"Astonishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which is most certain, does not hold the foremost place in action, but rather particular knowledge, since actions are about singulars: wherefore it is not astonishing that, in matters of action, passion acts counter to universal knowledge, if the consideration of particular knowledge ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Tanks, and had the war continued, the complete destruction of the German Armies would have been brought about in 1919 by "a Tank programme of some six thousand machines." When one considers that for the whole of the three last victorious months in which Tanks played such an astonishing part, the British Armies never possessed more than four hundred of them, who travelled like a circus from army to army, the significance of this figure will be understood. Nor could Germany, by any possibility, ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... long, and can only be properly wielded by an experienced Esquimaux; the other dogs follow like a flock of sheep, and if one receives a lash, he bites his neighbour, and the bite goes round. Their strength, and speed, even with an hungry stomach, is astonishing; and to this they are often subjected, especially by the heathen, who treat them with little mercy, and force them to perform hard duty for the small quantity of food they allow them. Their portion upon a journey consists chiefly in offals, old skins, entrails, rotten ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... at Podsnap's place of business. Finds Podsnap reading the paper, standing, and inclined to be oratorical over the astonishing discovery he has made, that Italy is not England. Respectfully entreats Podsnap's pardon for stopping the flow of his words of wisdom, and informs him what is in the wind. Tells Podsnap that their political opinions are identical. Gives Podsnap to understand that ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... we made a few days ago holds good. Her highness will be proud to receive you when you are ready to come to the throne-room. I am Grenfall Lorry. Come, sir; rest and refresh yourself in our gladdened home. An hour ago we were making ready to rush into battle; but your astonishing but welcome news is calculated to change every ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... been inspired to write a study of womankind without trying to interpose between her thought and the paper the mind and vision of a man. The outcome is astonishing. I have said that the construction of the novel is solid; but no man could have built it up in that way. It moves to a definite goal by a sure path; yet its style is variable like the ways of every woman, even if she be completely mistress of herself.... Thus her ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... States-General, who had now begun to claim it as a right. The Republic was neither venerable by age nor impregnable in law. It was an improvised aristocracy of lawyers, manufacturers, bankers, and corporations which had done immense work and exhibited astonishing sagacity and courage, but which might never have achieved the independence of the Provinces unaided by the sword of Orange-Nassau and the magic spell which belonged to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... unflinching to an astonishing degree, and their fidelity to their Tsar is quite admirable. See how the Russians behaved at Plescova, in Livonia, in the old time, against our great Batory Stephen; they defended the place till it was a heap of rubbish; and mark how they behaved after they ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... "there is in the speech of James, Arts xv. a quotation from Amos in which, to make it fit the subject, (which after all it does not fit) is the substitution of the words "the remnant of men," for "the remnant of Edom," as it is in the original." On this Mr. Everett remarks with astonishing' composure, "There are few of my readers to whom I need say, that the same Hebrew word means 'men,' and 'Edom,' according' as it is pronounced, and St. James has as fair a right to pronounce it men,' as Mr. English has to pronounce it 'Edom.'" ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... It is astonishing to see how many philosophical disputes collapse into insignificance the moment you subject them to this simple test of tracing a concrete consequence. There can BE no difference any- where that doesn't MAKE a difference elsewhere—no difference ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... desert from being composed of soft sand and being destitute of water, supports prodigious herds of antelopes, while numbers of elephants, rhinoceros, lions, hyenas, and other animals roam over it. They find support from the astonishing quantity of grass which grows in the region, as also from a species of water-melon, and from several tuberous roots, the most curious of which is the leroshua, as large as the head of a young child, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... bay was so near that I could hear the dashing of the waves. It was near midnight, and occasionally a star was to be seen through the flying clouds. The hours passed heavily and cheerlessly away. The wind at times roared through the adjoining woods with astonishing violence. In a pause of the storm, as the wind died suddenly away, and was heard only moaning at a distance, I was startled by an unusual noise in the woods before me. Again I listened attentively, and imagined that I heard the heavy ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... Captain Lloyd, his officers, and crew, the ship was entirely consumed. No sooner, however, did the humane and generous commander of the Badger perceive the nature of the disaster, than he hastened to the dreadful scene; and, by his unceasing exertions, and astonishing presence of mind, the crew were saved from the flames. At his suggestion, the powder was instantly ordered to be thrown overboard; a measure to which all the other ships in the harbour, and even the town itself, probably owed their preservation. The inhabitants, indeed, were thrown into great ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... they responded to the call was only astonishing to those who were unacquainted with the true feelings of the unhappy race whose highest hope of freedom was beyond the pearly gates of the celestial domain. One thing that impressed the blacks ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... proves the quickest and most effectual way. Where before were only resistance and indifference, there come, in answer to prayer, strange telentings, mysterious longings, receptivity, and sometimes, in a way that is astonishing, ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... persons with thy goad. Verily, with my spouse, I am in good health. I see my goddess become as beautiful in body as an Apsara. Verily, she is endued with as much comeliness and splendour as she had ever been before. All this, O great ascetic, is due to thy grace. Verily, there is nothing astonishing in all this, O holy Rishi of puissance ever unbaffled.' Thus addressed by the king, Chyavana said unto him, 'Thou shalt, with thy spouse, return hither tomorrow, O monarch!' With these words, the royal sage Kusika was dismissed. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram, who instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a special enclosure where there are oats—that this very ram, swelling with fat, is ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... their scientific equipment, their astonishing technique, and their intellectualism, mark the end of one era, do they not rumour the coming of another? Certainly to-day there is stress in the cryptic laboratory of Time. A great thing is dead; but, as ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... But while I was pursuing my investigations the clock struck twelve, the company unmasked, and gaily flocked toward the Supper rooms. I felt particularly entitled to refreshments, and in the course of my indulgence in the good things of my selection, my faintness—which was more astonishing to my robust, muscular young self than any carnival joke in the world could have been—passed off completely. I was as happy and lively as before, and enjoyed the remainder of the ball as much as I had the beginning. I tried to dismiss the episode ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... can neglect it. The next time you are in a car, look at those who sit opposite you and see what you can discover of their habits, occupations, ideals, nationalities, environments, education, and so on. You may not see a great deal the first time, but practise will reveal astonishing results. Transmute every incident of your day into a subject for a speech or an illustration. Translate all that you see into terms of speech. When you can describe all that you have seen in definite words, you are seeing clearly. You are becoming ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... denationalizing themselves Apocryphal New Testament Astonishing talent for seeing things that had already passed Bade our party a kind good-bye, and proceeded to count spoons Base flattery to call them immoral Bones of St Denis But it is an ill-wind that blows nobody good Buy the man out, goodwill and all By dividing ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger
... confidently related by men high in station, tended to keep up the infatuation of the alchymists in every country of Europe. It is astonishing to see the number of works which were written upon the subject during the seventeenth century alone, and the number of clever men who sacrificed themselves to the delusion. Gabriel de Castaigne, a monk ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the Book of Esdras in the Apocrypha. It is astonishing that such a beautiful and forcible exemplification of the governing principle of life should have been cast aside as doubtful by those who presumed to sit in judgment upon the revealed will of the Almighty. That they did fail to perceive in this the divine stamp, proves all ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... eucharis lilies mostly in tubs, and rare and beautiful flowers brought by him from his Barbadian home; while shading it and the courtyard was a fine specimen of that superb thing of beauty—a flamboyant tree—glorious with its delicate-green acacia-like leaves and vermilion and yellow flowers, and astonishing with its vast beans. A flight of stone stairs leads from the courtyard to the upper part of the castle where the living rooms are, over the extensive series of cool tunnel-like slave barracoons, now used as store chambers. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... manage for yourself. You will miss your dinner sadly if you are not accustomed to fast for twenty-four hours. You will also miss your bed decidedly, and your toothbrush in the morning; but if, on the other hand, you are of the right stamp, it is astonishing how lightly these little troubles will sit on you, and how comfortable you will make ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... outdistanced rivals, SAM MAYO ("The Immobile Comedian," as he is called), remains standing. He has few gestures; he rarely, if ever, sings, and I have never seen him dance; and yet the way in which he "gets over" is astonishing. "Laughter holding both his sides" is the most constant attendant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... for himself, is hard to tell. And it would please him to leave that purposely obscure. What is alive and intense in the poem is, first, the realisation of Athenian life in several scenes, pictured with all Browning's astonishing force of presentation, as, for instance, the feast after the play, and the grim entrance of Sophocles, black from head to foot, among the glittering and drunken revellers, to ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... have you devoted to him, and he longs to have you more devoted. It is astonishing, nevertheless God has intense desire to be prayed to and great love for communion with our hearts. He says, "My son, give me thine heart." What does he want with man's heart? He wants to put his love in it, so he can be loved by it and hold communion with it. "The prayer of the upright is ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... far greater force than is actually the case, while the main body is under the cover offered by a friendly wood and is safe from detection. The rapidity with which thousands of men are able to disappear when the word "Airman" is passed round is astonishing. They vanish as completely and suddenly as if swallowed by the earth or dissolved into thin air. They conceal themselves under bushes, in ditches, lie prone under hedgerows, dart into houses and outbuildings—in short, ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... consolation in Charley's rapid progress towards health. He was gaining with astonishing rapidity and bid fair to be completely recovered ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... told they were good beings?" "I believe they might be good beings: but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden." Note that, as usual with Johnson,—and that is the astonishing thing—the illustration, however far-fetched, is not merely humorous but exactly to the point. Plenty of men can compose such retorts at leisure: the unique Johnsonian gift was that he had them at his instant command. Or take one other illustration; a compliment this time, and ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... Old University of Cairo, is said to number at times as many as ten thousand students of the Koran, a number which may well challenge a comparison with the Protestant Theological Seminaries of Europe and America, not only by their numbers, but by the astonishing success of their pupils as missionaries. They run where we halt, they win ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... similar feeling. With the negroes the canteen question is of comparatively slight importance, not only because the men can be more easily amused within their barracks, but because their appetite for drink is by no means as strong as that of the white men. Their sociability is astonishing. They would rather sit up and tell stories and crack jokes than go to bed, no matter how hard the day ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... weeks in which he learned, past the waver of a doubt, that his friend was knit with a glistening and imperishable fabric of courage, brought David Cairns to that high astonishing point, where he could say impatiently, "Rot!"—as his former ideals of manhood rose to mind. It was good for him to get this so young.... One morning something went wrong with Benton, the farrier. ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... well; we admire the discovery, and, in spite of us, a little surprise mingles with our admiration. But is it not a truly curious thing that several individuals should have had at nearly the same time that idea that was so astonishing in one? This, however, is a fact that the history of electrical inventions offers more than one example of. No one ignores the fact that the invention of the telephone gave rise to a notorious lawsuit, two inventors having had this ingenious ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... unconsciously grown well. He had been strangely, unbelievably happy. Why? Mel Iden had nursed him, loved him, inspired him back to health. Her very presence near him, even unseen, had been a profound happiness. He made the astonishing discovery that for months he had thought of little else besides his wife. He had lived a lonely life, in his room, and in the open, but all of it had been dominated by his dreams and fancies and emotions about ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... happier when they are dirty," said Letty, graciously, pleased to feel herself on these easy terms with her two companions. "What beautiful flowers he has! and what an astonishing little botanist he seems ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... enough understand. There is in the simple fact of an aerial ascent something so bold and so astonishing, that the human spirit cannot fail to be profoundly stirred by it. And if this is the feeling of men at the present day, when, after having been witnesses of ascents for the last eighty years, they see ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... I'm very glad you showed me these papers, very glad! I say that it's a most astonishing thing if the ore suddenly stops there. [A gleam of humour visits LEVER'S face.] I'm not an expert, but you ought to prove that ground to the East ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... its final form represents a considerable evolution. The comparison of successive editions reveals an astonishing amount of matter which has been discarded, although there has been no real modification of its fundamental principles. References to malicious animal magnetism which fill a large place in the earlier editions, are almost wholly wanting in the last, and there has been a decided progress ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... skeptic, has been called barren and gloomy; but setting aside all the legends of the Jews, and confining ourselves entirely to the generally received Scriptures, there will be found sufficient food for an imagination warm as that of Homer, Apelles, Phidias, or Praxiteles. It is astonishing that such rich materials for poetry should for so many centuries have been so little regarded, appropriated, or ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... on the ground that there are many Germans in sundry other of the Wisconsin regiments. It may be well to mention here that the number of Germans through all these Western States is very great. Their number and well-being were to me astonishing. That they form a great portion of the population of New York, making the German quarter of that city the third largest German town in the world, I have long known; but I had no previous idea of their expansion westward. In Detroit nearly every third shop bore a German name, and the same ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... a nation even as the United States, the "age of consent" laws evidence the tenacity of barbarism. The black list of states, compiled by Mr. Powell (180. 201), in a recent article in the Arena, reveals the astonishing fact that in three states—Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina-the "age of consent" is ten years; in four states, twelve years; in three states, thirteen years; in no fewer than twenty states, fourteen ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... might have been anticipated. Many of the guests had never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and to all the two-story population of Rockland it was the last expression of the art of pleasing and astonishing the human palate. Its appearance had been deferred for several reasons: first, because everybody would have attacked it, if it had come in with the other luxuries; secondly, because undue apprehensions were entertained (owing to want of experience) of its tendency to deliquesce and resolve ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... saw here once, who looks so like the Bellini portrait of Mahomet II. It's an astonishing likeness; he has the same arched eyebrows and hooked nose and prominent cheekbones. When his beard comes he'll be Mahomet himself. Anyhow he has good taste, for Bergotte is a charming creature." And seeing how much I seemed to admire ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... against Caesar's power were formed in Spain, in Africa, and in Italy. His military skill and energy, however, were so great, and the ascendency which he exercised over the minds of men by his personal presence was so unbounded, and so astonishing, moreover, was the celerity with which he moved from continent to continent, and from kingdom to kingdom, that in a very short period from the time of his leaving Egypt, he had conducted most brilliant and successful campaigns in all the three quarters of the world then known, ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... to doubt the unknown's assertions, and, as that coast was that of lower Bolivia there was nothing astonishing ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... inspired his monks to their task. He even provided lamps of ingenious construction, that seem to have been self-trimming, to aid them in their work. He himself set an example of literary diligence, astonishing in one of ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... those crabs with fine shells known as porcelain crabs, and the curious death's head crab, which seems to build a kind of nest of sponge or shells. But upon the next table (20) the visitor will find the most remarkable of the crabs, together with an astonishing lobster. This crab is known as the hermit crab. The visitor will perceive, that it has a long naked tail; and he should know that the one all-absorbing care of its life seems to be to find a place of safety in which this unprotected part may be screened from ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... flushed. He was now full of anticipation for the new life before him. And it was to be a new life indeed—a life full of astonishing experiences and adventures. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... sixteenth century the number of students in colleges and at theuniversities increased in an astonishing degree, especially from the middle classes. The sons of simple burghers entered upon the contests of free, intellectual aspirations with a zeal mostly absent in those whose position is already secured by birth. At Court, no doubt, the feudal aristocracy were yet powerful ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... astonishing what slips are made, even by good writers, in the employment of an inappropriate word. In Gibbon's 'Rise and Fall,' the following instance occurs: 'Of nineteen tyrants who started up after the reign of Gallienus, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... of my uncles' patent steel, and as I stood at the door and watched him I counted the blows he gave, and it was astonishing how regular he was, every implement taking nearly the same number of blows before he threw ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... first, on the tops of omnibuses and in Chelsea drawing-rooms, at the music-hall, at the opera, at classical concerts, and in Bond Street galleries. We take them for granted and are perfectly civil to them. So why, because he happened to have an astonishing gift of statement and rapid generalization, should Zola be treated as though he were a monster? Though Diggle, the billiards champion, care little or nothing for poetry, he may have an excellent heart, as well as a hand far surpassing in dexterity that of our most accomplished ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... increasing the quantity of money in a state—could that, in fine, which is the faithful handmaid of labor and industry, in every shape, fail to augment that article, which is the prolific parent of far the greatest part of the objects upon which they are exerted? It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary; and it is one, among a multitude of proofs, how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and refinement, is to lead men astray ...
— The Federalist Papers
... nocentes," repeated Henri. "What the devil could my brother mean by 'ambo!' Ventre St. Gris, ma mie, it is astonishing that you who know Latin so well have not yet explained it to me. Ah! pardieu! there is 'Turennius' walking under your windows, and looking up as if he expected you. I will call to him to come up; he is very learned, and he will ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... materialisation of spirits, writing on slates, &c. Having subsequently obtained from these distinguished observers written reports admitting that the phenomena observed could only have been obtained by supernatural means, he revealed to them that they were the result of very simple tricks. "The most astonishing feature of Monsieur Davey's investigation," writes the author of this account, "is not the marvellousness of the tricks themselves, but the extreme weakness of the reports made with respect to them by the noninitiated witnesses. ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... purpose apart from the ordinary religious exercises, could not be persuaded but that his mother was now to be decently interred, and lost to him for ever. In the anguish of this conviction, he screamed with astonishing force, and turned black in the face. However touching these marks of a tender disposition were to his mother, it was not in the character of that remarkable woman to permit her recognition of them to degenerate into weakness. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... power in dreams seems to have a range and an intensity which does not exist when one is awake. I have not the slightest power, in waking life, of conceiving and visualising the astonishing landscapes which I see in dreams. I can recall actual scenes with great distinctness, but the glowing colour and the prodigious forms of my landscape visions are wholly beyond my ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... completed in two years. Never before had such a sum been invested in internal improvement in the United States. The rapidity with which the undertaking was carried through and the profits which accrued from the investment were alike astonishing. The subscription books were opened at eleven o'clock one morning and by midnight 2226 shares had been subscribed, each purchaser paying down thirty dollars. At the same time Elkanah Watson was despondently ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... Postillions drove away. At first I was delighted with the rapidity of our progress; But as soon as we were in no danger of pursuit, I called to the Drivers, and bad them moderate their pace. They strove in vain to obey me. The Horses refused to answer the rein, and continued to rush on with astonishing swiftness. The Postillions redoubled their efforts to stop them, but by kicking and plunging the Beasts soon released themselves from this restraint. Uttering a loud shriek, the Drivers were hurled upon the ground. Immediately thick clouds obscured the sky: The winds howled around us, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... the twentieth century, science has gained notably in expertness, and lost notably in authority. We are bombarded with inventions; but if we ask the inventors what they have learned of the depths of nature, which somehow they have probed with such astonishing success, their faces remain blank. They may be chewing gum; or they may tell us that if an aeroplane could only fly fast enough, it would get home before it starts; or they may urge us to come with them into a dark room, to hold hands, and to ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... dells of wood, and lofty rocks and terrific chasms. When I tell you that these ruins cover several acres and that the paths alone penetrate at least half their extent, your imagination will fill up all that I am unable to express of the astonishing scene. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... may be explained, Mrs. Marchmont. So would I have said a year ago; but since we last met at your hospitable fireside, my wife and I have gone through a very astonishing experience. We 'can a tale unfold.' No man was better inclined to laugh at ghost ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... and they would have said with pride afterwards: "That chap Machin o'Bursley was standing behind me at the Empire to-night!" And though Machin is amongst the commonest names in the Five Towns, all would have known that the great and admired Denry was meant ... It was astonishing that a personage so notorious should not have been instantly "spotted" in such a resort as the Empire. More proof that the Five Towns was a vast and seething concentration of cities, and no longer a mere ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... aristocracy, "the Franks of France," in the eleventh, twelfth, and early thirteenth centuries of our era. The closeness of the whole parallel, allowing for the admitted absence in France of a very great and truly artistic poet, is astonishing. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... requested one of their new acquaintances to go in search of the main body of their party, and to inform the Sachem that she and Henrich had preceded them to the wigwams; and then—with a dignity and composure that were astonishing in one so young and accustomed to so wild a life—she guided her palfrey into the narrow path that wound through the undergrowth of evergreens, while Henrich walked by her side, and ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... ministers against every imputation of the calamities and disasters of the war being the result of their ignorance and mismanagement, and ridiculed the warnings and predictions of opposition. He observed,—"It is true they have often foretold the desertion of our allies, as well as the astonishing exertions of the enemy; and I cannot but confess that such is unfortunately the result. It is not, however, any difficult matter to prophesy disappointment and ill-success: if the prediction proved false, gentlemen would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of Vorsteher, except incidentally in Section 7, which is the more astonishing, as the annual settlement of accounts, in the same book, in the handwriting of Muehlenberg, both before and after the adoption of this constitution, mention the settlement as made by the pastor, elders and ...
— The Organization of the Congregation in the Early Lutheran Churches in America • Beale M. Schmucker
... lies toward the edge of the claret country; but it grows astonishing claret. When I was about your age it grew a wine yet ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... they are contemplated. There is something grand in the spread of new ideas which are unpalatable to the mighty and the wise. Considering the humble characters of the early Apostles and their disciples, their triumphs were really magnificent. It is astonishing that the teachings of fishermen should have supplanted the teachings of Jewish rabbis and Grecian philosophers, amid so great and general opposition. It is remarkable that their doctrines should have so completely changed the lives of those who ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... calculation, that the sailors often declared they believed he could work out any calculation backwards without the use of logarithms! He was constantly instituting comparisons that were by no means what the proverb terms "odious," but which were often very astonishing, and in all his stories so many curious and peculiar facts were introduced, that, as we have already said, they were very much ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... and stern in the penalties it inflicts. The legs and hands are cut off pilferers, heads are cut off sometimes and preserved in salt and camphor, and the bastinado is an ordinary punishment for lesser crimes. But the Moors must be thick in the soles, nor is it astonishing, as the practice is to chastise children by beating them on the feet. Mahomet Lamarty volunteered to procure a criminal who would submit to the bastinado for a peseta. In the market-place I compassionated an unfortunate thief minus his right hand and left leg. We took a walk to ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... Amelia, not me. The war has wakened me up to a understanding of my own importance that is really astonishing.' ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... many generations; sometimes it was almost realised by this or that investigator, then it escaped for long periods. Lavoisier seems to have realised, by what we call intuition, that however great and astonishing may be the changes in the properties of the substances which mutually react, there is no change in the total quantity ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... furnished with books, pictures, and rare things. Here he could, Maecenas-like, entertain his literary friends of all degrees, with a vast number of other friends and acquaintances, notable in their walks of life. It is astonishing what a circle he had gathered round him, and how intimate he was with all: political men such as Brougham, Guizot, Gladstone, Forster, Cornwall Lewis (Disraeli he abhorred as much as his friend of Chelsea did, ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... "Truly an astonishing fellow!" reflected Chichikov with a glance at his companion. "It is sad indeed to see a man so superficial as to be unable to explain matters of ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... which might contribute to the entertainment and instruction of my pretty fellow travellers. "I am, said he, as you may perceive by my habit, a Bramin, and my name is Wiseman. All the time I can spare from the worship of my Maker, and the contemplation of that astonishing wisdom and beneficence which he has displayed in his works of creation and providence, I cheerfully devote to the service of my fellow mortals, and particularly of the younger and unexperienced part of them. The most valuable service I can render them is to conduct them into the ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... the Alcmaeonidae and consequently with Pericles. On the death of his father Clinias Pericles had become his guardian. From early youth the conduct of Alcibiades was marked by violence, recklessness, and vanity. He delighted in astonishing the more sober portion of the citizens by his capricious and extravagant feats. He was utterly destitute of morality, whether public or private. But his vices were partly redeemed by some brilliant qualities. He possessed both boldness ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... black-and-white piglets, and at any hour of the day one might see numbers of natives looking over my wall at the graceful little creatures as they chased one another over the grass, charged at nothing, and came to a dead stop with astonishing rapidity and a look of intense amazement. One fatal day I let them out, thinking they would come to no harm, as their parents were with them. As they did not return at dusk I sent E'eu, the under-nurse, to search for them. She came back and told me in a whisper that the father ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... talk. My own impression is, that the Prussians were firing at the ramparts, and that, as often occurs, their projectiles overshot the mark. I did not see anyone either killed or wounded, and it seems to me that the most astonishing thing in a bombardment is the little damage it does to life and limb. I saw a bit of iron cut away a branch from one of the trees, and one shell I saw burst on the road by the river. In 15 minutes we counted 11 shells whizzing through the air, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... "Would'st asperse my daughter's name? Darest thou—By heaven, you hold a weapon in your hand. I am old but—Guard thyself!" he called, whipping out his sword with astonishing agility. ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... repair'd by the late King) now rent in pieces, flakes of vast stone split asunder, and nothing now remaining intire but the inscription in the architrave, shewing by whom it was built, which had not one letter of it defac'd. It was astonishing to see what immense stones the heate had in a manner calcin'd, so that all the ornaments, columns, freezes, capitals, and projectures of massie Portland-stone flew off, even to the very roofe, where a sheet of lead covering a great space (no less than six akers ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... St. Lawrence (it is astonishing how the old water-ways still pull us children of the air), and followed his broad line of black between its drifting iceblocks, all down the Park that the wisdom of our fathers—but every one knows the ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... greatly increased, first, by selecting men physically fit for work, and, second, by keeping them in that condition. There is a tremendous waste from inefficiency constantly going on, due to impaired health. Wall Street has an astonishing corps ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... Sweetest days, when (astonishing to say) mortals have actually met together in communion and fellowship; and man, were it only once through long despicable centuries, is for moments verily the brother of man!—And then the Deputations to the National Assembly, with ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Mr. Newman, some time since, in one of the Tracts for the Times; and it was conducted, as may be supposed, with great ingenuity, but with a recklessness of consequences, or an ignorance of mankind, truly astonishing; for he brought forward all the difficulties and differences which can be found in the Scripture narratives, displayed them in their most glaring form, and merely observed, that as those with whom he was arguing could not solve these difficulties, but yet believed the Scriptures no ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... Sergeant, and ordered him to go back down the hill to where the road turned behind it, and tell General ——— to send them a support instantly, as the batteries were knocked to pieces, and they could not hold the hill much longer. The announcement was astonishing to the old soldier; it had never occurred to him that as long as a man remained they could not hold the hill, and he was half-way down the slope before he took it in. He had brought his gun with him, and he clutched it convulsively as if he could withstand alone the whole Prussian ...
— "A Soldier Of The Empire" - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... To see a green tree, clear and distinct in form and bright with the beams of the sun which just at that instant caught upon it, breaking out to view suddenly high up among the clouds of the sky, seemed truly an astonishing spectacle. Rollo had scarcely recovered from the first emotion of his surprise before the clouds parted again, wider than before, and brought into view, first a large mass of foliage, which formed the termination of a grove of trees; then a portion of a smooth, green field, ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... graveyard. It was as though he were going to bury himself alive. Now that it was out of his reach, he thought of it as a paradise upon earth. And then he considered what sort of a paradise Lady Alexandrina would make for him. It was astonishing how ugly was the Lady Alexandrina, how old, how graceless, how destitute of all pleasant charm, seen through the spectacles which he wore at the ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... thing in the history of the American Negro since 1876 is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. It began at the time when war memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial development was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the freedmen's sons,—then it was that his leading began. Mr. Washington came, with a simple definite programme, at the psychological moment when the nation was a little ashamed ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Nature. But Nature herself cannot create a human being possessed of a complete knowledge of our world almost the moment he is born into it. Is the knowledge of the world which his Miscellanies contain, no proof of his astonishing quickness in seizing every thing he chose? Is it remembered when, and at what age, Chatterton for the first time quitted Bristol, and how few weeks he lived afterwards? Chatterton's Letters and Miscellanies, and every thing which the warmest advocate for Rowley ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... anecdote fitting into this time which has still more of the good-fairy ring in it, while it sounds like a general endorsement of youthful wisdom. Yet it may have had its origin in some eager, youthful fancy of astonishing another girl, and giving her "the very thing she wanted" as a reward for her exemplary behaviour. The Princess was visiting a jeweller's shop incognito (a little in the fashion of Haroun-al-Raschid) when she saw another young lady hang long over some gold chains, lay down reluctantly ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... done my best to keep the astonishing richness of the tomb from the ears of the natives. No one has been inside it but the Chief Inspector and the photographer and you two. No words have ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... of the Australian aboriginal is acute, and his talent for mimicry astonishing; he can imitate the notes of every bird and the call of ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... left alone in the stone-flagged kitchen, it was astonishing how rapidly that sprained ankle recovered. It was nearly nightfall, and we had eaten nothing since early morning, so that we spent some time over our meal. Holmes was lost in thought, and once or twice he walked over to the window and stared earnestly out. It opened on ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... astonishing answer, as absent-minded Fraulein held forth the missing umbrella, which all that time she had held tightly clasped in her hand, and which had been the cause of Edith's question as to whether she had more than one, for she supposed, of course, that the one Fraulein was so tightly holding ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... "yes" but she placed her disengaged hand, warm and soft, upon his, and Yates was not the man to have any hesitation about what to do next. To practical people it may seem an astonishing thing that, the object of the interview being happily accomplished, there should be any need of prolonging it; yet the two lingered there, and he told her much of his past life, and of how lonely and sordid it had been ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... excellent equal Free School privileges of Boston. The girl, in the Grammar School (chiefly composed of whites), has already distinguished herself, having received a diploma, with an excellent certificate of character; and the boy, naturally very apt, has made astonishing progress." ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... the prisoners was nursing a superficial wound in the foot. He cuddled it, baby-wise, but he looked up from it often to curse with an astonishing utter abandon straight at the noses of his captors. He consigned them to red regions; he called upon the pestilential wrath of strange gods. And with it all he was singularly free from recognition of the finer points of the conduct of prisoners of war. It ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... great authority was summoned and installed himself in the castle, and visited the sick man six times during the day, and feasted royally in the meanwhile, after the manner of great authorities, who have an amazing discernment in regard to the good things of this life, as well as an astonishing capacity ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... by begging, stealing, street-sweeping, collecting manure, pushing handcarts, driving donkeys, peddling, or performing occasional small jobs. In every great town a multitude of such people may be found. It is astonishing in what devices this "surplus population" takes refuge. The London crossing-sweepers are known all over the world; but hitherto the principal streets in all the great cities, as well as the crossings, have been swept ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... said the Mayor, after complimenting Arthur on his astonishing success, "would be to hale Claire before the courts for fraud, and subpoena all our distinguished enemies. That course has some ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... on their way, past the old smithy, where a pleasant breath of warmth and a splendid ringing of hammers came from the forge, and past the new garage of raw wood with the still-astonishing miracle of a "horseless carriage" in its big window, pots of paint and oil standing inside its door, and workmen, behind a barrier of barrels and planks, laying a cement sidewalk in front. They passed the Five-and-Ten-Cent ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris |
