"Startling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mere consciousness of something there, but fused in the central happiness of it, a startling awareness of some ineffable good. Not vague either, not like the emotional effect of some poem, or scene, or blossom, of music, but the sure knowledge of the close presence of a sort of mighty person, and after it went, the memory persisted as ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... lusty young Kentuckian felt no misgiving, but within fifty yards the trail underwent the startling change—the footprints being separated by more ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... for Denry as he entered the house, but Nellie's surprise for Denry, startling and successful though it proved, was as naught to the surprise which Mr Cotterill had in hand for Nellie, her mother, Denry, the town of Bursley, and various persons up and down ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... INFLUENCE AND POSITION AS DIVINE GIFTS.—What startling differences obtain among men—Peter and John, Calvin and Melancthon, John Knox and Samuel Rutherford, Kingsley and Keble! Each of these has left his imprint on human history; each so needful to do his own special work, but each so diverse from ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... it as if it had always been understood between them, as of course it had, but the instant he said it, he gave her a quick, appealing look to see how she would take so startling ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... This was startling news indeed, for they were now in full sight of Amsterdam, and would, if detained thus, be open to an attack ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... the answer came, "I am here, uncle," and if the first voice startled one with its loudness, this second was equally startling from its music, its depth, ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... like Landrecies, with little else moving, these points of war made a proportionate commotion. Indeed, they were the only things to remember. It was just the place to hear the round going by at night in the darkness, with the solid tramp of men marching, and the startling reverberations of the drum. It reminded you that even this place was a point in the great warfaring system of Europe, and might on some future day be ringed about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make itself a name among ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that confinement and anxiety will subdue the stoutest hearts; and that to one who has been close shut up, though it be only for ten or eleven days, seeing but stone walls and a very few stony faces, the sudden entrance into a great hall filled with life, is a rather disconcerting and startling circumstance. To this, it must be added, that life in a wig is to a large class of people much more terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair; and if, in addition to these considerations, there ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... I must have had a kind of frenzy. I remember running violently in and out among the moonlit bushes all round the sphinx, and startling some white animal that, in the dim light, I took for a small deer. I remember, too, late that night, beating the bushes with my clenched fist until my knuckles were gashed and bleeding from the broken twigs. Then, sobbing and raving in my anguish of mind, I went down to the ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... space from the point we were at before, and this goes on unceasingly day and night. These astonishing facts make us feel how small and feeble we are, but we can take comfort in the thought that though our bodies are insignificant, the brain of man, which has discovered these startling facts, must in itself be regarded as one of the most marvellous of all the mysteries amid which ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... Sunday night in June, following a day during which victory seemed more distant than ever, with startling unexpectedness Maude capitulated. She sat beside me on the bench, obscured, yet the warm night quivered with her presence. I felt her tremble.... I remember the first exquisite touch of her soft cheek. How strange it was that in conquest the tumult of my being should be stilled, that my passion ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... morning air comes startling after a central heated house. So Aaron found it. He felt himself dashing up the steps into the garden like a bird dashing out of a trap where it has been caught: that warm and luxurious house. Heaven bless us, we who want to save ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... "Wife." But Fancy to the Grison hills me drew, Where Mariana like a wild flower grew, Nursing her garden-kindred: so far I Liked her condition, willing to comply With that sweet single life: when, with a cranch, Down came that thundering, crashing avalanche, Startling my mountain-project! "Take this spade," Said Fancy then; "dig low, adventurous Maid, For hidden wealth." I did: and, Ladies, lo! } Was e'er romantic female's fortune so, } To dig a life-warm ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... bent forward and dragged the buggy up the remaining steps. The others followed and soon they were all standing upon a broad platform and gazing at the most curious and startling sight their ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... The startling news was received at Venice with wrath and grief, for the flower of their navy had perished, and all energies were bent at once to raise an overwhelming force.[12] The Pope (Boniface VIII.) interfered as arbiter, calling for plenipotentiaries ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... mind that the contrast between her two letters was an odd parallel to Dick's description of the puzzling demeanour of his brother Jimmy. Was it a characteristic of the man's to produce these sudden and startling changes of mood towards himself? Marchmont was puzzled at the notion; he was too little able to sympathise with the attraction to find himself capable of understanding the force and extent of the revulsion. "At all events she must be pretty well ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... Mrs. Merrick was in violent hysterics at the disappearance of her daughter. Arthur stopped long enough to telephone for a doctor and then drove to the Doyles. He routed up Uncle John and the Major, who appeared in pajamas and bath-robes, and told them the startling news. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... really formidable. In 818 they landed at Howth; and the same year, and probably the same party, sacked the sacred edifices in the estuary of the Slaney, by them afterwards called Wexford; in 820 they plundered Cork, and in 824—most startling blow of all—they sacked and burned the schools of Bangor. The same year they revisited Iona; and put to death many of its inmates; destroyed Moville; received a severe check in Lecale, near Strangford lough (one of their favourite stations). Another party fared better ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... obstruction. Kershaw, with his steel-gray eyes glancing up and down his lines, and then at the advancing line of blue, gave the command repeatedly to "Hold your fire." When within a very short distance of our column the startling command rang out above the din of battle on our right and left, "Fire!" Then a deafening volley rolled out along the whole line. The enemy halted and wavered, their men falling in groups, then fled to ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... and then, from the level of the sabots, resolved themselves into the outlines of women's heads and women's faces. These heads were tied up in cotton kerchiefs or in cotton nightcaps; these being white, together with the long, thick, aprons also white, were in startling contrast to the blue of the sky and ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... like the menagerie in London, though arranged with more taste. The cages are scattered over a large inclosure, and it seems like wandering over a forest and meeting the animals in their native wilds. After passing beneath the boughs of dark trees, it is startling to look up and see a Bengal tiger within a few feet of you, though he is caged, or to walk on further still, and confront a leopard. This part of the garden is a continual source of amusement to the younger portions of the community of Paris, to ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... can think all they like, that was a beautiful thought. (Her arm on his shoulder) And when you think you're just an ignorant boy, it's ... it's startling. ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... a space of time during which news of the bold Captain was eagerly awaited. It came soon enough—news that was startling. Captain Kidd had been tempted by the adventurous life and great gains, and had himself turned pirate! During the next two years he was heard of as the most daring and fierce of pirates, plundering and sinking ships, until his name became ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... great fun in groping through a tall barrel of books and pamphlets, on the look-out for startling pictures; and there are chestnuts in the garret drying, which you have discovered on a ledge of the chimney; and you slide a few into your pocket, and munch them quietly,—giving now and then one to Nelly, and ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... the startling plunge which begins my descent, the frantic snatch for the banisters, and the strange, momentary doubt as to which foot must move first, like what a child may feel when learning to walk. All this only serves ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... to the broken-legged one, who found herself quite unable to sleep under such circumstances. Her mind did not exactly race about among the startling developments of the past few hours, but it did dwell dubiously upon the more unfortunate phases of past, present, ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... dull voice from the couch—startling us, dull though it was. "Only you and I, Farrell, understand what it means. Tell them just the facts, as I told the facts, and no more. Tell them, and me, how ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... about to conclude that it was all imagination, when, from far away in the wood he heard, in the most startling way:—Hoi hoi—hoo hoo! ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... days, however. She confided to Una that the more she thought of going back to the asylum the more she hated it. Una racked her small brains for some way of averting it, but it was Nan Blythe who came to the rescue with a somewhat startling suggestion. ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... he has made me, my darling young husband! How full of bliss our secret honeymoon! Oh, I can never forget while life lasts the sweetness of our wedded love! But how chagrined Aunt Judith and my cruel cousins will be when Love tells them the startling truth. I can guess how they will try to deceive him. They will say to him: 'Dainty has eloped with Vernon Ashley. He was her lover all the while, though she made you think he was Ela's. Now that she has deceived you, it is imperative for you to marry some one else ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... contributed their share to the total impression this strange solitude produced. Heavy fruits from the crowns of trees which were mingled together at a giddy height overhead, fell now and then with a startling "plop" into the water. The breeze, not felt below, stirred in the topmost branches, setting the twisted and looped sipos in motion, which creaked and groaned in a great variety of notes. To these noises were added the monotonous ripple of the brook, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... were full of tears. After the doubts and fears of the counsel for the defence, she had not expected this success. Those around her congratulated her and predicted the acquittal of her cousins. But alas! the matter was destined to end in a startling and almost theatrical event, the most unexpected and disastrous circumstance which ever changed the face ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... such true and acute observation would suggest similar ideas, and perhaps even the same method of defining them. Yet when this similarity is frequent instead of occasional, when the unusual peculiarity of the sentiment renders it startling and suspicious, then the above supposition becomes too extensive even for prejudice to admit. Such however is the case here, and so the matter stands between Shakspeare and the ancient dramatists. Even some of the machinery he has made use ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... foam globe from above darts over it like a falling star; and how the trees are lighted above it under all their leaves,[19] at the instant that it breaks into foam; and how all the hollows of that foam burn with green fire like so much shattering chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how through the curdling wreaths of the restless crashing abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... the dark archway beneath the crazy jumble of houses, with the sudden voices and footfalls of the midnight city echoing from time to time in the dark streets beyond. He waited and waited and waited. Now and then a dog or a cat rushed by him, startling him. Then, after twenty minutes or so, he wearied of waiting. Weariness and curiosity defeated caution; he pulled up the trap-door by its ring and peered down into blackness. Blackness, stillness, emptiness, and a queer, mouldy smell. Henry sat on the hole's edge for a full ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... thief, Yourii crept behind the oak-tree, so that no one should see him from the veranda, and with startling suddenness shot ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... cautiously crawling up, the two friends reached the crest of the hill; and peering over a precipice of fifty or more feet sheer descent, with which it suddenly dipped into a wild but beautiful little valley below, beheld a scene that, besides startling them somewhat out of their tranquillity, caused both to bless their good fortune they had not neglected the warning of their ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... memorable case of Parsons and Douse proved to be the turning point in Geoffrey's career, which was thenceforward one of brilliant and startling success. On the very next morning when he reached his chambers it was to find three heavy briefs awaiting him, and they proved to be but the heralds of an uninterrupted flow of lucrative business. Of course, he was not a Queen's Counsel, but now that his great natural powers of advocacy ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... heart the irrepressible instinct that it would have been better if she had not spoken. And now, as she silently pondered upon her imprudence, it seemed as though her anxiety had suddenly endowed her brain with new and keener faculties of perception, so many startling ideas began to crowd in upon her. More particularly, full shape and tone seemed for the first time given to one terrible suspicion, which she had hitherto known only in a misty, intangible, and seldom recurring form—the suspicion that, if the passive girl ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and the reason is that the few minutes necessary for proper revision could not be spared. Good workmen are set on at the last moment, and an attempt is made to set up the final scraps of matter with as few errors as possible; but little mistakes will creep in, and people who do not know the startling exigencies of the printer's trade are apt to express scornful wonder. Very comic have been the errors made during the recent furious and prolonged debates, for the frantic conflicts in the House ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... into incoherent sobs. Sir Robert sat aghast at this startling confession. No need to tell him that it was prompted ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... he had addressed her by the affectionate term, and the sound was startling. The faintest flush spread over her cheek, admonishing him that the familiarity had not escaped attention. Greatly to his relief, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... vintage-leavings, jabberers, choirs Of swallow-broods, degraders of their art, Who get one chorus, and are seen no more, The Muses' love once gained. But O my friend, Search where you will, you'll never find a true Creative genius, uttering startling things. ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... Cephissus, only 10,000 of them reaching Chalcis in Euboea. [Sidenote: Sulla's falsehood about the battle.] Appian says the Romans lost only thirteen men, while Plutarch, on the authority of Sulla's Memoirs, says that they lost four. This is absurd. Sulla seems to have told some startling lies in his Memoirs, perhaps to prove that he had been the favourite of fortune, which was a ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... as far above suspicion as the wife of Caesar; but she and her companions in this particular set have an appalling frankness of speech and a callousness in regard to discussing the more personal facts of human existence that is startling to a middle-aged ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... agree to toss. It was in the matter of her old dispute with Persia over caviar fishing rights in the Caspian Sea. Persia won but, to the consternation of the world, Russia refused to abide by the outcome. It was the first and only time that the decision of the Golden Judge was not obeyed, and it had startling repercussions. ...
— The Golden Judge • Nathaniel Gordon
... precept we may be taught their propriety; by example we may see their advantages. But until the necessity is personally felt they are sure to be neglected; and men wonder at their want of prescience and upbraid their shortsightedness when, with a sudden and sometimes startling success, the proposal they have slighted arises through the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... had been asked, he would probably have confessed that he had been in love twice. True, his first passion had been conceived at the age of eighteen, its object being the bosom-friend of his only sister, a young lady who owned to six-and-twenty, and who had laughed at him mercilessly when the most startling of valentines had made her aware of the state of things. Then, years after, when he was nearly thirty, he had become very fond of the daughter of his partner, a pretty, gentle, winning creature some half a dozen years younger than himself, who had girlishly adored him. He had been so fond of her ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... of scrambling hoofs laboring up the sharp hill from the direction of Meander came to him suddenly, startling him out of his reflections. His thought leaped to the instant conclusion that it was Agnes; he laid light fuel to the coals, blowing it to quicken a blaze that ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... visit to sister Glegg, Mrs. Pullet, observing that it was tea-time, turned to reach from a drawer a delicate damask napkin, which she pinned before her in the fashion of an apron. The door did, in fact, soon open, but instead of the tea-tray, Sally introduced an object so startling that both Mrs. Pullet and Mrs. Tulliver gave a scream, causing uncle Pullet to swallow his lozenge—for the fifth time in his life, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the nearer approach of the two showers. Scarcely did the flashing lightning—almost instantly followed by the cannon-like crash of the thunder—blaze and peal on one side of the brig, before the flaming bolt and the startling roar were taken up on the other side, as though the two tempests on either hand were vying with each other for the mastery ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... suppositionary fiction in which poets are supposed to revel, and the ring's accompaniment, though the child of a creative brain—the burning emanation from some Apollo-stricken votary of "the lying nine," imbued with all his stern morality, is strictly "true." This startling fact is not left wrapped in mystery. The veriest sceptic cannot, in imagination, grave a fancied double meaning on that richest gift. No—the motto follows, and seems to say—Now, as the champion of Giles Scroggins, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... a home. Near the edge of the little clearing made by nature, Ab seated himself upon a log, and drawing Lightfoot down to a seat beside him, began enthusiastically to make clear the marvels of the weapon he had devised and which he and Old Mok had developed into something startling ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... of the slain chief risen suddenly from his body and stood confronting him, the effect on the mind of Big Black Burl could hardly have been more startling than that caused by this revelation. Three huge backward strides he made, then motionless stood for many moments, one foot a step behind the other, his hands uplifted and outspread, his eyes wide open, staring fixedly with mingled ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... near the top of the rocky hill that rose abruptly across the inlet came a terrible screech, piercing and startling. ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... disclosed the white pillars and galleries of a far-away plantation house. The grassy path leading through the vista was trimly kept, and on either side of it in the moist, green shade of the great trees flowers bloomed in a profusion of startling colors,—in splotches of scarlet and white and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Marcellinus devotes some paragraphs to a description of the Seres and their country, one passage of which is startling at first sight in its seeming allusion to the Great Wall, and in this sense it has been rashly interpreted by Lassen and by Reinaud. But Ammianus is merely converting Ptolemy's dry tables into fine writing, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... the foremost of American brain doctors. "The investigations of the neurologists," he says, "have laid bare no secret of Nature in recent years more startling and interesting than the discovery that worry kills." This is the final, up-to-date word. "Not only is it known," resumes the great neurologist, counting off his words, as it were, on his finger-tips, "that worry kills, but the most minute details of ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Tom Slade that this altogether sensational disclosure and startling announcement did not greatly agitate him, nor even make him especially curious. The fact that this seductive stranger was his friend seemed the one outstanding reality to him. If he had any other feelings, of humiliation ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... less than a thousand white inhabitants, but the overland route to the Pacific ran across it, and there was sure to be a rapid immigration into it so soon as it should be thrown open to settlers. What was both new and startling was a clause permitting the inhabitants of the Territory, whenever it should be admitted to statehood, to decide for themselves whether they would have slavery or not. The eighth section of the Compromise Act of 1820 provided that slavery should never exist anywhere in the Louisiana Purchase ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... cities, but they approximate in each city those given above; and in all cases the increase of mortality, and especially of infant mortality, with the decrease in the number of rooms used by the family and with the consequent overcrowding is startling. The slum exacts a heavy total of death from those who dwell therein; and this is the case not merely in the great crowded slums of high buildings in New York and Chicago, but in the alley slums of Washington. In Washington people can not afford to ignore the harm ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... clearly we could hear the sounds from below—the rumble of the electric tram-cars, the clang of their gongs, the toot-toot of the motor-horns, and, louder still, the whistles of the locomotives on the London and Brighton Railway were borne to us with almost startling distinctness through the still ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... point three Egyptians had died and fifty-eight men had been left behind exhausted in depots. A double ration of meat was issued to the whole force. The column moved on during the night, and arrived at Ginnifab at 8 A.M. on the morning of the 6th. Here startling news of the enemy was received. It was known that Mohammed-ez-Zein was determined to fight, and a trustworthy report was now received that a large force was coming down from Berber to support the Abu Hamed garrison. In spite of the long marches and the fatigues of the troops, General ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... directly, in the work of sanitary progress. During this comparatively brief period, the labour of which, until within a century, has had no systematic direction, the changes for good that have been effected are amongst the most startling of historical facts. Pestilences which decimated populations, and which, like the great plague of London, destroyed 7,165 people in a single week, have lost their virulency; gaol fever has disappeared, and our gaols, once ...
— Hygeia, a City of Health • Benjamin Ward Richardson
... evenings and leisure days, if I had read and studied for five hours every day, and had written a couple of pages only on holidays (and I have been in the habit of writing at the rate of one printed sheet a day), then I should have written those three hundred sheets in fourteen years. The fact seemed startling: yet it is the most simple arithmetical calculation, which can be made by a seven-year-old boy, but which I had not been able to make up to this time. There are twenty-four hours in the day; if we take away eight hours, sixteen remain. If any man engaged in intellectual ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... can come from the ballot of the many; that is so well learned that its few and startling exceptions but help us to see the bleakness of the blind choice of the crowd, which conducts us sometimes to war and invariably to commonness. The few great men who have touched the seats of the mighty in this or any country—have walked with God alone ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... de dire que la prophetie dans la lettre a My Lord Grey etait assez juste: Allusion—"In less than a month we shall no doubt hear of their warm reception in the Provinces, and of some gratifying, perhaps startling, demonstrations of national gratitude." Voyez, mon cher Monsieur, comme depuis 8 jours ces pauvres Deputes qui ont vote pour le Ministre sont traites, Si vous etes a la maison ce soir, dites-le-moi, je desire vous ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... the subject should have engaged for some years the attention of a learned, acute, and laborious scholar like Mr. Shepherd, so that he is enabled to put forth the result of his inquiries upon this interesting topic at this moment. Mr. Shepherd's book is indeed a startling one: and when we tell our readers that he "has proved, or, to say the least, has given such indications as will lead to the proof that some documents which have been quoted as authorities in the History of the Early Christian Church, are neither genuine nor authentic;" that he has ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... door. Into the room came a slim young woman of remarkable beauty, her eyes glowing as with an internal light. Her parting lips of startling redness showed strong white teeth. Her eyes grew misty as she leaned over the doctor's bed. Dr. Bird blinked for a moment ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... never find it," said Jay crossly. She announced Ludgate Circus in a startling voice, ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... he put his hand in his pocket, whence he drew a folded paper, and dashing it upon the table with startling ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... gift was a startling thing in a world which, as far as cultivated heathenism was concerned, might rightly be called aristocratic, and by the side of a religion of privilege into which Judaism had degenerated. The supercilious sarcasm in the lips of Pharisees, 'This people which knoweth ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... had succeeded in startling both women, as a matter of fact. Eleanor, looking suddenly up from her plate on hearing Mrs. Clover's cry of surprise, saw him lounging carelessly in the hall doorway, where he had appeared as noiselessly as ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... doesn't like you it won't matter how much Diana does. If she has heard about your outburst to Mrs. Lynde and going to church with buttercups round your hat I don't know what she'll think of you. You must be polite and well behaved, and don't make any of your startling speeches. For pity's sake, if the child isn't ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... safely across the Fulton Ferry before he had realized the startling change in Fritz Braun's appearance. The flowing golden beard, the blue glasses, the padded clothes of middle-age cut were gone. Fritz Braun, lithe, sharp-faced, with piercing eyes, a dashing cavalry mustache, and dapper Wall Street ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... romanticists. In fact, the most enduring literature of New England between 1830 and 1865 was distinctly a romantic literature. It was rooted, however, not so much in those swift changes of historic condition, those startling liberations of the human spirit which gave inspiration to the romanticism of the Continent, as it was in the deep and vital fervor with which these New Englanders envisaged the problems ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... pair, afterwards built in a butternut tree near the Edwards' farmhouse; but they never returned to us. To the lover of birds, the oriole in its flight among the trees, like a yellow meteor flashing past, is a sight that instantly rivets the attention, and is as delightfully startling to the eye as its song is to the ear. But I know of no device by means of which they can be attracted to nest in any given locality; their tastes are not well enough known to us; "houses," like those which ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... her, he saw her white, heart-shaped face, and its red mouth as startling as a June rose out here in the snow. And he saw, too, the ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... ascetic cheek dawned a most amazing dimple. "Sort of jarred you girls some, didn't it," she queried, "to see me strutting round with a photo of the Senior Surgeon?" The little cleft in her chin showed suddenly with almost startling distinctness. "Well, seeing it's you," she grinned, "and the year's all over, and there's nobody left that I can worry about it any more, I don't mind telling you in the least that I—bought it out of a photographer's show-case! There! Are you ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... hours flew fast till about half past ten in the evening, when one of the company pulled out a pack of cards and flung it on the table where Mara Moor was sitting. The effect was startling. Her face took on a deathly pallor; she trembled, arose from her seat, staggered across the room, and took a chair in the remotest corner. So great was her agitation that every one saw it, but none ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... other the shells and shot poured into our camps, and the arches of fire that marked the courses of the shells, with flame spouting from the mouths of the guns, created a magnificent pyrotechnic display. But at daylight, orderlies flew from regiment to regiment with the startling intelligence that the beleaguered works were deserted, and with orders to occupy them at once. Smith's division hastened to cross over the dam, and we found ourselves in the strongholds that we had so long invested. As the Seventy-seventh regiment passed along one of the roads ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... his head into his hands. He was but a boy and life was sweet to him, for he had just begun to taste the apple and to dream of the forbidden fruit. He held his head down and was silent a space. Then suddenly he sobbed aloud with a quick, gasping noise, startling enough ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... upset the old gentlemen's bowl of punch—the second of the evening—or had dropped an infernal machine in their midst, he could scarcely have produced a more startling effect than that wrought upon them by his sudden production of the silver ticket. Their babble of conversation died out; one of them dropped his pipe; another took his cigar out of his mouth as if he had suddenly discovered that he was sucking a stick of poison; ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... speech rewarded Louis for the conflict by which he had kept himself still to listen to the beginning. Lord Ormersfield had pity on him, and went in search of Mary; while he, remembering former passages, felt that his father might be less startling and more persuasive, but began to understand what James must have suffered in ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... say that he has seen a man live who was bitten by a mad dog.' The description is good, and this prognosis as to hydrophobia in man has remained unaltered till in our day when Pasteur published his startling revelation. The anatomical knowledge of the Talmudists was derived chiefly from dissection of the animals. As a very remarkable piece of practical anatomy for its very early date is the procuring of the skeleton from the body ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... are going to knit nicely. He suffers more from his bruises and cuts than from the broken bones. I am very thankful that he has escaped with his life," Mrs. Richardson answered, tremulously, and with startling tears. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... raised a startling apparition. What had been the Sister's last cry of warning? "It is not their cruelty I fear for you. Child, listen! It is not their blows—" Could it be possible ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... about got to the point where startling developments no longer alarmed him. He had seen the telegram the day before, but his first information that a marine tower was actually under way came when Bannon called off a group of laborers late in the afternoon to rig the "trolley" for ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... the dancers carried long decorated reeds, which they flourished wondrously, and with which occasionally they executed the most surprising leaps. While there was a stateliness about their movements, there were also the most startling acrobatic surprises, made possible by the ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... time being one to thirty-one; but in Suffolk County, comprising the cities of Boston and Chelsea and the towns of Winthrop and Revere, the average has been only one to forty-one and nine-tenths. These statistics are indeed startling, and may be easily used as a foundation for an argument that our laws governing the matter are far too lenient, since the number of divorces is ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... capital, the nature of rent and interest, the laws of distribution, etc., but all treated as parts of the main problem as stated in the title-page, "An Enquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth." It is the most startling novel and original book of the last twenty years, and if I mistake not will in the future rank as making an advance in political and social science equal to that made by ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... cranes, pelicans, ibises, storks, geese, all the countless tropical waterfowl—swimming and wading about the reedy lagoons or circling up to fly to other feeding grounds. Opposite the steamer the glasses showed with startling distinctness a number of hideous crocodiles crawling out on a slimy mudbank to bask in the sunshine. But nowhere could the searcher discern a trace of man or ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... feet in dire dismay, and, without stopping to reflect on the probable cause of this startling interruption, "struck a bee line" for the staircase, and descended quicker, probably, than he had ever done before, narrowly escaping tumbling the entire distance, in his ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... been just as startling and awe-inspiring to Bakahenzie as it had been to his most ignorant dupe. His belief in ghostland was implicit, but now he had seen what, professionally, he was supposed to see and converse with on familiar terms. As Zalu Zako disappeared he continued to listen intently. Above the slight rustle of ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... stifled in suppressed laughter. "Amen" was scarce pronounced, when a shrill voice called out—"Come here, you little good-for-nothing—what's your name?" The inviting smile conveyed to me with these startling tones left no doubt who was addressed, and I instantly obeyed the really fervent call. Both the stout arms of my aunt were opened to receive me, but held me at their length, while—with a nervous sensibility that made the tears gush from her eyes—she hurriedly exclaimed—"What shall I do with ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... and then one hears of some strange happening of this kind. But they are acts so anomalous, in such startling contradiction to all our usual ways and accepted notions of life and its value, that most of us are willing enough to accept the familiar explanation of insanity, or any other commonplace cause which may be alleged—financial trouble, or some passionate entanglement, and ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... but my guide ran away, my candle went out, I lost the path, and can speak no German; so I was afraid to answer you at first; and then I lost my wits altogether, for it's rather startling to be clutched in ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... arm-chair, and he knelt beside her, holding her hand. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to say all the many passionate words of remorse that rose to his lips, but somehow he was afraid. He was not sure of her yet. He was afraid of startling her, of driving her back into cold antagonism ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... abbe, the manners of demons? But let me give you another startling hit on the matter, which will impress you more, and will I am sure go to the heart of a learned man such as yourself. It is doubtless known to you that the Academy of Dijon is rich in wits. One of them, whose name cannot be unknown to you, living ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... sat there with his hands folded, his mind, busy with many things, returned inevitably to the old weary theme, just as, at the same time, Angelica's own was doing, but from the opposite point of view. Always, after a startling event, those who have been present as spectators, or taken some part in it, repeat their experiences, and make some remark upon them, again and again in exactly the same words, their minds working upon the subject like heat upon water that ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... changed since the days of Robespierre's supremacy; Spartan austerity had vanished; and the former insane jealousy of individual pre-eminence was now favouring a startling reaction which was soon to install the one supremely able man as absolute ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... weekly record of the world's doings. In its columns will be found a choice variety of Gems in every department of Literature, of interest to the general reader. Its contents embrace the best Stories, Tales of Adventure, Thrilling Deeds, Startling Episodes, Sketches of Home and Social Life, Sketches of Travel, Instructive Papers on Science and Art, Interesting Articles on Agriculture, Horticulture, Gardening and Housekeeping, Choice Poetry, Essays, Correspondence, Anecdotes, Wit and ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1875 • Various
... ought to seem, this may be to some an almost startling revelation. The change we have been striving after is not to be produced by any more striving. It is to be wrought upon us by the moulding of hands beyond our own. As the branch ascends, and the bud bursts, and the fruit reddens under the co-operation of influences from the ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... by water is a pleasant and restful change from the everlasting tramp, tramp, through the forest, which, although enjoyable, sometimes becomes a little wearisome. This particular day of which I speak made the third we had thus progressed without any startling adventure occurring to interrupt our voyage; it was not, however, to have so peaceful a close ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the tortuous course of Russian diplomacy by a speech of Count Eugen Zichy to the Hungarian Delegations about a year later. He made the startling declaration that in the summer of 1885 Russia concluded a treaty with Montenegro with the aim of dethroning King Milan and Prince Alexander, and the division of the Balkan States between Prince Nicholas of Montenegro and the Karageorgevich Pretender who has since made his way ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... startling news went around that the old man had fired the principal clown. In those days the old clown was best man with a circus. He was the entertainer—the leading man. He must be eloquent, nimble and a comedian. Every circus had it's popular clown. It was the days of Dan Rice, Ben McGinley, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... gale came down on us. The captain beckoned Mr Renshaw and Mr Brand to come to him. They stood in earnest conversation on the quarter-deck. Darkness was coming on—I could just see their figures grouped together. With startling energy Mr Renshaw had just given the order to furl the fore and mizzentop-sail, to heave the ship to, when ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... deal in his later writings. His corn is no longer in the milk; it has grown hard, and we that read have grown hard, too. He has now ceased to be an expansive, revolutionary force, but he has not ceased to be a writer of extraordinary gripe and unexpected resources of statement. His startling piece of advice, "Hitch your wagon to a star," is typical of the man, as combining the most unlike and widely separate qualities. Because not less marked than his idealism and mysticism is his shrewd common sense, his practical bent, his definiteness,— in fact, the sharp New England mould in ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... this daughter it had thrown aside. The father had hoped to escape from the house unnoticed. "I'm going up town a little while," he said hesitatingly. Still he lingered a moment. Some old sleeping thing awoke in him, was awakened in him by the startling beauty of his daughter. A little fire flared up among the charred rafters of the old house that was his body. "You look pretty, girly," he said sheepishly and then turned his back to her and went along the path to the gate and ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... original living place was called Tentholm, the river Jackal River, and the new house in the trees Falconhurst.] when suddenly, to our no small astonishment, Jack and Ernest burst out of a hiding place where they had lain in wait for us, and were enchanted with the startling effect of their unexpected appearance upon their unsuspecting father and brother. It was evident that they fully believed they might now go with us to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... was so still that the hills and rocks and deep woods gave back the echo of his horse's hoofs; the song of a bird or the chirping of a cricket seemed to fill a great space, and fell on the ear with a strange and almost startling effect. He was observing or rather feeling this extreme solitude and stillness, when suddenly at a turn in the road he came upon a man who placed himself directly before the horse's head. The man had a dark, bad expression in his face, and fixed his eye upon the traveller in such a way ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... particular night of which this story treats was not entirely clear; the time of year was about the approach of the rainy season, and the tepid, tropical clouds added obscurity to the darkness of the sky, so that the night fell with even more startling quickness than usual. The blackness was very dense. Now and then a group of drifting stars swam out of a rift in the vapors, but the night was curiously silent and ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... incidents were not of a startling character. I found the strongest secession sympathy was entertained by the wealthier inhabitants, while the poor were generally loyal. Some cases of determined loyalty I found among the wealthy; but they were the exception rather ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... was followed by a pause of the sort usually adopted for the purpose of noting the effect of some startling utterance. Amidon was feeling in his pocket for Elizabeth's first-found letter, and the affairs of the Brassfield Oil Company had little interest for him. Yet he dimly realized that some one ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... good. Edwin's father was an Arctic explorer. Write under sketch, "The old man had many a startling adventure in the silent land of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... suffering in the imaginary exaggeration of it: exhausts the terror or pity by an unlimited indulgence of it: grapples with impossibilities in its desperate impatience of restraint: throws us back upon the past, forward into the future: brings every moment of our being or object of nature in startling review before us: and in the rapid whirl of events, lifts us from the depths of woe to the highest contemplations on human life. When Lear says of Edgar, "Nothing but his unkind daughters could have brought him to this", what a bewildered amazement, what a wrench of the imagination, that cannot ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... retrospect could rest with calm. As the wayworn traveller who on some bright day sat down by the fringed bank of clear fountain or silver lake, and while he leant to look into its waters, was suddenly dazzled into madness by the flashing upwards upon him, from the unknown depths, of some startling image; so Bruce, as he rested by the dusty wayside of life, and gazed into the dark abysses of recollection, was startled and horrified, with a more fearful nympholepsy, by the crowding images and sullen glare of unforgotten and ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... was thinking more of his breakfast than of the way he had earned it, or of the presence of a stranger. He was a stout, and now hungry, lad of eighteen, to whom any precipice was no more startling than a ladder is to a builder. And, as his mother had taught him to speak English, and he had on that account been employed to communicate with such strangers as had now and then come to the island during Macdonald's absence, he was little ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... own, The Impostor sure of his infatuate prize Had more than once thrown off his soul's disguise, And uttered such unheavenly, monstrous things, As even across the desperate wanderings Of a weak intellect, whose lamp was out, Threw startling shadows of dismay and doubt;— Yet zeal, ambition, her tremendous vow, The thought, still haunting her, of that bright brow, Whose blaze, as yet from mortal eye concealed, Would soon, proud triumph! be to her revealed, To her alone;—and then the hope, most dear, Most wild of all, that her transgression ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... outline, the result of unerring eyesight and the gift of style; the worst sort with an incisive, almost brutal touch that suggested the black lines bitten out by some powerful acid. His work "took" because of its coarser qualities, the accentuated bitterness, the startling irony, the vigorous, characteristic phrase. Those black strokes were not introduced to throw up the grey wash or pencilled shading; Wyndham's cynicism was no mere literary affectation, it was engrained ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... red-faced and panting, both arms behind her and her fingers busily engaged. Her husband's breath was almost gone by the time he reached the foot of the stairs; consequently his entrance was a trifle less noisy and startling than his sky-rocket flight through the kitchen. It is doubtful if his wife would have noticed even if it had been. She caught a glimpse of him in the mirror, and heaved ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of this fourth girl had inspired them to some startling headlines, and the case had interested me personally for the reason that I was acquainted with Sir Howard Hepwell, one of whose gamekeepers was the stepfather of the missing Molly Clayton. Moreover, it was hinted that she had gone away in the ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... fantastic about the antecedents of our most established families, which would afford the Eugenist admirable scope not only for investigation but for experiment. Certainly, if he could obtain the necessary powers, the Eugenist might bring off some startling effects with the mixed materials of the governing class. Suppose, to take wild and hypothetical examples, he were to marry a Scotch earl, say, to the daughter of a Jewish banker, or an English duke to an American parvenu ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... more deaths. The most awful cases began to mend with an immediacy that was startling. By the third day, men who had not been off their backs for weeks crawled out of their bunks and tottered around on crutches. And on that day, the sun, two months then on its journey into northern declination, peeped cheerfully over the crest of the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... been accustomed to deal with the startling and the marvellous in the way of incident and adventure, nothing can be more amusing than the confident opinions of critics and readers as to the improbability, and frequently the impossibility, of particular scenes which often happen to be faithful ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... discussion on several occasions. On the 12th of February motions were brought forward in both houses for the thanks of parliament to Sir Charles Napier and the army employed in the operations of Scinde, which motions were agreed to unanimously. Soon after this an event occurred which produced a startling effect. On the 21st of April Sir Robert Peel, in answer to a question put to him by Mr. T. B. Macaulay, said, "I beg to state that, on Wednesday last, her Majesty's government received a communication from the court of directors, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to children. And I must give you a character;—only I shall say just the truth. You mustn't ask much wages just at first.' Ruby looked very sorrowful, and the tears were near her eyes. The change from the glories of the music hall was so startling and so oppressive! 'It has got to be done sooner or later, so you may as well put ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... earth, and in imminent danger of being dashed headlong to it, gripped Mark Sampson like a giant hand. He felt difficulty in breathing, although it was not the height that gave him that choking sensation. There was a mist before his eyes, still the sun was shining brightly. The startling gyrations of the flying machine for some time shook the lad to ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... triumph of Sherlock Nobody Holmes! This was the startling discovery with which he would astonish his superiors and win their approbation! It was not Sherlock Nobody Holmes who heard in a sort of daze the whispered words that were next uttered. It was just the captain's mess boy, and he hung ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... hours over clothes when there is so much to be done that is better worth while. However, the shades of mauve, and all the variants of purple, which are set forth so alluringly in the windows are enough to tempt an anchorite, and no more decided color attracts us, as blues and greens seem crude and startling beside these soft shades, which came in with the half-mourning for King Edward and are still affected by ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... occasion no great surprise that the cabin was aroused next morning with the sudden and startling information that the land was close aboard the ship. Every one hurried on deck, where, sure enough, the dreaded coast of Africa was seen, with a palpable distinctness, within two miles of the vessel. It presented a long ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... midnight when the news came to him that Tom Travis had returned as from the dead. It was Jud Carpenter who had awakened him that Saturday night to whisper at the bedside the startling news. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... himself into the pew beside her, hot and breathless after running hard. Mrs. Loring guessed at once that this must be Carnaby de Tracy, the young hopeful and heir of Stoke Revel of whom Mr. Lavendar had so often spoken, but the startling and unconventional nature of his appearance was not at all what one expected in a member of his family. Robinette stole more than one look at him as the offertory went round; a robust boy with a square chin, ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... stand, for anything his appearance denoted. Their dreams were in the dust. Still, youth is hopeful and they did not quite let go the expectation that when the long coat that disguised him had been removed and the magic bundle opened Uncle Frederick Dillingham would issue forth in a garb startling, resplendent, and more in accordance with their mental pictures of him. But to their profound disappointment, when the great coat was tossed aside, it concealed no ermine-robed hero; nor was there crown or scepter in the bundle. Instead there stood ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... the text as having been settled 'by authority,' this question may seem superfluous; but, not to refer to plays of very early date, in connection with which we could bring forward facts that, we doubt not, would be considered sufficiently startling; we now state it as our belief that a great portion of the play of Henry VIII.—nay, more than half, was not ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... Saratoga, the Wyllyses and Hazlehursts found startling intelligence awaiting them. Letters had just arrived for Harry, for Mrs. Stanley, and for Mr. Wyllys, all of a similar nature, and all of a character that was astounding to those who received them. They could scarcely ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Eustace learned fast from him. He was full of the fresh originality of youth; and the place took his fancy and impressed itself upon him. Gazing at it each day, there rose up slowly by degrees in his mind, like a dream, the picture of a great work on a new and startling principle—a modification of the cantilever to the necessities of the situation. Bit by bit he worked it out, and reduced his first floating conception to paper; then he explained it to Walter Tyrrel, who listened hard to his explanations, ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... mountain. It was almost unreal, so marvellous was the reflection. Behind us, at the top of the great ridge, a silvery effulgence proclaimed the coming of the moon. Her brilliant light silhouetted the grim and rocky ridge in startling clearness, though it was four thousand feet above us. Through a gap rises a peak, round which a filmy cloud had lovingly wrapped itself like a lace shawl upon the snowy shoulders of a beautiful woman. We took a turn down the quay, and at the end we turned our back ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... ship sailed a letter from my mother brought me startling news. My life to come—if I had a life to come—had been turned into a new channel. Mr. Germaine had died suddenly, of heart-disease. His will, bearing date at the time when I left England, bequeathed an income for life to my mother, and ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... and development of this trial. Never before had such a case occurred; never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of a king. In after-years such things became commonplace enough; but then they were, in no slight degree, novel and startling. ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... word rang out, startling Kent as well as Helen, and Mrs. Brewster, whose noiseless entrance a few seconds before had gone unobserved, hurried to them. ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... adventure from cover to cover which embodies a theory of our planet so tremendous and appalling that the most conservative mind can hardly fail to be impressed with the startling array of facts adduced in support of it. Two young men set out upon a voyage of discovery under very peculiar circumstances and with exceptional facilities for accomplishing their purpose. The result of their enterprise is something so astounding, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... appointed to inquire into certain abuses in the post-office." Pitt gave his assent to this motion, which was carried without a division: a committee was appointed, and a report was brought up from that committee on the 23rd of May. The report contained some startling matter, and it was ordered to be taken into consideration on the 28th of the above month. On that day Mr. Grey accordingly introduced the consideration of the report, in doing which he strongly reprobated the conduct of Lord Carteret, and blamed Pitt himself. He concluded ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... from my bag, which had fortunately kept its contents dry, the yellow trousers, and a wonderful dressing-gown, made of some blue stuff embroidered with gold and lined throughout with crimson satin, I made a truly gorgeous appearance. But it struck me that it would be rather startling to a beholder were I to appear barefooted in such raiment, for my shoes and stockings were as wet as the rest of my clothes. I had not finished dressing before the little man knocked again, this time with some gray socks and a pair of ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... suddenly varying her manner, sang another ballad, which treated of impending danger and treachery. All this might have passed for a mere accidental caprice of the singer, had there not been something in her look, manner, and gesticulation that made it pointed and startling. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... and white stripes, and on the head a turban of a red-brown colour. These costumes may be seen in numbers in the morning in the market, on the way to the station. The women have a shawl or folded piece of stuff on their heads, and frequently wear printed calicoes of a startling pattern in the town, but outside have a modification of the ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... Huxley (14. 'Man's Place in Nature,' 1863, p. 67.), "quite in the later stages of development that the young human being presents marked differences from the young ape, while the latter departs as much from the dog in its developments, as the man does. Startling as this last assertion may appear to be, it is ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... pleasures of life have no doubt saved multitudes from madness. It would almost seem that they have also been the innocent cause of the destruction of many. There are times when the mind is almost evenly balanced between good and evil. Some powerful appeal or startling providence has aroused the sleeping spirit, or some vivifying truth has pierced the armor of indifference or prejudice, and quivered like an arrow in the soul, and the man remembers that he is a man, and ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... battle. When he found that an interloper was interfering with his peculiar property, he began to tax his conversational powers to the utmost. He was greater than ever about Ajalon, and propounded some very startling theories with reference to Emmaus. He recalled over and over again the interesting bits of their past journey; how tired they had been at Gaza, where he had worked for the ladies like a slave—how ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... superadded the further claim that the Constitution required Congress and all the departments of the government to protect the slaveholder with his slaves, when once in a Territory, against territorial legislation or other unfriendly acts. By this most startling doctrine the Constitution was to become an instrument to establish and protect slavery in all the territorial possessions of ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer |
