"Wonder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these was an event that was long remembered. The peasants examined them with attention, not unmixed with wonder, but said nothing. When the master explained to them the advantages of the new instruments, they still remained silent. Only one old man, gazing at the threshing-machine, remarked, in an audible "aside," "A cunning people, these ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... imagination is so skilfully tempered by close and plausible reasoning, and the whole is wrought with such strength and fire, that we hardly know where else to look either in Burke's own writings or elsewhere for such an exhibition of the rhetorical resources of our language. We cannot wonder that the whole nation was stirred to the very depths, or that they strengthened the aversion of the king, of Windham and other important personages in the government against the plans of Pitt. The prudence of their drift must be settled by external considerations. Those who think that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... wonder that a land in which there was no indigenous product of value, or to which cultivation could give value, should be so hospitable to every sort of tree, shrub, root, grain, and flower that can be brought here from any zone and temperature, and that many of these foreigners to the soil grow here ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... exclaimed; "what a dreadful experience! I wonder that you are alive and sit there talking to ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... school, let them be placed in the same new situation, and exposed to the same trials, the difference will then appear: the difference in a few years will be such as to strike every eye, and people will wonder what can have produced in so short a time such an amazing change. In the Hindoo art of dyeing, the same liquors communicate different colours to particular spots, according to the several bases previously applied: to the ignorant eye, no difference is discernible in the ground, nor ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... Stephen did not mention to Harold the fact of his coming; it was only from a chance allusion of Mrs. Jarrold before he went that he inferred it. He did not think the matter of sufficient importance to wonder why Stephen, who generally told him everything, ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... their sovereign; to preserve the courts of judicature from corruption, and screen the people from tyranny and oppression. The earl of Stair having argued against these limitations, Fletcher replied, "It is no wonder he opposed the scheme; for, had such an act subsisted, his lordship would have been hanged for the bad counsel he had given to king James; for the concern he had in the massacre of Glencoe; and for his conduct since the revolution." The next subject on which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... "The sacrament is one thing, the power of the sacrament another. Many receive it from the altar . . . and by receiving" . . . die . . . Eat, then, spiritually the heavenly "bread, bring innocence to the altar." It is no wonder, then, if those who do not keep innocence, do not secure the effect ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... preparation had been made, or dreamt of. The sentiment of nature had never been encouraged in him, or even mentioned. He knew not how to look at a landscape nor at a sky. Of plants and trees he was as exquisitely ignorant as of astronomy. It had not occurred to him to wonder why the days are longer in summer, and he vaguely supposed that the cold of winter was due to an increased distance of the earth from the sun. Still, he had learnt that Saturn had a ring, and sometimes he unconsciously looked for it in the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... Liverpool no—not even in the dreadful delightful impressive streets the night before—to the extent his present companion made it so. She hadn't yet done that so much as when, after their walk had lasted a few minutes and he had had time to wonder if a couple of sidelong glances from her meant that he had best have put on gloves she almost pulled him up with an amused challenge. "But why—fondly as it's so easy to imagine your clinging to it—don't you put it away? Or if it's an inconvenience to you to carry it, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... olives with me; and now you have taken it away, you come and ask me for a thousand pieces of gold. Did you ever tell me that such a sum was in the jar? I did not even know that they were olives, for you never showed them to me. I wonder you do not ask me for diamonds and pearls instead of gold; be gone about your business, and do not raise a mob about my warehouse;" for some persons had already collected. These words were pronounced in such great heat ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... is done cannot be undone, so there is no use whining about it, Nancy" (again stopping before me, and this time taking my face in his two hands). "Will you mind much, or will you not?—do you ever mind any thing much, I wonder?" (eagerly and wistfully scanning my face, as if trying to read my character through the mask of my pale skin, and small and unremarkable features). "Well, there is no help for it—as I did not go then, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... me, and sez he, "I wonder if them wimmen with wasp waists, think that we men like the looks on 'em. They make a dumb mistake if they do. Why," sez he, "we men know what they be; we know they are nothin' but crushed bones and flesh." Sez he, ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... buys quantities, and she's always taken in. It is enough to make one nervous about the people one sits next to at dinner there. One can not help suspecting them of being some of Ella's bargains. I wonder, now, where ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... was dying—bleeding to death. The very thought blunted his faculties for a time; and he was conscious of little beyond a dull wonder. Could it be possible that the tragedy of his death was enacting in that peaceful, secluded nook? Could Nature be so indifferent or so unconscious if it were true that he was soon to lie there DEAD? He saw the speckled trout lying motionless at the bottom of the ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... help him?" cried Nashola. It was not proper that a boy should speak out in the presence of the older warriors, but he could not keep his wonder to himself. ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... saddles and slept before we had time to let our thoughts wander. But if the enemy were not at our heels, we often passed the long nights in sleeplessness, gazing up at the stars with the most bitter feelings in our hearts. No wonder that many a burgher grew gray. We were often kept awake by the tethered horses stumbling among the groups. Sometimes a man would jump up and strike at them till all the others awoke, too, and then there was great hilarity in the ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... cold at such a tale of deadly treachery. I remembered now to have heard some small part of it before. But much of it, as Jack told it to me, was quite new and unexpected. No wonder I had turned in horror that night from the man I long believed to be my own father, when I learned by what vile and cruelly treacherous means he had succeeded in imposing his supposed relationship upon me! But still, ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... franchise on a few matters connected with country schools and the running at large of stock. In Arkansas they may sign a petition against liquor selling within certain limits and their names count for as much as men's. After a careful study of the situation the wonder will not be that women do not exercise more largely these grudgingly-given and closely-restricted privileges, but that in many States they think it worth while to exercise them at all. In the four, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... for the one possession of beauty. That she was jealous of her fascinating rival there is little doubt, but that she was exasperated at her pretensions and at the audacious plottings against her life and throne is not strange. In fact we wonder that, with her imperious temper, she so long hesitated to strike the ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... Delahaye said. "I know the race well. The men are degenerates, but the women have nerve to rule and courage to hold their own against the world. Isobel's future may well be the more brilliant of the two. Can you realize, I wonder, that Isobel of Waldenburg was once the child who filled your brain ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... am," she said, her manner changing to deep humility with wonderful rapidity. With such alternations of feeling as this sweeping over her like great waves, no wonder she was old ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... she waited for the information clerk to look it up the very words conjured visions of wide horizons and clean winds and high adventure. If she pictured Echo, Idaho, as being a replica of the "set" used in the movie serial, can you wonder? If she saw herself, the beloved queen of her father's cowboys, dashing into Echo, Idaho, on a crimply-maned broncho that pirouetted gaily before the post-office while handsome young men in chaps and spurs and "big four" Stetsons watched her yearningly, she was merely living mentally the ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... Down drifted out little consort round the point, her engine disabled and her engineer killed, as we afterwards found, though then we could only look and wonder. Still pluckily firing, she floated by upon the tide, which had now just turned; and when, with a last desperate effort, we got off, our engine had one of its impracticable fits, and we could only follow her. The day ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... writhed its sinuous course and deposited us all forlorn in the near neighbourhood of the Piazza San Marco. Splashing our way across, and pushing through the crowd of greedy fat pigeons, we entered the world-famous church. I know my Ruskin, and I feel that I should be lost in wonder and admiration—I am not. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... The wonder of the reverent and the sneer of the scornful have alike been prompted by the preaching of a candidate. Something strange and incongruous seems to pertain to the performance of a man whose acknowledged purpose is the dual ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... wonder at this change, when he contrasts the scenery of the interior of an infant school with that of the generality of poor homes. The child, making, as it were, its first voyage in life, has here been introduced, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... whole of the clergy of the country and more than a half of the nation were on this side. Ours is the most loyal people in the world surely; we admire our kings, and are faithful to them long after they have ceased to be true to us. 'Tis a wonder to any one who looks back at the history of the Stuart family to think how they kicked their crowns away from them; how they flung away chances after chances; what treasures of loyalty they dissipated, and how fatally ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... with tinsel bright; Place here and there a colored light, And wheresoe'er my fingers lie To-morrow shall a youngster spy Some wonder gift or magic toy, To fill his little soul with joy. The stockings on the mantle piece I'll bulge with sweets, till every crease That marks them now is stretched away. There will be horns and drums ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... child is not influenced by days and years, but by the impressions passing events make on its mind. What may prove a sudden awakening to one, giving an impulse in a certain direction that may last for years, may make no impression on another. People wonder why the children of the same family differ so widely, though they have had the same domestic discipline, the same school and church teaching, and have grown up under the same influences and with the same environments. As well wonder why ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... sad, sad end to what might have been a life of usefulness and honour. I have thought so often of the parable of the talents; only I fear this case is worse. His poor mother! I wonder if I could write to her! Yet I hardly know ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... died previous to the augmentation of the urinary discharge. For if the root from which his medicine was prepared, was gathered in its active state, he did not take at each dose less than twelve times the quantity a strong man ought to have taken. Shall we wonder then that patients refuse to repeat such a medicine, and that practitioners tremble to prescribe it? Were any of the active and powerful medicines in daily use to be given in doses twelve times greater than they are, and these doses to be repeated without ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... man, Grimaud therefore felt uneasy and restless too. Not having found any indication which could serve as a guide, and having neither seen nor discovered anything which could satisfy his doubts, Grimaud began to wonder what could possibly have happened. Besides, imagination is the resource, or rather the plague of gentle and affectionate hearts. In fact, never does a feeling heart represent its absent friend to itself as being happy or cheerful. Never does the dove that ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... wonder if they'll all fail me," he muttered, as he removed the frying-pan from the coals but set it near enough to keep ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the kittar thorn I turned, and, seeing that the beasts had gone straight on, I brought Aggahr's head round and tried to give chase; but it was perfectly impossible. It was only a wonder that the horse had escaped in ground so difficult for riding. Although my clothes were of the strongest and coarsest Arab cotton cloth, which seldom tore, but simply lost a thread when caught in a thorn, I was nearly naked. My blouse was reduced to shreds. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... said Coningsby. 'It has passed through the heaven of philosophy like a hailstorm, cold, noisy, sharp, and peppering, and it has melted away. And yet can we wonder that it found some success, when we consider the political ignorance and social torpor which it assailed? Anointed kings turned into chief magistrates, and therefore much overpaid; estates of the realm changed into parliaments of virtual representation, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... However, as their high opinion of their own country remains, for which they can no longer assign any reason, they are contemptuous and reserved, instead of being ridiculously, consequently pardonably, impertinent. I have wondered, knowing my own countrymen, that we had attained such a superiority. I wonder no longer, and have a little more respect for English heads ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... after-dinner hearth, resolutely guarding his fancies from wandering in the direction of the bureau. For more than a week he had succeeded in keeping away from the "Memoirs," and he cherished hopes of a complete self-reformation; but, in spite of his endeavours, he could not hush the wonder and the strange curiosity that the last case he had written down had excited within him. He had put the case, or rather the outline of it, conjecturally to a scientific friend, who shook his head, and thought Clarke getting queer, and on this particular evening Clarke was making an effort to rationalize ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... colour of flame, A foeman of mine, "The beloved," by name. "Thou'rt a full moon," I said in my wonder, "And com'st In a garment that putteth the roses to shame. Hath the red of thy cheek clad that vest upon thee Or in heart's blood of lovers hast tinctured the same?" Quoth he, "'Twas the sun lately gave me the wede; From the rubicund hue of his setting it came. So my garment and wine and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... "You wonder that our master looks coldly at you. Perhaps you don't know that in England a white cat is supposed to mew twenty times longer and to purr twenty times louder than a cat of any ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit
... what do you say? I think I'm in good trim. Now let's have dinner. What's this, my Love, you're very sweet to-day. I wonder how it happens I'm the winner Of so much sweetness. But I think you're thinner; You're like a bag of feathers on my knee. Why, Lotta child, you're almost ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... hard all night, and the grave was so deep that he could not got out, he had but an uncomfortable bed. For some hours nobody passed by; till, shortly after the clock had struck four, a milkman, who had been to the cow-house for his milk, came by, and said to himself, "I wonder what o'clock it is." The man in the grave hallooed out, "Just gone four." The milkman seeing nobody, immediately conceived a ghost from one of the graves had answered him, and took to his heels with such rapidity, that when he reached an ale-house he was ready to ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... as mean as can be!" thought Meg to herself, carefully tracing the outline of a graceful "S." "She says cross things all the time. I wonder ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... take the sword to signify doubt. But this is to be understood of the doubt, not of unbelief, but of wonder and discussion. Thus Basil says (Ep. ad Optim.) that "the Blessed Virgin while standing by the cross, and observing every detail, after the message of Gabriel, and the ineffable knowledge of the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... duties," said Dr. Johnson, "and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a postchaise with a pretty woman." And we wonder whether the old boy, were he living now, ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... perhaps rashly, during the writing of this book wondered "What next"? By luck for myself—whether also for my readers it would be ill even to wonder—I have been permitted to execute all the literary schemes I ever formed, save two. The first of these (omitting a work on "Transubstantiation" which I planned at the age of thirteen but did not carry ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... and I do not accept it ABSOLUTELY; but I wonder that Saint-Victor who has preached it so much and has criticised my plays because they were not IMPERSONAL, should abandon you instead of defending you. Criticism is in a sad way; too ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... seem to me to be at all solicitous; his manner exhibited decided apathy, and he remarked with indifference that "Bobby Lee was always getting people into trouble." With unconcern such as this, it is no wonder that fully three hours' time was consumed in marching his corps from J.[G] Boisseau's to Gravelly Run Church, though the distance was but two miles. However, when my patience was almost worn out, Warren reported his troops ready, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... filled with admiration. In one hour he had learned by heart nearly three pages, which he is to recite the day after to-morrow, for the anniversary of the funeral of King Vittorio. And even Nelli gazed at him in wonder and affection, as he rubbed the folds of his apron of black cloth, and smiled with his clear and mournful eyes. This visit gave me a great deal of pleasure; it left something like sparks in my mind and ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... friends be here to meet me, I wonder? This is the question which presses upon me more closely than anything else, I must confess, as I set foot for the first time upon the sacred soil of Palestine. I know that this is not as it should be. All the conventions ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... No wonder that the poor workmen, wearied and worn by sleeplessness, excitement, and fear of death, decided that this state of affairs must come to an end. They struck. They said that they had come to Africa to work at the railway, and not to supply food for lions. One ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... I wonder if you have ever heard Of the queer, little, dismal Whiney-bird, As black as a crow, as glum as an owl— A most peculiar kind of a fowl? He is oftenest seen on rainy days, When children are barred from outdoor plays; ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... getting down from his high stool to dump his type on the galley; "Grant, I had a tiff with Tom Van Dorn yesterday. Lord, Lord," cried the old man, as he bent over, straightening some type that his nervous hand had knocked down. "I wonder, Grant"—the father rose and put his hand on his back, as he stood looking into his son's face—"I wonder if all that we feel, all that we believe, all that we strive and live for—is a dream? Are we chasing shadows? Isn't it wiser to conform, to think ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... classed into several stages of degradation, where the many are crouched under the weight of the few, and where the order established can present to the contemplation of a thinking being, no other picture, than that of God Almighty and his angels, trampling under foot the host of the damned. No wonder, then, that the institution of the Cincinnati should be innocently conceived by one order of American citizens, should raise in the other orders, only a slow, temperate, and rational opposition, and should be viewed in ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... almost as much as she desired, the coming interview with Gerard. She said to herself, "I wonder not he keeps away a while; for so should I." However, he would hear he was a father; and the desire to see their boy would overcome everything. "And," said the poor girl to herself, "if so be that meeting does not kill me, I feel I shall be better after it than ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... less attractive place than Jamestown, the port at which we landed. The houses seemed to be tumbling over one another in a "kloof." We were all gloomily impressed, and somebody near me said, "This will be our living graves." I answered, "No wonder that Napoleon broke his heart upon this God-forsaken rock." I must confess that the feeling grew upon us that we were to be treated as ordinary criminals, since only murderers and dangerous people are banished to such places to be ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... this, "what has come over the air, I wonder? Why, we have got into a regular red fog. What has caused it, Mr Brand; can ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... there will be fewer cripples and unsightly wooden legs. I shall issue orders to select five of the bravest and most deserving invalids from every regiment of my army, and you will restore to them their lost arms, legs and hands, at my expense. Indeed, sir, you imitate the Creator, and the wonder would be complete if you knew also how ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... laid across the Atlantic by John W. Mackay and James Gordon Bennett, whose private property they remained. Mackay had had an adventurous career, and was destined to be the founder of another of those great American fortunes which are the wonder and admiration of Europe. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1831, his father being another of those sturdy Scotch-Irish of whom we have already had occasion to speak. He was brought to New York at the age of nine; but his father died a short time thereafter and the boy was thrown ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... of lobster claws and chicken wings and blue saucers full of yellow wrinkled cream, twelve in a row. No wonder ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... regard the Stars and Planets and all the Universe of Suns and Worlds, as a mere inanimate machine and aggregate of senseless orbs, no more astonishing, except in degree, than a clock or an orrery. We wonder and are amazed at the Power and Wisdom (to most men it seems only a kind of Infinite Ingenuity) of the MAKER: they wondered at the Work, and endowed it with Life and Force and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... be understood, he groaned to himself, but loudly enough to be heard the whole length and breadth of the table: "I remember readin' about old Greek witch name Circe—changed human beings into shape of swine. I wonder who turned those German swine into the shape ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... half-a-dozen Borneons. In their dealings they are very straightforward and correct, and so trustworthy that they rarely attempt, even after a lapse of years, to evade payment of a just debt. On the reverse of this picture there is little unfavorable to be said; and the wonder is, they have learned so little deceit or falsehood where the examples before them have been so rife. The temper of the Dyak inclines to be sullen; and they oppose a dogged and stupid obstinacy when set to a task which displeases them, and support with immovable apathy torrents ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... once they have made up their minds to do so, it is fair to expect that the herds now under protection, as listed above, will save their respective species from extinction. It is alarming, however, to note the wide territory covered by the deadly "open seasons," and to wonder when the bars ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... in a moment, kicked off with the second boot, and the child goes shouting to complete the landscape with the lacking colour of life. You are inclined to wonder that, even undressed, he still shouts with a Cockney accent. You half expect pure vowels and elastic syllables from his restoration, his spring, his slenderness, his brightness, and his glow. Old ivory and wild rose ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... that there is no word of coarseness or bold suggestion of wickedness to be found upon any page. So far from it, we scarcely find recognized the crime to which the maidens are tempted, and we half-ignorantly wonder at the existence of compunctions, excited at we can scarcely say what. But the author knew probably well enough, and if she were one of the sisterhood of women, then must she be isolated and at enmity with them all. Her hand is against every woman's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... who break the Pure Fool Law, How I, the Windy Wonder of the Age, Have fought the Tender Passion to a draw And got my mug upon the Sporting Page, Since Love and I collided at the curve And left ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... cried Ralph, as an unusually brilliant flash was seen. "It almost appeared as if the lightning ran entirely around that oil-tank. I wonder ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... on Garthowen slopes, driving the chickens into the water, shooing the geese over the hedges, riding the horses full pelt down the stony roads, setting fire to the gorse bushes, mitching from school, and making the boys laugh in chapel; no wonder the old ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... dwell upon the world which is beyond me, outside me, then I go forth from wide open windows, through which shows the full and living lambent darkness of my present inward self. I go forth, and I leave the lovely open darkness of my sensient self revealed; when I go forth in the wonder of vision to dwell upon the beloved, or upon the wonder of the world, I go from the center of the glad breast, through the eyes, and who will may look into the full soft darkness of me, rich with my undiscovered presence. But if I ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... extraordinary thing, Viner!" he exclaimed. "There's the man who, you say, was with Ashton not very long before he came to his end, and we find him coming away—presumably—from Lord Ellingham, certainly from Lord Ellingham's house! What on earth does it mean? And I wonder who ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... men who had actually been there. If the glory of the city exercised on its own inhabitants an intoxicating influence, as of a place omnipotent, superhuman, divine—it would exercise (exaggerated as it would be) a still stronger influence on the barbarians outside: and what wonder if they pressed southwards at first in the hope of taking the mighty city; and afterwards, as her real strength became more known, of at least seizing some of those colonial cities, which were as superhuman in their ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... evening, and, in consequence of the message of his children, repaired instantly to the hotel of Sidonia, his astonishment was great when he found the manager converted into a millionaire, and that too the most celebrated in Europe. But no language can convey his wonder when he learnt the career that was proposed to him, and the fortunes that were carved out for his children. He himself was to repair, with all his family, except Josephine and her elder brother, at once to Vienna, where he was to be installed into a post ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... her face moving with interest and delight. Nancy was usually by the table, her sharp little chin propped up on the palms of her hands, never taking her fascinated gaze from the musician. Sometimes Tom would look at her and wonder of what she could be thinking. For certainly her spirit seemed to be far away wandering in a world of dreams and of strange inexpressible emotions. For Tom the music stirred delicate thoughts bright dreams of beauty and of love; the vivid ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... dividend payments, and its painful efforts to keep down its operating expenses had so weakened the property that, when the hard times of 1893 to 1896 arrived, it was in no position to weather the storm. The only wonder is that the management succeeded in keeping the system intact and apparently solvent so ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... tarnestly, as they were driving up the avenue to the Marchmont residence, "when you stood beside me this morning I pointed you to a world without, whose strange and marvellous beauty excited your wonder and delight. You seem to me on the border of a more beautiful world,—the spiritual world of love and faith in God. If I could only show you that, I should esteem it the greatest ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... through a succession of tremendous morasses. About thirty years ago the author himself was the first person who ever drove a little open carriage into these wilds, the excellent roads by which they are now traversed being then in some progress. The people stared with no small wonder at a sight which many of them had never witnessed ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... she sank backward in a long obeisance. "May it please your ladyship, dinner is served. Oh, Mr. Smith, I've been listening to Mr. Gholson talking with aunt Martha and Estelle; I don't wonder you and he are friends; I think his ideas of religion are ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... any truth in this picture, it explains a great deal. If the spirits themselves cannot clearly take in their new life at first, how can we on this side of the barrier ever understand what it's like? And, not understanding, what wonder we don't find ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... or without the castle. He was dimly aware that little Gertrude came in and out of his room sometimes, holding to his mother's hands, and that her gentle prattle and little caressing gestures were very soothing and pleasant. But he did not trouble his head to wonder how it was he was lying there, nor what event had crippled him so; and only in the fevered visions of the night did he see himself once again standing upon the narrow ledge of the Eagle's Crag, with a host of foes bearing down upon him to overpower ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... light, is a positive affliction, even out of doors on a breezy day. Indoors, in still and muggy weather, when one is jammed in a throng for an hour or two, a toga becomes an instrument of torture. Yet togas we must wear at all public functions, and though we rage at the infliction and wonder at the queerness of the fate which has, by mere force of traditional fashion, condemned us to such unconscionable sufferings, yet no one can devise any means of breaking with our hereditary social conventions in attire. Therefore we continue to ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... there was as great a jam at the entrance of the tunnel as ever. But, so eager and unthinking were we, that within half an hour, the same trick was played on us again by others and then followed another stampede up the stairs. It is a wonder this affair was not stopped by the guards, but they had no suspicion whatever of what was going on. This was probably owing to the fact that great noises in the cook-room were common throughout the night as well as ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... got the old lady under me thumb, but divil a bit I know how. It's all in the word Jonas. When I want a favor, all I've got to do is to say that word. I wonder what it manes ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... Phineas Duge," Mrs. Harrison said drily. "But there, my dear child, I mustn't say a word against your uncle. He has been nice enough to me because I have promised to look after you. Does he want me to marry you, I wonder? I don't think that ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... youthful pair goes straying, As we used to do of old, With the sunlight on them playing, Through the elm trees' paling gold; And I wonder as they go, Pacing slowly to and fro, Are they telling one another just such secrets as ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... it is a wonder that no one has provided a law forbidding the erection of all the architecturally attractive, or sumptuous houses in one neighborhood. It ought not to be possible in a republic for such a state of affairs to exist as existed in Benham. That is to say ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... pearls to the king there were exclamations of wonder and delight from everyone who saw them. It was not pleasant, however, to discover that Jesper was a mere fisher-lad; that wasn't the kind of son-in-law that the king had expected, and he ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... wonder if he had been wise in accompanying the men, but he quickly decided that there could be little or no reason for doing personal injury to him, and so he unhesitatingly followed Cavendale up the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... last work, he had power given him of God—that is, power to die when he would. 'I have power,' said he, 'to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again.' This power never man had before. This made the centurion wonder, and made Pontius Pilate marvel; and indeed well they might, for it was as great a miracle as any he wrought in his life; it demonstrated him to be the Son of God (Mark 15:38,39). The centurion, knowing that according to nature he might have lived ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... I want to know what you've been doin' while I've been gone. I used to think an' think 'bout you'n him," glancing at the baby, "an' wonder what ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... heretofore to have been a great witt; but he read his sermon every word, and that so brokenly and so low, that nobody could hear at any distance, nor I anything worth hearing that sat near. But, which was strange, he forgot to make any prayer before sermon, which all wonder at, but they impute it to his forgetfulness. After sermon a very fine anthem; so I up into the house among the courtiers, seeing the fine ladies, and, above all, my Lady Castlemaine, who is above all, that only she I can observe for true beauty. The King and Queen ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... bringing all the arrows in the lodge, shot them away. He then stood with his bow dropped at his side, lost in wonder, gazing at the ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... going into a strange store in another line of business in a distant city: when you hear a laugh or a remark passed among the clerks, see if you don't wonder if there isn't something wrong with your clothes or feel sure that comment is being made ...
— Sam Lambert and the New Way Store - A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks • Unknown
... interpretation.) Or, we may explain them: "That which had not been told them, they see," &c. Thus the other ancient translations explain. According to the first view, the connection would be this: For, in order that ye may not wonder at my speaking to you of nations and kings, they who, &c. According to the second view, the ground of the reverence of the heathen kings and their people is stated. That which formerly had not been told ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... Italien without wonder, hatred, love, joy or sorrow. On consulting my inmost thoughts I found there an unimpassioned serenity, a something akin to ennui; I scarcely heard the noise of the wheels, the ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... characteristics acquired by the parent during its single life, how much more will it not be able to reproduce those that were congenital to the parent, and which have happened through countless generations to the organised matter of which the germ of to-day is a fragment? We cannot wonder that action already taken on innumerable past occasions by organised matter is more deeply impressed upon the recollection of the germ to which it gives rise than action taken once only during a ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... prejudices and frank distrust of subtleties. A sinister mystery of love, death and blackmail runs, a turbid undercurrent, through the story. The publisher's pathetic apology for the drab grey paper on which, in the interests of War Economy, the book is printed, makes one wonder how the other publishers who still issue books in black and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... the dogs and serpents of the Capitol. These allegorical emblems were variously repeated in the pictures which Rienzi exhibited in the streets and churches; and while the spectators gazed with curious wonder, the bold and ready orator unfolded the meaning, applied the satire, inflamed their passions, and announced a distant hope of comfort and deliverance. The privileges of Rome, her eternal sovereignty over her princes and provinces, was the theme of his public and private discourse; and a monument ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... fair girl with golden-brown hair gets herself up in satiny white fur from head to foot she is evidently meant to be looked at. Others were looking: also they were whispering after she went by: and her serene air of being alone in a world made entirely for her caused me to wonder if she were not Some One ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... part, has exhibited a character of firmness to the world. Unprepared and unarmed, without form or government, she, singly opposed a nation that domineered over half the globe. The greatness of the deed demands respect; and though you may feel resentment, you are compelled both to wonder and admire. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... because they tore the fetters of sloth out of their soft flesh and set themselves down doggedly to their work. And the same sloth that starves and fetters the mind at the same time casts the conscience and the heart into a deep sleep. I often wonder as I go on working among you, if you ever attach any meaning or make any application to yourselves of all those commands and counsels of which the Scriptures are full,—to be up and doing, to watch and pray, to watch and be sober, to fight the good fight of faith, to hold the fort, to rise early, ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... in the white chalk of the south of England, of isolated pebbles of quartz and green schist has justly excited much wonder. It was at first supposed that they had been dropped from the roots of some floating tree, by which means stones are carried to some of the small coral islands of the Pacific. But the discovery in 1857 of a group of stones in the white chalk near Croydon, the largest of which was syenite and ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... more. You may wonder, perhaps, that I have spoken all this night in praise of war. Yet, truly, if it might be, I, for one, would fain join in the cadence of hammer-strokes that should beat swords into ploughshares: and that this cannot be, is not the fault of us men. It is your fault. Wholly ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... worse," said Bunting ruminatingly. "He's as steady as God makes them, and he's already earning thirty-two shillings a week. But I wonder how Old Aunt'd like the notion? I don't see her parting with Daisy ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes |
