"Bludgeon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sharp is penetrating and moves quickly; that which is blunt is non-penetrating and of necessity moves slowly. The needle darts through the cloth more quickly than the bodkin. The greyhound is swifter than the bulldog. The stiletto does quicker work than the bludgeon. This, of course, is only a symbolism which may make vivid the truth that the convex man works more rapidly ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... promising writer were in his case sharpened by political partisanship; and the just and measured severity which he infused into his criticism on Southey's "Colloquies of Society" brought down upon him the bludgeon to whose strokes poetic tradition has attributed the death of Keats. Macaulay was made of harder stuff, and gave little heed to a string of unsavoury invectives compounded out of such epithets as "ugly," "splay-footed," and "shapeless;" such phrases ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... delicate cane of yours," said Travis, glancing from the other's stupendous bludgeon to his own gold-headed Malacca, which, as he would have expressed it himself, had knocked a big hole in a fifty dollar bill. "Preparing for the meeting to-night, you see," answered Lloyd, with a significant waggle of the big stick, that would ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... beauty, or enjoyment of Nature. It is necessary to sound a loud alarm, to present the facts in very strong language, backed up by irrefutable statistics and by photographs which tell no lies, to establish the law and enforce it if needs be with a bludgeon. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... there?—and if he may not hold a main of fighting cocks, is he to keep cholera and typhus in his house? For my part, I cannot see, if a justice of the peace can stop a man from knocking me down with a bludgeon, why he should not be authorised to interfere to save me from a typhus fever; and if he can prevent boys from endangering the lives of passengers by firing guns on the high roads, why he should not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... except the highest, a complete triumph. And although Hort was strictly accurate in describing the treatment of Kingsley as 'horribly unchristian,' it is demanding too much of human nature to expect a master of fence, when wantonly attacked with a bludgeon, to abstain from the pleasure of pricking his adversary scientifically in the tender parts of his body. The bitterest passages were excised in later editions; and the 'Apologia' remains a masterpiece ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... fellow continued, in a most unmerciful manner, to beat the wretched unresisting beast upon a raw place on the upper end of his tail. Exasperated at the fellow's brutality, I rode up to him, and having seized his bludgeon, as he was brandishing it in the air about to apply it once more to the already lacerated rump of the poor ass, with an effort of strength I wrenched the bludgeon from the inhuman monster's hand, and threw it with great violence ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... the bright moonlight which flooded the scene, and Mark could see the slaver captain making a rush here and a rush there, and at each effort he struck down some poor wretch with a heavy bludgeon he wielded with ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... she, having been left alone in the house of a Sunday evening, heard a knock at the door. Opening the door she found a tramp who tried to force his way into the house. She struggled to prevent his entrance, but he struck her with a bludgeon and rendered her insensible, whereupon he entered the house and robbed it. She related the vision to her friends, but, as nothing happened for some time, the matter almost passed from her mind. But, some seven years afterward, she was left ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... out. This injunction was of course disregarded, for when the man wanted some refreshment, he put him into a country public-house stable, and left him, and to get him out, the roof of the building had to be pulled off. At Rawcliffe, he was always exhibited by a groom with a ticket-of-leave bludgeon in his hand, and few were bold enough to venture into his yard. This animal, whose temper has depreciated him perhaps a thousand pounds in value, I think would be 'the right horse in the right place' for ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... sticks or spears, a few mounted, the majority on foot, all howling and screeching (I believe they call it singing), so that before even the dust raised by a new party could be seen, the ear was deafened by their clamour. Every Takrurie warrior—that is, every one who can howl and carry a bludgeon or lance—is entitled to a vote; for this privilege he pays a dollar. The polling consists in counting the money, and the amount decides the ruler's fate. The re-elected Sheik (such was the result of the election we witnessed) killed cows, supplied jowaree loaves, and, above ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... tried to give his demand that flavour, but rather as acquainting her with an established fact at which she blinked in a curious confusion of moods. The demoniac music in the dancing-hall had begun to bludgeon the walls, and in the whirlpool of the physical vibrations of the noise and the spiritual vibrations of his passion the little woman seemed to bob like a cork. She was resigned and pleased, and plainly trusted him, but at the same time she was pitifully ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Dirk Stroeve came up and sat down with us he attacked him with ferocious banter. He showed a skill I should never have credited him with in finding the places where the unhappy Dutchman was most sensitive. Strickland employed not the rapier of sarcasm but the bludgeon of invective. The attack was so unprovoked that Stroeve, taken unawares, was defenceless. He reminded you of a frightened sheep running aimlessly hither and thither. He was startled and amazed. At last the tears ran from his eyes. And ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... particularly brutal villain with leery eyes, ugly mouth, with one tooth gone, and an iron jaw like a hull-dog's. He was attired in a fur cap, brown corduroy jacket, with a blood-red handkerchief twisted about his throat, and he carried a bludgeon. When the double-dyed villain proceeded in the third act to pound the head of the lovely maiden to a jelly at the instigation of the base uncle, concealed behind a painted tree-trunk, and the lover rushed in and tried to save her, every pair ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... were painful to hear, but his brother acted like a madman; rushing hither and thither, with a heavy bludgeon in his hand, with which he indiscriminately beat the fences and whatever came in his way, crying "Oh my brother, my poor brother! Who has murdered ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... again encountered Mrs. Major. Now she was girt against the weather and against exercise. Beneath her chin were firmly knotted the strings of her sober bonnet; a short skirt hid nothing of the stout boots she had donned; her hand grasped the knob of a bludgeon-like umbrella. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... sound of the blow and the sight of the fall both the old man and the young ran out from their place of concealment. Burt was standing over the body, his bludgeon ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Janasthan they sallied out With eager speed, and din, and shout, Armed with the mace for close attacks, The bill, the spear, the battle-axe, Steel quoit and club that flashed afar, Huge bow and sword and scimitar, The dart to pierce, the bolt to strike, The murderous bludgeon, lance, and pike. So forth from Janasthan, intent On Khara's will, the monsters went. He saw their awful march: not far Behind the host he drove his car. Ware of his master's will, to speed The driver urged each gold-decked steed. Then forth the warrior's coursers sprang, And with tumultuous ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... apology or excuse, it was how ample and entire in the case of a man—the only one in our annals—appointed to wear the shining crown of martyrdom before his translation, to get up out of his own blood and recover from the foul assassin's bludgeon after medical tortures of the surgeon's moxa in combustion on his disabled spine, such as Sequard says he never applied to ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... Johnson might with truth be described as the King Bull of all the Bulls of all the China-shops. There was no subject, however remote from his knowledge or experience on which he would hesitate to pronounce, and if necessary bludgeon forth, his opinion. But in his case, there is one important distinction to be made, a distinction ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... Poor Otis! The bludgeon of a ministerial myrmidon paralyzed his brilliant intellect, and he was not allowed to participate in the scenes of the Revolution which ensued. Just as the white banner of peace began to wave over his country, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... madmen without keepers be; And such desire of Freedom has been shown, That both the parties wish'd her all their own: All our free smiths and cobblers in the town Were loth to lay such pleasant freedom down; To put the bludgeon and cockade aside, And let us pass unhurt and undefied. True! you might then your party's sign produce, And so escape with only half th' abuse: With half the danger as you walk'd along, With rage and threat'ning but from half the throng. This you might do, and not your fortune ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... communist shall rebel with a bludgeon and a petroleum torch, or with a plow and a church, depends upon whether he has not or has faith in God—whether he is a religious being or not. If priestcraft and tyranny have sapped his faith and debauched his moral sense, then he will attack ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... closet adjoining the bedroom, a coat, a waistcoat, and a pair of breeches, with drawers, stockings, and slippers. Though the maid kept coughing all the time, Madame Miot and her gallant did not awake from their slumber, till the enraged husband began to use the bludgeon of the lover, which had also been left in the closet. A battle then ensued, in which the lover retaliated so vigorously, that the husband called out "Murder! murder!" with all his might. The chateau was instantly in an uproar, and the apartments crowded with half-dressed and half-naked ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... known to his friend, who told him, that having left his horse at Tunley's, he was, in his way to the garrison, set upon by three ruffians, one of whom being the very individual person now in his power, had come behind him, and struck with a bludgeon at his head, which, however, he missed, and the instrument descended on his left shoulder; that, upon drawing his hanger, and laying about him in the dark, the other two fled, leaving their companion, whom he ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... pen like a bludgeon. Even at this distance of time Cheetham's "View of Aaron Burr's Political Conduct," in which is traced the Vice President's alleged intrigues to promote himself over Jefferson, is interesting and exciting. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... he is the sort of man to plot a thing like this, and to bludgeon my mother into it, how could you endure to promise to do it ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... together,—Spaniards, swarthy skinned and black haired; wiry Frenchmen, quick to anger, and ever ready with cutlass or pistol; Malays and Lascars, half clad in gaudy colors, treacherous and sullen, with a hand ever on their glittering creeses; Englishmen, handy alike with fist, bludgeon, or cutlass, and mightily given to fearful oaths; negroes, Moors, and a few West Indians ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... stick. It is a big chestnut some hundred and fifty feet beyond the point where the ravine turns west. It has a big enough trunk for a stick to stand upright against it, as was shown by Inspector Snow who had charge of this affair. But we are told that after demonstrating this fact with the same bludgeon which had done its bloody work in the Hollow, the prisoner showed a sudden interest in this weapon and begged to see it closer. This being granted, he pointed out where a splinter or two had been freshly whittled ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... first seized hold of a good bludgeon, feigned dead. Then the foxes arrived, and spoke thus: "Panaumbe! You are to be pitied. Were you frozen to death, or were you starved to death?" With these words, all the foxes came up close to him, and wept. Thereupon Panaumbe brandished his bludgeon, struck all the ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... doubt an extra item in the curriculum, but, on the other hand, there was something to show for it; all those who passed through his hands when they subsequently fell into the clutches of the Law could endure as many as five-and-twenty strokes from the hardest bludgeon without so much as wincing. They had been case hardened by their ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... blows on the head. The other villain, hastening to meet Brown, called to his companion to come along, "for that one's content," meaning, probably, past resistance or complaint. One ruffian was armed with a cutlass, the other with a bludgeon; but as the road was pretty narrow, "bar firearms," thought Brown, "and I may manage them well enough." They met accordingly, with the most murderous threats on the part of the ruffians. They soon found, however, that their near opponent was equally ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... bright night; locating the guinea-hen, he slipped up stealthily with a stout stick. The bird was pouring out its heart, tearing the moonlight to tatters. Stealing up close, Clemens made a vicious swing with his bludgeon, but just then the guinea stepped forward a little, and he missed. The stroke and his explosion frightened the fowl, and it started to run. Clemens, with his mind now on the single purpose of revenge, started after it. Around the trees, along the paths, up and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... death, over a girl whom he had only seen for a few minutes, had the sense to take it. But it was no easy task to extricate himself. A burly ruffian was approaching him with arm uplifted and whirling a bludgeon. Vane caught the fellow a blow in the waist and he immediately collapsed. Before the prostrate man could get his wind, Vane darted through the Traitors' Gate and racing towards the Borough with a score or so of the rabble after him, darted into the ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... barber, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder, mounts the block. A life preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs grimly his grappling hands, knobbed ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... be d——d to you!' cried the fellow, raising a heavy bludgeon, and dealing the poor Doctor a blow on the head which felled him senseless to the ground, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... attention, for the most part, to the worthy books and they habitually neglect those that seem beneath their regard. On a rare occasion they assail an unprofitable book, but even this is often but a bit of practice. They swish a bludgeon to try their hand. They only take their anger, as it were, upon an outing, lest with too close housing it grow pallid and shrink in girth. Or maybe they indulge themselves in humor. Perhaps they think that their pages grow dull and that ridicule will restore the balance. They throw ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... breaking down visibly month by month; and one might fancy that the eminent Christian divine might have used his influence to better purpose than in fanning the dying flame, and adding the strokes of his bludgeon to the keen stabs of Pope's stiletto. In the fourteen years which had elapsed since the first Dunciad, Pope had found less unworthy employment for his pen; but, before dealing with the works produced at this time, which include some ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... China. Probably the Metropolitan police of dear old London could not be re-forced from their ranks, but disciplined and well-ordered they certainly are withal. Swords seem to take the place of the English bludgeon, and a peaked cap, beribboned with gold, is substituted for the old-fashioned helmet of blue; and if the time should ever come, with international rights, when Englishmen will be "run in" in the Empire, the sallow physiognomy and the dangling pigtail alone will be unmistakable ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... end of his stick for the face of another of the boarding strangers. The fellow strove to protect his face, and would have guarded easily enough, but, instead, the other end of Tom's bludgeon struck him in the pit of his stomach, depriving him of all ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... conductor to stop in front of a squat building in front of the Old Plaza. The man, whose gall had been slowly rising for want of drink, hurried them roughly off the car and across the sidewalk into a dark passage. Their feet lagged, and he shoved them before him, flourishing his bludgeon. ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... this was like a blow from a bludgeon. The insolence, the contempt, and the hardness of it were such as no self-respecting woman could endure. It put an end to their acquaintance, as Swift undoubtedly intended it should do. He would have ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... affirms anything, it must be believed; his dissertation is a peremptory injunction and not an effort of reason; it commands obedience; it is not open to examination; it is not a report which he draws from his coat pocket, but a bludgeon. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... for the sickly in the mind is reality. Something real has to be felt or experienced. Life that is over-delicate and remote through something unbalanced in the mind is not life but decay. The knife, the bludgeon, the practical joke, and the many-weaponed figure of Sorrow are life's remedies for those who fail to live. We are the earth's children; we have no business in limbo. Living in limbo is like living in the smoke from a crater: highly picturesque, ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... hundred eager scribes are at their heel To tell the public how they look and feel, How eat and drink, how sleep and smoke and play. Murder's itinerary for a day, Set forth in graphic phrase by skilful pens, With pictures of its face, its favourite dens, Its knife or bludgeon, pistol, paramour, Will swell the swift editions hour by hour, More than high news of war or of debate, The death of heroes or the throes of state. From club-room to street-corner runs the cry After the newest fact, or latest lie: The hurrying throng unfolded broad-sheets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... are evidently of low intelligence in the average. A bludgeon and a halter make up ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... filled with monuments of those who were once dear to me, with no insincere wish that it may open for me at no distant period, provided such be the will of God. My pains were those of the heart, and had something flattering in their character; if in the head, it was from the blow of a bludgeon gallantly received and ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... tell him," she cried, laughing. The Quaker rule of repression and non-resistance by no means forbade the use of the brutal bludgeon of sarcasm, as many a debate in Meeting could testify. She rose as she spoke, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... premeditated murder of George Selby, by shooting him with a pistol, with a revolver, shotgun, rifle, repeater, breech-loader, cannon, six-shooter, with a gun, or some other, weapon; with killing him with a slung-shot, a bludgeon, carving knife, bowie knife, pen knife, rolling pin, car, hook, dagger, hair pin, with a hammer, with a screw-driver; with a nail, and with all other weapons and utensils whatsoever, at the Southern ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... hue of copper, and he is clad in a lion's skin.[363] That irresistible deity assumes such a fierce shape. Assuming again the form of the sword, the bow, the mace, the dart, the trident, the mallet, the arrow, the thick and short club, the battle-axe, the discus, the noose, the heavy bludgeon, the rapier, the lance, and in fact of every kind of weapon that exists on earth, Chastisement moves in the world. Indeed, Chastisement moves on earth, piercing and cutting and afflicting and lopping off and dividing and striking and slaying ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... fell, something dropped from his hand on to the pavement with a bump and a rattle. Stooping swiftly, the Kid picked it up, and handed it to Psmith. His fingers closed upon it. It was a short, wicked-looking little bludgeon, the black-jack ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... that rule. In the open air pitch out a fact or two—not too many—or a couple of round sums of figures first of all, just to give them confidence in you, and then go straight for your opponent. No rapier play—it's lost then—but crack him on the top-knot with a bludgeon. They'll want to hear his skull ring before they'll believe that you have touched him. Phrases! Those are the things to get you in, not arguments. Pin a label on his coat-tails. You'll see them laugh as he squirms round to pull it off. And, mind you, ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... each side; it stands under a gateway composed of two uprights and a cross-bar. Beside the idol generally lies a white rag intended to keep off the devil; and sometimes there is also a stick which seems to represent a bludgeon or weapon of some sort. Further, from the cross-bar hangs a small log which serves the useful purpose of knocking on the head any evil spirit who might attempt to pass through the gateway. Clearly this double-headed ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... to his thinly veiled advances. Did I say thinly veiled? There is a race of men in New Zealand, or Australia, I have forgotten which, who indicate their preference for the lady of their affections by banging her over the head with a bludgeon. By comparison with this method Hooja's lovemaking might be called thinly veiled. At first it caused me to blush violently although I have seen several Old Years out at Rectors, and in other less fashionable places off Broadway, and in Vienna, ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... shown by firm bars to the t, with a tendency to descend from left to right, bludgeon-like downstrokes to tailed letters, writing rather angular than rounded, and the final strokes finished by a heavy pressure. Straight, firm, downward strokes take the place of the tails ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... the status quo ante. In the case of Ireland the old oppressions have not been repealed except in two or three points, but even if they had been wholly cancelled it would be absurd to expect immediate recovery from their effects. If you have been beating a man on the head with a bludgeon for half an hour, and then leave off, there is no sense in saying to him: "There, I have given over bludgeoning you. Why on earth don't you get up, and skip about like me?" If you have been robbing a man's till for ten years, and ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... to do this when Seth Barker himself came panting down the hillpath, and, what was more remarkable, he carried an uncouth sort of bludgeon in his hand. I could see that there had been a bit of a rough and tumble on the way, but it ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... both as appropriate to Mr. Choate's profession and exactly descriptive of the thing itself. For, as in an indictment for murder, in order to close every loophole of evasion, the prudent attorney affirms that the accused did the deed with an awfully destructive to-wit,—with a knife, axe, bludgeon, pistol, bootjack, six-pounder, and what not, which were then and there in the Briarean hands of him the said What's-his-name, so Mr. Choate represents the Republican Party to have attempted the assassination of the Constitution with a most remarkable medley of instruments. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... when he found he was bound hard and fast, his face turned as red as fire and he opened his mouth, whether to swear or yell I know not. I had already closed the door, and before the man had uttered more than a premonitory sound, David had clapped the end of his bludgeon against his mouth. ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... cheeks covered with grog blossoms, a large protuberance on his back, another on his chest; yet with these deformities he appeared uncommonly happy. This was Mr. Punch. He held in his right hand a tremendous bludgeon, with which he amused himself by rapping on the head every one who came within his reach. This exhibition seems very absurd, yet not less than one hundred were present—children, boys, old men, and even gentlemen and ladies, were standing by, and occasionally ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... was choking them, choking them to death, using them as a shield against the other three. Then slowly he worked himself into a sitting position. He hurled one of the dogs to the tent door. He swung bludgeon blows at the others. They fled yelping and howling. He still held the Mackenzie River bitch. Getting his knee on her body, he bent her almost into a circle, bent her till her back ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... different. The Northerner is not demonstrative, is slow to anger, but being moved is not easily appeased. The typical Irishman, with his cutaway coat, his pipe stuck in his conical caubeen, his "sprig of shillelagh," or bludgeon the Donnybrook Fair hero who "shpinds half a-crown, Mates wid a frind An' (for love) knocks him down" is totally unknown in these regions. The men who by their ability and industry have lifted Ireland ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... and as just as your people, seeking as earnestly as you would in their place to rightly solve the problem that touches them at every vital point. If you insist that they are ruffians, blindly striving with bludgeon and shotgun to plunder and oppress a race, then I shall sacrifice my self-respect and tax your patience in vain. But admit that they are men of common sense and common honesty, wisely modifying an environment they cannot wholly disregard—guiding and controlling as best they ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... robustness is omnipresent, and takes several forms. A grandiloquence that sways uneasily between rodomontade and mere verbiage, a rotundity of diction, a choice of subjects which can only be described as sanguinolent, the use of the bludgeon where ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... in all senses are a normal part of living. His social habits indulge themselves in knocks, coarse attacks, unseemly abuse, as rather matters of course. He wields a bludgeon where more refined men would cut down with sarcasm or wither one with disdain. Blows are his natural method of instructing others and of getting himself instructed. "Good German blows" are what the Kaiser talked of loudly. To strike as well as to kick is a wholesome, healthful, ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... granted to William the Goldsmith, relieving him of the penalty which he is stated to have incurred on account of a spontoon (spontono, a loaded bludgeon) found upon him near the house of MARCO PAULO of Cannareggio, where he had landed to drink on his way from Mestre." (See Cicogna, V. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Miss Greeby, who had just stepped out on to the terrace. The banker's daughter was in a tailor-made gown with a man's cap and a man's gloves, and a man's boots—at least, as Mrs. Belgrove thought, they looked like that—and carried a very masculine stick, more like a bludgeon than a cane. With her ruddy complexion and ruddy hair, and piercing blue eyes, and magnificent figure—for she really had a splendid figure in spite of Mrs. Belgrove's depreciation—she looked like ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... the door. The key was in the lock, but he didn't have a chance to turn it before all three threw themselves on him. A scuffle followed which Judson brought to a quick stop by striking Jack a stunning blow on the head with his bludgeon. With a million stars dancing before him in a void ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... dress, Jack tied a belt of cocoa-nut cloth round his waist, into which he thrust the axe. I was also advised to put on a belt and carry a short cudgel or bludgeon in it; for, as Jack truly remarked, the sling would be of little use if we should chance to come to close quarters with any wild animal. As for Peterkin, notwithstanding that he carried such a long, and I must add, frightful- looking spear over his shoulder, we could not prevail on him to leave ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... trimmed my bludgeon to a nicety, I laid it by, and sat brooding, the knife betwixt my knees; now a beam of sun falling athwart the leaves lit upon the broad blade of the knife and made of it a glory. And beholding this and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... a muscular Person with an Ashen Complexion and a Suit that was not large enough to show the entire Pattern. He carried a Bludgeon with a Horse's Head on it. In order to attract the Attention of Mr. Swinburne, he whistled through his Teeth, whereupon the Author jumped over the Table and fell among the Rugs, faintly ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... little more that way. I suppose you can't sit quiet, ma'am?—then never mind!" (This resignation was intended as a stinging reproach.) "Mr. Cibber, with his sneering snuff-box! Mr. Quin, with his humorous bludgeon! Mrs. Clive, with her tongue! Mr. Snarl, with his abuse! And Mr. Soaper, with his praise!—arsenic in treacle I call it! But there, I deserve it all! For look on this picture, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... the Latin Mimi, through the Italian Pullicenella. It was originally intended as a characteristic representation. The tale is this: Punch, in a fit of jealousy, strangles his infant child, when Judy flies to her revenge. With a bludgeon she belabors her husband, till he becomes so exasperated that he snatches the bludgeon from her, knocks her brains out, and flings the dead body into the street. Here it attracts the notice of a police officer, who enters the house, and Punch flies to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... a field near Paisley, between the two great Chartist champions—Feargus O'Connor and the Rev. Mr. Brewster. The subject debated was, Whether is moral or physical force the fitter instrument for obtaining the Charter? The Doctor espoused the moral hocussing system, and Feargus took up the bludgeon for physical force. After a pretty considerable deal of fireworks had been let off on both sides, it was agreed to divide the field, when Feargus, waving his hat, ascended into a tree, and called upon his friends to follow him. But, alas! few answered to the summons,—he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... see that the task is your task—yours to dream, yours to resolve, yours to execute? That if ever it is carried out, it will be in the face of every obstacle that wealth and mastership can oppose—in the face of ridicule and slander, of hatred and persecution, of the bludgeon and the jail? That it will be by the power of your naked bosoms, opposed to the rage of oppression! By the grim and bitter teaching of blind and merciless affliction! By the painful gropings of the untutored mind, by the feeble stammerings ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... displaced him. The giant called Ling was by no means the most human-seeming creature there, but he was plainly the ruler and plainly meant so to continue. Parr was no coward, but he was no fool. As the six-foot bludgeon whirled upward between him and the sky, he cast down his own stick in ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... in receipt of many letters from admirers of the late lamented genius. They are rich in anathema and maranatha of Brann's heartless and cruel detractors. With one accord they have expressed the wish that I excoriate the revilers who desecrated by bludgeon words the sacrosanct acre of God in which reposes the mortal tenement ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... hour in the rather extreme negligee of the early morning. Also it becomes the universal custom, or perhaps I should say the necessity, to slumber for an hour after the noon meal. Certainly sleep descending on the tropical traveller is armed with a bludgeon. Passengers, crew, steerage, "deck," animal, and bird fall down then in an enchantment. I have often wondered who navigates the ship during that sacred hour, or, indeed, if anybody navigates it at all. Perhaps that time is sacred to the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... blow from Jacobi and using the terrible savate in Flynn's stomach, just as Shad Wells rushed at him from one side. Peter saw the blow coming from a broken axhandle—but he had no time to avoid it. Instinctively he ducked his head and threw up his left arm, but the bludgeon descended and ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... another instant that you are a man, and that there are women in this house whom you are wounding by your brutal words. You, yourself, in very truth will commit murder, if you do not become sane. Did you not hear that cry? fit response to language that is like a bludgeon. How are you worse off than I, who have lost husband, sons, all? Have you not said to your boy as cruel things as Captain Bodine has said? This son of yours was too noble, too generous, too lofty for either you or us to understand in our ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the danger of mutiny always looms large and the bludgeon of blackmail lies ready to the hand of the mutineer. Therefore the actual handling of the money had been a matter of extreme care to Lute and those in his closest confidence. When the leader had taken most of his men out ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... apparently try to find the judge before lunch, and at table he did not seem especially devoted to Ellen in her father's jealous eyes. He joked Lottie, and exchanged those passages or repartee with her in which she did not mind using a bludgeon when she had not a rapier at hand; it is doubtful if she was very sensible of the difference. Ellen sat by in passive content, smiling now and then, and Boyne carried on a dignified conversation with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of the so-called Danda Fauj dignified by the name of bludgeon-army by Mr. Pennington. There was no rebel army in Amritsar. The crown that committed the horrible murders and incendiarism contained no one community exclusively. The sheet was found posted only in Lahore and not in Amritsar. Mr. Pennington should moreover have known by this time ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... appreciating the opportunities to strike for their own rights. The Negroes in the colony at length struck a blow for their liberty. And it was not the wild, indiscriminate blow of Turner, nor the military measure of Gabriel; not the remorseless logic of bludgeon and torch,—but the sober, sensible efforts of men and women who believed their condition abnormal, and slavery prejudicial to the largest growth of the human intellect. The eloquence of Otis, the impassioned appeals of Sewall, and the zeal of Eliot had rallied the languishing ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... feet than fists the cur relies, And on that crowded "Corner" keeps his eyes. With straightening shots ENTELLUS threats the foe, } But DARES dodges the descending blow, } And back into his Corner's prompt to go. } Where bludgeon, knuckleduster, knotted sticks, Foul sickening blows and cruel coward kicks Are in his interest on ENTELLUS rained At every point that plucky boxer gained. ("Oh!" groaned SAYERIUS. "And this sort of thing Wos let go on, with gents around the Ring!") In vain ENTELLUS gave sly DARES snuff; DARES ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... stood, bow in hand, and Jaya with a thick club. Tvashtri of great strength took up in wrath, a huge mountain and Surya stood with a bright dart, and Mrityu with a battle-axe. Aryaman stalked about with a terrible bludgeon furnished with sharp spikes, and Mitra stood there with a discus sharp as a razor. And, O monarch, Pusha and Bhaga and Savitri, in wrath, rushed at Krishna and Partha with bows and scimitars in hand. And Rudras and the Vasus, the mighty Maruts and the Viswedevas and the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... small company not one had escaped unscathed. Three of our followers had been slain outright, while a fourth was lying stunned from a blow. Buyse and Sir Gervas were much bruised. Saxon was cut on the right arm. Reuben had been felled by a bludgeon stroke, and would certainly have been slain but for the fine temper of Sir Jacob Clancing's breastplate, which had turned a fierce pike-thrust. As to myself it is scarce worth the mention, but my head sang for ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... value the animal. I had rescued him, when a puppy, from the clutches of a malignant little villain in Nantucket who was leading him, with a rope around his neck, to the water; and the grown dog repaid the obligation, about three years afterward, by saving me from the bludgeon of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... not one outrage, not one act of oppression, not one exhibition of conscienceless rapacity, not one prostitution of power on the part of Executive, Legislature, or judiciary, not one tear of patriotic shame over the degradation of the national name, not one blow of the policeman's bludgeon, not a single bullet or bayonet thrust of the soldiery, could have been spared. Nothing but just this discipline of failure, disappointment, and defeat on the part of the earlier reformers could have educated the people to the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... and lyrical elements and makes up for the loss by the cultivation of point. Above all, it becomes the instrument of satire, stinging like a wasp where the satirist pure and simple uses the deadlier weapons of the bludgeon and ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... of brutality which enabled her to single out Winton in the throng of workers. He heard the blow, and the oath that went with it, and she saw him run forward to wrench the bludgeon from the bully's hands and fling it afar. What words emphasized the act she could not hear, but the little deed of swift justice thrilled her curiously, and her heart warmed to him as it had when he had thrown off his coat to fall to work on the ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... naked and showing in the candle-light a claylike yellow. It had, however, broad maculations of bluish black, obviously caused by extravasated blood from contusions. The chest and sides looked as if they had been beaten with a bludgeon. There were dreadful lacerations; the skin was ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... the birth of a child; I had drunk pretty freely and had just fallen asleep, when a cock, I suppose in a greater hurry than the rest, began to crow. I thought it was dawn and set out for Alimos.[223] I had hardly got beyond the walls, when a footpad struck me in the back with his bludgeon; down I went and wanted to shout, but he had already made off with ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... midnight, entered the apartment, and with his bludgeon struck many blows on the bed, in the very place where Jack had laid the log; and then he went back to his own room, thinking he had broken ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... Jackson's partiality for his own arm was as marked as was Napoleon's, and the decisive effect of a well-placed battery appealed to his instincts with greater force than the wild rush of a charge of infantry. Skilful manoeuvring was more to his taste than the mere bludgeon work of ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... impunity; but at night the case is different: they are the majority—they know their strength, and insist on their privileges. They howl and growl then at their own discretion, fly at the accidental stranger with open mouth, attack him singly, charge him en masse, and nothing but a stout bludgeon, wielded by a strong arm, can save the passenger from feeling that he is in the kingdom of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... have no such desire, for were they not victims of the same vicious system of treatment to which I was subjected? In every institution where the discredited principles of "Restraint" are used or tolerated, the very atmosphere is brutalizing. Place a bludgeon in the hand of any man, with instructions to use it when necessary, and the gentler and more humane methods of persuasion will naturally be forgotten or ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... just calling attention to the nondescript gilt monster, with its riveted wings and forked tongue and tail, which glares down on us from its perch above the Town Hall, in the High Street; or to a "cigar" vane (over 2 ft. long and as thick as a bludgeon), large enough to give Verdant Green's famous "smoke" many points, hoisted over an enterprising tobacconist's a little lower down; or to the skewered and unhappy-looking weathercock on the Parish Church; or the blackened griffin in Earl Street, all head and tail, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... article of faith that anything in the world can be bought for money, if only there is money enough. But Donovan would not have insisted on justifying his faith by putting it to the test. No one does that. Not even a church, though firmly convinced of its own infallibility, will bludgeon the world into an acceptance of its claim by making decisions about matters which are susceptible of proof. Donovan would have been quite content to believe that he could purchase the Crown of Megalia without actually doing so. It was Miss Daisy, who had no theories about the power of money, ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... sharpest, shrillest notes, from others the low, grave chords that throb recurrent like the slow beating of a distant drum. Some natures it startles; some it stupefies. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, stinging all the sensibilities to a keener life; to another as the blow of a bludgeon, which in crushing benumbs. We may conceive Murlock to have been that way affected, for (and here we are upon surer ground than that of conjecture) no sooner had he finished his pious work than, sinking into a chair by the side of the table upon which the body lay, and noting how white ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... consequences. The day before he spent in Dublin financiering. It was galling and barren work. He had to ask favours of fellows whom he hated, and to stand their refusals, and pretend to believe their lying excuses, and appear to make quite light of it, though every failure stunned him like a blow of a bludgeon, and as he strutted jauntily off with a bilious smirk, he was well nigh at his wits' end. It was dark as he rode out by the low road to Chapelizod—crest-fallen, beaten—scowling in the darkness through his horse's ears ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... if revealed by black magic, fair, sweet, generous Dorothy, standing piteously upon Bowling Green hillside. Over her drooping form there hung in air a monster cloudlike image of her father holding in its hand a deadly bludgeon. So black, so horrid was this shadow-demon that I sprang from my chair with a frightful ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... anything, I shall speak my mind. I know you now perfectly. Last night I thought I might be mistaken about some things. Now I know that you have swindled your partner, and I am not surprised to find that you can handle a bludgeon as well as ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... incurvated service sword commonly known as the cutlass or hanger; but in the press-gang prints of the period the gangsmen are generally armed with stout clubs answering to Smollett's "good oak plant." Apart from this artistic evidence, however, there is no valid reason for believing that the bludgeon ever came into general use as the ganger's weapon. As early as the reign of Anne he went armed with the "Queen's broad cutlash," and for most gangs, certainly for all called upon to operate in rough neighbourhoods, the hanger remained the stock weapon throughout the century. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... Chancellor to Lucifer or to a Titan blasted by Jove's thunderbolt. In this age we find it difficult to account for the prestige of Thurlow. His legal learning was far from profound, his speeches were more ponderous than powerful, and his attacks were bludgeon blows rather than home thrusts. Of the lighter graces and social gifts he had scant store. Indeed, his private life displayed no redeeming feature. Everyone disliked him, but very many feared him, mainly, perhaps, because of his facility for intrigue, his power of bullying, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... keep quiet if you don't want a rap over the head with this," he said, exhibiting a heavy bludgeon. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... sorrow and he or she who caused it with wonder, yes even with scorn and bitter laughter. But it is not so when the blow falls in later life. It may not hurt so much at the time, it may seem to have been struck with the bludgeon of Fate rather than with her keen dividing sword, but the effect is more lasting, and for the rest of our days we are numb and cold, for Time has no ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... pointed beards with which the lips and chins of most of them were decorated, gave to their physiognomies a manly and determined air, fully borne out by their unrestrained carriage and deportment. To a man, almost all were armed with a tough vine-wood bludgeon, called in their language an estoc volant, tipped and shod with steel—a weapon fully understood by them, and rendered, by their dexterity in the use of it, formidable to their adversaries. Not a few carried at their girdles the short rapier, so celebrated in their duels and brawls, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... be a model of chivalric self-restraint and courtesy. There was much grumbling when the rules were published by the heralds that there was to be no fighting to the death with weapons of war, no sharp steel points to the lances, nor hacking with battle-axes, and though the mace was allowed this bludgeon was shorn of its iron ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... the opposite mirror, and took up a volume; he seemed absorbed in its contents, as a tall fellow, a bludgeon in his hand, a girdle adorned with pistols round his waist, opened the door, and announced two visitors. The one was a young man, said to resemble Robespierre in person, but of a far more decided and resolute ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... resolved, in a flourish of speech utterly unknown in anything ever attempted by Choate, that the mayor, who, though he contemplated himself the greatest of potentates, was famous only for commanding an unruly police to bludgeon the heads of peaceable citizens, should publicly receive us at ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... is now directed by hysteric stupidity wielding a bludgeon. Granted, if you will, that half the nation is at heart against the stupidity and the bludgeon. So much the worse for the half. Citizens who have not had the wit to get rid of the Prussian franchise law must accept all the consequences of their political ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... crying miserably, he drove himself out of the town, for a mile or more, on the desert, then plodded painfully back again, mauling and beating himself with the bludgeon of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... ferocious clamor about some animal which they seemed afraid to grapple with. He came up and found that it was a bear. He had no gun, but he caught up a club, and when he had contrived to catch the bear by one of his hind legs, and to throw him over, he beat him about the head with his bludgeon and ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... kept it till after the murder, and then burned it. After securing the will, he gave notice to Crowninshield that all was ready. In the evening of that day he had a meeting with Crowninshield at the centre of the common, who showed him a bludgeon and dagger, with which the murder was to be committed. Knapp asked him if he meant to do it that night; Crowninshield said he thought not, he did not feel like it; Knapp then went to Wenham. Knapp ascertained on Sunday, the 4th of April, that Mr. White had gone ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... and would have fled as the spirits approached him. But those bandy legs tottered and before he could turn the awful visitants were upon him. One raised a round shot above his head, or so it appeared to be, and smote him full upon the crown. The other whirled a flat bludgeon and hit him on the jaw. With the smell of brimstone was mingled the pungent flavor of ripe cheese and salt-fish. Blackbeard measured his length, and the ghost of Jesse Strawn delayed an instant to dump a pot of ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine |
