"Surprisingly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eyes popped from his head as he struggled furiously to tear away the steel-sinewed hand that had stopped off his breath. Death was staring him in the face, and he could not cry out. His strength left suddenly as the fingers dug in deeper, and Eddie shook him as he would a rat. In a surprisingly short time he had slumped to the floor, and not until his squirmings ceased did Eddie loose ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... He had grown older, surprisingly older. There were deeper lines about his eyes. His face was thinner. He saw, now, that Philip's lightness had been but a passing flash of his old buoyancy, that the old life and sparkle had gone from him. Two years, he judged, had woven things into Philip's ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... staircase. Across the archway was fixed a row of wooden hurdles, one of which Anne opened and closed behind her. Their necessity was apparent as soon as she got inside. The quadrangle of the ancient pile was a bed of mud and manure, inhabited by calves, geese, ducks, and sow pigs surprisingly large, with young ones surprisingly small. In the groined porch some heifers were amusing themselves by stretching up their necks and licking the carved stone capitals that supported the vaulting. Anne went on to a second ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... and years afterwards, Flora told Rosalie that when Rosalie was born all the children were sent away to stay with a neighbour and not allowed to return till Rosalie's mother, downstairs, was able to show them the dear little sister that God had surprisingly delivered at the house, as it were ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... in a surprisingly scientific manner for a man who didn't drink himself, something which the French call a "coquetelle"; a bit of ice, a little seltzer, a slice of lemon, and some Canadian Club whiskey. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... the sunshine, or maybe it was Joel Banks' conversation that wrought the change in her. Be that as it may, Aunty Bixby unbent surprisingly in the next few minutes. Bob and Jimmy kept an interested eye on the back seat where Joel Banks patiently shouted dry jokes into the old woman's trumpet to the accompaniment ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... passions in those who hear it, that it generally meets with a good reception. The laugh rises upon it, and the man who utters it is looked upon as a shrewd satirist. This may be one reason why a great many pleasant companions appear so surprisingly dull when they have endeavoured to be merry in print; the public being more just than private clubs or assemblies, in distinguishing between what is wit ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... in wood, Grinling Gibbons, whose genius Evelyn first brought under the notice of Charles II. Horace Walpole says that, as a sort of advertisement, Gibbons carved an exquisite pot of flowers in wood, which stood on his window-sill, and shook surprisingly with the motion of the coaches that passed beneath. No man (says Walpole) before Gibbons had "ever given to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, or linked together the various productions of the elements with a free disorder natural to each species." His chef d'oeuvre ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of a Frivolous Girl,' being the autobiography of a young man who devotes himself to the profession of heart-breaking. The various species of American female flirts are amusingly and clearly sketched by a few light but powerful strokes, and this, together with the simple yet surprisingly successful methods employed to make the girls' acquaintance, to lead them gently on to the brink of the precipice, and then to drop them, instantaneously and utterly, makes the book a veritable 'flirt's ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... was a little hard at first," she answered, "for boys and girls of ten and twelve have surprisingly keen intuitions, and it seemed to me they made a study of my face from the first and concluded I was soft-hearted. I had one little boy that was a born mischief-maker, but he had such winsome ways I had ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... merchantman continued to scream by. Job Howland was a gunner on the port side and the boy naturally lent his services to the one man aboard that he could call his friend. There was much bustle in the alley behind the closed ports but surprisingly little confusion was apparent. The discipline seemed better than at any time since the boy had been ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... ships were boiling up from the atmosphere of Meriden and plunging out to space to offer battle. They were surprisingly ready, reacting like hair-triggered weapons. Bors hadn't completed his challenge before they were streaking toward Meriden's sky. They couldn't have been more prompt if, say, Meriden seethed with rumors about a pirate ship in space, which it ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... absurdity of war between Catholics,' he murmured. 'Yes, of war between so-called Christian nations,' I agreed. In an impulse I shook his hand. 'But there was a light,' I said: 'I saw it.' 'So did I,' he said. 'Was it the light of a dhow?' I wondered. 'No,' he said, surprisingly, 'the dhow was on the other side of your ship.' He pointed to the votive star. 'That star commemorates this sight of a light, or rather of a star,' he said. 'I veritably believe that the star light was Our Lady of the Lake's work. Yet she did not in ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... said, as the cigarette steamed, "the son of poor but honest parents. All my life I have been obliged to labor. You may say that my English is surprisingly pure, under such conditions. As a matter of fact, I educated myself at night, using a lantern in the top of ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... looks surprisingly well. He came from London on purpose to see us, and intended, I believe, to have stayed, at least to dinner, but H(is) R(oyal) H(ighness) interfered, as he often does with my pleasures; so the Duke dined at Carlton House—I ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... her charming face, as though she could hardly bear this inspection; the way she raised her shoulder just a little as if to ward off an expected blow of condemnation. No need! It had been a beautiful thing, a quite surprisingly beautiful study of night. He remembered with what a really jealous ache he had gazed at it—a better thing than he had ever done himself. And, frankly, he had said so. Her eyes had ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... the bare shoulder, found the flesh surprisingly cold and the girl seemed not to feel my touch. I swung her around to face me, and her black, empty eyes looked off into the far distance. Her lips were tightly compressed, slightly cyanosed. The pupils of her eyes were inordinately dilated, ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... evening. It can either be carried out by about three volunteer couples, or all couples may agree to take turns. The couple sit facing each other, holding hands, and are asked to tell each other, simply and directly, what they specially like about each other, being as specific as possible. Surprisingly, it turns out that very few couples have ever done this before, and everyone finds it a heartwarming experience. We think we have encountered here another taboo in our society—married couples spend infinitely more time telling each other what they don't like about each other than ...
— Marriage Enrichment Retreats - Story of a Quaker Project • David Mace
... early period of her career, had bestowed on her the sobriquet of the Beautiful Wretch; and that partly because she was a pretty and winning child, and partly because she was in the habit of saying surprisingly irreverent things. Now, all children say irreverent things, simply because they read the highest mysteries by the light of their own small experiences; but Nan Beresford's guesses at the supernatural were more than usually ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... and quickly afterwards returned with the commandant and Adair. The commandant, in surprisingly good English, described his residence to Jack, and requested that he would tell his wife and daughters that he was well, and, as he was to be liberated on his parole, that he hoped to remain with them till the end of ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... apparently no effort he led his audience to heights of appreciative enthusiasm in the most felicitous description of the beautiful and wonderful things he had seen, and then dropped them from the sublime to the ridiculous by some absurd reference or surprisingly humorous reflection. ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... Morter, we have contracted an Aversion to all Building ever since; but whenever such a Law is to be pass'd, I could wish they wou'd add another to it, that wou'd not only build our Country, but plant it surprisingly too. ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... just got upon the subject of music, of which she possesses a surprisingly solid knowledge, and she was telling me that Debussy and his school held no particular charm for her, when Possum ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... the Acropolis was erected the unrivalled Parthenon. Various other edifices, rich with sculptures, were also erected there and in different parts of Athens, until the whole city took on a surprisingly brilliant and magnificent appearance. The whole world looked up to the Attic city with the same surprised wonder with which a century before it had regarded the city of Babylon as adorned by the power and wealth of the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... now and then, and indeed surprisingly often, Christ finds a word that transcends all commonplace morality; every now and then He quits the beaten track to pioneer the unexpressed, and throws out a pregnant and magnanimous hyperbole; for it is only by some bold ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 in the night, like a thunderbolt; in an unguarded moment; suddenly &c (instantaneously) 113. Int. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... cross-grained features. Each of them carried a gun slung over his shoulder. Between them was a short, slender young woman, in a brown cloak and a fur cap, whose rather thin and extremely pale face was surprisingly delicate ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... I left the college, my governor's valet de chambre found, at a poor pin-maker's house, a niece of hers but fourteen years old, who was surprisingly beautiful. After I had seen her he bought her for me for 150 pistoles, hired a little house for her, and placed her sister with her; when I went to see her I found her in great heaviness of mind, which I attributed to her modesty. I next day found what was yet more surprising and extraordinary ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... of what has proved to the author to be a surprisingly popular book, has been prepared by the able hand of Mr. Asa Don Dickinson, and is now offered in the hope that many more people will find the wild flowers in Nature's garden all about us well worth knowing. For flowers have distinct objects in life and are everything they ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... said a word to Daddy as he passed their home and climbed up the cherry tree. They allowed him to go unharmed. But while he was high up in the tree chatting with Rusty Wren, ants hurried back to their stronghold from every direction. And in a surprisingly short time the whole army was ready and waiting—waiting for Daddy Longlegs to ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... been secretary to Count Emmerick when Jurgen was a lad: and the other was Perion de la Foret, that outlaw who had come to Bellegarde very long ago disguised as the Vicomte de Puysange. And all three of these old acquaintances had kept their youth surprisingly. ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... man slipped back during his first two or three centuries into a state of barbarism. Then slowly began to inch forward again. There were exceptions and the progress on one planet never exactly duplicated that on another, however the average was surprisingly close to both nadir and zenith, in terms ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... evidence went to show that the snow deposit was very small. A minimum thermometer which was lashed with great care to a framework registered -73 deg.. After the temperatures already experienced by us on the Barrier during the winter and spring this was surprisingly high, especially as our minimum temperatures were taken under the sledge, which means that the thermometer is shaded from radiation, while this thermometer at One Ton was left open to the sky. On the Winter Journey we found that a shaded thermometer registered -69 deg. ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... that I had saved the few ears of barley and rice, which I had so surprisingly found spring up, as I thought, of themselves, and I believe there were about thirty stalks of rice, and about twenty of barley; and now I thought it a proper time to sow it, after the rains, the sun being in ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... one of those simple discoveries that invariably elude the subtle professional mind; but in this wiser hour I may be permitted to assume that the author was the conscious father of his novel, and that he did not find it surprisingly in his pocket one morning, like a bad shilling taken in change from the ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... school life, they go on to the university or to their business or professional training. A few of the pursuits to be mentioned are obviously more appropriate for boys, others for girls; but the differences between those that are followed in schools for boys and those for girls are surprisingly small, and to give separate lists would only involve much ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... pen, now quite doomed—to resume—) I have not put pen to the Bloody Murder yet. But it is early on my list; and when once I get to it, three weeks should see the last bloodstain—maybe a fortnight. For I am beginning to combine an extraordinary laborious slowness while at work, with the most surprisingly quick results in the way of finished manuscripts. How goes Gray? Colvin is to do Keats. My wife ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... imperfectly. Evidence of progress of memory, understanding and articulation in answers given. No word invented by himself; calls his nurse wola, probably from the often-heard "ja wohl." Correct use of single words picked up increases surprisingly (153). Misunderstandings rational; words better understood; reasoning developed (154). Inductive reasoning. Progress in forming sentences. Sentence of five words. Pronouns signify objects or qualities ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... certain warriors entered the conflict faege, "doomed." Now the meaning is altered slightly: "You are surely fey," would be said in Scotland, as Professor Masson remarks, to a person observed to be in extravagantly high spirits, or in any mood surprisingly beyond the bounds of his ordinary temperament,—the notion being that the excitement is supernatural, and a presage of his approaching death, or of some other ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... George, still more emphatically, never to the end of HIS life forgot this incident. And indeed it must be owned, had the shot taken effect as intended, the whole course of human things would have been surprisingly altered;—and for one thing, neither FREDERICH THE GREAT, nor the present HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH, had ever risen above ground, or troubled an enlightened ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... South Shetlands, sixty-three degrees south latitude, in 1818, added surprisingly to the trade in fur seals. The number taken from the South Shetlands in 1821 and 1822 amounted to three hundred and twenty thousand. This valuable animal is now almost extinct in all these islands, owing to the exterminating system ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... him a little about her life and occupation; although it was not likely that she would have given him any serious confidences. Still, people are often surprisingly frank about themselves, even those who pride themselves upon being the most ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... constrained silence. For a coldness, or shyness, might appear to have sprung up between them, oddly holding them asunder in thought and moral attitude after the close association of the dance—a reaction from its contact so surprisingly more intimate than any they had yet experienced, from that harmonious rhythmic unity of purpose and of movement which, in dancing, alike excites emotion quasi-physical, and so alluringly serves to soothe and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... soil inclined to wood, unless constantly ploughed and kept open, and the low grounds degenerated into morass or bog where the drains were neglected. Yet, by the constant labour and industry of the inhabitants, the morass grounds had of late, by burning and proper management, produced surprisingly large crops of rye and oats. Coarse lands, manured with lime, had answered the farmers' views in wheat, and yielded a great produce, and wherever marl was found there was great store of barley. The staple commodity of the county was linen, due care of which manufacture brought great ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... they. They have fulfilled themselves modestly. They have got what they genuinely tried to get. They have never even gone near the outskirts of the battle for success. But they have not failed. The number of failures is surprisingly small. You see a shabby, disappointed, ageing man flit down the main street, and someone replies to your inquiry: "That's So-and-so, one of life's failures, poor fellow!" And the very tone in which the words are uttered proves the excessive rarity ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... had descended perhaps as much as two hundred feet, we suddenly found ourselves in a broad cavern with a surprisingly level floor. The temperature had been steadily rising all the time, and here it was as warm as in an ordinary living room. The cavern appeared to be about twenty yards broad and eight or ten feet in height, with a flat roof of rock. It ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... list of invitations had become public, it was understood quite generally that no distinction was made between those that had, and those that had not, attended the Mischienza. Whether the number would be surprisingly small, or whether the affair would fail of success without the Mischienza ladies, could not be foretold. Indeed such speculations were idle, since no discrimination had been made. There were a number of young French Officers in the town and one or two of General Washington's aides ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... in character. It seems clear from remarks made in the Preface to the Plautus that it was written after the Terence had already reached the public and after Echard's copy for the text of Plautus's three comedies was in the printer's hands. Not surprisingly the later Preface is hurried, and at times almost casual. The Preface to the Terence is more ambitious, more carefully written, and more wide-ranging, though giving fewer examples of the kinds of translations made by Echard. Both Prefaces lay ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... will become proverbial. Pray, try it, Sir Austin! Pray, allow me. Such a wine cannot disagree at any hour. Do! I am allowanced two glasses three hours before dinner. Stomachic. I find it agree with me surprisingly: quite a new man. I suppose it will last our time. It must! What should we do? There's no Law possible without it. Not a lawyer of us could live. Ours is an occupation ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they were passing the toll-house, the other girl appeared surprisingly from round the corner of the toll-house, where the lane from Toft End joins the highroad. This second creature was smaller than Miss Lawton, less assertive, less intelligent, ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... follow them upon their excursion? Shopping in Montreal is very much what it is in Boston or New York, I imagine, except that the clerks have a more honeyed sweetness of manners towards the ladies of our nation, and are surprisingly generous constructionists of our revenue laws. Isabel had profited by every word that she had heard in the ladies' parlor, and she would not venture upon unsafe ground; but her tender eyes looked her unutterable longing to believe in the charming possibilities that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of people testify to Laura Thornton's age. I am trying to check up on it. Results later. If she isn't a hundred [HW: and] five years old, she is "mighty nigh" it. She has feeble health, but a surprisingly alert mind, and a keen sharp memory. She has a tendency to confuse Reconstruction times with slavery times, but a little questioning always ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... lies neither in the originality nor in the novelty of the Horatian message, which, as a matter of fact, is surprisingly familiar, and perhaps even commonplace. It lies rather in the appealing manner and mood of its communication. It is ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... young, know everybody, and endeavor to please everybody, I mean exteriorly; for fundamentally it is impossible. Try to engage the heart of every woman, and the affections of almost every man you meet with. Madame Monconseil assures me that you are most surprisingly improved in your air, manners, and address: go on, my dear child, and never think that you are come to a sufficient degree of perfection; 'Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum'; and in those shining parts of the character of a gentleman, there is always something remaining ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... I had saved the few ears of barley, and rice, which I had so surprisingly found sprung up, as I thought, of themselves. I believe there were about thirty stalks of rice, and about twenty of barley; and now I thought it a proper time to sow it after the rains; the sun being in its southern position, going from me. Accordingly I dug a piece of ground, as well as I ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... And, lastly, it was not a frank physical fear he inspired—for as to that, even a cornered rat will fight—but a superstitious shrinking awe, something like an invincible repugnance to seek speech with a wicked ghost. That it was a daylight ghost surprisingly angular in his attitudes, and for the most part spread out on three chairs, did not make it any easier. Daylight only made him a more weird, a more disturbing and unlawful apparition. Strangely enough in the evening when he came out of his mute supineness, this unearthly side of ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... was back in a surprisingly short time with two blankets, a couple of light poles and a flask of brandy. He seemed as fresh and unwinded as if he had gone no farther than the grove, and he wore, more than ever, his ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... journey so far has been pleasant, the roads have been good, and food plentiful. The water for part of the way has been indifferent, but at no time have our cattle suffered for it. Wood is now very scarce, but 'buffalo chips' are excellent; they kindle quickly and retain heat surprisingly. We had this morning buffalo steaks broiled upon them that had the same flavor they would have had upon ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... pilgrim, who possessed nothing in the world except his rags, asked for a bowl of milk, but obtained none. He went begging from door to door, but was hunted away. Every time that he received a refusal he seemed to be surprisingly cheerful. The fact was, he had come hither from a distant land in order to be able to realise how his Saviour had suffered, and now he was graciously allowed to experience it on the holy soil itself. He passed through the village, and found another sea of flowers ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... which he could not account for. All at once his sense of physical ascendancy had melted away—disappeared. He looked at Lady Cressage for an instant, and knew there was something shuffling and nerveless in the way his glance then shifted to the dim mountain chain beyond. His heart fluttered surprisingly inside his breast, during the ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... (Pl. 55). One man cuts a deep notch on the side facing up the hill, the other cuts a similar notch about a foot lower down on the opposite side, each cutting almost to the centre of the stem. This operation is accomplished in a surprisingly short time, perhaps thirty minutes in the case of a stem two to three feet in diameter. When all the large trees within the V-shaped area have been cut in this way, all the workers and any women, children, or dogs who may be present are called out of the patch, and one or ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... that a Recorder had charged a grand jury on the previous day with a more than usually long list of offences. He read of three murders, five manslaughters, seven arsons, and as many as eleven rapes—a surprisingly high number—in addition to many less conspicuous crimes, to be tried during a coming Sessions; and from one piece of news he went on to another, keeping the paper well before ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a lassitude and disenchantment which are only consoled by the passion for truth. Certain water-colours of his heightened by pastel, and certain landscapes, are somewhat disconcerting through the preciousness of his method; others are surprisingly spontaneous. All his work has an undercurrent of thought. In short, this Realist is almost a mystic. He has observed a limited section of humanity, but what he has seen has not been seen ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... sufficiently trained. Certain draft units were transported and thrown up to the front after experience of a most superficial character; there are instances of men going into action without knowing how to load their rifles or adjust their gas masks properly. But on the whole the training given was surprisingly effective in view of the speed with which it was accomplished. American skill with the rifle won the envy of foreign officers, and the value of American troops in open warfare was soon to ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... plead little more in its favour than a vain and childish curiosity. I took up a book, but whilst my eye ran over the page, I understood but little what I read, and could not relish even that. I now looked down through the telescope, and found the earth surprisingly diminished in her apparent dimensions, from the increased rapidity of our ascent. The eastern coasts of Asia were still fully in view, as well as the entire figure of that vast continent—of New Holland—of Ceylon, and of Borneo; but the smaller islands were invisible. I strained ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... unless they have taken refuge with non-combatants, and sick and wounded, in the neutral camp. At any rate, they are not here now, and that is something to be thankful for, though they could give little information to the enemy, except that shelling has done surprisingly little harm, and killed or wounded very few in proportion to the enormous number of projectiles thrown. This in spite of good guns, aimed with most accurate skill, is attributable solely to the fact that the shells were too weakly ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... moving up on this beautiful stream of water, they at last came to a large lake, the head waters of the river. The surrounding scenery of the lake was most surprisingly beautiful. They immediately named this lake Ke-tchi-ne-bissing, which name it bears to this day. Here the Ottawas concluded to stop and occupy the surrounding country. Therefore, they pitched their tents and formed a great village. They continued to reside around the lake for untold ages. ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... looking with amusement at the two players—'Tana and Captain Leek. The captain was getting the worst of it. His scattered whiskers fairly bristled with perplexity and irritation. Several times he displayed bad judgment in drawing and discarding, because of his nervous annoyance, while she seemed surprisingly skillful or lucky, and was not at all disturbed by her opponent's moods. She looked smilingly straight into his eyes, and when she exhibited the last winning hand, and the captain dashed his hand angrily into the pack, she waited ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... of maltmen are found in Glasgow, both, by re-duplicated proofs, related to James (the son of James) in Nether Carsewell. We descend by his second marriage from Robert; one of these died 1733. It is not very romantic up to now, but has interested me surprisingly to fish out, always hoping for more—and occasionally getting at least a little clearness and confirmation. But the earliest date, 1655, apparently the marriage of James in Nether Carsewell, cannot as yet be pushed back. From ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... likes pictures," the bride said to herself when she purchased them. "That goose Molly Wharton wouldn't have been able to buy 'em for him!" The only pleasant thing in the meaningless room was Nannie's drawing-board, which displayed the little girl's painstaking and surprisingly exact copy in lead-pencil, of some chromo—"Evangeline" perhaps, or some popular sentimentality of the sixties. In the ten years which had elapsed since Mrs. Maitland had plunged into her debauch of furnishing—her one extravagance!—of course the parlors had softened; the enormous roses ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... picture, and that they are an expensive luxury, which the man who would build himself a house must forego if he would be able to finish. Greater durability, comfort, and convenience are not expected on account of their assistance, only that the house shall be more surprisingly beautiful. Doubtless there is some ground for this poor opinion, but the architects are not alone in their folly, or wholly responsible; they attempt to supply an unreasonable demand, and are driven to employ ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... was obliged to leave the ceremony and ride after him. I soon overtook him, trudging along, swearing at the horse, and carrying the remains of the saddle, which he had picked up on the road. Going to the owner of the horse, we made a settlement with him, and found him surprisingly liberal. All parts of the saddle were brought back, and, being capable of repair, he was satisfied with six reals. We thought it would have been a few dollars. We pointed to the horse, which was now ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... in their own end over the coach-house; and Diamond's father put old Diamond in the stall under the bed, because he was a quiet horse, and did not go to sleep standing, but lay down like a reasonable creature. But, although he was a surprisingly reasonable creature, yet, when young Diamond woke in the middle of the night, and felt the bed shaking in the blasts of the north wind, he could not help wondering whether, if the wind should blow the house down, and he were to fall through into the manger, old Diamond ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... things seemed to happen in an unusually rapid and delightful manner. Almost before she knew where she was, Jo found herself married and settled at Plumfield. Then a family of six or seven boys sprung up like mushrooms, and flourished surprisingly, poor boys as well as rich, for Mr. Laurence was continually finding some touching case of destitution, and begging the Bhaers to take pity on the child, and he would gladly pay a trifle for its support. In this way, the sly old gentleman got round proud Jo, and furnished her ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... from which she looked on life was the satirical: therefore, her danger is exaggeration, caricature. Yet she yielded surprisingly little, and her reputation for faithful transcripts from reality, can not now be assailed. Her detached, whimsical attitude of scrutinizing the little cross-section of life she has in hand, is of the ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... nature. Now he cared little for nature, except as a quiet background for the drama which was proceeding, and which absorbed all his thoughts. What he was now garnering was impressions of personalities and characters, the odd perversities that often surprisingly revealed themselves, the strange generosities and noblenesses that sometimes made themselves felt. But an English public school is hardly a place where these larger and finer qualities reveal themselves, though they are indeed often there. The whole atmosphere is one of decorum, authority, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... write after all this ... the first glance from the mountain is striking, the district is surprisingly extensive and pleasant ... the road indescribably beautiful ... the view from the Lake of Brienz towards the snow mountains ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... Grandmother Carmody said, that he had come—or been sent—west to make a fresh start. There was something rather pathetically naive about that theory. There could never be a fresh start for the "Wild Kings" in a world of excellent cellars and playing cards. In a surprisingly short time he had re-created his earlier atmosphere for himself—an atmosphere of charm and cheer and color ... and pride and shame and misery, in which his wife and children lived and moved and had their being. In the early eighties he built ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... arrangement of the table, as she does to the planning of the menu. She will find that her guests will appreciate novel lighting effects, surprising color tones, unusual serving innovations. And she will find that a correctly laid table will add surprisingly to the entire ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... submit a book talk which has enabled me to sell thousands of copies of the book it deals with. This is a ten-cent book, and this price is high enough for the speaker's experiments. The speaker will later find it surprisingly easy, when he has mastered the art to ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... is that the camps were surprisingly orderly, that crime was infrequent, and that its punishment, though swift and certain, leaned to mercy rather than rigor. Bayard Taylor, for example, who was in the mines in '50 and '51, writes: "In a region five hundred miles long, inhabited ...
— Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte
... a robin's throaty morning notes drifted to him on the odorous breeze. A wren, surprisingly tame, chippered busily. It hopped about, not ten feet ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... which fact Mary notes a week later as having been communicated to them in a letter from a deserted wife. What recriminations and heart-burnings, neglect felt on one side and "insulting selfishness" on the other! In April, Mary writes, "Shelley passes the morning with Harriet, who is in a surprisingly good humour;" and then we hear how Shelley went to Harriet to procure his son who is to appear in one of the courts; and yet once more Mary writes, "Shelley goes to Harriet about his son, returns at four; he has been ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... "I shall never, never marry before Eleanor. It would mortify her—I know it would—and make her feel that she herself had failed. She's awfully frank about those things, Ezra—surprisingly frank. I don't see why being an old maid is always supposed to be so funny, do you? It's touching and tragic in a woman who'd like to marry ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... was surprisingly well preserved. With the exception of the slight stoop, already noted, and the rapidly thinning snow-white hair, his step was as light and elastic, and his brain as vigorous and alert, as in a man of forty. Of old English stock, his physical make-up presented all those strongly marked characteristics ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... cases in a legitimate way, as an anaesthetic, the surprisingly pleasant effect is sought for again by the one who has had a glimpse at the portals of the elysium. This is the beginning of the terrible habit. The effect is a sense of exhilaration followed by a quiet, dreamy state that causes the worried man to forget his troubles, ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... and privileges of serfs and craftsmen. There are indications, on the other hand, that one effect of the new administration of justice, as it told on the poor, began early to show itself in the growth of an "outlaw" class. Crimes of violence were surprisingly common. Dead bodies were found in the wood, in the field, in the fold, in the barn. In an extraordinary number of cases the judges' records of a little later time tell of houses broken into by night and robbed, and every living ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... strollers, we observed our companions, and conversed on obvious topics. Some of these last, of course, were the pretty women who embellished the scene, and who, in the light of M. Pigeonneau's comprehensive criticism, appeared surprisingly numerous. He seemed bent upon our making up our minds as to which was the prettiest, and as this was an innocent game I ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James
... "brought three for your Worships' selection, and can honestly assure your Worships that my pains have been endless. What puzzles me, however, is that although in all three the same portraits have been imposed, and in the same order, the results are surprisingly different. The cause of these differences I cannot detect, though I have gone over the process several times and step by step; but out of some two dozen experiments I may say that all the results answer pretty closely to one or another of these three types." Mr. Smithers, who had spent much ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the commercial Global Broadcast System (GBS) onto "set-top" boxes, an enabling technology that was developed commercially. Even with this leveraging of private industry, there is a real question as to whether DARPA will be able to field a system that would compete well with surprisingly similar commercial systems. Internet channels planned by media industry giants such as BSkyB will offer multi-megabit, interactive, digital data connections to the Net merely as an enticement for subscribers to enroll for their full digital broadcasting service (200 to ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... braced position against the sink like a spring uncoiling. He expected her to shoot, but hoped the surprise would ruin her aim. Then it was too late, and his boot hit the gun savagely, knocking it from her hand. Life in the villages had hardened him surprisingly. She was comparatively helpless in his hands. A few minutes later, he had her bound securely with surgical tape Molly brought him. She raged furiously in the chair where he'd ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... but both girls were grown up now; long sleeves, long skirts, hair that had settled down in life; and a demeanour immensely serious, as though existence were terrific in its responsibilities; yet sometimes childhood surprisingly broke through the crust of gravity, as now in Constance, aroused by such things as elephants, and proclaimed with vivacious gestures that it was not dead after all. The sisters were sharply differentiated. Constance wore the black alpaca ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... emperor and Senate. The Senate was often—or rather generally—servile, because it was intimidated. But there were times when it was inclined to assert itself; some of its members occasionally allowed themselves a certain freedom of speech, toward which one emperor might be surprisingly lenient or good-naturedly contemptuous, and another outrageously vindictive. In the year 64 the Senate was outwardly docile enough, although at heart it was anything but loyal to his Highness Nero the Head of the State. It must always be remembered that among the Senate were ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... defect, and that he should rather have said, "a foolish youth and middle age." It is not likely that Young was a very hard student, for he impressed Johnson, who saw him in his old age, as "not a great scholar," and as surprisingly ignorant of what Johnson thought "quite common maxims" in literature; and there is no evidence that he filled either his leisure or his purse by taking pupils. His career as an author did not commence till he was nearly thirty, even dating from the ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... frown that she receives from you is a dagger to her heart. Nature has so ordered it, that men shall become less ardent in their passion after the wedding day; and that women shall not. Their ardour increases rather than the contrary; and they are surprisingly quick-sighted and inquisitive on this score. When the child comes, it divides this ardour with the father; but until then you have it all; and if you have a mind to be happy, repay it with all your soul. Let what may happen to put you out of humour ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... strutting behind the drum of his corporation, he impressed the beholder with a certain air of frozen dignity and wisdom. But at the smallest contrariety, his trembling hands and disconnected gestures betrayed the weakness at the root. And now, when he was thus surprisingly received in that library of Mittwalden Palace, which was the customary haunt of silence, his hands went up into the air as if he had been shot, and he cried aloud with the scream of an ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... character gives him a niche of his own in our affections. No, I never met him. But among my most prized possessions are several letters which I received from Samoa. From that distant tower he kept a surprisingly close watch upon what was doing among the bookmen, and it was his hand which was among the first held out to the striver, for he had quick appreciation and keen sympathies which met another man's work half-way, and wove into it a beauty from ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... once; my mind astonished at receiving no sensation cried out like a child at a milkless breast. I read the pages again ... did I understand? Yes, I understood every sentence, but they conveyed no idea, they awoke no emotion in me; it was like sand, arid and uncomfortable. The story is surprisingly commonplace—the people in it are as lacking in subtlety as those of a Drury ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... animal it can seize, whether human or otherwise. He also devours green corn, nuts, and fruits of all kinds. In his earlier years he is a good climber, and will ascend a tree with an agility which is surprisingly inconsistent with the ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... Alberic, to have admitted the scandal about Nectanabus, the death of that person is introduced, and altogether we see a Callisthenic influence. The piece has been very highly praised for literary merit; it seems to me certainly not below, but not surprisingly above, the average of the older chansons in this respect. But in so much of the poem as remains to us no very interesting part of ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... the table (for she was treated "like one of themselves" in the broadest sense of the term) were surprisingly good, considering that the adults of her people were decidedly cow-like in white society, and scoffed sea-eggs, shell-fish, and mutton-birds at home with a gallop which was not edifying. Her appetite, ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... thought himself in one of those delicious palaces that are promised to us in the other world: he had never seen any thing that came near the magnificence of the place. The carpets, cushions, and other appendages of the sofa, the furniture, ornaments, and architecture, were surprisingly rich and beautiful. A little time after Ebn Thaher and he had seated themselves, a very handsome black slave brought in a table covered with several delicacies, the admirable smell of which evinced how ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... changed the cheque for him, the banks being shut. Jimmy hesitated a moment as to whether he should take a hansom, then remembered the lean days of the past, and jumped on an omnibus. Lalage could make a shilling go a surprisingly long way. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... was obstructed by a wall of cactus did the Indian halt to make a dry camp. Water and grass for the horses and fire to cook by were not to be had. Mercedes bore up surprisingly; but she fell asleep almost the instant her thirst had been allayed. Thorne laid her upon a blanket and covered her. The men ate and drank. Diablo was the only horse that showed impatience; but he was angry, and not in distress. Blanco Sol licked Gale's hand ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... was always glad to be of use, set to work with his sharp, gleaming axe, which he always carried, and in a surprisingly short time had chopped away enough branches to permit them all to pass ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... indeed, is the gist of this paper—that only a very small minority of English or American people have more than half mastered the splendid heritage of their native speech. To this neglected and most significant limitation the amount of public attention given at present is quite surprisingly small. [Footnote: My friend, Mr. L. Cope Cornford, writes apropos of this, and I think I cannot do better than print what he says as a corrective to my own assertions: "All you say on the importance of letting a child hear ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... he had begun to believe that perhaps Adelaide had had the good luck to make an extremely clever stroke when she shifted from Ross Whitney to Hargrave. Anyhow, Dory was a fine fellow, both in looks and in brains, with surprisingly good, yes, really amazing air and manner—considering his opportunities; he'd be an ornament to any family as soon as he had money enough properly to equip himself—which would be very soon, now that the great Dawson ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... time of which I write, my brother was still a young man, being little more than fifty. Aunt Het is now a staid little lady with a voice of which years have touched the sweet chords, and a head which Time has powdered over with silver. There are days when she looks surprisingly young and blooming. Ah me, my dear, it seems but a little while since the hair was golden brown, and the cheeks as fresh as roses! And then came the bitter blast of love unrequited which withered them; and that long loneliness of heart which, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... when he wrote her that the young women of Carthage were noisy rowdies dressed like frumps. She was a trifle alarmed when she read in his next letter that some of them were not half bad-looking, surprisingly well groomed for so far West, and fairly attractive till they opened their mouths. Then, he said, they twanged the banjo at every vowel and went over the letter "r" as if it were a bump in the road. He ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... to them with delight, for they are after their own hearts." It is no wonder that the lords and ladies of her century were so enthralled by Marie's romances, for her success was thoroughly well deserved. Even after seven hundred years her colours remain surprisingly vivid, and if the tapestry is now a little worn and faded in places, we still follow with interest the movements of the figures wrought so graciously upon the arras. Of course her stories are not original; but was any plot original at any period of the earth's history? This is not only an old, but ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... forces not altogether within His control, towards an end beyond Himself. It gave us, instead of the awful reverence due to the Cause of all substance and form, all love and wisdom, a dangerously detached appreciation of an ingenuity and benevolence meritorious in aim and often surprisingly successful ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... who regard their modes of filling-in as important secrets, do their work surprisingly quick by the methods here given. The various processes are soon acquired by a little practice, and contribute greatly to the speedy advancement of a smooth and imporous ground, which is the most important ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... smiled, tilting herself backward off the balls of her feet. The years had cropped out in her suddenly, surprisingly, and with a great deal of geniality. The taffy cast to her hair had backslid to ashes of roses. Uncorseted and in the white wrapper, she was quite frankly widespread, her hips fitting in tight between the chair-arms, and ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... mother were about two cubits high, and the boy not over the length of one's forearm. Though he was so small, the man was dragging a sled much larger than those used by the villagers, and he had on it a heavy load of various articles. He seemed surprisingly strong, and when they came to the shore below the village, he easily drew the sled up the steep bank, and taking it by the rear end raised it on the sled frame, a feat which would have required the strength ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... And surprisingly, in the midst of the camp's turmoil of last minute activities, I slept soundly until Snap called me, telling me the ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... was the youngsters and the youngest of all. The young ones, to judge from their appearance, were about ten months old. They were perfect in every way; one could see they had been well cared for from their birth. Their coats were surprisingly thick — much more so than those of the older dogs. They were remarkably plucky, and would not give ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... Stephen's history. Within the brief space of two months, by two acts surprisingly ill-judged and even of folly, he had turned a position of great strength, which might easily have been made permanently secure, into one of great weakness; and so long as the struggle lasted he was never able to recover what he had lost. By his treatment of the bishops he had turned ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... Minstrel and The Lady of the Lake; three others, not so good, are Rokeby, Vision of Don Roderick and Lord of the Isles. Among these The Lady of the Lake is such a favorite that, if one were to question the tourists who annually visit the Trossachs, a surprisingly large number of them would probably confess that they were led not so much by love of natural beauty as by desire to visit "Fair Ellen's Isle" and other scenes which Scott has ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... quite a stranger to them. Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and Bulgars—they have good and evil qualities so different that one must take them separately, and perhaps it will be more instructive to compare them with each other. The Slovenes need not detain us; they are a small people occupying a surprisingly large area; if they were less well organized they would have been long ago swallowed up. They shine as workers in the field and mine and forest much more than as military men. They have never been hereditary soldiers, like so many of the Croats, and it is perhaps ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... from work after ten o'clock at night, in fact the very opposite was true, for it was J. P.'s custom to say, during dinner, that on the following day he would ride, drive, or walk with such a one or such a one, naming him; and the victim—a term frequently used with a good deal of surprisingly frank enjoyment by J. P. himself—had often to work well into the night ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... eyes as a snake strikes at the face of its victim. The report stung us to the brain, but we blessed it audibly. Then we could hear the great shell tearing away through the air until the sound died out in the distance; then, a surprisingly long time afterward, a dull, distant explosion and a sudden silence of small-arms told ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce |
