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Things that appear to be parts of the rocky or sandy bed of the grottos startle one by moving about, and thus discovering themselves as living creatures, simulating their environment for purposes of protection. Or perhaps what seems to be a giant snail suddenly unfurls wings from its seeming shell, and goes waving through the water, to the utter bewilderment of the beholder.
"Tell us what we want to know, or we'll make you." Now somewhere I had read that the police bullied suspected persons in this way. If you make a guilty person believe that you know him to be guilty, you can also get him to confess if you startle him sufficiently. It occurred to me that this was what these men were doing, especially as they had not been sure of me when I came into the room.
I put up with it as long as I could and then joined in and tried to improve it, but this encouraged young George to join in too, and that made a failure of it; because George's voice was just "turning," and when he was singing a dismal sort of bass it was apt to fly off the handle and startle everybody with a most discordant cackle on the upper notes.
It cannot but startle us to find doubts that we hastily look upon as peculiarly "modern," set forth in their full strength and wrestled with and overthrown by an unlettered recluse of the fourteenth century. In some sense they are the doubts of all time, with perhaps just that peculiar complexion which they assume in the light of Christianity.
We had parted one night as usual. No word had fallen from my lips, at that time or at any time before it, that could betray me, or startle her into sudden knowledge of the truth. But when we met again in the morning, a change had come over her a change that told me all.
Swiftly she mapped her plan of attack. The Alaskan could not be moved, but it might be possible to startle the girl into breaking the engagement. Genevieve Mallory would have used the weapon at hand without scruple in any case, but she justified herself on the ground that such a marriage could result only in unhappiness. But before she made any move Mrs. Mallory intended to be sure of her facts.
Besides which, Fate of any kind seeks the unusual and the unexpected; it desires to startle, and to force events by surprises. The answering of these letters was naturally Cornelia's first afternoon thought. It troubled her to remember that Joris had already been waiting some hours for a reply, for she had no hesitation as to what that reply should be.
The Norwegian violinist presented himself at the somewhat dilapidated mansion of the Comtesse de Faye, and was shown into the presence of three ladies dressed in deepest mourning. The eldest of them, on hearing his errand, haughtily declined the proposition, when the more beautiful of the two girls said, "Look at him, mother!" with such eagerness as to startle the ancient dame.
So great a favourite was the word, that people loved to repeat it for its very sound. They delighted apparently in hearing their own organs articulate it; and labouring men, when none who could respond to the call were within hearing, would often startle the aristocratic echoes of the West by the well-known slang phrase of the East.
"But I told you, dear, that you must use your common-sense; and you must have known that to startle Stella by a sudden scream at her was enough to make her drop whatever she was holding." "Grandma, I 'spect I was mischievous; but truly, she did look so stiff and pudgy, I just HAD to make her jump."
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