"Startle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... already resolved upon appealing to your future dictates with the lowest and most resigned submission, fate having decreed you sole arbiter of the productions of human wit in this polite and most accomplished age. Methinks the number of appellants were enough to shock and startle any judge of a genius less unlimited than yours; but in order to prevent such glorious trials, the person, it seems, to whose care the education of your Highness is committed, has resolved, as I am told, to keep you in almost an universal ignorance ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... turned in the startle of surprise at being observed. The sharp, authoritative words of Van Horn were a call across the million years. Borckman's anger-convulsed face ludicrously attempted a sheepish, deprecating grin, and he ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... heard of her son's state! And Maurice and Bertha,—would they not be greatly alarmed? How could intelligence of the calamity be most gently communicated? Should Madeleine write? A note bearing the tidings might startle his mother too much. Madeleine saw but one alternative,—it was to go in person and break the sorrowful news as delicately as possible. She did not waste a moment in pondering upon the manner in which the haughty countess might receive her, but ordered her carriage, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... prayer to him. It is a unique thought in "A Rhyme About An Electrical Advertising Sign," the lines of which startle one almost ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... accept. An impure young woman is an awful sight. She outrages all just ideas of womankind, all proper conceptions of spiritual beauty. To have evil imaginings, corrupt longings, or deceitful propensities ought to startle any young woman. To feel a disposition to sensuality, a craving for the glitter of a worldly life, or a selfish ambition for unmerited distinction is dangerous in the extreme. It is the exuding of impure waters from the heart. Who feels such utterings within should beware. They are the ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... over,' said Yule. He was in visible agitation and his voice shook. 'The idea may well startle you at first. It will seem to you that I propose to make away with your property before you have even come into possession of it.' He laughed. 'But, in fact, what I have in mind is merely an investment for your capital, and that an admirable one. Five thousand pounds at three per ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... as she recalled the incident, "what a startle we got. As we think, Pete kicks open the door and cries oot, 'Ony rozetty roots?' and Leeby says 'No,' and gangs to shut the door. Next minute she screeches, 'What, what, what!' ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... war. Dilke explained in one of his chapters that, "according to the calculations of the French Staff, the total number of armed men upon which Germany would be able to draw for all purposes would exceed 7,000,000." [Footnote: The British Army, p. 161.] This and other forecasts may startle those readers whose curiosity tempts them to read the volume again in 1917. But the work produced no practical result except to put Dilke into the front rank of army reformers. The Government took no action to remedy the military weakness which ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... of a natural instinct, and these sudden lapses from virtue which startle a small portion of community and afford a filthy kind of pleasure to the other part, are but the outgrowths of mental unchastity. "Filthy dreamers," before they are aware, become filthy in action. The thoughts mold the brain, as certainly as the brain molds the thoughts. Rapidly down the ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... you want to,' I says to Perry, 'but don't startle the bartender. He may have heart-disease. Come on, now; your tongue got twisted. The tall glasses,' I orders, 'and the bottle in the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Paris. French mirrors and Italian statuettes may have for their vis-a-vis the exquisite mosaics, the massive gold vases and the costly bijouterie of the Orient, strewn so profusely around as to startle unaccustomed eyes; and a genuine Meissonier will be just as likely to be placed side by side with a Persian houri as anywhere else. The Parsees drive the finest Arab steeds, but on their equipages there is a more lavish display of ornament than we should ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... summer, when she sat, in the face of all the conventions of the village, reading under the butternut tree before the house, she would feel his eyes upon her, and the mysterious yearning in them would startle her. Often during her lessons with Mr. Satterlee in the parlor of the parsonage she would hear a noise outside and perceive Jethro leaning against the pillar. Both Cynthia and Mr. Satterlee knew that he was there, and both, by a kind ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... proud impulse he raised his head and looked at her with a bold steadfastness,—a critical scrutiny,—a calmly discriminating valuation of her physical charms that for the moment certainly appeared to startle her self-possession, for a deep flush colored the fairness of her face and then faded, leaving her pale as marble. Her emotion, whatever it was, lasted but a second,—yet in that second he had measured his mental strength against hers, and had become ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... faults has been previously suggested. The chief of his faults, a certain uncontrollable brutality of speech and gesture when he was strongly roused, was destined to cling to him all through his life, and to startle with the blaze of a volcano even the last quiet years before his death. But any one who wishes to understand how deep was the elemental honesty and reality of his character, how profoundly worthy he was of any love that was bestowed upon him, need only study one most striking ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... The pictures in her mind were so obtrusive and exact that, as the twilight deepened, she dreaded to raise her head and look at the dark corners of the room, lest his wraith, the offspring of her excited imagination, should be waiting there, to startle her. Once she had such a fancy of his being in the next room, hiding—though she knew quite well what a distempered fancy it was, and had no belief in it—that she forced herself to go there, for her own conviction. