"Startle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could be done. Albinia had a dim hope that the sense of responsibility, and dread of that hard will and selfish temper, might so rise upon Lucy as to startle her, but then, as Mr. Kendal observed, if she should decide against him, she would have used him so extremely ill, that they should feel nothing ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... began. And swift and sudden it went on to the end. She had come on board the yacht that first night to startle it with her beauty and her voice; last night, silent and stately, she had slipped through the evening like a dream; now she stood before him a dazzling creature of the morning: yesterday she was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... wan, an' more thin that, that th' town humorist has named him th' orange-peel hero, an' he'll go to his grave with that name. Th' war is over an' th' state iv war exists. If ye saw a man fall fr'm th' top iv a tin-story buildin' 'twud startle ye, wanst. If it happened again, 'twud surprise ye. But if ye saw a man fall ivry fifteen minyits ye'd go home afther awhile f'r supper an' ye wuddent even mintion it ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... recounting, as he often did, the scenes of the battle field, his eye would burn with savage fire, lighting up his whole countenance with the fiercest kind of bravery, and often with a hideous yell that would startle our very souls, he would burst from the room and bound over the fields and forest, with the fleetness of a deer—making the woods ring with his frightful war-cry, until the blood seemed ready to curdle in our veins. ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... further dosing and experimentation along the materialistic lines of the 'regular' school, of curtailing their liberties, and forcing their necks under the yoke of medical tyranny, should come to them with the insistence of a clarion call, and startle them into such action that the subtle evil which lurks behind this proposed legislative action would be dragged out into the light and exterminated! To permit commercialism and greed, the lust of mammon, and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Man and his Dwelling-Place is likely, after the shock of the first grand theory, that Man is dead and the Universe living, to receive with comparative coolness any further views set out in the book, however strange, I should say that probably, the third Book, 'Of Religion,' would startle him more than anything else in the work. Although this Book stands third in the volume, it is first both in importance and in chronology. For the author tells us that his views Of Religion are not deduced from the theoretical ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... of this roaring hive of men and women striving to feed and clothe and house themselves came a flash of vivid lightning in the murky sky,—the bomb of the anarchist. That was enough to startle even the Milly Ridges,—spitting forth its vicious message only a mile or two from where the very "nicest" people had their homes! The sodden consciousness of the city awoke in a hideous nightmare of fear. The newspapers were filled with the ravings of excited ignorance. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... to herself, "now I will wait and startle these girls from Tabeaue as they come along." And so she sank low down in the water, so that only her dark head showed ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... That would startle Luke, He thought. But Luke said, "We all wanted to, very much. But that would have been foolish, Master. Then we would not have had all the other things. And besides, there would not have been enough ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... and fro through the room with a cautious tranquillity which nothing could startle; she prepared her decayed roots for food with a patient attention which nothing could divert. Lost, through the aggravated miseries of her position, to recent grief and present apprehension, she could still instinctively ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... to give her assistance, but Marian shook her head at her, with a kindly look, that seemed to say, "Do not startle her—she is used only to me lately," and bore her out of sight into ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... excited state of mind he fancied so. His light went out; he had no more matches. As he groped his way to the steps, or where he thought they were, something touched him on the shoulder. It was enough to startle any man, and he cried out in alarm. There was a faint, squeaking noise and a fluttering, then the thing touched his cheek and he smelt a deathlike odor. Thoroughly alarmed he groped out. He felt the ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... when you have gotten your roman letter as good as the best that has been, I do not think you will find much scope for development of it; I would therefore put in a word for some form of gothic letter for use in our improved printed book. This may startle some of you, but you must remember that except for a very remarkable type used very seldom by Berthelette (I have only seen two books in this type. Bartholomew, the Englishman, and the Gower, of 1532), English black-letter, since the days of Wynkin de Worde, has been always ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... did not startle Elinor, did not make her heart beat, did not open new complications and vistas in life, would be a thing impossible. Pippo Lord Lomond! Pippo, whom she had feared to expose to his father's influence, whom she had ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... Yes, things were always ending. Now he was different than the night he had lain beside Rachel and whispered, "You have given me wings." But how? He felt the same. Change came like that. Leaving one the same. He would write things from Europe that would startle. He could write.... But, something unspoken in the night. He must say it to himself.... "You must love her...." Then that was it. He no ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... to find it interesting. He changed colour several times, and looked hard at the two reprobates before him. But their weather-and-dust-beaten countenances conveyed no information to his mind. Their voices certainly did startle him with something like a familiar sound; but might not this be part of the deep dissimulation dwelt upon with so much ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... to determine the precise moment when to shoot is usually a nice decision. Perhaps he can gain another dozen yards on his prey. On the other hand, by moving closer he may startle them and lose his chance. With so much at stake Tom felt for the second time in his life the palsy ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... from physical agony would come to the criminal, if the dream of dying should startle him from the dream of suffering. The paradise of Spirit would come to Jesus, in a spiritual sense of Life and [15] power. Christ Jesus lived and reappeared. He was too good to die; for goodness is immortal. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... to Judy, and left him outside so he wouldn't startle the house. Where is my girl—where is ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... witch & if she would not he would tear her in pieces, then she again shreekt out now saith shee I see him & lookt wistly & said there he is just at this time to my apearance there seemed to dart in at ye west window a sudden light across ye room wch did startle and amase me at yt present, then she tould me yt she see ye deuill in ye shape of a white dogg, she tould me that ye deuill apeared in ye shape of these three women namly goody Clawson, goody Miller, & ye woman ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... George peered beyond the projecting point of the ledge, he threw up his hands and burst out in laughter. Angel was in the boat, imitating Harry in the building operation. The sudden appearance did not startle him in the least, nor did he stop beating his lullaby, after he noticed the broad smiles that ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... so swiftly, and such incredible things have happened. Even now I am in a daze, for history is being made every hour—history for Mexico, for you, and for me. I bring you good news and bad news; something to startle you and set your brain in a whirl. I planned to send a messenger ahead of me, and then I said: 'No, this is a crisis; therefore no tongue but mine shall apprise her, no hand but mine shall comfort her. Only a coward shrinks from the unpleasant; I shall lighten her distress and awaken ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... his tears, took a step into the loggia, and in a low voice, very soft and tremulous, as if trying not to startle ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... intolerant, acrid, flinging out at old-fashioned views, giving quite unnecessary challenges, arguing with imaginary antagonists. It has ever seemed to me, although I suppose that history is against me, that if it be laid on any one to advocate a new view that will startle people, he ought of all men to be conciliatory and persuasive; but Carmichael was, at least in this time of fermentation, very exasperating and pugnacious, and so he drove the Rabbi to the only hard action of his life, wherein the old ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... glad to be alive, was in a playful mood, full of attractive grace. Renine, lest he should startle her, refrained from alluding to the compact into which they had entered at his suggestion. She told him how she had left La Mareze and said that she ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... Has broken Nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, thy ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... "I'll tell you what, we know little enough here in America, either in the towns or in the cities," he said rapidly. "We are all on the rush. We are all for action. I sit still and think. If I wanted to write I'd do something. I'd tell what everyone thought. It would startle people, frighten them a little, eh? I would tell you what you have been thinking this afternoon while you walked here on this railroad track with me. I would tell you what your mother has been thinking at the same time and what she would like ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... noiselessly down the knots of the carved oak. Still I stood and watched it, and it crept on slowly, slowly, like a living thing, and growing as it came, to my very feet. I cannot say how long I might have stood there, fascinated by it, had not something suddenly occurred to startle me into my senses again; for full upon the back of my right hand fell, with a sullen, heavy sound, a second drop of blood. It stung and burnt my flesh like molten lead, and the sharp, sudden pain it gave ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... and then the rattling of the reel would keep P——'s excitement alive, and as he gradually wound up the line, the salmon, making another start, would threaten to run away with every inch of tackle. Warily the Norwegian rowed, scarcely dipping his sculls in the water, lest their splash should startle the most timid of fish; but his cautious conduct made no impression on P——, for I could still see him motion angrily to the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... May 21, the Versailles army began to make its way into Paris, and the Commune, seeing its fantastic and terrible power about to pass away, tried to startle the world by its excesses. Orders were sent at once to Mazas to send the archbishop, the priests, Senator Bonjean, suspected spies, and sergents de ville to that part of the prison of La Roquette reserved for condemned criminals. Paul and his friend the other Seminarist ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... and the movement which accompanied them, combined to startle Lily out of the state of tranced subservience into which she had insensibly slipped. Light comes in devious ways to the groping consciousness, and it came to her now through the disgusted perception that her would-be accomplice ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... whirling, like water-wheels. Bat like, out of the holes and caverns and shadows of the earth, the bones gather, and the clay-heaps heave, rattling and adhering into half-kneaded anatomies, that crawl, and startle, and struggle up among the putrid weeds, with the clay clinging to their clotted hair, and their heavy eyes sealed by the earth darkness yet, like his of old who went his way unseeing to Siloam Pool; shaking off one by one the dreams of the prison-house, hardly hearing ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... replied she gayly. "What could you expect when prowling amongst the graves in a church-yard so lone and solitary, like a goule, on a damp November night? I saw you from Mr. Osborne's going toward it, and determined to startle you—and I ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material," says Howells. He sometimes insists on considering "honesty" and "realism" as synonymous terms. His primary object is not merely to amuse by a pleasant story or to startle by a horrible one. His object is to reflect life as he finds it, not only unusual or exceptional life. He believes that it is false to real life to overemphasize certain facts, to overlook the trivial, and to make all ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Germany and Austria) or Jules Cambon (former French Ambassador to Germany, the United States and Spain) probably could excel Mr. Gerard in revelations of entertaining diplomatic history and gossip. Count von Bernstorff, former Ambassador to the United States, too, I imagine might startle us with a diary of his ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... and a plash And turbid streak upon the streamlet's face, Betray the water-rat's swift dive and path Across the bottom to his burrow deep. The moss is plump and soft, the tawny leaves Are crisp beneath my tread, and scaly twigs Startle my wandering eye like basking snakes. Where this thick brush displays its emerald tent, I stretch my wearied frame, for solitude To steal within my heart. How hushed the scene At first, and then, to the accustomed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... light flap of a coiled-up rope striking against the bulwarks with the slight, easy roll of the ship. I was therefore particularly careful not to make the faintest splash, as I drew up alongside, lest the unaccustomed sound should reach the ear of and startle some individual not yet completely overpowered by the drink he had swallowed. Fortunately for me, the gangway ladder had not been hauled up, and I was consequently free to board the ship well aft, thus greatly lessening the risk of detection; I had, therefore, ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... poetical than any natural hand without it. In the sublime of sacred poetry, "Who is this that cometh from Edom? with dyed garments from Bozrah?" Would "the comer" be poetical without his "dyed garments?" which strike and startle the spectator, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... even here we have few masters, and our critics know and care little for style; they are entirely preoccupied with plot and incident and situation. What we lack is true originality, tranquil force; we are all occupied in trying to startle and surprise, to make a sensation. How little the Greeks cared for that! It was beauty and charm, delicate colour, fine subtlety of which they were, in search; they held all things holy, yet nothing solemn. Their dignity was not a pompous dignity, but the dignity ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... need to startle them. By the fact they've got a light, I take it that they're up. ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... have felt a twinge of premonition even as he took it up, but the effect was still enough to startle him. "Bureau ...
— Subversive • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... We know to be glad of life as we were gods Timelessly glad of deity; yea, to enjoy Fleshly, spiritual Being till the swift Torrent of glee (as hurled star-dust can change Dim earthly weather to a moment like the sun,) Doth startle life to self-adoring godhead,— Divine body of Power and divine Burning soul of Light and self-desire. And having given ourselves all to amazement, We are made like a prophesying song Of life all joy, a bride in the arms ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... you begin to turn the action, or bite of the wind, will cause the ends of the planes to the right to be unduly elevated, much more so than if the air should be calm. This raising action will be liable to startle you, because up to this time you have been accustomed to flying ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... Engagement is apt to startle an Imagination, which has not been raised and qualify'd for such a Description, by the reading of the ancient Poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold Thought in our Author, to ascribe the first Use of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... whit of timidity about him, nor was he the least impertinent. He was frankly interested and wanted to know what was being said. He received the dime and the pennies with a pleasant grin and a (grandmother prompted) "Thank you". But the gift didn't startle him. Dimes must have been a fairly usual part of his life. But a few minutes before the interviewer left she dropped her pencil. It was new and long and yellow. The child's eyes clung to it as he returned ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... effort he forced himself into an appearance of composure. He feared that he might startle and offend her if he gave expression to the ardors that throbbed in his heart and brain. "She must be tired and nervous," he thought, "and I will try to ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... occupied her broncho threw up his head and gave a tremendous neigh. The sound startled her, as these things will startle the strongest when all is profoundly silent. But what followed was more startling still. Not one, but half a dozen echoes at least responded, and, with a thrill, the girl sat up. The next moment she had spurred her horse and charged, regardless of the thorns, into ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... six weeks of this before the boy's dreadful secret was revealed to Winona; six weeks before he appeared to startle her with one eye radiating the rich hues of a ripened eggplant. It had been simple enough. He had seen his chance to step in and punish Spike, and he had stepped—and Spike's ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... and the columns of the newspapers. Mr. Michelet's subject, and his late researches, lead him into details, moral and physical, which among ourselves are seldom mixed up with themes of general talk. The coarsest of these have been pruned away, but enough perhaps remain to startle readers of especial prudery. The translator, however, felt that he had no choice between shocking these and sinning against his original. Readers of a larger culture will make allowance for such a strait, will not be so very frightened at an amount of plain-speaking, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... thing about you that is comforting," I sniffed. "You said precisely the same thing to me at three o'clock this morning. You never startle me ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sand did not startle him more than that strange lonely cry startled me. Indeed, as between the two of us, I had rather the worse of it: for Crusoe, at least, knew that he was dealing with a reality, while I could not be certain that I was not dealing with a bit of a ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... as First Lord of the Bedchamber, she should have a suite of apartments appropriated to her use in the Louvre; but in a few days, when he had accustomed her to converse freely with him upon the subject, Henry put a leading question which must, after all these gracious promises, have tended to startle Mademoiselle de Montmorency, by demanding to know if she personally desired the marriage, as, should it be otherwise, she need only confess the truth with frankness, when he would break off the match, and procure for her an alliance ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn; A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay." ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... creaked whenever he went along the passages, and neither did her aunt or Tetchen tread with feet as light as that. She sat up, and then the knock was repeated,—very low and very clear. She still paused a moment, resolving that nothing should frighten her,—nothing should startle her. No change that could come to her would, she thought, be a change for the worse. She hastened up from off the bed, and stood upon the floor. Then she gave the answer that is usual to such a summons. "Come in," she said. She spoke low, but with clear voice, so that her word ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... insensibly have been either famished or poisoned. In this spiritual distress, the expiring faction was revived, and united, and perpetuated, by the labors of a monk; and the name of James Baradaeus [129] has been preserved in the appellation of Jacobites, a familiar sound, which may startle the ear of an English reader. From the holy confessors in their prison of Constantinople, he received the powers of bishop of Edessa and apostle of the East, and the ordination of fourscore thousand bishops, priests, and deacons, is derived from the same ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... then that the back hair was braided and the front curled more and more beautifully every day, and that the calico dresses became stiffer and stiffer, and the white crochet lace collar broader and lower in the neck. At thirteen she was beautiful enough to startle one, they say, but that was nothing; she spent time and care upon these things, as if, like other women, her fate seriously depended upon them. There is no self-abnegation like that ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... refuse any assistance to the expedition of which it may stand in need; to reject all letters that may be sent from the parties connected with it, and, in fine, to hold no communication whatever with the steamers or the brig, does it not startle you, that jealousy and selfishness can go so far? Believe me, I blush at the reflection of a crime so hideous and un-English like as this?" In a postscript, John Lander says, "The fact of the merchants' instructions to the masters of their vessels may be safely depended on. Nothing can be more true. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... they to reach him with their bullets? That was the next question that came under consideration. The odd shot had been fired as an experiment. It was fired in the hope that it might startle the bear, and cause him to shift his quarters—if only a little—so that some part of his body might be exposed; and while the izzard-hunter was discharging his piece, the others had stood watching for a chance. None was given ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... Gaskell. Mrs. Gaskell has perhaps done more than any woman of this century, not confessedly devoted to our cause, to elevate the condition of her sex, and disseminate liberal ideas as to their needs and culture. The first part of her career was one of those brilliant successes which startle us into surprise and admiration. It was checked midway by the publication of her life of Charlotte Bronte, the best and noblest of her works. Checked, because condemned, in that instance, without a hearing. She could never afterward feel the elastic pleasure, which was natural to her, in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... space to mention certain episodes of the more recent intercourse of these ladies, and must content myself with tracing them, lightly, in their consequences. These may be summed up in the remark, which will doubtless startle no one by its freshness, that two imperial women are scarcely more likely to hit it off together, as the phrase is, than two imperial men. Since that party at Miss Birdseye's, so important in its results for Olive, she had had occasion to approach Mrs. Farrinder more nearly, and those ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... restless man in all Europe than the kaiser. It is related of him at the Court of Berlin that when on one occasion he inquired of his brother, Prince Henry, if he could suggest to him anything new wherewith to startle both his own subjects and the world in general, the sailor prince, with a merry laugh, proposed that his majesty should remain perfectly quiet, without saying or doing anything, for an entire week! That, he assured his imperial brother, would amaze and dumbfound the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... idleness or curiosity, while they strive to find evil in everything, they do not comprehend that others still believe in the good. Therefore they have to be so nonchalant as to stop their ears, lest the hum of the busy world should suddenly startle them from sleep. The father allows his son to go where so many others go, where Cato himself went; he says that youth is but fleeting. But when he returns, the youth looks upon his sister; and see what has taken place in him ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... her a source of puzzling surprises. While she was from the South, she was not Southern in speech, sentiments, ideas, or ideals. Her voice was not Southern and, while she elided final consonants, her intonation was not of the South. Indeed she would startle him every now and then by dropping some archaic word or old form of expression that made him think of Chaucer. Her feeling toward the negro was precisely what his was, and once when he halted in some stricture on the Confederacy and ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... Jr., was actually returning to old Bannister; and he was bringing "The Prodigious Prodigy," whatever that was, with him. Knowing the cheery Senior's intense love of doing the dramatic and his great ambition to startle his Alma Mater with some sensational stunt, they could hardly wait for old Dan Flannagan's jitney-bus to roll up ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... and then, not too often. He did not mean to startle any one with his purpose, but to let it grow gradually. Still, at the last assembly of the season, his attentions were somewhat pronounced. It was partly her doings, she was sheltering herself from other rather ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... story of literature. The one book for which he is famous is called Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth (1651). It is partly political, partly a philosophical book, combining two central ideas which challenge and startle the attention, namely, that self-interest is the only guiding power of humanity, and that blind submission to rulers is the only true basis of government.[179] In a word, Hobbes reduced human nature to its purely animal aspects, and then asserted confidently that there was nothing more to study. ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... as Don clung to him and held him back, gazing wildly all the time at the disturbed water, as the great fish swiftly approached, till, just as it was within a few yards, the shallowness of the water seemed to startle it, making it give quite a bound showing half its length, and then diving down with a kind of wallow, after which the occupants of the boat saw the wooden pole go trailing along the surface, till once more it was snatched, as ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... enough to startle Jolly Robin. But the moon-faced man paid not the slightest attention to the accident. There was something ghostly in the way he stood there, all in white, never moving, never once ...
— The Tale of Jolly Robin • Arthur Scott Bailey
... it was the only remnant in the world which had any interest for him; and he could on the instant have clasped her to his breast, and covered her pale face with his tears. But how was he to act? A sudden announcement might startle and distress her. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... only the dog's nose we need, not his legs. An ideal canine for an archer would be one having the olfactory organs of a hound and the reasoning capacity of a college professor. With him one could trail animals, yet not flush them; perceive the imminence of game, yet not startle it; run coyotes, wolves, cougars, and bear, yet never confuse their scent nor abandon the quest of one for that of another. But as it is, no dog seems capable of doing all things, so we need specialists. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... did a thunder-clap Cause emotion, startle Thyrsis locked with Chloe in his lap, As my word and gesture (down I flung my cards to join the pack) Fired the man of arms, whose visage, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... aunts in plush chairs, surveying M. Knaak through their lorgnettes, as he bowed forward, grasped the hem of his frock-coat with two fingers of each hand, and with springy legs demonstrated the various steps of the mazurka. But when he had a mind to completely startle his audience, he would suddenly and without cogent reason leap high in the air, cut pigeon-wings with bewildering rapidity, trilling with his feet, so to say, whereupon he would return to this ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... Louise pears," I thought; and I was about to run and shout at them, for I knew that would startle them away; but on second thoughts I felt as if I should like to catch some of them, and turning, I ran softly back up the path, ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... that haste was necessary, but did not dare show it. Above everything we must not be precipitate; not startle the Robot. At worst, if Tugh should return, I could seize this weapon at my feet ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... are taken to pieces in all their parts, and all these parts are likened to some other things. "His abundance," says Mr. Craik, "is often oppressive; it is like wading among unmown grass." And he drowns us in words. His abundant and incongruous adjectives may sometimes, perhaps, startle us unfairly, because their associations and suggestions have quite altered; but very often they are the idle outpouring of an unrestrained affluence of language. The impression remains that he wants a due perception ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... felt how removed is the foregoing from any thing like an effort, on the preacher's part, to startle his audience with the far-fetched and unexpected. It must, however, be admitted that Bossuet was not always—as, of our Webster, it has well been said that he always was—superior to the temptation to exaggerate ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... opposite side of the lane, so that their hurried approach did not startle the strangers; but Phoebe, looking up at the sound of the footsteps, saw a face she knew looking wistfully, eagerly at her, with evident recognition. Phoebe had a faculty quite royal of remembering faces, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... to hear your opinions regarding the antiquity of our race: geologists are daily becoming bolder and more unhesitating in their assertions on the subject; and we are fast drifting toward conclusions that seem to startle the religious world, and threaten to upset our confidence in that Book which we have been accustomed to regard ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the words his whole expression changed, and so suddenly as to startle me. He sprang up from the ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... sparkling with bright and vivid meaning, as crisp and fresh as just-minted bank-notes. They should have no taint of flatness or insipidity. They should show not the faintest trace of wear. With them, one might hope, now and then, to startle the imagination, to set it running in channels which are strange and delightful to it. For there is something new under the sun: aerial adventure; and the most lively and unjaded fancy may, at first, need direction toward the realization of this fact. Soon it ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... strange, either, every thing considered, after all we have gone through. Why, Jack, you will hardly believe me when I tell you that I scarcely sleep without dreaming of Hunston. And what is there wonderful in that, after all that has taken place? It was enough to shake the strongest nerves, to startle the ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... borne on wanton wing, Soft wispering 'wakes the blushing May: Sweet are the hours, yet not so sweet As when my blue-eyed maid I meet, And hear her soul-entrancing tale, Sequester'd in the shadowy vale. The mellow horn's long-echoing notes Startle the morn commingling strong; At eve, the harp's wild music floats, And ravish'd silence drinks the song; Yet sweeter is the song of love, When Emma's voice enchants the grove, While listening sylphs repeat the tale, ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... to startle strangers to hear "The Hardy Norseman," "The Cuckoo," and such-like songs from the lips of little Chinese boys. Every Saturday evening they came to the house to practise the hymns and chants for Sunday; I had an harmonium in ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... Fearing to startle the little mother, whose frightened eyes were fixed upon us, we announced our mutual discovery by a single movement of the hand, and walked quietly past without pausing. Not until we reached the open fields at the end did my comrade whisper, "a cuckoo," and our hearts, if not our lips, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... Christianity on the other, necessitate—if men of spiritual intuitions who are not poets and artists are to earn their living. There was nothing you could say to Chrysostom Trotter, provided you said it reverently, that would startle him. He knew all that long ago and far more. For, though obliged to trade in this backwater of belief, he was in many respects a very modern mind. You were hardly likely to know your Herbert Spencer as intimately as he, and all the most exquisite literature of doubt was upon his shelves. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... there; the reflexion, in sacred image or ideal, of its flocks, and orchards, and wild honey; the dangers of its hunters; its weariness in noonday heat; its children, agile as the goats they tend, who run, in their picturesque rags, across the solitary wanderer's path, to startle him, in the unfamiliar upper places; its one adornment and solace being the dance to the homely shepherd's pipe, cut by Pan first from the sedges ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... was never quite sure what kept him from doing it. He thought at the time it was herself, a sort of wall of purity and loveliness that surrounded her and made her sacred, so that he felt he must go slowly, must not startle her nor make her afraid of him. It never occurred to him that the wall might be surrounding himself. He had entirely forgotten that first visit to Gila in the Mephistophelian garments, with the red light filling all the unholy atmosphere. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... poem, of any confessedly great poet from Homer to Milton, or from Aeschylus to Shakespeare; and to strike out (in thought I mean) every instance of this kind. If the number of these fancied erasures did not startle him, or if he continued to deem the work improved by their total omission, he must advance reasons of no ordinary strength and evidence, reasons grounded in the essence of human nature. Otherwise, I should not hesitate to consider him as a man not so much proof against ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... I do not pray for anybody or any party to commit outrages, still I do pray, and that earnestly and constantly, for some terrific shock to startle the women of this nation into a self-respect which will compel them to see the abject degradation of their present position; which will force them to break their yoke of bondage, and give them faith in themselves; which ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the luck to startle him out of his reserve. Miss Kit came down to the yard that morning, and for the first time for more than a ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... upon Phoebe, as though it had been something visible to startle her. It shook off her old English self for a moment, and she leaped to her ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... considering the following statistics. The progressive increase of the expenditures for the leading armies and navies of the world during the last quarter of a century is a fact of such gravity as to startle every thoughtful student of economic problems. It may be briefly indicated by dividing the time from 1881 to 1905 into five-year periods, and noting the disbursements of several great nations for army and navy purposes during the first and last of those periods. From the first to the last ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... ours—tossing it up, catching it again—easily as a child plays with its party-coloured ball. His mere book-knowledge was not much to boast of, though early in life he must have received a fair education. He had a smattering of the ancient classics, sufficient, perhaps, to startle the unlearned. If he had not read them, he had read about them; and at various odds and ends of his life he had picked up acquaintance with the popular standard modern writers. But literature with him was the smallest stripe in the party-coloured ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had retired. I came for my scissors, and finding you here alone, thought I would startle you, but you have not told me yet ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... already observed) is far more common on the bricks than black. Thus the general tone of their coloring is quiet, not to say sombre. There is no striving after brilliant effects. The Assyrian artist seeks to please by the elegance of his forms and the harmony of his hues, not to startle by a display of bright and strongly-contrasted colors. The tints used in a single composition vary from three to five, which latter number they seem never to exceed. The following are the combinations of five hues which occur: brown, green, blue, dark yellow, and pale yellow; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... seas to unknown soils, With various wonders feasts his sight: What stranger wonders does he write! We read, and in description view Creatures which Adam never knew: For, when we risk no contradiction, It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction. Those things that startle me or you, I grant are strange; yet may be true. 10 Who doubts that elephants are found For science and for sense renowned? Borri records their strength of parts, Extent of thought, and skill in arts; How they ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... man about it; but he seemed to think that he was not responsible for the cow's voice. I then told him to take her away; and he did, at intervals, shifting her to different parts of the grounds in my absence, so that the desolate voice would startle us from unexpected quarters. If I were to unhitch the cow, and turn her loose, I knew where she would go. If I were to lead her away, the question was, Where? for I did not fancy leading a cow about till I could find somebody who was ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... on that day than to-day; and as though there were a larger Presence of God in the upper room than in the room in which you sit, is a distinct mistake and folly. We may not have the sound as of a rushing mighty wind, nor the crowns of fire; there is no miracle to startle and arrest: but the Holy Spirit is with the Church in all the old gracious and copious plenitude; the river is sweeping past in undiminished fulness; though there may not be the flash of the electric spark, the atmosphere is as heavily charged as ever with ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... surprising Shall on Friday next be told, Things to startle and delight thee, When I've crossed thy ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... single tone of her voice. Her natural conception was so fine, that the merest commonplace often received a living spirit from her lips. I have seen a single glance from her powerful eye hush an audience—I have seen her acting sometimes even startle and bewilder the actors beside her. There is perhaps a genius for every art, and hers was the genius of the stage—a faculty of instant communication between the speaker and the hearer, some unaccountable sympathy, the power to create which belongs to but one in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... adventurers of this period, Drake was the one whose name conveyed the greatest terror to the Spanish colonists. This was evident in all parts of the Continent. Thus the impetuosity of his attacks and incursions in the neighbourhood of the Guianas and Venezuela was sufficient utterly to startle ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... People often wonder, 'How do you catch So-and-so? He is so shy! I have invited and invited, and he never comes.' We never invite, and he comes. We take no note of his coming or his going; we do not startle his entrance with acclamation, nor clog his departure with expostulation; it is fully understood that with us he shall do just as he chooses; and so he chooses to ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... not startle me either. I had an idea of that all along. It is why I played my cards so quietly, why I did not accomplish in England everything I had a chance to accomplish. I did not ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... in real life quite as well as in make-believe, planned to conceal her radiance until her first appearance on the stage, when she would startle them all, and especially Lysander, with her dazzling loveliness. She stood in a shadow of the wings with her coat wrapped about her. Except for Jerry, waiting to do her humble part, she was alone. She ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... securely fixed there for his strength to be of any avail; our roots were the growth of years, and, besides, we clasped him so tightly—for unity is indeed strength—that at last the cowardly fellow roared aloud with mingled pain and fright; perhaps he thought to startle us, and make us lose our hold. But we knew better than that—we only gripped him the faster; but the noise aroused Dash, who came bounding to the spot (he was always unchained at night), and, flying at Mr. Reynard's throat, he soon pinned ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... city. That night the bleaching skeleton of the venerable patriot Hermano was taken down from the gibbet where it had hung so long, by hands that left the revolutionary banner waving proudly in its place. This was an event to startle the viceroy. It was followed by other events. In a few days more and the sounds of insurrection were heard throughout the province—the city still moving secretly—sending forth supplies and intelligence by stealth, but unable to raise the standard of rebellion, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... on Jacques called out anxious protests from men like rollicking Soldier Joe, who said to her one night, "Blanche, there's a devil in Jacques. Some day you'll startle him, and then he'll shoot you as cool as he empties the pockets of Freddy Tarlton ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... what he said, and grunted so savagely as to startle the king, who involuntarily shrank away ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... the top of my voice: I wished to startle and put them to flight. My followers shouted in chorus; but our voices reached not the ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... of the path, and mountains all around. In that landscape he has no companion; yet he cannot but be haunted, as he goes, by towers upon which he surely looked, and by the sharp memory of bugle-notes that still seem to startle his hearing. ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay, To haunt, to startle, and way-lay. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of their conversation or not. But after one or two ineffectual efforts, he cast the paper from him, in despair, and rising, walked his room again. To an orderly who entered on business relating to his regular duty, he spoke so brief and abruptly as to startle the man, who understood him only in his better and calmer moods. Again was his cup of bliss, ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... collecting the pennies for the Holiday Fund Savings Bank from the children who came weekly to her house. She noticed on three consecutive Mondays that one little lad deliberately helped himself to a new envelope from her table. Not wishing to frighten or startle him, she allowed this to continue for some weeks, and then one day, having dismissed the other children, she asked him quite quietly why he was taking the envelopes. At first he was very sulky, and said: ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... entered the chamber of the Sangraal, Rowena IV was arranging the red samite cover around the Grail. She jumped when she saw him. "Marry! fair sir, ye did startle me. Methinketh ye be ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... this late day, no such excitement can be created by any human invention, but the sight of a creature speeding over the country, impelled by steam, and bearing such a grotesque resemblance to a gigantic man, could not but startle all who should see ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... by advocates of this doctrine, quite truly, that all political events are brought about by minorities, since the majority are indifferent to politics. But there is a difference between a minority in which the indifferent acquiesce, and a minority so hated as to startle the indifferent into belated action. To make the Bolshevik doctrine reasonable, it is necessary to suppose that they believe the majority can be induced to acquiesce, at least temporarily, in the revolution made by the class-conscious minority. ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... irrevocably bound. Frank holds you fast. One of these days, when you are most peaceful and content in your bondage, scarcely recognized, there may come a stately tread, a fiery eye, a glowing heart, to startle you from your quiet ease; and when you bound, trembling and breathless in their mighty sway, you may feel the chain—before so light—wearing its way deep into your throbbing heart. May you never wake ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... ever did more than their position required, and Lady Rathforlane is a truly careful mother. Of course some things might startle you stay-at-home people; but ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heat of the weather, the performances of Dick and Jack upon strong venison essence and roast gazelle were enough to startle any housekeeper of small income and an anxiety about the state of the butcher's bill. But of course the outdoor life and constant exertion produced a tremendous appetite; and as Mr Rogers noted the change in Dick, whose palate had to be tempted only a short time ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... struck twelve—it was a good thing for Fred that the sound was loud enough to startle him—he put back the volume of travels with a sigh of regret, found, with some trouble, the book Mrs. Marshall wanted, and ran all the way home to make up for ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... to give an idea of the imperious tone and stern look of the princess, as she pronounced these words which were calculated to startle a girl, until now accustomed to live in a great measure as she pleased: yet, contrary perhaps to the expectation of Madame de Saint Dizier, instead of answering impetuously, Adrienne looked her full in the face, and said, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... hoofs was heard, and looking toward the sound, I perceived the Chancellor cantering down the road. When abreast of the carriage he dismounted, and walking up to it, saluted the Emperor in a quick, brusque way that seemed to startle him. After a word or two, the party moved perhaps a hundred yards further on, where they stopped opposite the weaver's cottage so famous from that day. This little house is on the east side of the Donchery road, near its junction with that to Frenois, and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... protest. If we could be patient under the load of a mere worldly life; if we could bear that burden as the beasts bear it; then, like beasts, we might bend all our thoughts to the earth; and no call from the great Heavens above us would startle us from ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... dropping down dead in his chamber. And, in general, he makes abundant use of that apprehension of death, which is far stronger in the uneducated than in the more refined, as a source from which he may gather thunderbolt after thunderbolt with which to startle the indifferent and hardened heart. What matter though the sentiment to which he appeals be a perverted sentiment? what matter how severely wrenched out of its normal channel? if through this tortuous channel something of the divine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... succeeds in evading the law even when he contrives to kill two at one time. He does not like to do it, but there is money in it, you know; and he pockets his unholy blood money without a squirm. Don't prosecute him; if you do, he will make revelations that will startle ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... formidable means something that excites fear, but it is neither sudden nor violent in its action. A dreadful thing would excite fear or dread, and might act violently, but not suddenly. A shocking thing would startle us because it was both violent and sudden. Does formidable appear to be the right word by which to characterize ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... as the road is with the goal it reaches in the end. She exists independently of us, but yet she exists to suggest to us what we may become, to awaken in us dim longings and desires, to surprise us into confession of our inadequacy, to startle us with perceptions of an infinitude we do not possess as yet but may possess; to make us feel our ignorance, weakness, want of finish; and by partly exhibiting the variety, knowledge, love, power and finish of God, to urge us forward in humble ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... injection of hot coffee. Having emitted this pronouncement, the great specialist from Manchester Square left. It was one o'clock in the morning. By one of those strange and futile coincidences which sometimes startle us by their subtle significance, the specialist met Theodore Racksole and his captive as they were entering the hotel. Neither had the least suspicion of the ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... north, forced by their jocular Colonel to a night march, swept through the arches and wheeled upon the grassy esplanade. Was it a trick of the soldier who in youth had danced in the ken in Madrid that he should thus startle the hosts of his regiment, and that passing through the town, he should for a little make his men move like ghosts, saying no word to any one of the aghast natives, but moving mechanically in the darkness to the rattle ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... well why—not to startle these bandits whom you have for so long a time promised ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... he said. "You think the Lord has made you an actress, don't you? All you need is a chance at a leading part, in order to startle ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... you a shock. You've seen yourself for so long in the dull minds of the people about you, that if I were to tell you how you seem to me, it would startle you. But you must see that you astonish me. You must feel when ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... sorrow's companion, reflection, made her more and more capable of comprehending a very subtle and intricate character. There is no secret for discovering the human heart like affliction, especially the affliction which springs from passion. Does a writer startle you with his insight into your nature, be sure that he has mourned; such lore is the alchemy of tears. Hence the insensible and almost universal confusion of idea which confounds melancholy with depth, and finds but hollow inanity in the symbol of a laugh. ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... go to prison? He thought he could bear it. A man must stand by his opinions—even through sacrifice. It would startle the public into attention. Such outrages on the freedom, on the ancient rights of Englishmen, must not pass without protest. Yes—he felt it in him to be a martyr! They would hardly refuse him a ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Peter Champneys," said the boy with the golden eyes, shyly. "I hope I didn't startle you? It's my butterfly's fault. You see, I never know where I've got to follow him, or what I'm going to find when I ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... regard my husband. Ten to one I shall never have the chance again; but n'importe. Moreover, I was aware that Henry knew so little of me he could hardly be conscious to whom he was writing. Why, it would startle him to see me in my natural home character; he would think I was a wild, romantic enthusiast indeed. I could not sit all day long making a grave face before my husband. I would laugh, and satirise, and say whatever came ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... will my micracoustic ear trumpet extend the sense of the unbearable beyond all possible bounds. Thus, sir, the circulation of the blood and the fluids of the body will not give me pause; you shall hear them flow with the impetuosity of cataracts; you shall perceive them so distinctly as to startle you; the slightest irregularity of the pulse, the least obstacle, is striking, and produces the same effect as a rock against which the waves of a torrent ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... the world. If it had then glutted its maw with its intended prey (the sharpness of Mr. Godwin's pen cut the legal cords with which it was attempted to bind them), it might have done so sooner, and with more lasting effect. The world do not know (and we are not sure but the intelligence may startle Mr. Godwin himself), that he is the author of a volume of Sermons, and of ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... holly hock plate and charged mother with the crime. Then the Tono Sama killed her. He wanted her for his concubine; and so came to hate her and easily took the tale. It was not her fault. She said this—then went away."—"Whither?" Sampei's tone was so abrupt and harsh to startle the child into quiescence. He pointed to the house altar on its stand—"Mother just went away; into the Butsudan.... And she hasn't come back—to Bo[u]chan." He ended in a wail and childish weeping. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... was locked, so he had the relief of thinking that she'd been able to get help in just an ordinary fashion. Of course, if he or I had known what a risk she was running we'd have been half wild with anxiety about her. So you see it really was hard for you not to scream or do anything to startle ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... was a strange child. He had a Norseman's taste for the fabulous and fantastic, and although he never heard a tale of Necken or the Hulder, he would often startle his mother by the most fanciful combinations of imagined events, and by bolder personifications than ever sprung from the legendary soil of the Norseland. She always took care to check him whenever he indulged in these imaginary flights, and he at last came to look upon ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... shadow of the menhir, enlarged to a monstrous size, across her path. A few yards further on lay the senseless form of the Breton horseman, and it was clear to Annette that Jean of Kerdual had purposely stayed the rider by throwing the shadow across the road to startle his horse. ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... which perhaps is a good thing, as we have had no fever, and though our wounds are somewhat sore, we have almost ceased to think of them. There, I can see by the light that the fire is burning up inside. Now we will go in. Keep a little way behind me; it would startle him were you ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... the room, closing the door behind her as she went. She did not want to be obliged to go over the details of the story which she had heard; she had made her statement, one which she knew must startle and horrify her son, with his high ideals of womanly purity, and she left him to review the situation in silence. It was several hours before the ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Ah! do you not see? It is a device of the Senate to startle our friends from Bosphorus. The faggots and straw blaze up fiercely round the wall; then, when all is confusion, the substance in the sealed vessels escapes and at once puts out the fire, and the laugh is with us. Our friends from ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... reformation of LUTHER in the sixteenth century, and with no other epoch. The great truths then promulgated, of which "justification by faith" was the cardinal one, electrified the whole world, as the loud roaring of a lion would startle the passer-by. These were immediately responded to by the multitudinous errors of the Anabaptists and others, who thought to set up the kingdom of GOD in this world, and before the resurrection, by putting to death the ungodly and sparing ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... one unpleasant thing about the Matalettes, both father and daughter, and that was, the ease with which one could startle them. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... thoughts; and we may be in a mood to enjoy to the full every beauty we see. England will then seem to us a veritable garden, the greenness of everything, the trimness of the hedges, the sheets of purple hyacinths, and some still remaining primroses, will startle us with joy, though we have long been aware of their beauty. This time we both know and enjoy the Natural Beauty. We see from this instance the distinction between knowing Natural Beauty and enjoying it. I am not claiming more than that knowing Natural Beauty—being ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... at her, in his absent-minded, startled way. He had never understood her since she was first put into his hands, aged six months, a fluffy bundle of motherless babyhood. She never ceased to startle him. She was an enigma beyond any puzzle in mathematics he had ever brought ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... through the long grass and trample the tangled undergrowth, putting aside the sprawling branches, or dodging under the pliant arms of the creepers, you may flush a black or grey partridge, raise a covey of quail, or startle a quiet family party of peafowl, but there are no sweet singers flitting about to make the vaulted arcades of the forest ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... fitful transitions from mood to mood, his wild bursts of laughter, his passion of tears, Hamlet or Hamlet's gravedigger, Lear or Lear's fool, would have startled the readers of the "Spectator" as they would startle the group in ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... Twice more did Cleveland startle the country with his extraordinary decision of character. In the summer of 1894, a great railroad strike, centering at Chicago, occasioned an outbreak of violence, which the governor of Illinois did nothing to quell. The President, therefore, declaring ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... often, on the road he was amused at the feeling he had of knowing her. So might it be had he come across an old acquaintance who did not recognize him. It was a feeling wrought with excitement and danger; he might some day startle her by taking ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... of her collected treasures and curiosities, which derived added value from the splendid setting which Philibert de Lorme seemed to have planned on purpose for this museum, occupied her for several months, giving her leisure to meditate one of those decisive steps that startle the public, ignorant of the motives which, however, it sometimes discovers by dint of ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... of the Night Startle sun's radiance ... And ye, the Rhine's Water-born Nymphs, are lashed and swept ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... men," answered Ah Ben; "and as I have already said, may be developed slowly, through the exercise of the will, or suddenly, as in some great physical shock, and of a necessity comes to all in the event called death. Were I to tell you how I acquired this knowledge, Mr. Henley, it would startle you, far more than any exhibition of the power itself. No, I can not tell you; at least, not at present; perhaps some day you may be better prepared to ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... limited beings God can express His idea only in fragments. We can bring together apparent contradictions in those fragments whereby a greater truth is suggested. If we do this in a sudden or incongruous manner we startle the unprepared and arouse the cry of paradox. But if we will not do it we shall miss ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... exclaimed Gertrude admiringly. "You're just storing up ideas and information to startle ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith |
