Surprise

                                       Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Chapter 72: 

Yang Xiu was a man of acute and ingenious mind, but inclined to show off. His lack of restraint over his tongue had often wounded Cao Cao’s susceptibilities. Once Cao Cao was having a pleasance laid out, and when it was completed, he went to inspect the work. He uttered no word of praise or blame; he just wrote the word “Alive” on the gate and left. Nobody could guess what he meant till Yang Xiu heard of it.

“‘Gate’ with ‘Alive’ inside it makes the word for ‘wide’,” said he. “The Prime Minister thinks the gates are too wide.”

Thereupon they rebuilt the outer walls on an altered plan. When complete, Cao Cao was asked to go and see it. And he was then delighted.

“But who guessed what I meant?” said he.

“Yang Xiu,” replied his people.

Cao Cao thereafter lauded Yang Xiu’s ingenuity, but in his heart he feared.

 Available: <here> (at 8:16ff)

Spielberg’s Lincoln

Thaddeus Stevens to a Asa Vintner Litton (a fictional Radical Republican Representative): “Nothing surprises you, Asa, therefore nothing about you is surprising. Perhaps that is why your constituents did not re-elect you to the coming term.”

Available: <here> (at 00:55ff), or <here>

Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Surprise,’ New Reform Club (Jan. 25, 2024, 9:00 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/surprise.html>;