"Blunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blunt brown features gradually drooped, seemed to become definitely elongated. As time went on he really began to look almost lantern-jawed. He bent forward and tried to catch Mr. Laycock's eye and to telegraph an urgent question, ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... was calm and almost smiling as he answered. Behind him the shrill voices of the crowd sounded, like a background, to the blunt ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... at concealing Bismarck was past master. While usually figured as a blunt, bold, tyrannical man, there was also a ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... great wattles, the Barb with its short broad beak and eye-wattles, the short-faced Tumbler {212} with its small conical beak, the Pouter with its great crop, long legs and body, the Fantail with its upraised, widely-expanded, well-feathered tail, the Turbit with its frill and short blunt beak, and the Jacobin with its hood. Now, if this same person could have viewed the pigeons kept before 1600 by Akber Khan in India and by Aldrovandi in Europe, he would have seen the Jacobin with a less perfect ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... little, for such courtesy is not usual in mills, where kind hearts are hidden under rough exteriors and blunt speech; but though the 'hands' smiled, they said to each other, after the uncle and nephew had passed by, that 'he was a gentleman was young Clay, and took after his uncle Howroyd more'n ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... his feet, a man of different type, blunt of speech, rugged, the typical working-man's champion except for his voice, which was of ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... trod into the bloody mud, scarcely legible, and Sturk's cocked hat, the leaf and crown cut through with a blow of some blunt instrument. His sword they had found by ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Custom and habit probably blunt one's sensibilities in time, but this constant annoyance by peddlers detracts much from the pleasure of any stroll through Cairo streets. To the new arrival everything is novel and attractive. The main avenues are wide, well paved and lined with spacious sidewalks, but here the European ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... were emitting a sweet perfume. He did not hurry unduly with his work; before he applied the knife he asked the girl several times whether she preferred to write with a soft or a hard point, fine or blunt, and whether he should make the quill short or leave it long. He plied her with numerous other questions of this kind, as thoroughly as if he were a writing-master producing a calligraphic work of art. To these ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... breeding I have been deeply interested in for forty years past. Let me quote to the reader from one of many letters I have received from Sir Wilfrid Seawen Blunt during the past seven years. His practical knowledge of the English thoroughbred race horse and his blood cause, the Arabian, is the equal if not superior to any other one man of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... "The head master told me she will make a good scholar, and dear a me! she does nothing but read books from mornin' till night." While Hetty and her mother removed the dishes we drew our chairs about the fire, and Mr. Chaffin, a blunt, simple-minded man, entertained me with sage observations regarding politics and the weather. He spoke rather loudly, and in a key which, as I learned afterward, he only employed on very special occasions. Presently the youngest lad in the family, who sat ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... Hannasyde Coombe-Crombie, twelfth Earl of Dreever ("Spennie" to his relatives and intimates), a light-haired young gentleman of twenty-four, but in reality the possession of his uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Julia Blunt. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... push nearer and nearer to the brink of the abyss. The warning cry of "back" is challenged by the eager shout of "forward!" The older methods of social progress are abandoned as too slow. The older weapons of social defense are thrown aside as too blunt. Parliamentary discussion is powerless. It limps in the wake of the popular movement. The "state", as we knew it, threatens to dissolve into labor unions, conventions, boards of conciliation, and conferences. ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... had been stealing horses. The savages of this part of California are represented as extremely poor, and armed only with stone-pointed arrows; it being the wise policy of the Spaniards not to furnish them with firearms. As they find it difficult, with their blunt shafts, to kill the wild game of the mountains, they occasionally supply themselves with food, by entrapping the Spanish horses. Driving them stealthily into fastnesses and ravines, they slaughter ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... a Christmas charity at Millbrook, Southampton, the Rev. A. C. Blunt stated that one of the recipients had nearly reached her 102nd year. She was born in Hampshire, and down to a very recent period had been able to ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... knew of no moral principle by which he was bound to refuse a fee from their adversaries."[57] So, too, the conciliatory words, which, after the trial, he tried to speak to the indignant plaintiff, and which the latter has reported in the blunt form corresponding to his own angry interpretation of them, after all may have borne the better meaning given to them by Bishop Meade, who says that Patrick Henry, in his apology to Maury, "pleaded ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... unfortunate veteran was suffering was found to be a jagged cut some two inches long at the back part of his head, which had evidently been caused by a violent blow from a blunt weapon. Nor was it difficult to guess what that weapon may have been. Upon the floor, close to the body, was lying a singular club of hard carved wood with a bone handle. The Colonel possessed a varied collection of weapons brought ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... not speak, but with a grave nod of his head rode slowly out of the camp. Little Bill regarded him for a moment. He had his bow and a blunt-headed arrow in his hand at the time. Fitting the latter hastily to the bow he took a rapid shot at the retreating horseman. The arrow sped well. It descended on the flank of the horse with considerable force, and, bounding off, fell to the ground. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... and head monitor at Saint Dominic's—far too blunt and honest ever to be an object of anything but dislike and uneasiness to Loman. Now the uneasiness was the more prominent of the two. Loman replied, confused and reddening, "Oh, that boy? Why—oh, he's a shop-boy from the town, come up about ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... second and not-forgetting look at. The third was the biggest of the three, and though lame, nimble, and all rough and alive with power; had you met him anywhere else, you would say he was a Liddesdale store-farmer, come of gentle blood; "a stout, blunt carle," as he says of himself, with the swing and stride and the eye of a man of the hills,—a large, sunny, out-of-door air all about him. On his broad and somewhat stooping shoulders was set that head which, with Shakespeare's and ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... converted the well-known farce of "Box and Cox" into an operetta of the most ludicrous description. This was the opening piece—the forerunner of "Pinafore," "Pirates," "Patience," and other triumphs. Arthur Sullivan himself conducted, and the players were Mr. Du Maurier, Mr. Quinton, and Mr. Arthur Blunt. Then followed "A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing," in which Mesdames Kate Terry, Florence Terry, Mrs. Stoker, Mrs. Watts (the present Ellen Terry), and Messrs. Mark Lemon, Tom Taylor, Tenniel, Burnand, Silver, Pritchett, and Horace Mayhew took part. This ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... blunt, I realize; but I can't let to-night, this last night, go by without knowing something of how you feel. You never have given me even so much as a hint, you know. I've waited patiently, I think, for you to select the moment for confidence; ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... childhood had passed away, and empty praise was all that he could, for the most part, earn. After lingering, in the sickness of hope deferred, at several of the German courts, his destination was at last fixed for Paris. His chance of success as a courtier was probably diminished by the blunt though kindly frankness of his opinions, and by his inability to stoop to unworthy means of rising. He had also many rivals to encounter, particularly those of the more slender school of Italian melody; and few of the public had knowledge or independence enough to forsake ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... professional classifiers, no one would dare to. The Cerceris, more perspicacious, knows each of them for a Weevil, a quarry with a concentrated nervous system, lending itself to the surgical feat of her single stroke of the lancet. After obtaining an abundant booty at the cost of the blunt-mouthed insect, with which she sometimes stuffs her cellars to the exclusion of any other fare, according to the hazards of the chase, she now suddenly sees before her the creature with the extravagant proboscis. Accustomed ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... politeness. You know the man who is awkward, shy, clumsy, but who, nevertheless, impresses you with a sense of dignity and force. Why? Because mingled with that awkwardness and so forth *is* dignity. You know the blunt, rough fellow whom you instinctively guess to be affectionate— because there is "something in his tone" or "something in his eyes." In every instance the demeanour, while perhaps seeming to be contrary to the character, is really in accord with it. The ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... Indians are very expert in the use of a long bow, with wooden arrows, rather heavy and blunt at the end. Maquin said he could shoot ducks and small birds with his arrows; but I should think they were not calculated to reach objects at any great distance, as they appeared ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... which fall. The condensation of steam is a more delicate test for dust than is a beam of light. A curious illustration of the action of nuclei in condensing moisture has just occurred to me, in the experiment—well known to children—of writing on a reasonably clean window-pane with, say, a blunt wooden point, and then breathing on the glass; the condensation of the breath renders the writing legible. No doubt the nuclei are partially wiped away by the writing, and the moisture will condense into larger drops ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... your pardon fer blunt talk, Miss Withersteen, Dyer was on his knees an' not prayin'. You remember his big, broad hands? You've seen 'em raised in blessin' over old gray men an' little curly-headed children like—like Fay Larkin! Come to think of thet, I disremember ever hearin' of his liftin' his big hands in blessin' ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... view of Tegucigalpa is had from Picacho, a long ridge from back in the mountains, ending in a blunt nose almost sheer above the city. Whoever climbs it recognises the reason for the native saying, "He who holds Picacho sleeps in the palace." Its town-side face is almost precipitous, and on every hand ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... returned. I avail myself of the earliest moment to acknowledge its receipt, and to thank you for the box of magnets which I found here. Though I do not know certainly by or from whom they come, I presume they came by Colonel Smith, who was here in my absence, and from Messrs. Nairne and Blunt, through your good offices. I think your letter of February the 16th flatters me with the expectation of another, with observations on the hygrometers I had proposed. I value what comes from you too much, not to remind you of it. Your favor by Mr. Garnett also came during ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... just a bit drowsy. I managed to make away with the second without inhaling much of the smoke, for my head was in a whirl by this time. It wasn't so much that I was afraid I couldn't take care of myself as it was that I was afraid that it would blunt the keenness of my observation and ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... must have speedily become a prey to the opposition. The right of ejection was retained; but what they chiefly needed was the glitter of the naked blade—the edge of it, which they feared, they took care to blunt. Besides the check involved in the nature of the office—under which the lists of the members of the aristocratic corporations were liable to revision only at intervals of five years —and besides the limitations ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... But, when Anderson took hold of him and placed the wounded finger on a block, and Dad faced him with the hammer and a blunt, rusty old chisel, he ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... from damp, they should be held near the fire for a few minutes, and restored to their natural state by the hand or a soft brush, or re-curled with a blunt knife, dipped in very hot water. Furs and feathers not in constant use should be wrapped up in linen washed in lye. From May to September they are subject to being made ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... homes of anchorites. To fit themselves for life, and with a special eye to acquire the art of smoking, it was even common for the boys to harbor there; and you might have seen a single penny pickwick, honestly shared in lengths with a blunt knife, bestrew the glen with these apprentices. Again, you might join our fishing parties, where we sat perched as thick as solan geese, a covey of little anglers, boy and girl, angling over each other's head, to the much entanglement of lines and loss of podleys ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... recommended to the commons the consideration of proper means for lessening the national debt, was a prelude to the famous South-Sea act, which became productive of so much mischief and infatuation The scheme was projected by sir John Blunt, who had been bred a scrivener, and was possessed of all the cunning, plausibility, and boldness requisite for such an undertaking. He communicated his plan to Mr. Aislaby, the chancellor of the exchequer, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... twenty-four hours with a thoroughness, a rapidity, a security, and a facility which were a surprise, almost a revelation. The idea of a guarded cutting edge is an old one; I remember the "Plantagenet" razor, so called, with the comb-like row of blunt teeth, leaving just enough of the edge free to do its work. But this little affair had a blade only an inch and a half long by three quarters of an inch wide. It had a long slender handle, which took apart for packing, and was put together ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Blunt the passions, the feelings and the emotions by over-indulgence, by vice and dissipation, and the royal guests desert the banquet hall, the doors of the soul creak on their hinges; and in place of the "music of the spheres" you have ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... his blunt straightforward way appealed to me and I determined to try him. Handled right I imagined he would be a good man; handled wrong, he would probably become a bright and shining light of the genus hobo. So I hired him, telling him his salary would be forty dollars ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the rolling flood, Where hardy warriors stain'd with blood Drop their blunt arms, and join the dead, Grey billows curling o'er their head: Mangled with wounds, and vainly brave, At once they sink ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... Susan Bailey, a gentle, frail little body also joined our circle, adding one more pair of eyes to those whose scrutiny must have been somewhat trying to the bride. To meet these blunt, forthright folk at such a table without betraying amusement or surprise, required tact, but the New Daughter succeeded in winning them all, even Mary, the cook, who ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... of which show the same sensitive apprehension of unusual cases and delicate relations, and reveal a truth which would be hidden from the hasty or blunt observer."—Boston Transcript. ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... grew up behind low palisades. Tall roods, and holy images, to which we owe the names of existing thoroughfares (Rood-lane and Lady-lane [38]), where the ways crossed, attracted the curious and detained the pious. Spires there were not then, but blunt, cone-headed turrets, pyramidal, denoting the Houses of God, rose often from the low, thatched, and reeded roofs. But every now and then, a scholar's, if not an ordinary, eye could behold the relics of Roman splendour, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... visited every spot associated with Trennahan,—not once, but many times. She had made up her mind with the right instinct that the thing to do was to blunt her sensibilities. By the third day she had ordered the earlier associations on duty, and managed to confuse them somewhat with those which had held possession for so brief a time. She was determined to succeed. She had no right to love the husband ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... robbery at the bank today." The sheriff could be pretty blunt, and he shot the charge straight, ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Fleda of the Druses sometimes," she said, and she laid a hand upon the woman's breast. "Lady love—lady love," said the blunt woman with the pockmarked face, "you've had the worst fright to-night that you'll ever have." She caught Fleda's hand and peered into it. "Yes, it's happiness for you now, and on and on," she added exultingly, and with the fortune-teller's air. "You've passed the danger place, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... There was never a hint of hostility, never a trace of resentment or envy. And always, too, Sears emerged from one of those encounters with a feeling that he had had a little the worst of it, that his seafaring manners and blunt habit of speech made him appear at a marked disadvantage in comparison with this easy, suave, gracefully elegant personage. And so many of those meetings took place in the presence of ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... them he was the modern business man; one who gave orders to clerks and drove a car and played occasional golf and was scholarly in regard to Salesmanship. His head suddenly appeared not babyish but weighty, and you noted his heavy, blunt nose, his straight mouth and thick, long upper lip, his chin overfleshy but strong; with respect you beheld him put on the rest of his uniform as ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... common piece of red earthenware. And how had the potter made that peculiar marking under the surface of the glaze? I touched it with my stick, when the pot-handle drew itself out of loop shape and slowly disappeared under some dead furze, showing the blunt tail of a blindworm. I have heard people say that the red ones are venomous, but the grey harmless. The red are spiteful, and if you see them in the road you should always kill them. It is curious that in places where blindworms are often ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... revengeful; the lady gay is simply gay, a mere insipid character, and introduced by the poet, no doubt, as a contrast to the turbulent and busy character of the other lady. The boisterous captain is a well-drawn and a well-supported character. He is rugged, honest, blunt, illiterate, and gallant. But it is the character of the hero Taylor which is drawn and sustained with the most art and nature. In the first place he is brave, although some have contradicted this, by saying that he ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... Wright soothingly. "I agreed to that only if there'd been something wrong. I'm not satisfied yet." He turned to Susan, said in his gruff, blunt way: ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... a brave, blunt fellow, and he hated the ways of Loki, his lies and his deceit. He liked best the way of warriors—the thundering charge, the flash of weapons, and the heavy blow; but without the hammer he could not fight the giants hand to hand. Loki's advice seemed wise, and he decided ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... didn't care for you, and I wasn't hypocrite enough to pretend I did. That's blunt, but you used to admire ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... hanged before I do," was Dennis's blunt response, and with an "Oh, very well," Bob Dashwood grabbed the leather sling, and, lowering himself to the ground, was caught by Tiddler in ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... no such meaning. On his behalf it must be acknowledged that he had no meaning whatever when he came again and again to Ardkill. Had he examined himself in the matter he would have declared that he liked the mother quite as well as the daughter. When Lady Mary Quin had thrown at him her very blunt arrow he had defended himself on that plea. Accident, and the spirit of adventure, had thrust these ladies in his path, and no doubt he liked them the better because they did not live as other people lived. Their solitude, the close vicinity of the ocean, the feeling that in meeting them ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... fell, they two leaned on St. Michel's bridge of the River Lys. Just under the loiterers, canals that wound their way from inland cities to the sea were dark and noiseless, as if sleep held them. The blunt-nosed boats of wide girth that trafficked down those calm reaches were as motionless as the waters that floated them. Out of the upper air, bells from high towers dropped their carillon on a population making ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... natural pause in the termination of its own pursuits? May the business of civil society be accomplished, and may the occasion of farther exertion be removed? Do continued disappointments reduce sanguine hopes, and familiarity with objects blunt the edge of novelty? Does experience itself cool the ardour of the mind? May the society be again compared to the individual? And may it be suspected, although the vigour of a nation, like that of a natural body, does ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... extreme parsimony, was obliged to consent, but as the point of the pencil was very blunt, desired the boy to get her a knife that she might cut it. He obeyed, but said "Pray Miss, take care it ben't known, for master don't do such a thing once in a year, and if he know'd I'd got you the knife, he'd go nigh to give me a good ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... time every person in the rendezvous had come up, and waited with breathless anxiety. We stood face to face, more like two men about to engage in deadly duel than a pair of amateurs with blunt foils. My antagonist was evidently a practised swordsman. I could see that as he came to guard. As for myself, the small-sword exercise had been a foible of my college days, and for years I had not met my match at it; but just then I was out ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... found them, during my stay at Duelmen, the straightest people I ever had anything to do with. They think the same of us. Feldwebels and others who have had to do with us both assured me that they much preferred the British to any other class of prisoner, because we are blunt and true, say what we mean, and stick to what we say. Certainly the Germans are the most English of the great peoples on ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... should go on unbroken. He was rather glad, on the whole, not to hear that she had declared herself willing to regard him as a brother. Those dreadful old phrases only make the refusal ten times worse. Probably the most wholesome way in which a refusal could be put to a sensitive young man is the blunt, point-blank declaration that never, under any circumstances, could there be a thought of the girl's loving him and having him for her husband. Then a young man who is worth his salt is thrown back upon his own mettle, ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Clean wax tablets.—Ver. 521. Before the tablet was written upon, the wax was 'vacua,' empty; or, as we say of writing-paper, 'clean.' There was a blunt end to the upper part of the 'stylus,' or iron pen, with which the wax was smoothed down when ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... matters of a totally different nature, with which Sir Terence must proceed to deal at once; but their gravity was completely outweighed in the adjutant's mind by this deplorable affair of Lieutenant Butler's. Without wishing to convey an impression that the blunt and downright O'Moy was gifted with any undue measure of shrewdness, it must nevertheless be said that he was quick to perceive what fresh thorns the occurrence was likely to throw in a path that was already thorny enough ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... sharpening the pen which is to slay Christianity. But Christianity will escape Mr. Poole's pen. It, has outlived many such attacks in the past. We shall see, however, what kind of nib he uses, fine or blunt?' The journalist followed the butler down the long library overlooking green sward to a quiet nook, if he might venture to speak of Mr. Walter Poole's study as a quiet nook. It seemed to surprise him that Mr. Walter Poole should rise from his writing-table ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... house seemed irksome to him now, and he preferred to submit to a hard but short exertion which soon permitted him to follow his former occupation of herding the cattle, although it was beginning to be unsuitable for his age and at times drew upon him ridicule. That he silenced, however, by a few blunt reprimands with his fist. So people grew accustomed to seeing him, now dressed up and jolly as a recognized village beau and leader of the young folks, and again as a ragged boy slinking along, lonely and dreamily, behind his cows, or lying in a forest clearing, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... ... "that she was the wife of an injured friend! a friend who passionately loved her, and had tenderly obliged him, rather heightened his desires" (i., 200; ii., 54, 83). The mistress is said to be Mrs. Blunt, daughter of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... offered us for credence, we are apt to inquire of the teller if he "sees any green" in our optics, accompanying the query by an elevation of the right eyelid with the forefinger. Now, regarding this merely as a "fast" custom, I marvelled greatly at finding a similar action noted by worthy Master Blunt, as conveying to his mind an analogous meaning. I can scarcely credit its antiquity; but what other meaning can I understand from the episode he {363} relates? He had been trying to pass himself off as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... two or three times daily. If the swelling is extreme between the jaws, so as to interfere with the animal's breathing, it is well to lance the abscess if a soft spot can be found. Just cut through the skin with a knife; then use a clean blunt instrument to locate the pus cavity. Otherwise, severe ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... opened, and Thrasea appeared alone upon the threshold, with a mysterious expression on his blunt features. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... of travel, one returns to England one can taste, smell, feel the difference in the atmosphere, physical and moral—the curious, damp, blunt, good-humored, happy-go-lucky, old-established, slow-seeming formlessness of everything. You hail a porter, you tell him you have plenty of time; he muddles your things amiably, with an air of "It'll be all right," ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... end of it all! Then there is shaving. I have to get shaved because Euphemia hates me with a blue jowl, and I will admit I hate myself. Yet, if I were left alone, I do not think my personal taste would affect my decision; I will say that for myself. Either I hack about with a blunt razor—my razors are always blunt—until I am a kind of Whitechapel Horror, and with hair in tufts upon my chin like the top of a Bosjesman's head, or else I have to spend all the morning being dabbed about the face by a barber with damp ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... ended his days in the Isle of Cyprus. And the aristocratical party, seeing that Pericles was already before this grown to be the greatest and foremost man of all the city, but nevertheless wishing there should be somebody set up against him, to blunt and turn the edge of his power, that it might not altogether prove a monarchy, put forward Thucydides of Alopece, a discreet person, and a near kinsman of Cimon's, to conduct the opposition against him; who, indeed, though less skilled ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... with it; for it was courteous, and yet forcible; pleasant, yet overwhelming; facetious, yet austere; sententious, and yet vehement: like Socrates, in the description of Plato, who seemed outwardly to those about him to be but a simple, talkative, blunt fellow; whilst at the bottom he was full of such gravity and matter, as would even move tears, and touch the very hearts of his auditors. And, therefore, I know not what has persuaded some to say, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... grasped his half-sword in both hands, so as to put his whole weight behind it, and made a lunge in the direction of a muttered curse. The curse gave way to a roar of pain and rage, and Colden's second follower dropped, spurting blood in the darkness, his shoulder gashed horribly by the blunt end of Peyton's imperfect weapon. Harry now ran back to the parlor, to deal with Colden in the light, the latter's greater length of weapon giving a greater searching-power in the darkness. In the parlor Elizabeth stood waiting in suspense. Sam was sitting ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... "Blunt enough," admitted Mr. Hammond, but without excitement. "Let's see: You have a paper of some kind, I ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... out of England before, seemed strange and glamorous. The chalets, with their long wide burnt-brown wooden balconies and low-hanging eaves jutting far beyond the walls; these bright dresses of the peasant women; the friendly little cream-coloured cows, with blunt, smoke-grey muzzles. Even the feel in the air was new, that delicious crisp burning warmth that lay so lightly as it were on the surface of frozen stillness; and the special sweetness of all places at the foot of mountains—scent of pine-gum, burning larch-wood, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Pandulfo, "I had almost forgot to tell thee, that the crowd would have poured themselves hither, so impatient were they to see thee; but I bade Cecco del Vecchio mount the rostrum, and tell them, in his blunt way, that it would be unseemly at the present time, when thou wert engaged in the Capitol on civil and holy affairs, to rush in so great a body into thy presence. Did I ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... own hands and dismissed them with great rapidity. He knew what they wanted; he knew what recommendations were strong and what were weak; who was to be treated with deference and who was to be sent away abruptly; where a blunt refusal was safe, and where a pledge was allowable. The President even trusted him with the unfinished manuscript of the Inaugural Address, which Ratcliffe returned to him the next day with such notes and suggestions ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... had been obliged to exert an influence on his behalf, which he feared might make him obnoxious to the accusation of partiality. He considered that the lad had worth, substance, and promise far beyond his fellows; but his blunt, haughty manners, impatience of rough jokes, and rude avoidance of the unrefined, made him the object of their dislike, so that it was probable that he would thrive much better abroad and in authority; and at his age, he was more likely to adapt ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desire that his handmaiden should be blunt? Well, I know that there is no truth in ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... it is true, she gave a somewhat less blunt, but nevertheless a decided negative reply, although it was gilded over ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... jet, and while it was moving forward at the lowest possible rate of speed. When that goal was achieved, they flopped solidly flat, slid a few feet on their metal bellies, and lay still. Some hit hard and tried to dig into the earth with their blunt noses. Joe finally saw one touch with no forward speed at all. It seemed to try to settle down vertically, as a rocket takes off. That one fell over backward and wallowed with its belly plates in the air before it rolled over on ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... on matters of business, with either of these individuals, for whom I entertained the most sincere attachment. They, like myself, were not in the good graces of Marshal Davoust, who could not pardon the one for his incontestable superiority of talent, and the other for his blunt honesty. On the receipt of M. Bouvier's letter I carried it to the Due de Rovigo, whose situation made him perfectly aware of the intrigues which had been carried on against me since I had left Hamburg ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... have something to say to that, Madame," was the Commodore's blunt reply, "and Mr. Attorney-General, here," he added, "ought to arrest you for wishing to consort with seditious agitators ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... or cut off bottles, lamp chimneys, etc., first make a scratch as before; then heat the handle of a file, or a blunt iron—in a blast-lamp flame by preference—till it is red-hot, and at once press it against the scratch till the glass begins to crack. The fracture can be led in any direction by keeping the iron just in front of it. Re-heat the iron as often ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... the alternative of being with him on decent and distant terms, or of breaking off with him altogether. The first of these courses might perhaps have been the wisest, but the other was the most congenial to the blunt and plain character of Hartley, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... elements in human nature, on which a social system could be safely founded, were its worst propensities. They had been taught and believed that greed and self-seeking were all that held mankind together, and that all human associations would fall to pieces if anything were done to blunt the edge of these motives or curb their operation. In a word, they believed—even those who longed to believe otherwise—the exact reverse of what seems to us self-evident; they believed, that is, that the anti-social ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... Hazeldean had a tenderness of conscience much less reasonable than Goldsmith's. There were occasionally days in which he did not feel good enough—I don't say for a priest, but even for one of the congregation—"days in which (said the Squire in his own blunt way), as I have never in my life met a worse devil than a devil of a temper, I'll not carry mine into the family pew. He shan't be growling out hypocritical responses from my poor grandmother's prayer-book." So the Squire and his demon stayed at ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... joint committee of Congress on the Conduct of the Present War;[70] but at least one piece of evidence was not, at that time, forthcoming, a piece that, in a certain sense, might be taken to exonerate the whites. It came to the knowledge of General Blunt during the summer and was the Indians' own confession. It bore only indirectly upon the actual atrocities but showed that the red men were quite equal to making their own plans in fighting and were not to be relied upon to do things decently ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... go into the icy water again, enfeebled by fasts as he was, might perhaps carry the guilt of suicide, he scourged himself till the blood ran, and so lay down smarting. And when exhaustion began to blunt the smart down to a throb, that moment the present was away, and the past came smiling back. He sat with Margaret at the duke's feast, the minstrels played divinely, and the purple fountains gushed. Youth and love reigned in each heart, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... seen M. Lescarbault,' says Moigno, 'so small, so simple, so modest, and so timid, in order to understand the emotion with which he was seized, when Leverrier, from his great height, and with that blunt intonation which he can command, thus addressed him: "It is then you, sir, who pretend to have observed the intra-mercurial planet, and who have committed the grave offence of keeping your observation secret for nine months. I warn you that I have come here with the intention of doing justice ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... are you? Sir Walter Blunt: there's honour for you! here's no vanity! I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... and saw it disappear in the haze round the end of the mountain. From this I got my first clear impression of the topography of the country surrounding our objective point. Buckskin mountain ran its blunt end eastward to the Canyon—in fact, formed a hundred miles of the north rim. As it was nine thousand feet high it still held the snow, which had occasioned our lengthy desert ride to get back of the ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... with considerable attention, and it occasioned me many reflections. To my way of thinking it contained a very interesting picture of a blunt, downright, honest mind. "It is a melancholy consideration," said I to myself; "but such is man! To have judged from appearances one would have said, this is a fellow to have taken fortune's buffets and rewards with an incorruptible mind. And ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... faint curling at the corners of his lips, they were all too dull to wonder at it. As for me, the boy, I took the changing phenomena of life pretty well for granted, and wasted little of my golden time speculating about such things. But as I look back now on the blunt end of those Urkey days, I seem to see Minister Malden growing smaller as he comes nearer, and Mate Snow growing larger—Mate Snow browbeating the congregation with a more and more menacing righteousness—Minister Malden, in his protecting shadow, leaner, grayer, his eyes burning with an ever fiercer ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... had a decidedly inharmonious one early in January of 184-, and Deacon Callendar had spoken his mind with his usual blunt directness. He had been a good deal nettled at the minister's attitude, for, instead of seconding his propositions, Dr. Morrison had sat with a faraway, indifferent look, as if the pending discussion was entirely out of his range of interest. John ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... mind he sought his uncle, and by him was again led before the Archbishop. His reticence and timidity dispersed by his great sorrow, the distraught boy faced the high ecclesiastic with questions terribly blunt. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... thing after another.—You have been as noted, all round our town, for being a kind man, as being a blunt one. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... very easy for a man in his sermon to learn [teach] his parishioners how to dissolve gold, of what, and how the stuff is made. Now, to ring the bells and call the people on purpose together, would be but a blunt business; but to do it neatly, and when nobody looked for it, that is the rarity and art ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... the house well, for it is distinguished from all others in Prague, both by its shape and its oddly ornamented, unnaturally narrow front. It is built in the figure of an irregular triangle, the blunt apex of one angle facing the little square, the sides being erected on the one hand along the Karlsgasse and on the other upon a narrow alley which leads away towards the Jews' quarter. Overhanging passages are built out over this dim lane, as though to facilitate the interior communications ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... instruction given consisted in oratorical jousts; the masters disputed among themselves, and the pupils did likewise. In a time when paper was scarce and parchment precious, disputes replaced our written exercises. The weapons employed in these jousts were blunt ones; but as in real tournaments where "armes courtoises" were used, disputants were sometimes carried away by passion, and the result was a true battle: "They scream themselves hoarse, they lavish unmannerly expressions, abuse, threats, upon each other. They ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... not speak of her griefs to Harry Esmond, my lord was by no means reserved when in his cups, and spoke his mind very freely, bidding Harry in his coarse way, and with his blunt language, beware of all women as cheats, jades, jilts, and using other unmistakable monosyllables in speaking of them. Indeed, 'twas the fashion of the day as I must own; and there's not a writer of my time of any note, with the exception of poor ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... forward beside her. His curious eyes at once perceived the hideous, thickset lizard that lay flattened upon the shadowed sand as if in a torpor. The reptile's dirty orange-mottled black body was as loathsome as its venomous blunt-nosed head. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... home with but one thought in my mind. The Archduchess had put into words—very plain, blunt words—what as yet I had scarcely dared harbour in my mind as a fugitive idea. She had done me in that respect good service. She had brought to a sudden crisis an issue which it was folly any longer to evade. ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... flight. He had led all Venice to believe this wonderful new singer favoured his addresses. Some, indeed, maintained for a time that, jealous of his treasure, the count had hidden her in one of his country houses. But when they heard Porpora say, with a blunt openness which could never deceive, that he had advised his pupil to go to Germany and wait for him, there was nothing left but to try and find out the motives for this ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... forward, seized it by the throat. The creature made little or no resistance; and having dragged it up to the fire, we saw that it was a capybara, or water-hog. The doctor remarked that it was the largest of all living rodents, being upwards of three feet in length, and enormously fat. It had a blunt muzzle, with the eyes set high in the head; was destitute of a tail; and its toes were so united as to enable it to swim with ease. It was of a blackish grey hue, with rather long hairs, of a yellow tinge, falling thickly over ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... Lay funnelled liners, dirty fishing-craft, Blunt cargo-luggers, tugs, and ferry-boats. Oh, it was good in that black-scuttled lot To see the Frye come lording on her way Like some old queen that we had half forgot Come to her own. A little up the Bay The Fort lay green, for it was springtime then; The wind was fresh, rich with the spicy bloom ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... into the silver cup in which she had mixed the powder—it was empty! "The God of Righteousness hath punished him!" exclaimed Amine; "but O! that this man should have been my father! Yes! it is plain. Frightened at his own wicked, damned intentions, he poured out more wine from the flagon, to blunt his feelings of remorse, and not knowing that the powder was still in the cup, he filled it up and drank himself—the death he meant for another! For another!—and for whom? one wedded to his own daughter!—Philip! my husband! Wert thou not my ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... The words were blunt, perhaps all the more so for the unwonted touch of fiery feeling which Olga was quick to detect in their utterance. They moved her strangely. It was almost as if he had flung open his soul to her, challenging her to enter and satisfy herself. And ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Pioneer there were now so many workers that it seemed they must forever be in one another's way. But the work was progressing with extreme rapidity. Already there projected from her blunt nose a slender rod of shining metal which was the projector of one of the destructive rays whose generator and auxiliaries were being installed under the supervision of the government experts. The force had been trebled ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention, and many times more for your interest. That's the plain state of the matter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt broadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life beyond my duty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap pretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first crash of being seized as a murderer—it don't take a rover who has knocked ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... person towards the fortune of an essay than the writer. Even 'the prosperity of a jest,' as Shakespeare tells us, lies less in its own merit than 'in the ear of him that hears it.' If he should happen to be unusually obtuse, the wittiest jest perishes—the most pointed is found blunt. So, with regard to books, should the reader on whom we build prove a sandy and treacherous foundation, the whole edifice, 'temple and tower,' must come to the ground. Should it happen, for instance, that the reader, inflicted upon ourselves for our sins, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... Winfield Scott had many severe critics and not a few personal enemies. By these, he was said to be arrogant, blunt in manners, opinionated, and also a military martinet with terribly unvolunteer ideas relating to the rigid discipline required for success in war. He had seen, however, a deal of hard service in the war of 1812 and otherwise, and his military record was without ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... was taxed to its utmost, but he fully realized how deeply his old friend was wounded; and the knowledge that his own interest in Allen was in reality a genuine service to Sanford himself served to blunt ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... Even the blunt Duke of Wellington wrote as follows to the Count d'Orsay under date of April 9, 1849: "I rejoice at the prosperity of France and of the success of the president of the Republic. Every thing tends towards ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... and thinks the articles collected may have been made rather for sale than otherwise. Of the boys, Mr. Murdoch says: "As soon as a boy is able to walk, his father makes him a little bow suited to his strength, with blunt arrows, with which he plays with the other boys, shooting at marks—for instance the fetal reindeer brought home from the spring hunt—till he is old enough to shoot small birds ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... consider maturely in what manner he should address the Dwarf, in order to extract from him the knowledge which he supposed him to be in possession of concerning the authors of his misfortunes. Hobbie, though blunt, plain of speech, and hot of disposition, like most of his countrymen, was by no means deficient in the shrewdness which is also their characteristic. He reflected, that from what he had observed on the memorable night when the Dwarf was ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... ready for immediate planting: this concession once belonged to Dr. Ross, of Axim. Opposite it the mining-ground has been leased for prospecting by Messieurs Gillett and Selby. The notable feature of the river is now the prawn-basket, a long cone closed at the blunt apex: the Ancobra is a 'Camarones,' supplying a first-rate article for curries. This is the work of the uninteresting little villages, scatters of mere crates built in holes worn in the bush; all disappear during the floods, and are rebuilt ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... Zabara's method that makes it open to doubt, whether the additional stories referred to as printed with the Constantinople edition did really emanate from our author's pen. These additions are sharply misogynist; the poet does not even attempt to blunt their point. They include "The Widow's Vow" (the widow, protesting undying constancy to her first love, eagerly weds another) and "Woman's Contentions." In the latter, a wicked woman is denounced with the wildest invective. She has demoniac traits; her touch is fatal. A condemned criminal is offered ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... given up the fight, for she had bid on no work of any kind since the morning she had called upon Schwartz and told him, in her blunt, frank way, "Give the work to McGaw at me ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... widest at region of bridge; margin entire; dorsal surface smooth; anterior margin of carapace lacking tubercles; blunt vertebral ridge evident anteriorly; maximum length, 53.1 mm; greatest width, 46.3 mm; ...
— Description of a New Softshell Turtle From the Southeastern United States • Robert G. Webb
... group of the younger school, d'Indy, Charpentier and their set, were gathered together to prepare a festival for Prince Gregoriev, showering on him attentions of every kind; and laboring tirelessly to convince him of their admiration and their "sympathetic appreciation." No blunt comment or criticism here! All was smoothly, exquisitely polished: urbanely, beautifully French. But within a week or two Kashkine noted that Ivan was turning inward again towards himself and his habitual solitude. And he knew that presently these complacent fellows ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... thirty or forty cubic feet, with pools and waterfalls. A tree that stands all along the banks here must be very fond of water; its roots lie close-packed down the stream, like hanks of guts, so as to make often a corrugated walk, each root ending in a blunt tuft of filaments, plainly to drink water. Twice there came in small tributaries from the left or western side—the whole plateau having a smartish inclination to the east; one of the tributaries in a handsome ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was too much in earnest to resent my blunt speech. "Look here, Bev, is that magic seed? And did you get ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not essentially require any current of the medium in which the brush appears: the current almost always occurs, but is a consequence of the brush, and will be considered hereafter (1562-1610.). On holding a blunt point positively charged towards uninsulated water, a star or glow appeared on the point, a current of air passed from it, and the surface of the water was depressed; but on bringing the point so near that sonorous brushes passed, then the current of air instantly ceased, and ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... Jane and Mammy sincerely hoped to eradicate my besetting sin, by such blunt remarks as the former; but no course could have been less wise than the one which they took. I knew very well that I was neither a fright, an Indian, nor a cannibal; and the pains which they took to convince me to the contrary led me to give myself credit for much more beauty ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... had no other arms than his regulation sword; and his aide-de-camp, my redoubtable self; no other weapon of offence than a little crooked dirk, so considerably curved, that it would not answer the purpose of a dagger to stab with, and so blunt, that I am sure, though it might separate, it could not cut through a plum-pudding. Though I was approaching pari passu with my commander to a parapet, where there there was no "imminent deadly breach," I was so much ashamed of my side-arms, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet:[9.B.] Woe to the man that walks in public view Without of loyalty this token true: Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke; And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue, If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloke, Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... which Walker led them was plainly but neatly furnished and the windows looked out upon rolling pastures. The Governor abandoned his high-flown talk and asked blunt questions as to recent visitors, apparently referring to criminals who had lodged at the farm. They talked quite openly while Archie unpacked his bag. The restless activity of the folk of the underworld, ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... dog's head appeared, followed by a tail, which waggled so beseechingly for leave to come farther that Clover, who liked dogs, put out her hand at once. He was not pretty, being of a pepper-and-salt color, with a blunt nose and no particular sort of a tail, but looked good-natured; and Clover fondled him cordially, while Mr. Eels took his cane out of his mouth to ask, "What kind of a dog is that, ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... this." And the impatient man touched his forehead and his lips. "And who is there more competent than my disciple? There is the champion of our cause, a second cap of Hor, that overthrew the evil one with winged sunbeams, and you come and would clip his wings and blunt his claws! Alas, alas, my lords! will you never understand that a lion roars louder than a cat, and the sun shines brighter than an oil-lamp? Let Pentuar alone, I say; or you will do as the man ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Then, as Danny approached his ninth birthday, the old man had said, "They're teaching you too much at school, son. Too many wrong things, too many highfalutin' notions, too much just plain old hogwash. Why don't you kind of make yourself scarce for a few years?" It had been blunt and to the point. It had made Danny cry. He hadn't thought of what had happened that last day he'd seen his grand-uncle for years, but ...
— My Shipmate—Columbus • Stephen Wilder
... deepened suddenly, as has been said, where the current had scoured the bank. With the nose of the little boat pulled well up in the mud, the stern sloped almost level with the surface of the stream. The blunt, slanting bow of the pirogue banged into the plank gunwale and slid over it. The force of the blow dragged the cock-boat to one side and wrenched it free of the shore. It floated at the end of a tether but the bow of the canoe pressed the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... as he spoke, and had he been wise he had better served his cause by talking in another vein. But love and jealousy had so addled what poor brains the Lord had bestowed upon him, that he floundered on, unmindful of any warning that took not the blunt shape of words. At length, however, she stemmed the flow of invective that ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... nature. I don't know just exactly how to put it. You may have noticed that I am rather awkward when it comes to saying the right thing at the right time. I have not been much accustomed to society, and I am rather a blunt man." ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... touch to deepen scandal's tints With all the kind mendacity of hints, While mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles, A thread of candour with a web of wiles; A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming, To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming; A lip of lies; a face formed to conceal, And without feeling mock at all who feel; With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown,— A cheek ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the agent failed to detect it, the watchful eyes of Bat missed nothing. To him the danger signal lay in the curious flicker of his friend's eyelids. The sight impelled him. He jumped in and took up the challenge in the blunt fashion he ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... time I was again in my uniform, and I sat down, and smoked, and looked at Hungerford. His long gossip had been more or less detached, and I had said nothing. I understood that he was trying, in his blunt, honest way, to turn my thoughts definitely from Mrs. Falchion to Belle Treherne; and he never seemed to me such a good fellow as at that moment. I replied at last: "All right, Hungerford; I'll be your deputation, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that stick as though it were a club, swinging it like a baseball bat. That would be as silly as using an overhand stab with a dagger. He used it the way a fencer would use a foil, and the hard, blunt end of it sank into the first thug's solar plexus with all the drive of the Duke's right arm and shoulder behind it. The thug gave a hoarse scream as all the air was driven from his lungs, and ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... richest and most generous natures have been wanting in the graces of courtesy and politeness. As a rough rind sometimes covers the sweetest fruit, so a rough exterior often conceals a kindly and hearty nature. The blunt man may seem even rude in manner, and yet, at heart, be honest, kind, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... moon's last rim formed a golden sickle behind a blunt shoulder of rock; while over the eastward levels the topaz-yellow of an Indian dawn rushed at one stride to the zenith of heaven. In the clear light the girl's beauty took on a new distinctness, a new living ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... involved in your disgrace: she is received with blunt No's and Yes's, as dry as Brussells rusks, which she swallows with a slanting glance at you. "Monsieur's always ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... his slovenly bedroom, and took out one of his razors, and felt the corrugated surface of the left side of his neck meditatively. But the razor was blunt, and the corrugated surface seemed very tough and unmanageable; so George Sheldon decided that this kind of operation was an affair ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Captain Major-General Arthur Major Sullivan Bellew, Dr. Benares, Maharaja of Bentinck, Lord William Bernard, Sir Charles Bertrand, Father Bhartpur, Raja of Bhopal, Begum of Biddulph, Brigadier-General M. Biddulph, Colonel Birbul Birsing, Sepoy Blackwood, Major Blanc, Dr. Blunt, Colonel Bogle, Captain Booth, Lieutenant Bourchier, General Sir George, K.C.B. Bowring, Mr. Lewin Brabazon, Lieutenant Brackenbury, General Bradshaw, Dr. Brasyer, Colonel Bridge, Captain Bright, John, The Right Hon. General ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... did not comprehend their full meaning. He had not a feeling that they were free, but that something awful at the same time had happened which filled him with uneasiness and weighed upon his bosom like a heavy stone. Finally his thoughts began to grow blunt. For a long time he gazed at the big moths hovering above the flame and in the end he nodded and dozed. Kali also dozed, but awoke every little while and threw twigs ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... 'to the temple of the King of Hell and burn incense. We can then tell the King our grudge and ask him how it was that, when he bade us receive life and become human beings, he only conferred a glib tongue on that vixen and that we were only allotted such blunt mouths?' The eight listened to her plan, and were quite enraptured with it. 'This proposal is faultless!' they assented. On the next day, they sped in a body to the temple of the God of Hell, and after burning ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... years, however it hold in youth. I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave No cause, not willingly, for such a love: To this I call my friends in testimony, Her brethren, and her father, who himself Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use, To break her passion, some discourtesy Against my nature: what I could, I did. I left her and I bade her no farewell; Tho', had I dreamt the damsel would have died, I might have put my wits to some rough use, And help'd her from herself.'" ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... and seemed to decide instantly upon the course of action she should pursue, or, rather, the course which she had previously proposed to herself. She saw clearly, and had long known that in the tactics and stratagems of life, her blunt but honest father was no match at all for the deep hypocrisy and deceitful plausibility of Sir Robert Whitecraft, the consequence was, that she allowed her father to take his own way, without either remonstrance or contradiction. She knew very well ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... addressed loved not the shuttlecock, thought one woman but falser than another, and made parade of blunt speech. Now a shrug of the shoulder accompanied his answer. "The Star went down months ago, off the Grand Canary, in ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... them being shot through the head, could no longer plunge under water, but began to beat about furiously on the surface, and tinged the sea with its blood. It seemed to be about three yards long, and was slender and blunt-headed, from whence our sailors called it the Bottle-nose, a name which Dale applies to a very different fish, the beaked whale, of which the beak or nose resembles the neck of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... merit criticism must place the whole of the banquet scene. The intoxicated vanity of Alexander—his soft and puerile susceptibility of gross and fulsome adulation, his idle contest with the blunt old Clytus, his fury and cruel murder of that brave old soldier, and his outrageous grief and self reproach for that murder, in all of which the fiery brain of the poet has urged the passions to the utmost verge of nature, Mr. Cooper was all for which the most sanguine ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various |
