustomed to find those who had shot the moon revisiting their ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... circumstance in that region. While I looked, big bubbles began to rise to the surface, chase one another about, and burst; and suddenly, without any other preliminary movement, there occurred the most awful and astounding event that (with a single exception) it has ever been my lot to witness! I stood rooted to the spot with horror, and when it was all over, and again the lake lay smiling placidly before me, I silently thanked Heaven I had ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... a philosopher and the indifference of a destroying angel. There is a diabolic spleen more strongly developed in Rops than in any of his contemporaries, with the sole exception of Baudelaire, who inspired and spurred him on to astounding atrocities of the needle and acid. This diabolism, this worship of Satan and his works, are sincere in the etcher. A relic of rotten Romanticism, it glows like phosphorescent fire during his last period. The Church has in its wisdom employed a phrase ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... many wounded before the pack was driven off. You should both be well on the lookout when wandering about, and ready to use your revolvers, for the apes have steel-trap jaws, and muscles nearly as strong. It is astounding the strength there is in ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... and the particulars of musicians, schoolmasters, stockbrokers, saints and bookmakers, and I dare say there is an average adjuster's almanac. A peer, a horse, dog, cat, and even a white mouse, if of blood sufficiently blue, has his pedigree recorded somewhere. Above all, there is that astounding and entertaining volume, "Who's Who," found in every club smoking-room, and which grows more bulky year by year, stuffed with information about the careers, the hobbies, and the marriages of all the most distinguished persons in every profession, including very full details ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... republished in a volume, her ten per cent. of the profits brought her $10,000 in four months. It went to its third edition in ten days, and one hundred and twenty editions, or more than 300,000 copies were sold in this country within one year. This astounding popularity was exceeded in Great Britain. Not being protected by copyright, eighteen publishing houses issued editions varying from 6d to 15s a copy, and in twelve months, more than a million and a half of copies had been sold in the British dominions. The book was also translated ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... Altogether, 39 men were killed, and 216 wounded. This victory of Dhurum Salah gained the besieging army a distance to the front of some eight or nine hundred yards, and brought them within battering distance of the city walls. Everybody expected that in a few hours Mooltan would be won, when the astounding news reached General Whish that Rajah Sher Singh and his whole army had gone over to the enemy. A council of war was on this immediately held, when it was decided that the siege of Mooltan should be raised, and that the British army should retire to a short ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... hold for myself so far as corpses went. I carried the lanthorn into the forecastle, but when I pulled the hammock off him I confess it was not without a stupid fear that I should find him alive. Recollection of his astounding vitality found something imperishable in that ugly anatomy, and though he lay before me as dead and cold as stone, I yet had a fancy that the seeds of life were still in him, that 'twas only the current of his being that had frozen, that if I were to thaw him afresh he might recover, and ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... at first; half a dozen hen's eggs rolled out upon the floor and then the locket closed with a sharp click. But the effect upon the nomes of this simple thing was astounding. General Guph, Kaliko, Pang and his band of executioners were all standing close to the door that led to the vast series of underground caverns which constituted the dominions of the nomes, and as soon as they saw the eggs they raised a chorus of frantic screams and rushed through the ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the changes in the size, consistency, and appearance of man's body during this period, the alterations in the process of reproduction are still more astounding. A reference to the systems which now obtain among the lower kingdoms of nature may help us in the ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... a more astounding type. While in Memphis I called aboard the river steamer Grand, and had a talk with Mrs. Nettie Johnson, who is captain of that craft. Some one told me that Mrs. Johnson was the only woman steamboat captain in the world, but she informed me that at Helena, Arkansas, there lives another Mrs. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... that this exceptional people enjoyed, was that they had no politics, no vote. The imagination of the average "party man" sinks to conceive a thing like to this; yet, if an astounding fact to others, no more gracious one can be conceived for them selves. In the unbroken peace in which they lived politics would be but throwing the apple of discord in their midst, an innoculation of disease that they might in the delirium that marked its progress vehemently discuss ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... head or his heart. Dodd stood in the middle of these tremblers, a rock of manhood: and when he was silent and they heard only the voice of the waves, they despaired; and whenever he spoke, they started at the astounding calmness of his voice and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Customs duties at Kororareka. Naturally a cry at once went up from other parts of the Colony for a similar concession. The unhappy Governor, endeavouring to please them all, like the donkey-owner in AEsop's Fables, abolished Customs duties everywhere. To replace them he devised an astounding combination of an income-tax and property-tax. Under this, not only would the rich plainly pay less in proportion than the poor, but a Government official drawing L600 a year, but owning no land, would pay just half the sum exacted from a settler who, having invested ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... should fancy she came to grief if she tried to get Robert into her toils. It is extraordinary what astounding mistakes ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he stood suddenly awakened, and grinning in an idiotic way, "how did the old thing work?" And it was in the consequent hilarity and loud and long applause, perhaps, that the Professor was relieved from the explanation of this rather astounding phenomenon of the idealistic workings of a purely practical brain—or, as my impious friend scoffed the incongruity later, in a particularly withering allusion, as the "blank-blanked fallacy, don't you know, of staying the hunger of a howling mob by feeding ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... theatre; but all the while her subconscious mind was struggling for a theory to account for Norrie Ford's presence in that particular room and in that unexpected company. The need of some immediate, plausible reason for so astounding an occurrence deadened her attention to the comparative quietness with which she accepted his coming—now that she had regained her self-control, although she was conscious of stirrings of wild ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... to roll out of my berth and bound to the cabin window, I forgot that we had anything more active to do at Luxor than worship the glory of sky and river and temples. I had room in my mind only for the dream-beauty of that astounding picture, into the foreground of which I seemed to have been thrust, so close upon my eyes loomed the line of lotus columns. It was as if the ancient gods had poured a libation of ruby wine from their zenith-dwelling into ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... that old, worn-out harpischord, digging into its ribs, kicking at its knees with both feet, hand-massaging every one of the keys up, down, and crossways, until the ancient fossil fairly rattled itself loose with the joy of being alive once more, was altogether the most astounding miracle he has ever had to record. And Pestler with his violin was ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... from the earth—a succession of the weirdest and most astounding adventures in fiction. John Carter, American, finds himself on the planet Mars, battling for a beautiful woman, with the Green Men of Mars, terrible creatures fifteen feet high, ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... true—dramatically so, at least. Let us fit up a stage for the purpose: make the invoked spirits visible as well as audible: and calling before us some of the illustrious of former days, ask them what they think of us and our doings? Of our astounding progress of intellect? Our march of mind? Our higher tone of morality? Our vast diffusion of education? Our art of choosing the most unfit ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... flora, you will have to decide for yourselves whether you accept or not the theory of a sunken Atlantic continent. I confess that all objections to that theory, however astounding it may seem, are outweighed in my mind by a host of facts which I can explain by no other theory. But you must judge for yourselves; and to do so you must study carefully the distribution of heaths, both in Europe and at the Cape; and their non-appearance ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... a silver surge lighted by the full moon, which rolls along the sky like a cup of gold, while the stars glitter around like scattered drops. In a moment, the reflection of the moonbeams in the vapours of the night changes the picture, anticipating the imagination, now astounding by its marvels—now striking by its novelty. Sometimes I seem to behold the rocks of the wild shore, and the waves beating against them in foam. The billows roll onward to the charge: the rocky ramparts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... flinched or wavered for a moment, and that his criticism is adequate seems to me equally obvious. But the former contingency—the gross misapprehension of the public, even the wiser public—has been astounding. He has been read in a narrow, literal, bourgeois spirit. The personal pronoun, which he uses so freely, has been taken to stand for the private individual Walt Whitman, so that he has been looked upon as a compound of egotism and licentiousness. His character ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... God disposes, and I was waked up by Lillie at one o'clock this morning by the astounding news that there was a ship in the bay at anchor to the sea-ice. All was confusion on board for a few minutes, everybody rushing up on deck with cameras ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... course of the next week came Miss Blake and Mr. Craven's remark about the fifty pounds; and within four-and-twenty hours something still more astounding occurred—a visit from Miss Blake and her niece, who wanted "a good talking-to"—so ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... writing, but the inspired highfalutin of the words would be trying upon one who arose to sing the song before an audience. This, by the way, is a point rarely considered by the unsuccessful composers, and the words which the singer is expected to declare to an ordinary audience are sometimes astounding. The third Shelley setting, "The World's Wanderer," is ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... pavement of bones. We pushed on, impelled by our burning curiosity. What other marvels did this cavern contain? What new treasures lay here for science to unfold? I was prepared for any surprise, my imagination was ready for any astonishment however astounding. ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... of the enemy is very long, and that it is able to strike at astounding distances and in the most unexpected places, is brought sharply home to one as the train pulls out of the Genoa station. From Genoa to Pisa, a distance of a hundred miles, the railway closely hugs the Mediterranean shore. At night all the curtains ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... gave up the thing now in despair, for the colonel had it all his own way, like the bull in a china-shop; the more startling the bouncers he told, the more successful were his anecdotes, and he kept pouring them out with the most astounding rapidity; and though all voted him the greatest liar they ever met, none suspected he was not a ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... eye see these astounding revelations, but the impartial evidence of inanimate chemicals could be brought forward to prove that the mind harbored no illusion. The photographic film recorded the things that the eye might see, and ghostly pictures galore ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... swung and looked down at them from a coign of vantage. Their agility in running up and down the wires of a cage is marvellous. They have also an extraordinary faculty for running up a perpendicular board, and the height from which they can jump is astounding. One day, in my study, I chased one of these mice on to the top of a book-case. Standing on some steps, I was about to put my hand over him, when he jumped on to the marble floor and ran off. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... without paper and ink, and guarding diligently the ancient tradition: Believing in one God, Maker of heaven and earth, and all that is in them; through Jesus Christ, the Son of God; who, because of His astounding love toward His creatures, sustained the birth of the Virgin, Himself uniting man to God, and suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rising again was received in brightness, and shall come again in glory as the Saviour of those who are ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... here exactly as they originally appeared, that is, with moral in the same type as the rest, and they are enough to suggest how easy it is for real doubts to arise about which word is being used—'An astounding increase in the moral discipline and patriotism of German soldiers.' Has, or has not, a comma dropped out after moral? 'It is, indeed, a new proof of the failing moral and internal troubles of the German people.' Moral and internal? or moral and troubles? 'A true arbitrator, a man really impartial ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... unaccountably reassembled. Elihu Titus admitted that every one of them was put back, though he hinted they were probably by no means where they had been. But Sharon, coming again to the dissecting room at the day's end, was stricken with awe for the astounding genius that had put back all those parts. He felt a gleam ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... He felt as though some one had struck him an astounding blow between the eyes. The walls of the cabin reeled and tilted up. He put out his hand to steady himself and rested it on the stove. The sharp pain and the smell of the burning flesh brought him back ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... Testament form it has been closely combined with other histories, just as Mark's narrative is largely reproduced in Matthew and Luke; but when, it is separated from the later narratives its unity and completeness are astounding. Almost without a break it presents the chief characters and events of Israel's history in their relations to each other. The same peculiar vocabulary, the use of Jehovah as the designation of the Deity, ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... these objects of art were carried away from Benin by the members of the invading expedition to Europe, where they created a profound impression and astounding surprise in scientific circles throughout the continent. C. H. Read, in a paper before the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, on the "Art of Benin City," the year following their discovery, says: "It need scarcely be said that at the first sight of these remarkable works ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... and height Doth kindly Heaven bestow, And choice of smells for our delight, That all some joy may know; Noses and smells for all the race That on this earth do dwell, And for a final act of grace The astounding bacon smell. ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... down snow slopes on skis at the rate of thirty miles an hour, where refraction and the deceiving glare of the snow make accurate rifle fire impossible even for crack shots,—the Isonzo Front is not so astounding and impossible a Front as this, but it is yet a very different Front from any on which British troops are elsewhere ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... more of his medicine. If it had been any good and able to cure me, the more I took the quicker I ought to have been cured." And she scrubbed and thumped with astounding energy, while Lotte lay with her little ashen face a shade more set and suffering. The wash-tub, though in the middle of the room, was quite close to Lotte's bed, because the middle of the room was quite ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... prevailing throughout India, where the council sat that issued these decrees, and where the members of this council came from, they give no account. They do not seem to have even thought of such questions, and, for evidence of these astounding assertions, they refer us to what they call "the laws of Manu,"[39] and to Halhed's "Gentoo Hindoo Code." Caste and idolatry, then, according to them, are not only inextricably wound up together, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... serpent as an insult to credulity. The contrast between Moses, who hesitated not to take all risks in matters of disease with which he felt himself competent to cope, and his timidity and hesitation in matters of war, is astounding. But it is a common phenomenon with the worker of miracles and indicates the limit of faith at which the saint or prophet has always betrayed the impostor. For example: Saint Bernard, when he preached in 1146 the Second Crusade, made ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... you are wearying the lady," he said, and stirred him with his foot. "Relate to us instead some more of your astounding accidents. They are more diverting. Elucidate the accident, by which you had me kidnapped to be sold into slavery. Tell us of the accident by which you succeeded to my property. Expound to the full the accidental circumstances ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... efficiency. Within the first two weeks, therefore, the daily secretion increases from a few ounces to a pint or more. Subsequently the output fluctuates between one and two quarts daily, according to the demands made upon the breasts; the secretion is larger, consequently, if there are twins. Astounding yields of milk have been recorded, as in the case of a wet-nurse in a German institution who nursed a number of infants and became capable of supplying ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... "The Turn of the Screw" rather than to "E. A. S."? The pages are permeated with suspense, horror, information, irony, and charm, about evenly distributed, all of which qualities are expressed in the astounding title (astounding after you have read the book). There is a white marriage in this tale, stipulated in the hymeneal bond. In 1877 Tschaikovsky made a similar agreement with ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... arms on the top bar of the gate and dropped his head upon them with a groan. Bobby stood perfectly still; the news was so astounding, so bewildering, that he ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... temple at Karnak that I love, and I scarcely know why I care for it so much. It is on the right of the solitary lotus column before you come to the terrific hall of Seti. Some people pass it by, having but little time, and being hypnotized, it seems, by the more astounding ruin that lies beyond it. And perhaps it would be well, on a first visit, to enter it last; to let its influence be the final one to rest upon your spirit. This is the temple of Rameses III., a brown place ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... is, on superficial examination, not very comprehensible. Of course, German industries and trade have lately made astounding progress, and the German navy is growing to a strength which commands respect. We are certainly a hindrance to the plans which England is prosecuting in Asiatic Turkey and Central Africa. This may well be distasteful ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... industries dependent upon steam was thirty-two thousand millions of dollars, and that in 1888 it had reached forty-three thousand millions of dollars. It is to-day doubtless more than sixty thousand millions of dollars, a great increase no doubt over 1880, but the one figure is as astounding as the other, for both mean nothing that can ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... administered to them a teaspoonful of wine out of a cup. Reading and chanting were again resumed and continued for a long time, the bridegroom and bride crossing and prostrating themselves continually, and the deacon closing up his responses by repeating with the most astounding rapidity, fifteen times in five seconds, the words "Gaspodi pomilui" (goss'-po-dee-po-mee'-loo-ee), "God have mercy upon us." He then brought in two large gilt crowns ornamented with medallions, and, blowing off the dust which had accumulated upon them since the last wedding, he placed them ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... containing an enormous brass-inlaid writing-desk, in which there was a set of amethysts, the most hideous eyes ever looked upon—a musical snuff-box, and two keepsakes of the year before last, and accompanied with a couple of gown-pieces of the most astounding colors, the receipt of which goods made the Sylphide laugh and wonder immoderately. Now it is a fact that Colonel Altamont had made a purchase of cigars and French silks from some duffers in Fleet-street about this period; and he ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hypnotist for many years, I have seen astounding and apparently miraculous results by individuals using self-hypnosis. Many of these cases seem unbelievable to those not familiar with hypnotic phenomena. It should be remembered, though, that many individuals seek hypnosis only when all other forms of therapy have failed. This is so common ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... she had found in poetry, something that applied to her own case; but she soon discovered that all the sentimental heroines in the so-called bad books were persons who had had bad husbands; besides, they were either widows or old women—at least thirty years old! It was astounding! There was nothing—absolutely nothing—about young girls, except instances in which they renounced their hopes of happiness. What an injustice! Among these victims the two that most attracted her sympathy were ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... that all must have had same origin, but the strongest analogy is in favour of it. And we can by our theory, for during infinite changes some organ, we might have anticipated, would have become useless. readily explain the fact, so astounding on any other view, namely that organs possibly useless have been formed often with the same exquisite care ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... of the nation, that it was the party which saved the country from dismemberment while Mr. Orr and his friends were notoriously engaged in "trampling the Constitution under foot," and that the man who denounces it owes his forfeited life to its clemency, the astounding insolence of the impeachment touches the sublime. Here is confessed treason inveighing against tried loyalty, in the name of the Constitution it has violated and the law it has broken! But why does Mr. Orr think the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... was most important to man in society, and the frame to which I had assiduously bent myself, of giving quarter to nothing because it was old, and shrinking from nothing because it was startling and astounding, gave a new bias to my character. The habit which I thus formed put me more on the alert even in the scenes of ordinary life, and gave me a boldness and an eloquence more than was natural to me. I then reverted to the principle ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... Russian named Oilivitch, who at first claimed to be a scenic artist, but finally admitted that he had been appointed by Lenin ambassador to the Netherlands. Communication with Scotland Yard has now established the astounding fact that he is the Abram Oilivitch who in 1914 kept a fish-and-chips shop in Lower Tittlebat Street, Houndsditch. Oilivitch first came under suspicion when it was discovered that Litvinoff had been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... never performed. To write well is nine tenths of a hero; and in the time of Cortez, as it is even now at Mexico, it was the easiest thing imaginable to manufacture an astonishing victory out of the very smallest amount of material. If no lives were lost in the battle, so much more astounding is the victory. This practice of sacrificing human life is only a modification of cannibalism, and the very mission on which the Spaniards came to Mexico was to extinguish that crime, so that they would jeopardize their title to the country should they presume to shed the blood of each other ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... yawned at 8 and retired at 8.30 were aroused from their peaceful slumbers by the astounding news that Essie Tisdale had shot and killed old Edouard Dubois, and the very same day that she had married him for his money. As a result, Crowheart was astir at dawn, bearing every evidence of a sleepless night and a ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... has been long afloat is out of walking trim. He had made poor progress, and nothing but the distant light of the cabin on the top of the hill in which the wake was being held had prevented him from giving up his attempt to see her. And then this astounding miracle had happened, and he had found her crying in his arms ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... one of the profane, in the presence of such a monument, can only admire and hold his tongue. The great impression, on the whole, is an impression of wonder that so much should have survived. What remains at Nimes, after all dilapidation is estimated, is astounding. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... crescendo astounding to them both, for there has never been a noise so wonderful as this in all their experience. Then to Judy a very strange thing happens. She pauses for breath, but the noise goes on. "This is amazing—how do ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... labored heart and soul for the good of the republic and the church. He was the last man that anyone would have expected to fall from grace, and no one ever thought of such a thing; but, strange as it may appear, he one day sought an interview with the missionaries, and announced the astounding fact that an Indian who had killed his cousin some eight years before had returned from the Missouri river country, and he thought it was his duty to kill him in retaliation. The astonishment of the missionaries may be well imagined. ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... for its trade with Canton; a weekly packet connected it with Shanghai; and the bulk of its merchandise was still carried in sailing ships or Chinese junks. How astounding the progress that has marked the last half-century! The streets that meandered, as it were, among the valleys, or fringed the water's edge, now girdle the hills like rows of seats in a huge amphitheatre; a railway lifts the passenger to the mountain top; and other railways whirl ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... adventurer, endowed with astounding intelligence and insight, had in a few hours partly unravelled the tangled skeins of the plot, divined the murder of Cosmo Mornington, proclaimed the murder of Inspector Verot, taken the conduct of the investigation into his own hands, delivered to justice the inhuman creature ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... appearance of this telegram, which appeared only in the Times, the Russian Censorship having refused to allow any more to be despatched, the astounding news was flying over the wires to every corner ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... itself under a surprising force, charged with a rush through his thought. Sentences unrelated, bizarre combinations of words—a kaleidoscopic procession of astounding ideas—art, life, war, streets, people—he knew what they were all about. An illumination like a verbal ecstacy spread itself through him. Under it he continued to think as if with a separate set of words, "I don't know. She isn't beautiful. A stupid, ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... day show all imaginable and generally incomprehensible changes and multiplication of costume and motions and postures and manipulations of feathers and meal and sticks and paint and water and sand and innumerable other stage properties in astounding complexity and seeming confusion. Yet, from what is known of isolated and fragmentary parts of the dramatized myths, it is to be inferred that every one of the strictly regulated and prescribed actions has or has had a special significance, and it is obvious that they are all maintained with strict ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... the captain was at this astounding declaration, yet, on account of the singular and unusual mode by which the Colonel had become possessed of the facts, and the impossibility of proving the charge, he hesitated in consenting to the arrest ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... whereupon he set them out upon the road, and then he gave them a gentle push, which put them in motion. Then he pushed them again—harder—harder—until they got under fine headway, when he gave each of them an astounding shock with his foot, and off they flew at a great rate, round and round the course; and such was the magic virtue of the foot of Grasshopper, that no object once set agoing by it could by any possibility stop; ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... to the ground, in the approved fashion insisted upon by the mistress of the house. Old Stuart eyed them impatiently from the tower window of the breakfast-room where he was smoking his first cigar; Mrs. Stuart held him in a vise of astounding words. ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... these letters. It was in the forties. Those were the days when a Hegelian wave went over Russian minds. God had been philosophized away to make place for the Absolute, and even school-boys came home to announce the astounding news that there was no longer any God. Who was not a doubter, a disbeliever, was unhesitatingly declared an imbecile; and Gogol's correspondence, breathing as it does the spirit of the deepest godfulness, ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... before M. le Marechal, and if no satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at, it will be to me a matter of profound regret. And now, sir, will you permit me to inspect more closely the gallant men with whose help you have done such astounding deeds?" Cavalier smiled; for these "gallant men" when caught had been broken on the wheel, burnt at the stake, or hanged like brigands. His sole answer was an inclination of the head as he turned and led the way to his little escort. M. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pretence of pique with Walter, than to reveal to him the shameful truth. He would at least in those circumstances retain of her a recollection fond and tender. He would not despise nor hate her, as he most certainly would do if he knew the real astounding facts. ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... hell," was the unexpectedly astounding reply; for no one had ever heard Robert Sinclair use language like this before. "As soon as thae shots are off an' if they blaw as well as the others we'll turn out the coal an' then you can gang up the pit, ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... proscription infinitely beyond the example of the democratic party. This course, with an army of office-seekers besieging the departments, was unquestionably difficult to avoid, and perhaps, on the whole, not desirable to be avoided. But it was rendered astounding by the sturdy effrontery with which the gentlemen in power denied that their present practice had falsified any of their past professions. A few of the closing paragraphs of Senator Pierce's highly effective speech, being ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... tempest nears, Sounding but for spirit ears, Lo! the new-born day appears; Clang the rocky portals, climb Phoebus' wheels with thund'rous chime: Breaks with tuneful noise the light! Blare of trumpet, clarion sounding, Eye-sight dazing, ear astounding! Hear not the unheard; take flight! Into petaled blossoms glide Deeper, deeper, still to bide, In the clefts, 'neath thickets! ye, If it strike ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... At this astounding speech the British minister sat dumfounded. This air of courage and confidence on the part of Mr. Tyler himself was something foreign to his record. I knew the reason for his boldness. John Calhoun sat at ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... nineteen rules," writes Mark Twain, "governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction—some say twenty-two. In Deerslayer Cooper violated eighteen of them." And then Mark Twain gives us the detailed specifications. It is very cleverly put, this criticism of Mark Twain's. But the astounding fact remains that the one rule Cooper did not violate seems to secure him a place in the Pantheon of authors. Along with Poe, and Whitman, and Mark himself, Cooper is found in various editions on the shelves of the bookdealers and in the libraries of the book-lovers ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... further thaw about the bazaar. It would be such a relief from plain work, and she could get some lovely patterns from her cousin who had a missionary basket; but as to the burnt-out families, the little knowledge or interest she seemed to have about them was rather astounding, unless, as Rosamond suspected, she thought it 'shop,' and uninteresting to the great ladies of ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... women, and men wearing orders and medals. There was a continuous buzz of conversation, except in the room where the music was going on; and even there in the background there was a subdued whispering. The violinist was playing some elaborate nothings, and displaying astounding facility, but the audience did not seem to be much interested, for when he stopped, after some faint applause, conversation broke loose like ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... goes, the worthy pedagogue is right. Ben is, it must be confessed, a great corrupter of gravity. He hath an exceeding aversion to authority and decorum, and a wonderful boldness and dexterity in overthrowing the one and puzzling the other. His contortions of visage are astounding. His 'power over his own muscles and those of other people' is almost equal to that of Liston; and indeed the original face, flat and square and Chinese in its shape, of a fine tan complexion, with a snub nose, and a slit for a mouth, is nearly as comical as that matchless ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... the borders of Elis and Arcadia. From thence Alaric escaped with difficulty, and not without some suspicion of connivance on the part of Stilicho. He crossed the Corinthian Gulf and marched with the plunder of Greece northwards to Epirus. Next came an astounding transformation. For some mysterious reason, probably connected with the increasing estrangement between the two sections of the empire, the ministers of Arcadius conferred upon Alaric the government of some part—it can hardly have been the whole—of the important prefecture ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... provoke, perhaps, a reaction in which he is unduly disparaged. 'As various in composition as Shakespeare himself, Lord Byron has embraced,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'every topic of human life, and sounded every string on the divine harp, from its slightest to its most powerful and heart-astounding tones.... In the very grand and tremendous drama of Cain,' etc.... 'And Lord Byron has done all this,' Scott adds, 'while managing his pen with the careless and negligent ease of a man of quality.'"—Poetry of Byron, chosen and arranged by ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... from the fresh-colored woman who spoke so smoothly and so firmly to the apish lawyer hunched in his chair with a sphinx-like look on his wrinkled face. For the moment, so taken aback was he by this astounding announcement, that he could not speak. The younger woman stared at him with her hard blue eyes, and a smile played round her full lips. The mother also looked at him in an engaging way, as though ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... engendered by the carelessness or the pious frauds of monkish scribes.[109] He lavished his care in a similar manner on the Bible: considering the far distant period from which that holy volume has descended to us, it is astounding that the vicissitudes, the perils, the darkness of near eighteen hundred years, have failed to mar the divinity of that sacred book; not all the blunders of nodding scribes could do it, not all the monkish interpolations, or the cunning of sectarian ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... 'bag-wig,' or at least, the more important of his court-habiliments, were considerately furnished for the nonce by Mr. Rogers from his own wardrobe, to the manifest advantage of the Laureate's pocket, but more problematic improvement of his person, when one thinks on the astounding difference of 'build' in the two Poets:—the fact should be put on record, if only as serving to render less chimerical a promise sometimes figuring in the columns of provincial newspapers—that the two apprentices, some grocer or other advertises for, will be 'boarded and clothed ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... He wore the blue coat and buff vest, and a pair of white pantaloons, made after the old style. His shoes were as bright as his eyes, and his hat dusted until it only wanted an entire new nap to make it as good as new. His hair was combed in a sort of mound in front, and the tout ensemble was astounding. He passed Phillis in a dignified way, as if she were a valuable cat that he would ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... only to glance, just glance, at the other thrushes and the chaffinches, after that astounding exhibition of his character. He fed, and, after he had stuffed full, he stood still a ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... to its modern character as to hire a fine open carriage in which to proceed inland toward Constantina. This city is reached after a calm, meditative ride through sunny hills and groves. After so quiet a preparation the first view of Constantina is fairly astounding. Encircled by a grand curve of mountainous precipices, rises a gigantic rock, washed by a moat formed of the roaring cascades of the river Rummel. On the flat top of this naked rock, like the Stylites on his pillar, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... "The most astounding thing has happened," he said. "I cannot understand it. The operator in there has just received a message from Cherbourg, asking if there is not on board, in stateroom 514, a man named Ignace Vard, accompanied by his ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... more astounding incident to relate than even the respectful tossing-up of a general in the army and governor of Siberia by a party of provincial shopkeepers. In returning from an excursion, Mr. Collins had the ill-luck to lose ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... wind; there it came again very hard, and what was particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry, and not to be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck went to the window, opened it, and put his head out to ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... have to milk the cows?" says Terence, at which astounding thought both he and Kit break into merry laughter until checked by Monica's reproachful gaze. How can they laugh ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... was the vessel momentarily presented to his view, as the forked lightning darted in every quarter of the firmament, while the astounding claps of thunder bursting upon his ears before the lightning had ceased to gleam, announced to him that he was kneeling in the very centre of the war of the elements. The vessel neared the cliff in about ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... of a beaver-dam is astounding. As soon as completed, it becomes a highway for the folk of the wild. It is used day and night. Mice and porcupines, bears and rabbits, lions and wolves, make a bridge of it. From it, in the evening, the graceful deer cast their reflections in the quiet pond. Over it dash pursuer and ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... impose one of their number on him, a great man of a decadent coterie, Stephen von Hellmuth, who brought him an Iphigenia. It was at the time when German poets (like their colleagues in France) were recasting all the Greek tragedies. Stephen von Hellmuth's work was one of those astounding Graeco-German plays in which Ibsen, Homer, and Oscar Wilde are compounded—and, of course, a few manuals of archeology. Agamemnon was neurasthenic and Achilles impotent: they lamented their condition at ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... President about this, that what he supposed had been done for Paine by Morris, and what had really been done by Monroe, was kept in such profound secrecy, that even his Secretary of State, Pickering, knew nothing of it. This astounding fact I recently discovered in the manuscripts of that Secretary.(1) Colonel Pickering, while flattering enough to the President in public, despised his intellect, and among his papers is a memorandum ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... tableaux nor romps seemed to hold the least attraction for him now that Olga was not going to be there. And then all at once it dawned on him that he must be in love with Olga, for why else should her presence or absence make such an astounding difference to him? He stopped dead opposite Mrs ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... is not safe to praise men too highly, they are so easily convinced of their astounding virtues, but that time I couldn't resist shaking hands with father and I said, ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... of the July number of the Lichfield Historical Associations Quarterly Magazine had called him,—came out on the front porch at Matocton. He had arrived on the afternoon train, about an hour previously, in time to superintend little Roger's customary evening transactions with an astounding quantity of bread and milk; and, Roger abed, his father, having dressed at once for supper, found himself ready for that meal somewhat in advance of the ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... from his head in amaze at this interruption and greater amazement at this astounding promise; and John was ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... de Paris an article in which I demonstrated, by obvious arguments, the incongruities and absurdities of the legend, and tried to retrace through it the half-effaced lines of the truth, everybody was amazed. From one end of Europe to the other, the papers resumed the conclusions of my study as an astounding revelation. An illustrious French statesman, a man of the finest culture in historical study, Joseph Reinach, ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... history, and have been written in many forms and by many observers. I must, however, sketch them in broadest outline for the continuity of this personal narrative of the parts played by my friends and myself in the dire and astounding affair which was soon to bring chaos, not only to little Bermuda but to the great United States as well, and a near panic everywhere in ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... "mad dog" again, and sink all ships going within her war zone. This was the question, of course, taken up at the meeting of the Cabinet on February 2nd. The President opened by saying that this notice was an "astounding surprise." He had received no intimation of such a reversal of policy. Indeed, Zimmermann, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, had within ten days told Gerard that such a thing was an "impossibility." At this point Lansing said that he had good reason ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... is far from London, isn't it? And it is London that interests us most—though father's constituents must not know that. It is really a wonderful, an astounding city, once you have got the feel of the tourist out of your soul. I have been reading the most enthralling essays on it, written by a newspaper man who first fell desperately in love with it at seven—an age when ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... reduced to a perfect wreck when he ought to be in his prime. The habit of drinking more than is proper is really a national institution, and what with over feeding, drunkenness, and other vices it is not astounding that the upper ten do not show to great advantage. The Coreans are most irregular in their habits, for, slumbering as they do at all hours of the day, they often feel sleepless at night, and are compelled in consequence to sit up. On these occasions songs are roused, and dominoes ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... having accepted his hospitality, to turn round at the end and insult the man in his own house? This seemed to Brown, J. P., a monstrous and astounding performance. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... course of the history of the earth, innumerable species of animals and plants have come into existence, independently of one another, innumerable times. This, of course, implies either that spontaneous generation on the most astounding scale, and of animals such as horses and elephants, has been going on, as a natural process, through all the time recorded by the fossiliferous rocks; or it necessitates the belief in innumerable acts of creation repeated innumerable ...
— The Rise and Progress of Palaeontology - Essay #2 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... phenomena by no means necessarily implying it. For example, a recent author ascribes to the Feejees the belief that there will be a resurrection of the body just as it was at the time of death. The only datum on which he founds this astounding assertion is that they often seem to prefer to die in the full vigor of manhood rather than in decrepit old age! 11 Thirdly, we know that the observation and statements of the Spanish monks and historians, in regard to the religion of the pagans of South ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... and astounding check. Far too startled to see who it was that thus embraced her, and unprepared to receive such a salutation, least of all from one she had hitherto regarded as the very prince of gentleness and ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... spoke of the meeting; listened with unmoved countenance to lurid speculations about the disappearance of Chandranath; spoke, himself, to the men, who gave him an ovation; and, by the time it was over, had almost forgotten the astounding fact that he was virtually ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... fighter "swallowing a lobster salad on top of a whiskey sour, with a dose of prussic acid by way of dessert"; and references to my knowledge of the "Freds," "Toms," or "Dicks" of the Sporting Press of London, and to my familiarity with "Charlies," "Fitzs," and "Jims" of the "Magic Circle," were astounding. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... the tremolo of the strings—the alternations of trembling fear and fearful hope, the hope of the human soul in extremist agony finding an exalted consolation in the thought that this was the worst. As astounding as this is the quality of light and freshness of atmosphere with which Handel imbues such songs as "Clouds o'ertake the brightest day" and "Crystal streams in murmurs flowing"; and the tenderness of ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... its opening Queex turned with one of those bursts of astounding speed and clawed for admittance, its protest against the men forgotten. And it squeezed through a space Dane would have thought too narrow to accommodate its bloated body. Both men slipped around the door behind it ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... only explanations, and never excuses. In his glorious pursuit of the calendar, he had paid his penalties as royally as he had earned them; and even now, when he was confessed of the most impetuous and the most astounding act of all his unballasted youth, he had nothing to say in defence. As a climax, marriage had "happened" to him, and he was braced for whatever ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... that crucial moment she chanced upon the "Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff," so frank and so astounding that it took her breath away and swept her off her feet. She was stirred into a vague and trembling expectancy; she had the sense of waiting for something to happen. Life instantly became more colorful and more wonderful than she had dreamed could be possible, and she ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... booth came the real odor of warm wafer-cakes. The spring even, which presented itself in the outer room, was full of significance. Certainly it was only represented by a tea-urn concealed between moss and stones, but the water was real water, brought from the well in Christiansborg. Astounding and full of effect was the multitude of sweet young girls who showed themselves. Many of the youngest students who had feminine features were dressed as ladies; some of them might even be called pretty. Who that then saw the fair one with the tambourine can ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... the moral courage to ask MacIan if there had been anything astounding in the manner of his coming there, nor did MacIan seem to have any question to ask, or perhaps any need to ask it. The two men came slowly towards each other, and found the same expression on each other's faces. Then, for the first time in all their ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... of impatience in a man so habitually calm and rational might be overlooked, but Dan had not been prepared for this abrupt cessation of confidential relations. He was a bit piqued, the more so that this astounding editorial indicated a range and depth of purpose in Bassett's plans that Dan's imagination had not fathomed. He tore out the editorial and put it away carefully in his ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... shops crowded with the useless little articles which are supposed to prove irresistibly attractive to visitors to the seaside. At the bazaar a big white label proclaims that everything in the window is to be sold at the astounding price of "eleven-three," and the purchaser is free to make his choice from such treasures as work-boxes lined in crimson plush, and covered with a massed pattern in shells; desks fitted with all the implements for ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sufficient, hence the commune is building two new lecture-houses, which will be opened in the course of a few months. The grandeur of these presentations—as I learnt for myself the next evening—is really astounding; and though the young generally compose the greater part of the audience, adults also attend ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... he. "There is an astounding fact about Julianna which you do not know. About that fact I have written this message, so that when I had gone she might be prepared in case the worst—in case the worst—the improbable—the unexpected, ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... this time had been leaning on his arms, his hands in hers, his eyes, through their enlarging pince-nez, fixed on her, did not move for some moments after the astounding statement reached him. His stillness and his look of arrested stupor suggested, indeed, a large blue-bottle slung securely in the subtle threads of a spider's web and reduced to torpid acquiescence by the ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
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