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Wonder   /wˈəndər/   Listen
Wonder

verb
(past & past part. wondered; pres. part. wondering)
1.
Have a wish or desire to know something.  Synonyms: enquire, inquire.
2.
Place in doubt or express doubtful speculation.  Synonym: question.  "She wondered whether it would snow tonight"
3.
Be amazed at.  Synonym: marvel.



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"Wonder" Quotes from Famous Books



... was just saying to himself, "I wonder what keeps papa so long," when he heard his step on ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... "I wonder where the town is?" asked the consul, with a nervous glance at the fishermen. One of them told him that what he ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... They are squatting around the smouldering embers of a sage-brush fire, sleeping and dozing. I am riding slowly and carefully along the road that happens to be ridable just here, and am fairly past them before being seen. As I gradually vanish in the moonlit air I wonder what they think it was - that strange-looking object that so silently and mysteriously glided past. It is safe to warrant they think me anything but flesh and blood, as they rouse each other and peer at my shadowy form ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... elements, it seems to us, both of truth and falsehood. It casts off gross mistakes, announces some fundamental realities, overlooks, perverts, exaggerates, some essential facts in the case. There is so much in it that is grateful and beautiful that we cannot wonder at its reception where the tender instincts of the heart are stronger than the stern decisions of the conscience, where the kindly sentiments usurp the province of the critical reason and sit in judgment upon evidence for the construction of a ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... places God, not at the commencement, but at the end of things, God becoming conscious and intelligent in humanity. If, then, Hegel teaches that God himself has had a progressive development, it is no wonder he should assert that the idea of God has also had an historic development, the last term of which is an intelligent God. But he who believes that the idea of God as the infinite and the perfect ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... "It's no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a place as this," said he. "It's enough to scare any man. I'll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you won't know it again, with a ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle

... what made me willing to come back," she continued, "you don't know how close I came to not doing it either. John will be good to her, but she will need somebody that knows the world better by and by. I wonder if you couldn't show me how to make out a paper giving you the right over her till she is of age? She must stay here with mother, long as she wants her. 'Tis what I wish I had kept sense enough to do; life hasn't been all ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... it, to a cemetery, he observes to himself that if those people down there would live as neatly while they are alive as they do after they are dead, they would find many advantages in it; and besides, their quarter would be the wonder and admiration of the business world. Fresh flowers, in vases of water, are to be seen at the portals of many of the vaults: placed there by the pious hands of bereaved parents and children, husbands and wives, and renewed daily. A milder form of sorrow finds its inexpensive ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Wallings had a Japanese palace to which he came every August—a house which had been built from plans drawn in Japan, and by labourers imported especially from Japan. It was full of Japanese ware—furniture, tapestry, and mosaics; and the guides remembered with wonder the strange silent, brown-skinned little men who had laboured for days at carving a bit of wood, and had built a tiny pagoda-like tea-house with more bits of wood in it than a man could ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... it, but that only made him think about it the more; he would think about not thinking about it and about not thinking about that— and all the time he was growing thirstier. He wondered how long one could live without water; and as the torment grew worse he began to wonder if he was dying. He was hungry, too, and he wondered which was worse, of which one would die the sooner. He had heard that dying men remembered all their past, and so he began to remember his—with extraordinary vividness, and with bursts of strange and entirely new emotions. He remembered particularly ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair

... wonder that he hadn't gone to meet her; but perhaps she had refused his escort. A more effective entrance might be made by a dazzling vision alone (the "stage aunt" did not count) than with a man, even the show young man ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... surpasses anything I ever conceived," ejaculated Singleton after a long silence. "No wonder that authors speak of scenes being indescribable. Does it not ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... make upon the country an impress of power. Fillmore had recently, through Taylor's death, become President, and was making his first visit to his home after his elevation, with members of his Cabinet and other conspicuous figures of his party. How Douglas came to be of the company I wonder, for he was an ardent Jacksonian Democrat, but there he was on the platform before the multitude, and I, a boy of sixteen, watched him curiously, for he was young as compared with the grey heads about him. His image, as ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... crouching, the long Arab knife glistening in the moonlight. Behind him the tense figure of the girl, motionless as a carven statue. She leaned slightly forward, her lips parted, her eyes wide. Her only conscious thought was wonder at the bravery of the man who dared face with a puny knife the lord with the large head. A man of her own blood would have knelt in prayer and gone down beneath those awful fangs without resistance. In either case the result would be the same—it was inevitable; ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... all the valley," the man said. "I wonder if you know that folks are taking an interest in the land that's ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... great officers of the household, with ancient pedigrees, with embroidered coats, and stars on their breasts and wands in their hands, walking backwards for near the space of a mile, while the royal procession made its progress. Shall we wonder—shall we be angry—shall we laugh at these old-world ceremonies? View them as you will, according to your mood; and with scorn or with respect, or with anger and sorrow, as your temper leads you. Up goes Gesler's hat upon the pole. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... hath no equal in the universe, that source (of everything), that sinless Self. Though that Deity is one they had imagined him to be of various forms. Beholding in that high-souled one those diverse forms that each had individually conceived in own heart, all of them became filled with wonder. Beholding that Unborn one, that Lord of the universe, to be the embodiment of all creatures, the gods and the regenerate Rishis, all touched the Earth with their heads. Saluting them with the word 'Welcome' and raising them from their bent attitudes, the illustrious Sankara ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... on it being me as found yer, sir. I do call it luck. I come out o' the wood, and I says to myself, 'I shouldn't wonder, Billy, old man, if Muster Lane's over yonder, among them rocks, for it's just the sorter place to make a roost on,' and I come along, and see yer fast asleep, and here yer are, sir, not a bit dead, ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... division of the clear, dark-blue pools among the rocks being reserved for women, the other for men, and as we children were as much at home in the water as any known variety of fish, we used to look with wonder at the so-called bathing of the Italian women. They would come in swarms, beautifully dressed, and with most elaborately arranged heads of hair, but the slightest of wettings with them was the equivalent of a bath. In the open bay at Albaro the current was very strong, ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens

... day that he was a much better man than I had thought, and she gave me no reply, but looked on me with a light of wonder in her eyes. ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... I had no doubt of your being contented and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with whom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame Durden was blind to it is no wonder, for I knew the good that could never change in her better far than she did. Well! I have long been in Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not have ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... England's attitude, but also from France's and Sweden's fiendish acts. Although the town energetically opposed its enemies, often against the will of the Netherlands' States, it could not at once redress its internal depression, and we should not wonder at seeing the artist Rembrandt among the victims. He avows in the document that he lost considerably in trade, especially in maritime ventures. It seems that the trading hobby, innate in most Dutchmen at that time, was ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt

... "I wonder if those girls go to church in Haven Point on Sundays," remarked Jack, just before the Hall ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield

... J. Darling, Junior, remarks:—"I really wonder if anyone down south does not know the Red-whiskered Bulbul and its nest. On the Nilghiris and in the Wynaad I can safely say it is the commonest nest to be met with, built in all sorts of places, sometimes high up. They generally lay two, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... Christmas Eve they had a Christmas-tree, and hung it with such useful gifts as their necessities demanded and a small purse could provide. It was a happy, precious day, simply and heartily kept; but here she was lost in wonder, as she was called from room to room to see the rare and beautiful gifts which, it seemed to her, abounded everywhere. Money to purchase such things for herself to give away she had not, but she watched her room-mates, ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... We do not wonder much that the chivalrous Black Horse gentry have expressed their contempt of Northern "mudsills and greasy mechanics," and have made their brags that we could never match them. But then it is said that these Southrons were born in a saddle, and were always trained ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... had driven poor Edward out of his first practice, and sent him to begin life a second time at Carlingford—was to drop listlessly in again, and lay a harder burden than a harmless old father-in-law upon the young man's hands—a burden which no grateful Bessie shared and sweetened? No wonder black Care sat at the young doctor's back as he drove at that dangerous pace through the new, encumbered streets. He might have broken his neck over those heaps of brick and mortar, and it is doubtful whether he would have ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... the flaring brilliancy made us blink and then it made us wonder there should be any lights at all, seeing that the French troops, in retiring from Beaumont four days before, had done their hurried best to cripple the transportation facilities and had certainly put the local gas plant out of commission. Yet here was illumination in plenty and to ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... her pericranium and blinded the eyes of Reason, which is there supposed to keep her residence, while the fire itself from the stomach easily reached the heart, and there inflamed the noble passion of pride. So that, upon the whole, we shall cease to wonder at the violent rage of the waiting-woman; though at first sight we must confess the cause ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... of the pier and tried to pierce the distance that lay between her and the lights of London, so many leagues away. HE was there, in the glitter and glamour of it all, but black with disappointment and wonder. Oh, it was a detestable thing she had done! Her poor heart ached for him. She could almost see the despair, the bewilderment in his honest eyes as he sat in his room, hours after the discovery of her flight, defeated, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... been careful that not my printing only should be amended, but also that with a more elegant type it should go forth to the day: that which hath escaped from the hands of Robert Redman, but truly Rudeman, because he is the rudest out of a thousand men, is not easily understood. Truly I wonder now at last that he hath confessed it his own typography, unless it chanced that even as the Devil made a cobbler a mariner, he hath made him a Printer. Formerly this scoundrel did profess himself ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... and How, one brooding wonder and interrogation point. "Why does the sun drive away the stars? Why do the leaves turn red and gold? What makes the seed swell in the earth? From whence comes the life hidden in the egg under the bird's breast? What holds the moon ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... "'I do not wonder,' he said, a moment after, 'that you are angry, Mr. Stewart, after the conduct of my madcap sister, or indeed that you deem it strange to find yourself of so much importance suddenly,' he added, a little maliciously, 'but I will explain ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... examined the bank-book, and listened with wonder to Tottie's account of the manner in which their wealth had come to them. Before the recital was completed, Mrs Gaff had had her cry out, and dried ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... the boundary of a county, the capital of a state. The earth as the home of man is humanizing and unified; the earth viewed as a miscellany of facts is scattering and imaginatively inert. Geography is a topic that originally appeals to imagination—even to the romantic imagination. It shares in the wonder and glory that attach to adventure, travel, and exploration. The variety of peoples and environments, their contrast with familiar scenes, furnishes infinite stimulation. The mind is moved from the monotony ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... the hard campaign surpasses slumber in the fine linen of a captured city: they brought the wandering mind into communion with elemental forces, and seemed to hold it expectant of supernatural events. In that interlunar twilight there reigned a solemn sense of wonder evoked here eternally, one felt, from the ancient time, with the rustling of stirred foliage and the voice of those far ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... retrospective glances, remember how they were devoted to women, the memory of whom calls up only a vague sort of wonder how they ever could have fallen into the state of infatuation in which they once were. The same may be said of many women. Heart-breaking separations have taken place between young men and young women who have learned that ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there. 73 POPE: ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... all intents and purposes, empty. Hurried meeting of the finance committee. By unanimous consent of all present, we decided—as many another mortal in a strange town has decided—on the pawnshop. I wonder if my dear grandmother will read this—she probably will. Carl first submitted his gold watch—the baby had dropped it once, and it had shrunk thereby in the eyes of the pawnshop man, though not in ours. The only other valuable we had along with us was my grandmother's wedding present ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... about forty-eight;—of a sedate look, something approaching to gravity. I did not wonder.—I went up rather to the basket than him, and having lifted up the napkin, and taking one of his pates into my hand,—I begg'd he would explain the ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... stand on the slab of rock beneath the fall was to enjoy an ideal shower bath; and to dive from that same slab into the deep, pellucid pool and thereafter swim across the pool and back three or four times was a luxury worth riding several miles to enjoy; small wonder, therefore, was it that the two Englishmen resolved to make the most of their opportunity, and continue to use this perfect natural swimming bath so long as their work kept ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... was of too much weight not to awaken calumny. It was, of course, endeavoured to be turned against her. Possibilities, and even probabilities, conspired to give a pretext for the scandal which already began to be whispered about the Dauphine and D'Artois. It would have been no wonder had a reciprocal attachment arisen between a virgin wife, so long neglected by her husband, and one whose congeniality of character pointed him out as a more desirable partner than the Dauphin. But there ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... dollars I might strike out for myself," he reasoned. "But I haven't even a few cents. Wonder how I could ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.

... by which intellectual growth, by means of books, or any other means, proceeds. To make a choice of certain hundred books for any man's perusal, in his youth or afterwards, is but a feat of cleverness, arousing curiosity or wonder, but evolving nothing—ending in the choice. A man may be possessed of any number of good books; and possibly a thousand books might be selected, all of which would be by general consent called excellent, and worth possessing; ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... know, when you are down there, it is so cold, actually, and so endless, so different really from what it is on top, so endless—you wonder how it is so many are alive, why we're up here. Are you going? I shall see you again, shan't I? Good-night, and thank ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... the House Music Room practising his tunes; but not by any means in a dull and unoriginal fashion. It was the boy's habit to take off his boots and stockings, set a chair on a table, climb up to his perch, and from thence draw forth melody of sorts with his ten toes. After this it is surely a wonder that Baden-Powell in joining the army did not insist upon doing ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... he hath sunstroke," muttered the surgeon, laying a hand upon the patient's forehead, "and no wonder, for it is shrewdly hot to-day, and he toiling away like any Hodge of them all. I must let him blood. Canst get me a basin ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... facing a black curtain that covered a corner. Now and then I heard a singular sound in the room—like some faint, far, night cry such as I have heard often in the deep woods. It was so weird I felt some wonder of it. Presently I could tell it came from behind the curtain where, also, I heard an odd rustle ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... thing, and good tempered, I think," said Mr Snow, smiling. "I shouldn't wonder if our folks made something of her, after all. She is in better keeping than she used to ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... my only wonder is, that Mr. Redfern did not apply some degrading chastisement to the nose or breech of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... country, speaks of the hedges of wild roses, the luxuriant gardens and fruit-trees, principally the cherry, the rich soil, the growth of beech, oak, and maple, the level meadows and swelling hills covered with the richest sward, and the rivulets of the purest water. No wonder that, as he tells us, "sitting down under a spreading walnut-tree, by the side of a murmuring mill stream, he was led by the charming woodland scenery around to reflect upon that mysterious Providence, by which so beautiful a country has been placed under such a blighting government, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... Vroubel. The same nude mountains with the violet and purple robes of Satan, whose face is half covered by an approaching grey cloud. Mongolia is a terrible land of mystery and demons. Therefore it is no wonder that here every violation of the ancient order of life of the wandering nomad tribes is transformed into streams of red blood and horror, ministering to the demonic pleasure of Satan couched on the bare mountains and robed ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... reverence for several minutes as my mind expanded with wonder at the magnificent panorama, while my nostrils inhaled a most delicious fragrance from the innumerable plants which seemed to put new life into my ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... satisfied. The change which she now contemplated was a revolution. It was to break up all the old habits and associations, disturb life-long friendships, and, stripping her of the attractions of society and church intercourse, leave her standing alone, a spectacle to the eyes of those who gazed, a wonder and a grief to her friends. But all this Sarah had warned her of, and all this she felt able to endure. Self-sacrifice, self-immolation, in fact, was what Sarah taught; and, although Angelina never learned the lesson fully, she made ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... "Don't wonder at it. I seen what they done to you to-night.... But you don't know 'em like I do. They's times when they act cold and ha'sh and nigh to cruel, but that hain't when they're real. Them times they're jest makin' b'lieve, 'cause ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... therefore, wonder that your observations on human folly, if they produce laughter at one time, awaken criticism at another; and that among the numbers whom you have taught to scoff at the retirement of Drugget, there is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... only time I have seen the African ladies wearing them for ornament has been among these Igalwas, who now and again stud their night-black hair with pretty little round vividly red blossoms in a most fetching way. I wonder the Africans do not wear flowers more frequently, for they are devoted to scent, both men ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... so draughty," continued Angel, looking at the flames, and at the grease guttering down the sides. "I wonder where that luggage is. We haven't even a brush ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... "I wonder if I am to blow out the candle or take it back," she said to herself, but a recollection of the dark passageway decided her to take the candle down stairs, and she proceeded to descend, feeling rather scared as she passed the dusky corners ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard

... Nestor, delight of my heart, mark the flashing of bronze through the echoing halls, and the flashing of gold and of amber and of silver and of ivory. Such like, methinks, is the court of Olympian Zeus within, for the world of things that are here; wonder comes over ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... was a limit to the strain to which the tackle could be subjected. Once the main rope leading from the anchor to the ship, on which cable the buoy ran, parted, and nothing could save those last two lives. No wonder the captain ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton

... were a couple of yards from the platform, landed safely but with tail flying, and his blue cotton garment inflating balloon-like with the wind. Then he walked away among the houses, and one of our men pushed the boat off again, evidently to the intense wonder of the people, who stared hard to see a British sailor managing a native vessel; while two others, in a costume perfectly new ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... himself, he may be asked for it when he arrives, and, not having it, he may be beaten with thirty-nine stripes, and sent away. On his return, he may be seized by the patrol, and flogged again for the same reason; and he will not wonder if he is again seized and ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy

... wonder," said Amos Hiltze, as she slipped into her place behind the wheel, and he took ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... water and all that he required; and the young man washed his hands as he had said. Then he sat down, as if afraid, and dipping his hand into the ragout, began to eat, though with evident repugnance and as if doing himself violence, whilst we regarded him with the utmost wonder; for his hand trembled and we saw that his thumb had been cut off and he ate with his four fingers only. So we said to him, "God on thee, what has become of thy thumb? Is thy hand thus by the creation of God or has it been mutilated ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... hands, but, to her mind. Or warm or cool them, for they took delight To play upon those hands, they were so white. 30 Buskins of shells, all silver'd, used she, And branch'd with blushing coral to the knee; Where sparrows perch'd of hollow pearl and gold, Such as the world would wonder to behold: Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills, Which as she went, would cherup through the bills. Some say, for her the fairest Cupid pin'd, And, looking in her face, was strooken blind. But this is true; so like was one the other, As ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... throw him in and give him a ducking. In the midst of all this I recollect to have hailed the huntsman, and desired him to take my clothes off the wet meadow, and to lead my favourite mare about to keep her from taking cold. Some of my readers will wonder how I could be so much at my ease under such circumstances, and particularly as I have said I was nearly exhausted. This I shall easily explain. The hounds being all checked off, the stag, poor fellow, lay most patiently floating upon the stream; and, as I had now taken him ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... returns in half an hour, it will be a wonder," muttered Mr. Belknap, as he came back into the sitting-room. "I wish I knew what to do with him. There is no respect or obedience in him. I never saw such a boy. He knows that I'm in a hurry; and yet he goes creeping along like a tortoise, ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... day that was for the poor widower who was left with five motherless children to care for, and it is small wonder that he scarcely knew where to turn. While he was still dazed by his burden of grief, a stranger came to the desolate little home on the lake, and asked to see Mr. Farragut. He was Capt. Porter, the son of the old man who had been cared ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... who was to conduct him to the city of the Phaeacians. The girl, therefore, threw a ball at one of the maids, which missed her and fell into deep water. On this they all shouted, and the noise they made woke Ulysses, who sat up in his bed of leaves and began to wonder what it might ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... those who succeed in the examinations through cramming. He forgot all his historical knowledge before the examination—they usually forget theirs shortly after. In fact, a student or a man in advanced years who has really mastered any book so that he never has to refer to it again is a wonder. Take the memories of members of the learned professions—they are usually only REFERENCE memories. They know where to find the coveted knowledge, but they do not possess it or retain it in their minds. On the other hand, the student who ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)

... qui ne serait pas dans le feu ne serait pas a son poste"; the literal translation of which is: "He who would not be in the fire would not be at his post"; or, "The man who would hold his post must stand fire," which is quite an inspiring signal. But I wonder what the eulogists of Villeneuve would have written of him had he been the victor instead of the defeated. It is generous to give praise to the unfortunate Admiral for whom Nelson had such an aversion and who was constantly threatened by him with vigorous chastisement when he ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... give it up if she knew I wanted it! She's an unselfish little thing. She took it because it was all that was left when Laura disposed of the 'soulful poet' part," Ivy said. Then after a silence, "I wonder why bad health makes me cranky and selfish and envious, instead of patient and meek, like the little girls ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... is terrific—you have driven them mad! Hark to your name, how they shout it and stamp! They will be rushing to the stage door presently, as soon as the ushers have turned out the lights and the hope of your reappearance is gone. No wonder, man—you played like a god! You were like one inspired! Shall you risk it; or will you come through to my room in the Opera House, where we can wait and smoke quietly ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... pleasant as were the memories over which I thus sat musing, there was one face immeasurably beyond all others that I had come there hoping and yet fearing to meet again, hers of whom for years that seem past counting all the awe and wonder and loveliness of the world have seemed but the metaphor. Endless years ago she and I had sat at this table where I was now sitting and had risen from it with breaking hearts, never to see each other's face, hear ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... wise example by-and-by," said the doctor; "but we will now go back to breakfast, or Mr Shobbrok will wonder what has ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... seemed to her at any rate that if she HAD baffled his unholy purpose she could bear anything—bear imprisonment and bread and water, bear lashes and torture, bear even his lifelong reproach. What she could bear least was the wonder of the inconvenience she had inflicted on Godfrey. She had time to turn this over, very vainly, for a succession of days—days more numerous than she had expected, which passed without bringing her from London any summons to come up and take her punishment. She sounded ...
— The Marriages • Henry James

... facts, demolishes theories. But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition—and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation—and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... connected with it. Ay, tremble! The powers that emanate from the glittering wonder are as terrible as they are unnatural. The magic spell exerted by the beaker has transformed the heroic son of Herakles, the more than mortal, into the whimpering coward, the crushed, broken nonentity I found upon the galley's deck. You are silent? Your nimble tongue finds no reply. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... everything is here! No wonder the young people there do not pine after the dissipations ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... at the humorous aspect of the affair, which it certainly had, and to comment on the singular incongruities which 'Every Other Week' was destined to involve at every moment of its career. "I wonder if I'm mistaken in supposing that no other periodical was ever like it. Perhaps all periodicals are like it. But I don't believe there's another publication in New York that could bring together, in honor of itself, a fraternity and equality ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... "I don't wonder. If you ask me, I think it was very extraordinary your being there. If you ask me, I think it was very funny of that Miss Bright sending for you at that hour of the night. Whyever should she send ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... a catch in his voice. "It's like life ... coming home in the end ... after long strivings with tempest and wave. I wonder—" he turned to her slowly, "Aleta, will it ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... playing with her Noah's Ark, when he would much rather have met Madame Tussaud. They met at South Hampton. What he thought was, "Here's this woman again," but he merely said, "That's a very chic costume of yours." What she thought was, "I wonder if he's seen Peter Pan," but she only said, "That's wet paint you're leaning against." He gave her a piercing glance, and she swallowed it. So they went to prison together and learned to ride the bicycle, and the ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... It was a wonder to many that she had married—seeming so wholly of the stuff that makes old maids. But chance cast her in the path of Adam Weir, then the new Lord Advocate, a recognised, risen man, the conqueror of many obstacles, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "I wonder," said Pani Ofka, the widow of Krystyn of Jarzombkow, "how Walgierz Wdaly, about whom the monk was talking, can appear in Tyniec, where they ring the ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... play Mendelssohn well enough to satisfy Mr. Bevan. I wonder Lady Price does keep her on here, but in the meantime we can only ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... any wonder that I threw up my hands in despair at finding myself amongst such a people. But this was in the early days, and now that I have greater experience of the English, many of my ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... range of human life and experience, descending from her artificial throne to live with peasant and people. These ardent innovators spurned all ancient rules and conventions, and in the first ecstasy of their new-found freedom and unchastened strength it is no wonder that they went too far. Goethe and Schiller learned betimes the salutary lesson of artistic restraint. Buerger ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... "I wonder if it would matter if I took all my things off?" she began reflectively. Then she gasped out: "Why Louis, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... 'I wonder what girls are made of,' he said, as he slowly opened his lesson books. 'To think of Duffy flying at me like that! She called me a cad too, nasty little thing! I won't speak to her for a week, when we come in here to lessons. I'll give her a taste ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie

... is over, this long-talked-of meeting," he said, half to himself, half to Dorward. "It is over, and Europe is left to wonder." ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... at it, should it again appear. There was no use, he thought, in waking up his companions. In a short time afterwards he heard a loud bark. He listened. The bark was repeated. "Why, it's a dog. I wonder if there are people in the neighbourhood," he said to himself. "If there are, they will find us out; but they are not likely to be otherwise than friendly. However, when I call the captain I'll tell him to keep a sharp lookout." When at length his watch was over, he roused up Captain ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... joy;—and were the scope Of these affections wider made, Man still would see, and see dismay'd, Beyond his passion's widest range, Far regions of eternal change. Nay, and since death, which wipes out man, Finds him with many an unsolved plan, With much unknown, and much untried, Wonder not dead, and thirst not dried, Still gazing on the ever full Eternal mundane spectacle— This world in which we draw our breath, In some sense, Fausta, outlasts death. Blame thou not, therefore, him who dares Judge vain beforehand human cares; Whose natural ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... grew more animated in the presence of those bright eyes, which were at once appreciative and sympathizing, Amelie drank in the conversation of Pierre as one drinks the wine of a favorite vintage. If her heart grew a little intoxicated, what the wonder? Furtively as she glanced at the manly countenance of Pierre, she saw in it the reflection of his noble mind and independent spirit; and remembering the injunction of Le Gardeur,—for, woman-like, she sought a support ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... forgot, but I know you mighty near sneezed your head off. You'll be the death of me some day, Ira, blowin' up that way. I wonder I didn't jump clean through the bottom of that feed box when I was just reaching down to get a measure ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... wonder is told us in stories old, of heroes worthy of praise, of hardships dire, of joy and feasting, of the fighting of bold warriors, of weeping and of wailing; now ye may ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... bed and lifted up her heart to the Lord of life in silent, wordless, thoughtless, profoundly quiet aspiration. She did not wish to move or speak, or form a sentence even in her mind. She found her state a strange one, but she did not even wonder at it, so deep was the calm ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... sensed it!" whispered Billy. "An' ye chose me when ye had sich a chance?" Wonder thrilled through the question. Was he to know ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... love," I said finally. "That's what's the matter with your work, Shelby, if you'll let me say so. I wonder if you have really loved a woman—or a friend, even? If the great thing should come into your life, wouldn't it illuminate your whole literary expression? Wouldn't you write eighty per cent better. Wouldn't ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... a-askin' ye, an' askin' ye, an' askin' ye, for all this long time, to make my massa an' missis better, an' you don't do it, an' what can be the reason? Why, maybe you can't. Well, I shouldn't wonder ef you couldn't. Well, now, I tell you, I'll make a bargain with you. Ef you'll help me to git away from my massa an' missis, I'll agree to be good; but ef you don't help me, I really don't think I can be. Now,' says I, 'I want ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... secured the safety of the people, there can be little doubt that firing and looting would have daily taken place and no woman been safe. It was the last phase of political collapse with a vengeance: and small wonder if all Chinese officials, including even high police officers, sent their valuables either out of the city or into the Legation Quarter for safe custody. Extraordinary rumours circulated endlessly among the common people that there would ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... other? Oh! if you had, Purgatory would but seem to you the last, unexpected, and inexpressibly tender invention of an obstinate love which was mercifully determined to save you in spite of yourself! It would be a perpetual wonder to you, a joyous wonder, fresh every, morning—a wonder that would be meat and drink to your soul; that you, being what you are, what you know yourself to be, what you may conceive God knows you to be, should be saved eternally! Remember ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... has not seen Ambialet, in the Albigeois, has missed a wonder of the world. The village rests in a saddle of crystalline rock between two rushing streams, which are yet one and the same river; for the Tarn (as it is called), pouring down from the Cevennes, is met and turned ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Wheat.—Clawson Crossman Bros., Rochester. Grand prize Field, Garden, and Flower Seeds Peas.—Crossman's First and Best, Crossman's Extra Early True, Early Kent, Early June, Dan O'Rourke, Philadelphia Extra Early, Alaska, Grandun, American Wonder, Nott's Excelsior, Extra Early Premium Gem, McLean's Little Gem, Surprise or Eclipse, Tom Thumb, Abundance, Advancers McLeans, Dwarf Daisy, Dwarf Champion, Everbearing, Heroine, Horsford's Market Garden, Pride of the Market, Stratagem Imp, Shropshire Hero, Yorkshire Hero, Duke of Albany, Telephone, ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis

... walls of his dungeon (into which a beam of light no bigger than a ten-cent piece, and in some cases no light at all, penetrated) the culprit could shout and scream his or her heart out if he or she liked, without serious annoyance to His Majesty King Satan. I wonder how many times, en route to la soupe or The Enormous Room or promenade, I have heard the unearthly smouldering laughter of girls or of men entombed within the drooling greenish walls of La Ferte Mace. A dozen times, I suppose, I have seen ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... you look at the beauty of the well-kept lawn, the carefully planted hedge and cedars, the step stone walk that leads up the sloping hill to the door, at the silence of the place. As you draw nearer, you wonder at the uncurtained windows, neat, small-paned casements with ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... see him. It made my heart bleed to see a fellow-creature in such destitution, one, moreover, who I hoped was a brother in Christ Jesus. I had had no idea that his destitution was so great. He seemed to be suffering under a severe attack of colic. On inquiry as to how he usually fared, I did not wonder that he was ill. I gave him a little medicine, took means to get him warm and he was ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... there is more in Turner's painting of water surface than any philosophy of reflection, or any peculiarity of means, can account for or accomplish; there is a might and wonder about it which will not admit of our whys and hows. Take, for instance, the picture of the Sun of Venice going to Sea, of 1843, respecting which, however, there are one or two circumstances which may as well ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... keep it as you do 'shall shun churches and Christian people, the house of God and the houses of men and every home but hell!' A great wonder it would be if you obtain the absolution of a priest in the hour of your death. I summon you ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various

... hostess. She sits there with the infant at her ample breast, and on her face is written unquestioning satisfaction with her part in life. A swift laughing tale I hear, of little frocks outgrown and of sabots worn through, and no place to buy anything, and little Jean so thin and nervous, "but no wonder, Mademoiselle, for he was born during the evacuation, and only Cecile to take care of me, and she just sixteen years old, and I had to be carried in a wheelbarrow." I picture the flight, the father away at the front, the mother unable ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall

... each batch of the wounded, disabled creatures who are carried in, one feels inclined to repeat in wonder, "Can one man be responsible for all this? Is it for one man's lunatic vanity that men are putting lumps of lead into each other's hearts and lungs, and boys are lying with their heads blown off, or with their insides beside them on the ground?" Yet there is a splendid freedom ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... "He was a wonder! Why, Father, he used to swim under water nearly all the time, just putting his nose out to breathe once in a while, and at the end of his side stroke he had a little wiggle that shot him ahead like greased lightning. Funniest stroke you ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... Winchester, "and the army is not here. Now I wonder what General Grant will say when he learns that Foote has done the work before ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... I wonder if any of my readers ever went quite alone, friendless, almost helpless, into the great, modern Babylon, to look for a situation; if so, they will know how to pity me. I spent many pounds in advertisements; I haunted the agency offices; ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme

... surprise took the crown from his head, And there, sure enough, was the ring. "No wonder you saw it, with so many eyes; But what is your wish?" said the King. "O King," said the fly, "I work hard all the day, And I never can go out at night. I should like to go then and be gay with my friends, So all that I wish ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller

... forget to use it if the necessity arises, and you'd better set next to Peter Pan so's he can use it, too. He's been kinder nosey all day, and I shouldn't wonder if he wasn't coming down with a cold in his head. How ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare

... annoying, though, Watson. I was badly in need of a case, and this looks, from the man's impatience, as if it were of importance. Hullo! That's not your pipe on the table. He must have left his behind him. A nice old brier with a good long stem of what the tobacconists call amber. I wonder how many real amber mouthpieces there are in London? Some people think that a fly in it is a sign. Well, he must have been disturbed in his mind to leave a pipe behind him which ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... I, Chapter XIX, paragraph 1. The astute reader might wonder how a two-day visit can last from Wednesday to the following Tuesday, as stated in the sentence: Lady Amaldina and he were both to arrive there on Wednesday, December 3rd, and remain till the ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... he? Fairly covered up you see! Cloth and all are lying on him; He has pulled down all upon him. What a terrible to-do! Dishes, glasses, snapt in two! Here a knife, and there a fork! Philip, this is cruel work. Table all so bare, and ah! Poor Papa, and poor Mamma Look quite cross, and wonder how They shall have ...
— Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures • Heinrich Hoffman

... The two, with only a small capital in their pockets, had won during the course of a week or so something like a thousand pounds—not in a few large gains (for in this there would have been nothing to wonder at), but by a regular succession day after day of small ones. They had tested the system further by applying it, after their departure, to the records, published daily in a Monte Carlo journal, of the order in which colors or numbers had turned up throughout the day preceding ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... which accompanies them in words, that the meaning of that vision should be, as it is frequently taken as being, the continuance of Israel unharmed by the fiery furnace of persecution. Not the continuance of Israel, but the eternity of Israel's God is the teaching of that flaming wonder. The burning Bush and the Name of the Lord proclaimed the same great truth of self-derived, self-determined, timeless, undecaying Being. And what better symbol than the bush burning, and yet not burning out, could be found of that God in whose life there is no tendency to death, whose ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... that secret, whatever it was, with him to the grave," Fetherston said reflectively. "I wonder ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... many of the redeemed testify and give thanks; and not coldly, but with passionate gratitude. As a rule they seem drunk with health, and with the surprise of it, the wonder of it, the unspeakable glory and splendor of it, after a long, sober spell spent in inventing imaginary diseases and concreting them with doctor-stuff. The first witness testifies that when "this most beautiful ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... any one wonder that I say these essences, or abstract ideas (which are the measures of name, and the boundaries of species) are the workmanship of the understanding, who considers that at least the complex ones are often, in several men, different collections of simple ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... man stands absolutely alone as the agent and cause of his salvation. And, as the stupendous task rests upon his shoulders, it is no wonder that he has sought relief in the doctrine of metempsychosis, whereby it is believed that millions of rebirths furnish to him an adequate time and a sufficient variety of opportunity for the great consummation. But he has never given to himself, or to us, the first reason for believing that ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... the world's ignorance, hardly from new continents, but from the observatory, the study, the laboratory. But he was none of these. There had been a crime committed somewhere in his bringing up, and as a result he stood in the thick of life's battle, weaponless. He gazed upon machinery with childlike wonder; but when he looked around and saw on every hand men,—good fellows who ate in their shirt-sleeves at restaurants, told broad jokes, spread their mouths and smote their sides when they laughed, and whose best wit was to bombard one another ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... touches those old pictures into a more persuasive and pathetic beauty, and as this increasing summer sheds ever softer lustre upon the landscape. You will return conquerors and not conquered. You will bring Europe, even as Aurelian brought Zenobia captive, to deck your homeward triumph. I do not wonder that these clouds break away, I do not wonder that the sun presses out and floods all the air, and land, and water, with light that graces with happy omens ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis

... morning, the sun having just arisen, they went to bathe in a clear fountain, on the margin whereof they found the saint sitting with other holy men; and regarding his countenance and garb, they were struck with wonder, and enquired of his birth and his residence, taking him for an apparition. But the saint admonished them rather to believe in his God than to enquire of his descent or his dwelling-place. Then the damsels, desiring to know more assuredly of God, earnestly questioned about ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... streaming in the breeze, and countenance aglow with intensity of purpose or haggard with disappointment at some fresh rebuff, the ragged urchins of the pavement tapped their foreheads and smiled with mingled wonder and amusement at this madman. Seventeen years had elapsed since the letter from Toscanelli to Martinez, and all that was mortal of the Florentine astronomer had long since been laid in the grave. For Columbus himself old age was ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske



Words linked to "Wonder" :   mull, request, curiousness, meditate, thirst for knowledge, astonishment, excogitate, chew over, awe, respond, contemplate, ruminate, ponder, lust for learning, natural event, occurrence, interest, muse, wondrous, think over, amazement, happening, state of mind, mull over, query, speculate, reflect, react, occurrent, involvement, inquisitiveness, desire to know, scruple, cognitive state



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