"Astonishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Some one may come," urged this most astonishing young woman. "Don't you see that—that I'm trusting you to help ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... sentiment takes possession of my soul with the rapidity of lightning, but instead of illuminating, it dazzles and confounds me; I feel all, but see nothing; I am warm, but stupid; to think I must be cool. What is astonishing, my conception is clear and penetrating, if not hurried: I can make excellent impromptus at leisure, but on the instant, could never say or do anything worth notice. I could hold a tolerable conversation by the post, as they say the Spaniards play at chess, and when I read that ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... my arm!-It was indeed an awful moment!-the hand of Providence seemed to intervene between me and eternity: I beheld you as an angel!-I thought you dropt from the clouds!-The earth, indeed, had never presented to my view a form so celestial!-What wonder, then, that a spectacle so astonishing should, to a man disordered as I was, appear too beautiful to ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... the deposits of silt from the sea waters, which accumulated to an amazing thickness. The well known instances of boats found in 1635 eight feet below the Wisbeck River, and the smith's forge and tools found at Skirbeck Shoals, near Boston, buried with silt sixteen feet deep, show what an astonishing quantity of sediment formerly choked up the mouths of these great rivers. But the chief hindrance caused by the ocean, arose from the tide rushing twice every day for a very great distance up these channels, driving ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... He had never worn much jewellery, and he had left in her care the few seals and rings he possessed. Then the photograph of her husband as a young man, so much younger than when she had known him. Why send it to her now? What had she to do with this remote past? But the paper was the most astonishing of all. She had been standing when she undid the things; she left the ring and the photograph on the table, and she sank into a chair near the fire holding the bit of paper. The tone of it astonished and confused her. It was more the stern moralist asking to be forgiven for doing right ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... in judgment upon the normally developed insular. I remember once that Mr. Justice Harlan said that in an opinion on freight rates I had sent up to him I had represented both the cosmopolitan and the insular interest with astonishing equity, and I told him that I considered that it took at least six generations of insular mind culture to see any kind of national equity. The same thing holds good with a garden. It takes the sixth generation on a piece of land to produce a garden, and then it ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... before Reade, with all his senses alert, stumbled on the concealed magneto. It had been so well hidden, under a mass of rocks, that it would not have been astonishing ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... The astonishing success of Metastasio throughout all Europe, and especially at courts, must also in a great measure be attributed to his being a court poet, not merely by profession, but also by the style in which he composed, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... as you say, astonishing," replied D'Artagnan, beginning to laugh also; whereupon Porthos ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sovereignty over the whole territory from St. Croix to the Sabine. New States, settled from among ourselves in this and in other parts, have been admitted into our Union in equal participation in the national sovereignty with the original States. Our population has augmented in an astonishing degree and extended in every direction. We now, fellow-citizens, comprise within our limits the dimensions and faculties of a great power under a Government possessing all the energies of any government ever known to the Old World, with an utter ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... that before night the whole neighborhood was aware that David Poindexter had disappeared. By the next morning it became evident that something had happened to the Wicked Parson, and some people ventured to opine that the thing which had happened to him was that he had run away. And indeed it was astonishing to find to how many worthy people this evil-minded parson was in debt. Every other man you met had a bill against the Reverend David Poindexter in his pocket; and as the day wore on, and still no tidings of the ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... day alone together, something happened which filled Paul with doubt and trouble. Malvine had been attracted to Wilhelm when first she saw him, and since then she had incessantly thought and talked of him. He was so handsome, he spoke so charmingly! She thought it astonishing that any one should not love him, just because his admiration was mingled with so much shyness. She herself was much too insignificant a person to think of loving him, and beside, he was not free, and it would have been a sin to think of the man who was engaged ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... extreme prevails. The wonderful swinging cage, the diameter of which at the base often equaled the height of the encased figure, has disappeared, being no longer considered desirable or aesthetic, and in its place we have prodigious bustles and immense trains, by which an astonishing quantity of material is thrown behind the body, suggesting in some instances a toboggan slide, in others the unseemly hump on the back of a camel. This is the era of the enormous bustle and the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... the art of dramatic narrative he goes back to the sincerity and catholicity of Chaucer. For his language, he has carried Wordsworth's idea of "naturalness" to its extreme limits. For his material, he finds nothing common or unclean. But all his virility, candour, and sympathy, backed by all his astonishing range of experience, would not have made him a poet, had he not possessed imagination, and the power to express his vision of life, the power, as he puts it, of getting the ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... which had now become familiar, having roused the guard, the small gate was opened. Two youths carrying in a boar, Philemenus himself followed, with a huntsman, unencumbered, and while the attention of the guard was incautiously turned upon those who carried the boar, in consequence of its astonishing size, he transfixed him with a hunting spear. About thirty armed men then entering, slew the rest of the guards, and broke open the adjoining gate, when a body of troops, in regular array, instantly rushed in. Being conducted hence in silence to the forum, they ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... large enough to admit itself, into which it descends and deposits its eggs. The powerful summer sun heats the earth sufficiently to hatch the eggs, and the young birds come forth active and able to provide for themselves. Not the least astonishing part to me is, how they manage to scramble out of that deep hole. The natives declare that the hen frequently visits the nest, and watches the progress of incubation, and then when the young ones are hatched, they get upon her back, and she scrambles ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... London," said Mat, "during the greater portion of the trial—and it's astonishing what unanimity of opinion there was at the club that the whole set would be acquitted. I heard Howard make bet, at the Reform Club, that the only man put in prison ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... most astonishing speech purporting to have been delivered by Mr. Conway, in the United States Congress. Mr. C. is from Kansas, that hot-bed of Abolitionism. He is an avowed Abolitionist; and yet he advocates an immediate suspension of hostilities, or at least that the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... most striking thing in the history of the American Negro since 1876 is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. It began at the time when war memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial development was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the freedmen's sons,—then it was that his leading began. Mr. Washington came, with a simple definite programme, at the psychological moment when the nation was a little ashamed of having bestowed so much ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... see," smiled goody Liu, "you people eat just a little and finish. It's lucky you don't feel the pangs of hunger! But it isn't astonishing if a whiff of wind ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... now? My goodness! It's always hemming and humming and a heise of the neck, and her head up like a Cochin-China, with a topknot, and 'How d'ye do?' and cetererar and cetererar. Aw, smooth as an ould threepenny bit—smooth astonishing. And partic'lar! My gough! You couldn't call Tom to a cat afore her, but she'd be agate of you to ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... It is astonishing how soon after this a young man, dressed in a brown suit, and very pleasant to look upon, came rapidly walking along the river bank. This was Master Martin Newcombe, a young Englishman, not two years from his native land, and now a prosperous ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... the tone of voice in which it was spoken, for the woman "snaffled," was too much for us, and, tired as we were, we both roared with laughter; absurd though it may seem, it was astonishing how this little incident cheered ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... himself a little, looking out as usual through the darkening windows on to that astonishing view. Everywhere now lights were glowing, a sea of mellow moons just above the houses, and above the mysterious heavy blue ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... pomp, excited public curiosity. The manners of the strangers bore an aspect of perfect novelty to the inhabitants of the republic, as the ladies who accompanied Amalia, the ambassador's daughter, displayed a fire and vivacity, which to many seemed scandalous as well as astonishing. Amalia was in her seventeenth year, and to cultivated and sprightly powers of mind, added those French graces, which, if they do not constitute beauty, are still more effectual than beauty itself in seducing the beholder. Alvise saw her when she was presented to the Doge, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... vengeful fate, always accompanies the cycler on a sunny day, and which is the bane of a sensitive wheelman's life. The only representative of animated nature hereabouts is a species of small gray lizard that scuttles over the bare ground with astonishing rapidity. Not even a bird is seen in the air. All living things seem instinctively to avoid this dread spot save the lizard. A desert forty miles wide is not a particularly large one; but when one is in the middle ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... father stands there motionless and on the alert with his gun cocked, just as though he really expected to see something. Ihle comes out just in front of him, shouting 'Hoo lala, hey heay, hold him, hie, hie,' in the strangest and most astonishing manner. Then father asks me if I have seen nothing, and I with the most natural tone of astonishment that I can command, answer 'No, nothing at all.' Then after abusing the weather we start off to another wood, while Ihle with a confidence ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... While taking the ticket at the railway station, Jacko, who must needs see everything that was going on, suddenly poked his head out of the bag and gave a malicious grin at the ticket-giver. This much frightened the poor man, but with great presence of mind,—quite astonishing under the circumstances,—he retaliated the insult: "Sir, that's a dog; you must pay for it accordingly." In vain was the monkey made to come out of the bag and exhibit his whole person; in vain were arguments in full ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... by washing a certain patch of gravel and obtained results which seemed really astonishing. So remarkable were they that on publication the shares rose to 10s. premium. Jacob and Co. took advantage of this opportunity to sell quite half of their bonus holding to eager applicants, explaining to me that they did so not for personal profit, which they ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... stream, the change in the vegetation was astonishing. It was a sudden transition from an English, plantation of fir trees into the jungle of the tropics, full of Indian figs, palms, lancewood, and great mahagua[1] trees, all knotted together by endless creepers and parasites; while the parrots kept up a continual chattering and screaming ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... very soon now an English light, a Dorset light and the pulse of our chill quickened to racing rhythm. 'How many voyages have you made before this one?' I asked my friend as we leant over a rail together. He mentioned an astonishing number. 'You must know a lot about the things that I want to know' I said, 'the going to and fro of people, their starting out and their coming back again. Doesn't it all seem pretty stale to you ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... want of profitable occupation, perform much less, perhaps not one hundred and fifty days' work on the average. The following table, published in 1856-1857, by Mr. Guthrie, then Secretary of the Treasury, discloses a condition of things very remarkable; but no wise astonishing to those who have investigated the causes of the disparity. The ratio of annual per capita production to each man, woman, and child, white and black, in the respective States, exclusive of the gains or earnings of commerce, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... once more, with astonishing vividness, a certain doll which, when I was eight years old, used to be displayed in the window of an ugly little shop of the Rue de Seine. I cannot tell how it happened that this doll attracted me. I was very ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... cleaning of 'The Burgomaster's Breakfast.' The inclosed compound has just reached him from Amsterdam. It is made from a recipe found among the papers of Rembrandt himself—has been used with the most astonishing results on the Master's pictures in every gallery of Holland, and is now being applied to the surface of the largest Rembrandt in Mr. P.'s own collection. Directions for use: Lay the picture flat, pour the whole contents of the bottle over it gently, so as to flood the entire surface; leave ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... and devoured whoever offended us; that our guns discharged stones which destroyed our enemies, and that our horses were exceedingly swift and caught whoever we pursued. On this the others observed that with such astonishing powers we certainly were teules. Our allies also advised them to beware of practising any thing against us, as we could read their hidden thoughts, and recommended them to conciliate our favour by a present. They accordingly brought us several ornaments of much ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... important. That these high and legitimate forms of art, glorified by Aristophanes and Moliere, have sunk into such contempt may be due to many causes: I myself have little doubt that it is due to the astonishing and ludicrous lack of belief in hope and hilarity which marks modern aesthetics, to such an extent that it has spread even to the revolutionists (once the hopeful section of men), so that even those who ask us to fling the stars into the sea are not quite sure that ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... the men are slow to take them. There is a man towards the end of the evening who wins one unmistakably with an inimitable burlesque of "Alice, where art thou?" The pianist fails to keep in touch with the astonishing vagaries of this performance, and the singer, unabashed, finishes without accompaniment. The audience yells with delight, and continues to yell till the singer comes forward again. This time he gives us a song about leaving ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... but of their own follies. Nor does he even excite emotion apart from a moral end. He lived to be ninety years old, and produced the most beautiful of his tragedies in his eightieth year, the "Oedipus at Colonus." He wrote the astonishing number of one hundred and thirty plays, and carried off the first prize twenty-four times. His "Antigone" was written when he was forty-five, and when Euripides had already gained a prize. Only seven of his tragedies have survived, but these are priceless treasures. The ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... thought when that attitude began to give way. The scandal caused by Alessandro Tassoni's attacks on Homer and Aristotle in the early seventeenth century resounded through Europe. He advanced the new and astonishing idea that, so far from having degenerated since ancient times, the race had advanced and that the moderns were better than their sires. This new idea prevailed as belief in progress grew. It met, however, with violent opposition, and the remnants of that old controversy are still ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... from me...." Her momentary hatred of Siegfried thus distorts the image of the past. Siegfried's only possible interpretation of this astonishing declaration is that the Tarnhelm did not properly conceal his identity—but even so the woman is not speaking the truth. What her purpose can be in thus darkening her own fame he is at a loss to ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... prisoner who was to die, or to those who were to survive him, being that they were allowed once more to meet on earth. At eight in the evening the queen, his children, and his sister were to be allowed to visit him. He prepared for the interview with astonishing calmness, making the arrangements so deliberately that, when he noticed that Clery had placed a bottle of iced water on the table, he bid him change it, lest, if the queen should require any, the chill should prove injurious to her health. Even that last interview was not allowed ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... welcome, and confronting them as she held its handle stood a small old woman with an astonishing face. It was astonishing because while it was withered and wrinkled with marks of past years which had once stamped their reckless unsavoriness upon its every line, some strange redeeming thing had happened to it and its expression was that of a creature to whom the opening of ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... on the table, "after the first two or three years I never knew whether she had a cent or not, that's the straight of it. Considering that she had thrown away her reputation like an old shoe just for me, and that we lived along under the same roof, that was the most astonishing thing of all. She began by handing me out a hundred now and then when I was broke; then it dropped to ten, and then it got down to a dollar a week,—humiliating, Will, considering that I had given up my interest in the ancient and honorable firm of Montgomery & Holton, Bankers, just ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... likewise every polka with a coloured frontispiece that ever was published; from the original one where a smooth male and female Pole of high rank are coming at the observer with their arms a- kimbo, to the Ratcatcher's Daughter. Astonishing establishment, amazing enigma! Three other shops were pretty much out of the season, what they were used to be in it. First, the shop where they sell the sailors' watches, which had still the old collection of enormous timekeepers, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... astonishing of all, obviously, as well as most important, is the purpose for which the Evangelists and Apostles of our LORD make their appeal to the Old Testament Scriptures; invariably in order to establish some ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... which habitually haunted that spot, seized him by the leg, and withdrew from the shore, remaining on the surface of the water. The cries of the Indian drew together a crowd of spectators. This unfortunate man was first seen seeking, with astonishing presence of mind, for a knife which he had in his pocket. Not being able to find it, he seized the head of the crocodile and thrust his fingers into its eyes. No man in the hot regions of America is ignorant ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... without him, promising Hirtius that he would go and spend his summer at Athens, and return again when he entered upon his office. So he set out on his journey; but some delay occurring in his passage, new intelligence, as often happens, came suddenly from Rome, that Antony had made an astonishing change, and was managing the public affairs in harmony with the will of the senate, and that there wanted nothing but his presence to bring things to a happy settlement. Therefore, blaming himself for his cowardice, he returned to Rome, and was not deceived in his ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... seems to have accepted quietly the gradual progress of the reformed religion during the reign of Edward VI., has been a cause of wonder to some. It would certainly have been astonishing had one who was so unsparing in his exposure of the flagrant abuses of the Romish Church done otherwise. Though personally disinclined to radical changes his writings amply show his deep dissatisfaction with things as they ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... other children, for she frequently confounded him in open class by questions which have vexed persons of maturest years. She was taught the harp, the piano, the guitar, and the violin. She was proficient in dancing. Such was her astonishing aptitude in all studies that she says, "I had not a single master who did not appear as much flattered by teaching me as I was grateful for being taught; nor one who, after attending me for a year or two, was not the first to say ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... attempts by Herr von Jagow to claim that the French violated Belgian neutrality are another illustration of Swift's dictum to the effect that 'as universal a practice as lying is, and as easy a one as it seems', it is astonishing that it has been brought to so little perfection, 'even by those who are most celebrated ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... is astonishing how a family can live for months together, and not realize how little real privacy there is for anyone until something especial comes up for secret discussion. It struck Good Indian forcibly that afternoon, because ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... Ham-kiung-do. The province in which Fusan is situated is, without exception, the richest in Corea after that of Chulla, for it has a mild climate and a very fertile soil. This being the case, it is not astonishing to find that the population is more numerous than in most other districts further north, and also, that being so near the Japanese coast, a certain amount of trading, mostly done by junks, is continually being transacted with the Mikado's subjects on the opposite shores. Fusan has been nominally ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... his statements with fact. In the year 1833, in his speech on the Force Bill, Mr. Calhoun referred to his tariff speech of 1816 in a manner which excludes him from the ranks of men of honor. He had the astonishing audacity ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... them a pleasant landscape was pleasant, and an unpleasant landscape unpleasant. Hence they had no idea of romance; for romance consists in thinking a thing more delightful because it is dangerous; it is a Christian idea. In a word, we cannot reconstruct or even imagine the beautiful and astonishing pagan world. It was a world in which ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... sins—Christ gave himself for our sins—Christ bare our sins in his body on the tree—and that God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.' Further, as the invitations are plain and easy, so the threatenings to the opposers are sore and astonishing: 'He that believeth not shall be damned—Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, God gave them up to strong delusions, that they all might be damned' (Mark 16:16; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Himself the Christ by showing not only His boundless power, but His boundless love and mercy; and THAT, not only to men's souls, but to their bodies also. To prove Himself the Christ by wonderful and astonishing miracles was exactly what He would not do. He refused, when the Scribes and Pharisees came and asked of Him a sign from heaven to prove that He was Christ— wanting Him, I suppose, to bring some apparition, or fiery comet, or great voice out of the sky, to astonish them with His ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... hold 100 or 200 pieces of literature. The time it takes to transfer the literature from our pockets to the window sills, newsstand or bench is about two seconds. I have been on the job for the last three weeks and the results have been astonishing. What are not picked up by the workers are in a few hours read by a large number of those out of work. We have got to come to it in the very near future. The halls are closed ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... have been drawing diagrams, dissecting shoots, and muddling my brains to a hopeless degree about the divergence of leaves, and have of course utterly failed. But I can see that the subject is most curious, and indeed astonishing... ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... Kingfisher. The superstition that a dead Kingfisher when suspended by the throat, would turn its beak to that particular point of the compass from which the wind blew, is now dead. It was also supposed to possess many astonishing virtues, as that its dried body would avert thunderbolts, and if kept in a wardrobe would preserve from moths the woolen stuffs and the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... commonplace in itself, was enough out of keeping with the place and hour to rouse my interest and awaken my conjectures. It was a lady's wrap so rich in quality and of such a festive appearance that it was astonishing to find it lying in a neglected state in this crumbling old house. Though I know little of the cost of women's garments, I do know the value of lace, and this garment was ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... the case was growing deeper and deeper. The finding of the counterfeit banknotes In Barry Langmore's safe was astonishing. Where this thread of the skein would lead to he ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... advanced to meet me, and before our outstretched hands touched, before his face broke from repose to greeting and the lips moved to speech, I got the first astonishing impact of his personality. Long, lean, in his face a touch of race I as yet could only sense, he was as cool as the day was cold, as poised as a king or emperor, as remote as the farthest fixed star, as neutral as a proposition of Euclid. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... the monks and priests of the Catholic faith been backward in this respect particularly in sanctioning the doctrine of composition for sins, for the absolution of which the rate was not even fixed in proportion to the magnitude; and what is still more astonishing, this impious practice of bargaining with the Almighty has survived the dark ages, and exists to a certain degree at ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... of the band in that direction drove them directly toward the watchers who had been left behind by John, and for them to meet a second party, immediately after they left Uraso, must have been a most astonishing thing ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... animal, and it glistens with the chili water, which has been poured over it, in order to increase his excitement. His resolute shoulders, his straining quarters,—each vying with the other for the prize for strength,—and his great girth, give a look of astonishing vigour and vitality to the animal. It is the head of the buffalo, however, which it is best to look at on these occasions. Its great spread of horns is very imposing, and the eyes which are usually sleepy, cynically contemptuous and ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... felt better when it was shut from view. Now he resolved to see what could be accomplished by will. He undertook to forget the water, and at times he succeeded, but, despite his greatest efforts, the Teotihuacan would come back now and then with the most astonishing vividness. Although he was lying on the serape with bushes and shrubs all around, there was the river visible to the eye of imagination, brighter, fresher and more sparkling than ever. He could not control his fancy, ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... deed was once done, it was astonishing what satisfaction they all took in it, how soon they got accustomed to the change, and what pride they felt in "our soldier." The loyal frenzy fell upon the three quiet women, and they could not do too much for their country. Mrs. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... the four little people sailed on again till they came to a vast and wide plain of astonishing dimensions, on which nothing whatever could be discovered at first; but, as the travellers walked onward, there appeared in the extreme and dim distance a single object, which on a nearer approach, and on an accurately cutaneous ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... halted his command at Livingston, Tennessee, to take a much-needed rest. Never did men need it more. They had accomplished one of the most astonishing feats in the annals of American warfare. No wonder the name of Morgan struck terror to the hearts of the Federals. Morgan in his report of his raid ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... is really a useful and valuable animal, which might be introduced into America with great advantage to our farmers. I know of no animal of its size so tough and strong. It is astonishing, as well as shocking, to see what loads he is made to draw here. The vehicle to which he is usually harnessed is a heavy, solid affair, frequently as large as our common horse-carts. He is put to all kinds of work, and is almost ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... The astonishing success of the Beggar's Opera induced our author to add a second part, in which, however, he was disappointed, both in profit and fame. His opera entitled Polly, designed as a sequel of the former, was prohibited by the lord chamberlain from being represented on the stage, when every thing ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... and depths in the soul of a traitor Giovanni went on his way to England. There he discussed with Tomaso the Paduan physician, Ranulph the troubadour and Brother Basil of the Irish Benedictines the astonishing destruction of the Emperor's army. But he said no ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Sometimes sheltering behind trees and sometimes in farm buildings, we proceeded but slowly, and about eight miles from Kendal we halted for lunch at a small inn, where we found cover for so long a time that, after walking about three miles from that town, we called at another inn for tea. It was astonishing how well we were received and provided for at these small inns in the country. Every attention was given to us, a fire lighted to dry our coats, and the best food the place could provide was brought on to the table. We were shown into the parlour, and the best cups and ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... no lack of these, since he was a man of indomitable energy, matured his plans with astonishing rapidity, and often had them carried out before any one ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... these astonishing changes for a long time, our young man descended from the height and retraced his steps homeward. Kitty gladly preceded him, and some time after the sun had set, they regained the Reef. About a mile short of home, Mark passed all ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... It is, indeed, astonishing that the anti-socialist prejudice of M. Garofalo should have been strong enough to cause him to forget that truth which is nevertheless a legitimate induction of criminal biology and sociology, the truth that besides the congenital criminal there are other types of criminals who are more numerous ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... we were permitted to see them at first only through a haze of sentimentality, so that, allowing for great advances in the art of novel writing between the time of Richardson and the time of Dickens, we still should find the astonishing characterizations of "Pamela" reflected in the impossible virtues and melodramatic vices of ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... to collect a certain number of rupees to build a temple, and for this purpose infested the doors of the wealthiest of the Hindoo community, and followed and persecuted them even in their drives with continued cries. It is astonishing how soon superstition enabled them to fulfil their vow, and how the extortioners were allowed to escape ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... I learn, as I can learn from contemporary records and from the witness of men still living, that at the battle of Gettysburg infantry advanced so boldly as to bayonet gunners at their guns, I must believe it although the event is astonishing. ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... great thing," he rejoined. "Indeed, I'll confess that I could enjoy our stay here, except for the damping effect of our friends' trouble. It's astonishing how little one misses the comforts we insist on in England, and I'm coming to take an interest in the visits we pay among the ranches and our weekly trip to Sebastian. Then nobody could maintain that your sister looks any the worse for her experience. ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... Mr. Wilberforce's Diary of the 22d of December, there is the following entry:—"Hastings's impeachment question. Pitt's astonishing speech. This was almost the finest speech he ever delivered: it was one which you would say at once he never could have made if he had not been a mathematician. He put things by as he proceeded and then returned to the very point from which he had started, with the most astonishing ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... food from hand to mouth, but he was regarding a very small, warm suit of clothes and substantial boots with dangerously quivering lips. Nor could one misinterpret his disapproval. For a moment the startled Doctor fancied he heard Mike hiss the astonishing words "Mom Murphy!" but by the time he had wheeled about, Muggs, with circular eyes of ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... Colombian Government. Not a life was lost in the accomplishment of the revolution. The Colombian troops stationed on the Isthmus, who had long been unpaid, made common cause with the people of Panama, and with astonishing unanimity the new Republic was started. The duty of the United States in the premises was clear. In strict accordance with the principles laid down by Secretaries Cass and Seward in the official documents above quoted, the United States ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... thirty or forty feet in width, lying between a ridge of boulders, over which it was astonishing how the fugitive had managed ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... undergoing a complete reorganization, and is unfolding a rapid series of events more astonishing than anything in history. Where it will stop, and what will be its results, nobody can tell. Royalty has certainly not added to its respectability by its conduct in its time of trial. Since the last steamer went, Italy ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... are characteristic. The paper shows, we think, that it has not escaped him that disestablishment, however compensated as some sanguine people hope, would be a great disaster and ruin. It would be the failure and waste to the country of noble and astonishing efforts; it would be the break-up and collapse of a great and cheap system, by which light and human kindliness and intelligence are carried to vast tracts, that without its presence must soon become as stagnant and hopeless as many of the rural communes of France; the blow ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... small garden bright with flowers, beyond which was a very small cottage indeed, through the open door of which there issued a most appetizing odour, accompanied by a whistle, wonderfully clear, and sweet, that was rendering "Tom Bowling" with many shakes, trills, and astonishing runs. ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... news had come in to which the Colonel was pleased to give publicity. It was astonishing all the trifling tit-bits we did hear; and they occasionally excited interest—until discovered to be of home manufacture—the distinctive work of local genius. On this occasion, however, the tit-bit was "Official," ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... John York fired, and Isaac Brown fired, and the boys took a turn at the guns, while John Henry started to climb a neighboring oak; but at last it was Isaac who brought the coon to ground with a lucky shot, and the dog stopped his deafening bark and frantic leaping in the underbrush, and after an astonishing moment of silence crept out, a proud victor, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... limbs for life. His health was already ruined when he indulged this caprice; the damp of the river brought on a violent attack, which closed with palsy, and the gay young abbe had to pay dearly for the pleasure of astonishing the citizens of Mans. The disguise was easily accounted for—he had smeared himself with honey, ripped open a feather-bed, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... for teaching recruits to ride. 'The noble Lord,' replied Mr. Haldane, 'is doubtless alluding to certain dummy horses on rockers which have been tested with very satisfactory results.'... The mechanical steed is a wooden horse with an astonishing tail. It is painted brown and mounted on swinging rails. The recruit leaps into the saddle and pulls at the reins while the riding-instructor rocks the animal to and fro with his foot. The rocking-horses are being made at Woolwich. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... graveyard. It was as though he were going to bury himself alive. Now that it was out of his reach, he thought of it as a paradise upon earth. And then he considered what sort of a paradise Lady Alexandrina would make for him. It was astonishing how ugly was the Lady Alexandrina, how old, how graceless, how destitute of all pleasant charm, seen through the spectacles which he wore ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... It was astonishing to see the rapidity with which well-educated and earnest young men progressed as officers. They were alert in both mind and body. They quickly grasped the principles of their new profession, and with very little instruction made themselves masters of tactics and of administrative routine. Add ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... puberty for both sexes is quite as much later than in the heart of the towns, where, in order to gratify their vanity, people are often extremely parsimonious in the matter of food, and where most people, in the words of the proverb, have a velvet coat and an empty belly. It is astonishing to find in these mountainous regions big lads as strong as a man with shrill voices and smooth chins, and tall girls, well developed in other respects, without any trace of the periodic functions of their sex. This difference is, in my opinion, solely due to the fact that in the simplicity ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... and one of the greatest writers of French prose, was born on June 19, 1623, at Clermont-Ferrand, and died on August 19, 1662. His mother died in his fourth year, and the father, an eminent lawyer, took the boy with his two sisters to Paris. Pascal showed the most astonishing mathematical genius; he produced at the age of seventeen a profound work on conic sections, and devoted the following years to physical researches and to investigations in the higher mathematics. In 1654, Pascal, having experienced a ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... parties. After eating and drinking, the greater part of them assembled at the largest of the fires, and, while the travellers were themselves with the elders of the party seated on the ground, danced round the blaze to their own songs, with astonishing Highland energy. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... beholding his intent to do battle, also rode to a little distance, and took stand in such a place as seemed to him to be best. Then, when they were in all wise prepared, they rushed together with such astonishing vehemence that the earth ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... than apparent that he expected the young man to be enriched liberally by his enemy. It was to preclude any possible chance of the mingling of his fortune with the smallest portion of Edwin P. Brewster's that James Sedgwick, on his deathbed, put his hand to this astonishing instrument. ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... timid "Oh!" tinged with incredulity, Savinien flew into a passion. Yes; he had invented something astonishing; he saw fortune within reach, and he thought the bargain made with his aunt very unjust. Therefore he had come to break it, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a desert from being composed of soft sand and being destitute of water, supports prodigious herds of antelopes, while numbers of elephants, rhinoceros, lions, hyenas, and other animals roam over it. They find support from the astonishing quantity of grass which grows in the region, as also from a species of water-melon, and from several tuberous roots, the most curious of which is the leroshua, as large as the head of a young child, and filled with a fluid like that ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... Tunis, who when scarcely ten years old are subjected to systematic treatment by confinement in narrow, dark rooms, where they are fed on farinaceous foods and the flesh of young puppies until they are almost a shapeless mass of fat. According to Ebstein, the Moorish women reach with astonishing rapidity the desired embonpoint on a diet of dates and a ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... it must be confessed, that were Miss Sedley's letters to Mr. Osborne to be published, we should have to extend this novel to such a multiplicity of volumes as not the most sentimental reader could support; that she not only filled sheets of large paper, but crossed them with the most astonishing perverseness; that she wrote whole pages out of poetry-books without the least pity; that she underlined words and passages with quite a frantic emphasis; and, in fine, gave the usual tokens of her condition. She wasn't a heroine. Her letters were full of repetition. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... who was once scarcely stronger or better than Tilly Wendall is to-day, but God was kind. Tilly also has great black eyes, and they do look so large and pathetic in the wan little face! At first they did not notice me much. I was only another of the watchers who had come to aid her mother. It's astonishing how kind these plain country people are to one another in trouble, and many a housewife in this region has toiled all day and then sat up with the poor child the ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... prosaic days; let us mark the constant cheerfulness and manliness of Dr. Maginn, or that much higher heroic bearing of Tom Hood. We suppose that every body knows that Hood's life was not of that brilliant, sparkling, fizzing, banging, astonishing kind which writers such as Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, and some others, depict as the general life of literary men. He did not, like Byron, "jump up one morning, and find himself famous." All the libraries were not asking for his novel, though a better was not written; countesses ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... middle age, every curve of whose ample figure—and her figure was all curves—was suggestive of repose. So far from being indolent, or even deliberate in her movements, she was the most active and energetic woman in the town. She went through the physical exercises of a prayer-meeting with astonishing vigor. It was exhilarating to see her wash a shirt, and a study to watch her do it up. A quick jerk shook out the dampened garment; one pass of her ample palm spread it over the ironing-board, and a few well-directed strokes with the iron accomplished ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... which might be backed to run a victorious race with the tale of evil fortune; and clearly for the reason that man's livelier half is ever alert to speed them. They travel with an astonishing celerity over the land, like flames of the dry beacon-faggots of old time in announcement of the invader or a conquest, gathering as they go: wherein, to say nothing of their vastly wider range, they surpass the electric wires. Man's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... makes his appearance, who does something more wonderful than those who preceded him, and he makes his fortune, whilst the scoffing of the people is in abeyance. It is the unquestionable effects of the power which fashion has over that amiable, clever, and lively nation. If anything is astonishing, no matter how extravagant it may be, the crowd is sure to welcome it greedily, for anyone would be afraid of being taken for a fool if he should exclaim, "It is impossible!" Physicians are, perhaps, the only men in France ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... illusions and horrid phantoms, succeeded the most brilliant light, whose splendor blazed round the statue of the Goddess. The candidate, says Dion Chrysostomus, passed into a mysterious temple, of astonishing magnitude and beauty, where were exhibited to him many mystic scenes; where his ears were stunned with many voices; and where Darkness and Light successively passed before him. And Themistius in like manner describes the Initiate, when about to enter into that part of the sanctuary ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... intimacy had been broken off. In reality, the rupture was apparent merely, and was simulated to escape the teasing. In secret, they continued to meet. Whereas regarding the girl few details were at my disposal, I had a good deal of information about the boy. It was astonishing how many excuses he made to deceive his relatives. Sometimes he was supposed to be writing his home-lessons, sometimes to be at a gymnastic lesson or at church, when in reality he was with his girl friend. It had been observed before that ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... Astonishing scenes of wickedness will then, no doubt, be disclosed. Probably each one will discover things in himself which he had not suspected—depravity, unfairness, disingenuity, the bare suspicion of which by others, would ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... not beyond the reach of human skill;" and, taking from his bosom a small crystal vase, he mingled a few drops with water. No sooner did this medicine moisten the infant's lips, than it seemed to produce an astonishing effect. The colour revived rapidly on the lips and cheeks; in a few moments the sufferer slept calmly, and with the regular breathing of painless sleep. And then the old man rose, rigidly, as a corpse might rise,—looked ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... like a fool. Their name humanized them and relieved his awkward feeling. "Ha! Jinks, eh? High Jinks and Low Jinks, what?" He laughed. It struck him as rather comic; and High Jinks and Low Jinks tittered broadly, losing in the most astonishing way the one her severity and ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... be credited that a business man like John Kenyon spent most of the time between that hour and three o'clock trying to compose a business letter in answer to the business communication he had received that morning. Yet such was the astonishing fact, and it showed, perhaps more than anything else, how utterly unfit Mr. John Kenyon was to join in a commercial undertaking in a city of hard-headed people. At last, however, the letter was posted, and Kenyon hurried away to be in time for ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... this expedition, when La Salle was dead, and with the evident purpose of robbing him of his just fame as the first white man who explored the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf, Hennepin for the first time put forth the astonishing statement that he and his two companions, on reaching the Great River, turned {295} south and followed its course all the way to the ocean, after which they ascended it and explored its upper waters—a truly marvelous achievement, if it were true, ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... own investigations are prompted by indiscriminate curiosity. But he has vast stores of miscellaneous knowledge such as might delight the half-educated, and as a rhetorician he possesses a strange and debased brilliance, fired by an astonishing if disorderly imagination. The verve, the humour, and above all the welter of warmth and colour that characterize the Golden Ass make us forgive the palpable degradation of the Latin language. Not less remarkable is the Apologia. There are ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... chapter. The art of the gun-flint maker (and it, too, promises soon to pass into extinction) is unquestionably a curious one, but not a whit more curious or more ingenious than the art possessed by the rude inhabitants of our country eighteen hundred years ago, of chipping arrow-heads with an astonishing degree of neatness out of the same stubborn material. They found, however, that though flint made a serviceable arrow-head, it was by much too brittle for an adze or battle-axe; and sought elsewhere than among the Banffshire ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... whole future and fortune lay in the outcome of this conference. It is therefore not astonishing that he disregarded the customs of the bar and went to Desroches's office, to study Sauvaignou and take part in the struggle, in spite of the danger he ran in thus placing himself visibly before the eyes of one of the most ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... upon the right by the house and a deep ravine, upon the left by the picqueted garden and in the impenetrable shrubs, and the rear also being secured by the springs and deep hollow ways, the enemy renewed the action. Every exertion was made to dislodge them. Lieutenant-Colonel Washington made most astonishing efforts to get through the thicket to charge the enemy in the rear, but found it impracticable, had his horse shot under him, and was wounded and taken prisoner. Four six-pounders were ordered up before the house—two ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... along in the afternoon, a water boy found him up on the weighing floor and told him there was something for him at the office, he made astonishing time getting down. "Here's your package," said Max, as Bannon burst into the little shanty. It was a little, round, pasteboard box. If Bannon had had the office to himself, he would, in his disappointment, have cursed the thing ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... to the Trope based on the frequency and rarity of 141 events, which we call the ninth of the series, we give the following explanation: The sun is certainly a much more astonishing thing than a comet, but because we see the sun continually and the comet rarely we are so much astonished at the comet that it even seems an omen, while we are not at all astonished at the sun. If, however, we should imagine the sun appearing ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... the struggle, like your honored president, it seems a long and arduous path that has been trodden, but when you think of the cumulating force of this movement in recent decades, you must agree with me that it is one of the most astonishing tides in modern history. Two generations ago, no doubt Madam President will agree with me in saying, it was a handful of women who were fighting this cause. Now it is a great multitude of ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... so out of breath with this astonishing and frantic race, that for a minute he did not know whether he was standing on his head or ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... the basis of his heredity or of his environment. It is interesting to note that both of these factors in Darwin's case were entirely favorable. In the latter part of the eighteenth century Erasmus Darwin had given to the world an astonishing poem in which he anticipated not a little of the thought which his more famous grandson was to make so widely known. Josiah Wedgwood had learned to make for England her most famous pottery, no quality of which was more widely recognized than the ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... is!" quoth Miss Barry, looking at the astonishing hair while she got out her needles. "Seems to me I should feel as if ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... that very ignorant persons can wonder at such things without deriving much instruction from them; and that much sooner than the more cultivated ones they become so familiarized with them as not to think of them. All effects, however astonishing, are apt, if they are but regular in their recurrence, to become soon insignificant to those who have never learnt to inquire into causes. But still, it would be some little advantage to the people's understanding to see what prodigious ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... hoped against hope, I might dream that the invalid was cured. I should dream of the cure, in any case, more probably than that I should dream of the disease. In short, the events which reappear by preference in the dream are those of which we have thought most distractedly. What is there astonishing about that? The ego of the dream is an ego that is relaxed; the memories which it gathers most readily are the memories of relaxation and distraction, those which do not bear the ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson
... in staid American stripes and apron, Mizzi resplendent in smartest of children's dresses provided for her lavishly by her aunt. Her fat and dimpled hands smoothed the blue, or pink or white folds with a complacency astonishing in one of her years. "That's her ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... in Charley's rapid progress towards health. He was gaining with astonishing rapidity and bid fair to be completely recovered in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... curious, isn't it?" she reflected, "that what men call 'life' they always go out at night to see; and what they mean by 'life' is generally something disgraceful?" It was to the fire that she made this observation, and then she resumed: "It is astonishing how importunate some ideas become—one now and then of all the numbers that occur to you; how it takes possession of you, and how it insists upon being carried into effect. This one gave me no peace. I knew from the first I should do it, although ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... accident that Purcell, with this astonishing fertility of picturesque phrases, should also have written so much, and such vividly coloured picturesque pieces—pieces, I mean, descriptive of the picturesque. Of course, to write an imitative phrase is quite another matter from writing a successful piece of descriptive ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... preserved their own opinion, in spite of all the distress they were brought to, as if they received these torments and the fire itself with bodies insensible of pain, and with a soul that in a manner rejoiced under them. But what was most of all astonishing to the beholders was the courage of the children; for not one of these children was so far overcome by these torments, as to name Caesar for their lord. So far does the strength of the courage [of the soul] prevail over the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... understand that, whatever happened, it would make no difference between us. But the affair upstairs was too delicate to talk of, and all I could do was to try to keep his mind from brooding on it, by making him tell me things about politics. This is the kind of man my brother is. He is an astonishing master of facts, and I suppose he never read a book yet, from a Blue Book to a volume of verse, without catching the author in error about something. He reads books for that purpose. As a rule I avoided argument with him, because he was disappointed ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... Swanson," he cried, "I assure you it's a most astonishing, most curious coincidence! See this man?" He flung out his arm at the bluejacket. "He's my wireless chief. He was wireless operator on the transport that took you to Manila. When you came in here this afternoon he recognized you. Half an hour later he picks ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... Shells were still falling so thickly near the Boulevard du Temple that no one was allowed to pass. I had to go a very roundabout way to get to the Place Bastille, as at numerous barricades everybody who passed was compelled to assist in pulling them down. The barricades were of astonishing strength. Behind the barricade on the Boulevard Mazas lay three bodies of National Guards—apparently shot in its defence. A little lower down on the Boulevard Voltaire lay seven men dead, as if they had there ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... of disjointed enterprises, and the full strength of the country have been concentrated at the decisive point. It can hardly, however, be imputed as a fault to Mr. Davis that he did not anticipate a system which achieved such astonishing success in Prussia's campaigns of '66 and '70. It was not through vanity alone that he retained in his own hands the supreme control of military affairs. The Confederate system of government was but an imitation ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... astonishing career which carried him from obscurity to world-wide fame; from postmaster of New Salem village to President of the United States; from captain of a backwoods volunteer company to commander-in-chief of the army and navy, was neither ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... and this I pointed out to him. Immediately afterwards, we came upon a great mass of seaweed swung up on the crest of a sea, and, presently, another. And so we drifted on, and the seas grew less with astonishing rapidity, so that, in a little, we stripped off the cover so far as the midship thwart; for the rest of the men were sorely in need of the fresh air, after so long a time ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... drain on any but a long purse." When one thinks of Miss Anthony's uniform kindness and courtesy to reporters, always granting an interview no matter how tired or how busy she might be, and assisting them in every possible way with information and suggestions, it is astonishing that any one of them could indulge in petty, personal ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... you, are you the woman to tell me of it? In truth, if it were so, I would confess it to you frankly. And why not? Is it a crime to love? If not, it is not a crime to love less or to cease to love at all. Would it be astonishing if, at our age, we should feel the need ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... probably wouldn't care to speak to me!" was Fanny's astonishing reply, delivered in tones ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... not least perceptible in the eldest of the great masters of fiction whom we can claim for our period—Dickens, who in 1837 first won by his "Pickwick Papers" that astonishing popularity which continued widening until his death; Thackeray, who in that year was working more obscurely, having not yet found a congenial field in the humorous chronicle that reflects for us so much of the Victorian age, for Punch ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling |
