"Astonish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suit me. Let him stay here for a few days. We'll fish out some of our men who long served with Nelson, and if he keeps his ears turning right and left he'll hear many a yarn to astonish him. He must have patience though. The old fellows will not open out at once; their memories are like wells, you must throw a little water down at first before you ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... sultana in astonish, ment at the penetration of the brothers, whom he summoned to his presence, and inquired of them on what grounds they had founded their just suspicions respecting the bread, the kid, and himself." "My lord," replied ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... this present juncture. I was afraid that people would ask, Where are your Northern Ballads? Where are your alliterative translations from Ab Gwilym—of which you were always talking, and with which you promised to astonish the world? Now, in the event of such interrogations, what could I answer? It is true I had compiled Newgate Lives and Trials, and had written the life of Joseph Sell, but I was afraid that the people of the old town would scarcely consider these as equivalents for the Northern ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... their school. Nevertheless, I do not deny that I have been a Fourierist; for, since they say it, of course it may be so. But, sir, that of which my ex-associates are ignorant, and which doubtless will astonish you, is that I have been many other things,—in religion, by turns a Protestant, a Papist, an Arian and Semi-Arian, a Manichean, a Gnostic, an Adamite even and a Pre-Adamite, a Sceptic, a Pelagian, a Socinian, an Anti-Trinitarian, and a ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... about their own works or appreciations. Here, as elsewhere, we meet the contrast between feeling and doing, on the one hand, and knowing, on the other. Just as practical men are frequently unable to describe or justify their most successful methods or undertakings, just as many people who astonish us with their fineness and freedom in the art of living are strangely wanting in clear thoughts about themselves and the life which they lead so admirably, so in the world of beauty, the men who do and appreciate are not always ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... the troops, (perhaps be escorted by the Seventh Regiment,) when, as a matter of economy, the animal would serve an excellent purpose; and, being quite as high in metal as he was in bone, he would no doubt astonish the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... would rather rely on my ax. Besides, the bow, now it is unstrung, makes an excellent quarterstaff, a weapon with which I have practiced a great deal. With a spear your people would know quite as much as I should; but I fancy that, with a quarterstaff, I should astonish them. It has the advantage, too, that it disables without killing; and as your soldiers would only be doing their duty in arresting me, I should be sorry to do them more harm ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... this day, by one of the greater Ministers of State in England, and one of the King's Cabinet, that we had little left to agree on between the Dutch and us towards a peace, but only the place of treaty; which do astonish me to hear, but I am glad of it, for I fear the consequence of the war. But he says that the King, having all the money he is like to have, we shall be sure of a peace in ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... astonish Professor Tapper with you when I get home," he said; "you are worthy to be ranked with the fur-bearing South Polar pollywog. I will feed you till your feathers shine and you are the envied of all birds. I am the most fortunate man in ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... was an easy matter to satisfy them all to an exceptional extent. I put two good detectives at work to find out everything possible about the parties making the inquiries, and Lucille was thus able to astonish them with the accuracy of her knowledge as to the past. Of course, she was at liberty to exercise her own judgment as to her predictions for the future, since no one could tell whether they would prove ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... allowed myself to be deceived for so long. It was because I believed in him during the first three years, and during the second three I had already lost so much time that I dared not disbelieve in him. It was always: 'Just six months more, Cleo, dear, and then we shall astonish the world.' And then the vision of that vast theatre was too fascinating for me to abandon. His excuses were always plausible. Now he had made some terribly bad investment, now a publisher had gone bankrupt, now the sales of his books had fallen tremendously. Besides, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... themselves worthy of patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute in ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge. While the first kind study, the second march ahead; the one sort is modest, and the other impudent; the man of genius is silent about his own merits, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Shandy:—Without any thing, Madam, but that tender and delicious sentiment which ever mixes in friendship, where there is a difference of sex. Let me intreat you to study the pure and sentimental parts of the best French Romances;—it will really, Madam, astonish you to see with what a variety of chaste expressions this delicious sentiment, which I have the honour to speak ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... heart and tumbled about in his throat and lungs, and maintained a furious harlequinade, and in short behaved in a way that was quite disgraceful, and that caused the poor young man alternately to amuse, annoy, astonish, and stun his comrades, who beheld the exterior results of those private theatricals, but had no conception of the terrific combats that took place so ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Balaam's ass has spoken. Nothing will astonish me after this. And where are the hundred thousand crowns which (so M. Camusot tells me) are ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... faith as the art of sorcery. He could neither command the elements nor pierce the veil of the future-scatter armies with a word, nor pass from spot to spot by the utterance of a charmed formula. But men who, for ages, had passed their lives in attempting all the effects that can astonish and awe the vulgar, could not but learn some secrets which all the more sober wisdom of modern times would search ineffectually to solve or to revive. And many of such arts, acquired mechanically (their invention often the work of a chemical ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... supernaturalism. Like children escaped from school, they find their whole happiness in freedom. They are proud of what they have rejected, as if a great wit were required to do so; but they do not know what they want. If you astonish them by demanding what is their positive ideal, further than that there should be a great many people and that they should be all alike, they will say at first that what ought to be is obvious, and later they will submit the matter to ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the days of former splendor, twelve sets of horse trappings, each of a different color, incrusted with precious stones. The twelve Apostles, life size, in massive silver, were also to be seen there. This luxury will cease to astonish us when we consider that the family of Radziwill was descended from the last Grand Pontiff of Lithuania, to whom, when he embraced Christianity, were given all the forests and plains which had before been consecrated to the worship of the heathen ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... hood, the shawls of strange pattern unknown in England. All tucked up the dress nearly to the waist, showing the invariable red kirtle. All, or nearly all, were shod with serviceable shoes, such as would astonish the Parisian makers of bottines. But these shoes were only for show. The ladies walked painfully about in the unaccustomed leather. They seemed to have innumerable corns, to wrestle with bunions huge and dire, to suffer from unknown ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Trot, and small as she was he was half a head shorter in height. The most remarkable thing about Button-Bright was that he was always quiet and composed, whatever happened, and nothing was ever able to astonish him. Trot liked him because he was not rude and never tried to plague her. Cap'n Bill liked him because he had found the boy cheerful and brave at all times, and willing to do anything he was asked ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... yours. What must your fellows think of you? In this gross age, your delicacy must astonish them. There used to be more of it formerly. But how should men know any thing of it, when women have forgot it? Lord be thanked, we females, since we have been admitted into so constant a share of the public diversions, want not courage. We can give the men stare for stare wherever we meet ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... seemed to surprise him a good deal, especially as his absence was attributed by Meldon to shame and a consciousness of guilt, feelings from which Simpkins had never in his life suffered. Then—and this seemed to astonish him still more—he was warmly invited to go for a day's yachting in ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... the House of Commons, which, constituted as they now are, they never can recover. Never, indeed, in my recollection, do I remember so general an idea that there must be a change of Ministry. I hear it from quarters which astonish me. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... its existence in a place which, though well populated, was not fashionable. It had not long been established there, and was the enterprise of an incoming man whose whole course of procedure seemed to be dictated by an intention to astonish the native citizens very considerably before he had done. Nearly everything was glass in the frontage of this fairy mart, and its contents glittered like the hammochrysos stone. The panes being of plate-glass, and the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... should be forced to explain myself, if I did not retire; for which reason I took the candle in my hand, and went up into my chamber, not without wondering at this unaccountable weakness in reasonable creatures, that they should love to astonish and terrify one another. Were I a father, I should take particular care to preserve my children from those little horrors of imagination, which they are apt to contract when they are young, and are not able to shake off when they are in years. I have known a soldier, that has entered a ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... of music and dancing, and it would astonish a European to visit one of their assemblies. We enter a gloomy palm-leaf hut, in which two or three very dim lamps barely render darkness visible. The floor is of black sandy earth, the roof hid in a smoky impenetrable blackness; ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... sidewalk, and, when a spectator stepped down from a dry-goods box from which he had been looking on, Chad stepped up and took his place. Straightway, he began to wish he could buy a horse and ride back to the mountains. What fun that would be, and how he would astonish the folks on Kingdom Come. He had his five dollars still in his pocket, and when the first horse was brought out, the auctioneer raised his hammer and shouted in ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... accord more to heaven—if we got there. The grand test of your modern Englishman is, to bear any amount of amusement without wincing: no pleasure is to wring a smile from him, nor is any expectancy to interest, or any unlooked-for event to astonish. He would admit that "the Governor"—meaning his father—was surprised; he would concede the fact, as recording some prejudice of a bygone age. As the tone of manners and observance has grown universal, so has ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... and practiced by the Negro. The newspaper gossip and sophistical reasoning to the effect that some Negroes have been apprehended for immoral conduct, and therefore all Negroes are immoral, would astonish all creation if applied to the white race. Let us be fair and try the Negro by the same logic that the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the room with Mrs Dunn, and as he went out Mr Burne blew a flourish, loud enough to astonish the professor, who wondered how it was that so much noise could be made by such a little man, till he remembered the penetrating nature of the sounds produced by such tiny creatures as crickets, and then he ceased ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... pursued Manicamp, as if he had not heard the exclamations of the princess, "nothing will astonish you any longer—neither the comte's ardor in seeking the quarrel, nor his wonderful address in transferring it to a quarter foreign to your own personal interests. That latter circumstance was, indeed, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... any further, it won't look well for a poor woman to be walking with a gentleman; neighbors make mischief, and God knows, I have enough to bear already." My boldness having quite left me, I shook hands with her, which seemed to astonish her, and off she went. I followed her at a distance, to her house, which was one of a row of small cottages fronting a ditch, and a field, on which carpets were beaten, and boys played, a scrubby poor place as ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... case for the crown, and Mr. Crean, counsel for Mr. Lalor, rose to address the jury on behalf of his client. His speech was argumentative, terse, forcible, and eloquent; and seemed to please and astonish not only the auditors but the judges themselves, who evidently had not looked for so much ability and vigour in the young advocate before them. Although the speeches of professional advocates do not ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... possible?" cried Raikes, in mock surprise. "On my soul, you astonish me!" At this the Captain screeched with laughter again, yet he broke off in the middle to curse instead, as his horse floundered ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... planting himself directly in front of her, "here goes! now I am going to astonish you very ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... also that before long, you intend to astonish the world with a wonderful picture, which shall distance such laggards as ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... he had read a great many exciting novels, and had a good command of language, he talked and acted like a great man. He could hold his own in conversation with older and wiser persons than himself. He could astonish almost any person of moderate pretensions by the largeness of his ideas; and, of late years, his father had not pretended to hold an argument with him, for Simon always overwhelmed him by the force and elegance of his ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... ensuring success for his labours, when he adopts the dull vehicle of Prose for the commnication [Transcriber's Note: communication] of his ideas not considering that from Poetry ten thousand bright scintillations are struck off, which please and convince while they attract and astonish. Thus when Pope ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... am going to tell you something that will astonish you—as it has astonished a good many clever scientific men. Do you know why people are at all able to use elephants in a circus, and give you pleasure by making them do tricks? Suppose one of the elephants suddenly went mad? Then he could kill a dozen people in a minute by just rushing ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... are little more than babies. You will find these little things left in a bare room by themselves,—the eldest six years old,—while the poor mother is out at her work. And the eldest will reply to your questions in a way that will astonish you, till you get accustomed to such things. I think that almost as heart-rending a sight as you will readily see is the misery of a little thing who has spilt in the street the milk she was sent to fetch, or broken a jug, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... wouldn't it astonish you if you heard a low, timid knocking some day when you and your Bohemian friends were carousing and having a riotous ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... segregated and peculiar employment. A large screen fenced off from interruption my father's erudite settlement; and quite out of sight, behind that impermeable barrier, he was now calmly winding up that eloquent peroration which will astonish the world whenever, by Heaven's special mercy, the printer's devils have done with "The History of Human Error." In another nook my uncle had ensconced himself, stirring his coffee (in the cup my mother had presented to him so many years ago, and which had miraculously escaped all the ills the race ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... astonish John, but this announcement did so. He dropped his cigar in a shower of gray ash on to his trousers, and retrieved it almost mechanically, his wide-open eyes ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... quicken From crashing suns.... "Let there be light!" you said. Light was, and life,—Man rose, and Man fell stricken By your relentless power that through him sped; And again Man rose, halt like the walking dead, Dragging these heavy laws you never knew Till you recoiled from him astonishd,— Ah, holy ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... ignoring the dogmas of the Church Councils regarding the future Day of Judgment and the Resurrection of the Body at that time. A little questioning of the religious teachers, and a little examination of religious history, and the creeds and doctrines of their respective churches, would astonish many good church members who have been fondly thinking of their beloved ones, who have passed on, as even now dwelling in Heaven as blessed angels. They would be astonished to find that the "angels" of the churches are not the souls of the good people who have been judged ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... selected and extensive. They were very cultivated, elegant people, and I listened to their conversation, observed their deportment, and modelled my manners after the example they furnished. I was so anxious to astonish Cuthbert by my grace and intelligence, when he presented me to his father, and I exulted in the thought that even he might one day be ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... going to settle down into a mere magazine writer, although just at present it serves my purpose to scatter a few papers about among the periodicals. But in a short time I intend to make a new departure. I dare say it will rather astonish you ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... in the Universe, but the Pride of the Citizens. But I don't think, that the Humour, which you seem to be so much astonish'd at, is altogether worn off yet. In Poetry, Painting and Sculpture, you see Rivers, Towns, and Countries continue to be represented under the Images of Men and Women as much as ever. Look upon the Marble Figures about the Pedestal of Queen Anne's ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... It may astonish many who study the records of French history from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, not to find anywhere the words third estate; and a desire may arise to know whether those inquirers of our day who have devoted themselves ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... "Does that astonish you? Paris has always been ungrateful, and has long since forgotten that the Benedetto affair was once an important topic," replied Chateau-Renaud in a ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... even, they are allowed by the popular authority to exceed those bounds; and as they are protected by the opinion, and backed by the co-operation, of the majority, they venture upon such manifestations of their power as astonish a European. By this means habits are formed in the heart of a free country which may some day prove fatal to ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... do nothing except stand before his pictures and laugh. Oh, I remember it all very well. We were taught at the Beaux-Arts to consider Manet an absurd person or else an epateur, who, not being able to paint like M. Gerome, determined to astonish. I remember perfectly well the derision with which those chefs d'oeuvre, "Yachting at Argenteuil" and "Le Linge", were received. They were in his last style—that bright, clear painting in which violet shadows were beginning to take the place ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... Hastings was in the minority with the three years after the appointment of this Committee, that the assessment upon the country increased, but that the revenue was diminished; and you will also find, which is a matter that ought to astonish you, that the expenses of the collections were increased by no less a sum than 500,000l. You may judge from this what riot there was in rapacity and ravage, both amongst the European and native agents, but chiefly amongst the natives: for Mr. Hastings did not divide the greatest ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... many paces he repeated two or three times a phrase or word which sounded like "r'mo-ah-el" ("whence-who-what" do you want?). I shook my head; but, that he might not suppose me dumb, I answered him in Latin. The sound seemed to astonish him exceedingly; and as I went on to repeat several questions in the same tongue, for the purpose of showing him that I could speak and was desirous of doing so, I observed that his wonder grew deeper and deeper, and was evidently mingled first with alarm and afterwards with ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... argument, that subtly strays Thro' winding sophistry's protracted maze: The complicated, deep, immense design, That works in darkness like a labouring mine, Unknown to all, 'till, bursting into birth, Its wide explosion shakes th' astonish'd earth. His was the prompt invention, fruitful still In means subservient to the varying will: The flexible expertness, smooth and mean, That glides thro' obstacles, and wins unseen: The quick discernment, that with eagle eyes Sees distant storms in ether darkly rise, And active ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... very loquacious, was not quite intelligible. He pronounced the simple phrase 'St. Patrick's Street' in a way to astonish the traveller; it would seem impossible to crowd as many h's into three words, and to wrap each in flannel, as he succeeded in doing. He seemed pleased with our admiration of the babies, and said that Irish children did be very fat ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "You astonish me," I said to the maire, as he concluded his narrative. We were sitting in his parlour, smoking a cigar together one day in February in a town not a thousand miles from the German lines. "You know, Monsieur le Maire, they have ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... up before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all." ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the subscriptions in the booksellers' shops astonish; correspondents flock in; and, what will surprise you, the timid proprietors of the 'Scots' Magazine' have come to the resolution of dropping their work. You stare at all this, and so ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... all these items would astonish those who think that the actual expense of giving meals to household employees is not a very great one and is limited to the cost of the food they eat; even this last expense is considerably augmented by the careless and wasteful way in which provisions ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... all that Lavender hinted of his plans. He went home early that night, and spent an hour or two in packing up some things, and in writing a long letter to his aunt, which was destined considerably to astonish that lady. Then he lay down and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... seest, than iron; hence, though out of one of thy arms two as large as mine might be made, I have no need to fear thee. On the contrary, I grieve over thy rudeness, and if the ingratitude of men could astonish me yet, I should be ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... spat as he smoked his short pipe, and occasionally uttered some few guttural sounds of command, which were respectfully listened to by his companion. He was evidently a brave who had met Russians more than once before in quite other circumstances, and nothing about them could astonish or even interest him. Olenin was about to approach the dead body and had begun to look at it when the brother, looking up at him from under his brows with calm contempt, said something sharply and angrily. The scout hastened to cover the dead man's face with his coat. Olenin was ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... turn to be surprised. "Why, Jule," he exclaimed, "you astonish me! Come, now, you're joking—you don't mean ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... am not the least bit of a Byron. And now let me get used to this new heaven, into which you have just taken me; let my heart get steady, if it will, in its great happiness. Let me have some good runs in the woods, some good rows on the ponds, some hard gallops. Let me get tired, and I'll astonish ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... the major. "I know about it, and more be token I am not in the swim with you. Sure, I could go this very evening to the diamond merchants about town and give them a tip about the coming fall in prices that would rather astonish 'em." ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... written a great deal of pottery lately. I have quitted the law forever." Then he inquires if he can make any money by lecturing at Andover. He already has an engagement to lecture at Concord, where he has hopes to "astonish them a little." ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... arrived, you ought to have seen me the next day after a two-hours' job with the differential gears. By the time I had got the trouble to rights, and had puffed up and down the main street to make assurance sure and astonish the natives (who came out two hundred strong and cheered), I was as frowsy, unkempt, and dilapidated an American as ever drove a twelve H.P. Panhard through the rural lanes of Britain. Indeed, I was so shocked at my own appearance when I looked at myself in the glass (such a wiggly old glass that ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... Life-time after, that he not only committed frequent Murder by his own Hand, but likewise wished that all human Kind wore but one Neck, that he might have the Pleasure to cut it off. Such like Degeneracies astonish the Parents, [who] not knowing after whom the Child can take, [see [2]] one to incline to Stealing, another to Drinking, Cruelty, Stupidity; yet all these are not minded. Nay it is easy to demonstrate, that a Child, although it be born from the best of Parents, may be corrupted ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... astonish her mother. Her dark, wrinkled brows contracted until not a particle of the eyes were visible, and she sat for a long while in deep thought, rocking herself to and fro on the bed, whilst the dying woman regarded her with expanded eyes and raised hands, locked tightly together. ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... termination Chester, caster, or caer, derived from the Latin castra, a camp; and whenever we are in the neighbourhood of such places, imagination pictures to us the well-drilled Roman legionaries who used to astonish the natives with their strange language and customs; and we know that there are coins and pottery, tesserae and Roman ornaments galore, stored up beneath our feet, awaiting the search of the persevering digger. Few are the records relating to Roman Britain contained in the pages ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... the Abbey, as she seemed indigenous to the place, I was tempted to ask if she knew Mr. Beckford. "I have seen him, sir, many, many times; but he is gone, and I trust—I do trust—to rest. He was a good man to the poor, never was there a better." "You astonish me; I had heard that he never gave away anything." "Good gracious, sir, who could have invented such lies? There never was a kinder friend to the poor, and when he left they lost a friend indeed. Not give away anything! Why, sir, in the winter, when ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... back to him, saw his eye grow bright and clear. Arizona was like a man with a new "good resolution." He wanted to test his strength and astonish ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Clovio!' cried Lord Connemara, seizing the opportunity with well-affected surprise. 'You really astonish me. He was a Croatian, I believe, or an Illyrian—I forget which—and he studied at Rome under Giulio Romano. Wonderful draughtsman in the nude, and fine colourist; took hints from Raphael and Michael Angelo.' So much he had picked up from Menotti and Cicolari, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... at the examination papers set for these hard-working students, in order that they may attain the glorious degree of B.A., and astonish their sisters, cousins, and aunts by the display of these magic letters and all-resplendent hood. And again I say in strict confidence that if this same glorious hood does not adorn the back of each individual son of Alma Mater, he ought to be ashamed of himself, and not to fail to ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... the pupils and other friends of the schools. The programme was a miscellaneous one, made up of tableaux, songs, dialogues and recitations. Some of these reflected great credit upon the pupils and their teachers. I say some of them, because some parts were rendered so excellently as to astonish one who did not expect anything very good from negro scholars. One beautiful scene was, "Winding the May Pole," by twelve little girls dressed in white. Another striking piece was, "What Alcohol has done for the Nations." Different persons in appropriate costume ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various
... fever to a state of comfort in an intermittent disease. So the punka is seen everywhere—in the temple and court room and other public places, as well as in private dwellings. It is one of the first things to astonish the European upon his arrival in India, and it is not long before he has to bless the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... to the clouds, and, extending itself along the sea and upon the shore, formed a great mist, which we may well imagine did mightily astonish the Fisherman. When the smoke was all out of the vessel, it slowly took shape, and became a solid-seeming body, of which there was formed a Genius twice as high and broad as any giant with which the Fisherman had been aforetime familiar. At the sight of a monster of such unsizeable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... many wars we have had in the pacific half-century which is lapsing? The tale will astonish him, and should silence the thoughtless word-spinners of the platforms. The door of the temple of Janus has been seldom closed for long. Our campaigns, great and small, and military enterprises of the lesser sort, could not be counted on the fingers of both ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... grace, I am a very pretty old lady," she said to herself; "and I think I shall I astonish my daughter-in-law a little. One is afraid of these calm, cool, northern women, but I feel to-day that even Abbie must be proud ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... to women in almost all trades and professions. It doesn't astonish a New Yorker to see a hospital ambulance tearing down the street with a white-clad woman surgeon on the back seat. A woman lawyer, architect, editor, manufacturer, excites no particular notice. In the Western States men are beginning to elect women ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... will see will astonish them. They will see that if there is anything at the back of this vast process, with a consciousness and a purpose in any way resembling our own—a being who knows what he wants and is doing his best to get it—he is instead of a holy and all-wise ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... kind, will often carve figures on their pipes, not destitute of merit and design. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germe in their minds, which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory, such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated; but never yet could I find a black, that had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration[Footnote: ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... with me "The Robbers", a drama, the very name of which I had never before heard of:—A Winter midnight—the wind high—and "The Robbers" for the first time!—The readers of Schiller will conceive what I felt. Schiller introduces no supernatural beings; yet his human beings agitate and astonish more than all the goblin rout—even of Shakespeare.' See for another account of the midnight reading of 'The Robbers', Letter to Southey, November [6], 1794, Letters of S. T. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... object at present was to see an actual scene of sodomy. So to occupy me she opened a small cupboard, and took out some bawdy books, admirably illustrated. The examination of these was exciting; her experienced eye detected the effect in the distention of my trousers, the extent of which seemed so to astonish her that she laid her hand upon it, gave an exclamation of surprise at its size, and said she must see so noble a prick, unbuttoned my trousers, and pulled it out. She handled it charmingly and looked so lewd that I don't know what might have happened, for I had ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... trophies were taken. Verily science owes not much to the Honourable East India Company. We are not blind to such noble exceptions as Sykes, Hodgson, and others; and, if every province of India had a resident of their character, a fauna might soon be catalogued that would astonish even the spectacled savant. ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... the ladies very much, makes pot-pourris on "La Muette" ["Masaniello"], plays the forte and piano with the pedal, but not with the hand, takes tenths as easily as I do octaves, and wears studs with diamonds. Moscheles does not at all astonish him; therefore it is no wonder that only the tuttis of my concerto have pleased ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... situation with considerable clearness. There is nothing keener than one woman's instinct regarding another woman, where a man is concerned. Mrs. Francis Armour received Lady Haldwell with a quiet stateliness, which, if it did not astonish her, gave her sufficient warning that matters were not, in this little comedy, to be all her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... does astonish me, every time I think o' that youngun and the way she looked when she come to me from the charity school," ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... mantle large, of greenish hue, My gazing wonder chiefly drew; Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw A lustre grand; And seem'd to my astonish'd view, A ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... say: it is no joking matter. You are coming in with me. I am going to introduce you to my many friends here, whom I have recently got to know: they may say things that will astonish you, but do not show surprise.... I bring you here that you may know where to find me during the five days you remain in Paris.... You have only to write a letter and bring it to the woman who keeps this library. Address to ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... when we approach the solemn shadows with a friend. It may be that the soul has compressed and unconscious powers which are stirred and wrought upon as it looks over the borders into its future home,—its loves and its longings so swell and beat, that they astonish itself. We are greater than we know, and dimly feel it with every approach to the great hereafter. "It doth not yet appear what we ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... inhaling. There is no religious sentiment here, still less any human: the Madonna bows gravely as one who is never astonished; and, indeed, this race of giants, living in this green valley, look as if nothing could ever astonish them—walking miracles themselves, and in constant ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... the doubtful answers which we make: Amaz'd, he would have shunn'd th' unequal fight; But we, more num'rous, intercept his flight. As when some peasant, in a bushy brake, Has with unwary footing press'd a snake; He starts aside, astonish'd, when he spies His rising crest, blue neck, and rolling eyes; So from our arms surpris'd Androgeos flies. In vain; for him and his we compass'd round, Possess'd with fear, unknowing of the ground, And of their lives an easy conquest found. Thus Fortune on our first endeavor smil'd. ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... sciences. We lived for seven or eight centuries like savages, and to complete our barbarism, were inundated with a race of men termed monks, who brutified, in Europe, that human species which you had conquered and enlightened. But what will most astonish you is, that in the latter ages of ignorance amongst these very monks, these very enemies to civilization, nature nurtured some useful men. Some invented the art of assisting the feeble sight of age; and others, by pounding together nitre and charcoal, have furnished us with implements ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... baptism, their horror of sin, and their zealous desire that other neighboring peoples should become Christians. They often take the initiative with those people, and preach to their friends with a fervor and power that astonish me. I am also much gratified at having brought about more than eighty marriages within the church, for I suspect that the alliances formed by those people are not marriages, but rather the taking of concubines, considering the readiness with which they divorce and marry ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... protested, even before kings, against the evil which lay nearest them, the sin which really beset them; true liberals, they did not disdain to call the dark-skinned heathen their brothers; and asserted in terms which astonish us, when we recollect the age in which they were spoken, the inherent freedom of every being who wore the flesh and blood which their Lord wore; true martyrs, they bore witness of Christ, and received too often the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... hate it," she said. "Just you wait a minute," she added, going into the house. She presently reappeared with an envelope large enough to contain a brief history of the world on its outside, and together she and Pee-wee made up the detailed address which, in Pee-wee's handwriting, was destined to astonish Postmaster Hiram Hicks, ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Wonderful Operations astonish the Mind, especially where the Head is not over-burthen'd with Brains; and Custom has made it so natural to give the Devil either the Honour or Scandal of every Thing, that we cannot otherwise Account for, that it is not possible to put the People out of the Road ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... huzzy must have gone back to her room when I thought she slipped out at the porch. He's waiting for her. Should I wait, too? No! That he is there is enough. He sees me. He is coming. He thinks I am she. Umph! Now to astonish him!" ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... it is sure to follow that all subsequent ideas which are in any way capable of being associated with this conviction should attach themselves to, and in some degree seem to be consequent upon it. The Sicilian, who seems to have had no other motive for his whole scheme than to astonish the prince by showing him that his rank was discovered, played, without being himself aware of it, the very game which most furthered the view of the Armenian; but however much of its interest this adventure will lose if I take away the higher motive which at first seemed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... where ivory and the rich fabrics of the Orient are sold; cafes and drugstores, harness-shops, tobacco-shops, and drygoods-stores, emporiums of every kind,—are found on the Escolta, where the prices would astonish any one not yet accustomed to the manners of the Far East. During the morning hours the quilez and the carromata rattle along the bumpy cobblestones, the native driver, or cochero, in a white shirt, smoking a cigarette, and resting his bare feet upon the dashboard. Behind the curtain of ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... when made; the personal loss of time of the different plaintiffs and defendants, the individual anxiety and suffering produced by litigation; add all these together, and I doubt not the result for a single year will somewhat astonish these modern economists. But if all the expenditures of this nature that have been made for the last fifty years, in this individual "war of hate," be added together, we have no doubt a very fruitful text ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... smile, The sun of Mercy's risen on our isle: Its beams already, o'er th' Atlantic wave, Pierce the dark forests of the suffering brave: There, e'en th' abandon'd sick imbib'd a glow, When warrior nations, resting on the bow, Astonish'd heard the joyful rumour rise, And call'd the council of their great and wise: The truth by female pray'rs was urg'd along, Youth ceas'd the chorus of the warrior song, And present ills bade present feelings press With all the eloquence of deep ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... All sore astonish'd stood Lord Scroope, He stood as still as rock of stane; He scarcely dared to trew his eyes, When through the water ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... in July. When the weather is fine, there is always a brilliant gathering of rank, and beauty, and fashion; but the June show is usually the best attended. English gardening is always well represented here. The plants and fruit brought for exhibition astonish even those who are best acquainted with what English gardeners can do. For several seasons past, it was thought that cultivation had reached its highest point; yet each succeeding year outvied the past, and report tells me, that ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... former parallel—Napoleon at twenty-eight was on the high road to world mastery. Wellington at twenty-eight had not yet found himself. But now on his trip to India he was on the threshold of his career. His deeds there and on other fields were to astonish the world. Did they also astonish ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden |
