"Surprising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the Merle Blanc at Monte Carlo, a quite unpretentious place of entertainment that well deserves its name—white blackbirds being rather scarcer here than elsewhere. The food is excellent—it has a cachet of its own; the wine more than merely good. And this is surprising, for the local mixtures (either Italian stuff which is dumped down in shiploads at Nice, Marseille, Cette, etc., or else the poor though sometimes aromatic product of the Var) are not gratifying to the palate. One imbibes them, none the less, in preference to anything else, as ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... very good to us, sir," said Paula, starting to go out. "We have given you so much trouble, but when we wish to buy anything more, we shall always come here, will we not, Lisita? In the meantime, many thanks," and she extended her hand to him with surprising self-possession. ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... less conspicuous figures is going down head foremost in the company of an animal that looks very like a pig. This beast having been damned by ecclesiastical sculptors in France as early as the twelfth century, and probably earlier, it is not surprising that a polite peasant, when he mentions it by name, often excuses himself for his supposed breach of good manners by adding: ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... winter. It is running water, and as it runs and bubbles up to the surface it is distributed over the little garden plots and patches. I asked him why he did not make the gardens larger? "God bless you," he replied, "we would if we had more water." It is surprising to notice the regularity of even this scanty supply of water through the years of an old man's life, upwards of eighty, in the heart of The Desert, for such is the site of the oasis of Seenawan. I looked about for birds, but saw none. My aged informant ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... It is surprising how much damage may be done to valuable old woodwork by an enthusiastic band of decorators, assisted by an indiscriminating curate, and how inharmonious may be the general effect of individual labours—though charming taken separately—where a comprehensive ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... from the days of my childhood, that its very weaknesses are more precious to me than the strength of other men's work. I have read it innumerable times, both in Polish and in English; I have read it only the other day, and, by a not very surprising inversion, the Lady Dedlock of the book reminded me strongly of ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... very sunburnt, and she lingered, doubtful whether to hide it with powder, or accept her gipsy colouring. She did accept it, for she saw that it gave her eyes, so like glacier ice, under their black lashes, and her hair, with its surprising glints of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... her at the North, and also in the Virginia mountains; and being now on a visit to the Green Sulphur Springs, about four miles from Midbranch, he rode over to see her nearly every day. There was nothing surprising in this, because the Green Sulphur, once a much frequented resort, had seen great changes, and now, although the end of the regular season had not arrived, it had Mr Lawrence Croft for its only guest. There was a spacious hotel there; there was a village of cottages of varying ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... rather surprising discovery made by Mr W. GORNOLD (see his A Manual of Occultism, 1911, pp. 7 and 8) must be mentioned. The ancient Chaldeans appear invariably to have enumerated the planets in the following order: ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... loves the calling and has an ambition to become a successful farmer should understand that no two of these essentials are sufficient, but that all three are necessary. Although this is so simple as to be almost axiomatic, it is indeed surprising how few people believe a knowledge of farming is really essential ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... He said those few words with surprising gentleness, as Mrs. Peckover thought, for such a ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... general wish to do anything except the job of the moment, it must be admitted that the pony leader's lot was full of occasions for bad temper. Nevertheless leaders and ponies were on the best of terms (excepting always Christopher), which is really not surprising when you come to think that most of the leaders were sailors whose love ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... see anything very thrilling in surprising the Hickses," Gillow protested, defrauded of possible excitements; and Strefford added: "It would surprise me more than ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... feminine psychology—it must have been theoretical, for he was not seventeen—implied a study and depth of research that was quite surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate of the strength of character and principle inherent in the weaker sex was any thing but high; nearly, indeed, identical with that formed by the learned lady who, to the question, "Did she think the virtue of any single one of her sisterhood ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... of much of this requires no comment, as it must strike even the most careless reader,—for if the so-called indigo-growers did not know the process of manufacturing the commodity, then it could not be surprising that they failed. Thus the cause of their failure required no comment, and no explanation. Were a ploughman taken from the field and placed at the helm of a ship, and the vessel in consequence wrecked, would any one be astonished but at the folly ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... saying to one another that they did not like being in a town in which they were very naturally detested. To any one who has seen, as I have, the ravages of the Northern troops in Southern towns, this forbearance seems most commendable and surprising." ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... reasonable; and hunting-matches, good eating, and great care of his person. When he went in their seasons to these hunting-matches, he always had carried with him great pavilions for les dames, and at the same time gave splendid entertainments; so that it is not surprising that his person was as jolly as any one I ever saw. He was then young, and as handsome as any man of his age; but he has ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... ancestor worship, the soul, oracles, prophecy; all these elements of the primitive supersensuous world we willingly admit to be the proper material of religion; but other elements are more surprising; such are class-names, abstract ideas, numbers, geometrical figures. We do not nowadays think of these as of religious content, but to primitive men they were all part of the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... path for its solution. I wished only to ascertain how far with various animals the males exceeded the females, and I have given all the facts which I could collect. As far as I know, no other data have been published. The equality of the sexes with race-horses is surprising. My remarks on mankind are quite superficial, and given merely as some sort of standard for comparison with the lower animals. M. Thury is the writer who makes the sex depend on the period of impregnation. His pamphlet was sent me from Geneva. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... me expectations of his being able to replace the money I had borrowed of M. Cabarrus, and that this sum, added to the balance to be paid by the Court, would reduce the remainder of the money wanted to less than twenty thousand pounds sterling; and that it would appear a little surprising in the eyes of Europe as well as America, that our credit should be permitted either by France or Spain to suffer essential injury for the want of such a sum. I requested him to advise me what to do. He said that he knew not what advice to give me; that he saw no resources ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... to Church influence. This spiritual isolation, with its resultant social separation, is doing great harm in retarding assimilation. Aside from this matter of religion, the Bohemian falls into American customs with surprising readiness." ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... priest of the Church of England, I believe the Theology of the National Church of England, as by law established, to be eminently rational as well as scriptural. It is not, therefore, surprising to me that the clergy of the Church of England, since the foundation of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century, have done more for sound physical science than the clergy of any other denomination; or that the ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... Fatty," "get a truck," and other jibes greet the fat man on every hand. He knows he can not proceed a block without being the butt of several jokes, but he listens to them all with an amiability surprising to other types. And this good nature is so apparent that even those who make sport of him are thinking to themselves: "I believe ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... Loughlin, Peter McDonough, Michael Gould, William Forrest, and John Heaphey, all of whom are cited by Canon Keller in his tract as conspicuous victims of the oppression and rack-renting which he says have prevailed upon the Ponsonby estates time out of mind. It was rather surprising, therefore, to find them joining with more than forty other tenants to sign an address, of which I here ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... back! He's jus' as likely as not to lose his position at Snipleys, Crabford & Snipleys, too, but he will go! It's surprising to see a man with such a weak chest and delicate feet, ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... fire, as he would bring the frigate down upon him if he did," observed the first mate; "he will therefore either run alongside in the hopes of surprising us, and taking us by boarding before we have time to fire a pistol, which would attract notice, or, should the wind fall light, he may hope to cut ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the years preceding the Civil War, he was opposed to the extension of slavery and did not regard the election of Abraham Lincoln as a sufficient provocation for the secession of the Southern States. It is therefore not surprising that Walter Page, in the midst of the London turmoil of 1916, should have found his thoughts reverting to his father as he remembered him in Civil War days. That gaunt figure of America's time of agony proved an inspiration and hope in the anxieties that assailed the Ambassador. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... here?" he demanded. Without waiting for an answer he suddenly rose. Moving with surprising lightness to the door, he jerked it open. But if by this manoeuvre he expected to precipitate the spy into the room, he was disappointed, for the outer office was empty. The Consul crossed it quickly to the window. He saw the spy disappearing into a ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... necessitated by the fears and aims of the Government as the quite normal state of the Turkish nation.... Every Turk is a born soldier, and adopts other pursuits chiefly because times are bad. When there is a question of fighting, if only in a riot, the stolid peasant wakes up and shows surprising power of finding organisation and expedients, and alas! a surprising ferocity. The ordinary Turk is an honest and good-humoured soul, kind to children and animals, and very patient; but when the ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... emotions as produced in the mourners in these two instances is remarkably evidenced by the singular similarity of thought which they experienced, and the surprising coincidence of language used by them to ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides are dead. The minor bards are a puny folk, and Dionysus is resolved to descend to Hades in quest of a truly creative poet, one capable of a figure like "my star god's glow-worm," or "His honor rooted in dishonor stood." After many surprising adventures by the way, and in the outer precincts of the underworld, accompanied by his Sancho Panza, Xanthias, he arrives at the court of Pluto just in time to be chosen arbitrator of the great contest between Aeschylus and Euripides for the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... got an answer ready for anything lest one of my children should ask me. But it is not surprising either that children should be puzzled about the things that have puzzled their father, or that by the time they are able to put the questions, he should have found out some sort of an answer to most of them. Go on with your catechism, ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... Tiahuana, "that is not in the least surprising. It often happens that the reincarnated one has no recollection of his former existence until he finds himself amid surroundings similar to those with which he was familiar in his past state; and even then remembrance often comes but slowly. Your lack of recollection does not in ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... insist very strongly upon brain work-beyond an uncertain point-being non-natural, and, therefore, requiring non-natural conditions for its exercise. I can quite believe the feat of the Hungarian officer [Footnote: The surprising endurance of the Hungarian officer, who lately swam a lake in Hungary, a distance of eleven miles, is ascribed to his abstinence from alcohol and tobacco.— Thrift, for February, 1882.] would be impossible ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... Kihm she knew no friend, filled Blix with a vague sense of terror and of oppression. She was going out into a new life, a life of work and of study, a harsher life than she had yet known. Her father, her friends, her home—all these were to be left behind. It was not surprising that Blix should be daunted at the prospect of so great a change in her life, now so close at hand. But if the tears did start at times, no one ever saw them fall, and with a courage that was all her own Blix watched the last days of the year trooping past and the approach of ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... evidence and virtue! It is not surprising that the subject in question should be enveloped in so many clouds, since, besides its inherent difficulties, thought itself has always been encumbered with superadded obstacles peculiar to this study, where all free enquiry and discussion have been interdicted ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... thing in the form of matter, however coarse—the refuse and dross of more valuable materials—is resolvable, by science, into elements too subtle for our vision, and yet possessed of such potency that they effect transmutations more surprising than the fables of magic. The points that spangle the still blue vault, and make night lovely to the untaught peasant, interpreted by science, expand into worlds and systems of worlds: some so remote, that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... hands, which the wife strikes with a rod, giving twenty, thirty, or fifty blows. She then in turn presents her hands and receives the same chastisement from her husband. This chastisement is dealt out indiscriminately, children are thus chastized by their parents, and what is surprising, the little Indians when struck on the hands do not withdraw them, no matter how much they feel the pain. I have seen them bleeding, yet in spite of that they were firm and motionless. Their religion is not only exterior, they have it in their heart as will be seen by the following fact: ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... trouble at the Gordon place to-night, Mr. Williamson," he said quietly. "Neil Gordon behaved rather badly and frightened Kilmeny terribly,—so terribly that a very surprising thing has happened. She has found herself able to speak, and ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... can thread all the needles," Ruth said, her eyes shining. And so she did. Needle after needle was threaded with the white yarn, and it really was surprising to see how much faster the ladies could work. It wasn't long before all the surface of the comfortable was filled with rows of neat, white tufts and was ready to be ripped from the frame and have its ...
— Dew Drops - Volume 37, No. 18, May 3, 1914 • Various
... It is not surprising that such a tale should have a considerable influence on Lady Florimel's imagination: out of the scanty facts which formed but a second volume, she began at once to construct both a first and a third. She dreamed ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... World which Master Ripton Thompson had furnished to the System with such instantaneous and surprising effect was considered by Sir Austin to have worked well, and to be for the time quite sufficient, so that Ripton did not receive a second invitation to Raynham, and Richard had no special intimate of his own age to rub his excessive ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Their intelligence was surprising and they seemed to be partially receptive to human thoughts, as Bill Humbolt had written. By the end of the fifteenth year their training had reached such a stage of perfection that a mocker would transmit or not transmit with only the unspoken thought of ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... marvellous skill in producing a saw-like rim to the starched collar and cuff of the newest shirt; while the elegant and delicate lace and embroidery, with which the fair are wont to embellish their underwear, take strange and unforeseen patterns at the hands of the skilled workmen. It is surprising what an effect can be obtained by tying up the neck and sleeves of a garment, inserting a few smooth pebbles from the brook, and then banging the moist ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... paling fence stretched along in front of this. Very near it, a little further off, rose another building that made Eleanor almost give a start of joy; so homelike and pleasant it looked, as well as surprising. This was an exceeding pretty chapel; again with a high thatched roof, and also with a neat slight bell-tower rising from one end. In front two doors at each side were separated by a large and not inelegant window; other windows and doors down the side ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... dark-purple berries on which migrating birds feast in early autumn. By these agents the plant has been distributed from Newfoundland to the Carolinas, westward from Manitoba to Missouri, which is not surprising when we remember that certain birds travel from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes in a single night. While the true sarsaparilla of medicine should come from a quite different herb that flourishes in ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... that the blasting of the mountain chain of Northern Africa had been an experiment to test and demonstrate the powers of this new demoniacal invention, and in view of its success it did not seem surprising that the nations had hastened to agree to an armistice, for the Power that controlled a force capable of producing such an extraordinary physical cataclysm could annihilate every capital, every army, every people upon the globe or ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... wounded, too often mortally; the rest persevered. Again and again the attempt was made, the deck was gained, a desperate hand-to-hand combat began. It could have but one termination, the defeat of the attackers or the attacked. Paul climbed up with the rest of his shipmates. It is surprising that human beings could have faced the bristling mass of weapons which the British seamen had to encounter. Paul followed close behind Reuben, who kept abreast of Mr Noakes. Pistols were fired in their faces, cutlasses were clashing, as the seamen were slashing and cutting and lunging at ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... the sun is bright to carry off the dampness, but in dull cold weather all should be kept closed up. Camellias and Azaleas do admirably in such quarters, and can be brought into the dwelling and flowered at any time during the winter. Many plants grow with surprising luxuriance after remaining dormant in such quarters all winter. As the season advances in the spring ventilation must be given during the day, closing the sashes at night until the weather becomes mild when they ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... ourselves in the latitude of 49 deg. 55', longitude 159 deg. 28', having a very large swell out of the S.W. For the three days past, the mercury in the thermometer had risen to 46, and the weather was quite mild. Seven or eight degrees of latitude had made a surprising difference in the temperature of the air, which we felt with an ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... Confederate armies were inferior to the native Americans in the Union armies. The Confederate troops captured at Vicksburg were no doubt equal to the average, and of the 27,000 men then made prisoners and paroled two-thirds made their marks, not being able to write their names. This is not so surprising when it is remembered that there was no common school system in the South before the war, and that the "twenty-negro law," exempting the owner of twenty negroes from conscription, excused from military service the class which had an opportunity ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... nothing very surprising in the fact that fermentation can originate in fruits and form alcohol without the presence of yeast, if the fermentation of fruits were not confounded completely with alcoholic fermentation yielding the same products and in the same proportions. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... continuous narrative, this perspective, especially in things chronological, may sometimes be faulty. Yet when one remembers that by 70-80 A.D. it must have been a matter of small interest by what tentative stages the Messianic salvation first extended to the Gentiles, it is surely surprising that Acts enters into such detail on the subject, and is not content with a summary account of the matter such as the mere logic of the subject would naturally suggest. In any case, the very difference of the perspective of Acts and of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... he has really to look for, such as a very minute and sharp outline instead of a large, faint blur. In a short time a landsman becomes quite as quick as a sailor, and in some test experiments[1] he was found on the average to be distinctly the superior. It is not surprising that this should be so, as sailors in vessels of moderate size have hardly ever the practice of focussing their eyes sharply upon objects farther off than the length of the vessel or the top of the mast, say at a distance of fifty ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... of their dogs is truly surprising. The beaver house being first destroyed by the hunter, the dogs are urged by a peculiar call to scent out their retreats, which they never fail to do, whatever may be the thickness of the ice. They keep running about the borders of the lake, their ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... not a bit afraid that to this age it may appear "Victorian." Indeed if its pictures of High Life are accurate (as we cannot doubt, the authoress seems always so sure of her facts) they had a way of going on in those times which is really surprising. Even the grand historical figures were free and easy, such as King Edward, of whom we have perhaps the most human picture ever penned, as he appears at a levee "rather sumshiously," in a "small [Pg vii] but costly crown," and afterwards slips ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... narrow route, a difficulty which also hindered some of the French attacks. Colonel Windham, the leader of the attacking troops, finding that his messages for support produced no result, took the ill-advised step of going back himself to procure reenforcements. It was not surprising that before he returned his men also had withdrawn. It is probably in reference to this that the Engineer Journal said, in excusing the troops, that "they retired when they found themselves without ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... villagers, eager to learn the latest news from Apia, and from the world abroad. The discussion of political matters always has a strong attraction for Samoans, who are anxious to learn the state of affairs in Europe, and their knowledge and shrewdness is surprising. Should there be any white ladies present, the brown ones make much of them. The Samoans are a fine, handsome race, and the faces and figures of many of the young women are very attractive; but the practice of cutting off their long, flowing black hair, and allowing ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... "Richelieu," and, if rumor can be credited, it was owing to the advice and insistence of our own Washington Irving that we are indebted primarily for the story, the young author questioning whether he could properly paint the difference in the characters of the two great cardinals. And it is not surprising that James should have hesitated; he had been eminently successful in giving to the world the portrait of Richelieu as a man, and by attempting a similar task with Wolsey as the theme, was much like tempting fortune. Irving insisted that "Darnley" came ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... generally all the duties pertaining to his office of chief engineer. During the night General Morgan L. Smith's division was marched to the point where the pontoons were, and the brigade of Giles A. Smith was selected for the delicate duty of manning the boats and surprising the enemy's pickets on the south bank of the river. During this night also General J. M. Brannan, chief of artillery, moved forty pieces of artillery, belonging to the Army of the Cumberland, and placed them on the north side of the river so as to command the ground ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... the ancient Roman nation Made use of spittle in lustration; (Vide "Lactantium ap. Gallaeum"[3]— i. e. you need not read but see 'em;) Now Irish Papists—fact surprising— Make use of spittle in baptizing; Which proves them all, O'Finns, O'Fagans, Connors and Tooles all downright Pagans. This fact's enough; let no one tell us To free such sad, salivous fellows.— No, no—the man, baptized with spittle, Hath no ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... came from Hermocrates, who had contrived this trick to delay the departure of the Athenians, until time had been gained to occupy the passes on their route. That Nicias should have fallen into the snare is not surprising, but it is less easy to explain how Demosthenes and the other generals came to be deceived by so transparent a fraud. Yet such was in fact the case; the insidious hint was accepted as a piece of friendly ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... with a sharp instrument (such as a shell or a flint), when the patient is young; the wounds are for some time kept open with earth, and made to assume their embossment in the operation of healing. In their movements they are sluggish, though agile when stimulated to action. Their limbs are of surprising tenuity. In their communications with one another they are volatile; verbose in conversation, and puerile in manner: continually embroiled in some quarrel, which either ends in words, or terminates in the act of the secret assassin; ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... Mr. Gallatin's administration of the national finances. The hour for saving had passed. The imperious necessities of war take no heed of economic principles. The work which the secretary had done became as the rope of sand. It is not surprising that Gallatin wearied of his post; that he watched with vain regret and unavailing sighs the unavoidable increase of the national debt, and that he sought relief in other services where success was not so evanescent as in the Treasury Department. Before ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... agreeably or contrary to its directions. When love, hatred, joy, sorrow, gratitude, resentment, with so many other passions which are all supposed to be the subjects of this principle, have made themselves considerable enough to get titles to know them by, is it not surprising that the sovereign of them all should hitherto have been so little heeded; that, a few philosophers excepted, nobody has yet thought it worth while to bestow ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... flocking in from all directions, urging her to name her own price. With a feeling of deep indignation Teresa Zampieri determined after her engagement with Cartillos expired, that he should never acquire another farthing by her. She speedily became the pet of the people, yet notwithstanding her surprising good fortune, nothing had the power to charm her out of the subdued manner so unnatural in one so young, or throw a lightsome sparkle into those large, dark, melancholy eyes, while almost the first exclamation made by every one on hearing her sing, was, ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... however, to hear from him pretty soon; and, when I do, his communication is surprising. It comes in the form of a telegram, addressed to me. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... a similitude—now for a likeness to illustrate the surprising scene, and the effect it had upon my charmer, and the gentlewoman!—But nothing was like it, or equal to it. The plain fact can only describe it, and set it off—thus ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... men would do—but it would depend entirely upon the type," she thought. "What he will do will be different. It might seem cold; it might be merely judicial—but it might be surprising." ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "It is surprising what he can do," he said: "he was disguised like a soldier on guard; and, if you remember, two or three of them were listening when the door was opened, when I returned after your ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... surprising, the whole place having been built solidly of the finest pine from the sandy tract between us and the little river— wood that I knew would blaze up when dry and burn with a ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... Miss Salome said, hastily. She could hear Anne's plodding steps in the hall. It would be embarrassing to have Anne come in now. But the footsteps plodded by. After more conversation on a surprising number of topics, the Little Blue Overalls climbed ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... It is, therefore, not surprising that this profitable and growing market should have attracted the fraudulent, for the prizes when won are generally of a substantial character, and amply repay the misapplied effort and ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... hardly fair to keep them in ignorance of their dear father's being alive just for the pleasure we might get in surprising ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... a brotherhood of silence such as I have heard attributed to the trappers of the west. It seems absurd to mention love in connection with so ugly and snuffy a couple; at least, their trust was absolute; and they entertained a surprising admiration for each other's qualities; Candlish exclaiming that Sim was 'grand company!' and Sim frequently assuring me in an aside that for 'a rale, auld, stench bitch, there was nae the bate of Candlish in braid Scotland.' The two dogs ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... George W. Hows of the "Evening Express," F.A. Schwab of the "Daily Times," W.L. Alden of the "Citizen," and J.H. Elliot of the "Home Journal." As the founders were all connected with the literary, musical, art, or dramatic departments of their papers, it was not surprising that the projected association was to be modelled upon the Savage, Garrick, and Junior Garrick of London. Earlier failure had shown that a strictly literary organization was out of the question. A wider and more comprehensive membership was a necessity. As set forth in Article I., Section 2 of ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... clients would have been astonished if they had witnessed it. In their opinion he was hard as nails and a stranger to the softer feelings of the heart. They would as soon thought of attributing sentiment to one of the japanned deed-boxes. But they would have accepted the surprising revelation with well-bred English tolerance for eccentricity, not allowing it to affect their judgment that Mr. Brimsdown was one of the soundest and safest ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... opponents who inherited this lively question in 1913. However, the political advantage is theirs for having promptly and ungrudgingly passed the amendment the moment they came into power. But it will not be surprising to any one who has read this book that I conclude by pointing out that the real triumph belongs ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... It is not surprising, then, that great difficulties have had to be encountered in fixing any general laws by which longevity can be assured; yet such are in existence, and like all the gracious gifts of a most merciful Creator, are at the easy command and ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... sense. How can I discover something new to advance. Naturally, I felt embarrassed at the outset, but, at any risk, my duty is to respond to your flattering call, and thus to best avenge myself upon this conspiracy of my friends. It will not be surprising if I affirm that the occasion of this reunion has for me a character of especial solemnity. Seated at this festive board, I see the representatives of different nations, who, in private capacities also, have won general respect. I ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... the rear of our breastworks; before daylight a feint was made on our right to attract our attention in that quarter; a short time after a volley or two of musketry was heard on our left, the enemy dashing on the 8th Corps in desperate fury, completely surprising them. So sudden was the attack that many were captured before they had time to leave their tents or seize their muskets. On pressed the successful mass, shouting and ...
— History of the 159th Regiment, N.Y.S.V. • Edward Duffy
... impediments are the most piercing: and as little letters most tire the eyes, so do little affairs most disturb us. The rout of little ills more offend than one, how great soever. By how much domestic thorns are numerous and slight, by so much they prick deeper and without warning, easily surprising us when least ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... It is surprising that this simple and unpatented method of design has not met with more favor and has scarcely been used, even in tests. Some time ago the writer was asked, by the head of an engineering department ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... invested in manufacturing and distributing them, and the physicians of the various schools, being educated to prescribe them, a mutual bond of interest has grown up between doctor and druggist, which is not at all surprising. The medical profession, as a whole is, and ever has been eminently conservative, and this fact, in connection with its traditional predilection for drugs causes its members to resolutely set their faces against any remedial process that runs counter ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... been trained to catch fish for their owners. Being docile by nature, and having larger brains than most animals, they can be taught. Perhaps you have seen Sea-lions performing surprising tricks, showing clearly how intelligent these fish-like creatures really are. The Sea-lions at the London "Zoo" are not specially trained. But they are clever enough to teach themselves, especially when rewarded by a few extra fish. They know well the voice of their keeper, and clap with ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... that the photographic process of which I there spoke enables us to obtain with mechanical precision a generalised picture; one that represents no man in particular, but portrays an imaginary figure possessing the average features of any given group of men. These ideal faces have a surprising air of reality. Nobody who glanced at one of them for the first time would doubt its being the likeness of a living person, yet, as I have said, it is no such thing; it is the portrait of a type ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... the pavement. In the background, between the columns, smiles the blue sky of Italy—the only thing Italian not deteriorated by time. The careful student of this picture, if he has been long in Paris, is some day startled by detecting, especially in the faces of the women represented, a surprising likeness to the women of Paris, and perceives, with a thrill of dismay, that the models for this picture of decadent human nature are furnished by the very city ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... My little kitchen is exultant in shining tins, a glittering 'Hotspur,' patented 1860, and a capacious cupboard, through the glass doors of which shines forth a complete set of 'Ironstone.' On Mondays a little Bohemian—with surprising strength in her diminutive person—comes, and out from the fury of suds and steam issues a line of snowy, flapping clothes. She receives her 'tri shealing' and trots home. Aside from washing, I am addicted to that unpoetical, homely, dry, and utterly plebeian ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... admitted to be the first spectacular success of the war on the side of the Allies. It is not surprising that the nation is proud and delighted, yet so generous is the Russian mind that there mingle with its triumph admiration and sympathy for the garrison which was compelled to surrender after a long, brave resistance. Popular imagination has been thrilled by the story of the last desperate ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a success immediate. They became the fashion of the day, and the pride of the factory. If the artist had drawn with inspiration, the weavers copied with a fidelity little short of talent. So it is not surprising that a set of sofa and chairs on which these tapestries are displayed brings now an average of a thousand dollars a piece, even though the furniture frames are not ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... I instantly changed my carriage. It appears that I was not seen to do so, which is not surprising, as the station was crowded with people. MacCoy, of course, was expecting me, and he had spent the time between Euston and Willesden in saying all he could to harden my brother's heart and set him against ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... And what is surprising, above all, in the freedman's condition, is, not that it shows a recuperative power, but that it has such a wonderful suddenness in the recoil. It is not a growth, but a spring. It reverses the nihil per saltum of the philosophers. In watching them, one is constantly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... on hand, having issued an extra edition. Scarcely had the people of Metropolisville laid these two charming and much-lamented young ladies in their last, long resting-place, the quiet grave, when there comes like an earthquake out of a clear sky, the frightful and somewhat surprising and stunning intelligence that the postmaster of the village, a young man of a hitherto unexceptionable and blameless reputation, has been arrested for robbing the mails. It is supposed that his depredations have been very extensive and long continued, and that many citizens of our own village may ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... the rest of the insect fauna, which has not yet been sufficiently worked out, we next find that there are only 20 species of indigenous land-shells—which is not surprising when we remember by what enormous reaches of ocean the island is surrounded. Of these 20 species no less than 13 have become extinct, three are allied to European species, while the rest are so highly peculiar as to have no near allies in any other part of the globe. So that the land-shells ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... four in the afternoon, travel till ten P. M., breakfast then, tent and rest four hours; travel four more, tent, dine, and sleep nine hours. This secured sleep, when the sun was the highest and most trying to the eyes. The distances accomplished with this equipment are truly surprising. ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... rule by France, Algeria became independent in 1962. The surprising first round success of the fundamentalist FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) party in the December 1991 balloting caused the army to intervene, crack down on the FIS, and postpone the subsequent elections. The fundamentalist ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... it, did go all flat; and the Balance of Power gets kicked out of its sacred pivot: to such purpose have the Dutch been hoisted! Terrible to think of;—had not there, from the opposite quarter, risen a surprising counterpoise; had not there been a Prince Karl, with his 70,000, pressing victoriously over the Rhine; which stayed the French ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... maintain affectionate terms with his wife's father. She had been very foolish. All the world had admitted as much. He had seen it with his own eyes at that wretched ball. She had suffered her name to be joined with that of a stranger in a manner derogatory to her husband's honour. It was hardly surprising that his brother should have spoken of her conduct in disparaging terms;—but he did not believe that his brother had used that special term. Personal violence;—blows and struggling, and that on the part of a Dean of the Church of England, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... country and even of the world cannot be increased at the same rate; and therefore there will be greater poverty and a higher death-rate unless the birth-rate is lowered. Thus Malthusians argue. In view of the false premises on which their argument is based, it is not surprising to find that their deductions are erroneous and contain many economic and statistical fallacies, to the consideration of which we may now ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... them are exceedingly fine; others show the defects of an imperfectly developed language and a deficient literary taste. In the matter of style and form the author had almost nothing to guide him. It is not surprising, therefore, that his work shows crudities which no present day writer would commit, but that it should contain so much that is truly beautiful, even when measured by the ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... historic stretch where the Canadian champion had lost his laurels to New South Wales; on, on the strong arms took the craft till a wall of mountain loomed straight across our way, and the river had every appearance of coming to a sudden end, but round a sudden surprising elbow we went till a similar prospect confronted the navigator, and the river came round another of its many angles. On, on we steered till the warm rich scent from the flowering vineyards was left behind and the sound of the trains could not be heard. Far up ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... his importance and presumption in her sweet presence, and was as gentle and modest as the white dove that Anita still held to her breast. As he longed to sit near her and ask her poignant questions, Broussard sat a long way off and talked common-places, chiefly about birds, of which he showed a surprising knowledge, gleaned that afternoon from the encyclopaedia, in anticipation of his visit. Also, Broussard had, very artfully, secured a traitor in the enemy's camp because it was well understood at Fort ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... speeches, which few actors could have even memorized, and none would have ventured to utter on the stage, abound in every scene. This lack of technical acumen (unless, as may well be the case, Killigrew wrote much of these plays without any thought of presentation) is more than surprising in an author so intimately connected with the theatre and, after the Restoration, himself manager of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... stone), but in a mountainous country 100 pounds less; yet with what delicate slim limbs, without any proportional bulk of muscle, these animals support so great a burden! The mule always appears to me a most surprising animal. That a hybrid should possess more reason, memory, obstinacy, social affection, powers of muscular endurance, and length of life, than either of its parents, seems to indicate that art has here outdone nature. Of our ten ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin |
