"Blunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the 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 charm. The upward-sweeping mass of her hair showed the softness of bronze, save where the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... her charming listless hands could really do; she had no doubt of their capacity for knotting a ribbon or placing a flower to advantage. And of course only these finishing touches would be expected of her: subordinate fingers, blunt, grey, needle-pricked fingers, would prepare the shapes and stitch the linings, while she presided over the charming little front shop—a shop all white panels, mirrors, and moss-green hangings—where her finished creations, hats, wreaths, aigrettes and ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... by the contact of two metals with the living fibre. It was in 1796 that his discovery was promulgated in the shape of the Metallic Tractors, two pieces of metal, one apparently iron and the other brass, about three inches long, blunt at one end and pointed at the other. These instruments were applied for the cure of different complaints, such as rheumatism, local pains, inflammations, and even tumors, by drawing them over the affected ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... whom Eustace hoped to serve his king, and learn the art of war. His friend, Monthault, was a transcript of all Lord Goring's faults, to which he added the most cool and determined treachery, under the garb of blunt simplicity and ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... not blunt?" responded Charles, but no one save the traveller at the small table caught the play on words, the Cockney cant term for money being unfamiliar to American ears. He smiled, and then studied the bond-servant with more interest ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... about the bush, dear Senor Caceres. It's a subject that calls for plain dealing; and I don't mind a blunt word or two. It saves such a lot of time! Come on. You want money, I suppose? Or, rather, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... it then that thou dost not kill the man-cub. He is no tree trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon. But what are those Master Words? I am more likely to give help than to ask it"—Bagheera stretched out one paw and admired the steel-blue, ripping-chisel talons at the end of it—"still ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... and gratitude; our benevolent friend was waiting in a hackney-coach to carry us away from prison. When I began to thank him, he stopped me with a blunt declaration that I was not a bit obliged to him; for that, if I had been a man of straw, he would have done just the same for the sake of my wife, whom he looked upon to be one or other the best woman he had ever seen, Mrs. ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... in the logical sense. The stupid person, whether depicted in literature, proverb, or the ephemeral joke column, is always (and justly, it would seem) characterized by a huge tolerance for absurd contradictions and by a blunt sensitivity for the fine points of a joke. Intellectual discrimination and judgment are inferior. The ideas do not cross-light each other, but remain relatively isolated. Hence, the most absurd contradictions are swallowed, so to speak, without arousing ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... end of the day, Colihan worked laboriously with a blunt-pointed pencil. It took him fifteen minutes ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... through which to keep tab on the enemy, after which he rolled on his belly and began whittling in the hard clay, for Tom had the carving habit—like many a younger boy. Alfred carefully extracted a short pipe from beneath his chaparajos, pushed down with his blunt forefinger the charge with which it was already loaded, and struck a match. He poised this for a moment above the ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... ask how a person has to proceed to adopt a baby," was the blunt and surprising remark that came from the one who held the infant. Bansemer felt ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... blunt terms of a man whose life had been always on the border, and who has no nice shading in ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... depended upon. He was fond of his profession, and had acquired a considerable knowledge of its details; apart from it he had no very decided tastes; he lived a quiet, regular life, and dined out and went to dances in moderation; his manner, though he was nearly twenty-six, was still rather boyishly blunt. ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... be put next in this pigs-in-clover railroad puzzle," was the blunt statement of the need. "Our freight contract with the Transcontinental is about to expire, and I'd like to get it renewed on ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... she said, "I've come to you and your daughter for a little help if you can give it." That seemed the best way to break down their reserve, an appeal rather than simply blunt questions—and what was it if not an appeal? "What I have to say is just among the three of us and I know it will go no farther. You're acquainted with my father; he's ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... 3, 1915.—A rather blunt note from the U.S.A. complaining that American merchant vessels have been stopped and searched by our warships without justification, that serious delays have been caused, and that American commercial interests have suffered. Specific instances quoted, and freedom of ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... been filled out in either case. Maisie had been forced to ricordarsi del tempo felice through so many years of miseria. Phoebe's journey across the desert of Life had paused at many an oasis, and their images remained in her mind to blunt the tooth of Memory. The two ladies at least heard nothing in the old woman's voice that one does not hear in any human voice when it speaks ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... childhood which gave us "Adam Bede" and "The Mill on the Floss";—or once more, whether the crowded canvas injures the unity of the design, be these as they may, "Romola" strikes one as great in spots and as conveying a noble though somber truth, but does not carry us off our feet. That is the blunt truth about it, major work as it is, with only half a dozen of its kind to equal it in all English literature. It falls distinctly behind both "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Esmond." It is a book to admire, to praise in many particulars, to be impressed by: but ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... and poured them forth by thousands and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as smooth, and as like each other as the blocks which have passed through Mr. Brunel's mill, in the dockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand, with a blunt hatchet. Take as a specimen his translation of a celebrated passage in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 price. ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... against, the Man of that century—a man in whom we recognise a union of Roman, Hebrew, and English qualities—the faith of the Jew, the firmness of the Roman, and the homespun simplicity of the Englishman of his own age—in purpose and in powers "an armed angel on a battle-day;" in manners a plain blunt corporal; and in language always a stammerer, and sometimes a buffoon; the middle-class man of his time, with the merits and the defects of his order, but touched with an inspiration as from heaven, lifting him far above all the aristocracy, and ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... remark set Merle thinking, and she thought to some purpose. Her natural disposition was always to obtain results by blunt, matter-of- fact methods. In school her policy was, 'Come along with you now, I'm not going to have any nonsense!' Backed by her position, her strong personality, and her prowess at games it succeeded. But here in the hostel, if she wished to effect any improvements, ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... "James" were Democrats. Swallow, the only lawyer the town possessed, was silent, which was felt as remarkable in a man who usually talked much more than occasion demanded and wore a habit-mask of good-fellowship, which had served to deceive many a blunt old farmer, ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... coats, 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 ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... head with a blunt knife, seized hold of it by the hair, and hastened out with the cry, "Long life to the King of Spain!" The populace stood there thunderstruck; no sound was heard, but none detained the murderers, who hurried off. They soon ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... object near at hand on which he could place her while he fought the shark. Could he find a spar, he would push it in the shark's mouth as it swam towards him; he had likewise his clasp-knife hung round his neck, but the blade, he feared, was too blunt to be of much service; he opened it, however, and held it in his teeth ready to use. As he glanced round he saw the chest which he had observed when on the back of the whale, but it was too far off to be of any avail in the present emergency. ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... this gentle river, Blunt the axe and break the quiver, While, as leaves upon the spray, Peaceful flow ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... "That's a rather blunt word, I confess; but when you do some fine exploit, you wouldn't mind seeing it printed in full in the papers that the people at home read, ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... and the contained air ejected forcibly through an iron or clay nozzle, into the very small heap of glowing charcoal which forms the fire. His principal work is making and sharpening the uncouth-looking ploughshares, which look more like flat blunt chisels than anything else. They also make and keep in repair the hussowahs, or serrated sickles, with which the crops are cut. They are slow at their task, but many of them are ingenious workers ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... royal host was gathered together and entered the city. The bow was strung, the sword unsheathed. Thou didst blunt[1048] (?) the weapons of the soldiers, The servitors of Anu and Dagan. Their blood thou caused to flow like torrents of water through the city's highways. Thou didst tear open their intestines, and cause the stream ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... neglect of the person in whose charge it was left. It was a buck, weighing fifty pounds, of a cinnamon colour on the back and a dirty white on the belly; the hair was fine and long; the head of a peculiar shape, resembling a dog's, with a very blunt nose; the forearms were very short; the hind feet cushioned like those inhabiting rocky ground. The does appeared to be much lighter; but all were very wary and scarce. From the number of red sandhills, too, scattered over the island, they were difficult to be seen ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... Rev. J. H. Blunt, "has answered this question to a certain extent by the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (St. Luke 16:19-31). By that Parable He has taught us that the living souls of the departed live in a condition of happiness or misery suitable ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... the same with political rights. The foundation of the Salic Law was not any sentimental anxiety to guard female delicacy and domesticity; it was, as stated by Froissart, a blunt, hearty contempt: "The kingdom of France being too noble to be ruled by a woman." And the same principle was reaffirmed for our own institutions, in rather softened language, by Theophilus Parsons, in his famous defence of the rights of Massachusetts ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... shook, and his blunt finger traced the remainder of that text which he and Cad Sills together had unwittingly erased from ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... original, lusty, tasting and seeing and feeling human being who took possession of the earth. And even in the case of comparatively rudimentary and somewhat stupid senses like these, the sense of motion, with the average civilised man, is so blunt that he needs to be rushed along at seventy miles an hour to have the feeling that he is moving, and his sense of mass is so degenerate that he needs to live with hundreds of thousands of people next door to know that he is not alone. He is seen in his most natural state,—this civilised being,—with ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... became acknowledged by the public, and even many of those critics who had hitherto been hostile, united in its praise. Yet scandal was not silent; for Moliere was loudly censured, as having, in the person of Alceste, ridiculed the Duke de Montausier, a man of honor and virtue, but of blunt, uncourteous manners. The duke, informed that he had been brought on the stage by Moliere, threatened vengeance; but being persuaded to see the play, he sought out the author instantly, embraced him repeatedly, and assured him that if he had really thought of him when composing ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... machine, which gathered the capillary harvest of the past 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, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... had not looked up from his interminable chess game with Xavier, paused with a beleaguered knight in one blunt ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee
... came to Sweden in 1521 to enlist under the banner of Gustavus. He writes like a blunt soldier who revels in the story of a battle. His Beraettelse seems to have been written for the king. It is chiefly a chronicle of Swedish wars, running from 1518 to 1536. The original MS. is in the University Library at Upsala, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... I can imagine the pursuer, the avenger, if a really virulent fellow, actually weeping tears of despite as he stands before his victim and marks the utter unconsciousness of any offence with which his eyes meet his own. Such a look would blunt the very stiletto of a Corsican. What sweetness would there be in vengeance if the avenger, as he plunged the dagger in his victim's bosom, might not hiss in his ear, 'Remember!' As well find satisfaction in torturing an idiot or mutilating a corpse. ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... differences of temperament, habits of life and education. While Washington the soldier recognized the sterling qualities of Old Put, the veteran fighter, yet Washington the aristocratic planter shrank from contact with Putnam the blunt, and at times perhaps uncouth-appearing, farmer. Writing about that time, a surgeon in the American army said: "This is my first interview with this celebrated hero, Putnam. In his person he is corpulent and clumsy, but carries a bold, undaunted front. He ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... right. You're all so queer that perhaps you're right. Only, do be careful, Richard. You must approach the matter very delicately,—indirectly, you know. Girls are different, remember, from young men, and you mustn't be blunt. Do maneuver a little, for once in ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... Irish Parliamentary Party indeed represent Ireland in this, Mr. Wilfred Blunt's noble protest in his recent work, The Land War in Ireland, would stand for the contemptuous impeachment, not of a political party ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... able to concentrate on the astral plane as well. By the one who has mastered concentration, trances and abnormal psychic states will not be needed. The needle-pointed mind is able to pierce the astral veil at will, while the blunt-pointed mind is resisted and defeated by the astral envelope, which while thin is very ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... tell them they make me affected," exclaimed she. "If I like to be quiet and do things prettily, they teaze me for being affected, and I'm forced to be as plain and blunt as their are, and I don't like it! I wish I was grown up. I wish ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in his journeying passed with his people through a forest in Midernia, and he met therein certain slaves that were hewing wood; and these men were under the yoke of a hard and cruel master, named Tremeus; and they hewed the wood with blunt axes, nor had they whetstones nor had they any other means whereon to sharpen them. Wherefore their strength failed, their arms stiffened, and the flesh fell from their hands, and the naked sinews were seen, and the miserable men ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... was right. The blunt news was a blow. In one swift picture Helen saw herself trudging drearily along the dull, narrow road of genteel poverty to the end of her days, sacrificing every taste, and impulse, and instinct to the necessity of living, for more and more as ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... hopefully. He was only a Junior Navigating Lieutenant under eight years' standing. He might be kept in Simon's Bay for six months, and his ship at sea was his delight. The dream of his heart was to enliven her dismal official gray with a line of gold-leaf and perhaps a little scroll-work at her blunt barge-like bows. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... blow!" he said, more sternly than before. "A blow from some blunt instrument! It was a savage blow, too, dealt with tremendous force. It may—may, I say—have killed this poor fellow on the spot—he may have been dead before ever he ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... a brief, blunt note from Amelia Ellen: "Dear Mis Raclift Ef yore a trainurse why don't yo cum an' take car o' my Mis Brownleigh She aint long fer heer an she's wearyin to see yo She as gotta hev one, a trainurse I mean Yors respectfooly Amelia ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... who does not want to see. But Miss Edwards appeared to be not easily depressed. She waved her hand in friendly thanks for the cigarette case which Francey tossed across to her, and, having selected her cigarette with blunt, viciously manicured fingers, poked Cosgrave ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... believe that both 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 ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... under 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... with the highest expectations to the completion of M. Renan's work, and though English readers will differ from many of the author's views, and feel offended now and then at his blunt and unguarded language, we doubt not that they will find his volumes both instructive and suggestive. They are written in that clear and brilliant style which has secured to M. Renan the rank of one of the best writers of French, and which throws its charm even ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... M. de Pontois, a professional diplomat—both of them very kind, but neither, as a result of their instability, having any real influence. Beside them two men of tenacity and steadfastness admirably personified two great powers. Lord Ponsonby, a tall, blunt, haughty, unsociable old man, represented British perseverance and Lord Palmerston's prejudices, while M. de Boutenieff, a charming, kindly, and witty man, liked by everybody and making game somewhat of all, stood for the great ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... rejoined, "The blunt weapon that I carry would surely not cost Caesar his life, even if he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and close as when the fight begun, Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away; So sicken waning moons too near the sun, And blunt their crescents on ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... had gone I examined the thing. It was worth examination. It was a fine cocoon, thick and with blunt ends, very like a silkworm's cocoon, firm to the touch and of a tawny colour. A brief reference to the text-books almost convinced me that this was a cocoon of the Bombyx quercus.[4] If so, what a find! I could continue my inquiry and perhaps ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... military power of his Empire, there was little chance of freedom. He had himself no love of the West and the bold reforms {217} which might bring him enlightened and discontented subjects. He crushed into abject submission all opposed to his authority. The blunt soldier would cling obstinately to the ancient Muscovy of Peter. He shut his eyes to the passing of absolutism in Europe and died, as he had reigned, the protector of the Orthodox Church of Russia, the ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... ready art, And had sae fortified the part That, when I looked to my dart, It was sae blunt, Fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart [Devil a bit] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... east and west of the south pole, and are only occasionally brought into view by the moon's libration; even then they are seen in profile, and so situated that they cannot be measured with certainty. They are, however, so high that they blunt the southern cusp of the moon when it ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... said so, that alters the case. Phil is one of your blunt outspoken fellows, and always says what he means," said George Sheldon. And then he went downstairs, leaving Nancy to follow him at her leisure with the tray of jingling cups and glasses. He went down through the dusk, smiling to himself, as if he had ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... Pompadour had a very high opinion of Madame de Choiseul. Madame said, "She always says the right thing in the right place." Madame de Grammont was not so agreeable to them; and I think that this was to be attributed, in part, to the sound of her voice, and to her blunt manner of speaking; for she was said to be a woman of great sense, and devotedly attached to the King and Madame de Pompadour. Some people pretended that she tried to captivate the King, and to supplant Madame: nothing ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... know who would be cheerful when his neck is in danger?" answered the cat. "Now that I am old my teeth are getting blunt, and I would rather sit by the oven and purr than run about after mice, and my mistress wanted to drown me; so I took myself off; but good advice is scarce, and I do not know what is to become ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... obsequious, and insinuating in manner, and usually betraying minute attention to externals. The American is always plain in dress—evincing no more taste in costume than in horticulture—steady, calm, and never lively in manner: blunt, straightforward, and independent in discourse. The one is amiable and submissive, the other choleric and rebellious. The Frenchman always recognises and bows before superior rank: the American acknowledges no superior, and bows to no man save in courtesy. The former is docile and easily governed: ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... priests, they excitedly appealed to the governor, saying: "Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written." Pilate's action in so wording the title, and his blunt refusal to permit an alteration, may have been an intended rebuff to the Jewish officials who had forced him against his judgment and will to condemn Jesus; possibly, however, the demeanor of the submissive Prisoner, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... the unfortunate man did all in his power to escape from Kelso, and really made the attempt; but it was defeated, for he was ever an object of suspicion to the Earl of Derwentwater and Mr. Forster, whose watchfulness kept him among the rebel troops.[190] Party may do much to blunt the feelings; yet there was too much of what was good in the character of Lord Derwentwater for him, in the solitude of his own prison, not to remember in after days the heavy responsibilities which even by one act of this nature he had ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... which Wanda did not hear in full, but which reached her sufficiently to tell her that the two men were talking about some trifling matter of range management and that his theory had provoked Sledge Hume's blunt comment. The two men came on, Hume striding a couple of paces in front of Conway, until they caught sight of her. Conway lifted his hat, his sullen eyes brightening. Hume, staring at her with the keen eye ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... yet nevertheless their swords were cutting but ill, and he cried out loudly to them: 'Are ye wielding your swords carelessly since, as I see, they do not cut?' One of the men made answer: 'Our swords are blunt and very much notched.' Then went the King down into the fore-hold, and setting up the lid of the high-seat took from out of the chest beneath many sharp swords and gave them out to his men, and when he thrust down his right arm into ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... relaxing his face when he was fairly gone, 'is good practice. I HAVE some command of my features, beyond all doubt. He fully confirms what I suspected, though; and blunt tools are sometimes found of use, where sharper instruments would fail. I fear I may be obliged to make great havoc among these worthy people. A troublesome necessity! I quite ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... occasions great damage to my work as well by his impure French as the length of his details."—"We are afraid," said some of those visitors to BAXTER, "that we break in upon your time."—"To be sure you do," replied the disturbed and blunt scholar. To hint as gently as he could to his friends that he was avaricious of time, one of the learned Italians had a prominent inscription over the door of his study, intimating that whoever remained there must join in his labours. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... leg, and its negative aige (802, 803), are also used to convert nouns into adjectives: the former follows the same rules as those before given for forming the plural: gizu sharpness, becomes either gizule sharp, or gizuge blunt, literally: sharpness-possessing, or, possessing not : from nuki water, we get the form nukile maram the well contains water, or, nukegi maram the well is dry: danagi blind, literally means, ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... ancient descent, I expected he would give me some account of them. We were now arrived at the upper end of the gallery, when the knight faced towards one of the pictures, and as we stood before it he entered into the matter, after his blunt way of saying things as they occur to his imagination, without regular introduction, or care to preserve the ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... small, but so they shall serve my purpose the better. Will each of you take one and retire from the table and write upon it the thing he most desires? Now, my dear friends, brevity is ever as the point of the lance. Wit is blunt and Truth half armed without it. I ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... the ropes wi' the old axe, an' it were blunt enough to make a job for him! Huzza for ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... wrinkle up on the knife and are directly transferred to the surface, for which they should be made to form a complete carpet, slightly overlapping the edges of the area and of one another; some blunt instrument is used to straighten out the strips, which are then subjected to firm pressure with a pad of gauze to express blood and air-bells and to ensure accurate contact, for this must be as close as that between a postage stamp and the paper to which ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... little table, and in a glass between him and the girl a white lily and a rose, freshly cut, 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 detailed questions the girl, in a low voice, made many indefinite replies; now ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... There wasn't no threshin' around and flurryin', but the vicious brute acted just like some kind of a sea-snake. The fisherman brought down the boat-'ook with all 'is might, but the moray just twisted sidewise as the blow came down, and the blunt-pointed 'ead, with its rows of sharp teeth, darted forward ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... however," he went on, "that the skull was fractured in several places, as by blows of some blunt instrument; and that instrument itself—a pick-handle, still stained with blood— lay under ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... all times and places, under the strong influence of hopes and fears, true or false, by which he is carried forward in the changing scenes of war and peace. Kindness never fails to soften and meliorate his feelings, and harshness, injury, and contempt to harden and blunt them. Above all, it is shown that, in the recesses of the forest, he devotes a portion of his time to domestic and social enjoyment, in which the leading feature is the relation of traditionary legends and tales. Heroes and heroines, giants and dwarfs, spirits, Monetos ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... another. There was no sanctity of family, no binding tie of marriage, none of the fine felicities and the endearing affections of home. None of these things was the lot of Southern black women. Instead thereof, a gross barbarism which tended to blunt the tender sensibilities, to obliterate feminine delicacy and womanly shame, came down as her heritage from generation to generation; and it seems a miracle of providence and grace that, notwithstanding ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... an expensive house to manage and the farm rents are low," Mordaunt answered in a thoughtful voice. "Have you any money? Perhaps I'm blunt, but I'm ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... sitting. Heaven bless thee again, and when the weather gets warmer, thou must come with thy kind looks, to make me feel at home again. At present the country wears a cheerless face, and everything about us is harsh and frosty, except the blunt, good-for-nothing heart of thine uncle, and that, winter or summer, is always ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out, man,' Julian cried, O'ermaster'd by the sudden smart;— And feigning wrath, sharp, blunt, and rude, 155 The knight his subtle shift pursued.— 'Scowl not at me; command my skill, To lure your hawk back, if you will, But not a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the merit of expressing with blunt truthfulness the real attitude of the Franklin people, and of the backwoodsmen generally, towards the Indians. They never swerved from their intention of seizing the Indian lands. They preferred to gain their ends by treaty, and with the consent of the Indians; but if ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... not made any remark for the last five minutes, with the exception of abusive comments on the toughness of the meat which he was trying to carve with a blunt knife for the tent, asked for an explanation. "I mean about that row the ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... the humorous aspect of the fable, there is, certainly, a good deal of sound criticism in the piece. It may be brief, it may be inadequate, it may be blunt, but for all that it is truthful, and decidedly just, as far as it goes. Bryant, who was called cold, took umbrage at the portrait drawn of him. But his verse has all the cold glitter of the Greek bards, despite the fact that he is America's greatest poet of nature, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... bolts were withdrawn, and one wing was opened broadly, as though no guile or fear of guile were known to those within. A tall figure of a man, muscular and spare, but a little bent, confronted Villon. The head was massive in bulk, but finely sculptured; the nose blunt at the bottom but refining upward to where it joined a pair of strong and honest eyebrows; the mouth and eyes surrounded with delicate markings, and the whole face based upon a thick white beard, boldly and squarely trimmed. Seen as it was by the light of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... silence. Then with a few quick strides he advanced to the alcohol lamp. As he did so both Keenan and Frank noticed for the first time the blunt little gun-metal revolver he held in ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... the traces of beauty which her mother's undoubtedly had. She saw the thin, futile frizzes which her aunt Maria affected; she saw the receding chin, indicative at once of degeneracy and obstinacy; she saw the blunt nose ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... The blunt truth of actual events is that to-day a renascence has begun, not merely in melodic and dramatic lines; there is a new blending of the racial gift of song with a power of profound design.[A] Despite all historical philosophy, here is a new gushing ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... Marcoussi, President Bellievre told the Keeper of the Seals in plain terms, that if he continued to treat me as he had done hitherto, he should be obliged in honour to give his testimony to the truth. To which the Keeper of the Seals returned this blunt answer: "The Princes are no longer in sight of Paris; the Coadjutor must not therefore ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the Peppermint, Though kindly at heart and good, Had a blunt, bluff way of a-gittin' 'is say That we all ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... frankly expressed envy, and his general capacity for blundering, owe something to Boswell's feeling that he was a rival near the throne, and sometimes poor Goldsmith's humorous self-assertion may have been taken too seriously by blunt English wits. One may doubt, for example, whether he was really jealous of a puppet tossing a pike, and unconscious of his absurdity in saying "Pshaw! I could do it better myself!" Boswell, however, was too good an observer to misrepresent at random, ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... that I met Ethan while he was on a vacation from his work here, and roughing it. When I married him, I had hardly seen him in anything except his Navy flannel shirt, scrubby trousers, and funny blunt-toed shoes." ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... pilgrim's garments were. Even as a young man he had had the good sense to keep company with one Good-conscience; and that friend of his youth kept true to Old Honest all his days, and even lent him his hand and helped him over the river at last. In his own manly, hearty, blunt, breezy, cheery, and genial way Old Honest is a pilgrim we could ill have spared. Old Honest has a warm place all for himself in every ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... cares less for the mode of reception, when I take mine ease at mine inn, than I do, for old soldiers are not very fastidious, and old travellers still less so; but give me sturdy John Bull, with his blunt plainness and true independence, before the silly insolence of a fellow, who thinks he shows his equality, by lowering the character of a man to that of a brute, in coarse exhibitions of assumed importance, which his vocation of extracting money from ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... This Blunt had a large head of hair, very thick and bushy; but from some cause or other, it was rapidly turning gray; and in its transition state made him look as if he wore a ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... them, described them in a few pregnant sentences, and displayed his specimens of their growth, and manufacture. When he arrived at the dramatists of the Restoration, so far from being shocked, he was charmed with their pretty and unmoral ways; and what he says of them reminds us of blunt Captain Dampier, who, in his account of the island of Timor, remarks, as a matter of no consequence, that the natives "take as many wives as they can maintain, and as for religion, they ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... fought with long swift spasms of unearthly fury. Continually recurring, shock, mellay and rally overlapped, attack and repulse were inextricably mingled, the very lulls between the paroxysms were big with wrath. There was a point, too, where the river's bank became coastline, a blunt corner of land, which seemed to exasperate the sea out of all reason. A stiff breeze abetting them, the gigantic waves crashed upon it with a concussion that shook the air. All the royal rage of Ocean seemed to be concentrated on this little prominence. The latter's indifference appeared ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... Master Lieutenant," St. Eval said, ere Herbert could reply; "my wits, though a landsman, are not quite so blunt as yours, and I guess better than you do. Is it possible no one here can tell? has my demure brother Herbert's secret never been suspected? Caroline, what has become of your penetration; and Emmeline, your romance? Ellen, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... we had met at Zib. The list of notables ends with the Sayyid Ibrahim El-Mara' and with the sturdy Abd el-Hakk, pearl and general merchant. All recognized our friend the Sayyid, whom even the "gutter-boys" saluted by name; and, although the Arab manner is blunt and independent, all showed perfect civility. It is needless to say that our late work, and our future plans, were known to everybody at El-Wijh as well as to ourselves; and that the tariffs of pay and ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... roused himself to talk briefly to her, and noticed then a blunt directness in her speech that would have appalled an ordinary hearer. It was her habit and choice to say nothing, but if pushed to the wall what was there ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... should give me poison. They first went to Ercole and tried to persuade him to go to the function; and he, suspecting nothing, at first promised his help; but when he heard that his fellow was to go likewise, he began to smell mischief and said, 'Only one of us knows music.' Then Fioravanti, a blunt fellow, was so wholly set on getting them out of the house that he said, 'Let us have both of you, for we know that the other is also a musician; and, though he may not be one of the best, still he will serve to swell the band of choristers.' ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... that I had considerable difficulty in not laughing outright, for my superior officer was a man of imposing breadth, and I knew his one weakness was the love of a good meal. The contemplation of the loss of his Christmas dinner had made him forget his usual blunt, hopeful tone of speech, and adopt this ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... a moderate use of tobacco for a mature person is necessarily a sin, yet we do believe that it does blunt the moral sense, and soon leads to spiritual weakness and indifference, which are sins. To love God with all one's heart, mind, soul, and strength, and one's neighbor as himself, means not only a denial of that which is questionable in morals, but a practice of that which is positively ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... blunt in discovering my affections, and use little eloquence in levelling out my loves, I appeal for pardon to your own principles, that say, shepherds use few ceremonies, for that they acquaint themselves with few subtleties: to frame myself, therefore, to your country fashion ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... a most blunt, pleasant creature, And slander itself must allow him good nature; He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper, Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper. Perhaps you may ask if the man ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... The head hunched right against the shoulders as if the neck were very short, or totally lacking, was pear-shaped, with the longer end to the back, and the sense organs of eyes and nose squeezed together on the lower quarter of the rounded portion, with a line of wide mouth to split the blunt round of the muzzle. Dark pits for eyes showed no pupil, iris, or cornea. The nose was a black, perfectly rounded tube jutting an inch or so beyond the cheek surface. Grotesque, alien and terrifying, it made no hostile move. And, since it had not turned its head, he could not be sure it had even ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... choose, Did I by night frequent the College groves And tributary walks; the last, and oft The only one, who had been lingering there Through hours of silence, till the porter's bell, 70 A punctual follower on the stroke of nine, Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice, Inexorable summons! Lofty elms, Inviting shades of opportune recess, Bestowed composure on a neighbourhood 75 Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed, Grew there; [E] an ash which Winter for himself Decked out with pride, and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... blunt and outspoken," he said. "She prides herself on that. But she is as square as a brick. She never says one thing to your face ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... quantity of electricity. When in this state, if you present to the shot the point of a long, slender shaft-bodkin, at six or eight inches distance, the repellency is instantly destroyed, and the cork flies to the shot. A blunt body must be brought within an inch, and draw a spark, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... fellow, I do not know why thou shouldst care to speak, Seeing my axe is close upon thy neck, And words of thine will never blunt its edge. But if thou art so bent upon it, why Thou mightest plead unto the Churchman yonder: The common people call him kindly here, Indeed I know he has a ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... islands between and the open sea. On the former day we could not see the land, on account of thick mists and dark fogs, but this evening we espied an entrance into the land, by a river between the Grange Hills and a cape to the S.W. about 3 leagues from the ships. The top of this cape is blunt, but it ends towards the sea in a sharp point, on which account we named it Pointed Cape. On its north side there is a flat island. Meaning to examine if there were any good harbours at this entrance, we lay to for the night; but on the next day ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... qualities which were most offensive both to his personal preferences and his inherited standards of taste. The girl in her scarlet dress, with her dark bobbed hair curling in on her neck, her candid ivory forehead, her provoking blunt nose, her bright red lips, and the inquiring arch of her black eyebrows over her gray-green eyes, had appeared to him absurdly like a picture on the cover of some cheap magazine. He had heartily disapproved of her, but he couldn't help looking at her. ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow |
