Surprise

“ AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. WONDER, surprise, and admiration, are words which, though often confounded, denote, in our language, sentiments that are indeed allied, but that are in some respects different also, and distinct from one another. What is new and singular, excites that sentiment which, in strict propriety, is called Wonder; what is unexpected, Surprise; and what is great or beautiful, Admiration. ”

“ No," said he, with a glance of surprise: "who else should there be? And, dear boy, how good-looking you have growed!
There's bright eyes somewheres—eh? Isn't there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the thoughts on?" ”

“ Something which responds from soul to soul, which may be aroused from the depths of subconsciousness like a surprise, which may be touched and reveal itself in an outburst of affection previously hidden and unsuspected. ”

“ Surprise lies midway between astonishment and amazement, and usually respects matters of lighter consequence or such as are less startling in character. Amazement may be either pleasing or painful, as when induced by the grandeur of the mountains, or by the fury of the storm. ”

“ There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said. ”

“ In such tales the real interest is usually in the weirdness of the whole affair—though, to be sure, they do not always turn out as they are expected to. For, after all, this introduction of surprise into fiction is simply an imitation of nature, and "it is the unexpected that always happens." ”

“ THAT I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life. ”

“ As I have not included the capability of dissipating expectation among the laughable features of objects, I may indicate what I hold to be the function of surprise in the effect of the ludicrous. Surprise, the effect of a presentation for which the mind is not perfectly pre-adjusted at the moment, seems to be a common condition of vivid and exciting impressions, certainly of those which induce a state of gladness. ”

“ Evidently there can be no surprise and no disappointment unless there is expectation and most rhythms perhaps are made up as much of disappointments and postponements and surprises and betrayals as of simple, straightforward satisfactions. ”

“ Surprise heightens the feeling of internal tension, and in all excitement it is an element, in that the novel brings excitement and surprise, whereas the accustomed gives little excitement or surprises. In all wit and humor surprise is part of the technique and constitutes part of the pleasure. Surprise usually heightens the succeeding feeling, whether of joy, sorrow, anger, fear, pleasure or pain, or in any form. ”

“ Why else the [Pg 502] start of surprise that runs through us if some one has filled the light-seeming box with sand before we try to lift it, or has substituted for the cannon-ball which we know a painted wooden imitation? Surprise can only come from getting a sensation which differs from the one we expect. ”

“ Surprise, on the other hand, is shown by a sharp constriction of the mental body, accompanied by an increased glow in the bands of affection if the surprise is a pleasant one, and by a change of colour usually involving the display of a good deal of brown and grey in the lower part of the ovoid when the surprise is an unpleasant one. ”

“ When one accustomed object appears after another, which it does not usually follow, it first excites, by its unexpectedness, the sentiment properly called Surprise, and afterwards, by the singularity of the succession, or order of its appearance, the sentiment properly called Wonder. ”

“ How the happiest surprises spring constantly out of the logical developments! and how everything is in its right place, keeping the mind constantly on the watch, caressing and tickling the ear by turns, without a single moment of heaviness or fatigue! ”

“ The heavens are full of shooting stars, and while watching one we are distracted by another. So frequent is this experience that our nerves almost refuse to respond to the shock of a new sensation. We are no longer surprised at surprises. The marvelous has become the commonplace, and the unexpected is what we now expect. ”

“ Life is full of surprises, of particular and exceptional instances. The abnormal is the normal; and the most thrilling moments some of us know are the moments when we snatch an inspiration from a quarter outside our allotted circle. ”

“ Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing, must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise. ”

“ I myself have become so accustomed to surprises, to interesting or extraordinary sights, that when a day happens to pass during which nothing remarkable has been heard or seen I feel vaguely discontented. ”

“ After having seen celestial brightness, ill-disposed persons fall back into the darkness of their habitual life; the recollections of sweet emotions which have for a moment surprised them are gradually effaced. ”

“ When any distress or terror surprises us in the midst of our amusements, it naturally makes a deeper impression than at other times, either because the contrast makes us more keenly susceptible, or rather perhaps because our senses are then more open to impressions, and the shock is consequently stronger. ”

“ If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, anyone who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment, that success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the revelation. ”

“ "The beauty of life is its sudden changes. No one knows what is going to happen next, and so we are constantly being surprised and entertained. ”

“ And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. ”

“ The confidence that is required, the excitement of imagination, the unity of effort, and of purpose, the rapid exercise of mind to catch the half-uttered thought, the enforced candour from want of time, which admits of no disguise or circumlocution, the very mystery itself--all cast that magic chain around those so circumstanced, within which they can hardly escape from the power of love. ”

“ Some day they are overcome by that all-absorbing, dreamy sensation which forms the contrast to their whole secret and public life: like unto delightful mystery and miracle, full of golden splendour and baffling description and illustration. ”

“ How glorious is the thrill, which shoots through our frame, as we first wake to the consciousness of our intellectual power; as we feel the spirit--the undying spirit--ready to burst the gross bonds of flesh, and soar triumphant, over the sneers of others, and our own mistrust.
How does each thought seem to swell in our bosom, as if impatient of the confined tenement--how do the floating ideas congregate--how does each impassioned feeling subdue us in turn, and long for a worthy utterance! ”

“ What more lurid than the depths of desire, what more mysterious than the hinterlands of conscience? And what event is so great a mystery as life itself? I believe that every tale should be a mystery tale. ”

“ The life which was to most of their contemporaries a tragedy without dignity, or a comedy without humour, was to them a gift sweet and sacred, a race to be bravely run under that lucent cloud which shone with the faces of angel witnesses,—a mystery indeed, yet a mystery luminous with a ray which streamed to them out of God’s Eternity from the Glory of their Risen Lord. ”

“ But what after all is the character of these pleasures upon which there is such a high estimate placed? They are all vain and empty as a bubble on the wave. They are like a dream which assumes all the appearance of reality, till we awake from our slumber and discover the deception. ”

“ The pulses of a busy throng,
⁠The rest of spirits over-wrought:
⁠Are these—is all beside them, naught?
Here, everywhere, and every day,
⁠The seeker finds right human stuff:
To laugh, to weep, to work, to play;
⁠Are joy and sorrow not enough? ”

“ In my childhood a circumstance occurred which made an indelible impression on my mind, and laid the ground work of that enthusiasm, which has terminated so fatally to many, both white and black, and for which I am about to atone at the gallows. ”

“ In the momentary clairvoyance of enthusiasm they caught a glimpse of the truth, and by one of the strange reactions of human passion they only waited for a word of appeal or explanation from her lips to throw themselves at her feet. ”

“ He stood silent for a moment watching hope filter into their faces, hope that made their dull eyes shine in the semi-darkness.
"Do not let joy curl your lips until you have listened, for it would be a false joy." ”

“ Do condescend and explain to my dull understanding, as the inferior mortal of a former age, what are the grand emotions which impel a soul of fire in your wiser generation. The thirst of excitement—what excitement? ”

“ When excited, the mind is apt to recur to the impressions of childhood—like sympathetic ink exposed to fire—the covert but not expunged pictures which the soul first received, revive and become visible. ”

“ How often is it in the world, that we thus see the bright, the admired, the powerful, the prosperous, with the grave hue of painful thoughts upon the brow, the never unmingled smile, the lapses of gloomy meditation, and ask ourselves, "What is the secret sorrow in the midst of all this success? ”

“ The manner in laughter, in tears, in irony, in indignations and enthusiasms, in judgments--and even in love. The manner in which, as in the features and character of a human face, the inner truth is foreshadowed for those who know how to look at their kind. ”

“ Could one lift the impenetrable veil of mystery that hides the future from our curious eyes, what secrets would often be revealed, what shadows would fall upon hearts now light and thoughtless—shadows of grief, of horror, and despair! ”

“ With her most surely the final effect and impression rest upon powers of revelation—upon the ability to realise and to interpret the simplest and the subtlest phases of emotion, far more than upon those artifices of deception that make for the more obvious triumphs of disguise. ”

“ He recognises with delight the realisation of his wildest fancies, his strangest imaginings, and in presence of this vision of mystery, his spirit floats continually between the dream and the reality. ”

“ It was then that the pleasures of knowledge, the joys of thought, the emotions of eloquence, were all called into play to charm and move and plunge into a profound and strange intoxication this noble and tender heart which had never known either love or sorrow.... One can imagine that everything helped on the inevitable end. ”

“ But if the words by which this excitement is produced are in themselves powerful, or the images and feelings have an undue proportion of pain connected with them, there is some danger that the excitement may be carried beyond its proper bounds. ”

“ And you'll be thrilled just as we were, when you see them for the first time, and you'll marvel, as we did, that anything in the world could exist, so strange, so large, so utterly beyond description. ”

“ This allusion to Guy, unpleasant and shocking as it was, gave me a peculiar sensation that was not unlike that of relief, while at the same moment the glimpse of something, which I was fain to call a revelation, visited my mind and led me impetuously to say:
"I hope you are not thinking of sacrificing yourself for another less noble and less generous than yourself. ”