"Astounding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these men with his own energy and restlessness; the spirit of the whole establishment automatically became that of the pushing spirit of its head. This little giant became the most remorseless pace-maker in the steel regions. However astounding might be the results obtained by the Carnegie works the captain at the head was never satisfied. As each month's output surpassed that which had gone before, Carnegie always came back with the same cry of "More." "We broke ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... a laugh. "Nothing, but that Downing Street has turned into Parnassus. The astounding fact is, that Grenville has teemed, and, as the fruits of the long vacation, has produced a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... Cuckoo, crude and garbled, yet true gospel. The doctor was completely puzzled. All he gathered from this announcement was that Valentine seemed in some way to have been confiding in this girl of the streets. Such a fact was sufficiently astounding. That they should ever have been associated together in any way was almost incredible to any one who knew Valentine. Yet it was quite obvious that they did know each other, and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... "By an astounding coincidence, the sun has risen," cried out Buck, with a savage air of patience. "Why the hell aren't we holding all those approaches now, and passing in on them again? It should have been done at sunrise. The confounded ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... longer counts. Be ye as fleet as Rosenthal and as pure as Pachmann—in a tonal sense—ye will not escape comparison with the mechanical pianist. It was their astounding accuracy that extorted from Eugen d'Albert a confession made to a friend of mine just before he sailed to this country ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... from looking at the photograph of Rocca di Papa. It was because it was painful to her, intimately painful and humiliating to remember how she and Neale had felt there, the wild, high things they had said to each other, that astounding flood of feeling which had swept them away at the last. What had become of all that? Where now ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... which can hardly yet be conceived. Then Marconi came to London to upbuild and link nation to nation more closely. He was well received in England and began his further work with all the encouragement possible. A series of tests followed that were astounding. Messages were sent through walls, houses, through hill and dale, proving beyond a doubt that the electric waves ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... the most useful of the century, yet it was hopelessly marred in the end by a certain eccentric vanity, and want of loyalty to colleagues, not inconsistent with the higher ambition of leaving the world better than he found it. For some years after his fall he retained his astounding energy, and even his ascendency in the house of lords, where Lyndhurst, his only possible rival, was astute enough to court his co-operation. Never was his fertility in debate more conspicuously shown than in the session of 1835, while ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... make Ike talk, but by careful suggestions, rather than by questioning, Ike was finally led to talk, and Shock began to catch glimpses of a world quite new to him, and altogether wonderful. He made the astounding discovery that things that had all his life formed the basis of his thinking were to Ike and his fellows not so much unimportant as irrelevant; and as for the great spiritual verities which lay at the root ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... through all files of the college publications which the college library contains, files which are reasonably complete. In such a mass of material, some ninety volumes, it will be astounding indeed if some creditable work has not been passed inadvertently over. If such a mistake has occurred it is at least pardonable. The editors fear only the presence of some unworthy matter in this volume, a sin of commission and hence vastly ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... de Lera did not understand a word he said, Pargeter's attitude was eloquent of how he had taken the astounding news, and she looked at him with angry perplexity and pain. She said something in a low voice to Vanderlyn; as a result he walked up to Pargeter and touched him ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... He fell back from her, the better to stare. He had expected an important communication; but he was not prepared for anything so astounding ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... morning as the Brigadier was preparing to mount his horse and take his usual ride through the cantonments, the Adjutant of one of the Sepoy battalions came up at full gallop to where he was standing, with the, (to him) astounding intelligence that, during the night, a large body of irregular horse had entered the limits of the station, visiting the cavalry and Sepoy lines, and had arranged with them to unite in plundering the Bazaar, seize the guns of the artillery, put to death all the Europeans that ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... ventures in business and his affairs of love, his admiration for Shakespeare and for Fenimore Cooper; his mingled Romanticism and Realism; his Titanism and his childishness; his stupendous outline for the Human Comedy; and his scarcely less astounding actual achievement. All this is discussed by his biographers with the professional dexterity of critics trained intellectually in the Latin traditions and instinctively aware of the claims of race, biographers familiar with every page of French history, and profoundly ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... placed before society with a glibness the most astounding? The question is this: Is man an ape or an angel? I, my lord, am on the ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... of the War between the Yugoslav members of the Austro-Hungarian navy, associated with other Yugoslavs, on the one hand and the Italian authorities on the other, were frustrated time and again by the astounding conduct of the Italians. Had they made anything like a proper use of the invaluable information that was showered upon them or if they had requested the other Allied navies in the Mediterranean ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... of such a monument, can only admire and hold his tongue. The great impression, on the whole, is an impression of wonder that so much should have survived. What remains at Nimes, after all dilapidation is estimated, is astounding. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... his thoughts as he lay in the starlight, on the house- top, that night, and gazed into the astounding future that had opened before him. Had there been any true religion in him, it would have been a wakeful night of prayer. But, more likely, as the event proves, the ambition and arrogance which were deep in his nature, though hitherto undeveloped, were his counsellors, and drove Samuel's ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... fed—it was enough only to glance, just glance, at the other thrushes and the chaffinches, after that astounding exhibition of his character. He fed, and, after he had stuffed full, he stood ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... my dear," said mamma, looking up from a rose-colored sheet embellished with decidedly scrawly writing. "I have just received one that is quite astounding." ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... the human race, in which we had hitherto been obliged to acquiesce. We are threatened with national annihilation, and defied to use the only means of national preservation. The question is distinctly proposed to us, Shall Slavery die, or the great Republic? It is most astounding to me that there can be two opinions in the free States as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... assembly, until every restraint of order is forgotten, and confusion becomes identified with the word of God." ["The Primitive Church Compared," etcetera, by the Bishop of Vermont.] Yet such are the revivals of the present day, as practised in America. Mr Colton calls them—"Those startling and astounding shocks which are constantly invented, artfully and habitually applied, under all the power of sympathy, and of a studied and enthusiastic elocution, by a large class of preachers among us. To startle and to shock is their great secret— ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... astounding—and that is putting it mildly—that any one pretending to have read Radisson's Journal can accuse him of "claiming" to have "descended to the salt sea" (Gulf of Mexico). Radisson makes no such claim; and to accuse him of such is like building a straw enemy for the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... illusion. This doctrine is not universal: it is for instance severely criticized and rejected by the older forms of Buddhism but its hold on the Indian temperament is seen by its reappearance in later Buddhism where by an astounding transformation the Buddha is identified with the universal spirit. Though the form in which I have quoted the doctrine above is an epitome of the Vedanta, it is hardly correct historically to give it as an epitome of the older Upanishads. Their ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... preparations made by the warriors whenever they knew a sizable body of foes was somewhere in the vicinity. It remained for the brains of the white men to devise additional features, simple enough in themselves, but astounding to the savages, who were accustomed only to the primitive battle tactics of their ancestors. For the first time in their lives the cannibals found themselves ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... so perfectly astounding, so cruel, that it was with difficulty I could refrain from tears. The dread of infecting Manon with my despair made me assume a more contented air. I said, smiling, that I should avenge myself upon some unhappy dupe at the hotel ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... death Rice Corner was thrown into a commotion by the astounding fact that Captain Howard was going out West, and had sold his farm to a gentleman from the city, whose wife "kept six servants, wore silk all the time, never went inside of the kitchen, never saw a churn, breakfasted at ten, dined at three, and ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... that applied to her own case; but she soon discovered that all the sentimental heroines in the so-called bad books were persons who had had bad husbands; besides, they were either widows or old women—at least thirty years old! It was astounding! There was nothing—absolutely nothing—about young girls, except instances in which they renounced their hopes of happiness. What an injustice! Among these victims the two that most attracted her sympathy were Madame de Camors and Renee Mauperin. But what horrors surrounded ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... Pottinger, to discuss his grievance with that legal luminary. But Mr Pottinger, as the reader is aware, had complications of another kind to disclose. He astonished his visitor with an account of the surprise visit of Mr Ratman a few days previously, and of that gentleman's astounding claims to the name ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... gayly-embroidened band round his waist, which half covered his chest. He assured the crowd below that there was not in the whole of Bavaria, any thing half as interesting, half as extraordinary, half as astounding as the singularly gifted, singularly beautiful, singularly intellectual being within; a being from another quarter of the globe, a being adapted to an entirely different mode of existence to ours; a being who could see in the dark, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the wishes of his father, Louis thought it unnecessary to go to Versailles and face Mademoiselle Ramon a second time; so he hastened to his employer's office instead, and resumed his usual work, undeterred by the astounding revelation of his father's wealth. Owing to the numerous distractions caused by the various events of the day, however, it was late when he finished his day's task and ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... been viewing this astounding scene in eager interest. Never before, in his short life, had he seen two humans fight. And, even now, he was not at all certain that it was a fight and not some intensely thrilling game. Thus had he watched two boys wrestle and box, in his own puppyhood. And, for venturing to jump ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... myth that I instantly wanted to engage him as a model, and in another moment I think I should have hailed him. But just then the sun dipped out of view, and all the orange and pink slid out of the landscape, leaving it cold and grey. And at the same moment an astounding thing happened—the boy ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... Dan caught the world in breathless amazement. Then Miss Stella, Polly's Marraine, was the nurse! It seemed altogether astounding; for sick nurses, in Dan's experience, had always been fat old ladies who had out-lived all other duties, and appeared only on important occasions, to gossip in solemn whispers, and to drink unlimited tea. And now Polly's Marraine was a nurse! It was impossible to doubt the fact; for Father ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... plucky little antelope evidently disapproved of half-measures, and was determined to press the matter to a definite conclusion, for when his antagonist began to betray a disinclination to continue the fight he no longer waited for the onset, but boldly advanced, leaping hither and thither with astounding rapidity, each leap landing him nearer his enemy, until the latter was compelled, in self-defence, to continue. But at length a moment arrived when the feline lay moaning and snarling, covered with blood, and either unable or unwilling to continue the combat; and then the antelope, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... with blaring, shrieking offers of real estate in this, that or the other addition, consisting, as Bob knew from yesterday, of farm acreage at front-foot figures. The proportion of this fake advertising was astounding. One in particular seemed incredible—a full page of the exponent of some Oriental ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... industries of war, war such as he—the war-genius—never saw in his visions of the future: the immense aerodromes, the bomb sheds, the wireless stations and observation towers, the giant "saucisses" resting under green canvas, ready to rise at dawn; and all the other astounding features of the landscape so peaceful ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... considerably larger in size than the domestic sheep, and might be described as somewhat resembling a deer in the body and a ram in the head. Its horns were the chief point of interest to Dick; and, truly, they were astounding! Their enormous size was out of all proportion to the animal's body, and they curved backwards and downwards, and then curled up again in a sharp point. These creatures frequent the inaccessible heights ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Of this astounding fact Nyleptha heard with simulated nonchalance, and with a little trembling of the voice herself informed us of it as we sat at supper on the night preceding the ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... The cheapness of whiskey appeared likely to be the cause of our going to sea with a crew in a lamentable state of drunkenness, and rather prejudiced me against Stromness; but if it had no other redeeming quality, all its faults would be forgotten in the astounding fact that there may be found a landlady with moderate ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... this time had been leaning on his arms, his hands in hers, his eyes, through their enlarging pince-nez, fixed on her, did not move for some moments after the astounding statement reached him. His stillness and his look of arrested stupor suggested, indeed, a large blue-bottle slung securely in the subtle threads of a spider's web and reduced to torpid acquiescence by the spider's stealthy ministrations. He gazed with mildness, almost with blandness, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... After this astounding physiological information, we parted. He would not talk any more, evidently fearing to endanger his comfort. At that time, we did not receive any more explanations on the subject, but this incident was enough to disturb the scientific equanimity ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... this astounding statement, I can't help thinking of that confounded jeweller's clerk. At thirty-five I am still unattached and, so far as I can tell, unloved. What more could a sensible, experienced bachelor expect than that? Unless, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... was the astounding answer. "You know perfectly no Time Freight on this road takes a passenger of any kind, and it would be more'n my ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... hundred. Taylor received her electoral vote, partly in consequence of dissensions between Cass and Van Buren, and partly in consequence of the free- trade opinions of Cass. In 1854 James Pollock was chosen governor by the sudden uprising and astounding development of the Native- American excitement as organized by the Know-Nothing party. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise aided the canvass of Pollock, but that alone would not have loosened the strong moorings of the Pennsylvania Democracy. Mr. Buchanan recovered the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... wonderful big bay horse, the astounding virtues of which stimulated the black boy to an ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... ii: 170.] and how Elkins, for some years himself a Delegate in Congress from New Mexico, succeeded in having the grant finally validated on technical grounds, and "judicially cleared" of all taint of fraud, by an astounding decision of the Supreme Court of the United States—a decision contrary to the facts as specifically shown by successive Government officials—all of these details are set forth fully in another part of this work. [Footnote: See ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... informant had left him, Perkins started forth to communicate the astounding intelligence that Mr. Manlius had been drunk on the day before, at Mr. Reeside's dinner-party. From lip to lip the scandal flew, with little less than electric quickness. It was all over the village by the next day. Some doubted, some denied, ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... free intercourse between this country and yours have seen an overflow of men and money from north to south; we have dashed the mist from our eyes and have endeavored to wring from you, more fortunate and wiser than ourselves, the secrets of your greatness and the causes of your astounding prosperity. ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... over his right eye again, and gave me a letter, well written on good paper. I watched him as I read it, and saw that in a power of eye that was astounding, he had fixed one orb upon Mary and one upon the ceiling, and that the two objects shared his gaze, while his body swayed as though he was unaccustomed to balance himself upon a fair floor. But I read his letter, and write it for ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... open window, with the dripping trees and the slanting rain behind him, was the bizarre, the astounding figure of a gnomelike negro in a terra-cotta robe fastened about the waist with a girdle made of a twisted black shawl with the most beautiful Persian border and fringe. A striped silk scarf was bound turban-wise about his head, from which tufts of snowy wool protruded. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... were the arms of our Lord Christ as Emperor of Judea, and the chief part of them was the Cross. But it came upon one with a curious shock, to see this coat among the shields of Scottish nobles. There were beasts that could be recognised at once, and these were sparingly named; but others were astounding, and above them were inscribed titles such as these: Shoe-lyon, Musket, Ostray; and one fearsome animal in the centre was designated the Ram of Arabia. This display of heraldry and natural history was reinforced by the cardinal ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... their fullest effect there had to be a pledge for their maintenance. In my judgment, they have aided and will further aid the cause for which they were intended. To now abandon them would be not only to relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding breach of faith. I may add at this point that while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to happen? Surely this mysterious colouring portended some astounding phenomena? Again, nothing did happen, save a ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... his tale, speaking under intense excitement which he vainly tried to control. He delivered his message. Such was the rapidity and incoherence of his speech, however, that Cameron could make nothing of it. The effect upon the crowd was immediate and astounding. On every side rose wild cries of fierce exultation, while at Cameron angry looks flashed from every eye. Old Crowfoot alone remained quiet, calm, impassive, except for the fierce ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... "of all the extraordinary delusions you appear to be suffering from, this, that you can have garments to wear in return for a small piece of paper, or for a few bits of this metal, is the most astounding! You cannot exchange these trifles for clothes, because clothes are the fruit of ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... profess to have a hope of eternal life, and I think the larger part are connected with churches. In view of such facts some have been led to say, 'The spiritual condition of the population is very satisfactory.' But there is another class of facts that is perfectly astounding. With all this array of the externals of religion, one broad, deep wave of moral death rolls over the land. A man may be a drunkard, a liar, a Sabbath-breaker, a profane man, a fornicator, an adulterer, and such like—and ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... these infant races, in whom impulse and heroism were the predominant factors, there is nothing stranger, nothing more astounding, than this almost universal custom, which for all its ingenuity would seem almost too long-suffering and mercantile. May we attribute it to the foresight of the chiefs? We find it in races among whom authority might almost be said to be entirely ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... mills of the gods grind slowly,'' he concluded in his oration; "a year from now I shall appear before the jury.'' The expression of this rock-bound conviction that the defendants were guilty, on the part of a man who, because of his great talent, had tremendous influence on juries, caused an astounding impression. The instant he said it one could see in most of the jurymen clearest signs of absolute resolution and the defendants ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... window, who no sooner saw me than his eyes opened to their widest extent, while his mouth followed their example, and he disappeared with a precipitancy that convinced me he was off to tell his mother the astounding news that somebody had arrived. The next moment I was shaking hands with my old friend Mrs Gordon and her two daughters, whom I found engaged in the interesting occupation of preparing tea. From them I learned that they were entirely alone, ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... as well as to poverty, to knowledge as well as to ignorance, to mature age as well as to youth. But to make a qualification compounded of disqualifications is a feat of which the whole glory belongs to our Conservative rulers. This astounding proposition was made, I believe, in a very thin House: but the next day the House was full enough, everybody having come down to know what was going to happen. One asked, why not this? and another, why not that? Are all the regular troops to have the franchise? all ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... have been manifested by the Apostles during their transition from humble fishermen, and men of similar vocations, to highly developed teachers of advanced spiritual truths. To the occultist especially this ordinary view seems astounding, for he realizes the many arduous steps necessary to be trodden by the feet of the Neophyte before he becomes an Initiate, and the higher steps awaiting the Initiate before he may become a Master. And such ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Frank's yell of command with a furious grunt. I was paralyzed at the wonderfully swift action of the shaggy brute, and I sat helpless. Spot wheeled as if he were on a pivot and plunged out of the way with a celerity that was astounding. The buffalo stopped, pawed the ground, and angrily tossed his huge head. Frank rode up to him, yelled, and struck him with the lariat, whereupon he gave another toss of his horns, and ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... after him as well as he could and ran through the hollow till he reached the road, where it seemed brighter. The rain gave signs of falling less steadily, when, as often occurs after a protracted storm, there came a lull, followed by one terrific and astounding burst and explosion of thunder, accompanied by a vivid blue and orange blaze and afterwards complete silence and a great calm. The storm now rolled onward, having spent itself in that locality; but knowing from the sound that some ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... contain an abundance for all, including even the occasional lazy individual. Besides, it is well to consider that laziness results either from special privileges, or physical and mental abnormalities. Our present insane system of production fosters both, and the most astounding phenomenon is that people should want to work at all now. Anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening, dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony, so that ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... brief sketch. We find him both in his published book and still more in his private Journal repeating his admiration of the country and its glorious scenery. This revelation of the marvelous beauty of a country hitherto deemed a sandy desert was one of the most astounding effects of Livingstone's travels on the public mind. But the more he sees of the people the more profound does their degradation appear, although the many instances of remarkable kindness to himself, and occasional cases of genuine feeling one toward another, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... emotion is one of surprise and incredulity. That so many and such various notes should proceed from one throat is a marvel, and we regard the performance with feelings akin to those we experience on witnessing the astounding feats of the athlete or gymnast,—and this, notwithstanding many of the notes imitated have all the freshness and sweetness of the originals. The emotions excited by the songs of these thrushes belong to a higher order, springing as they do from our deepest ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... romps seemed to hold the least attraction for him now that Olga was not going to be there. And then all at once it dawned on him that he must be in love with Olga, for why else should her presence or absence make such an astounding difference to him? He stopped dead ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... notice, "The Man with a Secret." Parker was an eminent lawyer, a man of firm will, fond of dabbling in the occult sciences, but never allowing this tendency to interfere with the earnest practice of his profession. This astounding narrative is prefaced by the annexed clipping from the Auburn Messenger of November ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... An astounding laugh arose at my expense, and I should have been annihilated, but that the smile which mantled on the lip of my partner, had a different expression from that of ridicule, and seemed to say, 'Do not take this to heart.' And I did not, Alan—my partner danced admirably, and I like one who was ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... have described before of the blood from the doctor's double chin was a gradual one, we can assure the reader that, in this case, it was rapid in proportion to the terror and dismay conveyed by this authentic, but astounding piece of intelligence. The whole face became pale, his eyes at once lost their lustre, and were, as he fixed them in astonishment upon the proctor, completely without speculation; his voice became tremulous, and, as he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe away the unexpected ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... which accrues from having one's portrait in the pictorial press and being besieged by interviewers in search of a "story," I found myself, without seeking adventure, one of the chief actors in a drama which was perhaps one of the strangest and most astounding of this ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... is a drama. She represents the greatest drama in the world's history, yea, she personates the whole of the world's history. She originated in an astounding personal drama. Humanly speaking, in the life of Jesus Christ during the three years of His public work there was more that was dramatic, from an outside and inside point of view, than in the lives of all other founders of religion taken together. And speaking ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... obvious to notice that it is not more strange, and not necessarily more literally real, than those other legal views of royal prerogative and perfection, which are the received theory of all our great jurists—accepted by them for very good reasons, but not the less astounding when presented as naked and independent truths. It was natural enough that they should claim for the Crown the origination of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, considering what else they claimed for it. Mr. Allen can present us with a more than Chinese idea ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... word for half a minute. The proposition was so astounding that it might well have appalled the stoutest heart. At that time no one had attempted to cross the Atlantic in a heavier-than-air plane, a feat later on successfully accomplished. Nobody had piloted ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... came back to the face of the Mohawk as he replied: "That gun fired by white man. He aim at Lena-Wingo!" was the astounding information he gave ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... minds of the children, and, strange as it may seem, preferred to let them starve in the street, or come to worse ending, rather than risk the effects of education and Protestant influence. To those who know what a great and blessed work these missions have done, this statement will no doubt be astounding. Yet it is true. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... occasion I heard a noise coming from above without being at first able to discern what caused it. A few stones came tumbling down, and were presently followed by a donkey, pack and all, turning over and over with astounding speed. It cleared a perpendicular rock some twenty feet high and landed at its base, rolling over twice. Then, to my amazement, it rose to its feet in the midst of its scattered cargo. And do you know what that cargo consisted ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... to control its policy, and never has the pontifical throne presented to the Christian world a more worthy and more touching model." The Moniteur, in its report of the coronation, spoke with the same official enthusiasm "of the most venerable apostolic virtues and of the most astounding political genius crowned by the highest destinies." David, the artist, once a member of the Convention and a regicide, then an Imperialist, painted the portrait of Pius VII., and the Moniteur in the number of March 30, 1805, thus praised the picture and the ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... time to such extent that he feared the return of hemorrhage. The nights seemed sleepless, burning, black voids; and the days were hideous with noise and distraction. He wanted to think about the fact that he was home—an astounding and unbelievable thing. Once he went down to the city and walked on Broadway and Fifth Avenue, taxing his endurance to the limit. But he had become used to pain and exhaustion. So long as he could keep up ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... "it certainly has developed with amazing rapidity. In trade, as in politics, this is an astounding age." ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... the astounding answer, when he said bad words, rushed from the room and slammed the door. Then followed ten days, the only ones since he became my brother when he would not call ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... beckoned us to advance. The sign, twice repeated before I could obey it, at last broke the spell that enthralled me. Under the most astounding or awe-striking circumstances, instinct moves our limbs almost in our own despite, and leads us to do with paralysed will what has been intended or is expected of us. This instinct, and no conscious resolve to overcome the influence that held me spell-bound, enabled me to proceed; and I ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... of grace 1888, the Atlanta Constitution publishes the astounding fact, and calls the world to heed it, ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. XLII. April, 1888. No. 4. • Various
... France (in nominal support of her German allies) was striving to conquer Alsace. The victory which brought the French to the Rhine was won through the capture of Breisach, at the close of 1638. Then in swift succession followed those astounding victories of Conde and Turenne which destroyed the military pre-eminence of Spain, took the French to the gates of Munich, and wrung from the emperor the Peace ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... book, and this is an epithet which our readers are already fully prepared to apply. But the book, in our judgment, is extraordinary in more senses than one. It is as remarkable for the great mental energy it displays, for its originality and occasional profundity of thought, as it is for the astounding conclusions to which it would conduct us, for its bold paradoxes, and for what we can designate no otherwise than its egregious errors. As a discipline of the mind, so far as a full appreciation is concerned of the scientific method, it cannot be read without signal advantage. The book is altogether ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... went along at the astounding change that had come over his companion, took fifty long steps; then he heard a shout of "Now!" and went off at the top of his speed. He was still a hundred yards from the mark, when he heard steps coming rapidly up behind him; and then the clerk dashed past ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... two phonograph cylinders now, rapidly comparing the new one which he had made and that which he had just allowed to reel off its astounding revelation. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the doctor, but Aunt Ninette would not let him escape so easily. She followed close at his heels with a whole torrent of questions, which she asked over and over again, and she would have an answer. The doctor had fairly deserved this attack, by his astounding prescription. His little game of snapping it suddenly upon them, and then quickly making his escape, had not succeeded; he lost three times as much time outside the door as if he had staid quietly in the room. When at last Aunt ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... was produced from Astounding Stories June 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... man—nay, any one such journey must be more valuable to a man—than a visit to Niagara. At Niagara there is that fall of waters alone. But that fall is more graceful than Giotto's tower, more noble than the Apollo. The peaks of the Alps are not so astounding in their solitude. The valleys of the Blue Mountains in Jamaica are less green. The finished glaze of life in Paris is less invariable; and the full tide of trade round the Bank of England is not ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... "Astounding!" cried the president. "This is a sacrilege, which will assuredly meet a just punishment. But," he continued after a pause, glancing anxiously around, "let us not forget that we are ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... taking the privilege of writing to you in an endeavor to show my appreciation of your magazine Astounding Stories. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... miracles and of miraculous infallibility by inspiration have rendered it of course of little or no application to Christians at present. Yet how can Arminians pray our Church prayers collectively on any day? Answer. See a 'boa constrictor' with an ox or deer. What they do swallow, proves so astounding a dilatability of gullet, that it would be unconscionable strictness to complain of the horns, antlers, or other indigestible non-essentials being suffered to rot off at the confines, [Greek: herkos hodonton]. But to write seriously on so serious a subject, it is mournful to reflect ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... astounding. Bismarck took it upon himself, when the resolution reached him, to treat it with the utmost contempt, and to send it back without really laying it before his government, thus giving the American people to understand that they had interfered in a matter which did ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... on the table (page 92) as before the Cambrian correspond to about thirty-two miles of thickness of strata; and all the subsequent eras with fossil-bearing rocks to a thickness of about twenty-one miles—in itself an astounding fact. Perhaps thirty million years must be allotted to the Pre-Cambrian eras, eighteen to the Palaeozoic, nine to the Mesozoic, three to the Cenozoic, making a grand total of ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... had gone to bed in Master B.'s room. I had the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like myself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most astounding nature. ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... crowded with the useless little articles which are supposed to prove irresistibly attractive to visitors to the seaside. At the bazaar a big white label proclaims that everything in the window is to be sold at the astounding price of "eleven-three," and the purchaser is free to make his choice from such treasures as work-boxes lined in crimson plush, and covered with a massed pattern in shells; desks fitted with all the implements for writing, scent bottles tied with blue ribbons; packets of ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... gradually enlarged their scale of inns as of other objects into a size of commensurate grandeur. In two separate New York journals, which, by the kindness of American friends, are at this moment (April 26) lying before me, I read astounding illustrations of this. For instance: (1.) In "Putnam's Monthly" for April, 1853, the opening article, a very amusing one, entitled "New York daguerreotyped," estimates the hotel population of that vast ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... value or original cost. It was one of those pecuniary tornadoes which occasionally sweep through the whole length and breadth of the land, levelling and blighting everything as it passes, putting a stop to the wheels of commerce, and bringing terror into almost every family. It came with an astounding effect upon St. Louis. Many who felt themselves rich were in a few days reduced to a state of poverty, not having the means wherewith ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... and talk of his own valor, accomplishments, and "paddygree" (as he very properly called the record that established his connection with Brian Boroo and Irish kings generally), and a lady who seemed to take the most astounding, unquenchable interest in the English nobility, as more than one lady had seemed to him to do, to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... unscrupulous, vulgar-minded woman, who had never considered other people's feelings in her life, whether equals or inferiors. In her day she must have been rather tall—nearly as tall as that elegant Maude who followed her; but her astounding width caused her now to appear short. She went looking into the different rooms as shown to her by Mirrable, and chose the best ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Minister of State who presented to his native land the astonishing spectacle of a Cabinet Minister dying whilst in office. This action was so astounding to the nation at large that a statue has since been erected ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... particulars of musicians, schoolmasters, stockbrokers, saints and bookmakers, and I dare say there is an average adjuster's almanac. A peer, a horse, dog, cat, and even a white mouse, if of blood sufficiently blue, has his pedigree recorded somewhere. Above all, there is that astounding and entertaining volume, "Who's Who," found in every club smoking-room, and which grows more bulky year by year, stuffed with information about the careers, the hobbies, and the marriages of all the most distinguished persons in every profession, including very full details ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... for relief under the law. That is to say, while the employers were using the law to make striking a crime, they were extending such benefits as it produced to the nonunion workers who can often be used as tools for their purposes. But the astounding hold that "State Socialism" has on the Australian masses, especially on the working people, is shown by the steadfast belief that this measure can be amended so as to operate to their interest. Bowling and his unions made a serious agitation ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... to see, His feathers grow straight upward like a tree. He cannot crow, but oftentimes his flight Will reach up to a most astounding height. He is a gamecock, and, in fighting trim, There are not ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... extreme enough. Fenton was fond of maintaining astounding propositions, using the club much as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes once privately said Wendell Phillips does the community, "to try the strength of extravagant theories;" and none of the Pagans were restrained by any conventionality from ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... of men to be transported to the front, nor even the astounding quantities of supplies required to feed those men, which have been the primary cause for crisscrossing all Northern France with this latticework of steel. It is the unappeasable appetite of the guns. "This is a cannon war," Field-Marshal von Mackensen told an interviewer. ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... of executive genius also earned a meed of my neighbor's disparagement. He was a worthless, trifling "boy," an idling dreamer, an irresponsible, inconsequent visionary, in whose baseless fancies it was astounding that a woman of her years should ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... "The astounding thing was the rapidity of his fire. Also, he never made a miss. If ever anything was inevitable, that man was. It was the swiftness of it that made the slaughter so appalling. The niggers did not have time to think. When they did manage to think, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... you showing you His consolation, if you prepare within you a home fit for Him. All His glory and beauty are from within, and it is there that He delights Himself. He often visits the man of inward mind, with sweet colloquy, pleasant consolation, great peace, and most astounding familiarity. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... which is by M. Gustave Masson, it may be up to the intellectual requirements of the Harrow schoolboys, but it will hardly satisfy those who consider that accuracy, lucidity and ease are essential to a good translation. Its carelessness is absolutely astounding, and it is difficult to understand how a publisher like Mr. Routledge could have allowed such a piece of work to issue from his press. 'Il descend avec le sourire d'un Machiavel' appears as 'he descends into the smile of a Machiavelli'; George Sand's remark to Flaubert ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... and then, amidst the whizzing of wings and cries of the birds, some of which flew off, while others ran through the short grass at an astounding rate, Coffee, Chicory, and their father ran out beneath the trees; and the result of the firing was brought in—ten fine plump birds for ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... her feet with astounding quickness, ran into the kitchen, and returned in a moment with another platter ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... to entertain and in this tale of the invention of "cavorite," and the subsequent remarkable journey made to the moon by its inventor, he has succeeded beyond measure in alternately astounding, convincing and delighting his readers. Told in a straightforward way, with an air of ingenuousness that disarms doubt, the story chronicles most marvelous discoveries and adventures on the mysterious planet. Mr. Hering's many ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... came upon her—so he, in his kindness and compassion, his implication of assuming a mysterious responsibility for her, seemed unbelievably good, not a citizen of this bleak neighborhood—or even the world (her mind, though stumblingly, ran as far as that) and, more astounding still, the real miracle was that he had been sent for this: to save her. And at that moment of dazed reflection, it all meant the passionate necessity of obeying him. He had bade her show her husband how she loved him. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... of the prose, its haunting assonance, its supple rhythms make this Hamlet impossible save in French. Nor can the fine edge of its wit, its multiple though masked ironies, its astounding transposition of Shakespearian humour and philosophy be aught else than loosely paraphrased. Laforgue's Hamlet is of to-morrow, for every epoch orchestrates anew its own vision of Hamlet. The eighteenth century had one; the nineteenth had another; and our generation a fresher. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the next moment, by a tumultuous rush of persons from that quarter. The fire, as if in scorn, had leapt across Dowgate Dock, and seizing upon the half-demolished houses, instantly made them its prey. The rapidity with which the conflagration proceeded was astounding, and completely baffled all attempts to check it. The wind continued blowing as furiously as ever, nor was there the slightest prospect of its abatement. All the king's better qualities were called into play by the present terrible ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... given to contortions, I cringe, or twist my legs until I have to stop writing to undo the knot. I bow with him, eat with him, and gnaw my moustache with him. If the character be a lady with an exquisite laugh, I suddenly terrify you by laughing exquisitely. One reads of the astounding versatility of an actor who is stout and lean on the same evening, but what is he to the novelist who is a dozen persons within the hour? Morally, I fear, we must deteriorate - but this is a subject I ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... stock for the store arrived at last, and Lincoln soon had a little store opened for business. A country store seemed too small for a clerk of such astounding abilities, so the too enthusiastic employer bought Cameron's mill with the dam on which Lincoln had already distinguished himself, and made the clerk ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... that crucial moment she chanced upon the "Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff," so frank and so astounding that it took her breath away and swept her off her feet. She was stirred into a vague and trembling expectancy; she had the sense of waiting for something to happen. Life instantly became more colorful and more wonderful than she had dreamed could be possible, and she wished passionately to experience ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... the healthy appearance of the people. There are no paupers to be seen; every one seems well fed and well clothed; the children are really splendid. Of course, as might be expected, there is a great deal of independence in bearing and manner, especially among the servants, and I hear astounding stories concerning them on all sides. My next letter will be from the country, as we have accepted an invitation to pay a visit of six weeks or so to a station in the north ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... elderly, benevolent-looking gentleman, played with astounding caution and still more remarkable luck for seventeen. Finally, after he had been in an hour and ten minutes, mid-on accepted the eighth easy chance offered to him, and the ecclesiastic had to retire. The three 'Varsity men knocked up a hundred between them, ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... only for the money and power in our church. I refuse to join with you in any such scheme. Aunt Mary will die. She will name her successor. Then it will be time to act. Have you forgotten her last words to the faithful?" She pointed to a marble tablet above the fireplace, which bore this astounding phrase: "My first and forever message is one and eternal." Nothing more,—but the men cowered before the sublime wisdom uttered by a frail woman, wisdom that had started the emotional machinery ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... dangerous on account of the harbour they afford for those bacteria that accelerate the decay of age. He proposes that these viscera should be removed. To a layman like myself this is an altogether astounding and horrifying idea, but Doctor Metchnikoff is a man of the very greatest scientific reputation, and it does not give him any qualm of horror or absurdity to advance it. I am quite sure that if a gentleman called upon me "done ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... celebre in which he had nothing more than a professional interest. Indeed, the calm, impersonal interest that he displayed in Thorndyke's analysis, his unmoved attention, punctuated by little nods of approval at each telling point in the argument, were the most surprising features of this astounding interview. ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... to the unraveling of the intricacies of the greatest of Indian, if not of all grammarians,—P{n}ini. There are but few among our very best comparative philologists who are able to understand P{n}ini. Professor Benfey, whose powers of work are truly astounding, stands almost alone in his minute knowledge of that greatest of all grammarians. Neither Bopp, nor Pott, nor Curtius, nor Corssen, ever attempted to master P{n}ini's wonderful system. But a study of Sanskrit, as taught by European grammarians, cannot be recommended too ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... harmony is to be. And the sequel may shed a new light upon the harmony, and thus by degrees the whole character of the melody may be transformed. The power of the modern round for humorous and subtle, or even profound, expression was first fully revealed by Mozart, whose astounding unaccompanied canons would be better known if he had not unfortunately set many of them to extemporized texts unfit for publication. The round or the catch (which is simply a specially jocose round) is a favourite English art-form, and the English specimens of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various |
