"Startle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no aid to the whilom?? Governor against this new general and army, but if ships should bring the Red Coats they were to withstand them. There is little wonder that "this bugbear did marvellously startle" that body of Virginia horsemen, those progressive gentlemen planters, and others. Yet in the end, after violent contentions, the assembly at Middle Plantation drew up and signed a remarkable paper, the "Oath at Middle Plantation." Historically, it is linked on the one hand with ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" in Helen's free hand. The word coming so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. A new light came into her face. She spelled "water" several times. Then she dropped on the ground and asked for its name and pointed to the pump and the trellis, and suddenly turning round she asked ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... redemption, pardon, sanctification, which otherwise are mere words. God speaks to us primarily in our hearts. Self- knowledge is the key to the precepts and doctrines of Scripture. The very utmost that any outward notices of religion can do is to startle us and make us turn inward and search our hearts; and then, when we have experienced what it is to read ourselves, we shall profit by the doctrine of the Church and the Bible." My brethren, the temper in which you receive that passage, and receive it from its author, ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... seemed to spring upon Phoebe, as though it had been something visible to startle her. It shook off her old English self for a moment, and she leaped ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... one of weak intellect, and he was thus often able to make him say the very things which he purposely intended to keep secret. Still Lawrence did not tell him the whole truth, and often thus misled him more than if he had not said a word on the subject. Often, too, he would startle him as he walked away by breaking out, as if unconsciously, with "The prince will hae his ain again! The prince will hae ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... him to Judy, and left him outside so he wouldn't startle the house. Where is my girl—where ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... money have been wasted. In my estimation the Bishop is a perfectly detestable tyrant, and if I know him at all he will take all she will give and never grant her wish. Now she is preparing her great move, and hopes to startle him into compliance by a new marvel. She thinks that, like a juggler who turns a white egg black, she can turn a heathen district into a Christian one by a twist of her finger. Well—so far as I am concerned I will have nothing to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ceased the fit, the foaming lips were still. "O maiden," said AEneas, "me no more Can danger startle, nor strange shape of ill. All have I seen and throughly conned before. One boon I beg,—since yonder are the door Of Pluto, and the gloomy lakes, they tell, Fed by o'erflowing Acheron,—once more To see the father whom I loved so well. Teach me the way, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... young-chicken-coloured hair and merry, heather-mixture eyes. They talk no language but slang. They come to grief in a preposterous automobile about every ten miles and attract their idol's attention and startle horses by giving vent to S. O. S. yells. Whenever they have to enter a room they plunge in as if the door had broken away before them. Their only conception of a "good time" is ragtime. If one ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... movement. There was something so strange and uncanny about it—for I by this time knew the ground well enough to be fully aware that there ought not to be any moving thing there—that I stopped playing and sprang to my feet so suddenly that my movement appeared to startle Ama, who uttered a little cry of alarm, or surprise, and made as though she too would spring to ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Wayward Recluse*). His most intimate friends were the shogun's father-in-law, Shimazu Ei-O, and Ikeda Isshinsai. The latter two were also inkyo and shared the tastes and foibles of Harunari. One of their greatest pleasures was to startle society. Thus, when Sadanobu was legislating with infinite care against prodigality of any kind, the above three old gentlemen loved to organize parties on an ostentatiously extravagant scale, and Sadanobu ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... had seen had been enough to startle the bravest person. A figure had suddenly appeared out of the gloom, a huge towering figure that looked to the startled girls to be almost as high as the trees themselves, though it was not more than eight feet tall. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... terror. Fear is depicted on their faces and observable in their attitudes, as no wonder it should. What they have just seen is sufficient to terrify the stoutest hearts—even those of tried tars, as all of them are. A ship manned by hairy men—a crew of veritable Orsons! Certainly enough to startle the most phlegmatic mariner, and make him tremble as he tugs at his oar. But they have ceased tugging at their oars, and hold them, blades suspended. Almost the same is their breath. One alone, at length, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... suddenly arisen which can photograph the bones, and, before long, the organs of the human body; that a light has been found which can penetrate, so as to make a photographic record, through everything from a purse or a pocket to the walls of a room or a house, is news which cannot fail to startle everybody. That the eye of the physician or surgeon, long baffled by the skin, and vainly seeking to penetrate the unfortunate darkness of the human body, is now to be supplemented by a camera, making all the parts of the human body as visible, in a way, as the exterior, appears certainly ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... of "The Mark of the Beast" has been to further "startle" and awaken "careless, ill-taught professing Christians," by giving some faint view of the fate of those professors who will be "left behind" to go through the ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... It used to startle strangers to hear "The Hardy Norseman," "The Cuckoo," and such-like songs from the lips of little Chinese boys. Every Saturday evening they came to the house to practise the hymns and chants for Sunday; I had an harmonium in the dining-room. On these occasions they all had ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... almost fierce action—the peculiar abruptness of the apostrophe—the whitely-robed, the almost spiritual elevation of figure—all so dramatic—combined necessarily to startle and surprise; and, for a few moments, no answer was returned to the unlooked-for speech. But the effect could not be permanent upon minds made familiar with the thousand forms of human and strong energies. Munro, after ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the chamber of the Sangraal, Rowena IV was arranging the red samite cover around the Grail. She jumped when she saw him. "Marry! fair sir, ye did startle me. Methinketh ye be asleep in ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... meal was announced Angel, as usual, was the first to appear, and when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror he thought one of his friends had come to visit him. It did not seem to startle him in the least, but like all children tried to look ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... in March, 1883, a striking young Frenchman, who said he was a nobleman, came to Little Missouri with a plan ready-made to build a community there to rival Omaha, and a business that would startle America's foremost financiers, the citizens of the wicked little frontier settlement, who thought that they knew all the possibilities of "tenderfeet" and "pilgrims" and "how-do-you-do-boys," admitted ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... delicacy that called for gentle handling and tender cherishing;—the sweetness, rare indeed, but asserting itself as it were timidly, at least with equally rare modesty,—the very style of the beauty, that with all its loveliness would not startle nor even catch the eye among its more showy neighbours; and the breath of purity that seemed to own no kindred with earth, nor liability ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... me startle you, please!" he said, as he stepped from the shadow of the trumpet-flower bush that had ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... or developing political life. When a nation has once entered such a social order it becomes stagnant, its further development is arrested. The activity of the higher faculties of the mind are in abeyance, but not destroyed. It needs the electric shock of contact and conflict with foreign races to startle the race out of its fatal repose and start it on new lines of progress by demanding, on pain of death, or at least of racial subordination, the introduction of new elements into its social order by a renewed exercise of the constructive imagination. For without such action of the constructive imagination ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... market-place presented to the Boy a picture of desolation which chilled him. He was about to turn away with a last cursory glance at the other solitary figure, when something suddenly occurred which arrested his attention. It seemed to startle him too, for he sprang back, with prompt agility, into a dark doorway behind him, from whence he watched what followed with the keenest interest, being careful, however, to conceal himself the while. He had not felt any movement of pity or kindly compassion for the girl; ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... her selfe would startle at this letter, And play the swaggerer, beare this, beare all: Shee saies I am not faire, that I lacke manners, She calls me proud, and that she could not loue me Were man as rare as Phenix: 'od's my will, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the prophet's aspirations are founded on the facts of human nature too, and judgments do sometimes startle those whom kindness had failed to touch. It is an awful thought that human nature may so steel itself against the whole armoury of divine weapons as that favour and severity are equally blunted, and the heart remains unpierced by either. It is an awful thought ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... pains with her toilet; she did not wish to startle, but to attract—and the two things were very different. Her dress looked brilliant, being of a silvery texture; the trimming was composed of small fern-leaves; a parure of fine diamonds crowned ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... find evil in everything, they do not comprehend that others still believe in the good. Therefore they have to be so nonchalant as to stop their ears, lest the hum of the busy world should suddenly startle them from sleep. The father allows his son to go where so many others go, where Cato himself went; he says that youth is but fleeting. But when he returns, the youth looks upon his sister; and see what has taken place in him during an hour ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... record biographically should have for his baptismal name—Francis. But if you found that this was the very reason for his admitting the man into his series, that, however strange a reason, it had in fact governed him in selecting his subjects, you would no longer see anything to startle your belief. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... apt to startle an Imagination, which has not been raised and qualify'd for such a Description, by the reading of the ancient Poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold Thought in our Author, to ascribe the first Use of Artillery to the Rebel Angels. But as such a pernicious ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... districts of America, where art and labor have united for generations to clear the earth of its inequalities, and to remove the vestiges of a state of nature, can form but little idea of the thousand objects that may exist in a clearing, to startle the imagination of one who has admitted alarm, when seen in the doubtful light of even a cloudless moon. Still less can they who have never quitted the old world, and who, having only seen, can only imagine fields smooth as the surface of tranquil ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... the bunch intrepidly. Others made shift with flat sirup-cans with pebbles inside. A few, like Pink and the Silent One, flapped their slickers till their arms ached. Anything, everything that would make a din and startle the cattle out of their lethargy, ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... water's brim are quiet. It is a dream in halftones that he gives us, gray and green and steely blue; and just that, and some homely magic of his own, hint the commerce of another world with man's discarded domain. Men and women are asleep, and as in an early walk you may startle the hares at their play, or see the creatures of the darkness—owls and night-hawks and heavy moths—flit with fantastic purpose over the familiar scene, so here it comes upon you suddenly that you have surprised Nature's self at her mysteries; you are ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... me?" Murray laughed a little. "But we can remedy that, can't we, Amy? But you might hint at what I'm expecting of her. I don't want to startle her." He came and sat down beside her. "You are always a great dear about doing things ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... years after his interment, and the skull was found to be without sutures. (Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 218.) Richelieu's was found to be perforated with little holes. The abbe Richard deduces a theory from this, which may startle the physiologist even more than the facts. "On ouvrit son Test, on y trouva 12 petits trous par ou s'exhaloient les vapeurs de son cerveau, ce qui fit qu' il n'eut jamais aucun mal de tete; au lieu que le Test de Ximenes ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... here we have few masters, and our critics know and care little for style; they are entirely preoccupied with plot and incident and situation. What we lack is true originality, tranquil force; we are all occupied in trying to startle and surprise, to make a sensation. How little the Greeks cared for that! It was beauty and charm, delicate colour, fine subtlety of which they were, in search; they held all things holy, yet nothing solemn. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hit on," Aunt 'Phrony proceeded, "de fire blaze an' spit an' sputter jes' lak dis do, an' de ooman she fotched a yell an' cried out, she did, 'Lan' er de mussiful! W'at cur'ous sort er wood is dish yer dat ac' lak dis?' De Owl he wuz startle' an' he look roun' suddint, dis-a-way, over his shoulder, an' de wimmins dey let out a turr'ble screech, 'kase dey seed 'twa'n't nuttin' but a big ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... on the breast of my River, and startle the birds on the edge, To land on a newly found island, a boat that is caught in the sedge, The rays of the sun are still level, not yet has the heat of the day Deflowered the mists of the morning, that linger ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay, To haunt, to startle, ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... me, JANE! I wish you wouldn't come and startle me with your horrid telegrams—there, give it to me. (Reading.) "Wife down, violent influenza. Must come without her, TOOMER." (Resentfully.) Again! and I know she's had it twice since the spring—it's too tiresomely inconsid—no, it isn't—it's the very best thing she could do. Now we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... was a very curious kind of man. In the coldest weather, when even the hardiest soldiers were wrapping themselves up, he would go about in his shirt sleeves just as if it were summer; and very often he would be up before any one else in the camp was astir, and startle the first officer whom he saw coming out of his tent by crowing like a rooster as loud as he could, just as if to say, "You ought to have been out before." Then, too, Count and General though he was, dining with the Empress herself almost every week, and going about the palace as he pleased, ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... still is the relation which has been shown to exist between criminality and household occupations. Nothing, indeed, which recent investigation has established ought to startle the American woman more. Contrary to public opinion, it is not the factory and shop which are making the greatest number of women offenders of all kinds; it is the household. In a recent careful study of over 3000 women criminals, the Bureau ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... written in the blood of your poor friend would indeed be of a nature to startle you; but this is nought but harmless red ink, or, as the witty mercantile phrase hath it, Clerk's Blood. Damn 'em! my brain, guts, skin, flesh, bone, carcase, soul, TIME, is all theirs. The Royal Exchange, Gresham's Folly, hath me body and spirit. I admire some of Lloyd's lines on you, and I admire ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... way in which he straightened out his long legs against the sides of his beast, one suspected that he could, if necessary, repeat the Marshal de Saxe's feats of skill. He stopped his horse suddenly at the very spot which the two men had just vacated and called out in a voice which would startle ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... there were not 200 sworn United Irishmen, and which Lord Edward Fitzgerald had altogether omitted from his official list of counties organized in the month of February. In that brief interval, the Government policy of provocation had the desired effect, though the explosion was of a nature to startle those ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the dull thread of many thousand feet and the rough rattle of an occasional carriage. Rarely, the harsh tones of a peasant, or the clear voices of a knot of strangers, unused to such oppressive silence, startle the ear, causing hundreds of eager, half-suspicious, half-wondering eyes to turn in the direction of ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... other places,[241] however, he is the son of Dyaus or the sky, though no thought is given in that early stage to the fact that thus Parganya might seem to be the husband of his mother. We saw that even the idea of Indra being the father of his own father did not startle the ancient poets beyond an exclamation that it was a very wonderful ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... at times grotesque, And yet superbly picturesque, Although resignedly we mourn A Park dismantled and forlorn, Long may it be ere you forsake Your quarters on the minished Lake; For there, with splendid plumes and hues And ways that startle and amuse, You constantly refresh the eye And cheer the heart of passers-by, Untouched by years of shock and strain, Undeviatingly urbane, And lending London's commonplace A touch of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... Cluhir, leader in its councils and its politics. On his professional side, his advice and ministrations were in demand even beyond the range of his motor car, and the measure of his greatness may be best estimated when it is mentioned that his motor had been the first to startle the streets of his ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Will looked westward, in the direction of his shop, and it struck him how amusing it would be to startle Rosamund by a disclosure of his social status. Would she still be anxious for his company in search of the picturesque? He could not feel sure—curiosity urged him to try the experiment, but an obscure apprehension ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... is very difficult to surprise or startle an inspector of police. But Mr. Murray was really more than surprised or startled. He was shocked and appalled, as his countenance betrayed when he dropped his pen and fell back in ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... rowing an Algerian galley under the lash of the slave-driver. Above all do not teach him this, like his catechism, in cold blood; let him see and feel the calamities which overtake men; surprise and startle his imagination with the perils which lurk continually about a man's path; let him see the pitfalls all about him, and when he hears you speak of them, let him cling more closely to you for fear lest he should fall. "You will make him timid and cowardly," do you say? We shall see; let us ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... while brown (as already observed) is far more common on the bricks than black. Thus the general tone of their coloring is quiet, not to say sombre. There is no striving after brilliant effects. The Assyrian artist seeks to please by the elegance of his forms and the harmony of his hues, not to startle by a display of bright and strongly-contrasted colors. The tints used in a single composition vary from three to five, which latter number they seem never to exceed. The following are the combinations of five hues which occur: brown, green, blue, dark yellow, and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... peasants from the nobles, to light the flames of civil war, to murder by the hands of her own sons that unhappy country, which, deserted by all the nations of the earth, has again and again risen from her bloody grave to startle her oppressors with the old hymns of faith and triumph. But, if uncultured, because the iron heel of the tyrant has been on the heart of the murdered mother, the Polish peasant is faithful and devoted. He knows the nature of Russian rule. He has seen ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that would startle you," remarked the Bumpy Man, well pleased, as he resumed his stirring. The Ork watched him a while in silence and ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Ned put them all on the alert. Each one had a station assigned to him, which he was expected to hold, in case of a renewal of hostilities; while Jimmy might bemoan the fact that he could not have a bucket of boiling water with which to startle the intended boarders, he evidently did not intend to let that deficiency keep him from doing his duty. Crouching there at a point where he could fire through the breach in the stern of the wreck, he only waited for the word to be given, when he evidently meant to start ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... had a white father and a Seminole mother. Ann, I sometimes wonder what opportunity might have done for Osceola. As great as Napoleon, some one said. What might opportunity do for this strange, exotic flower of Osceola's people? She has brains and beauty and instinctive grace enough to startle a continent. I am greatly tempted. Ann, I beg of you, don't breathe any of this to Aunt Agatha. Some day I may carry Keela away to the cities of the North for an experiment quite my own. Her delicate beauty—her gravity—her shy, sweet ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... to artificial respiration and the injection of hot coffee. Having emitted this pronouncement, the great specialist from Manchester Square left. It was one o'clock in the morning. By one of those strange and futile coincidences which sometimes startle us by their subtle significance, the specialist met Theodore Racksole and his captive as they were entering the hotel. Neither had the least ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... first uncertain glimmer of the light, 'rising and falling with the waves, like a torch in the bark of some fisherman,' which is the shining star of a new world. Bruce is caged in Abyssinia, surrounded by the gory horrors which shall often startle him out of his sleep at home when years have passed away. Franklin, come to the end of his unhappy overland journey - would that it had been his last! - lies perishing of hunger with his brave companions: each emaciated figure stretched upon its miserable bed without ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... enlarged, and made more comfortable through the good fortunes of the Bunkers, was no longer sheltered by the cliff, but was exposed to the full strength of the Pacific gales. There were long nights when she could hear the rain fall monotonously on the shingles, or startle her with a short, sharp reveille en the windows; there were brief days of flying clouds and drifting sunshine, and intervals of dull gray shadow, when the heaving white breakers beyond the Gate slowly lifted themselves and sank before her like wraiths ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the high wall—from its eyrie without doubt—a huge female eagle suddenly shot down toward the drifting aeroplane. The flying machine seemed not to startle the great bird at all; it only angered her. Perhaps she had young up there in the cliff and she feared her hereditary enemy, Man, was coming on wings to deprive her ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... writing, nevertheless, is not affected by the desire either to impress or to startle his readers, any more than the writing of a good poet springs from an aiming at effect: it is like all true literature, in the first place, the outcome of a strong and personal passion, the passion for the past. ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... at the same time, a strange man in exterior manners; for, with an abundance of real piety, he had an abruptness of delivery and a strange way of mixing up an occasional remark to his congregation in the midst of the celebration of the mass, which might well startle a stranger; but this very want of formality made him beloved by the people, and they would do ten times as much for Father Phil as for ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Of victory o'er the routed foe— Will startle from their rest no more The fallen brave of Mexico. To God alone such spirits yield! He took them in their strength and bloom, When gathering, on the tented field, The garlands ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... a strange child. He had a Norseman's taste for the fabulous and fantastic, and although he never heard a tale of Necken or the Hulder, he would often startle his mother by the most fanciful combinations of imagined events, and by bolder personifications than ever sprung from the legendary soil of the Norseland. She always took care to check him whenever he indulged in these imaginary flights, and he at last came to look upon ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... seas to unknown soils, With various wonders feasts his sight: What stranger wonders does he write! We read, and in description view Creatures which Adam never knew: For, when we risk no contradiction, It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction. Those things that startle me or you, I grant are strange; yet may be true. 10 Who doubts that elephants are found For science and for sense renowned? Borri records their strength of parts, Extent of thought, and skill in arts; How they perform the law's decrees, And ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... "Mohawk," suddenly uttered, was sufficient to startle a New Brunswick Indian. The late Edward Jack upon asking an Indian child, "What is a Mohawk?" received this reply, "A Mohawk is a bad Indian who kills people and eats them." Parkman describes the ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... were bewildered for a moment with the coming strife, but the thoughtful boys, rolling stones down to startle away the sharks before their dear Smart's way, recalled us to our senses. We let down the rope ladder, and the ready Smart swam to it. Placing his precious charge on it, he watched her run nimbly up it and we receive her with rapture in safety, when he wiped his streaming brow, and ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... of me to startle you like that," he acknowledged. "Please forgive me. I caught sight of you both through the trees and declared ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... not to perform feats which startle the world and give him fame, but rather to live the life of the moderate and harmonious one; yet how often for lack of true discernment he fails! This middle path is not, however, hidden from the sincere and pure; even common men and women may know it, though in its highest reaches ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... thought Thad whirled over to the exit, and crawled out. And what his eyes beheld was enough to startle anybody, let alone a boy. If a genuine cyclone had not struck the camp on the Little Machias, then something almost as bad must have dropped down upon them, Thad thought, as he stared, hardly able to believe his eyes, or understand what it ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... up the valley. You remember there was a dance? I had left my fan in our sitting-room, and ran up to find it. There was no light in the room, and Virginia and Sir Roger were on the balcony. Of course, I didn't mean to listen, but I couldn't find the fan at first, and I didn't like to startle them by suddenly switching on the light, so I—er—I overheard a little of the conversation. Sir Roger was telling her the story of that unfortunate Maxime Dalahaide—why, Marchese, how you must have loved him! The very mention of his name turns ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... I have not taken space to mention certain episodes of the more recent intercourse of these ladies, and must content myself with tracing them, lightly, in their consequences. These may be summed up in the remark, which will doubtless startle no one by its freshness, that two imperial women are scarcely more likely to hit it off together, as the phrase is, than two imperial men. Since that party at Miss Birdseye's, so important in its results for Olive, she had had occasion to approach Mrs. Farrinder more nearly, and those overtures ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... Southey said that Gifford cut out his middle joints. When John comes to use the carving-knife I fear Dr. Southey will not be so tractable. Nous verrons. I will not show Southey's letter to Lockhart, for there is to him personally no friendly tone, and it would startle the Hidalgo's pride. It is to be wished they may draw kindly together. Southey says most truly that even those who most undervalue his reputation would, were he to withdraw from the Review, exaggerate the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... "that the resemblance is strong enough for me to startle the murderer if he were to meet me suddenly here, and thus?"—I advanced upon him, looking into the depths of his eyes as though I were imitating a dramatic scene. "Yes," I continued, "would the likeness of feature ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... removed is the foregoing from any thing like an effort, on the preacher's part, to startle his audience with the far-fetched and unexpected. It must, however, be admitted that Bossuet was not always—as, of our Webster, it has well been said that he always was—superior to the temptation to exaggerate an occasion by pomps of rhetoric. ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... Eve home that night for a starter, and the next mornin' he's up bright and early at seven, ready to startle Manhattan. He said he wanted me to go out with him and watch him win my eight hundred bucks and also to notice the way he worked. He picks up the mornin' paper, runs through the "Help Wanted" columns for a minute and finally clears ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... from a dream Carley saw the blocks and squares of gray apartment houses and red buildings, the miles of roofs and chimneys, the long hot glaring streets full of playing children and cars. Then above the roar of the train sounded the high notes of a hurdy-gurdy. Indeed she was home. Next to startle her was the dark tunnel, and then the slowing of the train to a stop. As she walked behind a porter up the long incline toward the station gate her legs seemed to ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... bless my soul, if you frightened him into giving up a quid of tobacco like that you sure did startle him some!" He kicked Stevens' lost property out with the toe of his boot and turned to Joanne, showing her the fresh bread and marmalade. "Mrs. Otto sent these to you," he said. "And the train ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... will not speak of this now; yet I have spoken, for the subject makes me feel too much. I could give instances that would startle the most vulgar and callous; but I will not, for the public opinion of their own sex is already against such men, and where cases of extreme tyranny are made known, there is private action in the wife's favor. But she ought not to need this, nor, I think, can she long. Men must soon see that ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free; To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull night, From his watch-towre in the skies, Till ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... more than I have been told. It is the rude speech of a barbarous people, who had few thoughts to express, and were content, as they conceived grossly, to be grossly understood. After what has been lately talked of Highland Bards, and Highland genius, many will startle when they are told, that the Earse never was a written language; that there is not in the world an Earse manuscript a hundred years old; and that the sounds of the Highlanders were never expressed by letters, ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... rope, and I believe I should have turned the whole thing up, had it not been that at this juncture there floated into my mind a picture of the Bassett hearing that bell for the first time. Coming as a wholly new experience, it would probably startle ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... and whether venomous or not it was enough to startle the watcher, as a serpent some seven or eight feet in length came into sight, travelling through the undergrowth, with its scales ever changing in tint as its folds came more or less into connection with the light that penetrated ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... looked its fairest for our wanderers. Just as a woman adorns herself with all her jewels when she wishes to startle or enthrall, wishes to make a lover of a friend, so Devorgilla arrayed herself to conquer these two pairs of fresh eyes, and command their ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... God. Then he is indeed between heaven and earth. He knows that the slightest shift of the ladder—and a single false step may shift it—will dash him helplessly down to certain death. Stop the clang of the bells beneath him, it may startle him! The spectators far below on the earth involuntarily clasp their hands breathlessly; the jackdaws, who have been driven from their last place of refuge by the ascending figure, caw as they flutter wildly round his head; only the clouds ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... not to offend. We of the brigantine are accustomed to divers epithets that might startle less practised ears. We are not to learn, at this late hour, that, in order to become respectable, roguery must have the sanction of government. You were pleased, Captain Ludlow, to name the mystifications of the Water-Witch; ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... '"But," I think I hear some one say, "after all, friend Howe, was not the supposititious case, which you anticipated might occur, somewhat quaint and eccentric and startling?" It was, because I wanted to startle, to rouse, to flash the light of truth over every hideous feature of the system. {86} The fire-bell startles at night; but if it rings not the town may be burned; and wise men seldom vote him an ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... she'd been able to get help in just an ordinary fashion. Of course, if he or I had known what a risk she was running we'd have been half wild with anxiety about her. So you see it really was hard for you not to scream or do anything to startle that man." ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... love is stained, our benevolence corrupted, our piety a pretense which God will not accept. An impure young woman is an awful sight. She outrages all just ideas of womankind, all proper conceptions of spiritual beauty. To have evil imaginings, corrupt longings, or deceitful propensities ought to startle any young woman. To feel a disposition to sensuality, a craving for the glitter of a worldly life, or a selfish ambition for unmerited distinction is dangerous in the extreme. It is the exuding of impure waters from the heart. Who feels such utterings within should beware. They are the whisperings ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... seductive admirer, who was trying all his trained skill upon his artless companion. Murray Bradshaw felt sure that the game was in his hands if he played it with only common prudence. There was no need of hurrying this child,—it might startle her to make downright love abruptly; and now that he had an ally in her own household, and was to have access to her with a freedom he had never before enjoyed, there was a refined pleasure in playing his fish,—this gamest of golden-scaled creatures,—which had risen to his fly, and which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... toward the forbidden ground. As long as they are on their own run let them alone, give them not a moment's anxiety of mind; but directly they reach the boundary, show yourself with your dog in your most terrific aspect. Startle them, frighten them, disturb their peace; do so again and again, at the same spot, from the very first day. Let them always have peace on their own run, and none anywhere off it. In a month or two you will find the sheep ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... the herd, who bore the name of the "Broncho," on account of her wildness, her glaring red eyes and her branching horns, with an angry toss of her head to shake the water from her eyes, lifted her voice in one long, angry, rolling bellow that seemed to startle the whole herd. It had in it defiance, and determination. Like the leading spirit among the leprous men who sat at the gate of Samaria, the "Broncho" gathered up the feeling of the meeting in one long soul-stirring, ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... extreme patience and a great expenditure of time to win their confidence. That was out of the question now. His first impulse was to hail them, and try to make friends of them by offering some small present; but he checked himself as the thought flashed upon him that a movement on his part might startle them and provoke a discharge of their tiny arrows, which were probably poisoned. He could not doubt they had seen him long before he had seen them, and had been for some time playing the part of silent spectators, being kept at a distance, perhaps, by the aspect of the ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... should fire a gun the noise would likely startle them, and the first impulse of the savages would be to ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... obligation to love the other enough. He never spoke to her of this misadventure, he ceased even to think of it himself. But now and then his thoughts in their wandering course would come upon this memory where it lay unobserved, would startle it into life, thrust it more deeply down into his consciousness, and leave him aching with a sharp, far-rooted pain. As though this had been a bodily pain, Swann's mind was powerless to alleviate it; in the case of bodily pain, however, since it is independent of the mind, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Review said: "The title of Dr. Walsh's book, The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries, will startle many readers, but we respectfully commend to the open-minded his presentation of that great epoch. A century that witnessed such extraordinary achievements in architecture, in arts and crafts, in education, and in literature and law, as did the Thirteenth, is not to be lightly dismissed or unfavorably ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... gained sad ascendency, and his finest renditions grew "out of tune and harsh." In depicting the pathetic frenzy of Lear, such actors as he and Kean, when at their best, can surpass all rivals; and the grotesque, darkly-powerful ideals of Richard and Shylock are precisely those in which they will startle us to the last, gathering new, though fitful, expressions of hate and scorn, as their own natures sink from ethereal to grosser atmospheres. The mouth catches most surely the growing tendency of a soul; and on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... supercargo, it was his second voyage in such capacity, and he suffered much secret worry from his lack of experience in pricing pearls. But when Mapuhi exposed the pearl to his sight he managed to suppress the startle it gave him, and to maintain a careless, commercial expression on his face. For the pearl had struck him a blow. It was large as a pigeon egg, a perfect sphere, of a whiteness that reflected opalescent lights ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... said Bob Cochrane, coming round into the streak of lamplight, carrying his boots in his hands. "I just strolled over to see if you were all right. When I got to the steps it struck me I might startle you if I came thundering up, so I took my boots off and crept round to find out where you were. You were so quiet I thought you must have gone to bed and left ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... simplicity of thought is common to serene souls at both ends of the social scale. The great lady was simple in her own way. His views and beliefs had nothing in them to shock or startle her, since she judged them from the standpoint of her lofty position. Indeed, her sympathies were easily accessible to a man of that sort. She was not an exploiting capitalist herself; she was, as it were, above the play of economic conditions. ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... those astonishing and yet natural things which sometimes startle us is the value some minds attach to mere modernity in art. An old thing is tossed up in a new way, and there are those who attach more value to the way than the thing, and are instantly agape with admiration of originality. ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... Bendocdar? It is necessary that we should learn, in order to comprehend the events that were ere long to startle and terrify ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... source of puzzling surprises. While she was from the South, she was not Southern in speech, sentiments, ideas, or ideals. Her voice was not Southern and, while she elided final consonants, her intonation was not of the South. Indeed she would startle him every now and then by dropping some archaic word or old form of expression that made him think of Chaucer. Her feeling toward the negro was precisely what his was, and once when he halted in some stricture on the Confederacy and started to ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... The light from the lamp was dim and feeble at Maurice's end of the passage, but it shone brightly enough for a space in front of the sentry. Maurice saw that it would be impossible to approach the man unseen, impossible to steal on him or rush at him without having a shot fired which would startle every one in the inn. He crept up the stairs again. The girl was waiting ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... golden orchards, when she takes her annual holiday in the Highlands of Scotland, the land which is peculiarly dear to her. No sounds of widows weeping for their slain husbands and sons—no fierce battle-cries—no terrible wailings over slaughtered families and ruined homes—startle the still air. But, instead, the children sing the national anthem, as if they knew all that it means; and wherever, on this or the other side of the Tweed, the dear familiar face, with its crown of silvering hair, is ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... figure. Later on, when our conversation reached its most interesting point, I was thankful to recollect that I also was in obscurity. I am not, owing to my training as a diplomatist, an easy man to startle, but Lalage gave me a severe shock. I prefer to keep my face in the shadow when I ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... girl.' Miss Heriot fulfilled to a nicety the requirements of those who are sensibly reassured by the spectacle of careful conventionality allied to feminine charm—a pleasant conversability that may be trusted to soothe and counted on never to startle. Hermione would almost as soon have stood on her head in Piccadilly as have said anything original, though to her private consternation such perilous stuff had been known to harbour an uneasy instant in her bosom. She carried such inconvenient ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... in due time, a worthy consort, and a certain Crown Prince would, in further due time, startle the world with his left-handed pitching. It was a prospect all golden to dream upon. His spirit grew tall ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Pan, the Arcadian forest and river-god, was held to startle travellers by his sudden and terror-striking appearances. Hence sudden fright, without any visible cause, was ascribed to Pan, and called a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... bell Shall startle slumber; and all men agree That whatsoever other things may be A cause of sorrow, this ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... vanity. Even in this aberration of his genius he served the progress of the world. Charles Gould felt sure of being understood with precision and judged with the indulgence of their common passion. Nothing now could surprise or startle this great man. And Charles Gould imagined himself writing a letter to San Francisco in some such words: ". . . . The men at the head of the movement are dead or have fled; the civil organization of the province is at an end for the present; the Blanco party in Sulaco has collapsed inexcusably, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... ways of human life there; the reflexion, in sacred image or ideal, of its flocks, and orchards, and wild honey; the dangers of its hunters; its weariness in noonday heat; its children, agile as the goats they tend, who run, in their picturesque rags, across the solitary wanderer's path, to startle him, in the unfamiliar upper places; its one adornment and solace being the dance to the homely shepherd's pipe, cut by Pan first from the sedges of ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... night a solemn vow, To startle all beholders: I wore white muslin on my brow, Green velvet on my shoulders— My trousers were supremely wide, I learn'd to swear "by Allah"— I stuck a poniard by my side, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... in plush chairs, surveying M. Knaak through their lorgnettes, as he bowed forward, grasped the hem of his frock-coat with two fingers of each hand, and with springy legs demonstrated the various steps of the mazurka. But when he had a mind to completely startle his audience, he would suddenly and without cogent reason leap high in the air, cut pigeon-wings with bewildering rapidity, trilling with his feet, so to say, whereupon he would return to this earth with a muffled thud which, however, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... Priscilla quickly moved to the mother's side, but great joys do not kill even though they startle, and presently the white white face was raised with a smile almost of heaven illuminating it, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... an idea of the imperious tone and stern look of the princess, as she pronounced these words which were calculated to startle a girl, until now accustomed to live in a great measure as she pleased: yet, contrary perhaps to the expectation of Madame de Saint Dizier, instead of answering impetuously, Adrienne looked her full in the face, and said, laughing: "This is a perfect declaration ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... it is necessary to make use of terms which may alarm some consciences, and to state questions which run the risk of startling sincerely religious persons. But there is no help for it, if we are to combat the adversaries on their own ground; and because it is thus only that, while we startle a few, we can prove to all that the torrent of negations is but a passing rush of waters, which, fret as they may in their channel, shall be found to have left not so much as a trace of their passage upon ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... have but one thing more to ask. Why, if your story is authentic, and well calculated to startle even the brave king, have you thought it necessary to remove ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... awakened by rifle shots and cries of "Indians! Indians!" There was pandemonium at once. The "long roll" was beaten on the infantry drums, and "boots and saddles" sounded by the cavalry bugles, and these are calls that startle all who hear them, and strike terror to the heart of every army woman. They mean that something is wrong—very wrong—and demand the immediate report for duty at their respective companies of every officer and man ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the knave's, The hapless idiot's and the slave's, Sweet children smile in their nurses' arms, And clap their hands in innocent glee; While, unrebuked by the heavenly charms That beam in the eyes of infancy, Oaths still blacken the lips of men, And startle the ears of womanhood! On either hand The churches stand, Forgotten by those who yesterday Went thronging thither to praise and pray, And take of the Holy Body and Blood! Their week-day creed is the law of Might; Self is their idol, and Gain their right: Though, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... Bill experienced a startle of warm surprise. She had remembered his name from his union card. The next moment the superintendent had been plucked from the doorway raving about rights under the law, and the girls were deserting ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... know! We don't know!" The professor slapped the magazine with an emphatic hand. "Emil Mundson hasn't written this article for nothing. He's paving the way for some announcement that will startle the scientific world. I know him. In the same manner he gave out veiled hints of his various brilliant discoveries and inventions long before he ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... should rather see them pointed at the vices which prevail; at the corruptions of the public morals, which are fouler than aught I had so much as dreamed of before I was myself a witness of them, and may well be supposed to startle the gods from their rest, and draw down their hottest thunderbolts. But I will not say more, when there must be so many able to do so much better in behalf of what I must still believe to be a good cause. Let me entreat the Emperor, before he condemns, to hear. There are those in Rome, of warm hearts, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... ringlets appear to have been regarded as highly desirable and attractive. The reputed beauty and the prodigious length and weight of the hair of Absalom, the son of David, as recorded in the sacred text, would be sufficient to startle the most enthusiastic modern dandy that cultivates the crinal ornament of his person. Solomon the Wise, another son of David, conceived the beauty of hair sufficiently dignified to express figuratively the graces ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... upon it. It is almost prophetic from its knowledge of history; it is almost heart-searching from its knowledge of human nature; it has almost supernatural charity from its freedom from littleness and prejudice; it has almost the repose of faith, because nothing can startle it; it has almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things and the music ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman |