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and she gravely put her small hand into it. A sense of solace, as if some one had slipped a finger in and smoothed his heart, came over Winton. Gently, so as not to startle her, he raised her hand a little, bent, and kissed it. It may have been from his instant recognition that here was one as sensitive as child could be, or the way many soldiers acquire from dealing with their men—those simple, shrewd children—or some deeper instinctive sense of ownership ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... gazing over the lake, oblivious to all things save the entrancing allurement of a perfect spring night beside undulant water. Screened from her with bushes and trees the Harvester scarcely breathed lest he startle her. Then his head swam, and his still heart leaped wildly. She was coming toward him. On her left lay the path to the hill top. A few steps farther she could turn to the right and follow the driveway to the front of the cabin. He ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... speak of this now; yet I have spoken, for the subject makes me feel too much. I could give instances that would startle the most vulgar and callous; but I will not, for the public opinion of their own sex is already against such men, and where cases of extreme tyranny are made known, there is private action in the wife's favor. But she ought not to need this, nor, I think, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... most restless, care-worn faces in the city are to be seen on this street. Women clad in the richest attire pass you with unquiet face and wistful eyes, and men who are envied by their fellows for their "good luck," startle you by the stern, hard set look their features wear. The first find little real happiness in the riches they have sold themselves for, and the latter find that the costly pleasures they courted have been gained ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... remember how often the Agitation of the Slavery question has been done to death in Congress, and how sure it was to appear again to startle its murderers from their propriety. Like "the blood-boltered Banquo," it would confront again the eyes that had hoped to look upon it no more. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... square Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, Through the live translucent bath of air, As the sights in a magic crystal-ball. And of all I saw and of all I praised, The most to praise and the best to see Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised: But why did it more than startle me? ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... to the conclusion that this is the business I ought to do. I have only one parishioner on my hands to-day," he went on with a slight smile, "and I may as well attend to her. I am going to tell you my plan. I shall not startle you? Just now you allowed that ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... rigid Calvinist. His sermons were gloomy, and so long that he occasionally would startle the congregation by calling out to some culprit, "Sit up there, how daur ye sleep i' the kirk." Some saw-mills in the neighbourhood were burnt down, so the following Sunday we had a sermon on hell-fire. ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... groups in his store, sitting with his stout legs hanging over the counter, with a coarse brilliancy, original and sagacious, from which the more cultured might cull gems of thought, fresh and striking, despite the terrible swearing, which would startle even ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... those astonishing and yet natural things which sometimes startle us is the value some minds attach to mere modernity in art. An old thing is tossed up in a new way, and there are those who attach more value to the way than the thing, and are instantly agape with admiration ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... writing, nevertheless, is not affected by the desire either to impress or to startle his readers, any more than the writing of a good poet springs from an aiming at effect: it is like all true literature, in the first place, the outcome of a strong and personal passion, the passion for the past. ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... (the Wayward Recluse*). His most intimate friends were the shogun's father-in-law, Shimazu Ei-O, and Ikeda Isshinsai. The latter two were also inkyo and shared the tastes and foibles of Harunari. One of their greatest pleasures was to startle society. Thus, when Sadanobu was legislating with infinite care against prodigality of any kind, the above three old gentlemen loved to organize parties on an ostentatiously extravagant scale, and ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... that most earnestly and constantly, for some terrific shock to startle the women o f the nation into a self- respect which mill compel them to, see the absolute degradation o f their present position; which will compel them to break their yoke of bondage and give them faith in themselves; ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... "How you did startle me! Why, where did you come from? Yessir!" and he deftly manoeuvered so as to catch a glimpse of the bar over Cassidy's shoulder. "You surely startled me bad. Excuse me," he murmured absently; "I ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... from her with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of. Absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and John (although he called to her, and rapped the table with his knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her on the arm; when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place behind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence. But, not as she had laughed before. The manner and the music ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... hour, when at length the moose rose to the surface, and, swimming a short distance, began to wade towards where we were concealed. We were afraid of moving, even to get our guns pointed at it, lest we should startle it—as these animals are very sharp of hearing—and it should swim off in ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... (which generally means a negation) of Christian truth, we have a clear right to look forward with quiet confidence. Often in the past has the religion of Jesus seemed to be wearing or worn out, but it has a strange recuperative power, and is wont to startle its enemies' paeans over its grave by rising again and winning renewed victories. The Title on the Cross is for ever true, and is written again in nobler fashion 'on the vesture and on the thigh' of Him who rides ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... things!" the lady exclaimed. "I think it's awful to startle you so, but it's the joke of your father and your Cousin Jack. I was afraid it would scare ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... not fire, because of the men. I dared not move, lest I should disturb the robber. I was even afraid the click of cocking the pistol would startle him and prevent my getting a quiet shot. But patience was rewarded. When satiated, the brute retired as stealthily as he had advanced; and as he passed within seven or eight yards of me I let him have it. Great was my disappointment to see him scamper off. How was ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... his heart, he will begin by sharing her pursuits only as a means to an end, for when love-making once steps in other pursuits are neglected, if not totally shelved, for the time being. This transition stage requires great tact. He must not startle her by too sudden a development. Some women may like to be taken by storm, to be married by capture as it were, but the average girl likes to have time to enjoy being wooed and won. She basks in the gradual unfolding of his love; she rejoices over each new phase of their courtship; she lingers longingly ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... or so from shore, my boat would startle a great amphibious ox standing in the water up to his middle, calmly eating the succulent water grass. To secure it he had to plunge his head and neck ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... dell, where in the perfection of its English woodland one might have thought to meet Robin Hood himself, or startle Little John beside a fallen deer, I looked carefully about, got out my pale crackers, and wondered whether I dared begin. It is always an eerie sensation to be alone in the forest, what with the whispering leaves overhead, the stir and hum of insects, the rustle of ghostly ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... more disciplined and plodding competitors far behind. The list, indeed, which he has left on record of the works, in all departments of literature, which he thus hastily and greedily devoured before he was fifteen years of age, is such as almost to startle belief,—comprising, as it does, a range and variety of study, which might make much older ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... swifts were abed, he took a dark lantern and went in. He turned the light upon them little by little, so as not to startle them. Then he saw the whole inside of the tree full of birds. They were hanging by their claws, side by side, as thick as they could hang. He thought there were as many as twelve thousand in ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... know (but why should we not know again?) the story of the Grecian mother who saw her child sporting on the edge of the bridge. She knew that a cry would startle it over into the raging stream—she came gently near, and opening her ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... conduct of my Hero and Heroine, there is one circumstance which was intended to startle the reader from the trance of ordinary life. It was my object to break through the crust of those outworn opinions on which established institutions depend. I have appealed therefore to the most universal of all feelings, and have endeavoured to strengthen the moral ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Montauk. All else, to where Womponomon—the Indian name of the eastern point—juts out into the sea, are hills and rolling downs which rise and fall like the sea when the waves are running "mountains high." Here and there we pass a pond, and often startle the cattle that graze over the greater part of Montauk; and at length pause, spellbound by the view from the hills looking down upon Fort Pond, or Kongonock. The road runs past its southern extremity, where, until ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... had meant to startle her by the sudden action, he amply succeeded. At the first sight of the murderous weapon she shrank back, and a horrified, but quickly suppressed shriek, burst from her lips. "Oh, no, no!" she moaned, flinging ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... particularly careful to allow no persons to enter upon the possession of these houses, whose characters have not undergone the most searching and thorough enquiry." Finally, the author announces that he will state three facts which he thinks will startle his English readers: "Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the boarding-houses. Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe to circulating libraries. Thirdly, they have got ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... spring upon Phoebe, as though it had been something visible to startle her. It shook off her old English self for a moment, and she leaped to ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... through fear for the girls' safety—fear that the hostages, if aware of pursuit, would wreak instant death. But now, as their lieutenant advanced to the shack, the men behind, while trying their utmost to gain, sent forward yell upon yell to startle the Indians into dropping their captives and ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... should. What they have just seen is sufficient to terrify the stoutest hearts—even those of tried tars, as all of them are. A ship manned by hairy men—a crew of veritable Orsons! Certainly enough to startle the most phlegmatic mariner, and make him tremble as he tugs at his oar. But they have ceased tugging at their oars, and hold them, blades suspended. Almost the same is their breath. One alone, at length, musters ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... rising from his seat on the church step when he heard sounds like muffled groans. Recovering quickly from the first boyish startle of fear oozing like a cool breeze blowing up the back of his neck, he saw that the church door was ajar. By cautiously adding another inch to the aperture he could see the interior of the building, its outlines taking shape when his eyes had become accustomed ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... with stealthy tread, To the belfry chamber overhead, And startle the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him make Masses and moving shapes ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... he, in a low voice—and he was himself rather pale—"I am going to tell you something that may perhaps startle you, and even grieve you; but you must keep command over yourself, or you will alarm ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... speech back. It was a very stubborn and perplexing case. For eighteen months he had not succeeded in uttering a word, though understanding everything that was said to him. All the usual devices had failed; every kind of sudden surprise to startle him into articulation had been attempted; electricity had been passed through the muscles of the tongue and larynx; doctors had discussed him with a volubility only equalled by his own silence. But he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... savor of heresy, the independence of Francis, who had scattered his friars in all the four corners of the globe without trying to gain a confirmation of the verbal and entirely provisional authorization accorded him by Innocent III.—all these things were calculated to startle the clergy. ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... by Matter. In most cases sound reaches the ear through the air; but air is not the only medium through which sound is carried. A loud noise will startle fish, and cause them to dart away, so we conclude that the sound must have reached them through the water. An Indian puts his ear to the ground in order to detect distant footsteps, because sounds too faint to be heard ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... the man about it; but he seemed to think that he was not responsible for the cow's voice. I then told him to take her away; and he did, at intervals, shifting her to different parts of the grounds in my absence, so that the desolate voice would startle us from unexpected quarters. If I were to unhitch the cow, and turn her loose, I knew where she would go. If I were to lead her away, the question was, Where? for I did not fancy leading a cow about till I could find somebody who was willing to pasture her. To this dilemma had my excellent neighbor ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... enough, and whether venomous or not it was enough to startle the watcher, as a serpent some seven or eight feet in length came into sight, travelling through the undergrowth, with its scales ever changing in tint as its folds came more or less into connection with the ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... room. If your patient be well enough, and wishes you to talk to him, speak in a low, distinct voice, on cheerful subjects. Don't relate painful hospital experiences, nor give details of the maladies of former patients, and remember never to startle him with accounts of dreadful crimes or accidents that you have read ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... this struggle which animates the nature of Holland with a varied and fantastic life, and by the act of reproducing it the struggle passed into their minds, and then, instead of imitating, they created. Then they themselves made the two elements contend; they increased the darkness to startle and disperse it with every manner of luminous effects and flashes of light; sunbeams stole through the gloom and then gradually died away; the reflections of twilight and the mellow light of lamps were delicately blended into mysterious shadows, which were animated with ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... surmise the oldest Rover boy was sadly mistaken. Many things of which he and his cousins did not dream were to occur, not only to startle and annoy them, but also to place them ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... seconds, until Maurice, fearing that his chum might be almost paralyzed with fright, gave a shriek to startle him into action. ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... feet from under Slip the crumbling banks for ever: Like echoes to a distant thunder, 55 They plunge into the gentle river. The river-swans have heard my tread. And startle from their reedy bed. O beauteous birds! methinks ye measure Your movements to some heavenly tune! 60 O beauteous birds! 'tis such a pleasure To see you move beneath the moon, I would it were your true delight To sleep by ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... We know to be glad of life as we were gods Timelessly glad of deity; yea, to enjoy Fleshly, spiritual Being till the swift Torrent of glee (as hurled star-dust can change Dim earthly weather to a moment like the sun,) Doth startle life to self-adoring godhead,— Divine body of Power and divine Burning soul of Light and self-desire. And having given ourselves all to amazement, We are made like a prophesying song Of life all joy, a bride in the arms of God.— Yea, God shall marry his people ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... rose really to sublime heights in the barn scene where the little Prince is in the hands of the mob. Never in the history of the stage has there been assembled a mob more wonderful than that. These children knew mobs! A mob to them was a daily sight, and their reproduction of it was a thing to startle you with its realism. Never was it absurd; never was there a single note of artificiality in it. It was Hogarthian in ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... be remarked that it would startle those unaccustomed to Freeland ideas to hear the amounts of these allowances. In the first year the maintenance unit reached 160L; therefore an unmarried woman or a widow received 48L; a married woman 24L; a family with three children and a wife 48L; an old ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... right hand lead with thee The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honor due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free; To hear the lark begin his flight, And, singing, startle the dull night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow, Through the sweetbrier, or the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... exercise of the will, or suddenly, as in some great physical shock, and of a necessity comes to all in the event called death. Were I to tell you how I acquired this knowledge, Mr. Henley, it would startle you, far more than any exhibition of the power itself. No, I can not tell you; at least, not at present; perhaps some day you may be ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... take the salutation quite calmly, and even the wildest, most spectacled and knobby-browed aborigine cannot startle me. Nonchalantly I reply, "Nabben'," and wish that Norah could but see ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... we have made! this is not to put down prelaty; this is but to chop an episcopacy; this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another; this is but an old canonical sleight of commuting our penance. To startle thus betimes at a mere unlicensed pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle, and a while after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting. But I am certain that a State governed by the rules of justice ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... means of evoking true repentance is the contemplation of the Cross. Law and the fear of hell may startle into sorrow, and even lead to some kind of repentance. But it is the great power of Christ's love and sacrifice which will really melt the heart into true repentance. You may hammer ice to pieces, but it is ice still. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... woman, busy at her wheel, with two children playing on the ground before her, were the objects that now presented themselves. The uncouthness of my garb, my wild and weatherworn appearance, my fusil and tomahawk, could not but startle them. The woman stopped her wheel, and gazed as if a spectre ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... to startle strangers to hear "The Hardy Norseman," "The Cuckoo," and such-like songs from the lips of little Chinese boys. Every Saturday evening they came to the house to practise the hymns and chants for Sunday; I had ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... lingering wanderer of the race which the Romans worshipped; hither I followed their victorious steps, and in these green hollows have I remained. Sometimes in the still noon, when the leaves of spring bud upon the whispering woods, I peer forth from my rocky lair, and startle the peasant with my strange voice and stranger shape. Then goes he home, and puzzles his thick brain with mopes and fancies, till at length he imagines me, the creature of the South! one of his northern demons, and his poets adapt the apparition ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... banished from their native waves. Large poles twisted with fir branches, stuck thickly around the lake, gave to the waters the becoming Helvetian gloom. And here, beside three cows all bedecked with ribbons, stood the Swiss maidens destined to startle the shades with the Ranz des Vaches. To the left, full upon the sward, which it almost entirely covered, stretched the great Gothic marquee, divided into two grand sections—one for the dancing, one for ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... blacking-brush, with hardly any bristles left in it, which he was rubbing backwards and forwards on the boards, as gravely and steadily as if he had been at scouring-work for years, and had got a large family to keep by it. The coming-in of Trottle and the old woman did not startle or disturb him in the least. He just looked up for a minute at the candle, with a pair of very bright, sharp eyes, and then went on with his work again, as if nothing had happened. On one side of him was ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... die Were all, it were most sweet to rest my head On the cold clod, and sleep the sleep of Death. But if the Archangel's trump at the last hour Startle the ear of Death and wake the soul To frenzy!—dreams of infancy! fit tales For garrulous beldames to affrighten babes! I have been guilty, yet my mind can bear The retrospect of guilt, yet in the hour Of deep contrition to THE ETERNAL ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... altogether omitted from his official list of counties organized in the month of February. In that brief interval, the Government policy of provocation had the desired effect, though the explosion was of a nature to startle those who ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... on the opposite side of the lane, so that their hurried approach did not startle the strangers; but Phoebe, looking up at the sound of the footsteps, saw a face she knew looking wistfully, eagerly at her, with evident recognition. Phoebe had a faculty quite royal of remembering ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... escape," he murmured. "Forgive me, gnaedige Frau. It is a startle to think that perhaps you have given to ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... fast, there will be throngs here presently. Maitland,—nay, do not let me startle you ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... listen to me. I am going to say something which will startle you. All these quiet years, all the time which has gone by and left only a dim memory of a certain man to you, have been spent by me smothering down regrets, stifling my youth, crushing what would have made me joyous and womanly—for Philip Arnold has not been remembered at all dimly by me, father, ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... its petals. And if there be two lovers equally sincere, both are likely to feel at the same moment the same impetus to revelation. Besides which, Fate of any kind seeks the unusual and the unexpected; it desires to startle, and ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... fellowship with his kind which Paracelsus needs can be poorly learnt from such a distracted creature as Aprile. It is indeed Aprile's example and the fate which has overtaken him rather than his wild words which startle Paracelsus into a recognition of his own error. But the knowledge that he has left love out of his scheme of life is no guarantee that he will ever acquire the fervour and the infinite patience of love. The whole scene, with its extravagant poetic beauties ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... threw up his head and gave a tremendous neigh. The sound startled her, as these things will startle the strongest when all is profoundly silent. But what followed was more startling still. Not one, but half a dozen echoes at least responded, and, with a thrill, the girl sat up. The next moment she had spurred her horse and charged, regardless of the thorns, into the midst ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... and now and then an extra one on Thursday or Saturday. I do not think anything would persuade her to have an assembly, or play cards, on a Friday. But on a Sunday evening she always has her rubber, to Flora's horror. It does not startle me, because I remember it always was so when I lived with her at Carlisle: nor Annas, because she knew people did such things in the South. I find Grandmamma usually spends the winter at the Bath: ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... nor even Mozart's—could be a more veracious expression of his inner nature; and if Dvorak's music is at times odd and whimsical, and persistently wrong-headed and outre through long passages, it does not mean that Dvorak is trying to impress or startle his hearers by doing unusual things, but merely that he himself is odd and whimsical and has his periods of persistent wrong-headedness. He is Slav in every fibre—not a pseudo-Slav whose ancestors were or deserved to be ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... even if she were here, Mas'r Harry. Nothing never did startle she, though she ain't ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... said. "I didn't realize the shot might startle you even more than the wildcat. It seems I'm not fit to have charge of a lady. I told you I was ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... I was heard; but at length the door was opened, and I was accosted by an Englishman, who, in a strange compound of French and English, asked, "What the devil I meant by all that uproar?" Determining to startle my old friend the major, I replied, that "I was aide-de-camp to General Picton, and had come down on very unpleasant business." By this time the noise of the party within had completely subsided, and from a few whispered ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... fireplace, leaning on the mantelpiece, and looking up into the eyes of the girl above, smiling and talking softly to her, Miss Ludington entered the room and laid her hand gently on his arm. Her appearance did not seem to startle him in the least. "Paul, my dear boy!" she said, "you ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... our officers were not above half of what he had been offered for one of them, and did make it good by bringing a gentleman to give us L700 for the Wildboare, which they valued but at L276, which made us all startle and stop the sale, and I did propose to acquaint the Duke of York with it, and accordingly we did agree on it, and I wrote a severe letter about it, and we are to attend him with it to-morrow about it. This afternoon my Lord Anglesey tells us that ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... My first shot had struck one of his back teeth, breaking it squarely off, and then passed through the fleshy part of the neck. It was a wound that would startle, but not kill. The second shot had hit him between the eyes, but had glanced off the skull, merely ripping open the skin on the forehead for five inches. The third shell had killed him, except for the convulsive heaving ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... to make. Now and then a squirrel darted across from one tree to another, disappearing among the branches almost before Olive could be sure she had seen it, or some wild wood birds, less familiar to the little foreigner, would startle her with a shrill, strange note. There were here and there lovely flowers growing among the moss, and more than once she heard the sound of not far off trickling water. It was all strangely beautiful, ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... sound that issued from the tube. But wouldn't it be absurd for the commander of the Hugh Frazer, amid the quiet waters of Loch-Lomond, to give orders to the little boy that holds the helm, or point out the beauties of Inversnaid, through an instrument that would startle all the cattle on the surrounding hills? Just so with Shakspeare's kings and lovers. They have "prave 'ords enough, look you," to fill the biggest speaking-trumpet that ever was cast; but miserable is it for men who have not such ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... ambition is not to perform feats which startle the world and give him fame, but rather to live the life of the moderate and harmonious one; yet how often for lack of true discernment he fails! This middle path is not, however, hidden from the sincere and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... hope you will find Piers. Tell him to bring two men, and something that they can carry him on. Jeanie dear, you run home to your mother and tell her how it is that we shall be late for tea. You won't startle her, I know." ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... the hall and awakened Heloise, Mimi, and Marie and told them what she had done. No novelty in horror could startle European women in those days. They dressed themselves hastily in their gray uniforms and followed her to the Saal. With Mimi's assistance she put on his coat, the hilt of the dagger thrusting forward the row of medals on his breast. Marie went out into the street and flitted up and down ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... grieved for the poor and gave himself to the care of the sick, especially the lepers. During a visit to Rome he became so sad at the sight of desperate poverty that he impetuously flung his bag of gold upon the altar with such force as to startle the worshipers. He went out from the church, exchanged his clothes for a beggar's rags, and stood for hours asking alms among a ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... official criticism. I have not taken space to mention certain episodes of the more recent intercourse of these ladies, and must content myself with tracing them, lightly, in their consequences. These may be summed up in the remark, which will doubtless startle no one by its freshness, that two imperial women are scarcely more likely to hit it off together, as the phrase is, than two imperial men. Since that party at Miss Birdseye's, so important in its results for Olive, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... the color deepen in her cheeks while she read, her heart would bound hopefully within her. But she was a wise woman in her way, and she wanted Katy for a sister very much; so she never said a word or looked a look to startle or surprise her, but left the thing to work itself out, which is the best course ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... Catholic and an affectionate mother! The mixture of old and new in her—the fresh habits of growth imposed on the original plant—startle me at every turn. Her Catholicism, which resolves itself, perhaps, into the cult of a particular church and of two or three admirable and sagacious priests, seems to me one long intrigue of a comparatively harmless kind. It provides ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thinking a good deal about it, and I have a proposal to make which may at first startle you, but it appears to me that it is our only, and our best, resource. The few hundred pounds which you have left are of no use in this country, except to keep you from starving for a year or two; but in another country ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... new-comer. "Frighten people, indeed! Do you not call that naughty? It's a wicked and dangerous thing to do, and you would be punished severely if you attempted it. I have read of people who died of fright. How would you feel if you played bogey, as you call it, to startle one of the girls, and she had a weak heart and died before your eyes? You would feel pretty miserable then, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... anything about Parker's Hotel,—and the Colonial Office. He spoke of Miss Nora, and even knew the names of the other two young ladies, Miss Sophia and Miss Lucy. It was a weakness with Bozzle,—that of displaying his information. He would have much liked to be able to startle Sir Marmaduke by describing the Government House in the island, or by telling him something of his old carriage-horses. But of such information as Sir Marmaduke ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... spiritual or sensual, of the moment. It is a quality, perhaps, in which the young poet is richer than the mature, his very inexperience making him more venturesome in those leaps of language that startle us with their rashness only to bewitch us the more with the happy ease of their accomplishment. For this there are no existing laws of rhetoric, for it is from such felicities that the rhetoricians ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... got dere. Big trees on de banks and 'round, wid long moss hangin' from de limbs. I baited my hook wid a small, wigglin', live, minnow and throwed out into de water. Nothin' happen. In de warm sunshine I must have gone to sleep, when I was startle out my doze by Henry a shoutin': 'Marse Johnnie, Marse Johnnie, your cork done gone down out of sight!' I made a pull but felt at once it would take both hands to land dat fish. I took both hands, put my ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... an Industrial Congress in which women occupied in every branch of labor are to be represented, you may think this question could not legitimately come before you. And even if it could, you may not think best to startle the timid or provoke the powerful by the assertion that a fair day's wages for a fair day's work and the dignity of labor, alike depend on the political status of the laborer. Perhaps in your country, where the right of representation is ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... deadly ailin',— Folks thet's afeared to fail are sure o' failin'; 320 God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe He'll settle things they run away an' leave!' He brought his foot down fiercely, ez he spoke, An' give me sech a startle ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... convictions. As he had little sympathy with those with whom he was brought in contact, so he was very uncharitable in his judgment of them; and thus having really a low opinion of so many of them he could indulge his vindictive rancor without stint; his invective, always powerful, will sometimes startle us by its venom, and we shall be pained to see him apt to make enemies for a good cause ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... of nations, and the limbs of its corpses tossed out of its whirling, like water-wheels. Bat like, out of the holes and caverns and shadows of the earth, the bones gather, and the clay-heaps heave, rattling and adhering into half-kneaded anatomies, that crawl, and startle, and struggle up among the putrid weeds, with the clay clinging to their clotted hair, and their heavy eyes sealed by the earth darkness yet, like his of old who went his way unseeing to Siloam Pool; shaking ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... expiring faction was revived, and united, and perpetuated, by the labors of a monk; and the name of James Baradaeus [129] has been preserved in the appellation of Jacobites, a familiar sound, which may startle the ear of an English reader. From the holy confessors in their prison of Constantinople, he received the powers of bishop of Edessa and apostle of the East, and the ordination of fourscore thousand bishops, priests, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... room Lady Constantine managed, at the last juncture, to state her errand in tones so collected as to startle even herself to which her listener replied also as if the whole thing were the most natural in the world. When it came to the affirmation that she had lived fifteen days in the parish, ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... Croix and her daughter were possessed of good nerves, for the dramatic entrance of the Bradys did not seem to startle them ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... conducted by Diderot alone after the great schism of 1759. On the subject of sport, however, the writer of the article Chasse enumerates all the considerations which a patriotic minister could desire to see impressed on public opinion. Some of the paragraphs startle us by their directness and freedom of complaint, and even a very cool reader would still be likely to feel some of the wrath that was stirred in the breast of our shrewd and sober Arthur Young a generation later (1787). "Go to the residence of these great nobles," he says, "wherever it ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... so far away that communication with him was likely to be delayed. A sword hung over the head of Truxton King, an innocent outsider, and there was a prospect that it would fall in advance of the blow that was intended to startle the world. Olga Platanova was the only one who did not look upon the sprightly American as a spy in the employ of the government—a dangerously clever spy ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... singularly youthful beauty of several of the males; the superb robes they wear; the expression of their faces and their figures; the details of hair, stuffs, ornaments, jewels; the refinement and feminine taste of the whole, are enough to startle our interest if we recognize what meaning they ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... was grievous news wherewith to startle the parish. And Mrs. Carradyne, a martyr to belief in ghosts and omens, grew to dread the chimes with a ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... announced Angel, as usual, was the first to appear, and when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror he thought one of his friends had come to visit him. It did not seem to startle him in the least, but like all children ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... hysterical terror. Then, with one accord, we lifted up our voices, weak with weeping, in a thin screech. I said "Help! help! help!" she cried, "Murder! murder!" and "Cap'n Ga-a-tes!" We made enough noise to startle the dogs in the house-yard and at the stables, and brought from the nearer "quarters" and corn-field a gang of negroes, of all sizes and ages, all running at the top of their speed, and the faster as they descried us. It would have been excruciatingly funny at any other time, and to one ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... settled, and of late (which you will be glad to hear) considerably improved, I begin to think myself too far advanced in life for such youthful undertakings, not to mention some other petty reasons that are apt to startle the delicacy of difficult old bachelors. I am, however, not a little suspicious that, was I to pay a visit to Scotland, (which I have some thoughts of doing soon,) I might, possibly, be tempted to think ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... establishment of one of those fashionable dressmakers whom you patronise, and whose bills startle all save the most hardened. She is a very handsome woman. She has a husband and two little boys. They are all there. The husband is a retired professional soldier. He has a small and easy post in ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett |
