"Astonishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... creature of such extraordinary weight it is astonishing how noiselessly and stealthily the elephant can escape from a pursuer. When suddenly disturbed in the jungle, it will burst away with a rush that seems to bear down all before it; but the noise sinks into absolute stillness so suddenly, that a novice might well be led to suppose that ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... month of roses. Quite the commonest variety known to Hearticulturists is the Blush Rose. This most delicate and sensitive of all the flowers in Love's Garden has the astonishing power of changing color. The faintest whisper of a Spring Zephyr, the hum of a bee, or the note of a bird will cause it to turn from an ivory pink to the deepest crimson. Care should be taken in the selection of this variety of roses as unscrupulous ...
— Cupid's Almanac and Guide to Hearticulture for This Year and Next • John Cecil Clay
... Guibert (p. 481) paints in lively colors this general emotion. He was one of the few contemporaries who had genius enough to feel the astonishing scenes that were passing before their eyes. Erat itaque videre miraculum, caro omnes emere, atque ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... they form the best and most definite natural boundary in Europe.[1218] Epirus and Aetolia, fenced in by the solid Pindus range, took little part in the common life of ancient Greece; but the intermittent chains of Thessaly offered a passway between Macedon and Hellas. The Alps have an astonishing number of excellent passes, evenly distributed for the most part. These, in conjunction with the great longitudinal valleys of the system, offer transit routes from side to side in any direction. The Appalachian ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... on its coast at our arrival; but on walking along the beach, we noticed the prints of human feet of such uncommon magnitude, that if the rest of the body were of similar proportions, the natives must be of astonishing size. We at length noticed a path which led into the country, which nine of us determined to pursue, that we might explore the island, as we imagined it was of small size, and could not consequently have many inhabitants. Having advanced near a league, we observed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... and Dick Short said nothing. They seemed to be in doubt. All of them wondered where Dory could have got the money to pay for the Goldwing, and the charge of Pearl Hawlinshed appeared to explain the whole matter. Certainly the astonishing statement of Pearl made it look very bad for the skipper of the Goldwing. When they asked where he got the forty-two dollars to pay for the boat, Dory had refused to explain, and had insisted that no more questions should be asked about ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... Tables. Pomponius even says that this Hermodorus was the author of the last two tables. Pliny calls him the Interpreter of the Decemvirs, which may lead us to suppose that he labored with them in drawing up that law. But it is astonishing that in his Dissertation, (De Hermodoro vero XII. Tabularum Auctore, Annales Academiae Groninganae anni 1817, 1818,) M. Gratama has ventured to advance two propositions entirely devoid of proof: "Decem priores tabulas ab ipsis Romanis non esse profectas, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... done many astonishing things; It has doubled the traffic in trinkets and rings; It has reconciled us to margarine And made many fat men healthily lean. It has answered the critics of Public Schools And proved the redemption of family fools. It has turned golf links to potato patches And made us less lavish in using ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... around it, a looking glass in the centre, and a few ornaments, sea-shells or East Indian curiosities gave the whole a nice appearance. The washing or cooking had to be done in out-houses, and at night each family had a large curtain drawn around their respective place, and it was really astonishing how little sickness existed among so many men, women and children. Every morning at 10 o'clock the officers on guard accompanied by a sergeant on duty had to visit each respective home, and report any irregularities; and so it happened that my ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... out-of-the-way knowledge that would upset the most carefully prepared plan of his puzzled tutor. That poor gentleman was alternately scandalised by the boy's ignorance and amazed at his appetite for knowledge. He showed an astonishing aptitude for figures while he evinced a shameful contempt for history and languages. Indeed, he could only be made to struggle with Latin Grammar by Aymer's stories of Roman heroes in the evening and the ultimate reward of reading them ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... instance of the astonishing interweaving of the book occurs here; for here is the first mention of Sappho and other persons and things to be caught ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... drooling ward's a better snap than gold mines, and I hear there's a new nurse coming. Besides, little Albert's bigger than I am now, and I could never carry him over a mountain. And he's growing bigger every day. It's astonishing. ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... exclaimed Bart. "If any one except you were to tell me that your Indian boy has made such astonishing progress from savagery to civilization in such a brief time, I'd disbelieve the yarn. I've been giving him points on his work behind the bat. He grasps everything ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... settlement, if not of the entire West. Colonel Campbell gave a ball at which the guests danced nine hours. Sir William reciprocated with one at which they danced eleven hours. A round of dinners and calls gave opportunity for much display of frontier magnificence, as well as for the consumption of astonishing quantities of wines and cordials. Hundreds of Indians were interested spectators, and the gifts with which they were generously showered were received with ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... "It is not astonishing for you to know it, Monsieur Broussel, who knows everything; but as for me, by holy truth, I did not know it and I thought I would give you good advice; you must not be angry with me for that, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... brains he possessed. Perhaps the Duchess thought that by employing the same costumier, she might also gain some of the venal beauteous attractions. Mademoiselle D—-, of the Gymnase Theatre, who was well known to earn just one thousand francs per annum, took a delight in astonishing the haughty ladies of fashion by the reckless extravagance of her orders. Van Klopen, who was a born diplomatist, distributed his favors between his different customers; consequently he was termed the most charming and angelic of men. Many a time had he heard the most aristocratic ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... notices—so many columns of superlative praise—shows him to be, in every sense—like the prince of puffers, George Robins—"utterly regardless of expense." The works third and fourth upon our list, doubtless cost, for the copyright alone, in ready money, a fortune. It is astonishing what pecuniary sacrifices genius will make, when it purloins the trumpet of Fame to puff itself ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the edge of the divan, with a curious sidelong movement, got one of her feet upon the stool and slipped down, till she stood on the floor. Then she gathered the folds of her bathing-gown to her and ran to the door with astonishing agility, for so ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... replied Mademoiselle de la Valliere, "is not the astonishing part about him; I should have recognised it even in the simple ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... caused in Prussia and in England, by this astonishing victory, was shared largely by the inhabitants of the country through which the French army had marched. Everywhere they had plundered and pillaged, as if they had been moving through an enemy's country instead of one ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... being shaved under the pretty red and white awning in front of the shop rather than within narrow walls. It is not a sublime attitude for a man, to sit with lathered chin thrown backward, and have his nose made a handle of; but to be shaved was a fashion of Florentine respectability, and it is astonishing how gravely men look at each other when they are all in the fashion. It was the hour of the day, too, when yesterday's crop of gossip was freshest, and the barber's tongue was always in its glory when his razor was busy; the deft activity of those ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... be. It was astonishing, as the days passed, how much of interest one or another of the seven could find that had to do with the subject of flying. They took one other boy into their counsels. Louis Deschamps was asked to join them and did so with alacrity, it seemed to lend an air of realism to ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... a glow of cheerfulness. It was astonishing how much this little victory over a roguish girl meant to him. He had changed one person's ridicule to friendship, and it seemed to be prophetic of ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... though few have now the hardihood to profess it openly, has been the working theory upon which our government has lately been conducted. It is astonishing how persistent it is. It is amazing how quickly the political party which had Lincoln for its first leader,—Lincoln, who not only denied, but in his own person so completely disproved the aristocratic theory,—it ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... astonishing how well any name looks in large gold letters. Well, as the old gentleman, whoever he might have been, made you compensation, you must forgive and forget. ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... only forms a minute quantity of calcareous matter. But in this case what nature does not obtain in any volume or in quantity from any one individual, she simply receives by the number of animals in question, through the enormous multiplicity of these animals, and their astonishing fecundity—namely, by the wonderful faculty they have of promptly regenerating, of multiplying in a short time their generations successively, and rapidly accumulating; finally, by the total amount of reunion of the products of these numerous ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... was still too sober to take a really vital interest in the teaching, he was a misanthrope, bitter and brutal, with an astonishing command of the most terrible words. At these times he made the gravest charges against Noyes; charges for which the man should be made accountable, even to such a one as the lodger. One evening Cake sat watching him, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... my bad French and his broken English, we got on capitally; but he outdid me entirely, making astonishing progress, though he often slapped his forehead ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... say what they please on that subject, may build up dogmas and mysteries without end, and not be detected; but their ingenious countryman cannot persuade the frequenters of the Olympic Theatre that he performs a number of astonishing feats without actually giving proofs of what he says.—There is, then, in this sort of manual dexterity, first a gradual aptitude acquired to a given exertion of muscular power, from constant repetition, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... I will or not, to their memory! for, however worthless, they were mes enfans. You, my dear sir, who enjoyed, I really think, even more than myself, the astonishing success of my first attempt, would, I believe, even more than myself, be hurt at the failure of my second; and I am sure I speak from the bottom of a very honest heart, when I most solemnly declare, that upon your account any disgrace would mortify and afflict me more than upon my ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... of his outdistanced rivals, SAM MAYO ("The Immobile Comedian," as he is called), remains standing. He has few gestures; he rarely, if ever, sings, and I have never seen him dance; and yet the way in which he "gets over" is astonishing. "Laughter holding both his sides" is the most constant attendant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... develop all that I should like to say about the indirect effects of war. All I will say is this, that men do judge, and always will judge, things by the ultimate test of how they fight. The German victory of forty years ago has produced not only an astonishing expansion, industrial as well as political of Germany, but has (most disastrously, as I think) infected Europe with German ideas, especially with the idea that you make a nation strong by making its people behave ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... equal, in proportion, to those in Otaheite. But on the other hand, they abound much more in hogs; and the breed is of a larger and weightier kind. The supply of provisions of this kind which we got from them was really astonishing. We were near four months, either cruising off the coast, or in harbour at Owhyhee. During all this time, a large allowance of fresh pork was constantly served to both crews, so that our consumption was computed at about sixty puncheons of five hundred weight each. Besides ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... his valuable history of the "Conquest of Florida," speaking of the astonishing achievements of the Spanish Cavaliers, in the dawn of the sixteenth ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... like famished wolves the whole band poured into the wine cellar. All, that is, but Marteau. As the last men entered he flung the door to and with astonishing quickness turned the key in the lock and turned away. The door had shut with a mighty crash, the noise had even stopped the rioting plunderers. The first man who had seized a bottle dropped it crashing to the floor. All eyes and faces ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... upon the States-General, who had now begun to claim it as a right. The Republic was neither venerable by age nor impregnable in law. It was an improvised aristocracy of lawyers, manufacturers, bankers, and corporations which had done immense work and exhibited astonishing sagacity and courage, but which might never have achieved the independence of the Provinces unaided by the sword of Orange-Nassau and the magic spell ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... we cannot explain this word, Timothy, and you cannot, perhaps the best thing for you to do will be to go to the originator of it and ask him what he meant by it," says Miss Penelope, with quite astonishing ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... his middle. His breeches were white (or had been white in origin), and disappeared into a pair of very lustrous lacquered boots that rose high above his knees. A cavalry sabre of ordinary dimensions hung from a military belt, and a pistol-butt, peeping from his sash, completed the astonishing motley of his appearance. For the rest, he was the same tall and well-knit fellow; but there was more strength in his square chin, more intelligence in the keen blue eyes, and, alas! more coarseness in the mouth, which bristled with a reddish beard ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... great English models of intellectual power, locally so near to their own native models, and virtually in such polar remoteness. Chateaubriand's intense enthusiasm for Milton, almost monomaniac in the opinion of some people, is notorious. This, however, was less astonishing: the pure marble grandeur of Milton, and his classical severity, naturally recommended themselves to the French taste, which can always understand the beauty of proportion and regular or teleologic tendencies. It was with regard to the anomalous, and to that ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... persons that if Arthur had not known to the contrary, he would have sworn there were two beside him, a woman and a child, the voice of the one shrill and clear, and young, and frightened, the other older, and harsher, and stronger, and both blending together in a most astonishing manner. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... "in all your ways to acknowledge Him." In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, to let your requests be made known unto God "And whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." Yet religion has nothing to do with politics! Most astonishing! And is there any part of your conduct in which you are, or wish to be, without law to God, and not under the law of Jesus Christ? Can you persuade yourselves that political men and measures are to undergo no review in the judgment to come? ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... that motive, and makes it easy to do the deed without it. I am afraid that if such thoughts were applied as a sieve to sift the abundant so-called Christian work of the present day, there would be an alarming and, to the workers, astonishing quantity of refuse that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... It is high and narrow, but fully as picturesque as is the nearby Tudor House, which is large and square. Both are excellent examples of Elizabethan houses, and are very quaint and pretty. The lower floor of the Tudor House is a most fascinating shop, in which one may find a really astonishing number of post-cards, books, pictures, and ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... The astonishing thing in this case was that the bird never uttered a note of his own original and exceedingly copious song; and I could only suppose that he had never learned the thrush melody; that he had, perhaps, been picked up ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... Here, too, still later, General Vallejo built a fort, which still stands—one of the finest examples of Spanish adobe that remain to us. And here, at the old fort, to bring the chronicle up to date, our horses proceeded to make peculiarly personal history with astonishing success and dispatch. King, our peerless, polo-pony leader, went lame. So hopelessly lame did he go that no expert, then and afterward, could determine whether the lameness was in his frogs, hoofs, legs, shoulders, or head. Maid picked up a nail and began to limp. Milda, ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... Rome, with the usual invectives respecting its idolatry and corruption. He urged them to violent courses, as the only way to stop the torrent of Catholicism which was desolating the land. Soon after, this association assembled at St. George's Fields, to the astonishing number of fifty thousand people, marshalled in separate bands, with blue cockades; and this immense rabble proceeded through the city of London to the House of Parliament, preceded by a man carrying a petition signed by twelve hundred thousand ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... are imperfections; yet the astonishing thing is that they pass almost unnoticed in Shakespeare. He reflected his age, the evil and the good of it, just as it appeared to him; and the splendor of his representation is such that even his faults have their proper place, like shadows ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... as proposed, will not confer the right of suffrage upon females throughout the country; and for us to undertake to legislate upon this question in regard to a distant Territory where perhaps there are few or no women, unless they be of the Indian race, is to me a very astonishing thing.... If suffrage should be extended to females let it come up as a distinct, independent proposition by itself, and then every Senator can take his position in regard to a question which affects ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "Well, it's astonishing how many things people can live without," said Fleda rather dreamily, intent upon settling an uneasy rose that would ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... undertaking had been the object of his contemplation, I do not know. I once asked him by what means he had attained to that astonishing knowledge of our language, by which he was enabled to realise a design of such extent, and accumulated difficulty. He told me, that 'it was not the effect of particular study; but that it had grown up in his mind insensibly.' I have been informed by Mr. James Dodsley, that several ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... sometimes went to the theatre, and I listened with rapture to their account of what they had seen, and I learned the songs they had heard. Once Cousin Hirshel went to see a giant, who exhibited himself for three kopecks, and came home with such marvellous accounts of his astonishing proportions, and his amazing feats of strength, that little Mendele cried for envy, and I had to play lotto with him and let him beat me oh, so easily! till he ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... no evidence in support of the comparison with a stridulating organ. See the "Devonian Insects of New Brunswick," reprinted in S.H. Scudder's "Fossil Insects of N. America," Volume I., page 179, New York, 1890.) I believe he is to be trusted, and if so the apparatus is of astonishing antiquity. After reading Landois' paper I have been working at the stridulating organ in the lamellicorn beetles, in expectation of finding it sexual, but I have only found it as yet in two cases, and in these it was equally developed in both sexes. I ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... childish, had a vast importance for us. It showed that something had happened somewhere in the vague world beyond Peking—perhaps that armies were arriving. We were reminded that we were still alive. A dignified reply was sent, and the very next day came an astonishing Washington cipher message, which has been puzzling us ever since. It was only three words: "Communicate to bearer." No one can explain what these words mean; even the American Minister has cudgelled his brains in vain, and asked everybody's opinion. But about one thing there is no doubt—that ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... 'and what of I?' Cazotte replied: 'You! you also will die on the scaffold.' 'Yes,' replied Chamfort, 'but when will all this happen?' Cazotte answered: 'Six years will not pass over, before all that I have said to you shall be accomplished.' Here I (La Harpe) spoke, saying: 'Here are some astonishing miracles, but you have not included me in your list.' Cazotte answered me, saying: 'But you will be there, as an equally extraordinary miracle; you will then be a Christian!' Vehement exclamations on all sides followed this startling assertion. 'Ah!' said Chamfort, 'I am ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... inconveniences from the clumsy development of his case. This lad, about eighteen years of age, has a face that is swollen like a sponge saturated with corruption; he can not raise his bloated eyelids, but, with his head thrown back, looks downward over his cheeks. Two of these lepers are as astonishing specimens as any that have ever come under my observation, yet I have morbidly sought them from Palestine to Molokai. In these cases the muscles are knotted, the blood curdled; masses of unwholesome flesh cover them, lying fold upon fold; the lobes of their ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... Restoring the Hair in Baldness, strengthening when weak and fine, effectually preventing falling out or turning grey, and for restoring its natural colour without the use of dye. The rich glossy appearance it imparts is the admiration of every person. Thousands have experienced its astonishing efficacy. Bottles, 2s. 6d.; double size, 4s. 6d.; 7s. 6d. equal to 4 small: 11s. to 6 small: 21s. to 13 small. The most perfect ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... Street it was nine o'clock—an hour well on in the day for Euphrasia. Unlocking the kitchen door, she gave a glance at the stove to assure herself that it had not been misbehaving, and went into the passage on her way up-stairs to take off her gown before sitting down to reflect upon the astonishing thing she had heard. Habit had so crystallized in Euphrasia that no news, however amazing, could have shaken it. But in the passage she paused; an unwonted, or rather untimely, sound reached her ears, a sound which came from the front of the house—and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... very prominently before our eyes just now. There is, first, the overcrowded dweller in our slums—poor men and women and boys and girls, dwelling as they do nine and ten and even more in a room—that room the only place for them to eat and sleep in. It is astonishing how good and pure the boys and girls come out of such homes; but there the evil is, and it is not getting better, it is getting worse; every year makes it worse. And as we face it what are we to do? I do sometimes think, my friends, you who come from comfortable homes, ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram
... taking hints of good news-items concealed in obscure paragraphs. The Morris Prison scandal was an example of this. He found in the New England edition of The World a six-line item giving an astonishing death rate for the Morris Prison. He asked the City Editor to assign him to go there; and within a week the press of the entire country was discussing the News-Record's exposure of the barbarities of torture and starvation practised by ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... feverish on hearing that the curas of the villages have whippings administered; and decrees have been fulminated against many provinces, in order to check this. In fact, they have attained that object; but the result of this most fatal error has been the increase of impiety in an astonishing manner, and there are a great number of villages where few go to mass, and more than the third part refuse to take the communion—which is probably also the cause of the increase in criminality which has been noted. But ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... was considering the advisability of bestowing upon her one of those innocent, inadvertent, and fascinatingly chaste salutes—just to break the formality. She wouldn't have it. I'd taken her to the theatre, too. Girls are astonishing problems." ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... tall, with an astonishing abundance of beautiful hair, which she fastens in the manner of the Grecian statues; her walk is full of majesty, her attitude haughty; she has the air, therefore, rather of a goddess than a mere mortal, and among the goddesses, she most resembles Diana the huntress; with this sole difference, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... although undergoing extensive alterations and decorations, had still a sufficient number of apartments in thorough repair and handsomely enough furnished, to satisfy the taste of a more fastidious person than our ex-Light Dragoon. It was really astonishing the number of visitors he had to receive, and cards and notes of invitation were showered upon him from people whose very existence he had previously never heard of, connections by marriage of the past generation crowded upon him, mothers with marriageable daughters invited him ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... was about twelve years old, apparently, came out, and, leaping up upon the man's shoulders, began to climb up the pole. When he reached the top of it he took hold of the rope, and by means of the rope climbed up to the bar. Here he began to perform a great variety of the most astonishing evolutions, the man all the time poising the pole in the air. The boy would climb about the bar in every way, drawing himself up sometimes backwards and sometimes forward, and swinging to and fro, and turning over and over in every conceivable position. He would hang to the bar sometimes ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... It is astonishing what can be done in the most painful times when there are good leaders, and a spirit of discipline reigns. I remember how I noted it here that noontide; when, after food and rest, the fresher men relieved sentries, and strove to listen to the General ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... end for talk, telling her the old story of Theodore Hook accosting a pompous stranger on the street with the polite request that he might know whether he was anybody in particular. She said, without a smile, "Yes, it was astonishing how rude some people ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... we have had. Now your symptoms were of the most desperate character, and when you were taken, I never expected to see either of you alive this morning, and yet here you are recovering, and I verily believe beyond further danger. Let me see your tongues. Well, well, well, this is really astonishing. You are both doing splendidly. Just be a little careful, and you are perfectly out of peril. Miss Arnold, you are worth all our nurses; and really I'm afraid all us physicians also ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... there are few portraits which resemble him. All his answers are pertinent; he shows the utmost reserve, and is very diffident; but, at the same time, he is firm and unchangeable in whatever he undertakes. His modesty must be very astonishing, especially to a Frenchman." ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... wherewith Napoleon fed and flattered the French nation for fifteen years, and the astonishing intellectual and animal vigor of the conqueror's mind, dazzle even M. Sainte-Beuve, so that he does not perceive the gaping chasms in Napoleon's moral nature, and the consequent one-sidedness of his intellectual action, nor the unmanning effects of his despotism. The words used to describe ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... pair is much longer, with deep margins of splendid purple instead of the stripes. When the possessor of all this splendor spreads its four fans, it also erects the long tail and opens it widely into a fifth fan, which produces an astonishing effect. ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... could. And that little retriever of mine would have gone straight to work and ferreted out every single, solitary, uncomplimentary thing about Ella that she could find, and 'a' fetched 'em to me as pleased and proud as a puppy, expecting, for all the world, to be petted and patted for her astonishing shrewdness. And there would sure have been gloom in ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... tendency to soar in the air on sufficient provocation, and on a few other gnats to be taken after their camels, and they shall be pronounced by Mr. Howitt not of the stereotyped class of minds, and not partakers of "the astonishing ignorance of the press", and shall receive a first-class ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... uncle. It's astonishing what a lot we have done. Let's see; it's just fifteen months ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... together, after a while, to his rooms, and when he had submitted to Kerry's welcome, we carefully examined the beautiful insect he had captured. As he had said, she had not lost a scale; and she was by far the most astonishing aberrant I have ever seen, before or since. The Turnus is perhaps the most beautiful of our butterflies, and this off-color was larger than the normal, and more irregularly and oddly and brilliantly colored. Their natural coloring is gorgeous enough; but ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... often find myself wondering whether the ladies here are at all like what our great grandmothers were. I suspect they are, for they appear to possess an amount of useful practical knowledge which is quite astonishing, and yet know how to surround themselves, according to their means and opportunities, with the refinements and elegancies of life. I feel quite ashamed of my own utter ignorance on every subject, and am determined to set to work directly and learn: ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... are—mere modifications of my own mind; that they are nothing more than simple phenomena of the self-conscious Ego; and that, so far from being the earthly authors of my existence, they are themselves—the creation and offspring of my own thought. And on what ground am I asked to receive this astonishing discovery? Why, simply because I can be sure of nothing but the facts of consciousness. But how are these facts proved? They "need no proof; they are self-evident; they are immediately and irresistibly believed." Be it so. I can just as little doubt of the existence of my body, of the ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... than to have these astonishing perfections, which she was mistress of, strike my remembrance with such force, when I have nothing left me but the remorse of having deprived myself and the world of such a blessing? Now and then, indeed, am I capable of a gleam of comfort, arising (not ungenerously) from the ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... astonishing fact that, socially, the boys from the Northern and Western States will have nothing to do with these colored brothers. Flipper and Smith were socially ostracized. Not even the Massachusetts boys will associate ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... we had sailed about thirteen hundred leagues, and were at that distance from the city of Cadiz, in a southwesterly direction. When we saw the land we gave thanks to God, and then launched our boats, and, with sixteen men, went to the shore, which we found thickly covered with trees, astonishing both on account of their size and their verdure, for they never lose their foliage. The sweet odor which they exhaled—for they are all aromatic—highly delighted us, and we were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... with astonishing rapidity and became quite a pleasant place. Some of the stumps rotted out, some we tore out and some were burned up. In these ways many had disappeared and it began to look like old land. It was rich and productive and, in ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... left alone in the stone-flagged kitchen it was astonishing how rapidly that sprained ankle recovered. It was nearly nightfall, and we had eaten nothing since early morning, so that we spent some time over our meal. Holmes was lost in thought, and once or twice he walked over to the window and stared earnestly out. It opened on to ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... insight, and (to borrow the eulogy of Gibbon) "the careless inimitable felicities" of his narrative. He was among the first to recognize the peculiar genius of Crabbe, and to detect the impostures of Macpherson and Chatterton, while doing full justice to "the astonishing prematurity" of the latter's genius. And in matters of art, so independent as well as correct was his taste, that he not only, in one instance, ventured to differ from Reynolds, but also proved to be right in his opinion that a work extolled by Sir Joshua, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... Desmond simply glared at me, and Lady Cecilia said, "Really, Elizabeth!" and Sir Dennis got purple in the face, and Jane Roose whispered, "How could you dare with his wife listening!" and every one talked and chaffed. It was too stupid about nothing; but the astonishing part is, that funny old thing I thought was the mother turns out to ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... presumably for valor on the field of battle. Napoleon was exiled in 1815 and again three years later. Chabert first attracted public notice in Paris, at which time his demonstrations of heat-resistance were sufficiently astonishing to merit the attention of no less a body than the ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... cannot but regard. Observe, too, how echoes of the promise ring all through these verses, especially the phrases 'establish the house' and 'for ever.' They show how profoundly David had been moved, and how he is labouring, as it were, to make himself familiar with the astonishing vista that has begun to open before his believing eyes. Well is it for us if we, in like manner, seek to fix our thoughts on the yet grander 'for ever' disclosed to us, and if it colours all our look ahead, and makes the refrain of all our hopes ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... especially ready to accept. He was not wholly unaware of this tendency in himself, though he continued to repeat with apparent belief reports of the most startling and erroneous character, and never seems to have appreciated, up to the time of his leaving the Mediterranean, the astonishing quickness and sagacity with which Bonaparte frustrated the overwhelming combinations against him. "We hear what we wish," he says on one occasion. "The Toulon information is, as I always thought it, pleasant ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... enough. Any poor scrubs in our place must be fools not to think the match a very rare and astonishing honour, as far as the position goes. But that my brave girl will be miserable is a part of the honour I can't stomach so well. If he had been any other lord in the kingdom, we might have been merry indeed. ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... House, while he unfolded the African Slave-Trade in its several points of view,—its nature, being founded in injustice, its cruelties, the terrible mortality of the slave-ship, the demoralizing influence of the trade upon British sailors, and the astonishing waste of life among them, as well as among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... the calamities and disasters of the war being the result of their ignorance and mismanagement, and ridiculed the warnings and predictions of opposition. He observed,—"It is true they have often foretold the desertion of our allies, as well as the astonishing exertions of the enemy; and I cannot but confess that such is unfortunately the result. It is not, however, any difficult matter to prophesy disappointment and ill-success: if the prediction proved false, gentlemen would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hand, 'an ancient serving-maid seventy-nine years of age,' inured to Prophecy and the Bastille from of old, sits, in an upper room in the Rue-de-Contrescarpe, poring over the Book of Revelations, with an eye to Robespierre; finds that this astonishing thrice-potent Maximilien really is the Man spoken of by Prophets, who is to make the Earth young again. With her sit devout old Marchionesses, ci-devant honourable women; among whom Old-Constituent Dom Gerle, with his addle head, cannot be wanting. They sit there, in the Rue-de-Contrescarpe; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Will was to spend Christmas at Bournemouth, and wondered if he would call on us on his return to discuss the astonishing news, but though father met him once or twice, he never came near the house until this morning, this wonderful never-to-be-forgotten morning when Bennett came to me as I was writing in the library and ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of his memory in so far as the dim past was concerned; for, one morning, reference having been made to Monk Lewis's poem of "Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene," he recited it in cadences from beginning to end, without the slightest hesitation or the tripping of a word. "Well, this is indeed astonishing," he said at its conclusion; "I have not thought of that poem ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... one of those singular and melancholy circumstances of which it seems impossible at first sight to give any explanation. Since the deep foundations of the English mind were stirred by the Reformation, what an astonishing succession of great men in every branch of human thought have illustrated the annals of England! The divine conceptions of Milton, the luxuriant fervour of Thomson, the vast discoveries of Newton, the deep wisdom of Bacon, the burning thoughts of Gray, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... antipathy to, the psychic and especially the psychotic manifestations of their patients? Ought we not rather to try to understand the reasons for this ignorance, this apathy, and this aversion, all three of which seem astonishing to many of our well-trained psychologists and psychopathologists? Are there not definite conditions that explain and at least partially excuse the defects in knowledge and interest and the errors in attitude manifested by those whom we would be glad to see cognizant ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... over on his back. He remained there some minutes in anguish of mind; then he sat up and began to reflect. He had had a hallucination—that was all, a hallucination due to the fact that a night marauder was walking with a lantern in his hand near the water's edge. What was there astonishing, besides, in the circumstance that the recollection of his crime should sometimes bring before him the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to see you often? That's the first question. I know what I shall do. I must take new lodgings, for the girls and myself, all in the same house. We must have two sitting-rooms; then you will come to my room without any difficulty. These astonishing proprieties are so easily satisfied ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... was the astonishing answer, as absent-minded Fraulein held forth the missing umbrella, which all that time she had held tightly clasped in her hand, and which had been the cause of Edith's question as to whether she had more than one, for she supposed, of course, that the one Fraulein ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... pieces were such as ought to have done much honour to his genius; but any tolerable performance from a person of his figure and supposed fortune, will always be considered by the bulk of readers as an instance of astonishing capacity; though the very same production, ushered into the world with the name of an author in less affluent circumstances would be justly disregarded and despised; so much is the opinion of most people influenced and overawed ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... being apprehended in this act of faith, it persists knowingly, but no longer voluntarily, in this opinion of a sovereign being which it knows to be only a personification of its own thought; if it is on the point of again beginning its magic invocations,—we must believe that so astonishing an hallucination conceals some mystery, which deserves to ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... and the other pleasures of imagination. When such trifles are mentioned, it is evident that the real grievances, excepting from accidents, of a sea-life are at an end. The short space of sixty years has made an astonishing difference in the facility of distant navigation. Even in the time of Cook, a man who left his fireside for such expeditions underwent severe privations. A yacht now, with every luxury of life, can circumnavigate the globe. Besides the vast improvements ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... and dreaming up-stairs in his bed. Elmira came close beside him and clutched his arm—even that did not clear his bewildered perceptions into certainty. It is always easier for the normal mind, when confronted by astonishing spectacles, to doubt its own accuracy rather than believe in them. "Do you see him?" he whispered, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... my astonishing companion were not less full of adventure than his Sundays. Collar-and-elbow wrestling in a tent, under the red light of torches, between him—simple amateur—and Du Bois, the iron man, in person; rat-chases near the mouths of sewers, with dogs ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee |
