"Brusque" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you are very good. I mean to give up riding. I shall not ride any more," said Dorothea, urged to this brusque resolution by a little annoyance that Sir James would be soliciting her attention when she wanted to give it all to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Mazatlan, and he had brought wine of the finest and cigars such as Arizona never had known, and Sancho was manifestly disconcerted at the regrets or refusals, coldly courteous on the part of Loring, blunt and brusque on the part of Blake. The veterans, however, saw no harm in going and were sumptuously entertained by mine host in the best room of the ranch. Blake caused a strong guard to be posted at camp, a most unusual thing, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... born in Kentucky of Virginia parentage, married to a Southern woman, accustomed from boyhood to the narrow circumstances of the poor, and still unused to the ways of the great, was called to the American Presidency. He was not brusque and warlike as Jackson had been; he was a kindly philosopher, a free-thinker in religion at the head of an orthodox people, or peoples. A shrewd judge of human character and the real friend of the poor and the dependent, Lincoln, like his aristocratic ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... this whatever it was—protected him from those who might entertain covetous and ulterior designs upon his inheritance even better than though he had been brusque and rude; while those who sought to question him regarding his plans for the future drew from him only mumbled and evasive replies, which left them as deeply in the dark as they had been before. Altogether, in his ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... this time sixty-nine years old, a tall, robust, vigorous man with a stern face of remarkable vulgar strength. The illiteracy of his youth survived; he could not write the simplest words correctly, and his speech was a brusque medley of slang, jargon, dialect and profanity. It was said of him that he could swear more forcibly, variously and frequently than any other man of his generation. Like the Astors, he was cynical, distrustful, secretive and parsimonious. He kept his plans entirely to himself. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... his brusque manner, "I like fair-play. If Cheenbuk is going to carry off one of our maidens, it seems to me reasonable that an Eskimo maid should be left in her place. There is one of their girls who is named Cowlik. I am willing to take Cowlik and ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... rather difficult also to see wherein the character of Mittler is reminiscent of Sterne. Mittler is introduced with the obvious purpose of representing certain opinions and of aiding the development of the story by his insistence upon them. He represents a brusque, practical kind of benevolence, and his eccentricity lies only in the extraordinary occupation which he has chosen for himself. Riemann also traces to Sterne, Fielding and their German followers, ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... notice of father," said Cicely, with the brusque directness of youth, and Aunt Ellen seemed to be somewhat bewildered at the statement, not liking to impute blame to her sovereign, but unable for the moment to find ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... beauty, and misfortune; and this lost him his life, but rendered his memory glorious. Until then he had been only eloquent; he now showed that he possessed sensibility. Petion, on the contrary, remained cold as a sectarian, and rude as a parvenu; he affected a brusque familiarity with the royal family, eating in the queen's presence, and throwing the rind of fruit out of the window, at the risk of striking the king's face. When Madame Elizabeth poured him out some wine, he raised ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... friendship. You will be satisfied with him in all respects." This is extremely well, and I rejoice at it: one little circumstance only may, and I hope will, be altered for the better. Take pains to undeceive those who thought that 'petit ton un peu delcide et un peu brusque'; as it is not meant so, let it not appear so. Compose your countenance to an air of gentleness and 'douceur', use some expressions of diffidence of your own opinion, and deference to other people's; such as, "If I might be permitted to say—I should think—Is it not rather so? At least I have ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... At a brusque sign from Chauvelin, Brogard had hurried back to the inner room, and the former now beckoned to the man ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... who, already well-known from the earliest wars of the revolution, had been almost continually in command of various Corps during those of the empire; so that it was surprising that he had not yet been awarded the baton of a marshal; withheld perhaps because of his brusque and abrupt manner. His detractors said, after his defeat, that his desire to obtain this coveted honour had driven him, with no more than 20,000 men, to stand rashly in the path of 200,000 of the enemy, with ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... both feared and misunderstood them. Their changing moods, their unaccountable likes and dislikes, their petty ambitions and vanities he accepted as part of the heritage of a race of beings apart form his own, and he hid his timidity under a brusque manner which gave him credit for a keener penetration than he actually possessed. And, strangely enough, Fate, with sardonic humor, had given him a knack, which so few painters possess, of catching on canvas the elusive charm of his feminine sitters, of ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... were cordial. They did not seem to remark that the State chairman kept his seat and was brusque in his greeting. Political abstraction excused general disregard to conventions among the men-folks that morning. The Duke was there. He patronized them with a particularly ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... man, belonging, as I knew from previous inquiry, to rather an exceptional class of individuals in America, I did not suffer my mind to be biassed, although I could see that many of the passengers were not disposed to view the matter in the same light. He was a brusque and uncouth man, of swaggering gait, about forty years of age, above the middle stature, and soon let the captain and crew know, by his authoritative manner and volubility of tongue, that he was chief in command on the occasion. No one seemed, however, to dispute this, for the passengers looked ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... and impressed by the brusque bitterness of Lieut. D'Hubert's tone. They left the house together, and in the street he was still more mystified by ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... eighteen cents, which left me two cents over for emergencies." Balzac somewhat exaggerates his poverty and reduces his expenses to suit the pleasure of his poetic fantasy, but undoubtedly it was a brusque transition from the bourgeois comfort of family life to the ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... let him into the secret, the Prince would be most likely to stride straight into the Princess's rooms with the brusque words: "Gottfried has seen a letter come to you from your father—what were ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... the service of the throne, rude in his manners, with an iron will in action, but supple in manoeuvres, withal an ambitious noble, possessing the honor of a soldier and the wiles of a politician. He had the hand his face demanded,—large and hairy like that of a guerrilla; his manners were brusque, his speech concise. The duke, in departing, gave to this man the duty of watching and reporting to him the conduct of Beauvouloir toward ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... moment at the landing to look back, but I could see nothing in the dark pit of the hall below us. Was it possible I could remember it alight with candles, whose flames made soft halos on the polished floor? Brutus touched my shoulder, and the brusque grasp of his hand turned ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... was vibrantly conscious of the man's strange, forceful personality. His brusque, hard speeches fell on her like so many blows, and yet behind them she felt as though there were something that appealed—something hurt and seeking to hide its hurt behind an armour of ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... sympathy; and his intellectual alertness bewildered and fascinated her. She was still shy at thirty-five, and really very timid and apologetic for her commonplaceness; but at times the rebellious bitterness at the bottom of her heart would leap forth in a brusque or bold speech. She was still capable ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... having been brusque with her. For she was only a little slip of a girl after all and obviously one who had never been thrown out into the current of life where it ran strongest. More than ever she made him think of the girl of olden ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... do with God.” Whether he had studied Descartes or not, he evidently did not share the enthusiasm of Arnauld and others for his philosophy. He even spoke of it as “useless, uncertain, and troublesome—nay, as ridiculous.” {177} He has added, in that brusque, rapid, forceful style characteristic of many of his Thoughts, that “he did not think the whole of philosophy worth an hour’s trouble.” Again: “To set light by philosophy is the true philosophy.” When we look at such expressions, and many ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... university days, when he lectured us and pruned us and advised us and did us more good than almost any other instructor we ever had. Oh, those were grand days! No better than the present, for life grows brighter to me all the time; but we shall not forget the quaint, strong, brusque professor who so unceremoniously smashed things which he did not like, and shook, the class with merriment or indignation. The widest awake professorial room in the land was Dr. Henry's, in the New York University. But the participators in those scenes are all scattered. I know the whereabouts ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... it should," was the somewhat brusque reply. "I have no doubt that the New York papers have some wonderful headlines—'How an Englishman catches the steamer!' or 'An English diplomatist, eager to fight'—and all that sort of thing. But apart from the spectacular side of it, I don't suppose they consider ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nondescript situation.' Macnaghten gave him no responsibility, and while Burnes waited for the promised reversion of the office of envoy, he chiefly employed himself in writing long memorials on the situation and prospects of affairs, on which Macnaghten's marginal comments were brusque, and occasionally contemptuous. The resolute and clear-headed Pottinger, who, if the opportunity had been given him, might have buttressed and steadied Macnaghten, was relegated to provincial service. ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... natural infection, insidious and increasing amounts of poison come quite gradually into play, and for this reason, perhaps, hypoleucocytosis in the normal course of infectious diseases is much rarer than in the brusque conditions ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... The question barked out, brusque and sharp, but never had a voice sounded more welcome in Elliott Cameron's ears. She turned around in joyful relief to encounter a pair of gimlet-like black eyes in the face of an old woman. She was an ugly little old woman in a battered straw hat and a shabby ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... suppose That the Grasshopper wore his summer clothes, And stood there kicking his frozen toes And shaking his bones apart; And the Ant, with a sealskin coat and hat, Commanded the Grasshopper, brusque and flat, To "Dance through the winter," and things like that, Which he thought were ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... opinions, has conquered me. I had intended to interview him, report in detail what he said, picture his life and his figure, then bow him my "au revoir," and march back. That he was specially disagreeable and brusque in his manner, which would make me quarrel with him immediately, was ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... "camere locande" the landlady dressed all the meals, though the lodgers bought the provisions. So Gerard's hostess speedily detected him, and asked him if he was not ashamed himself: by which brusque opening, having made him blush and look scared, she pacified herself all in a moment, and appealed to his good sense whether Adversity was a thing to be overcome on an ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... and, together with the radical element which has been introduced on the Democratic side of the Senate Chamber, they manifest evident impatience with these regulations. That fine old term "senatorial courtesy" has lost much of its meaning as a result of the brusque and breezy manner of the time. No longer is it said that the young Senator must be seen rather than heard. Indeed, while formerly the spectacle of a Senator rising to make a speech before the close of his second year in the Senate was regarded as unusual, ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... longs for light, she was yet the only girl out of all her set who had never had any especial attention. Perhaps it was because she was no flirt. Bell Masters said no girl could get along who did not flirt. Perhaps because in her excessive truthfulness she was sometimes blunt and almost brusque; it is dreadfully out of place not to be able to lie a little at times. Even Mrs. Upjohn, the female lay-head of the Presbyterians, who was a walking Decalogue, her every sentence being a law beginning with Thou shalt not, admitted practically, if not ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... man looked up quickly, as if he did not quite understand the brusque ways of his new acquaintance, who put his questions so directly. But the new acquaintance seemed good-humored and quite at his ease, and evidently had not the least idea of being rude or over-inquisitive. He had ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... infamiam," said Caesar, speaking of the Germans. Pillage brings no shame. This desire of gain, this positive and realistic tendency is one of the motives which the brusque and prodigious economic expansion of Germany has promoted in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to his associate counsel, declaring that if "that giraffe" was permitted to appear in the case he would throw up his brief and leave it. Lincoln keenly felt the affront, but his great nature forgave it so entirely that, recognizing the singular abilities of Stanton beneath his brusque exterior, he afterwards, for the public good, appointed him to ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Little Red Doctor, speaking with the brusque informality of one assured of his place as a local celebrity. "I don't know you, ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... uncertain as to the enemy with which he had to deal; but he was not the man to submit tamely to conduct so brusque and uncourteous as was that of the videttes. His resistance ended in putting both of them hors de combat; but the circumstances of the encounter, for certain reasons, had been somewhat misrepresented ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... wore a large watch-chain, with a prodigious bunch of seals, alternated by small keys and old-fashioned mourning-rings. His complexion was pale and sodden, and his hair short, dark, and sleek. The bookseller valued himself on a likeness to Buonaparte; and affected a short, brusque, peremptory manner, which he meant to be the indication of the vigorous and decisive character of ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... be able to come, but half will; and mother'll give orders for the spread. And now I must be off. Good-bye, and enjoy yourselves.' And the millionaire, with a brusque nod, was off. ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... suddenly brusque. "Never mind. We'll let it go for now. Report to the Discipline Master in Intensity Five for ten ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... He was our king at the Garrick Club, to which, however, I did not yet belong. He gave the best dinners of my time, and was,—happily I may say is, [Footnote: Alas! within a year of the writing of this he went from us.]—the best giver of dinners. A man rough of tongue, brusque in his manners, odious to those who dislike him, somewhat inclined to tyranny, he is the prince of friends, honest as the sun, and as openhanded ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... And I—was I brusque and surly? Or oppressively bland and fond? Was I partial to rising early? Or why did we twain abscond, All breakfastless, too, from the public view, To prowl by a ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... beyond, with its cat-runs, and its one stunted sumach tree; the dark-brown stare of Monsieur Harmost's rolling eyes brought back that time of happiness, when she used to come week after week, full of gaiety and importance, and chatter away, basking in his brusque admiration and in music, all with the glamourous feeling that she was making him happy, and herself happy, and going to play very ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... One brusque, heavy man, who thought to carry the matter through by a coup de main, he was sure could never succeed. A second, who was most assiduous, but whose brazen confidence was unyielding, he counted still ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... invariably bitter to an extreme, he sometimes had flashes of quite unexpected and very singular sensibility which make him beloved. Somewhat in imitation of La Rochefoucauld, but more particularly in conformity with his own nature, he developed a brief, concise, brusque style which became that of the moralist and even of the general author for the next fifty years, a style which was that of Montesquieu and Voltaire, and superseded the broad, sustained, balanced, harmonious, ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... can't marry us both," said the marquis, replying to Laurence; "and the time has come," he continued, in the brusque tone of a man who is struck to the ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... a hasty word," said Berwin nervously. "I am glad of your company, although I seem rather brusque. You must go over the house ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... the dining-room of the Eagle Hotel, Dunbury's one hostelry, it seemed to Phil that his host was distinctly nervous, with considerably less than his usual brusque, dogmatic poise ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... for repentance.' I am rich enough to give sound advice," said the brusque old physician, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... follows you shall meet with arbitrary apothegms, brusque transitions, inconsecutive statements, veritable somersaults of thought, do not cry out that you have been deceived. We are about to enter—if it be that you wish to accompany me—upon a field of ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... vexation, found that some spring of her own nature had been touched, and that her eyes also were overflowing. As she looked around deprecatingly, and half-ashamed, she saw that there was a prospect of a general shower, and that many of the women were sniffling audibly, and the brusque young farmer stood near, looking as if he could more easily hold a span of run-away horses than he ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... young artist!' she said, her voice perceptibly less harsh and brusque than it had been when speaking to my companion. 'Hope nothing and ask nothing until you may have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... by the inhabitants of Cuba to the natives of Mexico, and in Vera Cruz to those of the interior. The name is also applied to shrewd and brusque persons. (New ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... amount of excitement that she had created in him by her brusque rudeness, her high spirits, even the jarring of her loud laugh, was beginning to lose its effect; or rather the effect was changed. Instead ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... was simply the result of Henchard's permission to him to see Elizabeth if he were minded to woo her. At first he had taken no notice of Henchard's brusque letter; but an exceptionally fortunate business transaction put him on good terms with everybody, and revealed to him that he could undeniably marry if he chose. Then who so pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory in every way ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... "holiness"; it denounces licentiousness, and sets up as its ideal the controlling of the passions and the infinite improvement of the soul, not of the intellect alone, but of the feelings as well. These differences between the two theories of life showed themselves in the brusque opposition in character and customs that made the Greeks and the Jews absolute antipodes in many spheres of life. It cannot be denied that in matters of the intellect, especially in the field of philosophy and science, not to ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... of the day passed to all appearance very soberly. Helen was away. The Doctor's carriage neither came nor went; the Doctor himself, with his kindly voice, and his somewhat brusque, determined manner, awoke no echoes in the old house. Nurse was far away in the nursery wing, with the pretty, brown-eyed baby and the children; all the girls and the little ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... reason why I spoke to you just now," he said, much more gently than usual. "I knew that she was a little brusque sometimes; and I suppose I am not much better. As a rule a father does not talk to his girls as I have been talking to you, I fancy. I am almost as ignorant of a father's duties to his daughter as you say you are of the habits of English ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... a kind sort of woman, sends him here. She believes it will work his reform. I pity her error-for it is an error to believe reform can come of punishment, or that virtue may be nurtured among vice." Thus responds the brusque but kind-hearted old jailer, who view swith an air of compassion his new comer, as he lays, a forlorn mass, exposed to the gaze of the prisoners ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... even shadowed the fair fame of the Archdales. Did his father know of it? Nothing that Stephen had ever seen in him looked like such knowledge, but that did not make the son quite sure, for the old butler's remark about the Colonel's suavity was just; his elaborate manners made Stephen almost brusque at times, and aroused a secret antagonism in both, so that they sometimes met one another with armor on, and Stephen's keen thrust would occasionally penetrate the shield which his father skilfully interposed between that and ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... said the riding-master, with a brusque laugh. 'Sick folk don't usually sit up till past two in the morning ready dressed. Hadn't we better stow that kind of ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Guise showed his dislike of the repellent figure by a brusque giggle, and further expressed what was in his mind by the one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Papiol fastened upon the figure which had arrested the attention of Maverick,—a lady of, may-be, forty years, fashionably, but gracefully attired, with olive-brown complexion, hair still glossy black, and attended by a strange gentleman with a brusque and foreign air. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... a combination of business shrewdness and brusque frankness that strongly impressed his landlord. "You see, Rosey," said Nott, complacently describing the interview to his daughter, "when I sorter intimated in a keerless kind o' way that sugar kettles and hair dye was about played out ez securities, he just planked down the money for ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... quite impossible, your Majesty," said the Prime Minister, with a brevity that was almost brusque. "It would entirely confuse the issue in the ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... she put on a new character altogether and relapsed into queer ancestral traits, stripping off, like so many worthless rags, the layers of laboriously acquired civilization. The refined and bashful girl became brusque, supercilious, equivocal. When sympathizing friends said that they had also lost lovers, she laughed and told them to look for new ones. There were better fish ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Mary-'Gusta awaiting them in the parlor. The girl had the feeling that she had been undergoing a rather vigorous cross-examination. Mrs. Wyeth had not talked a great deal herself and her manner, though brusque and matter of fact, was kind; but she had asked questions about Mary-'Gusta's home life, about Captain Gould and Mr. Hamilton, about school and friends and acquaintances. And her comments, when she made any, were direct and to ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... out the words in the brusque way in which a man says all that, for the moment, he is physically able to utter. She allowed more time to elapse. The roar of traffic and the clanging of electric trams came up from the street below, but no sound seemed able to penetrate ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... found that most of them had little or no English, and he made scant progress with them in that particular. The big first mate, Carlos, rebuffed him repeatedly, but he persisted, and in time the rebuffs became less brusque. He also noticed a certain softening of the sailors toward him. His own charm of manner was so great that it was hard to resist it when it was continuously exerted, and sailors, like other men, appreciate help when it is ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... folds. Morgan was beginning to think that she must have deemed it best to omit the innovation, when Cleo rose languorously, took a step towards the great mirror, and, standing erect, inspected herself therein. "Yes, I am worthy of him," she said to herself proudly, then, with a brusque movement, she disengaged the garment from her shoulders and it slipped to the ground and lay there in a soft heap. The spectators then became aware that, save for a sort of transparent web of floating serpentine drapery, it had been her sole covering, and ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... us in his monotonous voice as though he had been saying 'To-morrow—Revue d'Armes'—but for us, after a whole day passed far from barracks, it was a rather brusque return ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... princess presumptuous and humiliating. She confessed to herself that the prince's manners were not in the least improved by his long campaign—that they were somewhat brusque. He took her hand tenderly; leading her to a divan, and seated himself beside her, but suddenly jumping up he left her, and returned in a few moments with his friend ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... he said. His voice, like himself, was rough and brusque, rumbling hollow from the depths of his cavernous chest. The figure in the bunk stirred and muttered. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... himself it would suddenly die in his throat. He had to make sure before he ventured on the simplest saying, an order, a remark on the wind, a simple good-morning. That's why his utterance was abrupt, his answers to people startlingly brusque and often ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... had better tell me about that matter of business next time I am here," he suggested, with an abruptness which was almost brusque. "I must go now. I do not know why ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... old prowler, should come along and find him, peeping in through Bunker's open door? What if the ray of light which struck out through the door-frame should reveal him to the singer within? And yet he was curious to see her. Since his first brusque refusal to go in and meet her, Bunker had not mentioned his daughter again—perhaps he remembered what was said. For Denver had stated that he had plenty of music himself, if he could ever get his phonograph from Globe. Yet he had had the instrument for nearly a ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... fancy, and a deep, abiding sympathy with all that is beautiful in Nature. I thought I knew Louis Jennings pretty intimately in Parliamentary and social life, but I found a new man hidden in these pages—a beautiful, sunny nature, obscured in the ordinary relations of life by a somewhat brusque manner, and in these last eighteen months soured and cramped by a cruel disease. Jennings knew and loved the country as Gilbert White ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... We do not coalesce; our ideas, age and country are different; he is hard as a rock, brusque and overbearing—but amazingly clever and energetic. He seems to hold so many threads in his hands, to deal with such numbers of people; his correspondence is enormous; his office, when he is at home, is surrounded and stormed by all sorts of people—Mohammedans, ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... the Holy Spirit dwells will always be characterized by gentleness, lowliness, quietness, meekness, and forbearance. The rude, sarcastic spirit, the brusque manner, the sharp retort, the unkind cut—all these belong to the flesh, but they have nothing in common with the gentle teaching ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... himself expressed it, his stomach had been "perturbed as a guard dog in the night when robbers are approaching." All efforts to console or to inspire him with hope of future cure were met with a stern hopelessness, a brusque certainty of perpetual suffering. The idea that his stomach could again know peace evidently shocked and distressed him, and as they all waded together through the sand, pioneered by the glorified Batouch, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... Parliaments that he thought it really impossible they could ever produce mischief or inconvenience to the kingdom." We always regard with some suspicion Clarendon's artful touches, otherwise we should say that there is a pretty brusque change from this unbounded reverence for the Short Parliament to an appearance in arms against its successor, especially as the leader and soul of both ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... stage where he could fill in the dusk of an early September evening with the talk and company of the one young woman in the world whose talk and company were in any degree worth considering. Brower crunched his cigar between his teeth, and replied to Marshall's observations with a brusque carelessness for which he rebuked himself as being ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... a small, rather square built man of thirty-two, with a very polite manner and a decidedly brusque mind. His face was handsome, with a straight nose, strong jaw, and large, widely opened, and very expressive dark eyes. A vigorous and unusually broad moustache curled upward above his sensual mouth. And the dark hair which closely covered ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... to Pryer, who treated it as something too outrageous to be even thought of. Nothing, he said, could more tend to lower the dignity of the clergy and bring the Church into contempt. His manner was brusque, and even rude. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... that—that brusque, unsentimental appeal—that Michael needed. He saw himself at that moment, as Falbe saw him, a shelled and muffled figure, intangible and withdrawn, but observing, as it were, through eye-holes, and giving nothing in exchange for ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... very happily constituted. She rose with the sun, like the birds; and she herself resembled the birds by her domestic industry, by her maternal instinct, by her perpetual desire to sing, and by a sort of brusque grace, which I could feel the of very well even as a child. She was the soul of the house, which she filled with her systematic and joyous activity. My father was just as slow as she was brisk. I can recall very ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... Tottenham's found aught but direct and decorous response. His society on these occasions gave her solid pleasure; so did the drive and the lunch; the satisfactions were apparently upon the same plane. She was aware of the plum, if I may be permitted a brusque but irresistible simile; and with her mouth open, her eyes modestly closed, and her head in a convenient position, she waited, placidly, until it should fall in. The Farnham ladies would have been delighted with ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... she began with brusque directness the instant the quartette were seated in the taxicab, "don't keep me in the dark any longer. You must know how—what a queer feeling all ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... discharged them conscientiously. He knew that envious tongues accused him of using them to feather his nest, but he also knew that they accused him falsely. He was thick-skinned, and they might go to the devil. In person he was stout of habit, brusque of bearing, with a healthy, sanguine complexion, a double chin, shrewd grey eyes, and cropped hair which stood up straight as the bristles on a brush. He lived abstemiously, rose at six, went to bed at nine, and might be found, during most of the intervening hours, hard at work ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the large room. They rose at once and exchanged greetings. Robert, although he did not trust them, felt that they had no cause of quarrel with the two, and it was no part of his character to be brusque or seek trouble. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... their talk about the pictures—the easy mastery, now brusque, now poetic, with which Dalrymple had shown him the treasures of the gallery, in the manner of one whose learning was merely the food of fancy, the stuff on which imagination ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to a stop we were surrounded by an assortment of filthy and emaciated men and women bearing scythes and pitchforks, shouting, yelling and gesticulating, making in fact, such an uproar that no comprehension was possible. However, there was no misunderstanding their brusque motions ordering us away from the plane or the threatening noises which reinforced the command. No sooner had we reluctantly complied than they proceeded methodically to puncture the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... evoked. Boase, who also followed to hounds, felt his heart glow to see how well the boy was received; for Ishmael's surly shyness had passed into a new phase, expressed by a rather charming deference mingled with independence which appealed to the brusque, goodhearted members of the "county," who went to make up the very mixed hunt in ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... cheerful good-fellowship which united them in one. Consequently, I began to feel attracted towards them, and made up my mind that, come what might, I would become of their number. The kind and honourable Operoff I knew already, and now the brusque, but exceptionally clever, Zuchin (who evidently took the lead in this circle) began to please me greatly. He was a dark, thick-set little fellow, with a perennially glistening, polished face, but one that was extremely lively, intellectual, and independent in its expression. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... in his "London and Westminster," Mrs. Black, the wife of the editor of the Morning Chronicle, when asked if she remembered any heads on Temple Bar, used to reply, in her brusque, hearty way, "Boys, I recollect the scene well! I have seen on that Temple Bar, about which you ask, two human heads—real heads—traitors' heads—spiked on iron poles. There were two; I saw one fall (March 31, 1772). Women shrieked as it fell; men, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... himself of them with a brusque gesture and cast a glance over the large decorative canvases of the rotunda, that recalled the wars of the 17th century; generals with bristling mustaches and plumed slouch-hat, directing the battle with a short baton, as though they were directing an orchestra, troops of arquebusiers disappearing ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... backing, they had undertaken some constructive work in northern New York, and, at this time, were building a railroad which passed through Geneva. Alac had been in the neighborhood for two months supervising operations. He was striking in appearance—a florid-faced' blonde, brusque in business, quite jovial socially, and cracking—full of the conceit of youth, wealth and station. So far, life had, in ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... looked at him upon this brusque interrogation, seemed not to understand, and then, suddenly recalling, they declared very naturally that they had left them on the garden table and had not thought ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... the Burgundians and English together in speaking of the enemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she made a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being Frenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... do not admire your friend, Mr. Ham. I think he is a coarse snob; and under an exterior of brusque frankness I believe he is deceitful and—cowardly. I should consider your union with such a person a ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... instrumentation, and in his shameless Salvation Army rhythms; and it is sometimes (as in the Priest's solo with chorus in the last scene of the second act) odiously vulgar. "Aida" is more dramatic than "Traviata," has more of Verdi's brusque energy, less of his sentimentality; but it has none of the youthful freshness of his latest work. The young Verdi has already aged—how long will ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... his manner was the least interested or deferential in talking that I have ever met with in a man of his class. He certainly thought this particular woman of singularly small account, or else the brusque and tactless allusion to his books may perhaps have annoyed him as it did me; but whatever the cause, when he promptly left me at the first approach of a mutual acquaintance, I felt distinctly snubbed. Of the two men, Mr. Gladstone was ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... gnawed his moustache, and the light in his eyes was not a pleasant thing to see. This woman with her reckless life, her odd fascination, her brusque hatred of affectations, was a constant torment to him. If only he could once get her thoroughly ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... gave a brusque order. Another figure waded ashore and joined the two men, a tall, bearded fellow in duffel overalls. As his feet reached the sand he spat ostentatiously. The tinker led the way to ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... Charles Albert had seen, that the king who was to carry out the destinies of Italy should be trusted. Victor Emmanuel came to the throne with few advantages; he was unpopular, his private friends were said to be reactionaries, his brusque manners offended most people. He had practically no advisers in these critical moments, but the moral courage with which he refused the Austrian offers of lenient terms if he would repudiate the Statute and his father's word, won for him the nation's trust, which ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... could comply another arm was proffered, and proffered in a manner so brusque and so determined that the young Forcus fell ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... to think her strange guest was eccentric rather than impolite, and began to take a fancy to the somewhat brusque visitor. ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... a careless custom of committing what they do to printed papers. These papers deal with all sorts of things—from the payment of Rs. 200 to a "secret service" native, up to rebukes administered to Vakils and Motamids of Native States, and rather brusque letters to Native Princes, telling them to put their houses in order, to refrain from kidnapping women, or filling offenders with pounded red pepper, and eccentricities of that kind. Of course, these things could never be made public, because Native Princes ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... resumed his seat, a low rumble of applause was heard from the gallery. It subsided instantly on a gesture of disapproval from the judge, and a silence fell upon the court, in which the clock, with cynical indifference, continued to record in its brusque monotone the passage of the ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... this with a brusque denial. Extracting compliments from the talk of a shy young Westerner was evidently not ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... He puts on a brusque outside, but it is as much to conceal his liking for you as anything, and then he does more for you than he would for any one else in the world. Now, if I had tried for a lifetime, I could not have got him out to Beech Street Church and I doubt if there is any one besides ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... wit, his thin-featured face and keen gray eyes lighting up to a kindliness that his brusque speech denied in vain. He had a fluency of good English at command that he would have thought ostentatious to use in speaking ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... doubt," Nani again hastily replied, as if he feared that the others might be too brusque with the young enthusiast. "The Holy Father has such a lofty mind. And of course it would be necessary to see him. Only, my dear child, you must not excite yourself so much; reflect a little; take your time." And, turning to Benedetta, he added, "Of course his Eminence has not seen Abbe ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola |
