"Startle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mind at first almost imperceptibly: they exist only as vague indistinct surmises, and by no means take the precise shape or the substance of a formed opinion. At first, probably, they even offend and startle by their intrusion: but by degrees the unpleasant sensations which they once excited wear off: the mind grows more familiar with them. A confused sense (for such it is, rather than a formed idea) of its being desirable ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... replied, "and I'm sorry, Ada, but cannot help it now. This will I say, however: I had no wish or intention to hear when I hid myself. My desire was only to startle thee and Hilda, and before I thought what thou wert talking of the thing was out, and now I have got ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... society, his vote might certainly have created much annoyance to his party for a very brief period—just as other votes given from the usual motives—sometimes right and honorable—sometimes wrong and corrupt—usually do. In his case, however, there was something calculated to startle and alarm all those who knew and were capable of appreciating the stainless honor and hereditary integrity of the family. The M'Mahon's, though inoffensive and liberal in their intercourse with the world, even upon matters of a polemical nature, were nevertheless deeply ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... me that she will kill herself," I answered, thinking that this resolve would startle Henriette. But when she heard it a disdainful smile, more expressive than the thoughts it conveyed, flickered on her lips. "My dear conscience," I continued, "if you would take into account my resistance and the seductions that led to my fall ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... such momentous consequences, so well calculated to startle the public mind, so hostile to the established order of things, demands of us, as the official representatives of the American Society, a statement of the reasons which led to it. This is due not only to the Society, but also to the country and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... occasions he dignifies with the appellation of repose; and, on the strength of comprehensiveness and repose, is of course qualified to take his seat beside Shakspeare, and chat cosily with Bacon, and wink knowingly at Goethe, and startle Leibnitz with a slap on the shoulder,—the true Red-Republican sign of liberty in manners, equality in power, and fraternity in ideas! These men, to be sure, have a way of saying things which he has not yet caught; but then their wide-reaching thoughts are his as well ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... up, nor moved a mite. That is one of the peculiarities of the boy, you can't surprise him: nothin' seems to startle him. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... all, there are the transport-wagons, with their long span of oxen straggling all across the road, and a nervous bullock precipitating himself under your horse's nose. The driver, too, invariably takes the opportunity of a lady passing him to crack his whip violently, enough to startle any horse except Scotsman. Then when you have passed the place where the wagons most do congregate, and think you are tolerably safe and need only look out for ruts and holes in the street, lo! a furious galloping behind you, and some half dozen of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... We don't know!" The professor slapped the magazine with an emphatic hand. "Emil Mundson hasn't written this article for nothing. He's paving the way for some announcement that will startle the scientific world. I know him. In the same manner he gave out veiled hints of his various brilliant discoveries and inventions long before he offered them to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... hunting for one on the 20th, we realized it before we reached home. The flock was very timid, and when disturbed on North Head invariably came past the wireless station close to the engine-hut. Sandell concealed himself there with a gun, while I went out to startle the animals. They did not fail to do their part, but Sandell missed and the shot frightened them. He then rushed out and fired another shot as they were running, managing to hit one, which immediately dropped behind and ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... was heard, and looking toward the sound, I perceived the Chancellor cantering down the road. When abreast of the carriage he dismounted, and walking up to it, saluted the Emperor in a quick, brusque way that seemed to startle him. After a word or two, the party moved perhaps a hundred yards further on, where they stopped opposite the weaver's cottage so famous from that day. This little house is on the east side of the Donchery road, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... sorry man's dominion Has broken Nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... her fingers trembling violently, and the large dish which she was washing nearly slipping out of them. "Lor, miss, you do startle me. I was in the dumps, and you are for all the world like the sun coming out. Why, deary me, the back scullery ain't by no means such a bad sort of place when ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... 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 light that ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... never do anything for Lois Willoughby. Whatever his sentiment toward the woman-friend of his youth, he was tied and bound by the stress of a love of which the call was primitive. He might be over-abrupt; he might startle her; but at the worst he should escape from this unbearable ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... of the weather, the performances of Dick and Jack upon strong venison essence and roast gazelle were enough to startle any housekeeper of small income and an anxiety about the state of the butcher's bill. But of course the outdoor life and constant exertion produced a tremendous appetite; and as Mr Rogers noted the change in Dick, whose palate had to be tempted only a short time back, he felt ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... you, good fellow," replied the artist, laying down his weapons and grasping Gibault's proffered hand with a sigh of evident relief, "I am well, excellently well. You did, indeed, startle me by your sudden appearance; but no harm is done, and where none was intended no apology is necessary. You are a ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... and to spare. It is not like the works of Carlyle, which can be read to an end. Even in a corner of it, in a private park, or in the neighbourhood of a single hamlet, the weather and the seasons keep so deftly changing that although we walk there for a lifetime there will be always something to startle and ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the most ordinary way in the world—or perhaps that is too strongly put. The beginning was ordinary indeed, and tame, compared with the sequel. Yet even the beginning had a flavor of the unusual about it, strong enough to startle a man so used to a humdrum life and so unversed in anything out of the common as I. Here, then, is ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honour 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 sweetbriar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine: While the cock with lively din, Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... in order of time, to influence me was the New Testament, and in particular the Gospel according to St. Matthew. I believe it would startle and move any one if they could make a certain effort of imagination and read it freshly like a book, not droningly and dully like a portion of the Bible. Any one would then be able to see in it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thoughts. Naturally they were of the man whom he still saw, in his imagination, picking his jailer up off the door-step and going back to prison. Who could say that this man might not any day make just such a lion's leap into the world's arena as Garibaldi had made, and startle the nations as Garibaldi had done? What was that red-shirted scourge of tyrants that this man might not be? Sailor, soldier, hero, patriot, prisoner! See Garibaldi: despising the restraints of law; ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... 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 sense, by forbidding it to waste ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... an apple fall, he found In that slight startle from his contemplation— 'T is said (for I 'll not answer above ground For any sage's creed or calculation)— A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round In a most natural whirl, called 'gravitation;' And ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... back was towards us, and he was standing at some little distance so as not to startle the boy, who rose again, crouched, and looked wildly at us, as the rope which had been simply passed through the iron shackles began to run through a link till the end was drawn out, and run over the ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... him with faults proceeding from the weakness and blindness of the decadence—the faults of men too blind to read his art aright, too weak to stand on their own feet without him—would be either stupid or malicious. If at the close of the sixteenth century the mannerists sought to startle and entrance the world by empty exhibitions of muscular anatomy misunderstood, and by a braggadocio display of meaningless effects—crowding their compositions with studies from the nude, and painting agitated groups without a discernible ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... startle him from perilous footing, "let me hold your portmanteau. Jump to the slant ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... really was, it stood as a symbol of the whole miserable situation to me. It was just enough to startle me into contempt for myself. That night Breck came stealing down to me along the dark roads in his quiet car about eleven-thirty. I knew he had been to the Jackson dinner and was surprised to find he had changed into street clothes. He ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... him! No, that's nonsense, or she'd have turned up in better time, and wouldn't have risked his neck up to the last moment. Though I make it a rule never to be surprised at anything, I expect what Brian Fitzgerald has to tell me will startle me considerably. I've never met with such an extraordinary case, and from all appearances the end isn't reached yet. After all," said Mr. Calton, thoughtfully, "truth is ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... years of further dosing and experimentation along the materialistic lines of the 'regular' school, of curtailing their liberties, and forcing their necks under the yoke of medical tyranny, should come to them with the insistence of a clarion call, and startle them into such action that the subtle evil which lurks behind this proposed legislative action would be dragged out into the light and exterminated! To permit commercialism and greed, the lust of mammon, and the pride of the flesh that expresses itself in the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... like to hear your opinions regarding the antiquity of our race: geologists are daily becoming bolder and more unhesitating in their assertions on the subject; and we are fast drifting toward conclusions that seem to startle the religious world, and threaten to upset our confidence in that Book which we have been accustomed to regard with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... brief seconds, during which, however, it had traversed the greater part of the valley, it as suddenly disappeared, leaving an evanescent trail of flame behind it. There could be little doubt that the old shepherd had merely seen one of those shooting lights that in mountain districts so frequently startle the night traveller; but the apparition now filled his whole mind, as one vouchsafed from the spiritual world, and of strange and ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... doctor's munificence flashed through to its four corners like lightning. It became the one topic of spirited conversation. We had always voted the doctor a jolly good fellow, but now he was the hero of the hour. When he next came into the camp he received such a thundering and spontaneous ovation as to startle him, until at last the reason for this outburst dawned upon him. But he turned it off with his characteristic ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It's the matrimonium ex usu, or consuetudine; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife praescriptione. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... late at night, and even if they startle me a little when I'm in bed, the pleasure of going to sleep again is all the greater. But in the morning I awaken them, when I put my room in order. Then they scold a little and go." I had been observing him in the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... pointed out to him, and he only delayed at the inn long enough to arrange his dress as might appear to the Abbess most respectful, and, poor boy, be least likely to startle the babe on whom his heart was set. At almost every inn, the little children had shrieked and run from his white and gashed face, and his tall, lank figure in deep black; and it was very sadly that he said to Philip, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we would we might seduce the reader into an utter debauch of spelling. But a sudden Maenad dance of the letters on the page, gleeful and iridescent spelling, a wild rush and procession of howling vowels and clattering consonants, might startle the half-won reader back into orthodoxy. Besides, there is another reader—the printer's reader—to consider. For if an author let his wit run to these matters, he must write elaborate marginal exhortations to this authority, begging his mercy, to let the little flowers of spelling alone. ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... another aspect of this matter which would perhaps startle those who think that all piety and orthodoxy reside in the rural districts; and that is, that the city, as it is, affords far greater encouragements to well developed piety than the country; and that if the church were fully awake to her duty towards young men, and actually ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... variety of game, among which were a crow, a kite, and a laughing jackass (alcedo gigantea,) a species of king's-fisher, a singular bird, found in every part of Australia. Its cry, which resembles a chorus of wild spirits, is apt to startle the traveller who may be in jeopardy, as if laughing and mocking at his misfortune. It is a harmless bird, and I seldom allowed them to be destroyed, as they were sure to rouse us with the earliest dawn. To this list ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... bit of bread. "Appetiva le rape," says his good son; videlicet, he was fond of turnips. In his fourth Satire, he mentions as a favourite dish, turnips seasoned with vinegar and boiled must (sapa), which seems, not unjustifiably, to startle Mr. Panizzi.[39] He cared so little for good eating, that he said of himself, he should have done very well in the days when people ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... as quietly as possible. It will not be long. She at least is suspicionless. Never did creature so happily delude herself. Yet what a judgment in some things! What keen discrimination! What a wild, governless imagination! She would be a prize, if it were only to exhibit. How she would startle the dull, insipid, tea-table simperers on our Helicon—nay, with what scorn she would traverse the Helicon itself. The devil is that she would have a will in spite of her keeper. Such an animal is never tamed. There could be no prescribing ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... bless my soul, if you frightened him into giving up a quid of tobacco like that you sure did startle him some!" He kicked Stevens' lost property out with the toe of his boot and turned to Joanne, showing her the fresh bread and marmalade. "Mrs. Otto sent these to you," he said. "And the train ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... day, it will be realised in some great festival of delight. There is, too, a subtle selfishness in this quest after the ideal—the Holy Grail of the imagination. The artist keeps the secret from his brother artists until he can startle them with some gracious surprise. He almost pities them, as he thinks of the revelation that is about to dawn upon unsuspecting and slumberous minds. Postponement of this surprise is a torment to the mind which had planned ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a start of astonishment. In his own mind he had arrived at the conclusion that the will would never be executed, and to have Miss Merrick thus suddenly declare her decision was enough to startle even the lawyer's ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... lads. Ye must hold on," he said, in an eager but subdued voice. "Doubtless it would be pleasant to vent our feelings in a hearty cheer, but it would startle the old gentleman inside. Get along with you, and let us get ready ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... We sit with it in hand, running our fingers over the big staring letters, as over the black and white keys of a piano, drumming out of them a mild melody of perfect repose. With what delight do we disport us in the illimitable void of its nothingness, as who should swim in air! Here is nothing to startle-nothing to wound. The very atmosphere is saturated with "the spirit of the rural press;" and even our dog stands by, with pendant tail, slowly dropping the lids over his great eyes; and then, jerking them suddenly up again, tries to look as if he were not sleepy in the least. ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... 