"Startle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hoped to startle her, but she asked, rather quietly, "What do you mean?" and she added, as if to punish him for trying to mystify her: "I've heard that it requires gifts for that. Isn't there ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... look, and then stood quite still, shrinking a little to one side, as if she expected a blow. Something in that frightened, sidewise attitude made him hesitate to tell her of Benjamin Wright; she hardly knew the old gentleman, but it would startle her, the doctor reasoned. And yet, when very carefully, almost casually, he said that Mr. Wright had had a slight shock—"his life is not in danger just now," said William, "but he can't speak;"—she lifted ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... thing its real name. A distinct conscious statement to oneself, 'Now I am going to tell a lie'—'This that I am doing is fraud'—'This emotion that I feel creeping with devilish warmth about the roots of my heart is revenge'—and so on, would surely startle us sometimes, and make us fling the gliding poison from our breast, as a man would a snake that he found just lifting its head from the bosom of his robe. Suppose Judas had answered the question, and, gathering himself up, had looked his Master in the face, and said—'What have I come for?' 'I ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... learned to take the salutation quite calmly, and even the wildest, most spectacled and knobby-browed aborigine cannot startle me. Nonchalantly I reply, "Nabben'," and wish that Norah could but see me ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... squares of gray apartment houses and red buildings, the miles of roofs and chimneys, the long hot glaring streets full of playing children and cars. Then above the roar of the train sounded the high notes of a hurdy-gurdy. Indeed she was home. Next to startle her was the dark tunnel, and then the slowing of the train to a stop. As she walked behind a porter up the long incline toward the station gate her legs seemed to ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... in close imitation of Lulli, the long famed composer of Louis XIV. Purcell followed in the new track, taking for his models the productions of the first Italian composers. The fact, that Purcell was under obligations to the Italians, may startle many of his modern admirers; but with a candour worthy of himself, in the dedication of his Dioclesian to Charles Duke of Somerset, he says, that "music is yet but in its nonage, a forward child. 'Tis now learning Italian, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Panther?" he said. "Pulling in to the Waterbug's landing. Did I startle you when I bounced up like a cougar, Stella?" he asked, with a wry smile. "I guess I was half ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... out from the shelter of my archway into the middle of the room, dubious as to what course to pursue. I thought that, on the whole, the movement that would startle her least would be to slip quietly out of the room and out of the house while she was in the reverie, then knock at the door. She would arouse herself then, expecting to see some one, and would not be so entirely taken by surprise at the sight of my face as she would have been at finding ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... house lay wrapped in slumber. I hesitated to pull the bell: no, it would startle Mrs. Sloman. Bessie was coming: she would surely not make me wait. Was not that her muslin curtain stirring? I would wait in the porch—she would ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... that outcast! Do you wonder that as the years passed and YOU were happy, I did not choose to be so forgotten? Do you wonder that when YOU shut the door on the past I managed to open it again—if only a little way—that its light might startle you?" ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... and tore open the telegram. Its contents were indeed enough to startle him. It was dated "Cape Town," and was as brief as is the wont of cable messages at nine shillings ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... There was not even a fly in the room to intrude on us in our privacy; there were no cocks and hens in the yard to cackle on us in our privacy; nobody walked past the outer passage, or made any noise in any part of the house, to startle us in our privacy; and a steady rain was falling propitiously to keep us in our privacy. We dined in our retired situation on some rugged lumps of broiled flesh, which the landlady called chops, and the servant ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... increased by the struggle of Hellenism with the national reaction which served as a superstructure for it." The objection, raised even by Caspari, that a prophecy of the victorious struggles in the time of the Maccabees must be strange and surprising in a prophet of the Assyrian period, will not startle those who look at the analogies—such as the prophecy in Is. vi. In the latter prophecy, first the Chaldean, and then the Roman catastrophes, are described in sharp outlines, but without any mention of the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... startle his proselyte, by insisting upon any topic which appeared particularly to jar with his habits or principles; and he blended his mirth and his earnest so dexterously, that it was impossible for Nigel to discover how far he was serious in his propositions, or how far they ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... meadows, green as the emerald, and its dark glossy alders. Before us stretches on, equally beautiful, Cressbrook Dale; Little Edale shows its cottages from amidst its trees; and as we advance, the Mousselin-de-laine Mills stretch across the mouth of Miller's Dale, and startle with the aspect of so much life ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... volumes which were conducted by Diderot alone after the great schism of 1759. On the subject of sport, however, the writer of the article Chasse enumerates all the considerations which a patriotic minister could desire to see impressed on public opinion. Some of the paragraphs startle us by their directness and freedom of complaint, and even a very cool reader would still be likely to feel some of the wrath that was stirred in the breast of our shrewd and sober Arthur Young a generation later (1787). "Go to ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... Did I startle you? I 'm so sorry," said Miss Sandus, coming up to her. "Yes, Don Antonio has arrived. I saw him as he disembarked at his native railway-station. I was ordering a book at Smith's. And such luggage, my dear. Boxes and bags, bags and boxes, till you ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... Virgie's soft voice entered with a gentleness which roused but did not startle him. When she spoke, it seemed as if some subtle thought-current between their minds had put the subject of his dreams ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... with a dig that would startle an ox, With his "C'ck! Oh, my!— Go along wiz 'oo, fie!" Would exclaim, "I'm afraid 'oo a socking ole fox." Now a father it shocks, And it whitens his locks, When his little babe calls him a shocking ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... woman, busy at her wheel, with two children playing on the ground before her, were the objects that now presented themselves. The uncouthness of my garb, my wild and weatherworn appearance, my fusil and tomahawk, could not but startle them. The woman stopped her wheel, and gazed as if a spectre ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... in the entry on the instant; surprised, puzzled, but all ready to be hospitable, to she didn't know whom. Relations from Indiana, as likely as not. That is the way people arrive in the country; and a whole houseful to stay over night does not startle the hostess as an unexpected guest to dinner ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... connection with Barter for these two by jerking the controls free. And then what? He would never get through to Barter and would release in Bronx Park two men whose strange type of madness, when they were discovered, would startle the countryside. Two men with the savagery of anthropoid apes! He shuddered as he carefully refrained from disturbing ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... one of the peculiarities of my friend, and determined to assume the character in toto, I allowed myself to startle the silence now and then with a series of gasps and chokings that whether agreeable or not, certainly were of a character to show that I had no desire to conceal my presence from those I had come among. Indeed it ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... Dr. Francis's Translation of Select Speeches from Demosthenes, which Lord Brougham naturally used a little in his own labors on that theme, there may be traced several peculiarities of diction that startle us in Junius. Sir P. had them from his father. And Lord Brougham ought not to have overlooked them. The same thing may be seen in the notes to Dr. Francis's translation of Horace. These points, though not independently of much ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... seemed to stand still. She was pale to the lips, and he could see, even in the darkness, her eyes grow and startle. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... loved dramatic situations in real life quite as well as in make-believe, planned to conceal her radiance until her first appearance on the stage, when she would startle them all, and especially Lysander, with her dazzling loveliness. She stood in a shadow of the wings with her coat wrapped about her. Except for Jerry, waiting to do her humble part, she was alone. She listened to the ceaseless chatter in the dressing-room with a happy smile. She heard Mr. ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... soon plain enough, and whether venomous or not it was enough to startle the watcher, as a serpent some seven or eight feet in length came into sight, travelling through the undergrowth, with its scales ever changing in tint as its folds came more or less into connection with the ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... length resolv'd to go into the Cave my self, and see what it was that had produced such wonderful Effects upon the Company; but as I was stooping at the Entrance, the Door being something low, I gave such a Nodd in my Chair, that I awaked. After having recovered my self from my first Startle, I was very well pleas'd at the Accident which had befallen me, as not knowing but a little Stay in the Place might ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... starved at an inn, one can obtain nothing till such hours as those who are not starving desire to eat;—and if one is foredone with travel, weary, and wanting rest, the pitiless alarum-bell, calling those who may have had twelve hours' sleep from their beds, must startle those who have only just closed their eyes for the first time, perhaps for three nights,—as if the whole traveling community were again at boarding-school, and as if a private summons by the boots or chambermaid to each apartment would not answer ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... since it breaks forth almost without his will. He moves his audience to tears, or brings a mirthful smile to their lips, with a power that is irresistible. His illustrations and figures are drawn chiefly from nature, and are fresh and striking. He can startle his hearers with the terrors of the law, but he prefers to preach the gospel of love. His sermons are printed weekly in the Plymouth Pulpit, and are ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... between Boulogne and Paris, there is a complex railway-station, into which his train, in its relaxing speed, rolls him with many more than the average number of bangs and bumps prepared, in the access of every important French gare, to startle the drowsy or distrait passenger into a sense ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... man in all Europe than the kaiser. It is related of him at the Court of Berlin that when on one occasion he inquired of his brother, Prince Henry, if he could suggest to him anything new wherewith to startle both his own subjects and the world in general, the sailor prince, with a merry laugh, proposed that his majesty should remain perfectly quiet, without saying or doing anything, for an entire week! That, he assured his imperial brother, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... had already offended, Sterne felt impelled to vindicate what he considered the genuine moral worth underlying the indiscretions of the offender. What, then, could better suit him than to compose a novel in which he might give full play to his simious humour, startle more hideously than ever his straighter-laced neighbours, defiantly defend his own character, and caricature whatever eccentric figure in the society around him might offer the most ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... hold The hand of blessing over Lionel, And her whom he would make his wedded wife, Camilla! May their days be golden days, And their long life a dream of linked love, From which may rude Death never startle them, But grow upon them like a glorious vision Of unconceived and awful happiness, Solemn but splendid, full of shapes and sounds, Swallowing its precedent in victory. Let them so love that men and boys may say, Lo! how they love each other! till their love Shall ripen to a proverb ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... feelings, and treat us to another Great Unknown! I am sure such will be your determination, and so I will simply subjoin the hope that nothing will interfere with the speedy completion of your maiden effort—"NAPPER TANDY; or, 'TIS FIFTY YEARS SINCE." Don't startle at my naming your hero, and suggesting your plot; for though I will venture to say that I have hit the nail on the head, I assure you it is only a happy surmise. You must know that nothing could be so interesting as a recurrence to the exciting epoch ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... each time, as he shook himself awake, he noticed that the wolves had ventured nearer to the bear-meat. He could easily have shot any one of them, and thus drive them off for a time; but he did not wish either to waste his ammunition, or startle his companions. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... be remarked that it would startle those unaccustomed to Freeland ideas to hear the amounts of these allowances. In the first year the maintenance unit reached 160L; therefore an unmarried woman or a widow received 48L; a married woman 24L; a family with three children and a ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Clover, pulling off her gloves and taking Imogen's hand. It was chilly rather than hot, but the pulse seemed weak and quick. Clover began to feel anxious, but did her best to hide it under a cheerful demeanor lest she should startle Imogen. ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... he could speak—"aye, lass, tha wert right enow. I'm glad tha wert there and heard it, and saw what I was thinking. I didn't say much. I let the chap have rope enow to hang himself with. When he comes back I'll give him a bit o' my mind as'll startle him. It was right-down clever of thee to see just what I had i' my head about all that there gab about things as didn't matter, an' the leavin' out them as did—thinking I wouldn't notice. Many's the time I've said, 'It is na so much what's put ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... lengthening, hiding the details in the thickets, and all the hot day, he had been thrusting his way through thicket after thicket, in obedience to the instructions of the foresters. He had struck trees with his short club and had grunted and squealed, to startle the khada into flight. A few of the ugly beasts had come out, charging into the open, to be run down and speared ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... lads. Ye must hold on," he said, in an eager but subdued voice. "Doubtless it would be pleasant to vent our feelings in a hearty cheer, but it would startle the old gentleman inside. Get along with you, and let us ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... as close to him as I could and peered at him through my binocular, while he returned the compliment by peering at me, and then warily ventured to rehearse his little tune. The least movement on my part would startle him, cause him to flit to another perch and crane out his neck to glare at me questioningly with wild, dilated eyes, uncertain whether I was to be trusted or not. Both of us presently grew tired of our strained position, ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... should startle the slumbering thought from its erroneous dream are partially unheeded; but the last 223:27 trump has not sounded, or this would not be so. Marvels, calamities, and sin will much more abound as truth urges upon mortals its resisted 223:30 claims; ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... forbid, thou art always creating Fears to startle one; why, if he be not mad, his want of Sleep this eight and forty hours, the Noise of strange unheard of Instruments, with the fantastick Splendour of the unusual Sight, will so turn his Brain and dazzle him, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... the brain. They all counseled patience, and advised against any attempt to hasten her recollections upon any point; they all had known similar cases, but never one so sharply defined or so painful as this. Still they were unanimous in advising that nothing should be said to startle her; that all must ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... brain grew soft, He left the hall he could not bring away, And grateful millions blessed the happy day! Whate'er contention in that hall is heard, His sovereign State has still the final word: For disputatious statesmen when they roar Startle the ancient echoes of his snore, Which from their dusty nooks expostulate And close with stormy clamor the debate. To low melodious thunders then they fade; Their murmuring lullabies all ears invade; ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... fact to startle us as we made our way up through the crowd which blocked halls and staircases was this:—A doctor had been found and, though he had been forbidden to make more than a cursory examination of the body till the coroner came, he had not hesitated to declare after his first look, ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... overgrown by young trees to give proper pasturage, when they made delightful harbors for the small wild creatures which yet remain, and for wild flowers and berries. Here you send an astonished rabbit scurrying to his burrow, and there you startle yourself with a partridge, who seems to get the best of the encounter. Sometimes you see a hen partridge and her brood of chickens crossing your path with an air of comfortable door-yard security. As you drive along ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... so much as the manner in which I received his confidences. He half expected to startle me by his boldness, but was himself confounded by my words. I told him that in my country self was the chief consideration, self-preservation the law of nature; death the King of Terrors; wealth the object of universal search, poverty the worst of evils; unrequited love nothing ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... garrison was awakened by rifle shots and cries of "Indians! Indians!" There was pandemonium at once. The "long roll" was beaten on the infantry drums, and "boots and saddles" sounded by the cavalry bugles, and these are calls that startle all who hear them, and strike terror to the heart of every army woman. They mean that something is wrong—very wrong—and demand the immediate report for duty at their respective companies of every officer ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... something now and then that seemed to startle Cub into a mood of reflection, and whenever Cub reflected his dominance wavered. Tee-hee was able to accomplish the same effect without a "blurt". Tee-hee was sly, "as sly as they make 'em", but it was a kind of slyness that commands respect. It even gave an air of respectability to his ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... banks and 'round, wid long moss hangin' from de limbs. I baited my hook wid a small, wigglin', live, minnow and throwed out into de water. Nothin' happen. In de warm sunshine I must have gone to sleep, when I was startle out my doze by Henry a shoutin': 'Marse Johnnie, Marse Johnnie, your cork done gone down out of sight!' I made a pull but felt at once it would take both hands to land dat fish. I took both hands, put my foot 'ginst de roots of a great live oak and h'isted dat fish in de sky. It was so big ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... so suddenly as to startle Hopkins, who was quite overwhelmed by the vigour and energy ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... month passes that I do not see it again in a dream, so great is the impression of fear it has left on my mind. For ten minutes I experienced such horrible fright that ever since then a sort of constant terror has remained with me. Sudden noises startle me violently, and objects imperfectly distinguished at night inspire me with a mad desire to flee from them. In short, I am ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... child to signify seaborn: 'O, I am mocked,' said he, 'and you are sent hither by some incensed god to make the world laugh at me.' 'Patience, good sir,' said Marina, 'or I must cease here.' 'Nay,' said Pericles, 'I will be patient; you little know how you do startle me, to call yourself Marina.' 'The name,' she replied, 'was given me by one that had some power, my father, and a king.' 'How, a king's daughter!' said Pericles, 'and called Marina! But are you flesh and blood? Are you no fairy? Speak on; where ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Lunar Projects Placement is here to serve you. Plastics-chemists, hydroponics specialists, machinists, mechanics, metallurgists, miners, helpers—all are urgently needed. The tax-free pay will startle you. Free subsistence and quarters. Here at Serene, at Tycho Station or at a dozen ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... report came to the ears of all on board, and the gun-made noise enough to startle a timid person. All watched for the ball, and saw it strike the water about half way ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... child? And right well I know that you could restore him to her if you wished. However, I leave you now to the comfort of your own hardened and wicked heart. The day will come soon when the black catalogue of your own guilt will rise up fearfully before you—when a death-bed, with all its horrors, will startle the very soul within you by its fiery recollections. It is then, my friend, that you will feel—when it is too late—what it is to have tampered with and despised the mercy of God, and have neglected, while you had time, to prepare yourself for His awful judgment. Oh, what ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... skilled at scheming"—he stopped and laughed—"Why, Esther, before the new moon which in the courts of the Temple on the Holy Hill they are this moment celebrating passes into its next quartering I could ring the world so as to startle even Caesar; for know you, child, I have that faculty which is better than any one sense, better than a perfect body, better than courage and will, better than experience, ordinarily the best product of the longest lives—the faculty divinest of men, but which"—he stopped, and ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... are that, it may be said in their favour that they startle us into thought. And truly Mr. Chesterton is invaluable as a quickener and stimulator of the minds of his readers. Moreover, by adopting the method of paradox, he has undoubtedly done one remarkable thing. He has proved what an astonishing number of paradoxical ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... little spring show, at Hampton, a meager eighty dogs were exhibited, of which only nine were collies. This collie division contained no specimens to startle the dog-world. Most of the exhibits were pets. And like nearly all pets, they were "seconds"—in other words, the less desirable ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... to be a little nervous this morning," said the judge. "Has anything happened to disturb you—anything remarkable in Cousin Hepzibah's family—an arrival, eh? I thought so! To be an inmate with such a guest may well startle an ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... phantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses. These thoughts may startle well but not astound The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong-siding ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... behind the scenes, so to speak, if Mr. Narkom will lend us his motor to hurry us there? Could, eh? That's good. I think I'd like to have a look at that lion and, if you don't mind, an introduction to the parties concerned. No! don't fear; we won't startle anybody by revealing my identity or the cause of the visit. Let us say that I'm a vet, to whom you have appealed for an opinion, regarding Nero's queer conduct. All ready, Mr. Narkom? Thanks—then let's ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the present moment I am a gentleman who is in search of a house of residence, and I have a weakness for Brunswick Square in particular, especially for No. 218. Unless I am greatly mistaken I am going to show you something that will startle ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... or ideal, of its flocks, and orchards, and wild honey; the dangers of its hunters; its weariness in noonday heat; its children, agile as the goats they tend, who run, in their picturesque rags, across the solitary wanderer's path, to startle him, in the unfamiliar upper places; its one adornment and solace being the dance to the homely shepherd's pipe, cut by Pan first from the sedges of ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... art dealer and curio hunter, as would the massive eight-day clock with its grotesquely painted face, delineating not only the hours and days but the lunar months, and possessing a sonorous chime which just now struck eight with a boom as deep as that of a cathedral bell. The sound appeared to startle the old farmer with a kind of shock, for he rose from his chair and grasped his stick, looking about him as though for the ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... do a head of you that would startle you," thought Dick,—this was before the red-haired girl had brought him under the guillotine,—but he only said, "I am very sorry," and harrowed Torpenhow's soul that evening with blasphemies against Art. Later, insensibly and to a large ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... afoot and going to the Chief of Police acquainted him with the matter of the youth and carefully described his house and said to him, "Needs must thou bring him to us in the front of morning, but do thou be courteous in thy dealing and show him comradeship and startle him not nor cause him aught of fear." After this Ja'afar dismissed the Wali and returned to his own quarters. And when the morning morrowed the Chief of Police, having chosen him as escort a single Mameluke, made for the house of the youth, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... hoof-strokes of the mountain sheep strike with a rattle of stones that seems music in the crystal air. Yonder the wild turkey calls from the pine trees, or we hark to the whir of the grouse or the pine-hen. Noisy magpies startle the silence of the northern districts, and the sage-hen and the rabbit everywhere break the solitude of your walk. Turn up a stone and sometimes you see a revengeful scorpion: anon the huge tarantula comes forth to look at ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... this indeed is chief To startle reason, stagger frail belief: We grant, 'tis true, that Heaven from human sense Has hid the secret paths of Providence: But boundless wisdom, boundless mercy may Find even for those bewilder'd souls a way. If from His nature foes may pity claim, 190 Much more may strangers ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... should dare descry the wonder That among these rocks is guarded, Yield at once your arms and lives, Or this pistol, this cold aspic Formed of steel, the penetrating Poison of two balls will scatter, The report and fire of which Will the air astound and startle. ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... you play on this?" he shouted, holding up a frying-pan and a big stick to beat it with. Of course Martin could play on that instrument: he had often enough played on one like it to startle the echoes on the lake, in other days. And so, when he had been lifted on to the table, he took the frying-pan by the handle, and began vigorously beating on it with the stick. He did not mind the noise now since he was helping to make ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... displaying their whole breadth, which makes him look like a gigantic butterfly, then instantly lowers his head and runs again, generally picking up something as he stops. A correspondent in South Carolina, familiar with the ways of the bird, suggests that his object is to startle the grasshoppers, or, as he expresses it, to "flush his game." I watched very closely and could not fix upon any theory more plausible, though it seemed to be weakened by the fact that the nestlings, as mentioned above, did the same thing before they thought of looking ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... more quarrels than you have already. It seems to me that you ought to avoid them instead of creating such disturbances." He had assumed a grave tone in reading me this lecture: but as we were in a place in which majesty could not be committed, I began to laugh heartily, and to startle him, I said that henceforward I would pilot my bark myself, and defend myself by openly assailing all persons who testified an aversion to me. How laughable it was to see the comic despair in which this determination threw the king. It seemed to ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... great expenditure of time to win their confidence. That was out of the question now. His first impulse was to hail them, and try to make friends of them by offering some small present; but he checked himself as the thought flashed upon him that a movement on his part might startle them and provoke a discharge of their tiny arrows, which were probably poisoned. He could not doubt they had seen him long before he had seen them, and had been for some time playing the part of silent spectators, ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... semi-circle of shrubs and low trees. It was a tempting theatre for bird dramas, which the solitary student, half hidden on the bank above, could overlook and bring to clear vision with a glass, while not herself conspicuous enough to startle the actors. In this lovely spot many mornings of that happy ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... an invading army," he said. "If she's here alone, we will startle her into a spasm. One of us could ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere" fashion in which the endless and, it may sometimes seem, aimless episodes, and digressions, and insets are worked into the general theme. The defects will hardly startle, though they may still annoy, any one who has worked through the whole. But if another wickedly contented himself with a sketch of the story up to this point, and thought to make up by reading this Part of two volumes carefully, he would probably feel ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... threw up his head and gave a tremendous neigh. The sound startled her, as these things will startle the strongest when all is profoundly silent. But what followed was more startling still. Not one, but half a dozen echoes at least responded, and, with a thrill, the girl sat up. The next moment she had spurred her horse and charged, regardless of the thorns, into ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... annihilate a friendship of years, and obligations of such serious moment; but, to their surprise and delight, they found his ears open to any tales they chose to bring; and having, in a lucky hour, fixed on an accusation likely to startle such a mind, they found all ready ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... purse which, in all good faith, she handed to her maid to put in her sealskin muff-bag. Of course, Louise managed to make herself aware of its contents,—but when her ladyship at last entered her carriage her unexpected order, "To the Brilliant Theatre, Strand," was sufficient to startle Briggs, and cause him to exchange surprise signals with "Mamzelle," who merely ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... impudence of the speaker were admirable in their way. I never saw better acting, even in Kean. His look, his manner, his long arm, his elvish fore-finger,—like an exclamation-point, punctuating his bitter thought,—showed the skill of a master. The effect of the whole was to startle everybody, as if a pistol-shot had rung through the hall."—Recollections, Vol. II. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... your pardon, Miss Richards," he exclaimed, stopping short, and regarding her with apparent surprise, while he lifted his hat to her with great politeness, "I hope I did not startle you." ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... watched it, and it crept on slowly, slowly, like a living thing, and growing as it came, to my very feet. I cannot say how long I might have stood there, fascinated by it, had not something suddenly occurred to startle me into my senses again; for full upon the back of my right hand fell, with a sullen, heavy sound, a second drop of blood. It stung and burnt my flesh like molten lead, and the sharp, sudden pain it gave me shot up my arm and shoulder, and seemed in an instant to mount into my brain and pervade my ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... be very careful!" said Dr. Wherry when, after a swift ride across the continent, Mr. Passamore and his wife reached Oak Farm. "We must not startle ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... forget not him who needs it most: Allow thyself some share.—He's gone too soon; I had to tell him of his holy jugglings; Things that would startle faith, and make us deem Not this, or that, but ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Fray Andres de Urdaneta, and by public act of the notary. But it had no better effect than the preceding efforts. Hence he ordered his artillery to be discharged, somewhat high, so that he might frighten and startle them, without doing them any harm. This succeeded as he expected, for those people, little accustomed to similar reports, immediately abandoned the shore and sea, fleeing more quickly than they had gathered. Thus our ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... in the woodland when to-morrow's rising sun goes forth and his rays unveil the world. On them, while the beaters run up and down, and the lawns are girt with toils, will I pour down a blackening rain-cloud mingled with hail, and startle all the sky in thunder. Their company will scatter for shelter in the dim darkness; Dido and the Trojan captain [125-159]shall take refuge in the same cavern. I will be there, and if thy goodwill is assured ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... and curiosities, which derived added value from the splendid setting which Philibert de Lorme seemed to have planned on purpose for this museum, occupied her for several months, giving her leisure to meditate one of those decisive steps that startle the public, ignorant of the motives which, however, it sometimes discovers by dint ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... be great and unobtrusive, a thing that enters into one's soul, and does not startle or amaze it with itself, but with its subject. How beautiful are the retired flowers! How they would lose their beauty were they to throng into the highway crying out, "Admire me, I am a violet! Dote upon me, I am a primrose!".... I will cut all this—I ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... let me sink to earth. With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a tear." ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... Paris. French mirrors and Italian statuettes may have for their vis-a-vis the exquisite mosaics, the massive gold vases and the costly bijouterie of the Orient, strewn so profusely around as to startle unaccustomed eyes; and a genuine Meissonier will be just as likely to be placed side by side with a Persian houri as anywhere else. The Parsees drive the finest Arab steeds, but on their equipages there ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... as Don clung to him and held him back, gazing wildly all the time at the disturbed water, as the great fish swiftly approached, till, just as it was within a few yards, the shallowness of the water seemed to startle it, making it give quite a bound showing half its length, and then diving down with a kind of wallow, after which the occupants of the boat saw the wooden pole go trailing along the surface, till once more it was snatched, as it were, out ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... and yet natural things which sometimes startle us is the value some minds attach to mere modernity in art. An old thing is tossed up in a new way, and there are those who attach more value to the way than the thing, and are instantly agape with admiration of originality. But originality and modishness ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... was, the centre of merry pleasure parties in gay Paris. A young dude, driving my four-in-hand, and yet a criminal, waiting in hourly expectation a telegram announcing success in a great plot which, when it exploded, was destined to startle the business world, and to hurl me from the summit of happiness, where I was reveling, apparently free from care, to the misery of a dungeon, banishing the happy smiles from my face and the joyous ring from my voice, leaving in place of the smiles the sombre gloom of the prison, and in ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... home late at night, and even if they startle me a little when I'm in bed, the pleasure of going to sleep again is all the greater. But in the morning I awaken them, when I put my room in order. Then they scold a little and go." I had been observing him in the mean time. His clothes were scrupulously clean, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... attendants, on whom the name of the sixth knight seemed to produce an effect almost electrical, hung in suspense upon their master's looks. But when Rowena spoke, the sound of her voice seemed to startle him from his silence. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... our camp and the herd of oxen at night, and break the silence by their piercing howls. After we had gone to sleep, they would sneak into camp to pick up scraps left from supper, then come within a few feet of some one rolled up in his blanket and startle him with a howl. But with all their noise these prairie wolves were great cowards, and would run from any ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton
... slowly making their way up the side of the mountain had been the victims. He was unable to determine whether they were friends or foes, they were so far before him. He hesitated after he had raised his gun to his shoulder to proclaim his presence by a shot, and then lowered his rifle. A shot might startle the unsuspecting men who were struggling to gain the rim and the report of his rifle might increase their danger. At the same time, however, he began to advance more rapidly and in a brief time was able to recognize the men whose actions he had ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... fronted, but of the Wyverns as well, brought that old rallying cry to his lips—the call used on the Dumps of Tyr to summon gang aid against outsiders. Fork-tail had crouched again for a spring, but that throat-crackling blast appeared to startle it. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... I'll be Mammon. I'll lend money at usury—that's what they do at all schools accordin' to the B.O.P. Penny a week on a shillin'. That'll startle Heffy's weak intellect. You can ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... use of thinking of it now, Sitting alone and listening to the clock! She'd best make haste and knit another row. Three hours at least must pass before his knock Would startle her. It always was a shock. She listened—listened—for so long before, That when it came ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... young and I used him sore, So you never shall startle Frankie more, Without capsizing Earth and her ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... to himself, but not loudly enough to startle a bird which came flitting from tree to tree in advance of the approaching soldiers, and checked its flight in one of the low branches of a great overhanging chestnut, and then kept on changing its position as it peered down at the two recumbent figures, its movements startling the bugler, who now ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... courtship, for he believed that he had a clear field before him, and he was too sagacious to startle Clara by overmuch energy. Meantime he began to be conscious that an influence from her was reaching his spirit. He had hitherto considered her a child; one day he suddenly recognized her as a woman. Now a woman, a beautiful ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... merry and loud,' as the poet says, though not a word of her whispered conversation was audible. Conservatories (in novels) are dangerous places for confidences, but the pale and angry face of Miss Malory did not suddenly emerge from behind a grove of gardenias, and startle the conspirators. Indeed, Miss Malory was not present; she and her sister had no great share in the elegant ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... storm. The maple tops writhe and twist in the sweep of the winds that come up in eddies from the river far beneath. The sky is suddenly darkened. The snow falls thick and fast. These portents are sufficiently significant to startle the whole party. The dance is broken up and every one prepares to depart as ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... pray, and that most earnestly and constantly, for some terrific shock to startle the women o f the nation into a self- respect which mill compel them to, see the absolute degradation o f their present position; which will compel them to break their yoke of bondage and give them faith ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... not as serious as it sounds, for the shots were not to be directed at the rustlers but fired in the air to startle the cattle. In cutting out, or, rather, in separating from those who had stolen them the steers from Diamond X, it was necessary to get the animals on the run. They could then more easily be driven where ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... the United States and Spain) probably could excel Mr. Gerard in revelations of entertaining diplomatic history and gossip. Count von Bernstorff, former Ambassador to the United States, too, I imagine might startle us with a ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... elderly man came in and by nods, motions, and words, partly English and partly something else, convinced me that he liked little girls, and was glad to see me. Then of a sudden, he clasped his hands about my waist and tossed me in the air as father did before his hand was hurt, and when he wanted to startle me, and then hear me laugh. This act, which brought back loving memories, made Jacob seem nearer to me; nearer still when he told me I must not ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... remarks was one on Bartholdi's statue of Liberty. "The real goddesses of Liberty in this country do not spend a large amount of time standing on pedestals in public places; they use their torches to startle the bats in political cellars." Referring to the ignoring of women's work in the histories she said: "When I was a child and studied about the Pilgrim Fathers I supposed they were all bachelors, as I never found a word about their wives." Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's topic was Masculine, Feminine ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Sally, even if she were here, Mas'r Harry. Nothing never did startle she, though she ain't ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... go On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free; To hear the lark begin his flight And singing startle the dull night From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise: Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow, Through the sweetbriar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine: While the cock with ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... with stealthy tread, To the belfry chamber overhead, And startle the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him make Masses and ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... of a clearing enclosed by a worm fence I came to a row of slave-cabins. Mongrel dogs barked through the fence, and in one angle of it a young white man with long straight hair showed himself so abruptly as to startle my horse. Only the one cabin was lighted, and thence came the rhythmic shuffle of bare-footed dancers while the fiddle played "I lay ten dollars down." There were three couples on the floor, and I saw—for the excited dogs had pushed the door open—that two of the men were white, though ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... do not minister to his life, keeping to the limits of their purpose; they become an end in themselves and set fire to his life and play the fiddle in the lurid light of the conflagration. Then it is that in our self-expression we try to startle and not to attract; in art we strive for originality and lose sight of truth which is old and yet ever new; in literature we miss the complete view of man which is simple and yet great, but he appears as a psychological problem or the embodiment of a passion ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... enough to flatter his vanity. Even in this aberration of his genius he served the progress of the world. Charles Gould felt sure of being understood with precision and judged with the indulgence of their common passion. Nothing now could surprise or startle this great man. And Charles Gould imagined himself writing a letter to San Francisco in some such words: ". . . . The men at the head of the movement are dead or have fled; the civil organization ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... when he passed them all by and entered the hall with his ticket. I wish I knew what he thought of the whole performance; but the housekeeper of the lean man, who sat just in front of him, tells me what seemed to startle him the most. The first thing was when two of the officers came out with blackened faces like Christy minstrel boys and began to dance. Arick was sure that they were really black and his own people, and he was wonderfully ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... evil in everything, they do not comprehend that others still believe in the good. Therefore they have to be so nonchalant as to stop their ears, lest the hum of the busy world should suddenly startle them from sleep. The father allows his son to go where so many others go, where Cato himself went; he says that youth is but fleeting. But when he returns, the youth looks upon his sister; and see what has taken place in him during an hour passed in the society ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... Bar, and the Jury, whom, it would seem, nothing in this world had power to startle, astonish, or ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... article on gliders in June, 1905, so early in the history of air conquest that its suggestions were miraculous to him; for it was three years before Wilbur Wright was to startle the world by his flights at Le Mans; four years before Bleriot was to cross the Channel—though, indeed, it was a year and a half after the Wrights' first secret ascent in a motor-driven aeroplane at Kittyhawk, and fourteen years after Lilienthal ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Through sectarian rubbish tearing; The bell and whistle and the steaming, Startle thousands from their dreaming. Look out for the cars while the bell rings! Ere the sound your ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... Barnum to engage the wonder at any price; that it would startle the naturalists, wake up the whole scientific world, draw in the masses, and make $20,000 for the Museum. Barnum told him that he thought well of the speculation, only he did not like the name ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... pieces, then she again shreekt out now saith shee I see him & lookt wistly & said there he is just at this time to my apearance there seemed to dart in at ye west window a sudden light across ye room wch did startle and amase me at yt present, then she tould me yt she see ye deuill in ye shape of a white dogg, she tould me that ye deuill apeared in ye shape of these three women namly goody Clawson, goody Miller, & ye woman at Compo. [Disborough] I asked her how she knew yt it was ye ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... why does Jeremy Taylor, when no practical matter is actually before him, lay down a maxim about the lawfulness of lying, which will startle most readers? The reason is plain. He is forming a theory of morals, and he must treat every question in turn as it comes. And this is just what St. Alfonso or Scavini is doing. You only try your hand yourself at a treatise on the rules of morality, and you will see how difficult the work ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... dispenses the recipient from the obligation to love the other enough. He never spoke to her of this misadventure, he ceased even to think of it himself. But now and then his thoughts in their wandering course would come upon this memory where it lay unobserved, would startle it into life, thrust it more deeply down into his consciousness, and leave him aching with a sharp, far-rooted pain. As though this had been a bodily pain, Swann's mind was powerless to alleviate it; in the case of bodily pain, however, since it is independent of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... not see? It is a device of the Senate to startle our friends from Bosphorus. The faggots and straw blaze up fiercely round the wall; then, when all is confusion, the substance in the sealed vessels escapes and at once puts out the fire, and the laugh is with us. Our friends from Bosphorus know what ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... "Here, don't startle me; I've got a weak heart," he observed, with a grin. "You say it as if you meant it. ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... things round about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn; A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay. ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... strange old gentleman whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories. Some of these fables—to my shame be it spoken—might possibly be traced back to mine own veracious self; and if any passages of the present tale should startle the reader's faith, I must be content to bear the stigma ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hear from him, nor indeed from any member of the family. When he came in from his work his first words were for her: some cheery little speech, yet uttered in rather an undertone, lest his natural abruptness unchecked should startle her. The best massive arm-chair, and the snuggest nook by the kitchen fire, were hers; and by the Bible, which was her constant companion, and lay on a little table which stood beside her, a few bright flowers, as their season came round, ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... preference to surprise. It is like the true reading of the passage;—'God said, Let there be light, and there was light;'—not there was light. As the feeling with which we startle at a shooting star, compared with that of watching the sunrise at the pre-established moment, such and so low is ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... success of the Triple Alliance, but he had never in heart abandoned his older policy. He still looked to France and to Catholicism as the most effective means of restoring his prerogative; and the sudden revelation of the power of Lewis, however it might startle his ministers into anxiety for freedom and Protestantism, only roused in the heart of their royal master a longing to turn it to the advantage ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... design of a man endowed with a genuine artistic temperament, but with a strange desire to leave some showy and tangible memorial of his labours. His ambition is not to stir men's souls with profound thought, or to soften by some new harmonies the weary complaints of suffering humanity, but to startle the world by the splendid embodiment in solid marble of the most sumptuous dreams of a cultivated imagination. Contarini Fleming, indeed, as he shows by a series of brilliant travellers' sketches, is no mean master of what may be called poetical prose. His pictures ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Miss Nora, and even knew the names of the other two young ladies, Miss Sophia and Miss Lucy. It was a weakness with Bozzle,—that of displaying his information. He would have much liked to be able to startle Sir Marmaduke by describing the Government House in the island, or by telling him something of his old carriage-horses. But of such information as Sir Marmaduke desired, Sir Marmaduke ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... startle you," he said. "I thought my note would partly prepare you for this meeting. We expected to find you in the Frying Pan district. When you did not appear there we tuned our radio locator to your heart beats and in that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... poetry of the reverential feeling which suggested it, can be fully comprehended only by those who know that Japan is still practically ruled by the dead. Much more than beautiful are the edifices of the Dai-Kioku-Den. Even in this most archaic of Japan cities they startle; they tell to the sky in every tilted line of their horned roofs the tale of another and more fantastic age. The most eccentrically striking parts of the whole are the two-storied and five-towered gates,—veritable Chinese dreams, one would say. In color the construction is not less ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... research" have in parts revealed the "obliterated plan;" but, in 1817, the "shapeless mass of ruins" defied the guesses of antiquarians. "Your walks in the Palatine ruins ... will be undisturbed, unless you startle a fox in breaking through the brambles in the corridors, or burst unawares through the hole of some shivered fragments into one of the half-buried chambers, which the peasants have blocked up to serve as stalls for their jackasses, or as huts ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron |
