"Startle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... different than the night he had lain beside Rachel and whispered, "You have given me wings." But how? He felt the same. Change came like that. Leaving one the same. He would write things from Europe that would startle. He could write.... But, something unspoken in the night. He must say it to himself.... "You must love her...." Then that was it. He no longer ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... his child sicken unto death, why, look For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, 160 Or pretermission of the daily craft! While a word, gesture, glance from that same child At play or in the school or laid asleep, Will startle him to an agony of fear, Exasperation, just as like. Demand The reason why—"'t is but a word," object— "A gesture"—he regards thee as our lord Who lived there in the pyramid alone, Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young, We both would ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... can a branch do apart from the vine? It may retain a certain, momentary greenness, but death is advancing apace. And there are multitudes of professing Christians who are like detached branches; their spiritual life is ebbing away: they do not startle the beholder and cause him to exclaim, "How full of life!" They do not strike at all! They have no splendid "force of character," and they therefore exercise no arresting witness for the King. They are not "abiding" ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... now and then, not too often. He did not mean to startle any one with his purpose, but to let it grow gradually. Still, at the last assembly of the season, his attentions were somewhat pronounced. It was partly her doings, she was sheltering herself ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... as a mother might. So, with her mouth almost in my ear, she whispered, "This is delightful—is it not so? Pray, just hearken to Nicholas: 'With that I fired.' 'Then we tried the covert.' 'The lock jammed.' 'Forty-four brace.' Listen to the huntsmen! Shall we startle them with the horn, tra-la?" And she thrilled with laughter in my ear there in the blissful dark, till I had to put that over her mouth ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... around her; and when she saw that all the guard were asleep, she smiled an ominous smile, and was going up to the Prince's bedside, when she perceived that in one corner of the room there was a man yet awake. This seemed to startle her, but she went up to ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... jingle of alliteration or rhyme, which assisted their circulation, and were probably struck off extempore; a manner which Swift practised, who was a ready coiner of such rhyming and ludicrous proverbs: delighting to startle a collector by his facetious or sarcastic humour, in the shape of an "old saying and true." Some of these rhyming proverbs are, however, terse and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... within them. These doubts enter into the mind at first almost imperceptibly: they exist only as vague indistinct surmises, and by no means take the precise shape or the substance of a formed opinion. At first, probably, they even offend and startle by their intrusion: but by degrees the unpleasant sensations which they once excited wear off: the mind grows more familiar with them. A confused sense (for such it is, rather than a formed idea) of its being desirable that their doubts should prove well founded, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... more likely! We were so cold that a race seemed the only chance of getting warm! I hope we didn't startle ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... well-developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England. There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... generally known as Wagamama Irikyo (the Wayward Recluse*). His most intimate friends were the shogun's father-in-law, Shimazu Ei-O, and Ikeda Isshinsai. The latter two were also inkyo and shared the tastes and foibles of Harunari. One of their greatest pleasures was to startle society. Thus, when Sadanobu was legislating with infinite care against prodigality of any kind, the above three old gentlemen loved to organize parties on an ostentatiously extravagant scale, and Sadanobu naturally shrank from seeing the title of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... rise from the mere maxims of worldly wisdom to the widest principles of ethical philosophy. Polybius, indeed, in the remarkable chapters with which his Histories open, uses expressions that are so modern as almost to startle us. 'People who study history,' he says, 'in separate and detached portions, without reference to one another, and suppose that from them they acquire a knowledge of the whole, are like a man who in looking on the severed members of what had once been an animated and comely ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... from the outer to the inner toe, and which indicate, from their distance apart in the straight line, a stride of about six feet in the creature that impressed them in these ancient sands,—measurements that might well startle zoologists who had derived their experience of the ornithic class from existing birds exclusively. Comparatively recent discoveries have, however, if not lessened, at least familiarized us to the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... Milton boys who had many bunches of fire-crackers, good-naturedly thought they would startle little Washee-washee-wang at his work. So they stole around a corner of the garden, where he was busy in his neat little cabin, and "lit" a whole bunch and threw it over the fence, at a point where all would "go off" right at his door, then threw after it two cannon crackers, ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... to carry out the rash plan. He had seen her stroll away, and had followed her until she should be so far from the house that she must listen. As she emerged from under the apple-tree, through which as a white cloud she had been looking at the moon, he appeared so suddenly as to startle her, and without any gentle reassurance he seized her hand, and poured out his feelings in a way that at first wounded ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... exercise of the will, or suddenly, as in some great physical shock, and of a necessity comes to all in the event called death. Were I to tell you how I acquired this knowledge, Mr. Henley, it would startle you, far more than any exhibition of the power itself. No, I can not tell you; at least, not at present; perhaps some day you may be better ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... I have been thinking a good deal about it, and I have a proposal to make which may at first startle you, but it appears to me that it is our only, and our best resource. The few hundred pounds which you have left are of no use in this country, except to keep you from starving for a year or two; but in another country they may be made to be worth ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... he heard a woman, in face of existing prejudices, speak the simple truth in regard to the social wrongs of her sisters, as Mrs. Love had done, asking no leave of the Convention, and making no apology for her sincere words, however they might startle false delicacy, he felt bound as a man, and in the name of man, to offer her the tribute of his ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... coming-on of rain and squally blast. And oh! that even now the gust were swelling, 15 And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast! Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed, And sent my soul abroad, Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give, Might startle this dull pain, and make it move so ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the King, Who has publicly commanded None should dare descry the wonder That among these rocks is guarded, Yield at once your arms and lives, Or this pistol, this cold aspic Formed of steel, the penetrating Poison of two balls will scatter, The report and fire of which Will the air astound and startle. ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... the use of thinking of it now, Sitting alone and listening to the clock! She'd best make haste and knit another row. Three hours at least must pass before his knock Would startle her. It always was a shock. She listened—listened—for so long before, That when it came her hearing ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... have gained, my dear lady, while I have been knocking about the world. You are now more than "sweet": you are almost handsome. I suppose it is a question of lights and the time of day whether or not you are really brilliant. And you carry surety in your face. There is nothing in Chicago to startle you, ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the repugnance she felt toward the miserable, misshapen creature, now sleeping on the floor, and after one glance in his direction looked swiftly away. But that glance had been sufficient to startle her by its resemblance to another face she hoped never ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... will be pitched in the depths of forests or on desolate, naked barrens; and always, in forests or on barrens, he will hear the rush and roar of mighty rivers or the lapping waves of wide, far-reaching lakes. The timber wolf will startle him from sleep in the dead of night with its long, weird howl, rising and falling in dismal cadence, or the silence will be broken perchance by the wild, uncanny laugh of the loon falling upon the darkness as a token of ill ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... him. "Here, don't startle me; I've got a weak heart," he observed, with a grin. "You say it as if you meant it. Here, what's ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... astonishing and yet natural things which sometimes startle us is the value some minds attach to mere modernity in art. An old thing is tossed up in a new way, and there are those who attach more value to the way than the thing, and are instantly agape with admiration of ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... over to the exit, and crawled out. And what his eyes beheld was enough to startle anybody, let alone a boy. If a genuine cyclone had not struck the camp on the Little Machias, then something almost as bad must have dropped down upon them, Thad thought, as he stared, hardly able to believe his eyes, or ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... rate, there he sat, a sad memento of the fate that so often overtakes those who would penetrate into the unknown; and there doubtless he will still sit, crowned with the dread majesty of death, for centuries yet unborn, to startle the eyes of wanderers like ourselves, if ever any such should come again to invade his loneliness. The thing overpowered us, already almost perished as we were ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn; A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... girl about thirteen years old passed us—a child with a thin anxious face burnt by the sun to a dark brown, and deep-set, dark blue, penetrating eyes. It was a face to startle one; and as she went by she stared intently at the ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... for such fun. He's going to startle the crowd with a regular Captain Kidd rig, pistols and cutlasses enough for a whole ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Sometimes in the village street, the slender column grey against the green trees, sometimes in the churchyard, these crosses come on the mind like a sudden enigma. It requires an effort to grasp their meaning, so long have the ideas passed away which led to their erection. They almost startle modern thought. How many years since the peasant women knelt at their steps! On the base of one which has a sculptured shaft the wall-rue fern was growing. A young starling was perched on the yew by it; he could but just fly, and fluttered across to the sill of the church window. Young birds ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... well the reason why he had not interfered. He had not interfered because he had wished too much to interfere. The desire had been strong enough to startle him, to warn him. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... bent over her work, getting up from time to time to turn the roast which she had impaled upon a sharp stick above the glowing coals, the bride had a stream of shy callers, of the little people of the woods. She sat very still, so as not to startle them, and there is much curiosity among these people concerning ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... soon plain enough, and whether venomous or not it was enough to startle the watcher, as a serpent some seven or eight feet in length came into sight, travelling through the undergrowth, with its scales ever changing in tint as its folds came more or less into connection with the ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... remember how often the Agitation of the Slavery question has been done to death in Congress, and how sure it was to appear again to startle its murderers from their propriety. Like "the blood-boltered Banquo," it would confront again the eyes that had hoped to look upon it no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... warning to malefactors—extended itself in a kind of grim appeal to everybody. It seemed to possess strange fascinations for all seafaring folk; and when there was a man-of-war in port the rat-tat-tat of that knocker would frequently startle the quiet neighborhood long after midnight. There appeared to be an occult understanding between it and the blue-jackets. Years ago there was a young Bilkins, one Pendexter Bilkins—a sad losel, we fear—who ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... nothing in his advances to startle or alarm. He never even talked of love, but there are modes of making it more eloquent than language, and which convey it subtilely and irresistibly to the heart. The beam of the eye, the tone of voice, the thousand tendernesses ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to startle even Carmilla's languid nature into ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the high wall—from its eyrie without doubt—a huge female eagle suddenly shot down toward the drifting aeroplane. The flying machine seemed not to startle the great bird at all; it only angered her. Perhaps she had young up there in the cliff and she feared her hereditary enemy, Man, was coming on wings to ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... and wilds alone, thou blendest thus The dirge note and the song of festival; But in one heart, one changeful human heart,— Ay, and within one hour of that strange world,— Thou call'st their music forth, with all its tones To startle and to pierce!—the dying Swan's, And the glad Sky-lark's,—Triumph ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... between the Espronceda of legend and the Espronceda of fact; for a legend sprang up during his own lifetime, largely the result of his own self-defamation. Like many other Romanticists, Espronceda affected a reputation for diabolism. He loved to startle the bourgeois, to pose as atheist, rake, deposer of tyrants. Escosura sums up this aspect of his character by branding him "a hypocrite of vice." Many have been led astray by Ferrer del Ro's statement that in drawing the character of the ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... blessing of being still able to call it home, darkened for ever as it is, for the multiplying memories with which it is thronged make it dearer as well as sadder every day of my life! Lotty, shall I ever believe that he has left me, quite left me, never to return? Will the fearful silence ever cease to startle me? Whenever I came in from a walk or a drive I used to know almost before I opened his door, by the sound of his voice, or of something, whether all was well with him, and now there is only that deadly silence. And yet, I often ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... startle you. You must allow for an injured, angry woman. But I will try to command myself. I will not abuse him. I will only tell you what I have found him. Facts shall speak. He was the intimate friend of my dear husband, who trusted and loved him, and thought him as good as himself. The intimacy had ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... trader, laughing quietly. "That was merely to startle you out of your, pardon me, unreasonable obstinacy. You must believe me it was the only thing possible that you should accompany us, for if you were a whiskey runner then it was better for us that you should be under guard, ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... can any punishment be devised or imposed for such a huge panorama of sorrow? I think she has already punished herself horribly, and will continue to do so. My prayer is that what we have gone through will startle the world into some new realization of the sanctity of life—all life, animal as well as human. Don't you find that a visit to a zoo can humble and astound you with all that amazing and grotesque ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... extra money by doing odd jobs. But nothing could get his speech back. It was a very stubborn and perplexing case. For eighteen months he had not succeeded in uttering a word, though understanding everything that was said to him. All the usual devices had failed; every kind of sudden surprise to startle him into articulation had been attempted; electricity had been passed through the muscles of the tongue and larynx; doctors had discussed him with a volubility only equalled by his own silence. But he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... seems to have led them to prefer, for their patterned walls, pale and dull hues.... The general tone of their coloring is quiet, not to say sombre. There is no striving after brilliant effects. The Assyrian artist seeks to please by the elegance of his forms and the harmony of his hues, not to startle by a display of bright and ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... could have returned to his native city after fifteen years or so in the grave, not the least of the phenomena to startle him would have been that which was taking place in his own house. For he would have beheld serenely established in that former abode of Calvinism one of the most reprehensible of exotic abominations, a 'mariage de convenance;' nor could he have failed to observe, moreover, the complacency with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... hire the services of a detective, and will file a petition in the Divorce Court. The case will probably be undefended, and the Court having listened to her tale of cruelty, the imaginative boldness of which will startle even the friend who corroborates it in the witness-box, will decree to her a divorce from the supposed author of her sufferings. She will then set up for a short time as an object of universal pity, but, meeting a bluff and burly widower, she will accept him as her second husband. After ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... hourly expected for weeks; yet when it comes, it falls on us suddenly, and reveals in us emotions we could not dream. The opening of those heavenly gate for them startles and flutters our souls with strange mysterious thrills, unfelt before. The glimpse of glories, the sweep of voices, all startle and dazzle us, and the soul for many a day aches and longs ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... the boldest book ever written. There are no similitudes in Ossian or the Iliad or the Odyssey so daring. Its imagery sometimes seems on the verge of the reckless, but only seems so. The fact is that God would startle and arouse and propel men and nations. A tame and limping similitude would fail to accomplish the object. While there are times when He employs in the Bible the gentle dew and the morning cloud and the dove and the daybreak in the presentation ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... movement. There was something so strange and uncanny about it—for I by this time knew the ground well enough to be fully aware that there ought not to be any moving thing there—that I stopped playing and sprang to my feet so suddenly that my movement appeared to startle Ama, who uttered a little cry of alarm, or surprise, and made as though she too would spring ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Ireland, Scotland, with imitations in slang or of brogue, as the case may be, on every possible or even impossible opportunity; and, when the subject of conversation does not afford him any chance for his interpolations, then, for a time, he will "lay low," like. Brer Fox, only to startle us with some sudden outbursts of song, generally selected from the popular English Melodies of a byegone period, such as "My Pretty Jane," "My Love is like a red, red Rose," or "Good-bye, Sweetheart, good-bye," and such-like ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... the mossy grass, And gathered up her work and went her way; Straight to that ancient turret she did pass, And startle back some fawns that were at play. She did not sigh, she never said "Alas!" Although he was her friend: but still that day, Where elm and hornbeam spread a towering dome, She crossed the ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... to keep the same sense of surprise in one's home town that one would have in a strange city. You will find much to startle you if you keep your eyes open. Yesterday, for instance, I was lucky enough to meet a gentleman who had stood only a few feet away from Lincoln when he made the Gettysburg Speech. Then I found that in a certain cafeteria which I frequent the price ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... of uniform and equipment. The officers may write to the papers demanding the heads of the Horse Guards in default of cleaner redress for grievances; the men may break loose across a country town and seriously startle the publicans; but neither officers nor men have it in their composition to mutiny after the continental manner. The English people, when they trouble to think about the army at all, are, and with justice, ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... how long it was since any woman had spoken to her in that tone. It seemed to startle back her shattered wits. She rose to her ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... quite forget myself, and sit staring into vacancy, till Mr. Davies, lifting his nose from his volume, would note my absence and call on me by name, and thump his desk, and startle me with some question on the matter we were supposed to have in hand. A mighty matter, truly, the name of some emperor or the date of some campaign—matter infinitely less real than the name of the ship that was leaving the harbour or the sunlight on the incoming sail. ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... hour. (There was a chime) Lunar Projects Placement is here to serve you. Plastics-chemists, hydroponics specialists, machinists, mechanics, metallurgists, miners, helpers—all are urgently needed. The tax-free pay will startle you. Free subsistence and quarters. Here at Serene, at Tycho Station or at ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... sustained, and the earth must have become for the most part desert plain, or stagnant marsh. But the feeding of the rivers and the purifying of the winds are the least of the services appointed to the hills. To fill the thirst of the human heart for the beauty of God's working,—to startle its lethargy with the deep and pure agitation of astonishment,—are their higher missions. They are as a great and noble architecture; first giving shelter, comfort, and rest; and covered also with mighty sculpture ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Salesman Moral steam-roller had passed over it Morality-everybody's private instinct of self-preservation Morals made by men Never felt as yet the want of any occupation No two human beings ever tell each other what they really feel Not his fault that half the world was dark Nothing in that book to startle him or make him think Of course! The words seemed very much or very little One from whom the half of life must be excluded Overwork personified Potent law of hobbies controlled the upper classes Professional intolerance Putting into words things that can't be put in words Secret ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... goods in Cap'n Abe's store did not so much startle the visitor, as the figure that rose from behind the counter, where he was ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... of hoofs was heard, and looking toward the sound, I perceived the Chancellor cantering down the road. When abreast of the carriage he dismounted, and walking up to it, saluted the Emperor in a quick, brusque way that seemed to startle him. After a word or two, the party moved perhaps a hundred yards further on, where they stopped opposite the weaver's cottage so famous from that day. This little house is on the east side of the Donchery road, near its junction with that to Frenois, and stands about ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... almost fierce action—the peculiar abruptness of the apostrophe—the whitely-robed, the almost spiritual elevation of figure—all so dramatic—combined necessarily to startle and surprise; and, for a few moments, no answer was returned to the unlooked-for speech. But the effect could not be permanent upon minds made familiar with the thousand forms of human and strong energies. Munro, after a ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... young and I used him sore, So you never shall startle Frankie more, Without capsizing Earth and her waters. ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... lorgnettes, as he bowed forward, grasped the hem of his frock-coat with two fingers of each hand, and with springy legs demonstrated the various steps of the mazurka. But when he had a mind to completely startle his audience, he would suddenly and without cogent reason leap high in the air, cut pigeon-wings with bewildering rapidity, trilling with his feet, so to say, whereupon he would return to this earth with a muffled thud which, however, shook ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... And, do you know, I will; for who knows what might happen? They tell me down in the village that there's trouble uppards, and people gets talking agen the king. Ah! I'd talk 'em if I had my way, and make some of 'em squirm.—Yes, I will tidy things up a bit. Startle some on 'em if we was to fire off a gun ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... and fro through the room with a cautious tranquillity which nothing could startle; she prepared her decayed roots for food with a patient attention which nothing could divert. Lost, through the aggravated miseries of her position, to recent grief and present apprehension, she could still instinctively perform the simple offices of the woman and the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... First of all, there are the transport-wagons, with their long span of oxen straggling all across the road, and a nervous bullock precipitating himself under your horse's nose. The driver, too, invariably takes the opportunity of a lady passing him to crack his whip violently, enough to startle any horse except Scotsman. Then when you have passed the place where the wagons most do congregate, and think you are tolerably safe and need only look out for ruts and holes in the street, lo! a furious galloping behind you, and some half dozen of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... feeling came to Philip that possibly the whole story was an elaborate imposture, not told with any base motive, but merely from a wish to impress, startle, and amaze. Athelny had told him that he was at Winchester; but Philip, sensitive to differences of manner, did not feel that his host had the characteristics of a man educated at a great public school. While he pointed out ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... to benevolence, and take men of business and opulence on their own ground. If this principle will fill one's own treasuries, it will fill the treasuries of the Lord. Let it then be regarded. I would sound it in the ears of the million who are delving the earth for gold, and startle them from their delusive dreams. I would that it might echo and re-echo till its solemn utterances should make every votary of Mammon tremble. Hear, ye rich men; give ear, ye who are pursuing the bubbles of wealth! is it christian, is it right, to adopt principles of prudence and ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... the senior, making himself young to please the boy, and to show him that, if he looked old, he was not worn out, "would you like a bit of fun? We will startle her—we'll give her a kiss." Arthur hung back irresolute, and his cheeks were ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... 1883, a striking young Frenchman, who said he was a nobleman, came to Little Missouri with a plan ready-made to build a community there to rival Omaha, and a business that would startle America's foremost financiers, the citizens of the wicked little frontier settlement, who thought that they knew all the possibilities of "tenderfeet" and "pilgrims" and "how-do-you-do-boys," admitted in some bewilderment that they had been mistaken. The Frenchman's name ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... told you, dear, that you must use your common-sense; and you must have known that to startle Stella by a sudden scream at her was enough to make her drop ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... trouble to himself in its perusal. I feel often that my lack of skill is spoiling what might be a good story. That I cannot help; and I write with the firm conviction that any effort on my part to arrange these facts in such order that the tale should show dramatic force, or startle him with unexpected issues of event, would only procure derision for its writer, and might even obscure the only end he has at heart, that of giving a complete grasp of the facts, as nearly as may be in the order of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... her bosom rend, And let me hence to hell alive descend; Or die the death I dread no less than hell, Sew'd in a sack, and plunged into a well, Ere I my fame by one lewd act disgrace, Or once renounce the honour of my race. 590 For know, sir knight, of gentle blood I came; I loathe a whore, and startle at the name. But jealous men on their own crimes reflect, And learn from thence their ladies to suspect: Else why these heedless cautions, sir, to me These doubts and fears of female constancy This chime still rings in every lady's ear, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... the head of the grave was vacant, and for a long moment the ceremony halted as if waiting for a manifestation. With a swift, sudden startle the coil of black cord, always reserved for the chief mourner, slipped off the coffin-lid and fell heavily into ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... account went on, showed the case to be as originally stated. The well-known lawyer had been interviewed. He had told the reporter that the contents of Field's letter were surprising beyond words and that as soon as he had made full preparations some arrests would follow that would startle the country. The lawyer, whose name was withheld for obvious reasons, was a man whose integrity was beyond question. He had no intention of using the funds willed him by Field, for he and Field had grown up together in a little New England town. The money would be put in trust ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the removal of sin, redemption, pardon, sanctification, which otherwise are mere words. God speaks to us primarily in our hearts. Self- knowledge is the key to the precepts and doctrines of Scripture. The very utmost that any outward notices of religion can do is to startle us and make us turn inward and search our hearts; and then, when we have experienced what it is to read ourselves, we shall profit by the doctrine of the Church and the Bible." My brethren, the temper ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... he remained for a short while—until satisfied that Tiburcio was yet alive. Then a bright thought seemed to startle him; for a voice had spoken to him from within, stronger than the voice of conscience. It was that of personal interest. Cuchillo knew the rare qualities of Tiburcio—his talents as a rastreador, or tracker—his daring prowess in Indian warfare; and after some consideration, he resolved to ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... They all counseled patience, and advised against any attempt to hasten her recollections upon any point; they all had known similar cases, but never one so sharply defined or so painful as this. Still they were unanimous in advising that nothing should be said to startle her; that all ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... summers rear'd up in an hour! Then I said, in the fear of my dream, I will fly From this magic, but could not, because that my eye Grew love-idle among the rich blooms; and the earth Held me down with its coolness of touch, and the mirth Of some bird was above me,—who, even in fear, Would startle the thrush? and methought there drew near A form as of AEgle,—but it was not the face Hope made, and I knew the witch-Queen of that place, Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a Death, Which I fear'd, and yet fled not, for want of my breath. There was thought in her face, and her eyes were not ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... hurry his courtship, for he believed that he had a clear field before him, and he was too sagacious to startle Clara by overmuch energy. Meantime he began to be conscious that an influence from her was reaching his spirit. He had hitherto considered her a child; one day he suddenly recognized her as a woman. Now a woman, a beautiful ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... hit on," Aunt 'Phrony proceeded, "de fire blaze an' spit an' sputter jes' lak dis do, an' de ooman she fotched a yell an' cried out, she did, 'Lan' er de mussiful! W'at cur'ous sort er wood is dish yer dat ac' lak dis?' De Owl he wuz startle' an' he look roun' suddint, dis-a-way, over his shoulder, an' de wimmins dey let out a turr'ble screech, 'kase dey seed 'twa'n't nuttin' but a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... fury flew, (From Hector, Phoebus turn'd the flying wound,) Yet fell not dry or guiltless to the ground: Thy breast, brave Archeptolemus! it tore, And dipp'd its feathers in no vulgar gore. Headlong he falls: his sudden fall alarms The steeds, that startle at his sounding arms. Hector with grief his charioteer beheld All pale and breathless on the sanguine field: Then bids Cebriones direct the rein, Quits his bright car, and issues on the plain. Dreadful he shouts: from earth a ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... could lay down his life with as much ease and willingness as another man could put off his clothes. He even wished, every step of his journey, to meet with the wild beasts; and though that death was most shocking and barbarous, and presented the most frightful ideas, sufficient to startle the firmest resolution; yet it was incapable of making the least impression upon his courageous soul. The perfect mortification of his affections appears from his heavenly meekness; and he expressed how perfectly he was dead to himself and the world, living ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... wreak thy murder. Hissing fire of flaming stead, Groan of spear-carles, wail of women, Soon shall startle through the night. Then on Mosfell, Kirtle-Wearer, Eric waits the face of Death. Freed from weary life and sorrow, Soon we'll kiss in ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... but one thing more to ask. Why, if your story is authentic, and well calculated to startle even the brave king, have you thought it necessary to remove ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... of this before the boy's dreadful secret was revealed to Winona; six weeks before he appeared to startle her with one eye radiating the rich hues of a ripened eggplant. It had been simple enough. He had seen his chance to step in and punish Spike, and he had stepped—and Spike's ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... questions with upturned noses, a rock above them will sometimes be unable to keep its own countenance, but, simulating without flattery one of the human visages below, will wear an expression of humour fiendish enough to startle the least superstitious ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... that night a solemn vow, To startle all beholders: I wore white muslin on my brow, Green velvet on my shoulders— My trousers were supremely wide, I learn'd to swear "by Allah"— I stuck a poniard by my side, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... before long, the organs of the human body; that a light has been found which can penetrate, so as to make a photographic record, through everything from a purse or a pocket to the walls of a room or a house, is news which cannot fail to startle everybody. That the eye of the physician or surgeon, long baffled by the skin, and vainly seeking to penetrate the unfortunate darkness of the human body, is now to be supplemented by a camera, making all the parts of the human body as visible, in a way, as the exterior, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... his splendid capacity for prompt decision, the Doctor suddenly wheeled old Billy about and went sleighing in considerable excitement into the village whence a host of night-telegrams went singing over the busy wires to startle eventually a slumbering conscience or so. And presently when the Doctor drew up with a flourish before the lonely little house among the forest pines, his earlier depression ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... Lord Grey, a petition from Nottingham for the disestablishment of the Church of England. The Premier regretted that he could not give his support to such a sweeping measure, which would embarrass the Ministry, alarm both Houses of Parliament, and startle the nation. He declared his intention of standing by the Church to the best of his ability, believing it to be the sacred duty of Government to maintain an establishment of religion. To which sturdy ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... was the most thrilling place of all. It opened out of my sister's room, which was a large, sombre apartment. It was said to attract a frequently seen ghost by the force of its profound twilight and historic sorrows; and my sister, who was courageous enough to startle a ghost, highly approved of this corner of her domain. But she suddenly lost her buoyant taste for disembodied spirits, and a rumor floated mistily about that Una had seen the wretched woman who could not forget her woes in death. In "Monte Beni" this ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... to ascertain from the servants what the lady's future movements might be; and, thus informed, to startle her by anonymous warnings, conveyed through the post, and claiming their answer through the advertising channel of a newspaper. Here was the certainty of alarming her, coupled with the certainty of safety to himself! Little did Mrs. Glenarm dream, when she capriciously ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... faces and observable in their attitudes, as no wonder it should. What they have just seen is sufficient to terrify the stoutest hearts—even those of tried tars, as all of them are. A ship manned by hairy men—a crew of veritable Orsons! Certainly enough to startle the most phlegmatic mariner, and make him tremble as he tugs at his oar. But they have ceased tugging at their oars, and hold them, blades suspended. Almost the same is their breath. One alone, at length, musters ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... young supercargo, it was his second voyage in such capacity, and he suffered much secret worry from his lack of experience in pricing pearls. But when Mapuhi exposed the pearl to his sight he managed to suppress the startle it gave him, and to maintain a careless, commercial expression on his face. For the pearl had struck him a blow. It was large as a pigeon egg, a perfect sphere, of a whiteness that reflected opalescent lights from all colors about ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... letter as good as the best that has been, I do not think you will find much scope for development of it; I would therefore put in a word for some form of gothic letter for use in our improved printed book. This may startle some of you, but you must remember that except for a very remarkable type used very seldom by Berthelette (I have only seen two books in this type. Bartholomew, the Englishman, and the Gower, of 1532), English black-letter, since the days ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... we may be with the nervous little seedpods of the touch-me-not, which children ever love to pop and see the seeds fly, as they do from balsam pods in grandmother's garden, they still startle with the suddenness of their volley. Touch the delicate hair-trigger at the end of a capsule, and the lightning response of the flying seeds makes one jump. They sometimes land four feet away. At this rate of progress a year, and with the other odds against which all plants ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... fellow would fall into my hands," replied my companion. "If so, then revelations will be made that will startle Europe." ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... those days it was the fashion for young ladies to be frail and delicate and the least noise was apt to startle them and ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... aspect of this matter which would perhaps startle those who think that all piety and orthodoxy reside in the rural districts; and that is, that the city, as it is, affords far greater encouragements to well developed piety than the country; and that if the church were fully awake to her ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... home late at night, and even if they startle me a little when I'm in bed, the pleasure of going to sleep again is all the greater. But in the morning I awaken them, when I put my room in order. Then they scold a little and go." I had been observing him in the mean time. His clothes were scrupulously ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... happened to disturb you?—anything remarkable in Cousin Hepzibah's family?— An arrival, eh? I thought so! No wonder you are out of sorts, my little cousin. To be an inmate with such a guest may well startle an ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to those who are not familiar with French churches. As the priest passes the dish to each row the official brings his metal-headed staff down upon the pavement with a noisy bang that is calculated to startle the unwary into dropping their money anywhere else than in the plate. In time the bell rings beside the altar, and the priest robed in white and gold elevates the host before the kneeling congregation. Once more the man in the cocked hat becomes ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... emergency, were charging the bunch intrepidly. Others made shift with flat sirup-cans with pebbles inside. A few, like Pink and the Silent One, flapped their slickers till their arms ached. Anything, everything that would make a din and startle the cattle out of their lethargy, was pressed ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... on Jacques called out anxious protests from men like rollicking Soldier Joe, who said to her one night, "Blanche, there's a devil in Jacques. Some day you'll startle him, and then he'll shoot you as cool as he empties the pockets ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her with parted lips. He seemed afraid to breathe lest he startle away some hesitant hope. "I?" ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... circumstances was born a child who was destined to excite the wonder of European courts—to startle and thrill and utterly amaze great audiences by her dramatic genius. But for ten years the family—which grew until it consisted of one son and five daughters—kept on its wanderings through Switzerland and Germany. Finally, they settled down in Lyons, where the mother ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... playing and quarrelling, and, further away, the low, dull, continuous roar of traffic in the Edgware Road. Then she would drop back again, to crouch against the wall, drawing the quilt about her, and remain motionless until a step on the stair or the banging of a door below would startle her once more. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... and the wild ponies stood and stared boldly at the solitary boy, without fleeing from his path, as if they had long since forgotten how the bilberry gatherers had delighted in frightening them. Stephen was too grave and manlike to startle them into memory of it, and he plodded on mile after mile with the three notes in his pocket and his hand closed upon them, pondering deeply with what words he should speak to the unknown clergyman ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... undaunted toils, Sails unknown seas to unknown soils, With various wonders feasts his sight: What stranger wonders does he write! We read, and in description view Creatures which Adam never knew: For, when we risk no contradiction, It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction. Those things that startle me or you, I grant are strange; yet may be true. 10 Who doubts that elephants are found For science and for sense renowned? Borri records their strength of parts, Extent of thought, and skill in arts; How they perform the law's decrees, And save the state the hangman's fees; ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... closing the door behind her as she went. She did not want to be obliged to go over the details of the story which she had heard; she had made her statement, one which she knew must startle and horrify her son, with his high ideals of womanly purity, and she left him to review the situation in silence. It was several hours before the ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... great intoxication among the Indians; finally, the apprehension lest my younger children should be caught by that singular charm, so dangerous at their tender years; are the only considerations that startle me. By what power does it come to pass, that children who have been adopted when young among these people, can never be prevailed on to readopt European manners? Many an anxious parent I have seen last war, who at the ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... characteristics of hypnotism in which even the subjective idea of sleep is entirely absent, for instance, all those which are usually called states of fascination. A certain shining light or a glimpse of an uncanny eye may startle and upset the imagination of the subject and throw him into a state of abnormally increased suggestibility. It is well known that whole epidemics of such captivation have occurred and have resulted in hysterias of the masses in which the subjects become the slaves ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... shaky voice. "Say, you gave me an awful scare! I thought it must be some old tramp that grabbed me, sure I did. It's all right now, Hugh, and I'm not wanting to clear out, since I know who you are. That's Thad, too, I reckon, holding my little flash-light. How you did startle me, though. I never dreamed anybody was around here when I started to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... from physical agony would come to the criminal, if the dream of dying should startle him from the dream of suffering. The paradise of Spirit would come to Jesus, in a spiritual sense of Life and [15] power. Christ Jesus lived and reappeared. He was too good to die; for goodness is immortal. The ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... day trying for a predetermined point, but generally emerging into some unknown and delightfully unsuspected valleys of quietness; Sleepy Hollows down which no headless horsemen had ever thundered to startle the wild-fowl sailing low in the evening twilight, and over which the moon would later pour her serene, unearthly radiance; while we, footsore, hungry, thirsty, and quite absurdly elated at our success, would press on towards some twinkle of light in the distance, which told ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... startle her. Evidently she had thought to tell only as little as necessary, and in her own way. She gave a little nervous laugh, as if to pass it ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... ivy-clad ruin could barely be distinguished; presently, a burst of music from the band was immediately followed by a remarkably strong beam of light, which shot into the darkness with such effect as to fairly startle those present. Then it rested on the grey walls of the huge pile, bathing in brightness the massive stones and clinging ivy, the respective colours of each being vividly apparent. But the most striking feature was yet to come. The hundreds of ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... got up, nor moved a mite. That is one of the peculiarities of the boy, you can't surprise him: nothin' seems to startle him. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... and unobtrusive, a thing that enters into one's soul, and does not startle or amaze it with itself, but with its subject. How beautiful are the retired flowers! How they would lose their beauty were they to throng into the highway crying out, "Admire me, I am a violet! Dote upon me, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... psychological grounds of their possibility; whether lying in any peculiarly vicious education, early familiarity with bad models, corrupting associations, or other plausible key to effects, which, taken separately, and out of their natural connection with their explanatory causes, are apt rather to startle and revolt the feelings of sober thinkers. Except, perhaps, in some chapters of Italian history, as, for example, among the most profligate of the Papal houses, and amongst some of the Florentine princes, we find hardly any parallel to the atrocities of Caligula ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... blast of fire Blew them together; and round its lords that met Paused all the reeling battle; two main waves Meeting, one hurled sheer from the sea-wall back That shocks it sideways, one right in from sea Charging, that full in face takes at one blow That whole recoil and ruin, with less fear Startle men's eyes late shipwrecked; for a breath Crest fronting crest hung, wave to wave rose poised, Then clashed, breaker to breaker; cloud with cloud 1550 In heaven, chariot with chariot closed on earth, One fourfold flash and thunder; yet a breath, And with the ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... comparatively easy task, for the coming of the boat was sufficient as a rule to startle the timid fish, which in turn scared those in front, the beating with the poles at either side sending forward any which might be disposed ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... have the temerity so to interrupt the progress of science. I had about deduced from certain astronomic phenomena I have had under minute observation during the past several tropic nights an entirely new nebular hypothesis which will unquestionably startle the scientific world. I wish to consult a very excellent monograph on Laplace's hypothesis, which I understand is in a certain private collection in New York City. Your interference, Mr. Philander, will result ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the spirit of "gramarye" in Buerger's Lenore, etherealised and refined it. Scott and Lewis gloried in the gruesome details and spirited rhythm of the ballad, and in their supernatural poems wish to startle and terrify, not to awe, their readers. Those who revel in phosphorescent lights and in the rattle of the skeleton are apt to o'erleap themselves; and Scott's Glenfinlas, Lewis's Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene and Southey's Old Woman of Berkeley fall into ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... all you do will be appropriately executed, and in a manner that will not startle me very greatly, and excite as little comment as possible, again I shall leave all in ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... the secret survival of a more ancient religion. Voodoo, whether practiced, as it is to-day, in Philadelphia, New York, Havana, or Senegambia, deals with alleged devils, poisons, chicken bones, the ivory root, unnatural orgies,—all, in short, that can startle and astonish ignorant natures; it is the combination of the oldest faith with its successor. Far higher forms are those of the magic of the black Takowri whom one meets divining about the streets of Cairo, or of the Arab proper, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... minutes after I saw how darkness and fancy can combine to startle one who wakes suddenly from sleep, for the man who had been Mr Raydon's companion on the previous day suddenly made his appearance silently at the door and walked in, his deerskin moccasins making no sound as he came towards us. He was followed by a great fierce-looking ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... wrapped in slumber. I hesitated to pull the bell: no, it would startle Mrs. Sloman. Bessie was coming: she would surely not make me wait. Was not that her muslin curtain stirring? I would wait in the porch—she ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... bold were they sometimes, that on a Sabbath morning, when the bell of Sandwick Church, hard by, had been ringing for divine service, I have seen the animals collect in numbers on the beach to listen to the strange sound, which held them so fixed and charmed, that it required an effort to startle them away. Now, however, the seals seemed to have deserted the place, and I was not sorry when Tom Kinlay proposed that we should give up our search for ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... knew something and feared lest it should come to his knowledge. Therefore he resolved to startle her by a blunt question. "I never knew you were ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... white figure, the deep silence, broken only by the faint murmur of the river and the distant singing of a nightingale, the gleam of the glowworms, compose a scene of fantastic beauty. The slightest sounds startle her, whether it be a fish leaping at the surface of the water to seize a fly, the gurgling of a little eddy, or the shrill cry of a bat. There is a certain voluptuous beauty in the very sound of the words that describe the little nymph, kissed ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... in the habit of praying with and for people in great misery, as well as in great sin, so the request did not startle her as it might have startled many. She read, from the Prayer Book, the Confession, and then chose the concluding portion of the Litany, feeling sure that almost any part of that list of petitions was suitable both for Howel and ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale |