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 ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... by which we have crossed the Jordan soon disappears behind us, as we trot along the winding bridle-path through the river-jungle, in the stifling heat. Coming out on the open plain, which rises gently toward the east, we startle great flocks of storks into the air, and they swing away in languid circles, dappling the blaze of morning with their black-tipped wings. Grotesque, ungainly, gothic birds, they do not seem to belong to the Orient, but ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... trial. Most of the translations which exist give questions as well as answers: but these are but occasionally given in the original document, and Jeanne's narrative reads like a calm, continuous statement, only interrupted now and then by a question, usually a cunning attempt to startle her with a new subject, and to hurry some admission from her. The great dignity with which she makes her replies, the occasional flash of high spirit, the calm determination with which she refuses to be ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... don't know about that," said Miss Ingate. "It wouldn't startle me to hear that he knew you were intending to come. All I know is that Miss Foley's been here for several days. Not a soul knows except me and Aguilar. And it seems to get safer every day. She does venture about the house now, though she never goes into the garden ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... State, nor with more firmness of mind. They might need a preparatory discourse on the text of 'Prove all things, hold fast that which is good,' in order to unlearn the lesson that reason is an unlawful guide in religion. They might startle on being first awaked from the dreams of the night, but they would rub their eyes at once, and look the spectres boldly in the face. The preacher might be excluded by our hierophants from their churches and meeting-houses, but would be attended in the fields by whole acres of hearers ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... 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 of originality. But originality and modishness are different things. People who have ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... In any case, music. I am in a mood for music. I am in a mood where if something be not done To startle me, I shall ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... 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 ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... breast of my River, and startle the birds on the edge, To land on a newly found island, a boat that is caught in the sedge, The rays of the sun are still level, not yet has the heat of the day Deflowered the mists of the morning, that linger in ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... the earliest if not the first remarkable animal to startle a stranger on arriving in Ceylon, whilst wending his way from Point-de-Galle to Colombo, is a huge lizard of from four to five feet in length, the Talla-goya of the Singhalese, and Iguana[1] of the Europeans. It may be seen at noonday searching for ants and insects in the middle of the highway ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... men, flickering slowly, like glimmering ashen lights, out of the shadows in the hall—first Stephen's face, with its shocked compassionate eyes; then the face of old Darrow, rock-hewn, relentless; then the face of her father, which even tragedy could not startle out of its ceremonious reserve; and beyond these familiar faces, it seemed to her that the collective face of the crowd gazed back at her with an expression which was one neither of surprise nor terror, but ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... manner. Her beauty was of the dropping-to-pieces type, bound together by wonderful clothes of a fashion peculiar to herself and very effective. But they had the energy, the ruthlessness, and the indifference to opinion of their father, and loved to startle the world he had won for himself. They were shameless, ultra-smart, with a sort of half-condescending passion for upper Bohemia. And as neither their mother nor they cared about anybody's private ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... she gayly. "What could you expect when prowling amongst the graves in a church-yard so lone and solitary, like a goule, on a damp November night? I saw you from Mr. Osborne's going toward it, and determined to startle you—and I think I ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... enough to startle you, lad. I should say the best thing you could do would be to take a good strong tumbler of grog, and then ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... excavations during the last fifty years have laid bare much that was hidden, and "learning and research" have in parts revealed the "obliterated plan;" but, in 1817, the "shapeless mass of ruins" defied the guesses of antiquarians. "Your walks in the Palatine ruins ... will be undisturbed, unless you startle a fox in breaking through the brambles in the corridors, or burst unawares through the hole of some shivered fragments into one of the half-buried chambers, which the peasants have blocked up to serve as stalls for their jackasses, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... began. And swift and sudden it went on to the end. She had come on board the yacht that first night to startle it with her beauty and her voice; last night, silent and stately, she had slipped through the evening like a dream; now she stood before him a dazzling creature of the morning: yesterday she was Penseroso; to-day she was Allegro; what would she be to-morrow? How sparkling, as one day ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... stopping at his door to see if he were asleep. He lay silently; through his eyelashes he could see her outlined in the soft light from the hall. She was coming in to see if he was tucked in. In a moment he would jump up and startle her with a hug, as she leaned over him. In ...
— Native Son • T. D. Hamm
... indeed! so wonderful, in fact, that I may be pardoned for refusing to credit the essay as being your own composition. Do you think it is natural for a dunce (I repeat the word), who has been in the habit of writing the most childish nonsense, to break on the world suddenly as a genius, and startle every one with her wonderful thoughts? It stands to reason that some underhand work has been going on; and such being the case, I prefer to hold myself aloof from one who could be guilty of any ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... standing with her back to him, and Forrester didn't make a sound, not wanting to startle the Goddess. She was totally unclad, her glorious body shining in the light of the room, her blue-black hair unbound and falling halfway down her gently curved back. But she must have heard him somehow, for she turned, and for half a ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... reeling battle; two main waves Meeting, one hurled sheer from the sea-wall back That shocks it sideways, one right in from sea Charging, that full in face takes at one blow That whole recoil and ruin, with less fear Startle men's eyes late shipwrecked; for a breath Crest fronting crest hung, wave to wave rose poised, Then clashed, breaker to breaker; cloud with cloud 1550 In heaven, chariot with chariot closed on earth, One fourfold flash and thunder; yet a breath, And with the king's ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... it. He would wander about the big wood at Kinadife, or he would sit through many hours of the day among the rushes about Lake Belshragh, listening to the streams from the hills, or watching the shadows in the brown bog pools; sitting so quiet as not to startle the deer that came down from the heather to the grass and the tilled fields at the fall of night. As the days went by it seemed as if he was beginning to belong to some world out of sight and misty, that has for its mearing the colours that ...
— Stories of Red Hanrahan • W. B. Yeats
... bad of me to startle you like that," he acknowledged. "Please forgive me. I caught sight of you both through the trees and declared ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... "You startle me," returned the great surgeon, "not only by the truth of your remarks, but by their obviousness. It is strange indeed that such a matter should have so long been overlooked. The more I think upon it the more the bare idea of actual crucifixion seems to horrify me, though heaven ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... well to fear. For the main purpose of the article was to emphasize the fact that, in the existing conditions of things, nothing was ever likely to be done for the relief of the hungry sufferers from bad laws and bad social conditions, unless some deeds of violence were employed to startle the public into the knowledge that the sufferings existed and would not be endured in patience any longer. It is unfortunately only too true that, at all periods of history, even the most recent history of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the luck to startle him out of his reserve. Miss Kit came down to the yard that morning, and for the first time for more than a ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... the abnormal conditions of an island where black and white were in relations impossible in the countries from which the white man had come. It did not even startle Dyck that all the planters, and the people generally in the island, from the chief justice and custos rotulorum down to the deckswabber, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... thoughts of both of them; and this broke down the barriers between them—Thyrsis became bolder, and more open in his speech. He lost his awe of her maidenhood and her innocence—he wooed her, he lured her on; he rejoiced in his power to agitate her, to startle her, to speak to her about secret things. He would clasp her in his arms and shower his kisses upon her; and she would yield to him, almost fainting with bliss—and then shrink from ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... midnight when I saw a light in a window and heard the scraping of a fiddle. At the edge of a clearing enclosed by a worm fence I came to a row of slave-cabins. Mongrel dogs barked through the fence, and in one angle of it a young white man with long straight hair showed himself so abruptly as to startle my horse. Only the one cabin was lighted, and thence came the rhythmic shuffle of bare-footed dancers while the fiddle played "I lay ten dollars down." There were three couples on the floor, and I saw—for the excited dogs had pushed the door ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... doctor. At any rate, you are a brick, I will say that. But I'll think of all this, I'll think of it; but it does startle me to find that poor Mary has a child living ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... sulphurous smoke, which gives perpetual warning of those smouldering forces ever ready to devastate the surrounding country. Subterranean activity increases during the rainy season, and tremors of earthquake occasionally startle the equanimity of those unused to the perils of existence on this thin crust of Mother Earth, for Java's teeming soil and population rest upon an ominous fissure of the globe's surface, and twelve of the forty-five ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... finding a husband a young lady would then add the not less important business of making herself a rational person, instead of a more or less tastefully decorated doll with a passion for a great deal of money. She might awaken to the fact, which would at first startle her very much no doubt, that there is a great portion of a universe outside her own circle and her own mind. This simple discovery would of itself effect a revolution that might transform her from being an insipid idiot into ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... considerable size and elegance of binding. Carelessly looking at the fly-leaf, he saw that it was a present to Wenna Rosewarne, "with the very dearest love of her sister Mabyn." He passed his hand over the leaves, not noticing what he was doing. Suddenly he saw something which did effectually startle him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... the Niebelungen of the Night Startle sun's radiance ... And ye, the Rhine's Water-born Nymphs, are lashed and swept away By ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... 