"Wonder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... superstitious, I wonder? Do they believe in charms? If not what induces so many birds that build in holes in banks to select out of the infinite variety of things, organic or inorganic, pieces of snake-skin for their nests? They are at ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... wonder if they'll all fail me," he muttered, as he removed the frying-pan from the coals but set it near enough to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... they glow, And make the moonbeam brighter where they flow. Involved in sea-wrack, here you find a race Which science, doubting, knows not where to place; On shell or stone is dropp'd the embryo-seed, And quickly vegetates a vital breed. While thus with pleasing wonder you inspect Treasures the vulgar in their scorn reject, See as they float along th' entangled weeds Slowly approach, upborne on bladdery beads; Wait till they land, and you shall then behold The fiery sparks those tangled fronds infold, Myriads of ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... but closely connected personages, which is entirely free from monotony. One is so accustomed to the facts that perhaps it hardly strikes one at first how extraordinarily audacious the attempt is: nay, the very success of it may blind all but critics to the difficulty. It is no wonder that people tried further continuations and further complications: still less wonder that they utterly failed. Probably even Bunyan himself could not have "done it a third time." But he did it these twice with such ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... took note of Lanyard, with wonder, some misgivings, and a hint of admiration. For he was not only a personable person in those days, with a suggestion of devil-may-care in his air that measurably lifted the curse of his superficial foppishness, but he was putting a ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... extremely interesting," said she to Patoff. "I always wonder what it must be like to commit ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... to have pursued this divine and magical genius, ordaining that almost everything that he put forth should be either destroyed or unfinished: his work in the Castello at Milan, which might otherwise be an eighth wonder of the world, perished; his "Last Supper" at Milan perishing; his colossal equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza broken to pieces; his sculpture lost; his Palazzo Vecchio battle cartoon perished; this picture ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... your Wonder, cease your Guess, Whence arrives your happiness. Cease your Wonder, cease your Pain, Human ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... been having the awfulest time with our windmill. The thingumajig that is supposed to turn it off has got broken or something and it keeps pumping water all over where I don't want it to. If I had an artificial pond like the Harmons I would know what to do with so much water. I wonder when Jonas Hicks will ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... you're too antique, I suppose. Wonder that someone hasn't collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something. So you don't ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... his seat in the back part of the room, he did not feel quite so comfortable as he strove to appear. As he glanced stealthily at the face of the teacher, who looked unusually stern and grave, he could not help thinking, "I wonder whether he will ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... fear. For that are you pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The Bruce's brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, York's false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion crowned. All kings' sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved men from drowning and you shake at a cur's yelping. But the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... wonder what they'd say if me an' Aunt Nancy an' Uncle Jim was to go paddlin' in among all the fine ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... have seen the last of him and his axe, Baas," remarked Hans, spitting reflectively. "It is very well to sleep in the same hut with a tame lion sometimes, but after you have done so for many moons, you begin to wonder when you will wake up at night to find him pulling the blankets off you and combing your hair with his claws. Yes, I am very glad that this half-tame lion is gone, since sometimes I have thought that I should be obliged to poison it that we might sleep in peace. You know he called me ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... to be fair and patient. Whenever she showed me some new beauty in water or sky I took great pains to look at it well. When an angry little squall of wind came ruffling over the sunny waves in sweeping bands of deep, soft blues, I gazed and gazed at its wonder as though I could never have enough. And so gazing I spied floating there a sodden old mattress, a fleet of tin cans. And I said that it seemed an unhealthy thing to dump all our refuse ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... do wonder that a fellow like you, with plenty of money in your pocket, should go in for work as you do. What's the good of it? and in the Dissenting parson line of all things in the world! When a fellow has nothing, you can understand it; he must get ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... near Rome, no doubt, grew rare plants from Asia Minor and were very likely tended by the skilled Aryan, early Accadian or Semitic gardeners of Persia. These slaves were probably descended from and were heir to the trade secrets of some of the very builders of that seventh wonder of the world, the hanging gardens of Babylon. Except for those forgotten workers from Persia, one may well wonder whether, today, our Rocky Ford, Ohio Sugar, or Hearts-of-Gold muskmelon delicacies would ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... faces of the people passing by, The glad ones and the sad ones, and the lined with misery, And I wonder why the sorrow or the twinkle in the eye; But the pale and weary faces are the ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... When I caught the first glimpse of the street of Halle,—that old city with its shops, its gateways filled with merchandise, its old peaked roofs, its heavy wagons laden with bales, in a word, all its busy commercial life,—I was struck with wonder; I had never seen anything like it, ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... side to their imaginings. When the Magian has done beating his copper drum—(how its mysterious murmur still haunts the echoes of memory!)—when Queen Lab has finished her tremendous conjurations, wonder gives place to laughter, the apotheosis of the flesh to the spirit of comedy. The enchanter turns harlequin; and what the lovers ask is not the annihilation of time and space but only that the father be at his prayers, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... And it shall come to pass that ye shall all be amazed, and wonder, insomuch that ye shall fall ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... to this precedent has been, to use words of Mr. Lecky, 'so frequently exposed that I can only wonder at its repetition.'[112] Under Grattan's Constitution the Irish Executive was appointed, not by the Irish Parliament, but by the English Ministry; the Irish Parliament consisted solely of Protestants; it represented the miscalled 'English ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... box, feeling that he had intruded into private places. He had intended to be considerate and had achieved only the appearance of prying. "That's like me!" he thought, as he descended the stairs that led to the stalls. "I wonder why it is that I'm full of sympathy and understanding and tact in my books, and such a ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... the lacerations and fitful spasms of the muscles, swelling through the crimsoned foam, as the tortured steeds rush in blood-welterings to the goal—that such, should look upon the sufferings of their slaves with, indifference is certainly small wonder. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of "a route unspoiled of Cook's," and we have found it. Going to the office of Thos. Cook & Son, in Chicago, with a friend who had planned a Mediterranean tour, I gently said, "I wonder if you can give me information about a trip I am anxious to take this summer." The young man smiled and his tone was that which we accord to an indulged child, "I guess we can. Cook & Son give information on most places." ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... listen to it, which Sonny Sahib thought very poor kind of fun indeed. They wouldn't even pretend to be elephants, or horses, or buffaloes. Sonny Sahib had to represent them all himself; and it is no wonder that with a whole menagerie, as it were, upon his shoulders, he grew a little tired sometimes. Also he was the only boy in Rubbulgurh who cared to climb a tree that had no fruit on it, or would venture beyond the lower branches even ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... portrait of Sir Robert Walpole, is unsatisfying. It is the custom to scoff at the gateway and stone arcading Wilkins afterwards threw across the fourth side of the grassy court of the college; but, although its crocketed finials are curious, and we wonder at the lack of resource which led to such a mass of unwarranted ornament, it is not aggressive, neither does it jar with the ...
— Beautiful Britain—Cambridge • Gordon Home
... letter and glanced at it. "This is a private letter; it has come by hand," she said. "Oh, of course, it is from Sir John Wallis. I wonder what he has got to say ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... room off the hall which had been destined for Dolly, opening out of her aunt's own; and it had been fitted up with careful affection. A small bedstead and dressing-table of walnut wood, a little chest of drawers, a little wardrobe; it was a wonder how so much could have been got in, but there was room for all. And then there were red curtains and carpet, and on the white spread a dainty little eider-down silk quilt; and on the dressing-table and chest of drawers pretty ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... carriage is being circummured by an increasing hedge of idlers and invalids, staring with great and open-minded interest at the arrival of visitors who seemed actually healthy and were coming here uncompelled; and the visitors themselves are glad to vanish from the public wonder into the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... after a misty day, the mountains were illumined with purple and rose-madder, and snow-tipped against the blue sky, a wonderful wistaria blue drifted smoke-like about the valley; and the tall trees—poplars and cypresses—stood like spires. No wonder the French are spirituel, a word so different from our "spiritual," for that they are not; pre-eminently citizens of this world—even the pious French. This is why on the whole they make a better fist of social ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... same feeling. 'This,' he says, 'is the dear Christmas Eve, on which I have so often listened with impatience for your step, which was to usher us into the present-room. To-day I have two children of my own to give presents to, who, they know not why, are full of happy wonder at the German Christmas-tree ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... be noted that Jack Ryan had the greatest possible wish to be of the party when Nell should pay her first visit to the upper surface of the county of Stirling. He wished to see her wonder and admiration on first beholding the yet unknown face of Nature. He very much hoped that Harry would take him with them when the excursion was made. As yet, however, the latter had made no proposal of the kind to him, which caused him to feel ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... and his son died so suddenly I was told that his widow was mentally ill and that none could see her, and later that she had died, or else the wording was so that I inferred as much,' and the very recollection seemed to set Martin dreaming. And I did not wonder, for there had never been a more brilliant and devoted couple than Abbie and Chester Marchant, and I still remember the shock of it when word came that both father and son had been killed by the same runaway accident, though it was nearly ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... rancho. The palm-thatched house was set in a grove of mamey and mango trees, all heavily burdened with fruit; there was a vianda-patch, and, wonder of wonders, there were a half-dozen cows dozing in the shade. Spying these animals, Norine promptly demanded a glass of milk, and O'Reilly translated her request ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... accepted by Josette and Jacquelin as changes in the weather are accepted by husbandmen. Those worthy souls remark, "It is fine to-day," or "It rains," without arraigning the heavens. And so when they met in the morning the servants would wonder in what humor mademoiselle would get up, just as a farmer wonders about the ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... part to the thirsty Afries, Part to Scythia come, and the rapid Cretan Oaxes, And to the Britons from all the universe utterly sundered. Ah, shall I ever, a long time hence, the bounds of my country And the roof of my lowly cottage covered with greensward Seeing, with wonder behold,—my kingdoms, a handful of wheat-ears! Shall an impious soldier possess these lands newly cultured, And these fields of corn a barbarian? Lo, whither discord Us wretched people hath brought! for whom our fields we have planted! Graft, Meliboeus, thy pear-trees now, put in order thy vine-yards. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... in the Israelite army, and one day their father sent him to them with a present of some provisions. While the lad was talking with his brothers, Goliath came out with his usual call of defiance. David listened with wonder and indignation. "Who is this Philistine?" he asked scornfully, "that he should defy the armies of the living God?" The brothers were angry at what they thought foolish bravado on the part of David; but there were others who reported his words to Saul, who forthwith sent for the lad. Then David ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... his greatest fault was a failure to foresee that personal government is ultimately ruinous to a nation. He taught the people to follow a leader, but he could not perpetuate a descent of leaders like himself. Hence we cannot wonder, when days of trouble broke over Athens, how that men spoke bitterly of Pericles and all his glory. Yet he was a lofty-minded statesman, inspired by noble aspirations, and his heart was full of a noble love for the city ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... "I wonder how fresh pork tastes," murmured one of the party, and more than one voice murmured in response. The fiat went forth, "That pig must die," and a rifle was leveled forthwith at the countenance of the plumpest porker. Just then a wagon train, with some twenty ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of the numerous editors of Boswell has made a note upon this, although many things as slight have been commented upon: it was certainly not Johnson's mistake, for he was a clear-headed arithmetician. How many of our readers will stare and wonder what we are talking about, ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.15 • Various
... her bosom heaved tumultuously, and she rose in agitation. Wallace now gazed on her with redoubled wonder. She saw it; and hearing a foot in the passage, turned, and grasping his hand, said in a soft and hurried tone, "Forgive, that which is entwined with my heart should cost me some pangs to wrest thence again. Only respect ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... walks, we picked our way around the garden, exclaiming in pleased wonder at the growth made by our vegetable nurslings in a few brief hours, while, across the field, the corn and potato ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... any of his patients to walk if he could help it. A strange magic floated round him like a mist blotting out the crude familiarities of the normal world. The tentroom, with its shadowy tulips, its scented warmth, its pale twilight, its quick silences when voices ceased, was a temple of wonder and a home of the miraculous. And those gathered in it, what were they? Men and a woman? Bodies? Earthly creatures? No. To his mind they were stripped bare of the clothes in which man—governed by decrees of some hidden power—must make his life ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... overbalances her agreeable qualities. Amongst other things I forgot to mention a most ungovernable appetite for Scandal, which she never can govern, and employs most of her time abroad, in displaying the faults, and censuring the foibles, of her acquaintance; therefore I do not wonder, that my precious Aunt, comes in for her share of encomiums; This however is nothing to what happens when my conduct admits of animadversion; "then comes the tug of war." My whole family from the conquest are upbraided! myself abused, and I am told that what little accomplishments I possess either ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... looking like a boarding-school that took boys as well as girls, with the little mother marching like a captain at their head, and turned into a fine store, opposite the City Hall Park, that belonged to their uncle, where they had such an excellent view, that their faces were a perfect picture of wonder and delight while the procession ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... excessive amount of blood which would otherwise accumulate by the cessation of the flow. When it is remembered that every month, for some thirty years of life, the woman of forty-five has been moderately bled, we need not wonder that suddenly to break off this long habit would bring about a plethora, which would in turn be the source of manifold inconveniences to the whole system. Therefore this flooding may be regarded as a wise act ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... took it—when the war was over; but until then? not one. Not even the bridegroom robbed of his bride. Every week or so she came and saw him, among his fellows, and bade him hold out! stand fast! It roused their great admiration, but not their wonder. The wonder was in a fact of which they knew nothing: That the night before her marriage Flora had specifically, minutely prophesied this whole matter to her grandmother, whose only response was that same marveling note of nearly ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... disobedient. Strife and even blows were the outcome, until life in Moses Green's lodging—for he had quitted the cottage—became unbearable to the wretched, misguided boy. Indeed, so unhappy did he feel in those dark days after his mother's death, that he had been often tempted to wonder why God had made him at all when he was not made as others, when in all the big, wide world there seemed no fitting place for such ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... the cruel sufferings of our hero. Being a free-born American, a natural hater of tyranny in all its forms, and enduring it as he did, it is no wonder that he sought revenge, and that his heart should naturally go out in behalf of oppressed humanity, when he had tasted of ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... considerable damage; the rape heads were bent and destroyed for a space of perhaps ten feet from the outer edge of the field. As this grain probably constituted the old man's food supply for a season, I did not wonder at the vehemence with which he shook his spear at his enemies, nor the apparent flavour of his language, though I did marvel at his physical endurance. As for the birds, they had become cynical and impudent; they barely ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... had attacked the language vigorously, Nina came from Paris to join us. I expected that she would find my accent amusing, but I made a mistake. What my mother had once mentioned to me as her awkward age had been lived through, and after a few days I began to wonder why I had ever found it easy to be irritated with her. If things go well I generally have an attack of thinking them perfect, but all the same Nina and I became better friends than we had been since I had left school, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... on him as briefly as the keener joys elated, and in a day or two his apprehension of Young Islay had worn to a thin gossamer, and he was as ardent a lover as any one could be with what still was no more than a young lady of the imagination. And diligently he sought a meeting. It used to be the wonder of Mr. Spencer of the Inns, beholding this cobweb-headed youth continually coming through the Arches and hanging expectant about the town-head, often the only figure there in these hot silent days to give life to the empty scene. There is a stone at Old Islay's corner ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... require to be punished and reproved, what is the nature of virtue and vice? Or shall some poet who has found his way into the city, or some chance person who pretends to be an instructor of youth, show himself to be better than him who has won the prize for every virtue? And can we wonder that when the guardians are not adequate in speech or action, and have no adequate knowledge of virtue, the city being unguarded should experience the common fate ...
— Laws • Plato
... original or even at all artistic; and, while the noble rivalry of the noblest Athenians had called into life the Attic drama, the Roman drama taken as a whole could be nothing but a spoiled copy of its predecessor, in which the only wonder is that it has been able to display so much grace and wit in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the burden must be removed from His shoulders. The severity of the scourging was in itself sufficient to account for this breakdown; but, besides, we are to consider the sleepless night through which He had passed, with its anxiety and abuse; and before it there had been the agony of Gethsemane. No wonder His exhaustion had reached a point at which it was absolutely impossible for Him to proceed ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... was facing them again, astonishment struggling with disgust on her plain but mobile features. "Blood! is that what you mean. No wonder I hate it. Take it away," ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... "I wonder he has not written to us. Perhaps the letter, or the vessel herself bringing it, may have been lost," observed Donald. "That has been the fate of several of Margaret's letters. Depend upon it we shall hear from ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... chum! "That's the stuff! No wonder you thought the ship might be damaged if the fire ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... Nicko Jeyes; we simply don't want him. And if he heard that you and some of the boys are coming, he might wonder why ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... a crowd of young people down at the depot of our village; what would they think to see me emerge from the cars carrying that baby? Even the child seemed astonished, ceasing to cry, and staring around upon the passengers as if in wonder and amazement at our predicament. Yet not one of those heartless travelers seemed to pity me; every mouth was stretched in a broad grin; not a woman came forward and offered to relieve me of my ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... Dr. Burney that he never wrote any of his works that were printed, twice over. Dr. Burney's wonder at seeing several pages of his Lives of the Poets, in Manuscript, with scarce a blot or erasure, drew this observation from him. MALONE. 'He wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting' (post, Feb. 1744), and a hundred lines of the Vanity ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... standing, but turned and twisted like a screw by the irresistible force of its invisible fingers. The storm-god, said Toko, was dancing with the palm-trees. The sight was awful. Such destructive energy Felix had never even imagined before. No wonder the savages all round beheld in it the personal wrath of some ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... may be conceived: he had always mourned over Edwy as a headstrong youth, dead to religion, and now he was called upon to contemplate him in so different a light. The reader may wonder at his credulity, but if he had listened to the sweet voice of the beautiful king, had gazed into that innocent-looking face—those eyes which always seemed to meet the gaze, and never lowered themselves or betrayed their owner—he would, ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... about March or April people begin to get slack-nerved and out-of-sortsy. They don't know what ails 'em, but they think there's something. Well, one look at that ad. sets 'em wondering if it isn't their kidneys. After wonder comes worry. He's the best little worrier in the trade, Old Lame-Boy is. He just pesters folks into taking proper care of themselves. They get Certina, and we get their dollars. And they get their money's worth, too," he added as an ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... throwing up its ghastly white branches, as if in imprecation, to the sky. These trees, they told me, were the remnants of that forest which existed in the days of the Heptarchy, and were even then noted as landmarks. No wonder that their upper and more exposed branches were leafless, and that the dead bark had peeled ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the summer-time, Thursa," he said, as they stood together in the little porch. "I had some flowers last year, and the trees are growing nicely. It will be the dearest place on earth to me when you are here. Won't it be glorious to be together always, dearie, you and I? I wonder if you know how ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... inspired by his odd companion soon gave way in Odo's mind to emotions of delight and wonder. He was, even at that age, unusually sensitive to external impressions, and when the hunchback, after descending many stairs and winding through endless back-passages, at length led him out on a terrace above the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... thoughtfully, "I don't know as I'm in love with it; but if ever I see a living face like it, I certainly shall be. How did La Masque do it, I wonder?" ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... darling, full of wonder and wistfulness and strange Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as I greet the cloud Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite dreams that range At the back of my life's horizon, where the dreamings of ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... What wonder then, if very recently, an appeal has been made to statistics for the profoundly foolish purpose of showing that education is of no good—that it diminishes neither misery, nor crime, among the masses ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the first battle of the campaign of 1815 was also its last. Waterloo added military prestige to the naval preeminence which Great Britain already enjoyed, and finally established the reputation of Wellington as the greatest general of his age next only to Napoleon himself. It is small wonder that the English have magnified and glorified Waterloo. [Footnote: An interesting side issue of the Waterloo campaign was the fate of Joachim Murat. The wily king of Naples, distrustful of the allies' guarantees, threw in ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... commonplace? Were it not better to call all things ordinary, or else nothing common? I suppose the pyramids are commonplace to the Egyptians, and St. Peter's to the Romans, drawing forth no words of wonder unless on special occasions; just as the stars, in their thronging pilgrimage across the sky, elicit no remarks from us, unless one falls out of the procession; and just as the dawn comes to us unfolding the new day without our ever greeting it, unless it be heralded ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... came, this rare old soul, of all places in the world, from the Town of Stupidity. So he tells us himself. And, partly to explain to us the humiliating name of his native town, and partly to exhibit himself as a wonder to many, the frank old gentleman goes on to tell us that his birthplace actually lies four degrees further away from the sun than does the far-enough away City of Destruction itself. So that you see this grey-haired saint is all that he always ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... wonder was darkened by a shade of anxiety. There was an unnerving quality in the trance-like stillness; and the mystery of it pricked him to forebodings. He was now passing empty workshops, hesitating at door after door with ever-mounting alarm. Then he began to call, but the sound of his voice ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... Dick told himself, as he felt the horse's flanks between his knees and moved off at a slow canter. "I wonder why I never tried to transfer ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... caps stuck on the points of their guns, and of all these brave men Tartarin was the most admired, as he always swung into town with the most hopeless rag of a cap at the end of a day's sport. There's no mistake, he was a wonder! ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sprinting and rare good luck that he would be able to reach the station in time to see his grandfather off. Without a word of explanation to his fellows he started away on a keen run. They looked after him in open-mouthed wonder. They could not conceive what had happened to him. One boy suggested that he had been frightened out of his senses by the shock of the accident; and another that he had struck his head against a rock and had gone temporarily insane, and that he ought to be followed to see that ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... Columbus dared to try it. "Perhaps," he said, "you can find all those splendid things that I know are in Cathay—the great cities with marble bridges, the houses of marble covered with gold, the jewels and the spices and the precious stones, and all the other wonderful and magnificent things. I do not wonder you wish to try," he said, "for if you find Cathay it will be a wonderful thing for you ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... modern life of the town, and looking sad and conscious, as they had outlived all uses. I know not what is supposed to have become of the bones of the blessed saint during the various scenes of confusion in which they may have got mis- laid; but a mystic connection with his wonder-working relics may be perceived in a strange little sanctuary on the left of the street, which opens in front of the Tour Charlemagne, - the rugged base of which, by the way, inhabited like a cave, with a diminutive doorway, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... condition was not due to sacrifice. Most of the horses and burros at Pebbly Pit showed such an aversion to the Rainbow Cliffs that they never grazed near there, although the luxuriant grass made fine pasturage. These cliffs were the local wonder and gave the farm its name. They were a section of jagged "pudding-stone" wall composed of large and small fragments of gorgeously hued stones massed together in loose formation, like shale. Great ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Jerry. He drew up at the bars that led into old Blaisdell's sugar-camp, and Marietta, not waiting for him, sprang out over the wheel. "You're as light as a feather," said he admiringly, but with no sense of wonder. They were still in that childhood land where everybody is agile for one long, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... prettiest and newest pictures, and Billy played and sung—bright, tuneful little things that she knew Aunt Hannah and Uncle William liked. If Cyril was pleased or displeased, he did not show it—but Billy had ceased to play for Cyril's ears. She told herself that she did not care; but she did wonder: was that Cyril on the stairs, and if so—what was he ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... only emotions the sight provoked. Blank astonishment and incredulous wonder stirred them, too. Bill's horses! Bill's cart! Where—where was the gambler himself? Was this ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... their vile author's name Recorded stand through all the land of shame. No—to his porch, like Persians to the sun, Behold contending crowds of courtiers run; See, to his aid what noble troops advance, All sworn to keep his crimes in countenance; Nor wonder at it—they partake the charge, As small their conscience, and their debts as large. Propp'd by such clients, and without control From all that's honest in the human soul; 90 In grandeur mean, with ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... "I wonder who the young chap is," the sergeant said to himself as they crossed the barrack yard. "As to what M'Bride said, we know all about that; I have been on the recruiting staff myself. But I think the young un was ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... weather, of course. It was a keen, intellectual face, pleasant withal, and kindly, and in its habitual expression not devoid of genial humor. But, at that moment, it was possessed by an unutterable misery. No wonder. ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... of Eve Horace regarded with some contempt. "No wonder she didn't know any better than to eat the apple! What do you expect of a woman with such a small head as that? Look here who do you suppose ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... but an empty bread-basket. (27) To this announcement Callias, appealing to his guests, replied: "It would never do to begrudge the shelter of one's roof: (28) let him come in." And as he spoke, he glanced across to where Autolycus was seated, as if to say: "I wonder how ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... no wonder you have forgotten me," said the man; "but I can recall the night to your recollection. You were in the street with me the night I let off that unlucky rocket, which frightened the horses, and was the cause of overturning a lady's coach. ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... son of Tabeal was in league with Rezin and Pekah. It was Isaiah at this meeting, who informed Ahaz that his immediate danger was as much within his own city as from the enemy that was approaching. No wonder, then, that "his heart trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... went further and invited Mr. Charles Bookwalter, the owner of the bookbindery where they had learned their lesson, to come and talk to them on Commencement Day. He came, made a splendid address and went away filled with wonder before these achievements of fourteen-year-old ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... beneath a hat with an oilskin top sounds in his ear, "Move on, sir, don't stop the pathway!" Imagine the sensations of a sovereign citizen of a sovereign state, being subject to such indignities from stipendiary ministers and paid police. Who can wonder that he conceives it the duty of government so to regulate public offices, &c., "as to protect not only its own subjects, but strangers, from the insults of these impertinent hirelings." The bile of the author rises with his subject, and a few pages further on he ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... my bed elsewhere? It would be a hard task for any man however cunning, except a god set it in some other place. Of men none could easily shift it, for there is a wonder in that cunningly made bed whereat I laboured and none else. Within the courtyard was growing the trunk of an olive; round it I built my bed-chamber with thick stones and roofed it well, placing in it doors that ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... Plenty of rocks are to be seen there piled one on another; but none of them are piled in the same extraordinary manner as the Cheese-Wring, which stands alone in its grandeur, a curiosity that even science may wonder at, a sight which is worth a visit to Cornwall, if Cornwall ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... A'mighty! are you goin' to mind me? Are you goin' to keep up your jabber when I'm speakin' to the gentlemen? Is that your manners? What next, I wonder!" ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... When Gil Blas reached Pennaflor, a parasite entered his room in the inn, hugged him with great energy, and called him the "eighth wonder." When Gil Blas replied that he did not know his name had spread so far, the parasite exclaimed, "How! we keep a register of all the celebrated names within twenty leagues, and have no doubt Spain will one day be as proud of you as Greece was of the seven sages." ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... from his shoulders in these last few minutes, and even Aldous could not keep quite out of his face his amazement and wonder. Very gently Donald put his hand to the latch, as though fearing to awaken some one within; and very gently he pressed down on it, and put a bit of his strength against the door. It moved inward, and when it had opened sufficiently he leaned forward so that ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... of the Saviour—he sees an unfathomable courage, an immortality for the lowest, the vastness in humility, the kindness of the human heart, man's noblest strength, and he knows that God is nothing—nothing but love! Whence cometh the wonder of a moment? From sources we know not. But we do know that from obscurity, and from this higher Orpheus come measures of sphere melodies [note: Paraphrased from a passage in Sartor Resartus.] flowing in wild, native tones, ravaging the souls of men, ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... art by the uncivilized is marvelous. Adapting the materials about them to their use, they produce masterpieces which the civilized man beholds in wonder ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw
... back among the cushions and mused upon the joy she could give with this new wonder machine that was hers to do with as she wished, and the frightened look died from her face and a happy smile seemed trying to crowd the wrinkles from the corners of her mouth. She said nothing more for a ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... natural development of the country. Agriculture and market-gardening, vine-growing and wine-making, the deep-sea fisheries and all the other comparatively neglected opportunities, only await their expansion into vast sources of wealth. What wonder, then, that a continent with so much that is wanting in connection with its food life should be living in a manner distinctly opposed to its climatological necessities! In the case of America there is a far different history. Settlement began there in a small ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... that right soon. Sleep stimulates thought, and sometimes a pipe will bring sleep, but trust it not of itself for either thought or strength. It combats ennui, lassitude, and intolerable vacuity, soothing the nerves and diverting attention from self. Sam Johnson came very near the mark: 'I wonder why a thing that costs so little trouble, yet has just sufficient semblance of doing something to break utter idleness, should go out of fashion. To be sure, it is a horrible thing blowing smoke out; ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... untracked seas of Cook's time, only 120 years ago, are thus now teeming with life and trade; and it is no wonder that the name of the great explorer is more venerated, and the memory of his deeds is more fresh, in the Colonies than in the Mother country that sent him forth to find new ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... but you're as like as two peas," answered Amzi; and then added, with the diffidence of a man unused to graceful speeches, "I guess you'd almost pass for sisters. By George, Lois, you're a wonder! ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson |
