"Astonishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... apt to produce a profligate indifference to truth in higher occasions of life, where truth cannot for a moment be trifled with, much less callously trampled on, much less suddenly and totally yielded up to the basest of human motives. It is astonishing what unworthy and inadequate notions men are apt to form of the Christian faith. Christianity does not insist upon duties to an individual, and forget the duties which are owing to the great mass of individuals, which we call our country; ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... friend, Dr. D. J. Stansbury, a graduate of the Eclectic Medical College of New York, is giving astonishing demonstrations on the Pacific coast. When a pair of closed slates is brought, he barely touches them, and the spirit writing begins. Sometimes the slates are held on the head or shoulders of the visitor. At one of his seances at Oakland, it is said that he held the slates for thirty-five ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... (supreme) 33; complete &c. 52. august, grand, dignified, sublime, majestic &c. (repute) 873. vast, immense, enormous, extreme; inordinate, excessive, extravagant, exorbitant, outrageous, preposterous, unconscionable, swinging, monstrous, overgrown; towering, stupendous, prodigious, astonishing, incredible; marvelous &c. 870. unlimited &c. (infinite) 105; unapproachable, unutterable, indescribable, ineffable, unspeakable, inexpressible, beyond expression, fabulous. undiminished, unabated, unreduced[obs3], unrestricted. absolute, positive, stark, decided, unequivocal, essential, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... sometimes marching or dancing in circles, sometimes quite freely "expressing" whatever feeling the music calls forth in them. The stress is laid on listening; if you see a picture you reproduce it, if the music makes you think of trees or wind, thunder or goblins, you become what you think of. It is astonishing to see how little children learn in this way to care for music by Schumann, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Dvorak, Brahms, Chopin, and Beethoven. The music is of course selected with skill, and care is taken that the "expression" shall not make the children foolishly self-conscious. Emphasis is always placed ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... local force was at his desk, engaged in his customary morning duties. Fred lost no time in getting down to facts, and from what the other boys, listening close by, heard him say, his astonishing communication must have created quite a ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... absolutely perfect; and if some of them be abhorrent to our idea of fitness. We need not marvel at the sting of the bee causing the bee's own death; at drones being produced in such vast numbers for one single act, and with the great majority slaughtered by their sterile sisters; at the astonishing waste of pollen by our fir-trees; at the instinctive hatred of the queen-bee for her own fertile daughters; at ichneumonidae feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars; and at other such cases. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... highest state of improvement. Even the sides of the most barren mountains have been rendered fertile, by being divided into terraces, like steps rising one above another, upon which soil has been accumulated with astonishing labour. A sight of this territory can alone convey any adequate idea of its surprising produce; it is truly the Eden of the East, rejoicing in the abundance of its wealth. The effect of this upon the people was strikingly portrayed in their countenances. ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... interest of the unbroken line of its valorous and lovable princes, and in the precious and enchanting race mixture of its brave, laughter-loving people, its supreme historical interest lies in its little recorded and astonishing political significance among the ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... and two other similar stanzas with astonishing glibness to the amazement of his hearers. His first public appearance with the ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... should be made to the phenomena of radioactivity, whether excited by the electric discharge in vacuum tubes, foreshadowed in part by Sir Wm. Crookes and G. G. Stokes, and later by A. Schuster and others, but first fully developed with astonishing results including the experimental discovery of the free electron by J. J. Thomson, or the correlated phenomena occurring spontaneously in radio-active bodies as discovered by H. Becquerel and by M. and Mme Curie, and investigated ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... sounded, as he spoke them, lame enough and trivial in the face of Michel's passionate lament. But they had an astonishing effect upon the guide. The flow of words stopped at once, he looked at his young patron almost whimsically and a little ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... an astonishing whisper went circulating among the guests. Before they could grasp its significance Tom St. Clair and Jen's husband, broadly smiling, were hustling scattered folk into the parlour again and making clear a passage in the hall. The minister came in with his ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... he took out was a tin trumpet; just such a one as Peter had himself seen in a shop-window the day before. This he put into the stocking, giving a chuckle and trying it to see if it were good; it sounded splendidly. Then came a sled. It was astonishing how it ever came out of Santa Klaus' pocket and still more astonishing how it could get into the stocking. Yet surely Peter saw it enter, and that very easily. After the sled came a monkey-jack. Before he put it in Santa ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... FROST-WEED (H. majus), whose showy flowers appear in clusters at the hoary stein's summit, in June and July, also bears them. Often this ice formation assumes exquisite feathery, whimsical forms, bursting the bark asunder where an astonishing quantity of sap gushes forth and freezes. Indeed, so much sap sometimes goes to the making of this crystal flower, that it would seem as if an extra reservoir in the soil must pump some up to supply it ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Cabinet; but having lately held higher situations and having acquired more confidence, and the great men having been removed from the House of Commons by death or promotion, he has launched forth, and with astonishing success. Lord Granville told me he had always thought Palmerston was capable of more than he did, and had told Canning so, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... ancient Babylonia from other quarters. For its information about that ancient land the world was formerly dependent on the scanty notices of Greek and Latin writers, but within the last half-century astonishing new sources of information have been opened up. Explorations carried on by scholars of many lands have made us acquainted with Babylonian and Assyrian temples and palaces, and with many a great royal inscription. Great libraries, made of brick tablets, have been discovered ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... and historical investigations are of great value for all those peoples whose ancient state has differed widely from their present condition, and who have the good or evil fortune to possess a history. But on taking a broad survey of the world, it is astonishing how few nations present either condition. Respecting five-sixths of the persistent modifications of mankind, history and archaeology are absolutely silent. For half the rest, they might as well be silent for ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... an astonishing new empire which had grown up round Britain during the period when the world was becoming convinced that colonial empires were not worth acquiring, because they could not last. It was an empire of continents or sub-continents—Canada, Australia, India, South Africa—not ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... most astonishing creature, to adore people and then not want to see them again. What ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... God. In one of his psalms, he says, "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him!" It was astonishing to David, that God, who was so infinitely superior to man, and who had given such proofs of his power and greatness in the creation of the heavens, should condescend to notice him, to provide for his minutest wants, and to protect him from danger. I suppose ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... still wider view of the literary career of Disraeli, we are bound to perceive that the real source of the interest which his brilliant books continue to possess is the evidence their pages reveal of the astonishing personal genius of the man. Do what we will, we find ourselves looking beyond Contarini Fleming and Sidonia and Vivian Grey to the adventurous Jew who, by dint of infinite resolution and an energy which never slept, conquered all the prejudices of convention, and trod English society beneath his ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... ugly cut from the carving-knife in an affair with a goose of iron constitution in which I came off second best. I at once adjourned with Dr. Benjamin to his small office, and put myself in his hands. It was astonishing to see what a little experience of miscellaneous practice had done for him. He did not ask me anymore questions about my hereditary predispositions on the paternal and maternal sides. He did not examine me with the stethoscope or the laryngoscope. He only strapped up my cut, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... capital story the other evening under the most astonishing circumstances. It was at a public meeting connected with a religious conference. A certain minister rose to address us. We knew from past experience that we should have a most suggestive and stimulating ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... of the emigrants to Canada in these enlightened days; so it is with the emigrants from old England, and from troubled Ireland, to the free and astonishing Union of the States of America and Texas, that conjoint luminary of the new ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... the Democratic National Convention, in July, 1868, the number of strangers present in the city was estimated at two hundred thousand. The amount of money brought into the city by these strangers is astonishing. Millions are spent by them annually during ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... scale so low that they had practically no music of their own. They have therefore readily taken to western music. And it is astonishing to hear how well they sing our western tunes, and even render solos and quartettes at public European functions in a way that calls forth hearty encores. It is verily the birth of a nation in a day. So that in this land of ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... figures. The work is curious, and I am inclined to see in it a surviving imitation of the ancient feather-work for which the ancient Tarascans were famous. From Parracho our road led through Aranza to Cheran. Just beyond Aranza we passed over the astonishing wash from some summer torrent. During the wet season a single rain may fill the gorges, sheet the mountain slopes with water, tear great trees from their hold, break off mighty rock fragments and carry them onward, like wooden blocks, with hundreds of tons of finer gravel. ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... faith, who fancy always that besides sowing and reaping honestly, you must covet, and cheat, and lie, and break God's laws instead of obeying them; or else, forsooth, you cannot earn your living? To see that the signs of God's Kingdom are not astonishing convulsions, terrible catastrophes and disorders: but order, and peace, and usefulness, in creatures which are happy, because they live according to the law which God has given them, and do their duty—that duty, of which the great poet of ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... were now in the hands of a young man of twenty-six years of age; and it was not astonishing that he should be, at first, frightened at the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... at once the delight and the despair of other nations and future times. All this, too, came to pass in Shakespeare! and, which is more, the process ended with him! It is indeed a singular phenomenon, and altogether the most astonishing that the human ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... the heathen temples and the Christian churches" (Mosheim's "Eccles. Hist.," fourth century, p. 105). Says Dulaure: "These two Fathers [Justin and Tertullian] are in no fashion embarrassed by this astonishing resemblance; they both say that the devil, knowing beforehand of the establishment of Christianity, and of the ceremonies of this religion, inspired the Pagans to do the same, so as to rival God and injure Christian worship" ("Histoire Abregee de Differens ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... be sure. I have told you the name. At all events, you'd have found it out some day or other. In fact, it's an astonishing thing that, since the time—But you women are so vain! The idea that a man can deceive you is the last idea to come into your head. Well, yes, Sidonie's the one who has got it all out of him—with her husband's consent, ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... and a bar which has already furnished one or two members to the United States Senate. Of course this has happened in the very far West but the change which has come over New York in the same length of time is no less astonishing if less picturesque. It is as unjust to compare the morals or manners of the American people of to-day with those of even three decades ago as it would be to compare the state of twentieth-century society in New Zealand with the old convict days. In one generation Japan ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... control, the whole people were forced into a common outward form, and to a remarkable extent, into the same ways of thinking. The affinities within were really aided by the repulsions without, and when finally freed from slavery, for an ignorant and inexperienced people, they presented an astonishing spectacle of unity. Socially, politically and religiously, their power to work together showed itself little less than marvellous. The Afro-American, developing from this slave base, now directs great ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... an astonishing, an absurd, length of time. Woolfolk became infuriated at his inability to bring it to an end, and he expended an even greater effort. Nicholas' arms were about his chest; he was endeavoring by sheer pressure to crush Woolfolk's opposition, when ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Doubtless there was a guest missing whom she did not mention. It was a case of waiting. But a minute or two later the company noticed in their midst a tall gentleman with a fine face and a beautiful white beard. The most astonishing thing about it was that nobody had seen him come in; indeed, he must have slipped into the little drawing room through the bedroom door, which had remained ajar. Silence reigned, broken only by a sound of whispering. The Count de Vandeuvres ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... the incoherencies, inconsistencies, and extravagancies of the Hindoo sacred writings, on no subject, perhaps, is the multiplicity of varying accounts and discrepancies more astonishing than on the present. Volumes could not suffice to retail them all. Brahma's first attempts at the production of the forms of animated beings were as eminently unsuccessful as they were various. At one time he is said to have performed a long ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Light which passed before their eyes. To the profoundest darkness, accompanied with illusions and horrid phantoms, succeeded the most brilliant light, whose splendor blazed round the statue of the Goddess. The candidate, says Dion Chrysostomus, passed into a mysterious temple, of astonishing magnitude and beauty, where were exhibited to him many mystic scenes; where his ears were stunned with many voices; and where Darkness and Light successively passed before him. And Themistius in like manner describes the Initiate, when about to enter ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... pad fell from Mr. Ransom's hands. He stared at the girl who had made this astonishing statement, and his ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... contemporary, Albert Cuyp, were sold for thirty florins! and no higher price was paid for his works before the middle of the eighteenth century. A few years ago his picture, called "Morning Light," was sold at a public sale in London for twenty-five thousand dollars. How astonishing that a celebrated artist like Honthorst, who painted in Utrecht when Cuyp painted in Dort, should have valued a portrait by Anna Maria Schurmann at the price of thirty-three works by Cuyp! Such facts as these suggest a question regarding ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... search of the fresh grass which immediately succeeds to the burning: on their way they are often insulated on a large cake or mass of ice, which floats down the river: the Indians now select the most favourable points for attack, and as the buffaloe approaches dart with astonishing agility across the trembling ice, sometimes pressing lightly a cake of not more than two feet square: the animal is of course unsteady, and his footsteps insecure on this new element, so that he can make but little resistance, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... had taken the war trail was astonishing news. For one hundred years they had held the hand of the white man. Their proudest boast said: "The Nez Perces have never shed ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... darted hither and thither about the stage to catch them. Then he was back at the table again amidst a storm of crockeryware, cutlery, and provisions, and each article as it descended was caught with an astonishing dexterity and set in its proper place with a swift exactness which looked like magic. The artist had a perfect aplomb, and he put off the catching of each article till the last fraction of the inevitable second, so that he seemed secure in perfect triumph ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Something lay there, and this something, while commonplace in itself, was enough out of keeping with the place and hour to rouse my interest and awaken my conjectures. It was a lady's wrap so rich in quality and of such a festive appearance that it was astonishing to find it lying in a neglected state in this crumbling old house. Though I know little of the cost of women's garments, I do know the value of lace, and this garment was ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... old-fashioned green shutters. That had been before Ruyler's day, but he knew the history of the neighborhood, and this man's interest in it. He was not surprised to hear Bisbee laugh aloud as Madame Delano, who stepped off the car with astonishing agility, waddled down the now respectable street. But she held her head majestically ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... fire on the premises, and Joe did astonishing things. After being rescued he walked calmly back, through sheets of fire, to fetch the cash-box from the parlour. "Never afraid of anythin'—fire, water, gunpowder, sword, arrows—nothin'! No fear. Always brave. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... are often invited into gay and fashionable circles, whom they amuse, if, by the information possessed by the parties, they are not cunning enough to deceive. They are well paid, and are thus encouraged in their iniquity by those who ought to know, and teach them better. But it is astonishing how many respectable people are led away with the artful flattery of such visitors. They forget that the Gipsy fortune-teller has often made herself acquainted with their connexions, business, and future prospects, and consider not that God commits not his secrets to the wicked ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... memory is that quality which is most easily developed, especially in young persons. It is also its most showy quality, and the temptation to give it an inordinate development is strong. The habit of getting things by rote, is easily acquired by practice. It is astonishing what masses of Scripture texts young children will get by heart, when under some special stimulus of reward or display. I have often refused to publish marvellous feats of this kind, not because I thought ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... of nature counteracting the historic abstraction. As a wonderful specimen of the way in which Shakspeare lives up to the very end of this play, read the last part of the concluding scene. And if you would feel the judgment as well as the genius of Shakspeare in your heart's core, compare this astonishing drama ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... failing, Renouard, basing his advice on the shortcomings of his bachelor establishment, had urged on the ladies the advisability of not going ashore in the middle of the night. Now he approached them in a constrained manner (it was astonishing the constraint that had reigned between him and his guests all through the passage) and renewed his arguments. No one ashore would dream of his bringing any visitors with him. Nobody would even think of coming off. ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... and one end of them so fastened in the snow that they are firmly held. They are so slanted toward the fire, with the wind in the rear, that when roofed over with the big deerskin and a couple dropped each side it is astonishing how comfortably sheltered a few persons thus can be. The active Indians shook the dry snow off from some robes, and placing them as a floor Mr Ross and the boys were soon under a storm- tight roof and gazing into ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... understood, too, when they heard it. Indeed they asserted that they could but did not will to be able to do so, for then they could not will what they did will, namely, evil from enjoyment in the lust of it. I have often heard such astonishing things in the spiritual world. I am fully persuaded therefore that every man has liberty and rationality, and that every man can attain true liberty and rationality if he shuns evils as sins. But the adult ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... is more astonishing, than that it should be asserted in this assembly that we have no ill success to complain of. Might we not hope for success, if we have calculated the events of war, and made a suitable preparation? And how is this to be done, but by comparing our ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... more than that, sir. I regard him, indeed, as a most astonishing young man. The very manner in which he has pursued his studies while engaged in the harassing labors of a large wholesale business house of ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... newspapers, but I also knew that valor feeds on action. Not that I had given orders to fire on the world in general. So, I confess, I was somewhat surprised, soon after the shout of approval which greeted my command, to hear the air rent by the astonishing reverberation of our Long Tom, which rolled like thunder all along the river-front, breaking into a thousand echoes ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... It is astonishing to me that men who profess the sentiments expressed by conservative men of the Republican party, if they are sincere in their desire that slavery should die out, should fail to see that the compromise of 1850 and the Kansas and Nebraska law are alike based upon the only principle by ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... of eccentricity are recognizable. In the one, the individual sets himself up above the level of the rest of the world, and, marking out for himself a line of conduct, adheres to it with an astonishing degree of tenacity. For him the opinions of mankind in general are of no consequence. He is a law unto himself; what he says and does is said and done, not for the purpose of attracting attention or for obtaining ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... power in dreams seems to have a range and an intensity which does not exist when one is awake. I have not the slightest power, in waking life, of conceiving and visualising the astonishing landscapes which I see in dreams. I can recall actual scenes with great distinctness, but the glowing colour and the prodigious forms of my landscape visions are wholly beyond ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... beside her and looked. The photographs were indeed impressive. The sombre landscape, the pallid sky, and, winding as if for ever over hill and valley, the astonishing structure, like an infinite lonely consciousness. "I should like to ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... me what splendid place this is?" asked Effie, as soon as she could collect her wits after the first look at all these astonishing things. ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... evidently mistook him) during the stirring combat so vividly described in the twenty-second chapter. Could he but have foreseen the future, what a different ending that engagement should have had! But again it was too late, and the author sprang behind the big easy chair with astonishing agility, and from that vantage ground endeavored ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... government itself, making it not only horrible, but vile and contemptible in the eyes of all mankind. In this humiliation and abjectness of guilt, he comes here not as a criminal on his defence, but as a vast fertile genius who has made astonishing discoveries in the art of government,—"Dicam insigne, recens, alio indictum ore"—who, by his flaming zeal and the prolific ardor and energy of his mind, has boldly dashed out of the common path, and served his country by new and untrodden ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... we came out of the Library, he made an astonishing rejoinder, and one which I cannot in the least account for: "South ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... attention to the subject of the terraces. He protests it is unfair to call the sinking of the sea his theory, for that he with care always speaks of mere change of level, and this is quite true; but the one section in which he shows how he conceives the sea might sink is so astonishing, that I believe it will with others, as with me, more than counterbalance his previous caution. I hope that you may think better of ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... at the Centennial Exposition, I saw a marble bust—life size—which was a portrait of a lady of ancient Rome. There was only the head and neck, the hair was dressed very plainly, and it was astonishing how well that bust would have answered for the portrait of a lady of Thirty-fourth street, New York, or the wife of a gentleman in Springfield, Ohio. The head and face were just such a head and face as I had often seen, and the countenance even ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... when you were taken, I never expected to see either of you alive this morning, and yet here you are recovering, and I verily believe beyond further danger. Let me see your tongues. Well, well, well, this is really astonishing. You are both doing splendidly. Just be a little careful, and you are perfectly out of peril. Miss Arnold, you are worth all our nurses; and really I'm afraid all us ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... caught his breath, his eyes dilated, his fingers began to play against his palms. He had decided. And in that same instant, a change came over him—complete, satisfactory, astonishing. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... education equal to that of any man at the college, and she had to suffer a great deal on that account. She went to New Haven to school, and it was noised that she had studied the languages. It was such an astonishing thing for girls at that time to have the advantages of education that I had absolutely to go to cotillon parties to let people see that I had ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... his chains. He next burst the iron band, and after a long time severed his leg fetters, but in such a way that he could put them on again and no one be any the wiser. Nothing is more common in the history of prisoners than this exploit, and nothing is more astonishing, yet we meet with the fact again and again in their memoirs and biographies. Trenck at any rate appears to have accomplished the feat without much difficulty, though he found it very hard, to get his hand back into his handcuffs. After he had disposed ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... to enable me mechanically to abide my waking hours. I squared and cubed long series of numbers, and by concentration and will carried on most astonishing geometric progressions. I even dallied with the squaring of the circle . . . until I found myself beginning to believe that that possibility could be accomplished. Whereupon, realizing that there, too, lay madness, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... appearance of Garrick at the theatre of Drury Lane, to which he, by his astonishing powers, brought all the world, while Mr. Rich was playing his pantomimes at Covent Garden to empty benches, he and Mr. Garrick happened to meet one morning at the Bedford coffee-house. Having fallen into conversation, Garrick asked ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... and its glorification consist? What kind of body shall the glorified body be? The soul and spirit of CHRIST, what are they? and are they the same as ours? What and where is Paradise?' Through a hundred and fourteen large quarto pages Behmen's astonishing answers to the forty questions run; after which he adds this: 'Thus, my beloved friend, we have set down, according to our gifts, a round answer to your questions, and we exhort you as a brother not to despise us. For we are not born ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... During his absence on this matter the assembly debated "Whether the Lutherans who desired it, might be admitted into communion with the Reformed Churches of France at the Lord's Table.'' It was decided in the affirmative previous to his return; but he approved with astonishing eloquence, and thereafter was ever in the front rank in maintaining intercommunication between all churches holding the main doctrines of the Reformation. P. Bayle recounts the title-pages of no fewer than thirty-two books of which ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... lady of the house; and then, turning in wrath on the young man, "From what rank in life are you sprung?" she demanded. "You have the exterior of a gentleman; but from the astonishing evidences before me, I should say you can only be a green-grocer's man. Pray, gather up your vegetables, and let me see no more ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... village of Shanklin is as romantic as any of the lovers of nature can desire. The salubrity of the atmosphere and the proximity of the village to the sea may account for the extraordinary growth of the myrtle-tree, which attains here an astonishing height. Virgil tells us this plant is best cultivated on the sea side; but every maritime situation is not congenial, unless a protection is afforded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... desserts—dulcia—confections in which the ancients were experts. Bakery, too, even the plainest kind, is conspicuously absent in the Apician books. The latter two trades being particularly well developed, were departmentalized to an astonishing degree in ancient Greece and Rome. These indispensable books are simply wanting in our book if it be but a collection of Greek monographs. Roman culture and refinement of living, commencing about 200-250 years before our era was under the complete rule of Hellas. Greek influence included ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... doctor came and she gave her husband a draught, she took a spoonful herself. Poulain himself, the only person who might have thrown light on the matter, inclined to believe that this was one of the unaccountable freaks of disease, one of the astonishing exceptions which make medicine so perilous a profession. And in truth, the little tailor's unwholesome life and unsanitary surroundings had unfortunately brought him to such a pass that the trace of copper-poisoning was like the last straw. Gossips and neighbors took it ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... than they had been in first youth; Watson's critical eye took note of it. The hair, touched lightly with grey, had receded slightly on the temples, and the more ample brow, heavily lined, gave a nobler shelter than of old to the still astonishing vivacity of the eyes. The carriage of the head, too, was prouder and more assured. Fenwick, indeed, as far as years went, was, as Watson knew, in the very prime of life. Nevertheless, there was in his aspect, as he sat there, a prophetic note of discouragement, of ebbing vitality ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... expected from her Indian origin—if she was often reminiscent in her manner, metre, form and expression, it only proves her a minor poet and not a Tennyson or a Browning. That she should have done what she did do, devotedly, with an astonishing charm and the delight of inspired labour, makes her life memorable, as it certainly made both life and work beautiful. The pain and suffering which attended the latter part of her life never found its way into her work save ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... leave this place without expressing his acknowledgements to the Matrons and Young Ladies who received him in so novel and grateful a manner at the Triumphal Arch in Trenton, for the exquisite sensations he experienced in that affecting scene. The astonishing contrast between his former and actual situation at the same spot, the elegant taste with which it was adorned for the present occasion, and the innocent appearance of the white-robed choir, who met him with the gratulatory song, have made such an impression on his remembrance ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... as the doctrine of divine right most undoubtedly is, it is still more astonishing, that when so many human hereditary rights had centered in this king, his son and heir king Charles the first should be told by those infamous judges, who pronounced his unparalleled sentence, that he was an elective ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... one may come," urged this most astonishing young woman. "Don't you see that—that I'm trusting you to help me? Won't ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... of your prosperity, you will regret the happy and peaceful life you led in the colony. At the moment you shall quit it, (but not forever,) a prodigy will appear in the air;—this will be the first harbinger of your astonishing destiny." ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... to us small enough, but it is of course no real index to the amount of capital which a wealthy eques might possess. Nothing is more astonishing in the history of the last century of the republic than the vast sums of money in the hands of individuals, and the enormous sums lent and borrowed in private by the men whose names are familiar to us as statesmen. It is told of Caesar that as a very young man he owed a sum equivalent to ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... to this point between Hector and Valerie, it is not astonishing that Valerie should have heard from Hector the secret of the intended marriage between the great sculptor Steinbock and Hortense Hulot. Between a lover on his promotion and a lady who hesitates long before becoming his mistress, there are contests, uttered or unexpressed, in which ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... preliminary maneuvers marched down High Street. Old Cush Woodberry and the other loafers at Horton's would come out on the platform in front of the store and review the troops. The interest those lazy fellows took in us was astonishing. Old Cush even volunteered one day to give us some instructions in tactics, but our gallant captain courteously declined. There were others, though, who did not admire us so much. The green-eyed monster reigned supreme over on ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... article for Restoring the Hair in Baldness, strengthening when weak and fine, effectually preventing falling or turning grey, and for restoring its natural colour without the use of dye. The rich glossy appearance it imparts is the admiration of every person. Thousands have experienced its astonishing efficacy. Bottles 2s. 6d.; double size, 4s. 6d.; 7s. 6d. equal to 4 small; 11s. to 6 small; 21s. to 13 small. The ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... that the Northman on meeting his eyes put on an elaborately surprised expression. At least, it seemed elaborated. Nothing could be trusted. And the Englishman felt himself with astonishing conviction faced by an enormous lie, solid like a wall, with no way round to get at the truth, whose ugly murderous face he seemed to see peeping over at ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... hundred years before our era, constructed that great wall which was not able to save them from the invasion of the Tartars. The Egyptians, three thousand years before, had overloaded the earth with their astonishing pyramids, which had a base of about ninety thousand square feet. Nobody doubts that, if one wished to undertake to-day these useless works, one could easily succeed by a lavish expenditure of money. The great ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... such a study. No woman of tact, charm, refinement and feeling need ever let her husband, unless she has married a clod, become indifferent or commonplace in his treatment of her. Man reflects to an astonishing degree woman's sentiments ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... bickering like a couple of counter jumpers," he said, and a shrewder man than Robert might have been warned by the slow, incisive utterance. "You make an astonishing announcement on an occasion when it might least be expected, yet resent any doubt being thrown on its accuracy. Did or did not Sylvia ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... morning of the astonishing Trespass, I was late, being discouraged by a light rain. As she approached her bench, she found it occupied by an individual who appeared to be playing a contributory part in the general lamentation of nature. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... astonishing that nobody has before been struck by what I have in my eye. People go round all the while writing about Old Greenwich Village, the harbour, the Ghetto, the walk uptown. Coney Island, the Great White Way, the subway ride, Riverside Drive, the spectacle of Fifth ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... persuasions of his corrupt ministers had been to promote the interests of the Emperor, even at the expense of his own sacred obligations, and but very little tact had hitherto kept him inactive. All this but renders more astonishing the infatuation of the Emperor or his ministers in abandoning, at so critical a moment, the policy they had hitherto adopted, and by extreme measures, incensing a prince so easily led. Was this the very object which Tilly ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... "Astonishing!" she murmured presently. "Really quite amazing! And yet things could scarcely have turned out more—" She paused, a faint wrinkle marring the smoothness of her forehead. "Really, I must guard against this habit of talking to myself," ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... an apology for a dhoti,—that of the women is more copious, and at any rate quite decent: they are very fond of ornaments, especially beads, the quantities of which they wear is very often quite astonishing. They appear to me certainly superior to the Abors, of whom, however, I have seen but few. Both sexes drink liquor, but they did not seem to me to be so addicted to it as is generally the case with hill tribes:—their usual drink is a fermented liquor made from rice ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... as an instance, for the word soul they have no more spiritual equivalent than breath. Even the conversation between parents and children is of incredible frankness, and the Wazir of Egypt talks to his daughter "the Lady of Beauty," in a fashion astonishing to the West. But the Arabs are a great mixture. They are keenly alive to beauty, and every youth and every damsel is described in glowing, rapturous terms. We have heard in our own country, so far north as chilly Scotland, of a whole audience ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... mathematician, Leslie Ellis, was kind to my brother, who had an introduction to him probably from Spedding. Ellis was already suffering from the illness which confined him to his room at Trumpington, and prevented him from ever giving full proofs of intellectual powers, rated by all who knew him as astonishing. I may quote what Fitzjames says of one other contemporary, the senior classic of his own year: 'Lightfoot's reputation for accuracy and industry was unrivalled; but it was not generally known what ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... of course, but seemed to me she regarded it a trifle doubtfully when it came in. Still, the price had not been great, and it was astonishing to see how much better it looked when I was through with it, and it was in a dim corner, with its more unfortunate portions next the wall. Indeed, it had about it quite an air of genuine respectability, and made the rest of our things seem poor and trifling. ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... unknown, and every record of him lost; we should then, as in the case of Homer, have judged exclusively from the internal evidence of the works themselves, and formed a brilliant ideal picture of what the astonishing author must have been in his daily walk, correspondence, and conversation. But, unfortunately, enthusiasm worked up to its pitch, sweeping the clouds for a bird's-eye view of the high pinnacle of human greatness commensurate with the 'local habitation and the name' of such a genius, is at once ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... they did. When the people came in the evening and learned that everything was sold out but the lanterns, they declared they would buy them for souvenirs. So the merry guests walked about the grounds, carrying the lighted lanterns they had bought (at astonishing prices), and it lent a fantastic effect to the scene to see the lanterns bobbing about among the trees and ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... It is astonishing what a sudden change such a blow of misfortune often produces in a child. We know not the mysterious workings of a child's mind, or by what process such a rapid change is accomplished; but we know from experience that the journey of a very few years in the path of life can make even the very ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... were more observing than I. Such a thought never entered my mind till I had been about ten days in London, when it occurred to me that, considering the size of the town and the fact that he and I were strangers, we met with astonishing frequency. I have since learned that he was a detective sent over to London on an important case, and being an intimate friend of Merrick's, the latter, who, I am informed, was shadowing me pretty closely at the ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... she looked at Manley's back. "What I should like," she said distinctly, "is a great, big pile of wood, all cut and ready for the stove, and water pails that never would go empty. It's astonishing how one's desires eventually narrow down to bare essentials, isn't it? But as we near the place, I find those two things more desirable than a piano!" Then she bit her lip angrily because she had permitted herself to give ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... mark my words," said Catherine, "before you have grown many years older you will hear astonishing tales of Perdita Osgood. Peter's influence will not always keep her in check. Polly told me that yesterday she tried to vaccinate the cat, with a mixture of ground chalk and vinegar! Peter came ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... himself and looked up. "Nothing very important—but mighty astonishing at that. We've just walked in a two-hundred-yard circle, up the creek to where we climbed the hill, back along the hill in this direction, and then down. And we haven't crossed that grizzly's ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... indiscreet revelation to you—and your invitation—he accepted it instantly. He will be honored to be your guest, he said, provided of course he may depend upon us to preserve his incognito. That is very important. Do you know it is astonishing how I find myself keyed up to the most amazing pitch of interest in him—he's so mysterious ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... in Charley's rapid progress towards health. He was gaining with astonishing rapidity and bid fair to be completely recovered in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... go on in our own way. If your Lordships think that it was not a positive order, which Mr. Hastings was bound to obey, you will acquit him of the breach of it. But it is a most singular thing, among all the astonishing circumstances of this case, that this man, who has heard from the beginning to the end of his trial breaches of the Company's orders constantly charged upon him,—(nay, I will venture to say, that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... jump out, and never mind the luggage. George will see to that." With astonishing activity the old man ran up the gangway, followed by the boys, and found May waiting for them. Their greetings were of the simplest, and May calling the chief steward told him to shew the gentlemen their cabins, while Goody handed ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... brought to light changes from one post to another in several Basilicas, and unceasing industry in composition. The vast number of works published by Palestrina in his lifetime, or left in MS. at his death, or known to have been written and now lost, would be truly astonishing were it not a fact that very eminent creative genius is always copious, and in no province of the arts more fertile than in that of music. Palestrina lived and died a poor man. In his dedications he occasionally remarks with sober pathos on the difficulty of pursuing ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... that. 'We won't go home till morning, till daylight does appear.' Why should we? Why shouldn't my boy have innocent pleasure? I was allowed none when I was a young chap, and the severity was nearly the ruin of me. I must go and speak with that young man—the most astonishing thing I ever heard in my life. What's his name? Mr. Nadab? Mr. Nadab; sir, you have delighted me. May I make so free as to ask you to come and dine with me to-morrow at six. I am always proud to make the acquaintance of men ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... my uncles' patent steel, and as I stood at the door and watched him I counted the blows he gave, and it was astonishing how regular he was, every implement taking nearly the same number of blows ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... study seems to be to make themselves as useless to the world as possible. Think too of the shocking indelicacy of many of them, who make it a point of religion to abjure linen, and wear their habits till they drop off. How astonishing that any mind should suppose the Deity an enemy to cleanliness! the Jewish religion ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... effective advocacy. His general attainments were very considerable. The writer of this history once took part in a conversation where O'Connell displayed a knowledge of Biblical criticism, and a capacity to apply what knowledge of that description which he possessed, which was very astonishing. On the same occasion he brought forth stores of ecclesiastical history, which proved that, although his studies had been confined to a particular school on that subject, his reading within the limits of that school were very extensive, and his memory altogether extraordinary. He had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... turn over the astonishing record of George Warrington Steevens's thirty years, we are divided between the balance of loss and gain. The loss to his own intimates must be intolerable. From that, indeed, we somewhat hastily avert our eyes. Remains the loss to the great reading public, which we believe that Steevens ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... returns of the puisa or great annual fast, and forgot their old rules. The consequence of this was obvious, for the lunar year of the hejrah being eleven days short of the sidereal or solar year the order of the seasons was soon inverted; and it is only astonishing that its inaptness to the purposes of agriculture should ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... referred to, it is not always remembered that when he came to this country he was not his own master. It seems that he rambled away from his home in the South of France, when about fifteen years old; that he spent about two years in wandering about France and Germany, and astonishing people by pretending to be, at first a converted, and afterwards an unconverted, Formosan; that when performing this second, pagan, character, he arrived at Sluys, where a Scotch regiment in the Dutch service, under Brigadier Lauder, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... mountain stream as it speeded toward the valley, when a flash of color on the farther side of the brook attracted him. He stopped, then hastily sprang across the water, climbed a few yards, and, after skirting a heavy clump of bushes, looked at Linda sitting beside them—a most astonishing Linda, appearing small and humble, very much tucked away, unrestrained tears rolling down her cheeks, a wet handkerchief wadded in one hand, a packet of letters in her lap. A long instant ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... regarded by the multitude as a miracle. Also we may be quite sure that no one who had attained this knowledge in the legitimate order would ever perform a "miracle" for his own personal aggrandizement or for the purpose of merely astonishing the beholders—to do so would be contrary to the first principle of the higher teaching which is that of profound reverence for the Unity of the All-originating Principle. The conception, therefore, of such ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... beg that you will give me your attention while I relate the adventures of my second voyage, which you will find even more astonishing than the first." ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... neither man spoke—nor moved. Stafford's face wore the smile of a man who has just communicated some unexpected and astonishing news and was watching its effect with suppressed enjoyment. He knew that Leviatt felt bitter toward the stray-man and that the news that the latter might succeed in doing the thing that he had set out to do would not be received ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... was Vautrin, and Vautrin appears as the name of the most astonishing and most original character which Balzac has created and introduced in the five or six greatest novels of the Comedy. So transcendent, super-human and satanic is Vautrin, Herrera, or Jacques Collin, as he is indifferently called, ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... to give you admiration and honor, it is merely necessary to be admirable and honorable. The more you put in, the more will be paid out to you. It is too trite to put on paper! But it is astonishing, isn't it, how many people who are depositing nothing whatever, expect to be paid in admiration ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... impenetrable shrubs, and the rear also being secured by the springs and deep hollow ways, the enemy renewed the action. Every exertion was made to dislodge them. Lieutenant-Colonel Washington made most astonishing efforts to get through the thicket to charge the enemy in the rear, but found it impracticable, had his horse shot under him, and was wounded and taken prisoner. Four six-pounders were ordered up before the house—two ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... something operatic; a kind of rosepink, artificial bedizenment. It is frequent, or rather it is universal, among the French since his time. Madame de Stael has something of it; St. Pierre; and down onwards to the present astonishing convulsionary 'Literature of Desperation,' it is everywhere abundant. That same rosepink is not the right hue. Look at a Shakspeare, at a Goethe, even at a Walter Scott! He who has once seen into this, has seen the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... allow that Jesus Christ was an honest man how is it possible for you to deny his being divinely inspired? He certainly pretended to foretell events; he most surely pretended to perform most astonishing miracles. Of these facts we have as much evidence as we have that there was such a man. Now, sir, if he were honest, he was divinely inspired and endued, or he was an enthusiast even to insanity. And yet in every instance, where the ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... Mice may be civil for a while, and compliment each other; but when they come to speak their minds freely, each likes his own life best." She said nothing more at the moment, and the three sat down to their small dinner-table. It was astonishing to Alice that he should be able to talk in this way, to hint at such things, to allude to their former hopes and present condition, without a quiver in his voice, or, as far as she could perceive, without any feeling ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Saint-Euverte in the country, but I don't believe anyone knows them, really. They must be 'country cousins'! By the way, I don't know whether you're particularly 'well-up' in the brilliant society which we see before us, because I've no idea who all these astonishing people can be. What do you suppose they do with themselves when they're not at Mme. de Saint-Euverte's parties? She must have ordered them in with the musicians and the chairs and the food. 'Universal providers,' you know. You must admit, they're rather splendid, General. But ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... escape them; by Hatteras's order all sails were furled; but, notwithstanding all precautions, the brig was much knocked about; the waves dashed over her, and her smoke fled towards the east with astonishing rapidity; her course was not certain amongst the moving ice; the barometer fell; it was difficult to stop on deck, and most of the men stayed below ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... letter from the Isle of Man states that the writer, who rightly wishes to remain anonymous, possesses a copy of a novel of astonishing genius, in which a German bullet is embedded. This book, it seems, was the inseparable companion of a soldier in the 3rd Manx Highlanders, who carried it always next his heart, and in its position in that intimate and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... More astonishing to the men of that time than it is to us was the fact that American foreign trade fell under British commercial control again. Whether it was that British merchants were accustomed to American ways of doing things and knew American business conditions; whether other countries found the commerce ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... brother found this but natural, and he liked to lie still, and be fanned, or have the flies brushed away from him, and to have some one read fairy stories, which he loved, aloud to him until he dozed off to sleep. It was astonishing how long and how soundly he could sleep. The courtiers said that he was laying up a store of strength, to meet the demands that would be made upon him when ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... were to dine with Count Sickingen some day soon; adding, "The Count and I were conversing together, and I said to him, 'A propos, has your Excellency heard our Mozart?' 'No; but I should like very much both to see and to hear him, for they write me most astonishing things about him from Mannheim.' 'When your Excellency does hear him, you will see that what has been written to you is rather too little than too much.' 'Is it possible?' 'Beyond all doubt, your Excellency.'" Now, this ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... scrambled out until he reached the grass-grown sand bank which Furley had indicated. Obeying orders, he lay down and listened intently for any fainter sounds mingled with the tumult of nature. After a few minutes, it was astonishing how his eyes found themselves able to penetrate the darkness which at first had seemed like a black wall. Some distance to the right he could make out the outline of a deserted barn, once used as a coast-guard station and now only a depository ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his taste. Are you afraid that he will form it wrong? I am not. We are assuming that the library where he browses is a good one; here is no chance of evil, only a choice between different kinds of good. And even if the evil be there, it is astonishing how the healthy mind will let it slip and fasten eagerly on the good. Would you prefer a taste fixed by someone who tells the browser what he ought to like? Then that is not the reader's own taste at all, but that of his informant. We have too much of this sort of thing—too many readers without ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... procuring the neroli, when well freed from the oil, is imported into this country under the name of eau de fleur d'orange, and may be used, like elder-flower and rose-water, for the skin, and as an eye lotion. It is remarkable for its fine fragrance, and it is astonishing that it is not more used, being moderate in price. ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... astonishing what effect those gentle breezes had upon our spirits. I found myself whistling and going to the galley to ask the cook what there was for dinner, and I found him singing, and polishing away at his tins, his galley all neat and clean, and ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... The improvements have been astonishing. Beautiful trees skirt the principal streets, and form an arch above. Everywhere you behold ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... all!" he cried; "I am a devil of a catcher," and, feeling the air cautiously, he moved forward like a bear about to hug. He caught no one. Christian and Greta whisked under his arms and left him grasping at the air. Mrs. Decie slipped past with astonishing agility. Mr. Treffry, smoking his cigar, and barricaded in a corner, jeered: "Bravo, Paul! The active beggar! Can't ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... recovery with an equally indifferent composure. Their conduct to each other was the same as to the world; they bore and forbore; and there was sometimes, as will be seen, much necessity for forbearing; but their love among themselves rarely reached above this. It is astonishing how much each of the family was able to do, and how much each did, to prevent the well-being of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... "O melancholy! the sink of all vice and depravity. Streets without light! Houses without air! Neighbourhood without society! Talkers without listeners!—'Tis astonishing any rational being can endure ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... after Elnathan had begun his great labor of love, an astonishing thing happened to him. He had a choice of two places offered him as general utility boy in a grocery. Once he would have told Mr. Lightenhome, and asked his advice as to which offer he should take, but he was now carrying his ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... is actually the case, while the main body is under the cover offered by a friendly wood and is safe from detection. The rapidity with which thousands of men are able to disappear when the word "Airman" is passed round is astonishing. They vanish as completely and suddenly as if swallowed by the earth or dissolved into thin air. They conceal themselves under bushes, in ditches, lie prone under hedgerows, dart into houses and outbuildings—in short, take every cover which is available, no matter how slender it may seem, ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... slippers were laid carefully on a chair. The astonishing woman was a tramp once more, squatting on the brick floor, drawing on to her bare feet the shapeless excuses for boots which had been toasting before ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... 1820," he said, "in the month of August, I fell in love." Here the girls glanced at each other. The idea of Uncle Cornie in love, and in the very same century in which they were now listening to the confession, was too astonishing to pass without ocular remark; but, if he observed it, he took no notice of it; he did not even pause. "In the month of September, I was refused. Consequently, in the month of October, I was ready to ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... you tell us a tale." Tot warmly seconded the motion, and Mammy, who was never more delighted than when astonishing the children with her wonderful stories, at once assumed a meditative air. "Lem me see," said the old woman, scratching her head; "I reckon I'll tell yer 'bout de wushin'-stone, ain't neber told yer dat yit. I know yer've maybe ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... "What is there astonishing about it?" asked the girl. "I have been out boating with Mr. Locker, and it did not amaze you. You need not be afraid; Mr. Hemphill says he has had a good deal of practise in rowing, and if he does not understand the management of a boat I am ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... the week passed harmlessly and without any special event to mark it, and, thanks to Nan's skilful management and Phillis's pride, there were no further contretemps to shock Mrs. Challoner's sense of propriety. The work progressed with astonishing rapidity: in the mornings the young dressmakers were sufficiently brisk and full of zeal, and in the afternoons, when their energies flagged and their fingers grew weary, Dulce would sing over her task, or Mrs. Challoner would read to ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... story,' said the genie, 'and I remit to thee a third part of his blood and his crime.' Then came forward the third old man, he of the mule, and said, 'O genie, I will tell thee a story still more astonishing than the two thou hast heard, and do thou remit to me the remainder of his blood and crime.' The genie replied, 'It is well.' So the third old man said, 'Know, O Sultan and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... and tendering to Leah a daughter's welcome. Mrs. Le Grande, although disappointed and chagrined that Belle Upton was not the choice of her son's love, soon quieted down, and accepted the alternative with astonishing and commendable resignation. So, despite Leah's bitter disappointment, she was happy; for, aside from Emile's love, she soon drew hope and happiness from the life of the dark-eyed little daughter that had come to bless her home. Emile had yielded to Leah's wishes, ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... and interesting, with which he had felt altogether strong enough to contend for an evening or he would not have come. That it should thrill along all his senses with this unreasoning rapture was most astonishing. He had never been a fellow to "fall" for every girl he met, and now he felt himself gradually yielding to the beautiful spell about him ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... questions—questions which were not new, but which came to him to-night with a new and deeper significance. He believed that Father Roland would have gasped in amazement and that he would have held up his hands in incredulity had he known the truth of this astonishing adventure of his. An astonishing adventure—nothing less. To find a girl. A girl he had never seen, who might be in another part of the world, when he had got to the end of his journey—or married. And if he found ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... the reader's time in any discussion upon the causes of that astonishing political fever. It must suffice to say that for a moment it hypnotized the whole world. It would have been incomprehensible to the Middle Ages. It was incomprehensible to the nineteenth century. It wholly occupied the sixteenth. If we understand it, we largely understand ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... times he cut across ledge and spur and gave her a grinning how-dye. The third time she was ready for him and she let fly. The first stone whistled past his head with astonishing speed. The second he dodged and the third caught him between the shoulders as he leaped for a tree with an oath and a yell. And there she left him, swearing horribly and frankly ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... And accordingly the attack was abandoned. The Americans embarked again, and were taken to Salmon River. The boats and batteaux were immediately scuttled; the troops were made comfortable in long log huts or barracks, with astonishing celerity, and the camp, at French Mills, was as speedily as possible entrenched. Thus ended a campaign for which the Americans had made extraordinary preparations, and of the success of which high expectations had consequently been formed. The failures of Hampton and Wilkinson were indeed so disgraceful ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... from coming. They're not at all law-abiding. I don't think they've been very well brought up. And then, of course, they're not accustomed to seeing any one in charge here." She looked around, and smoothed her apron with the most astonishing little air of resource and command. "I saw a bill with the names at the bottom that way, and per So-and-So below, so I copied it," she ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... been thrown irrevocably into the background had I not been born to the good fortune of an eldest son. This was far more than sufficient to atone for the comparative plainness of my person; and when it was discovered that I was also Sir William's favourite, it is quite astonishing what a beauty I became! Aubrey was declared too effeminate; Gerald too tall. And the Duchess of Lackland one day, when she had placed a lean, sallow ghost of a daughter on either side of me, whispered my uncle in a voice, like the aside of a player, intended for ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
