"Startling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what they paid their levy did allways admire how their taxes could be so high."[444] "Wee desire," declared the people of the Isle of Wight, "to know for what wee doe pay our Leavies everie year and that it may noe more be layd in private."[445] From Charles City came the most startling charges of fraud and oppression. "The Commisoners or Justices of peace of this county," it was declared, "heretofore have illegally and unwarrantably taken upon them without our consent from time to time to impose, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... of an angel and the wisdom of a serpent," he remarked. "I don't know whether his morals or his vocabulary are more startling. Hope has her hands full; but she will find a way to manage him, even if she can't learn from her ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... have presented a dreary aspect. Its shores were walls of ice, from which ever and anon great masses sailed away as icebergs. These are startling conclusions. Yet, in the Southern Hemisphere to-day is to be seen nearly the same state of things. It is well-known that all the lands around the South Pole are covered by a layer of ice of enormous ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... is clear that the book with the most mysterious, startling, or suggestive title, will always stand the best chance of being purchased by those who have no other criteria to guide them in their choice than the aspect of a title-page; and this explains why "Thus Spake ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... second chair. Her cheeks burned; her hair, grown to an awkward length, had come loose from a ribbon and fallen about her face and shoulders. She had made herself a frock of orange-colored cotton stuff—something that Hilliard had bought for curtains. It was a startling color enough, but it could not dim her gypsy beauty of wild dark hair and browned skin with which the misty and spiritual eyes and the slightly straightened and ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... keeping pace with the climbers. Soon the crest was reached, and the main body began to descend gradually, when the dominie slipped and his piece went off, the trigger having caught in his red window cord, startling the echoes. Then came the diffusive boom and crackle of the blunderbuss, and the doctor, inwardly anathematizing Wilkinson, hurried his men on. They heard axes at work, as if trees were being felled; it was the Captain and the Richards at ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Brown, the party being otherwise known as "The Meadow-Brook Girls." "Get in, girls. We'll shake the dust of Meadow-Brook from our tires before you can count twenty," continued Jane. "If Crazy Jane were to drive through the town slowly folks surely would think something startling had happened to her. Is there anything you wish to do ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... him speechless. The startling, incredibly supercilious tone of this man who had once been his valet, was extraordinary in itself. He had not taken such a tone ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in guise terrific drest, Rise fierce to war, and beat their savage breast; Dark round their steps collecting warriors pour, Some fell revenge begins the hideous roar; From hill to hill the startling war-song flies, And tribes on tribes in dread disorder rise, Track the mute foe and scour the howling wood, Loud as a storm, ungovern'd as a flood; Or deep in groves the silent ambush lay, Lead the false flight, decoy and seize their prey, Their ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... sermons nor public prayers, so they have no peculiar mode of addressing each other. The men are called Mr., and the women Miss, except when they were married before they entered the society. It was somewhat startling to me to hear Miss —— speak about her baby. Even the founder is addressed or spoken of simply as ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... bit of an adventure, too, that was rather startling, as we slowly climbed higher in tracking the course of the little stream towards its source in the mountain. As we toiled on where the rocks rose like walls on either side, and the ground was stony ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... house, no sign of human existence there. It was so still that the hills and rocks and deep woods gave back the echo of his horse's hoofs; the song of a bird or the chirping of a cricket seemed to fill a great space, and fell on the ear with a strange and almost startling effect. He was observing or rather feeling this extreme solitude and stillness, when suddenly at a turn in the road he came upon a man who placed himself directly before the horse's head. The man had a dark, bad expression in his face, ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... This occurrence, so startling and unpleasant, so involved in mystery, and giving rise to so many painful surmises, afforded me no very agreeable food for rumination. All attempts on my part to arrive at the truth were baffled; Lord Glenfallen evaded all my enquiries, and at length peremptorily forbid ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... is continually indulging in the most startling suppositions, and just those which are most commonly entertained by vulgar minds,—as, for instance, the supposition of some one, himself or some unfortunate hearer, dropping down dead in his chamber. And, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... so * Must prickle to coynte as a toothstick be. O Moslems, is never a stand to your tools, * To assist a woman's necessity?' Thereat rose upstanding beneath its clothes * My yard, as crying, 'At thee! at thee!' And I loosed her trouser-string, startling her: * 'Who art thou?' and I said, 'A reply to thy plea!' And began to stroke her with wrist-thick yard, * Hurting hinder cheeks by its potency: And she cried as I rose after courses three * 'Suit thy gree the stroke!' and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... almost startling change in Philippa's face. The banter which had served her with so much effect, which she had relied upon as her defensive weapon, was suddenly useless. Lessingham had created an atmosphere around him, an atmosphere ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... great prose writers presenting startling divergences from one another cannot be omitted. Belonging to the first half of the nineteenth century, Charles Lamb earned wide popularity by his Tales from Shakespeare and Poetry for Children, written in collaboration with his sister Mary; but he was specially remarkable ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... at the little opposite rococo wall. Densher had him for a minute in profile, had him for a time during which his identity produced, however quickly, all the effect of establishing connexions—connexions startling and direct; and then, as if it were the one thing more needed, seized the look, determined by a turn of the head, that might have been a prompt result of the sense of being noticed. This wider view showed him all ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... mental unfitness is reiterated in another place, with a bold addition: "Adultery does not exclude her other fitness, her other pleasingness; she may be otherwise loving and prevalent." Occasionally, it may be added, in a less startling way than this, Milton leaves the man's point of view and tries to be considerate about the woman. Not that he recants his doctrine of the inferiority of her sex to man's. On the contrary he repeats it, extracting ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... my youth. I had thrown myself, one sultry, cloudy afternoon, on a divan; the windows stood open on the verandah, where my mother sat with her embroidery; and when my father joined her from the garden, their conversation, clearly audible to me, was of so startling a nature that it held ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sarah neglected her work for a few minutes to brood over the startling contrast of events that had just forced itself on her attention. She was not a girl given to the analysis of either persons or things, but in this instance the movement of affairs had come close to her, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... harness, after giving the powders, put the harness on gently, without startling him, and pat him gently, then fasten the chain to a log, which he will draw for an indefinite length of time. When you find him sufficiently gentle, place him to a ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... electric forces are present in equal amount[A] (517. 1627.). With conduction and electrolyzation, and even discharge by spark, such a view will harmonize without hurting any of our preconceived notions; but as relates to convection, a more startling result appears, which must ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... felt her knees tremble. It was as if she were working a new tidy or rug pattern. Any variation of her peaceful monotony of existence jarred her whole nature like heavy wheels, and this was a startling one. ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fall when we came down about noon to a small town on the Norfolk coast, where we hoped to find lodging and such comforts as could be purchased out of a slender purse. It was a small modern pleasure town of an almost startling appearance owing to the material used in building its straight rows of cottages and its ugly square houses and villas. This was an orange-brown stone found in the neighbourhood, the roofs being all of hard, black slate. I had never seen houses of such a colour, it was stronger, more glaring and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... a thousand white inhabitants, but the overland route to the Pacific ran across it, and there was sure to be a rapid immigration into it so soon as it should be thrown open to settlers. What was both new and startling was a clause permitting the inhabitants of the Territory, whenever it should be admitted to statehood, to decide for themselves whether they would have slavery or not. The eighth section of the Compromise ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... of words "I've been so frightened" reached me. Just then forty feet above our head, from the yet lighted verandah, unexpected and startling, Freya's voice rang out in ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... He was on his way to a plantation below Girard, the owner of which had recently imported a pack of bloodhounds; but this unexpected encounter with Ware had affected him strangely. He still heard Tom's stammering speech, he was still seeing his ghastly face, and he had come upon him with startling suddenness. He had chanced to look back over his shoulder and when he faced about there had been the planter within a ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... the music of the bands that enlivened the entertainment by a succession of brisk and cheerful tunes. In the eagerness of the Japanese appetite there was but little discrimination in the choice of dishes and in the order of courses, and the most startling heterodoxy was exhibited in the confused commingling of fish, flesh, and fowl, soups and syrups, fruits, fricassees, roast and boiled, pickles and preserves. As a most generous supply had been provided, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... themselves with this process, making change of conditions either their artistic subject or their deliberate practical object. The reason, of course, is obvious; there never has been a time when the world was undergoing such a startling and rapid transformation. It is true, the economic, material, scientific, and moral changes in the Athens of the fifth century came about quickly and drastically, and the reconstitution of intellectual and moral ideas mooted by the Sophists found a profound expression in the dialectic ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike, despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious, perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform him, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's confession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal was Dunster—it was this that made him feel that somebody, in the ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... occasional cry of a night bird. Janus, after having made a thorough patrol of the ground surrounding the camp, returned to the campfire and entertained the girls by telling of the early Indian days, stories that had been handed down by generations, and that had grown and grown until they had assumed startling proportions. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... "Startling events have occurred since I saw you. The former favorite mistress of 826 B, who was displaced by Frederika, is a French girl, Celestine d'Aublay. She resented her downfall bitterly, and she hates Frederika with the characteristic vehemence of her race. She learned from the talk ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... and Marcia arrayed in one of the simplest of Kate's afternoon frocks, when the brass knocker sounded through the house, startling her with ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the furnace rooms, and the sooty-visaged man threw open the iron doors of the furnace. In the glare of light that rushed forth everything near stood out almost as vividly as it would have done in a steady gleam of lightning. The fireman instantly became a startling silhouette, and the coal that he shovelled into what was like a flaming mouth of a cavern seemed sparkling black diamonds. The snow-flakes glimmered as the wind swept them by the wide-open window, and in the distance were seen the lights and the dim outline of another boat rushing toward ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... musical and theatrical life, London received an unexpected shock. It was announced that Adrienne de Gervais was retiring from her position as leading lady at the Premier Theatre, and for a few days after the launching of this thunderbolt the theatre-going world hummed with the startling news, while a dozen rumours were set on foot to account for what must surely prove little less than a disaster to the ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... tenderly. Hence his unwillingness to force reforms upon a community not ripe to receive them. In one of his greatest speeches occurs the dictum: "A universal feeling whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded."(17) Anticipating such ideas, he made in his Clay oration, a startling denunciation of ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... from the point we were at before, and this goes on unceasingly day and night. These astonishing facts make us feel how small and feeble we are, but we can take comfort in the thought that though our bodies are insignificant, the brain of man, which has discovered these startling facts, must in itself be regarded as one of the most marvellous of all the mysteries amid which ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... had entered upon his public ministry. We can think of him as living a life of unselfishness and kindness. There was never any sin or fault in him; he always kept the law of God perfectly. But his perfection was not something startling. There was no halo about his head, no transfiguration, that awed men. We are told that he grew in favor with men as well as with God. His religion made his life beautiful and winning, but always so simple and natural ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... Nicky and Veronica. Poor little Ronny, what would she do without Nicky? He thought of Veronica, sitting silent in the train, and looking at him with her startling look of spiritual maturity. He thought of Veronica singing to him over ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" with the same thing as set in the "Messiah" will show not only how widely different were the aims of the two men, but also throws the minute cunning of the Leipzig schoolmaster into startling contrast with the daring recklessness of the tremendous London impresario. Of course both men possessed wonderful contrapuntal skill; but in Bach's case there is time and patience as well as skill, and in Handel's only consummate ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... danger of startling Willy too suddenly that prevented the amazed father from snatching the book out of ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... looked upon Bach as a modern. He spoke of him and his old periwig almost as one might allude to an extinct race of animals. The history of an art cannot be measured off in years: in some periods it moves slowly, in others with startling rapidity. Since Mendelssohn's day composers have sought rather to develop old resources and forms than to find and create new ones, whereas in the sixty years that lie between Bach's death and Wagner's birth the whole form and content, the very stuff, ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... had already been attempted by Mr. Lincoln in his inaugural address. Also within a few days, as we all know now, events were to show that the attempt had been successful. Further comment upon the domestic policy of Mr. Seward is, therefore, needless. But his scheme "For Foreign Nations" is more startling:— ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... and startling emphasis. 'I will not go back to them! And I will never stay with them one moment longer than I think right, for you or any other tempter! But you needn't mind that; I shall never trouble you again by intruding my ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... four fifteenths. Afterwards, as money sunk in value, more subsidies were given; and we have an instance in the first parliament of 1640, of the king's desiring twelve subsidies of the commons, to be levied in three years; which was looked upon as a startling proposal: though lord Clarendon tells us[k], that the speaker, serjeant Glanvile, made it manifest to the house, how very inconsiderable a sum twelve subsidies amounted to, by telling them he had computed what he was to pay for them; and, when he named the sum, he being ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... dispatches from Vienna, issued during the few days previous, to be convinced that General Potiorek had reported the Serbians as completely defeated. Not only the Austrians, but the whole world was surprised by the startling change that now took place in ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... that Jane Clayton at last opened her eyes. Inured to danger, she maintained her self-possession in the face of the startling surprise which her new-found consciousness revealed to her. She neither cried out nor moved a muscle, until she had taken in every detail of the scene which lay within the range ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... evident that, if more space could be allowed, distances very greatly exceeding eighteen feet would be as easily cleared; so that Duvaucel's assertion that he has seen these animals launch themselves from one branch to another, forty feet asunder, startling as it is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making a revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... at their master to see how he took this startling revelation. Well, the Colonel stood firm as if he was at the head of a column in the field. He was not the man to retreat from any position, he said, "All we have to do is to save her; then my house and arms are ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... 140 It is somewhat startling to find Prudentius speaking of the Holy Eucharist in terms which would recall to his contemporary readers Virgilian phraseology and the honeyed cake (liba) used in pagan sacrifice. It must be remembered, however, that in the early days of ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... States were considerably increased in the November election by the natural falling off of the Democratic vote, but the critical and decisive battle had been fought in each State in October. It was a very startling fact that if Mr. Seymour had received the electoral vote of the solid South (which afterwards came to be regarded either as the rightful inheritance or the fraudulent prerogative of the Democratic part), he would, in connection with the vote he received in ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... fire-streams I ever saw, last only a minute or two, but the big lamps burn with varying brightness for days and weeks, throwing off sparks like the spray of a fountain, while ever and anon a shower of red coals comes sifting down through the branches, followed at times with startling effect by a big burned-off chunk weighing perhaps half ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... and urged us to abandon the idea of going alone. The commander declared that nothing would give him so much satisfaction as to accompany us with his squadron, but without the permission of Parliament he could not venture on the undertaking. Numerous and startling events had taken place since we sailed from Scilly. News of the latter had been brought by a large ship which had joined the squadron from England. Jersey, though gallantly defended by Sir George Carteret, had been captured by a fleet under ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... was so startling Faxon forgot what was going on about him. He was just dimly aware of young Rainer's exclaiming: "Your turn, Mr. Grisben!" of Mr. Grisben's ceremoniously protesting: "No—no; Mr. Faxon first," and of the pen's being thereupon transferred ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... and the startling gesture that accompanied it, disconcerted the bearers, and caused them for a moment to quicken their step, thus imparting an unmistakable shock to the ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... went on, "I expect I can tell you one startling feature of its contents. It suggested, did it not, that the principal movers against us would be Russian and China and—a country which you prefer just now ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... intimate,—would certainly lend a grace to his life, which, under its present circumstances, was rather dry. He was told,—told by public rumour, which had reached him through his uncle,—that the lady was willing. She certainly looked as though she liked him; but how was he to begin? The art of startling the House of Commons and frightening the British public by the voluminous accuracy of his statistics he had already learned; but what was he to say to ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... at all. Passers-by would simply have said to themselves, "Ah, another of those knights off after the dragons!" and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But in the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted head pop up in front of your automobile. At any rate, it startled Bream. I will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had had shocks already that night, but none to be compared with this. Or perhaps it was that this shock, coming on top of those ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... prostrated himself before the King, overwhelming him with blessings, and these royal commands were in due course executed. So it came about that Lesueur's frescos led to startling revelations, and enabled the Carthusians to keep their splendid property intact, ungainly though this ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... same, but not the same; identical in its principles, but totally dissimilar in its outcome. The phenomenon that amazes our eyes in the zoological world when we compare the butterflies of Brazil with those of Europe, is even more startling in the world of Mind. A particular facial angle, a certain amount of brain convolutions, are indispensable to produce Columbus, Raphael, Napoleon, Laplace, or Beethoven; the sunless valley produces the cretin—draw your own conclusions. Why such differences, due ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... furtively. By the lamplight I could see in those dark blue eyes such a new, such a tender, confident look, that in spite of the wrinkled cheeks and her white hair I saw a startling likeness to Paula herself. I couldn't explain it at the time, but later I understood—Teresa and Paula were just part of the family of God and it was His likeness of Jesus, His dear Son, I had seen ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... Socialist, born at Besancon, the son of a cooper; worked in a printing establishment, spent his spare hours in study, specially of the social problem, and in 1840 published a work entitled "What is Property?" and in which he boldly enunciated the startling proposition, "Property is theft"; for the publication of this thesis he was at first unmolested, and only with its application was he called to account, and for which at last, in 1849, he was committed to prison, where, however, he kept himself busy with his pen, and whence he ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with the Roentgen rays give us an example of the startling results which are produced when even a very few of these additional vibrations are brought within human ken, and the transparency to these rays of many substances hitherto considered opaque at once shows us one way at least in which we may explain ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... pardon," said Phil, smiling shyly at her. "I never knew that animals could speak until last night, and it's rather startling at first, you know. Do you mind telling me where ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... as a whole, but quite the reverse. All that is sought is an explanation of a maintenance of heat-giving capacity relatively unchanged for a long, but not an interminable, period. Indeed, exactly here comes in the novel and startling feature of. Helmholtz's calculation. According to Mayer's meteoric hypothesis, there were no data at hand for any estimate whatever as to the sun's permanency, since no one could surmise what might be the limits of the meteoric supply. But Helmholtz's estimate implied an incandescent body cooling—keeping ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... an example of luxury and elegance. Grand dinners, concerts, official entertainments succeeded one another with startling rapidity. Josephine, who was wildly fond of dress, was glad of an excuse to indulge her extravagant tastes. The Emperor's three sisters lived like real princesses, rivalling one another in magnificence. Princes Joseph and Louis displayed the pomp ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... backwards, which D'Artagnan—calmest and most appreciative of men, did not consider overdone, so many strange and startling aspects wore the proposal which Aramis had just hazarded. "The king's dresses! Give the king's dresses to any mortal whatever! Oh! for once, monseigneur, your grace is mad!" cried ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "plenty more beyond" had an end, but that the end was already in sight. This prophet was Gifford Pinchot. His warning went forth reinforced by all the authority of the Presidential office and all the conviction and driving power of the personality of Roosevelt himself. Pinchot's warning cry was startling: ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... of forgetful folly, he had dared to engage himself; and he had knocked about for a fortnight ashore in the native quarter, cadging for drinks, starving, sleeping on rubbish-heaps, wandering in sunshine: a startling visitor from a world of nightmares. He stood repulsive and smiling in the sudden silence. This clean white forecastle was his refuge; the place where he could be lazy; where he could wallow, and lie and eat—and curse the food ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... sufficiently startling to account for the temporary paralysis that seemed to have fallen on the party. They stared at me, speechless. During that moment I had thrown a rapid glance to my left. The three deserters were lying against the wall; between them and ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... successful far beyond the most sanguine anticipations. Though the strain upon his energies, there can be no doubt of it, was very considerable, the Reader had brought vividly before him in recompense, on Eighty-Seven distinct occasions, the most startling proofs of his popularity—the financial results, besides this, when all was over, yielding substantial evidence of his having, indeed, won "golden opinions" from all ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... strong light brings out with somewhat perilous force (indeed I recollect I was driven to compare his beamy head in my thoughts to that of the "golden image" which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up), an idea new, sudden, and startling, riveted my attention with an over-mastering strength and power of attraction. I know not to this day how I looked at him: the force of surprise, and also of conviction, made me forget myself; and I only recovered wonted consciousness when I saw that his ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... an unpleasant taste or offensive odour, and their foes come by experience to associate this form of colouring with disagreeable qualities and avoid the animals so marked. Belt was the first to account, in this way, for the conspicuous colouration of the skunk; and it is now believed that startling colours and conspicuous attitudes are intended to assist the education of enemies by enabling them to learn and remember the animals which are to be avoided. The explanation of warning colours was devised by Mr. Wallace ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... has been accustomed to deal with the startling and the marvellous in the way of incident and adventure, nothing can be more amusing than the confident opinions of critics and readers as to the improbability, and frequently the impossibility, of particular scenes which often happen to be faithful ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... being a selection from "impressions of the moment written without knowledge of the ultimate result." In these stray moments between the years 1885 and 1917 I find at least two examples in which this ignorance of the final event adds much to the interest of the immediate record—the startling forecast of the EX-KAISER'S destiny, entered in the Diary under November '98; and the mention, long before the actual illness of KING EDWARD declared itself, of the growing belief in certain circles that his coronation would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... he shook himself back into reality, a startling question had come to him. His lips put it ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... that it was better to allow the South to go free to establish a separate government, whose corner-stone should be slavery. Success to our arms at that instant was therefore a political necessity; and it was all-important that something startling in our interest should occur before the election in November. The brilliant success at Atlanta filled that requirement, and made the election of Mr. Lincoln certain. Among the many letters of congratulation received, those of Mr. Lincoln and General ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... to have fallen on board from the sky. His footsteps echoed on the empty steamer, and the strange deep-toned voice on deck repeating interrogatively the words, "Mr. Massy, Mr. Massy there?" had been startling like a wonder. And coming up from the depths of the cold engine-room, where he had been pottering dismally with a candle amongst the enormous shadows, thrown on all sides by the skeleton limbs of machinery, Massy had been struck dumb by astonishment in the presence of that ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... She laughed about it; said you handled the affair in a most businesslike and unsentimental way; she never felt more like a bundle of dry-goods in her life, but that that appeared to be your manner of handling people. It was a somewhat startling manner, but very effective, she said. I don't know what ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the hotel clerk handed to him one afternoon a fortnight later, and read it through without change of expression. Lenora, however, who was by his side, knew at once that it contained something startling. ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... who may travel through their country, and the proper etiquette is to supply your visitors with tea and sweetmeats—biscuits will do just as well, and they like plenty of sugar. They then pay you the most barefaced compliments, and make the startling assertion that you are their father and mother; upon which you reply that all you have is at their disposal. If they have any petition,—and they generally have,—they insinuate it gently in the general conversation, so you have to be looking out for traps of this sort. ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... psalms were sung, of reading out a single line, and when that was sung another line was read, and so throughout[18]. Thus, on singing the 50th psalm, the first line sounded thus:—"Our God shall come, and shall no more;" when that was sung, there came the next startling announcement—"Be silent, but speak out." A rather unfortunate juxtaposition was suggested through this custom, which we are assured really happened in the church of Irvine. The precentor, after having given out the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... imperfectly, of what I thought they said, or what some of them had said. Any how, no harm could come of bending the crooked stick the other way, in the process of straightening it; it was impossible to break it. If there was any thing in the Fathers of a startling character, this would be only for a time; it would admit of explanation, or it might suggest something profitable to Anglicans; it could not lead to Rome. I express this view of the matter in a passage of the Preface ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... had a scene, rather startling to notions about fatalism, etc. Owing to the importation of a good deal of cattle from the Soudan, there is an expectation of the prevalence of small-pox, and the village barbers are busy vaccinating in all directions to prevent the infection brought, either by the cattle or, more likely, ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... it? The mystery of so many opposite memories, the strange union of adverse ideas. The young, the old, the gay, the proud, the beautiful, the poor, and the sorrowful. Silence, darkness, repose, happiness, woe, heaven and hell. Oh! they should come now with a startling solemnity upon us all, for while I write, the solemn tolling of the bells warns me of a nation's grief; it calls to millions—its sad resonance is echoed ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... his ears burning, his; nerves tingling, his brain whirling. What had caused this astonishing change? Why had she turned against him so suddenly, so strangely? Prince Ugo! The truth flashed into his mind with startling force, dispelling all uncertainty, all doubt. Her lover had forstalled him, had requested or demanded his banishment and she had acquiesced, with a heartlessness that was beyond belief. He had been ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... night of which this story treats was not entirely clear; the time of year was about the approach of the rainy season, and the tepid, tropical clouds added obscurity to the darkness of the sky, so that the night fell with even more startling quickness than usual. The blackness was very dense. Now and then a group of drifting stars swam out of a rift in the vapors, but the night was curiously silent and ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... in the midst of this elemental uproar, made me laugh, shivering as I was. Yet, to be left to find my own way at such a time, was startling. I offered him money. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... obtrude abruptly another thought upon the brain while it is in the act of destroying nervous matter by thinking, is calling upon it to make a new exertion,—if we consider these things, which are facts, not fancies, we shall remember that we are doing positive injury by interrupting, by "startling a fanciful" person, as it is called. ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... elevated gallery, were ranged the seventy choristers of the abbey, thirty of whom were youthful novices; behind them a massive screen or curtain of tapestry concealed the organ, and gave a yet more startling and thrilling effect to its rich deep tones, thus bursting, as ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... can find out from the context which way the writer meant him to take. One politician writes to another: "I ask you as the recognized leader of our party what you think of this measure;" and nobody accuses the writer of presumption. We might even pass over the following startling sentence without observing the reflection which it casts on a ...
— "Stops" - Or How to Punctuate. A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students • Paul Allardyce
... was just about to follow him up and find out how things were going, when Roshan Khan suddenly exclaimed excitedly:—"Dekko, Sahib, shenzi ata hain!" ("Look, Sahib, the savages are coming!"). I was not in the least alarmed at this somewhat startling announcement, as the Indians called all the natives of the interior of Africa shenzi, or savages; and on looking round I saw five tall, slim Masai approaching in Indian file, each carrying a six-foot spear in his right hand. On coming nearer, the leader of the party eagerly asked in Swahili, ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... houses of ill-fame for so humane a purpose, startling as it may be to the moral sense, has many powerful advocates among the thoughtful, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... inattentive 458. unexpected, unanticipated, unpredicted^, unlooked for, unforeseen, unhoped for; dropped from the clouds; beyond expectation, contrary to expectation, against expectation, against all expectation; out of one's reckoning; unheard of &c (exceptional) 83; startling, surprising; sudden &c (instantaneous) 113. unpredictable, unforeseeable (unknowable) 519. Adv. abruptly, unexpectedly, surprisingly; plump, pop, a l'improviste [Fr.], unawares; without notice, without warning, without a 'by your leave'; like a thief ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... which report one-fifth of all women gainfully employed as engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry are somewhat startling until we observe that southern negro women make up a very large number of the farm workers reported. Even aside from these, however, there are many women who are finding work in gardening, poultry raising, bee culture, dairying, and the like. The girl who is fitted to take up work of this sort ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... numbers built on the same rhythms as those of the odes in order that he might use those occasional works as a sketch (see B.-G., Jahr. xxxiv. preface). Be this as it may, the alterations are confined to details even where an aria is transposed a fourth or fifth; but the effect of them is startling. Pleasure (Wollust) sings a lovely soprano aria to allure Hercules from the paths of Virtue, to which Hercules replies indignantly with an aria in a spirited staccato style. It is no doubt a shock to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... preside with so much dignity. There are very few London people, as I fancy, who have not attended at these meetings, and all with a taste for moralizing must have thought, with a sensation and interest not a little startling and queer, of the day when their turn shall come too, and Mr. Hammerdown will sell by the orders of Diogenes' assignees, or will be instructed by the executors, to offer to public competition, the library, furniture, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the eyes of the neighborhood; of seeing that sixpence not only went as far as sixpence ought to go, but that, in the going, it should emit a mild but imposing splendor,—not, indeed, a gaudy flash, a startling Borealian coruscation, which is scarcely within the modest and placid idiosyncracies of sixpence,—but a gleam of gentle and benign light, just to show where a sixpence had been, and allow you time to ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the delicate lines of the profile, the scarlet lips, the pearly teeth, the large, long-lashed blue eyes, whose colour formed a startling contrast to the dark hair, the slender little hands and dainty feet, united to form a beauty whose equal Nature rarely produces. And this fair body contained a tender, loving, pure, childlike heart, which longed for higher gifts than human life ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "balance." Neither side, in fact, desires a balance; each desires to have the balance tilted in its favor. This sets up a perpetual tendency toward rearrangement, and regroupings and reshufflings in these international alliances sometimes take place with extraordinary and startling rapidity, as in the case ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... most romantic and startling experiences. The author's invention is unflaggingly brilliant, and his narrative manner both direct and forcible.... The reader bent upon excitement alone, and the reader who delights in the better qualities of romance—in literary form and psychological portrayal—will alike find their ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... said, with a smile, as if her wild trepidation interested him as an anticipated symptom. "The whole idea is new and startling to you. But I know you won't dismiss it abruptly, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... more glance at her to show me that she was in mortal danger. For she was walking slowly and laboriously along like a person carrying a heavy burden. The smoke was getting so thick that it hid her from time to time, and I felt, even at my distance from the fire, an occasional hot blast on my cheek—a startling proof of the rapid march of the great oncoming army ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... first land you are decidedly struck by the great figure-heads of old war vessels, which are set up on the "quarter-deck" and in front of some of the buildings. There is one of the old Ganges there—a mammoth wooden head of a very black negro. The size of it is startling. ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... quite a start," he said. "It is my symphony, my dead and buried work. To hear that music from you was startling." There was a pause. "Do you know ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... could not be denied. Not only had they been at last compelled to confess these negotiations, which for several months had been concealed and stubbornly denied, but the still graver plots of the Earl to regain his much-coveted authority had been, in a startling manner, revealed. The leaders of the States-General had a right to suspect the English Earl of a design to reenact the part of the Duke of Anjou, and were justified in taking stringent measures to prevent a calamity, which, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Lightning, as its title indicates, deals with the most startling phenomena of nature. The writings of the author, M. De Fonvielle, have attracted very general attention in France, as well on account of the happy manner in which he calls his readers' attention to certain facts heretofore treated in scientific works only, ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... chiffchaff—before the watch begins for the first swallow. I call it the February pleasure, as each month has its delight. So associated as this butterfly is with early spring, to see it again after months of leaf and flower—after June and July—with the wheat in shock and the scent of harvest in the land, is startling. The summer, then, is a dream! It is still winter; but no, here are the trees in leaf, the nuts reddening, the hum of bees, and dry summer dust on the high wiry grass. The sulphur butterfly comes twice; there is a second brood; but there are some facts that ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... so very exciting in it—an excitement she could still recall as keenly now? Was it the greatness of the revolution, or surprise at the new order of things? It was such a startling interruption of all the usual relations between the furniture of the house and its human beings. A great London house wrapped up in the old way spoke more of the old order its influence, its importance, than did the house when inhabited, and ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... war, he cal'lated that Illinois was too far east for him, so after a few years we packed up our duds, and 'migrated out to Montana. There we've been ever since. That's my story, and it ain't a very startling one ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... Her face was grave and her eyes looked seriously at him. Her fingers touched the hair of his temple, ran in a light caress down his cheek, twisted gently the end of his long moustache: and while he sat in the tremor of that contact she ran off with startling fleetness and disappeared in a peal of clear laughter, in the stir of grass, in the nod of young twigs growing over the path; leaving behind only a vanishing trail ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... good. Edwin's father was an Arctic explorer. Write under sketch, "The old man had many a startling adventure in the silent land of eternal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... the sway With startling dawn and dazzling day; But gloriously serene Are the interminable plains: One fixed, eternal sunset reigns ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... shared by their chiefs. It was very clear to them that an attack might at any moment come, though from what quarter and in what force they were absolutely ignorant. This ignorance increased their vacillations, their uncertainties. Orders and counter-orders followed each other with startling rapidity. The soldiers, harassed, began to lose confidence; the leaders became more and more incapable ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... be to ascertain how these registers are divided among various voices, and the result as revealed by the laryngoscope is rather startling. It consists in this, that the break between the Thick and Thin occurs in both sexes at about In order to realize the full meaning of this, the reader must bear in mind that music for tenors is ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... he can see them without pressing his nose against the glass of a coach window. And then from the town itself there are walks of two, three, and four hours, which I think are unsurpassed for wild and sometimes startling beauties. One gets into little valleys, green as emeralds, and surrounded on all sides by grey broken rocks, in which Italian Rasselases might have lived in perfect bliss; and then again one comes upon distant views up the ...
— The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box • Anthony Trollope
... full of rocks and trees. From this direction came a startling noise, which caused me more concern than anything I had thus far heard. It sounded much like a huge animal stretching himself, and giving a great yawn which ended in a scream. I knew this for the voice of a mountain lion, and it decided ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... being more startling and dramatic for adults than for children, they are recorded in Great Britain with the same careful detail as in France, and it is possible to trace the local variations; although in England, as is usual, the ceremonies had lost their significance ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... remember—what American does not!—the first rumor of it. I remember the startling sensation. I remember at first the universal incredulity. I remember how the post-offices were thronged for successive days by anxious thousands; how collections of citizens rode out for miles on the highway, accosting the mail to catch something by anticipation. At last, when ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... fast till about half past ten in the evening, when one of the company pulled out a pack of cards and flung it on the table where Mara Moor was sitting. The effect was startling. Her face took on a deathly pallor; she trembled, arose from her seat, staggered across the room, and took a chair in the remotest corner. So great was her agitation that every one saw it, but none was aware of ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... box-party at the theater, she had noted the rich elaborateness of Mrs. Sohlberg's dainty frock, the endless pleatings of pale silk, the startling charm of the needlework and the ribbons—countless, rosetted, small—that meant hard work on the part of ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the seat furthest from him, held on to the back of it. "I know?" she repeated, as if to herself. Then she drew a long breath, which quivered through her, and, with it, voice and emotion and the power of expression returned. "I know?" she cried with a startling loudness. "Good God, you fool, do you think I'd be here with you, if I had known?—if I ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... place. My blood was troubled in its current. I was quite sick, and hardly knew how to keep at my post—or do my work. Yet the little world round me plodded on indifferent; all seemed jocund, free of care, or fear, or thought: the very pupils who, seven days since, had wept hysterically at a startling piece of news, appeared quite to have forgotten the news, its ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... recognized the "capabilities" of a place, and which leaped to the recognition of its matured graces, was all his own. He was accused of sameness; but the man who at one time held a thousand lovely landscapes unfolding in his thought could hardly give a series of contrasts without startling affectations. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... without startling Daisy, who would undoubtedly have uttered a loud scream had they suddenly appeared before her vision. They saw her stand there for at least ten minutes, before she went into the house. When she was out of sight, Weil ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... In large letters was the name of a firm well-known to Philip, Lynn and Sedley, Regent Street, London; and below, in type smaller but still of some magnitude, was the dogmatic statement: Procrastination is the Thief of Time. Then a question, startling because of its reasonableness: Why not order today? There was a repetition, in large letters, like the hammering of conscience on a murderer's heart: Why not? Then, boldly: Thousands of pairs of gloves from the leading markets of the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... activity and this, where Henrietta stood with the trees, the cliffs, the swooping gulls. It was low tide and the river was bordered by banks of mud, grey too, yet opalescent. It almost reflected the startling white of the gulls' wings and, as she looked at it, she saw that its colour was made up of many; there was pink in it and blue and, as a big cloud passed over the sun, it became subtly purple; it was a palette of subdued ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... standing before the mirror, red-faced and panting, both arms behind her and her fingers busily engaged. Her husband's breath was almost gone by the time he reached the foot of the stairs; consequently his entrance was a trifle less noisy and startling than his sky-rocket flight through the kitchen. It is doubtful if his wife would have noticed even if it had been. She caught a glimpse of him in the mirror, and heaved ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... round, warm, close darkness, in which retreating sounds seemed to be cut off suddenly at a distance of a hundred yards or so, instead of growing faint and fainter, and dying away, to strike the ear once or twice again—and after minutes, it might seem—with startling distinctness, before being finally lost in the distance, as it is on clear, frosty nights. So with the sounds of horses' hoofs, stumbling on the rough bridle-track through the "saddle", the clatter of hoof-clipped stones and ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... accustomed to the idea of a soul-and-body-ruining intemperance amongst the lower portion of the working-classes, that only some startling details connected with it make any great impression upon us. Yet it is verily a most awful thing to exist in the midst of enlightened, advancing England. There are 1300 beer-shops in the borough of Manchester, besides ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."—The metrical scheme of this poem is a variation of the 'pendulum structure.' [Page 251.] It may be called a 'triple pendulum,' or alternation between three notes: one note is made by the startling questions of nature mysteries, another (lines indented to the right) exquisitely pictures the details of these wonders of nature, while for a third (lines still more to the right) there is a word of challenge to Job ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... speculating as to the cause of this mysterious and startling disciplinary measure against a nobleman so well known and so prominent in every way as Baron von Kotze, the court gossips were rubbing their hands, chuckling with satisfaction, and congratulating themselves on the fact that success had at length crowned the efforts made to bring to ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Vikings, of Thorfin Karlsefne's sailing to Wineland, which is America, in the ninth or tenth century. The battle in the harbor he had seen; and his own death he had described. But this was a much more startling plunge into the past. Was it possible that he had skipped half a dozen lives and was then dimly remembering some episode of a thousand years later? It was a maddening jumble, and the worst of it was that Charlie Mears in his normal condition was the last person in the world ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... inquiring, searching voice, surely, rose quivering from some distance on the sea, startling Vere and Artois. It was untrained but unshy, and the singer forced it with resolute hardihood that was indifferent to the future. Artois had never heard the Marchesino sing before, but he knew at once that it was he. Some one at the island must ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... news came to him that Tom Travis had returned as from the dead. It was Jud Carpenter who had awakened him that Saturday night to whisper at the bedside the startling news. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... edge. It was sufficient pleasure, however, at first, to lie back in the tent upon our soft bearskins, watching the brilliantly coloured and ever varying foliage of the banks, to sweep swiftly but silently around abrupt bends into long vistas of still water, startling the great Kamchatkan eagle from his lonely perch on some jutting rock, and frightening up clouds of clamorous waterfowl, which flew in long lines down the river until out of sight. The navigation of the upper Kamchatka is somewhat intricate and dangerous at night, on account of the rapidity ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... grasped the rails of the bridge ladder and did down to the deck without touching his feet to the treads. He appeared before the father and daughter with startling suddenness. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the Jews of his country. He is the first Hebrew poet who dared expose the social evils honeycombing the curious surroundings, full of contrasts and naivete, amid which his people lived. This he did in a series of startling descriptions. After the fashion of Cervantes, he employs ridicule to kill off the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz |
