"Astounding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trained, and every one at the service of the Republic? But there is no greater theologian at the Court of Paul V, nor any ecclesiastic among them all more familiar with the writings of their authorities; and he hath a memory so astounding that he beareth the meaning of all their codes on the end of his tongue wherewith to confute ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Indians stealthily creeping forward, covered by their bull-hide shields. He and his men let them approach, and then gave them a few shots; on which they immediately ran off, firearms being to them an astounding novelty. ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... were like lead and the straps across one's chest made breathing difficult. The climb was tiring, but there was no obstacle, and we presently emerged on the surface of the country 1300 feet above the river and 5160 above the sea. Here was revealed a wide cyclorama that was astounding. Nothing was in sight but barren sandstone, red, yellow, brown, grey, carved into an amazing multitude of towers, buttes, spires, pinnacles, some of them several hundred feet high, and all shimmering under a dazzling sun. ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... him with wide eyes and parted lips. His astounding proposition had robbed her of speech. It was some seconds before she could gasp out, "What do you ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... swiftly, and went upstairs in the possession of an astounding truth, but rapt with it in such a whirlwind of wonder that she could do no more than clutch it to her bosom as she flew. She sent out word that she was not coming down to dinner, and locked herself in with her truth, to make what she ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... boiling heat—a not very uncommon 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 been standing at some distance from the deceitful pool. In a quarter ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... in thus relentlessly sacrificing its entire heritage of pagan accumulation it put back the clock of Art to the Stone Age, and had to begin all over again in the helpless bewilderment of untaught childish effort,—could find twice ten centuries too long for the astounding feat it achieved? Ten centuries, after all, make but a marvellous short course betwixt the archaic compositions of the third century and the compositions of Giotto ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... of Russia adopts the declaration of rights as part of the organic act to the extent that changes have not been made, by the constitution. Examine them—the constitution and the declaration of rights—we find other most astounding doctrines in the soviet fundamental law. I shall not discuss but merely mention a few of them. They do not pertain so much to the structure of government as they do to the economic and social conditions surrounding the people under the ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... the most astonishing manner. West, south, east, north, the carriage turned, "boxing" the compass until I lost all count of direction. It was an amazing performance. Considering that the man was driving against time on a mission of life and death urgency, his carelessness as to direction was astounding. The tortuousness of the route must have made the journey twice as long as it need have been with a little more careful selection. At least so it appeared to me, though, naturally, I was not in a position to offer ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... schools was one of these men; the family physician was another; the leading man in my town was a third; and any one who ever wrote a book was put, ex officio so to speak, into this class without further inquiry. One of the most astounding revelations of my later education was to learn that, after all, the amount of real knowledge in this world, voluminous though it seems, is after all pitiably small. Of opinion and speculation we have a surplus, but ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... to what we endured; therefore I will tell the story of Major Brown in my own words. But the reader must imagine the scene. The eyes of Basil closed as in a trance, after his habit, and the eyes of Rupert and myself getting rounder and rounder as we listened to one of the most astounding stories in the world, from the lips of the little man in black, sitting bolt upright in his chair ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... "Astounding!" said Gwynne Ellis, "I will not believe it. It is a moral impossibility that that loving nature and candid mind, could ever so change in their characteristics, as to refuse to listen to reason, and that from the lips of one whom she loved so ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... tell Paul that. He had just made the astounding discovery himself, and was thrilled with ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... Paley would have dealt with so astounding a fact, so crushing an argument as the appearance of the risen Jesus to 500 brethren at once. How would he have extravagated and revelled in proof! How would he have worked the topic, that "this could have been no dream, no internal ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... successful and triumphant beyond all else in the history whether of fraud or fiction—the infidel must believe as follows: On the first hypothesis, he must believe that a vast number of apparent miracles—involving the most astounding phenomena—such as the instant restoration of the sick, blind, deaf, and lame, and the resurrection of the dead—performed in open day, amidst multitudes of malignant enemies—imposed alike on all, and triumphed at once over the strongest prejudices and the deepest ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... light. The simple old sailor, with his talk of chains and purchases, made me forget the jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon something unmistakably real. Such a book being there was wonderful enough; but still more astounding were the notes penciled in the margin, and plainly referring to the text. I couldn't believe my eyes! They were in cipher! Yes, it looked like cipher. Fancy a man lugging with him a book of that description into this nowhere and studying it—and ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... attempts—we are in no such danger, if we do not yield ourselves to the madness of extravagant daring. Put railways aside altogether, and the number of private bills which are now brought before Parliament is perfectly astounding. Twenty years ago, such an influx would have daunted the heart of the stoutest legislator; and yet, with all this remarkable increase, we have clung pertinaciously to the same machinery, and expect it to work as well as when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... lands, past their homesteads... for them, poor fools, to admire him from a distance! Or he would hear that there was to be a hunt somewhere, that a rich landowner had arranged a meet in some outlying part of his land: he would be off there at once, and would canter in the distance, on the horizon, astounding all spectators by the swiftness and beauty of his horse, and not letting any one come close to him. Once some hunting landowner even gave chase to him with all his suite; he saw Tchertop-hanov was getting away, and ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... provincial town, we concede only so much 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, stands Constantina. The Arabs used to say that Constantina was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... 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
... across the stream, and the loftiest cataract in the world roaring over the bleak precipice opposite. This is the Yo-Semite Fall proper, or, in the Indian, "Cho-looke." By the most recent geological surveys this fall is credited with the astounding height of twenty-eight hundred feet. At an early period the entire mass of water must have plunged that distance without break. At this day a single ledge of slant projection changes the headlong flood from cataract to rapids for about four hundred feet; but the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... state of consternation into which we were thrown by the reading of this telegram. He told us it was of the utmost importance that the Commissioner and the General should at once be put in possession of this astounding news, and at the same time impressed upon us the imperative necessity for ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... a call to arms such as the Gray Seal had never received before—such as the Tocsin had never made before. And if it were true it—True! He laughed aloud a little gratingly. True! Had the Tocsin, astounding, unbelievable, mystifying as were the means by which she acquired her knowledge not only of this, but of countless other affairs, ever by so much as the smallest detail been ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... somewhat—it was much more severe this time—I looked up and found my surroundings growing at a far more rapid rate than before. I staggered to the edge of the pit. It was opening up and widening out at an astounding rate. Already its sides were becoming rough and broken, and I saw many places where a ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... astounding was this denouement that Louise did not even scream. Indeed, for the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... questions, she mercifully quickly follows one with another, and does not wait for answers. The interior economy of the whale suggested various trains of thought, and she went skipping along beside me, or rather in front of me, propounding the most astounding theories. I was quite glad when Mr. Dudley and Hugh ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... been at a luncheon at Ethel Mott's, given in compliment to herself, where she had sat nearly speechless for an hour and a half while half a dozen young ladies had discussed the origin of evil with great volubility, and what seemed to her, however it might have impressed metaphysicians, astounding erudition and profundity. She had assisted at that sacred rite of musical devotees, the Saturday night Symphony concert, where a handful of people gathered to hear the music, and all the rest of the world crowded for the sake ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... that there was color. The English, on the other hand, were trying hard for real color, but the younger men were in that crude stage which is the natural "ugly duckling" condition of the genuine colorist. The consequence was an astounding contrast between the painting of the two nations, and to eyes educated in France English art looked outrageous to a degree that we realize with the greatest difficulty now. At a later period my wife became ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... These are astounding facts; but they were seen by Huber, as here described. Not being able to trust his eyes, he summoned one of the greatest naturalists of Sweden, Jurine, to his side, to make new investigations and decide whether ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... by inspiration have rendered it of course of little or no application to Christians at present. Yet how can Arminians pray our Church prayers collectively on any day? Answer. See a 'boa constrictor' with an ox or deer. What they do swallow, proves so astounding a dilatability of gullet, that it would be unconscionable strictness to complain of the horns, antlers, or other indigestible non-essentials being suffered to rot off at the confines, [Greek: herkos hodonton]. But to write ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... penalties, and dealt with the Company's business; and there were the 'news-letters'—the old-fashioned predecessors of the modern newspaper, which were written by paid correspondents, whose duty it was to give their clients news of London and of England and of Europe. The news was often astounding, and was sometimes extraordinarily behind-time. For example, the Company's employees in India were still professing loyalty to the Most High and Mighty King James II nearly a twelvemonth after that ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... produced from Astounding Science Fiction April 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication ...
— Time and Time Again • Henry Beam Piper
... Neither was it because she was the plainest, for the beauty of the Piper girls was a recognized general distinction, and the youngest Miss Piper was not entirely devoid of the family charms. Nor was it from any lack of intelligence, nor from any defective social quality; for her precocity was astounding, and her good-humored frankness alarming. Neither do I think it could be said that a slight deafness, which might impart an embarrassing publicity to any statement—the reverse of our general feeling—that might be confided by any one to her private ear, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... other day I saw Astounding Stories on one of the newsstands. I purchased it, and after reading "Brigands of the Moon", I eagerly finished the rest of the magazine. I did not like "Out of the Dreadful Depths." In my opinion it should not be in a Science Fiction magazine. The only thing the matter with your magazine is that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... though the sympathy of his juvenile admirers had tempted his palate with a great variety of delicacies. We found also animals of a somewhat larger growth. The number of prairie dogs was absolutely astounding. Frequently the hard and dry prairie would be thickly covered, for many miles together, with the little mounds which they make around the mouth of their burrows, and small squeaking voices yelping at us as we passed along. The noses of the ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... saw, I thought, through "Master Devil's" plan, and I felt, too, that Gabord would not betray me. In any case, Gabord and I could fight it out. If he opposed me, it was his life or mine, for too much was at stake, and all my plans were now changed by his astounding news. At that moment Voban entered the room without knocking. Here was my cue, and so, to prevent explanations, I crept quickly down, opened the door, came ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... coming. Astounding as it may be, Mr. Wright contends that Defoe himself was the original of the story: that Defoe, provoked by his wife's irritating tongue, made a kind of vow to live a life of silence—and kept it for more ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... overcome in times as bad as these, when (as Mr. Orage wrote with something like splendid common sense the other day) there is such a lot to do and so few people who will do it. So I will devote this article to considering one case of the astounding baseness to which ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... The most astounding 'event' of late years was that of 1867, when the horse Hermit—previously represented as being in an unfit condition even to run, won the race—to the unspeakable ruin of very many, and inflicting on the late Marquis of Hastings the enormous loss of about L100,000, which, however, in ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... own handwriting, containing some fifth-rate verses with my name appended to them as their author. The assistant editor frankly admits that they had grave doubts about my being capable of such an astounding production. To me, I must candidly say, it seems more probable that they never for a single moment believed that the verses were really from my pen. Literary instinct is, of course, a very rare ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... now, the case presented a front inscrutable to his wits; try as he might, he failed to fit an explanation to any incident in which he had figured, while this last development—that his antagonist of the dark stairway had been Mrs. Hallam's son!—seemed the most astounding of all, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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
... and hungry to think of following them, and was reluctantly making for the camp, when all at once a magnificent deer sprang up from amongst a thicket of young pines, and bounded off at an astounding rate. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... 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
... of gaining an honest livelihood for himself and family, should a corrupted national guard, or an excited St. Antoine mob take it into their heads to dine in the Tuileries without being asked. Having read in the English newspapers, which he regularly peruses, of the astounding performances of the Wizard of the North at the Adelphi, more especially as regards the "paralysing gun delusion," he commences to imagine that he is well qualified to undertake the same responsibility, more especially from the practice he has had in that line from pistols, rifles, fowling-pieces, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... he had a gun. But I don't understand any of it. It is the most astounding thing I ever heard of, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... 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 touched ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... upon your retirement, but at the request of the Government I have undertaken a scientific examination of the causes which brought about The Leader's rise to power, the extraordinary popularity of his regime, the impassioned loyalty he was able to evoke, and the astounding final developments. ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
... confidences and their gains; he encourages their enterprise that he may earn a comfortable dividend; and he gives them up to justice when they are no longer worth defending. No dramatist that ever lived could do justice to this astounding situation, and it is the highest tribute to human ingenuity that few of the ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... moment, by a tumultuous rush of persons from that quarter. The fire, as if in scorn, had leapt across Dowgate Dock, and seizing upon the half-demolished houses, instantly made them its prey. The rapidity with which the conflagration proceeded was astounding, and completely baffled all attempts to check it. The wind continued blowing as furiously as ever, nor was there the slightest prospect of its abatement. All the king's better qualities were called into ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... astounding words Job Taskar sprang towards Monk Tooley with clinched fists, as though to strike him, and all present watched for ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... known an hour before!" he said to himself, and the astounding idea crept into his mind that perhaps it was, after all, a waste to spend so much time on the disposition of a dinner-table and the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... also to Yule's wife and child. One result of this intercourse was that the friends decided to return together to India. Accordingly they sailed from Marseilles towards the end of April, and at Aden were met by the astounding news of the outbreak of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... The immense number of persons who now believed him to be Yezzid was incalculable; his party increased and multiplied, and he soon had thousands of followers who supported his cause. The infatuation of the vulgar and the bulk of the community was astounding; for the renowned Muley Yezzid, like his Majesty George IV., was the first horseman in his empire, and the most accomplished gentleman: whereas Buhellesa[187], for so he was called in derision, was so bad a horseman that he generally rode ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... socialists were equally bitter in their attacks upon the anarchists. They denounced their methods as suicidal and the Propaganda of the Deed as utter madness. In La Periode Tragique, when Duval, Decamps, Ravachol, and the other anarchists in France were committing the most astounding crimes, Jules Guesde and other socialist leaders condemned these outrages and protested against being associated in the public mind with those who advocated theft and murder as a method of propaganda. ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... "Astounding!" cried the president. "This is a sacrilege, which will assuredly meet a just punishment. But," he continued after a pause, glancing anxiously around, "let us not forget that we are speaking of ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... symptoms shown by the patient. The agonizingly acute pains suddenly subside, the feet are placed firmly and squarely to the ground, and the animal walks with ease. Perhaps but the night before the patient is seen racked with excruciating pain; the morning sees the astounding change of apparent absolute recovery. Too well, however, the eye of the experienced veterinary surgeon sees that such is not the case. Even before proceeding to take a record of the other symptoms, he knows that it is but the commencement of the end. Methodically, however, ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... as if bolted 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
... his darkness it seemed to Boaz that hours must have passed. He heard voices. Together with the footfalls, that abrupt, brief, and (in view of Wood's position) astounding interchange of sentences made up his history of the night. Wood must have opened the door at the head of the stair; by the sound of his voice he would be standing there, peering below perhaps; ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... most astounding facts established by the enquiry was the wide-spread demoralisation which had developed itself in certain districts. Home had lost its sanctity. The ties that bind parents and children were loosened, and natural affection gave place to intense selfishness, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... my dear," said Mrs. Tresslyn, wiping a fine moisture from her upper lip, where it had appeared with Anne's astounding observation. "You will not have to wait ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... were never found, the Elizabeth and the Swan having gone home after parting company in the storm that sank the Marigold. After a prolonged search the Golden Hind stood north again. Meanwhile the astounding news of her arrival was spreading dismay all over the coast, where the old Spanish governor's plans were totally upset. The Indians had just been defeated when this strange ship came sailing in from nowhere, to the utter confusion ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... myth that I instantly wanted to engage him as a model, and in another moment I think I should have hailed him. But just then the sun dipped out of view, and all the orange and pink slid out of the landscape, leaving it cold and grey. And at the same moment an astounding ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... pleadingly at the Countess. But the Countess was a mere psychic instrument, it seemed, and had to be told, first of the question—he produced it with a suspicion that she might doubt his honesty—and then of the astounding answer. Thus enlightened, she protested that there could be no doubt about the truth of the answer; she was ready to stake her professional reputation on its truth. She regarded Bean with an awe which she made no attempt ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... tornadoes which occasionally sweep through the whole length and breadth of the land, levelling and blighting everything as it passes, putting a stop to the wheels of commerce, and bringing terror into almost every family. It came with an astounding effect upon St. Louis. Many who felt themselves rich were in a few days reduced to a state of poverty, not having the means wherewith to ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... true," was the astounding answer, when he said bad words, rushed from the room and slammed the door. Then followed ten days, the only ones since he became my brother when he would not call me "Sis." ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... watched and recorded the slow process which has thus finally resulted. No one could do so, because it has spread over a century and a half. If any one will consider, they will agree that the sentiment at the sight of a perfect beauty is as much amazement as admiration. It is so astounding, so outside ordinary experience, that it wears the ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... of various personal matters: his poverty, the low ebb of his balance at the bank, his present profession, his approaching debut as an entertainer, the chances of his failure. He thought, too, of the astounding change in his life, the future, vacant of promise, devoid of meaning, a future so utterly new and blank that he could find in it nothing to speculate upon. He thought also, and perfectly impersonally, of a girl whom he had met ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... first admired by the girl and her relatives; the trunk of this tree is shown behind the altar of the church. Pilgrimages to this place take place preferably about the twenty-first of January and the miracles ascribed to the Virgin are astounding. Miracles of quite a different nature are attributed to an image of Saint Andrew, in the capital. The populace confidently believe that as sure as this figure is carried to the street an earthquake ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... a possession, once attained, her thoughts rushed in, accused, exculpated, a wild confusion that, in another moment had built for her self-respect the shelter of a theory that, really, quite solidly sustained the statement so astounding to herself when it had risen to her lips. Hatred, spite; yes, these were motives, too, in Jack's treachery; she hadn't spoken falsely, though it had been with the blindness of the overmastering purpose. And her dignity was untarnished ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... it—that a cartoon has appeared in a London paper in which the Bishop of Wakefield is represented with a drawn razor in his hand in full cry after a Wakefield curate with a moustache. That is a very good example of finding the truth about yourselves in the newspapers, for I have the most astounding fact of all to tell you, and that is that I have never said a single word about moustaches from first to last. I knew you would forgive me making this little personal reference because it is not personal to myself and to many of those ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... the world gave a certain prominence at the time to the astounding demarche with which we now have to deal, there was such persistent mystery about the matter and so many official dementis accompanied every publication of the facts that even to this day the nature of the assault ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... They would have been stunned and confounded for the moment, but not at all converted in heart. Their hatred to Christ was not built on their unbelief, but their unbelief in Christ was built on their hatred; and this hatred would not have been mitigated by another (however astounding) miracle. This I wrote (Monday morning, June 7, 1847) in reference to my saying on the general question of miracles: Why these dubious miracles?—such as curing blindness that may have been cured by a process?—since ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... undergone similar toil and trouble for an empty cask, that cask would have become as precious to us as Jimmy was. More precious, in fact, because we would have had no reason to hate the cask. And we hated James Wait. We could not get rid of the monstrous suspicion that this astounding black-man was shamming sick, had been malingering heartlessly in the face of our toil, of our scorn, of our patience—and now was malingering in the face of our devotion—in the face of death. Our vague and imperfect morality rose with disgust at his unmanly lie. But he stuck to it ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... had remained a little time, one of his lordship's toad-eaters came to reconnoitre; and, as soon as he discovered us in the ranks, he retreated to carry the astounding intelligence to his patron. Messages now passed backwards and forwards, from the troop to his lordship's house, for nearly an hour before he made his appearance; a delay which had never before occurred. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... second quantity in 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
... going along at a double, where the rough river-bed would allow, but the progress was very slow, while, though they had come along leisurely, it was astounding how great a distance they had placed between them and ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... "Nothing, but that Downing Street has turned into Parnassus. The astounding fact is, that Grenville has teemed, and, as the fruits of the long vacation, has produced a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... and opened Mrs. Peveril's note. It treated chiefly of the utterly astounding ways that untravelled old lady was meeting with in foreign parts. "If you will believe me," wrote she, "the girl that waits on us wears carpet slippers down at heel, and a short cotton jacket for ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... on hearing all this astounding news, he rushed out of the office, pulled off his leather apron, put on his coat as he ran, and disappeared for an hour, at the end of which time he returned, went mysteriously up to ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... regarding his work which is likely to arise in the present day. A reader, for instance, whose opinions are based upon the results of scientific research, after noting certain statements made here touching these things, may pronounce the following judgment: "It is astounding that such statements should be possible in our time. The most elementary conceptions of natural science are distorted in such a manner as to denote positively inconceivable ignorance of even the rudiments of science. ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... a blow back. Now, from being a sort of fox-hunt, the affair had degenerated into a prize-fight; and it seemed utterly impossible to say who would win. On the one side were ranged weight and science and a shoe; on the other, wings and astounding agility and utter unscrupulosity. After the first round, I heard people in adjacent cabins waking up and murmuring unkind things—not about the cockroach, but concerning me. Then I called "Time," and walked out to the centre of the room. The cockroach did not come. I looked round ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... cans and waste clambered in and out of the rotating masses of iron with astounding sureness and boldness. To graze one of the fly-wheels, or to step one inch within the unguarded circle of their revolution, was to receive a deadly blow. Here was the heart and soul of the vessel, the real modern miracle ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... been some conflicting medical evidence as to whether the death could have been due to a pistol-shot, and certain astounding disclosures of police corruption and prison tyranny. A judge of the Military Tribunal had given startling proof of the Prime Minister's complicity in an infamous case, ending with the suicide of the prisoner's ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... With astounding clearness it now stands before my soul, the thought which hitherto had been wrapped in darkness—the thought that my will, merely as such, and of itself, has consequences. It has consequences because it is infallibly and immediately taken knowledge of by another related Will, which is itself an ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... therewith rushed into his mind the conviction that everything was thus explained. No man ever yet entertained an unhappy suspicion, but straightway an army of proofs positive came crowding to the service of the lie. It is astounding with what manifest probability everything will fall in to prove that a fact which has no foundation whatever! There is no end to the perfection with which a man may fool himself while taking absolute precautions against being fooled by others. Every fact, being a living fact, has endless sides ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... whose ambition was profit, not equity, and whose dealings with other men were not tempered by the amenities of the gentleman but were sharpened by the necessities of gain. It was upon such a class, new in the economic world and endowed with astounding power, that Adam Smith's new formularies of freedom ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... eyebrows; you sigh as you watch the tottering ash of your second cigar. Mrs. Brown comes to tell you it is late. I agree with you quickly. Florence has often been sketched before—putting Browning aside with his astounding fresco-music—by Ruskin and George Eliot and Mr. Henry James, to name only masters. But that is no reason why I should not try my prentice hand. Florence alters not at all. Men do. My picture, poor as you like, shall be my own. It is not their Florence ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... of Venice could be no longer doubted, Rizzo, holding ever in view the ascendancy of his chief and with an astounding faith in his own magnificent insolence, rose to the occasion, and sailed on a secret embassy for Cyprus to propose the hand of Alfonso to ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... not astounding enough, now has come the chemist who devotes himself to making not new commodities (or old ones in new ways), but new substances. He juggles with the atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, and the rest, and far outruns the workings of nature. Up to date he has ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... the wood, just at the point where Marco had fastened the horse. But all farther pursuit of him, on the part of Marco, was suddenly arrested by the astounding fact, which here burst suddenly upon Marco, that the horse and wagon were gone. Marco looked all about, this way and that, to assure himself that it was the very same place where he had fastened the horse. There could be no doubt of it. There was the very tree to which he had tied him, and the marks ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... can see from the appearance of your lawn youre a lady who really cares for her garden. I'm introducing to a restricted group—just one or two in each neighborhood—a new preparation, an astounding discovery by a renowned scientist which will make your grass twice as green and many times as vigorous upon one application, without the aid of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... 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 ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... attendants, whom the cry of the child had awakened, rushed to the cradle, where, to their astonishment and terror, they beheld the two reptiles dead in the hands of the infant Heracles. Amphitryon was also attracted to the chamber by the {235} commotion, and when he beheld this astounding proof of supernatural strength, he declared that the child must have been sent to him as a special gift from Zeus. He accordingly consulted the famous seer Tiresias, who now informed him of the divine origin ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... over the two phonograph cylinders now, rapidly comparing the new one which he had made and that which he had just allowed to reel off its astounding revelation. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... graciously brought us to the Hof in the midst of preparations for the festival of the Holy Father. On Sunday, June 18, the whole Catholic world was to celebrate the astounding fact of Pio Nono having exceeded the days of Saint Peter. We, who had come from Rome, where thirty upstart papers were denouncing time-honored usages and formulas, where many of the people had begun to sneer at the Papacy and to take gloomy views of the Church, were not prepared for the religious ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... something, and would be put in prison if he was caught. With a guilty pang he remembered his own dealings with his money-box, and he determined to throw away the rest of the sweets when, nobody was looking. Then mother made the astounding statement that he was not to go to school that day, but his sudden joy was checked a little when she said he was not to go out at all, except into the back garden. It seemed to Jack that he must be ill, but when he made this suggestion to mother, she gave up her explanations ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... our Lord Christ as Emperor of Judea, and the chief part of them was the Cross. But it came upon one with a curious shock, to see this coat among the shields of Scottish nobles. There were beasts that could be recognised at once, and these were sparingly named; but others were astounding, and above them were inscribed titles such as these: Shoe-lyon, Musket, Ostray; and one fearsome animal in the centre was designated the Ram of Arabia. This display of heraldry and natural history was reinforced ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... is, the largeness of the skull and arm. Charlemagne was, in fact, colossal with respect to size of body as well as extraordinary mental endowments. The son of Pepin-le-Bref was in body, as in mind, gigantic; of great corporeal strength, and of astounding intellect. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... making, piano tuning, draughting, typewriting, tailoring, tinsmithing and so forth; while classes in reading, writing and other subjects were held for those who were deficient in these requirements, and anxious to learn. And here the astounding observation was made that in certain cases uneducated men have been able to learn more in six months than the average child learns in as many years. In such cases the individual has an extraordinary power of assimilation and simply "eats ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... this point that in the most highly developed religions there is the greatest falling off from the original conception of the after-effect of human conduct on the soul, and the most astounding things are inculcated by the Koran and other works ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... structure, keep you in perpetual intercourse with an immense horizon. The great feature of the place is the obligatory round tower which occupies the northern end of it, and which has now been completely restored. It is of astounding size, a fortress in itself, and contains, instead of a staircase, a wonderful inclined plane, so wide and gradual that a coach and four may be driven to the top. This colossal cylinder has to-day no visible use; but it corresponds, happily ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... ranks of the 24th Regiment, under Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead, with about 40 hospital cases, drove off the repeated attacks of 4,000 Zulus, part of Cetewayo's army which had surprised and annihilated the garrison {78} at Isandhlwana earlier the same day. An astounding feat of arms was performed by a small body of troops during the withdrawal of the British Army in face of the overwhelming German attack at the Second Battle of the Somme. A detachment of about 100 ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... many to read that and others of the series, and a great number were circulated in the neighboring districts. This was actually within the papal states, under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Sienna, to whose knowledge came the astounding fact that pennyworths of heresy were circulated within the range of his pastoral charge: the matter was reported at head- quarters, taken up with due seriousness, and a Sunday appointed, on which, no doubt, I was quietly worshipping in the college chapel at Sandhurst, wholly unconscious ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... the astounding discipline amongst the legions of the Empire excites the admiration and despair even of their enemies; there is no random fighting here and breaking of ranks to do useless hacking. A grave farmer with a beard delivers a short and temperate speech (which he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... propose to give of this subject will be taken on his descriptions, which, I should observe, tally in all essential points with what I meet with in French and German authors. The little that I have myself seen of the matter, I will mention preliminarily; the most astounding things, it appears to me safer to shelter under the authority of Petetin, who, towards the close of the last century, in ignorance of mesmerism, described these phenomena as they came ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... horsedealer was in despair; when young Burnaby settled the matter by taking up the ponies, one under each arm and, walking downstairs, deposited them in the barrack-yard. The Queen heard the story when she saw the ponies, and doubtless felt an increased sense of security at Windsor, having this astounding testimony to the ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... to try a definition. I will not try to gauge how far the advance of moral forces has kept pace with that extension of material forces in the world of which this continent, conspicuous before all others, bears such astounding evidence. This, of course, is the question of questions, because as an illustrious English writer—to whom, by the way, I owe my friendship with your founder many long years ago—as Matthew Arnold said in America here, it is moral ideas that at bottom decide the standing or falling ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... it mean? A vast faintness attacked him as the truth began to penetrate. Out of the whirling mystery came the astounding, ponderous realization that he had blundered, that he had wronged her, that he had accused her of—Oh, that dear, stricken figure in ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... had already begun to look upon myself as a vassal of Proserpine, a bondsman of Hades, and now I could only gasp in impotent amazement at the suddenness of the change; words fail me to express fittingly the astounding metamorphosis. For the bodies of my butchered victims were nothing more nor less than three inflated bladders, whose sides still bore the scars of numerous punctures, which, as I recalled my battle of the previous night, were situated at the very points where I had inflicted gaping wounds upon ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... two are still missing—Clancy and Jupiter. About the latter Woodley has made no one the wiser; though he tells Clancy's strange experience, which, while astounding his auditory, fills them with keen apprehension for ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... revert to the method and amount of cooking of colonial days, there would be universal rebellion. Apparently indigestion was little known among the colonists—at least among the men, and the amount of heavy food consumed by the average individual is astounding to the modern reader. The caterer's bill for a banquet given by the corporation of New York to Lord Cornberry may help us to realize the gastronomic ability of ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... so unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was foolishly indulgent, she rather ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... excitement of the meeting and in the House may be imagined when—after a short but very cordial and effective speech from Mr. Bennett, the member for North Whinwick, in support of Mr. Wharton's candidature—Mr. Wilkins, the miner's member for Derlingham, rose and made a series of astounding charges against the personal honour of the member for West Brookshire. Put briefly, they amount to this: that during the recent strike at Damesley the support of the Clarion newspaper, of which Mr. Wharton is owner and practically editor, was bought by the employers in return for ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
