"Astounding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the most astounding beauty, attired in the black and red of the Graustark middle classes, was slowly approaching from the shadowy recesses at the end of the shop. She gave him but a cursory glance, in which no interest was apparent, and glided quietly into ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... After this astounding physiological information, we parted. He would not talk any more, evidently fearing to endanger his comfort. At that time, we did not receive any more explanations on the subject, but this incident was enough to disturb the scientific ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... the whole horizon, from some four points on the larboard bow right round to broad on their starboard beam, was marked by a continuous line of flying foam and spindrift. They watched with eager curiosity this remarkable phenomenon, noticed the astounding rapidity with which it travelled, and saw that the sea on their starboard hand, ay, and even well on their starboard quarter, was lashed into a perfect frenzy by the hurricane before it reached the ship. Then, with a wild rush and a deafening roar, the gale struck them, and the Flying ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a wonderful big bay horse, the astounding virtues of which stimulated the black boy to an incoherent flow ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... hearing the mockingbird, is admiration, though the first emotion is one of surprise and incredulity. That so many and such various notes should proceed from one throat is a marvel, and we regard the performance with feelings akin to those we experience on witnessing the astounding feats of the athlete or gymnast,—and this, notwithstanding many of the notes imitated have all the freshness and sweetness of the originals. The emotions excited by the songs of these thrushes belong to a higher order, springing as they do from our deepest sense of the beauty and harmony ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... nature-mystic, however, while unreservedly recognising this kind of intuition (whatever may be its origin) demands a wider meaning for the term. A nearer approach to what he wants is found in the feats of certain calculating prodigies, who often seem to reach their astounding results rather by insights than operations. The celebrated mathematician, Euler, is said to have possessed, in addition to his extraordinary memory for numbers, "a kind of divining power," by which he perceived almost at a glance, the most complicated relations of factors ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... laugh. "Nothing, but that Downing Street has turned into Parnassus. The astounding fact is, that Grenville has teemed, and, as the fruits of the long vacation, has produced ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... agitating thoughts; at times the hours seemed to stand still, and again they flew with astounding rapidity. One moment the perspiration fell from his forehead on his hands; at another he ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... better part. And for this I have boldly endured many taunts. Yet it so chanced that in my life I fell in with many to whom the cutting of throats was but a moment's diversion. Nay, more, in most of their astounding ventures I shared with them; I made one upon their reckless forays; I was forced, sorely against my will, to accompany them upon their stormy voyages, and to endure with them their dangers; and there does not live ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... complete his reconstruction in the avenue. Norah darted off for a kitchen skewer, while Restall drank. And then there was a drift to tennis, and Rachel and I were partners. All this time I was in a state of startled attention towards her, full of this astounding impression that something wonderful and unprecedented had flowed out from her towards my life, full too of doubts now whether that shining response had ever occurred, whether some trick of light and my brain had not deceived me. I wanted tremendously to talk to her, and did not ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... Ardan simply, "I do only what the greatest of your scientific men do—that is, guess. There is this difference however between us—I call my guesses, guesses, mere conjecture;—they dignify theirs as profound theories or as astounding discoveries!" ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... from a few ounces to a pint or more. Subsequently the output fluctuates between one and two quarts daily, according to the demands made upon the breasts; the secretion is larger, consequently, if there are twins. Astounding yields of milk have been recorded, as in the case of a wet-nurse in a German institution who nursed a number of infants and became capable of supplying three to four ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... the assistance which religion alone can afford, and which it so greatly needs, that whoever, without that assistance, attempts to apply the theory to the complete elucidation of phenomena, will be found inevitably committing himself to the most astounding hypotheses? Here I picture to myself a curl on the lip of some advanced Darwinian who, having accompanied me so far, cannot altogether suppress his compassionate scorn at the proposed recurrence now-a-days to a mode of thought so obsolete in the treatment of scientific ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... millions of the human race, in which we had hitherto been obliged to acquiesce. We are threatened with national annihilation, and defied to use the only means of national preservation. The question is distinctly proposed to us, Shall Slavery die, or the great Republic? It is most astounding to me that there can be two opinions in the free States as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... moment later, seeming to fill the world with his giant bulk and his astounding radiation of joy. Two narrow-chested city clerks stood still to stare at him, their pallid little faces blank with amazement. A red-nosed flower-girl thrust a great bunch of yellow roses up at him with certainty of sale written all over her. "Roses? ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... is to my mind a sort of profound and terrifying logic in it, as if it were our imagination alone that could set loose upon us the might of an overwhelming destiny. The imprudence of our thoughts recoils upon our heads; who toys with the sword shall perish by the sword. This astounding adventure, of which the most astounding part is that it is true, comes on as an unavoidable consequence. Something of the sort had to happen. You repeat this to yourself while you marvel that such a thing could happen in the year of grace before last. But it has happened—and there ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... way I feel," nodded Constance, as she tied an astounding bow of red ribazine about an oblong package that suggested a doll, and consulted a fat note book, lying wide spread on the library table, for the address of the prospective possessor. "Marjorie, will you ever forget how happy ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... from Astounding Science Fiction February, March and April 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Sevier's martial exploits and of his bold stroke for independence had long since gone abroad, astounding even so famous an advocate of liberty as Patrick Henry and winning the sympathy of the Continental Congress. One of the most interested observers of the progress of affairs in the State of Franklin was Don Diego de Gardoqui, who had ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... Silence moved forward quickly. He took his place between us and the shadow. Erect, formidable, absolute master of the situation, I saw him stand there, his face calm and almost smiling, and fire in his eyes. His protective influence was astounding and incalculable. Even the abhorrent dread I felt at the sight of the creature growing into life and substance before us, lessened in some way so that I was able to keep my eyes fixed on the air above the bowl without too vivid ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... but decisive, his glance keen and alert, while about him clung such a breath of power and confidence that it compelled belief even in the face of this astounding speech. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... regretted the misuse that had been made of his name; and wound up by lamenting the war as offensive to the spirit of religion. A momentary stupefaction, followed by a passion of indignation, in which the words traitor and imbecile were heard, received this astounding speech. The Pope was besieged with deputations, and, after two days' struggle, was obliged to place the power in the hands of persons most opposed to him, and nominally acquiesce ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... black hair, and an easy look of importance, carries a large cane, and is represented to you as an astonishing scholar and speaker. You do not doubt it; his very air proclaims it. You think of him as presently—(say four or five years hence)—astounding the United States Senate with his eloquence. And when once you have heard him in debate, with that ineffable gesture of his, you absolutely languish in your admiration for him, and you describe his speaking to your country friends ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... day, December 29, Kruger was reported in the papers to be listening to reason; but this hopeful news was short-lived, for on Monday, the 30th—as usual, a fiercely hot day—we received the astounding intelligence that Dr. Jameson, administrator of Mashonaland and Matabeleland, had entered the Transvaal at the head of the Chartered Company's Police, 600 strong, with several Maxim and Gardner guns. No upheaval of Nature could have created greater amazement, combined with ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... deciding on what they intended to do, they condescendingly notified Col. Peacocke of the change in his own plans, and without, waiting for a reply they started off for Fort Erie on the steamer "W. T. Robb" to put them in execution. Such assumption was certainly astounding, and no doubt Col. Peacocke had a choleric fit when he was apprised of it. This was another mistake, which contributed largely to the defeat of Col. Peacocke's purposes, and left a cloud on the military prestige of both Lieut.-Col. Dennis and Capt. ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... various personal matters: his poverty, the low ebb of his balance at the bank, his present profession, his approaching debut as an entertainer, the chances of his failure. He thought, too, of the astounding change in his life, the future, vacant of promise, devoid of meaning, a future so utterly new and blank that he could find in it nothing to speculate upon. He thought also, and perfectly impersonally, of a girl whom he had met now and then upon the stairs of the apartment house which ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... original in his way as St. Quintin. And you, of course, are somehow different to the majority. I wonder how you will each end? St. Quintin will perhaps become a bishop. Dick Bruce will write an astounding, weird novel, and bound into fame. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... was produced from Astounding Stories, March 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... at the Hotel de la Poste; no Tiler in Brieg. Only a brief telegram from him conveying unwelcome and astounding intelligence. It had been despatched from Vevey about 2 ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... engage him as a model, and in another moment I think I should have hailed him. But just then the sun dipped out of view, and all the orange and pink slid out of the landscape, leaving it cold and grey. And at the same moment an astounding thing happened—the ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... internationally famous for his unique and astounding experiments in the realm of sound and rhythm. He had been endowed by one of the great electrical companies to do original work, and his laboratory, in which he lived, was situated in a large tract of isolated woodland some forty miles from New York City. It was ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... than astounding that William of Wykeham, at once Prime Minister, diplomatist, scholar and energetic churchman, should have found time to introduce such far-reaching reforms into the art of building, and whatever his fame may be in other directions he will always be remembered by posterity ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... vitality were astounding. He would have been an eminent man in his day had he never invented the telegraph; but it is of absorbing interest, in following his career, to note how he was forced to give up one ambition after another, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... died all was quite silent, and Marco drew a long breath. Unbelievable as it may appear, it was in one sense almost a breath of relief. In the rush of strange feeling which had swept over him when he found himself facing the astounding situation up-stairs, it had not been easy to realize what his thoughts really were; there were so many of them and they came so fast. How could he quite believe the evidence of his eyes and ears? A few minutes, only a few minutes, ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... passed, almost immediately, and the clouds broke; so that, once more, I could see the sky. The stars were flying Westward, with astounding speed. It came to me now, for the first time, that, though the noise of the wind had passed, yet a constant 'blurred' sound was in my ears. Now that I noticed it, I was aware that it had been with me all the ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... his eyes grew wide with wonder and unbelief. They raced through the pages, wonder giving way to joy and exultation as he neared the end of the astounding message from ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... difficult of belief, on finding that in the secular sciences one truth is incompatible (according to our human intellect) with another or inconsistent with itself; so you should not think it very hard to be told that there exists, here and there, not an inextricable difficulty, not an astounding contrariety, not (much less) a contradiction as to clear facts, between Revelation and Nature; but a hitch, an obscurity, a divergence of tendency, a temporary antagonism, a difference of tone, between the two,—that is, between Catholic opinion on the one hand, and astronomy, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... Miss Amory received from "a friend" a parcel containing an enormous brass-inlaid writing-desk, in which there was a set of amethysts, the most hideous eyes ever looked upon—a musical snuff-box, and two keepsakes of the year before last, and accompanied with a couple of gown-pieces of the most astounding colors, the receipt of which goods made the Sylphide laugh and wonder immoderately. Now it is a fact that Colonel Altamont had made a purchase of cigars and French silks from some duffers in Fleet-street about ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... their effect upon him was astounding. He trembled so that the prince was obliged to support him, and would certainly have cried out, but that his voice seemed to have entirely left him for the moment. For a minute or two he could not ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... according to the size of the vessel. Really, you know, I don't think it's quite fair to either, to carry both troops and passengers on the same ship. Well, at tiffin to-day we heard what seemed like a most astounding proposal. Our host was explaining his plan for dealing with the von Kettler Memorial. The Athos was sunk February 17, in the Mediterranean, together with five hundred Chinese soldiers. And here were we ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... picture of this extraordinary youth, and the still more astounding description given of him by his exhibitor, I ascended the little ladder that conducted to the platform in front of the show, paid my twopence—the price of admission—and in the next minute was in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... triumph—it was the realisation to his hearers, by one who had the soul of a poet, and the gifts of an orator, and the genius of a great and vividly imaginative author, of a convulsion of nature when nature bears an aspect the grandest and the most astounding. However much a masterly description, like that of the Great Storm at Yarmouth, may be admired henceforth by those who never had the opportunity of attending these Readings, one might surely say to them, as AEschines said to the Rhodians, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... astounding, if you come to think of it. There was Lena's money, left her by old Weinberger, her maternal uncle. You've got to reckon with Lena's money. Not that she, poor soul, ever reckoned with it; she was absolutely free from that taint, and she couldn't conceive other people reckoning. Only, instinctively, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... king's palace. I know you would like to read this book if you are fond of animal stories. Another interesting story is about Randy, an extraordinary sparrow who is brought up with some canaries and learns to sing. One day the cage Randy was in fell over with an astounding crash and he escaped. He built a nest of sticks, which was the only kind he knew, and was very disconsolate when his mate, who was an ordinary sparrow, threw them away and brought hay and straw instead. Randy's mate is finally killed and Randy is caught and put back in his cage. I think ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... charlatans, worshipping in themselves as something almost divine that which was but a physical power, or weakness, beyond their own limited comprehension. Though a whole school of wise and thoughtful men had already produced remarkable results and elicited astounding facts by sifting the truth through a fine web of closely logical experiment, it did not follow that either Unorna, or any other self-convinced, self-taught operator could do more than grope blindly towards the light, guided by intuition alone amongst the varied and misleading ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... and amendment of mind: and the "difference" of this story, which fills some hundred and twenty or thirty closely printed, double columned, royal octavo pages in the "Ballantyne Novels," is (despite the awkwardness of such a form for the enjoyment of a novel) almost astounding. ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... "boxing" the compass until I lost all count of direction. It was an amazing performance. Considering that the man was driving against time on a mission of life and death urgency, his carelessness as to direction was astounding. The tortuousness of the route must have made the journey twice as long as it need have been with a little more careful selection. At least so it appeared to me, though, naturally, I was not in a position to offer an ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... convinced as of their own existence, that they had seen Christ 'alive after His passion, by many infallible proofs'? If Paul and Peter and John were conspirators in a trick, then their lives and their words were the most astounding anomaly. Who, either, that had the faintest perception of the forces that sway opinion and frame systems, could believe that the fair fabric of Christian morality was built on the sand of a lie, and cemented by the slime of deceit bubbling up from the very pit of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... course of little or no application to Christians at present. Yet how can Arminians pray our Church prayers collectively on any day? Answer. See a 'boa constrictor' with an ox or deer. What they do swallow, proves so astounding a dilatability of gullet, that it would be unconscionable strictness to complain of the horns, antlers, or other indigestible non-essentials being suffered to rot off at the confines, [Greek: herkos hodonton]. But to write seriously on so serious a subject, it is mournful to reflect that ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Hightown at night he procured a conveyance at the depot to carry him to Windy Hill Rancho. The wind blew with its usual nocturnal rollicking persistency, and at the end of his turbulent drive it seemed almost impossible to make himself heard amongst the roaring of the pines and some astounding preoccupation of the inmates. After vainly knocking, the doctor pushed open the front door and entered. He rapped at the closed sitting room door, but receiving no reply, pushed it open upon the most unexpected ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... had a gun. But I don't understand any of it. It is the most astounding thing I ever heard ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... pushing him toward the lodge, but half way up the avenue, he was stopped by another lot of astounding transformations. An unseen hand had just snatched away half of the cottage roof. The entire side wall doubled over, forming a cascade of bricks and dust. The interior rooms were now exposed to view like a theatrical setting—the kitchen where he had eaten, the upper floor ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... up, made a revelation, irrelevant, yet to my ear terrible and astounding, but fortunately incomprehensible to my companion. What did that little vigilant creature ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... faces, men, I am struck with the astounding thought that some woman bore the cold sweat and pain of labour to give life to each of you. I hope few of you prolonged that agony as I did. It was in the heart of my mother to make me physically clean, and to that end she sent me daily into the lake, so long as it was not ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... and astounding clamour, to which each Welshman lent his voice with all the energy of defiance, thirst of battle, and hope of conquest, was at length answered by the blast of the Norman trumpets,—the first sign of activity which had been exhibited on the part of Raymond Berenger. But cheerily as they rang, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... whose interest lies in this direction, the Imperial Statistical Bureau of Berlin provides information of an astounding kind. Germany's exports in 1896 reached the value of 3754 millions of marks. German exports to England and her colonies amounted to 808 million marks, whilst England and her colonies supplied Germany with produce to the amount of ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... make this astounding statement, I can't help thinking of that confounded jeweller's clerk. At thirty-five I am still unattached and, so far as I can tell, unloved. What more could a sensible, experienced bachelor expect than that? Unless, of course, he aspired to be a monk or a hermit, in which case he reasonably ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... these wonderful phenomena, these new and astounding facts, the idea at once occurred to me whether there were not other substances analogous in effect to the gas, and which might be employed with more convenience and with equal efficacy and safety. Knowing that the inhalation of sulphuric-ether vapor gave rise to precisely the same effects as ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... ease, but find the drudgery of repeating such stuff too sickening, and the effect unjust to a man who was doing only what others all over the country were doing as part of the established routine of what is called education. The astounding part of it was the manner in which the person to whom this outrage on decency seemed quite proper and natural claimed to be a functionary of high character, and had his claim allowed. In Japan he would hardly have been allowed the privilege of committing suicide. What is ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... make himself feared, at a ball as well as in a meeting of his Ministers. At an entertainment he won as much glory as on the battle-field. Even those who hated him had to admire him, for he had a most wonderful power of astounding and fascinating every one. His aide, General de Narbonne, had an old mother, who maintained her allegiance to the old royalty. "See here, my dear Narbonne," the Emperor said one day, "it's a bad thing for me that you see your mother so ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Sinking and creeping, Swelling and sweeping, Showering and springing, Flying and flinging, Writhing and ringing, Eddying and whisking, Spouting and frisking, Turning and twisting, Around and around With endless rebound; Smiting and fighting, A sight to delight in; Confounding, astounding, Dizzying, and deafening the ear ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... are many things Dora kept dark That she's now letting into the light, And to-day an astounding aerial barque Has suddenly sailed into sight; But its past makes no sympathies burn, And its future leaves interest limp, Compared with the rapture I feel when I learn That its name is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... with numberless messages for friends or business acquaintances, and knots of men gathered about the building and congratulated each other on the great event. At last the much talked-of communication with the outer world was at hand, a marvel no less astounding to the minds of these people than would be the realization of those stories of Harun-al-Rashid's days to our more complex civilization, those dear, delightful days of genie and fairy, when two and two didn't always make four, and when nothing ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... until it was repeated, and then started post haste for General Gordon's house. When he reached it, he found the whole plantation in an uproar. Don was missing and a search was being instituted. Clarence came out about this time, and Godfrey told him a most astounding piece of news. It wasn't old Jordan at all whom they had captured the night before, it was Don Gordon. Godfrey was sure of it, for he had heard him whistle as nobody in the world except Don Gordon could whistle. As soon as Clarence recovered ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... the nineteenth century in discovery and invention, and so astounding the advancement made, that it is only by stopping in our madding haste and looking back that we can realise how different the present is from the past. Yet to our imaginary friend's astonished perception, ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... Ninette would not let him escape so easily. She followed close at his heels with a whole torrent of questions, which she asked over and over again, and she would have an answer. The doctor had fairly deserved this attack, by his astounding prescription. His little game of snapping it suddenly upon them, and then quickly making his escape, had not succeeded; he lost three times as much time outside the door as if he had staid quietly in the room. When at last Aunt Ninette ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... which must be a slip of the pen for than] "they could have got in England, greatly to the re-establishment of a reputation for public good faith. As to Louis Napoleon, his position in the whole matter is to me like his position in Europe at all times, simply disheartening and astounding. Between Prussia and Austria there is, in my mind (but for Italy), not a pin to choose. If each could smash the other I should be, as to those two Powers, perfectly satisfied. But I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born. ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to be drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and the pages of history glued together with the blood of these same martyrs, and the burning, blistering record of the "Holy Inquisition," affirm that the astounding picture is true in all its crimson ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... personages. His daughter, for example, will persist in growing up. Not for a single day will she pause. He arrives one night and perceives that she is a woman and that he must treat her as a woman. He had not bargained for this. Peace, ease, relaxation in a home vibrating to the whir of such astounding phenomena? Impossible dream! These phenomena were originally meant by him to be the ornamentation of his career, but they are threatening to be the sole reason of his career. If his wife lives for him, it ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... of him crossing under the light, looking unnatural, ghastly, like a persecuted man. And now that she was alone she felt as if she were haunted. Eager to be reassured, she fixed her eyes on the keen figure, the resolute face, of Mr. Crayford. The power of work in Americans was almost astounding, she thought. All the men with whom she and Claude had had anything to do seemed to be working all the time, unresting as waves driven by a determined wind. Keenness! That was the characteristic of this marvellous city, this marvellous land. And it had acted ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... man it is foul shame, even though he be a kemperly wight and an invincible knight." Upon this, there ran at Kanmakan a horseman like a lion in fight, mounted on a black horse with hoofs snow-white and a star on his forehead, the bigness of a dirham, astounding wit and sight, as he were Abjar, which was Antar's destrier, even as saith ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... it. We knew Dr. Cook and his abilities; he had been the surgeon on two of Peary's expeditions and, aside from his medical ability, we had no faith in him whatever. He was not even good for a day's work, and the idea of his making such an astounding claim as having reached the Pole was so ludicrous that, after our laugh, we dropped the ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... governess, and had heard the generous proposal which he made her. It was scarcely out of his mouth when Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs had streamed up the stairs, had rushed into the drawing-room where Miss Crawley was reading the French novel, and had given that old lady the astounding intelligence that Sir Pitt was on his knees, proposing to Miss Sharp. And if you calculate the time for the above dialogue to take place—the time for Briggs and Firkin to fly to the drawing-room—the time for Miss Crawley to be astonished, and to drop ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... artist, to whom the man without arms, who is wheeled about in the streets for coppers, should recommend a greater delicacy of touch? Indeed, metaphor fails me, and I gasp for mere breath when I think of the astounding impudence of some people. If I possessed a tithe of it, I should surely have made my fortune by this time, and be in the enjoyment of the greatest prosperity. It must be remembered, too, that the opinion of the Critics on the Hearth is always volunteered (indeed, ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... accurately analyse Mr Arabin's feelings on receipt of such astounding tidings. It will suffice to say that he was surprised, vexed, sorrowful, and ill at ease. He had not perhaps thought very much about Eleanor, but he had appreciated her influence, and had felt that close intimacy with her in a country ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... seemed undisputed. But from the day of the Manchu Abdication almost, he was constantly engaged in calculating whether he dared risk everything on one throw of the dice and ascend the Throne himself; and it is precisely this which imparts such dramatic interest to the astounding story which follows. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... overcoming with astounding ease the handicaps of his humble birth and lack of education, his life was one continued round of social triumphs of the highest order; for he speedily won and retained to the day of his death the confidence and friendship ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... believe that there was color. The English, on the other hand, were trying hard for real color, but the younger men were in that crude stage which is the natural "ugly duckling" condition of the genuine colorist. The consequence was an astounding contrast between the painting of the two nations, and to eyes educated in France English art looked outrageous to a degree that we realize with the greatest difficulty now. At a later period my wife became initiated into the principles ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... looking on while they play chess. Nowhere in the world do they play chess so skilfully as in Paris, and nowhere in Paris as they do at this coffee-house; 'tis here you see Legal the profound, Philidor the subtle, Mayot the solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the sorriest talk, for if a man may be at once a wit and a great chess-player, like Legal, you may also be a great chess-player and a sad ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... grown in want to maturity, that we thought the most prudent plan was to return and rest for the night at Falkenborg. Resuming our place of purgatory in the carriole, we were soon galloping on our way home; for the Swedes, like the Norwegians, drive at a tremendous pace, and it is astounding how these carrioles, so barbarously joined together, scouring over ruts and stones, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... peculiarities verging on the abnormal are, however, undoubted; they render her a socially pernicious person. They are to be summed up in terms of what we have discussed above, namely, her excessive egoism, her faulty judgment or apperceptions, her astounding tendency ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... was astounding. Bismarck took it upon himself, when the resolution reached him, to treat it with the utmost contempt, and to send it back without really laying it before his government, thus giving the American people to understand ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, the prince of Neuvied, even the coadjutor of the ecclesiastical principalities on the banks of the Rhine, those of Mayence, Worms, and Constance, signalised themselves by their ardour for the mystic doctrines of freemasonry or the illuminati. Cagliostro was astounding Strasburgh—Cardinal de Rohan ruined himself, and bent before his voice. Like at the fall of great empires—like at the cradle of great things—these signs appeared every where. The most infallible was the general convulsion of human ideas. When ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Napoleon, was in statesmanship and warfare. Without going the full length of this notion, it will, at least, be conceded, that the free loose which had been given to all the passions and energies of the human mind, in the great struggle of that period, together with the constant spectacle of such astounding vicissitudes as were passing, almost daily, on the theatre of the world, had created, in all minds, and in every walk of intellect, a taste for strong excitement, which the stimulants supplied from ordinary sources were ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... began reflectively, "presents to me to-day the most interesting aspect it has assumed since history began. True, the age is one of great mental confusion. Quite as true, startling discoveries and astounding inventions have so upset our staid old mediaeval views that the world is hurriedly crowding them out, together with its God. Doctrines for which our fathers bled and burned are to-day lightly tossed upon the ash heap. The searchlight is turned never so mercilessly ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... answered as sweetly as though no disagreement had ever come between them; as though there were no incongruity between their suspended discussion and her interrupting sentence. "Giovannino," she cooed, "I have had a great offer, an astounding offer from Vienna." ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... "Astounding!" cried the president. "This is a sacrilege, which will assuredly meet a just punishment. But," he continued after a pause, glancing anxiously around, "let us not forget that we ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Virginia, the circumspect, the caste-bound, the intolerant, the emotionless, was displaying the astounding symptoms peculiar to the minx! And she had neither the excuse of ignorance nor of extreme youth. Virginia was a mature maiden, calmly cognisant of the world, and coolly alive to the doubtful phases of that planet. And why on earth she chose to affiche herself with a man ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... or twenty years ago, had they preached to the people that Congress had no right to vote against admitting a new State with slavery, because it was not already abolished in all the old States? It is perfectly astounding, this seeming eagerness of so many of our old friends to cover up and apologize for the glaring hate toward the equal recognition of the manhood of the black race. Well, you will be in New York to witness, perhaps, the disbanding ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... create a famine in the Orkneys. The cheapness of whiskey appeared likely to be the cause of our going to sea with a crew in a lamentable state of drunkenness, and rather prejudiced me against Stromness; but if it had no other redeeming quality, all its faults would be forgotten in the astounding fact that there may be found a landlady with moderate prices ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... some of them leather upholstered, stood about in every available corner. Heavy chandeliers of glass, with hundreds of dangling crystals and prisms, hung from the ceiling. The gambling tables, a half dozen in number, were arranged in the open floor space in the centre. Altogether it was a most astounding contrast in its sheer luxury and gorgeous furnishing to the crudity of the town. I became acutely conscious of my muddy boots, my old clothes, my unkempt hair, my red shirt and the armament strapped ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... gone to bed on Wednesday night. He knew that because he remembered the date of his letter to Commander Howard Vincent, R. N. R. He made the astounding discovery that he had slept just forty-four hours. Then he made a second discovery and that was that of his precious eight days' leave, three were ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... the Atlantic flora, you will have to decide for yourselves whether you accept or not the theory of a sunken Atlantic continent. I confess that all objections to that theory, however astounding it may seem, are outweighed in my mind by a host of facts which I can explain by no other theory. But you must judge for yourselves; and to do so you must study carefully the distribution of heaths, both in Europe and at the Cape; and ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... the astounding answer, when he said bad words, rushed from the room and slammed the door. Then followed ten days, the only ones since he became my brother when he would not call me "Sis." ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... on the top of the hill. They were fired above the heads of the slowly advancing line of blue which had started up the slope. I ordered the men to work the Gatlings as fast as they could. The result was astounding. With each of the four guns firing at the rate of eight hundred shots a minute, the bullets formed a canopy over the heads of the men at the foot of the hill. A Gatling gun in action is a sight ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes
... the glad smile on her lips, the light in her great, lustrous, dark eyes, and the beauty of her faultless body, and yet they all faded to nothing beside the astounding and inexplicable fact that she ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... dying, Oh! Love's astounding wonder!— For love, his fell spear plying, Has cleft my heart asunder. Around the blade are lying Sharp teeth, my life to sunder, In rapture I am dying, Distraught ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... got to her feet with astounding quickness, ran into the kitchen, and returned in a moment with another platter of chicken, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... quite sure—she believed it might be the case, there was no saying; it might be a mistake, like that of Mrs Trunnion's in the novel, and, therefore, she said nothing to her husband about the matter. At last Mr Easy opened his eyes, and when, upon interrogating his wife, he found out the astounding truth, he opened his eyes still wider, and then he snapped his fingers and danced, like a bear upon hot plates, with delight, thereby proving that different causes may produce similar effects in two instances at one and the same time. The bear dances from pain, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... as everything that is noble and upright, Chief?" I asked, curious as to his ideas. I shall not forget the reply: it was but two words—astounding, amazing words. ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... trim," said the porter, pocketing a tip of weight to gratify without astounding, "Ah'd'a' pushed onto Lunnon ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... the astounding statement and by something unusually placable in her tone. He stared at ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice some of the criticisms which, man of the nineteenth century as I was, came uppermost in my mind, upon this to me astounding arrangement. "Some men do twice the work of others!" I exclaimed. "Are the clever workmen content with a plan that ranks them with ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... heard from a breathless crowd about the small hotel news from over the mountains. Banks was at last in motion—was marching, nineteen thousand strong, up the Valley—had seized New Market, and, most astounding and terrific of all to the village boys, had captured a whole company of Ashby's! "General Jackson?" General Jackson had burned the railway station at Mt. Jackson and fallen back—was believed ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... wrote to none of them. The Chancellor, who had dined at Holland House, called on him and heard the news; the others (except Duncannon, who went to him, and I believe Palmerston) remained in happy ignorance till yesterday morning, when they were saluted at their rising with the astounding intelligence. All the Ministers (except Brougham) read the account of their dismissal in the 'Times' the next morning, and this was the first they heard of it. Melbourne resolved to say nothing that night, but summoned an early Cabinet, when he meant to impart it. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... went upstairs in the possession of an astounding truth, but rapt with it in such a whirlwind of wonder that she could do no more than clutch it to her bosom as she flew. She sent out word that she was not coming down to dinner, and locked herself in with her truth, to make what she ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... millions; from 1912 to 1914, under Sir Robert Borden, it endorsed the Canadian Northern's notes for forty-nine millions more. Nor were the provinces behindhand. Mainly in the seven years from 1908, the five westernmost provinces pledged their credit on behalf of the same system to the astounding amount of over one hundred and thirty millions, British Columbia leading; Nova Scotia made a loan of another five millions. Thus endorsed, usually as to both principal and interest, the bonds of the Canadian Northern were floated with little difficulty, so long as money ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... lay your conditions before M. le Marechal, and if no satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at, it will be to me a matter of profound regret. And now, sir, will you permit me to inspect more closely the gallant men with whose help you have done such astounding deeds?" Cavalier smiled; for these "gallant men" when caught had been broken on the wheel, burnt at the stake, or hanged like brigands. His sole answer was an inclination of the head as he turned and led the way to his little escort. M. de Lalande followed him with perfect ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was previously familiar, from phenomena by no means necessarily implying it. For example, a recent author ascribes to the Feejees the belief that there will be a resurrection of the body just as it was at the time of death. The only datum on which he founds this astounding assertion is that they often seem to prefer to die in the full vigor of manhood rather than in decrepit old age! 11 Thirdly, we know that the observation and statements of the Spanish monks and historians, in regard to the religion of the pagans of South America, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... pack. With a tremendous effort he succeeded in getting his arm out of the pool, and attempted to free his head from its blinding enwrappings. In doing so his hand suddenly touched human flesh—a soft, bared arm! With the same astounding discovery came one more terrible: that arm belonged to the weight that was pressing him down; and now, assisted by his struggles, it was slowly slipping toward the brink of the ledge and the abyss below! ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... was so unexpected, so astounding. "We'll have some tea in the orangery," he said after a moment's consideration. "You may not like the statuary, but the orange trees ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... was now within the tropic of Capricorn, and not very far to the eastward of the Paumotu Archipelago, in which region night succeeds day with such astounding rapidity that the stars become visible within ten minutes of the sun's disappearance. Yet no stars appeared on this particular night; on the contrary, a darkness that could be felt settled down upon the brig almost ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... sympathetically that magical piece of work, the "Ancient Mariner." What an amazing instance of the triumph of the human imagination! For Coleridge certainly never witnessed such a scene as he there describes with an accuracy of detail that is astounding. Very few sailors have noticed the sickening condition of the ocean when the life-giving breeze totally fails for any length of time, or, if they have, they have said but little about it. Of course, some parts of the sea show the evil effects of stagnation ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... as he lay in the starlight, on the house- top, that night, and gazed into the astounding future that had opened before him. Had there been any true religion in him, it would have been a wakeful night of prayer. But, more likely, as the event proves, the ambition and arrogance which were deep in his nature, though hitherto undeveloped, were his counsellors, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... simple," came the astounding answer in plain English; "in times like this spies may be arrested, tried, and executed all inside of an hour. And you three boys are accused of having been known to send information ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... relaxation; when she allowed herself to chat with us, and even to smile—Heavens! those smiles! And when—I can feel the tingling of my pulses at the bare mention of it—she spoke about herself, stated she had once been young—a declaration so astounding, so utterly beyond our comprehension, that we were rendered quite speechless—and told ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... chosen from both sides, men British in blood and outlook, sitting round a table and reaching an agreement to result in a real independence for America and a real unity with Great Britain. A century and a quarter later a bitter war with an alien race in South Africa was followed by a result even more astounding. The surrender of Burgoyne had made the Prime Minister, Lord North, weary of his position. He had never been in sympathy with the King's policy and since the bad news had come in December he had pondered some radical step which should ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... dissatisfied and divided in allegiance that he dared not risk a battle. An audacious boast saved the crafty king. "With a fierce countenance and terrible voice" he cried to the French messengers who had hurried out to see if the astounding news of his arrival were true, "Go tell your king I am at hand as you see!" At the news of the ferocity and resolution of the enemy, Louis, "knowing him to be fierce and of a most bitter temper, as a bear robbed of its whelps rages in the forest," hastily retreated, and Henry, as wise a general ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... deliverance has been 'the work of the Lord'; the 'desolations' that have been made on the 'earth' 'He has made.' This great refrain of the song, which I have chosen for my text, takes the experience of deliverance as a proof in act of an astounding truth, and as a hope for the future. 'The Lord of hosts is with us; the God ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... some astounding statements about various parts of the world. He asserts that a good walker could walk across Asia Minor, from north to south, in five days, a distance we know now to be three hundred miles! He tells us that the Danube rises in the Pyrenees ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... copy of the proclamation issued by P. H. Pearse, advising them to surrender unconditionally. So surprised in fact were they, that they determined to keep "the ambassador of peace" as a hostage until they verified the astounding news for themselves, one of their leaders motoring up to Dublin with the Chief Constable. On their return, of course, with the news confirmed, there was nothing to do but surrender, and this they accordingly did—their only stipulation ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... actually been accepted as "one of us" by the inner hierarchy of the French noblesse! He had even made his peace with the Church and become, at any rate in all outward forms, perhaps ex animo, a devout Catholic. What is even more astounding is that his second wife was as devoted to him as was his first, and so, apparently, was he to her. Fouch, indeed, may be said to have been an expert in domestic felicity. The man is as inexplicable as the Emperor to whom I have dared to compare him. Only, unfortunately for us, Fouch ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... very solemn and astounding; but Brummell's presence of mind was not often astounded. He had scarcely walked his horse a few paces from the spot, when he returned, and said in a subdued tone—"Excuse me, general; but, in my anxiety to explain this most unfortunate business, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... upon the age of the great religious conflict one of astounding ebb of spiritual interest. Men turned with all energy to the political and economic interests of a wholly modern civilisation. They retained, after a short period of friction, a smug and latitudinarian orthodoxy, which Methodism did little to change. In France not only was the Huguenot Church ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... low-lying haze, yet sufficed to show how confidingly Imogene leaned upon her attendant in sauntering dowa the long main alley of the garden. Rosa was at the piano in the parlor, singing to the enamored Alfred. Mrs. Sutton had withdrawn to her own room to ruminate upon the astounding disclosure of her nephew's engagement, while Winston bent over his study-table busy with the interrupted letter his aunt had seen in ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... from Isaiah to the height of ritual, and every Psalm he read was a Magnificat whether he would or no. The warrior in him was happy among the Princes of Issachar; and the parallels he would find for modern events in the annals of Judah and of Israel were astounding. Yet he kept a sharp eye upon the daily paper, and his reference to current events would often give his listeners an audacious sense of up-to-dateness which might have been easily discounted by ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... days also the telluric world Strove to beget the monsters that upsprung With their astounding visages and limbs— The Man-woman—a thing betwixt the twain, Yet neither, and from either sex remote— Some gruesome Boggles orphaned of the feet, Some widowed of the hands, dumb Horrors too Without a mouth, or blind Ones of no eye, Or Bulks all shackled by their legs and arms Cleaving unto the ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... permanent mate be found for a life-union under the law. This demand is reaching a critical poignancy in those countries in which the Great War has added to a long-increasing "surplus of women" an astounding total of millions of women fit to marry whose rightful mates are buried on the fields of conflict. Shall these women, it is asked, be denied motherhood as well as wifehood? Shall the state lose the children these women, child-loving and noble and ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... them aloud, she realized with a sudden and astounding clearness their true meaning, which had either escaped her intelligence, or she had been too astonished and interested in her own action to appreciate before. Her first feeling had been one of amazement and interest; now she felt quite convinced ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... mansion where all do so much learning have, even the petite cat must an education get! What more astounding could one behold?" ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... labored heart and soul for the good of the republic and the church. He was the last man that anyone would have expected to fall from grace, and no one ever thought of such a thing; but, strange as it may appear, he one day sought an interview with the missionaries, and announced the astounding fact that an Indian who had killed his cousin some eight years before had returned from the Missouri river country, and he thought it was his duty to kill him in retaliation. The astonishment of the missionaries may be well imagined. They cited ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... across the room and, throwing her arms about his neck, kissed him with unashamed fervor; Blake and Max pressed round the piano, and in an instant the room was humming again to the sound of voices, and some one made the astounding discovery ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... you, the Judge?" asked McVeigh first. "Good! I'm glad you are here. Something astounding has occurred, gentlemen. The papers, the instructions you brought today, together with some other documents of importance, have been stolen from ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... astounding intelligence and insight, had in a few hours partly unravelled the tangled skeins of the plot, divined the murder of Cosmo Mornington, proclaimed the murder of Inspector Verot, taken the conduct of the investigation into his ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... example of Scripture was like another, always applicable, of equal authority in every case. It is not difficult to understand the exasperation of so modern a mind as that of Lethington, while he attempted in vain to bring this astounding debate to a conclusion. For Knox always, so to speak, proves his case. Granting the twist in all his logic, the confusion of things between which there was no just comparison—and this twist and confusion belonged to his period as well as to himself—his grotesque ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... astounding facts established by the enquiry was the wide-spread demoralisation which had developed itself in certain districts. Home had lost its sanctity. The ties that bind parents and children were loosened, and natural affection gave place to intense ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin |
