"Astounding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... session of Congress (1848-49), Mr. Walker of Wisconsin, at the instigation of Calhoun moved, as a rider on an appropriation bill, a section providing a temporary government for such Territories, including a provision to "extend the Constitution of the United States to the Territories." This astounding proposition was defended by Calhoun, and, with his characteristic straightforwardness, he avowed the true object of the amendment was to override the anti-slavery laws of the Territories, and plant the institution of ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... At this astounding reply, unexpected by every one present save myself and the unhappy prisoner, incredulity, seasoned with amazement, marked every countenance. Carmel Cumberland in the club-house that night—she who had been found at a late hour, in her own home, injured and unconscious! It was not to be ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... undeniably successful and triumphant beyond all else in the history whether of fraud or fiction—the infidel must believe as follows: On the first hypothesis, he must believe that a vast number of apparent miracles—involving the most astounding phenomena—such as the instant restoration of the sick, blind, deaf, and lame, and the resurrection of the dead—performed in open day, amidst multitudes of malignant enemies—imposed alike on all, and triumphed ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... between the two combatants, which, at first sight, is so astounding, we weigh all the incidental circumstances which were adverse to Spain, but favorable to the Netherlands, that which is supernatural in this event will disappear, while that which is extraordinary will still remain—and a just standard will be furnished by which to estimate ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... engaged, tending to embrace all that was most important to man in society, and the frame to which I had assiduously bent myself, of giving quarter to nothing because it was old, and shrinking from nothing because it was startling and astounding, gave a new bias to my character. The habit which I thus formed put me more on the alert even in the scenes of ordinary life, and gave me a boldness and an eloquence more than was natural to me. I then reverted to the principle which I stated in the beginning, of being ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... the war would be tedious. What Washington and Jefferson really thought of him we shall never know. He was never mercenary, but his pride was wounded that so little recognition of his astounding services was forthcoming. The ingratitude of Kings was a commonplace; the ingratitude of peoples an unpleasing novelty. But Washington bestirred himself at last, and Paine was voted an estate of 277 acres, more or less, and a sum of money. This was ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... in his life that he had ever encountered outside of the Bible a mind of the highest order, or listened to it, as it delivered over to mankind the astounding treasures of its knowledge and wisdom in accents of ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... prince of Neuvied, even the coadjutor of the ecclesiastical principalities on the banks of the Rhine, those of Mayence, Worms, and Constance, signalised themselves by their ardour for the mystic doctrines of freemasonry or the illuminati. Cagliostro was astounding Strasburgh—Cardinal de Rohan ruined himself, and bent before his voice. Like at the fall of great empires—like at the cradle of great things—these signs appeared every where. The most infallible was the general convulsion of human ideas. When a creed is ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... was "full of stately speeches and well-sounding phrases." A few years later the young poet, Christopher Marlowe, promised the audience of his initial tragedy that they should "hear the Scythian Tamburlaine threatening the world with high astounding terms." These two statements are indicative of the tenor of Elizabethan plays. Gorboduc, to be sure, was a ponderous piece, made according to the pseudo-classical fashion that soon went out of favor; while Tamburlaine the Great was ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... Governor abolished Customs duties at Kororareka. Naturally a cry at once went up from other parts of the Colony for a similar concession. The unhappy Governor, endeavouring to please them all, like the donkey-owner in AEsop's Fables, abolished Customs duties everywhere. To replace them he devised an astounding combination of an income-tax and property-tax. Under this, not only would the rich plainly pay less in proportion than the poor, but a Government official drawing L600 a year, but owning no land, would pay just half the sum exacted from a settler who, having invested L1,000 in a farm, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... gave the speaking-trumpet to Stanley, and directed him to answer the questions of the mutineers. His replies seemed satisfactory, for the frigate, hauling her wind, rejoined the fleet. Scarcely had we lost sight of the North Sea fleet, than we spoke a brig, which gave us the astounding information that the mutiny had again broken out at Spithead. We therefore, just as it was growing dark, anchored under Dungeness, with springs on our ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... reached that stage when the guests were more or less accessible to emotion, and more or less touched by the astounding fact that every one was enjoying himself. This phenomenon, which is apt to burst into song or dance among other races, is constrained to voice itself in an Anglo-Saxon gathering by some explanation, apology, or moral—known as an after-dinner ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... approximate to Jimmy's description; he also said it was mucka pickaninny, only big one, which meant that it was by no means a small water. Chimpering and Whitegin, he said, were rock-holes, but Wynbring, the farthest water he knew, according to his account was something astounding. He said it was a mountain, a waterhole, a lake, a spring, and a well, all in one, and that it was distant about six sleeps from Youldeh; this, according to our rendering, as Jimmy declared also that it was ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... that can be compared with the swiftness of this achievement, which is all the more remarkable when we remember that almost every step in the advance was taken with extreme unwillingness. But the most impressive thing about this astounding fabric of power, which extended over an area equal to half of Europe and inhabited by perhaps one-sixth of the human race, was not the swiftness with which it was created, but the results which flowed from it. It had begun in corruption and oppression, ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... of Fardale. Hans Dunnerwust returned with a stock of tales of astounding adventures, which he managed to bungle badly in the telling. And now I suppose Barney Mulloy will take his turn. Between them they will make you out one of the most remarkable heroes ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... handing it over in its entirety to the Spanish government waiting greedily over the border of Texas. On the same day that Gov. Claiborne sent the communication to the Secretary of War containing this astounding piece of information which he had obtained from authentic sources, he wrote to General Jackson, the despised "red Indian" of the aristocratic Louisianians. He had reason, he said in this letter, to doubt the loyalty of many men in the state, because of their known adherence to foreign ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... instances with which I am acquainted of admitted and well-authenticated powers so great and incredible. The common use of medicine is in affairs of war and the chase. Here the medicine-man will be found, in many cases, to exhibit a prescience truly astounding. Without attempting a theory to account for this, a suggestion may be ventured. The Indian passes a life that knows no repose. His vigilance is ever on the alert. No hour of day or night is to him an hour of assured safety. In the course of years, his perceptions and apprehensions become so acute, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... in the compartment as the rocket car entered the lower atmosphere but Karl listened spellbound to the astounding revelations of the Moon man. There came a pause in the discourse of the dwarf as a number of relays clicked furiously on the control board and the vessel slackened ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... from the crowd, she snatched a paper from a boy, flung him a half-dollar, then hurried to the corner, where, beneath an arclight she read the astounding news. Again it seemed that her senses would desert her. With an effort she made her way to a restaurant where a cup of black ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... tenor of her strange letter on this subject, but was not convinced. He inquired of Mr. Harper if he had heard her say anything about the equally astounding fact of a returned brother, and when he found that this was mere jargon to Mr. Harper, he related what he knew of Hazen and left the lawyer ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... October air. Their groom was holding them stiffly, as if bolted to the ground, in the approved fashion insisted upon by the mistress of the house. Old Stuart eyed them impatiently from the tower window of the breakfast-room where he was smoking his first cigar; Mrs. Stuart held him in a vise of astounding words. ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... wasn't the wind: there it came again very hard, and what was particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry, and not to be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck went to the window, opened it, and put his head out to ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... a hand on Jose's arm. "My young friend," he said earnestly, "I believe there are meanings in the life and words of Jesus of which the Church in its astounding self-sufficiency has never even dreamed. Did he walk on the water? Did he feed the multitude with a few loaves? Did he raise Lazarus? Did he himself issue from the tomb? No more momentous questions ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... an amazing creature, what an astounding request!" exclaimed Sir Horace, as he laid the letter down. "Willing to give up L20,000 worth of jewels for the mere sake of a private interview! What on earth can be his object? And why ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Indians stealthily creeping forward, covered by their bull-hide shields. He and his men let them approach, and then gave them a few shots; on which they immediately ran off, firearms being to them an astounding novelty. ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... whether he had them or not. Nothing matters now, except to get home," was the astounding answer. Clo could hardly believe that she had heard aright. Ten—five minutes ago, nothing in the world mattered, except the papers and the pearls. Now they had lost ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... head over this declaration. The dear child was so headlong. Much might happen before Christmas. And what of Mr. Ratcliffe—this was on her way to the door—had she heard the extraordinary, the really astounding news concerning him that had just reached Lady Bassett's ears? She asked because he and Mrs. Musgrave used to be such friends, though to be sure Mr. Ratcliffe seemed to have thrown off all his old friends of late. Had Muriel actually ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... astounding view of human life and destiny that I do not know what to say to it. Did it occur to Mr. Froude to ask the man whether he would be contented with a good trade and the Ten Commandments? Perhaps the man would like ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... who was a good figure and a wealthy man to boot! He lived in the Market Place, and drove a thriving business, whilst Caspar was known to have only one coat to his back. Really the effrontery of Cobweb Corner was astounding! ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... whose infamous details have been steadily uncovered to our increasing horror and humiliation, was brazenly ignored by those who were fattening on its spoils; and the world was presented with the astounding spectacle of a great municipality whose civic mechanism was largely employed in trading in the bodies and souls of the innocent and defenceless. What has been published in this connection is but the merest hint of what exists—and exists, most appalling of ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... it is even now at Mexico, it was the easiest thing imaginable to manufacture an astonishing victory out of the very smallest amount of material. If no lives were lost in the battle, so much more astounding is the victory. This practice of sacrificing human life is only a modification of cannibalism, and the very mission on which the Spaniards came to Mexico was to extinguish that crime, so that they would jeopardize their title to the country should they presume to shed the blood ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... time this astounding museum would have been a most absorbing study to Kate, but she was tingling with desire to get at the young seeress and her mother. "What must they be," she asked herself, "to mix with this kind ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... There it came again very hard, and what was particularly astounding the knocker seemed to be in a hurry, and not to be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck put his head out the window to ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... the real idea of Andreae, the reaction was tremendous. Perhaps no satire, not even the Laus Stultitiae of Erasmus, created such a fury of excitement as this; seldom has one been followed with more astounding and beneficial results. We say beneficial from purpose; for Andreae succeeded in attracting the popular mind from its old habits of controversy. This was his great service. As a man he was of unexceptionable life and ardent sympathies. He passed peacefully to his rest after ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... transformation in my whole destiny! I had already begun to look upon myself as a vassal of Proserpine, a bondsman of Hades, and now I could only gasp in impotent amazement at the suddenness of the change; words fail me to express fittingly the astounding metamorphosis. For the bodies of my butchered victims were nothing more nor less than three inflated bladders, whose sides still bore the scars of numerous punctures, which, as I recalled my battle of the previous night, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... election seemed rather probable spite of incessant Republican efforts to break him down. He had personally gained much strength since 1896. There was not a State in the Union whose Democratic organization was not to all appearance solid for him, an astounding change in four years. An organization of Civil War Veterans was electioneering for him among old soldiers. Powerful Democratic and independent sheets which had once vilified now extolled him. He was sincere, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... With astounding clearness it now stands before my soul, the thought which hitherto had been wrapped in darkness—the thought that my will, merely as such, and of itself, has consequences. It has consequences because it is infallibly and immediately taken knowledge of by another ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... height of ritual, and every Psalm he read was a Magnificat whether he would or no. The warrior in him was happy among the Princes of Issachar; and the parallels he would find for modern events in the annals of Judah and of Israel were astounding. Yet he kept a sharp eye upon the daily paper, and his reference to current events would often give his listeners an audacious sense of up-to-dateness which might have been easily discounted by the argument they illustrated. The survivors of a convulsion of nature, for instance, might have learned ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... curse boldly at him, calling him by all the obscene terms I had ever learned or heard. This, and the astounding fact that I no longer squirmed nor cried out, but physically yielded to him, as limp as an empty sack, brought him to a puzzled stop. But he sent me an extra blow for good measure as he flung me aside. That blow rattled about ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... desire—but of the submission of untainted womanhood to the direct creative power of God. The alternative to this is the Divinest man in all the world born of sinning and not yet married parents. If the new doctrine of heredity be true that men may inherit good as well as evil, we still have an astounding fact to account for; namely, the birth of such a child from such conditions, that is, with all the good kept in and all the ...
— The Things Which Remain - An Address To Young Ministers • Daniel A. Goodsell
... loyal ones? What would have been said of Abolitionists ten or twenty years ago, had they preached to the people that Congress had no right to vote against admitting a new State with slavery, because it was not already abolished in all the old States? It is perfectly astounding, this seeming eagerness of so many of our old friends to cover up and apologize for the glaring hate toward the equal recognition of the manhood of the black race. Well, you will be in New York to ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... left the room, leaving the unhappy alferez crushed beneath the weight of the astounding disclosures ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... sweetest of alarums. A dead stillness reigns in the jungle by day, but at sunset every leaf almost becomes instinct with life. You might almost fancy yourself beset by Gideon's army, when all the lamps in the pitchers rattled and broke, and every man blew his trumpet into your ear. It is an astounding noise certainly, and difficult to believe that so many pipes and rattles, whirring machines and trumpets, belong to good-sized beetles or flies, singing their evening song to the setting sun. As the light dies away all becomes ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... 'bag-wig,' or at least, the more important of his court-habiliments, were considerately furnished for the nonce by Mr. Rogers from his own wardrobe, to the manifest advantage of the Laureate's pocket, but more problematic improvement of his person, when one thinks on the astounding difference of 'build' in the two Poets:—the fact should be put on record, if only as serving to render less chimerical a promise sometimes figuring in the columns of provincial newspapers—that the two apprentices, some grocer or other advertises for, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... events first attracted public notice, "The Man with a Secret." Parker was an eminent lawyer, a man of firm will, fond of dabbling in the occult sciences, but never allowing this tendency to interfere with the earnest practice of his profession. This astounding narrative is prefaced by the annexed clipping from the Auburn Messenger of ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... turned to the Abbe Sicot. "There, sir, that is the result of this modern education and the state of mind produced in the younger generation by the newspaper press and even by literature. Criminals are given haloes and proclaimed from the housetops. It is astounding!" ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... displayed, in calculating the properties of mechanism, a really astounding scientific knowledge. If the inventors of our modern industrial machinery are to be considered benefactors of humanity to-day, Berlioz deserves to be considered as the true saviour of the musical world; for, thanks to him, musicians can produce surprising effects ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... be necessary to state to the student that the proper method of breathing is to take the breath through the nostrils, but alas! the ignorance among civilized people regarding this simple matter is astounding. We find people in all walks of life habitually breathing through their mouths, and allowing their children to follow their horrible and ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... largest in existence. The Hermitage has been enriched partly to the prejudice of other cities or palaces. From the Tauris Palace came classic sculpture. Tsarshoe Selo also furnished contributions. The policy has been to make one astounding museum, which shall represent not a capital but an empire, and stand before the world as the exponent of the wealth, the resource, and the refined taste of the nation ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... with the top of the fall, and directly in front of it. The beams of the evening sun fell upon the cascade, and occasioned a most splendid rainbow; while the vapoury mists arising from the broken waters, the bright green woods that hung from the surrounding cliffs, the astounding roar of the waterfall, and the tumultuous boiling and whirling of the stream below, striving to escape along its deep, dark, and narrow, path, formed altogether a combination of beauty and grandeur, such as I never ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... concerning the merits and sacrifice of the Incarnate God! Surely Luther would not have given this advice to a dying penitent, but have directed him rather to employ his little time in agony of prayer to Christ, or in earnest meditations on the astounding mystery of his death. In Taylor man is to do ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... intoxicating, that he had somehow felt he could control this situation also. Even Felicity had not been beyond him, had he chosen to assert himself. But Lena,—so gentle and acquiescent,—it was she who had taken the bit in her teeth and done this astounding thing! ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... nineteenth century in discovery and invention, and so astounding the advancement made, that it is only by stopping in our madding haste and looking back that we can realise how different the present is from the past. Yet to our imaginary friend's astonished perception, nothing, we venture to think, would come with greater force ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... him told Cressey that Banneker did indeed "know something" of the mysterious disappearance which had so exercised a legion of busy tongues in New York; how much that something might be, he preserved for future and private speculation, based on the astounding perception that Banneker was in real pain of soul. Tact inspired Cressey to say at once: "Of course, that's all you had to consider. By the way, you haven't seen my revered uncle since you ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... is no factor, for the war against England is taking on increasingly an almost religious character; from the German point of view, it will soon be, not a war, but a crusade. I get one clue to this in the new phrase of leave-taking that has gained an astounding currency in the past few weeks. Instead of saying "Good-bye" or "Auf Wiedersehen," the German now says: "God punish England!" to which the equally fervent rejoinder is, "May He do so!" This new, polite formula for leave-taking originated ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... in the goodness of the man who had already seen more of the world than Tom Boswell would ever see, he rushed in to tell Bertha and the rest of his excited family the astounding talk he had ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... for its trade with Canton; a weekly packet connected it with Shanghai; and the bulk of its merchandise was still carried in sailing ships or Chinese junks. How astounding the progress that has marked the last half-century! The streets that meandered, as it were, among the valleys, or fringed the water's edge, now girdle the hills like rows of seats in a huge amphitheatre; a railway lifts the passenger to the mountain top; and other railways whirl ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... again was the vessel momentarily presented to his view, as the forked lightning darted in every quarter of the firmament, while the astounding claps of thunder bursting upon his ears before the lightning had ceased to gleam, announced to him that he was kneeling in the very centre of the war of the elements. The vessel neared the cliff in about the same proportion ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... astounding, and the first mobilization orders were issued with no more publicity than attends the delivery of a trade circular through the halfpenny post. Yet in hundreds of thousands of houses through France and in all the blocks and tenements of Paris there was a drama of tragic quietude ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... pilot had brought on board with him the latest New-York papers, and one of them contained the startling news which appeared to have thrown the owner of the Bellevite entirely off his balance; and it was quite astounding enough to produce this effect upon ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... ill applied which the world has ever witnessed—as one continuous comment upon this text, the necessity of adhering to careful, honest observation of mental phenomena, however homely may be the results of such observation, and the astounding conclusions to which a train of thought rigidly pursued may conduct us, if, at its very point of departure, it has broken loose from this the first obligation of philosophy. The whole career of German speculation manifests a disregard of some of those fundamental principles of human belief, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... There I amuse myself by looking on while they play chess. Nowhere in the world do they play chess so skilfully as in Paris, and nowhere in Paris as they do at this coffee-house; 'tis here you see Legal the profound, Philidor the subtle, Mayot the solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the sorriest talk, for if a man may be at once a wit and a great chess-player, like Legal, you may also be a great chess-player and a sad simpleton, like Joubert ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... which, curiously enough, considerably less notice seems to have been taken. It is the more remarkable because it is but an artistic shadow of the actual fact; and merely records in outline and relief the temporary masquerade in which the man walked about in broad daylight. I mean the really astounding trick of dressing himself up as a Crusader. That was, under the circumstances, far more ludicrous and lunatic a proceeding than if he had filled the whole ceiling with cherub heads with his own features, or festooned all the walls with one ornamental ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... the Spirit without paper and ink, and guarding diligently the ancient tradition: Believing in one God, Maker of heaven and earth, and all that is in them; through Jesus Christ, the Son of God; who, because of His astounding love toward His creatures, sustained the birth of the Virgin, Himself uniting man to God, and suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rising again was received in brightness, and shall come again in glory as the Saviour of those who ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... comer was not one to wait without and need a bidding for his entrance. Oliver could not hide himself completely. He was tracked down at last, and by none other than his younger brother Charles. To the youth the emaciated apparition of poor Oliver was indeed astounding. Charles had pictured him already a prosperous and influential man of letters, who had but to raise and wave his hand to confer work, wealth, and position, and the possibilities of fame upon anyone whom he might lovingly ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... with another than a professional light. The simple old sailor, with his talk of chains and purchases, made me forget the jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon something unmistakably real. Such a book being there was wonderful enough; but still more astounding were the notes pencilled in the margin, and plainly referring to the text. I couldn't believe my eyes! They were in cipher! Yes, it looked like cipher. Fancy a man lugging with him a book of that description into this nowhere and studying ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... astounding performance, succeeded by a passion of indignation, in which the words traitor and imbecile were associated with the name that had been so dear to his people. This again yielded to a settled grief: they felt that he was betrayed, but ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to thank his friend for the kindness he had shown him; but the sobs of gratitude came into his throat so fast that it was impossible, and he hobbled away towards his dreary home, while Toby ran into the house to tell the astounding news of the coming ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... Slave prosecutions in Chicago and the wide publicity which they have received has been the astonishment of thousands of persons, as evidenced by letters, at the fact that such a wholesale traffic is actually in existence, but what is still more astounding, not to say discouraging, is the reluctance of other thousands to believe that many hundreds of men and women are actually engaged in the business of luring young girls and women to their destruction and that this infamous traffic is ...
— Chicago's Black Traffic in White Girls • Jean Turner-Zimmermann
... understanding. Japan herself, when she so suddenly awakened, had astounded the world. But at the time she was only forty millions strong. China's awakening, with her four hundred millions and the scientific advance of the world, was frightfully astounding. She was the colossus of the nations, and swiftly her voice was heard in no uncertain tones in the affairs and councils of the nations. Japan egged her on, and the proud Western peoples ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... himself together as well as he could. He had not yet forgiven Corey for Mrs. Lapham's insinuation that he would feel himself too good for the mineral paint business; and though he was dispersed by that astounding shot at first, he was not going to let any one even hypothetically despise his paint with impunity. "How do you think I am going to take you on?" They took on hands at the works; and Lapham put it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... relentlessly sacrificing its entire heritage of pagan accumulation it put back the clock of Art to the Stone Age, and had to begin all over again in the helpless bewilderment of untaught childish effort,—could find twice ten centuries too long for the astounding feat it achieved? Ten centuries, after all, make but a marvellous short course betwixt the archaic compositions of the third century and the compositions of ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... I knew the two figures were there, the coming upon them afresh struck me with as much astonishment and alarm as if I had not before seen them. The man starting from the table confronted me on this entrance, and I stopped dead to that astounding living posture of terror, even recoiling, as though he were alive indeed, and was jumping up from the table in his amazement ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Filipino girl enters matrimony is astounding. There are no tears, no self-conscious blushes, none of the charming shyness that encompasses an American girl as a garment. It is a contradictory state of affairs, I must admit, for this same American girl is a self-reliant creature, accustomed to the widest ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... her habitation all was silent in it: he made his way through several rooms; in one he saw a servant weeping bitterly: he was faint with fear and could hardly ask, "Is she dead?" and just listened to the dreadful answer, "Not yet." These astounding words came on him as of less fearful import than those which he had expected; and to learn that she was still in being, and that he might still hope was an alleviation to him. He remembered the words of her letter ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... overflow of men and money from north to south; we have dashed the mist from our eyes and have endeavored to wring from you, more fortunate and wiser than ourselves, the secrets of your greatness and the causes of your astounding prosperity. ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... strong-minded lady of this class was inquiring the character of a cook she was about to hire. The lady who was giving the character entered a little upon the cook's moral qualifications, and described her as a very decent woman; to which the astounding reply—this was 60 years ago, and a Dean tells the story—"Oh, d—n her decency; ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... the way I feel," nodded Constance, as she tied an astounding bow of red ribazine about an oblong package that suggested a doll, and consulted a fat note book, lying wide spread on the library table, for the address of the prospective possessor. "Marjorie, will you ever forget how happy ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... creeping, Swelling and flinging, Showering and springing, Eddying and whisking, Spouting and frisking; 15 Turning and twisting, Around and around, Collecting, disjecting, With endless rebound. Smiting and fighting, 20 In turmoil delighting, Confounding, astounding, Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound. Receding and speeding, And shocking and rocking, 5 And darting and parting, And threading and spreading, And whizzing and hissing, And dripping and ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... respected existing prejudices because they existed. He didn't ask awkward questions; he didn't raise problems; he had the British capacity for doing serious things with an air of not taking himself seriously and frivolous things with an astounding gravity. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... that this exceptional people enjoyed, was that they had no politics, no vote. The imagination of the average "party man" sinks to conceive a thing like to this; yet, if an astounding fact to others, no more gracious one can be conceived for them selves. In the unbroken peace in which they lived politics would be but throwing the apple of discord in their midst, an innoculation of disease that they might ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... yell of command with a furious grunt. I was paralyzed at the wonderfully swift action of the shaggy brute, and I sat helpless. Spot wheeled as if he were on a pivot and plunged out of the way with a celerity that was astounding. The buffalo stopped, pawed the ground, and angrily tossed his huge head. Frank rode up to him, yelled, and struck him with the lariat, whereupon he gave another toss of his horns, and then returned ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... what had happened, it told a most astounding tale: A very beautiful lady had picked it up and carried it away to her house, where she had put it in a room with her three children, who were all very pretty and daintily dressed. At sunset, however, both the lady and her children metamorphosed ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... bared his arms and seized the handle; his three clansmen let go; and then, with what seemed to the breathless spectators to be a merely trifling effort of strength, he dismissed the projectile upon the most astounding journey ever seen even in that land of brawny hammer-hurlers. Up, up, up it soared, over the trees; high above the topmost turret of the castle, and still on and on and ever upwards till it became a mere speck in the zenith, ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... Catholic ritual, in the Catholic cult of saints and images, in the Catholic interpretation of Sacraments, in Catholic tradition as of equal value with the Bible, and lastly in the theory of Papal Supremacy, which was the astounding result of a Council convened to alter and reform the Church, can be attributed in no small measure to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... you've had astounding success." He looked, in spite of what he had said about skepticism, as though he thought the ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... magical piece of work, the "Ancient Mariner." What an amazing instance of the triumph of the human imagination! For Coleridge certainly never witnessed such a scene as he there describes with an accuracy of detail that is astounding. Very few sailors have noticed the sickening condition of the ocean when the life-giving breeze totally fails for any length of time, or, if they have, they have said but little about it. Of course, some parts of the sea show the evil ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... remarked Pasinkov, 'is his astounding composure. A doctor ought to be phlegmatic, oughtn't he? It's so encouraging for ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... course of little or no application to Christians at present. Yet how can Arminians pray our Church prayers collectively on any day? Answer. See a 'boa constrictor' with an ox or deer. What they do swallow, proves so astounding a dilatability of gullet, that it would be unconscionable strictness to complain of the horns, antlers, or other indigestible non-essentials being suffered to rot off at the confines, [Greek: herkos hodonton]. But to write seriously on so serious a subject, it is mournful to reflect that the ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to see Lord St. Leger," ran the last paragraph. "He had some astounding news. And Mrs. Dawson has driven over to call, and we are to dine with them next week. I wish you were home, Mary. I want you ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... of the slaughter of Karna that was incredible and astounding, that was dreadful and capable of paralysing the senses of all creatures, that looked like the downfall of Meru, or a never-to-be-believed clouding of the intellect of the wise Shukra, or the defeat of Indra of terrible feats at the hands ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... depressed after a night of considerable pain, was sitting up in bed with his arm in a sling, drinking tea, when a fellow-subaltern, who with two others shared the bungalow with him, entered, half-dressed and dishevelled, with the astounding news that Mrs. Tudor was waiting in the compound ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... its insect sponsor—all these various shapes, folds of petals, positions, colors, the size, length, and thickness of nectary, the relative positions of pollen and stigma, embodying an expression of welcome to the insect with which its life is so marvellously linked. Occasionally this astounding affinity is faithful to a single species of insect, which thus becomes the sole sponsor of the blossom, without whose association the orchid would become extinct. A remarkable instance of this special adaptation is seen in the great Angraecum orchid of Madagascar, described ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... as I have said already with all manner of queer people. Amongst others I recall an omnibus driver who told me that he was the rightful heir to a big estate by Guilford. At my invitation he told his story, and he began it with this astounding proclamation: "It's like this, sir," he began, "my grandfather died childless," and when I failed to disguise my amusement he explained. "He was not really my grandfather but he was my father's uncle and we always called him grandfather." Then he went into a ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... I had planned to wrong that very night, and who had thus wronged me! For a moment I could take in nothing but this one astounding fact, then the how and the why woke in maddening curiosity within me, and seizing the cushion, I dragged it aside and stared down into the pitiful and accusing features thus revealed, as though to tear from them the story of ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... East does not treat the Oriental with respect. He considers that the Chinese, the Malay, the Burman, the Indian is there to do the donkey work only. The newcomer generally discovers in himself an astounding personal omnipotence, and even before he can talk the language is so obsessed with it that as he grows older, his sense of it broadens and deepens. And in China—of the Chinese this is true to-day as in other spheres of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... "can we believe this new and astounding statement? Can this loss be so irremediable; may we not yet take precaution, and save, at least, some wrecks ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Honor!—a delay of only twenty-four hours in which to prepare a rejoinder to this petition—to allegations of such astounding gravity?" he began, shocked into action by the very ungraspable ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Tory squirearchy whose mouthpiece he was, the Chesapeake affair was but an incident—an unhappy incident, to be sure, but still only an incident—in the world-wide struggle with Napoleon. What was at stake was nothing less than the commercial supremacy of Great Britain. The astounding growth of Napoleon's empire was a standing menace to British trade. The overthrow of Prussia in the fall of 1806 left the Corsican in control of Central Europe and in a position to deal his long premeditated blow. A fortnight ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... I understand why it was my life was spared by those fellows. By Jove, this is astounding!" Then he took up ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... "By an astounding coincidence, the sun has risen," cried out Buck, with a savage air of patience. "Why the hell aren't we holding all those approaches now, and passing in on them again? It should have been ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... found myself put back in the same rough-and-ready way. At Maltby I was full half a minute behind the great clock, and on I went again. At the next station the clock and I both gave the same time to a second, and then what must he do but begin to regulate me! After a minute calculation he made the astounding discovery that I had lost a minute and a quarter in four hours, and that in order to compensate for this shortcoming it would be necessary for him to move my regulator forward the two hundred and fortieth part of an inch. This feat he set himself to accomplish with the ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... Gilmore received that piece of astounding intelligence, the mental shock seemed to produce paralysis, for the garment she was about to put on remained suspended in the air as she exclaimed: "Well, I swan! I thought he was married to his hired pets. How did ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... conditions before M. le Marechal, and if no satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at, it will be to me a matter of profound regret. And now, sir, will you permit me to inspect more closely the gallant men with whose help you have done such astounding deeds?" Cavalier smiled; for these "gallant men" when caught had been broken on the wheel, burnt at the stake, or hanged like brigands. His sole answer was an inclination of the head as he turned and led the way to his little escort. M. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... guessing, as he thinks rightly, at the meaning of some mysterious word in Cornelius Nepos, receiveth not the sugared epithet of praise, but a sudden stroke across the os humerosve [Face or shoulders] even so, blank, puzzled, and thunder-stricken, waxed the face of Mr. MacGrawler at the abrupt and astounding audacity of Paul. ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perpetrate a real tragedy on the mimic stage, but on the first performance of "The Destruction of Sennacherib," which I conscientiously attended, I was somewhat relieved. I had often been amused with the placid way in which the chorus in the opera invariably received the most astounding information, and witnessed the most appalling tragedies by poison or the block, without anything more than a vocal protest or command, always delivered to the audience and never to the actors, but I think ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... life-spent old Arab as he had not been touched since a smile, just like this, flashed up at him from the weather-stained, dying face of quaint Benn Claridge in a street of Damascus. The natural duplicity of the Oriental had been abashed and inactive before the simple and astounding honesty of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... astounding facts established by the enquiry was the wide-spread demoralisation which had developed itself in certain districts. Home had lost its sanctity. The ties that bind parents and children were loosened, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... "Does Jamaica hold such beauties?" He awkwardly brought forward a deck-chair, while Pearse stood by in speechless amazement. Venner, as better became the host, ordered a steward to bring a wrap for the astounding visitor, but the girl ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... precisely on this point that in the most highly developed religions there is the greatest falling off from the original conception of the after-effect of human conduct on the soul, and the most astounding things are inculcated by the Koran and other works ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... those who plied their vocations on the country's busy waterways. Here "sauce" was reduced to a science and vituperation to a fine art. Thames watermen and Tyne keelmen in particular acquired an astounding proficiency in the choice and application of abusive epithets, but of the two the keelman carried off the palm. The wherryman, it is true, possessed a ripe vocabulary, but the fact that it embraced only a single dialect seriously handicapped him in his race with the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson |
