"Astonish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... customs in making the accompaniments, and partly because the madrigal had become a field for the display of vocal agility. Already the development of colorature singing had reached a high degree of perfection. Already the singer sought to astonish the hearer by covering an air with a bewildering variety of ornaments. The time was not far off when the opera prima donna was to become the incarnation of the artistic sensuousness which had beguiled Italy with a dream of Grecian resurrection. The way had been well built, for the attention ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... I didn't think you might be a bit taken with her!' she said with an arch simplicity which could hardly be called unaffected. 'Knowing the set of your mind, from my little time with you years ago, nothing you could do in this way would astonish me.' ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... to me before dinner, by showing him how perfectly I understood. He liked to talk; he liked to defend his ideas (not that I attacked them); he liked a little perhaps—it was a pardonable weakness—to astonish the youthful mind and to feel its admiration and sympathy. I confess that my own youthful mind was considerably astonished at some of his speeches; he startled me and he made me wince. He could not help forgetting, or rather he could n't ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... you put this argument to proof, by trying how many front doors you can open with one key in a row of workmen's dwellings such as are found in Manchester, ranging up to L25 rentals, and the result will astonish you. If our own manufacturers made their locks sufficiently well to give this security, there would be some force in what they say; but so far as security is concerned, they might as well make their locks by machinery as make them ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... still another, ad infinitum. If our arms were long enough, we should be able to grasp them as well as the first. All that it wants is the long arm to give us the command of deposits that would astonish the world. Authors have become eminent according to their power to reach further than others out into the infinite atmosphere of thought ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... This alone might well astonish the eyes of children from the outside world, but it was by no means all that Twinkle and Chubbins beheld in that first curious look at Sugar-Loaf City. For the city was inhabited by many people—men, women and children—who walked along ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... They are like the history of our own period compared with that of Egypt and Judea. It is mainly these later formations—the Permian, the Jurassic, the Triassic, the Cretaceous, the Eocene,—that give the prevailing features to the South-western landscape that so astonish Eastern eyes. From them come most of the petrified remains of that great army of extinct reptiles and mammals—the three-toed horse, the sabre-toothed tiger, the brontosaurus, the fin-backed lizard, the imperial mammoth, the various dinosaurs, some of them gigantic in form and fearful ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... with practical science, the "Marie Antoinette" made a successful voyage to Chantilly. The date of another invention, if, indeed, it deserves so respectable a title, is also fixed by this royal visit. Mesmer had recently begun to astonish or bewilder the Parisians with his theory of animal magnetism; and Gustavus spent some time in discussing the question with him, and seems for a moment to have flattered himself that he comprehended his principles. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... were evidently not peculiar to himself. And the spirit of feasting was abroad. The eating was such as would astonish the dwellers in cities. Wit flashed across the table in answer to wit. Mirth rippled from end to end of the room. Laughter roared and rollicked adown the hall. Jokes were cracked. Fun exploded. Plates ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... very year as an embassy from Goa to seek various privileges from the Mogul Government, described it over and over again. At this epoch it was one of the greatest cities of the world, whose magnificent streets and luxurious ways used to astonish the most pompous courts of India. It seems almost incredible that in such a short period nothing should remain of this town but the heaps of rubbish, amongst which we could hardly find room enough for our tent. At last we decided to pitch it in the only building which ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... living the usual restricted life before the war, and far removed from that section of her class that had begun to astonish Paris by an unprecedented surrender to the extravagancies in public which seemed to obsess the world before Europe abruptly returned to its normal historic condition of warfare, was as highly educated, as conversant with ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Young Harrald, though astonish'd, has no fears; The mighty garment in his hand he rears: Of wond'rous lovely feathers it was made, Which once the roc and ostrich had array'd. He wishes much to veil in it his form, And speed as rapidly as speeds the ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... is surely sadder Than if my master were an adder, With brains within the latitude Of such immense ingratitude. This, gentles, is my honest view; And so I bid you both adieu.' The man, confounded and astonish'd To be so faithfully admonish'd, Replied, 'What fools to listen, now, To this old, silly, dotard cow! Let's trust the ox.' 'Let's trust,' replied The crawling beast, well gratified. So said, so done; The ox, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... be so little edified by perfections, to which, thou supposest, I was for so long together daily and hourly a personal witness—when, admirable as she was in all she said, and in all she did, occasion had not at that time ripened, and called forth, those amazing perfections which now astonish and ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... fore-sheets, one of them with the boat-hook in his hand. "Way enough!" added Sanford; and the rest of the crew tossed their oars, and then dropped them upon the thwarts, with a precision which seemed to astonish the group of Norwegians on the ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... coast, Which lately bless'd my gentle government, Soon as the sultan's unexpected fate Fills all th' astonish'd empire with confusion, My policy shall raise an easy throne; The Turkish pow'rs from Europe shall retreat, And harass Greece no more with wasteful war. A galley mann'd with Greeks, thy charge, Leontius, Attends to waft us ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... she will accept; accompanying it is a little bundle of fire-crackers dear to every patriotic heart. The best way to appreciate them is to tie them together with their fuming little projecting frizzles, set fire to the last one and throw them on the street; the result will astonish ...
— Silver Links • Various
... young nation all around. This snow is not cold; it is warm. In this garden of yours it is just now acting as a blanket for the germs of flowers that could not live through an English winter, but will live here, and next summer will astonish you with their richness. Nor is it cold for you; it is dry as dust; you can walk over it in moccasins, and not be damp: and it has covered away all the decay of autumn, conserving for you in the air such pure oxygen that it will be like ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... what our species want in individual magnitude, is far more than compensated by the comparative vastness of the number of individuals. In tropical climates, one plant may be seen here, and another there, which, in their size, astonish an European, when he is told that they belong to the family of the grasses; but there he would search in vain for those swards of grass, and green meadows, with which almost the whole aspect of his own climate is verdant. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... and warm for a July day, but received with delight nevertheless. Ted and Josie immediately 'dressed up', learned the war-whoop, and proceeded to astonish their friends by a series of skirmishes about the house and grounds, with tomahawks and bows and arrows, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... delighted; he stayed and scratched all day. He was loved for himself alone, and he did not care for anything but that. Then he went home, made an elaborate toilet, and returned to astonish her. Alas! old Abner had been about, and seeing how Joab had worn her smooth and useless, had cut her down for firewood. Joab gave one glance, then walked solemnly away into a "clearing," and getting comfortably astride a blazing heap of logs, made ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... in that manner; but he consoled the disappointed Chieftain by sending for his tailor, and ordering him to measure Chickatabot for a full suit. This treasure the Sachem carried away with him three days afterwards, to astonish the eyes of his subjects in his native wilds; and his loyalty towards the English was greatly strengthened by so handsome ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Mrs. Guilderaufenberg, a moment later. "How haf you learned to speak German? She will be so astonish!" ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... lecturer, Bobbie," he said. "Wait until I get back home and astonish my father with all this knowledge. I'll make ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... been insensible to this charm in the skies, the tints of the different stars are so delicate in their variety. ... What a pity that some of our manufacturers shouldn't be able to steal the secret of dyestuffs from the stars, and astonish the feminine taste by new brilliancy in fashion. ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... brow, "here I have swarms of ideas! I mean to astonish all my enemies. I am going to design a service in the German style of the sixteenth century; the romantic style: foliage twined with insects, sleeping children, newly invented monsters, chimeras—real chimeras, such as we dream of!—I see it all! It will be undercut, light, and yet ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... influence on many since, is, we fear, undeniable. He had been taught, by the lives of the "wits," to consider aberration, eccentricity, and "devil-may-careism" as prime badges of genius, and he proceeded accordingly to astonish the natives, many of whom, in their turn, set themselves to copy his faults. But when we subtract some half-dozen pieces, either coarse in language or equivocal in purpose, the influence of his poetry may be considered good. (We of course say nothing here of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... stranger scene can scarcely be perceived," says the historian of Whalley; "and it is not easy to imagine whether the untaught manners, rude dialect, and uncouth appearance of these poor foresters would more astonish the king; or his dignity of person and manners, together with the splendid scene by which they ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... bonnets look like distress signals. But they couldn't deny that she was a driver so far's her work was concerned. She'd whoop through the hotel like a no'theaster and have everything done, and done well, by two o'clock in the afternoon. Then she'd be ready to dress up and go on parade to astonish the natives. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and power. But after all, such men are splendid failures. They give themselves and others a great deal of trouble—they wear the tinsel crown of temporary success and then fade from public view. They astonish the pit, they gain the applause of the galleries, but when the curtain falls there is nothing left to benefit mankind. Beaconsfield held convictions somewhat in contempt. He had the imagination of the ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... should not astonish us. The French today have a delicious dish, Choux de Bruxelles aux Marrons—Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts. Sprouts and chestnuts are, of course, cooked separately; the lightly boiled sprouts are saute in butter; the chestnuts ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... Maupeou, the late chancellor, who, in his disgrace, would not resign his charge. M. de Maupeou possessed one of those firm and superior minds, which, in spite of all obstacles, change the face of empires. Ardent, yet cool; bold, but reflective; the clamors of the populace did not astonish, nor did any obstacles arrest him. He went on in the direct path which his will chalked out. Quitting the magistracy, he became its most implacable enemy, and after a deadly combat he came off conqueror. He felt that the moment had arrived for freeing royalty from the chains which ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... pursue this line of remark. I dislike it, I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this great government! to dismember this glorious country! to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government or any people! No, Sir! no, Sir! There will be no secession! Gentlemen are not serious ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... nor logic nor philosophy offered any difficulty to the brilliant young scholar, whose knowledge of Scripture and of theology was to astonish the men of his time. Alexander himself as he grew older leaned more and more on Athanasius, consulting him, young as he was, on the most important matters. So the years rolled on, and the boy grew into manhood, "gentle and strong," as we are told by one who knew him, ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... written I have received some very remarkable news from The Land of Oz, which has greatly astonished me. I believe it will astonish you, too, my dears, when you hear it. But it is such a long and exciting story that it must be saved for another book—and perhaps that book will be the last story that will ever be told about the ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... great man in his own estimation; and, as he had read a great many exciting novels, and had a good command of language, he talked and acted like a great man. He could hold his own in conversation with older and wiser persons than himself. He could astonish almost any person of moderate pretensions by the largeness of his ideas; and, of late years, his father had not pretended to hold an argument with him, for Simon always overwhelmed him by the force and elegance of his rhetoric. ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... you lots of things what would astonish you, Sir," began the convalescent. "Six months in the trenches gives you plenty of time to pick up tales—and invent them, too; but I don't hold with that. A little exaggeration helps things along, as old Wolff says, but when he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... very good, but don't come any further, it won't look well for a poor woman to be walking with a gentleman; neighbors make mischief, and God knows, I have enough to bear already." My boldness having quite left me, I shook hands with her, which seemed to astonish her, and off she went. I followed her at a distance, to her house, which was one of a row of small cottages fronting a ditch, and a field, on which carpets were beaten, and boys played, a scrubby poor place ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... night which was light as day for 10 miles round about, after a dreadful manner).' Nothing could be done to stay its progress, and the citizens were awe-stricken and paralyzed by fear. 'The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonish'd, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirr'd to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seene but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures without at all attempting ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... believe all this," she said, "but it is very delightful to hear you say it. What I did was very little. I was very much distressed for you, I know. Father never thinks anything ought to astonish us when it can be explained scientifically, as I suppose this long sleep of yours can be, but even to fancy myself in your place makes my head swim. I know that I could not have ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... mental changes that came to him in the wild excitements of the last four years of his ascent. Towards the climax he was a furious spender; he shopped with large unexpected purchases, he shopped like a mind seeking expression, he shopped to astonish and dismay; shopped crescendo, shopped fortissimo, con molto espressione until the magnificent smash of Crest Hill eroded his shopping for ever. Always it was he who shopped. My aunt did not shine as a ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... read of it, so have I read of old Rome; but the sight of Rome, Caesar and the senate would not astonish me more than that of London, the Queen and the Parliament. Both are yet ideal; the imagination has sketched them, but when were its sketches ever true to nature? I have a veneration for both, but, gentle ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... in the MORNING POST at the tag-end of several party lists. So, taking the hint, I am ashamed to say I indulged Mrs. Major Ponto with a deal of information about the first families in England, such as would astonish those great personages if they knew it. I described to her most accurately the three reigning beauties of last season at Almack's: told her in confidence that his Grace the D—- of W—- was going to be married the day after his Statue was put up; that his Grace the ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... very busy day with his Majesty, who is going much too fast, and begins to alarm his Ministers and astonish the world. In the morning he inspected the Coldstream Guards, dressed (for the first time in his life) in a military uniform and with a great pair of gold spurs half-way up his legs like a game cock, although he was not ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... 'You astonish me,' I answered; 'what about the Convention recently signed at Pretoria (1881)? What about the speeches still more recently made in this country in support ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... 'God sends us a blessing sometimes when we least expect it.' He has not only restored to me my mother, but has raised me from the lowest rung in the ladder to the very highest, and given me the sweetest, and most—. But enough. Come and see for yourself. Her name is Nellie. But I have more to astonish you with. Not only do I take Nellie back with me to my home in the new world, but I take my mother also, and Natty Grove, and old Nell herself! How we got her to understand what we want her to do, could not be told ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... Perenna. And yet I saw plenty of fine fellows over there, the sort of demons whom you only find in the Legion and who will get themselves cut to bits for the sheer pleasure of the thing, for the lark of it, as they say, just to astonish one another. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... the hogs charging down on me didn't astonish me any more than to find myself on top of a gate with a young woman charging on my country in this fashion, and it was pretty hard on me to have her pitch into the cab question, because Jone and me had had quite a good ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... Aaron; "well then go and tell them that I am a bigger ostrich than ever, and that I will very soon astonish them; they may take my word ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... worthy of any creed or age. True Protestants, they protested, even before kings, against the evil which lay nearest them, the sin which really beset them; true liberals, they did not disdain to call the dark-skinned heathen their brothers; and asserted in terms which astonish us, when we recollect the age in which they were spoken, the inherent freedom of every being who wore the flesh and blood which their Lord wore; true martyrs, they bore witness of Christ, and received too often the rewards of such, in slander and contempt. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... afterwards went on board the Admiral's ship, and here what I saw did much astonish me, and would scarcely be believed by others than ourselves who saw it. There were found on this ship only twenty-five men alive, where before the fight there were four-score and six. And out of these twenty-five ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... troops had camped was a kind of village—a collection of houses surrounded by a huge wall. Each day the Dutch held parades and drill outside the village, and tried to astonish the natives with the wonders of their Winchesters and field guns. At these the people professed great astonishment, examining those modern weapons with intense interest, and asking questions innumerable as to their construction and cost. The latter is almost invariably the first question ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... but write TODAY for the new Catalog of "RANGER" Bicycles, Tires and Sundries at prices so low they will astonish you. Also, full particulars of our great new offer to deliver to you all charges prepaid your choice of any of the 94 kinds of "RANGER" Bicycles for 30 Days' Trial. ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... I was," said Linda, wide eyed with astonish meet. "Why shouldn't I? I was proud to. And now, old dear, before I go, the biggest secret of all. I had a letter, Katy, from the editor of Everybody's Home, and people like our articles, Katy; they are something now and folk are letting the editor know about it, and he wants all I ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... father and kinsmen; but nevertheless they suffered him to stay, and waited to see what might be the reason of his change of mind. So Cimon, whose heart, closed to all teaching, love's shaft, sped by the beauty of Iphigenia, had penetrated, did now graduate in wisdom with such celerity as to astonish his father and kinsmen, and all that knew him. He began by requesting his father to let him go clad in the like apparel, and with, in all respects, the like personal equipment as his brothers: which his father very gladly did. Mixing ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Hajji, 'the impulsiveness of youth hurries you too fast. I can tell you no more here in the open bazaar; but come to my house and you shall hear of a way of getting gold which will fairly astonish you.' ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... he preserve it until the next evening, and then astonish the assembly by reading his extensive notes, the result of the last two ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... that I have done anything to astonish anybody. I fancied that I had pleased Mr. Phipps rather than otherwise," said Bessie with a ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... where did she get that stylish suit?" whispered Miss Smith to Miss Jones, as Kitty floated into the station with all sail set, finding it impossible to resist the temptation to astonish certain young ladies who had snubbed her in times past, which snubs had rankled, and were ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... my opinion of your behaviour," Helen went on, picking up a pine cone and examining it, "I might astonish you." ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... am not the least bit of a Byron. And now let me get used to this new heaven, into which you have just taken me; let my heart get steady, if it will, in its great happiness. Let me have some good runs in the woods, some good rows on the ponds, some hard gallops. Let me get tired, and I'll astonish you with ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... would accord more to heaven—if we got there. The grand test of your modern Englishman is, to bear any amount of amusement without wincing: no pleasure is to wring a smile from him, nor is any expectancy to interest, or any unlooked-for event to astonish. He would admit that "the Governor"—meaning his father—was surprised; he would concede the fact, as recording some prejudice of a bygone age. As the tone of manners and observance has grown universal, so has the very expression of the features. They are intensely like each ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... however, San Martin wrote in very different terms. "Before the General-in-Chief left the Vice-Admiral of the squadron," he said, in a bulletin to the army, "they agreed on the execution of a memorable project, sufficient to astonish intrepidity itself, and to make the history of the liberating expedition of Peru eternal." "This glory," he added, "was reserved for the Liberating Army, whose efforts have snatched the victims of tyranny from its hands." Thus impudently did he arrogate to himself a share, at any rate, in the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... must be here occasionally, to overlook the refitting of the inside of that library—perhaps that agreeable duty will fall on me. But Linden,"—said the doctor dropping the newspaper and turning half round on his chair, speaking gracefully and comically,—"you astonish Pattaquasset as much as I do; and to tell you the truth you astonish me sometimes a little. This is no place for you. Wouldn't you prefer a tutorship at Quilipeak, or a professor's chair in one of the city colleges? You may step into either berth presently, and at your pleasure,—I ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... is the mind of man! He carries within him wherewithal to astonish, and infinitely to surpass himself: since his ideas are universal, eternal, and immutable. They are universal: for when I say it is impossible to be and not to be; the whole is bigger than a part of it; a line perfectly circular has no straight parts; between two points given ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... in olden history. At the fall of Niagara, Patch had before made two leaps in safety—one of 80 and the other of 130 feet, in a vast gulf, foaming and tost aloft from the commotion produced by a fall of nearly 200 feet. In November, 1829, Patch visited Rochester to astonish the citizens by a leap from the falls. His first attempt was successful, and in the presence of thousands of spectators he leaped from the scaffold to which we have directed the attention of the reader, a distance of 100 feet, into the abyss, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... give me, to be her husband's true and cordial adviser, and I was so. I believe I never failed him in this part, though in so many of our enterprises and projects I was false as water through my temperamental love of backing out of any undertaking. I believe this never ceased to astonish him, and it has always astonished me; it appears to me quite out of character; though it is certain that an undertaking, when I have entered upon it, holds me rather than I it. But however this immaterial matter may be, I am glad to remember that I thoroughly liked Tom Sawyer, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... I hadn't broken that gorgeous lump of coral Alfonso gave me," said Dennis. "But it's as brittle as egg-shell, though I rather fancy the half of it would astonish most museums. You're a wonderful boy, Alister! Ah, we'll all live to see the day when you're a millionaire, laying the foundation-stone of some of these big things the Aberdeen men build, and speechifying away to the rising generation of how ye began life with nothing but a stuffed ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Monsieur de Viel-Castel has given a true picture of the Faubourg St. Germain, it is impossible for most foreigners to say; but some of his descriptions will not fail to astonish the English reader; and all are filled with that remarkable naif contempt of the institution called marriage, which we have seen in M. de Bernard. The romantic young nobleman of Westphalia arrives at Paris, and is admitted into what a celebrated female author ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... astonish you? Paris has always been ungrateful, and has long since forgotten that the Benedetto affair was once an important topic," replied Chateau-Renaud ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... right way, but from Mantes to Paris they are not Normandy roads; from Mantes southward they gradually deteriorate until they are little or no better than the "sand-papered roads of Boston." Having determined to taboo vin ordinaire altogether I astonish the restaurateur of a village where I take lunch by motioning away the bottle of red wine and calling for " de I'eau," and the glances cast in my direction by the other customers indicate plainly enough that they ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... best," he repeated, smiling at her. "Failing them, for second choice, I've taken to the laboratory. Some day I'll invent something and astonish you, Nina." ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... shock in the control of the House of Commons, which, constituted as they now are, they never can recover. Never, indeed, in my recollection, do I remember so general an idea that there must be a change of Ministry. I hear it from quarters which astonish me. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... your books read of many bad women, who have occasioned great mischief, and I will not excuse them: but you do not consider how many monarchs, sultans, and other princes there have been in the world, whose tyrannies, barbarities, and cruelties astonish those that read of them, as well as myself. Now, for one wicked woman, you will meet with a thousand tyrants and barbarians; and what torment do you think must a good woman undergo, who is matched with any ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... quiet, and don't talk so loud, or the cabby will hear you! Of course we're not ruined; but it would never astonish me any day if we came a howler. The pater goes too fast, and—— But we're all right now; and, for goodness' sake, don't say a word to mother; it would upset her dreadfully. It's only for her ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... games is that in cricket we use a new ball only at the beginning of a fresh inning (of which there cannot be more than four in a match) and when each 200 runs have been scored; and (this will astonish the American reader) when the ball is hit among the people it is returned. I have seen such rapid voluntary surrenders at baseball very seldom, and so much of a "fan" have I become that the spectacle has always been accompanied in my breast by pain and contempt. I had the gratification ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... bow, now it is unstrung, makes an excellent quarterstaff, a weapon with which I have practiced a great deal. With a spear your people would know quite as much as I should; but I fancy that, with a quarterstaff, I should astonish them. It has the advantage, too, that it disables without killing; and as your soldiers would only be doing their duty in arresting me, I should be sorry to do them more harm than ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... For nothing further would astonish her, as he rightly understood her; but he said: 'You 're prepared for the rites? Old Triton ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... such a seamstress as they read about," said Bel Bree, on the door-step. "I should like to astonish people, sometime, with a heavenly kind of ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... getting ready to surround it, when I asked Major North to keep them back to let me show them what I could do. He did as I requested. I knew Buckskin Joe was a good buffalo horse, and, feeling confident that I would astonish the Indians, I galloped in among the herd. I did astonish them. In less than a half-mile run I dropped thirty-six, killing a buffalo at nearly every shot. The dead animals were strung out over the prairie ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... them about, whispered some significant words in their ears, and they are persuaded that every Italian is in the habit of offering his wife or his daughter to foreigners. You would astonish these profound observers immeasurably, if you were to tell them that the Pope has three millions of subjects who in no way resemble the ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... have referred the origin of chess will probably astonish those persons who have only regarded it as the amusement of idle hours, and have never troubled themselves to peruse those able essays in which the best of antiquaries and investigators have dissipated ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... "Really, sir, you astonish me by such coarse imputations. Is it you," he said, turning angrily to Kennedy, "who have been saying ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... from pure love of the art as a craft, and the belief that it was a good work in which they were engaged, and from their abundant leisure, that they were enabled to evolve the lovely creations which delight and astonish us when shown in the sacristies and treasuries of foreign religious houses and churches, where they have been cherished for centuries. Like the silkworm they spent themselves; and by their industrious lives were surrounded in their living graves by the elaborated ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... are supposed by primitive man to be dangerous or taboo, we are met by a fact which will astonish anthropologists, and which I cannot satisfactorily explain. Blood is everywhere in the savage world regarded with suspicion and anxiety; there is something mysterious about it as containing (so they thought) the life, and its colour ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... confusing the feelings. Pure is Hermann's mind; from his youth I have known him; he never, Even in boyhood, was wont to extend his hand hither and thither. What he desired, was suitable to him; he held to it firmly. Be not astonish'd and scared, because there appears on a sudden What you so long have desired. 'Tis true the appearance at present Bears not the shape of the wish, as you in your mind had conceived it. For our wishes conceal the thing that we wish for; our gifts too Come from above upon us, each clad ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... associate continually with grown-up people, she chose to regard with great contempt the trivial chatter, and squabbles, and amusements of her small contemporaries. After a time, indeed, she condescended to astonish their minds with some of her old stories, and was gratified by the admiration of a round-eyed, open-mouthed audience, who listened with rapt attention as she related some of the glories of past days, balls, and theatres, and kursaals, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... bazaars, where ivory and the rich fabrics of the Orient are sold; cafes and drugstores, harness-shops, tobacco-shops, and drygoods-stores, emporiums of every kind,—are found on the Escolta, where the prices would astonish any one not yet accustomed to the manners of the Far East. During the morning hours the quilez and the carromata rattle along the bumpy cobblestones, the native driver, or cochero, in a white shirt, smoking a cigarette, and resting ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... the contents of the olla. First it should be noted that earthenware vessels fulfil nearly all the purposes of the peones' culinary requirements. In these seemingly fragile articles the women bake, stew, boil, and fry in a fashion which would astonish the English or American housewife, accustomed to the use of iron utensils. The diet of the peon is largely vegetarian, and indeed he is a living example of the working force contained in cereals and leguminous plants. Meat is a scarce and expensive ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... as the first emotion was over she became almost calm, without jealousy or hatred, but filled with contempt. She hardly gave Julien a thought; nothing he might do could astonish her. But the double treachery of the comtesse, her friend, disgusted her. Everyone, then, was treacherous, untruthful and false. And tears came to her eyes. One sometimes mourns lost illusions as deeply as one does the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... "That'll astonish some of them caps and gowns, I reckon," I heard cabby say to himself. "You see, if he don't drive us right up to the front door, as comfortable as if we was ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... I knew it would astonish you. My chief pleasure in life, professor, is the surprising of you. I sometimes wonder why it delights me; it ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... was simply in a beatitude of bliss; he walked the poop to and fro, rubbing his hands gleefully, chuckling, and audibly murmuring little congratulatory ejaculations to himself, fragments of which—such as—"new hat—astonish that fellow Spence above a trifle, I flatter myself—reach the Heads a clear week before him," etcetera etcetera—Ned Damerell caught from time to time as the skipper ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... the reputation of being the finest in Europe, I was surprised to find that it had none of those sumptuous structures, which like St. Paul's, or Westminster Abbey, York Minster, and some other of the English provincial Cathedrals, astonish the beholder alike by their magnitude and their architectural splendour. But in no city which I have visited in the kingdom, is the general standard of excellence ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... will see will astonish them. They will see that if there is anything at the back of this vast process, with a consciousness and a purpose in any way resembling our own—a being who knows what he wants and is doing his best to get it—he is instead of a holy and all-wise God, a scatter-brained, ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... for? So they tear off the sacred bandages of the great Flat-Head tribe, and there follows a mighty rush of blood to the long-compressed region. This accounts, in the most lucid manner, for those sudden freaks with which certain children of this class astonish their worthy parents at the period of life when they are growing fast, and, the frontal pressure beginning to be felt as something intolerable, they ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... lived for seven or eight centuries like savages, and to complete our barbarism, were inundated with a race of men termed monks, who brutified, in Europe, that human species which you had conquered and enlightened. But what will most astonish you is, that in the latter ages of ignorance amongst these very monks, these very enemies to civilization, nature nurtured some useful men. Some invented the art of assisting the feeble sight of age; and others, by pounding together nitre ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... remarkable intellectual gifts. With the most thorough erudition, with the widest learning, with the greatest penetration that I have ever known, and with the richest gift of exposition, he combines an energy of will and a capacity for action which astonish me. . . . In no one have I found united so much enthusiasm and ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... could evolve in the lives and beings of given races of men. It is as though Nature had disported herself in bringing to life an infinite variety and diversity among her perfected children. But men, here and there, have always shown the golden cord of kinship to astonish and bewilder the unwary ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... example, might please at a ball, but the next morning might find her industriously working at the spinning wheel. We find her writing her father, Ben Franklin, in 1790: "If I was to mention to you the prices of the common necessaries of life, it would astonish you. I should tell you that I had seven tablecloths of my own spinning." Again, she shrewdly requests her father in Paris to send her various articles of dress which are entirely too expensive in America, but the old gentleman's answer seems still more shrewd, ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... the honest fellow happy as the day was long; but telling fearfully long and wonderful yarns of his adventures, to the whole country round. My old mate was substantially a man of truth; but he did love to astonish "know-nothings." He appears to have succeeded surprisingly well, for the Dutchmen of that neighbourhood still recount anecdotes, of the achievements and sufferings of Captain Marvel, as they usually call him, though they have long ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... assure me this night, that he was told this day, by one of the greater Ministers of State in England, and one of the King's Cabinet, that we had little left to agree on between the Dutch and us towards a peace, but only the place of treaty; which do astonish me to hear, but I am glad of it, for I fear the consequence of the war. But he says that the King, having all the money he is like to have, we shall be sure of a peace in ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... would give firmness and compactness to the whole moral force of the dispersed nationality. By association, the scattered "dry bones" would be speedily changed into a solid array of living warriors standing upon their feet, and the startling spectacle would astonish the whole world, and win for the race the involuntary respect of all who should witness or hear of it. Nothing would be easier than to set such a thing on foot, for, although so far apart in appearance, the ma- jority of Irish ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... decks three times in order to astonish those confined below by the noise and bustle it made, Neptune introduced his young bride to the captain, and informed him he was in mourning for his last wife, pointing to his skin. "What occasioned her death?" inquired the captain. "She," replied the sea-god, "died of a violent ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... than the demon. How true an interpreter is Genius to Hell as to Earth! The Fiend comes to Faust, the tired seeker of knowledge; Heaven and Hell stake their cause in the Mortal's temptation. And what does the Fiend to astonish the Mortal? Turn wine into fire, turn love into crime. We need no Mephistopheles to accomplish ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... o'clock all Bombay turns out for a drive on the Apollo Bunder. The line of fine carriages and motor cars is continuous for miles, going out the Esplanade to Queen's road, which runs for five miles to Malabar head, the favorite residence place of the wealthy foreign colony. What will astonish any one accustomed to Calcutta and other East Indian cities is the large representation of Parsee families in this evening dress parade. Two-thirds of the finest equipages belong to the Parsees, who are very richly dressed in silks and adorned with fortunes in diamonds, rubies and other precious ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... In spite of his desire for quiescence Mr Toogood consented to a revelation being at once made to the archdeacon and Mrs Grantly. "And I'll tell you what, major; as soon as ever Mrs Arabin is here, and has given us her own word to act on, you and I will go over to Hogglestock and astonish them. I should like to go myself, because, you see, Mrs Crawley is my cousin, and we have taken a little trouble about this matter." To this the major assented; but he altogether declined to assist in Mr ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... former parallel—Napoleon at twenty-eight was on the high road to world mastery. Wellington at twenty-eight had not yet found himself. But now on his trip to India he was on the threshold of his career. His deeds there and on other fields were to astonish the world. Did they also astonish the silent ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... they know him, since he never goes into the village? When he did once venture thither to visit his friend Charrasse, the schoolmaster, his appearance was an event of which every one had something to say, so greatly did it astonish the inhabitants. (15/8.) ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... the Court of Naples. Sir William, after his first interview with him, told Lady Hamilton he was about to introduce a little man to her, who could not boast of being very handsome; but such a man as, he believed, would one day astonish the world. "I have never before," he continued, "entertained an officer at my house; but I am determined to bring him here. Let him be put in the room prepared for Prince Augustus." Thus that acquaintance began which ended in the destruction of Nelson's domestic happiness. It ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... relate myself," replied the old detective, without even drawing his pipe from his lips, "I am too stupid, that is perfectly understood. But Monsieur Lecoq will tell you something that will astonish you." ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau |