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 battered pint saucepan without a handle, ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... impossible to give an idea of the imperious tone and stern look of the princess, as she pronounced these words which were calculated to startle a girl, until now accustomed to live in a great measure as she pleased: yet, contrary perhaps to the expectation of Madame de Saint Dizier, instead of answering impetuously, Adrienne looked her full in the face, and said, laughing: "This ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... vanity of human hopes and the folly of friendship?" inquired Adrien, so coldly as to startle both the company and Lord Standon himself, who not being in Lady Constance's confidence, was naturally at a loss for the reason of this sudden anger on the part of Leroy. He drew back in surprise, but any further reference ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... as an inalienable privilege; John Steele encountered him on every hand. Once, beneath a great tree, where Jocelyn Wray and he had stopped their horses to talk for a moment, the bleared, bloated face of what had been a man looked up at him. The sight for an instant seemed to startle the beholder; a wave of anger at that face, set in a place where imagination had an instant before played with a picture altogether different, passed over him; then ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... Psyche," in close imitation of Lulli, the long famed composer of Louis XIV. Purcell followed in the new track, taking for his models the productions of the first Italian composers. The fact, that Purcell was under obligations to the Italians, may startle many of his modern admirers; but with a candour worthy of himself, in the dedication of his Dioclesian to Charles Duke of Somerset, he says, that "music is yet but in its nonage, a forward child. 'Tis now learning Italian, which is its best master." And in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... find evil in everything, they do not comprehend that others still believe in the good. Therefore they have to be so nonchalant as to stop their ears, lest the hum of the busy world should suddenly startle them from sleep. The father allows his son to go where so many others go, where Cato himself went; he says that youth is but fleeting. But when he returns, the youth looks upon his sister; and see what has taken place in him during an hour passed in ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... that when some one might see us—I forgot, for a minute, that there was any one else in the world! Besides, I'm afraid, if we do, I'll let myself go more than I mean to—it's all been stifled inside me so long—and be almost rough, and startle or hurt you. I couldn't bear to have that happen to you—again. I want you always to feel safe and shielded ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... though but for pins, may be taken in by customers for pins, sooner than by a direct bribe of ten times the value; especially if pretenders to conscience: for the offer of a bribe would not only give room for suspicion, but would startle and alarm their scrupulousness; while a high price paid for what you buy, is but submitting to be cheated in the method of the person makes a profession to get by. Have I not said that human nature is a rogue?**—And do not I know ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... However, he did startle the poor old parish clergyman effectually by calling on him to publish the banns of marriage between Dermot Edward St. Glear Tracy and Lucy Percy Alison, both residing in this parish. He evidently thought ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... after considering the following statistics. The progressive increase of the expenditures for the leading armies and navies of the world during the last quarter of a century is a fact of such gravity as to startle every thoughtful student of economic problems. It may be briefly indicated by dividing the time from 1881 to 1905 into five-year periods, and noting the disbursements of several great nations for army and navy purposes during the first ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... came out gradually before me. Nor did I feel as I ought to feel in their behalf until, in my own person and purse, I became the victim of a system of tyranny which cries from earth to heaven for relief. Were I to narrate my own story it would startle many of the Protestants of Ireland. There are good landlords—never a better than the late Lord Downshire, or the living and beloved Lord Roden. But there are too many of another state of feeling and action. There are estates in the north where the screw is ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... faggots of myrtle-branches. She listened sullenly to Gertrude's offer and explanations; indifferently to my admonitions not to accept. The thought of stripping for the view of a man, which would send a shudder through our most brazen village girls, seemed not to startle her, immaculate and savage as she is accounted. She did not answer, but sat under the olives, looking vaguely across the sea. At that moment Waldemar came up to us; he had followed with the intention of putting an end ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... insensibly have been either famished or poisoned. In this spiritual distress, the 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, and deacons, is derived from the same inexhaustible ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... makes men feel young is great—a great war or a love-story. And in the darkest of the books of God there is written a truth that is also a riddle. It is of the new things that men tire—of fashions and proposals and improvements and change. It is the old things that startle and intoxicate. It is the old things that are young. There is no sceptic who does not feel that many have doubted before. There is no rich and fickle man who does not feel that all his novelties are ancient. There is no worshipper of change who ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... we ourselves could) that the appraisements made by 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 the House of Commons have this morning ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of night, too much the ghosts come through Your crazy doors, to vex and startle me, Touching with curious fingers cold as dew Kissing with unloved kisses fierily That dwell, slow fever, through my veins all day, And fill my senses as the dead their graves. They are builded in my castles and bridges? Yea, Not therefore must my dreams become their ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... do you not see? It is a device of the Senate to startle our friends from Bosphorus. The faggots and straw blaze up fiercely round the wall; then, when all is confusion, the substance in the sealed vessels escapes and at once puts out the fire, and the laugh is with us. Our friends from Bosphorus know what ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... due offences Do not fright me, do not startle, For if they through arrogance And ambition sought this garden, Me the worship of the gods Here has led, and so I 'm guarded 'Gainst all sorceries whatsoever, 'Gainst all forms of Christian magic:— ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... She went about in a quiet matter-of-fact way which was even gentler than her customary gentleness because in these days, while trying to preserve a quite ordinary demeanour, she felt as though she must move as one would move in making sure that one would not startle a bird one loved. ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... do not pray for anybody or any party to commit outrages, still I do pray, and that earnestly and constantly, for some terrific shock to startle the women of this nation into a self-respect which will compel them to see the abject degradation of their present position; which will force them to break their yoke of bondage, and give them faith in themselves; which will make them proclaim their allegiance to woman first; which will ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... way. I never saw better acting, even in Kean. His look, his manner, his long arm, his elvish fore-finger,—like an exclamation-point, punctuating his bitter thought,—showed the skill of a master. The effect of the whole was to startle everybody, as if a pistol-shot had rung through the hall."—Recollections, Vol. II. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... urged Cranston, "then they'll answer." But Chrome said that wouldn't do; it would wake up or startle everybody in ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... again, and Priscilla quickly moved to the mother's side, but great joys do not kill even though they startle, and presently the white white face was raised with a smile almost of heaven illuminating it, and the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... night a solemn vow, To startle all beholders: I wore white muslin on my brow, Green velvet on my shoulders— My trousers were supremely wide, I learn'd to swear "by Allah"— I stuck a poniard by my side, And called ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... 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 ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... was to command the Egyptian Army, asked the Cabinet for such large figures as to startle them.' ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... It used 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 an harmonium in the dining-room. ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... before, the 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 had ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... family-secrets to, unsnecking the cupboard, And setting the skeleton rattling his bones? I took you For one of us, who'd ken our pretty ways; And reckoned naught I could tell of Jim to Jim's wife Could startle her, though she'd ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... rocking-chair and a book. But much as I detest the smell of car-smoke, and to find my face spotted with soot, and ill as it makes me to ride backward, I would willingly travel every month of the year over the road from Athens to Patras. The mountains are not so high as to startle, the gulf not so vast as to shock. But with gentleness you are drawn more and more into the net of its fascination until the tears well to your eyes and there is a positive ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... had them. If one reads Turgenieff's stories with the knowledge that they were composed—or rather that they came into being—in this way, one can trace the process in every line. Story, in the conventional sense of the word—a fable constructed, like Wordsworth's phantom, 'to startle and waylay'—there is as little as possible. The thing consists of the motions of a group of selected creatures, which are not the result of a preconceived action, but a consequence of the qualities of ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... were staggering under the weight of the deer, and the spare guns were carried by my tracker. We were proceeding slowly along, when the tracker, who was in advance, suddenly sprang back and pointed to some object in the path. It was certainly enough to startle any man. An enormous serpent lay coiled in the path. His head was about the size of a very small cocoa-nut, divided lengthways, and this was raised about eighteen inches above the coil. His eyes were fixed upon us, and his forked tongue played in and out of his mouth with a continued hiss. Aiming ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... herself would startle at this letter, And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all: She says I am not fair; that I lack manners; She calls me proud, and that she could not love me, Were man as rare as Phoenix. Od's my will! Her love is not the hare that I do hunt; Why writes ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... with the company. He was to open with "Hamlet," and Mrs. Bradshaw, who by right should have played the part of Queen Mother, was laid up with a broken ankle. Miss Morris says: "It took a good deal in the way of being asked to do strange parts to startle me, but the Queen Mother did it. I was just nicely past sixteen, and I was to go on the stage for the serious Shakesperian mother of ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... of vocabulary. A remarkable experience has occurred in this room within an hour. I can no more describe it than the man born blind could describe sight. I can only call it by one name, which may startle you. ...
— The Lifted Bandage • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... that startle us with their unforeseen vividness or some unexpected blaze of colour; when the fleece of gold is taken from the tree where it had long since shone like a beacon through the dark, the tree sinks back into ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... said Kate, who now stood, unassisted, in the light of the lantern, "but in woeful case, and more like to startle you than if I were the biggest fish. I am Mistress Kate Bonnet, just out of the river between here and the town. No, I will not enter your house, I am not fit; I will stand here and ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... house lay wrapped in slumber. I hesitated to pull the bell: no, it would startle Mrs. Sloman. Bessie was coming: she would surely not make me wait. Was not that her muslin curtain stirring? I would wait in the porch—she ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... light under the window; and at the little flowers just peeping above the ground; and at the foliage, with its many-shaded green; and occasionally I looked at the body stretched upon the bed. And each time that I looked it seemed to me that it gently stirred. This did not startle me at all, for I was accustomed to the appearance of death. Who that has lost a friend does not find it impossible to realize that the form is utterly without life? And who has ever gazed long at a corpse without fancying that it moved? So again and again I looked ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... French Ambassador to Germany, the United States and Spain) probably could excel Mr. Gerard in revelations of entertaining diplomatic history and gossip. Count von Bernstorff, former Ambassador to the United States, too, I imagine might startle us with a diary ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... Mary had not been sheltered from taking part in scenes of suffering; she had seen sickness and death in cottages, as well as in her own home, and she had none of the fanciful alarms, either of novelty or imagination, to startle her in the strange watch that had so suddenly been thrust on her but what did fill her with a certain apprehension, was the new and lofty beauty of expression that sat on that sleeping countenance. 'A nice boy,' 'rather a handsome lad,' 'a boy of ingenuous ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at large has truly said of the labors of Dr. Tuckerman: "From the beginning he had the moral and pecuniary support of the leaders of life in Boston; her first merchants and her statesmen were watching these experiments with a curious interest, and although he was often so radical as to startle the most conservative notions of men engaged in trade, or learned in the old-fashioned science of government, there was that in the persistence of his life and the accuracy of his method which engaged ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... to the fact that he owned a good voice, and that one of the enemies for whom he and the rest of the Pawnees were hunting, was much nearer than was supposed. He emitted a screeching yell, enough to startle all who heard it, and, looking around and seeing nothing of the white archer, he stopped and again signaled for the rest to hasten while it ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... same," he said to the man behind the bar, and then to me with a kind of explosive snap: "By George, I'm in a good mind to resign this rotten job!" That didn't startle me. I had been in the business long enough to know that the average newspaper man is forever threatening to resign. Most of them—to hear them talk—are always just on the point of throwing up their jobs and ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... 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 ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... 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 of our ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... I had read that the police bullied suspected persons in this way. If you make a guilty person believe that you know him to be guilty, you can also get him to confess if you startle him sufficiently. It occurred to me that this was what these men were doing, especially as they had not been sure of me when I came into ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... were stalking in the shade of the trees, apparently unconscious of the presence of a few dogs, and not caring for the numerous turkeys, geese, and other domestic animals that gabbled and screamed around them. Nor did my own approach startle the wild, beautiful creatures, that seemed as docile as any of ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... the barrels and the caps of his gun to see if all was right; then he said to uncle Ralph, "You and Tom had better stay here; for too many of us may startle the deer." ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... vengeance is kin to roguery, d'ye see. If you're for murdering the father what's to hinder you from giving the proud daughter up to—steady, Martin, steady it is! Your sudden ways be apt to startle a timid man and my finger's on the trigger. Look'ee now, shipmate, if your scheme of fine-gentlemanly vengeance doth not permit of such methods towards a woman, what's to prevent you going on another track and carrying her with you, safe from all chance of brutality? ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... in Flanders. All the medical officers of the garrison were immediately in requisition; and the sights which I saw, even when standing at the gate, as the carts and cars rolled over the drawbridge, were sufficient to startle feelings more used to such terrible demonstrations of the folly or the frenzy of the world. But this was no time to indulge indolent sensibilities. Of course, I have no desire to enter into the startling details ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... in general, he makes abundant use of that apprehension of death, which is far stronger in the uneducated than in the more refined, as a source from which he may gather thunderbolt after thunderbolt with which to startle the indifferent and hardened heart. What matter though the sentiment to which he appeals be a perverted sentiment? what matter how severely wrenched out of its normal channel? if through this tortuous channel something of the divine truth reaches the awakened ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was seized from behind, and Walters ran past. She struggled fiercely, biting her lips as she stopped the scream that might startle her lover, and heard the man who held her breathing hard. But he held her firmly and she stopped struggling, with a paralyzing horror that made her muscles limp. Still, she could see and think, and the scene fixed itself upon her brain like a photograph; long afterwards ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... 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
... 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 ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... with a second laugh, but it did not startle me like the first. "We should all be perfect, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt |
