"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a blame bad bargain," commented the rancher, with unruffled good humor. "I was figuring that I might help you. I thought you were a hobo after my chickens, or trying to bluff me into a free meal this morning. If you'd asked straight for it, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Uncle Chris in the bluff, genial way which, in his younger days, had charmed many a five-pound note out of the pockets of his fellow-men and many a soft glance out of the eyes of their sisters, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... American colonies, then in a state of revolution, and passed the winter of 1782 in the city of New York. He is still borne in lively recollection by many of the elder inhabitants of that city, as a fine bluff boy of sixteen: frank, cheery, and affable; and there are anecdotes still told of his frolicsome pranks on shipboard. Among these, is the story of a rough, though favourite, nautical joke, which he played off upon a sailor boy, in cutting down his hammock ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... not hitherto heard or imagined)—we achieved little progress. She rang, ere long, for aid; which arrived in the shape of a "maitresse," who had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this maitresse was—Labassecourienne from top to toe: and how she did slaughter the speech of Albion! However, I told her a plain tale, which she translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... suggestion and started to walk up the beach; but she did not get far. There was a private dock running out beyond low-water mark just below the very first bungalow. She saw several men coming down the steps from the top of the bluff to the shore and the bathhouses; a big camera was set up on the sands. This must be Bozewell's bungalow, she decided; the one engaged by the ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... tortoise-shell sidecombs and bunches of dry curls, who always dressed in shiny black silk and whose only ornament was her mother's hair set in a breastpin; or it was his father by whom she must sit when he came over in his gig—a bluff, hearty man who generally wore a red waistcoat with big bone buttons and high boots with ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... bluff game strike you?" he asked suddenly as the last delectable mouthful of cream disappeared and he pulled the fresh cup of coffee toward him that the waiter had just ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... cleared the pis'kun walls and came toward her. "Come," he said, taking hold of her arm. "No, no!" she replied pulling back. "But you said if the buffalo would jump over, you would marry one; see, the pis'kun is filled." And without more talk he led her up over the bluff, and out on to ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... faint and feeble on the face of the affianced young lady, who isn't playing her part as a person with ancestors ought to play it. She bounced her old beau and took unto herself a new one, and what I can't understand is, having done it, why she doesn't carry it off with a rip-roaring bluff that might fool even herself for a while. But Elizabeth isn't that sort. Everybody is talking about how miserable she looks. I'm afraid I put the beau idea in her head, and the idea has got her in a hole and she doesn't know how to get out of it. I wish Billy was ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... you are perpetually reminded of the favorite national game of "Poker." In this, a player holding a very bad hand against a good one, may possibly "bluff" his adversary down, and win the stakes, if he only has confidence enough to go on piling up the money, so as to make his own weakness appear strength. That audacity answers often happily enough, especially with the timid and inexperienced, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Mr Button long to reach the hill-top, and there she was, beating up for the island. Bluff-bowed and squab, the figure of an old Dutch woman, and telling of her trade a league off. It was just after the rains, the sky was not yet quite clear of clouds; you could see showers away at sea, and the sea was ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... on, he reached the Strait of Camsoke [Footnote: Camsoke means, "There is a high bluff on the opposite side of the river."—S. T. Rand.] (M.), or Canso, and to cross over again sang the song which wins the whales, and one of these rising, carried him to the opposite shore. Thence he made the circle of Oona-mah-gik, keeping round ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... omnipotence was to be run out of public life without cause assigned. All this while there was rumour and counter-rumour about Mr O'Brien's return. The Dillonites up to the last moment believed we were playing a game of bluff and went on right merrily with their preparations for making a clean sweep of every man who was "suspect" of possessing an independent mind. Then on one winter's night, shortly before the election writs were issued, ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... "bluff Ben Wade" of Ohio, an old-time anti-slavery man, radical, vigorous, a stout friend and foe. Another conspicuous radical was Zachariah Chandler of Michigan. He was born in New Hampshire, went West early ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... regarded at first with lofty contempt, but when she found they enabled her to run by her protector's side she was delighted. It was necessary to stop often and rest long, so our travelers made slow progress; but at noon, climbing a bluff which overlooked the river for miles in either direction, Pierre was delighted to find himself within two or three miles of the mouth. He marked, moreover, a short cut by which, taking advantage of the curve in the main ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... said, "is not like ecarte or baccarat. It is a study of character, a matching of minds, a thing we call bluff, we Americans. These poor Marquesans must have some fun. Let him do it! No harm can come of it. It is far to Paris, where ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... courteously contented itself in insisting on plucking out the heart of the journalistic mystery. All attempts at evasion and humor were vain—here was the ruthless reality of war. It was the mailed Prussian eagle against the bluff American bird of the same species, and the unequal contest was soon ended when Major Nikolai, Chief of Division III. of the Great General Staff, stood up very straight and dignified and said: "I am a German officer. What German violated his duty? I ask you as a ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... strong boy, well accustomed to taking responsibilities upon himself. He had never been afraid of anything and this perhaps had given him more than the average boy's good opinion of himself. Nothing could have appealed to him more subtly than this man's bluff, curt flattery. He was being met man to man by a man of the world. No boy is proof against the compliment that he is a man, to be dealt with as a man and equal of older, more experienced men. ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... shape, and Manabozho was pressing him hard. At a distance he saw a very high bluff of rocks jutting out into a lake, and he ran for the foot of the precipice which was abrupt and elevated. As he came near, to his surprise and great relief, the Manito of the rock opened his door and told Grasshopper ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... lay a vessel of about 300 tons burden, with bluff, rounded bows sitting high up out of the water, a long, straight waist, and a bridge and cluster of ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... at night, and a horror seized the others, as they thought that he had been overtaken and killed by hostile Indians. Day after day the woods were scoured in the hope of finding the missing companion, but it seemed vain. A fort was erected for the protection of the party on a high bluff, and named for the lost hunter, Prudhomme. At last they met some Chickasaw Indians, and messages of amity were exchanged through them with the people of their village, not far distant. Soon afterwards Prudhomme was discovered, half-dead from exposure, for ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... am directed by the General Com'dg to say that he deems it advisable that you should move your Hd. Qrs. higher up the river, say in the vicinity of Webber's Falls or Pheasant Bluff. He is desirous that you should be somewhere near the Council when that body meets, so that any attempt of the enemy to interfere with their deliberations may be thwarted by you."—DUVAL to Cooper, April 22, 1863, Confederate Records, chap. ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... notice was taken of the request. His command was, however, continually reinforced by new regiments, and he found occupation in organizing and disciplining them. General Polk meanwhile was busy fortifying Columbus, where the river-bank rises to a high bluff, until the bluff was faced and crowned with massive earthworks, armed with one hundred and forty-two pieces of artillery, mostly thirty-two and sixty-four pounders. At the same time heavy defensive works commanding the river were erected below at Island No. ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... the Wilsons at Beverly Farms was on a bluff overlooking the sea. It was reached by a long avenue winding through pines mingled with birches and rowan trees; and stood in a clearing where all the day and all the night the sound of the waves on the cliff answered the whispering of ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... their characteristics, the sincerity of their belief is the most striking. In Ohio, when one of the preachers of these "Smithite" Mormons was conducting me through the many-storied temple, still standing huge and gray on Kirtland Bluff, he laid his hand on a pile of copies of the Book of Mormon, saying solemnly, "Sister, here is the solidest thing in religion that you'll find anywhere." I bought the "solidest" thing for fifty cents, and do not advise the same outlay to others. The prophet's life is more marvellous ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... from, as the Yankees say." He smiled, "that is, if the old fox does not stop these drafts. If he does, I'll stop him!" he swore. And yet, he was troubled at heart. "I know Alixe Delavigne will call me back and pay me well. How did she find out about my bold bluff to Johnstone? Some servant may have overheard, and she is a deep one. She may even have ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... an American class now passing away, had sent his son to the State University instead of to an expensive Eastern college because of his carefully avowed attitude of bluff acceptance of a place among the plain people of the region. The presence of Jermain, Jr., in the classrooms of the State University had been capital for many a swelling phrase on his father's part—"What's good enough for the farmers' boys of my State is good enough ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the different stations." He stretched himself with an assumption of ease. Then suddenly he sat bolt upright and a peculiar expression came into his eyes. Tresler detected the half smile and the side glance in his own direction. "Yes," he went on, composedly enough now, "partic'larly Willow Bluff." ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... the bluff." Perhaps the lesson might have a salutary effect. And so, as his good humor came back to ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... proposal. By a system of secret service peculiar to these traders, the amount of the last offer is easily discovered, and the new bidder "sees that" (if I may be permitted to amuse myself with the phraseology of the Mississippi bluff-player) and "goes" a few ticals "better." There are always several enterprising Stars of the Harem ready to vary the monotony by engaging in this unromantic business; and the agitation among the "sealed" sisterhood, though by no means boisterous, is lively, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... Lillian admitted, drawing a deep breath, as the girl vanished. "I didn't think she had bravado enough to bluff ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... very new to one used to Oxford, and to London, and to little else of England. And all was delightful. Even Mark's guardian seemed to her delightful. For Gordy, when absolutely forced to face an unknown woman, could bring to the encounter a certain bluff ingratiation. His sister, too, Mrs. Doone, with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger, large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... The bluff, bold men of Runnymede Are with ye still in times like these; The shades of England's mighty dead, Your cloud ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a very dangerous game, seldom worth the risk, and it involves, even for its occasional success, a very just estimate of your opponents. Remember that you cannot bluff even ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel
... be of about a thousand tons burden, colored a mixed brown and dingy gray, which, as they drew near, was shown as the action of iron rust on black and lead-colored paint. Here and there were outlines of painted ports. Under the stump of a shattered bowsprit projected from between bluff bows a weather-worn figurehead, representing the god of the sea. Above on the bows were wooden-stocked anchors stowed inboard, and aft on the quarters were iron davits with blocks intact—but no falls. In a few of the dead-eyes in the channels could ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... reading, then," says Vernabelle; and Cousin Egbert kind of strangled at this, too. He finally manages to say that he tried to read Shakespere once but it was too fine print. The old liar! He wouldn't read a line of Shakespere in letters a foot high. It just showed that he, too, was trying to bluff along with the rest of 'em on ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... sheltering under the cart. Last time we tried it the pony stampeded and the wheel went over my foot. The tent's no good; you'd want a chain to stop its blowing away. We'll go on until we bring up to lee of a big, solid bluff." ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... not, however, be morose and absent-minded in a party of which Cora Grimsby and Jennie Stone were the moving spirits. It was a gay crowd that crossed the harbor in the Stazy to land at a roughly built dock under the high bluff of the ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... "you must assume that he has no intention of building, that he is only making an elaborate bluff. How do you know but that he wants to get this right of way and charter so that he can blackmail you and your concerns, not merely once, but year after year? You'd gladly pay him several hundred thousand a year not to use his charter and right of ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... of the poet's kindred are given. The nearest in blood are the nephews, General Charles Russell Lowell, killed at Winchester, Lieutenant James Jackson Lowell, at Seven Pines, and Captain William Lowell Putnam, at Ball's Bluff. Another relative was the heroic Colonel Robert G. Shaw, who fell in the assault on ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... will deserve it," Violet said, and was introducing me, but he said Johnnie had done him that honour. He has been talking of Captain Martindale (calling him Arthur), and telling curious things he has seen in Ireland. He is very amusing, bluff, and odd, but as if he was a distinguished person. Now I see that Violet is altered, and grown older—he seems to have such respect for, and confidence in her; and she so womanly and self-possessed, entering into his clever talk as Matilda would, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... know, you can't bluff him forever. You're sure to slip up sooner or later. And, anyway, I'm not at all sure that it isn't ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... them, but lovely enough to hold the glance of old and young. Unlike the natives she was tall and fair; masses of golden hair encircled her oval face and clustered over her blue eyes. Who was she? Whence came she? None could answer. By degrees some of the boldest of the youths approached, but their bluff manners seemed to displease her; though unaccustomed to rebuffs they retired. One, however, among them fared differently. Jean Letocq, a member of the family to which the hero belonged who near this very spot discovered the sleeping troops ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... I wonder whether he is in earnest about the divorce this time, or whether the whole scene was just bluff, ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... where one is. It has a spring by it, too, which is a good thing, for drinking this swamp and creek water will make us all sick. I was all through here on a camp-hunt once, and I remember a place on the other side of the river where two big hollow trees stand right together on top of a sort of bluff. About fifty yards further down the river there is a spring, just under the bluff. We must find the place if we can, to-night, and to do it we must first get across the river. It's so low now we can easily wade it, I think, and Judie can be ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... Lady Webling spread their hands and drew up their shoulders in surrender and gave up hope of bluff. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... sentences of the bluff fisherman, as in their racy vernacular they were blithely given utterance to by the manly voice of the Reader, seemed to supply a fitting introduction to the drama, as though from the lips of a Yarmouth Chorus. Scarcely had the social carouse there in the old boat, on that memorable ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... he said was that scarlet women like Emma Goldman were better than a C. E. girl, and that he hoped his students would bluff the course and flunk it, and that we could find booze at Jamaica Mills, and a few little things like that. That's all. Sure! That's the sort of thing we came here to study." The senior was buttoning his raincoat with ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... a typical Spanish soldier of the period, bluff and hearty, but exceedingly courteous in manner, with, according to his own account, a profound respect and admiration for the English, so far as his knowledge of them extended, yet George quickly came to the conclusion that the good man was suffering ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... and Doctors, yet unborn; Or justly mad to Moloch's burning fane Devote the choicest children of his brain. 190 Judge for yourself; and as you find report. Of wit as freely as of beef or port. Zounds! shall a pert or bluff important wight, Whose brain is fanciless, whose blood is white; A mumbling ape of taste; prescribe us laws 195 To try the poets, for no better cause Than that he boasts per ann. ten thousand clear, Yelps in ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... no answer, but something to bluff me off. I saw he was unwilling to speak out, and that it was a mere effort to button up and evade the subject. So to draw him out, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... uninvited and you've said too much," Doctor Hosmer stated in cold even tones. "You may be the town magnate, but you're only a ruffian and a crook after all. You can't bluff or bully us. More than that, you've insulted my daughter and me beyond any future reparation. As for your son, he got less than he deserved." He turned to the rancher. "You came just in time, it seems. Please see ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... for believing that not only animals here and there, but whole flocks and swarms of them, are often destroyed, even in the wild state, by mistaken fear; by such panics, for instance, as cause a whole herd of buffalos to rush over a bluff, and be dashed to pieces. And remark that this capacity of panic, fear—of superstition, as I should call it—is greatest in those animals, the dog and the horse for instance, which have the most rapid ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... opponent, but it was more of an attempt to cover up his real intention rather than to land effectively. Well he knew that his best and quickest chance to end the fight lay in his ability to kick the other man insensible, and so he tried to fool and disarm Max by a bluff attack. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... For a little way above the dam the waters lay still and deep, with patches of long mosses, vines and rushes, waving in its quiet clearness—forming shadowy dens for lusty trout, while the open places—shining fields and lanes—reflected, as a mirror, the steep green-clad bluff, and the trees that bent far over until their drooping branches touched the ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... uneven, jagged, craggy, rugged, cragged, scraggy; rude, inurbane, burly, unrefined, discourteous, uncivil, blunt, bluff, brusque, austere, abrupt, gruff, boorish, uncourtly; boisterous, tumultuous, tempestuous, stormy; harsh, hard, severe, inclement, drastic, violent; harsh, grating, raucous, discordant, inharmonious; unkempt, disheveled, shaggy; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... losses to show at sea—some 200 ships lost since the beginning of the war, according to the latest statements of the Allies—so that even they themselves no longer dare to talk about the "German bluff." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... spread it on the ironing-board before her mother. "Fifteen o' them every month! See the pictures that's on it, of the two grand old men. See the fine chin-whiskers on His Nibs here! Ain't it a pity he can't write his name, Ma, and him President of the Bank, and just has to make a bluff at it like this. Sure, and isn't that enough to drive any girl out to teach school, to see to it that bank presidents get a chance to learn to write. Bank presidents always come from the country; I'll be having a row of them at Purple Springs—I'm sure. ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... know he was fond of quoting those incomparable poets, Homer, at great length, and that he was prominent in the 'papyrus-craze.' Indeed, he inspired Society with a love of something more than mere pleasure, a love of the 'humaner delights.' He was a giver of tone. At his coming, the bluff, disgusting ways of the Tom and Jerry period gave way to those florid graces that are still ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... "God!" he muttered presently, "what nights I've had! I've killed many men in my time, but those two—I hated framing up all that business on you fellows next day—those tracks and the bill-folder, and all that useless chasing for a week, but it seemed to me to be the only plausible bluff I could run on you, under the circumstances. Now, are there any more things you don't understand? Any questions you'd ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... tempest's strength and fury. The lightning now came not only in ragged blazes and long ripping lines of light, but in bursts and shocks, and in bomb-like balls, exploding with elemental detonations. Balls of this tense surcharged essence rolled out over the comb of the bluff, fell upon the shadows of the water, and seemed to bound from crest to white-capped crest, till at last they split and burst asunder like some ominous missiles from engines ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... route you're going,' I interrupts,' 'cause I believe I'll stay and bluff it through, rather than sneak for it, though neither proposition don't appeal to me. I may get raised out before the draw, but the percentage is just as strong agin your ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... thought that was not selfish and mean, now imagination rapt him to a glow of heart-felt patriotism. The good and the bad both stood him in stead, and hope reigned in his camp. But all hung in the balance, for Sir Winterton was tall and handsome, bluff and hearty, a good landlord, a good sportsman, a good man, a neighbour to the town and a friend to half of it. And the great cry did not seem like ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... the country would impute it to a justified caution, and would maintain against the city that intangible moral quarantine which is so disastrous to its victim. Throughout, Hal Surtaine in his editorial columns had vigorously maintained that the President would come. It was mostly "bluff." He had nothing ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was a vessel of renown. No blustering liner, no fussy tug, no squattering steamer, she; but a bluff-bowed, smartly painted, trim-built sailing barge, plying chiefly from the lower reaches of the Thames to ports west of Dover. She had no equal of her class, at any point of sailing, and certainly her Master, Mr. Joseph Pigg, was ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... us to the spot. We passed occasional water-holes, that reminded us also of the West, and a few cattle. Two or three lonely farm-houses loomed up in the distance, like ships at sea. We halted our rattle-trap on a bluff covered with thick green turf. On the edge of this bluff, forty feet above the beach, is Siasconset, looking southward over the ocean,—no land between it and Porto Rico. It is only a fishing village; but if there were many like it, the conventional ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... names in which the letter "K" is prominent. Why "K" should be so humorous, I can't imagine. The name of Keokuk, however, belonged to a splendid Indian chief who was friendly to the early settlers and saved them from massacre. The monument over his bones in the park, on the high bluff there, now commands one of the noblest views in the world, a great lake formed in the Mississippi River by a dam which is as beautiful as if the Greeks had built it. It was, in fact, built by a thousand Greeks who camped there for years. As an engineering achievement it rivals the Assouan dam ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... some eight months after reaching there I received a message from my old friend Clarke, saying, "if I had improved any in my commercial work he would give me a job at seventy dollars per month." I hadn't improved much, but as this world is two-thirds bluff, I made mine, and said I'd come, trusting to luck to be ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... again, coming boldly into the light, and no more shots were fired at them. They ran up the slope to the crest of the bluff, leaped over a fresh earthwork, and fell among a crowd of soldiers in blue. Dick quickly raised himself to his feet, and saw soldiers about him, many of them wounded, all of them weary and drawn. Others were hard ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... there's no time for argument. But when you said political exigency you said a whole lot—and we'll let this particular skunk cabbage go under that name. Don't try that law-and-order and state-authority bluff with me in such a case as this is. You're right in with the bunch and you know just as well as I do what the game is this time. Probably those folks outside there don't know what they want, but they do know that something is wrong! Something is almighty wrong ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... that, for your plain, bluff letter, you should get such gibberish! Mention me to Mrs. Hawthorne and to the children, and so, good-by to you, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... rocks every day, and he has no idea how many tons the six families of Patmos heaved at and after the goats. When they weren't going headfirst into barrels of water they were chewing something not meant to be chewed. Casey asserts that it is all a bluff about goats eating tin cans. They don't. He says they never touched a can all the while he had them. He says devastated Patmos wished they would, and leave the two-dollar lace curtains alone, and clotheslines and water barrels and baggage. He says many a party drove off with ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... "Just Prussian bluff," growled Tom. "They think it will brace up Fritz, and that we'll think it's all over but the shouting ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... relative importance of the dramatic fund, and the members of the council had no wish to be accused of "forcing" any unfair demands. So, as Jack had foreseen, his nominations were allowed to stand and the next afternoon, forty-eight laughing, shouting boys reported to Bill McCormack, bluff and kindly member of the Eastshore Common Council who would, in a larger municipality, have been called "Streets and Highways Commissioner" or by ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... slopes. It is also seen that the shape of the contours gives an accurate idea of the form of the island. The contours in Fig. 6 give an exact representation not only of the general form of the island, the two peaks, O and B, the stream, M-N, the Saddle, M, the water shed from F to H, and steep bluff at K, but they also give the slopes of the ground at all points. From this we see that the slopes are directly proportional to the nearness of the contours—that is, the nearer the contours on a map are to one another, the steeper is the slope, and the farther the contours ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... river, and being joined by other bands, a concerted and deliberate attack was next made on Fort Ridgely. Like too many of our frontier forts, it is a fort only in name. Situated on a projecting spur of the river bluff, it is almost completely encircled by deep and wooded ravines, the edges of which are within a stone's throw of the buildings. A long, two story stone building with an ell, standing in the centre, and a number of log and frame houses ranged around it in an ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the wood in the box and stood up. His bluff, kind gaze swept the little room affectionately. He took off the stove-lid and poked together the few coals that glowed beneath. "That's all right," he said. "She'll heat up quick." He thrust in some light sticks ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... could not afford to let his people think that he was afraid. The man who, dwelling alone among Malays in an unsettled country, shows the slightest trace of fear, signs his own death-warrant. No people are more susceptible to 'bluff,' and, given a truculent bearing, and a sufficiency of bravado, a coward may pass for a brave man in many ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... I'm not bluffing, Abel. There's nothing to bluff about. What's your father done to you? You must have some reason for ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... neighbouring clans, or else crossed over to Holland to keep their hands in there till fortune favoured them once more at home. The old castle, with its rambling towers, and walls, and buttresses was a sort of rallying-point for all the pugnacious spirits of the time, and its bluff walls showed many a scar and many a dint where hostile guns had played upon them, not, you may be ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... good humour and peals of burly oaths which might have suited "Garagantua's mouth" and satisfied the requirements of Hotspur, appeals in a ruder fashion to the survival of the same sympathies on which Shakespeare with a finer instinct as evidently relied; the popular estimate of the bluff and brawny tyrant "who broke the bonds of Rome" was not yet that of later historians, though doubtless neither was it that of the writer or writers who would champion him to the utterance. Perhaps the opposite verdicts given by the instinct of ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... him silently, hanging down her head, and refusing to answer the questions he put in his kind, bluff way. Some great sorrow evidently weighed upon her, and she refused to be comforted. When, however, Kariades presented her to his wife, and said, 'This shall be our daughter,' the child opened her mouth ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... tree-trunk round about the mansion, or antique carved cupboard within it. I had the strangest, saddest, pleasantest, old-world fancies as I walked the place; I imagined tragedies, intrigues, serenades, escaladoes, Oliver's Roundheads battering the towers, or bluff Hal's Beefeaters pricking over the plain before the castle. I was then courting a certain young lady (madam, your ladyship's eyes had no need of spectacles then, and on the brow above them there was never a wrinkle or a silver hair), and I remember I wrote a ream of romantic description, under ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gone Mary read Miss Mason's letter for the third time, and again the cold touch of fear assailed her. She took a camp stool and sat by the edge of the bluff for a long time, watching the water. Then she went indoors again ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... the hill I was on, and meandering along through this valley from the west I could trace the course of the Finke by its timber for some miles. To the east a mass of high and jumbled hills appeared, and one bluff-faced mount was more conspicuous than the rest. Nearer to me, and almost under my feet, was the gorge through which the river passes, and it appears to be the only pass through this chain. I approached the precipice overlooking the gorge, and found the channel ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... "I hope it is only a bluff," he replied, "made to scare us so we will consent to giving up the submarine, which they have no right to confiscate. But these fellows look ugly enough for anything," ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... English,—just as a railway-train running at forty miles an hour is more liable to accident than one proceeding at twenty. Besides, Americans have not learned to live as these new circumstances require. The New Man is a clipper-ship, that can run out of sight of land while one of the old bluff-bowed, round-ribbed craft is creeping out of port; but, from the very nature of his superiorities, he is apt to be shorter-lived, and more likely to spring a leak in the strain of a storm. He demands nicer navigation. It will not do for him to beat over sand-bars. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... than either of that pair in the habit of showing themselves," muttered Benson, as the first two names crossed his thoughts. "I wonder whether I could get the least bit of an inkling by going to the jail and talking with Gaston? If I could bluff him into telling me anything, it might be so much gained. I might catch him off his guard, if I could ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... Agatha's engagement card. The look was not quite in keeping with his bluff and open manners. Moreover, a man who is, so to speak, not in keeping with himself is ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... observed with astonishment that they were following a path that crept up the very face of the bluff. Up— up— up they went until they reached a rift in the wall, and into this the trail went precipitously. Stones clattered down from the hoofs of the horses as they clambered up like mountain goats. Once the Texan had to throw ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... gap in the willows admits a current of air a ripple starts to rush straight across, but is met by another returning, which has been repulsed from the bluff bow of a moored boat, and the two cross and run through each other. As the level of the stream now slightly rises and again falls, the jagged top of a large stone by the shore alternately appears above, or ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... himself for any work whatsoever. He paced back and forth the length of his room; walked up and down the cloister surrounding the patio; wandered out around the garden, and even as far off as the bluff, a mile from the mission, from which could be seen the beach below, white with foam from the inrushing waves. It was many days before he ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... the necessary enlightenment from the questioner himself (while appearing to be perfectly conversant with what he is talking about), and, if possible, get him to suggest the answer to his own conundrum. In other words, bluff as in poker (which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... bluff game, intended to deceive me," said Vernon, showing symptoms of anger. "I can assure you that it will do you ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... opened the lever for the river to rush through, he had felt as though ice—cold liquid flowed in his veins, not blood; and all day he had been like that. He had moved much as one in a dream, and he had felt for the first time in his life that he was not ready to bluff creation. He had always faced things down, as long as it could be done; and when it could not, he had retreated, with the comment that no man was wise who took gruel when he needn't. He was now face to face with his greatest problem. One thing was clear—they ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... alarming, since in the scanty population of the region few of its denizens are unknown to each other, at least by sight. The tone of satire, the gleam of enjoyment in his keen blue eye, were not reassuring to the object of his ridicule. He was tall and somewhat portly, and he had a bluff and offhand manner, which, however, served not so much to intimate his good-will toward you as his abounding good-humor with himself. He was a man of most arbitrary temper, one could readily judge, not only from his own aspect and manner, but ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... hill, for the night, in the woods. We never sleep much, for it was 'most as light as day, and the smell of smoke was terrible. We could see people runnin' in certain parts of Columbia, sometimes. Next mornin' we look over the city from the bluff and only a few houses was standin' and hundreds of tumble-down chimneys and the whole town ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... at St. Johns, Newfoundland—a bold bluff overlooking the sea—a group of men worked for several days, first in the little stone house at the brink of the bluff, setting up some electric apparatus; and later, on the flat ground nearby, the ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... humility. For he was increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly "up against something pretty big." Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag. Sir Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism. He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost. There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, of initiative and of thought. Only once or twice, during the course ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... put up a fight, Kit, it would have been a good deal more interesting," said Calvert, "but you always were one of the biggest cowards that ever made a bluff at being a bad man. ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... the expert. "Either that or he set it that way merely for what we might call a 'bluff,' to throw any casual intruder off the track. Your father might ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... had joined his command and heard of the state of affairs in Utah, he said in his characteristic bluff manner: “I am ordered there, and I will winter in the valley or in hell!” Before he reached the portals of the territory, however, his services again being demanded in Kansas, Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, then at Fort Leavenworth, was appointed to the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... plays always are," grumbled Willett, who played bluff fathers in musical comedy. "A few years ago, they would have been scared to death of putting on a show with a crook as hero. Now, it seems to me the public doesn't want anything else. Not that they know what they DO want," ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... childish interest. She began herself to watch for Posy, as her mother described her; and whenever the form of a grown-up girl darkened the doorway, she held her breath to listen if Mrs Blossom called her by that pet name. Mr George also was very good to Meg in his bluff way, and bought her a pair of nearly new shoes with his first week's wages, over and above the threepence a day which he paid her. With Mrs Blossom she held many a conversation about the lost girl, who had grown up wicked, and was therefore worse than dead; and before long Mr George observed ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... hearts of the Pelasgian wanderers must have bounded when their exploring prows pushed into this nook, which offered them shelter from all winds that blow! It was a site to gladden the eyes of those builders of cities. Up above them, the bluff rock waiting for the layers of huge stones,—the eastern nook of the port more perfectly protected than the southern, which receives more or less the swell from the northerly winds, and whose inner shore of hard sand tempted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... very optimistic view of the situation, thinks the movement may be to assure a retreat by some route other than by a return through Belgium. General Cherfils says: "This rush of the German right wing upon Paris is the last bluff of terrorism of the last German Emperor! The Kaiser thought that he could frighten us and induce France to make peace. After which he would be free to return with ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... good this morning, Mr. Cox. When do you think I called you up last night? When could it have been if not after my sister broke her confidence to tell me? Why do you think all of a sudden last night I seen your bluff through about Gerber? It was because I knew I had you where you needed me, Charley—I never would have dragged you down the other way in a million years, but when I knew I had you where you needed me—why, from that minute, honey, you didn't have a ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... snipes lose the benefit of our company! The salt water, and all who live on it, are to be avoided by a wise man, Mr. Van Staats, except as they both serve to cheapen freight and to render trade brisk. You'll thank me for this care, niece of mine, when you reach the bluff, cool as a package of furs free from moth, and fresh and beautiful as a Holland tulip, with the dew ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... have known Jondo, with his bluff manner and sunny smile and daring spirit, to feel the force, of these brave sad words. I felt intuitively that I had laid bare a wound of his ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... you may not do. This is a school of manners, you know!" One of the men, Rose by name, laughed—a pleasant musical laugh. "I remember," he said, "that when I was a boy at Eton, my excellent but very bluff and rough old tutor called upon us, and was so much taken up with being hearty, that he knocked over the coal-scuttle, and didn't let anyone get a word in; and when he went off in a sort of whirlwind, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... know how to advertise—how to keep my name before the country, and how to make men say, whenever they hear it: 'There's a shrewd, honest fellow.' That and the people it brings me, in flocks, are my stock in trade. Honesty's a bluff with most of the big respectables; under cover of their respectability, of their 'old and honored names,' of their social connections, of their church-going and that, they do ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... enemies was very painful to Cynthia, and she wanted to know who they were that she might show them a proper contempt if she met them. Lem Hallowell brushed aside the subject with his usual bluff humor, and pinched her cheek and told her not to trouble her head; Amanda Hatch dwelt upon the inherent weakness in the human race, and the Rev. Mr. Satterlee faced the question once, during a history lesson. The nation's heroes came into inevitable comparison with Jethro ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Cattle and sheep live out-of-doors, and support themselves all the year round in the Shasta Valley on the north as constantly as in Los Angeles or any other of the southern counties. The seasons are a little later north than south, but the difference is slight; and as far north as Red Bluff, in the interior, they begin their harvest earlier than in Monterey County, far south but on the coast. Snow rarely lies on the ground in the northern counties more than a day. The best varieties of the foreign ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... conspicuous "bluff" trench may cause the enemy to waste much ammunition, and draw fire ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... a popular tradition. Castel-Cuille stands upon a bluff rock in the pretty valley of Saint-Amans, about a league from Agen. The castle was of considerable importance many centuries ago, while the English occupied Guienne; but it is now in ruins, though the village near it still exists. In a cottage, at the foot of the rock, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... grind it, to save injury to my mill. The wheat belongs to the neighborhood." "Where is there another mill?" "About three miles down the creek." Off our forager rode. He saw that money nor begging would prevail to get bread and determined on a bluff. The next mill had soldiers claiming all the wheat, but some of it was in boxes or bins. He called the miller out, and offered to pay for a couple of bushels. "It is not mine, said the miller, it belongs to people around here, but I had better take even Confederate money ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... would have been taken for a madman. This terrible speech was understood, and Darius withdrew to his own country with what speed he could. Substitute a letter for these symbols and the more threatening it was the less terror it would inspire; it would have been merely a piece of bluff, to which Darius ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... disturb her, Mac," he said in a low voice. "Let's keep up the bluff of being busy. We can put ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... sad time was the English ambassador, Mitchell; a bluff, shrewd, hearty man, for whom the king had conceived a close friendship. He had accompanied Frederick from the time he left Berlin, and had even been near him on the battlefields; and it was in no small degree due to his despatches and correspondence that we have obtained so close ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... after the events related in the last chapter the bluff-bowed French coasting steamer, Admiral Dupont, dropped anchor in the shallow roadstead off the steamy harbor of Fort Assini on the far-famed Ivory Coast. A few days before, the boys had left Sierra Leone and engaged quarters on the cockroach-infested little craft for the voyage down ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... as cogently about ironclads and torpedoes as about the wrongs of the natives of Lazistan, the necessity of upholding the integrity of the Turkish Empire, and of circumventing the dark and crooked wiles of Russian diplomacy. Altogether Augustus Charles Hobart was a remarkable man—bluff, bold, dashing, and somewhat dogged. There was in his composition something of the mediaeval "condottiere," and a good deal more of that Dugald Dalgetty whom Scott drew. Gustavus Adolphus would ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... all about this stuff, all there is to know. I know the folks, all of them, who can supply me. They wouldn't trade with your folks. They wouldn't trade with a soul but me. This is simple fact, and no sort of bluff. But the whole point is that I—I wish an outfit ready to face anything the North can hand me, with the confidence of the folks who know the source, have been chasing for it fourteen years and failed, while ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... Northern New Zealand, especially since we learn that much which goes to the South Island and elsewhere is shipped direct from Whangaroa, Hokianga, the Kaipara, and other ports in the north. The road along the river front, here, is shortly brought up abruptly at the base of a lofty bluff, whereon is a church and other buildings, near the ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... the morning, on swift, high-bred horses, they rode side by side along the river's towering bluff and laughed in sheer joy at their foolish happiness. In the waning afternoon, hand in hand, they walked the sunlit fields and paused at dusk to hear the songs of slaves. The happiness of lovers is contagious. It sets the hearts ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... handsome, let them be left, as I have been, in feeble health in oppressive hot weather, with a sick baby in arms, and two or three other little ones in the nursery, and not a servant in the whole house to do a single turn. Then, if they could see my good old Aunt Frankie coming with her honest, bluff, black face, her long, strong arms, her chest as big and stout as a barrel, and her hilarious, hearty laugh, perfectly delighted to take one's washing and do it at a fair price, they would appreciate the beauty ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... June, 1769, the figure of a stalwart, broad shouldered man could have been seen standing on the wild and rugged promontory which rears its rocky bluff high above the Ohio river, at a point near the mouth of Wheeling Creek. He was alone save for the companionship of a deerhound that crouched at his feet. As he leaned on a long rifle, contemplating the glorious scene that stretched before him, a ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... have bluffed your way through ticklish situations; that I know. You are looking back on troubles past and gone; Now, turn the tables, and as you have fought and won before, Just BLUFF YOURSELF to keep on holding on! (Try it once.) Just bluff YOURSELF to keep ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... and skill as a pugilist and cudgel-player. He was member of a well-known and highly respectable English family, who had done all in their power to keep him from disgracing their name by his disreputable propensities. In dress and manner he affected the plain bluff Englishman, wore a blue coat, beaver gloves (or none at all), and a hat broad in the brim, spoke of all foreigners with supreme contempt, and of himself as honest Tom Ringwood. This lip honesty and assumed bluntness were a standing joke with ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... well, too, for I'd got half way through the soup before I notices anything the matter with it. My guess was that it tasted scorchy. I glances around at Vee, and finds she's just makin' a bluff at eatin' hers. Doris and Westy ain't even doin' that, and when I drops my spoon Doris signals to take it away. Which Cyril does, movin' as solemn and dignified as if he was usherin' at a funeral. Then there's a stage wait for three or four minutes before ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... pretty piece of bluff. Boy Woodburn, in spite of her anger, marked it down to the credit side of the lad's account. When he was collared, Albert Edward kept his head. That would help him one day when he was caught in a squeeze in a big race and had ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... Dolly, well knowing that the bluff chap was really talking roughly to hide his glad emotion at ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... his party reached the junction of the San Juan with the Colorado, they might have found a large number of ancient dwellings in the cliffs not far away from where Bluff City now stands. ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... a shallow cup of treeless land to a further bound of wooded hill, ending towards the north in a bare bluff of down shining steep under the moon. They were in shadow, and so was most of the wide dip of land before them; but through a gap to their right, beyond the wood, the moonbeams poured, and the farms nestling under the opposite ridge, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... defeat in such a fight is a step toward victory, taken in the right spirit. In the end you will come out ahead. The power of the biggest boss is like chaff in your hands. You can see his finish. And he knows it. Hence, even he will treat you with respect. However he try to bluff you, he is the one who is afraid. The ink was not dry upon Bishop Potter's arraignment of Tammany bestiality before Richard Croker was offering to sacrifice his most faithful henchmen as the price of peace; and he would have done it had the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... Clare,— These tales were told, you know, In French, five hundred years ago, By old Sir John, whose heart's delight Was lady sweet and valiant knight. A hundred years went by, and then A great lord told the tales again, When bluff King Hal desired his folk To read them in the tongue they spoke. Last, I myself among them took What I loved best and made this book. Great, lesser, less—these writers three Worked for the days they could not see, And certes, ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... "You mean well, boy, but you don't understand, and if you plot with Mayne to bluff me, I'll surely break you both. Now go and see if the president's men have arrived. Then you can tell Mayne to rig his derricks and ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... I'll help you out. I'll go up with you, and if that fellow or any other man wants to bluff you, I'll check enough out of the bank for you to cover whatever he or his friends may ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... type who escapes the shafts of ridicule. It was kindly fun, which, while viewing him as a white swan in a flock of black ones, recognized him as a swan, and this was as much as he could expect. To pass in the crowd was all he asked for, even when he only passed on bluff. If he couldn't wholly hide the bluff he could keep it from being flagrantly obtrusive; and toward that end an office ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... bluff at this an' that an' the other—him and me and the chink driftin' from here to there over this part o' the desert, or hereabouts, scratchin' a little now and ag'in. But Len his heart ain't in it, I see; and all ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... make a second one. Frankly, I do not know what to think of your story. It may be true, or it may not. But speaking from a police point of view, we have mighty little to go on if we arrest Benson. If he likes to bluff us we may find ourselves in an awkward position. Nobody saw him ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... prevent more than a passing glimpse. Quat is an old British word for wood, and refers to a wide stretch of woodland once included in the great Morfe Forest; and ford to an adjoining passage of the river—one, half a mile higher up, being still called Danes' Ford. On a bluff headland, rising perpendicularly 100 feet above the Severn, close by, the hardy Northerners, who thus left their name in connection with the Severn, established themselves in 896, when driven by Alfred from the Thames; and on the same projecting rock, defended on the land side by a trench cut in ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... gentler manners and more guarded speech. But those were less refined and cultured times than these in which we live; and the rough, uncurbed nature of "Kinge Henrye the viii. of Most Famous Memorye," as the old chronicles term the "bluff King Hal," reappeared to a noticeable extent in the person of his second child, the daughter of ill-fated Anne Boleyn—"my ladye's grace" the Princess Elizabeth ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... heeded the disagreeable fellow, who had no intimate friends in the group. Most of the company were pressing round Heinz Schorlin with jests and questions, but bluff Count von Montfort warmly clasped Els's hand, while he apologised for the bold jest of his young daughter who, in spite ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the bluff in search of the animals, which, when found, were treated in no very kindly manner by the sour faced, mosquito-bitten and generally disgusted tenderfoot, whose introduction into this new world was, apparently, taking all good-nature ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... must win his party's nomination; and it was here he took counsel with his Senate colleagues. Being consulted, the word of those grave ones proved the very climax of flattery. Senators Vice and Price and Dice and Ice, and Stuff and Bluff and Gruff and Muff, and Loot and Coot and Hoot and Toot, and Wink and Blink and Drink and Kink—statesmen all and of snow-capped eminence in the topography of party—endorsed Senator Hanway's ambition without a wrinkle of distrust to mar their brows or a moment lost in weighing ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... travelling which obtain among our locomotive nation, this said vehicle, the canal-boat, is the most absolutely prosaic and inglorious. There is something picturesque, nay, almost sublime, in the lordly march of your well-built, high-bred steamboat. Go take your stand on some overhanging bluff, where the blue Ohio winds its thread of silver, or the sturdy Mississippi tears its path through unbroken forests, and it will do your heart good to see the gallant boat walking the waters with unbroken and powerful tread, and, like some fabled monster of the wave, breathing fire and making ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... A bluff projection, bearing South 65 degrees East seven miles, bounded our view to the southward, and a range of sugarloaf hills, the highest being 350 feet, rose about eight miles in ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... can bluff them, or maybe they'll string along for a while," he said. "Anyhow, now that they've agreed to take me and my notes in place of the cure we're fresh out of, I've got to be on that shuttle when it goes back to their ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey |
