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More "Brusqueness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in most respects, she and the set to which she had belonged at Girton, had established it as a principle to their own satisfaction, that feminine weaknesses were to be sternly discouraged as the main cause of the position held relatively to men. Thus they cultivated a certain brusqueness of speech, expressed their opinion uncompromisingly, and were distinguished by a certain plainness in the fashion of their gowns, and by the absence of ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... stock American phrase which has crossed the Pacific westwards; but the citizen's brusqueness was replaced by ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... with pride, and in no mood for a stranger's patronage. So I told him roundly that it was none of his business, and pushed by him to Parlane's back-door. But my brusqueness gave no offence to this odd being. He only laughed and cried after me that, if my manners were the equal of my marksmanship, I would be the best lad he had seen ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... been rather afraid of her silent father-in-law, whose very name made hundreds tremble and thousands curse, but she soon discovered that the old man actually stood in awe of her, and that his apparent brusqueness was the mere awkwardness he felt when in her presence. He was anxious to please her, and worried himself wondering whether there was ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... office brusqueness fell away, and his tone changed. He knew that this was the girl's last stand, and that she had not admitted its necessity until every other effort had failed, every path of escape closed. "I don't think, Miss Burton," he assured her, "I ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... he smiled—that sudden, singularly sweet smile of his which transformed the harsh lines of his face and which seemed to have so little in common with his habitual brusqueness. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... was standing at a little distance from her, on the hearth-rug. Never had lady been wooed in a sterner manner; but Caroline almost felt that she liked him the better for it. He had simpered and said his little nothings so like an ordinary gentleman during their ride, that his present brusqueness was ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... of the strong self-reliant man are sometimes accompanied by a brusqueness of manner that leas others to misjudge them. As Knox was retiring from the queen's presence on one occasion he overheard one of the royal attendants say to another, "He is not afraid!" Turning round upon them, he said: "And why should the ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... charming,' he repeated, then said with a change of tone and with his occasional impulsive brusqueness, 'I wonder—does he ever jar on you ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... out of the back door again, and ran swiftly to the barn, fastening on her clean cuffs and collar as she ran. The fugitive was anxiously awaiting her, with a slight touch of brusqueness in ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... the brusqueness of his manner had I not caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the mantelshelf. Dusty and worn, and with a keen look of anxiety showing out of every feature, I should scarcely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... that the young rascal ought to be out of his bed in time for breakfast," he retorted with affected brusqueness. "He has all the ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... with an odd brusqueness, and there were traces of agitation in his face. Hermione did not at all understand what feeling was prompting him, but again, as on the previous evening, she felt as if there were a barrier between them—very slight, perhaps, very shadowy, but definite nevertheless. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... shuffled towards the attendant with some intention of addressing him. He was not light of touch in conversation, and found it difficult to strike the happy mean between the brusqueness of the superior and the geniality of the equal. As he came nearer, the man presented his side face to him, but kept his gaze still bent upon his work. Vansittart Smith, fixing his eyes upon the fellow's skin, was conscious of a sudden impression that there was something inhuman and preternatural ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to commercial competition; weak alliances were relied on to secure the position externally; self-government was not granted, because the military organization was the pivot of the whole system; the drill-sergeant tone at home had its counterpart in the brusqueness of our foreign policy; enmities grew and organized themselves, ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... "how little you do know of me, after all! Do I care so much for what people say? Aren't you always having to reprove me because I so persistently like what I like, without reference to the opinions of the world? Besides, you're a beauty," with tender brusqueness, "and a charmer that steals the hearts of men. If you don't know all this, it isn't from lack of telling. Moreover, I can keep on informing you. A year of European travel could not make you any more beautiful, Johnnie—or ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... he said. "He has a certain brusqueness of manner at times, although he is a good soul. He can't bear for anyone to suggest that another city, even one of our own, could possibly rival Paris in any particular. It's his pet devotion, and we won't disturb ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... his pulse quicken a trifle at the business manager's brusqueness, and upon him he kept an alert eye, for it was in that gentleman's trousers pocket that he divined the Transcontinental's ready ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... with me—Lord Ripon's position—for it was assumed by some, that my views of the state of affairs were those of the Viceroy, and then I felt I would do him harm by staying with him. Lord Ripon and I left perfect friends. The brusqueness of my leaving was unavoidable, inasmuch as my stay would have put me in the possession of State things that I ought not to know. Certainly, I might have stayed a month or two, and had a pain in the head and gone quickly; but the whole duties were ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... reflection," she said with her usual brusqueness, "that you scorn my ignorance and my lack of wit much more than my supposed want of morality. You think less of virtue than you do ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... banker took long rides together, and she was always exceedingly cheerful on her return—a little too much so, I tried to think. She ignored the past as completely as possible, and while her manner was kind to me she had regained her old-time delicate brusqueness, and rarely lost a chance to give me a friendly fillip. Indeed I had never known her to be so brilliant, and her spirits seemed unflagging. Mr. Yocomb was delighted and in his large appetite for fun applauded and joined in every phase of our home gayety. There was too much hilarity ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... my head, haven't I?" he queried, affecting a certain brusqueness in his tone—"Talking a lot of ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... to put them at their ease.—That was the case with Louis XIV.[1286]—polite to everybody, always affable with men, and sometimes gracious, always courteous with women, and some times gallant, carefully avoiding brusqueness, ostentation, and sarcasms, never allowing himself to use an offensive word, never making people feel their inferiority and dependence, but, on the contrary, encouraging them to express opinions, and even to converse, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... otherwise he was not an object of distinction there. He remained at Yale two years, and then threw up the struggle. He came home with his manners a good deal improved; he had lost his surliness and brusqueness, and was rather pleasantly soft and smooth, now; he was furtively, and sometimes openly, ironical of speech, and given to gently touching people on the raw, but he did it with a good-natured semiconscious air that carried it off safely, and kept him from getting into trouble. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... power to tempt a man be the test," he retorted with an odd brusqueness quite disproportionate to the apparent lightness of the occasion, the dark blood mantling his face, "there can be ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... men often passed Richmond without taking particular notice of him. He was rather undersized, and was bald, but his head was shapely. He was so sensitive that he often assumed a brusqueness in order not to appear effeminate. His judgment of men was as swift as the sweep of a hawk, and sometimes it was as sure. He had taken so many chances, and had so closely noted that something which we call luck, that he might have been touched a little with superstition, ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... greater or less degree, all the Northern nations. The ordinary Englishman, when he travels abroad, carries his shyness with him. He is stiff, awkward, ungraceful, undemonstrative, and apparently unsympathetic; and though he may assume a brusqueness of manner, the shyness is there, and cannot be wholly concealed. The naturally graceful and intensely social French cannot understand such a character; and the Englishman is their standing joke—the subject ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... was his rank at that time) was then, as he has ever been, good, full of courage, and universally beloved. His frankness, which sometimes bordered on brusqueness, pleased the Emperor; and I have many times heard him speak in praise of his aide-de-camp, whom he always styled, "My brave Rapp." Rapp was not lucky in battle, for he rarely escaped without a wound. While thus ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... nothing to say, for in spite of his apparent brusqueness his heart melted more quickly, and his eyes filled easier with tears, at a pathetic story, ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... in two aspects—as an honest man, and a husband, only praise is due him. He died poor and pure. Yet, there are passages in his history which evidence great defects. Life had been for him one long dramatic performance. Many great men seem to have a suit of armour in the form of coldness, brusqueness, or rudeness, which they put on to meet the stranger, but which, when laid aside, reveals simple, charming, and often boyish manners. Clinton had such an armour, but he never put it off, except with intimates, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... to get on with. To natural brusqueness is added an evident disinclination to discuss the business. Floyd is much too proud to seem curious, though here he has a right to know all, but he feels that he will not be able to make ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... moment in astonishment, and then a twinkle crept into his eyes. Her matter-of-fact brusqueness, which made it perfectly plain that his views in the matter did not count, might have roused a sense of opposition in some men, but he had acquired a wide toleration in ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... was just going to call up the ranch," he said with the brusqueness of a man whose mind is concentrated on ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... common level. But few superfluities could be found either in their houses or on their persons. Their dress was of home-made fabric, plain, often coarse, but substantial and comfortable. Their manners were cordial and hearty, even to brusqueness, but they were true friends and honest counsellors, rejoicing with their neighbours in prosperity, and sympathising when days of darkness visited their homes. Modern refinement had not crept into their domestic circle to disturb it with shams and pretensions. Fashion had no court ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... "you must forgive my brusqueness—your breakfast will be brought to you in a moment; when it is, don't eat it. Make any excuse you like, but don't ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... child nestled against her, their hands clasped and their eyes greedily fixed upon each other's countenance. The unexpected brusqueness of the question was a relief to their high tension, and Jessica laughed, ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... young man that drove back to the Hotel de Paris. He had hardly gone before Lydia regretted her brusqueness. She liked Jack Glover more than she was prepared to admit, and though he had only been in Cap Martin for two days she felt a little sense of desolation at his going. Very resolutely she refused even to consider his extraordinary views about Jean. ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... reputation for brusqueness and quick decisions, and is impatient about any waste of time. You probably would help your cause by looking him straight in the eye and saying ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... The brusqueness in the speech grated on Madden, but they hauled up their platform without further remarks on either side. The Englishman seemed to work slower than the American, but ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... education, gone out into the world on his own account, and made some progress in business, is the ready prey of the bacillus of arrogance. He does not yet know enough of life to realise the price he will have to pay in the future for the brusqueness of his manner or the abruptness of his proceedings. He may even fancy that it is only necessary to be as rude as Napoleon to acquire all the gifts of the Emperor. This conception is altogether false, though it may be pardoned to youth in ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... celebrated physician in the Dublin of those days was Sir Dominic Corrigan, who, however, was as much famed for his brusqueness towards patients as for his skill. Being in weak health, I was often taken to him, but he invariably treated me with the utmost kindness. However, a highly, respectable maiden-aunt of mine had a somewhat ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... said Austen, who understood something of the feeling which underlay this brusqueness. That knowledge made matters all the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a man of action, his brusqueness of manner was, in part at least, a pose which had become unconscious, and, deep within his heart, in a chamber carefully locked from the gaze of his fellow men, dwelt Romance and Imagination—the spirit ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... that their newly-married state should not appear, and with considerable ceremony it was arranged that he should treat her with off-hand brusqueness when they arrived at their lodging. The Teutonic landlady appeared in the passage with an amiable smile and the hope that they had had a pleasant journey, and became voluble with promises of comfort. Lewisham ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... a man, wavering and changeable, to use Montaigne's expression, for his eyes, contradicting the brusqueness of his speech, rested long, and not without envy, on this beautiful and tempting fruit which his fate forbade him to gather. The more he admired her freshness, and the more he inhaled her sweetness, the more the image of Eugenie Gontier was gradually effaced from his memory, like ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... course was there,—as unconsciously lovely as if the disappearance of the unfortunate Anthrops were as much a mystery to her as to the rest of the wondering citizens. The philosopher, laying aside the brusqueness acquired in his solitude, devoted himself with the utmost courtesy to the amusement of his guests, —opened for them dusty cases of butterflies, shells, and rare stones, which he had collected in his pursuit of the various sciences that made them a specialty,—placed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... insatiable, rose mountain high. Sister Katherine had been kind to her, had received her with open arms, and given her light tasks to perform. And many times during the long afternoon the old woman had relaxed entirely from her assumed brusqueness and stooped to lay a large, red hand gently upon the brown curls, or to imprint a resounding kiss upon the flushed cheek. Now, as night was settling down over the great, roaring city, the woman took the homeless waif into her big heart and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... question, flung out without any reverential preface, assumes that the character of God requires that the fate of the righteous should be distinguished from that of the wicked. The very brusqueness of the question shows that he supposed himself to be appealing to an elementary and indubitable law of God's dealings. The teachings of the Fall and of the Flood had graven deep on his conscience the truth that the same loving Friend must needs deal out rewards to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... said the hunter with assumed brusqueness. "You needn't stand here all night, looking at the river, the cliffs and the storm. Off to your berths, both ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Jimmy," she said with sudden brusqueness, "if she comes back here again without you it will be the last time you need ask me for help. You've got your chance. If you can't make her want to stay with you for the rest of your natural life I wash my ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... greeted me very tactfully. This is another typical asset of a Prussian Service officer, especially a naval man, and is quite contrary to the usual characteristics of English officials, whose brusqueness is ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... anxieties of these self-appointed defenders of public morals, and of the Republic even, found a spokesman in a young journalist who had then come recently from college. This person, whom we will call X., met Mr. Roosevelt at a public reception and with the brusqueness, to put it mildly, of a hereditary reformer, he demanded to know why the Governor breakfasted and dined with Boss Platt. Mr. Roosevelt replied, with that courtesy of his which was never more complete than when it conveyed his sarcasm, that a person in ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... something broader, boyish, natural in his unease, his curiosity. She saw how like he was to his slender, aristocratic father. She compared the courtesy of his manner toward Dulac with Dulac's studied brusqueness, conscious that the boy was natural, honest, really endeavoring to find out what this thing was all about; equally conscious that Dulac was exercising the tricks of the platform and utilizing the situation ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... warned Kate that this was to be only the first of more than one serious encounter with the eyes steadily regarding her, her astonishment and indignation might have been restrained. As it was, forgetting her own position and descending to Western brusqueness, she retorted icily: "I can't see how that ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... eyes. She had evidently not expected to meet a man so young, so handsome, so refined, and so coldly invincible in manner. Still less was she prepared for that kind of antagonism. In keeping up her preconcerted attitude towards the "Northern hireling," she had been met with official brusqueness, contemptuous silence, or aggrieved indignation,—but nothing so exasperating as this. She even fancied that this elegant but sardonic-looking soldier was mocking her. She bit her red lip, but, with a scornful ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... Leon's probity was not free from a touch of brusqueness. This is disclosed by his own description of his behaviour to a dullard who made his life at Salamanca a burden: 'Acerca del capitulo cuarto, demas de lo dicho digo que creo que este testigo es un bachiller Rodriguez, y por otro nombre el doctor Sutil que en Salamanca llaman ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... the statuesque, scale, are characteristics of mass. Line in this connection only takes from the brusqueness that mass alone would have, or helps to break up any tendency to monotony. The "Return to the Farm," by Millet, shows this combination, the reverse of "The Sower." In this, the line is used to enrich the repose and weight, the statuesque of ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... With characteristic brusqueness, the judge at once demanded of the attorney for the Commonwealth why these men were under arrest. The not unexpected reply was, that they had been indicted for preaching without first taking an oath to support the Constitution of ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... book is his own. Whitman's puzzling characteristics are best understood if we realize that Leaves of Grass is an autobiography—and an extraordinarily candid one—of a man whose peculiar temperament found expression in prose-verse. His gentleness, his brusqueness, his egotism, his humility, his grossness, his finer nature, his crudeness, his eloquence, are all here. To him they were the ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... with kindly indulgence his flimsy knick-knacks and shabby hangings (they came nowhere near Dill's) on account of her interest in their supposed proprietor. Nor did she find in her painter any of Dill's soft suavity. Prochnow was direct and downright almost to brusqueness, seeming to see no need of such graduated preliminaries as even O'Grady found place and reason for. He admired her, and admired her extremely, as she perceived at once; but he offered none of the appropriate deferences that she had received on ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... before she could become acquainted with them, and the aunt who had reared her was a worldly woman who looked upon her merely as a valuable piece of social property. Nannie's lack of popularity was disappointing, but the aunt still hoped that her unusual beauty would atone for her brusqueness, crudity, and lack of tact, and she would form a rich alliance. Between her aunt and uncle there had never been, to Nannie's knowledge, the slightest expression of affection, and so when one spoke of "hearts and roses" and "true lovers' knots" in a domestic connection, the words fell strangely ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... even her ignorance unconsciously admitted. She approached Boase on the subject of his creed and met with scant encouragement, which made her the more earnest. If the Parson had been anxious to receive her into the path he trod, she would have lagged; as it was, his brusqueness awaked a sensation of pleasure in her—there was no male to snub and bully her now that Archelaus had gone away. She set up to herself the image of Boase that some more educated women make of their doctor—a bully who had to be placated, who would scold her if she transgressed ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... throat Luck chuckled. "Well, Pink certainly does die pathetic," he soothed the perturbed murderer, dropping his professional brusqueness for frank comradeship. "He's about the best little close-up dier I ever worked with. He can get a sob anytime he rolls his eyes and gasps and falls backward." He clapped his hand down on Pink's shoulder and gave ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... that under the steady normality and evenness of his wife's demeanor there stirred an indefinable current of nervousness, since the evening of the tryst at the float and that the whole manner of the visitor toward himself was tinctured with a new brusqueness, as though the requirement of maintaining a cordial pretense ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... well! It's too bad, really. I'm quite aware that I show a sort of brusqueness at times, but mind you, it's all on the surface. Had you known me as long as you've known his lordship, I dare say you'd have noticed the same rough urbanity in me as well. I rather fancy some of us over here don't do those things so very differently. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... brusque and even not very polite. Let me assure them that they are the politest of people, though happily not effusive. They are also the most sympathetic and, strange as it may appear, the most sentimental. Their sympathy I have tested and experienced. Their brusqueness may arise from the fact that they have no time to give to formalities. But a civil question will always be civilly answered, and answered intelligently. Nor are Americans toadies or snobs; they are independent, self-reliant ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... marks by which you are to know a 'strong man'—in the feminine picture? A strong man, of course, is a man with the bark on; polish is incompatible with rugged strength. An exhilarating air of brusqueness breathes from all strong men. They are as ignorant of manners as they are of the effete conventions of grammar. They have fought their way up, and no one can down them. They can be depended upon absolutely as what are called 'good providers.' In short, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... the change in her face and voice; they had both nervously lightened, as oddly and distinctly as they had before seemed to grow suddenly harsh and aggressive. She passed out of the room with girlish brusqueness, leaving him alone with a new and ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... her very interesting with her boyish air, her brusqueness, and independence. Yet, despite her savage surroundings, a certain amount of education was visible in her speech and manner, and her face had no stamp ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... cough or not Captain Anthony spoke. He did not move the least bit. With his back remaining turned to the whole length of the ship he asked Mr Powell with some brusqueness if the chief mate had neglected to instruct him that the captain was to be found on the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... to restore exhausted Nature—"And such was promised as that this Taro[u]bei would never need another." He roared his dissatisfaction. The hint was taken up at once. "This way: it is for the yakunin to carry out her ladyship's order, and to stop your gullet." The brusqueness of the samurai was poor exchange for the noisy amorous atmosphere of the inner palace. With indignation the worthy wheelwright obeyed the order to march ahead. "Ah! Just wait my fine fellow. A word to the lady of the mansion, and you ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... little heartache to do so. But he was very observant, for Amy was becoming a deeply interesting study. He saw and appreciated her delicate fence with Burt, in which tact, kindness, and a little girlish brusqueness were almost equally blended. Was it the natural coyness of a high-spirited girl, who could be won only by long and patient effort? or was it an instinctive self-defence from a suit that she could not repulse decisively without giving pain to those she loved? ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... glad you came," Alf said. Something in his honesty, and the brusqueness of his rejoicing, touched Emmy, and healed her first wound—the thought that she might have been unwelcome to him. They went on a little way, more at ease; both ready for the next step in intimacy which was bound to be ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... only was his rank at that time) was then, as he has ever been, good, full of courage, and universally beloved. His frankness, which sometimes bordered on brusqueness, pleased the Emperor; and I have many times heard him speak in praise of his aide-de-camp, whom he always styled, "My brave Rapp." Rapp was not lucky in battle, for he rarely escaped without a wound. While thus anticipating events, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... had listened with surprising anxiety for the verdict. "Very well, very well," he returned, with extra brusqueness, picking up his newspaper. "I guess there won't be anything to prevent my going to that meeting with you Wednesday evening, Jewel. Just once, ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... man of action, his brusqueness of manner was, in part at least, a pose which had become unconscious, and, deep within his heart, in a chamber carefully locked from the gaze of his fellow men, dwelt Romance and Imagination—the spirit gifts of a mother, whose death, five years before, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... after repeated failures, Garstin was beginning to work with energy and real satisfaction. Of late he had been almost venomous. His impotence to do what he wished to do had made him more disagreeable, more brutal even than usual. His habitual brusqueness had often degenerated into downright rudeness. But suddenly a change had come, one of those mysterious changes in the mood and powers of an artist which neither he nor anyone else can understand. Abruptly the force which had abandoned him ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... of the colonel (who now displayed to Sylvie the graces of a courtier, in marked contradiction to his usual military brusqueness), together with that of the astute Vinet, was soon to harm the Breton child. Shut up in the house, no longer allowed to go out except in company with her old cousin, Pierrette, that pretty little squirrel, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... her away roughly, and she took this movement for a refusal. Her face grew sad, tears came to her eyes, and her father repented his brusqueness. He was surprised at her constant requests for money. What did she want it for? He recalled the wedding-presents, that princely abundance of clothes and jewels which had been on exhibition in this very room. What did she need? But Milita looked at her father in astonishment. More than a year had ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... death with all the earnestness of an energetic, intelligent, and spontaneous woman. She had been barely civil to Lucius Ahenobarbus before; to-night the young man began to persuade himself that the object of his affections was really a most adorable coquette, who used a certain brusqueness of speech to add to her witchery. He had heard that there had been some very disagreeable scenes at Praeneste, when Lentulus had told his niece that Drusus, on account of his dangerous politics, was unfit to be her husband. But Ahenobarbus was ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... ignoring the other's brusqueness, and was soon chatting away pleasantly upon other subjects and striving to draw Beth ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... There is nothing in business so infinitesimal that we can afford to do it in a slipshod fashion. It is no art to answer twenty letters in a morning when they are, in reality, only half answered. When we commend brevity in business letters, we do not mean brusqueness. Nothing stamps the character of a house so clearly as ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok
... Elisa intervened, protesting that I had been sufficiently excited for one day, and quite unceremoniously ordered her master out of the room; upon which Don Luis, laughing heartily at his favourite servant's brusqueness, shook me cordially by the hand, hoped I should soon be well enough to quit my sick chamber, and informed me that he would now do himself the pleasure to visit me for a few minutes daily, if only for the purpose of assuring himself that Mama Elisa had not ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... they multiplied, ploughing the sea in erratic courses. They were from five to seven feet in length, and must have weighed from two hundred to four hundred pounds each. Though their attentions were kindly meant, their brusqueness on such an unsteady footing was unpardonable. I most feared the strong, shooting movements of their tails in the sudden dives under my canoe, for one sportive touch of such a caudality would have rolled me over, and furnished material ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... not expected to meet a man so young, so handsome, so refined, and so coldly invincible in manner. Still less was she prepared for that kind of antagonism. In keeping up her preconcerted attitude towards the "Northern hireling," she had been met with official brusqueness, contemptuous silence, or aggrieved indignation,—but nothing so exasperating as this. She even fancied that this elegant but sardonic-looking soldier was mocking her. She bit her red lip, but, with a scornful gesture ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... said with sudden brusqueness, "if she comes back here again without you it will be the last time you need ask me for help. You've got your chance. If you can't make her want to stay with you for the rest of your natural life I wash my hands of ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... a moment in astonishment, and then a twinkle crept into his eyes. Her matter-of-fact brusqueness, which made it perfectly plain that his views in the matter did not count, might have roused a sense of opposition in some men, but he had acquired a wide toleration in ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... man had a harsh voice, and a strange brusqueness of manner which somehow suggested rebellion against the existing conditions of life. He no longer looked at Lady Sue now, but straight at Sir Marmaduke, speaking the brief apology between his teeth, without opening his mouth, ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... so severe?" said Stoss. The others, including Doctor Wilhelm, chimed in; which only heightened Frederick's brusqueness. "Don't you know there's lots of money in that little witch just now? As the American business man says, 'There's money in it.' Don't forget we're in the dollar land, where you can't rest until the ground has been completely exhausted and ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... amused her. Did I not see it with English eyes used to tranquillity and order? She wondered why Douglas had left the East. He could have risen there in time; and when he should have done so it would have been an eminence. Had he not acquired brusqueness, vulgarity since coming west? A man of undoubted gifts, she conceded—yet. Perhaps I ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... patrician ladies in Venice. Just as Arthur was a different man in the operating theatre, Dr Porhoet was changed among his books. Though he preserved the amiable serenity which made him always so attractive, he had there a diverting brusqueness of demeanour which contrasted ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... upon his task, without paying any attention to the advice showered upon him, and before I could reach his side his voice resounded through the sudden silence, with ill-humored brusqueness: ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... is that of imagining that brusqueness and pertness are wit. There is no other error more common with girls from fifteen to eighteen; they generally choose a boy as the butt of their sarcastic remarks—and, to their shame be it said, they frequently select a lad who is too ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... to have changed; his eyes were bright and feverish; his face was drawn; his voice had lost its shipmaster's brusqueness, and had acquired the drone of the seaman's shore conventicle. There was no doubt about his earnestness; in Clay's mind, there was no doubt about the complications which would ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... therefore, does not feel himself at liberty to entertain a proposition which would require the conclusion of a new treaty in Constitutional form before the proposition could be assented to by the United States." Mr. Fish added, with a justifiable brusqueness not often found in his diplomatic correspondence, that "it is deeply to be regretted that her Majesty's Government has made no effort to comply with that provision of the Twenty-third Article of the Treaty, whereby it was agreed that the third Commissioner should be named by ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... bush, and therefore stood on one common level. But few superfluities could be found either in their houses or on their persons. Their dress was of home-made fabric, plain, often coarse, but substantial and comfortable. Their manners were cordial and hearty, even to brusqueness, but they were true friends and honest counsellors, rejoicing with their neighbours in prosperity, and sympathising when days of darkness visited their homes. Modern refinement had not crept into their domestic circle to disturb ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... position—for it was assumed by some, that my views of the state of affairs were those of the Viceroy, and then I felt I would do him harm by staying with him. Lord Ripon and I left perfect friends. The brusqueness of my leaving was unavoidable, inasmuch as my stay would have put me in the possession of State things that I ought not to know. Certainly, I might have stayed a month or two, and had a pain in the head and gone quickly; but the ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... who took an active part in the first year's meetings were somewhat alarmed at the brusqueness of these men and women, and undertook to ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... knew him well. It was due to a variety of causes. He had infinite pride, and there was in his manner a self-assertion that often bordered, or seemed to border, upon arrogance. His earnestness, moreover, was often mistaken for brusqueness and violence; for he was, in some measure, of that (p. 080) class of men who appear to be excited when they are only interested. The result was that at first he was apt to repel rather than attract. Without referring to other evidence, we need ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... from the business in hand. "I must apologize for my brusqueness, Mr. Sedgwick, but I'm sure you'll understand that with a busy man time is money. Believe me, it is with great regret I am forced to cut short so promising a career. You're a man after my own heart. I see quite unusual ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... Lord George Murray, had during this time tried his best to reconcile the differences which were constantly breaking out between that general, the prince, and the clique who surrounded him. It was a difficult task, for Lord George's impetuosity and outspoken brusqueness, and his unconcealed contempt for Secretary Murray and Sheridan, reopened the breach as fast as ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... after due reflection," she said with her usual brusqueness, "that you scorn my ignorance and my lack of wit much more than my supposed want of morality. You think less of virtue than you do of ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... best understood if we realize that Leaves of Grass is an autobiography—and an extraordinarily candid one—of a man whose peculiar temperament found expression in prose-verse. His gentleness, his brusqueness, his egotism, his humility, his grossness, his finer nature, his crudeness, his eloquence, are all here. To him they were the attributes of ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... has been styled "the English mania," but it pervades, to a greater or less degree, all the Northern nations. The ordinary Englishman, when he travels abroad, carries his shyness with him. He is stiff, awkward, ungraceful, undemonstrative, and apparently unsympathetic; and though he may assume a brusqueness of manner, the shyness is there, and cannot be wholly concealed. The naturally graceful and intensely social French cannot understand such a character; and the Englishman is their standing joke—the subject ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... Charlotte impatiently, 'I think you might take your snubbing with dignity. Her refusal this morning to go to Greenlaws was brusqueness itself. To my mind that young person gives herself airs!' And the Duke of Sedbergh's sister drew herself up with a rustle of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... at once. It came with that curious brusqueness which so many women use when forced to a ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... sudden, singularly sweet smile of his which transformed the harsh lines of his face and which seemed to have so little in common with his habitual brusqueness. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... between us, and made residence at Cambridge a totally different thing from what it had been in my first year. Your brother's wide culture, his singular force of character, his powerful but, at that time, rather unwieldy intellect, his Johnsonian brusqueness of speech and manner, mingled with a corresponding Johnsonian warmth of sympathy with and loyalty to friends in trouble or anxiety, his sturdiness in the assertion of his opinions, and the maintenance of his principles, disdaining the smallest ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... half-propitiatory air, as though somewhat ashamed of its own existence. With the exception of this one room in this one public-house, there was no accommodation for visitors. Never will the rash cyclist who ventured once to appeal to the sexton's wife for rooms in her cottage, forget the brusqueness of ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Albert said. The long, frequently rough drives under the yellowing trees in the golden September light, the camp-chairs, the wine in plain bottles, the improvised kitchen hidden among the bushes, the many young people of high rank all so gay, the king full of liveliness and brusqueness, his queen full of motherliness and ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... sideways, and then, since it would not "sit," and she had mislaid her hat-pins, had bound it boldly in place with a grey woollen comforter, and knotted the ends under her chin. What gave Mr. Hucks pause was, first, the brusqueness of her entry, and next, the high clear tone ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... you want?" demanded, in Hawaiian, with a brusqueness and sternness they knew were ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... taken, but he cannot remember seeing it afterward." She was holding them in her hand, and Randolph almost mechanically took them from her and put them in his pocket. He would not, perhaps, have noticed his own brusqueness had she not looked a little surprised, and, he thought, annoyed. "Are you quite sure you won't lose them?" she said gently. "Perhaps I had better keep them ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the door with such brusqueness that I felt sure he would inform against me to the Inquisition. I knew he would have no difficulty in finding out my name, so I resolved to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... marked than ever when she promenaded with him for a brief time on the piazza. Nor did a little brusqueness on her part banish the tone and manner which were slight indeed, but unmistakable to ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... brusqueness with which she started she pushed her chair slightly back from him. It was to conceal her agitation that she rose, steadying herself on the back of the chair in which she had ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... ladyship had promised him breakfast to restore exhausted Nature—"And such was promised as that this Taro[u]bei would never need another." He roared his dissatisfaction. The hint was taken up at once. "This way: it is for the yakunin to carry out her ladyship's order, and to stop your gullet." The brusqueness of the samurai was poor exchange for the noisy amorous atmosphere of the inner palace. With indignation the worthy wheelwright obeyed the order to march ahead. "Ah! Just wait my fine fellow. A word to the lady of the mansion, and you shall learn the cost of insult to the man she favours. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... his part; he had done this thing without consulting her and without her consent. It was preposterous and insulting in its brusqueness. He evidently intended to change her life—she, who loathed camp life more than anything in the world was to be forced to live in one all summer instead of reigning at Newport. She understood now his open defiance in leaving for the woods with Holcomb, and yet this last decision ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... with a bland smile and a bow. (Mrs. M—— was a desirable customer, and he would have said the same thing if she had happened to tip the show-case over.) "We have to keep our employees up to the mark, you know," he added in a low tone, by way of apology for his brusqueness. "The best of them become careless. But Cash has found a friend this time, so we'll let ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... that sublime audacity which so often fills the place of tact. Casting a rapid glance at Carroll, he cried, "Hallo!" and, wheeling suddenly round on his following guests, with a bewildering extravagance of playful brusqueness, actually bundled them from the room. "The incantation is on!" he cried, waving his arms in the air; "the genie is at work. No admittance except on business! Follow Miss Wilson," he added, clapping both hands on the shoulders of the prettiest and shyest young lady ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... suavity of this new comer with the cat-like movements and brusqueness of his predecessor, Constance, who began to realize the ludicrousness of the situation, in fact seemed to have some special private reason for finding it exceedingly absurd, replied that Mr. Lamotte's chosen officer must of course be acceptable to her, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... alliances were relied on to secure the position externally; self-government was not granted, because the military organization was the pivot of the whole system; the drill-sergeant tone at home had its counterpart in the brusqueness of our foreign policy; enmities grew and organized themselves, and the ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... society, although it caused him a strange little heartache to do so. But he was very observant, for Amy was becoming a deeply interesting study. He saw and appreciated her delicate fence with Burt, in which tact, kindness, and a little girlish brusqueness were almost equally blended. Was it the natural coyness of a high-spirited girl, who could be won only by long and patient effort? or was it an instinctive self-defence from a suit that she could not repulse decisively without ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... have wondered at the brusqueness of his manner had I not caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the mantelshelf. Dusty and worn, and with a keen look of anxiety showing out of every feature, I should ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... such brusqueness that the frightened girl almost fell off the small rim of chair she dared to occupy. She offered Kedzie a post as a typist, but Kedzie could not type; as a film-cutter's assistant, but Kedzie had never seen ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... All of the curt brusqueness was gone from his tone, the keen, cold, measuring calculation from his eye. With the compelling force of the man's blunt nature the whole atmosphere of the room ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... living room. A tall, gray-haired woman of perhaps sixty, very smartly gowned, and of commanding appearance, rose to meet her. "Are you Miss Harlowe?" was her abrupt question. Then before Grace had time to do more than bow in the affirmative, she said with a brusqueness intended to hide emotion, "My name is Brent. Jean Brent is my niece. Tell me, is she with you still? I could not bring myself to ask the maid. I was afraid she might say that my niece was not here." In ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... with questions. She noticed, probably because she had seen little of her of late, a curious change in Elizabeth. It must have been gradual, but yet its result had never been so apparent before. Her brusqueness had softened down, and there had come into her and shone out of her, spite of all her natural uncomeliness of person, that beautiful, intangible something, common alike to peasant and queen, as clear to see and as sad to miss in both—womanliness. ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
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