"Surprising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would have been to a young man severely compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. . . . I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back-row of the old gallery of the old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, where we used ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... such a strange sense of the folly of idolatry and the value of religion? The Council of Nice, and the Emperor Constantine, and his counselors, making a Bible is a proof of a wonderful revolution in the world's religion; a phenomenon far more surprising than if the Secretaries of State, and the Senate, and President Grant should leave the Capital to post off to London, to attend the meetings of a Methodist Conference, assembled to make a hymn book. Now ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... unexpected to me: I thought it was part of the plan to attack him as quickly as possible. We had surprised them, and were strong enough to attack them." "After Friday I was apprehensive we should not have the success we had expected." "I think it was a mistake to fight a defensive battle after surprising the enemy." "I think we should have attacked the enemy immediately." "I must give my opinion, since you ask me; for I have an opinion, as a military man, from the general facts I know, and that I suppose I am obliged to express. My opinion is that we should not have been withdrawn, called ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... too, Like a bunch of finest flowers Ever seen, and all are ours! And oh, look! What do you think! Here our names are in white ink, All spelled nicely so we know Just where every egg should go! Is it not surprising, quite, ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... at least but he adorned it; when he narrated, the scene was before you; when he spoke (as he did mostly) of his own antique business, the thing took on a colour of romance and curiosity that was surprising. The clans of sheep with their particular territories on the hill, and how, in the yearly killings and purchases, each must be proportionately thinned and strengthened; the midnight busyness of animals, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... daily becoming fewer and fewer in number. That the gold ornaments which are so frequently found in various parts of Ireland should be melted down for the sake of the very pure gold of which they are composed, is scarcely surprising; but that carved stones and even immense druidical remains should be destroyed is, indeed, greatly to be lamented. At one of the late meetings of the Royal Irish Academy a communication was made of the intention of the proprietor of the estate at New Grange to destroy that most gigantic relic of ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the artist felt with his brush for the ideal shape of the stroke equally along its entire length, from head to tail. But the art of the strokes is not all; the art of their combination is that which produces the enchantment, often so as to astonish the Japanese themselves. It is not surprising, indeed, considering the strangely personal, animate, esoteric aspect of Japanese lettering, that there should be wonderful legends of calligraphy relating how words written by holy experts became incarnate, and descended from their tablets ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... or whole when it is wanted. Yet Chalmers is a frugal, sober, hard-working man, and he, his eldest son, and a "hired man" "Rise early," "going forth to their work and labor till the evening"; and if they do not "late take rest," they truly "eat the bread of carefulness." It is hardly surprising that nine years of persevering shiftlessness should have resulted in nothing but the ability to procure the bare necessaries ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... richest attire, were already seated at the splendidly laid tables, every eye levelled a critical glance on her garb and figure. Many an elegant lady, in startling silks and astonishing ear-jewels, turned her nose sublimely skyward and exclaimed "No great fetch,—these folks!" Gentlemen, in surprising pants and prodigious vest buttons, said, with a princely contempt, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... this third chimney, a surprising and interesting sight attracted his attention. This was a scuttle door just like the one at home, standing open, with a ladder leading ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... Surprising as it may appear, nothing happened on that railroad journey. No cow of Cathay blundered in front of the locomotive; no freight train came around a curve going in the opposite direction upon the same track; everything went ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... to me," I said, "that it would be surprising if a fact so profoundly affecting woman's relations with man as her achievement of economic independence, had not modified the previous conventional standards of sexual ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... which most inevitably will attend the want of it. By that exercise, I mean the air, the manners, the graces, and the style of people of fashion. A friend of yours, in a letter I received from him by the last post, after some other commendations of you, says, "It is surprising that, thinking with so much solidity as he does, and having so true and refined a taste, he should express himself with so little elegance and delicacy. He even totally neglects the choice of words ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... fruit trees, is the general description of the country sitios about Pernambuco; the difference arising from the taste of the inhabitant, or the situation of the ground, being allowed for. The low rent of these pleasant little gardens is surprising; but it arises in great measure from the indolence and consequent poverty of the holders of original grants of land here: as long as their negroes and estates maintained them, they paid no attention to the particular parts that, being near the town, might have been at all times ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... climate, position with regard to the sea board, and variations in the method of cultivation could only be expected to result in the species being exceedingly numerous. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that no two botanists agree as to the number of species comprising the Gossypium family. A list, however, of the commoner varieties found in various cotton-growing areas of the globe will be given, but before doing so, it is deemed advisable to give a ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... the Roman Empire as the civiliser of Europe, it is not a little curious and somewhat surprising to find that in the twelfth century, when German and French artists were doing such good and even admirable work, that of Italy was almost barbaric. A MS. in the Vatican (4922) is shown as a proof of this. It is not an obscure sort of book ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... rescue it; and here he is at last, not a bit afraid that to this age it may appear "Victorian." Indeed if its pictures of High Life are accurate (as we cannot doubt, the authoress seems always so sure of her facts) they had a way of going on in those times which is really surprising. Even the grand historical figures were free and easy, such as King Edward, of whom we have perhaps the most human picture ever penned, as he appears at a levee "rather sumshiously," in a "small [Pg vii] ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... had by constant warfare become the greatest warriors of New France, nor is this fact surprising when we consider that they had waged successful warfare, extending over a long period, against the vast coalition of Hurons, Algonquins, Montagnais and Micmacs scattered from Lake Huron ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... big of bone and sparse of flesh in the mountain desert. It was the more surprising to Pierre to see this young fellow with the marvelously delicate-cut features. By some freak of nature here was a place where the breed ran to ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... diction of Catullus' lyrics, full of old-fashioned turns, the sound social ideals of Vergil's Georgics, the buoyant idealism of the Aeneid and of Livy's annals speak the true language of these people. It is not surprising then that in Vergil's youth it is a group of fellow-provincials—returning sons of Rome's former emigrants—that take the lead in the new literary movements. They are vigorous, clever young men, excellently educated, free from the city's binding traditionalism, well provided ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... earning—of its garden of half an acre, where I used to feel as Hawthorne felt in the garden of the Concord Manse—amazement that Nature should take the trouble to produce things as big as vegetable marrows, or as surprising as scarlet runners that topped one's head, just that we might own and eat them. Then the life of the University town, with all those marked antagonisms I have described, those intellectual and religious movements, ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... use of money in elections, proposing "the imposition of severe penalties upon the advance of money by individuals for any purposes connected with elections except the single one of printing." It is not surprising, perhaps, that a man of Van Buren's personal ambition found himself often compelled, for the sake of his own career, to make his public devotion to principle radically different from his practice; ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... into five lines. Five lines, rather straggling, rather shapeless lines that told him with a surprising brevity that his wife had decided on an informal separation, ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... to doubt that beings of a higher order than man exist, nor any reason to refuse to bestow on them the predicate "divine"; and with this we find ourselves in principle on the standpoint of polytheistic popular belief. There is nothing surprising, then, in the tradition that Thales identified God with the mind of the universe and believed the universe to be animated, and filled with "demons." The first statement is in this form probably influenced by later ideas and ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... When a surprising quantity of wholesome nourishment had been consumed, someone said, 'Let's sing!' and a tuneful hour followed. Nat fiddled, Demi piped, Dan strummed the old banjo, and Emil warbled a doleful ballad about the ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... with an interest in which there began to appear symptoms of a pleasurable appreciation. "My goo'ness! Gun like'iss blow a team o' steers thew a brick house! LOOK at 'at gun!" With his right hand he twirled it in a manner most dexterous and surprising; then suddenly he became severe. "You white boy, listen me!" he said. "Ef I went an did what I OUGHT to did, I'd march straight out 'iss stable, git a policeman, an' tell him 'rest you an' take you off to jail. 'At's ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... in the morning he went heavy laden, and the trail he took led to Myanos. There was nothing surprising in it when he appeared at Silas Peck's counter and offered for sale a pair of snowshoes, a bundle of traps, some dishes of birch bark and basswood, and a tom-tom, receiving in exchange some tea, tobacco, gunpowder, and ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... decidedly contentious individual. His selection as treasurer seems to have been very unfortunate, as Bradford indicates that his accounts were in unsatisfactory shape, and that he had no means of his own, while his rather surprising selection for the office of "governor" of the larger ship, after the unpleasant experience with him as treasurer-agent, is difficult to account for, except that he was evidently an active opponent of Cushman, and the latter was just then in disfavor with the colonists. He was ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... repress the natural differences between women. Reverse the occupations and surroundings of the sexes, and it might be found that men were "much of a muchness," and women various and individualized, to a surprising extent. ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... VI. that its significance began to be apparent; and it was only a century later, in the time of Cromwell and Milton, that its full fruition was reached. It was with the Lollards, however, that the spiritual awakening began and was continued until its effects, when they came, were marked by surprising maturity and suddenness. Because the Lollards were not a clearly defined sect, it was hard to trace the manifold ramifications of their work. During the terrible Wars of the Roses, contemporary chroniclers ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... all her life at the South, and had invited her to her house immediately upon her return to——. Emma Long was a singularly fascinating woman. Plain and sharp and self-asserting at twenty-two, she had become at thirty-five magnetic and winning, full of tact, and almost beautiful. We see such surprising developments continually: it seems as if nature did her best to give every woman one period of triumph and conquest; perhaps only they know its full sweetness to whom it comes late. In early youth it is accepted unthinkingly, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... bent with a singular dignity and grace. Their attitude was that of lovers, and as I stood in deep shadow to observe I felt even guiltier than on that memorable night in the wood. I was about to retire, when the girl spoke, and the contrast between her words and her attitude was so surprising that I remained, because I had merely ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... had pressed so heavily upon her friend, and manfully mastered every difficulty that arose. She insisted that her hostess should rest for a set time every day, and the effect of this unusual relaxation upon Matilda was surprising. Her husband marvelled at it, and frankly told her she was like another woman. For, partly from the lessening of the physical strain and partly from the influence of congenial companionship, the carping ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... It will not seem surprising that the Egyptians, who were the most ancient observers of the celestial motions, should have arrived to this knowledge, when it is considered, that the lunar year, made use of by the Greeks and Romans, though it appears so ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... up and down hill, and along the seashore, and then we again mounted, it seemed, to the top of the cliffs, and went over several miles of ground. I thought we should never get to High-Peak Cliff. I cannot say that I was in any hurry to get there, which is not surprising, considering the pleasant prospect which I had before me. At length we ascended a considerable height, it seemed; and I concluded, from what I heard some of the smugglers remark, that we had reached the place of the intended murder. I shuddered ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... will win, or even run well. Cunning touches of the bridle, dexterous movements of body and limbs on the jockey's part, subtle checks applied so as to cramp the animal's stride—all these things tend to bring about surprising results. The horse that fails dismally in one race comes out soon afterwards and wins easily in more adverse circumstances. I grow tired of the unlucky catalogue of mean swindles, and I should be glad if I never heard of the Turf again; though, alas, I have little hope of that ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the wholly material note so characteristic of programme music, but trusts mainly in the creation of a more abstract impression. Debussy has been greatly influenced by Russian music, notably by Mussorgsky. So it is not surprising that he stands in close relation to the young Russian composers, the chief of whom is Scriabin. The experience of the hearer is frequently the same during the performance of the works of these two musicians. He is often snatched quite suddenly from a series of modern discords into the charm ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... meteorological learning at that time. That this ball of fire, rushing "at a greater velocity than the swiftest cannon-ball," was simply a mass of heated rock passing through our atmosphere, did not occur to him, or at least was not credited. Nor is this surprising when we reflect that at that time universal gravitation had been but recently discovered; heat had not as yet been recognized as simply a form of motion; and thunder and lightning were unexplained mysteries, not to be explained ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... to carry off the Duke of Ormond], Blood formed a design of carrying off the crown and regalia from the Tower; a design to which he was prompted, as well by the surprising boldness of the enterprise, as by the views of profit. He was near succeeding; he had bound and wounded Edwards, the keeper of the Jewel Office, and had gotten out of the Tower with his prey; but was overtaken and seized, with some of his associates. One of them was known to have ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... Superintendent of Public Schools of a Southern city that "there was no place in the modern world for the Negro, except under the ground." If gentlemen holding such opinions are to instruct the white youth of the South, would it be at all surprising if these, later on, should devote a portion of their leisure to the improvement of civilization by putting under the ground as many of this superfluous ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... Government Biological Survey has made an {105} exhaustive and exceedingly thorough investigation of the feeding habits of the wild birds that frequent the fields and forests. The reports of the economic ornithologists herein given are almost as surprising as the sad records given by the entomologists in the Year Book. We learn that birds, as a class, constitute a great natural check on the undue increase of harmful insects, and furthermore that the capacity for food of the average bird is decidedly ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... prevalence in the desert near Hormuz, and of the many graves of its victims; but I have met with no reasonable account of its poisonous action. I will quote Chardin, already quoted at greater length by Marsden, as the most complete parallel to the text: "The most surprising effect of the wind is not the mere fact of its causing death, but its operation on the bodies of those who are killed by it. It seems as if they became decomposed without losing shape, so that you would think them to be merely asleep, when they ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... general peace. Declarations relative to the disarmament of Russia, which it was now the principal object of the British Government to effect, were added. There was indeed so little of a substantial engagement in this Protocol that it would have been surprising had Russia disarmed without obtaining some further guarantee for the execution of reform. But weak as the Protocol was, it was rejected by the Porte. Once more the appeal was made to the Treaty of Paris, once more the Sultan protested ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... usual. A woman, standing there, pressed up nearer to her to view her more closely, and, seeing how beautiful she was, asked her if she was not an angel. In those days, however, people believed in what is miraculous and supernatural more easily than now, so that it was not very surprising that one should think, in such a case, that an angel from Heaven had come down to join ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... were resolving to do so, the guards stood to their arms, and we saw the king go out at the gate in his coach to pass into the city, so we were diverted from it for that time. I acknowledge the bounty of the king was very surprising, but I must say it was not so very strange to me when I afterwards saw the course of his management. Bounty in him was his natural talent, but he never distributed his favours but where he thought himself both loved and faithfully ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... theatre, where one of Mercadante's operas was being performed. How can I describe my feelings when in one of the singers—a slight, ordinary figure, with a thin, sharp countenance and deeply sunken eyes, in a poor dress, and with a poorer voice, but still with surprising grace of manner—I recognised Annunciata? With aching heart I left the theatre, and ascertained Annunciata's address. She lived in a miserable garret. She turned deathly pale when she recognised me, and implored ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... cloud, but one day to burst into a refulgence of heavenly sunlight. When, therefore, Flemild asked Ermine, as they were laying aside their out-door garb—"Don't you hate those horrid creatures?" it was not surprising that Ermine ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... with some additional troops that had joined him on the march. On August 15th, taking a large portion of Caswell's militia, he set out with the purpose of surprising Cornwallis. Colonel Armand was marching in front, when, at midnight, his dragoons recoiled from an unexpected meeting with the British vanguard. The collision was unexpected on both sides, and threw General Gates's column ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... looking as if they had drunk in the sunshine in some southern land, his uncut hair, his odd, shabby clothes clinging to his attenuated frame, his elaborate manners and habit of gesticulating as he spoke, he was often mistaken for a starving musician or foreign mountebank. It is not surprising that continental officials doubted his passport's statement that he was a Briton. In France he was imprisoned, and he complains he could not pass a frontier or visit a bank without suspicion. "A slender, boyish presence, with a graceful, somewhat fantastic bearing, and a singular power ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... seems to me "summarily" is not exactly the word they mean, but still it has an imposing effect. What a sad state their affairs must be in, if they can't bear comment. An officer arrived day before yesterday, bringing the surprising intelligence that McClellan had captured Richmond and fifty thousand prisoners; that is the time they talked. But when we received yesterday confirmation of his being finally defeated by our troops, and the capture of his railroad ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... to their equipments, it cannot but strike us that scarcely a single vessel had been built specially for the purpose—in fact, the majority of explorers have not even provided themselves with vessels which were originally intended for ice navigation. This is the more surprising when we remember the sums of money that have been lavished on the equipment of some of these expeditions. The fact is, they have generally been in such a hurry to set out that there has been no time to devote to a more careful equipment. In many ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... of the American people at that time, it is not surprising that the inauguration of the first President was copied largely from the inauguration of a British sovereign. Our fathers were not attempting to experiment with novelties of government, but to adapt tried methods to their ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... him of actual plundering, so copiously did he bring in supplies, and so little had I to pay for them; but I was not long in discovering that all kinds of produce were dirt cheap in Servia, and that as I could myself buy a lamb for a quarter, it was not surprising that Andreas, to the manner born, could easily obtain one for half the money. He was an excellent horsemaster, and the stern vigour with which he chastised the occasional neglect of the cousin whom he had brought into my service as groom, was borne in upon ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... often seizes upon the world in regard to some special falsehood is very surprising. Everybody on a sudden adopts an idea that some particular man is over head and ears in debt, so that he can hardly leave his house for fear of the bailiffs;—or that some ill-fated woman is cruelly ill-used ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... sensible person, of either sex, would aspire at improvement, were it merely to avoid the shame of being stationary like the brutes. Above all, it is most surprising that any lady should be satisfied to pass a day or even an hour without mental and moral progress. It is no discredit to the lower animals that—'their little all flows in at once,' that 'in ages they no more can know, or covet or enjoy,' for this is the ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... concerning the value of his land which interested him exceedingly. Considering how rare it was for him to see any one, and how fitted he was to appreciate intercourse with men who were manifestly in a higher rank of life than he, it would not have been surprising if he had forgotten Sissy for a time, even if they had had nothing to relate of personal interest to himself. As it was, even in the excitement of hearing what was of importance concerning his own property, he did not wholly forget her; but while his visitors remained ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... significations are to which it is authoritatively susceptible. A word seems to behave like an animal that goes skirting about discontentedly, in search of a more congenial habitation. It is sometimes successful, and meets with surprising welcome in some strange corner where it establishes itself, forgetful of its old home: sometimes, like the bad spirit in the gospel, it will return to the house whence it came forth. It is, of course, natural ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... I observe in you, and in its effect upon myself. You are in a surprising psychical condition. Certain portions of your atmosphere are vibrating at a far greater rate than others. This is the effect of a drug, but of no ordinary drug. Allow me to finish, please. If the higher rate ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... not therefore surprising, such being the general manners of the age, that Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw, whom dissipated habits had detached in some degree from the best society, should not attend particularly to those feelings in his elected bride to which many men of ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... meantime Christopher, along with offering optimistic and repeated assertions that the diamonds would surely be found, was gleaning a surprising amount of information as he flitted about the store. He learned not only of clocks but interesting bits concerning the value and cutting of gems, the repairing of jewelry; the patterns of ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... just what she intended to say. No one would have supposed from her face or from her conversation that she was so wicked as she must have been, judging by her public avowal of the parricide. It is surprising, therefore—and one must bow down before the judgment of God when He leaves mankind to himself—that a mind evidently of some grandeur, professing fearlessness in the most untoward and unexpected events, an immovable ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and clinging to them on either side for support, stood a slender young woman with pigtail hanging down one shoulder, so terrified that her face, although brown from exposure to sun and wind, had become white and chalky. It is not surprising that my face turned white; the only wonder is that the pigtail ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the Canadian champion had lost his laurels to New South Wales; on, on the strong arms took the craft till a wall of mountain loomed straight across our way, and the river had every appearance of coming to a sudden end, but round a sudden surprising elbow we went till a similar prospect confronted the navigator, and the river came round another of its many angles. On, on we steered till the warm rich scent from the flowering vineyards was left behind and the sound of the trains ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... is arrested and held for the protection of the plants, and to furnish them with moisture when the snow melts. The extent to which the stubbles and the erect young alfalfa plants will hold snow is simply surprising. On the exposed prairies, the snow usually drifts so completely from unprotected lands, that during almost any winter a large proportion of the area will be quite bare. The melting of the snow thus held is also of much value ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... with some of them, when I last said good bye to you," he reminded Brenton. "You had quenched the sulphurous flames, and explained the more surprising of the miracles. You even had a doubt about creation's having been achieved in one hundred and seventy hours. What else has ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... attaches to it. Thoughtful people cannot long avoid trying to formulate the relation of their interest in beauty, which absorbs so much energy and devotion, to other human interests, to fix its place in the scheme of life. It would be surprising, therefore, if there had been no Shelleys or Sidneys to define the relation between poetry and science, or Tolstoys to speculate on the nature of all art; and we should wonder if we did not everywhere hear intelligent people discussing the relation of utility and goodness to beauty, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... began his reign by openly disgracing the principal and most popular Yortes, some of which had been chiefly instrumental in raising him to the throne. By this mistaken step he occasioned a rebellion; which, although it were soon quelled by some very surprising turns of fortune, yet the fear, whether real or pretended, of new attempts, engaged him in such immense charges, that, instead of clearing any part of that prodigious debt left on his kingdom by the former war, which might have been done by any tolerable ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... of Jesus has of late exercised the minds of theologians. It is not surprising that some of them should reject the notion, for it is one without a shred of evidence in its favor. Setting aside the well-known fact that many other religions assume a similar origin for their founders, we may note the New Testament accounts ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... Froelich, known to his friends as "Bobby," found himself in a situation which in his wildest dreams he had never contemplated. This is not surprising, considering that his mental activities had been exclusively limited to procuring himself what he called "a good time." In that brief phrase could be summed up Bobby's entire philosophy, and when he suddenly had to face a state of things ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... means achieving the highest standards of operational competence and, through a superiority of knowledge, maintaining the ability to impose Shock and Awe through continuously surprising and psychologically and physically breaking the adversary's will to resist. This will require training and exercising of joint land, sea, air, space, and special forces to new standards of excellence and competence. ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... because he had other persons to speak to, or for some other reason.[665] Jeanne was presented by the Count of Vendome.[666] Robust, with a firm, short neck, her figure appeared full, although confined by her man's jerkin. She wore breeches like a man,[667] but still more surprising than her hose was her head-gear and the cut of her hair. Beneath a woollen hood, her dark hair hung cut round in soup-plate fashion like a page's.[668] Women of all ranks and all ages were careful to hide their hair so that not one lock of it should escape from beneath the coif, the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... any abstract dislike of democracy. The only union which they could bring against such a power would be a league, a confederacy, a continuous and subsisting treaty, between sovereign powers. Is it surprising that they should wish our union to be of the same character? Is it surprising that the contemplation of a government, whether despotic or democratic, which could act directly on a hundred millions of people, with the supreme right of taxing property to the amount of four hundred and twenty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... not know either Sanskrit or Persian, his versions are translations of translations, and it is not surprising if the sense of the original is sometimes very much altered, especially when we consider that the translations on which he depended were not always accurate.[83] In most cases, however, the sense is fairly well preserved, sometimes even with admirable ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... that followed Billy's swellings went down and the bruises passed away with surprising rapidity. The quick healing of the lacerations attested the healthiness of his blood. Only remained the black eyes, unduly conspicuous on a face as blond as his. The discoloration was stubborn, persisting half a month, in which time happened ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... not surprising that there is less carbonic acid in the air collected on clear summer days, in the midst of clover, etc., that is in an active reducing furnace; if anything is surprising, it is that the quantity of carbonic acid does ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... marvelled at my own audacity in presuming to question the words of this distinguished and excellent gentleman. Indeed, it was particularly surprising, because (if I knew myself) I precisely agreed with him. But there is a certain waywardness in my composition, which loves to puncture an inflated conventionality, even when I myself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... now do, concerning the Battle of Bull Run, it is somewhat surprising, at this day, to read the dispatches sent by McDowell to General Scott's headquarters at Washington, immediately after it. They are in ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... judgement. That his own diseased imagination should have so far deceived him, is strange; but it is stranger still that some of his friends should have given credit to his groundless opinion, when they had such undoubted proofs that it was totally fallacious; though it is by no means surprising that those who wish to depreciate him, should, since his death, have laid hold of this circumstance, and insisted upon it with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... rulers—expressing his SURPRISE that his subjects of this land should be so prone to faction and rebellion, and that so little advantage had been hitherto derived from the acquisitions of his predecessor, notwithstanding the fruitfulness and natural advantages of Ireland. Surprising, indeed, that a policy, such as we have been describing, should not have converted the whole country into a perfect Atlantis of happiness—should not have made it like the imaginary island of Sir Thomas More, where ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... your father you have grown!" said that legal gentleman, as soon as Arthur was ensconced in the client's chair —a chair that, had it been endowed with the gift of speech, could have told some surprising stories. "It seems only the other day that he was sitting there dictating the terms of his will, and yet that was before the Crimean war, more than twenty years ago. Well, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... is not a little surprising to come upon this relic of the worship of the young Bithynian at Athens in the theatre still consecrated by the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the world which the countries of their conquest came to hold (and the evidence of language points, indeed, to some such contributions), but their quota appears to be small compared with that of their predecessors; nor is this surprising, in view of the immense period during which the lands of their conquest had been previously occupied. Nothing is clearer than the marvellous persistence of traditional and immemorial modes of thought, even ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl
... workhouse, a prison, or a lunatic asylum, our aeesthetic environment would have been very much the same as it was at school; and afterwards when I went with the cricket and football teams to other grammar schools they all gave me the same impression of clean ugliness. It is not surprising that few boys emerge from their school life with that feeling for colour and form which is ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... divinity that was in him glowed to a white heat; the woman on the stage warmed her hands at it in two consciousnesses. She was stirred through all her artistic sense in a new and delicious way, and wakened in some dormant part of her to a knowledge beautiful and surprising. She felt in every nerve the exquisite quality of that which lay between them, and it thrilled her through all her own perception of what she did, and all the applause at how she did it. It was as if he, the priest, was borne out upon a deep, broad current that ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... about six months' hard travelling, in and out, to provide a year's stores for three cattle stations and two telegraph stations. It is not surprising that the freight per ton was what it was—twenty-two pounds per ton for the Elsey, and upwards of forty pounds for "inside." It is this freight that makes the grocery bill such a big item on stations out-bush, where several tons of stores are considered ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Rim. There are several rather remarkable and surprising points of difference between the Canyon on the rim, and the Canyon in its depths. Above, the whole Canyon region, save during the rainy season, is waterless, and while not barren, owing to the growths made possible by ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... It was surprising how well the girl from Bohemia fitted into the life at Harding. She had never experienced an examination or even a formal recitation until the beginning of her freshman term. She had seldom lived three ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... watch, made his way aft with the information that a number of the men were collecting together forward, armed with all the weapons they could lay hold of, and that from the threats they were uttering they evidently intended to make a sudden dash aft, in the expectation of surprising the officers before they had left their berths. It was very evident that they would have done so had it not been for the warning ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... time, and though they may forget it at once and for years, yet these things that they have seen and heard and not noticed have after all impressed themselves for ever on their minds, and when they are men and women come crowding back with surprising and often painful distinctness, and away frisk all the cherished little illusions ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... few inches of polished mahogany seemed to him—empty of all significance in themselves—to be reflecting in some mysterious manner certain scenes in his life which were now very rarely brought back to him. The event of to-day he knew to be the culmination of a success as rapid as it had been surprising. He was a millionaire. This deal to-day, in which he had held his own against the shrewdest and most astute men of the great city, had more than doubled his already large fortune. A few years ago he had landed in England friendless and unknown, to-day ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... character of the shelling the Battalion were fortunate in having only 17 casualties. In addition five cases of trench feet were reported, for though dry socks were sent up every twenty-four hours, this could do little to mitigate hardship. It was rather surprising that the number of cases were so small, for amongst the men was a large draft of Yeomanry having their first ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... bad orator to practise and exercise himself in the art of speaking, and on his replying, "I am always doing so—to myself," he added, "It is therefore not surprising you speak as you do—having ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... would appear that the troubles of the royal bride did not await her womanhood. Like Marie de Medicis, she clung to all which appeared to link her to her distant home, and caused her to forget for a time that it was hers no longer; and under this impulse it was by no means surprising that she attached herself with girlish affection to the individuals by whom she had been followed in her splendid exile; but even as her predecessor had been compelled to forego the society of her native attendants, so was Anne of Austria in her turn deprived ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... the world where, in proportion to the population, there are so few uninstructed and at the same time so few learned individuals. Primary instruction is within the reach of everybody; superior instruction is scarcely to be obtained by any. This is not surprising; it is in fact the necessary consequence of what we have advanced above. Almost all the Americans are in easy circumstances, and can therefore obtain the first elements of ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... will probably know that all which appears in a New York journal is not necessarily as true as the Gospel. As some slight deviations from the facts accidentally occur, though doubtless at very long intervals, it should not be surprising that they sometimes omit circumstances that are quite as veracious as anything they do actually utter to the world. No argument, therefore, can justly be urged against the incidents of this story, on account of the circumstance ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Thou hast come and spoiled them all." The Lord Jesus replied: "I will change the color of every cloth to what color thou desirest," and then He presently began to take the cloths out of the furnace; and they were all dyed of those same colors which the dyer desired. And when the Jews saw this surprising miracle they ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... is, beyond a certain radius, without permission, it was not always enforced. The Modern seniors had every reason to guess the object of this prolonged absence. They had promised many things to the juniors when they caught them. It was not surprising, while things were as warm as they were, that the young rebels should give ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... and as the former accounts which the public possessed of this island were full of monstrous absurdities and contradictions, these assisted the present imposture. Our forger resolved not to describe new and surprising things as they had done, but rather studied to clash with them, probably that he might have an opportunity of pretending to correct them. The first edition was immediately sold; the world was more divided than ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... years old our vessel was wrecked and I, the only one saved, was cast ashore on a cannibal island—or, to be more correct ethnologically, an island inhabited by cannibals. I was a handsome young fellow, and it is not at all surprising that the Queen, who was young, unmarried, and, fortunately, very pretty, fell in love with me and wished to ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... surprising thing of all this is, that none of the ministers could be induced to speak a word upon the occurrence. Their most intimate friends continually questioned them, but without being able to draw forth a syllable. The ministers either ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... strain of actual fighting. It seemed inevitable that soldiers would rapidly become demoralized, when exposed to the multifarious horrors of modern mechanical battle. Nothing, therefore, could have been more surprising than the temper shown by thousands of young men, suddenly called up from sedentary and safe pursuits, and confronted by the terrors of shrapnel and liquid fire and mines and gas, and all the other horrible ingenuities of an unseen enemy for killing ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... that Lady Clavering should dislike her solitude at Clavering Park house, nor surprising that Sir Hugh should find the place disagreeable. The house was a large, square stone building, with none of the prettinesses of modern country-houses about it. The gardens were away from the house, and the ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... therefore it was not surprising that, by half-past two o'clock next morning, wearing cotton gloves and dark spectacles to hide the glare from the jet, they stood together before the great safe at the back of Matheson and Wilson's, the well-known ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... silk and linen are tested, it is found that the former behaves in a general way as did wool, while the linen has more similarity to the cotton. That vegetable fibers, such as cotton and linen, should act differently toward coloring matter from animal fibers, such as silk and wool, is not surprising when we consider that the chemical nature of the two groups is very different; vegetable fibers contain only oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen, while animal fibers always contain nitrogen in addition, and in many ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... in one of the most brilliant reception-rooms of the Northern capital, the subject of Father Ivan's miracles having been introduced, a gentleman in very high social position, and entirely trustworthy, spoke as follows: "There is something very surprising about these miracles. I am slow to believe in them; but there is one of them which is overwhelming and absolutely true. The late Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, Archbishop Isidore, loved quiet, and was very averse ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... was wooden enough in all conscience, but Judith remembered her words, and as the story progressed she got a better grip on herself surprising and delighting Eleanor and those who were in the ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... world beheld the glorious change, And did thy hand confess; My tongue broke out in unknown strains, And sung surprising grace. ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... inclinations; and, moreover, as he was constrained to carry on the war in Germany at the expense of the enemy, he manifestly sustained great loss if he diminished their number without increasing that of his friends. It was not surprising, therefore, if Gustavus evinced little inclination to purchase the neutrality of the League, by which he was likely to gain so little, at the expense of the advantages ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to our own honour, that it has in some sort been both invented and brought to a perfection by the same hands. What I mean is, that highly celebrated talent among the modern wits of deducing similitudes, allusions, and applications, very surprising, agreeable, and apposite, from the signs of either sex, together with their proper uses. And truly, having observed how little invention bears any vogue besides what is derived into these channels, I have sometimes had a thought that the happy genius of our age and country was prophetically ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... presupposes compilers dealing with an oral tradition already stereotyped in language. For long passages such as the tract on morality and the description of progress in the religious life occur in several discourses and the amount of matter common to different Suttas and Nikayas is surprising. Thus nearly the whole of the long Sutta describing the Buddha's last days and death[64], which at first sight seems to be a connected narrative somewhat different from other Suttas, is found scattered in other parts ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... me to the second charge of Hogg's friends, that Wilson wickedly caricatured his humble friend, if indeed he did not manufacture a Shepherd out of his own brain. This is as uncritical as the other, and even more surprising. That any one acquainted with Hogg's works, especially his autobiographic productions, should fail to recognise the resemblance is astonishing enough; but what is more astonishing is that any one interested in Hogg's fame should not perceive that the ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... surprising to them all, though less to the mother, because of what I had said to her. As to the daughters, they stood mute a great while; but the mother said with some passion, 'Well, I had heard this before, but I could not believe ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... watering-place was neither beautiful nor amusing. Laura was happy there, but that said nothing. All her childhood through, she had the most surprising gift for happiness. From morning till night she lived in a flutter of delicious nothings. Unless he watched her closely, Stephen Fountain could not tell for the life of him what she was about all day. But he saw that she was endlessly about something; her little ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seems necessary to make in this place, respecting the laws of nature which are the peculiar subject of the sciences of number and extension. The immense part which those laws take in giving a deductive character to the other departments of physical science, is well known; and is not surprising, when we consider that all causes operate according to mathematical laws. The effect is always dependent on, or is a function of, the quantity of the agent; and generally of its position also. We can not, therefore, reason respecting causation, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... surprising about their coming in contact with the surface of the water—Jack had acquired a habit of making perfect landings whether ashore or with pontoons. Knowing this, Perk ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... stories of dreams and stories of ghosts. Dreams have nothing in them which are absurd and nonsensical; and, though most of the coincidences may be readily explained by the diseased system of the dreamer, and the great and surprising power of association, yet it is impossible to say whether an inner sense does not really exist in the mind, seldom developed, indeed, but which may have ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... water will swing up and down in the most surprising forms where the bed of the river is rough with rocks and throws it into choppy waves which do not seem to move, so the snow was thrown up into the most curious forms where the frozen swamp ground underneath had bubbled, as it were, ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... crab called heikegani, found at Nagato, is an example. The souls of the Taira warriors who perished in the great naval battle of Dan-no- ura (now Seto-Nakai), 1185, are supposed to have been transformed into heikegani. The shell of the heikegani is certainly surprising. It is wrinkled into the likeness of a grim face, or rather into exact semblance of one of those black iron visors, or masks, which feudal warriors wore in battle, and which ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... attractive indolence, his irrelevance and his easy mockery, lay a surprising and relentless maturity of purpose. His intention, as he stated it in college, had been to use three years in travel, three years in utter leisure—and then to become immensely rich ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... from reading when nothing better offered, had perused the "Merchant of Venice" and Mr. Otway's fine tragedy; but though these pieces had given him a notion that the social usages of Venice differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the surprising appearance and manners of the great people his friend named to him. The gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped trousers, short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and doctor's gown, another a black ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... appeals to the people, the senate, the establishment of an army of cavalry and infantry, and the whole military discipline, were instituted as early as the foundation of the city by royal authority, partly too by laws, not without the assistance of the Gods. Then with what a surprising and incredible progress did our ancestors advance towards all kind of excellence, when once the republic was freed from the regal power! Not that this is a proper occasion to treat of the manners and customs of our ancestors, or of the discipline and constitution of the city; ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... what has been going on, during the last ten weeks, within these walls, that I will here insert some of his answers before the committee. It will be recollected that Mr. Pitt was a man who, whenever it suited his purpose, did, with a most surprising power of memory, revert to all the arguments and opinions of his adversaries, for a space of time, comprising his whole political life; not with doubt, hesitation, or embarrassment, but with the most direct, unqualified, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... him and Chide appeared to be very close, yet not a little surprising. They were old comrades in Parliament, and Chide was in the main a whole-hearted supporter of Ferrier's policy and views; resenting in particular, as Diana soon discovered, Marsham's change of attitude. But the two men had hardly anything else in common. Ferrier was an enormous reader, most variously ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... been here; would like to have seen the twinkle in his eye when he heard this little point made. But GRANDOLPH busy down by the Docks, picking up his outfit. Secret of the sudden and surprising growth of the beard out now. GRANDOLPH off to the gold-diggings, and beard usually worn there. Hardly knew him when I looked in the other day at Connaught Place; trying on his new things; pair of rough unpolished boots coming over his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... noiseless as the sweep of a cloud shadow, is the most remarkable thing about him. The wings are remarkably adapted to the silent movement that is essential to surprising birds at dusk. The feathers are long and soft. The laminae extending from the wing quills, instead of ending in the sharp feather edge of other birds, are all drawn out to fine hair points, through which the air can make no sound ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... ill-natured doctrine should be preached by the missionaries of a court I do not wonder. It answers their purpose. But that it should be heard among those who pretend to be strong assertors of liberty is not only surprising, but hardly natural. This moral levelling is a servile principle. It leads to practical passive obedience far better than all the doctrines which the pliant accommodation of theology to power has ever produced. It cuts up by the roots, not only all idea of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... witch-like imperious ways. Was it her money, the sense that she could do as she liked with most people, that made her so domineering and masterful? Very likely. On the journey he had put it down just to a natural and very surprising impudence. That was when he believed that she was a teacher, earning her bread. But the impudence had not prevented him from finding it much more amusing to talk to her ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... display of licentious prints on the walls and the fronts of the bookstalls; "the young men in the cafes discussed matters which were beyond their comprehension and which they had never studied." There was a surprising number of points ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... he sat for a long time on his berth, thinking....trying in vain to catch through a thunder of surprising emotions the word that might bring explanation. That strange impression of giant bulk, unsupported by actual measurements; that look of startled security seeking shelter; that other look of being sure, of knowing where to go and being actually en route,—all ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... state of flux. Everywhere the foundations of governmental structures seem to be settling—let us hope and pray upon a surer foundation—and when the seismic convulsion of the world war is taken into account, it is not surprising that this is so. While the storm is not yet past and the waves have not wholly subsided, it is natural that everywhere thoughtful men as true mariners are taking their reckonings to know where they are and whether ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... net seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not surprising to consider in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their business in a short life. The silk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But a man can never have taken in his full measure of knowledge, has not time to subdue his passions, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore |
